Cheestastic Holiday TV Movies - For the week of December 19

It's that time of year again! The month of December where my dvr(s) get filled to the brim with dozens of horrifyingly awesome, badly written/acted Christmas-themed TV movies. These films are like comforting baby food that I eat up (by the gallons) with a spoon.
Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel (and their movies-only sister channels) are the main culprits in inflicting these messes on the masses. ABC Family and AMC have their hands in there too.
Here's a list of just some of what I've consumed in the last week:

- A Dog Named Christmas 

- Mistletoe Over Manhattan, starring the chick from "Battlestar Galactica"!!

- A Princess For Christmas, oog Roger Moore is NOT aging well.

- A Holiday Engagement

- Jingle All The Way, WARNING: This one was animated. And badly. I was expecting something so stupid.

- A Christmas Wedding Tail, Hmmm...a lot of movies this year focus on dogs.

- Lucky Christmas

- Flirting With Forty, Seriously. So good, guys. Heather Locklear at her finest cougar lady.

- Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage, Hmm...Jared Padalecki is so damn hot.

I know this long list might seem crazy to most; I've wasted HOURS this week on this crap. But it makes me feel good. I still have at least 7 more movies on my Tivo. And that's not counting the dozen or more that are slated to record between now and the end of the year.

Happy Holidays!

HOW CAN I CHOOSE? Battle of the early 80s Cross-dressing Divas Edition

I have a VERY serious decision to make. Tonight, two of my all-time favorite films are each playing on the big screen. I cannot attend both screenings because I have yet to figure out the meta-physics of being able to be in two places at once.
The movies in question are 1983's Yentl, starring Barbra Streisand, and Victor/Victoria from 1982 starring Julie Andrews. I can't express how difficult a choice this is for me. Please help!

Here are the details:

In the Blue corner -

Yentl at the Central Cinema

Start time = 7pm

• Pro - Central is a drink and dine venue so I can enjoy a nice glass of cab sav and a green salad while singing along with Babs and staring lustily at Mandy Patinkin and his jew-fro and awesome facial hair.
• Another thing in this venue's favor is that it's only about a mile away from my house, so it's very convenient to get home if I've had too many glasses of wine.
• Another pro - they sell these pigs in a blanket (turkey or tofu pups also available) that are awesome. They also make incredible fresh popcorn with real butter.
• A potential con - unlike a lot of the Central Cinema screenings, I don't believe this one is a "sing-a-long"; so I may be ridiculed for belting out "The Way He Makes Me Feel" along with Barbra.

The music in Yentl is some of my favorite stuff to listen to, and especially sing along with. 13 yr old me could be found with her cassette tape of the soundtrack always in her Walkman. Yes, I was that dork. And for realz y'all, I had a HUGE crush on Mandy Patinkin. I had seen him on Broadway in Evita! a few years before and this movie, plus another Broadway experience (Sunday In The Park With George) pretty much cemented my love.

In the Red corner -

Victor/Victoria at the SIFF-Uptown

Start time = 8:45 PM

• Pro - This SIFF venue is next door to my friends John and Dan's house. So while the theater doesn't serve alcohol or non-traditional movie snacks, I can always eat and drink to my heart's content at their place and then stumble to the theater.
• I don't think I'll be any more welcome to sing out loud along with the movie here than I would be at Central Cinema.

This movie is a definitive period of childhood for me because it reminds me so much of my mother and grandmother. The three of us saw it in the theater together at the Uptown in Washington, D.C. back when they would sell soundtrack LPs and cassettes right in the lobby after the movie. I remember my mother buying the record and then a few weeks later my grandmother bought the sheet music to the songs and the three of us would spend many a weekend singing and performing the music from the movie. Years later, when they turned it into a Broadway show, a few years after my grandmother had passed away, my mom and I went to NYC to see it and we cried in the audience the whole time thinking about how much my grandmother would have enjoyed seeing Julie Andrews live.

Similarities between the two films:

• They both involve women pretending to be men in order to pursue/fulfill their dreams.
• I know every song from each movie by heart and can sing them on command, any time, any place, if asked. (and I'm in the mood)
• It's a battle royale between two of my favorite divas. Barbra vs. Julie!!! Mary Poppins vs. Fanny Brice! Maria Von Trapp vs. Esther Hoffman!

