I was going through my archives and found this post from 2012. It listed all the titles of LIFETIME movies. It was pretty shocking. Several recurring themes appear. I don't watch LIFETIME movies, so I ask those of you dear readers who do -- is this still the kind of stuff and the themes they're presenting? Have they moved on, and if so to what? Check out these movies. These are actual
titles; I’m not making any of them up. Life Without Dick
A Woman Hunted
Bastard Out of Carolina
Co-ed Call Girl
Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life
Dead at 17
Death of a Cheerleader (which just might be the remake of Dead at 17)
Honeymoon With Mom
Human Trafficking
I Do (but I Don’t)
I Me Wed
I’m With Lucy
Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
Miracle on the 17th Green
My Stepson, My Lover
Nora Roberts Old
Robin Cook’s Terminal
Secret Lives of Second Wives
Single White Female 2: The Psycho (as opposed to the well adjusted girl in Single White Female 1)
The Trophy Wife’s Secret
To Be Fat Like Me
Too Young to Be a Dad
7 Things to Do Before 30
Ambulance Girl (this might be a superhero movie, not sure)
Confessions of a Go-Go Girl
Hostile Makeover
Jack & Jill vs. The World
Love ‘Em, Love 'Em Not Weekend
Mafia Doctor
Mom, Dad, and Her
More Sex & the Single Mom
Mother, May I Sleep With Danger
Our Son, the Matchmaker
Sex & Mrs. X
The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer
The Wives he Forgot
Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her
What if God Were the Sun?
Why I Wore Lipstick to my Mastectomy
33 comments :
BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA was not produced by Lifetime, though the network probably aired it at some point; it aired originally on Showtime, which produced the film. It's a pretty good, well-acted adaptation of Dorothy Allison's 1992 best-selling novel, and probably should have been released theatrically. Anjelica Huston directed the movie; Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ron Eldard, Glenne Headly and Jena Malone starred.
I've never watched a Lifetime movie (or Hallmark for that matter). I looked up their movies on Wikipedia and boy are there some doozies.
Amish Grace
The Murder of Princess Diana
High School Possession
Cocaine Godmother
Killer Hair
An Officer and a Murderer (it's not a sequel to An Officer and a Gentleman)
The Party Never Stops: Diary of a Binge Drinker
Hostile Advances, which sounds like it's about a publisher aggressively sending writers their checks.
Since you wrote that post, Lifetime has gone a lot farther following Hallmark's path into the "holiday romance" genre. On the plus side, more sappy Christmas movies means slightly fewer dramas about murdering husbands, endangered children, and fretting over sexually active teenagers.
Just imagine the titles they might have rejected:
Mom’s New Pangs
It Tingles on Tuesdays
Doctor, I Said Sunny Sides Up!
Cookies and Bookies
I Give What I Get
She Stoops Lower
Plant Them or Burn Them, I Churn Them
It Used to be Where I Could Find It
Granny’s Grim Grunts
A Placebo for Christmas
Make Me Whoop for Tea
Hers Hang Lower
Ice Water I Swat Her
She Married My Evil Twin - Twice
Claim Me or Let Her
Hers Really Don’t Stink
Reject Her Hector
Daddy, Why Does Mommy Have 3 of Them?
"Mother, May I Sleep With Danger." Can't beat a title like that.
Possible subtitles for some of them (or, Why Ken's the Comedy/Blog Writer, Not Me)
Life Without Dick - The John Bobbit Story
A Woman Hunted - My Life as an Actress for Harvey Weinstein
Bastard Out of California - What Was Putin Doing There Anyway?
Honeymoon with Mom - The Buster and Lucille Bluth Story
I Do (but I Don't) - Yes, I Do (No, I don't)
I'm With Lucy - How Charlie Brown Can't Catch a Break with That Furshlugginer Football!
My Stepson, My Lover - And Others I Invited to the Party
Robin Cook's Terminal - Where Things Happen AFTER the Flight
7 Things to Do Before 30 - Sequel to the Blockbuster "30 Things to Do Before 7"
The Hunt for the Unicorn Killer - Did the Tooth Fairy Do It?
Just last night, I watched "Stalked by a Prince." So, to answer your question: nope, they haven't changed the kinds of titles they use for their movies.
I don't seek out Lifetime movies but sometimes there's an entertaining woman-centric movie or biopic produced by Lifetime. Which may also be a sign of an audience hungry for more stories with female protagonists or romances.
One of my favorite comedies turns out to be a 2007 Lifetime production, Write & Wrong (alt. title And She Was), directed by Graeme Clifford. Kirstie Alley is a midlife screenwriter who can't get hired due to ageism in the industry, so she hires her nephew, a glib car salesman, to be a front for her work. It's free to stream on Tubi.
