Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict is about noted author/sex addict Sue Silverman and her various secrets. I'm usually wary of Lifetime films that are based on true stories, but this one was pretty tolerable. On to the review!
We meet Sue at a fundraiser. Her husband is trying to raise money for the local hospital and they're wining and dining a bunch of rich folks. One rich gentleman eyes Sue from across the room. They meet up at the bar and both order martinis. They flirt but they're both married. That doesn't stop Rick from planting a wet one on Sue when no one's looking. They kiss by some vines. Sue keeps one of the vine leaves as a souvenir because she is pretty obviously crazy.
Rick calls up Sue a few days later while their hubbies are at work and they bone at a motel. Sue then steals Rick's Zippo because, again, the crazy.
Sue continues the affair with Rick as her home life starts falling apart. She only has a part-time job and she is failing at her womanly duties. This is made clear when Sue misses a job interview and Sue's husband complains that the cooking and cleaning aren't being done. Lifetime is painting the husband as the bad guy.
Now, demanding that a wife cook and clean is, uh, not acceptable. However, when the house is falling apart and, theoretically, the little missus should be home or at job interviews, if she's at neither, it raises some questions, doesn't it?
The husband goes away for a week on business. This drives Sue mad because she has some pretty severe abandonment issues. She needs to call her husband every day to make him promise that he's coming back. More crazy!
At this point, Sue is head over heels for Rick. So much so that she violates rule number one of having an illicit affair and shows up at his family's house and meets the wife and kid. Rick, shockingly, doesn't take too kindly to this and Sue freaks out. She puts on her sexiest lingerie (which she keeps in a secret drawer!) and her sexiest perfume (which she compulsively sniffs when she's feeling down) and goes to a dive bar. One mustachioed dude offers her a cigarette and BAM, it's a one way train to Sex Town.
To complicate things further, Sue starts sleeping with a new client at her part-time job. He's French and mysterious. He tells her that free will is a dream and a bunch of other gobbely-gook designed to get her in the sack. She resists but acquiesces to his sexy demands when, on the first date, he promises to marry her and take away the pain behind her eyes.
Sue foolishly tells her best friend of this plan and she isn't buying it. The friend gives Sue a shrink's business card.
Sue runs into Frenchy at a bar where she meets his wife. Frenchy awesomely pretends to not know Sue's name. This starts a nervous breakdown and she calls her friend for help. The friend and her husband come to her house to check on her and Sue thanks them by trying to sleep with the husband. This fails. To the shrink we go!
Oh, somewhere in this mess Sue goes to her parents' 35th anniversary party. At least she doesn't have daddy issues.
Jay kay! Her dad had been fucking her on the regular for her entire childhood and adolescence. He even called Sue his "real wife." And they say romance is dead. Sue tells her shrink that she would be naked during these molestations save for a scarf that her dad bought her. The worst part? She still has the fucking scarf (and I do mean that...it is a scarf that was used during fucking). And she smells it when she is feeling depressed! Gak!
The shrink tells Sue that's she's a sex addict and that he can't help her until she's sober. So, she decides to go to a 28 day sexless boot camp for women. All right! Now we're talking. The natural progression of the plot leads to sexy pillow fights. There is no other option, right?
Before going away, she tells her husband that she has a problem and she needs to get it fixed. The cuckolded husband tells her in no uncertain terms that he could give a fuck about her. Well played, sir. She also has one last goodbye fuck with Rick who takes the opportunity to take Polaroids of Sue in her underwear to remember her by. Tellingly, the photos cropped out her head leaving just some ta-tas and a hoo-ha. Sue is having sex at the expense of her humanity!
So, sexless boot camp. There is an obvious lack of pillow fighting. It's just people talking about their problems and shit. Argh. Sue develops the courage to not use sex as a crutch. This is proven when a chiseled dreadlocked orderly tries to bone her and she refuses. Huzzah.
The desk in her room at the clinic has a few notes that previous sex addicts have written on the wood. Sue writes "Love surrounds us everyday." This is notable because Sue is supposed to be a fucking writer. It's "Love surrounds us every day."
(Note, I am also supposed to be a writer and I make that mistake constantly. Terri, my silent editor, fixes this for me.)
The film ends with Sue at a book reading. She is sharing her battle with sex addiction with the world as her therapist observes glowingly.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 3
I hate the beginning of this film. I don't know if you caught this, but the movie didn't have much in the way of a plot. Sue just sleeps with people and 90 minutes in decides to get help. Boring.
Some of the bit actors, namely Rick's wife and Sue's rapey dad, were just brutal. But I guess that's all part of the fun.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 8
But, when Sue starts going off the rails, it's a fun thing to watch. The awkward horror of finding your mistress, wife, and kid having a cocktail when you come home from work? Fantastic. And the incest angle? Brilliant.
This is admittedly sick, but I think incest has been sapped of all its shock and horror by Larry David. I don't mean in real life. Just in movies and television. I can't watch a woman baring this horrible secret without thinking of this:
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 0
Epic fail in that regard. Sue was played by some lady from that Lifetime show Army Wives. Rick was played by a guy from JAG. I recognized no one.
LIFETIMENESS: 9
So we have a woman who is crazy and is ruining the lives of many, many people. Naturally, this can be blamed on men. The father is one thing. But the husband? Did they really have to portray him as such an asshole? His wife had been sleeping with the entire town and, on top of that, she kept an untidy house.
GRAND TOTAL: 20.
A mediocre film with some hilarious bright spots. Since this one stars a Lifetime actress, it will probably be on again sometime soon. If you have two hours to kill, why not?
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
In Her Defense
Lifetime movies are renowned for their predictability. So when a Lifetime movie keeps me guessing, it can only mean one thing: the plot doesn't make a lick of sense.
Which brings us to In Her Defense. This is one of those rare Lifetime movies that stars a bona fide Oscar winner. But not just any Oscar winner! An actress who I've had a crush on ever since I first saw her in guest appearances in television shows, like, uh, Judging Amy. (That's right. I used to watch Judging Amy. You got a problem!?) In 1986, she became the youngest woman to win the Best Actress award. Since then, she's been racking up nominations for Emmys (Emmies?) and Golden Globes as a guest star in countless television shows. So obviously she needs no introduction.
If you still don't know who it is, would it help you if I told you she was deaf?
That's right! Marlee Matlin!
As you can tell, I love Marlee Matlin. I have high hopes for anything that she's in. This is quite naive of me. If she was willing to be in a turd like What The Bleep, Lord only knows what Lifetime has in store for her.
So, we have two attorneys facing off in Canadian court. Everyone has a vague French-Canadian accent that will make every line of dialogue a puzzle for me to unlock. I guess it makes sense for a Marlee Matlin film. I had such a hard time with the accents that when Matlin spoke, deciphering her was easy as pie.
It turns out the prosecutor, Debra, and the defense attorney, Andrew, are friends. They went through law school together and train together at the local boxing center. They even used to work together before some unknown indiscretion forced Andrew to bolt for defensier pastures.
Debra invites Andrew to an art exhibit where he meets Jane. Jane is a deaf artist. Andrew finds her ravishing. As luck would have it, he knows a bit of sign language. A match made in heaven?
No. Jane is married to an abusive Montreal mobster named Noby. Wait. Noby!? This guy is supposed to be intimidating? He's named Noby for Christ's sake.
So Jane visits Andrew at work asking all sorts of questions about divorce. Noby is worth about twenty million Canadian dollars. According to Jane and Noby's pre-nup, Jane would only be able to get 1/40th of that. Unless Noby dies. Hmmmm.
Andrew is an idiot so he decides to help her in the divorce. He drives to her Canadian ranch and she feeds him muffins. Then, while they're both chewing, she starts kissing him. It's really gross. Then they fuck on a rug in front of a fire.
Jane asks for some tissues from a cabinet and Andrew notices a handgun. Well you can't introduce a gun in the first act without it going off in the third. Or, in this case, you can't introduce a gun in the first act without it going off in the first act. A few days later, Jane and Andrew are again fucking in front of a fireplace when Noby shows up throwing punches. Andrew shoots him dead and ignorantly insists that they cover it up instead of calling the police.
