Lifetime Will Cut a Bitch
Friday, September 12, 2008
  Making Mr. Right


Hallie Galloway is a high-powered, successful career woman; making her way in the Big Apple as a ... features editor?

Yes, Hallie IS Manhattan Line magazine, a name that made me think more of shrimp fisherman than high society but that's neither here nor there. Hallie has a fabulous office with a view, stylish clothes, and two assistants far too reminiscient of Amanda and Mark from Ugly Betty.

Fortunately, the producers of this movie understand that print is dying. During a staff meeting, the magazine's publisher demands that his writers produce snappy copy to drum up sales, and Hallie comes up with the brilliant idea of a charity auction for "confirmed bachelors" -- that is, George Clooney-esque men who just want to noodle around in the bedroom, not the wedding chapel. Hallie is so confident she takes on the challenge to improve circulation by 25 percent with the confirmed bachelor issue.

Naturally, this is a job only Dean Cain can solve.

Hallie and her peroxide blonde assistant head outside (on a set that is clearly not NYC - Toronto?) for coffee, where Dean is sporting an awful fake beard and trying to make a few bucks with a scam involving $1 and some briefcases with fake bottoms. Naturally, Hallie catches on to the scheme and helps her assistant win $101 from Dean, also known as Eddie.

Eddie drowns his sorrows at the local Italian joint, where he and the restaurant's owner Angelo listen to a horse race on which Eddie has convinced his buddy to place a bet. It's just not Eddie's day and the horse loses. God fucking damnit.

Whose fault is this, according to Eddie?

That bitch Hallie.

Blonde assistant happened to tell Eddie that he was talking to THE Hallie Galloway of Manhattan Line magazine, so Eddie makes sure to get nice and tanked, wander on over to the mag's offices and pass out on the couch in the lobby.

Rather than get the nice man a drunk tank, Hallie somehow manages to make a bet with a co-worker in which she BETS HER JOB that she can turn Eddie into one of the confirmed bachelors. Someone even got the phrase "riff raff" in there.

Hallie and her assistants drag Eddie back to Hallie's apartment - which, if it were actually in Manhattan, would probably cost about $15 million. They dump Eddie into the bathtub, where the water magically brings him out of his alcohol-induced coma. Hallie tells Eddie that if he does what she says and becomes a high-class individual who is worthy of the Manhattan Line confirmed bachelor auction, she will help him pay Angelo back the money lost on the horse race.

It's a reverse 'Pretty Woman' when Hallie brings Eddie to the tailor and buys him an expensive watch. Sticky fingers Eddie almost steals another watch, but decides against it. They then move on to the salon, where the stylist shaves off Eddie's Geico caveman beard and transforms him into ... Dean Cain!

He may look like Dean Cain but he talks like Tony Danza, so Hallie pulls out the "My Fair Lady" treatment. She quizzes him on art, sets up a photo shoot on the library steps (where he's dressed in a red blazer that makes him look more like Ron Burgundy than George Clooney) and renames him Edward Penbrooke.

Hallie's boss is impressed by Eddie ... ahem, Edward's photos and tells Hallie to bring him to the country club. To help him with the accent and to banish the "aints" and "youse guys" - Hallie enrolls in an ESL COURSE. As in, English as a second language. As in, really fucking offensive.

Eddie doesn't seem all that concerned and simply tells Hallie that she doesn't know how to have fun. Oh yeah, and he somehow manages to slip in it (well, not quite yet) that Hallie must not get enough sex.

Dinner time! Edward Penbrooke is slurping his soup like a hobo. He does, however, compliment Hallie's cooking. "I had this amazing Jamaican nanny," she responds. Um, right.

Hallie gets some chocolate on her lip, Eddie wipes it away, and despite her disdain for everything he stands for, they almost kiss - but it is not meant to be.

"I'm falling for a guy who two weeks ago was not much more than a park bum," Hallie tells her assistants the next morning.

Hallie and Eddie head to Angelo's, where Angelo doesn't recognize the new and improved Edward Penbrooke and then gives Hallie some song and dance about how he doesn't judge people based on appearance, doesn't really need the money Eddie lostzzzzzzzz.

Shut up Angelo, Hallie still has some gabbing to do with her BFF assistants.

