Cleaning Out The DVR: Psycho Wedding Crasher (dir by David Langlois)

Posted on January 4, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 183 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Psycho Wedding Crasher off of Lifetime on September 3rd, 2017!)

There were three “psycho” movies on Lifetime this year. I’ve already watched and reviewed Psycho In-Law and Psycho Brother-in-Law, two films that I liked quite a bit. But as insane as the psychos were in those films, neither of them can hold a candle to Jenna (Heather Morris), the title character in Psycho Wedding Crasher.

“Oh my God! She did not just do that!” That’s something that I shouted so many times, while watching Psycho Wedding Crasher, that I eventually lost track of the number of times Jenna’s behavior shocked me.

The first time I shouted it was when Jenna, while attending a party, searched her host’s bedroom and not only stole a pair of panties but actually put them on before leaving. I shouted it again when Jenna started physically beating herself up in her car so that she could accuse Scott (Robert Salvador) of assaulting her. This was followed by Jenna making use of a stranger’s bed, hiding in a closet so she could watch Glenn (Jason Cermak) take a shower, strangling someone with measuring tape, having an imaginary wedding, and of course engaging in a lot of knife action. By the time the movie was over, I was nearly hoarse from yelling at the TV.

The title is correct. Jenna is both psycho and a wedding crasher. That said, she has her reasons. For one thing, her parents are dead and she’s been raised by an abusive aunt (Joan Van Ark) who constantly tells Jenna that she’s neither smart nor pretty enough to ever find a man. Jenna spends day after day sewing wedding dresses but when will she find love? She spends all of her time haunting wedding receptions, hoping to meet the man of her dreams. One gets the feeling that she’s had many dreams.

Jenna knows that Glenn is the man for her but there’s only one problem. Glenn is married to Marci (Fiona Vroom). Whatever can Jenna do to take care of this situation? How about becoming Marci’s friend and then conspiring to try to break up her marriage? Sure, why not?

Jenna is totally crazy but it’s impossible not to feel sorry for her. Her aunt is just so cruel to her and no one else in the film seems to realize just how lucky they are to be happy and in love. It helps that Heather Morris gives such a lively performance in the lead role. While everyone else in the film tends to be a bit bland, Morris turns Jenna into a force of nature. Eventually, of course, you do lose sympathy for her. She just kills or tries to kill too many people. That said, she is always entertaining to watch, even though I certainly wouldn’t want her at my wedding.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Psycho In-Law (dir by Jeff Hare)

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 184 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Psycho In-Law off of Lifetime on October 5th, 2017!)

You’re probably looking at the picture above and you’re thinking to yourself, “Oh my God, that’s one psycho in-law!”

Well, that picture doesn’t even begin to do justice to just how crazy Joyce (Catherine Dyer) tuns out to be. I’ve seen a lot of crazy people in a lot of Lifetime films and it’s hard to think of any who go quite as batshit insane as Joyce.

Joyce, of course, does have her reasons for being upset. She was overjoyed when her daughter, Lorna, married the handsome and successful Brock (Mike Faiola). She was even happier when Lorna gave birth to her granddaughter, Harper (Brooke Fontana). But then Lorna died, the result of an accident that was pretty much all Joyce’s fault. In the two years since Lorna’s death, Joyce has doted on both Brock and Harper. She’s become a very important member of their family.

But now, Brock has met Tina (Katie Leclerc). After dating Tina for six months, he finally feels that he’s ready to move on and to marry her. Brock is happy. Tina’s happy. Harper’s happy. Tina’s sister, Ellen (Pamela Mitchell), is happy even if she chooses not to admit it. You know who isn’t happy? Joyce.

And it makes sense, it really does. After all, Joyce sees Tina as someone who is trying to not only replace her daughter in Brock’s life but also to replace Joyce in Harper’s life. It’s no surprise that Joyce wouldn’t approve of Tina. That’s just the way people are. However, Joyce does take things a little bit too far.

For instance:

She hires a private investigator to dig up dirt on Tina.

She murders her husband when he suggests that she’s getting a little too obsessed.

She contacts Tina’s ex-boyfriend and leads him to believe that Tina wants to get back together.

She tricks Tina into throwing away a hairbrush that Lorna gave to Harper.

She pushes someone out of a window.

