There's still a question that plagues this blog. What constitutes a Lifetime movie? Does it have to premiere on Lifetime? Does it have to be made-for-TV? What makes the cut and what doesn't?
Well, let me tell you one thing, I wasn't about to quit halfway through Tempted just because there was a ton of swearing. Swearing, you see, means the film probably wasn't made for television. Well, I don't care. To not review Tempted would be a great disservice to my readers. This movie was spectacular. It also had a lot of stuff that needs to be covered. I have the feeling this could be an especially long post.
Tempted opens with a voice over by none other than Burt Reynolds butchering a New Orleans accent. He tells the audience that the swamp runs the city, and once you get in the swamp, you ain't ever gonna be squeaky clean again. Oh boy. Swamp metaphors! Wheee.
Burt Reynolds plays the fabulously wealthy Charlie LeBlanc. Charlie owns a construction firm and is a multi-millionaire. He's also married to Lily. Lily was once a Calvin Klein model and Charlie thinks she is the most beautiful woman in the world. So beautiful that he wonders why she would sleep with a 65-year-old Burt Reynolds.
Charlie decides to offer his part time master carpenter, Jimmy, $10,000 to seduce his wife. He gets another $40,000 if she succumbs to his wiles.
But Jimmy is more than just a carpenter. He's also a hotshot law student. He really needs the money. At the urging of his immoral, gay best friend, Jimmy takes Charlie up on the offer.
Charlie decides to leave town for a week to let Jimmy do his thing. He also, with the help of his loyal assistant, Dot, and his private investigator, Byron Blades, rigs up his house with video cameras. Also, before he leaves, he bones Lily in the shower. Burt Reynolds topless, ladies and gentlemen. Ewww.
Jimmy pops up at the LeBlanc mansion with the intention of boning Lily. He's full of smarmy confidence and cool one-liners. These fail him. So, he decides to go up to Lily's bedroom and jump on top of her and, I swear to God, sniff her torso. He tells her all she has to do is say, "Yes." She says the magic word but as soon as he starts pawing at her she whips out a pistol and kicks him out of the house.
Somehow, in the three minutes of conversation Jimmy had with Lily, Jimmy has fallen head-over-heels in love. He wants, no, he needs to make another run at her.
He starts stalking Lily and when she's shopping at the mall, he breaks into her car and turns her headlights on. When this is happening, Byron is planting a tracking device in Jimmy's car. So much intrigue!
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Charlie's secretary asks Dot if it's true that Charlie is offering someone $50,000 to sleep with Lily. Dot, who is not a lady but rather a huge menacing dude, tells the secretary that if she mentions a word of this to anyone that she'll end up in the river.
Lily gets to her car to find that the battery is dead. Naturally, Jimmy is parked a few spaces down. She needs to ask him for help. She does and he obliges. He also falls over himself apologizing for his behavior the previous day. She accepts his apology and, for some reason, she decides to go out dancing with him at a local blues joint. She also makes the executive decision to wear a slinky dress.
Lily and Jimmy grind on each other while Byron is in the back of the bar watching. When Jimmy goes over to the bar to buy a drink (Lily asks for a Bloody Mary after 5pm....TRASHY), she disappears. Jimmy is now batting 0-for-2.
Things start getting interesting when Jimmy comes home and finds his gay friend covered in blood. His ex-boyfriend, the governor's son, was in town and I guess things got a little heated. The ex apparently gave HIV to some 14-year-old boy and Gay Friend responded with murder. Jimmy and Gay Friend agree to dump the body in the river.
The next day, Jimmy has an interview with a prominent law firm that wants to offer him an internship that will pay for his schooling. He gets the job. He also gets interviewed by some local homicide detectives.
On the other side of the tracks, Charlie's secretary tells Lily about the arrangement with Jimmy. She is not amused.
Lily calls up Jimmy and says there are some more things that need fixing around the house. He starts working on the back door (the actual back door, not Lily's anus) and he cuts his finger on a screwdriver. Lily tells Jimmy that she is very attracted to him and proceeds to....wait for it....lick all of the blood off of Jimmy's fingers. Then they bone in the kitchen and break a bunch of valuable china.
Byron sends the video tape to Charlie. Charlie is enraged but, at Dot's urging, decides not to beat the shit out of Jimmy and give Jimmy the additional $40,000. But when they meet up, Jimmy denies any Biblical knowing of Charlie's wife. Charlie responds to this lie by beating the shit out of Jimmy.
The next day, Dot and Charlie break into Jimmy's apartment and knock him around some more. They tell him that he is going to kill Lily. If he doesn't, they will kill his father (a stroke victim at a nursing home) and then kill him. They even send Jimmy a Polaroid of Jimmy's dad and Dot hanging out for good measure.
The plan is that, after some event, Charlie and Lily are going to take a nice stroll through a creepy graveyard. Jimmy will pretend to be a mugger and hop out of the shadows and murder Lily.
Jimmy goes back to LeBlanc Manor to sleep with Lily again. He tells her about their predicament and she suggests that he abide by the plan. But, when the time comes, Jimmy is going to shoot Charlie instead of Lily.
Charlie and Lily go to the event, walk through the graveyard, and, just as everyone planned, the mugger jumps out of the bushes. He shoots Charlie four times. Lily then shoots the mugger three times. But, the mugger isn't Jimmy! It's Gay Friend!
