Blind Trust

My house recently upgraded to digital cable with a DVR. My house is now equipped with Cinemax. We can cater to all of your softcore needs.

Digital cable is great and all, but it has its drawbacks. I hate to sound like a terrible stand-up comedian but, "200 channels and nothing's on TV? What's the deal with that!?"

It is in these times of crisis that Lifetime provides its crutch. It's not like I go scouring my local listings looking for the next Lisa Rinna jam. It's luck of the draw.

And boy was I lucky last night.

Blind Trust is fantastic. This gripping tale of murder and betrayal was both uproarious and surprisingly unpredictable. It also starred Art Hindle. Hindle is the most Canadian man on Earth. Check this guy out:



That's a lot of Canada.

We open with a blonde, Cassie, who is having a wonderful time with her boyfriend. They haven't been going out too long, but they clearly enjoy having sex. Sinners. Cassie, who can't stop fucking laughing and I want to punch her in her fucking piehole, goes out with her surprisingly attractive roommate for drinks. They talk about boys. The roommate is dating an older man and she cracks this line regarding their time together:

Roommate: "His plugs turn red at night. It's like going to bed with a traffic light."
Cassie: *Uproarious laughter*

I really need someone to explain that joke to me. Please, oh God, please, tell me that "plugs" is referring to an electric socket or hair and not some other unsavory plug. I give up if Lifetime starts making butt plug jokes.

Cassie's boyfriend is super sketchy. He doesn't like being seen outside with her. And he reacts very strangely when he sees a picture of Cassie's (very attractive and chesty, if you were wondering) roommate. This guy is no good!

The next night, Cassie's roommate is also acting sketchy as Hell. She gives Cassie a fancy necklace dangling with "paste." Paste is some kind of lingo for artificial diamond. The necklace even has a name: The Willow Chain. The roommate tells Cassie how special and important she is and I swear to God they're going to make out. We learn later this is a scene of regretted betrayal, but, Christ. Why is she whispering against her neck like that? Why are they rubbing each other's arms? Did someone turn on Cinemax while I was on the john?

Next day, Cassie's boyfriend and roommate are found riddled with bullets. Cassie is found unconscious in the hallway. She is immediately charged with two counts of murder in the first because they find gunpowder on her hand.

This double-murder has the tabloids going ga-ga. Cassie is offered the services of one L.G. Mennick. Mennick is the best corporate lawyer in New York, but he likes to take high profile cases pro bono to keep his name in the papers. Um, what the fuck? Corporate law and criminal law are so far apart that my head is spinning.

Cassie is released on two million dollars bond. Her lawyer picks up the charges. "It's all tax deductible." Cassie is then allowed to return to her home which is also A CRIME SCENE WHERE SHE SUPPOSEDLY KILLED TWO PEOPLE. Can you imagine if they let OJ crash on Nicole Brown's couch during the trial!?

I guess now would be the time to mention that this is all supposed to be taking place in New York City. That's why we get the random Brooklyn accent every now and again. My favorite touch is the one, and it's only one, police cruiser that says "NY Police." Very convincing.

The trial proceeds and this is so freaking ridiculous. The prosecution keeps using "surprise evidence." Apparently, Lifetime's version of New York doesn't include a little something called discovery. I guess discovery is only something you find in high-brow Oscar winning fare like My Cousin Vinny.

Cassie, by the way is presented as really fucking smart. (Mennick points out that working as an actuary is as hard as passing the bar. Well, the NY Bar is pretty easy, right?) Cassie realizes that the necklace holds the clues to the crime. The ex-boyfriend who gave it to the roommate actually filled it with diamonds, not paste. The roommate and Cassie's boyfriend replaced the diamonds, sold them for 500Gs, and were planning on running off together. Obviously the ex-boyfriend is a prime suspect. That's the key!

I was a fucking idiot for not figuring out who the bad guy was right then and there.

