The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker

If you get drunk in college, you will become a huge slut and/or die. That’s what I learned from The Party Never Stops.

The movie starts with our all-American heroine, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesse Brenner, typing forlornly at her laptop, trying to figure out where it all went so wrong. We’re then transported back in time nine months to see Jesse moving in on her first day of college. She’s sad to leave her mother and her little sister, and she’s concerned that everyone will think she’s a dork, even though she’s a super cute track star.

Jesse’s roommate is Shanna, a bubbly brunette who sleeps under a giant poster of herself. Shanna introduces her to some drunk floozies who share their champagne, then introduce Jesse to a cute boy named Keith. Jesse is traumatized by her awkward conversation with Keith, so she goes home to type “loser-dork-loser-dork-loser-dork-loser-dork” in her secret computer diary. Shanna cheers her up by taking her to a club and getting her totally smashed.

Hurrying to class after she oversleeps the next morning, she meets Colin, a sensitive, floppy haired musician who kicks the back of her chair to keep her awake during the lecture. I love Colin. He is a cheesy caricature, with his torn jeans and his messenger bag and his lousy acoustic guitar music, but I love him.

Jesse does not love him. He dedicates a song to her at a bar, but Jesse goes home with Keith and everything ominously goes slow motion before she bones him.

“I can’t believe I got so wasted that I slept with a guy on the first date!” Jesse laments. “Who does that?” Um, like, everyone in college?

Predictably, Keith doesn’t call Jesse for a week, and then, when they finally go on a date, some chick in the bathroom tells her that Keith has a steady girlfriend. Bathroom Chick tells Jesse he’s taking advantage of her.

“What if I’m taking advantage of him?” Jesse retorts.

“Well, that would make you a skanky little ho, now, wouldn’t it?” says Bathroom Chick, who is a huge bitch.

Jesse storms out of the restaurant. Meanwhile, Shanna has found herself a sweet boyfriend (who she most certainly did not sleep with on the first date), but still spends plenty of time partying and listening to Jesse. She even stays at school with her when Jesse is to sick to go home for Thanksgiving break.

Jesse’s mom and Colin keep calling her, but she blows them off so she can go drink all night. After sleeping with some dude who forgets her name, she continues to party all the time. She crashes a car into a fire hydrant because some thirty-five year old guy in a Hawaiian shirt asked her to park it for him. She returns drunk to her dorm one day to find her mother sitting on her bed. Jesse is so rude to her mother that Mom runs home to sadly fondle her late husband’s clothes. This movie is a huge bummer.

And it gets worse. Colin comes to watch her try out for the track team, but Jesse’s drinking has taken its toll, and she’s not fast enough. Then, she goes on spring break, wears a dorky shell necklace, and flashes her boobs to Joe Francis. Her boobs become an internet sensation, and everyone knows what a huge drunken slut she has become.

Now that the world has seen her topless, Jesse tries to get sober, with the help of ultra-sensitive, guitar strumming Colin. It turns out Colin ruined his life drinking, too! Hooray! They’re perfect for each other and will never be tempted to drink again! They even leave Shanna and the floozies behind at the big end-of-the-semester bash, and go to Colin’s apartment to drink tea and read poetry instead.

After a hot night of not having sex with Colin, because dudes who respect you never want to see you naked ever, Jesse goes to check on Shanna. Shanna’s not in her bed, though. She’s not with her loving boyfriend, either.

Shanna is dead of alcohol poisoning on a couch at a frat house. Of course she is. Of course the one character who isn’t totally one-dimensional is dead. Of course the girl who has a normal relationship with her boyfriend, is a loyal friend, and who parties but still gets to class on time, is totally dead. I hope everyone now understands that this could HAPPEN TO ANYONE. Except the main character.

 

AWESOMENESS: 10

This had its funny moments, intentional and otherwise, but it was nothing too special, and none of the “cute guys” were very cute. I did laugh out loud at the “skanky little ho” line, though. I almost wish a stranger would insult me in the bathroom of a Mexican restaurant.

