Following up on the "crazy mom" theme from last week, I watched a film called Her Only Child (AKA Maternal Obsession). I was able to locate the trailer for it on YouTube, and it will give you a pretty good idea of how that shit went down. Check it out:
I'd like to note that "Good intentions were misdirected" will never be a threatening sentence, no matter how growly your voice is when you say it. Good effort, voiceover guy, but no dice.
So the eldest daughter from the Nanny is all grown up and living the sweet life as a mid-level insurance saleswoman named Lilly. She's successful at work, but her personal life sucks- unlucky in love and still living at home with mom in her mid-thirties. Now, living with your parents past a certain age is mildly embarrassing, but it isn't the end of the world. If you're lucky, your parents will give you your old room back and not charge you for utilities. If you're less fortunate, your mother will forget to take her tacklebox full of of anti-psychotic medications one morning and call you at work to come home and kill her hallucinations of giant spiders. Oh yes, Inez is a crazy person, and she reacts to her daughter's attempts to sever the apron strings like most people would react to...well, a giant spider hallucination. All flailing and yelling. Not pretty. In an opening scene, Lily attempts to not eat a cookie that her mother made for her. Her mother reacts by crying and throwing the cookies in the garbage. As always, Lifetime movies indulge foreshadowing with the subtle grace of the Killdozer.
Lily meets a dude at work named Larry. Larry seems like kind of a boring schmuck to me, but Lily goes out with him anyway. I guess dating just about anyone beats sitting at home with mom and helping her swat the flying elves away. Inez takes this about as well as you'd expect. She interrupts their first date by slicing a hunk out of her own arm (ew) and claiming it was an accident so Lily will come home. It's about this time that the movie reveals that Lily's boyfriends have a habit of mysteriously bailing on her just when things get serious. Lily continues to fail to connect the dots between Mommie Dearest and her vanishing paramours. You can't help but feel a little bad for Lily, whose admirable devotion to her clearly disturbed mother blinds her to the obvious.
Of course, it is also possible that Lily is stupid. The Lily Is Stupid theory receives some additional support when Inez runs a background check on Larry and discovers he is secretly married. You know what? I don't care how nice he is, a secret family should be a dealbreaker. Lily snubs him for a while but eventually allows him to cry a bunch over dinner and explain that his wife is holding up the divorce, he doesn't love her, blah blah blah. She doesn't question his ridonkulously flimsy explanation and their relationship is back on. LILY YOU ARE SO STUPID. I can kind of see why your mom is so overprotective. Without an overly-devoted caretaker, I can see you following the promise of a stranger's candy to your doom.
Fueled by this latest evidence that Lily can't make decisions on her own, Inez begins to take more drastic steps to break her up with Larry. When Lily and Larry take off for a romantic weekend, Inez attempts to make their adorable dog eat rat poison. The dog is smarter then Inez and Lily combined, so it doesn't work, but I was still worried. Inez then convinces him to eat a bucket of chocolate frosting. Not cool, Inez. I don't care if you kill your daughter and her stupid boyfriend, but you leave that terrier out of it. Lily does not go home, but her mother's incredibly stupid explanation for how the dog nearly died is finally enough to get her wondering exactly why every boyfriend she's had since high school has mysteriously vanished off of the face of the earth. She tracks down the last dude to bail on her, and he politely explains that he was going to propose to her, but a bunch of armed thugs tackled him and threatened to kill him if he didn't break off all contact with her. I shit you not. He also says that he was going to tell her about it, but he didn't want to make a big deal out of it.
Public Service Announcement: If you are ever dating someone, and armed thugs order you to stop, you should probably make a big deal out of it.
Lily goes home and screams at her mom for a while about how she needs to stop being so goddamn crazy. She also packs all her stuff up and flees to Larry's house. Inez does the logical thing and resolves to make her daughter move back in with her at gunpoint. She steals a gun from her office (?!), shows up at Larry's house, and threatens to shoot them all if Lily doesn't come home with her. Lily stands firm, so mom locks herself in the bathroom and tries to overdose on her anti-psychotic medication. Heartwarming!
In the end, Inez ends up in sort of a minimum-security hotel for crazy people. This is not actually what happens when you have a psychotic break, but god forbid that TV movie writers do any sort of research about the main plots of their films. Inez and Lily chat about Inez coming home soon, I guess we have a happy ending, and as far as I know the dog lives to see another day. Well done.
AWESOMENESS 7 (out of 20)
5 points for being relatively entertaining and super-weird. It wasn't amazing, but it was wacky enough to keep my interest. I'd like to give it a higher score, but it was mostly just derivative of other psycho obsession films that did it way better. As always, I reward any movie that has a cute dog in it some bonus points. You think Rusty's grading scale is arbitrary? Ha!
