• by October 14, 2003

ATTACK OF THE TV MOVIES -- You'd think that a benefit of the saturation cable news coverage of big stories would be a decline in the number of "fact-based" TV movies that shamelessly try to dramatize them. It would have been comforting to know that 9/11 was so terrible and traumatic, so lodged in the nation's memory, that there wouldn't be any TV movies about it. Certainly the real footage was terrifying enough, not to mention the memories of millions in New York and New Jersey who saw it with their own eyes. Yet that hasn't been the case, as USA's "Guiliani" and Showtime's "DC 9/11: A Time of Crisis" have shown. And now there's "D.C. Sniper: 23 Days of Fear" appears on USA, a docudrama focusing on the hunt for two snipers who terrorized the Washington, D.C., region a year ago. While the filmmakers and star Charles Dutton have expressed sympathy for the victims and sensitivity toward their families, Riff's got to ask: What can be gained from a TV movie on the subject? Quick ratings.

RAILING AGAINST ADVERTISING? -- As a seasoned rider of commuter trains, Riff is continually amazed by the -- how shall we say it? -- ancillary uses of the placards that hang in front and in back of Metro-North and New Jersey Transit cars. We hate to break it to the out-of-home planners and buyers but it seems that most of them are studiously avoided, even by graffiti artists. On the other hand, Riff has seen industrious commuters tear off pieces for notepaper, covers to block sunlight or, as a card table for nightly poker games in the four-seaters. Turns out that's about the only way sitting without any leg room works.

RIFF WUZ ROBBED -- Riff predicted yesterday that bad-boy players involved in Saturday's melee at Fenway Park weren't likely to appear in the "I Live For This" promos being run during postseason baseball. But Fox and Major League Baseball proved Riff wrong, with a bilingual spot featuring Red Sox hurler (and coach-pusher) Pedro Martinez. Clips showed Martinez throwing off the mound, striking out Yankees (something that didn't happen near enough Saturday for the Red Sox), as Pedro waxes philosophic about why he loves baseball. Absent any references to Pedro's threatening Yankees catcher Jorge Posada with a beaning (another low-light of Saturday's game) or his wrong- headed takedown of Yankees bench coach Don Zimmer. Maybe Yankees fans can take heart: It could be that the logo that appeared with Martinez is the closest the Red Sox ace will get to the World Series.