Gay Friend dies on the scene. Charlie is in a coma. Jimmy is all kinds of pissed at Lily. That night, Jimmy decides to drink his problems away. But who should appear at the bar but Byron Blades. Byron tells Jimmy about the tracking device and also tells him that their "murder Charlie" plan was on videotape. It's implied that Jimmy pays Byron for the tape, but it isn't entirely clear. Anyways, Jimmy has the tape.
Lily spends the next day at Charlie's death bed. Lily yells at him for not trusting their love. When Charlie starts flat lining, she grossly starts making out with dead body.
The police interview Lily and they aren't buying her story. Why wait for the mugger to kill Charlie before she started shooting? Her lawyer gets her out of the police interrogation and
tells her that Charlie saw him right before he died. He had changed the will and had cut Lily out of it. Of course, the lawyer hasn't had time to file the new will yet. Lily starts licking her fingers and you know what that means. One way ticket to Freaky Town.
Jimmy realizes he's in over his head and goes to the law firm that gave him his internship. An attorney reviews the tape of Jimmy and Lily plotting murder and informs Jimmy that his services as an intern will not be needed. They'd be happy to take Jimmy as a client however. As Jimmy is leaving, he hears his lawyer's secretary on the speaker phone say, "Mrs. LeBlanc on Line 2." Oh no! A double cross! Jimmy punches the lawyer, grabs the tape, and makes his escape.
Lily gives Jimmy a call and they agree to meet in public. Lily offers Jimmy $500,000 in exchange for the tape. Then they're both home free. Jimmy accepts and they decide to make the trade in...a secluded cabin in the swamp!? Fuck the heck!?
Meanwhile, loyal assistant Dot has lost his grip on sanity since his boss was gunned down. He goes to Jimmy's and trashes the place. (The same actor did the exact same thing in Dumb and Dumber. This time, unfortunately, he didn't take the head off of a pet parrot.) He is going to hunt down Jimmy and murder him to death.
That night, Lily and Jimmy meet up again. They're about to make the trade when Jimmy asks her if she ever had any real feelings towards her. Because he was falling in love. Lily calls him on that bullshit and points out that he was trying to sleep with her for money. But she starts seducing him again anyways. She undoes Jimmy's pants and takes out his gun. Uh, Jimmy? What are you doing?
Lily pulls out her gun and shoots Jimmy point blank in the chest. What she doesn't know is that Jimmy had turned on her. The place was surrounded by cops! At the exact same time the cops show up, Dot shows up with a shotgun. (Aside: How did Dot find the cabin?) He kills one of the cops before he is riddled with bullets. Lily tries to run away before she is nabbed by Byron.
Oh, despite being shot point blank in the chest, Jimmy is fine. He has a "shoulder wound." The end.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 9
The movie was obviously stupid, but who cares. It was competent, and when you have a movie as batshit as this, competence goes a long ways.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 10
Only because there can't be a score of 100. This is a movie that had a governor's son with AIDS raping a 14-year-old boy and that was only a minor plot detail.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 10
Again, only because there can be no 100. Burt Reynolds would have earned this film a 10 on his own. All the other stars were gravy. Delicious, delicious gravy.
Lily was played by Saffron Burrows. Burrows was also the star of the cult classic Deep Blue Sea.
If you'll excuse me one moment....
DEEPEST, BLUEST, MY HAT IS LIKE A SHARK'S FIN.
Ahem.
Wait, there's more!
Dot was played by Mike Starr. Mike Starr is in the unofficial That Guy Hall of Fame.
And Gay Friend was played by Eric Mabius from Ugly Betty and Cruel Intentions.
LIFETIMENESS: 3
Alas, Tempted fails in one category. There was one female character and, yeah, she was conniving and manipulative and, yeah, she almost outsmarted every single character, but ultimately she failed. The only reason this movie belonged on Lifetime was because it was a woman done wrong trying to exact her revenge. And even that's a stretch.
GRAND TOTAL: 32
One of the all-time top scores for an all-time top movie. This is beyond DVR good. This is "Save until I delete" good.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Cyber Seduction
When I told my girlfriend, Terri, that I was a die hard fan of Lifetime movies, her eyes lit up and she told me of the legend of Cyber Seduction. Cyber Seduction was to be the greatest and most alarmist Lifetime movie that I was ever to set eyes on. The anticipation was so strong that it made the air thick. When we finally caught it on our DVR, the excitement was palpable. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present Cyber Seduction.
The film opens with a teenage boy who was just wailed on in a fight. Black eye, facial cuts, the whole nine yards. He's standing by a pool. He jumps in, presumably to drown himself. Is it even possible to drown yourself in a pool? Purposefully, I mean. That's impossible, right?
And now, flash back to three months ago. Justin is an all-state swimmer with a hot girlfriend who loves her some Jesus and two supportive parents. He's got it all!
When Justin makes state, the evil football players take notice. They try to invite him into some kind of jock clique. Inclusion to the clique is pretty easy. You just have to watch some porn on leader Tim's WebTV and bone the brains out of school trollop Monica. Monica is so stereotypically whorish that she maintains a website where she is in various states of undress. Someone sends the link to Justin and the descent into madness begins.
By the way, Monica looks way too much like Miley Cyrus. Associating the lady wearing nothing but lingerie with Miley Cyrus is a one way ticket to Megan's List.