Killer Grandma. Can't beat that one.
I'm sorry to learn Robin Cook's Terminal, but I'm sure he can find a good hospice.
There was a 2-parter with an incredibly cheesy Eric Roberts, STALKED BY MY DOCTOR, in which he played a rather respected, old single doctor who had a weakness for younger women (and by younger, I mean like young enough to be his great-granddaughters). I honestly could not take either movie seriously because of how over-the-top and cheesy his performances were . . . it was like watching an overly caffinated Gary Busey trying to speak in coherent sentences. Just about the only scene from either movie that actually bordered on disturbing was in the second one in which he, at one point, knocks his victim's uncle unconscious, flops the lifeless body into a bathtub, then pours a whole drum of sulfuric acid on him.
There was also another movie, I forget what it was called, but it starred that girl from LAZYTOWN as a rebellious teenager, and her parents hire another young girl to be like their housesitter, but the housesitter is like all psychotic and everything (big shock) and is basically trying to convince the parents they need to kick their daughter out for her troublesome ways, so that she could basically move into the house herself and become the new defacto daughter, but, obviously, the daughter wises up to what's going on and tries to warn her parents who don't believe her (y'know, like she's crying wolf or something).
Other than that, I honestly don't really watch Lifetime movies.
Now, sometimes I used to watch ABC Family movies, and there was actually a really good one from the early 2000s, back when Ryan Reynolds was a nobody (unlike today, where he's in practically every single new blockbuster movie ever), and he played a new teacher at a high school who all of the students end up loving because he's so cool and hip and makes learning fun, meanwhile David Paymer plays an old fuddy-duddy of a teacher who feels threatened by Ryan's unorthodox teaching methods, until he learns that Ryan only has one lung left, is literally living on borrowed time, and that his overall attitude and behavior was simply him living each day as if it could be his last. Like I said, for a TV movie, it was actually pretty good in terms of storytelling and acting - unlike these Lifetime movies, which have some of the cheesiest acting, laziest writing, most contrived plots, and often most forced romances you can imagine.
Lifetime has always been the anxious woman channel.
Southern literature can be summed up with "On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister."
Lifetime movies are: "My crazy ex-husband thinks it's great that my teenage daughter is going out with a serial killer."
OK, I'm not as good a writer as Pat Conroy or his mom.
My best friend's claim to fame was he never saw a Stars Wars movie. My claim to fame, I have never seen a Lifetime movie. I did see the original Blues Brothers tour. I can go on and on about that.
I've never watched a Lifetime movie. But during the pandemic, I became a big fan of Hallmark Christmas movies, partly for the cheesy comfort, but mostly for the drinking game:
o Stars Lacey Chabert, Candace Cameron, or Danica McKellar--drink
o The star has to put on a Big Event to avoid being fired, turning an old man into an irredeemable curmudgeon, or losing the Christmas Inn--drink
o Star has a crisis of work/life balance--drink
o Star resolves crisis by remaining in quaint village in which she finds herself--drink
o Star's Hunk, moved by the Big Event, decides not to foreclose and to remain in Quaint Village where Star is remaining--drink
o Group in emotional turmoil repairs to get hot chocolate together and has Important Conversation--two drinks
o Child actor pushes Star and Star's hunk together, pipes up with Things Kids Would Never Say, has annoyingly nasal delivery--no drink; this is guaranteed
o Star's Best Friend is more attractive than she--not going to happen, but if it ever does, chug until you die.
Oh, I forgot to mention, the Ryan Reynolds/David Paymer movie was SCHOOL OF LIFE.
I remember Mother May I Sleep With Danger from the mid-90s with 90210 co-star and TV movie queen Tori Spelling. Had no idea there was a remake with a vampire angle; seems like Hollywood felt the need to shoehorn a Dracula plot into every other movie after the Twilight movies got big.
Would've sworn Why I Wore Lipstick to My Masectomy was a parody title, but damned if it isn't a real movie. Lifetime also gave us Mario Lopez as Colonel Sanders (no, really) so I'm not surprised.
Years ago, I'd browse an industry newsletter that would list the titles of most every new or in-production US movie, including softcore porn. A softcore series of titles that I'll never forget (no matter how hard I try) included "She's 17 and Anxious" and "She's 18 and Ready."
I think you have to add "Christmas with" at the start of each title for Hallmark producers to even read you these days. Do that and you have some real gems there.
"Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?" may have been remade for Lifetime, but the 1996 version starring Tori Spelling (which they've also shown a lot, apparently) was first broadcast on NBC.