 

HEY! IT’S THAT GUY!: 3

I don’t know who any of these people are, but Rusty says Nancy Travis deserves a 3 for So I Married an Axe Murderer, and I trust Rusty more than anyone else when it comes to campy movies.

 

LIFETIMENESS: 10

Oh man. The moral panic, the girls who call each other “girlfriend” and borrow each others’ clothes-- but especially, the way every guy who sleeps with a girl right away is a complete douche and every guy who refuses to put out is marriage material—make this one seriously Lifetimey Lifetime movie.

 

OVERALL: 23

While watching this, I misplaced a glass of wine. My boyfriend discovered it on top of the record shelf hours later.

She's Too Young

Spoiler alert: No she's not!


Back when I lived in DC, I wrote a more successful blog called Why I Hate DC. The irony now is that I want to move back to DC since Columbus ain't working out. ANYWAYS, one of my self-selected beats on that website was Laura Sessions Stepp. I wrote about her a lot. She is (was?) a Washington Post reporter that specialized in moral panics about the teenagers. They don't date! They have sex parties! They're dancing suggestively! She even got a book published out of it. I lost my signed copy. Damn.

I would bet you a million dollars that LSS has seen She's Too Young.

Well, I hadn't. But I had seen the Frontline special that the movie wasn't based on. An affluent high school had a syphilis outbreak. My religion teacher played that documentary for us. I believe it was the first time I had heard about rainbow parties (of which there has never been a documented case). This was in my marriage class where they taught us about taking vaginal mucus and temperature samples to perfect the rhythm method. A fun class!

So! The movie! Hannah is a 14 or 15 year old girl. She and her friends are getting more popular because it turns out they may be tasty pieces. I don't know if they are or not since they are teenagers. But it's not like some movies where the high school girls are played by buxom sexpots. These actresses are clearly actually 14 or 15 (or look 14 and 15) and that adds a lot of sleaze to the proceedings.

It's good sleaze though since the viewer should, theoretically, be grossed out by 14-year-olds making with the intercourse.

Hannah is ready to start going on dates. Dad is ok with it. Mom is not. Mom loses this argument. Hannah has been doing great in school and great in her cello lessons. Hasn't she earned our trust?

Actually, so far, yeah she has. She goes out for ice cream with a bunch of clearly sexually active people. When they all go have sex, Hannah abstains and calls her mom to get a rescue ride. Trish says that Hannah can always call no questions asked and then she starts asking questions. They don't go anywhere.

Let me be clear here: I think Trish, aka Marcia Gay Harden is a fine actress. I've only seen her in Mystic River, The Mist, and, uh, The First Wives' Club. Please don't judge me regarding the latter. I saw that in theaters. No matter! Ms. Harden is a fine actress but she is horrible to look at. I don't mean that in a sexist or objective way. I need to make that clear after writing a review that talked about J-Love's boobs and used her previous tv show as a euphemism for masturbation. This is not about that. It's about Marcia Gay Harden being so god damned stern looking. You see her and you think angry. And that may be the point, but it's no good for viewing. It's like she's judging me for watching Lifetime when this blog is between me and my God.

So those ice cream sexually active people...two are besties who like to bone all the time. The other is a boy that Hannah is in love with. Eventually, that boy, Nick, asks Hannah out. Yeah, he may have a reputation, but he just wants to be with someone special.

After two dates, Hannah blows him.

Hannah's bestie, Dawn, is not having such a fun time. She used to be the girl blowing Nick. Now? Now she's just the girl who used to have sex with Nick and now has sores in her mouth because, oops, syphilis. When Dawn goes to the school nurse to get treated, she admits to having had sex with 15-20 boys.

From here on out, the movie goes out if its way to show a bunch of young high schoolers and a bunch of local property. Let's be honest here: The real name of this movie should be "She's Too White." There isn't a single black character here save for a nurse. All the panic here is class-based. "We never expected this when we moved here." And since there are no black students in the entire school, one just HAS to think that this shit was on purpose.

I have watched a lot of Lifetime. This is the most racist, at least by omission.

Hannah and Nick's third date doesn't go as well. Nick pressures her into an orgy and Hannah is appropriately skeeved. That's basically the end of the relationship.