She lies to Tina about what time Harper gets out of school, causing Tina to look irresponsible when she doesn’t pick Harper up.

She tries to poison Tina.

She utters every passive aggressive comment that pops into her mind.

She cases Tina around with a big knife…

Yes, Joyce does taking things just a little bit too far.

Anyway, Catherine Dyer’s completely and totally twisted performance as Joyce is the main reason to watch Psycho In-Law. She totally throws herself into the role and she’s a lot of fun to watch. That said, my favorite character — and the one to whom I definitely related — was Tina’s sister, Ellen. As played by Pamela Mitchell, Ellen had a sarcastic quip for every occasion. I related.

Psycho In-Law, of course, was followed by Psycho Brother-in-Law. I’m looking forward to Psycho Second Cousin sometime this summer.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Psycho Brother-in-Law (dir by Jose Montesinos)

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 186 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Psycho Brother-in-Law off of the Lifetime Movie Network on December 28th, 2017!)

From our friends at the Asylum comes a film about love, marriage, family, and murder!

You may think that Eric (Mike Duff) has the perfect life. He’s got a good job and a nice house. He has a loving wife named Kay (Brittany Falardeau) and an intelligent teenage daughter named Laura (Megan Ashley Brown). Good for Eric, right?

However, scratch the surface and you start to discover that things aren’t quite as perfect as they may appear.

Eric’s good job is keeping him away from his home and his family. That nice house isn’t cheap and it’s big enough to store a lot of hurt feelings.

He sees his wife Kay (Brittany Falardeau) so sporadically that she has been reduced to scheduling sex with him. “After date night?”

Laura, meanwhile, is dating Ron (Billy Meade) and we all know that Ron is bad news because he plays the guitar and he’s always hanging out in the high school’s hallway, instead of actually going to class. Eric says that he thinks Ron is a punk. Kay thinks Eric is overprotective.

And then, there’s David.

David (Zack Gold) is Eric’s brother. One night, he mysteriously shows up at the front door, needing some place to stay. At first, David seems like a good guy to have around the house. He’s seems to be a nice guy. He’s good at fixing stuff. When Eric misses date night, David takes Kay to a movie. When Laura rolls her eyes a little too much at her mom, David reminds Laura about how hard Kay has been working.

But there are little hints that David has some issues. For one thing, he has trouble holding down a job and he’s remarkably tight-lipped about what he’s been doing for the past few years. For another thing, Eric doesn’t seem to be too happy to see him, even though David is always willing to beat up anyone who gives his brother a hard time. It seems that David is a bit overprotective himself. He’s the type of guy who you never know whether he’s going to use a wrench to fix the sink or to bash your head in.

Of course, the main clue that we have that something is wrong with David is the title of the movie. Since David and Eric are the only brothers in the film and Eric is the only one of them who is married, it doesn’t take much thought to figure out who is going to be the psycho…

BUT NO MATTER! I love Asylum films like this. The Asylum is so shameless and unapologetic about embracing the melodrama that you can’t help but love them. I fell in love with this film as soon as David’s eyes bugged out when some fat slob accidentally bumped into Eric at the bar. I was like, “Yes, this movie is totally going to live up to its title!”

And it did! This was a fun movie, with Zack Gold totally turning it up to 11 in the role of the psycho brother-in-law. According to the imdb, it only cost $200,000 to produce Psycho Brother-in-Law. It was money well spent.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Cradle Swapping (dir by Michael Feifer)

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This year, there was a surprisingly large number of Lifetime films about babies either getting kidnapped or switched at birth. If Lifetime films tend to use to melodrama to bring to life the fears of its audiences, 2017 was a year when everyone was scared about who or what their baby would grow up to be.

In Cradle Swapping, Grandma (played by Patrika Darbo) takes one look at the baby that her daughter has brought home from the hospital and announces that it doesn’t look anything like her supposed parents. Needless to say, neither Alicia (Amanda Clayton) or Ray (Brandon Barash) are happy to hear this. They argue that all babies look the same.

No, Grandma says, all of her babies looked exactly like her.

Of course, that’s not the only time that Grandma points this out. Later, after Alicia and Ray have just returned from the hospital with their baby, Grandma takes another look at it and announces that the baby still looks nothing like her mother or father. This time, Alicia gets even more upset about it. “Way to go,” everyone tells Grandma.