I would expect that kind of stupid shit from someone who has the cards stacked against them. Like when four white guys on a Georgia river shoot a rapist with a bow and arrow. That shit needed to be covered up. After all, burying someone under a lake is as buried as someone can be.
Because this is how Lifetime movies work, Debra is assigned the case. One of Noby's underlings tells the cops that he sold Jane a gun that matches the gun that was used to shoot Noby in the heart. That's all the evidence they have. A drug addict claiming to sell her a gun. That and some previous affairs. Apparently this is enough to try someone for murder in Canada. Jane wisely hires the obviously incompetent Andrew as her attorney.
Then we get a flash forward from the district attorney (Debra is his ADA). He mentions the elements of the perfect murder. An abused woman, a gun, and a smart attorney. Um, ok? Then he says that the murder is perfect because we as humans are not. What the Hell does that mean?
So there's a trial and blah, blah, blah. Andrew is still fucking Jane by the fireplace. Debra notices something is up and warns Andrew to stop the affair until the trial is over.
The only interesting information that we're given at the trial is that Jane is clearly up to something. She had had a few affairs with lawyers prior to Andrew. And Noby made a bunch of calls to Jane in the days before he was shot. Calls to her at the Montreal Ritz-Carlton. So Jane might have set this entire thing up.
Andrew has a friend who is doing some sleuth work on the side. He says he found something about Jane that will blow open the entire case. The friend is quickly shot dead at a farmer's market. The gunman managed to time the gunshot with a child popping a balloon so no heard the gun go off. And, yeah, I know that makes no sense.
Andrew, mourning the death of his murdered friend, gets an anonymous phone call leading him to a bunch of documents that could implicate someone else in the shooting. He uses this evidence at trial and gets the charges dismissed. The other dude, another one of Noby's associates, is found with the murder weapon.
Wait a second. The murder weapon is in Andrew's safety deposit box. Aha! Jane switched the guns! When Andrew calls her on it, Jane tells her that she is totally in love with him. Andrew buys this hook, line, and sinker.
Andrew's career as an attorney skyrockets. He makes partner at some fancy schmancy firm and is on his way to making millions. But then Andrew gets mailed the explosive evidence that got his friend killed. It turns out Debra and Jane were both cheerleaders at the same high school. My response would be, "So what?" But Andrews pays a surprise visit to Jane and she is playing footsie with her Debra, HER LESBIAN LOVER.
Andrew threatens both of them with a gun. Debra explains that everyone wins. Andrew's career has taken off and Jane and Debra get to live together with Noby's riches. Sure Debra had to kill Andrew's friend, but you got to break a few eggs to make that delicious lesbian omelet. Andrew storms off, but not before Jane tells him that she wasn't lying when she said she loved him. It's just that she loves Debra more. Like any good attention-starved college student, Jane loves the person, not the gender.
Andrew remains pissed off and turns himself into the police. Remember the D.A. talking about the perfect murder involving the attorney? Now the D.A. is saying that the only thing that went wrong in this perfect murder was the human element.
Well, then it isn't the perfect murder, is it?
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 6
Point deductions everywhere for the French-Canadian accents. I had to pay complete attention for two hours to understand every word. The acting was pretty abysmal. It needed more Matlin. (Do you think she brings her Oscar to the Lifetime sets just to put everyone else in their pathetic little place?)
If you couldn't tell, the plot was ludicrous.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 4
But not funny ludicrous. Just stupid ludicrous. Usually I enjoy it when a Lifetime attorney has ridiculous highlights and people absolutely insist on making love in front of fireplaces and ONLY in front of fireplaces. But it left me cold here.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 4
Once we get past Matlin, it's slim pickings here.
LIFETIMENESS: 7
I was so confused. Here we have a movie where the protagonist is male. Fuck the heck is that all about? But then we find out it's a conspiracy where the two female characters are smarter than everyone else. That makes more sense.
GRAND TOTAL: 21
Not a great movie, but it was Citizen Kane compared to the dross that I've been watching on Lifetime over the past month. Tonight there's a movie about a blind woman learning karate to confront her rapist. Perhaps that's the return to glory we've all been waiting for.
Which brings us to In Her Defense. This is one of those rare Lifetime movies that stars a bona fide Oscar winner. But not just any Oscar winner! An actress who I've had a crush on ever since I first saw her in guest appearances in television shows, like, uh, Judging Amy. (That's right. I used to watch Judging Amy. You got a problem!?) In 1986, she became the youngest woman to win the Best Actress award. Since then, she's been racking up nominations for Emmys (Emmies?) and Golden Globes as a guest star in countless television shows. So obviously she needs no introduction.
If you still don't know who it is, would it help you if I told you she was deaf?
That's right! Marlee Matlin!
As you can tell, I love Marlee Matlin. I have high hopes for anything that she's in. This is quite naive of me. If she was willing to be in a turd like What The Bleep, Lord only knows what Lifetime has in store for her.
So, we have two attorneys facing off in Canadian court. Everyone has a vague French-Canadian accent that will make every line of dialogue a puzzle for me to unlock. I guess it makes sense for a Marlee Matlin film. I had such a hard time with the accents that when Matlin spoke, deciphering her was easy as pie.
It turns out the prosecutor, Debra, and the defense attorney, Andrew, are friends. They went through law school together and train together at the local boxing center. They even used to work together before some unknown indiscretion forced Andrew to bolt for defensier pastures.
Debra invites Andrew to an art exhibit where he meets Jane. Jane is a deaf artist. Andrew finds her ravishing. As luck would have it, he knows a bit of sign language. A match made in heaven?
No. Jane is married to an abusive Montreal mobster named Noby. Wait. Noby!? This guy is supposed to be intimidating? He's named Noby for Christ's sake.
So Jane visits Andrew at work asking all sorts of questions about divorce. Noby is worth about twenty million Canadian dollars. According to Jane and Noby's pre-nup, Jane would only be able to get 1/40th of that. Unless Noby dies. Hmmmm.
Andrew is an idiot so he decides to help her in the divorce. He drives to her Canadian ranch and she feeds him muffins. Then, while they're both chewing, she starts kissing him. It's really gross. Then they fuck on a rug in front of a fire.
Jane asks for some tissues from a cabinet and Andrew notices a handgun. Well you can't introduce a gun in the first act without it going off in the third. Or, in this case, you can't introduce a gun in the first act without it going off in the first act. A few days later, Jane and Andrew are again fucking in front of a fireplace when Noby shows up throwing punches. Andrew shoots him dead and ignorantly insists that they cover it up instead of calling the police.
I would expect that kind of stupid shit from someone who has the cards stacked against them. Like when four white guys on a Georgia river shoot a rapist with a bow and arrow. That shit needed to be covered up. After all, burying someone under a lake is as buried as someone can be.
Because this is how Lifetime movies work, Debra is assigned the case. One of Noby's underlings tells the cops that he sold Jane a gun that matches the gun that was used to shoot Noby in the heart. That's all the evidence they have. A drug addict claiming to sell her a gun. That and some previous affairs. Apparently this is enough to try someone for murder in Canada. Jane wisely hires the obviously incompetent Andrew as her attorney.
Then we get a flash forward from the district attorney (Debra is his ADA). He mentions the elements of the perfect murder. An abused woman, a gun, and a smart attorney. Um, ok? Then he says that the murder is perfect because we as humans are not. What the Hell does that mean?
So there's a trial and blah, blah, blah. Andrew is still fucking Jane by the fireplace. Debra notices something is up and warns Andrew to stop the affair until the trial is over.
The only interesting information that we're given at the trial is that Jane is clearly up to something. She had had a few affairs with lawyers prior to Andrew. And Noby made a bunch of calls to Jane in the days before he was shot. Calls to her at the Montreal Ritz-Carlton. So Jane might have set this entire thing up.
Andrew has a friend who is doing some sleuth work on the side. He says he found something about Jane that will blow open the entire case. The friend is quickly shot dead at a farmer's market. The gunman managed to time the gunshot with a child popping a balloon so no heard the gun go off. And, yeah, I know that makes no sense.