Now, this is Lifetime. I understand that they are walking a fine line when it comes to what they can show and what they can't. But, good grief, seeing Monica in a Catholic school girl outfit with a small amount of cleavage is not pornography. It's Halloween. And, yeah, it's creepy when Justin takes his mouse cursor and continuously moves it around Monica's virtual knockers, but are we really supposed to believe this is addicting?
I guess we are. After no time at all, Justin is slowing down in the pool. He even manages to only get third at a big meet. Third! The indignities of bronze!
This is where Justin's mom begins to see a problem. She was a swimmer herself and she knows that Justin was suffering from lack of focus. She remembers that one time she saw something kind of porny on Justin's computer and immediately decides he is addicted. Because teenage boys looking at porn is just not normal.
Things devolve further when Justin's mom, Diane, tells her husband that they can no longer afford a weekend vacation to San Francisco. Why? Because third place isn't going to cut it for swimming scholarships. That's how much crazy pressure this witch is putting on Justin. Bad mom o'clock.
Justin continues to download "pornography." Of course he doesn't masturbate. This is Lifetime for Pete's sake! Instead, he downs energy drinks with an unprecedented gusto. He goes through a case in a week! Crazy!
At one point, Justin's nine-year-old brother catches the porn on the desktop. In exchange for promising not to tell, Justin shows him what's up. The brother is immediately addicted and is soon enough showing his peers and stealing CD copies of Justin's porn. Specifically, a disk titled...
Wait for it.....
Wait for it.....
VIRGIN'S VAGINAS!
That is a sexy, sexy title.
Also, Blogger spell check says that "vaginas" isn't a word. But "penises" makes it through. Those sexist assholes.
The mom finds Virgin's Vaginas in the kid's underwear drawer and now both kids have Hell to pay. They both lose computer privileges and Mommy buys a porn blocking application.
Justin finds ways around this of course. Downloading porn on to his Christian girlfriend's PDA? Check. Using the library computer to look at boobies? Check. Or, my favorite, using Timmy's WebTV to look at bondage porn. This doesn't go over well with Timmy and the football clique decides to boot him out of their social circle.
Monica still wants to fuck his brains out though. After all, Justin isn't getting what he wants (virgin vagina) from his current girlfriend and she is always listening to Switchfoot. As Monica so sweetly points out, "Switchfoot is for altar boys." Altar boys? Maybe. But Switchfoot is definitely for morons.
Diane is further convinced that Justin's porn habit is a debilitating addiction when she talks with a friend. This friend, you see, got divorced because her husband was addicted to Internet pornography. She warns Diane that porn will ruin Justin's life.
And it almost does when Justin is caught looking at porn on a school computer. This puts Justin on all sorts of probation. Not to mention the shame of having your parents come to school because you were getting boners in the school library. Justin is now super grounded.
But that doesn't stop him from sneaking out to go on a date with Monica. Monica takes him to the master bedroom and promptly starts taking off her clothes and dry humping our protagonist. But Justin soon realizes that the fantasy doesn't always live up to the reality and decides to abandon ship. Monica doesn't take rejection too well and has a hissy fit. She kicks Justin out of the house, goes to the bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror, and, I swear to God I am not making this up, starts screaming and smashes her head into the sink. Her head is completely split open.
Around this time the Christian girlfriend is finding porn on her PDA and Justin is totally dumped. He's hit rock bottom. He apologizes to his family and tries making amends with the Christian girlfriend by offering to go to church with her. She won't take him back, but remains open to friendship.
Then, while walking back from his girlfriend's, he's kidnapped by the football clique. You see, they think Monica's wounds (which now somehow include a black eye and a bunch of facial cuts) were caused by Justin beating the shit out of her. Oh, how I wish that's what happened.
Justin walks to the school and decides to jump in the pool to kill himself. But while he's underwater, he thinks about swimming, his family, his ex-girlfriend, and all the other non-porny things he has to live for. He decides to live! The end.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 7
I mean, it was what it was. If you can accept the fantasy that seeing a girl in a sexy outfit can lead to ruin, then the film was more than competent. No glaring plot holes, no terrible direction, competently acted. Not bad.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 10
I guess it all depends on how much humor you derive from someone drinking Red Bull as a substitute for jacking it. In the first 45 minutes of the movie, I was convinced this movie would rate a solid 10 in this category, but it gets old. The movie finds a high plateau of ridiculousness and stays there. After a while, it needed a push. And then Monica splits her head open. Done and done.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 3
Diane was played by Kelly Lynch. Hey, memo to Lifetime casting agencies, if you're making a movie about the evils of Internet pornography, don't cast someone whose boobies are on the Internet (nsfw).
Anyways, Kelly Lynch was in Road House which, uh, I admit I've never seen. I've heard nothing but good things. It's a cinematic blind spot and I apologize.
Timmy is played by Kyle Schmid. This is notable because he plays the exact same role in the excellent David Cronenberg movie A History of Violence.
LIFETIMENESS: 9
A kid is in trouble. Only a woman's intuition and God can save him!
GRAND TOTAL: 29
Sorry, Terri, it's not the greatest Lifetime movie ever. But it's damn good. It lags in the middle, but the beginning and end are not to be missed.
The film opens with a teenage boy who was just wailed on in a fight. Black eye, facial cuts, the whole nine yards. He's standing by a pool. He jumps in, presumably to drown himself. Is it even possible to drown yourself in a pool? Purposefully, I mean. That's impossible, right?
