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.
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.
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.
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.
Today was going to be another Hallmark day with a review of Annie’s Point, a 2005 Hallmark original offering featuring Betty White. (Why not make the most of that UP free trial?) My dog had other plans. She gets an impromptu trip to the vet instead, and Betty’s probably pushed back until Wednesday.
Muriel (not her real name) got a little overzealous in her bone-chewing and has injured her mouth. She continues to eat and yell at us apace, but the sudden, eye-watering halitosis suggests that, at the very least, an antibiotic is in order.
UPDATE: Unfortunately, she broke a tooth. She’s scheduled for an extraction next week, which was the earliest slot available, and was sent home with pills. Hopefully she doesn’t become Neely O’Hara (again). The Annie’s Point review has been posted and is linked to above.
Loni Anderson poses belovedly on the cover of her memoir.
You knew it was only a matter of time before I covered some Loni Anderson TV movie content here. It’s in the works, and in the meantime I’m rereading My Life in High Heels, her dishy (and somewhat silly) autobiography, for relevant information about her non-WKRP work. Who among us could resist this dust jacket?
She’s not only a superstar, she’s one of America’s most respected women.
My clearest memories of My Life in High Heels — the acrimonious Burt Reynolds split, a steamy night with John Gavin — aren’t safe for Sunday school. But perhaps there are other lessons we could learn from one of America’s most respected women, beloved superstar Loni Anderson. There’s only one way to find out.
RELATED: If your interest was piqued by the Hedy Lamarr book in the background, here’s an old throwaway post about it.
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.
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.
Mary Carillo might be missing from ESPN but she lives on gayly in our hearts.
It’s the final weekend of the Australian Open. Iga Świątek, my favorite player in the women’s draw, lost in the semifinals. On the men’s side, my beloved Roger Federer is recovering from another knee surgery and it’s unclear where his career goes from here. His wins Down Under in 2017 and 2018 remain some of my favorite of his career. If I have time, I’ll probably rewatch at least one of those matches and my wife will try not to laugh at me when I inevitably cry.
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.