Sure enough, Cassie's case goes down to the shitter. Someone anonymously sends the police department photos of Cassie and the boyfriend together. She, well, her representation, had been alleging that jealousy couldn't be a motive since she didn't know anything about this guy. Well, that went right out the door. A conviction is in the cards.

Cassie sees the writing on the wall and goes on the lam. The verdict is read in absentia. Guilty. The needle awaits!

Cassie escapes into a seedy part of the city. You can tell it's seedy because of the heavy bass, drums, and other "urban" sounds on the score. Despite the fact that Cassie was on the cover of the New York Post for the length of the trial, Cassie is able to walk freely and even use her fucking cell phone without repercussions. Remember, she, in the eyes of the law, killed two people in cold blood! Shouldn't there be, I don't know, a fucking manhunt!?

Cassie uses her actuary skills to find the high-end jeweler that created the Willow Chain. She calls Mennick and tells her he found the jeweler, who has since been firebombed (swear to God!). Mennick asks what the Willow Tree has to do with any of this, and, WHOOPS! Who ever mentioned the name Willow Tree?

Cassie figures it out. Mennick was the ex-boyfriend and killed Cassie's boyfriend and roommate in a jealous rage. The discovery of the roommate's diary shows that Cassie's boyfriend dated the roommate while on vacation in the tropics. They lost touch, but their love would last forever! (That explains the roommate weirdness, but what was this dude's deal with not wanting to be seen outside? Cassie dodged a bullet there. This guy would have probably turned out to be hella abusive, yo.)

Cassie calls the cops and has them trail her. Why they don't just arrest her, who knows? Of course, there's the one good cop who believes her because this is Lifetime and in the Lifetime universe every precinct has that one good cop.

The lawyer admits to everything. He was so in love with Cassie's roommate. "Love hits you like a hot bullet through carved ice." Um?

His goal was to commit the perfect crime by framing someone and having them acquitted. That way he would get away with murder while greatly enhancing his reputation. Unfortunately, Cassie was too damn smart so he had to send the cops those pictures. They reach an agreement to keep this all secret and work on an appeal. Cassie is to be driven to the police station by three of the most murdery looking henchmen in Canada.

Naturally, Mennick ordered the execution of Cassie and his right-hand man who was unfortunate enough to figure out that his boss was a murderer. After telling off the henchmen he gets shot in the gut.

Cassie and the right-hand man are taken to the docks but are saved at the last minute by the good cops. When Mennick is arrested he asks the DA, apparently an old friend, what his chances are.

"You're rich. You're white. And you did it. You figure it out."

Wha?

Actual Awesomeness: 7

I hated Cassie. What a terrible actress. Everyone else was fine. Blind Trust didn't have the issues that one associates with a Lifetime movie. The sound and directions were adequate.

Ironic Awesomeness: 10

Jesus Christ, this movie ruled. The histrionics! The betrayal! The lesbian sexual tension! The plot holes! I can't recommend this highly enough.

Hey! It's That Guy!: 2

The lead, Jessica Capshaw, was on The Practice. That's it. One bonus point goes to the roommate, Cindy Sampson. She was way hotter than a Lifetime made-for-TV vixen deserves to be.

Lifetimeness: 5

Well, it had the one good cop. And an evil ex-boyfriend. And the female lead was smart as all Hell. It needed some rape or domestic abuse to take this one over the hump.

GRAND TOTAL: 24

If this movie starred Jodie Sweetin instead of Jessica Capshaw, this would have been a 32. Alas, one of the great Lifetime experiences is seeing actors you recognize. This movie totally failed in that regard. But it kicked ass in every other way. If you stumble upon this work of trash art, do yourself a favor and settle in with a bag of popcorn. It's a Lifetime classic.

Beautiful

Beautiful was on last Thursday night. I had spent the last two days watching this made-for-TV crap. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy Lifetime movies. It's just...three days in a row is an awful lot to ask of someone.

After ten excruciating minutes of Beautiful, something glorious happened. An obscenity was overdubbed. That means that Beautiful wasn't made-for-TV! It had a theatrical release!!! Oh, Hosanna in the highest, I didn't have to watch and review this.

