Girl (Part 2)

IMPORTANT! DO NOT READ UNTIL YOU'VE READ PART 1 HERE

Moving right along, we end up at another open mic night. Thrift Store Apocalypse sounds a lot better. Still shitty, but improvements are being made. They even catch the eye of a local record company. When the record execs approach Cybil, she runs off. She doesn’t need any problems from the Man. The next morning, Andrea tries to find Cybil and we get a quick glimpse of the latter’s home life. Cybil’s mom is conspiculously drinking scotch at 8am. Not a good sign. When Cybil and Andrea finally meet up, we learn that Cybil has dropped out. Why? Because she signed a record contract. On her terms. Except Greg and Richard can go fuck themselves since they aren’t invited. Richard understands that Cybil is the star, but Greg is devastated.

Meanwhile, Todd’s moved off to Seattle to record an album. When Andrea writes him a love letter, Todd responds with a form letter thanking her for her support. Andrea tries to move on by seeing Kevin again. But then Andrea decides it’s hypocrisy to criticize music when you’re not in your own band, so Kevin is gone. Geez, Andrea, are you in a band? No? Then shut the fuck up.

I agree with Andrea, but only because Kevin is annoying and I was glad to see him leave the film. Actually, it is pretty easy to figure out if things suck regardless of whether you are involved with them or not. See: Tyler Perry, Taylor Swift, and genocide. I am not a filmmaker, musician, or Stalin, but I can make a pretty fair assertion that those things suck. Also, if Andrea was really a groupie, she wouldn't be so picky about who she had sex with.

Andrea attends Cybil’s first big show. She’s opening for The Color Green! In the middle of the show, Andrea dreams of Todd slinking behind her and embracing her with a kiss. Just like Kurt Cobain would. Then, after the show, Todd meets up with Andrea and they totally make out and have sex at her parents’ house. Totally a dream, right? NO. THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING. I rewatched the movie to see if there was a scene where Andrea gets a knock on the head. None of this makes sense. The rest of the movie might as well take place in Andrea’s imagination.

When we watched this together, we spent the rest of the movie waiting for clues that this was some kind of weird coma dream. We combed this shit like it was fucking Where's Waldo, and nothing came up. Therefore we have to assume that everything here happened for real. If you watch the movie and catch some kind of an oblique reference to Andrea being in a coma or in Dumb Teenager Heaven, please let me know.

So now, Andrea and Todd are dating. He even takes her on stage Courtney Cox style to make out in the middle of a song. Then they have sex in a barn. Very romantic. Cybil is pissed about it for some reason and warns Andrea that Todd can’t stick around forever. The next scene, Todd tells Andrea that he’s going on tour and has to leave. They break up on good terms.

Then graduation. Holy Hell, I forgot that Andrea was supposed to be in high school. Todd is there just off school grounds standing next to his big orange van and looking at Andrea longingly. Definitely not creepy, Todd.

"Oh, hey girl. Whats up? Nothing much. I just wanted to celebrate your graduation. There's a birthday cake in here from out the dumpster at Wal-Mart. Your name ain't Janice but it's all good. I also got a water bed up in here, you know how I do. Come on, baby, don't be like that."

From here on out, we leave the realm of a Lifetime movie. We are moving into LIFETIME OVERDRIVE.

Richard is sad at graduation. Why? Because Greg killed himself! HAHAHA! The best part, Greg suicide note only had one word: “Reality.”

I wonder if Thrift Store Apocalypse ever covered Jeremy?

Then, at a graduation party, Andrea runs into Darcy going into a bulimic fit. Andrea makes Darcy promise to get help. When they leave the bathroom, they are accosted by the bully from the beginning of the movie. Richard smashes a mother effing chair on his head and dedicates his act of assault to Greg’s memory. Then he dances with Darcy.

I like how the movie tries to make us think that Richard and Darcy getting together is a good thing. I know! Let's hook the needy girl with low-self-esteem up with the violently depressed loner! There's no way this will ever have negative repercussions for anyone! Shit, let's get em a bottle of Maker's Mark and set them up in Todd's van! THE MOVIE FIXED EVERYTHING!

Oh! It gets better! Cybil shows up to the party asking to talk to Andrea. She apologizes for kicking Greg out of the band. He was weak and she knew it and she screwed him over anyways. Cybil says she wishes she had Andrea’s courage (courage? Andrea bravely fucked a lead singer?) and then says she’s dedicating her debut album to Andrea. Because Cybil is in love with her. And then they French kiss. Holy shit this is amazing.

Andrea isn’t a lesbian, but she is honored to have been kissed by such a good friend (huh?). The she wanders away from the party and runs into Creepy Todd. Creepy Todd admits that he just can’t lose Andrea and that he is hopelessly in love. They go back to his place where he can’t get a boner and I guess they just cuddle for a while. Andrea tells Todd that she can’t see him anymore because she’s going to Brown (uh, fall semester starts in another three months, but, whatever). She’s a woman now.

She's also a lesbian now, or will be shortly after her freshman orientation.

