Last night I was at my friends house, where my friend Isabel was watching the worst 75 seconds of a TV Movie I’ve ever seen: I walked in on a scene where a mother and son were lying on a frozen lake bed, screaming at what I presumed was the mother’s other son that had fallen through a hole in the ice. Except the son had somehow managed to position himself completely under the ice and unable to come up for air. In a final dramatic moment, the kid punches his fist through the ice, and the mother holds it tightly as the kid both drowns and freezes to death at the same fucking time. “NOOOO!!!” the mother screams, as the camera zooms out to the dead child’s hand, then the lake bed, and then the forest. The announcer tells me that I’m watching LMN, and seeing as I’ve never heard of the network, I look it up on Wikipedia.
To which I say this: SWEET LORD BABY JESUS, THEY CREATED A CABLE NETWORK WITH NOTHING BUT LIFETIME MOVIES. [Update: OK, the channel has been around since 1998, but somehow I missed this memo of awesomeness.] I have just spent the past five to ten minutes trying to figure out something funny to say about the Lifetime Movie Network, but then realized that all I really have to do is cut and paste these actual movie synopsis from LMN’s home page, and really, the blog just writes itself:
- Destination: Infestation: It’s a new kind of terror at 30.000 feet! Jessalyn Gilsig and Antonio Sabato Jr. star as a bug expert and a U.S. air marshal who must stop deadly ants from taking over a flight from Costa Rica.
- They have an exclusive web-only show called Inspector Mom. It stars Winnie Cooper from The Wonder Years. (As this is the Lifetime Network, I was going to make a catty comment here — something horrible, like “she fights both crime and breast cancer” — that’s a pretty assholey thing to say, though, so I will refrain myself.)
- The #1 Video from the site is from If Someone Had Known, a 1997 film where the chick from Life Goes On plays, you guessed it, a beaten wife.
- I’m saddened by the fact that I do not see Meredith Baxter Berney on the website, portraying someone with a mental disability. She’s usually my go-to mascot for melodramatic female roles.
I’m sure someone in America loves these movies; otherwise there wouldn’t be a cable network devoted specifically to them. Maybe there can be a show about them. They could call it I’m a Midwestern Housewife or a Stoned College Student: The People Who Love Watching LMN.
hey, they have to compete with the Hallmark Network
Antonio was the first actor I ever had a crush on back in the day. Now all he does is act in low budget made-for-TV movies. *sigh*
Oh no, Winnie Cooper grew up to be an internet-only actress. I’m devastated.
Tool #234 in The Writer’s Arsenal: Being catty or inappropriate while disclaiming said cattiness, eg., “I was going to write this joke…but then decided it was inappropriate.”
“Destination: Infestation?”
Really?
Much better would “Destination: Defenestration”
I’d SO watch that!
Seems to me that LMN is proof that even if you completely lack taste and/or talent, you can still find an audience out there somewhere.
When Brian crashed on my couch for a few weeks, I forced him to watch the Betty Broderick mini series on lifetime movie network. It felt soooo goood.
I also made him watch Olsen Twin films until he cried.
Dude, could be worse. Here in Beijing, I got 2 channels in English. One is “Here’s what Hu Jintao did today” in nauseating detail and the other is currently showing Jurassic Park. I actually look forward to the 11 p.m. rerun of Seinfeld…
I’m pretty sure that Meredith Baxter-Birney has done her fair share of Lifetime appearances. I think there was one movie where she was a bulimic mom. And Jo from the “Facts of Life” married a mafia mobster but didn’t know what she was marrying into.
so rad:
1) my Mom is thinking of getting satellite tv. First thing asked: “do I get LMN?”
2) that first movie sounds like something bad they play on SciFi channel on Sunday afternoons. In fact, I’m SURE they raid the Lifetime movie files for some of those “movies.”
3) thank you for finding me where I can ogle Winnie Cooper again. I’m serious.
LOVE the LMN.. yup!
I’m a HUGE sap! The movies are awful and completely CHEEZY! But.. once you start watching.. you CAN’T STOP!!! hehehe
BTW, glad you’re back in the Bay Erndogger. I miss you!!!
Ernie, you have to see Destination: Infestation… if you don’t subsribe to LMN. I saw the commerical for it and laughed out loud! Believe me, it’s even more absurd than its log-line.
Hilarious post!
i loved how you kinda apologized and then snuck in that breast cancer line…
Touché sir, Touché. if only imus was so smart. =P
=D