And, thank God. Ten minutes of this is worse than an hour or dental work. Roger Ebert is a considerably more talented critic than myself, so I'll let him take it from here.

Cries in the Dark

Cries in the Dark is terrible. Just awful. There's never any doubt who the bad guy is. There's never any doubt as to what happened. Some films can use this viewer's knowledge as a strength. The bad guy is revealed within the first minutes of Spoorloos. You have an idea of what happened to the victim. The horror comes from the grim inevitability of it all. Spoorloos made my testicles retract. Cries in the Dark, not so much.

We open at a real estate agency owned by a couple. The wife is very much pregnant. It is immediately revealed to the audience that the husband is a loathsome guy. He cares too much about work, is thoughtless, and his teeth are too white. Seriously. You see their wedding picture and think, "Hey, his smile is too bright. Evil!"

The husband, hilariously named Scott, runs off to a meeting leaving the wife behind to meet with people interested in buying some property. The dude who comes in is a grade-A creepster. He makes untoward comments towards the pregnant real estate agent, Elle. She boots him out, but not before he steals her handkerchief.

Elle heads to a doctor's appointment. There she runs into Rosa. Now, we just learned how refined Elle's creep-dar is. She can sniff out a creep from a mile away. Right? Well, no. Rosa is super-creepy. Like, clearly a sociopath. That doesn't stop Elle from giving Rosa her address.

That night, Elle and her cop sister, Carrie, prepare dinner. Scott, because he's a bad dude, cancels at the last minute because of a mix-up at the office. Elle is hurt. She feels alone. Carrie then pulls the same bullshit but gets a free pass because the night is ruined anyways. Also, she's a cop. I guess her work is more important than selling houses.

Elle disappears that night. Rosa shows up the next morning with a brand new baby. There can be no doubt in the viewer's mind what happened. None. Did I mention that this all happened by 9:20pm? I had to sit through another 100 minutes of this garbage even though the plot was now nothing but a big bag of inevitabilities.

So how to spend that 100 minutes?

About 30 minutes are spent on chasing the creepy dude. Naturally, because this is a Lifetime movie, the creepster is actually a convicted rapist. I don't know what's worse: being a rapist or being an obvious red herring. After a few chase scenes the rapist is caught and exonerated. His alibi was, I swear to God, that he was out trying to rape some other lady. The other lady confirms this.

Ugh. Stupid Lifetime movies. WE ALL KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. PLEASE GET TO THE BABY-NAPPING.

A motive is discovered when some volunteers find Elle's dead body sans fetus. It's a weirdly compelling scene. The volunteer who finds Elle doesn't scream for help. He finds a bloody corpse, walks up to it, and then kneels over it. He's staring the whole time. He looks excited. It's weird that the creepiest thing about the movie is this detached reaction to this bloody mayhem. The scene should have a place in a better movie.

Carrie and Scott are both wrecks. At one point, Carrie and Elle's mom calls the former a bad cop for not finding her sister's killer. Like, thanks, Mom. The case is finally cracked when it becomes apparent that Scott had an affair with a crazy woman....Rosa! Rose was a dental hygienist. The big joke is that she is obsessed with white teeth. Scott's pearly whites clearly pass her sexxxin' litmus test. What was a one night stand for Scott was a betrayal for Rosa. She is obsessed with Scott and wants to start a family with him. Since she had a hysterectomy eight years ago, Elle's fetus is her only hope.

Rosa, with gun, takes Scott hostage in his house. The baby, mostly healthy although a little jaundiced, is there too. Carrie breaks in through the attic and distracts Rosa. Scott tries to run off with the baby and is shot in the back for his troubles. Carrie tackles Rosa, grabs her gun, and makes the arrest.

Carrie confronts Rosa after the latter makes her confession. Rosa admits to seeing Carrie the day of the abduction. The film then flashes back to Rosa taking Elle at gun point and throwing her in the trunk of a car while she pleads for her life. This tacky additional scene leaves a sour taste in mouth.

