To Have and to Hold

They can't all be winners. Justine Bateman gives the ol' college try to shake off her "Mallory Keaton" label but that label proves far too powerful. She will always be Mallory to us. In fact, as we watched this, we just pretended that this was what happened to Mallory after "Family Ties" ended - you know, after Alex became a jazz drummer, Jennifer opened a meth lab, Stephen became the governor of North Dakota, and Elyse died in a horrible snowboarding accident.

I'm kind of killing space here because I hardly remember anything about this movie. And I just watched it! Here's what I can piece together: Mallory is a real estate agent dating a dude who has an affair with a hottie who convinces her drug-dealing ex-boyfriend to put a hit on Mallory's hubby after he dumps the hottie to go back to Mallory. Only Mallory turns the table on the would-be killer and stabs that sucker with a knife. Oh, snap!

We just spent a few minutes trying to remember the order of stabbings and shootings that follow and we failed. Suffice it to say that there are stabbings and shootings. Oddly, the only thing I really remember from this movie is Mallory's little girl, who goes down in the Lifetime Hall of Fame as the Most Boring Daughter Ever. I know this sounds mean, but geez was that girl dull. I hope she doesn't end up as the night manager at her local Hardee's, but I'm afraid she will.

Hey, did you know that Mallory makes clothes now (like these lovely green undies)?

RATING: 3. Mallory, why hast thou forsaken us?

Fall asleep standing up at Lifetime's official To Have and to Hold website.

Need a palate cleanser after that huge underwear picture? Try some classic-era Mallory shilling for Maxwell House:

Fatal Desire

Head's up: Anne Heche is crazy! If you're a single guy and you run into Anne Heche and you don't remember that she used to be an actual crazy person who woke up on people's porches and had to be checked into institutions and dated Ellen and whatnot, then let this movie serve as a warning. She is crazy and will toss you from the cliffs of insanity.

Also: Anne Heche is skanky! We've seen two Lifetime movies starring her now, and her skank readings are in the red. We don't blame her for this. Some people are just skankier than others. And if you're someone like poor Atlantic City pit-boss Joe, and you start an online affair with Anne Heche that spills over into real life, then skanky is obviously what you're into - and that's the plot of this movie.

Yes, Joe likes 'em skanky and filthy, and we don't hold that against him. Actually we wouldn't hold anything against him, because he's played by Eric Roberts, who's pretty skanky and filthy himself. Anyway, back to the plot: Anne ends up conning Joe into thinking she's got an abusive husband who needs to be dead. You can figure out the rest.

Highlights include: 1) Skankiness levels approach the legendary; 2) Eric Roberts always looking like a cat fell asleep on his head; 3) Joe's son, who may or may not be named "Titty"; 4) Anne's two karaoke numbers sung in a wheezy whine (see below); 5) Anne's daughter, who inexplicably vanishes in the second half of the movie and never returns; and 6) The fact that both Anne and Joe each have a Roz, and Joe's Roz meets Anne's Roz, momentarily creating the mind-bending possibility that we might have a Roz vs. Roz face-off, which would totally blow our minds and threaten the space-time continuum - perhaps fortunately for the human race, this meeting never happens.

RATING: 7. The montage of slutty Anne pics that end the movie is probably worth taping and watching in slow-mo. You know, if you're into that kind of thing.

(Left: Joe and Anne during happier times.)

Ho it up at Lifetime's official Fatal Desire website.

Below: Heche sings!

She's Too Young

In elementary school, communicable diseases worthy of a parent-teacher-kid trifecta freakout usually fall into several categories: itchy (chicken pox), insect (lice), or vomitrocious (flu).

In this high school, it was an epidemic of a different nature.
If you're thinking "syphilis?", you're right!

Fourteen year old freshman Hannah Vogul (a cute, but vaguely piggy Alexis Dziena) is running with a fast crowd. Her friends (one of whom is played by Degrassi alum Miriam McDonald), are into some pretty heavy stuff. Yep, I'm talking about orgies.

It all starts out innocently enough when Hannah goes out with the school Studly Dudley, Nick (a profoundly dopey Mike Erwin II). He invites her over, gets her clothes off, joins her in the hot tub and reminds her that he's not just about sex. Hannah is over the moon about this guy even though a couple of her friends have already had the pleasure of "doing" him. She's different! He "really likes her"! He gave her a stupid present and chastely watched movies with her at his house!

At this point, the movie is pretty much 100% realism. The girl looks and acts 14, the boy...well, he seems as quietly predatory as older boys are at that age. He is nothing like her boy-buddy, who is so nondescript that I have forgotten his name. That boy is a dork and is not orgy material.

Ok, so Nick puts the moves on Hannah and she says that she's not ready. He gives her the old boo hoo blue balls look and she gives in. It's quick and unreciprocal oral sex for this helpless naif. She doesn't seem to enjoy it much. She sure doesn't know that she just got the uncoolest present of all: syphilis.

