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Category: TV Movies Page 11 of 13

Jean Smart Hunts a Madman in Killer Instinct

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On February 25, 2022

In TV Movies

Killer Instinct screen shot
Jean Smart nabs a perp in Killer Instinct

The powers of perception that eluded Jean Smart in Change of Heart — in which she was stunned to learn her husband was gay — are on full display in Killer Instinct, another Lifetime movie. Here she plays Candice ‘Candy’ DeLong, the FBI’s first female profiler. We’re reminded of her occupation frequently and aggressively, which is good for some early laughs.

Nabbing a child abuser in an opening scene, she identifies her agency as “The F.B. friggin’ I.” When the unrepentant perp calls her a pig, she replies “That’s Miss Federal Pig to you!” Smart sports a soft butch hairdo, erratically styled so she resembles a soccer mom in one scene and a victim of accidental electrocution in the next. A white tank, black leather jacket and shades complete the look, establishing DeLong as an anti-Charlene Frazier.

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Betty White’s Zany Road Trip to Annie’s Point

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On February 10, 2022

In TV Movies

Betty White poses for her mugshot in Annie’s Point.

If you ever wanted to see Betty White scam kids out of cash, go skinny-dipping, get arrested (and then break out of jail), gamble, and exclaim “Oh, poop!” at the sight of a law enforcement enforcer, today’s your lucky day! You can find it all in Annie’s Point, a 2005 Hallmark original movie about a widow’s determination to fulfill her husband’s dying wish.

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Rue McClanahan’s Bit Role in Back to You and Me

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On February 3, 2022

In TV Movies

Rue McClanahan embraces Lisa Hartman Black in Back to You and Me.

You never wake up thinking today’s the day you’ll enroll in a free weeklong trial of a Christian streaming service to watch a Lisa Hartman Black movie. (At least I don’t, but I’m an agnostic Jew.) This morning I thought I’d shred the pile of papers in my office or re-caulk around the basement windows. Then I read a synopsis of Back to You and Me and laughed. Hartman (Valentine Magic on Love Island), a fifty-ish woman in 2005, attending a 20-year high school reunion?! Rue McClanahan’s her estranged mother? This required investigation.

That’s how I came to subscribe to UP Faith & Family, joining via Amazon Prime for the free trial. My wife found this development mildly alarming. Her parents were religious fundamentalists who didn’t allow her to listen to secular music or play video games other than Joshua & the Battle of Jericho as a kid. (Mavis Beacon also taught her to type; her dad misrepresented it to her as a video game.) They rejected most TV shows as unwholesome, with permissible fare including Touched by an Angel. An inspirational streaming service must have triggered flashbacks.

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Bernadette Peters’ Lesbian Turn in Bobbie’s Girl

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On February 1, 2022

In TV Movies

Bobbie's Girl screen cap of Bernadette Peters crying
Rachel Ward and Bernadette Peters contend with cancer in Bobbie’s Girl.

Having Bernadette Peters as your whimsical lesbian aunt sounds great on paper, but Bobbie’s Girl might make you rethink that. Here her whimsy is such that it can’t be contained even as she tells her 10-year-old nephew his parents are dead. Addressing Alan (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) in the headmaster’s office of his boarding school, her Bailey Lewis somberly informs him “There’s been an accident.”

That’s as far as screenwriter Samuel Bernstein lets her get before she launches into one of her scatterbrained digressions. “That sounds funny, like some old mystery drama,” she babbles without awareness as a child, his life now changed forever, stares at her. They’ve never met before and her impulse is to play his parents’ death for yuks. Then she lets him drive her home since she’s a disaster behind the wheel.

Alan (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) adjusts to his new reality in Bobbie’s Girl.

Home is the Two Sisters bar in Ireland, owned by Bailey and her longtime partner Bobbie Langham (Rachel Ward). Bobbie is Alan’s biological aunt, who by her own admission never met him or gave his existence any thought. As Alan takes in the merry karaoke scene at the bar, Bailey broaches the subject of Bobbie’s brother and is again inexplicably tone-deaf.

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Valerie Bertinelli is a Tempted Nun in Shattered Vows

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On January 28, 2022

In TV Movies

Valerie Bertinelli and David Morse in Shattered Vows.