The movie ends with Andrea driving from Seattle to Providence despite the fact that the trip is 45 hours non-stop. Finally, Andrea gets to a sign that says “Welcome to Providence. Population 943,000.” Um? First, Providence is not surrounded by farms. It’s a city. Second, you overstated Providence’s population by about 750,000. Would it have been that hard to use accurate information?

Out of everything else in the movie, this is what bothers you? Seriously?

AWESOMENESS: 20

This should be fairly obvious, no?

NO! Let's talk about why this movie was so fucking awesome: The girl in question won the day by fucking a musical hobo and breaking his heart. Also, this is the first Lifetime movie where I ever chanted for the chicks to make out in it where it actually worked. I'm going to try this on Spock and Kirk next time I see Star Trek, and hopefully the internet will explode.

HEY! IT’S THAT GUY: 10

Only because it can’t get a 100. Andrea was played by Dominique Swain. You may remember her from Lolita or, awesomely, in Face/Off. Creepy Todd was played by Sean Patrick Flanery from Boondock Saints. So far, not bad, but not worthy of a 10. But it gets so much better. Cybil, the rocker with the dyes eyebrows, is played by a pre-fame Tara Reid. Seeing her act all tough is a treat. Todd’s sister, Carla, none other than Portia de Rossi from Arrested Development and Ally McBeal. Rebecca is played by Summer Phoenix. So, she gets some points for being related to some well known actors. The bulimic Darcy? Selma Blair from Cruel Intentions among may other terrible movies. How about shy Richard? He’s played by Christopher Masterson of Malcolm in the Middle and Scientology fame. This film is so stacked that it gives noted character actress Clea DuVall (of Heroes and But I’m a Cheerleader!) all of two lines as a record company assistant. Even Biff Tannen has a cameo.

I have nothing to add here but the fact that Biff Tannen has a real name, and that Rusty is lazy. Oh, and Portia de Rossi is excellent.

LIFETIMENESS: 10

I wanted to give this a nine. What kind of Lifetime mom would want to watch a movie about a high schooler slutting herself out with a rock star. The film is much too sex positive for a typical Lifetime audience. But rewriting this…I have to give it a ten. The movie deals with lesbianism, suicide, bulimia, bullies, and love in a span of about four minutes. That deserves credit. That deserves acclaim. Even more acclaim than Claire from The Breakfast Club being eaten out by an amnesiac trigamist.

I concur with this 10. This movie is what every special episode of Blossom should have been: a twisted marriage of Josie and the Pussycats and Thelma and Louise that ends with a coked-out Six nailing Joey and then riding into the sunset in a stolen car. If I had a teenage daughter she would have to watch this whether she liked it or not.

GRAND TOTAL: 40

THE FIRST PERFECT SCORE. HURRAH!!!!

Hurrah indeed! We may as well stop doing this blog. Nothing else will ever be this good. But we can only hope we'll see a couple more movies this bad.

Girl (part 1)

Harmony and I watched Girl together over some diluted vodka, ranch pizza, and cheap Midwestern beer. Negative-twelve degrees PC. By the time the credits started to roll, it became clear that we had just witnessed something very special.

The debate: Does Girl deserve a perfect score? The first ever "40" in the Lifetime pantheon? How's that for an opening tease!?

So, here's how this is going to work. First, this post will be exceptionally long. If you took my advice and DVRed the film, you will know that abbreviating this critical analysis would be folly. I am posting this in two installments. Second, I'll be writing the main review and Harmony will be adding comments in italics. We found different things funny and Harmony watched the same movie I did. She deserves a say.

What a gentleman! He did the heavy lifting on this review, which is good, because I was far too drunk to delineate between fantasy and reality by about 30 minutes in. This was especially confusing when we took a break to watch The Venture Brothers, but I digress. I will provide the color commentary to Rusty's academic analysis.

So, Girl opens with narration from our protagonist, Andrea. Andrea is an honor student in suburban Seattle where every garage has a band in rehearsal. Literally. They literally show us this. Andrea is from a wealthy part of town. So wealthy that her parents' house features two lawn jockeys. But it's not racist because only one of them is black.

I have to say, this movie is really good at making you hate everyone in it right off the bat. Finally, a movie about spoiled suburban fuckheads in shitty bands that will never have real problems, ever. Also: where the hell do you get a black lawn jockey in this day and age? It may as well have been a cigar store Indian or something. My uncle does own a black lawn jockey, but that's only because he purchased a white one and painted it black so it was "right". True story!

And Andrea's parents are super old. That doesn't really matter except for a heightened payoff when the old dad puts a condom on a banana. Note to parents: if you're putting a condom on a banana to illustrate safe sex to an 18-year-old, you have missed that boat.

I actually found the old folks in this kind of charming. They're always playing shufflepuck or doing other old people activities, but they take routine breaks to try and encourage their daughter not to be so fucking stupid and maybe go to college or something. The mom always wore this pink puffy pantsuit and looked like she was about to sprint off and do a Boniva commercial. The dad was a pleasantly doddering old fella who was always proud of his daughter, regardless of the circumstances. Even when fumbling a condom onto a banana, he maintained this Tom Bosley "aw-shucks" charm that was genuinely endearing. Anyway, this is one of the underlying messages of the movie: Don't overparent, or really do any parenting at all that does not involve fun sight-gags.