Rosa then asks Carrie if she can see her baby. She claims it's her child to the very end.

I know asking for unpredictability in a Lifetime movie is a fool's exercise. But, Christ on the cross, I could have made a 45-minute version of Cries in the Dark that would have been just as effective. Excuse me. "Effective." The scare quotes are necessary.

Actual Awesomeness: 4

The movie sucked. The actors acquitted themselves well. All of them save for Adrian Holmes who was just terrible. The biggest technical problem was the sound mixing. Lots of dialogue was lost to echoes and mumbling. The direction was pedestrian, but not aggressively bad.

Ironic Awesomeness: 4

There aren't enough wacky plot twists or melodramatic scenes to make this one unintentionally hilarious. The weird scene where they find Elle's body and the tacked-on abduction scene were both out of place and made the film more serious than warranted.

Hey! It's That Guy!: 1

Other than Eva La Rue from CSI: Miami, there is no one famous in this movie. Calling Eva La Rue famous is actually stretching it.

Lifetimeness: 8

Out of the three male characters, one's a rapist and the other's a cheat. The movie plays on crazy fears of losing a baby. There are countless scenes of mother-daughter awkwardness. I've said some pretty nasty things about this movie. But don't get me wrong, it screams Lifetime.

GRAND TOTAL: 17

There was so much more room for improvement here. Maybe if the rapist attacked Rosa. Or if the acting was worse. Or, Hell, if the husband was the mastermind behind the whole thing. It needed that something extra. As is, I can't recommend it.

No One Would Tell

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You can find our archives there.

No One Would Tell is an oldie-but-goodie that premiered all the way back in May, 1996. One only need to look at the IMDB plot keywords to see what we're dealing with here:

Physical Abuse / Abusive Boyfriend / Disturbing / Bowling / High School

Oh yes. Prepare to be bowled over by this made-for-tv masterpiece. Also, yay for puns.

We open in the woods. Fred Savage, famous for his role in Wonder Years Boy Meets World as a sexual harassing professor, is sweet-talking his girlfriend Stacy. Stacy is portrayed by Candace Cameron. Wow. Kevin Arnold and D.J. Tanner? This movie is now required to be amazing. Anything less is a disappointment.

It looks like DJ just dumped Kevin. Kevin is not taking this too well. She promised him they'd be "together forever." We then cut to an extreme close-up of Kevin lips repeating the phrase "together forever." Holy fuck. I am being Rickrolled by Kevin Arnold.

Kevin emerges from the woods covered in blood. We flash-back to "five months earlier." DJ is watching Kevin wrestle. She has a crush on him. Yee-ha. Later that night, Kevin invites DJ and her friends, none of whom are played by Andrea Barber, to attend a party at his family's little shack by the lake. DJ and Kevin somehow connect despite DJ's boring, never-ending conversations about how she and her mom are so close. He seals the deal by giving her a unicorn necklace. "Unicorns are my favorite!" Ugh. Man, I'd stab her too.

Why does DJ always date wrestling captains?

I guess now would be the time to mention that every scene in this movie is in extreme soft-focus. I guess DJ and Kevin didn't age well. The focus is so soft that the movie's stars are featureless. God damn it, I expect better lighting from my made-for-TV movies.

The first sign of trouble between Kevin and DJ shows up at 9:19pm EDT. This is 19 minutes earlier than my prediction. (Obviously we're not counting the actual murder.) Kevin is jealous that DJ is talking to her friends while the two of them are supposed to be alone in the library. He gets so angry that he shoves her. I argued that my prediction could still be correct since that was only a shove and I guessed 9:38 for the first slap. A shove isn't as bad as a slap, right? My friends and roomates wouldn't engage in this argument so I guess I won.

The story chugs along. We learn that DJ lost her virginity to Kevin. Also, shockingly, Kevin has some real problematic jealousy issues. He expects DJ to only leave the house with his permission. He keeps bruising her by shoving her and grabbing her wrist and shoulders. Etc, etc, etc.