STAR POWER 2 (out of 10)
I love the Nanny, but Nicolette Tom is not famous. Nor is a dude that was on F/X (whatever the hell that is). The woman who plays Inez had a bit part in everything ever, so that's why she is so irritatingly familiar looking to you.
LIFETIMELINESS 5 (out of 10)
On first glance, this is incredibly Lifetime-y. It's all about mother-daughter relationships with some troubled romance for good measure. However, this is the only time in the history of Lifetime films that an overbearing mother was the problem in the film and not the solution. 5 points.
14. Sounds about right. Meh score for a meh film.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sins of the Mother
Happy Black History Month! To celebrate, Lifetime has given us Sins of the Mother, a film about an insufferable college student who refuses to forgive anyone for anything. Insufferable protagonists make for insufferable movies, and this was no exception.
Our protagonist goes by Shay. Or Le'Shay. If someone calls her one name, she demands to be called the other. She gets so righteous about it that, at one point, she interrupts a church service to yell at people for calling her the wrong name. Shay is having some trouble at college. She has some stress disorder where she is pulling out all of her hair. Her brand of crazy is freaking out her profs so they ask her to take a leave of absence.
Shay is such an awful person that she has no friends to turn to. So she flees to Washington to live with her mother, Nona. They haven't seen each other in five years. Apparently Nona had a hella drinking problem. When Shay gets to her mom's house, she finds a reformed woman who replaced booze with gardening. A woman who is active in her church, her community, and her work at a hospital. An amazing recovery!
Shay then makes peace with her mom and The End.
Just kidding! Despite getting her food cooked for her and living rent free, Shay takes the time to yell at her mom every chance she gets. Nona's sponsor and sponsee are coming over for coffee? Well fuck them! Look at Nona's stupid 12 Steps book. Hahahah! Nona reads cliched quotes for inspiration? What a rube!
Shay is the worst.
Shay doesn't deserve a love interest, but she gets one in a college dude who works at a record store. They both like Nina Simone. They also like to have sex. Shay was a virgin, so of course as soon as she even thinks about sex, she gets wicked pregnant.
On the Nona front, Nona's sponsee is backsliding and she drunkenly assaults Shay by pulling off the headdress she uses to cover her insane person scalp. The Sponsee keeps backsliding and eventually burns down Nona's garden.
Are you notcing this movie has no goddamned plot?
So, at a friend's wedding, Shay is all, "I don't like coffee anymore." And her boyfriend, at a fucking wedding, says, "Oh, you must be pregnant. I forgot to tell you that when I took your virginity that the condom tore off." Oh.
Shay spent the entire movie talking about not wanting kids, so of course she almost immediately dismisses abortion as an option. After all, the movie explicitly says "Black women do not get abortions." Jesus H. Christ.
The pregnancy gives Shay an immediate personality transplant. She suddenly loves her mother again and goes back to college in Iowa knowing that she is happy and knocked up.
AWESOMENESS: 0
That's right. Zero. Fuck this stupid movie. I see a lot of Lifetime movies where people refuse to get abortions. But those movies had some semblance of a plot. They had some kind of redeeming quality. This movie has no such thing.
Now, obviously I like the silly Lifetime movies more than the serious ones. I'm in this for the irony, man. Serious Lifetime movies are at a distinct disadvantage in my stupid, subjective ranking system.
I don't care. This movie was balls. Not the balls. Just balls. Big, sweaty, hairy nuts.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 1
This movie starred Jill Scott. The singer. She does not count. I don't listen to R&B stations. The one point is for Mimi Rodgers, the woman who was gracious enough to introduce her husband to Scientology and set off 25 years of hilarity.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
I am getting sick and tired of reviewing all of this anti-choice shit. But, it's a theme, so it's worth Lifetimeness points.
GRAND TOTAL: 5
The worst reviewed movie? Probably! Too lazy to double check!
This movie is brand new so it will be all over Lifetime. Avoid it. It's terrible.
Our protagonist goes by Shay. Or Le'Shay. If someone calls her one name, she demands to be called the other. She gets so righteous about it that, at one point, she interrupts a church service to yell at people for calling her the wrong name. Shay is having some trouble at college. She has some stress disorder where she is pulling out all of her hair. Her brand of crazy is freaking out her profs so they ask her to take a leave of absence.
Shay is such an awful person that she has no friends to turn to. So she flees to Washington to live with her mother, Nona. They haven't seen each other in five years. Apparently Nona had a hella drinking problem. When Shay gets to her mom's house, she finds a reformed woman who replaced booze with gardening. A woman who is active in her church, her community, and her work at a hospital. An amazing recovery!
Shay then makes peace with her mom and The End.
