"When I go in my kitchen and I make toast, I smell your skin." - Nic Cage uttering a come on line to Judge Reinhold's wife in the laughably inept erotic drama ZANDALEE, a movie I'm sure he'd much rather forget.

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY & I PAID TO SEE HARD RAIN

Steven "Cojo" Cojocaru is his name. I've never wished ill will upon my fellow man but could somebody please kill this guy? Okay, calling for a murder is going too far. What about a severe beating or at the very least a swift kick to the nuts, assuming he really is a he? Let me try to explain my hatred for this…person. I work in the master control department of a local TV station. One of the programs I have to run is Entertainment Tonight. This Cojo character is some sort of fashion maven who made his debut on the show in time for the MTV Video Music Awards. As a matter of fact, they hyped the hell out of this guy becoming a regular on the show. "Cojo is coming 5 days!" "Only 2 more days until Cojo arrives!" If Jesus Christ were to return and choose ET as the vessel by which to herald his arrival he still wouldn't get as much hype as this guy! So here's this hideous looking man (At least they claim it's a he!) who goes around making catty comments about celebrity fashions looking like he's Mick Jagger spliced with Steven Tyler, Kato Kaelin, and Carly Simon all overloading on estrogen and apparently the people at ET thinks this qualifies as entertainment. Hell, if you set Richard Simmons on fire he'd still be less flaming than this guy. If there's a more repulsive human being capable of making your skin crawl just with the sound of its voice, I hope I never encounter it. Cojo is the human equivalent of nails on the chalkboard and I have to deal with him virtually every night. Suddenly having to run Beastmaster: The Series doesn't seem so bad after all. No, wait, it still does.

THE WORST MOVIE STUDIO ON TELEVISION

Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to pay final respects to a cable network that has provided oh so many bad movies, TBS. Yes, the Turner Broadcasting Station has given the world many a bad movie. Many, many bad movies! Their "TBS Originals" have over the years consistently provided the made-for-TV movie world with an unprecedented level of suckiness. Since TBS' younger sister network TNT has billed itself for so long as "the best movie studio on television," I dubbed TBS as "the worst movie studio on television." Alas, the "TBS Originals" will be no more.

Last month, the new exec in charge of programming for TBS decided the network needed to establish an "identity" and in his mind reruns of popular sitcoms of the past and (un)original movies starring C-list actors and actresses don't make for a good mix. No, despite the fact that these crummy movies usually brought in big ratings for the network the new head of programming disbanded the entire movie division and plans to channel all the money that usually went into developing movies into developing new reality shows. Yes, reality shows. This dumb bastard actually thinks audiences out there are really craving more shows like Ripley's Believe It Or Not, or as I call it - That's Incredible! For Dummies. Has he not noticed that all but a few of the network reality programs of late have tanked? Apparently not because he thinks sitcom reruns and original reality shows will make just the right mix the cable network is looking for to truly establish a distinct identity. Personally, I think they're just begging me to change the moniker to "the worst damn studio on television period."

So the "TBS Original" is no more. Sigh. The final "TBS Original" movie will premiere in November, a Thanksgiving-themed sequel to the NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION movies but starring Judge Reinhold in place of Chevy Chase. Ugh. Ironically, that won't be the last time Judge Reinhold's name gets mentioned in the column probably making this the most press the man has received in ages. I'm just thankful that I'm writing this eulogy in September so I won't have any excuse to tune in to watch that movie in November.

Now bow your heads or better yet just look down at the monitor so you can read this farewell to the "TBS Originals" as I recount a few of these movies that I've seen or, in some cases, just watched part of before I could take no more.

We might as well begin with a "TBS Original" that pretty much epitomizes what was wrong with these woefully misguided productions.

The movie is called SILENT PREDATORS.

It's about rattlesnakes.

RATTLESNAKES AREN'T SILENT!!!

Only TBS would be inept enough to make a movie about rattlesnakes where the snakes constantly rattle their tails followed by character's saying things like "What was that?" and "Did you hear that?" and call it SILENT PREDATORS!