So? What should I do? WHO WILL WIN?!

WHY DIDN'T SOMEBODY TELL ME?!

There's a "Newsies" musical on Broadway (ok, off-Broadway, but still) !! And it got great reviews! I want to see it so badly, even if Christian Bale isn't in it.

Holiday Torture at its best

Every end of year holiday season is filled with traditions and comforting touchstones that are revisited annually. You're allowed to get away with eating too much, acting like a goofy kid about presents, wearing awful holiday-themed clothing, and generally being a sentimental sap about everything and any thing.

An example of this is the holiday movie theme programming that takes over the Hallmark and Lifetime channels beginning around Thanksgiving and kicking into high gear the minute that December 1 hits. These channels air, and in many cases produce, a shit-ton of  holiday  Christmas (who am I kidding with this PC crap?) movies until the new year is upon us.
I'm "lucky" enough to not only have the regular Lifetime and Hallmark channels, which intersperse their Xmas movie roster with sitcom reruns and Martha Stewart, but to also have the specified movie channel versions for both networks, which exclusively play these sappy movies 24 hours a day.

Every year I complain about these movies; they're so bad, so earnestly cheesy, so tooth-achingly sweet. Yet every year I watch as many as I can without turning my brain to mush. And the plots! The scripts for these movies are beyond ridiculous; uneven story structure, stilted dialogue, horrendous pacing; and that's not even getting into the bad acting that happens in 99.8 % of these things. Even when the producers have managed to snag decent actors there's no saving some of these. Let me describe what happens in three (three?! yikes) of the movies that I've watched (so far) this week - title, plot, actors etc. may or may not be 100% accurate:
"The Good Witch's Gift" - This is a Xmas themed sequel to I guess a series of Lifetime movies about a good witch played by the chick from JAG, who's married to the police chief (played by hottie Chris Potter) in some small town.
*This is one of the first rules that you need to understand about ALL of these movies - they take place in these weird small towns. Even when the movies start out with our protagonists living/struggling in the big bad city, they always end up in a small town. These towns are the most generic and slightly creepy places you've ever seen, where everyone knows everyone and people are totally nosy and always giving advice that nobody wants; always set in locales that are either generically "California-y" or "New Englandy", but are almost exclusively filmed in Canada.
Anyway, in this Good Witch movie some dude that has just been paroled after doing time for robbing the town's bank, comes home to supposedly bond with his child and ex-wife. The chief suspects that he's returned to dig up the bank cash that he thinks the dude's hidden somewhere because it was never located. In the meantime the police chief and the Good Witch (who is like psychic or something? and is constantly manipulating all of the characters in this movie to do the "right" thing) are planning their Xmas eve wedding that the whole town is invited to. There's also lots of other little side stories that are too boring or nonsensical to mention. One thing that confused me which I'm sure was explained in one of the previous Good Witch movies, was that this whole town seemed to know that the Good Witch was a witch and no one batted an eye or seemed to care. Very odd.
Verdict/Grade = because they've got Chris Potter going for them I sat through the whole thing without bleep-blooping forward through any of the cheesy parts. I give it a B, which is high marks for one of these.

"The Christmas Shoes" - It's only the hypnotic power of Rob Lowe's endless hotness that allowed me to sit through even half of this cheeseball movie. Right out of the gate you need to know that this movie is from a book by some cheesy Christian romance author, who in turn based her book on a country song by the same name. Yes, an actual country Christmas song inspired a book that inspired a movie. The plot of the song/book/movie is that some high-powered asshole lawyer who never has time for his family and hates Christmas and kittens encounters a poor young boy who has a mom that's dying of cancer and she used to be a dancer? or play the flute or something musical and the kid wants to buy his mom this pair of red shoes for Christmas since it will be her last one on Earth. The kid's dad is a real sad-sack who is drowning his sorrow in booze and can't help the kid out with money or attention so that's where Rob Lowe comes in. And he takes pity on the kid for some reason and ends up buying the shoes for him and then learns the meaning of Christmas and puppies and changes into *Awesome Dude (rule #2 - there will always be a character in the movie that has a radical personality change from mean/stressed/neglectful/drunk to winsome/extraordinarily kind). Verdict/Grade = C;  Rob Lowe's beauty only goes so far