Andrea is best friends with Darcy. Darcy appears to be a goody-two-shoes. It's mentioned in passing that she goes to Hanson concerts. But appearances are not what they seem! Darcy is sickly obsessed with losing her virginity to the first boy that says "yes." She also has some body issues. In an opening scene, she stares longingly at a picture of a heroin addict ("HEROIN KILLS") and asks people if she's fat.

I need to point out that the guy in the "HEROIN KILLS" poster is very obviously Iggy Pop. Is it a wry jab at the symbiotic relationship of music and drugs, or were the people who made this movie so utterly unfamiliar with music that they mistook a photo of Iggy for a medical cautionary tale?

The next group of high schoolers we meet are the nerds Richard and Greg. Richard and Greg are shy and unassuming. All they want to do is start a band and make it big. But, alas, bullies. One bully goes as far as to shove their faces in their lunch. Who comes to save the day? Their lead singer and sk8er girl (goirl?) Cybil. Cybil smashes the bully with her board. Cybil is a piece of work. Andrea thinks the world of her. She's so cool, man. She totally has tattoos and dyes her hair. And she dyes her eyebrows. Different colors.

Let's just get this out of the way: Richard and Greg are complete fucking wusses, and you should never, ever pity them. They spend the entire fucking movie whining about stupid shit and exist only to play musical instruments and be emasculated by Cybil. I maintain the bully was trying to perform a mercy killing, both for them and for us. Cybil is awesome because she is obviously an amazon from the get-go and spends the whole movie batting her technicolor eyelashes at Andrea and trying to get her alone for some girl talk (make-outs). I was really disappointed this movie didn't do more with the whole teenage lesbian crush subplot, but then I bet I am not the only one.

Finally, there's Rebecca. I liked Rebecca. Rebecca wore all of the grunge accouterments. Baggy clothes, weird hats, the stoner drawl. She asks Richard, Greg, and Cybil if their music is grunge or post-grunge. Cybil's rejoinder:

"It's music. You can label it what you want."

Rebecca's responsive nod perfectly stated the perfect response: "Good point, I guess, but shut up, Cybil."

Andrea and Darcy head to a party for the explicit of setting their V-Cards ablaze. Darcy is desperate. Andrea plays it cool. And Andrea is the one who is making out with a dude by the end of the night. His lines? "Your lips are ripe" *smooch* "Your neck is ripe" *lick* Sensing that this isn't working, the dude switches to "Your brain is ripe." Success! Andrea's shirt is off! Then the dude bails pre-penetration to tap a new keg. Priorities.

This scene is just as weird and uncomfortable as you imagine it would be. Watching Dominique Swain and Selma Blair struggle to get laid is weird enough, but the party itself is a quandary. So, someone rented a bunch of teenagers a never-ending wood paneled corridor to feel each other up in? I suppose it's possible that it's a frat party, but why would a frat party be filled entirely with teenagers? Maybe a frat decided to flyer the cafeteria that day to help flesh out the party ranks. If that's what they did, why are they so fucking awkward around girls that they flee from pussy with the excuse of some *more* beer? Maybe they're the nerd frat from Revenge of the Nerds and they just never figured how for to deal with women? But then the nerds from that movie were neck deep in poon, so I just don't know what the fuck happened here. Anyway, this is the one truly Lifetimey thing about this film. It's a parent's fantasy about what every party ever is like: kegs, endless bedrooms, and nubile teens hellbent on losing their virginity to the first meathead that can fumble their zippers open.

Andrea celebrates this embarrassment by drinking tequila until she passes out. She wakes up to find a guy masturbating on her. The best part? This is played for laughs. Sexulol assault.

Fucking pissed I didn't think of that phrase first.

Andrea stumbles home to find out she has been accepted into Brown.

That's right, she's an achiever (and proud we are of all of them). A better movie might have tried to make this a bigger deal, or set up some kind of juxtaposition between her failure to fuck a frat guy and her academic success, but this movie cannot be bothered. Andrea is a spoiled suburbanite, so she will be going to college. End of plot point. This movie has a real gift for steamrolling over things that could be interesting in order to show us more annoying crap.

Rusty skipped one of my favorite scenes, so here goes. Andrea is disenfranchised and depressed by getting into an ivy-league school with virtually no effort, so she drags her lame-ass friend to some weird abandoned loft thing to hang out and cuss and look cool. They chat about how sad they are that they are still virgins for a bit, and then it becomes apparent they are surrounded by pierced-up homeless kids hiding like raccoons in piles of debris. Instead of being really fucking weirded out, Andrea gets a crush on one of the hipster vermin. That vermin, Mr. Todd Sparrow, is the axis of all that follows. Please just keep in mind through the rest of this review that Todd Sparrow is a musical hobo that lives in a van, or maybe in a garbage can like Oscar the Grouch.