And now, flash back to three months ago. Justin is an all-state swimmer with a hot girlfriend who loves her some Jesus and two supportive parents. He's got it all!
When Justin makes state, the evil football players take notice. They try to invite him into some kind of jock clique. Inclusion to the clique is pretty easy. You just have to watch some porn on leader Tim's WebTV and bone the brains out of school trollop Monica. Monica is so stereotypically whorish that she maintains a website where she is in various states of undress. Someone sends the link to Justin and the descent into madness begins.
By the way, Monica looks way too much like Miley Cyrus. Associating the lady wearing nothing but lingerie with Miley Cyrus is a one way ticket to Megan's List.
Now, this is Lifetime. I understand that they are walking a fine line when it comes to what they can show and what they can't. But, good grief, seeing Monica in a Catholic school girl outfit with a small amount of cleavage is not pornography. It's Halloween. And, yeah, it's creepy when Justin takes his mouse cursor and continuously moves it around Monica's virtual knockers, but are we really supposed to believe this is addicting?
I guess we are. After no time at all, Justin is slowing down in the pool. He even manages to only get third at a big meet. Third! The indignities of bronze!
This is where Justin's mom begins to see a problem. She was a swimmer herself and she knows that Justin was suffering from lack of focus. She remembers that one time she saw something kind of porny on Justin's computer and immediately decides he is addicted. Because teenage boys looking at porn is just not normal.
Things devolve further when Justin's mom, Diane, tells her husband that they can no longer afford a weekend vacation to San Francisco. Why? Because third place isn't going to cut it for swimming scholarships. That's how much crazy pressure this witch is putting on Justin. Bad mom o'clock.
Justin continues to download "pornography." Of course he doesn't masturbate. This is Lifetime for Pete's sake! Instead, he downs energy drinks with an unprecedented gusto. He goes through a case in a week! Crazy!
At one point, Justin's nine-year-old brother catches the porn on the desktop. In exchange for promising not to tell, Justin shows him what's up. The brother is immediately addicted and is soon enough showing his peers and stealing CD copies of Justin's porn. Specifically, a disk titled...
Wait for it.....
Wait for it.....
VIRGIN'S VAGINAS!
That is a sexy, sexy title.
Also, Blogger spell check says that "vaginas" isn't a word. But "penises" makes it through. Those sexist assholes.
The mom finds Virgin's Vaginas in the kid's underwear drawer and now both kids have Hell to pay. They both lose computer privileges and Mommy buys a porn blocking application.
Justin finds ways around this of course. Downloading porn on to his Christian girlfriend's PDA? Check. Using the library computer to look at boobies? Check. Or, my favorite, using Timmy's WebTV to look at bondage porn. This doesn't go over well with Timmy and the football clique decides to boot him out of their social circle.
Monica still wants to fuck his brains out though. After all, Justin isn't getting what he wants (virgin vagina) from his current girlfriend and she is always listening to Switchfoot. As Monica so sweetly points out, "Switchfoot is for altar boys." Altar boys? Maybe. But Switchfoot is definitely for morons.
Diane is further convinced that Justin's porn habit is a debilitating addiction when she talks with a friend. This friend, you see, got divorced because her husband was addicted to Internet pornography. She warns Diane that porn will ruin Justin's life.
And it almost does when Justin is caught looking at porn on a school computer. This puts Justin on all sorts of probation. Not to mention the shame of having your parents come to school because you were getting boners in the school library. Justin is now super grounded.
But that doesn't stop him from sneaking out to go on a date with Monica. Monica takes him to the master bedroom and promptly starts taking off her clothes and dry humping our protagonist. But Justin soon realizes that the fantasy doesn't always live up to the reality and decides to abandon ship. Monica doesn't take rejection too well and has a hissy fit. She kicks Justin out of the house, goes to the bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror, and, I swear to God I am not making this up, starts screaming and smashes her head into the sink. Her head is completely split open.
Around this time the Christian girlfriend is finding porn on her PDA and Justin is totally dumped. He's hit rock bottom. He apologizes to his family and tries making amends with the Christian girlfriend by offering to go to church with her. She won't take him back, but remains open to friendship.
Then, while walking back from his girlfriend's, he's kidnapped by the football clique. You see, they think Monica's wounds (which now somehow include a black eye and a bunch of facial cuts) were caused by Justin beating the shit out of her. Oh, how I wish that's what happened.
Justin walks to the school and decides to jump in the pool to kill himself. But while he's underwater, he thinks about swimming, his family, his ex-girlfriend, and all the other non-porny things he has to live for. He decides to live! The end.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 7
I mean, it was what it was. If you can accept the fantasy that seeing a girl in a sexy outfit can lead to ruin, then the film was more than competent. No glaring plot holes, no terrible direction, competently acted. Not bad.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 10
I guess it all depends on how much humor you derive from someone drinking Red Bull as a substitute for jacking it. In the first 45 minutes of the movie, I was convinced this movie would rate a solid 10 in this category, but it gets old. The movie finds a high plateau of ridiculousness and stays there. After a while, it needed a push. And then Monica splits her head open. Done and done.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 3
Diane was played by Kelly Lynch. Hey, memo to Lifetime casting agencies, if you're making a movie about the evils of Internet pornography, don't cast someone whose boobies are on the Internet (nsfw).