"The Christmas Blessing" - So get this, the greedy producers evidently saw how well "Shoes" did and decided to make a sequel that supposedly takes place 18 years after the first story but in fact was only filmed 2 years later. Rob Lowe is back in a cameo (with seemingly cake flour brushed into his sideburns to indicate the passage of time) as the high-powered attorney who is now so good and wonderful and milque-toast that it's embarrassing. Lowe is in the film for a total of 4 minutes as the rich dude who saves the day at the end of the movie by buying a house that will be turned into a daycare center. Don't worry, it doesn't make sense even if you've watched it. The movie's main characters are played by Neil Patrick Harris, henceforth called Doogie, who plays the kid from the "Shoes" movie all grown up and a doctor in "Boston", and my favorite vehicular manslaughterist Rebecca Gayheart as a teacher who's just moved to the small "New England" town from Texas. Also featured is the guy who played the dad in the original, but this time sporting a beard that they also flour dusted, and the annoying kid from Two & A Half Men filling in the *child role in the movie. (Rule #3 - there's always at least one kid who has a major plot point)
The plot for this one is all over the place. Doogie is an intern at some hospital in the city and loses a teen on the OR table and freaks out about it and decides to "take some time to heal" by running home to his papa. We're supposed to figure out that Doogie has run home a lot over the years when things got too stressed, and spends his time there reminiscing about his mom and making his dad sad all over again. So this time when he comes home on "vacation" from the hospital he finds that his dad is in full-on empty nester mode; he plans on selling the house and his successful mechanics shop, dating his bookkeeper, and possibly buying a RV and moving to Florida. Doogie is not happy about any of this because he is a selfish wanker. Doogie starts volunteering for an after school program at the elementary school and starts dating Gayheart's character named Callie. One of the kids on the basketball team that Doogie coaches is the 2 1/2 kid who is also really poor, with a sad-sack drunk of a dad and a dead mom (just like Doogie was!). There are about 5 million story threads tangled up here that are so poorly thought out it's frustrating. Doogie's dad gave the Christmas Shoes to charity and 2 1/2's dad picked them up and gave them to 2 1/2 and told him they were his dead mom's dancing shoes. These shoes by the way? Are the fugliest things I've ever seen in my life (red silk brocade flats (!) with gold filigree on them), but throughout the movie they are held aloft like they're Dorothy's ruby slippers.
So randomly an hour in we find out that 2 1/2 has like Marfan's syndrome and his little heart is so diseased that he only has a little time left to live. Both the kid and the dad act like they've known this the whole time but they never actually say this so you're left feeling weird (this won't be last time this happens). Then we find out that Callie has Hep B and cirrhosis of the liver (the hell?!) and will die on Xmas Eve (just like Doogie's mom!) if she doesn't get a liver transplant. It is also not clear if/how long Callie has known about her illness. Such poor writing. If the ending hasn't already been telegraphed for you, 2 1/2 of course dies and his dad gives Callie the boy's liver. And right before the kid died he gave Doogie back the shoes to give to Callie. ANYWAY, the movie ends with some charity concert for the daycare center and who shows up but none other than Blake Shelton who is a real-life country music star and who thanks Rob Lowe's character for bringing him there to perform. As if a Grammy winning artist would really fly all the way from Nashville to a small town in "New England"  Canada for some dumb daycare center opening. Wait! Were the producers being all meta and is Blake Shelton the guy who sings "The Christmas Shoes" song? Meh, I don't care enough to look it up. Verdict/Grade = C-/D+; if I ever meet NPH, the first thing I'm asking him is about this turd.

Next on the my viewing docket this week is something called "Comfort & Joy" with Nancy "don't go messin' with Jo Polniaczek" McKeon. And I'll hopefully be recording one of my holiday movie faves starring Heather Locklear about a sad-sack divorced mom who has a Christmas fling with a hot 20 year old. I can't remember the name of it, but that's what IMDB is for.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Linky link - 2010 Summer TV edition

God, I love tv. I know that's probably horrible, and I totally agree that I should spend at least half the time I "waste" watching television on healthier activities like exercising, cleaning, and sleeping. But I don't really care; it's my main vice - judge me all you want.

So once again we're entering the summer months where all of our regular season shows are ending their seasons (or ending altogether - so long 24, Law & Order, and Lost). And now from June through September we get a bunch of new reality and scripted shows to tempt us (me) to stay inside on the couch instead of enjoying the sunshine and good company of friends and family.