Anyways, the nurse realizes that there is a syph outbreak afoot and asks Nick, Patient Zero, to get tested. A commenter named Kim mentioned this scene in some older comments.

"The skeezy guy who gives everyone syphilis goes to the school nurse to get his vaccination and says, "You better stick 'em all. Because I sure did." And then his friends give him high fives the nurse is PWN3D!1!!!1"

That is EXACTLY what happens and it is great.

So people get their syph shots and it should be no big deal but for some reason Hannah and Dawn dip into the latter's mom's liquor cabinet and go to town. When they pass out drunk and get busted, Hannah's folks freak out. To prove a point about not being such a good girl, Hannah drunkenly announces her sexually transmitted disease. But she also makes it clear that it's not, like, a real sexually transmitted disease since it was only in her mouth. Because that is bound to make a parent feel better.

Trish decides to take this news and run with it. She goes family to family to tell them that chances are their children are also slutty, but not as slutty as Hannah since she only went as far as oral. Parents don't really want to be hearing this and Trish doesn't get anywhere.

Well, she gets somewhere. She turns Hannah into a pariah. Her classmates take to the AIM to torture Hannah and accuse her of being a narc. Oh, did I say "AIM"? Whoops! In the sexy, sexy, world of She's Too Young, the instant messaging software is called Teen Playa. Because why not?

Hannah doesn't like being grounded for mouth love, so she runs off to a big hootenanny party even though no one likes her. She almost gets raped but is rescued by her obviously gay best friend who has been in love with her for years. Nick (not the almost rapist) feels bad about the almost rape. Maybe he will change his sticking ways?

Trish ends up at the same party looking for Hannah and sees marijuana and public sex. She looks as stern as always.

Hannah is super happy that her "straight" artsy friend saved her. She's also happy that he has a creepy stalker wall covered in Hannah pictures. Because stalking is more romantic than oral sex, you see. Hannah tries rewarding him with intercourse, going as far as to tell him "it's been two weeks since my syphilis shot so I should be clean by now."

Gay Dude refuses Hannah's advances, waits for her to pass out on his couch, and then he calls her parents to pick her up. AND THE END. THIS IS OUR HAPPY ENDING.

AWESOMENESS: 16

I should probably refer you back to the "sticking" dialogue. God, that was great.

This movie comes from the same writer and the same director as Cyber Seduction. I liked this one more. Porn is definitely funnier than syphilis (there isn't a syphilis version of the Golden Girls...yet), but this movie is funnier than Cyber Secudtion. Intentionally, I mean. There are fun little flourishes like Dawn stumbling around drunk or ridiculous snarky remarks about threesomes with 14-year-old girls. Really wonderful.

HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 6

It's nice to have an Oscar winner, but you need more.

LIFETIMENESS: 10

Boom goes the dynamite. I love how the father is villainized for being reasonable about dating and then is villainized for being too harsh for grounding his daughter for being drunk with syphilis. I also like how whenever someone mentions that Hannah is a good daughter, they cut to her singing along to a sexually explicit rap song. Little known personal fact: I lost my virginity the first time I heard hip-hop. I mean, not at that exact moment, but it was definitely the start of a downward spiral into promiscuous sex and drug use.

GRAND TOTAL: 32

A high score for a great movie. And it's available on Youtube! Alarmists of the world unite!

Just Ask My Children

I don't know what got into the water, but I have been recording a ton of Lifetime movies and even taking the time to watch them. So why not get started with a story of child molestation. Drink every time you hear the phrase "Mommy put her mouth on my penis" in courtroom testimony!

Just Ask My Children is based on the true story of the Kern County sexual assault charges. If I knew this movie was going to be based on a true story, I never would have recorded it. I've known about the false charges levied against parents and day cares in the mid-80s, partially since the Massachusetts case still pops up in the news and even became part of the race to replace Ted Kennedy in the Senate. The Democratic candidate, a dolt named Martha Coakley, had pushed hard as a district attorney to keep clearly innocent people in jail since it always looks bad to be soft on child molesters. Even innocent ones.