Anyways, Kelly Lynch was in Road House which, uh, I admit I've never seen. I've heard nothing but good things. It's a cinematic blind spot and I apologize.
Timmy is played by Kyle Schmid. This is notable because he plays the exact same role in the excellent David Cronenberg movie A History of Violence.
LIFETIMENESS: 9
A kid is in trouble. Only a woman's intuition and God can save him!
GRAND TOTAL: 29
Sorry, Terri, it's not the greatest Lifetime movie ever. But it's damn good. It lags in the middle, but the beginning and end are not to be missed.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Thanks
Thank you to Jezebel and MetaFilter for getting the word out about Lifetime, Wow! My readers should be thanking them too since this is inspiring me to update more often.
So, Jezebelles and MeFi Folks, welcome!
Be on the look out for my review of Cyber Seduction. I am told this film is an all-time Lifetime classic that would fit in comfortably with Fifteen and Pregnant and No One Would Tell. That review should be up Monday and it should be a doozy.
So, Jezebelles and MeFi Folks, welcome!
Be on the look out for my review of Cyber Seduction. I am told this film is an all-time Lifetime classic that would fit in comfortably with Fifteen and Pregnant and No One Would Tell. That review should be up Monday and it should be a doozy.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Secrets of an Undercover Wife
Well, it's been more than a month since my last Lifetime review. I apologize. As some of you know, I recently moved from Washington, DC to Columbus, OH. So other priorities got in the way. But now I'm unemployed and have a DVR. The sky's the limit, baby.
Yesterday's feature was Secrets of an Undercover Wife. It with a couple on a lakeside cabin. They are making out and we get some pretty hot and heavy bra-and-panties action. Suddenly the dude decides to skee-daddle leaving Lil Miss Thing all hot and bothered. So she takes a shower and someone shoots her to death.
We flash to a blushing bride with her Maid of Honor. The Maid of Honor makes a few bitchy remarks about the Groom maybe not being the right guy for the Bride, Lisa. Lisa calls her on that and the Maid of Honor's awesome response is, "I don't know what I'm talking about. I can't even find a man." HA!
So there's a wedding and of course the Groom is the dude who left the bra lady to get shot to death. The wedding seems very nice though. That is until the FBI busts it! The Groom, Paul, is arrested on a bunch of white collar charges. He's accused of stealing investor money and diverting it to the Cayman Islands. A first degree murder charge follows soon enough.
Paul informs Lisa that he was having an affair and, for some reason, it's never brought up again. Lisa doesn't care. She's too focused on the murder charge.
Paul's apparent motive is that he, the lady, and another partner, Clayton, owned a waste management company. Hmmm? Waste management? I wonder who else is involved in this little venture. Let's go through the alphabet to see if I can figure it out. Job? Kob? Lob? Nope, I can't crack it.
Anyways, their big breakthrough patents are all failing so they would have to return the millions of investor dollars. So Paul resorted to murder.
Well, something clearly isn't on the up and up. Clayton, who is now dating the Maid of Honor (who is also Lisa's business partner), has basically shut Paul out of the business. And the attorney they hired is clearly up to no good. Also, Clayton is so obviously gay that my living room just interior decorated itself. The idea that this guy would have a girlfriend....no.
The Maid of Honor decides to buy out Lisa's half of their business (an art gallery). When Lisa asks if this is the right thing to do, the Maid of Honor (who should be renamed Princess Valium) replies with, just like at the wedding, more crazy.
"I don't know if it's the right thing. I don't know why....love begins. Or why love ends."
Lisa awesomely responds to that by asking if Clayton was hitting her.
And the answer is, YES! Princess Valium finds some of Clayton's paperwork and she decides to skim through it. When Clayton discovers her she gets the back of his hand. We get a quick cut to P.V. calling Lisa saying her life is in danger and they need to meet up. When Lisa finds her, she is already all murdered up.
At least PV had the good sense to send a text message to Lisa before her death. It's the name of some investment capital business.
So Lisa decides to go undercover and get a job there. She dyes her hair blonde and wears an incredibly ugly zebra overcoat. Her husband's bail bondsman (a brassy lady who eats pizza and drinks beer) says the zebra jacket is "professional." Um? She looks like a clown.
So, she gets an entry-level job and ends up making friends with the CEO who is OBVIOUSLY EVIL and who is falling in love with Lisa. Because the CEO, Michael, is a fucking CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation and therefore not a dummy, he quickly realizes something is up. But not before Lisa and the BondsLady use some gizmos like gummy bears (apparently you can lift fingerprints with gummy bears?) to break into Michael's office and get all of his codes and passwords and whatnot.
Oh, somewhere in there, Michael and his toughnik body guard (who looks like Big Bird with a shaved head) kill Clayton.
Michael kidnaps Lisa and tells her that he knows who she really is. It turns out that, shockingly, Michael is in the mob and on America's top-10 most wanted list.
So, let me get this straight. The FBI is is ready to bring this guy in dead or alive. Everyone's looking for him. And he's a CEO who shows up to the office every day? What!?!? Even for Lifetime, this is a wacky stretch.
Since Michael is in the mob, he decides to kill Lisa. Just kidding! He inexplicably takes her to the Cayman Islands to meet his mob boss father and rape her. Yes, seriously.
What Michael doesn't know is that Lisa is holding a transmitter that tells the BondsLady exactly where she is. So BondsLady manages to fly to the Cayman Islands, break into the Mafia compound, and save Lisa just in the nick of time.