Harry "I was a huge star on L.A. Law in the 80s" Hamlin plays the new fire chief of a small California town where about 20 years earlier a truck carrying a highly dangerous breed of tropical rattlesnake crashed releasing the serpent to breed with local snakes and create a new hybrid of larger, more venomous rattlesnake. Of course, nobody ever encountered any of these new killer snakes for 20 years because I guess they were all in hiding until they had amassed an army in the tens of thousands.

Since this movie is on autopilot from beginning to end, the clichés fly from every direction. Our hero has a friend who just happens to be a herpetologist. The town just happens to have a greedy developer who doesn't want word to get out about these new killer snakes because it could hurt his already slumping sales. And the greedy developer just happens to have a pretty young blonde assistant who has a thing for older, greasier men.

I should mention that Harry Hamlin runs around looking like someone who hasn't bathed or showered in about a month. He practically seems to have an oily film covering his skin.

In the end, SILENT PREDATORS is a tedious "nature gone amok" movie where most of the snake attacks take place off-screen and everything that takes place on-screen is so by-the-numbers that it could have been written with a book of Mad Libs.

A small town in (A State) is terrorized by (An Animal) and only the local (A Job Title) can save them.

Ironically, the most recent "TBS Original" to air was also a "nature gone amok" movie but they decided to spice things up by combining it with a heist flick. RED WATER was about a man-eating bull shark, the only kind that can survive in fresh water and isn't really known for being a man-eater, gets loose in the bayous of Louisiana. Meanwhile, a gang of crooks, including rapper Coolio who is learning the hard way how quickly 15 minutes of fame can tick away, go looking for an untold fortune that was stashed away in a vintage car, which I believe was underwater in one of these bayous.

Meanwhile, a scummy oil exec has greased some palms in Washington to allow him to set up an oil derrick on one of these rivers. Kristy Swanson, the rich woman's Erika Eleniak, portrays the scummy oil exec's yummy assistant who just happens to be the ex-wife of a hard luck boat captain played by Lou Diamond Philips. I would make a joke about not believing that Kristy Swanson's character would be married to Lou Diamond Philip's character but I know that Kristy Swanson actually used to date Alan Thicke in real life so it's rather hard to dismiss such an unlikely fictional relationship. However, I will make fun of Lou Diamond Philips who really should know better about appearing in a movie like this after starring in the disaster that was BATS.

I'd tell you more about this movie but it literally put me to sleep about a half hour in. A young woman and some kid's grandfather got eaten, Swanson and Philips argued a lot, and Coolio and company schemed. When I woke up they were all on that oil derrick, then they were all in the water with the shark on the prowl, then the money went flying everywhere and Coolio tried to retrieve it only to become a shark snack. Good luck digesting those dreadlocks.

I don't know if the movie was any damn good or not but the last 5 minutes of it are not to be missed. That's because the way in which the shark dies in this movie rivals if not surpasses the astoundingly goofy way the shark was killed in JAWS: THE REVENGE. They're under the oil derrick and Lou Diamond Philips gets the shark to rise out of the water with its mouth wide open only to get the fully functioning oil drill shoved right into it's mouth all the way down into it's body cavity. The sight of this shark partially out of the water in a vertical position with this drill sticking out of its mouth while it twitches violently is beyond dopey. God, I wish I had taped this movie so I could nab a still of this.

ON HOSTILE GROUND was another high concept movie from TBS and by "high concept" I mean somebody had to have been high when they came up with it. How else does one explain a disaster movie about giant sinkholes threatening New Orleans during Mardi Gras? Had this movie been set in virtually any other city then it would have been a really mediocre made-for-TV disaster flick but by setting it in New Orleans, a city that is below sea level but according to this movie is sitting on a huge layer of rock, elevated it to a level of goofiness that makes it entertaining in a "what the hell were they on when they came up with this" sort of way. Heck, just the ending where they attempt to pump the crevices and chasms below the city full of this cookie dough-like substance that expands and hardens and the hero trapped below the city has to outrun this substance making it look like he's being pursued by THE STUFF… I did a full, in-depth review of this silly movie almost a year ago back at the NOWFF site. That review is now in the ARCHIVES section so, if you haven't already, I suggest you check it out or, if you're lazy, you can just click it here.