Andrew, mourning the death of his murdered friend, gets an anonymous phone call leading him to a bunch of documents that could implicate someone else in the shooting. He uses this evidence at trial and gets the charges dismissed. The other dude, another one of Noby's associates, is found with the murder weapon.
Wait a second. The murder weapon is in Andrew's safety deposit box. Aha! Jane switched the guns! When Andrew calls her on it, Jane tells her that she is totally in love with him. Andrew buys this hook, line, and sinker.
Andrew's career as an attorney skyrockets. He makes partner at some fancy schmancy firm and is on his way to making millions. But then Andrew gets mailed the explosive evidence that got his friend killed. It turns out Debra and Jane were both cheerleaders at the same high school. My response would be, "So what?" But Andrews pays a surprise visit to Jane and she is playing footsie with her Debra, HER LESBIAN LOVER.
Andrew threatens both of them with a gun. Debra explains that everyone wins. Andrew's career has taken off and Jane and Debra get to live together with Noby's riches. Sure Debra had to kill Andrew's friend, but you got to break a few eggs to make that delicious lesbian omelet. Andrew storms off, but not before Jane tells him that she wasn't lying when she said she loved him. It's just that she loves Debra more. Like any good attention-starved college student, Jane loves the person, not the gender.
Andrew remains pissed off and turns himself into the police. Remember the D.A. talking about the perfect murder involving the attorney? Now the D.A. is saying that the only thing that went wrong in this perfect murder was the human element.
Well, then it isn't the perfect murder, is it?
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 6
Point deductions everywhere for the French-Canadian accents. I had to pay complete attention for two hours to understand every word. The acting was pretty abysmal. It needed more Matlin. (Do you think she brings her Oscar to the Lifetime sets just to put everyone else in their pathetic little place?)
If you couldn't tell, the plot was ludicrous.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 4
But not funny ludicrous. Just stupid ludicrous. Usually I enjoy it when a Lifetime attorney has ridiculous highlights and people absolutely insist on making love in front of fireplaces and ONLY in front of fireplaces. But it left me cold here.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 4
Once we get past Matlin, it's slim pickings here.
LIFETIMENESS: 7
I was so confused. Here we have a movie where the protagonist is male. Fuck the heck is that all about? But then we find out it's a conspiracy where the two female characters are smarter than everyone else. That makes more sense.
GRAND TOTAL: 21
Not a great movie, but it was Citizen Kane compared to the dross that I've been watching on Lifetime over the past month. Tonight there's a movie about a blind woman learning karate to confront her rapist. Perhaps that's the return to glory we've all been waiting for.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Black Friday
I am having a crisis of faith. I love Lifetime movies. Even a lot of the movies that get bad reviews on this site. They're still a good way to kill two hours. But the last few movies haven't even qualified as "good bad" or "tolerable bad." They're just "bad bad." Like, uncomfortably "bad bad."
This review will, hopefully, be shorter than the others. There's just no way around it. Black Friday is the worst piece of garbage I have ever seen. I would have rather waited in line at the DMV for two hours. At least that two hour wait has a payoff.
Rachel is a single mom and bank executive who is in charge of her bank's security. She has set up a security system so awesome that no one can hope to break into the banks files. She goes on an overnight trip to tell a bunch of investors how awesome she is. When she gets back, she realizes her daughter and her sitter have been kidnapped.
That's right. They stole the plot to Firewall.
Rachel is told to break into a specific safe deposit box. First she tries to break into the box's owner's house. Naturally, the owner is found dead.
Rachel doesn't know what to do, so she calls her best friend. Her best friend is a blogger. You can tell because she says ultra-retarded things like, "Well, I'm off to the blogosphere." She writes "City Whispers," a blog devoted to, I swear to God, complaining about the city they live in. Lame.
A district attorney goes to the bank with a warrant the next morning. The dead cop told him about the precious lockbox and he'd like to take a look. Rachel stalls them and steals the memory card inside. Because Rachel, despite being the vice president at a motherfucking bank, is a moron, she asks the investigators why a cop would kill himself. Since they didn't mention suicide, cops, death, or anything like that, the investigators correctly identify this as suspicious behavior.
Meanwhile, the sitter tries to escape and she is killed for her transgression.
Wait, what? Talk about a weirdly jolting plot development. It's just so out of place for a Lifetime movie to involve executions of innocent female babysitters.
It turns out that the kidnappers are crooked cops who like to execute people. One of them is Judd Nelson.
Rachel makes copies of the memory card and drives off to exchange the card for her daughter. There is some arguing and a scuffle. They escape and shoot the evil kidnapper. The other kidnapper, Judd, is arrested on his police shift.
I'm sorry I wasted your time with this shitty review, but if I spend another hour thinking about this Lifetime abortion I think I will go mad.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 0
I am a better actor than these hacks.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 0
There is no joy in Mudville.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 5
Seeing Judd Nelson should be a cause for excitement. Instead, it's just sad.
LIFETIMENESS: 3
A single working mother looking for her lost child? Yeah, that sounds about right. But I'm taking away points for the murder of the innocent babysitter, and for the total lack of women's intuition on Rachel's part. Also, no black cops.
GRAND TOTAL: 8
Maybe I should be choosier and not just watch whatever old Lifetime movie happens to be on. These terrible movies are killing my love for this project.
This review will, hopefully, be shorter than the others. There's just no way around it. Black Friday is the worst piece of garbage I have ever seen. I would have rather waited in line at the DMV for two hours. At least that two hour wait has a payoff.
Rachel is a single mom and bank executive who is in charge of her bank's security. She has set up a security system so awesome that no one can hope to break into the banks files. She goes on an overnight trip to tell a bunch of investors how awesome she is. When she gets back, she realizes her daughter and her sitter have been kidnapped.
That's right. They stole the plot to Firewall.
Rachel is told to break into a specific safe deposit box. First she tries to break into the box's owner's house. Naturally, the owner is found dead.
Rachel doesn't know what to do, so she calls her best friend. Her best friend is a blogger. You can tell because she says ultra-retarded things like, "Well, I'm off to the blogosphere." She writes "City Whispers," a blog devoted to, I swear to God, complaining about the city they live in. Lame.
A district attorney goes to the bank with a warrant the next morning. The dead cop told him about the precious lockbox and he'd like to take a look. Rachel stalls them and steals the memory card inside. Because Rachel, despite being the vice president at a motherfucking bank, is a moron, she asks the investigators why a cop would kill himself. Since they didn't mention suicide, cops, death, or anything like that, the investigators correctly identify this as suspicious behavior.
Meanwhile, the sitter tries to escape and she is killed for her transgression.
Wait, what? Talk about a weirdly jolting plot development. It's just so out of place for a Lifetime movie to involve executions of innocent female babysitters.
It turns out that the kidnappers are crooked cops who like to execute people. One of them is Judd Nelson.
Rachel makes copies of the memory card and drives off to exchange the card for her daughter. There is some arguing and a scuffle. They escape and shoot the evil kidnapper. The other kidnapper, Judd, is arrested on his police shift.
I'm sorry I wasted your time with this shitty review, but if I spend another hour thinking about this Lifetime abortion I think I will go mad.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 0
I am a better actor than these hacks.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 0
There is no joy in Mudville.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 5
Seeing Judd Nelson should be a cause for excitement. Instead, it's just sad.
LIFETIMENESS: 3
A single working mother looking for her lost child? Yeah, that sounds about right. But I'm taking away points for the murder of the innocent babysitter, and for the total lack of women's intuition on Rachel's part. Also, no black cops.
GRAND TOTAL: 8
Maybe I should be choosier and not just watch whatever old Lifetime movie happens to be on. These terrible movies are killing my love for this project.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Eight Days to Live
Usually when I watch a Lifetime movie I know exactly what I'm going to mention in my write-up. I write these completely from memory. No notes or anything like that. Almost every Lifetime movie has something so patently ridiculous that it sears its way onto your temporal lobe. Notes become unnecessary.