Just kidding! Despite getting her food cooked for her and living rent free, Shay takes the time to yell at her mom every chance she gets. Nona's sponsor and sponsee are coming over for coffee? Well fuck them! Look at Nona's stupid 12 Steps book. Hahahah! Nona reads cliched quotes for inspiration? What a rube!
Shay is the worst.
Shay doesn't deserve a love interest, but she gets one in a college dude who works at a record store. They both like Nina Simone. They also like to have sex. Shay was a virgin, so of course as soon as she even thinks about sex, she gets wicked pregnant.
On the Nona front, Nona's sponsee is backsliding and she drunkenly assaults Shay by pulling off the headdress she uses to cover her insane person scalp. The Sponsee keeps backsliding and eventually burns down Nona's garden.
Are you notcing this movie has no goddamned plot?
So, at a friend's wedding, Shay is all, "I don't like coffee anymore." And her boyfriend, at a fucking wedding, says, "Oh, you must be pregnant. I forgot to tell you that when I took your virginity that the condom tore off." Oh.
Shay spent the entire movie talking about not wanting kids, so of course she almost immediately dismisses abortion as an option. After all, the movie explicitly says "Black women do not get abortions." Jesus H. Christ.
The pregnancy gives Shay an immediate personality transplant. She suddenly loves her mother again and goes back to college in Iowa knowing that she is happy and knocked up.
AWESOMENESS: 0
That's right. Zero. Fuck this stupid movie. I see a lot of Lifetime movies where people refuse to get abortions. But those movies had some semblance of a plot. They had some kind of redeeming quality. This movie has no such thing.
Now, obviously I like the silly Lifetime movies more than the serious ones. I'm in this for the irony, man. Serious Lifetime movies are at a distinct disadvantage in my stupid, subjective ranking system.
I don't care. This movie was balls. Not the balls. Just balls. Big, sweaty, hairy nuts.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 1
This movie starred Jill Scott. The singer. She does not count. I don't listen to R&B stations. The one point is for Mimi Rodgers, the woman who was gracious enough to introduce her husband to Scientology and set off 25 years of hilarity.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
I am getting sick and tired of reviewing all of this anti-choice shit. But, it's a theme, so it's worth Lifetimeness points.
GRAND TOTAL: 5
The worst reviewed movie? Probably! Too lazy to double check!
This movie is brand new so it will be all over Lifetime. Avoid it. It's terrible.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Tribute
Tribute is based on a book by Nora Roberts, an author I'm not familiar with but I know I hate. I DVRed this piece of crap because it starred Brittany Murphy, formerly of Clueless and Drop Dead Gorgeous and currently of an L.A. toxicology report. This is one of her last movies, so why not check it out?
If Brittany Murphy never died, I never would have watched this. So you could say I'm taking her death particularly hard.
Murphy stars as Cilla McGowan, a former child actress living off residual checks. Cilla's grandmother was a big time singer and actress who won a bunch of Oscars before killing herself via vodka and sleeping pills. Cilla is moving back to her Grandma's Virginia estate to fix it up. No explanation given.
McGowan's neighbor is a hunky creep who writes graphic novels for a living. When some mysterious assailant cuts up Cilla's trees, leaves dolls lying around with knives in their back, and assaults Cilla's ex-husband (who tries - in a friendly way - to sleep with Cilla ONE SCENE before he tells Hunky Creep that he loves her like a sister) with a blow to the head, Hunky Creep demands that he spend the night in Cilla's bedroom for protection. He won't take "no" for an answer. How charming.
Naturally this asshole is the hero of the story. He proposes to Cilla after two weeks and manages to control every aspect of Cilla's life in that time and he is the good guy that every woman should want.
Ok, back to the assaults.
Cilla talks to her dead Grandma (who she has never met) in a series of soft focus dream sequences. My favorite is the one where Cilla falls down some weird bottomless pit.
Pictured: Rusty not exaggerating
If Brittany Murphy never died, I never would have watched this. So you could say I'm taking her death particularly hard.
Murphy stars as Cilla McGowan, a former child actress living off residual checks. Cilla's grandmother was a big time singer and actress who won a bunch of Oscars before killing herself via vodka and sleeping pills. Cilla is moving back to her Grandma's Virginia estate to fix it up. No explanation given.
McGowan's neighbor is a hunky creep who writes graphic novels for a living. When some mysterious assailant cuts up Cilla's trees, leaves dolls lying around with knives in their back, and assaults Cilla's ex-husband (who tries - in a friendly way - to sleep with Cilla ONE SCENE before he tells Hunky Creep that he loves her like a sister) with a blow to the head, Hunky Creep demands that he spend the night in Cilla's bedroom for protection. He won't take "no" for an answer. How charming.
