See Jane Run

Joanna Kerns suddenly realizes she is in a grocery store and has no idea who she is. I don't mean that in an existential-crisis kind of way, either. She has amnesia, two pockets full of cash, and a big bloody stain on the front of her dress. What's a girl to do?

The answer: get suckered back into living with her Warren Beatty lookalike husband, who is trying to "help" her get her memory back by keeping her totally doped up on pills, courtesy of his strange woman/boy assistant. It's not as complicated as it sounds: her hubby is evil, he's hiding something, and those drugs he's giving her are actually drugs that will eventually kill her.

Joanna wises up, starts pocketing the pills, and eventually escapes, when a timely head wound magically gives back all of her memories. Turns out, Warren was sexually abusing Joanna's daughter, thus the money and the blood, blah blah blah. There's a rushed conclusion where the woman/boy suddenly changes sides and becomes the star witness who sends Warren to the slammer.

It's not a very good movie, but is redeemed by two factors. 1) The woman/boy assistant is really peculiar. Is she a butchy lesbian? A forest sprite? Cute? Unappealing? It's impossible to tell. 2) While her memory is gone, Joanna is haunted by lots of bizarre dreams that over-use fog machines and wide-angle lenses to hilarious effect. Also, in these dreams, for some reason she always ends up beating the crap out of someone.

RATING: 5. I never thought I'd get to see Joanna Kerns punch so many people in my lifetime, much less a single movie.

Check out Lifetime's official See Jane Run page.

Deadly Whispers

A woman and her husband are sleeping in a modest, wood-paneled country home. The mom gets up, puts on one of her many housecoats and starts to cook a staggeringly large breakfast. The father goes into the bathroom and, eventually, emerges and eats breakfast with his family. The father is the manager of a junkyard, and he is concerned with his teenaged daughter's behavior. The mother is extremely houseproud and always does what needs to be done for her family. Then, one day, the daughter disappears. The father supposedly saw her drive off in a red pickup with a strange man.

A police officer questions the family, but they profess ignorance. What could have happened to Kathy? They vow to find her.

Sound familiar? This is standard Lifetime fare, save but for one small detail. The father is played by Tony Danza.



Well, three details. He's Tony Danza, and he's eventually accused of the murder. And he has multiple personalities.


This movie would be pretty boring, save for the absolutely preposterous casting of Tony "Eh Oh, Oh Eh" Danza as the threadbare West Virginia father clinging to his last smidge of sanity. His accent falls somewhere between Boston, Savannah, New Orleans and Brooklyn. It's nothing short of atrocious. On the other end of the spectrum you have the wife, who is frumpy and appropriately accented. Her face even hints at WV, with wide-set eyes and an angry little mouth that can only say like three things: "Where's Kathy?" "I want my children back" and "I have to support my family." OH, and Ving Rhames is the lead investigating cop on the scene, but he is not required to fake a WV accent at all.


Highlights include: the panoply of housecoats worn by the mom, the regionless idiolect spoken by Tony Danza, Heather Tom as "the slutty dead daughter" and, of course, the performance of Tony Danza himself, which is among the worst Lifetime Performances by a Lead Male that we have had the pleasure of seeing.


RATING: 8. It's not for the story, which is pretty pedestrian, but for sheer Lifetime ridiculousness, this one is off the charts.

Here is a shitty video of a metal band called Deadly Whispers, which clearly is an homage to this fine cinematic ode to multiple personality disorder.

Terminology: Double-clutch

You ever find yourself having a "Lifetime Moment"? Like maybe you're opening up to your best gal-friend about that time when you were shot down by gang members, or perhaps revealing to your mother how you prostituted yourself to buy street-grade crack, or sharing a moment with anyone about anything remotely having to do with rape? Then chances are you both had a large mug of steaming hot coffee (or tea), that you were each gripping with both hands for maximum coziness. This is known as the double-clutch.