But not Eight Days to Live. I can't remember a Lifetime movie that was so, well, unmemorable.
We're introduced to Joe Spring drag racing a fancy car down a windy road. He wins the race. Wheeee. The cops show up and he and his girlfriend hightail it out of there. She drops him off at his split-level home.
As soon as I saw a split-level, I knew exactly what we were dealing with: white trash. Before anyone here calls me out for elitism, just remember The Game of Life. Split-levels are the cheapest housing option.
Even if I was being an elitist, it still wouldn't make me wrong. Joe's family is indeed white trash. There's the stoner older brother living in the basement. The father is unemployed and watches hockey games at maximum volume. The mother is buying store brand peanut butter just to get by. The ungrateful brat daughter chastises the mother by saying store brand peanut butter tastes "used." Used peanut butter?
Joe, despite his dangerous driving habits, is the good son. We know this because he's the only member of the family that offers to help Mom with the groceries. But the driving habits are clearly a big part of his life. His license had just been reinstated after a reckless driving incident. How to celebrate? How about going to a three day party up in some town called Chasm?
For some reason, the shitty parents allow this. Well, the father does anyway. He totally undermines the good, caring mother. So take note. The father is a bad guy.
Joe claims it's a three day party, but in reality he is planning on spending a night with his girlfriend while her parents are away. The girlfriend decides she wants to bone in her folks' master bedroom. She even lights dozens of candles to make everything more "romantic."
I've always wondered about stuff like this. Did the girlfriend raid her parents' candle collection? If she did, it seems that getting caught for this little indiscretion would be inevitable. Or did she just purchase dozens of large candles? That's a lot of money to waste on a fuck. An especially large amount of money when you consider the girlfriend, Patti, works the carriages at a grocery store.
So, there is boning. Then, at 3:30 in the morning, some other lady, Lucinda, calls Joe's cell phone. Busted! Patti smashes his cell phone against the wall and kicks him out. Joe decides to drive out and meet Lucinda hundreds of miles away in Chasm.
By the way, the film doesn't present any of this in chronological order. That would be too easy. By now the family knows that Joe is missing. They're just explaining his story through flashbacks. So I'm going to be jumping back and forth here. Sorry. Blame the filmmakers.
On Saturday night, Joe's Mom, Teresa, gets a call from some of Joe's stoned friends. They wanted to know why Joe didn't make it to the party. This greatly concerns Teresa because, "Joe's a good kid. He always calls!" She calls the police to file a report. Naturally, the police's hands are tied. Joe needs to be missing for at least 24 hours.
Teresa is getting all sorts of gruff from her deadbeat husband. He didn't want the police to be called and he's pissed because Teresa's too distracted to - and I swear to God I am not making this up - drive him to a store to buy him pants. He has a big job interview! He needs pants!
Teresa talks with Patti. Patti admits to the boning and the cell phone destruction and drops the name "Lucinda." The Mom decides to do some sleuthing and find out just who this Lucinda girl is. Unfortunately, she can't get into Joe's computer.
But her daughter can! The youngest Spring, Becca, correctly guesses Joe's password: "Dude." They find an e-mail from a Lucinda with a video attachment. Oh goodie! The video features a busty lady, presumably Lucinda, putting on quite the little sex show. Nice. Becca awesomely observes that "it figures this girl is from a town called Chasm." Holy shit! A vagina joke on Lifetime that was actually amusing! Well played!
Teresa goes down a shame spiral. She thought she knew her son and now she's not so sure! What if he was, gasp!, smoking marijuana!? The father, who is getting a follow-up job interview, still refuses to give a shit about his missing son. Now he's all pissed that he doesn't have a new shirt for the new interview. "We bought that blue shirt in 1986!"
This is clearly the most impoverished family in the history of Canada.
Flashback! It's 5:30am, early Saturday morning. Joe is driving to Chasm to fuck Lucinda. But he's falling asleep at the wheel! Oh no! Thankfully, he is startled by a creepy child standing in the middle of the road. The kid claims to be on the run from his hunter uncle who is "off his meds." Oh. How reassuring. Joe gives the kid a lift back to his parents.
Joe gets to Lucinda's on Saturday morning. Lucinda asks Joe to give her and her very skeezy friend a lift. My viewing partner and I didn't know what to call the friend's haircut. We settled on "skunkhawk."
Lucinda and her skunkhawked friend have used the Internet and Lucinda's rack to trick him into becoming a marijuana transporter. Of course. Joe tags along, but he is so upset about the whole situation that he steadfastly refuses to put his penis inside of Lucinda. This upsets Lucinda so much that...
Present day! Teresa decides to make the trip to Chasm and figure out what happened. For some reason, she allows Becca to miss a day of school and tag along. They find Lucinda, presumably stoned out of her gourd, and she refuses to answer Teresa's questions. Joe really hit a raw nerve when he refused to sex her up.
Thankfully, SkunkHawk stole Joe's credit card. So the police have a trail. They raid SkunkHawk's weed operation and he claims that Joe gave him a ride and that was that. Flashbacks confirm this. They also confirm that for the second time in as many nights, Joe almost fell asleep at the wheel. Even the SkunkHawk was concerned. He offered Joe the opportunity to crash for a night. His offer was quickly rejected.
Awesomely, after being detained, SkunkHawk winks at Teresa and calls her "tasty." She screams obscenities and decks him good.
The father isn't a bad guy anymore. During his second job interview, he stared into space and told the boss man that he needed to be with his family right now. His son was missing and they needed him more than he needed the job.
And the stoner son is getting to be more sympathetic too. With the press camped outside his house, he throws a temper fit and shoves a reporter and knocks over a camera. All on live tv! He then goes inside and finally succumbs to his heartache and has a good cry.
The police now think they have enough information to start a proper search and rescue mission. They've narrowed the area where Joe might be. Of course, time is of the essence. A person only has a maximum of eight days without water before he dies. Perhaps you figured that out from the film's title.
The entire family and a boatload of volunteers are involved in the search. They even have helicopters and shit. But then, after Joe has been missing for seven days, they get some new information.....
FLASH BACK! Joe helped some old man change a tire 50 miles south of the search area! After helping, Joe finally falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a ravine.
Present day: Since Joe has been in a ditch for seven days, the police aren't going to offer another search and rescue mission. They bungled the first one pretty badly and Joe is almost certainly dead. The family and the (female) helicopter pilot urge the police lieutenant to call for another search, but it's out of his hands.
So Teresa and the pilot (twice the female intuition!) take the chopper into the air anyways. They find Joe's car and, miraculously, he's alive. The End.
We're supposed to feel sympathy for Joe. After all, he was a "good kid" who was "strong" and never "stopped believing in himself." Or he was a highway menace drag racer who transported drugs and who tried fucking Internet ladies despite having a loving girlfriend who would fuck him in the master bedroom. He seems much less sympathetic now, doesn't he?
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 3
So fucking boring. That's all I got. So. Fucking. Boring.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 2
This is like my worst review ever, right? I wish there was something that struck me as particularly funny.
Oh! When Teresa discovers Joe there is is some hysterical crying. I enjoyed that.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 1
Teresa was on the O.C. The dad was in one episode of Lost. That's usually worth a point, but that episode was especially shitty.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
Loads and loads and loads of women's intuition. And a mother stuck with three no-good kids and a deadbeat dad...what Lifetime demographic can't relate to that?
GRAND TOTAL: 10
I want my two hours back.
But not Eight Days to Live. I can't remember a Lifetime movie that was so, well, unmemorable.
We're introduced to Joe Spring drag racing a fancy car down a windy road. He wins the race. Wheeee. The cops show up and he and his girlfriend hightail it out of there. She drops him off at his split-level home.
As soon as I saw a split-level, I knew exactly what we were dealing with: white trash. Before anyone here calls me out for elitism, just remember The Game of Life. Split-levels are the cheapest housing option.
Even if I was being an elitist, it still wouldn't make me wrong. Joe's family is indeed white trash. There's the stoner older brother living in the basement. The father is unemployed and watches hockey games at maximum volume. The mother is buying store brand peanut butter just to get by. The ungrateful brat daughter chastises the mother by saying store brand peanut butter tastes "used." Used peanut butter?