To that end I'm linking the excellent lists compiled by the staff of Television Without Pity of the upcoming:
New shows for summer 2010
and
Summer 2010 returning shows

For the returning shows I'm the most excited about Drop Dead Diva, True Blood, So You Think You Can Dance, and Beautiful People and I'll probably devote whole posts just to them in the coming weeks.

The new shows that look intriguing are Hot In Cleveland (even I can't resist the lure of Betty White fever - plus hello, it's got Valerie Bertinelli, I'm there); The Choir (because it's a trifecta of things I love - reality show, British, show choirs); Memphis Beat (my boyfriend Jason Lee! and it's another TNT cop show that I can enjoy watching with my dad when I visit him); and Persons Unknown (a mini-series murder mystery by the dude who won the screenwriting Oscar for The Usual Suspects? Yes please. Plus it's got Jason Wiles who I love). 

I hope my DVRs are ready for the onslaught.

Maybe I'll buy an exercise bike and kill a few birds with one stone. And maybe I should hook it up Ed Begley style to the tv and dvr so that I have to bike in order for the electronics to even work? Anything to fuel my tv addiction!

And so I ask myself - has Michael Patrick King lost his damn mind?

Probably the greatest movie review ever from The Stranger's Lindy West about the horrid Sex & The City 2 that opens today.

I loved the tv show, and it pains me how crappy the films are. And yet. I find myself drawn to this shite like a moth to a flame. I most likely won't see this sequel in the theater - I was burned with the first movie and this new one is supposed to be 10x worse - but then again, if I'm in the right mood and I've had enough liquor in me, maybe I'll find myself shelling out the 10 bucks to see it.

But only after SIFF ends and all of the quality movies have left the theater.

And only to see Liza!

Fall/4th Qtr 2009 Movies - September edition

As we ramp up towards the autumn/early winter extravanganza of TV premiers and the slew of movies coming our way, I've been looking at the roster of films and getting sort of excited about some of the things arriving in theaters in the next few months.

Here's what I'm looking forward to in September:

Gamer - The plot is about how folks in the future play video games using real people (death row prisoners). And if the prisoner can survive 30 games they get their freedom. TV's Dexter, Michael C. Hall is the bad guy “player”, and of course hottie Gerard Butler is the prisoner. Written and directed by Neveldine and Taylor, the duo behind Crank. So yep, this is right up my action movie alley.

Extract - Jason Bateman plays the owner of a factory that makes flavor extracts; and he gets the hots for a new employee played by the chick who was Kelso's girlfriend on "That 70s Show". Eh, who cares about the plot really. It's got Bateman, Kristen Wiig as his wife, J.K. Simmons as the factory manager, and Ben Affleck as Bateman's BFF. And it's Mike Judge's latest movie. I'm sold!

The Invention of Lying - Ricky Gervais lives in a world where nobody lies and everyone is very earnest, TMI-ey, and honest to a fault. Gervais comes up with the brilliant idea to lie, and hilarity ensues. Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, and Jonah Hill round out the cast so I'm very optimistic that this will be very funny.

Love Happens - I have to admit this romantic dramedy sounds like a rehash of Sleepless in Seattle, with Aaron Eckhart playing a widower in Seattle who falls in love with Jennifer Aniston. But one, I love me some Aaron Eckhart; two, I love watching movies that take place in the city I live in; three, I'm a sucker for schlocky romance. I'm just a little concerned that I have not seen an ad for this yet. Bad sign.

Fame! - There are just a few things that you need to know about me to understand how excited I am about this damn movie:

1. The original Fame is one of my all-time favorite movies. I defy you to find another person who knows the soundtrack better than I do. Every single track; from the popular title theme to the most obscure gospel choir track.
2. The 1980 film was a major influence on my childhood. It was the reason I seriously considered going to Duke Ellington (the performing arts highschool in DC) and one of things that got me into musical theater in junior and senior high.
3. My love for Debbie Allen knows no bounds. The whole "You want fame. Well fame costs. And here is where you start paying; in SWEAT!" thing is totally played out, but still powerful for me if it's coming out of the mouth of one Miss Allen. Add Bebe Neuwirth to the mix and we've got magic people.
4. I love cheesy dance films. I've seen them all. Center Stage (1 and 2), all of the "Step Up" movies (only two have been released so far, but 3 is coming soon and I'm sure we'll have "Step Up - Keep on Stepping it Up 14" in the future), the crazy menagerie of dance movies from the 80s from Flashdance to Breakin' and it's Electric Boogaloo sequel, Dirty Dancing (and it's horrid sequel), movies about ballroom, movies about ballet, I love at least a small part of them all. Add to that my love of dance stuff on tv and the remake of Fame is perfect because there are kids from So You Think You Can Dance in it and they seem to have modernized the story enough without totally messing with it too much.