Soon, DJ's mother notices the bruises. Does she contact the authorities? No. She wouldn't tell.

Then her friends notice the bruises. But they wouldn't tell.

Kevin's wrestling coach sees Kevin shove DJ, but he wouldn't tell.

Then Kevin's friends notice the bruises. They wouldn't tell.

Finally, at a high school dance, DJ's bff and her boyfriend, Kevin's bff, see Kevin slap DJ across the face. They try to split them up, but DJ stubbornly insists that you don't leave someone you love. Surely they'd call the cops or tell some teachers what was going on.

No. NO ONE WOULD TELL.

DJ finally builds up the strength to dump Kevin. She spends her first day of freedom bowling with her friends. But she can't quit cold turkey. Kevin asks her to hang as "just friends." She obliges. They fight. He, along with one of Kevin's cronies, drive DJ to the lake. DJ gets her throat slit. "If I can't have you, no one can!" Then her corpse gets dumped in the lake.

Kevin tells everyone that DJ stormed off on her own. His friend and another girl, who is totally in love with Kevin, corroborate his story. But soon all of Kevin and DJ's friends put the pieces together. The male accomplice makes an anonymous call to some detectives. The body is found amidst some pretty deep melodrama as DJ's mom, played by Michelle Phillips, by the way, has a total breakdown.

Soon they're all testifying against Kevin. They all admit regret about not doing something sooner. The judge, Sally Jesse Raphael!, sentences Kevin to teen boot camp and a make-over. Just kidding. He gets life in jail with no chance for parole.

The movie ends with Judge Sally Jesse actually admonishing all of DJ's friends for not helping her. Let me paraphrase:

"HER BLOOD IS ON YOUR HANDS!!!"

The End.

Ok. The rankings.

Actual Awesomeness: 6

The lighting and soundtrack are so distracting that I can't possibly give the movie any higher than a six. So, a six it is. Sure the script is monotonous, but let's give credit where credit is due. This film was not poorly acted. I repeat, a movie on Lifetime, made-for-TV, was well acted.

Ironic Awesomeness: 4

Too well acted. This film is a perfect example of 1990's teensploitation. But, damn it all to Hell, it's not that funny. We know DJ is going to die. We know who did it. It just goes through the motions. It doesn't have any melodramatic twists that take a Lifetime movie and make it something grand.

Also, a penalty for avoiding all side-boob shots of Candace Cameron's body double in her shower scene. The scene is used to show all of her bruises, but, come on. Let's get some side-boob here.

Hey! That guy!: 10

Good God. Fred Savage. Candace Cameron. Michelle Phillips. That devilish looking guy from Six Feet Under and Conviction. Sally Jesse. GregAlan Williams. This is as good as it gets, people.

Lifetimeness: 7

Ok. All the dudes, save for one boyfriend, are bad. It's melodramatic. It's just, I don't know. It's missing something. It probably deserves a ten, but I can't give it more than a seven. It's just missing that extra oomph.

GRAND TOTAL: 27

If only there were a disclosure of date rape or something like that. Then we'd be in the high 30s. No One Would Tell is an almost-classic. It's just not hilarious enough. Even the physical abuse scenes are understated enough to avoid the slapstick comedy I was expecting and hoping for.

I guess I expected better from a movie starring the director of Daddy Day Camp.

Tell Me No Lies

The idea to start a Lifetime blog had been floating in my head for months. My friends, many of whom are considerably more talented at the art of the written word, and I adore Lifetime and it seemed like a waste of our collective talent (and brain cells) to watch this crap and have it disappear into the ether. This shit needs to be documented, yo.

Watching Tell Me No Lies last night pushed me over the edge. What a delightful piece of crap.

We open with a party. A teenage party. With solo cups! That's Lifetimese for alcohol. This is an underage drinking party! From here, the opportunities are infinite. Will there be a date rape? Maybe some drunken sex leads to a pregnancy? A DUI? A car crash?