Here's a Wikipedia rundown of a ton of false charges that led to serious jail time. It's the worst and it truly makes me infuriated. It's why electing judges is such a joke and why electing lawyers is a joke too. Everything about this is a sick joke.

And God help me, Lifetime didn't do such a terrible job here. It even stuck close to the facts. I mean, some of it is laughable. In the first five minutes, the Kniffen parents are presented as truly the greatest people to walk on God's green Earth. We all should avert eye contact with them they're so great. They love God, apple pie, and walks in the park.

If only things were so good for their neighbors, the McCauns. Those imperfect sons-of-bitches have a Rockwell family too, but it's being soiled by a crazy step-grandmother who likes making crazy accusations. (We only get a glimpse of her, but she's obese and has short hair so you know she's bad news.)

Those accusations make it to the "Welfare Office" and to a case worker who, for some reason, buys into them hook, line, and sinker. The accusations include forced oral and anal sex, hanging the boys from ceiling hooks and jerking them off, and, of course, recording all the festivities. This stuff usually happens in secret rooms (a common factor in a lot of these cases).

Without interviewing anybody, the DA and Social Services decide to go in and arrest everybody. The kids get interviewed and they all turn over on their parents. You know, since they're six and ten and don't know to be as honest as possible when adults are sitting in a room and badgering you with crazy questions about being sodomized. Instead of answering true, they are trying to answer right.

So, despite the no physical evidence of any of this occurring, we proceed to trial and the Kniffens are convicted. Why? Because kids don't lie. That is the entirety of the prosecution's closing argument. When I was 10, I lied all the time. Constant falsehoods to get what I want or to impress people. Maybe I'm a bit of sociopath, but most kids lie, right?

The jury doesn't think so and the Kniffens get over 1,000 years of prison. Not an exaggeration.

From there the parents go to jail AND HOW CAN THE MOVIE ONLY BE A THIRD OF THE WAY OVER!?!? I know this is a common Lifetime complaint, but JESUS. It's such a mistake. By keeping the parents in jail you aren't letting the viewer root for the people we've been following for the past 45 minutes. Instead we switch to the kid's perspective as they come to realize exactly what they did. Who gives a shit about that though? It certainly doesn't help that the actors who play the kids as, uh, kids, and the actors who play the kids as teenagers are fucking terrible.

So for over an hour we're getting nothing but the Kniffens writing letters to the people who care about them. The dad writes to his mom that he is in the same facility as Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson. "Remember when you told me to watch the company that I keep? It would be funny except that it's not." I don't know, Mr. Kniffen. That's pretty funny.

Well, his mom dies anyways so whatever.

And Mrs. Kniffen is dealing with the only black character in the entire movie. Of course she's a mean spirited prisoner who keeps spitting and cussing. You know how black prisoners are when compared to their white counterparts. Always with the spitting.

Grandma isn't the only one to die since the Kniffens are stuck in the clink for 12 years. Even when their stupid ass kids recant, they aren't granted a retrial (another common link between these cases). Finally they get out and The End.

AWESOMENESS: 14

Well, the movie is just a teensy racist seeming and that's kind of an issue. And I mentioned the pacing issues. But the movie does a fine job at riling people up about something people should be riled about. These cases and cases like it (think The West Memphis Three) are disgusting and horrible and it's the same kind of stupid hysteria that leads to ignorant assholes protesting a community center in Manhattan.

HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 3

True story, I have never seen a movie with Virginia Madsen in it. I know she is supposed to be famous, but whatever. Bonus point for a Buffy alumnus. Principal Snyder from Seasons 2 and 3 is a prison psychiatrist.

LIFETIMENESS: 4

Well, that racist stuff and that plotting stuff are all kind of par for the course for Lifetime. But this could have been a MotW on any network. It wasn't very Lifetime specific.

GRAND TOTAL: 21

BEWARE. Not good for ironic viewing. Very depressing!

My Neighbor's Keeper: BABY FEVER

I think My Neighbor's Keeper is the first full Lifetime movie I've ever seen, except for that time I was in some pizza place in northern Maine and that movie where a teenage Jenny Lewis gets raped was playing on the TV at the bar. I have never seen so many commercials for birth control and cat food.

