Cranky Lesbian

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Author: Cranky Lesbian Page 5 of 53

Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.

The Joker Card: Parkinson’s at 40

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On June 7, 2023

In Brainpan

Let’s cut to the chase for this one, without our usual banter. This week the neurologist confirmed that my recently diagnosed dystonia is a symptom of what we hope is young-onset Parkinson’s disease. We hope because there are less attractive options, including multiple system atrophy and progressive supranuclear palsy. All are clinical diagnoses, not things she can order an easy test for, and they share many symptoms. If it’s MSA or PSP, it will become more apparent in time. For now, we’re calling it early Parkinson’s, since the other options usually afflict older patients. You can read more about YOPD here.

My wife, Crankenstein, accompanied me to the appointment because she knew what was coming and wanted to talk with my movement disorder specialist (MDS). She shared observations about my muscle rigidity and bradykinesia, reduced arm swing, diminished sense of smell and increasingly inexpressive face, which the doctor also noticed. We cataloged the positive changes that I experienced after treatment with Botox and levodopa. I mostly sat there and looked pretty when I wasn’t failing the usual movement exam.

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Patrick Duffy is Our Preacher-Teacher in Danielle Steel’s Daddy

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On June 6, 2023

In TV Movies

Patrick Duffy and Lynda Carter in Daddy.

In Daddy, Danielle Steel’s treacly ode to the humble American paterfamilias, generations of Watson men suffer as nobly as Juanita Moore in Imitation of Life or Barbara Stanwyck in Stella Dallas. At least that’s what Steel wants us to believe. But the socioeconomic differences are hard not to notice—the only Watson man who struggles to provide for a child on his own is 18-year-old Ben (Ben Affleck), stubbornly proving his honor in a short-term experiment before allowing his wealthy father to bankroll a custody battle.

Oliver (Patrick Duffy), Ben’s dad, is a Chicago advertising executive so happily married to Sarah (Kate Mulgrew, angry as usual) that glamorous TV star Charlotte Sampson’s plunging décolletage barely registers when they meet at work. Charlotte (Lynda Carter of Hotline) will feature in his latest perfume campaign, and she’s somehow drawn to Oliver, whose poofy salt-and-pepper hair helps him resemble a human Q-Tip from afar. “I have the life I’ve always wanted and I’m smart enough to know it,” he contentedly tells a colleague, but life has other plans.

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Rob Lowe Makes Room for Daddy in Schoolboy Father

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On May 27, 2023

In TV Movies

Rob Lowe in Schoolboy Father.

Our first indication that 16-year-old Charles Elderberry (Rob Lowe) isn’t ready for parenthood comes early in Schoolboy Father (1980), an Afterschool Special about the dangers of reproductive illiteracy. As his judgmental mother (a solid Sharon Spelman) reads a birth announcement involving Daisy Dallenger (Dana Plato), a girl he met at summer camp, Charles begins counting on his fingers. Later, he asks a friend if pregnancy always takes nine months. It’s information he could’ve used before roasting more than marshmallows with Daisy, if you catch my nonsensical drift.

Because mothers and newborns weren’t booted from American hospitals within 24 hours in the early 1980s, Charles has time to consider his options. Inconvenienced by the $2 parking fee, he nevertheless visits daily, staring at his son through the nursery glass. Daisy, who harshly dumped him on the last day of camp, never said a word about her pregnancy, not even after being temporarily kicked out of her parents’ house. When Charles asks whether she used protection with him, she retorts “You were there, did you?” before ruefully observing “Not that it matters much now.”

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No One Would Tell: When Teen Romance Turns Deadly

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On May 22, 2023

In TV Movies

Candace Cameron and Fred Savage in No One Would Tell.

There’s a power in the casting of No One Would Tell (1996) that might be lost on younger viewers, but for children of the ’80s and ’90s, Kevin Arnold abusing D.J. Tanner was about as shocking as “Beaver” Cleaver giving Gidget a black eye. Based on the chilling true story of 14-year-old Amy Carnevale’s murder at the hands of her high school boyfriend, it stars Fred Savage as senior Bobby Tennison, a standout wrestler who can’t control his anger when girlfriend Stacy Collins (Candace Cameron) acknowledges the existence of anyone who isn’t him.

His rages — and her hidden bruises — multiply each time she laughs with pals, wears a miniskirt in public or exchanges pleasantries with male classmates. “Yeah, so he gets a little jealous, OK? Guys are like that,” she tells worried friend Nicki (Heather McComb). It’s a lesson she picked up at home, where mother Laura (Michelle Phillips) excuses the controlling behavior of boyfriend Rod (Paul Linke) despite Stacy’s concerns. After lashing out physically, Bobby turns into the domestic violence version of a Fisher-Price See ‘n Say.

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Tennis: 2023 Clay Court Season

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On May 19, 2023

In Tennis

“And so we meet again.”

First, a housekeeping note. The French Open begins on May 28th and my posts about that and other miscellany will be at Existential Despair as I test-drive a new hosting company. TV movie reviews and “Golden Girls” content will continue to appear here.

As the Italian Open concludes this weekend without my favorite players, Iga Świątek and Carlos Alcaraz, I can’t help but feel slightly nervous about Roland-Garros, which is just around the corner. On the ATP side, Rafael Nadal’s absence from the draw creates no small amount of intrigue. And the WTA points race is as suspenseful as it’s been in years, with Aryna Sabalenka in striking distance of toppling Świątek in the rankings. Their exciting rivalry heated up this clay court season, with Świątek defending her title at Stuttgart and Sabalenka prevailing in Madrid.

