Cranky Lesbian - Page 18 - Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Angie Dickinson shoots to kill in *Prime Target*.

Eleven years after Angie Dickinson last nabbed a perp as Sgt. Pepper Anderson on Police Woman, she was back in the hunt in Prime Target (1989). This made-for-TV movie reunites her with Police Woman creator Robert L. Collins, who writes and directs. As veteran NYPD Sgt. Kelly Mulcahaney, she’s both predator and prey while investigating crooked cops who’ve been murdering women on the force, and Dickinson seems uncharacteristically peeved.

“So, why am I heading this task force?” she asks after being handed the assignment by Commissioner Peter Armetage (David Soul, who looks amusingly louche behind his giant desk). “Because you’re one of the highest-ranking female homicide detectives we’ve got,” he answers. “Because you’re on the women’s committee. Because I requested you, personally.” They have a history, of course, and that’s where the hardboiled dialogue begins:

Kelly: You know what they’re gonna say about this. About us. Again.

Peter: Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. My friend.

Kelly: Not anymore, I’m not.

Peter: How’s Judge What’s-His-Name?

Kelly: How’s your wife?

Peter: God, you’re tough. Why are you so tough, huh?
PRime target (1989)

On her way out she tells him, “Oh, and by the way, happy birthday, Peter. I’d have brought you a present except” — she shrugs — “what do you give someone who’s had everybody?” We trust that Kelly’s formidable, but Dickinson appears bored in another of her tough-broad-in-a-man’s-world roles. She dutifully pauses after each barb lands, her mind possibly wandering to that night’s dinner plans.

Low to the Ground, Loves to Chase Birds

By Cranky Lesbian

On April 1, 2022

In Stories of Triumph and Inspiration

Springtime is here and soon I will celebrate the anniversary of my dog’s adoption. We’ve packed a lot into the last four years, both good and bad, and this is my tribute to her—including a rare photo of your mysterious blogger in the wild. Without further ado…

Part I: The Doggening

Muriel was a promise made to my wife early in our relationship. When she moved into my house from her studio apartment, amazed my mortgage payment was less than her rent, she wanted to adopt a dog. I wasn’t as enthused. “There’s too much going on,” I said. “We’ll get one when you’re done with fellowship.”

Fellowship seemed far away. She was a resident then, in year two of what felt like 8,000 years of training. That meant a paucity of free time—she regularly pulled 30-hour shifts—and a tremendous amount of high-interest debt. Her med school loans were more than double the outstanding balance of my mortgage.

A List of Things Susan Lucci Finds Glamorous

By Cranky Lesbian

On March 29, 2022

In Books, Susan Lucci

Last month, we embarked on what I called a beautiful literary journey through the life of Susan Lucci. Having recently written about several of her made-for-TV movies (with more reviews still to come)—and having been an All My Children viewer during the days of Erica Kane’s daughter Bianca’s overwrought coming-out—I was curious about her 2011 memoir, All My Life.

It’s a guarded autobiography, padded by flowery, repetitious gushing (about everyone from Regis Philbin and Marvin Hamlisch to private drivers and her family’s treasured nanny) that holds readers at arm’s length. She references this in the first chapter of the book, when discussing her roots:

I believe in mystery. I am drawn to it and am very comfortable being surrounded by it. Maybe that is part of why I chose to keep an air of mystery over my own life as I stepped into the limelight years later. Maybe.
susan lucci, all my life: A memoir

At times her relentless cheerfulness, humility and gratitude lend the volume a MadLibs quality. The word “wonderful” appears at least 35 times; “beautiful” 25. Here is a full accounting of things she calls “gorgeous”:

Introducing the Review Index

By Cranky Lesbian

On March 24, 2022

In Housekeeping

Live footage of “Garbage Day!” guy taking a gander at this site.

While watching tennis earlier (it’s the opening days of the Miami Open), I created a new page that indexes all the reviews I’ve written under the Cranky Lesbian moniker. For this endeavor I created an accompanying graphic with the tagline “Garbage Day!”, a nod to one of the most ridiculous scenes in movie history. This perhaps cements that I’ll only ever write about trash here.

Just for kicks, when I was done with that I experimented with Canva and created this janky-looking graphic promoting a future post. Would it have looked better with tiny banjos on either side of the subheading? I was afraid of doing anything that might’ve made Burt and Loni look tacky.

Rent-a-Cop: Burt and Liza’s Forgotten Masterpiece

By Cranky Lesbian

On March 12, 2022

In Burt Reynolds

Burt and Liza are under attack by critics, and a crazed killer, in *Rent-a-Cop*.

