Cranky Lesbian - Page 9 - Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Luke Macfarlane and Candace Cameron Bure in *A Shoe Addict’s Christmas*.

It seems like only yesterday that I sexually harassed Luke Macfarlane on this very site, but it was in fact almost 15 years ago. How time flies! Since then, Macfarlane has continued to work steadily as an actor despite fears that coming out would hinder his career. His heartthrob status is reflected not only in his popularity among Hallmark viewers but in his recent high-profile gig as Billy Eichner’s leading man in Bros (now streaming on Peacock or Amazon), which billed itself as a landmark gay film but may ultimately be remembered for a sanctimonious publicity strategy that was unpersuasive to theatergoers.

I respect Macfarlane for coming out when he did and was disappointed for him that Bros was upstaged by its own hype. Since I’m reviewing holiday telefilms at the moment, I decided to look into his Hallmark catalogue and quickly hit upon A Shoe Addict’s Christmas (2018). It stuck out for several reasons, including Jean Smart’s third billing in the cast and its ridiculous title. But what really commanded my attention was the identity of his love interest. Macfarlane was paired with… Candace Cameron Bure (No One Would Tell). Bure needs no introduction to gay (and gay-friendly) audiences, so I’ll assume we’re on the same page about why this seemed worth investigating. Let’s reluctantly bypass the “Which one’s the shoe addict?” jokes and get down to business.

Going Visible for Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week

By Cranky Lesbian

On December 1, 2022

In Oh No!

Counterclockwise from top right: Sick, another bad scope, close to remission. 2017-2018. (*Forehead glare from webcam’s flash.)

Today kicks off Crohn’s & Colitis Awareness Week. Some of you already know that I’ve had inflammatory bowel disease since early childhood and that it follows me through adulthood like an unwanted intestinal Drop Dead Fred. Awareness-raising is a nebulous concept to me because I’m never not personally aware of IBD, which is sometimes irritating. We’re always together, I can’t shake it.

If I don’t want to hear about it, even after all the years we’ve spent bound to each other, why would anyone else be interested? The thought of a week’s worth of dedicated conversation around inflammatory bowel disease reminds me of the scene from Rear Window when Grace Kelly says “Today’s a very special day.” And Jimmy Stewart’s curmudgeon replies, “It’s just another run-of-the-mill Wednesday. The calendar’s full of ’em.”

I struggle with whether cases like mine are even good for raising awareness. Most patients won’t get sick as toddlers. They won’t experience blood loss as severe, or prolonged hypokalemia, or pick up life-threatening infections while hospitalized and immunosuppressed. Some patients, usually those with ulcerative colitis (my original diagnosis, later changed to Crohn’s), respond wonderfully to the same surgeries I had and essentially consider themselves “cured.” For others it’s a lifelong burden. Whose stories would new patients and their families rather hear?

Leave Holiday Baggage on the Luggage Carousel

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 30, 2022

In TV Movies

Cheryl Ladd tends to Barry Bostwick in *Holiday Baggage*.

Inspirational only on the basis of its sprawling incoherence, Holiday Baggage is a film so invested in the idea of reconciliation that it doesn’t bother to evaluate why, or even if, its family should stay together. Trading jingle bells for warning bells as early as its opening credits—when director Stephen Polk’s name appears at least five times within 90 seconds—this is a festive tale that makes you wish divorce decrees could be stuffed in Christmas stockings alongside candy canes and Bonne Bell Lip Smackers.

Irrepressible scoundrel Pete Murphy (Barry Bostwick), a pilot, charted a course away from his family a decade ago, preferring flings with flight attendants in tropical locales to life with pediatrician Sarah (Cheryl Ladd) and their children in Chicago. Newly retired and eager to remarry, he is finally ready to formalize his divorce from Sarah, who agrees on the condition he reconcile with their daughters. That is easier said than done, partly because Pete has gone to such great lengths to insulate himself from the consequences of his actions that his body rejects the very concept of personal accountability.

Dolly Parton Decks the Halls in Unlikely Angel

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 28, 2022

In TV Movies

Dolly Parton and Roddy McDowall plot her salvation in *Unlikely Angel*.