The next night, Andrea and Rebecca go to some open mic night to see Cybil and company's first band. Their name? Thrift Store Apocalypse. Ugh.

Three acts play that night. TSA bombs. Another act gets the crowd so riled up that Andrea ends up in the jostle pit. (Jostle pit?! Is that a thing?) At one point, she gets thrown to the floor where she meets a handsome dude. The third act, The Color Green, is a big surprise. They're on the verge of making it big and their frontman, Todd Sparrow, is an enigmatic Kurt Cobain type with bedroom eyes and a tortured soul. They play one song and Andrea falls hopelessly in love.

The thing is, we get one Color Green song. In order for us to believe that Andrea can fall in love with Todd, the song should be pretty good. Lifetime is obviously going to be incapable of something like that. But they failed harder than I could have imagined. Todd Sparrow sounds like he has a serious Stapp-infection. And the lyrics are horrible. "I don't bleed anymore, so put away your smile."

What?

What indeed. But then, I would argue that this is actually a faithful interpretation of what happens to a teenager's brain when she falls in love with a musician. The lyrics don't have to make sense, or be any good at all, in order to be "deep" to a 17 year old girl. Again, in a better movie, someone could have had some real fun with this. Unfortunately for all of us, this is a shitty movie, and it genuinely seems to think this song is good. Thanks for killing almost 5 minutes of your run time with a stunningly terrible song, movie.

After the show, Andrea runs into Todd Sparrow and an enigmatic woman who follows him around. This woman, Carla, has a horrible habit of fixing Andrea's hair. We think she's a groupie but it turns out later that she's Todd's sister. She has some kind of mommy complex because she keeps a watchful eye over Todd at all times and feels the need to do mommy things like fix hair and lick her finger and rub dirt off of people's faces.

Todd needs a ride to a party and Andrea and Rebecca are happy to tag along. Todd Sparrow totally knows Andrea's name now, oh em gee! Cybil gets angry at Andrea for acting like a groupie.

Of course he remembers Andrea! THEY MET IN A PILE OF FILTH.

Sometime in the near future, Andrea goes on a date with the guy she met at the open mic night, Kevin. Kevin is very opinionated about music and Andrea digs that. So they bone and it's terrible. Later, Kevin tells Andrea that they can only see each other for the summer since he's going to Northwestern Journalism School in the fall. Uh, Kevin is clearly 35.

Kevin is that guy you know who has a huge collection of vinyl LPs, but no record player. He is a pedantic, useless douche who thinks that enjoying music is belittling it somehow. He is only notable in this film because he's the lucky son-of-a-gun that Andrea FINALLY loses her virginity to. But she doesn't take it super-seriously, and it doesn't become a relationship. In other words, this is the only Lifetime movie where the heroine has sex and it doesn't result in her getting married or dying of the super-clap while giving birth to a crack-addicted baby.

Somewhere around here we find out that Darcy lost her virginity under less than ideal circumstances. She didn't want to but the dude she was with pulled the ol' blue ball trick so she went along with it. Well, mission accomplished, Darcy. Andrea is decidedly unsympathetic.

You should have held out for a desperate nerd, Darcy. It's always worked for me!

Andrea is out getting coffee the next day when she runs into Carla. Carla tells Andrea that she’s too good for the likes of Todd. Andrea could give a shit what Carla thinks and asks where Todd is. He’s out buying vinyls at local record shop, natch. After a few minutes of chit-chat, Andrea is on her back. After the boning, Todd ditches Andrea because, really, obviously, Andrea was just some groupie flake who didn’t deserve to be treated like a human being.

For someone who just lost their virginity, Andrea is really taking to this "sex with guys she barely knows" thing. Todd doesn't give a fuck about Andrea, but Andrea is big-time in love with Todd. The movie keeps reinforcing this idea that Andrea is a "groupie", which makes no sense, because she has sex with a musician once and then pines after him a lot. Pamela Des Barres she is not. Hell, she isn't even a Nancy Spungen. She's just a dumb kid with a crush. How disappointing.

Here's what isn't disappointing. Part 2 of this review will be up tomorrow.

Perfect Romance

The internet has brought us so many wonderful things. If you're a wealthy first-worlder (and lets face it: you're reading a blog right now, so you are), technology is ubiquitous in your daily life. At-home shopping, Hulu, and schadenfreude on a mass scale are all but a few of the things I enjoy via my eMac. But did you know that the internet sometimes is used by people for dating? And sometimes those people have wacky misadventures? And sometimes those wacky misadventures have sexy results? I'm going to be honest- I lack the mental and physical stamina to return to DietTribe right now. But since I was laid out with a sinus infection this weekend, I took the chance to check out the streaming movies on MyLifetime.com. Perfect Romance is the story of a creepy mother, a flaky daughter, a bargain-basement befuddled Englishman, and their adventures with online personal ads. Because everyone loves it when their mom uses the internet.