Naturally this asshole is the hero of the story. He proposes to Cilla after two weeks and manages to control every aspect of Cilla's life in that time and he is the good guy that every woman should want.
Ok, back to the assaults.
Cilla talks to her dead Grandma (who she has never met) in a series of soft focus dream sequences. My favorite is the one where Cilla falls down some weird bottomless pit.
Pictured: Rusty not exaggerating
None of this is interesting or important. The bad guy turns out to be the wife of some guy in town who was fucking Grandma. Wifey killed Grandma and now, FOR NO REASON, is going to kill Cilla to finish the job.
But that attempted murder scene is holy fuck crazy. Wifey spikes Cilla's drink and tells her that people will think she killed herself or accidentally overdosed.
THE CLIMAX OF THIS MOVIE IS BRITTANY MURPHY WRITHING AND GASPING LIKE A FISH WHILE A BAD GUY TAUNTS HER BECAUSE EVERY ONE WILL THINK SHE ONLY OVERDOSED.
Why would Lifetime show that!?!? That's like showing Limp Bizkit's Rolling video on 9/12/01.
Oh yeah, Cilla gets rescued and lives happily ever after with a dude who deserves a restraining order.
AWESOMENESS: 7
The movie started slow and never made much sense, but those dream sequences where something special.
And I like my humor dark and black, but that ending... sheesh.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 4
No one famous except Murphy. I mentioned Drop Dead Gorgeous at the beginning of this review and it deserves a second mention. That movie is awesome. If you think Brittany Murphy suffering through an overdose in a film released months before her real life overdose is hilarious, you will LOVE Drop Dead Gorgeous.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
Harmony mentioned that the male love interests in Lifetime movies are often controlling assholes who would be portrayed as sociopaths by a sane television channel. Lifetime is very much unsane. Points there.
There was a startling lack of women's intuition though. Cilla only figured out who the bad guy was after Wifey was all, "Oh, bee-tee-dub, I just gave you the same poison I gave your grandmother! EFF-TEE-DUB!"
GRAND TOTAL: 15
The end of this movie was like a Family Guy joke. Mean-spirited and non-sensical. Tai deserves better.
But that attempted murder scene is holy fuck crazy. Wifey spikes Cilla's drink and tells her that people will think she killed herself or accidentally overdosed.
THE CLIMAX OF THIS MOVIE IS BRITTANY MURPHY WRITHING AND GASPING LIKE A FISH WHILE A BAD GUY TAUNTS HER BECAUSE EVERY ONE WILL THINK SHE ONLY OVERDOSED.
Why would Lifetime show that!?!? That's like showing Limp Bizkit's Rolling video on 9/12/01.
Oh yeah, Cilla gets rescued and lives happily ever after with a dude who deserves a restraining order.
AWESOMENESS: 7
The movie started slow and never made much sense, but those dream sequences where something special.
And I like my humor dark and black, but that ending... sheesh.
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 4
No one famous except Murphy. I mentioned Drop Dead Gorgeous at the beginning of this review and it deserves a second mention. That movie is awesome. If you think Brittany Murphy suffering through an overdose in a film released months before her real life overdose is hilarious, you will LOVE Drop Dead Gorgeous.
LIFETIMENESS: 4
Harmony mentioned that the male love interests in Lifetime movies are often controlling assholes who would be portrayed as sociopaths by a sane television channel. Lifetime is very much unsane. Points there.
There was a startling lack of women's intuition though. Cilla only figured out who the bad guy was after Wifey was all, "Oh, bee-tee-dub, I just gave you the same poison I gave your grandmother! EFF-TEE-DUB!"
GRAND TOTAL: 15
The end of this movie was like a Family Guy joke. Mean-spirited and non-sensical. Tai deserves better.
MAY SHE GO ROLLIN' WITH HER HOMIES IN THIS LIFE AND THE NEXT
Sunday, January 24, 2010
The Pregnancy Pact
Once upon a time, people paid me to write. Not just any people either. The Center for American Progress. Getting my first check from CAP was a proud moment. Unfortunately, the project didn't quite work. The project, a youth issues blog called Pushback, never took off. There were a lot of writers and I think "youth issues" was just a bit too broad. Ten people blogging about whatever the Hell they want was not a good recipe for success.
Two of the things I always wanted to write about were Massachusetts and the media. Both combined into a neat little package when Time published a hideously irresponsible article about a pregnancy pact between teenage girls in the sleepy fishing village of Gloucester (correctly pronounced Gloss-tah). So, hey, two posts from back in the day by me about the pregnancy pact. One. Two. Now you know my thoughts on this ridiculousness.
Imagine my delight when this pregnancy pact story got wrapped up in the third thing I like to write about: Lifetime movies.