Almost any heart-to-heart scene in any Lifetime movie has a couple double-clutches. Particularly good movies will have six or seven. When discussing your favorite Lifetime movies, we suggest using this term, as it will shave valuable seconds off your conversations, seconds you could be spending watching more Lifetime movies. "Wasn't it great when mother and daughter finally double-clutched?" you'll ask. "Yes it was," your friend will respond, as she double-clutches her own large mug of steaming hot coffee (or tea).

Pictured: Random woman honing her double-clutch. Not bad, lady.

Justice for Annie

Traveling all the way from the wonderful year of 1996, comes this devastatingly weird story about a girl, Danica McKellar (who we might as well just call "Winnie Cooper"), who is a normal girl graduating from high school... normal except for one thing.... she has DYSLEXIA!!!!!

Surprise! This isn't a dyslexia movie. Winnie Cooper goes and gets hitched with her sailor boyfriend and moves with him to Seattle, much to the dismay of her mom, Peggy Lipton. Things go south pretty fast and the sailor husband starts getting.... VERBALLY ABUSIVE!!!!!

Surprise! This isn't an abuse movie, either. Winnie leaves her husband and meets a new boy. This boy is played by Lochlyn Munro! Very exciting! You may not know who Lochlyn Munro is, but on Planet Lifetime, he is a god. He's got a strange, smashed-looking face, and beavery teeth and is always, always, always playing the rapist football player. Here he's playing the bait to lure Winnie Cooper to rent a room with his parents, who just happen to be in the business of killing people for life insurance money. Yep, it's a killing-people-for-life-insurance-money movie.

So anyway, these two old folks toss Winnie off a cliff, Peggy Lipton grieves, double-clutches (twice) with her Roz, then gets suspicious, then takes the killers to court, and then wins and achieves inner peace or something. Peggy Lipton gives another of her classic "I'm overdosing on Xanax" performances, and it's fun watching Winnie Cooper ruin her life so carelessly. But the main thrill for us was the brief appearance of Lochlyn Munro. Lochlyn Munro!

RATING: 8. This movie is so scattered, it's like three Lifetime movies in one, all of them awesome.

Terminology: The Roz

Occasionally here at the Judith Light Conspiracy Theory, we feel the need to define some terms. That's because we throw around a lot of lingo. And if you're not hip to our jargon, you feel like a killdozer in a flabbapatch.

OK, I made those two words up. But a real term we use while watching Lifetime movies and discussing them amongst ourselves is The Roz. See, most Liftetime movies have a main heroine, and, to move the plot along, that heroine needs a friend. Sometimes that friend is what we currently call "The Black Friend." (We're working on a better term.) But often the heroine's friend is a slightly-less-attractive white friend and/or coworker. We like to call this person "Roz." Why? Because weren't all those kind-of-dumpy, wisecracking-but-bitter, hug-sharing teachers you had in high school named "Roz"? They're weren't? Well, they should've been. Shame on them.

Usually The Roz is just there for comic relief, double-clutching, and asking appropriate questions so that the heroine can move the plot along. It's a thankless job being a Roz, but for some ladies it's just their lot in life(time).

(Above: Rachel Dratch kinda seems like a Roz.)

OMG!

Friends Til the End is on tonight!
Hope you're all enjoying this fine piece of American cinema. We know we are!

The Governor's Wife

The general rule is: the older the Lifetime movie, the better we like it. As much as we love Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network, we wish those CEOs would get it together and create Lifetime Classics (tm), a network of TV movies pre-1990. Those were really the glory days. But our love of vintage material doesn't mean we don't enjoy the new age of Lifetime movies, too. Case in point: us sitting our butts down to watch the World Broadcast Premiere of The Governor's Wife. Being a part of such a gala event was one of the proudest moments of our lives. Taste the magic.

It's about a girl (I don't know any of the actors' names so I'm just gonna call her Girl) who is about to get married to Guy who is the son of the Governor's Wife (GW). The Governor himself has just been mysteriously murdered, so Guy and Girl rush to the estate for the funeral. GW, played by someone semi-famous who is pretty old but nonetheless looks good in riding pants, is not broken up about her husband's death. At all. This fact is totally ignored by everyone. She's just happy to put on her riding pants and go parading around the house in her riding pants. She is mean to her servants, too, though they seem to be in secret cahoots with her. Riding pants.