The movie starts with a mother and daughter team sitting in a pastoral New England landscape and playing "He loves me, he loves me not" with some flowers. But uh-oh, someone taught Mom the wrong rules, because every petal is "he loves me not"! If that actually makes you laugh, you will be utterly charmed by the humor in this film. If not, I have some bad news for you. Meanwhile, at an equally scenic airport, an English guy named Peter gets off of a plane with a fist full of tulips and runs at a glowingly happy young lady waiting for him at the gate. Oh no! He trips and flowers go everywhere! Naturally, she decides that she is not in love with him beause he can't walk in a straight line without falling over and flinging stuff at everyone around him. Also, she is a flaky ditz, because a Lifetime movie that doesn't endorse a negative stereotype about women is not allowed to exist.

Back to the mother-daughter act. Mama Tess's husband left her to start a store called Mantiques with his new boyfriend. She apparently can never trust again, but who hasn't had at least one boyfriend go gay on them? Suck it up, Tess. Daughter Jenny is still crazy-in-love with her retarded rock star ex-husband who sweeps in for a couple hours at a time, makes her giggle and twist her hair, plays catch with his annoying son, and then leaves her for the exciting dilettante lifestyle enjoyed by shitty cover band frontmen in New Hampshire. Tess can't deal with the pain of her grandson not having a "proper" father, so she is prepared to take DRASTIC STEPS. If you can't guess what those steps are, you're in the target audience for this film. You are also as dumb as a kitten.

So the English guy is named Peter Campbell, and he is in the US to teach freshman literature on his sabbatical from whatever the fuck he does in England. (Note: if you are on sabbatical, wouldn't you not be teaching?) He can't find love because of his charming Englishness, which prevents him from talking to women without offending them by implying that soccer is better then football or that blood pudding isn't disgusting or other Englishy things. In despair, he asks another recent UK transplant how he met his current wife. His reply is so great I'm just going to give it to you verbatim: "One day I got so lonely I typed "love" into the search box of my computer. This match website came up, and I found her on there, and it was love at first sight!". Out of curiosity, I tried this with Google. I got a Wikipedia article on love, news about Jennifer Love Hewitt, a WikiHow about how to love that must be read to be believed, and an advertisement for the Beatles-themed LOVE show at The Mirage in Vegas. I guess it's a good thing that the guy didn't use Google, or else he would have ended up seeing Cirque De Solieil.

The movie then gives us a fun montage of lonely people doing lonely things. Mom, daughter, and Peter all eat alone, walk around alone, watch TV alone, and are just overwhelmingly lonely all the time. I'm surprised we didn't see someone riding the front end of an otherwise-passengerless tandem bike while bawling their eyes out. Peter is finally overcome with despair when he cannot find a TV channel that doesn't show kissing, fondling, or fingerbanging (ok not really). He gets onto a match website and begins scanning the profiles. He is soon overwhelmed by this weird, Carnival of Souls-like parade of angry chanting voices and faces that make him black out. That shit is why I stopped using OKCupid, so I can relate. Anyway, he wakes up and sees Jenny's ad and of course it is love at first sight. They spend the next couple of weeks corresponding about how much they love horticulture, poetry, and other effete boring things. Of course, the crazy twist is that Tess set up the ad and is handling all the correspondence, leaving Jenny none-the-wiser! You think a woman who got dumped by her husband for a mantiques dealer would be gun-shy around a guy who loves Keats and flowers, but apparently Tess is so into the dude that she invites him to spend the weekend at their place. He agrees, and all of a sudden we're on a collision course with elaborately staged wackiness!

From here, the movie just gets even more embarrassing. Tess informs her daughter that she's been impersonating her on the internet for months, and Jenny is pissed until she finds out the website photo of her has some bangin' clevage and Peter's a hottie. Then she's over it. Peter shows up and immediately starts complimenting Tess in a creepy-ass way while still feigning interest in Jenny. Jenny spends the next forever of the movie trying to woo Peter away from her mom by acting like an extra in a high school production of Lady Windermere's Fan in order to convince him she's got an ounce of culture in her ugly little body. But it doesn't work because she's fun! and cool! and says "awesome" a lot! and loves Kerouac! and has a tattoo! and is more annoyingly funky then Clarissa Explains it All! It's clear to Jenny that this relationship wont work out, but she knows that Peter will stick out the weekend because he is super-polite. She cruelly strings him along for a while to further the plot.

Meanwhile it becomes obvious that Tess is in love with Peter, doing such increasingly creepy things as leaving a book on his bed with a rose, constantly bringing him snacks when he is sleeping, tagging along on Jenny and Peter's one date, and leaving a post-it-note on his remote control to tell him when a soccer match is on TV then showing up in her jammies to watch it with him. She is two steps away from bunny-boiling nuts about him. This is not lost on Jenny, so she keeps setting up opportunities for them to spend time together. She even fakes an affair with a guy who works at Tess's flower shop in order to make Peter give up on her. He does, so then he's free for Mom! Hey, Peter only kissed her daughter once, so it isn't creepy. Right?

