Happy Black History Month! To celebrate, Lifetime has given us Sins of the Mother, a film about an insufferable college student who refuses to forgive anyone for anything. Insufferable protagonists make for insufferable movies, and this was no exception.
Our protagonist goes by Shay. Or Le'Shay. If someone calls her one name, she demands to be called the other. She gets so righteous about it that, at one point, she interrupts a church service to yell at people for calling her the wrong name. Shay is having some trouble at college. She has some stress disorder where she is pulling out all of her hair. Her brand of crazy is freaking out her profs so they ask her to take a leave of absence.
Shay is such an awful person that she has no friends to turn to. So she flees to Washington to live with her mother, Nona. They haven't seen each other in five years. Apparently Nona had a hella drinking problem. When Shay gets to her mom's house, she finds a reformed woman who replaced booze with gardening. A woman who is active in her church, her community, and her work at a hospital. An amazing recovery!
Shay then makes peace with her mom and The End.
Just kidding! Despite getting her food cooked for her and living rent free, Shay takes the time to yell at her mom every chance she gets. Nona's sponsor and sponsee are coming over for coffee? Well fuck them! Look at Nona's stupid 12 Steps book. Hahahah! Nona reads cliched quotes for inspiration? What a rube!
Shay is the worst.
Shay doesn't deserve a love interest, but she gets one in a college dude who works at a record store. They both like Nina Simone. They also like to have sex. Shay was a virgin, so of course as soon as she even thinks about sex, she gets wicked pregnant.
On the Nona front, Nona's sponsee is backsliding and she drunkenly assaults Shay by pulling off the headdress she uses to cover her insane person scalp. The Sponsee keeps backsliding and eventually burns down Nona's garden.
Are you notcing this movie has no goddamned plot?
So, at a friend's wedding, Shay is all, "I don't like coffee anymore." And her boyfriend, at a fucking wedding, says, "Oh, you must be pregnant. I forgot to tell you that when I took your virginity that the condom tore off." Oh.
Shay spent the entire movie talking about not wanting kids, so of course she almost immediately dismisses abortion as an option. After all, the movie explicitly says "Black women do not get abortions." Jesus H. Christ.
The pregnancy gives Shay an immediate personality transplant. She suddenly loves her mother again and goes back to college in Iowa knowing that she is happy and knocked up.
AWESOMENESS: 0
That's right. Zero. Fuck this stupid movie. I see a lot of Lifetime movies where people refuse to get abortions. But those movies had some semblance of a plot. They had some kind of redeeming quality. This movie has no such thing.
Now, obviously I like the silly Lifetime movies more than the serious ones. I'm in this for the irony, man. Serious Lifetime movies are at a distinct disadvantage in my stupid, subjective ranking system.
I don't care. This movie was balls. Not the balls. Just balls. Big, sweaty, hairy nuts.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 1
This movie starred Jill Scott. The singer. She does not count. I don't listen to R&B stations. The one point is for Mimi Rodgers, the woman who was gracious enough to introduce her husband to Scientology and set off 25 years of hilarity.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
I am getting sick and tired of reviewing all of this anti-choice shit. But, it's a theme, so it's worth Lifetimeness points.
GRAND TOTAL: 5
The worst reviewed movie? Probably! Too lazy to double check!
This movie is brand new so it will be all over Lifetime. Avoid it. It's terrible.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Tribute
Tribute is based on a book by Nora Roberts, an author I'm not familiar with but I know I hate. I DVRed this piece of crap because it starred Brittany Murphy, formerly of Clueless and Drop Dead Gorgeous and currently of an L.A. toxicology report. This is one of her last movies, so why not check it out?
If Brittany Murphy never died, I never would have watched this. So you could say I'm taking her death particularly hard.
Murphy stars as Cilla McGowan, a former child actress living off residual checks. Cilla's grandmother was a big time singer and actress who won a bunch of Oscars before killing herself via vodka and sleeping pills. Cilla is moving back to her Grandma's Virginia estate to fix it up. No explanation given.
McGowan's neighbor is a hunky creep who writes graphic novels for a living. When some mysterious assailant cuts up Cilla's trees, leaves dolls lying around with knives in their back, and assaults Cilla's ex-husband (who tries - in a friendly way - to sleep with Cilla ONE SCENE before he tells Hunky Creep that he loves her like a sister) with a blow to the head, Hunky Creep demands that he spend the night in Cilla's bedroom for protection. He won't take "no" for an answer. How charming.
Naturally this asshole is the hero of the story. He proposes to Cilla after two weeks and manages to control every aspect of Cilla's life in that time and he is the good guy that every woman should want.
Ok, back to the assaults.
Cilla talks to her dead Grandma (who she has never met) in a series of soft focus dream sequences. My favorite is the one where Cilla falls down some weird bottomless pit.