Here is the trailer, which shows pretty much every interesting thing that happens in the movie:

Laura Harring stars as Kate, a baby-obsessed woman who loves wearing turtlenecks and holding other people's children while smiling beatifically and staring into the middle distance. The children she covets most are those of her best friend and next-door neighbor, Ann. Ann has a little girl named Ellie and a baby boy named Logan, and she loves complaining about the dumb shit her husband, Mike, buys. Mike works all the time so he can buy dumb shit like secret $3200 golf clubs that aren't really a secret because Ann is a woman with a woman's intuition, and because Mike stores his secret golf clubs in the garage.

Anyway, after a fun day at the lake, Ann, Mike, Kate, and Kate's husband Tim, go back to what we are told is Seattle, except it never rains and it looks exactly like Cleveland. Kate tries to seduce Tim with the least sexy line ever: "my temp was up this morning." Nothing like reminding your partner that you only want him for his sperm to get him in the mood. Tim's like, "I thought the doctor told you that your uterus was a lost cause" and Kate's all, "SHUT UP I HAVE BABY FEVER IMPREGNATE ME NOW" so Tim says, "if I have to." I think he's supposed to be joking, but he sounds sadly resigned to another boring round of sex for procreation with his baby-crazed wife.

The next morning, Kate goes to see her exasperated OB/GYN, who essentially tells her to get a new doctor because she's sick of performing tests on her barren womb. Kate refuses to listen to Dr. Badnews, and talks to Ann, who advises her to "keep Tim on the job." According to this movie, sex is the least fun thing ever. All that matters is BABIES, and if you can't have them, you are a failure as a woman and your life has no meaning.

All of a sudden, it's Halloween, and Mike is working late so that he can buy more dumb shit. He calls Kate to tell her that Ann seems to have left the phone off the hook, and asks her to go next door and tell his idiot wife to hang up the phone.

Cut to Kate running back into her house, screaming and crying and pointing in the general direction of Ann's house. Tim asks her what's wrong, and she just screams and cries and points some more, so he goes next door to find Ann dead of the world's least gory stabbing. I have had nosebleeds scarier than this murder.

Even though the slightly bloodied knife used to murder Ann is right next to her barely butchered corpse, it takes Detective Billings and his silent partner the whole damn movie to find the killer, even though we all know it's Mike. Their excuse? "There's a lot of murders in this town." Comforting.

At the funeral, Mike asks Tim if he wants to buy a boat. Seriously. AT HIS WIFE'S FUNERAL, HE TRIES TO GET HIS FRIEND TO BUY A BOAT WITH HIM."I wanna get a sailboat," says Mike. "It could be fun." Mike sucks at pretending he didn't kill his wife.

Immediately after the funeral, Kate starts freaking out over who's going to take care of Logan and Ellie. Tim mentions that they still have a father, but Kate knows better. A man can't take care of two kids by himself! That's ridiculous! And what if something happens to Mike? What then, huh Tim? Won't somebody please think of the children?

Kate tries to help by telling the detectives that she saw some guy in a Frankenstein mask knock on Ann's door just before she got the phone call from Mike. They find a bloody Frankenstein mask in a dumpster halfway between Mike's office and his house, and he is arrested for murder, but is instantly out on bail. Kate testifies at some kind of murder mediation hearing as a character witness, and she tells everyone how awesome Mike is and how he would never have an affair or kill anybody. In the car on the way home, Tim tells her that Mike actually did cheat on Ann, but it was just one time, so Mike's totally not a murderer.

Kate gets all pissy and goes to Mike's house to yell at him for cheating on Ann, because berating a grieving man is the right thing to do. Mike says he's sorry for cheating on Ann, but Kate knows he's not a killer, right?

"Are you?" she asks.

"Nuh uh, you are," Mike says. "Just kidding. Now you know how it feels." And Kate learns a valuable lesson about accusing her friends of murder. Awww.

