Flyerplesys Perfectly adorable

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

calvinnme I was lucky enough to be able to follow this show from the beginning, and it was truly unlike any police show that had been on TV up to that point. When Hill Street premiered in January 1981, cable had just begun to become available to most homes, and so most cop shows up to that point had been network fare looking for mass appeal that were either overserious ala "Dragnet", comical ala "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Car 54", or just over the top ala "The Mod Squad".Hill Street was completely different. It showed the hopeless poverty of those living in the run-down Hill Street precinct, the shaken rape victims immediately after the crime, the ups and downs of the various partnerships among the officers, and the personal lives of the members of the force. The only brave act Hill Street never performed was actually NAMING the city in which the drama was playing out. With all of the snow, the entrenched bureaucracy, and with neighborhoods with names such as "Midtown", I can only imagine this must have been New York City, but for some reason producer Bochco never actually named the location.The series was one of the first to regularly employ hand-held cameras to give the show a fly-on-the-wall, documentary feel, but this technique was not overused. Also, the show pulled no punches on the personal lives of the characters. During the first season LaRue descends from a somewhat slimy charmer to a completely pickled bum, and Hill and Renko's doubts and fears after being gunned down help to humanize roles that up to that time had often been wrapped up in macho posturing.One of the lighter sides of season one is forty-something Phil Esterhaus trying to decide between his eighteen year old girlfriend Cindy and the fortiesh and erotic Grace Gardner who is trying to make up for lost time at a pace that would probably even seem extreme to Hugh Hefner. Another funny moment is when Esterhaus ends roll call by saying that he has been ordered to inspect the officers for "unusual weapons." The cops bring out hunting knives, switchblades, and sawed-off shotguns, throwing them on a table. As Esterhaus continues his announcements, the officers return their brass knuckles and other contraband weapons to their pockets. Comedy sometimes turns to tragedy, though, such as when Belker keeps apprehending a fellow who thinks he is a comic book crimefighter and when asked for his name keeps giving his comic book name. Eventually, though, the caped crimefighter runs across a criminal who doesn't get the joke and he is killed.The one aspect of Hill Street that never really made sense to me was the couple of Frank Furillo and Joyce Davenport. With Frank overseeing the police officers that tend to the mayhem that is the world of crime-ridden Hill Street, and Joyce as public defender doing her best to free every criminal no matter how guilty, I can't imagine why they would ever want to have anything to do with one another socially, assuming they truly believed in what they were doing on the job.As a final point, if you haven't seen this show since it first aired 34 years ago, you're going to notice a lot of not-yet stars that were playing guest spots during this first season. These include David Caruso who later starred on Bochco's NYPD Blue, Tim Daly of "Wings", Michael Tucker of Bochco's "L.A. Law", and a young Danny Glover as a very scary gang member. I highly recommend Hill Street Blues whether you have seen it before or it is all new to you.Just one more thing, if you are younger you may scratch your head when watching this and say - "I've seen this kind of stuff all before, nothing new here". That's because so many police procedurals patterned themselves after this show that this technique is no longer new, but in 1981 it was ground breaking, the granddaddy of what you watch today.

Jason Daniel Baker Each episode of the critically acclaimed series begins with another morning at the office at the Chicago Police Department's Hill Street precinct.Overworked, underpaid, understaffed and under equipped the boys and girls in blue do their best to put on a decent show of fighting crime whilst under continual threat of violence from many of the craziest criminals on earth.The guy in charge of this circus is less of a ringmaster and more of a lion-tamer. His name is Captain Frank Furillo (Daniel J.Travanti). Soft-spoken and diplomatic he, at first, doesn't strike the viewer as having the intestinal fortitude to be a cop let alone one in charge of a precinct.Brow-beaten by public defender Joyce Davenport (Veronica Hamel) then by his crazy ex-wife Fay (Barbara Bosson) Furillo looks even less formidable and his very manhood is called into question by his psycho SWAT team commander Lt. Howard Hunter (James B.Sikking).After seeing him stare down the barrel of a gun during a hostage crisis then shield a couple of kids with his body so they don't get hit by machine gun fire we are able to formulate a more balanced assessment of Furillo. This is the most genuine kind of hero. He exemplifies the best qualities of the men and women who serve under his command and leads by example.It is evident that both cops and criminals coming through Hill Street precinct are there due to varying degrees of insanity. Furillo's own psychosis is perhaps the same as that of the public defender - he thinks that he is making a difference for the better. After what we have seen him do it is difficult to argue that he is wrong.This was a cop show unlike any other that people had seen before. Part comedy and part soap opera set against the back-drop of an environment viewers were used to seeing simplistic good vs evil narratives and dispassionate procedurals got something of greater complexity.With sombre strokes of piano keys the understated yet resilient tone of the title theme better matches the continuing narratives of this series than that of most other shows though the mixture of mellotron and orchestra may seem a tad pretentious.