Grandma actually has a pretty good point but it’s understandable why Alicia doesn’t want to hear it. Alicia already has a lot to deal with. Baby Hannah refuses to look her in the eye. Baby Hannah refuses to breastfeed. Baby Hannah is always crying. When Alicia and Ray take Hannah to the hospital, a doctor demands to know if Alicia has ever used drugs. “Just in college,” Alicia replies, “experimenting.”

It turns out that Hannah is going through opioid withdrawal!

At first, Ray blames Alicia for taking prescription medication. Alicia blames Ray for not being supportive. Maybe they should be redirecting their blame at hospital…

See, it turns out that Hannah is not their baby. Instead, their baby was taken by the incredibly sleazy Tony (Tyler Johnson), who left another baby in her place. Getting little help from the hospital or the authorities, Alicia and Ray take matters into their own hands, setting out to track down Tony and find their baby. However, what they don’t know is that Tony is involved in a much bigger conspiracy than they even suspect….

I have to admit that I liked Cradle Swapping more than I thought I would. Amanda Clayton and Brandon Barash were sympathetic as the parents and they were easy to relate to. I appreciated the fact that they started the movie in over their heads and they were still in over their heads when the movie ended. They never turned into action heroes or superhuman investigators. Instead, they were just two ordinary parents trying to find their baby. You want them to succeed and the end result is an above average Lifetime film.

Cleaning Out The DVR: The Wrong Mother (dir by Craig Goldstein)

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 187 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded The Wrong Mother off of Lifetime on April 8th, 2017!)

(aka The Wrong Mother)

The Wrong Mother is a pretty typical example of a type of Lifetime movie that I like to call a “Trust No One Film.”

These films always deal with the same basic plot. Take a perfect family, consisting of a perfect wife, a perfect husband, at least one perfect kid, and a perfectly outspoken best friend. Open the film by establishing that they all live in a perfect house. Then, the wife makes the mistake of inviting a seemingly friendly person into the house and suddenly, things aren’t so perfect anymore. Suddenly, the husband is being tempted. The wife is being deceived. The children are being brainwashed. And the best friend usually ends up either dead or in the hospital. It all happened because the wife trusted someone. If only she had been willing to embrace her paranoia.

In The Wrong Mother, the perfect wife is Kaylene (Vanessa Marcil), who is run down by a SUV one day while she’s out jogging. The perfect husband is Drew (Stephen Snedden), who works as an airline pilot and is often not home. The perfect best friend is Samantha (Elizabeth Bond), who immediately realizes that the key to Kaylene’s recovery will be Kaylene washing her hair and not spending too much time in bed. The two perfect children are twins and they’re just adorable. And the perfect stranger is a nurse named Vanessa (Brooke Nevin). After meeting Kaylene and Drew in the hospital, she talks them into hiring her as a home care giver. Soon, Vanessa is lounging around the pool in a bikini and forcing Kaylene to take all sorts of pills. Vanessa is so dangerous that she even wears Lolita-style sunglasses. Samantha suspects that Vanessa might be hiding something…

And she’s right!

For one thing, Vanessa isn’t actually a nurse. She’s just someone who was hanging out around the hospital. For another thing, she knows that Kaylene had the twins via in vitro fertilization. In fact, Vanessa donated the eggs. Now, Vanessa wants the children for her own and she’s willing to go to any lengths to get them, even murder.

The lesson here? TRUST NO ONE!

Anyway, The Wrong Mother is a fairly typical Lifetime film. Once you’ve seen enough of these films, it becomes fairly easy to predict everything that’s going to happen and that certainly was the case with The Wrong Mother. (At this point, I can usually guess how many commercial breaks will pass before the best friend has an unfortunate “accident.”) The main reason to watch this movie is for the performance of Brooke Nevin, who delivers her snarky asides and rolls her eyes with such enthusiasm that she provides The Wrong Mother with a few enjoyable sparks.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Stage Fright (dir by Fred Olen Ray)

Posted on January 2, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 188 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Stage Fright off of the Lifetime Movie Network on January 29th, 2017!)