Joe, despite his dangerous driving habits, is the good son. We know this because he's the only member of the family that offers to help Mom with the groceries. But the driving habits are clearly a big part of his life. His license had just been reinstated after a reckless driving incident. How to celebrate? How about going to a three day party up in some town called Chasm?
For some reason, the shitty parents allow this. Well, the father does anyway. He totally undermines the good, caring mother. So take note. The father is a bad guy.
Joe claims it's a three day party, but in reality he is planning on spending a night with his girlfriend while her parents are away. The girlfriend decides she wants to bone in her folks' master bedroom. She even lights dozens of candles to make everything more "romantic."
I've always wondered about stuff like this. Did the girlfriend raid her parents' candle collection? If she did, it seems that getting caught for this little indiscretion would be inevitable. Or did she just purchase dozens of large candles? That's a lot of money to waste on a fuck. An especially large amount of money when you consider the girlfriend, Patti, works the carriages at a grocery store.
So, there is boning. Then, at 3:30 in the morning, some other lady, Lucinda, calls Joe's cell phone. Busted! Patti smashes his cell phone against the wall and kicks him out. Joe decides to drive out and meet Lucinda hundreds of miles away in Chasm.
By the way, the film doesn't present any of this in chronological order. That would be too easy. By now the family knows that Joe is missing. They're just explaining his story through flashbacks. So I'm going to be jumping back and forth here. Sorry. Blame the filmmakers.
On Saturday night, Joe's Mom, Teresa, gets a call from some of Joe's stoned friends. They wanted to know why Joe didn't make it to the party. This greatly concerns Teresa because, "Joe's a good kid. He always calls!" She calls the police to file a report. Naturally, the police's hands are tied. Joe needs to be missing for at least 24 hours.
Teresa is getting all sorts of gruff from her deadbeat husband. He didn't want the police to be called and he's pissed because Teresa's too distracted to - and I swear to God I am not making this up - drive him to a store to buy him pants. He has a big job interview! He needs pants!
Teresa talks with Patti. Patti admits to the boning and the cell phone destruction and drops the name "Lucinda." The Mom decides to do some sleuthing and find out just who this Lucinda girl is. Unfortunately, she can't get into Joe's computer.
But her daughter can! The youngest Spring, Becca, correctly guesses Joe's password: "Dude." They find an e-mail from a Lucinda with a video attachment. Oh goodie! The video features a busty lady, presumably Lucinda, putting on quite the little sex show. Nice. Becca awesomely observes that "it figures this girl is from a town called Chasm." Holy shit! A vagina joke on Lifetime that was actually amusing! Well played!
Teresa goes down a shame spiral. She thought she knew her son and now she's not so sure! What if he was, gasp!, smoking marijuana!? The father, who is getting a follow-up job interview, still refuses to give a shit about his missing son. Now he's all pissed that he doesn't have a new shirt for the new interview. "We bought that blue shirt in 1986!"
This is clearly the most impoverished family in the history of Canada.
Flashback! It's 5:30am, early Saturday morning. Joe is driving to Chasm to fuck Lucinda. But he's falling asleep at the wheel! Oh no! Thankfully, he is startled by a creepy child standing in the middle of the road. The kid claims to be on the run from his hunter uncle who is "off his meds." Oh. How reassuring. Joe gives the kid a lift back to his parents.
Joe gets to Lucinda's on Saturday morning. Lucinda asks Joe to give her and her very skeezy friend a lift. My viewing partner and I didn't know what to call the friend's haircut. We settled on "skunkhawk."
Lucinda and her skunkhawked friend have used the Internet and Lucinda's rack to trick him into becoming a marijuana transporter. Of course. Joe tags along, but he is so upset about the whole situation that he steadfastly refuses to put his penis inside of Lucinda. This upsets Lucinda so much that...
Present day! Teresa decides to make the trip to Chasm and figure out what happened. For some reason, she allows Becca to miss a day of school and tag along. They find Lucinda, presumably stoned out of her gourd, and she refuses to answer Teresa's questions. Joe really hit a raw nerve when he refused to sex her up.
Thankfully, SkunkHawk stole Joe's credit card. So the police have a trail. They raid SkunkHawk's weed operation and he claims that Joe gave him a ride and that was that. Flashbacks confirm this. They also confirm that for the second time in as many nights, Joe almost fell asleep at the wheel. Even the SkunkHawk was concerned. He offered Joe the opportunity to crash for a night. His offer was quickly rejected.
Awesomely, after being detained, SkunkHawk winks at Teresa and calls her "tasty." She screams obscenities and decks him good.
The father isn't a bad guy anymore. During his second job interview, he stared into space and told the boss man that he needed to be with his family right now. His son was missing and they needed him more than he needed the job.
And the stoner son is getting to be more sympathetic too. With the press camped outside his house, he throws a temper fit and shoves a reporter and knocks over a camera. All on live tv! He then goes inside and finally succumbs to his heartache and has a good cry.
The police now think they have enough information to start a proper search and rescue mission. They've narrowed the area where Joe might be. Of course, time is of the essence. A person only has a maximum of eight days without water before he dies. Perhaps you figured that out from the film's title.
The entire family and a boatload of volunteers are involved in the search. They even have helicopters and shit. But then, after Joe has been missing for seven days, they get some new information.....
FLASH BACK! Joe helped some old man change a tire 50 miles south of the search area! After helping, Joe finally falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into a ravine.
Present day: Since Joe has been in a ditch for seven days, the police aren't going to offer another search and rescue mission. They bungled the first one pretty badly and Joe is almost certainly dead. The family and the (female) helicopter pilot urge the police lieutenant to call for another search, but it's out of his hands.
So Teresa and the pilot (twice the female intuition!) take the chopper into the air anyways. They find Joe's car and, miraculously, he's alive. The End.
We're supposed to feel sympathy for Joe. After all, he was a "good kid" who was "strong" and never "stopped believing in himself." Or he was a highway menace drag racer who transported drugs and who tried fucking Internet ladies despite having a loving girlfriend who would fuck him in the master bedroom. He seems much less sympathetic now, doesn't he?
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 3
So fucking boring. That's all I got. So. Fucking. Boring.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 2
This is like my worst review ever, right? I wish there was something that struck me as particularly funny.
Oh! When Teresa discovers Joe there is is some hysterical crying. I enjoyed that.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 1
Teresa was on the O.C. The dad was in one episode of Lost. That's usually worth a point, but that episode was especially shitty.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
Loads and loads and loads of women's intuition. And a mother stuck with three no-good kids and a deadbeat dad...what Lifetime demographic can't relate to that?
GRAND TOTAL: 10
I want my two hours back.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Not Our Son
What, you're too good to watch a Lifetime movie on a Friday night? Well, lucky for you, my ideal Friday night is in front of the tube watching has-beens and never-weres chew the scenery. You're welcome.
Friday's film was based on a true story. Not Our Son follows the investigation of serial arsonist Paul Kenneth Keller. Keller had started dozens upon dozens of fires. And who made the break in the case? His own family. Betrayed by loved ones! Surely this will lead to compelling drama!
Alas, no.
The film opens over some stock footage of Seattle. Apparently, the city is under siege from an arsonist. One woman calls into a radio station to complain that her children have nightmares every night and cry for help every time they think of an open flame. These children need to grow a pair.
We're introduced to Paul at his office. He works in the family advertising firm and it's clear that something isn't quite right with him. He has a short temper and is enveloped by paranoia. He is going through a messy divorce and his car has been repossessed. To make matters worse, he spills coffee on some important documents right before a meeting with the big client!
The meeting starts off poorly but Paul takes initiative and ends up closing a big ad campaign. Finally, things are starting to turn around our ol' friend Paulie. But when the client buys Paul a new car, he immediately smells a rat. Who told the client about his repossessed car? Why are people talking behind his back? To get answers to these important questions, Paul physically assaults his sister.