bkoganbing What Steven Bochco did in Hill Street Blues for the Eighties was later perfected in NYPD Blue for the Nineties. It was the concept of a police soap opera. The accent in Hill Street Blues was more on character development than on action, though there certainly was enough of that.You had about 10 to 12 regulars on the show, some didn't make it through the seven year run of the series and were replaced by others. A few of the regulars were killed off, one Michael Conrad as Sergeant Esterhaus actually did die during the run and had to be written out. But that was like life itself.We got to know the police and assorted folks at the Hill Street precinct, their problems and frustrations with their job and with every day life. Presiding over it all was Daniel J. Travanti as Captain Frank Furillo, a man with a broken marriage which he healed with Veronica Hamel and a drinking problem which he healed with Alcoholics Anonymous. He was a real human being, but a flawed one.All of them were flawed in some way which was what I liked about the show. Rene Enriquez as Lieutenant Cayateno was a Latino who may or may not have been advanced due to an unofficial affirmative action policy by the department. He knew it and was trying extra hard to prove he was up to the job for real.Kiel Martin was detective J.D. LaRue also with a drinking problem. It took him a couple of seasons to get into Alcoholics Anonymous and I still remember the episode at his first meeting when he saw Travanti there.Veronica Hamel was cool, professional, and drop dead gorgeous. She was a Legal Aid attorney by day and later the second Mrs. Furillo. You can see why Travanti was so attracted to her. First wife Barbara Bosson was the neurotic's neurotic. Maybe it was the pressure of being a cop's wife, but I suspect quite a bit more drove Furillo from here. Bosson later became a victim's advocate and as one who worked in that field, I can tell you that you have a few neurotics working there just like Faye Furillo.James Sikking was Lieutenant Howard Hunter who had a mask of confidence and unflappability to hide some insecurities. He was constantly sucking up and not above disparaging a few colleagues to push himself up in the department.Ed Marinaro was Officer Joe Coffey, an all American type former football player as he was in real life. There was a great episode where he busts his former high school coach for patronizing some street kids. Made him reevaluate a few things.We got to know all these guys inside and out, but my favorite on the show was Bruce Weitz as undercover Detective Mick Belker. That man looked like he lived in a sewer, but that's what made him so effective in dealing with lowlifes and making arrests. It was like Belker found his niche in life and I don't think he was interested in promotion or advancement. In many ways he was the most well adjusted character on the show.Cops really became three dimensional on this show more than any other up to that time. Bochco had no ending episode for Hill Street Blues, the last episode was like any other day at the Hill Street precinct. With the deaths of Michael Conrad, Rene Enriquez, and Kiel Martin, I'm sure that mitigated against any revival episode. But this is one series I wouldn't mind seeing a twenty year anniversary with some of the surviving regulars.I'll bet there are a lot of fans who'd like to know what the Hill Street precinct is like in the 21st century.

octomancer God I love this show. I'm watching the episode "Hearts and Minds" right now, I think it's quite early on in the series.I'm being reminded of the superb interplay between the characters that drew me to it in the first place, particularly the chemistry between Joyce and Frank (Veronica Hamel and Daniel J Travanti). Surely the hottest couple on TV at the time! The sparkling dialogue between the 2 of them, the arch looks, the professional conflict which embodied their passion for each other, the respect ... just fantastic. All the best dramas rise above the situations in which they place their characters and ultimately depend on the accuracy and consistency with which they reveal the characters of the principals through their interactions. In the whole of Hill Street Blues there is rarely, if ever, a false note, these people are as real to us as our friends IRL.Something went out of my life all those years ago when I watched the very last episode and I'm so happy to be reminded of it now. Nearly 20 years after, I find myself being gripped again, against my expectations.Tingle, tingle, tingle. Even now, this should be required viewing for any aspiring program makers out there.