Now, let's say that you travel across the country in order to meet your online sweetheart. You spend some time with her, and despite the fact she's constantly misquoting poetry and crying for no reason, you try and stick it out. Then you find out she's cheating on you. Then you find out that you actually were chatting with her mother the entire time you were corresponding, and the whole weekend is an stupid farce to trick you into being some kid's dad until he's old enough to go to college. Now the mother of the person you have been trying to get into bed for 3 days is throwing herself at you. Would you:

a. Call the police
b. Punch her in her lying goddamn face
c. Jump in the car, drive far away, and never trust again
d. Pledge eternal love and devotion to a crazy person that lives thousands of miles from everything you hold dear

If you picked d, you've used online personals before.

Oh, and Jenny dumps her shitheel ex and hooks up with the guy from the flower shop. It isn't interesting, but that's the end, so there you are.


Awesomeness: 6

There are two awesome moments in this film. The first is the "search box" line, and the second is when a girl Peter is hitting on says "Our football is sex, war, and chess all rolled into one". That's it. There's also a part where Tess says that Neil Armstrong's moon landing destroyed the moon for romance, and I thought the movie might turn into a crazy alternate-history action flick about the moon blowing up. Then I realized that was a metaphor and I hated the movie even more.

Star Power: 6

Kathleen Quinlan (Tess) starred in a weekly CBS procedural drama called Family Law, which I know fuck-all about, so good for her. Lori Heuring (Jenny) did a little better, starring in approximately two-million direct-to-video horror films and making #64 on Maxim's Hot 100 list for an unspecified year. Her mother must be very proud. But holy shit- Peter is played by Desmond from Lost! We'll give them an extra couple points for that.

Lifetimeliness: 9

DAMN, GIRL. Literally the entire movie hinges upon a middle-aged mother fixing everyone's lives by being so fucking meddlesome and intrusive that they cannot help but bend to her will. Also, Tess hooks up with a hot English guy that is significantly younger then her because she has such a "beautiful mind". The women are always right, even when they are deeply obviously wrong, and the only positive male figure in the movie loves roses and poetry. This could not be more of a lady movie if it had a product placement sequence with Tampax, Yoplait, and Summer's Eve.

I am still docking this movie a point because it didn't have a kindly black cop or a no-nonsense lesbian cop. They could have fit one in if they'd tried.

So that's 21. It's worthwhile for a high cheese factor, but it's painful to watch. Speaking of pain; I promise I will watch DietTrbe again soon. But not today.

(Brief Rusty edit: I reviewed Perfect Romance as well. Read my take on events here.)

EMERGENCY DVR-MERGENCY

MAY 26, 2009 (8::55 pm EDT)

COLUMBUS, OH

Here's the dill-e-yo:

I DVR-ed an awesome Lifetime movie and my sworn enemy, Time Warner Cable, mucked it all up. It kept skipping and freezing and, ugh, this is horrible.

So, I looked up the LMN schedule and the movie is being replayed at 6am tomorrow. It's called Girl. I don't think it will beat The Wives He Forgot, but this is clearly in the running to be the second best rated movie in the long, sporadic history of this here web log. The "Hey! It's That Guy!" score is going to be off the charts.

So, if you see this before 6am on May 27, set your DVRs to Girl. Let's share in this together. As friends.

xoxo,

Rusty

P.S. I can only imagine how annoying these programming notes are if you are using what the kids call an RSS feed. I'm sorry. But I promise the Girl review, assuming this records properly, will be good.

Night of Terror

This will be another quickie since the movie sucked so hard.

Night of Terror tells the story of the most unlikable family in Lifetime history: the Dunnes. The Dunnes are made up of mom Jill, husband Rick, and teenage daughter Olivia. The film opens with Olivia making out with her older boyfriend, Zach. Perhaps Olivia is prepared to give Zach a blow jay. With her mouth.

Jill walks in on this display and immediately disapproves. Zach wears an earring and drives a motorcycle. Obviously a bad guy. This causes much strife at family dinner.

While Rick is out on business, Olivia gets a call from her credit card company asking about a charge at a hotel. Jesus, Visa. Why you gotta narc on the husband like that?

While Jill is doing her investigating of Rick's affair, she meets hotel manager, Richard. I am going to start calling Richard "Dick" because I don't want there to be too many first names beginning with the letter "r." And, Dick...this is a doozy of a Canadian accent we've got right here. Apparently Dick is actually the hotel owner coming off a divorce. He smells blood in the water and asks Jill out

Jill and Dick have some drinks and they keep toasting to weird things like lonely hearts clubs and looking out for number one and JESUS CHRIST THIS IS NONSENSE.

Jill sacrifices the moral high ground of being cheated on by making out with Dick. He's rounding second base when a bellhop knocks on the door with room service champagne.

Awesomely, Lifetime cuts to soft focus and slow motion as it shows Dick - that big bear of a man - freaking out. "GO AWAY!!! ARRRRRRGH!!!!"

Jill is a little freaked out and leaves. Dick chases her through the lobby without his top screaming like a caveman.

After getting home, Jill finally confronts Rick about his cheating ways. The affair has been going on for six months. Rick blames it on Jill being emotionally distant after the death of her father. Oh, fuck you, Rick. You are asking for trouble.