The movie moves forward at a breakneck pace at this point. All of Hannah's friends are totally into doing as many guys as they can and so they all get syphilis. Hundreds of people in her school are screened, hundreds receive an antibiotic shot. There is a kindly social worker type who is trying to chart the spread of the syph on a whiteboard. She is coming up against a lot of resistance from the administration and parents who refuse to believe that their kids are sexually active. The girls have conflicts with their mothers, who all fall into different motherly stereotypes (the young-and-lenient, the overly religious, the PTA demon.)

In the meantime, the dork maintains his ardent love for Hannah and eventually uses his annoying cellphone camera to save the day. Wonder how this happens? You'll just have to see the movie.

I give this at least 6 points just for dealing with the unseemly topic of a syphilis epidemic in such an unusually realistic way. -1 for the dork, because most girls who give it up like Hannah don't wind up with such a nice dude, at least not right away. + 1 for indignant Marcia Gay Harden, who humiliates her daughter by holding her up as an example. Who wants a mom who makes YOU the poster child for VD?!?! +1 for being the kind of movie you could accidentally put on and watch with your teenage daughter to segue into a very important talk about not dating jerks.

Overall, I think this movie deserves an 8. I enjoyed it for its frank depiction of teenage orgies as well as their consequences.

Rating: 8.

Here's a video with clips from the movie set to a Pink song. I don't get it, but maybe you will.
A youtube commenter had this to say: "i love this movie its soo cool and also the guys sooo hot even wehn he sais I HAVE SYPHILIS UHH AHHH SYPHILIS SYPHILIS! "

Wife, Mother, Murderer: The Marie Hilley Story

In this movie, Alabaman slime-ball Marie Hilley kills her husband, tries to get insurance money by burning down her own house, blowing up her own car, and attempting to poison her daughter, then takes a new identity and marries a dude in Vermont, then fakes her own death, then comes back to the dude pretending to be her own sister, before finally getting caught in her own web of lies. If you're counting, that's like seven Lifetime movies condensed into two hours, all of them starring one Judith Light.

Oh, man, is this movie good. Just keep re-reading that first paragraph over and over until you're whipped into a frenzy of disbelief and joy, and you'll feel pretty much like we did after our second - that's right, our second - viewing of this modern masterpiece.

What can we say about Judith Light's performance? Her Scarlett O'Hara accent is better than her Who's the Boss's co-star's Rhett Butler impression, but it's still a train wreck. Her hair and clothes are - I'm sorry - I can't continue. I'm blinded by tears of disbelief and joy.

If they sold Marie Hilley action figures, we'd buy them. If a judge asked us to swear on a stack of Wife, Mother, Murderer DVDs, we'd consider it our proud honor. Look, we're running out of ways to say this movie rules.

RATING: 9. The best part is when she comes back as her own sister, complete with several different full-body rhinestone-plated denim jumpsuits.

Sprinkle a little Crazy Salt on your life at Lifetime's official Wife, Mother, Murderer website.

Here's the wacko part where she shows up in her denimwear:

Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape

Odette Yustman may sound like the name of a fussy old biddy, but it's actually the name of this attractive young woman who apparently was on the show October Road as well as starring as one of the screaming kids in Cloverfield, which I saw. Since I can't accept her as "Odette," I'm going to have to refer to her as Cloverfield. Is that OK?

Regardless of your answer, this movie is about a young woman, Cloverfield, who really has it going on: she's got a fancy new job as a grade-school teacher, she has a hunky fireman boyfriend, and a great haircut. To blow off some steam from this entirely too stressful existence, Cloverfield and a couple of her girlfriends head off to the tropics for some harmless fun. Their harmless fun gets a little out of control when they meet Antonio Sabato Jr., who is always around making sure the girls are liquored up, dancing, and telling sexy truth-or-dare type stories--while constantly videotaping everything.

Yes, as the title may have hinted, this "reckless behavior" is "caught on tape." I know, you may be thinking that doing shots with your shorties and sitting around the fire making fake-orgasm noises doesn't sound all that reckless, it just sounds like your basic Friday night. Well, Lifetime is here to tell you that it is reckless. RECKLESS. You wanton sluts.

So anyway, Antonio mixes shots of Cloverfield dancing and fake-orgasming and splices it with porn shots, and the next thing you know it's the hottest porno on the net. Cloverfield's family, friends, and colleagues all end up seeing it, she loses her job, her boyfriend starts frowning almost 24/7, and no lawyer will represent her (although she does find one who gives Cloverfield, and all Lifetime viewers, a stern lecture on how we should really be blaming the whole situation on the evils of modern society, rap music, and fashion ads).

The interesting thing here is that the creators of this movie paint themselves into a narrative corner and can't figure out any way for Cloverfield to win. So this is what they come up with: Cloverfield tracks down Antonio at his dumpy L.A. pad (where apparently he executes George Lucas-levels of digital manipulation to get Cloverfield's head on various nude bods). Then she destroys a couple of his computer monitors and drives away looking all self-satisfied like she has just reclaimed her virtue. Destroying computer monitors has that effect, I guess.

RATING: 7. Personally, I love seeing reckless behavior of all stripes caught on tapes of any format, so I was totally into this.

Dig it: Lifetime's official Reckless Behavior website.

No official vid, though, so here's some promo thing from Cloverfield, which, if you think about it, also could have been titled Reckless Behavior: Caught on Tape.

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.