So, The Pregnancy Pact. The story of how some girls decided to get pregnant even though there is no evidence that any agreement was made.
The film opens with a disclaimer saying that the movie is a fictionalized account of the story. This is bullshit. The movie has news footage of actual Gloucester residents (including the mayor) giving actual interviews. Then, at the end of the movie, a video blogger (seriously) says they were all wrong and the debunked myths were all true. Not very responsible, Lifetime.
I was wondering how Thora Birch got to be the lead in this movie. She can't play a kid anymore (Hocus Pocus in the house!) and she can't play a moody teenager. So, she can play a video blogger for Teen Up! (dot net) in New York City. Yes, somehow this vlogger has her own office and employees in New York City. And she has a budget where she can go to Gloucester on a whim and stay there for two weeks.
Vloggers are awful.
Our vlogger, Sidney, actually has a past in Gloucester. She lived there for two years and got knocked up and had that thing scripped out. She's interested in why none of the 18 pregnant teenagers in Gloucester are getting schma-schmortions.
Because these are good Catholics in Gloucester, you New York City heathen!
The girl we spend most of our time focusing on is Sara Dougan. She is 15 and is in love with her boyfriend, the star pitcher at Gloucester High. Sorry casting dudes, but Sara Dougan is not quite attractive enough to be dating a star athlete a year older than her. Of course, star athlete needs to get it where he can, so he knocks up Sara. Sara is pleased with this development because this means her boyfriend will stay in Gloucester and she already made an agreement with her pregnant friends to get knocked up. Not so much an agreement really as a - wait for it - PACT.
And, el oh el, Sara's mom, played by Lifetime staple Nancy Travis, is in charge of some family values committee that has fought to keep condoms out of the schools. How embarrassing!
So there all these pregnant chicks and Sidney interviews all of them. One of them looks enough like Mena Suvari to be legitimately unnerving whenever she's in the same frame as Thora Birch. Sidney is all like, what's the deal, you guys? Pregnancy is hard? You still have a choice! And the girls are all, like, "Whatever, Thora Birch."
Gloucester's principal then gives an interview to Time's Kathleen Kingsbury and claims there's a pregnancy pact. And now the national media is on the case! Thankfully, Sidney is young and hip and is TEENING UP (dot net) and gets the inside scoop from the pregnant hos. THERE IS A PACT.
Eventually Sara's baby daddy walks in on a confidential interview between Sara and Sidney and he freaks out because he got tricked into impregnating someone. Hey, dude, there was no trick. You are 16 and should know what happens when you skeet into fertile soil. Dumbass.
And, yes, this is a pattern in the movie. None of the pregnancies are any of the boys' faults. They were all tricked by devious ladies!
Sara's boyfriend bails because she lied about the pact and he gets a new girlfriend. Sara responds to this by getting toe up wasted at some high school kegger. She gets alcohol poisoning and needs a trip to the emergency room to make sure her fetus doesn't have flippers now. All the while everyone is falling over themselves talking about how Sara is such a good kid. Well, the evidence points to the contrary. Fifteen-year-olds who get pregnant and get alcohol poisoning are the very definition of bad kids. I don't see what one can do as a 15-year-old that could be worse besides mass murder. Basically, here's the bad kid order:
T1. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
3. Sara from The Pregnancy Pact.
With Sara getting out of the hospital, Sidney decides that she has had enough teening up (dot net) and gets ready to book it out of Dodge. But first she meets with her ex-boyfriend. The one who knocked her up. They haven't spoken since the 'bortion because he wanted her to keep it and she ended up moving away.
In what I would describe as the most reprehensible scene in Lifetime history, Sidney admits that she didn't really have an abortion but that she gave the child up for adoption and listed the father as "unknown" so this dude couldn't try and get custody. Ho-lee shit. This guy wanted the kid. Why not give him the kid!? And, what?
But it gets worse! The ex-boyfriend looks at Sidney and declares her a better person than he thought because only bad people get abortions.
THE MOTHERFUCKING END. SHIT JUST GOT REAL.
AWESOMENESS: 5
Every point of awesomeness is because TEEN UP! (dot net) is going to be an ongoing joke in my life. I might have given this more but that revelation at the end and the implications of it...I can't support this. Maybe Lifetime deserves a boycott or something?
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 8
Poor Thora Birch needs a new agent. And nice to see Lifetime regulars Nancy Travis and Camryn Manheim get in on the action. I would have liked it if there was just one more person in this. Like, someone you'd be surprised to see on Lifetime. The only surprise with Thora Birch is that she still exists.
So, I was going to give this a six, but, Thora Birch. Did you know that Now and Then is one of the greatest movies ever made? So, two point bonus.