Oh, and then the FBI shows up and tries to take Michael into custody. BondsLady refuses to give him up since she wants the multi-million dollar award.
The movie ends with Paul and Lisa's reunion as Paul leaves prison.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 6
Bad, bad, bad sound editing. Other than that, there were no real acting liabilities. I had no idea what was going on and the film kept me guessing until the very end. This of course because the plot made no sense, but whatever, points for confusing me.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 8
Here's a question that will determine if you will like this movie. When a character asks her husband to look into her eyes and tell her that he's not involved in a first degree murder, and the cameraman zooms to the guy's eyes...If this is the funniest thing in the world to you, you will love this movie. And, yeah, I think it's pretty hilarious.
Again, let me stress that this movie makes no sense. If you were working undercover with no help from any policing organization and you discovered you were neck deep in the mob, how long until you stopped showing up for work? A lot of the enjoyment from this movie comes from the total lack of women's intuition.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 3
I'm told that some people enjoy the Saw franchise. Well, then you'll recognize Lisa. She's played by Shawnee Smith and she's in all four of the wretched things. Other than that, slim pickings.
LIFETIMENESS: 7
Although Lisa's intuition was generally lacking, the BondsLady was a fucking superhero. Also, the bad guy was a powerful murdery rapist. So, yeah, that was pretty Lifetimey.
GRAND TOTAL: 24
Not the best, but definitely not a waste of time. I recommend it. I would have liked it a lot more if Lisa were a single mom whose kid was experimenting with drugs or something. Alas, you can't always get what you want.
Yesterday's feature was Secrets of an Undercover Wife. It with a couple on a lakeside cabin. They are making out and we get some pretty hot and heavy bra-and-panties action. Suddenly the dude decides to skee-daddle leaving Lil Miss Thing all hot and bothered. So she takes a shower and someone shoots her to death.
We flash to a blushing bride with her Maid of Honor. The Maid of Honor makes a few bitchy remarks about the Groom maybe not being the right guy for the Bride, Lisa. Lisa calls her on that and the Maid of Honor's awesome response is, "I don't know what I'm talking about. I can't even find a man." HA!
So there's a wedding and of course the Groom is the dude who left the bra lady to get shot to death. The wedding seems very nice though. That is until the FBI busts it! The Groom, Paul, is arrested on a bunch of white collar charges. He's accused of stealing investor money and diverting it to the Cayman Islands. A first degree murder charge follows soon enough.
Paul informs Lisa that he was having an affair and, for some reason, it's never brought up again. Lisa doesn't care. She's too focused on the murder charge.
Paul's apparent motive is that he, the lady, and another partner, Clayton, owned a waste management company. Hmmm? Waste management? I wonder who else is involved in this little venture. Let's go through the alphabet to see if I can figure it out. Job? Kob? Lob? Nope, I can't crack it.
Anyways, their big breakthrough patents are all failing so they would have to return the millions of investor dollars. So Paul resorted to murder.
Well, something clearly isn't on the up and up. Clayton, who is now dating the Maid of Honor (who is also Lisa's business partner), has basically shut Paul out of the business. And the attorney they hired is clearly up to no good. Also, Clayton is so obviously gay that my living room just interior decorated itself. The idea that this guy would have a girlfriend....no.
The Maid of Honor decides to buy out Lisa's half of their business (an art gallery). When Lisa asks if this is the right thing to do, the Maid of Honor (who should be renamed Princess Valium) replies with, just like at the wedding, more crazy.
"I don't know if it's the right thing. I don't know why....love begins. Or why love ends."
Lisa awesomely responds to that by asking if Clayton was hitting her.
And the answer is, YES! Princess Valium finds some of Clayton's paperwork and she decides to skim through it. When Clayton discovers her she gets the back of his hand. We get a quick cut to P.V. calling Lisa saying her life is in danger and they need to meet up. When Lisa finds her, she is already all murdered up.
At least PV had the good sense to send a text message to Lisa before her death. It's the name of some investment capital business.
So Lisa decides to go undercover and get a job there. She dyes her hair blonde and wears an incredibly ugly zebra overcoat. Her husband's bail bondsman (a brassy lady who eats pizza and drinks beer) says the zebra jacket is "professional." Um? She looks like a clown.
So, she gets an entry-level job and ends up making friends with the CEO who is OBVIOUSLY EVIL and who is falling in love with Lisa. Because the CEO, Michael, is a fucking CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation and therefore not a dummy, he quickly realizes something is up. But not before Lisa and the BondsLady use some gizmos like gummy bears (apparently you can lift fingerprints with gummy bears?) to break into Michael's office and get all of his codes and passwords and whatnot.
Oh, somewhere in there, Michael and his toughnik body guard (who looks like Big Bird with a shaved head) kill Clayton.
Michael kidnaps Lisa and tells her that he knows who she really is. It turns out that, shockingly, Michael is in the mob and on America's top-10 most wanted list.
So, let me get this straight. The FBI is is ready to bring this guy in dead or alive. Everyone's looking for him. And he's a CEO who shows up to the office every day? What!?!? Even for Lifetime, this is a wacky stretch.
Since Michael is in the mob, he decides to kill Lisa. Just kidding! He inexplicably takes her to the Cayman Islands to meet his mob boss father and rape her. Yes, seriously.