Rick and Jill decide to double down on their relationship and make it work. And what easier way to repair a relationship than a week long camping trip with your unhappy teenage daughter. What can go wrong?

Well, one thing that can go wrong is being stalked by Dick. Dick, who started the movie off as a smooth Canuck, is now behaving like a Grade-A crazy pants. From what I can tell from his grunts and shifty eyes, Dick is obsessed with having family. So his plan is to stalk the Dunnes, kill Rick, and then Olivia and Jill will treat him like a liberator.

To celebrate the transition, Dick, nee Richard, will now be renamed Krazy Dick. Why the "k"? Because that's how a crazy person would spell it, silly.

To get a better read on where the Dunnes will be camping, Krazy Dick takes the unusal tact of just asking Rick. (God damn it. "Rick" and "Dick" rhyme. Please don't gloss over the first letter of the name!) Jill is still hiding the tongue kisses, so she doesn't call Krazy Dick out. Not a good strategy.

The Dunnes raft down the river and make camp for the night. So far, so good. The next morning, their raft is gone! This creates strife within the family as Olivia blames Rick, Rick snaps at Olivia, Jill snaps at Rick for snapping at Olivia, Rick snaps at Jill by pointing out she is always snapping at Olivia, and Olivia storming off. I hate this family. Krazy Dick can have them.

We're supposed to think losing the raft is the end of the world. No one knows they're out there! They can't get cell phone reception! Oh nooooooes!

Except, guess who runs into Olivia? Why, it's Zach! He parked his bike about a mile away. So, yeah, maybe losing the raft isn't so scary if someone is able to find this family in less than ten minutes.

After letting Rick take the fall for losing the raft, Jill admits that they're being stalked by a guy she made out with. Rick tries to play the moral equivalence card, but he wisely and quickly abandons that strategy. You know, six months versus (presumably) 30 seconds. Careful there, Rick.

Zach and Olivia reunite with the family and the plan is for Zach (who the family likes now) to drive his bike into town and get help. Naturally, he forgets his keys. Rick follows with the keys.

When Zach gets to the bike, Krazy Dick is waiting for him. Krazy Dick starts messing with the motorcycle and Zach pulls a knife. Zach charges and Krazy Dick plays a little game I like to call "Quit stabbin' yourself!"

Then Rick wanders onto the scene. He charges Krazy Dick even though the latter is weilding a mother effing knife. For his trouble, he gets stabbed in the leg. Rick then decides to run away. So, to be clear, two healthy legs, no weapons? Charge! One gimpy leg, no weapons? Retreat!

Krazy Dick pushes Rick off of, like, a four foot cliff. Because this is a stupid movie, Krazy Dick assumes he's dead. Why? Who knows.

No, the title of this film is Night of Terror. Which is odd, because all of the action here has happened in the middle of the day. But when Rick wakes up, it's midnight dark. And Krazy Dick is still there! Nick watches KD take the raft over to the Dunne camp.

Krazy Dick uses the knife to slice his way into the Dunnes' tent. He moves in on a spooning Olivia and Jill and joins the cuddle. In doing so, he basically puts his knife in Jill's hands. And yet he's surprised when he gets the inevitable leg stab.

There's a little chase and KD proclaims that this is their first family argument. Jill shoots him with a flare gun. Are flare guns lethal when they aren't at close range? I don't think so. But this magical Lifetime flare gun leaves a smoking crater in Krazy Dick's chest.

The movie ends with the family dressed in black. Olivia is sobbing as they take a limo (why would they reserve a limo?) to Zach's funeral.

AWESOMENESS: 7

Five points are for the one scene where KD's is interrupted just before getting some cougar titty.

"RAWRRRR! CANUCK MAD!!! YOU'LL BE SOWH-REE!!!"

Two points for being so cavalier about nothing make a lick of goddamned sense.

HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 2

If you didn't catch the weird blow jay reference, Olivia was in Superbad!

LIFETIMENESS: 6

Evil dude? Check. Cheating husband? Check. Woman who is tempted to cheat but can't go through with it? Check. Ungrateful daughter who is secretly right about everything? Check. Daughter's boyfriend rides a bike? Check.

But...the boyfriend was pretty nice. Dopey, yeah. And definitely looking to nip Olivia's cherry, but, a nice stand-up guy. Weird.

And talk about a lack of women's intuition! Jill made out with a psycho. And then she doesn't tell anyone when they're being stalked. When she does make the confession, she says "I think we're being followed." YOU THINK!? You just ran into the guy you made out with a hundred miles from home! What a coinky-dink!

That's not women's intuition. That's women's out-scholarship.

...

...

(See what I did there?)

GRAND TOTAL: 15

Programming Notes

Did you know Lifetime is now showing entire made-for-TV movies on their website? It's true!

Check out my most recently reviewed movie, Natalee Holloway, here. It's not very good, but if you're bored, it's only a 90 minute investment.

More importantly, Widow on the Hill will be on the Lifetime Movie Network on Sunday, May 24, at 2pm. This is the second highest rated movie in the history of this site, so please set your DVRs accordingly.

I watched a new (terrible) movie last night, so I'd expect a new review to be put up shortly.

