More than a capsized ocean liner is askew in this halfhearted attempt to remake a true camp classic: 1972's pinnacle of disaster cinema The Poseidon Adventure. You remember, the one where a cruise ship is turned on its head by a monster wave and the wellheeled survivors climb to the top — er, bottom — of the sinking ship to get out. It's Titanic on steroids.
Sadly, this listless three-hour TV remake (Sunday, Nov. 20 at 8 pm/ET, NBC) — a new feature version is expected next year — wastes way too much time on a terrorist-bombing subplot that feels like amateur night on 24. An explosion, not Mother Nature, sends the S.S. Poseidon topsyturvy, and it often seems as if the entire catastrophe was arranged so cheating husband Steve Guttenberg (who's all wet from the start) can see the light.
In a nod to the new century, one of the survivors is an Australian reality-show
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Question: I was only a kid when The Day After was filmed in my town, but I remember it being a big deal with my brother and my dad. Was it a big hit?
Answer: Well, "hit" sort of implies that everyone had a ball taking in the depiction of nuclear annihilation as seen through the lens of your hometown, Maria, but I can tell you that a heck of a lot of people watched.
In fact, when ABC broadcast the groundbreaking (no pun intended), graphic movie in November 1983, it was the highest-rated made-for-TV movie shown to date, racking up a whopping 46 share, which means 46 percent of all TV sets in use at the time. (For all you detail lovers, it topped 1977's Little Ladies of the Night, which had a 36.9 share, and was the second-highest-rated movie of any kind to that point, beaten only by a 47.6 earned by Gone with the Wind in 1976. Trust me: Such number
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Question: I remember seeing a movie, I think made in the '60s, about a mother who for some reason is holding her son's fiancée/girlfriend hostage in a basement or cage or something like that. It was extremely suspenseful, but can't remember the title! It's driving me nuts, because I'd like to see it again. Ring any bells?Answer: My vote goes to Die! Die! My Darling! (1965), one of a string of films starring golden-age movie divas as deranged and/or terrorized crones, notably Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), with Joan Crawford and Bette Davis; Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), with
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