LIFETIMENESS: 9
MORAL PANIC WITH DISGUSTINGLY RETRO ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHOICE.
If you read that totally out of context, you'd still think it was a Lifetime movie, right?
I'm taking away a point because the beginning of the movie pointed out that teen pregnancy had been dropping since World War II but had started to plateau and even rise a bit. This is true. But now I want an apology on behalf of Fifteen and Pregnant fans everywhere who were fed a bunch of bullshit about the "epidemic" of teen pregnancy. They lied!
GRAND TOTAL: 22
Middle of the road. It would have been so much better if Sara died of alcohol poisoning instead of focusing on a decade old adoption/abortion record. I hate it when Lifetime tries to play it coy by not murdering off every character who sips alcohol before they're 21.
Two of the things I always wanted to write about were Massachusetts and the media. Both combined into a neat little package when Time published a hideously irresponsible article about a pregnancy pact between teenage girls in the sleepy fishing village of Gloucester (correctly pronounced Gloss-tah). So, hey, two posts from back in the day by me about the pregnancy pact. One. Two. Now you know my thoughts on this ridiculousness.
Imagine my delight when this pregnancy pact story got wrapped up in the third thing I like to write about: Lifetime movies.
So, The Pregnancy Pact. The story of how some girls decided to get pregnant even though there is no evidence that any agreement was made.
The film opens with a disclaimer saying that the movie is a fictionalized account of the story. This is bullshit. The movie has news footage of actual Gloucester residents (including the mayor) giving actual interviews. Then, at the end of the movie, a video blogger (seriously) says they were all wrong and the debunked myths were all true. Not very responsible, Lifetime.
I was wondering how Thora Birch got to be the lead in this movie. She can't play a kid anymore (Hocus Pocus in the house!) and she can't play a moody teenager. So, she can play a video blogger for Teen Up! (dot net) in New York City. Yes, somehow this vlogger has her own office and employees in New York City. And she has a budget where she can go to Gloucester on a whim and stay there for two weeks.
Vloggers are awful.
Our vlogger, Sidney, actually has a past in Gloucester. She lived there for two years and got knocked up and had that thing scripped out. She's interested in why none of the 18 pregnant teenagers in Gloucester are getting schma-schmortions.
Because these are good Catholics in Gloucester, you New York City heathen!
The girl we spend most of our time focusing on is Sara Dougan. She is 15 and is in love with her boyfriend, the star pitcher at Gloucester High. Sorry casting dudes, but Sara Dougan is not quite attractive enough to be dating a star athlete a year older than her. Of course, star athlete needs to get it where he can, so he knocks up Sara. Sara is pleased with this development because this means her boyfriend will stay in Gloucester and she already made an agreement with her pregnant friends to get knocked up. Not so much an agreement really as a - wait for it - PACT.
And, el oh el, Sara's mom, played by Lifetime staple Nancy Travis, is in charge of some family values committee that has fought to keep condoms out of the schools. How embarrassing!
So there all these pregnant chicks and Sidney interviews all of them. One of them looks enough like Mena Suvari to be legitimately unnerving whenever she's in the same frame as Thora Birch. Sidney is all like, what's the deal, you guys? Pregnancy is hard? You still have a choice! And the girls are all, like, "Whatever, Thora Birch."
Gloucester's principal then gives an interview to Time's Kathleen Kingsbury and claims there's a pregnancy pact. And now the national media is on the case! Thankfully, Sidney is young and hip and is TEENING UP (dot net) and gets the inside scoop from the pregnant hos. THERE IS A PACT.
Eventually Sara's baby daddy walks in on a confidential interview between Sara and Sidney and he freaks out because he got tricked into impregnating someone. Hey, dude, there was no trick. You are 16 and should know what happens when you skeet into fertile soil. Dumbass.
And, yes, this is a pattern in the movie. None of the pregnancies are any of the boys' faults. They were all tricked by devious ladies!
Sara's boyfriend bails because she lied about the pact and he gets a new girlfriend. Sara responds to this by getting toe up wasted at some high school kegger. She gets alcohol poisoning and needs a trip to the emergency room to make sure her fetus doesn't have flippers now. All the while everyone is falling over themselves talking about how Sara is such a good kid. Well, the evidence points to the contrary. Fifteen-year-olds who get pregnant and get alcohol poisoning are the very definition of bad kids. I don't see what one can do as a 15-year-old that could be worse besides mass murder. Basically, here's the bad kid order:
T1. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
3. Sara from The Pregnancy Pact.
With Sara getting out of the hospital, Sidney decides that she has had enough teening up (dot net) and gets ready to book it out of Dodge. But first she meets with her ex-boyfriend. The one who knocked her up. They haven't spoken since the 'bortion because he wanted her to keep it and she ended up moving away.