(aka Stage Fright)

Right above this sentence, you’ll see the original “poster art” for the film that was eventually broadcast on the Lifetime Movie Network as Stage Fright. Even though the title changed (and personally, I think Stage Fright does carry a bit more oomph than Her Final Bow), I love this poster. It’s just so melodramatic and I like how the stalker’s blue eye is staring straight at the viewer. Even though the scene itself never actually occurs in the film, the poster still tells you everything that you need to know about this movie. If I saw a paperback novel with this poster as the cover, I would definitely buy it and probably read it in one sitting.

Stage Fright tells the story of Sarah Conrade (Jordan Ladd). At one time, Sarah was one of the most popular and famous opera singers in the world. But then she was attacked by an obsessed fan. Though he was subsequently gunned down by the police, he left Sarah with scars that are both physical and mental. After she had a nervous breakdown, Sarah retired from performing and devoted her time to raising her daughter, Haley (Savannah Osborn). However, one day, Sarah gets a call from a producer, letting her know that another singer is planning to perform Sarah’s signature songs and claim them as her own. Though Sarah may be frightened of stepping back out on the stage, she’s a performer and she has her pride. Sarah agrees to make a comeback and perform for one night only.

A lot of people are happy to hear this but it’s debatable whether any of them are as happy as Kevin (Peter Stickles). Kevin works in a music store and he is one of Sarah’s biggest fans. When she happens to step into the store, he not only tells her that he listens to her voice regularly but he also contrives to take a quick look in her purse. Of course, Kevin also has a shrine to her in his house. That’s … well, that’s a little bit creepy…

Audiences have waited for years for Sarah to make a comeback and now that she’s making it, the people around her are mysteriously dying. The police even suspect that Sarah might have something to do with it. Of course, we suspect the truth…

State Fright was directed by Fred Olen Ray, who is a veteran of these type of thrillers and who specializes in giving the audience what it wants. In this case, the audience wants melodrama and Stage Fright certainly delivers that. (Ray also delivers some effectively creepy shots of characters running around in the dank, lower levels of the opera house.) Personally, I would have liked it if there had been a little more mystery about the identity of Sarah’s stalker but Jordan Ladd gave a good performance as Sarah and the mother-daughter relationship between Sarah and Haley felt real. This is an entertaining little Lifetime movie that delivers exactly what it promises.

What Lisa Watched Last Night #172: Web Cam Girls (dir by Doug Campbell)

Posted on December 31, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched one of the final Lifetime movies of 2017, Web Cam Girls!

Why Was I Watching It?

Well, the obvious answer is that I was watching it because it was on Lifetime and our regular readers know how much I love Lifetime!

However, from the minute that I saw the first commercial for Web Cam Girls, I grew convinced that it would be better than the average 2017 Lifetime film. The commercials were just so melodramatic and wonderfully sordid. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that the best Lifetime films always seem to be about capitalizing on people’s fear of the dark web. (Then again, people probably should be scared of the dark web…)

Finally, I knew that I was going to have to review this film just because of the title. Now, whenever someone does a search for “web cam girls,” there’s a good chance they’ll end up on this site. They’ll probably get mad once they arrive here but a click is a click.

What Was It About?

Carolyn (Lorynn York) needs money so she becomes a web cam girl. Her cousin, Alex (Sedona Legge), says it’s a bad and dangerous idea but Carolyn claims that it’s actually the safest way to make money. She never meets the men who watch her. All she has to do is undress a little on camera and, pretty soon, she’ll be able to get an apartment in New York and make all of her dreams come true.

But then, one night, Carolyn gives in to temptation to agrees to meet one of her admirers in a sleazy motel. She promptly vanishes, leaving Alex and their friend Shawn (Liam McKanna) to try to figure out what happened. Was she kidnapped and, if so, by whom? There are suspects all around and it’s starting to look like the only way Alex is going to find her is by going on camera herself.

What Worked?

Oh my God, Lifetime really did save the best for last! After a year that left many longtime Lifetime viewers feeling somewhat disappointed, Lifetime finally gave us the type of movie that made us fall in love with the network in the first place. Web Cam Girls is wonderfully melodramatic, over the top, and incredibly entertaining. The houses are beautiful, the villain is perhaps one of the most evil characters to ever appear in a Lifetime film, and the whole thing is full of details that will reward the observant viewer.