In fact, you'll find the following paragraph regarding another "TBS Original" in that very article.

"A good example of TBS filmmaking was the recent ATOMIC TWISTER. All I knew was that it had something to do with a tornado hitting a nuclear power plant. Hey, that sounds cool! What if the tornado sucked up the nuclear energy and became some super destructive radioactive storm obliterating everything in its path? Well, that might have been a goofy yet fun b-movie, but instead, the idea TBS had in mind was a movie about a tornado hitting a nuclear power plant setting off a chain reaction that could cause a China Syndrome which the plants operators must race against time to prevent all the while the town cops are having to rescue the locals from the wreckage while the possibility of another tornado hitting the power plant looms. Lame! No imagination whatsoever which is exactly why I didn't bother watching after I found out."

Since I wrote that, I watched a re-airing ATOMIC TWISTER. I kinda wish I hadn't. Wow, did it ever blow! At least it has a few moments of "so bad it's funny." About the only real entertainment value to be found in the movie comes from the deaths of two extraneous characters, both of which lose their lives when a tornado quite literally sneaks up on them. Seriously! One of the nuclear plant's guards steps out of the guard post to use his cellular phone and turns around just in time to see a tornado baring down on him. A young teenage babysitter meets a similar fate when she peeks out the window just in time for a tornado to send her to her maker. Don't you just hate it when those tornadoes jump out and say "Boo!" when you're not looking?

Almost as laughable is something that takes place in the film's finale. The pretty daughter of the town's police chief is hanging on for dear life on the slope of a quarry. Quite frankly, it really doesn't look like it would be all that bad if she let get. Maybe a bone or two would get broken but it hardly looked like a life or death situation. But that's exactly how Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zach from Saved By The Bell) treats it as he risks not only his life but that of a kid and another guy as they all attempt to pull her back up as a tornado slowly approaches their location. At one point it looks as if the tornado is close enough where they would either be getting pelted with debris or sucked right into it but instead they press on with the rescue operation. And what do they do once they've pulled her back up? They pretty much just jump right down onto that ledge to avoid the tornado.

I'm gonna miss the "TBS Originals."

A far more entertaining bit of nonsense debuted this past December called CHRISTMAS RUSH. Starring Mr. TBS Dean Cain, all-purpose villain Eric Roberts, and direct-to-video diva Erika Eleniak, CHRISTMAS RUSH could be summed up with the phrase "DIE HARD in a shopping mall on Christmas Eve." The first 15 minutes of this movie had me believing that it just might be good but the moment the bad guys show up and begin their diabolical doings the movie gets lobotmized and becomes one of silliest excuses for an action film you're likely to see anytime soon.

Dean Cain is an earnest Chicago cop who is even more earnest than most earnest cops because his dad was a notorious dirty cop and so he believes he must be extra earnest to make up for his father's sins. Cain accidentally wounds a powerful political figure in the crossfire during a shoot-out in Chicago's version of Chinatown resulting in the earnest cop finding himself suspended from the force. Then he faces the possibility of losing everything due to the politico naming him in a multi-million dollar lawsuit as he sets out smite the policeman who mildly wounded him while saving him from bloodthirsty killers.

Erika Eleniak, the poor woman's Kristy Swanson, plays Cain's earnest wife who spends most of the movie either praying or consoling others. She works at a shop in the big Chicago shopping mall.

Eric Roberts is really depressed because his son has leukemia and desperately needs a bone marrow transplant but he can't get medical insurance because he's an ex-con. I've never heard of an ex-convict being unable to get medical insurance due to being a convicted felon but apparently that's the case in Roberts' case.

To get the money for the operation, he reverts to his criminal ways and assembles a ragtag goon squad to help him rob the Christmas Eve take from this Chicago mega-mall, which will be in the tens of millions of dollars thanks to the last minute rush of Christmas Eve shoppers. Uh, right. I'm so sure.