The ’80s were a rough decade for Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli, with 1988 proving something of a nadir for them both. Not only was Rent-a-Cop a critical and commercial flop, Reynolds had a second bomb with Switching Channels less than two months later. Minnelli’s year was arguably more disastrous, resulting in a Worst Actress Razzie win for her work in Cop and Arthur 2: On the Rocks. All of this makes Rent-a-Cop sound somewhat better, and worse, than it actually is.

Before we get into the plot, let’s take a moment to remember a bit of ’80s movie trivia. Just weeks before Rent-a-Cop was given its ignominious January theatrical release, Nuts received a prestige December debut. Barbra Streisand played a hooker on trial for murder in that Martin Ritt film, an unsatisfying mess that nevertheless garnered a few Golden Globe nominations. I would argue that in the battle of prostitution movies starring non-competitive EGOT honorees, Minnelli made the more enjoyable picture.

PinkNews, Queer Hikers, and Existential Despair

By Cranky Lesbian

On March 9, 2022

In Complaints

Whoever tweeted this for PinkNews needs to get off my lawn.

When I think of “cosplay queers,” who in my cranky opinion are overrunning the Internet and sucking all the fun, and air, out of the gay community, I think of content like this PinkNews tweet. Who else could be the audience for this crap?

Accompanying a photo of people gathered in nature you have the tweet (and headline) “Meet the queer hikers proving the great outdoors isn’t just for cis, straight, middle class folk.” Does an army of “yas, queen!”/oppression Olympics bots control this clickbait farm? How do the writers feel about these assignments?

Imagine all the minds that’ll be blown when someone lets readers in on another gays-in-nature “secret”: the storied history of gay men and parks! Or lesbians and camping!

Love Note, an ’80s Teen Romance Costarring Jesus

By Cranky Lesbian

On March 8, 2022

In Bad Movies

Screen shot from the film Love Note (1987). — Craig Bierko and Sally Murphy fall for each other, and Jesus, in *Love Note*.

Watching Love Note, a 1987 Christian movie for teens that plays like an episode of Highway to Heaven, you see hints of things to come for lead actor Craig Bierko. Craig Johnson, his fast-talking salesman of a high school student, isn’t so different than Harold Hill, the slick Music Man role for which Bierko was Tony-nominated 13 years later. In Love Note, he’s simply peddling a different product than Hill—salvation.

Our introduction to this precocious teen gives us a lot to digest. Standing before his classmates for a speech assignment, he recites a well-oiled (but still squeaky) spiel that sounds like the work of a middle-aged “How do you do, fellow kids?” youth pastor. It kicks off with a knee-slapper of an anti-choice joke:

Craig: Good morning, and welcome to the morning edition of Point of View. My name is Craig Johnson and I’ll be your host for this morning’s controversy. I was gonna talk about abortion, but, uh, homicide seems like a real ugly way to start the day.

[Classmates laugh appreciatively]
Love Note (1987)

Susan Lucci vs. Snooki

By Cranky Lesbian

On February 27, 2022

In Susan Lucci

A heartbreaking work of staggering, uh, something.

You’d never know it from the trashy books I tend to write about here (apologies to Rielle Hunter, Loni Anderson, and whoever was responsible for Hedy Lamarr’s Ecstasy and Me), but my personal library is mostly full of works by serious authors. Alas, we aren’t here today to discuss Ivy Compton-Burnett, our favorite Graham Greene novels (The End of the Affair), or whether Pevear and Volokhonsky translations are overrated. We’re here to begin a beautiful literary journey through the life of Susan Lucci.

Jean Smart Hunts a Madman in Killer Instinct

By Cranky Lesbian

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, often and somewhat aggressively, of her occupation, 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.

Weekend Viewing: Rent-a-Cop

By Cranky Lesbian

On February 18, 2022

In Weekend Viewing

It’s been an annoying last couple of weeks around here with medical appointments, my dog’s tooth saga, and too much ice and snow. With any luck, things will calm down now and I can resume watching terrible movies like Rent-a-Cop.

The original plan had been to spotlight this atrocity on February 11th, the national holiday known as Burt Reynolds’s birthday. Other things came up and now the aim is to watch it, deeply ponder it (as you might an ancient philosophical text), and then write about it next month, when Liza Minnelli turns sheventy-shixsh.

As for my dog, Muriel’s tooth was extracted yesterday. Even as she periodically whimpers from mouth pain, she’s aggrieved at not being permitted to gnaw on chew toys. (Little does she know this torturous deprivation will last for the next couple weeks.) And, like Liza recovering from another hip replacement, or Burt in the wake of his City Heat jaw injury, she prefers her pain pills wrapped in American cheese or a hickory-smoked Greenies pocket.

UPDATE – 03.12.2022: The Rent-a-Cop post was published today, on Liza’s 76th birthday.