Anyway, long story short, GW is a psycho who wants Guy to be the next governor, and of course only Girl is on to her. So GW starts shooting everyone and killing a bunch of people and is about to kill Girl at the end when Guy and the kindly sheriff blow her away. She is wearing riding pants during her death, by the way. As she's lying there writhing around in her death throes, it's notable that, again, no one cares. What is it about this family that they're so blase about shooting deaths?

Look, this was all right. There's one point where GW goes really over the top and starts sing-songing her dialogue like she thinks she's Jack Nicholson in The Shining. That part was worth like a "9." However...

RATING: 5. A good diversion from our bleak, riding-pants-free existences, but not as life-altering as a Lifetime movie should be. Couldn't there have been an ex-90210 cast member in this or something? Brandon Walsh would've made a good Guy. Just sayin'.

Trial by Fire

If you're a high school English teacher, have blonde hair and are reasonably attractive, you best WATCH OUT: according to this movie, friendly blonde teachers can be accused of murder, statuatory rape, name-sullying, school district ruining and a host of other small town plagues. They will also be reduced to choosing the creepiest, pastiest defense lawyer (Keith Carradine) to clear their good names.

In this rather dull 1995 courtroom/flashback drama (possibly based on a real story, we're not sure), Gail O'Grady is a lit-lovin' English teacher who is accused of having an unsavory relationship with one of her students, who eventually commits suicide. I can't be bothered to remember the details of this story, as it's relatively complicated and definitely boring, but I can assure you that it was Lifetimey. A highlight is Devon Odessa, better known as Angela Chase's scorned best friend on My So-Called Life, who is as bershon as it gets. Her face is always a complex stew of humiliation, outrage and boredom.

I wish I felt that strongly about this movie. As a "teacher does the vo-dee-oh-doh with student" genre goes, it's relatively tame. Gail O'Grady gives a good performance as The Overzealous Teacher Who Can't Stop Caring and Keith Carradine looks appropriately gross, like he sneaks off to the courtroom loo for a nip from his flask and to look at his pasty, drawn face and wonder where it all went wrong.

RATING: 6 above average, but the details were barely memorable.

Appointment for a Killing

They say that going to to the dentist is torture, but what if your dentist is also a murderer? Will we be drilling today...or killing?
That is the premise for this classic Lifetime era 1993 Markie Post/Corbin Bernsen/Kelsey Grammer mediocrity exhibition. Sure, there were high points. Among them:

• Kelsey Grammer's perm and mustache
• Markie Post looking halfway normal
• Corbin Bernsen freaking out over and over (as he is prone to doing in Lifetime movies)
  
• Extra special guest appearance by Patrick Swayze's brother Don, who looks like an exaggerated version of Patrick.

• True story exaggerated to the point of farce
  

Even though it's always good -- excellent even!-- to have a Swayze in your movie, there were some low points as well:

• Robotic performance by a child
• Repeated scenes of aggressive sex starring Corbin Bernsen
• A sad, wrongfully accused African American character saying "tell it again, whitey"
• Not nearly enough Swayze to make this 2 hour movie worth it.
  

In sum, I would say that this movie had all of the elements of a classic Lifetime suspense thriller -- sex, killing, identity changing, treachery -- but little of the low budget charm of the other early-mid 90s Lifetime movies. Perhaps we had a difficult time enjoying this movie because we watched it on VHS (taped over some old sitcoms, in fact) and we had trouble hearing the dialogue. We thought Bernsen's character's name was Stan Vanderman but it turns out it was actually Benderman. We found this out at the end of the movie when they scrolled the epilogue past us at record speed to tell us that Stan Benderman was serving 5 consecutive lifetime sentences in Missouri.

Unfortunately, this movie also felt like a lifetime sentence.