Before they can knock over the mall, they stage a diversion that will keep the cops distracted while they do their smash and grab. Apparently blowing up some motorcycles out in front of an outlaw biker bar is all it takes to keep the entire Chicago police department occupied for hours. Fortunately for the forces of good, Eleniak works at a shop in the mall and husband Cain is coming to pick her up at closing time where he will spot Roberts and his goon squad dressed in long black trench coats, carrying large dufflebags, and marching in unison as they illegally enter an employees only area. Could they have been any less conspicuous?

Cain intervenes and foils the robbery by stealing the money from them moments after they've stolen it from the mall's security guards and proceeds to hide this huge cart of money inside a bathroom stall. Next thing you know, the security guards are tied up in a storage room and joining them shortly will be the few remaining people in the mall at closing time consisting of Eleniak, the alcoholic mall Santa, an obnoxious little girl who keeps pestering Santa, and her apologetic mother. Where all the other mall employees and shoppers went so quickly is unknown. It would appear that all the employees and patrons of this mall were able to completely clear the premises within 60 seconds of closing time.

Here's where the movie turns unintentionally hysterical as things become downright absurd even for a cheap DIE HARD knock-off. For starters, Cain's character isn't just your typical everyman hero but a jack-of-all-trades that would even make Buckaroo Banzai envious. In addition to being a dedicated cop he's also an expert crossbow marksman, bomb defuser, crackerjack locksmith, world class gymnast, and has the ability to control time and space. To clarify that last crack, the director of this movie clearly watched one too many John Woo films because he goes completely overboard with the slow-motion action scenes. The moment the action begins, Cain begins running, ducking, or shooting in super slo-mo. Heck, there's actually one scene where something as simple as Cain standing up is filmed in overly dramatic slow motion. The director also comes from the school of thought that glass or other breakable objects shattering into a million pieces in slow motion is unto itself exciting. If it can be shattered then the moment the gunfire erupts you will see it explode.

Adding to the insipidness is Eric Robert's menagerie of generic henchmen with foreign accents. You got the Russian guy with the worst Russian accent ever heard, the longhaired rock star looking guy with an undefined accent, and my personal favorites the two brothers who are judging by their accents are either Jamaicans or British or British Jamaicans. All I know for certain is that one likes to toss bombs and the other uses a machine gun so of course the one who doesn't lob grenades is nicknamed "Kid Blast." At one point Cain asks Roberts where he got these guys from but unfortunately we never get that question answered which is a damn shame because that story might have been more interesting than the actual plot.

Have I mentioned that Cain's character is named Cornelius Morgan? Cornelius Morgan! That's a kind of name you give a pirate not a Chicago cop!

Oh, while Cain fights for his life, Eleniak keeps herself and the rest of the hostages calm by getting everyone to convince the scared little girl that there really is a Santa Claus and eventually leads them all in a prayer in which she asks God to send them an angel of mercy to rescue them in a scene that ends and immediately cuts to Cain gunning down a bad guy. Oh yeah, you won't see that on Touched By An Angel!

Even more stupidity ensues when Cain's partner shows up on the scene only to shock the world by suddenly revealing that he is in cahoots with Roberts. It's one of those surprise plot twists that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever except to the makers of the film who don't care if it makes any sense or not because it will surprise the audience and that's far more important than things like logic.

CHRISTMAS RUSH culminates in a thrilling underground, low speed go-cart chase between Cain and Roberts who has taken Eleniak along for the ride as a hostage. Yes, Eric Roberts big master escape plan is to puts sacks of money on top of a couple go-carts and make for this underground tunnel exit. However, when they get to the end of the tunnel it turns out his map was wrong and the exit had been sealed off some time ago so even if Cain wasn't there to ruin everything by playing John McClaine his plan still wouldn't have worked. Next thing you know Roberts and Cain are playing chicken with the go-carts in a scene that is only slightly less laughable than the game of chicken between the motorized floor buffers at the end of SPACE MUTINY.

After Roberts goes down in a hail of gunfire, the movie cuts back to the local hospital where Cain is being treated for his minor injuries and he and the Misses kiss and make-up. Along comes the press to hail him a hero accompanied by his superior who lifts his suspension, informs him that the lawsuit has been dropped, and, for reasons I'm still not sure of, gives his a check for $200,000. Since Cain's character is a prince amongst men, he gives the $200,000 check to Robert's widow so that she can pay for her son's bone marrow transplant. The final shot of the film is actually Cain and family gathered around the table for Christmas dinner where he says grace and prays for everyone who tried to kill him.