I am officially too excited about this.

What I can't stop listening to...

Summer 2009 TV Preview - July/August

July is a month filled with a lot of returning favorites, and a handful of new ones that have potential.

First, the returning shows I'm most looking forward to:
Torchwood (BBC America) - I wasn't sure how I felt about this "Doctor Who" spinoff after the first episode, but after two seasons I've grown to love it and especially Captain Jack. Last season ended with a lot of drama and several main cast members dying, so I'm looking forward to the kickoff of season 3 in a couple of weeks.
Big Brother 11 - Oh BB, summer just isn't summer without you. For a few years there, you and I had a rocky relationship, what with asshole fucktards like Evel Dick, Mike Douche, and Adam the missing link winning, and all of your dumb "twists" and "expect the unexpected" bullshit. But last season you actually redeemed yourself and finally crowned a winner that I wanted, for seriously like the first time in 7 seasons. Anyway, I'm giving you another chance and this year I'm participating in my office pool (go Ronnie and Russell!?) so there's $150 on the line to hold my interest.
Eureka - Another science fiction fave and the last remaining show on the SyFy network (can I stop a minute to complain about this channel's IDIOTIC decision to change their name from Sci-Fi to SyFy? WTF? It doesn't make sense. It's a nonsense word/abbreviation that's totally unnecessary! And what was the motivation? Were they being sued? The hell?! Ok rant over.) that I still watch. Looking forward to seeing what Carter and the rest of this town's quirky occupants get into this season. And there's a new robot sheriff! Played by the cute boat guy from "Men in Trees".

Project Runway - finally this lost season will be airing sometime in late July or early August on its new home on Lifetime. I'm more curious than excited to see how things play out. And I hope the show's producers can get their shit together so that the next season can actually play out at Fashion Week correctly like in seasons past.

Premiering shows -
Great American Road Trip (NBC) Premieres July 7
I'm liking the commercials and the fact that everyone's competing in a Winnebago as they travel along Route 66 and compete in "comical" (NBC's word) challenges. I'm a little worried that it'll turn into a redux of The Amazing Race: Family Edition which was such a colossal failure. World's Largest Rocking Chair here we come.

Drop Dead Diva (Lifetime)Premieres July 12
A hot blonde model(?) is killed in an accident, but through reincarnation comes back as a plus-sized lawyer. The blonde has to adjust to life with more brains and less physical beauty and hijinks ensue. Margaret Cho plays the lead's wise-cracking assistant and that is really the only reason I'm tuning in at first.

Michael & Michael Have Issues (Comedy Central) Premieres July 15
Love Michael Sholwalter and LOVE Michael Ian Black, so I'm looking forward to this sketch comedy show. Especially knowing that other comedy boyfriends like Rob Huebel are going to be guests.

Ruby and the Rockits (ABC Family) Premieres July 21
Patrick and David Cassidy star as formerly famous brothers whose band broke up because of their battling. Years later they are reunited when David needs help raising his recently discovered teen daughter. Sounds sort of awful, but Shaun Cassidy created it and his previously helmed shows have all been really smart and well done. And I am fascinated by the meta aspect of the fact that the show is created by one brother and stars his two other brothers and they all sing and dance? Could be so awful it's awesome!

Being Human (BBCA) Premieres July 25
This UK series about three roommates is making its way across the pond, but it has a bit of a twist, as the roomies are a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf. I am generally a fan of most of the BBC sci-fi/fantasy shows so I will definitely be giving this one a try.

For the love of Landon

The Real World/Road Rules Challenge is probably my #1 guilty pleasure tv show. But I just love it for the silliness like random drunken bikini fashion shows like this one. WARNING: Not really SFW


Ahh I just love Landon. And that juicebox...