RATING: 5. (would not watch again or recommend but do not feel time was entirely wasted)

There is not much about this movie on the web, but you can see a short preview in this preview of various movies on an Australian series called "Power to the People at Home". There are other TV movies in this trailer that look pretty good! Too bad they're not being shown on Lifetime and this one is...

Deadly Pursuits

Tori Spelling is an erotic dancer who... well, what's the point in going any further? You already know this is going to be worthwhile. Okay, honestly we missed the first half-hour of this, and we have a hunch that's when most of the erotic dancing took place, but we're okay with that. Really. We got a taste of her skills when the sweet music of a street saxophonist compelled her to bump and grind her new boyfriend right there on the sidewalk. Let's back up: her new boyfriend is some Ivy League dude who is looking for his dad, who has gone in hiding because Richard Belzer (playing a Colombian drug lord) wants to kill him. Whatever. The point is this buttoned-up nice kid gets mixed up with "bad girl" Tori and the result (for the viewer, anyway) is sheer pleasure.

Tori looks like she stepped right off the set of 90210. She has a crazy new hairstyle every 10 minutes, and she has a half-shirt for every occasion. Dining out? Half-shirt. Shooting bad guys? Half-shirt. She also gets some great lines, like "I picked a fine day not to wear a bra" and "I always cry when I'm drunk." She's horribly miscast, of course. Tori Spelling seems to us like a tightly wound kind of gal, and her attempt at playing a giggly free-wheeler reminds us of when Madonna tried the same thing in Who's that Girl? It's embarrassing, except that Tori doesn't seem embarrassed, so that makes it okay for us to enjoy it. Right? Right?

Rating: 6. Not nearly enough erotic dancing. Though that could be our fault for missing the first half-hour. We blame ourselves.



"Hi, I'm Tori, and this behind me is my white ceiling."

Friends 'Til the End

Shannen Doherty sings in a college band called (we think) Dead Pink. Her boyfriend, Jason London, is also in the band. For reasons entirely unclear, Dead Pink is all the rage on campus. Shannen is also in a sorority. You can tell already that this is going to be really good. Then it gets even better. Zanne is a psycho who weasels her way into Shannen's life and even gets in her band and steals her boyfriend. Along the way she kills some people, poisons Shannen, and stars in the most hilarious music video ever made. Some sleuthing by Shannen reveals that Zanne is a childhood beauty-pageant rival of hers and this is all part of some bizarre revenge. It all ends in a super battle of the bands where Zanne loses it on stage, followed by Shannen saving the day by singing an acoustic number about the hypocrisy of consumerist culture or something like that.

This is currently our favorite Lifetime movie of all time. The main reason for this is that there are tons of "alternative rock" songs, all of which are bad and sung by Shannen in a flat monotone. Everyone takes these songs really seriously, but they are just awful. The best one is called "Can Anybody Hear Me? (Because I Don't)". We're just assuming that's the song title from the lyrics, despite the fact that it's grammatically incorrect. (Get a sample of the song stylings here). Look, this movie rules. If there was a soundtrack, we'd buy it.

RATING: 10. Next time this is on we're setting our VCR to "record."

Lady Killer

Judith Light stars as a as lady who gets bored of her husband. She has an affair with Jack Wagner, but then calls it off when she rekindles her romance with her husband. Jack freaks out and rapes her, but she doesn't turn him in because she doesn't want anyone to know about the affair. Then Jack starts dating Judith's daughter, Tracey Gold. This pushes everyone over the edge, and Jack ends up shooting Judith's husband, and then getting pushed off the top of a lighthouse by Judith and Tracey. This movie is notable for the alarming hairstyles of both Judith and Jack (Judith has a turn-of-the-century poof, much as she often did in Who's the Boss, and Jack has a bob). There's also lots of wine drinking, bubble baths, uncomfortable Judith sexytimes, and stupid therapy.

RATING: 8. This is one of the best Lifetime movies we have seen. The hair alone is worth like 6 or 7. Tracey Gold is hardly even in this thing; she's just bonus!