Cranky Lesbian

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Tag: Sibling Rivalry

House of Versace, Starring Cristal Connors

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On April 18, 2023

In TV Movies

“I’m doin’ some of the finest cocaine in the world, darlin’. You want some?”

The genius of Lifetime’s House of Versace (2013) is most evident in its casting: Gina Gershon, Cristal Connors herself, stars as Donatella Versace (or is that Versayce?). It’s a choice that instantly conjures memories of Showgirls, setting the mood for glorious camp to follow. Gershon more than delivers the goods as a grieving sister who is 80% cocaine and 20% synthetic hair, rasping lines like “A hooker wouldn’t even wear this shoe!” and “Giving up my heels was harder than giving up cocaine” as naturally as Carmen Maura interprets Almodóvar.

In the movie’s first act, Donatella and brother Gianni (Enrico Colantoni, of the unfortunately titled fashion sitcom Just Shoot Me) frequently squabble like children, to the irritation of their more placid brother Santo (Colm Feore). “You both exhaust me,” he tells Gianni after the pair stage another spectacular workplace meltdown. When they inevitably kiss and make up, he complains “You two deserve each other.” Gianni is a doting brother and uncle (you’ve not heard “principessa!” so many times in one film since Life is Beautiful), but he’s not above telling his sister “I’m the sun and you’re the moon and your job is to reflect my glow.” Nor is she above hurling homophobic insults at him.

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Murder is Genetic (and Campy) in Tainted Blood

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On March 26, 2023

In TV Movies

Raquel Welch butches it up in Tainted Blood.

In Arsenic and Old Lace, Cary Grant’s character famously quips “You see, insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.” Tainted Blood, a 1993 made-for-TV thriller starring the tiniest bits of Raquel Welch and Joan Van Ark’s original faces, takes that premise and stigmatizes it within an inch of its life—it would make you cry uncle, if you weren’t afraid that he, too, would show up and go on a killing spree.

Welch, inexpressive as ever in a series of drably colored power suits, plays Elizabeth Hayes, a bestselling author of books about “the breakdown of the American family” and “prostitute spies in Washington, D.C.” We meet her as she crashes a funeral in Oklahoma, where high school athlete Brian O’Connor (John Thomson) shot his parents and then himself in a crime that left their small town reeling. Her instincts for tabloid journalism are rewarded when Brian’s grieving aunt (Molly McClure) reveals her adopted nephew was born in a psychiatric hospital.

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

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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.

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Teen Witch: Go and Top (or Bottom) That

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On October 17, 2022

In '80s Movies

Mandy Ingber and Robyn Lively in Teen Witch.

As its theme song warns—or perhaps threatens—you’re never gonna be the same again after watching Teen Witch (1989). The phrase is emphatically repeated no fewer than 17 times in the track that accompanies the film’s baffling opening sequence, which plays like a ponderous perfume ad aimed at tweens. When that sonic nightmare is finally over, 15-year-old Louise Miller (Robyn Lively) awakens to find her little brother, Richie (Joshua John Miller), binge-eating junk food beneath her bed.

It is as difficult to convey Richie’s essential gayness as it is burdensome to adequately describe the many tortures of the Teen Witch soundtrack. Louise will soon learn, on the cusp of her sixteenth birthday, that she is a witch poised to assume control of her powers. But to focus solely on her supernatural gifts is to overlook the flaming young Richie’s demonic possession by the spirits of Paul Lynde and Alice Ghostley. Zelda Rubinstein plays Madame Serena, Louise’s mentor in mischievous magic, and I kept imagining her Poltergeist character spotting Richie and chanting “Cross over, homos. All are welcome!”

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The Golden Girls: “Transplant” Episode Recap

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On August 1, 2022

In Friends of Dorothy Z.

It’s fair to say The Golden Girls was more a celebration of chosen-family sisterhood than its nuclear-family counterpart. Every last one of the girls had a contentious relationship with a sister, from Dorothy and Gloria sparring over Sophia and Stan, to Sophia’s long-running, nonsensical feud with Angela. (The less said about Angela, the better. Nancy Walker’s so hammy in the role that she belonged in a supermarket deli.)

Rose’s moment came in “Little Sister” (S4E21), when the admittedly annoying Holly (Inga Swenson) paid a visit. “God, I hate this woman!” Rose exclaimed when she arrived. Her enmity toward Holly is hard to forget during “Transplant” (S1E4), which establishes Blanche’s rivalry with younger sister Virginia (Sheree North). The episode begins with Blanche obsessively tidying an already clean house. “God, I wish she wasn’t coming. I just hate her,” she complains to an incredulous Rose.

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