MURDER, SHE WROTE: SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST (1997) **1/2 Feature length installment of the all-time favorite television show of little old ladies and Sunday evening hangover victims. It's the most relaxing series in the history of mankind, sure someone always gets murdered but you know that Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is going to figure it all out and deliver justice. There is, of course, a formula involved, so this one gets off to a rocky start by failing to trot out the standard sub-classical piano theme and typewriter footage. No matter, Jessica and her co-stars (usually one of the great attractions, but here we're stuck with a woman from "Thirty Something," the nauseating tv manual on at what age, and how, educated Americans should sell out to the capitalist soul-devouring scumbucketmachine) are soon spreading clues about like manure in the fog. A particularly endearing aspect of the show, for eldresses and hangover people, is that the most obvious clues are verbally repeated and pondered by the participants. It's really quite fun: after viewing twenty episodes or so it's no work at all solving the mystery presented, often within minutes of the first commercial break. Of course a feature length is two-for-the-price-of-one, so odd and eerie characters abound. Speaking of which the town of Aqua Verde, Arizona must have been absolutely thrilled to have Jessica filming there, I've passed through those parts a time or two myself. Lansbury clearly shares the mistrust of many of her fellow artists for their government, but if you're familiar with the formula and feel you won't be astounded by her daring conclusions.
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