Valerie Bertinelli’s Shattered Vows, a 1984 TV movie about a young nun romantically drawn to a priest, feels four hours long — like one-half of The Thorn Birds. Shockingly, it runs only 90 minutes, much of it devoted to Bertinelli’s Mary Milligan and David Morse’s Father Tim looking disturbed and conflicted.

“When I was 16 years old, I had a calling to serve God I thought would last the rest of my life,” Mary tells us in voice-over; other times it’s mentioned she knew her calling by 14. When her family tearfully deposits her with Sister Agnes (Caroline McWilliams), who is also Mary’s aunt, her mother says “She’s in your hands now.” Agnes corrects her: “She’s in God’s hands.” It isn’t long before she’d rather be in Father Tim’s.

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Prostitution’s a Family Affair for Kristin Davis in The Ultimate Lie

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On January 26, 2022

In TV Movies

Kristin Davis and Michael Murphy weren’t expecting to run into each other like this in The Ultimate Lie.

Few premises are as perfect a fit for a TV movie as this one: a young woman working as an escort knocks on a john’s hotel room door — and it’s answered by her dad. That’s the setup for The Ultimate Lie, in which Kristin Davis plays Claire McGrath, a rebellious college dropout turned prostitute.

When Claire is sent for a date with “Harold,” her secret life intersects with that of her father, esteemed law school dean and whoremonger Malcolm (Michael Murphy). They stare at each other in horror for several seconds before a shaken Claire wordlessly leaves.

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Schlocky Fatal Memories Trivializes Abuse

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On January 21, 2022

In TV Movies

Dean Stockwell and Shelley Long in a scene from Fatal Memories (1992).

The best I can say about Fatal Memories (1992), a telefilm about recovered memories, is at least Shelley Long doesn’t have multiple personalities in it — watching her cry for 90 minutes as just one person is exhausting enough. (Masochists who want to see her grapple with that contentious diagnosis should consult the 1990 miniseries Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase.)

Based on a controversial true story, Fatal Memories follows suburban homemaker Eileen Franklin Lipsker (Long, porcelain-skinned, chin quivering bravely throughout) as she recovers long-buried memories of an abusive childhood. The triggers can be as mundane as bathing or opening the refrigerator. Whatever your take on repressed memories, a once-popular concept that has since been scientifically discredited, I think we can agree this movie is best forgotten.

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Joanna Kerns is Comic Perfection as Murderous Mother Knows Best

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On January 20, 2022

In TV Movies

Joanna Kerns schemes in Mother Knows Best.

“Just call me and say ‘The carpet’s been cleaned,'” Celeste Cooper (Joanna Kerns) tells a hit man at the beginning of Mother Knows Best, after ordering the execution of her son-in-law. “I want whoever does this to be extremely careful,” she warns. “As careful as I am.”

Celeste, a socialite who is perfectly coiffed and manicured even while shopping for cheese, is indeed quite careful. So meticulous is this tireless fundraiser for charitable causes (recently honored as Handicapped Children’s Woman of the Year) that she times false accusations of assault against that same beleaguered son-in-law to coincide with her latest eye-lift.

Alas, Jessica Walter doesn’t attend Motherboy in this one.

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Mark Harmon is Stalked by a Killer — and His Conscience — in Original Sins

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On January 18, 2022

In TV Movies

“Comin’ atcha at the top of the hour, we’ve got your traffic update… and a little murder.”

As a non-Catholic, I’m not sure how many Our Fathers and Hail Marys it would take to atone for such an absolute dog as Original Sins (1995), but I reckon it’s a lot. On the Tori Spelling scale of TV movie terribleness, it’s better than Mind Over Murder (so is gallbladder surgery) but not quite as convincing as Death of a Cheerleader, if that’s any help at all. Despite a sexy Father Ralph de Bricassart twist that might’ve titillated my grandmother in the ’90s, this one’s a massive yawner.

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In Change of Heart, Jean Smart’s Husband is a Gay Homosexual

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On January 17, 2022

In TV Movies

Jean Smart and John Terry in Change of Heart.

Take a deep breath and prepare to clutch your pearls, because you will not believe what Jean Smart’s handsome doctor husband is up to in the 1998 Lifetime movie Change of Heart. I’ll give you a hint: it involves long-buried feelings and a penis not his own. This will be a long one (no pun intended) since gay made-for-TV movies were still quite a novelty in the ’90s.

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