For instance, Carolyn, Alex, and Shawn discuss watching Sunrise in film class. Sunrise, of course, is a film about an innocent who is tempted by the sinful city, much in the same way that Carolyn and Alex are tempted by the sinful internet. Later, another teacher tells Alex that he was impressed with her essay about H.P. Lovecraft. References to both Lovecraft and F.W. Murnau in a Lifetime movie? How can’t you love that?

It was also well-acted. Stephen Graybill and Joe Hackett were memorable as two sinister teachers. I liked both Jon Bridell as Carolyn’s drunk but ultimately heroic father and John Dinan as his best friend. In the role of Carolyn’s mentor, Nikki, Tonya Kay made such a strong impression that a lot of us on twitter were demanding that Nikki get a spin-off film of her own. Down to the smallest part, everyone made their character interesting.

What Did Not Work?

It all worked.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

When I was in high school, I also used to dress in black and write essays about H.P. Lovecraft.

Lessons Learned

Beware the dark web!

Cleaning Out The DVR: Escaping Dad (dir by Ross Kohn)

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 193 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Escaping Dad off of the Lifetime Movie Network on December 16th!)

One of the good things about Escaping Dad is that the film’s premise is right there in the title. Not only does it let you know exactly what type of movie you’re about to watch but it’s also helpful if you’re like me and you only have a ten minute attention span.

“What movie is this again?”

“Escaping Dad.”

“Oh yeah. What’s it about again?”

“Escaping Dad.”

See, how that works?

Anyway, in this case, the Dad in question is Darren (Jason Wiles). Darren is abusive, manipulative, and unfaithful. He’s just the type of Dad that anyone should want to escape from. However, Darren is also the district attorney. That means that, if you try to escape from him, he can bring the entire police force down on you. He can issue an Amber Alert and he can control the media coverage of the escape. In the world of Lifetime, district attorneys are all-powerful. You don’t want to mess with them.

However, Darren’s wife, Erin (Sunny Mabrey), decides to flee Darren and she takes her teenage daughter (Grace Van Dien) and her diabetic son (Andy Walken) with her. (Her son has a habit of going into shock whenever the film needs an additional moment of drama.) Erin has gone out of her way to keep Darren from tracking them down but her daughter has a boyfriend and, as soon as you see her texting him from the cheap motel where they’re staying for the night, you just know that Darren is going to be able to track them down.

Fortunately, just when things are starting to look hopeless, Erin meets a kind-hearted trucker named Wes (Trevor Donavon) and Wes not only helps them out but he also saves the entire movie. Or actually, I should say that Donavon saves the movie by giving such a good performance as the tough but good-hearted Wes. He and Sunny Mabrey have a lot of chemistry and it’s entertaining to watch them play opposite each other. The film goes out of its way to show that Wes is everything that Darren is not. “This is a real man!” the film seems to be shouting and Donavon gives a performance that proves that point.

Actually, I liked Escaping Dad even before Trevor Donavon showed up. Yes, it’s yet another Lifetime film about an abused woman trying to escape her psycho husband. But it’s well-made and well-acted, as well. Jason Wiles is totally hissable as Darren and the scenes between Erin and her children felt totally authentic and believable. The film makes good use of the scenes of Erin driving down one endless highway after another, leaving us with no doubt that she’s not only on a journey of escape but she’s also on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth.

All in all, I liked Escaping Dad. Keep an eye out for it.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Stalked By My Ex (dir by Danny J. Boyle)

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 193 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded Stalked By My Ex off of the Lifetime Movie Network on December 15th!)

Now, this is more like it!

At the same time that Lifetime was exclusively showing Christmas movies, the Lifetime Movie Network was continuing to show more traditional Lifetime fare. It was actually a pretty smart programming decision on their part. I mean, I love Christmas movies. But sometimes, regardless of the season, you just want to see a totally over-the-top melodrama, preferably one that features the word “Stalked” in the title.

Take Stalked By My Ex, for example. It’s hardly the first stalking film to show up on Lifetime and it certainly won’t be the last. I’m sure that some people will just look at the title and roll their eyes. But those of us who actually took the time to watch the film know that Stalked By My Ex was Lifetime at its absolute best.

The ex in question is Sam (Yves Bright). Sam was once married to Chloe (Tamara Braun) and they had a daughter named Olivia (played, as a teenager, by Brytnee Ratledge). As we discover at the start of the film, Sam isn’t exactly the most stable person in the world. He’s the type who responds to a trial separation by forcing his way into the house and trying to kidnap his daughter.