Ok, maybe not infinite, but there are clearly a good deal of avenues for the movie to explore. One girl wanders off by herself, solo cup in hand. You can tell she is a troubled girl because her hair is two different colors, she is wearing a mini-skirt, and there is an Avril-esque skull on the back of her shirt. And she's wandering into the woods by herself with alcohol. Here comes the rapin'!

Awwwww. No rapin'. Instead she witnesses three teenage boys push another boy off a cliff. She runs away, jumps into her car, and is involved in a minor car chase before being stopped by a cop. She is arrested for the traffic violations, driving without a license (we learn later she stole her mom's car), and, hilariously, a possible DUI.

Now the DUI accusation is exactly why I need a Tivo so I can take pictures of this nonsense. There were beer bottles in the passenger seat of the car. The brand of beer was presented clearly. It was motherfucking O'Douls. O'Douls! If I went to some party at the woods and someone gave me an O'Douls I would bust them on the head.

So, back story: The troubled girl, Sam, is acting out after her parents' divorce. She clearly preferred her dad's company and is bristling at having to deal with her mom. And, boy, her mom is no prize. Sample dialogue:

Mom's Friend: "Maybe you should spend more time with your daughter."
Mom (Laura, btw): "Nah. I'm running my own business and taking classes."

Dear God.

Well, the mom starts taking a harder line after finding a lighter and, later, a "jazz cigarette" in her daughter's room. She realizes that now, more than ever, her daughter needs her. Or some bullshit.

On the other side of town, the three murderous boys are watching TV. Oh, not just regular TV. They're watching a video of the murder. They videotaped it! How, I don't know. They had a camera set up on a tripod in the forest, I guess? It makes no sense. In the background, you can see a fuzzy little blonde head moving around. Someone spots it and they enhance the video to absolutely ludicrous levels. Apparently these Canadian thugs have a video camcorder that's connected to a NASA satellite.

Oh, and the alpha thug, Jordan, decides to keep the tapes so that no one squeals. This makes no sense. We'll soon discover that Jordan alternates between psychotic genius and useless retard.

So, the thugs threaten Sam. They throw a brick through her window and say stuff like "You talk, you die, bitch!" This goes on for about half an hour. The girl keeps quiet, save for telling her bestest friend who I guess also has a secret? Sam freaks out and tries hitchhiking to her dad's place. He asked her not to come of course, because men are evil. This was over the phone with a newborn crying in the background. Daddy has a new family so Sam is expendable to him. And he sounds like a robot. Deadbeat Dad-Bot 4000.

Meanwhile, Laura-Mom is putting the pieces together. Why, the mud that was on her car from her daughter's joyride is also the same mud found at the scene of the murder. Which of course has been ruled an accident. (Does Canada not have decent coroners?) She asks her car mechanic's son if her daughter was at the party and if she knew anything about the boy's death. No bonus points if you guess that the mechanic's son in one of the thugs.

The other thugs hear this and start to freak out. Jordan cuts the mom's brakes. She drives off to pick up her daughter and she parks the car. Wait. Huh? I thought the braks were cut? How did she get from the mechanic to her daughter?

Of course, once the daughter is in the car, the car veers out of control! They can't stop! Aaaaaaaaah! The gravitational pull on this black hole of a continuity error just turned my skin inside-out.

The car eventually stops in a field. Boring.

Finally, Sam admits what's up. The reason she couldn't talk to the cops is because, and this one's a beaut, Jordan's dad is the chief of police. Of fucking course he is.

One scene later Sam is arrested for possession of Ecstasy with intent to distribute. Jordan and her pals videotape this and laugh hysterically. You'd think this would arouse some suspicions, but, no. It's becoming obvious that the mechanic's son feels guilty about all of this and is looking to flip on his two accomplices.

Ok, this all happened in first hour of the movie. Seriously, that is one hour of goodness right there. Where could the film possibly go from there? Well, let's see. It turns out that Laura was physically abused by her ex-husband. Sam's confidante was drugged and gang-raped on camera by the three thugs. Two of the thugs try and kill the "sympathetic" gang-rapist, murderer thug by first running him off the road and then, when he's in a coma, by suffocating him with a pillow. And the entire time the cops don't believe Sam and Laura.