"You talk about him like he's a French poodle - standard, of course," Ugly Betty assistant remarks. Snark!

Hallie takes her new piece to an art show to show off his shaved cheekbones and ESL-style book smarts. Eddie eye fucks some chick and she eats it up, much to Hallie's chagrin.

On to the country club, where Hallie and Eddie run into a guy who is apparently Hallie's ex-husband. Awkward! Turns out he cheated and she ended things. That heart-to-heart is all Hallie and Eddie need to start making out in the woods, where Hallie's co-worker (the one with whom she placed the bet) spots them from afar. They continue to make out and ... do it? Nope, that last part is just a dream sequence. A frustrated Hallie wakes up and finds Eddie making breakfast in the kitchen, where she apologizes for being a prude the night before.

Not getting any ass apparently makes Eddie chatty and he tells Hallie that a) he's going back to school and b) his father was a drunk who smashed his mom's music box in a fit of rage. Hallie's not really sure what to do with that, so she takes Eddie to dinner at Angelo's, where he convinces a crying child to STFU (he'll be a good dad! HINT. HINT.) by teaching her a magic trick. I'm sure at that point Hallie hopes his next magic trick will be hide the salami.

Instead Eddie whips out a music box for Hallie. This time, there are no drunks around to smash it. That seals the deal and the two of them head home and get naked.

Hamptons time! Eddie is charming the ladies on an outdoor patio when Hallie's ex-husband appears and pulls his former wife aside. He wants her back! He kisses her - just as Eddie walks by, natch - but Hallie pushes him away and tells him to eff off. Too bad Eddie didn't see that last part. Hallie goes in search of Eddie, who is now flirting with some party whore. She pulls him aside and calls him on it. He tells her what he saw, she explains, and ... they make up? What? No drama?

Apparently not. They start making out on a wicker chair in a tent (I don't know, either) when Hallie's assistant walks in on them. Eddie leaves to let them talk, but Hallie's co-workers are looking for her, so he heads back to the tent to let her know. At that point, he overhears Hallie's assistant talking about the bet. He bursts in and demands to know what is going on.

Hallie comes clean and Eddie becomes enraged. Um, you're angry about the fact that she bet a co-worker her job that she could turn you into an eligible auction bachelor but NOT annoyed about the fact that she made you take ESL CLASSES and basically extorted you so you could pay back a gambling debt?

Eddie storms out and heads back to Manhattan where he runs into a con-artist friend hungry for some crime. You see, that "confirmed bachelor" auction is being hosted by an expensive jewelry producer, so the wheels start turning.

Days later, Hallie and crew are setting up for the event. She heads to a display with a jewelry company exec, who is holding a briefcase containing millions of dollars worth of jewels. As they're discussing details, Eddie's con-artist friend, disguised as a work man, comes up from behind and switches out the briefcases with one of Eddie's old fake bottom briefcases. Tricky.

Hallie freaks out when she discovers the jewels are gone, but the show must go on. Just when it looks like Eddie won't show up, he comes in through the door. "If I weren't such a bitch, I'd cry," Ugly Betty assistant snarks snarkily.

Eddie is carrying the briefcase and apparently wants to come clean about the heist and return the jewels, but Hallie pushes him on stage and tells him they'll talk later. The sight of Edward Penbrooke in a suit carrying a briefcase is apparently too much for the women to handle and they start clawing at him like the desperate cougars they are. Eddie loses his grip on the briefcase and the jewels come tumbling out. Oopsies.

Publisher not happy. Publisher fires Hallie. Ugly Betty assistants drink.

Eddie is arrested and his story makes headlines all over town. The publisher shows up at Hallie's apartment, where he tells her that a) she can have her job back and a promotion because the Eddie story actually improved circulation by 100 percent, not 25 percent (riiight) and b) the publisher knows a judge who got Eddie out of jail scot free. Fab!

Hallie realizes she was a miserable bitch while at Manhattan Life and turns down the publisher's job re-offer.

Flash to Eddie, who is working at Angelo's. He gets a delivery order and ... I think you know where this is going. He arrives at an abandoned building, where a Central Park horse and carriage shows up and takes him to the park ... and Hallie. (Did they carriage it all the way from Little Italy to Central Park?)

Hallie professes her love, Eddie falls for it and they live happily ever after.