Jump forward ten years later. Sam is in prison. Believe it or not, he’s not in prison for abusing his wife or trying to kidnap his daughter. Instead, he’s doing time for some sort of financial mischief. Chloe has ordered Olivia to have nothing to do with her Dad but, of course, Olivia doesn’t listen. Teenage daughters never listen in a Lifetime movie, at least not until the final ten minutes of the film. Olivia has been sending her father letters and saying that she wishes they could be a family again. When Sam calls, from prison, on Olivia’s birthday, Olivia accepts the call. When Sam tells Olivia that he’s going to be released soon, Chloe responds by putting her house up for sale, pulling Olivia out of school, and moving back to her old hometown. When Olivia protests, Chloe tells her that her father is dangerous.

As soon as he’s released from prison, Sam sets about proving Chloe’s point. He starts to obsessively search for his ex-wife and daughter. He wants another chance to be a father to Olivia. Of course, he also wants to kill Chloe.

As far as the film’s plot goes, Stalked By My Ex may be a typical Lifetime film but I still really liked it. Yves Bright was frightening as the unstable Sam and Chloe and Olivia were completely believable as mother and daughter. Watching the movie, it was easy for me to relate to them. I saw a lot of parallels to my relationship with my mom in the relationship between Olivia and her mom. The film also makes a good point about how history repeats itself and people keep making the same mistakes, especially in abusive households. (Chloe’s father was abusive and she married an abuser.)

All in all, this was a good Lifetime film. Not only was it well-made and enjoyably melodramatic but it also gave you something to think about. While Lifetime was celebrating the sentiment of the holidays, the Lifetime Movie Network was reminding us that not every problem can be solved by Santa Claus.

Cleaning Out The DVR: A Very Merry Toy Store (dir by Paula Hart)

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Hi there! So, as you may know because I’ve been talking about it on this site all year, I have got way too much stuff on my DVR. Seriously, I currently have 193 things recorded! I’ve decided that, on January 15th, I am going to erase everything on the DVR, regardless of whether I’ve watched it or not. So, that means that I’ve now have only have a month to clean out the DVR! Will I make it? Keep checking this site to find out! I recorded A Very Merry Toy Store off of Lifetime on November 26th!)

As I watched A Very Merry Toy Store, I found myself wondering, “Could any couple possibly be more adorable than Melissa Joan Hart and Mario Lopez?”

Hart and Lopez play rival toy store owners in this movie and they are the main reason to watch. Hart is Connie Forrester. Lopez is Will DiNova. At one time, their fathers owned one toy story but when a conflict led to the end of their partnership, it also led to Connie and Will growing up to be rivals. Connie’s toy store is struggling. Will’s toy store is thriving but he’s struggling personally as he tries to deal with a divorce. However, Will and Connie will have to set their differences aside because Roy Barnes (Billy Gardell) has just arrived in town and he brings with him the promise of the type of big chain store that puts independent toy stores out of business!

So, obviously, the main appeal here is that Mario Lopez was A.C. Slater and Melissa Joan Hart was Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. The film even highlights the Sabrina connection by casting Beth Broderick as Connie’s mother. (Broderick gets a subplot of her own, a sweet love story with old pro Brian Dennehy.) Lopez and Hart are so overwhelming likable that it’s easy to overlook the fact that nothing surprising at all happens in A Very Merry Toy Store. Whenever they get together and smile, the blinding likability on display keeps you from worrying about things like plot holes or the fact that Roy is a bit of a cartoonish villain. Lopez and Hart are fun to watch and you hope that their characters end up together. If nothing else, you know they’re going to have amazingly likable children.

Speaking of Mario Lopez, does he have a picture of Dorian Gray in his attic or what? The same day that I watched A Very Merry Toy Store, I also watched an old episode of Saved By The Bell and I was once again shocked by the fact that Lopez has apparently not aged in twenty years. As for Melissa Joan Hart, she’s all always be Sabrina to me. She’s also a pretty good actress with a very genuine screen presence. This is the second time that Lopez and Hart have played a couple and hopefully, they’ll do so again next Christmas.

A Very Merry Toy Store may be a predictable holiday film but it is more than saved the charisma of its two leads.