The kids are at Tim and Kate's house all the time now, and Kate even tells a stranger at a restaurant that the kids are hers. I think Kate is supposed to be the protagonist, but she totally creeps me out. Her husband warns her not to get too attached, and she says, "I'm sorry the death of our friend is inconveniencing you." She shows up at Tim's law office to ask about becoming Ellie and Logan's legal guardians if "something were to happen to Mike," which is a phrase she uses wayyy too much. I don't understand why she felt the need to ask Tim this question at work instead of waiting until he got home. Tim wants to know if he has any say in the matter, and Kate is disgusted by her insensitive jerk of a husband.

Then, some dude that we never even see confesses to the stabbing! Hooray! Mike throws himself a "my wife's murderer was caught" party, and Tim apologizes to Kate for being a reasonable person.

The neighbors decide to go to the lake again, but Tim has to do lawyery stuff, so Kate goes up with Mike and the kids. She looks through an old photo album and sees a picture of Mike with the Frankenstein mask. This is somehow more damning evidence than the bloody-fingerprint-covered knife left at the crime scene. Kate does the exact opposite of what any normal person would do: instead of taking the photos and putting them in the pocket of her bathrobe and remaining calm until she is no longer alone with a murderer, she hides the photo album under Ellie's bed and then calls Tim to tell him that Mike's a killer. Of course, Mike comes in the room while she's on the phone so she can't tell Tim anything, and then Ellie wakes up and brings out the photo album and asks Kate why it was under her bed. Good job, Ellie. New Mommy is going to get killed because of you.

After explaining why he stabbed his wife, because murderers love nothing more than describing their crimes to people they are about to kill, Mike drowns Kate. We know she's really dead because she never comes up for air, and we see Mike standing in the lake holding her bathrobe.

Tim finally shows up at the lake. "Where's Kate?" he asks.

"I think she went for a swim," says Mike.

Then the cops show up with a soaking wet Kate and arrest Mike. Tim and Kate get to keep the kids, and everyone lives happily ever after, except Ann.

AWESOMENESS: 5

This was a very long 89 minutes. The movie is shot in dark, muddy tones, and the acting was bad in a non-hilarious way. I did like when we get to see Tim's law degree and it says "Tim" not "Timothy," though.

HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 4

I guess Laura Harring was in Mulholland Drive, but I haven't seen it even though people keep telling me to watch it. Maybe this should be a ten, or a two; I seriously have no idea. I am embarrassed. But I figure if Brittany Murphy only got a four, I can't go higher than that.

LIFETIMENESS: 7

Let's see: a point for baby fever, a point for our first glimpse of the husbands being a shot of them eating snacks and watching sports instead of cooking dinner, a point for best girlfriends who are always together, a point for murder, a point for Kate's husband apologizing for hurting her feelings, a point for a woman solving a crime that the police couldn't, a point for woman's intuition.

GRAND TOTAL: 16

I can't believe I watched this twice.

Hello.

Hi, I'm Kate. I live in Maine and I've known Rusty for a wicked long time. In high school, he once came to my house and mocked my mother for watching Lifetime. "Lifetime: where the man is always wrong," he said. I was psyched when he asked me to write for this blog.

I have no idea what to write for an introduction, but Rusty says I am a "crackerjack writer" and to suck it up.

Usually, I write about clothes on my blog Sweet Disorder, where you can read about how I broke my foot wearing cute shoes. I love trashy television, so this is a great excuse for me to watch some. "It's for my writing," I can smugly tell my boyfriend as he rolls his eyes at me. Awesome. I don't have cable, so right now I'll just watch whatever movies I can find online. All the time. I love TV.

When I'm not writing about clothes or watching cheesy movies, I'm probably doing even girlier shit like making jewelry, buying makeup, or hanging out with my cats. I like going to rock shows. I have green hair.

Last night, for research, I drank red wine out of a weird red wine juice box and yelled at the computer as everyone in these movies did exactly the opposite of what a reasonable person would do. I also found that I'm really bad at taking pictures of my computer screen.
How did I manage to turn the flash back on? What the fuck? I will try to do better.

The Client List

Oh my God. The Client List. Oh my God.