This is exhausting.

Naturally there's one good cop who's willing to stand up to the police chief. He figures out what's going on when the Ecstasy in the evidence room has been tampered with. Sam was clearly framed. Jordan's police chief dad is starting to figure it out too. When Laura's mom breaks into Jordan's house to find the tapes, Hell breaks loose. Jordan comes home, finds a tire iron on his bed, and realizes Laura has broken in. He goes after her with a gun. This actually seems reasonable to me. What's the point of having a gun if you're not going to use it on a breaker-and-enterer.

The game of cat-and-mouse hits hilarious heights when Laura briefly disarms Jordan with a, wait for it, fire extinguisher. She calmly, casually stands in a corner spraying Jordan. Um, Laura? BULLETS CAN TRAVEL THROUGH SMOKE!

The good cop gets there before Jordan can finish Laura off. Jordan is about to take a shot at him when his dad shoots him in the right shoulder.

Jordan: "YOU SHOT ME!"
Police Chief: "It's about time someone did."

If my dad truly loved me, he would threaten to shoot me more.

Sam and Laura are reunited. The gang-rapist thug wakes up from his coma. I guess we're supposed to be happy for him, but with the discovery of the tapes, the prosecution will have no need for him to flip on his buddies. So, congrats on being alive, dude. Enjoy the rape and murder charges.

That's a pretty decent plot recap. My one regret is that I can't convey how terribly bad the acting was in this film. It was horrid. It wasn't good enough for community theatre. The two leading actresses would constantly miss their cues and beats. The tone in their voice would change from somber to inappropriately chipper at the drop of a hat. You'd watch scenes and think to yourself, "That's the best take they could use!?!?"

So, how to rate this piece of crap. Let me introduce you to my patented Lifetime rating system. Four categories rated from one (awful) to ten (great).

Actual Awesomeness: 2

Even for a made-for-TV movie off the Canadian assembly line, this movie was piss-poor. Other than a girl's teary gang-rape victim confession, this movie had no comic relief whatsoever. The plot was totally nonsensical. The acting was terrible. It was about 65 minutes too long. Ugh.

Ironic Awesomeness: 4

Yeah, it was so bad that it was hard to manage the ironic detachment so prevalent in today's youth. I mean, this had its moments. But I was desperate for this to end an hour before the end credits. The really great Lifetime movies should go on forever.

Hey! It's That Guy!: 3

One of the great joys of Lifetime movies is seeing actors and actresses you recognize from a hit TV show or movie lowering themselves to the Lifetime level. You can read it on their faces. "It's this or Cinemax After Hours."

Tell Me No Lies stars Kelly Rutherford. She's best known for her work in Melrose Place. That show is a bit before my time, but, hey, I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. Sam was played by one Kirsten Prout. Prout had a large role in the cinematic dud Elektra. I guess that's worth a bonus point?

Lifetimeness: 6

Points for mentioning gang-rape and for briefly mentioning an abusive deadbeat dad. Unfortunately, I felt the Lifetimey aspects of the movie were almost tacked on. Like they needed to make sure they had at least one unsympathetic adult male character to placate Lifetime's head honchorinas.

GRAND TOTAL: 15

Not a great start for this here blog. A 15. That's pretty poor. Maybe I'll get lucky next time and catch a Lifetime classic like 15 and Pregnant or Cyber Seduction. Those have got to rank in the high-30s.

Hello

Is there a greater pleasure than a Lifetime original movie? Is there anything more enjoyable than washed-up actors, Canadian scenery, and melodrama?

No there is not.

So I present to you, my faithful readers, "Lifetime, Wow!" I'll watch, review, and mock as many Lifetime movies as possible. Hopefully, a few of my friends will join me. Soon we will have a sweet blog that will be a huge success. It will be bought by Bravo and we will all be thousandaires.

It will also be a convenient excuse for me to finally get a fucking Tivo.