Even if you aren’t the type of Dolly Parton fan who finds A Smoky Mountain Christmas’s lesbian subtext to be as bountiful as the beloved entertainer’s talent—or other assets—you are likely to derive some amusement from Roddy McDowall (who last we saw in Flood!) sternly lecturing her about resisting “affection for the opposite sex,” as he puts it, in Unlikely Angel. That he does so as a slightly bitchy Saint Peter makes it all the better.

The two meet at the pearly gates after Parton’s bar singer, Ruby Diamond (“everybody says I’m a gem!”), dies in a car crash. Peter notes with some concern that Ruby was, overall, less than virtuous. Consulting his book, he elaborates: “All your life, you have done exactly as you wanted, gone where you wanted, said what you wanted. You have never thought of anyone else but yourself.” She doesn’t dispute this, nor is she shocked to learn that Uncle Clem hasn’t joined her mother and the rest of their family in heaven.

Peter offers her a chance to redeem herself by healing a grief-stricken family in the week leading up to Christmas. Ben Bartilson (Brian Kerwin, who I’ve loved since Torch Song Trilogy) has drifted apart from his children after the tragic death of his wife, devoting all of his energy to work. Young Sarah (played by future sex cult leader Allison Mack) and Matthew (Eli Marienthal) spend a lot of time alone, when they aren’t scaring off a string of nannies. Ruby’s deposited on their doorstep with little more than a suitcase, a guitar and an aw-shucks smile.

Christmas at the Ranch: Cowgirl, Take Her Away

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 25, 2022

In Streaming Movies

Laur Allen and Amanda Righetti in *Christmas at the Ranch*.

There has never been a believable cowboy in a made-for-TV Christmas romcom. Wearing clothing that’s curiously clean and unwrinkled at the end of the day, their faces caked in makeup, these down-home characters with chiseled jaws model looks that were cheaply assembled in the aisles of Kohl’s. Christmas at the Ranch, a lesbian take on Hallmark and Lifetime’s seasonal offerings, strikes a blow for equality by treating Amanda Righetti’s rancher, Kate, no differently.

The rebellious daughter of wealthy Kentucky horse breeders, Kate has toiled for several years at Hollis Hills, a farm on the verge of bankruptcy after Meemaw Hollis (Lindsay Wagner) refinanced it under usurious terms to pay the medical expenses of her now-deceased husband. Meemaw and grandson Charles (Archie Kao) make such a big to-do about Kate repairing a fencepost on her own—a task less arduous than assembling a baby gate or IKEA shelving—that it’s easy to see why the farm is insolvent. Everyone’s too busy bringing each other warm beverages and exaggeratedly tipping their hats to actually work.

Happy Thanksgiving

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 24, 2022

In Bad Decisions

Does anyone else have trouble with expressions like “turkey time” and “gobble, gobble” because of Gigli? In that 2003 mega-flop, Jennifer Lopez plays a lesbian who uses turkey terminology before engaging in sexual congress (of a decidedly non-lesbian variety) with Ben Affleck. Class action lawsuits never surfaced, but some viewers were left with lingering cases of GTSD—Gigli-traumatic stress disorder.

Writer-director Martin Brest’s career was a casualty of the film’s disastrous performance, but Lopez and Affleck retained theirs, if not their high-profile romance, which fizzled shortly thereafter. Last year, the two rekindled their relationship. And while I’m generally a sucker for a good reunion, I’ll admit to harboring fears about whether they nostalgically recreate that Gigli scene on this most beloved of secular holidays, seeing as their pants are probably already unbuckled after dinner.

With that, and with lasting gratitude for a sexual history (thus far) unblemished by poultry references, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope there’s an abundance of wonderful things in your lives for which you’re grateful.

Thanksgiving Day: Mary Tyler Moore and Tony Curtis Serve a Turkey

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 22, 2022

In TV Movies

Mary Tyler Moore spanks Jonathon Brandmeier in *Thanksgiving Day*.