Text on the screen tells us that "Eddie's best-selling autobiography 'False Bottoms' launched the Penbrooke publishing company empire" and that the two of them named their first son Chance. First of all, gag me and second of all, I guess the producers are not actually aware that PRINT IS DEAD. A publishing empire? He should've launched a social networking site for former bums. Next!

Also, I wish it were this "Making Mr. Right" that I watched. "You just made it with my android!"



- Callie Cain

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Wednesday, September 3, 2008
  90210 (Redux)



I have a few actual Lifetime movie recaps in the works, but I felt compelled to pen a few words on the new “90210” – which was basically 10 years of Lifetime-esque mayhem.

We start on a picturesque Beverly Hills boulevard and zoom in on a beat up minivan and the Walsh family 2.0.

Dad Harry Wilson (Rob Estes of “Melrose Place” and “Sweet Temptation” fame) is the new principal at West Beverly (RIP, Mrs. Teasley) and he and Mom Debbie (Aunt Becky from “Full House”) are trying to convince daughter Annie and their adopted black son Dixon (sadly, Michael from “The Wire”) that moving from Kansas to 90210 will be awesome.

Though the script apparently calls for it, neither child appears that distraught over the move. They’re very breezy about the whole ordeal, and Harry and Debbie are about as far from Jim and Cindy Walsh as you can get. Debbie has apparently lived in Kansas all her life, but the perfectly coiffed, highlighted locks and tight, red tank top say otherwise.

The Wilsons will be shacking up with sassy, alcoholic grandma Tabitha, played by Jessica Walter. She is basically playing a poorly written version of her Lucille Bluth character from “Arrested Development”. It provides some comic relief (“It’s a Mercedes, not a corn thresher”), but overall, I’m disappointed that she’s sharing scenes with Rob Estes and Lori Loughlin instead of Buster and Liza Minnelli.

The rest of the plot involving Annie, Dixon, and their vapid new Beverly Hills friends is barely worth exploring.

The real tidbits lie in cameos from the ghosts of 90210 past.

Kelly Taylor is back as West Beverly’s guidance counselor. For convenience sake, somewhere between Steve Sanders, Brandon Walsh, and Dylan McKay, Kelly managed to sneak in a tryst with Principal Harry Wilson (perhaps during the pre-Walsh slut phase?), which is alluded to via a badly cropped photo.

The Taylor clan is not done with West Beverly, as Erin, Kelly’s toddler sister from the old days, is now a high school student who insists that people call her Silver. I wondered if that was a shout-out to David Silver, but then I remembered that her Dad is Mel Silver, the dental Don Juan, so she is probably Erin Silver, not Erin Taylor.

She has a blog, dark hair, and an attitude. Deal with it.

Meanwhile, Kelly has a 4 ½ year-old kid. Who’s the baby daddy? Brandon! WTF? Didn’t she end up with Dylan at the end? They’re clearly not together given that Kelly goes on a date with the hipster English teacher Ty, but in a later conversation with Brenda (…), Kelly alludes to the fact that Brandon is in Belize.

Oh yes, Brenda. She breezes in to direct West Beverly’s production of “Spring Awakening” and is annoying as ever. It’s just not the same when she’s not wearing a leather jacket, screaming “But I love him, Dad!” or breaking up in a Porsche to “Losing My Religion.”

I suppose we’ll see more of her, but for now, Kelly is the most interesting option. Apparently, her mother is back to being a basketcase after her husband (Mel again?) cheated on her. Previews for next week’s episode show her and Kelly getting into a tiff.

What else?

Andrea Zuckerman’s daughter Hannah is a West Beverly student and anchors the morning news. “What is she, 30?” Ty says as he flips off the TV, referring to the 30-something original cast. No, you know who’s almost 30? Me. When did this show originally air? When I was in fifth grade. Yikes.

Overall, I might give it another shot to squeeze as much dirt about former cast members as possible, but really, a Lifetime movie focusing only on Kelly, Brenda, Dylan, Brandon, Donna, and Steve would have been much more entertaining.

- Callie Cain

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Lifetime movies. Admit it, you love them. You don't want to just watch them, you want to read about them. That's where we come in, but we don't have them all, so drop us an e-mail at lifetimerecaps@gmail.com and let us know your favorites.