By the end I was sitting there wondering if this movie had actually been made for the PAX Network but got picked up by TBS after PAX rejected it for being too violent. If you ever get a chance to watch CHRISTMAS RUSH I suggest you go out of your way to do so because it is without a doubt the dopiest, loopiest action film I've seen in quite some time.

But the most ridiculous thing is that CHRISTMAS RUSH was released on video a few months ago with a brand new title - BREAKAWAY. Huh? That title doesn't even make sense? Who is breaking away? It isn't a sky diving movie, for Pete's sake!

Another "TBS Original" worth mentioning even though I've never seen it is NOWHERE TO LAND. It's the harrowing, nail-biting thriller about a 747 - with nowhere to land! I think it had something to do with a biological weapon being on-board or some nonsense like that so nobody would allow it to land out of fear of the virus getting loose. I could be wrong but then I'm not really interested in taking the time to look it up.

Another one I never saw was FATAL ERROR about a computer virus that can infect people. I don't know if it is any good or not but just the mere fact that it starred Antonio Sabato Jr. and that's never a good thing.

Let's move on to ACCEPTABLE RISK. Heck, just watching a "TBS Original" could be considered an "acceptable risk." This one was based on a Robin Cook novel about a brilliant research scientist that moves into an old 18th century house with his wife and discovers a mysterious mold growing in the basement. It turns out this mystery mold has medical properties that could be the scientist's claim to fame and fortune. Despite knowing that one of the side effects is a massive increase in testosterone levels he tries it out on himself anyway without ever having bothered to test it on any animals. Needless to say, he goes all Jeckyll and Hyde on us.

One problem, they cast Chad Lowe as the mad scientist. Yes, that Chad Lowe, the brother of Rob Lowe and the husband of Hillary Swank. Some people thought it was a bit much when David Hasselhoff was cast in the lead of that Jeckyll & Hyde Broadway musical. They would change their minds if they saw this movie. Those alien autopsy videos are more believable than Chad Lowe's white bread, baby-faced SHINING impression. There are just certain parts that certain actors shouldn't get cast in and casting Chad Lowe as a character who turns into an overly aggressive menacing psychopath is about as gross a miscasting as casting Hulk Hogan as the lead in A BEAUTIFUL MIND. If you need another analogy, trying envisioning David Hyde Pierce as the lead in DIE HARD. At least those miscasting might have still succeeded in being unintentionally hilarious. There is none of that here. Wrong guy for the part, simple as that.

Of course it also didn't help that the movie plods along at a weak pace and has a script so hackneyed that… Sorry, I'm currently out of analogies. Simply put, ACCEPTABLE RISK is tedious mediocrity burdened by a lead actor so miscast it doesn't even succeed at being funny. Even my mom hated it and she liked PATCH ADAMS.

I suppose I might as well spend a paragraph or two telling you about EVIL NEVER DIES, a festering boil on the ass of made-for-TV horror movies starring Greg from Dharma & Greg and Roswell babe Katherine Heigl. A serial killer murders the wife of the cop tracking him down. The cop captures the serial killer. Five years later, the serial killer is executed and the cop, who is now something of a mental case himself, has been busted down to working campus security at a local university. Well, wouldn't you just know it that this particular university just happens to be the home of a brilliant scientist who has developed a method of bringing dead tissue back to life via nanotechnology?

Do you need three guesses who the test subject ends up being? Just why is it that in movies like this they always use homicidal maniacs as test subjects? You never see one about the resurrection of Mother Theresa or some town barber who passed away recently. It's always the maniacs.

Well, resurrected maniacs do what they always do and after about an hour of this tripe I could take no more. I don't know how it all turned out but I'm guessing the cop and the scientist's pretty young assistant fall in love and, after indiscriminately killing several people including the scientist who helped resurrect him, the hero finally gets to off the bad guy once and for all.