In what I would describe as the most reprehensible scene in Lifetime history, Sidney admits that she didn't really have an abortion but that she gave the child up for adoption and listed the father as "unknown" so this dude couldn't try and get custody. Ho-lee shit. This guy wanted the kid. Why not give him the kid!? And, what?
But it gets worse! The ex-boyfriend looks at Sidney and declares her a better person than he thought because only bad people get abortions.
THE MOTHERFUCKING END. SHIT JUST GOT REAL.
AWESOMENESS: 5
Every point of awesomeness is because TEEN UP! (dot net) is going to be an ongoing joke in my life. I might have given this more but that revelation at the end and the implications of it...I can't support this. Maybe Lifetime deserves a boycott or something?
HEY! IT'S THAT GUY!: 8
Poor Thora Birch needs a new agent. And nice to see Lifetime regulars Nancy Travis and Camryn Manheim get in on the action. I would have liked it if there was just one more person in this. Like, someone you'd be surprised to see on Lifetime. The only surprise with Thora Birch is that she still exists.
So, I was going to give this a six, but, Thora Birch. Did you know that Now and Then is one of the greatest movies ever made? So, two point bonus.
LIFETIMENESS: 9
MORAL PANIC WITH DISGUSTINGLY RETRO ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHOICE.
If you read that totally out of context, you'd still think it was a Lifetime movie, right?
I'm taking away a point because the beginning of the movie pointed out that teen pregnancy had been dropping since World War II but had started to plateau and even rise a bit. This is true. But now I want an apology on behalf of Fifteen and Pregnant fans everywhere who were fed a bunch of bullshit about the "epidemic" of teen pregnancy. They lied!
GRAND TOTAL: 22
Middle of the road. It would have been so much better if Sara died of alcohol poisoning instead of focusing on a decade old adoption/abortion record. I hate it when Lifetime tries to play it coy by not murdering off every character who sips alcohol before they're 21.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
And If There's a New Way!!! **guitar** I'll Be The First in Line!!!
Fantastic quiz here. Lifetime Movie or Megadeth Song. I only got six out of ten.
Also, please listen to Holy Wars. Right now.
The unannounced sabbatical ends this weekend. Would have ended sooner if Terri didn't accidentally delete all of my DVR'ed movies.
Hope everyone's excited for The Pregnancy Pact!
Also, please listen to Holy Wars. Right now.
The unannounced sabbatical ends this weekend. Would have ended sooner if Terri didn't accidentally delete all of my DVR'ed movies.
Hope everyone's excited for The Pregnancy Pact!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Volunteering Will Get You Shot In The Face
Those of you wondering where your reviews are: I got the stomach flu! Hooray for life! It's difficult to get together the stamina to watch and review terrible TV movies when you have the flu, especially when you fall asleep in the middle of them and have to start over. Talk about adding insult to influenza. Since Safe Harbor was on my streaming Netflix queue, it required the least amount of effort to view, so it got bumped up in the setlist. It's the story of a grieving widow, her daughter, the creepy overbearing stranger who wants to fix their lives, and the dangers of volunteering. I am not kidding: Danielle Steele thinks that working with people in need is a quick path to an early grave. But we'll get to that later.
The first half of the movie is pretty dull. Melissa Gilbert is Ophelia MacKenzie (gack), a widow with a terrible French accent and some big-time hangups re: the death of her husband and their son. She blames herself for their deaths because she committed the cardinal sin of the Lifetime movie mother and sent them on a trip because she needed some space. Naturally, they die in a fiery airplane explosion and she goes into a catatonic state of grief. Her daughter Pip, a precocious consolation prize, just wants her mom to stop being so mopey and start having fun again. Ophelia moves them to their oceanside vacation home to sulk in a nicer environment. Will Ophelia get her groove back? Like all Lifetime movies, the answer comes on the broad, hairy back of a possessive man!
Side note: Someone please write How Ophelia Got Her Groove Back. I can't be the only English/Women's Studies nerd who would love that.
Matt Bowles is a recent divorcee who lives in the same resort complex. He spends all day sitting on the beach, painting, and looking wistful as his chest hair puffs in the wind. He takes a weird interest in Pip, calling her over and showing her how to sketch and complementing her on things that are creepy for an older dude to notice. Ophelia notices their uncomfortable closeness, and like any good mother would, tells him to back off. But that's the wrong answer, according to the movie and her erstwile galpal. According to her stupid friend, it's a good thing that a weird guy is following Opie's pubescent daughter around, and she should probably go ahead and fuck the guy now before someone else notices how great he is. The movie gets weirder from there, as Opie and Bill get to be good buddies and Pip and Bill cross all kinds of uncomfortable boundaries. I would like to say the worst part is when Bill takes Pip to a school dance, but that pales in comparison to Bill's Christmas gift for Opie: a portrait of her two children. Yes, Bill stole a photo of Opie's dead son from her bedside table and painted him alongside the remaining living child. BILL IS A NURTURING NUTJOB. DANGER, DANGER OPHELIA MACKENZIE. Not really, it's a Lifetime movie. It's just a countdown until she decides she loves his bossy, boring ass, and until she does the movie trundles on like a gutshot deer looking for a clearing in which to die.