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Lace: Motherhood’s a B*tch

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On May 12, 2023

In TV Movies

“Is that any way to talk to your mothers?”

Let’s say it now, in unison, to get it out of the way: “Incidentally, which one of you b*tches is my mother?” That notorious question, from 1984’s Lace, is Phoebe Cates’s most enduring contribution to cinema that doesn’t involve a red bikini. And it cuts jaggedly to the neon-pink heart of this ABC miniseries, a soapy, sprawling maternity mystery that plays like the most scandalous Facts of Life episode never made.

Adapted by Elliott Baker from Shirley Conran’s saucy novel, Lace is first set in 1960 and tells the story of three friends and roommates at a Swiss boarding school: the pouty French Maxine Pascal (Arielle Dombasle); sardonic Brit Jennifer ‘Pagan’ Trelawney (Brooke Adams); and adventurous American Judy Hale (Bess Armstrong), who entertains her friends with passages from a bodice ripper she scribbles between classes that features a heroine called Lucinda Lace. It’s a name the pals use interchangeably when one of them finds herself pregnant on the eve of graduation, and the trio form an unusual pact of secrecy to protect her at any cost.

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Nocturnal Omissions

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On May 6, 2023

In Brainpan

First of all, TV movie fans, I’ve planned something special for Mother’s Day, so stay tuned for that. But this post is about a sleep experiment recently conducted to better answer my neurologist’s question about overnight behaviors. An ex complained quite a bit about my sleep but my deep-sleeper wife never has, so I needed a way to watch it myself.

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Betrayal of Trust: Judith Light Confronts a Predatory Doctor

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On April 27, 2023

In TV Movies

Judith Light with Betty Buckley in Betrayal of Trust.

If you previously thought I was nuts for calling Judith Light the Maria Falconetti of American TV movies, wait until you hear my theory that her late ’70s arc on One Life to Live as housewife-turned-hooker-turned-murderer Karen Wolek is the soap equivalent to Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Light’s legendary courtroom breakdown scenes as Wolek (seen here in a 1997 ABC retrospective hosted by Reba McEntire) contain some of the finest acting in the history of television and prepare us for her telefilm work to come, including 1994’s Betrayal of Trust.

Based on a true story, Betrayal recounts singer Barbara Nöel’s years of abuse at the hands of Jules Masserman, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst played by Judd Hirsch with a nearly perpetual scowl. Nöel (Light) sought treatment for complaints including performance anxiety and Masserman suggested the “Amytal interview,” in which he administered the highly addictive barbiturate sodium amytal. “Your subconscious will reveal itself to you in new and exciting ways,” he assures her. “You know, Barbara, sometimes this world can seem like a very frightening place. But now you’ll begin to relax. To feel safe and happy. And all the bad feelings of the past will begin to melt, melt away.”

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Tougher Than the Rest

By

On April 27, 2023

In Music

Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen, circa 1988.

On this night in Bruce Springsteen history, the E Street Band took the stage at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in 1988 and performed a stately, slow-burning rendition of “Tougher Than the Rest” that appeared on the Chimes of Freedom EP and became a music video. The video, which intercuts that live performance with clips of couples goofing around or canoodling during the Tunnel of Love Express Tour, is notable for its inclusion of same-sex pairings, but we’re here today to discuss something else entirely.

“Tougher Than the Rest” is, in Springsteen’s estimation, his best love song, an eloquent but rugged ode to emotional staying power. Its official video has been viewed more than 140 million times on YouTube, where comments testify to its near-universal appeal. There you’ll find countless reminiscences of enduring loves, late spouses and what “Tougher,” with its boast of “Well, if you’re rough and ready for love/Honey, I’m tougher than the rest,” meant to those unions. I’m not exempt from that sentimental impulse; the track means a lot to me as well.

The Los Angeles concert was filmed in the waning days of Springsteen’s marriage to actress Julianne Phillips (of Sisters and Original Sins). Theirs was one of the most scandalous celebrity splits of the ’80s, and the “Tougher” video illustrates why: The romantic tension between Springsteen and bandmate Patti Scialfa—soon to boil over publicly, when they were photographed together on an Italian hotel balcony, bleary-eyed and barely dressed—was such that Phillips could’ve submitted the tape to any judge in the country and been granted a swift divorce.

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Death at Love House: An Odd ’70s Mix of Old Hollywood and the Occult

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On April 24, 2023

In TV Movies

Kate Jackson and Robert Wagner in Death at Love House.

For a few fun years in the 1970s, Kate Jackson was the queen of the humdinger ending. From Killer Bees to Death Cruise and Satan’s School for Girls, she delivered morbid laughs with a winsome smile. Unlike those offerings, director E.W. Swackhamer’s Death at Love House (1976) isn’t particularly humorous—at least not intentionally—but its overwrought ending might remind you of the flaming baby scene from Susan Slade, which puts it in a league of its own.

Jackson’s Donna Gregory is the newly pregnant wife and writing partner of Joel Gregory, Jr. (Robert Wagner). Together they’re probing the history of Joel Sr., the father Junior barely knew, and his turbulent Hollywood romance with the late Lorna Love (Marianna Hill), a legendary bombshell actress. If the actors aren’t entirely convincing as Didion and Dunne knockoffs, modern audiences would have to uncomfortably concede that Wagner (who also plays Joel Sr.) is right at home in a story about the sordid circumstances surrounding the premature death of a beloved actress.

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