Murder Live! | |
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Directed by | Roger Spottiswoode |
Written by | Chris Bertolet |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Jeffrey Jur |
Edited by | Dominique Fortin |
Music by | Gary Chang |
Production companies | |
Release date |
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Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Murder Live! is a 1997 American television film written by Chris Bertolet and directed by Roger Spottiswoode. Marg Helgenberger stars as Pia Postman, a television presenter who hosts a self-titled tabloid talk show. David Morse stars are Frank McGrath, a man who holds Postman hostage after his daughter suffered embarrassment due to a prior guest appearance on the show.
Pia Postman (Helgenberger) hosts a self-titled tabloid talk show, a program grieving father Frank McGrath (Morse) takes offense to after his daughter commits suicide as a direct result of being humiliated on the show. He then disguises himself as a member of the audience during a live episode of the show, and takes Postman hostage wearing a bomb jacket, threatening to kill himself, Postman, and the audience if the police intervene. [1]
The film was inspired by the murder of Scott Amedure, a guest who was killed three days after he appeared on an episode of The Jenny Jones Show . [2]
Ray Richmond of Variety believed the film was "a roundly entertaining, smartly constructed piece of filmmaking", although he also claimed it was "over-the-top for its own good". [3] Tom Shales of The Washington Post criticized the film as "preachy and ponderous". [4] Howard Rosenberg of the Los Angeles Times claimed the film was just as exploitative as the tabloid talk shows it intended to criticize. [5] John J. O'Connor of The New York Times believed the film had a strong message against the tabloid talk show genre, and he praised Marg Helgenberger's leading performance. [6]
Fire Down Below is a 1997 American action film starring Steven Seagal and directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá in his directorial debut. The film also includes cameos by country music performers Randy Travis, Mark Collie, Ed Bruce, Marty Stuart and Travis Tritt, and country-rocker and the Band member Levon Helm, as well as Kris Kristofferson in a supporting role. Steven Seagal plays Jack Taggert, an EPA agent who investigates a Kentucky mine and helps locals stand up for their rights. The film was released in the United States on September 5, 1997.
In the Heat of the Night is an American police procedural crime drama television series loosely based on the 1967 film and 1965 novel of the same title that starred Carroll O'Connor as police chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as police detective Virgil Tibbs and was broadcast on NBC from March 6, 1988-May 19, 1992 before moving to CBS, where it aired from October 28, 1992-May 16, 1995. Its executive producers were O'Connor, Fred Silverman and Juanita Bartlett. This series marked O'Connor's return to a series for the first time since the All in the Family spinoff Archie Bunker's Place ended in 1983.
Marg Helgenberger is an American actress. She began her career in the early 1980s and first came to attention for playing the role of Siobhan Ryan on the daytime soap opera Ryan's Hope from 1982 to 1986. She is best known for her role as Catherine Willows in the CBS police procedural drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000–13), the subsequent television film Immortality (2015), and the second and third seasons of the sequel series CSI: Vegas (2022–2024). Helgenberger is also known for playing the role of K.C. Koloski in the ABC drama China Beach (1988–91), which earned her the 1990 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She is also known for roles in the TV series Under the Dome and Intelligence, and the films Species (1995), Species II (1998), Erin Brockovich (2000), and Mr. Brooks (2007).
Thomas William Shales was an American writer and television critic. He was a television critic for The Washington Post from 1977 to 2010, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1988. Shales also wrote a column for the television news trade publication NewsPro, published by Crain Communications.
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Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American sketch comedy series that was co-created by Dick Ebersol and Lorne Michaels, with Michaels also serving as the producer. The series premiered on the American broadcast television network NBC on October 11, 1975.
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The Jenny Jones Show is an American first-run syndicated talk show that was hosted by Jenny Jones. Taped at the NBC Tower in Chicago, the show ran for twelve seasons from September 16, 1991, to May 21, 2003. It was conceived as an alternative to the tabloid talk shows of the early 1990s, and initially followed a traditional talk show format. However, the show reformatted for its second season, in which it shifted its focus to single-topic panel discussions with everyday people. These topics were often sensational, with the guests discussing their varying experiences and viewpoints. These discussions were moderated by Jones, who placed a heavy emphasis on audience interaction. Live musical performances were frequently featured during makeover segments or at other breaks in the show.
A tabloid talk show is a subgenre of the talk show genre that emphasizes controversial and sensationalistic topical subject matter. The subgenre originated in the United States and achieved peak viewership from the mid-1980s through the end of the 1990s. Airing mostly during the day and distributed mostly through television syndication, tabloid talk shows originated in the 1960s and early 1970s with series hosted by Joe Pyne, Les Crane, and Phil Donahue; the format was popularized by personal confession-filled The Oprah Winfrey Show, which debuted nationally in 1986. The format has since been emulated outside the United States, with the United Kingdom, Latin America and the Philippines all having popular shows that fit the format.
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