In the early 1980s one of New York magazine's weekly competitions concerned ludicrous TV-movie titles, giving as an example the real one "Ski Lift to Death." My then-S.O. and I mailed a bunch of entries in the names of some friends and ourselves; I'm proud to have been listed in the honorable mentions for my titles "All the Kids a Guy Could Want" and "Leap Year Luau." The winner, and deservedly so: "Give Me Back My Face."
Eric Roberts has, at the time of writing, 656 credits listed on imdb. He's openly admitted that he accepts every single script sent to him because he likes acting and he likes money. For every big studio movie he's in, like The Dark Knight, he does 40 straight to dvd or cable movie. Looking at his upcoming movies, there's The Principal of Monster Lake, Someone Dies Tonight, and Alien Vampire Hunters.
This time tomorrow he'll probably be up to 700 credits.
Off Topic: Since KIEV is now called KYIV I'm going to start calling Ken, "Kyin."
You don't mind. Do you Kyin?
M.B.
P.S. There's a possible LIFETIME title. "He Changed His Name, but He's Still the Same."
To Love, Honor, and Stalk
That's not a Lifetime movie.
It's the takeoff that Saturday Night Live did with Amy Poehler and John McCain.
That's right - Senator John McCain (he was then, anyway) as the creepy, smiling husband.
It's on YouTube; you really have to see the whole thing.
And above all, DON'T miss the disclaimer at the beginning.
(I wonder if John McCain got to keep the toupee that he wore - better than anything Mr. Trump ever had ...)
@Darwin's Ghost I heartell Christopher Walken's the same way.
Don't forget these classic titles:
- "Heartbreaker, Soulbreaker, Ballbreaker"
- "Five Things I Hate About Liverwurst" (sponsored by Oscar Mayer)
- "Smells Like Teen Sputum" (medical drama)
- "Pantyhose Of Deceit, Leggings Of Lies: The Kim Kardashian Story"
To Be Fat Like Me answers the question "What did Kaley Cuoco do between 8 Simple Rules? and The Big Bang Theory?" The photo shows her with Caroline Rhea as her mom; it's a high-school-student-goes-undercover movie; in this case, she's in a fat suit much of the time. I haven't seen the whole thing, but my understanding is it's not awful and gave Cuoco a chance to show she can do something other than comedy.
As noted before, Bastard Out of Carolina is supposed to be pretty good--it won an Emmy for casting and was nominated for three others.
The 1970s had some weird MOW titles on the major networks, but the films were usually pretty good - most of the time. I LOVE watching 70s TV movies. You MUST catch "Someone I Touched" (1975) with Cloris Leachman. She even sings the title song. It involves a sexually transmitted disease.
Here's a spoiler review.
https://drunktv.net/2021/02/26/someone-i-touched-1975-tv-movie-review/
Ambulance Girl is a 2005 movie starring Kathy Bates as a food writer turned paramedic.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0455321/
While we are on the subject of movie titles, here is a short list of Hallmark titles from the past year.
Snowkissed
A Winter Getaway
Playing Cupid
Valentine's Again
Fit for a Prince
Chasing Waterfalls
Hearts Down Under
Sweet Carolina - Starring Lacey Chabert who just signed a mega deal with Hallmark.
You Had me at Aloha - Movie features two travel hosts forced to work together.
The Baker's Son
Her Pen Pal
Love, For Real - Spoof of dating reality shows including The Bachelor.
The 27-Hour Day - Autumn Reeser is forced to take a vacation to Montana.
A Little Daytime Drama - Ryan Paevey comes back to a daytime soap after his broadway career flames out.
Journey of My Heart
Raise a Glass to Love
Love Strikes Twice
And finally here is a Christmas title: Holly & Ivy. In this Christmas movie, Janel Parrish wants to adopt a sick neighbor's two girls, but needs to fix up a house in order to do so.
Lifetime movie title (mentioned by Darwin's Ghost)
Cocaine Godmother
Sounds like an exclamation: "Cocaine Godmother! WHAT are you DOING?!"
Janel Parrish needed to fix up the house so Child Services would approve the adoption.
Yeah, I watched it. So what?
My first thought regarding Ambulance Girl was to wonder if she was a siren.
@ Don Kemp
I included Holly & Ivy because it is an example of a typical Hallmark Christmas Movie. There is also Journey Back to Christmas where Candace Cameron Bure plays a nurse in the mid 1940s that somehow finds herself in 2016.
@Curt Alliaume
I saw To Be Fat Like Me when it originally aired in 2007. I was impressed by Kaley's performance even then. It was two years after 8 Simple Rules had finished airing and it showed that Kaley had the chops to transition into being an adult actress instead of just a kid actor. Meanwhile, her TV siblings have only worked sporadically.
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