Readers, I’m going to ask you to sit down before we continue any discussion of Thanksgiving Day (1990), because I’m about to say something that might upset anyone with lingering nightmares about Just Between Friends (1986). It’s as difficult to break this news as it is to receive it: Mary Tyler Moore wears a pink spandex leotard in this one, too. Not only that, we’re subjected to lingering shots of her scantily-clad tap dancing skills in lieu of excessive aerobics instruction. Scream and cry and hug Judd Hirsch about it, and then we’ll move on.

Even without those godforsaken leotards, you have to approach Thanksgiving Day with realistic expectations. NBC billed it as “the most unusual holiday movie ever” for a reason—it’s a big ol’ frozen turkey. Performed in the screwball style of Rue McClanahan’s Children of the Bride (1990), but without its pathos or crooked charm, we are left with little more than Moore’s exhibitionism and repeated gags about serving roast beef on Thanksgiving. Oh, and there’s a lesbian. Except, American television being what it was in the early ’90s, Moore’s daughter isn’t really a lesbian. She ends up with… Sonny Bono.

Comedy of Errors

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 20, 2022

In Uncategorized

It has been quite a week here, beginning with an ultrasound of my swollen underarm that revealed unsuspicious lymph nodes. As I primly and eloquently told my wife leading up to the appointment, “My doctors are so far up my ass that if anything was horribly wrong, they would know by now.” This returns us to square one, with my rheumatologist uncertain if it’s a reaction to Humira or something else that’s responsible for my arm pain and discomfort. Until she figures out our next move, there’s not much to do but suck it up and see if a steroid taper reduces the swelling.

In other intrigue, Crankenstein has been under the weather. When asked for a self-diagnosis, she pronounced her illness “F*ck if I know.” She had a sore throat, fever and fatigue. She is often exposed to COVID at work, including in the week leading up to her illness. Her initial concern was that we stay away from each other, so I played nurse from a distance until her fever broke. After three negative COVID tests on successive evenings, she escaped her bedroom exile and daringly sat on the couch—and then got sick again later that night. Now she’s back on the mend and probably relieved I watched Flood! without her.

In Flood!, a Schlock Deluge

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 17, 2022

In TV Movies

Robert Culp and Martin Milner (with Eric Olson) fight water with fire in *Flood!*

There are scares to be found in disaster impresario Irwin Allen’s sloppy, schlocky made-for-television production of Flood! (1976), but few involve water, which is mostly shrouded in darkness when it’s shown at all. You might instead scream at a closeup of Francine York’s false eyelashes, probably the only structure in town strong enough to withstand the rushing currents.

Or perhaps you’ll shriek in fright as Robert Culp tries, and miserably fails, to emote during a dramatic revelation scene that screenwriter Don Ingalls (Fantasy Island) mangled almost beyond comprehension. Others might fear they’re losing their grip on sanity at all the age-mismatched couples. My favorite was baby-faced Abbie (Carol Lynley, enormously pregnant with a pillow) and Sam Adams (Cameron Mitchell, enormously pregnant with a bad toupee, his face pulled back so tightly it’s uncertain whether he could see).

The Flight Before Christmas: A Pleasant Diversion

By Cranky Lesbian

On November 13, 2022

In TV Movies

Mayim Bialik and Ryan McPartlin find love in a hopeless place (Montana) in *The Flight Before Christmas*.

Casting Mayim Bialik as a shiksa in a Christmas movie is like casting Fyvush Finkel as Santa Claus, a potentially controversial observation that might alarm new readers who don’t yet know I’m Jewish. Despite their likability, neither actor would be particularly believable to some viewers (raises hand) as an evangelical Christian or devout Catholic. The producers of Lifetime’s The Flight Before Christmas (2015), including Bialik herself, compromise by making her character, Stephanie Hunt, the product of an interfaith marriage.

Stephanie has a Jewish mother (of course) and a Catholic father. Jennifer Notas Shapiro’s screenplay makes this clear first when Stephanie’s mother guilts her about holiday plans over the phone, and again when Stephanie clarifies the matter for anyone who struggles to tell ethnic moms apart. To best friend Kate (Roxana Ortega), she mentions her “meddling Jewish mother” in the context of a familiar joke: “I swear, one of these days I’m gonna find out she called my gynecologist directly to inquire about my waning fertility.”