In the meantime, Opie's therapist convinces her it's time to get out there and start working in her community to help her deal with her grief in a constructive way. This isn't an uncommon suggestion for people who struggle with long term depression, and for many people it's actually a great way to start making the human connections that draw you out of your sad blue shell. However, this is a Lifetime movie! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! (I couldn't resist.) Volunteering is set up as a terrifying whirlwind of middle-class nightmares from the get-go. Apparently, a sheltered mumbly lady with a terrible fake accent who has been volunteering with poor people for a whole week has all the skills necessary to go out 5 times a week and work with poor homeless kids. And oh my GOD is it offensive. Every single non-white person in the movie is either a volunteer or a vagrant, and the implication is every time she's within spitting distance of either one of them she's a heartbeat away from certain death The shots of Opie doling out blankets with this air of pained noblesse oblige are vomit-inducing, as is the praise heaped on her shoulders for her continuing stellar work as White Lady Jesus. Goddamn do I hate watching a movie where some pissant wearing bling that's worth more then my car get turned into Lady Madonna because she schlepped some soup. Fuck you, movie.
(Okay, I'm a big time volunteer booster, so here's my disclaimer: YAY VOLUNTEERS! Like in every other thing, Lifetime Movies are not reflections of real life. Volunteers who work hard for non-profits are their lifeblood, and we love them! If you really want to help your community, please get out there and do it. It's always appreciated.)
But Bill is angry about her volunteer work, because it is so dangerous to spend time with people in a low-income demographic that she will surely be killed! Because poor people are violent and unstable and live to eat the flesh of those who shop at Croft and Barrel! And guess what? HE IS ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! She gives in to his pleas to quit, and at her last night on the site she gives this annoying speech about how she was volunteering because the hole in her heart, but now that hole is filled with Bill, so she doesn't need to volunteer anymore. HOORAY! POVERTY IS CANCELED BECAUSE YOU DON'T NEED IT ANYMORE! THANKS, WHITE LADY JESUS! A few minutes later a homeless guy shoots her in the stomach for no discernible reason, and she's off to the ICU. What fucking planet are you from, Danielle Steele? He visits her in the hospital, they are super-in love and decide to get married, whatever.
Bestest subplot ever- it turns out that Opie's only friend was helping her husband cheat on her! Opie finds out, tosses a hissy, and orders the galpal out of her site. She resurfaces about 6 months later with a baby in her arms and terminal cancer. She reveals that she has cervical cancer, which she is sure that God gave her as a punishment for her infidelity, and that she wants Opie to adopt the baby as it is rightfully hers. Opie agrees that all of this is probably true, and we end up with another baby + wedding ending. Is this a common theme with Danielle Steele movies or what?
So, let's summarize: you should not volunteer because you may die, and you definitely shouldn't sleep with a married man lest the Lord decides to rot off your naughty bits with divine justice. However, nurturing a stranger's Henry Darger-esque idealization of your daughter is a good way to meet Mr. Right. WHAT.
AWESOMENESS: 10 (out of 20)
I'm going to give this one a few more awesome points because it was just so fucking weird and crazy. After we got over the first hour blahs I was pretty much on the edge of my seat trying to figure out what weird new twist in the fabric of reality was going to justify the self-absorbed idiocy of the leading lady. It was kind of like watching The Twilight Zone and trying to guess what weird crap is going on just off camera that makes everyone so afraid of the cute little kid in the diner.
STAR POWER: 4 (out of 10)
Melissa Gilbert was the voice of Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series! Oh, and she starred in the Little House on the Prairie TV show for a hundred years. 3 bat-points for Melissa. Brad Johnson starred in those damn Left Behind movies, so thanks for another point, Kirk Cameron.
LIFETIMELINESS: 9 (out of 10)
White Lady Jesus Christ Superstar! One point deducted for her only female friend turning out to be a traitorous bitch. That's not cool, girlfriend.
23 points. This seems to be the sweet spot for these movies. Next up: Palomino!
Monday, November 16, 2009
Oh God, Not Again
Some personal issues are preventing me from working on these reviews. I will have one up as soon as I can. In the meantime, you can always read the last one, as these movies are relatively interchangeable. Thanks for your patience.
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