Paul storms off. When his father/boss hears of his erratic behavior, he decides it's time to lay down the law. And you know the dad is a disciplinarian. Why? Because he isn't some regular dad. Oh no. He isa the MAJOR DAD.
I guess I should mention that Paul is actively lighting fires throughout the Puget Sound area. I guess it's an important plot point, but I didn't feel obligated to bring it up. You already knew Paul was the bad guy, right?
So Paul is lighting fires left and right with the help of a scanner. When the fire departments send out their trucks to stop one of his blazes, Paul figures out the blind spots in fire coverage and burns unprotected buildings to the ground. This includes setting a crucifix on fire and burning down a nursing home (killing three soon to be dead anyways old people in the process).
A woman walking her dog spots Paul driving away and gives the police a sketch. The sketch comes out looking a lot like Doogie Howser. This is helpful since Paul is being played by Neil Patrick Harris. The sketch, along with the police calling the advertising firm regarding Paul's white four door sedan with dealer plates, makes the family suspicious.
Paul is then shown at choir practice. This is perhaps the only awesome scene in the movie. Paul is singing Handel's Hallelujah chorus. During the final "Hallelujah," Paul looks up the heavens and sees a bunch of fire and explosions. Awesome.
The Kellers know something is afoot. They do some amateur sleuthing and come to the conclusion that Paul is most likely the serial arsonist. After a tense meeting, they agree to go to the police.
And here we have the Lifetime Dilemma. We know who the bad guy is. We know the family knows who the bad guy is. We know the police know who the bad guy is. Yet it's only 8:45! I have to sit through another 75 minutes of inevitability!? Ugh.
The next 75 minutes prove that Paul is an idiot. Every time he makes a run for the Oregon border or tries to escape the undercover cops trailing him, he ends up going back home or back to work. You see, the only happiness in his life is from his family. He can't give that up.
So the family gets one last Christmas dinner before the five-ohs go in for the arrest. They have steamed clams.
Paul is arrested and his father tells him to do the right thing and confess. That's exactly what happens. The Keller family hugs outside the police station and the mother hilariously and accidentally elbows the daughter in the head.
Oh, also, the police look through Paul's hospital file and realize he may have suffered neurological damage when he was born. This was kept secret from the Kellers. Just to make it perfectly clear that the Kellers were perfect parents and raising a monster wasn't their fault.
This reveal also features Major Dad crying and, frankly, I am not comfortable with that.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 2
This movie was awful. Just because someone is a serial arsonist does not mean their story is compelling.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 3
Other than that sweet explosion montage set to Handel's "Messiah," this movie didn't feature any yuks. Save for the blooper where the daughter gets hit in the noggin'. I enjoyed that more than I should have.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 5
I have never seen an episode of Doogie Howser. Nor have I ever watched How I Met Your Mother. And I never saw Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. So I'm not all that excited by Neil Patrick Harris in weirdo glasses and with a pencil thin mustache. I only care about Major Dad.
(Does anyone remember the episode where Major Dad was embarrassed that his wife Polly's middle name was "Esther"? Or the episode where one his ungrateful brat step-daughters lost his father's [Colonel Grandpa?] Purple Heart? Classic.)
LIFETIMENESS: 0
There is hardly any female presence in this movie. The un-Lifetimeness of this movie was so shocking that I had to double check and make sure this movie wasn't intended for TNT or something like that.
Nope. Original Lifetime movie.
What the Hell, Lifetime? There were like eight cops and none of them were black sergeants who say stuff like "God help us all if you're wrong, Thompson." The mother was fucking useless. The daughter had the slightest bit of intuition, but no more than her father and brother.
What a waste.
GRAND TOTAL: 10
I believe this is the worst ranked movie on this site. A well earned distinction.
Friday's film was based on a true story. Not Our Son follows the investigation of serial arsonist Paul Kenneth Keller. Keller had started dozens upon dozens of fires. And who made the break in the case? His own family. Betrayed by loved ones! Surely this will lead to compelling drama!
Alas, no.
The film opens over some stock footage of Seattle. Apparently, the city is under siege from an arsonist. One woman calls into a radio station to complain that her children have nightmares every night and cry for help every time they think of an open flame. These children need to grow a pair.
We're introduced to Paul at his office. He works in the family advertising firm and it's clear that something isn't quite right with him. He has a short temper and is enveloped by paranoia. He is going through a messy divorce and his car has been repossessed. To make matters worse, he spills coffee on some important documents right before a meeting with the big client!
The meeting starts off poorly but Paul takes initiative and ends up closing a big ad campaign. Finally, things are starting to turn around our ol' friend Paulie. But when the client buys Paul a new car, he immediately smells a rat. Who told the client about his repossessed car? Why are people talking behind his back? To get answers to these important questions, Paul physically assaults his sister.
Paul storms off. When his father/boss hears of his erratic behavior, he decides it's time to lay down the law. And you know the dad is a disciplinarian. Why? Because he isn't some regular dad. Oh no. He is
I guess I should mention that Paul is actively lighting fires throughout the Puget Sound area. I guess it's an important plot point, but I didn't feel obligated to bring it up. You already knew Paul was the bad guy, right?
So Paul is lighting fires left and right with the help of a scanner. When the fire departments send out their trucks to stop one of his blazes, Paul figures out the blind spots in fire coverage and burns unprotected buildings to the ground. This includes setting a crucifix on fire and burning down a nursing home (killing three soon to be dead anyways old people in the process).
A woman walking her dog spots Paul driving away and gives the police a sketch. The sketch comes out looking a lot like Doogie Howser. This is helpful since Paul is being played by Neil Patrick Harris. The sketch, along with the police calling the advertising firm regarding Paul's white four door sedan with dealer plates, makes the family suspicious.
Paul is then shown at choir practice. This is perhaps the only awesome scene in the movie. Paul is singing Handel's Hallelujah chorus. During the final "Hallelujah," Paul looks up the heavens and sees a bunch of fire and explosions. Awesome.
The Kellers know something is afoot. They do some amateur sleuthing and come to the conclusion that Paul is most likely the serial arsonist. After a tense meeting, they agree to go to the police.
And here we have the Lifetime Dilemma. We know who the bad guy is. We know the family knows who the bad guy is. We know the police know who the bad guy is. Yet it's only 8:45! I have to sit through another 75 minutes of inevitability!? Ugh.
The next 75 minutes prove that Paul is an idiot. Every time he makes a run for the Oregon border or tries to escape the undercover cops trailing him, he ends up going back home or back to work. You see, the only happiness in his life is from his family. He can't give that up.
So the family gets one last Christmas dinner before the five-ohs go in for the arrest. They have steamed clams.
Paul is arrested and his father tells him to do the right thing and confess. That's exactly what happens. The Keller family hugs outside the police station and the mother hilariously and accidentally elbows the daughter in the head.
Oh, also, the police look through Paul's hospital file and realize he may have suffered neurological damage when he was born. This was kept secret from the Kellers. Just to make it perfectly clear that the Kellers were perfect parents and raising a monster wasn't their fault.
This reveal also features Major Dad crying and, frankly, I am not comfortable with that.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 2
This movie was awful. Just because someone is a serial arsonist does not mean their story is compelling.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 3
Other than that sweet explosion montage set to Handel's "Messiah," this movie didn't feature any yuks. Save for the blooper where the daughter gets hit in the noggin'. I enjoyed that more than I should have.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 5
I have never seen an episode of Doogie Howser. Nor have I ever watched How I Met Your Mother. And I never saw Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. So I'm not all that excited by Neil Patrick Harris in weirdo glasses and with a pencil thin mustache. I only care about Major Dad.
(Does anyone remember the episode where Major Dad was embarrassed that his wife Polly's middle name was "Esther"? Or the episode where one his ungrateful brat step-daughters lost his father's [Colonel Grandpa?] Purple Heart? Classic.)
LIFETIMENESS: 0
There is hardly any female presence in this movie. The un-Lifetimeness of this movie was so shocking that I had to double check and make sure this movie wasn't intended for TNT or something like that.
Nope. Original Lifetime movie.