I actually buckled down for this one. No drinking with friends while cracking jokes. Oh no. Not this time. I even took notes! The notes were only necessary for some the wacky one-liners and zingers. Stray observation type stuff. I will not be needing notes for the grand finale when Lifetime finally killed feminism once and for all.

So Jennifer Love Hewitt of vajazzling fame plays Sam, a former beauty queen turned struggling mother of three. Her husband’s football career never took off because of a bum knee and both find themselves out of work. They live in Texas where the hair is big and the accents are atrocious. The house is in foreclosure and they can’t even afford the entry fee for their son to play flag football. Thankfully, the bank gives them a one month extension on the mortgage. Why? Because of Sam’s ridiculously tight dress and her photographic memory recalling that the lender suggested one of those evil subprime mortgages. Oh, and pumpkin pie perfume because Sam read that the smell of pumpkins gives dudes massive boners.

Seriously.

I wonder if Sam’s sex appeal and memory will have some sort of significance later.

Sam applies for a job at a massage parlor because somewhere between winning a pageant and shitting out three kids, she got licensed in two different kinds of massage. A real good investment. Also good investments that the happy couple makes include getting blindingly drunk at the local watering hole and playing the lottery. Now Harmony and I work with distressed populations (remember, we are heroes), so the last thing I want to do is sound like I’m judging. But, come on, guys. Get it together.

Sam gets the job and watches a massage. I assumed that the parlor would ease her into the whole entire prostitution thing, but, no. Sam watches a girl give a fat dude a blowie. She storms out but after declaring that “a girl this pretty shouldn’t be poor,” she goes back to start her career as a sex worker. After all, it beats waitressin’!

The hookers are fantastic, by the way. They are all good Texas folk. One claims whorin’ is like killing a man. It gets easier after the first time. Another prides herself on her Viagra giveaways because “that little blue pill keeps us in the black.” Such sassiness! And they give Sam shots of tequila at 9am to loosen her up. Best job ever!

After the first day on the job, Sam has a conversation with herself on the way home. She is talking to her dashboard guardian angel. (The dashboard is a nice touch since it is literally impossible to drive faster than it can fly thus saving you the cost of a horrible bumper sticker.) Then she tells the angel that she needs to pull over so she can throw up. I always talk to myself about needing to throw up before throwing up. Normal human behavior.

Then we get a montage of Sam in all sorts of different lingerie and costumes servicing clients. It’s awesome. Does anyone want to have a debate over the feminist ramifications of ogling Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts? I am a feminist and I’m still staring. Having my cake and eating it too. She is a pretty lady.

FTW

(FYI, “Party of Five” has always been my favorite masturbation euphemism. And there are three reasons that it’s a good euphemism. Two of them are Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts.)

Ugh, gross! I am sexualizing body parts! That is not feminist sounding at all. Jennifer Love Hewitt is regressing me back to middle school. I am gross and will stop. Sorry.

I should remind myself that I don’t need to worry about being a feminist, because, as mentioned earlier, this movie has killed off feminism once and for all. Jennifer Love Hewitt is standing over Rosie the Riveter’s grave in a teddy.

Apparently whoring makes you crazy wealthy. The mortgage isn’t an issue. Nor is buying your husband a fucking motorcycle. I know it isn’t just a river in Egypt, but the amount of denial on display from her husband here is staggering. It’s more like depacificocean.

But things are going well! You can tell Sam is a prostitute now because she wears lipstick everywhere. The husband is happy because he has a chopper. And the kids are happy because they get two desserts in their lunch (seriously). Everything is peaches and sex work.

Except one of the hookers isn’t having such a good time. She’s younger and very Christian. After seeing her pastor in the brothel, she has a crisis of faith. Her family doesn’t want her and “Idol auditions aren’t for another six months.” (There are so many “seriouslies” going on here, guys!) She quits the business and tells a bunch of Christians what’s going on. Those Bible Thumpers are going to ruin everything! Why can't they just let a sex ring exist in peace?