Without a doubt, EVIL NEVER DIES was one of the worst FRANKENSTEIN knock-offs I almost sat through. It took 4 people to write this garbage and amazingly not a single one of them know the slightest thing about police work. What's that? This cop has committed several cases of excessive force since the murder of his wife and the department fears he may very well be mentally unbalanced? Should we suspend him? Should we fire him? Should we see that he gets the psychological help he desperately needs? No, let's send him to work at a college campus! I won't even go into details how after a fatal shooting the cop's boss just takes away the cop's gun and sends him back to work unarmed.

Let's wrap things up on almost a high note.

DEAD IN A HEARTBEAT, now that's a title that just screams "high concept." Imagine speed but replace the bus with a pacemaker. A brilliant engineer seeks vengeance against the doctor who was unable to save his son, who suffered from a heart defect. What better way to do so than to go through the trouble of sneaking into the hospital where the pacemakers are stored and adding microbombs that can be remote activated. Once activated, the victim has so many heartbeats before their heart goes boom.

Our hero is a bomb squad cop played Judge Reinhold with so much earnestness it would make Dean Cain's CHRISTMAS RUSH hero seem a hardened cynic by comparison. Believe it or not, Reinhold actually does a decent job here. Unfortunately, Judge Reinhold holds a special place in my scarred psyche and I am unable to watch anything he is in without having horrendous flashbacks to a movie he did back in the early 90's called ZANDALEE.

ZANDALEE was an astoundingly awful attempt at eroticism that could have become a trash classic along the lines of TWO MOON JUNCTION had the movie not taken itself as seriously as it did. Somebody must have thought they were making an art house movie but the script is like a Cinemax After Dark movie on crack. Nicholas Cage, just before his career really took off, starred as this really repulsive artist wannabe who seduces the brain dead wife of an impotent ex-poet. Judge Reinhold plays the impotent ex-poet who utters lines of dialogue like "I'm just paralyzed - a paraplegic of the soul," which is the line he uses to describe his inability to have an erection. There's also a scene where Reinhold and Cage slow dance but I'd rather not go there. The main reason this movie permanently scarred my psyche is because Reinhold has a nude scene in the movie and I assure you that the site of Judge Reinhold's naked ass is not one you want forever lodged in your memory banks.

Getting back to the "TBS Original," Penelope Ann Miller plays the doctor who is the target of the madman and she pretty much plays her part just as she did her role in THE RELIC. In fact, they may be the same character only she went from being an evolutionary biologist to a cardiologist and who wouldn't want a career change after being licked by an enormous lion-beetle-reptile monster?

And just to remind yourself that you're watching a made-for-cable movie, the brilliant engineer turned mad bomber is played by Timothy Busfield, who you may remember from the show Thirtysomething and as the violin-playing nerd in REVENGE OF THE NERDS. Let's just say that Busfield isn't the kind of guy who oozes menace but then Judge Reinhold doesn't exactly ooze action star so it all kind of balances itself out. Besides, he's still more convincing in his role than Chad Lowe was as a testosterone-fuel lunatic.

As I said, DEAD IN A HEATBEAT is actually halfway decent. Unfortunately, it's wears out its welcome about halfway through. A few too many cliches play themselves out and the premise, which was just a tad screwy to begin with, goes off the deep end into absurdity. In the end, the villain kidnaps the hero's son, implants a pacemaker bomb into him (Via self taught surgery), captures the doctor, attaches a remote device to her wrist so that it's her heart rate that activates the bomb, and then hurls himself off the roof of the building when confronted by the hero so they'll all have to figure out a way to defuse this last bomb on their own. Just a bit much, don't you think?

But none of that matters now because there will be no more "TBS Originals." No more horribly cliched thrillers ripe with miscasting. No more opportunities for former cast members of Melrose Place and other cancelled television shows to find work at the Superstation. No more "TBS Originals." Oh well. Now it's up to The Lifetime Network and The Sci-Fi Channel to duke it out over the honor of being "the worst movie studio on television."

And John Ritter, this one goes out to you.

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY & I PAID TO SEE STAY TUNED