Madchen Amick | Through the Shattered Lens

The 1994 film Dream Lover is almost as strange as Zandalee.

Dream Lover opens with Roy Reardon (James Spader, giving a very James Spaderish performance) in the process of getting divorced. Sitting in court, he announces that he’s fired his attorney and that he’s no longer contesting the divorce. The judge informs him that, if he did contest the divorce, the final judgment would be in his favor. Roy says that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want to contest the divorce.

In the next scene, Roy’s ex-wife tells him that he’s a great guy and that it’s too bad that they couldn’t make the marriage work. They agree that they were just too different. She apologizes for cheating on him. Roy apologizes for hitting her. They agree that Roy has trust issues.

Over the next few minutes of the film, we follow Roy over the course of his new single life. We discover that Roy is a successful architect who is always attracted to brunette artists with troubled backstories. We also discover that Roy’s best friend is an obnoxious yet strangely likable guy named Norman (Larry Miller, who brings some unexpected depth to an obnoxious character). Norman begs Roy for money. Roy refuses to give it to him. Norman invites Roy to an art gallery and offers to set him up with a woman he knows. Roy agrees. And, seriously, the first 20 minutes of the film are so dominated by Norman that you’re kind of surprised when the film moves on and he’s no longer in every scene.

(But then again, that’s the type of film that Dream Lover is. Characters appear and vanish at random. Plot points are raised and then abandoned.)

Anyway, Roy’s date is disastrous. (“You don’t like me,” the woman says as tears stream down her face.) However, during the date, Roy meets Lena (Madchen Amick). When first they meet, they fight. Then they run into each other again at the grocery store and they hit it off. They go to dinner and, despite having a good time, Lena makes a point of not inviting Roy up to her apartment. The next night, Roy shows up unannounced and Lena does invite him up. At first, she’s cold towards him. Then they’re making love. And then they’re getting married. And then the clowns show up…

Oh yes, there are clowns in this movie. Roy is haunted by visions, where he’s at a carnival and random clowns pop up and say cryptic things to him. “How’s the family?” one asks. Another one continually reminds him that he doesn’t know much about Lena.

Years pass by. Lena and Roy have two children but it continues to nag at Roy that he doesn’t know anything about her. He worries that she’s cheating on him. He fears that the children are not his. Roy’s friends tell him that he’s being paranoid. Roy argues that paranoia is just a heightened form of consciousness.

Roy starts to investigate Lena’s past and here’s where I really laughed out loud. Roy finds out that Lena is from North Texas and goes down to her hometown. As Roy arrives in this tiny country town, the camera reveals a huge mountain in the background. Really, Dream Lover? A mountain in North Texas?

Anyway, for me, this film never really recovered from that mountain but, if you can overlook that geographic mistake, Dream Lover is occasionally enjoyable because it is such a weird film. James Spader is hot, Madchen Amick is beautiful, and the entire film features one of those huge and improbable twists that you simply have to see for yourself.

And you can see it because it’s currently available on Netflix!

“No one pays $15,000 for a back rub.” — Words of wisdom from The List (2000)

Oh my God.

Listen, I have seen some truly terrible films before but very few were as bad as the 2000 thriller The List. The List is not just bad. Instead, it’s bad on a level that very few films manage to reach. It’s almost as bad as April Rain and that’s pretty bad.

(It’s also currently available on Netflix, just in case anyone wants to take the risk.)

The film opens with a lingerie-clad woman (Madchen Amick) reading the U.S. Constitution to a fat, naked, middle-aged man. We discover that he’s a judge when she calls him, “your honor.”

“I am no longer your honor,” the naked fat guy says, “I am your dishonor. And, as for the founding fathers, fuck them.”

Uhmmm…okay.

Anyway, then the police come rushing into the room and arrest both the woman and the judge. It turns out that the woman is Gabrielle Mitchell (Madchen Amick), a prostitute who is exclusively used by the rich and powerful. She has a list of her clients, one of whom happens to be the governor of New York state.

Despite the best efforts of her over-the-top pimp Dom Roselli (Roc LaFortune), Gabrielle is convicted and sentenced to prison. Hoping to get a few years taken off of her sentence, Gabrielle testifies at the judge’s trial. She hands the list over to yet another judge, Andrew Miller (Ryan O’Neal).

Andrew, who is conservative and very religious, has recently been nominated to the state supreme court. However, now that he has the list, he find himself being threatened by shadowy figures, one of whom tries to stuff a cow’s tongue down his throat. Or something like that. I’m not really sure what was going on in that scene and dammit, I’m not going to waste any more of my life trying to figure it out.

Meanwhile, Gabrielle’s associates are also being murdered. Written in blood near every body: Snitching Pigs Die!

So, if a bunch of community theater actors got together with a film school drop out and attempted to make a film out of a script written by a 16 year-old with authority issues, the end result would look a lot like The List. When Andrew holds a press conference, there are about 6 reporters present and only two of them get to ask questions. When the bad guys all meet to discuss what should be done about Gabrielle, they appear to be sitting in a community college study room. When a character is found dead, it’s obvious that some crew members got a little bit enthusiastic about splashing red paint all over the set. The actors may trip over their lines and they may seem frequently confused by what their saying but, obviously, this was one of those films were second takes were considered to be too expensive.

Did I mention that Ben Gazzara is in this thing? Because he so is! I can’t being to imagine what path could have led Gazzara from co-starring in Anatomy of a Murder to appearing in something like The List but, let it be said that he actually gives a pretty good performance. Or, at the very least, he does the best with what he’s been given.

Ryan O’Neal on the other hand…

O’Neal wanders through the film, watching the action through bloodshot eyes and defiantly refusing to show the slightest hint of emotion or interest. It’s an interesting idea actually, casting an actor who appears to be perpetually hung over in the role of a straight-laced, moralistic judge.

Usually, I make excuses for films that were obviously filmed with next to no budget but seriously, The List could have been made for Avatar money and it would still suck. I’m sad to say that it doesn’t even manage to raise to the level of being so bad that it’s good.

Instead, it’s just bad.

But, in case you’re into that, it is on Netflix.