What Michael doesn't know is that Lisa is holding a transmitter that tells the BondsLady exactly where she is. So BondsLady manages to fly to the Cayman Islands, break into the Mafia compound, and save Lisa just in the nick of time.
Oh, and then the FBI shows up and tries to take Michael into custody. BondsLady refuses to give him up since she wants the multi-million dollar award.
The movie ends with Paul and Lisa's reunion as Paul leaves prison.
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 6
Bad, bad, bad sound editing. Other than that, there were no real acting liabilities. I had no idea what was going on and the film kept me guessing until the very end. This of course because the plot made no sense, but whatever, points for confusing me.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 8
Here's a question that will determine if you will like this movie. When a character asks her husband to look into her eyes and tell her that he's not involved in a first degree murder, and the cameraman zooms to the guy's eyes...If this is the funniest thing in the world to you, you will love this movie. And, yeah, I think it's pretty hilarious.
Again, let me stress that this movie makes no sense. If you were working undercover with no help from any policing organization and you discovered you were neck deep in the mob, how long until you stopped showing up for work? A lot of the enjoyment from this movie comes from the total lack of women's intuition.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 3
I'm told that some people enjoy the Saw franchise. Well, then you'll recognize Lisa. She's played by Shawnee Smith and she's in all four of the wretched things. Other than that, slim pickings.
LIFETIMENESS: 7
Although Lisa's intuition was generally lacking, the BondsLady was a fucking superhero. Also, the bad guy was a powerful murdery rapist. So, yeah, that was pretty Lifetimey.
GRAND TOTAL: 24
Not the best, but definitely not a waste of time. I recommend it. I would have liked it a lot more if Lisa were a single mom whose kid was experimenting with drugs or something. Alas, you can't always get what you want.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Lethal Vows
Thank goodness we're finally getting a top-tier Lifetime movie. When you hire the big boys like John Ritter and Marg Helgenberger, you know you're getting a quality product.
David Farris has been divorced from Ellen Farris for 14 years. They have two lovely daughters. David and his second wife have a 12-year-old son and everyone gets along just great. One big happy post-nuclear family. David is a physicist working as an adjunct professor and Wife #2, Lorraine, has just won a position on the City Council. There are only two bugs under the lawn. One is Ellen's health. Since the divorce she's had rashes, aches and pains, bruising, and memory loss. Doctors can't seem to figure out what the problem is. The other is David, despite being being divorced for so long, is still a bit too close to Ellen.
Eventually, Lorraine starts coming down with the same problems that Ellen had been having. Since Ellen's new doctor is such a smarty pants, she figures out that it's selenium poisoning. But just before she breaks the news to Davis and Lorraine, her health improves significantly.
Lorraine still drops dead a few weeks later. The autopsy turns up nothing and the body is quickly cremated. In the Lifetime universe, cremation is a tacit confession of murder.
Ellen's women's intuition kicks into high gear. First she bugs the coroner with all sorts of selenium questions. He tells her flat out that if Lorraine was poisoned with selenium, he would have found it. In the real world, that's the end of the movie right there.
But, no. More women's intuition. Ellen discovers an old dismantled radio on her shed and has a flashback. She, 14 years later, remembers Dennis scraping powder off of a radio part and putting it in her shampoo and mascara. That part had selenium in it! Oh no! Dennis is a poisoner! Who woulda thunk it!?
Ellen goes to the police and, for some reason, isn't immediately dismissed as a crazy person. Why? Because as the homicide detective pointed out, Dennis had Lorraine cremated. So suspicious. Well, that and Dennis had already applied for a marriage license to his paramour while Lorraine's ashes were still smoking. Rookie mistake, Dennis. You'd think an accomplished poisoner would have the patience to wait a few months before walking down the aisle.
Dennis tries intimidating Ellen by threatening to reopen their custody agreement. (It's really weird because they both have cell phones, but Dennis and Ellen's way of getting in touch is just running into each other on the street. This is like the fourth time that's happened. Do they just wander around until one of them sees the person they want to yell at? Isn't that time consuming?) Dennis also leaves some salmonella infectedtomatoes chicken in Ellen's fridge. The youngest daughter eats it and ends up at the hospital.
A toxicology report on Lorraine shows that she actually died of cyanide poisoning. Dennis can be linked to cyanide through his minority stake in a mine. Apparently, cyanide is used for gold mining. I learned something from a Lifetime movie. Dennis also has a bunch of crazy and vaguely threatening journals on his hard drive. Ellen testifies about her poisoning too.
Dennis is a little bit up Shit Creek. He knows it and wants to testify. His smart lawyer won't let him. What does Dennis do? Poisons him of course! In a legitimately funny scene, they show Dennis looking at his attorney's coffee, turning to look at some cleaning supplies, and then looking at the coffee again. The next scene shows the lawyer collapse. That was awesome.
Finally, we get a scene at Ellen's house. Dennis calls, his oldest daughter picks up the phone, and no one acts like that's at all weird. Well, they should be acting weirded out since it's revealed that Dennis was convicted of first degree murder and has had two if his appeals denied. You'd think that would generate more of a reaction than, "Mommmm, phone!"
In the end credits we find out that Ellen's selenium poisoning was so severe that it gave her leukemia and she died. I love happy endings!