Sam is getting kudos for being the best prostitute in town. What’s her secret? Listening and cooking. She bakes cookies for her johns. The cookies are a nice bonus. Sam apparently has twice as many clients as any of the other prostitutes. Presumably her vagina looks like a buzzard’s neck. A bedazzled buzzard.

googling "pimp buzzard" didn't work

Oh, Sam does have one other secret. Cocaine.

The cocaine, parenting, and whoring are taking a lot out of her. She almost falls asleep at the wheel! She is curt with her daughter! She isn’t as nice to her clients!

It actually made me sad that Sam wasn’t as good of a sex worker as she used to be. But it’s a moot concern since the police bust the massage parlor. Sam gets perp walked in a bra and panties. I don’t think the police would do that, but, whatever.

"no time to tie your robe, ma'am. the fingerprinting lady gets off in 15 minutes"

Back at the local bar, Sam’s husband is watching a football game on TV. They cut away from the game to show the prostitution bust. The chances of a station cutting away from football for a local news story in Texas are negative 1000%. Sam gets recognized and, uh oh, Spaghettios!

Sam gets bailed out and begs for forgiveness and, surprise!, she doesn’t get it. Sam’s husband takes the kids and gets the Hell out of Dodge. Meanwhile, Sam is looking at two years for prostitution and cocaine possession. If only she had some skill to bargain her sentence down.

Remember her memory? If Sam were watching/reading this, she would remember her memory.

Sam bargains everyone down to 30 days by revealing 69 (SERIOUSLY) of her clients. This includes judges, doctors, lawyers, and other prominent members of the community. Because journalism is as dead as feminism post-Client List, the local papers and stations publish the list as fact. Why not.

And here is where feminism died. A mob of angry women barge in on Sam. Sam may be a whore, but she is a polite whore, so she makes them iced tea. Then she apologizes. She was raised to only care about her looks and not her brains so when she was in trouble, that’s what she leaned on. Basically it was her mom’s fault.

But the mob tells Sam that they aren’t looking for an apology. They’re looking for advice. “What did you do to make our men happy? What are we missing?” Oh. My. God. Sam then grabs a banana and commences with the lesson.

Since Sam was such a good prostitute because of listening and cookies, I imagine that’s part of the advice too. I am going to make that leap. It’s the women’s fault since they didn’t cook enough. See. I told you. Feminism is over. Back to the kitchens, ladies!

It's been brought to my attention that this is basically the ending to The Ladies Man, but with the genders reversed. And that gender reversal makes this totally unacceptable.

Sam becomes a waitress after her jail term and it is implied that her ex-husband is willing to give it another shot. No harm, no foul, amiright?

AWESOMENESS: 19

I was enjoying this movie. I really was. It was so….competent. Sure, having Sam talk to a guardian angel is the laziest narrative device I’ve ever seen. And the movie somehow got less interesting when cocaine was added to the equation. But any criticisms went out the window once this movie got to Crazy Town.

this movie was butterfly, sugar baby

HEY! IT’S THAT GUY!: 8

I’ve focused enough on Jennifer Love Hewitt. But there’s so much more! She dated an alumni of Sacred Heart High School. I am an alumni of Sacred Heart High School! It’s within the realm of possibility, guys!

not pictured: a shit ton of Abercrombie. pictured: The SAC

I just remembered that vajazzling thing and I am suddenly freaked out by J-Love. Rich Cronin can have her.

Oh, Cybil Shepherd was in this too.

LIFETIMENESS: 10

This movie is so regressive that it actually might be too Lifetimey to be Lifetimey if that makes any sense. But a woman loses her way, does some sordid stuff, and comes out with less jail time than a Lohan. Redemption! Lifetime!

GRAND TOTAL: 37

This is the third highest rated Lifetime movie. It will be on next weekend. DVR it. OR WATCH IT ONLINE AT MYLIFETIME.COM

I watched this on Monday. I saw Inception on Tuesday. I preferred the former. My infallibility combined with transitive properties says that if you liked Inception, you will love The Client List.

It's Full-On Double Wedding All the Way Across the Sky

Suffice to say, if I saw this amazing video before Double Wedding, the review would have been drastically different.

Seriously though. What does this mean?