Natalee Holloway

Spoiler alert: She dies.

Natalee Holloway is graduating with honors from the most white bread high school in Alabama. Not a black person to be seen. And, awww, she wants to be a doctor. Sure hope nothing gets in the way of her dreams.

For some reason, the high school sponsors a trip to a third world protectorate where the drinking and gambling age are 18. The only reason for such a trip is to get as wasted as possible. And this is sponsored by a high school? And we're supposed to be surprised when something goes wrong?

Ugh. I hate this. An 18-year-old's death should be a tragedy. But whether it's a girl in Aruba whose crazy mom refuses to believe her little angel would have sex or take drugs (or a girl with cocaine in her system crashing a $100,000 Porsche leaving her with a case of exploded head), I just can't work myself up about it. I don't care. So I'm going to keep on being snarky about a horrible situation.

So Natalee goes to Aruba and gets really into body shots and meets a charming young local named Joran. To avoid lawsuits, the direction is a little tricky here, but we're supposed to think that Joran is drugging Natalee. Natalee gets in a car with Joran and his suspiciously ethnic friends and she is never seen again.

You know Joran is a bad guy because he listens to rap music.

The next morning Natalee's mom, Beth, gets the phone call that Natalee didn't show up for her flight. Beth doesn't want to jump to any conclusions, so she immediately calls 911 and the Birmingham FBI office and tells whomever will listen that her daughter has been kidnapped.

Things don't get better when Beth and her husband show up in Aruba uninvited. (They're able to make the trip on the cheap by borrowing a friend's plane.) Beth takes her framed picture of Natalee to hotel employees. One identifies Natalee's companion that night as Joran. So Beth and company make a trip to Joran's parents' mansion.

Beth's husband asks Joran if he remembers Natalee. Joran snickers and remembers Natalee as the drunk girl from the night before. So, naturally, Beth's husband threatens fisticuffs. One sentence in and these American yahoos are ready to start breaking faces and taking names.

With all the cowboy justice and the Jesus talk that follows, it's pretty clear that Natalee Holloway's family were Bush voters. If only the thousands of American soldiers killed in Iraq and the tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of Iraqi citizens got the same media attention. I know it's a broad political point that one shouldn't be making four years after graduating from college, but, Jesus, the media coverage of this case was horrible. This moron family, according to Wikipedia, even criticized the media for covering the Hurricane Katrina disaster instead of Day of Death+x of this case. These people are terrible.

So, then, after one day of questioning, Beth is infuriated that the police aren't searching Joran's car for evidence. You'd think things would be the same in the United States of the Fourth Amendment, but this is different! The Aruban police just don't care!

From there, the media gets a hold of the story and Beth is all too eager to be on every major network. She goes as far as to accuse Joran and his two swarthy accomplices of drugging, gang raping, and murdering Natalee. Evidence? Nope. Just crazy talk.

Finally, some of the authorities sack up and tell Beth that Natalee is probably dead. Beth breaks down and hails a cab. She demands to be taken to a church so she can be with God. The cabbie stops at a cross on the side of a back road. Beth prays and asks for her daughter back. She has some kind of spiritual orgasm with groaning, grunting - the whole nine yards. Then she accepts that Natalee is gone.

Joran gets arrested a few more times but is always released, much to Beth's chagrin. Aruba doesn't care because they keep arresting Joran and let him go! WHAT DOES SHE THINK WOULD HAPPEN IN AMERICA!?!?

The family finally gives up. Beth moves back to America and becomes such a prick that her husband (Natalee's stepfather) dumps her. The best part of the whole movie is when Natalee's kid brother tells Beth that Natalee wouldn't want to see the family split apart over her death.

"THEN NATALEE SHOULDN'T HAVE GOT INTO THAT CAR WITH JORAN!!!"

Check and mate!

Years later, a Dutch undercover investigative news team captures Joran on tape claiming that Natalee had a seizure after blowing Joran and he dumped her body in the water. Way to go, Beth, accusing Joran's two friends of gang rape without any evidence. Beth accepts Joran's stoned recollection as the truth and goes on a speaking tour to other irresponsible schools that set up drunken field trips.

Not mentioned: Beth creepily dating JonBenet's dad.

AWESOMENESS: 7

I fugured enough time had passed between the media saturation of the Holloway case and the premiere of this movie for me to watch it without grinding my teeth. Not the case. After thirty minutes, I realized I knew exactly how the story would play out and hated myself for knowing. Fuck Nancy Grace.

If anything, this is evidence that there is absolutely no need, ever, for a Terri Schiavo movie.

HEY! IT'S THAT GUY: 0

Beth was played by a lady whose claim to fame is being married to Michael J. Fox.

LIFETIMENESS: 8

One crazy woman taking on an entire island in order to find justice for her blameless rape victim daughter with only the support of her Lord. Yeah, pretty Lifetimey.

GRAND TOTAL: 15

A true disappointment. I really wanted so much more from the film. I've somehow developed a conscience that won't allow me to laugh at the dead high schooler. That, or the movie was just awful.