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 8
It had twists, melodrama, and it actually made me laugh. Uh, I think I liked this movie. Like, for real? Except for Marg Helgenberger. I hate her.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 5
I just felt the movie could have been a little more hysterical. There was no sobbing, no moral panics, nothing so weird and out of touch that one could only find it amusing.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 7
I love John Ritter. Not because of Three's Company. But because of, and I wish I were making this up, Stay Tuned. I haven't seen it since I was 12. I'm sure it's awful. But I loved that movie growing up. That and IT.
Ellen was played by Marg Helgenberger. She's the female lead on CSI and I hate her. I don't know why, I just do. I guess a bonus point for being in Species. But that's it. The day she retires is a good day.
LIFETIMENESS: 10
This is the most Lifetimey movie I've ever seen. Women's intuition saves the day. There's a psychotic ex-husband on the loose. The friendly Assistant District Attorney prosecuting the murder and token nice male is black. It's quite incredible.
GRAND TOTAL: 30
A very high score for a very enjoyable movie. I wish John Ritter were still around to play psychotic philandering husbands. Sigh.
David Farris has been divorced from Ellen Farris for 14 years. They have two lovely daughters. David and his second wife have a 12-year-old son and everyone gets along just great. One big happy post-nuclear family. David is a physicist working as an adjunct professor and Wife #2, Lorraine, has just won a position on the City Council. There are only two bugs under the lawn. One is Ellen's health. Since the divorce she's had rashes, aches and pains, bruising, and memory loss. Doctors can't seem to figure out what the problem is. The other is David, despite being being divorced for so long, is still a bit too close to Ellen.
Eventually, Lorraine starts coming down with the same problems that Ellen had been having. Since Ellen's new doctor is such a smarty pants, she figures out that it's selenium poisoning. But just before she breaks the news to Davis and Lorraine, her health improves significantly.
Lorraine still drops dead a few weeks later. The autopsy turns up nothing and the body is quickly cremated. In the Lifetime universe, cremation is a tacit confession of murder.
Ellen's women's intuition kicks into high gear. First she bugs the coroner with all sorts of selenium questions. He tells her flat out that if Lorraine was poisoned with selenium, he would have found it. In the real world, that's the end of the movie right there.
But, no. More women's intuition. Ellen discovers an old dismantled radio on her shed and has a flashback. She, 14 years later, remembers Dennis scraping powder off of a radio part and putting it in her shampoo and mascara. That part had selenium in it! Oh no! Dennis is a poisoner! Who woulda thunk it!?
Ellen goes to the police and, for some reason, isn't immediately dismissed as a crazy person. Why? Because as the homicide detective pointed out, Dennis had Lorraine cremated. So suspicious. Well, that and Dennis had already applied for a marriage license to his paramour while Lorraine's ashes were still smoking. Rookie mistake, Dennis. You'd think an accomplished poisoner would have the patience to wait a few months before walking down the aisle.
Dennis tries intimidating Ellen by threatening to reopen their custody agreement. (It's really weird because they both have cell phones, but Dennis and Ellen's way of getting in touch is just running into each other on the street. This is like the fourth time that's happened. Do they just wander around until one of them sees the person they want to yell at? Isn't that time consuming?) Dennis also leaves some salmonella infected
A toxicology report on Lorraine shows that she actually died of cyanide poisoning. Dennis can be linked to cyanide through his minority stake in a mine. Apparently, cyanide is used for gold mining. I learned something from a Lifetime movie. Dennis also has a bunch of crazy and vaguely threatening journals on his hard drive. Ellen testifies about her poisoning too.
Dennis is a little bit up Shit Creek. He knows it and wants to testify. His smart lawyer won't let him. What does Dennis do? Poisons him of course! In a legitimately funny scene, they show Dennis looking at his attorney's coffee, turning to look at some cleaning supplies, and then looking at the coffee again. The next scene shows the lawyer collapse. That was awesome.
Finally, we get a scene at Ellen's house. Dennis calls, his oldest daughter picks up the phone, and no one acts like that's at all weird. Well, they should be acting weirded out since it's revealed that Dennis was convicted of first degree murder and has had two if his appeals denied. You'd think that would generate more of a reaction than, "Mommmm, phone!"
In the end credits we find out that Ellen's selenium poisoning was so severe that it gave her leukemia and she died. I love happy endings!
ACTUAL AWESOMENESS: 8
It had twists, melodrama, and it actually made me laugh. Uh, I think I liked this movie. Like, for real? Except for Marg Helgenberger. I hate her.
IRONIC AWESOMENESS: 5
I just felt the movie could have been a little more hysterical. There was no sobbing, no moral panics, nothing so weird and out of touch that one could only find it amusing.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 7
I love John Ritter. Not because of Three's Company. But because of, and I wish I were making this up, Stay Tuned. I haven't seen it since I was 12. I'm sure it's awful. But I loved that movie growing up. That and IT.
Ellen was played by Marg Helgenberger. She's the female lead on CSI and I hate her. I don't know why, I just do. I guess a bonus point for being in Species. But that's it. The day she retires is a good day.
LIFETIMENESS: 10
This is the most Lifetimey movie I've ever seen. Women's intuition saves the day. There's a psychotic ex-husband on the loose. The friendly Assistant District Attorney prosecuting the murder and token nice male is black. It's quite incredible.
GRAND TOTAL: 30
A very high score for a very enjoyable movie. I wish John Ritter were still around to play psychotic philandering husbands. Sigh.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Love Sick: Secrets of a Sex Addict
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?
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?
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.
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