What the Hell, Lifetime? There were like eight cops and none of them were black sergeants who say stuff like "God help us all if you're wrong, Thompson." The mother was fucking useless. The daughter had the slightest bit of intuition, but no more than her father and brother.
What a waste.
GRAND TOTAL: 10
I believe this is the worst ranked movie on this site. A well earned distinction.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Pavement
Circumstances beyond my control interrupted my viewing of Nightmare Street. It's too bad, since Nightmare Street was shaping up to be the best Lifetime movie in the history of womankind. Alas, I had to settle for Pavement the next day. Pavement was... well, it was something. It clearly wasn't originally a Lifetime movie. It had some bleeped out swear words and did not match Lifetime's award winning formula. But I double checked and it was never released in theaters. So if it's good enough for the Lifetime Movie Network, it's good enough for me.
Pavement opens in a hospital room. A woman is giving birth and something has gone wrong. A debate breaks out between the doctors. One is arguing that a baby so disabled shouldn't be brought into this world. The other argues that that isn't their decision to make. Surprisingly, the bad doctor is the one who says it's not their place to play God. I didn't know Christian Scientists could become doctors.
The film suddenly shifts to San Francisco. Because the movie is trying to evoke/rip-off Seven, the city is shot through a filter to make everything grimy. We're at an apartment where a no-nonsense female homicide detective is checking out a grisly murder scene. A woman has been found rotting. She also was stuck with over 100 needles. "I love a woman in uniform" is written on the wall in blood. Foul play is suspected.
You can tell that the detective, Buckley Clarke, is serious. She refuses to uses smelling salts and is the first one to move the body to check for maggots. She also drinks coffee so strong that even her most masculine colleagues won't have a sip. All of this is short-hand for "tough broad."
Buckley does find a phone number with an Alaska area code. And just like that the film takes us to the Alaskan tundra. There we meet Samuel Brown. Sam is a professional tracker. He's been hired by some ranchers whose cows are being slaughtered by a "lone alpha wolf" with "brain fever." Sam helpfully reminds the audience, "Alpha means strongest." Thanks, Sam!
Sam hunts down the wolf with his trusty tracking stick and his bare hands. Oh. And a knife. The knife is important. Sam stabs the shit out of the wolf and then looks to the sky and howls.
Ok, the howling didn't really happen. But, dag nab it, it should have.
Sam gets a call telling him his sister in San Francisco has been murdered. After some reflection, Sam decides to go to California and track the killer down himself. The first step is to break into the dead sister's apartment to look for clues. He retrieves some personal belongings, but not before he's spotted by Buckley. Before she can apprehend him, he rappels (seriously) out the bathroom window.
That night, the serial killer shows up at another woman's house. We know it's the same dude because he likes to rip the name of his victims off of their mail box. He's decked out in Buffalo Bill night goggles and a red hoodie. He's a tiny, effeminate little dude. Which doesn't really matter when your prey is asleep. He drugs the woman sleeping in the house. She's found the next day with 50 needles in her.
Buckley notices that the killer must have been in a hurry. Way less needles and nothing written in blood. She also notices Sam at the scene. She pulls him aside and yells at him for disrupting her crime scene. Sam could give a shit and he proves it by corrupting the new crime scene too. The officers at the scene notice that Sam is making the same observations as Buckley. Furthermore, Sam observes that the killer depends on sneakiness. He , or she, must be small. Then Sam does his tracking thing. He notices that the killer has a pronounced limp. In fact, he has a leg brace. This is confirmed by scratch marks found on a tree trunk. The trail ends at a bus stop.
Just as the leads are getting hot, the FBI comes in to help catch the serial killer. In fact, they already have a suspect! A former pedophile who used to work in a hospital. The FBI gets the SWAT team ready and off they go.
After the SWATs buzzsaw through the door (which was locked, bolted, and welded shut), they find the creepiest apartment in San Francisco. There are baby doll heads everywhere. Lots of gimp costumes too. Except one of the costumes has a dude in it! He is pissed and manages to kill three or four FBI dudes with his shotgun. He's about to kill Buckley dead when Sam bursts through a window with his trusty rappelling rope. This, by the way, is at least dozen stories up. But no matter!
Sam and The Gimp fight it out. Sam puts his rope around the Gimp's neck and throws him out the window. His neck snaps. I think the moral of this story (and Pulp Fiction) is that wearing a gimp costume will only end with you being hung.
Anyways, it turns out The Gimp is not the killer. He's just your everyday crazy pedophile who actually welded his door shut to prevent him from diddling little kids. He hadn't seen the light of day in years. How he managed to feed himself is left unanswered.
The actual killer manages to kill off a doctor. A male doctor. No needles, no artwork. Just a shooting. Sam notices the same type of tracks and he and Buckley convince the FBI that the killer isn't actually a serial killer. He's targeting specific people within the medical field. He only pretended to be a serial killer to keep everyone off-base.
After a long day of detecting and tracking, Buckley drives Sam over to his hotel. It's a sleaze pit, so Buckley invites Sam to stay on her couch. When they arrive, Buckley goes upstairs to change into something more comfortable. She reappears wearing an incredibly unsexy outfit. A men's unbuttoned Oxford with boxer briefs and a sports bra. All white. Meanwhile, Sam is shaving. In the living room. He doesn't like to use bathrooms since "there are no bathrooms in the tundra." When Buckley and Sam bone, it's filmed in slow-motion and is mixed with shots of the Alaskan wilderness.
The next day another doctor winds up dead. Like the other dead doctor and the two dead women (who were nurses), they all worked with premature babies. Sam and Buckley decide that the killer must be some kind of premature baby out for revenge. Buckley obtains a list of babies saved by the good doctors and, as luck would have it, the first place they visit happens to house the killer.
The killer's Mom pretends that her son is in a coma. That's clearly not the case. People in a coma usually have someplace to pee. Furthermore, the house is littered with evidence proving the son in neither unconscious nor innocent. When the doctors mention to the mother that the doctors that saved her son's life are dead, the mom panics. You see, she only allowed her son to play dead if he was out killing abortionists.
Buckley and Sam leave to obtain more evidence so they can get a warrant. She asks two of her partners to keep watch over the house. When the preemie murderer shoots his Mom twice in the chest, they rush in. They get shot and killed too.
Sam also decided to stick around, but he is only taken hostage. Of course. The murderer has some monologuing to do. His beef is that he never should have been allowed to live. He's nothing but a walking abortion. He decides to hole up in the abandoned hospital where he was born. Which, naturally, he has completely booby-trapped.
Buckley, using the skills of the Alaskan wilderness, tracks them down. After the preemie kills a good six or seven cops, we have our show down. Sam is hanging by a chain over an elevator shaft. The preemie has a detonator that could blow up the entire hospital with everyone inside. The deal is, kill the preemie and the hospital is spared, but Sam dies too. Otherwise, everyone gets all exploded.
Sam nods at her and Buckley shoots him in the chest. Sam saves himself using some sort of wild man rope climbing trick. Paramedics save the killer's life. The End.
That was exhausting.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 2
I can't even begin to quantify the terribleness that was Buckley. Here we have a name actress in Lauren Holly. The woman who won Lloyd Christmas's heart. And she was just brutal.
Also, and you may have picked up on this, Pavement's plot made no God-damned sense. The direction was just as bad as the script. When the killer referred to himself as "a walking abortion," I thought the phrase would be equally applicable to this film.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 4
Any sex scene that features cuts to the Alaskan landscape has to be worth something. Not much, but something.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 6
Buckley was played by Lauren Holly. Sam is a bit more famous. That's right, T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick. Now, I've never seen Terminator 2. And I gave up on The X-Files after season 4. So I'm not as well-versed in Patrick as some of you readers may be. But I will tell you this: I did see the end of The Marine starring WWE superstar John Cena. The man has talent.
LIFETIMENESS: 1
Oh dear. The male was the one with all the intuition! What the fuck is that all about!?
I will give the film one point for having a black lieutenant who got to yell things like "Fly straight or you're off of this case!" and "God help us if you're not right." I love black police lieutenants in the movies.