Pictured: Rusty not exaggerating
If Brittany Murphy never died, I never would have watched this. So you could say I'm taking her death particularly hard.
Murphy stars as Cilla McGowan, a former child actress living off residual checks. Cilla's grandmother was a big time singer and actress who won a bunch of Oscars before killing herself via vodka and sleeping pills. Cilla is moving back to her Grandma's Virginia estate to fix it up. No explanation given.
McGowan's neighbor is a hunky creep who writes graphic novels for a living. When some mysterious assailant cuts up Cilla's trees, leaves dolls lying around with knives in their back, and assaults Cilla's ex-husband (who tries - in a friendly way - to sleep with Cilla ONE SCENE before he tells Hunky Creep that he loves her like a sister) with a blow to the head, Hunky Creep demands that he spend the night in Cilla's bedroom for protection. He won't take "no" for an answer. How charming.
Naturally this asshole is the hero of the story. He proposes to Cilla after two weeks and manages to control every aspect of Cilla's life in that time and he is the good guy that every woman should want.
Ok, back to the assaults.
Cilla talks to her dead Grandma (who she has never met) in a series of soft focus dream sequences. My favorite is the one where Cilla falls down some weird bottomless pit.
Pictured: Rusty not exaggerating
None of this is interesting or important. The bad guy turns out to be the wife of some guy in town who was fucking Grandma. Wifey killed Grandma and now, FOR NO REASON, is going to kill Cilla to finish the job.
But that attempted murder scene is holy fuck crazy. Wifey spikes Cilla's drink and tells her that people will think she killed herself or accidentally overdosed.
THE CLIMAX OF THIS MOVIE IS BRITTANY MURPHY WRITHING AND GASPING LIKE A FISH WHILE A BAD GUY TAUNTS HER BECAUSE EVERY ONE WILL THINK SHE ONLY OVERDOSED.
Why would Lifetime show that!?!? That's like showing Limp Bizkit's Rolling video on 9/12/01.
Oh yeah, Cilla gets rescued and lives happily ever after with a dude who deserves a restraining order.
AWESOMENESS: 7
The movie started slow and never made much sense, but those dream sequences where something special.
And I like my humor dark and black, but that ending... sheesh.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 4
No one famous except Murphy. I mentioned Drop Dead Gorgeous at the beginning of this review and it deserves a second mention. That movie is awesome. If you think Brittany Murphy suffering through an overdose in a film released months before her real life overdose is hilarious, you will LOVE Drop Dead Gorgeous.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
Harmony mentioned that the male love interests in Lifetime movies are often controlling assholes who would be portrayed as sociopaths by a sane television channel. Lifetime is very much unsane. Points there.
There was a startling lack of women's intuition though. Cilla only figured out who the bad guy was after Wifey was all, "Oh, bee-tee-dub, I just gave you the same poison I gave your grandmother! EFF-TEE-DUB!"
GRAND TOTAL: 15
The end of this movie was like a Family Guy joke. Mean-spirited and non-sensical. Tai deserves better.
But that attempted murder scene is holy fuck crazy. Wifey spikes Cilla's drink and tells her that people will think she killed herself or accidentally overdosed.
THE CLIMAX OF THIS MOVIE IS BRITTANY MURPHY WRITHING AND GASPING LIKE A FISH WHILE A BAD GUY TAUNTS HER BECAUSE EVERY ONE WILL THINK SHE ONLY OVERDOSED.
Why would Lifetime show that!?!? That's like showing Limp Bizkit's Rolling video on 9/12/01.
Oh yeah, Cilla gets rescued and lives happily ever after with a dude who deserves a restraining order.
AWESOMENESS: 7
The movie started slow and never made much sense, but those dream sequences where something special.
And I like my humor dark and black, but that ending... sheesh.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 4
No one famous except Murphy. I mentioned Drop Dead Gorgeous at the beginning of this review and it deserves a second mention. That movie is awesome. If you think Brittany Murphy suffering through an overdose in a film released months before her real life overdose is hilarious, you will LOVE Drop Dead Gorgeous.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
Harmony mentioned that the male love interests in Lifetime movies are often controlling assholes who would be portrayed as sociopaths by a sane television channel. Lifetime is very much unsane. Points there.
There was a startling lack of women's intuition though. Cilla only figured out who the bad guy was after Wifey was all, "Oh, bee-tee-dub, I just gave you the same poison I gave your grandmother! EFF-TEE-DUB!"
GRAND TOTAL: 15
The end of this movie was like a Family Guy joke. Mean-spirited and non-sensical. Tai deserves better.
MAY SHE GO ROLLIN' WITH HER HOMIES IN THIS LIFE AND THE NEXT
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)