GRAND TOTAL: 13
I believe this is a new low. It's well earned.
Pavement opens in a hospital room. A woman is giving birth and something has gone wrong. A debate breaks out between the doctors. One is arguing that a baby so disabled shouldn't be brought into this world. The other argues that that isn't their decision to make. Surprisingly, the bad doctor is the one who says it's not their place to play God. I didn't know Christian Scientists could become doctors.
The film suddenly shifts to San Francisco. Because the movie is trying to evoke/rip-off Seven, the city is shot through a filter to make everything grimy. We're at an apartment where a no-nonsense female homicide detective is checking out a grisly murder scene. A woman has been found rotting. She also was stuck with over 100 needles. "I love a woman in uniform" is written on the wall in blood. Foul play is suspected.
You can tell that the detective, Buckley Clarke, is serious. She refuses to uses smelling salts and is the first one to move the body to check for maggots. She also drinks coffee so strong that even her most masculine colleagues won't have a sip. All of this is short-hand for "tough broad."
Buckley does find a phone number with an Alaska area code. And just like that the film takes us to the Alaskan tundra. There we meet Samuel Brown. Sam is a professional tracker. He's been hired by some ranchers whose cows are being slaughtered by a "lone alpha wolf" with "brain fever." Sam helpfully reminds the audience, "Alpha means strongest." Thanks, Sam!
Sam hunts down the wolf with his trusty tracking stick and his bare hands. Oh. And a knife. The knife is important. Sam stabs the shit out of the wolf and then looks to the sky and howls.
Ok, the howling didn't really happen. But, dag nab it, it should have.
Sam gets a call telling him his sister in San Francisco has been murdered. After some reflection, Sam decides to go to California and track the killer down himself. The first step is to break into the dead sister's apartment to look for clues. He retrieves some personal belongings, but not before he's spotted by Buckley. Before she can apprehend him, he rappels (seriously) out the bathroom window.
That night, the serial killer shows up at another woman's house. We know it's the same dude because he likes to rip the name of his victims off of their mail box. He's decked out in Buffalo Bill night goggles and a red hoodie. He's a tiny, effeminate little dude. Which doesn't really matter when your prey is asleep. He drugs the woman sleeping in the house. She's found the next day with 50 needles in her.
Buckley notices that the killer must have been in a hurry. Way less needles and nothing written in blood. She also notices Sam at the scene. She pulls him aside and yells at him for disrupting her crime scene. Sam could give a shit and he proves it by corrupting the new crime scene too. The officers at the scene notice that Sam is making the same observations as Buckley. Furthermore, Sam observes that the killer depends on sneakiness. He , or she, must be small. Then Sam does his tracking thing. He notices that the killer has a pronounced limp. In fact, he has a leg brace. This is confirmed by scratch marks found on a tree trunk. The trail ends at a bus stop.
Just as the leads are getting hot, the FBI comes in to help catch the serial killer. In fact, they already have a suspect! A former pedophile who used to work in a hospital. The FBI gets the SWAT team ready and off they go.
After the SWATs buzzsaw through the door (which was locked, bolted, and welded shut), they find the creepiest apartment in San Francisco. There are baby doll heads everywhere. Lots of gimp costumes too. Except one of the costumes has a dude in it! He is pissed and manages to kill three or four FBI dudes with his shotgun. He's about to kill Buckley dead when Sam bursts through a window with his trusty rappelling rope. This, by the way, is at least dozen stories up. But no matter!
Sam and The Gimp fight it out. Sam puts his rope around the Gimp's neck and throws him out the window. His neck snaps. I think the moral of this story (and Pulp Fiction) is that wearing a gimp costume will only end with you being hung.
Anyways, it turns out The Gimp is not the killer. He's just your everyday crazy pedophile who actually welded his door shut to prevent him from diddling little kids. He hadn't seen the light of day in years. How he managed to feed himself is left unanswered.
The actual killer manages to kill off a doctor. A male doctor. No needles, no artwork. Just a shooting. Sam notices the same type of tracks and he and Buckley convince the FBI that the killer isn't actually a serial killer. He's targeting specific people within the medical field. He only pretended to be a serial killer to keep everyone off-base.
After a long day of detecting and tracking, Buckley drives Sam over to his hotel. It's a sleaze pit, so Buckley invites Sam to stay on her couch. When they arrive, Buckley goes upstairs to change into something more comfortable. She reappears wearing an incredibly unsexy outfit. A men's unbuttoned Oxford with boxer briefs and a sports bra. All white. Meanwhile, Sam is shaving. In the living room. He doesn't like to use bathrooms since "there are no bathrooms in the tundra." When Buckley and Sam bone, it's filmed in slow-motion and is mixed with shots of the Alaskan wilderness.
The next day another doctor winds up dead. Like the other dead doctor and the two dead women (who were nurses), they all worked with premature babies. Sam and Buckley decide that the killer must be some kind of premature baby out for revenge. Buckley obtains a list of babies saved by the good doctors and, as luck would have it, the first place they visit happens to house the killer.
The killer's Mom pretends that her son is in a coma. That's clearly not the case. People in a coma usually have someplace to pee. Furthermore, the house is littered with evidence proving the son in neither unconscious nor innocent. When the doctors mention to the mother that the doctors that saved her son's life are dead, the mom panics. You see, she only allowed her son to play dead if he was out killing abortionists.
Buckley and Sam leave to obtain more evidence so they can get a warrant. She asks two of her partners to keep watch over the house. When the preemie murderer shoots his Mom twice in the chest, they rush in. They get shot and killed too.
Sam also decided to stick around, but he is only taken hostage. Of course. The murderer has some monologuing to do. His beef is that he never should have been allowed to live. He's nothing but a walking abortion. He decides to hole up in the abandoned hospital where he was born. Which, naturally, he has completely booby-trapped.
Buckley, using the skills of the Alaskan wilderness, tracks them down. After the preemie kills a good six or seven cops, we have our show down. Sam is hanging by a chain over an elevator shaft. The preemie has a detonator that could blow up the entire hospital with everyone inside. The deal is, kill the preemie and the hospital is spared, but Sam dies too. Otherwise, everyone gets all exploded.
Sam nods at her and Buckley shoots him in the chest. Sam saves himself using some sort of wild man rope climbing trick. Paramedics save the killer's life. The End.
That was exhausting.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 2
I can't even begin to quantify the terribleness that was Buckley. Here we have a name actress in Lauren Holly. The woman who won Lloyd Christmas's heart. And she was just brutal.
Also, and you may have picked up on this, Pavement's plot made no God-damned sense. The direction was just as bad as the script. When the killer referred to himself as "a walking abortion," I thought the phrase would be equally applicable to this film.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 4
Any sex scene that features cuts to the Alaskan landscape has to be worth something. Not much, but something.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 6
Buckley was played by Lauren Holly. Sam is a bit more famous. That's right, T-1000 himself, Robert Patrick. Now, I've never seen Terminator 2. And I gave up on The X-Files after season 4. So I'm not as well-versed in Patrick as some of you readers may be. But I will tell you this: I did see the end of The Marine starring WWE superstar John Cena. The man has talent.
LIFETIMENESS: 1
Oh dear. The male was the one with all the intuition! What the fuck is that all about!?
I will give the film one point for having a black lieutenant who got to yell things like "Fly straight or you're off of this case!" and "God help us if you're not right." I love black police lieutenants in the movies.
GRAND TOTAL: 13
I believe this is a new low. It's well earned.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
I'm Still Alive
There's no excuse for my two month absence. None whatsoever. I plan on fixing that by sitting down with some movie called Nightmare Street tonight.
Just a programming note. Lifetime will be playing the movie that inspired this blog tonight at 9pm. Tell Me No Lies. It's really, really awesome.
And yes I just posted this to increase the likelihood of people finding their way to this site after watching the movie. I am quite the crafty one.
Just a programming note. Lifetime will be playing the movie that inspired this blog tonight at 9pm. Tell Me No Lies. It's really, really awesome.
And yes I just posted this to increase the likelihood of people finding their way to this site after watching the movie. I am quite the crafty one.
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