Short Takes: ‘All Day and a Night’ (2020) ★★ 1/2

Writer-director Joe Robert Cole’s All Day and a Night starts off strong, with its lead character Jahkor (Ashton Sanders from Moonlight) sneaking into a house and confronting a man and his girlfriend with a pair of Glocks pointed at their heads. “Jah” is seething with rage, but he’s also scared, and you sense he’s just as likely to turn and run as pull the triggers. It’s that moment of apprehension that makes the violence shocking, even as you see it coming.

But All Day and a Night’s weakest moment immediately follows. During Jah’s sentencing hearing, the mother of one of his victims makes her statement, demanding to know why Jah did what he did. It should be a heart-wrenching scene, but it instead comes off like it was lifted from an episode of Law & Order. And then the voice overs start. “People say they wanna know why,” says Jah, “but they really don’t.” Cue the flashbacks.

Just as I was beginning to fear I was in for a two-hour PSA against gang violence, the movie corrects course. Cole’s script and direction remain kind of wobbly, however, as the Black Panther screenwriter not only shows us why Jah ended up behind bars, also tells us, just to make sure we get it. Jahkor’s harrowing childhood—getting bullied in elementary school; getting abused at home by his father, JD (Jeffrey Wright), who beats Jah for allowing himself to be bullied—really doesn’t require the extra explanation. It’s not a surprise that by the time Jah is in his late teens he and his friend TQ (Isaiah John) are holding up guys in their East Oakland neighborhood. TQ embraces this outlaw existence, idolizing local celebrity Thug’ish Trex (James Earl), who very much lives the gangsta life he raps about. Jah merely tolerates Trex, not wanting anything to do with his drug dealing but hoping that Trex will help Jah launch his own rap career. Jah then leans that his girlfriend Shantaye (Shakira Ja’nai Payne) is pregnant. Surprisingly, he’s happy about the news and, after hitting a series of brick walls, gets a job working at a faux Foot Locker.

But a low-level retail job doesn’t pay enough to support one person, let alone a family. It’s practically inevitable that Jah would end up working for gang boss and criminally underdeveloped character Big Stunna (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), yet Cole still feels the need to explicitly tell us that this choice is no choice at all. “There’s whole neighborhoods that know more about life inside prison than out,” says Jah in yet another V.O. “Generations of men and women, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunties, cousins, all of us, all part of the same fuckin’ story on fuckin’ repeat. Makin’ this into a life while everybody on the outside looks in, pretending they could do better.”

All Day and a Night features some solid acting, especially from Sanders, Wright and, as Jah’s mother, Kelly Jenrette, as well as some vibrant cinematography. But while the movie is compelling, it never quite hits as hard as you expect it to, mostly because while Cole has decided on the central theme of the school-to-prison pipeline that traps so many young Black men, he never lands on a central story. Much of All Day and a Night is about Jah’s being doomed to a life of crime (i.e., “the same fuckin’ story”), until suddenly it’s about his mending his relationship with his father when he ends up in the same prison as JD. By the end I felt as if I’d watched two B-stories that never quite added up to a single, satisfying film. 

Remember, Ladies: No Orgasm Goes Unpunished

I knew this day would come, the day I finally check out yet another godawful Fifty Shades of Grey knockoff that confuses abuse with romance. I’m talking, of course, about the 2017 British movie DARKER SHADES OF ELISE.

This movie was put in my Tubi queue shortly after reviewing that more notorious Fifty Shades knock-off, 365 Days, as it looked like it would provide ample opportunities for ridicule. Then I realized I’d have to watch it first, and the prospect of doing that was significantly less fun.

via GIPHY

It took the recent Netflix release of the second installment of the 365 Days saga—if a collection of montages, drone shots and sex scenes, varnished over with an overbearing pseudo-R&B soundtrack, even qualifies as a “saga”—to spur me to learn about Elise’s darker shades.

Elise is subjected to the judgmental gaze of
Janet, the cunty co-worker.

Elise (Becca Hirani), once an aspiring model and actress, is now a bored London housewife, married to workaholic Rick (Tommy Vilés). At the movie’s opening she shows up at his barren office with champagne bottle and glasses in hand, interrupting Rick having a flirty conversation about salads(?) with his colleague Janet (Louisa Warren). Janet, who should really be a lot humbler considering her shitty dye-job, takes her sweet time fucking off, making sure to give Rick’s wife a condescending once-over on her way out the door. Rick is just as annoyed by the interruption. It’s their anniversary, Elise reminds him. Surely, he could make time to celebrate. Though Rick apologizes, he’s not making any indication he plans on leaving the office anytime soon. When he gets a call about a work “emergency,” he seems positively relieved.

Elise begins to suspect Rick of having an affair. “Know what I would do?” Elise’s friend Bianca (Charlene Cooper) volunteers. “Go fuck every man in sight.” But Elise says she can’t do that—she’s married. Bianca, as the free-spirited/slutty best friend, doesn’t see that as a barrier. Then, just to rub salt into her friend’s wounded sex life, Bianca hurries Elise out the door so she can greet her latest internet hook-up. Elise instead lingers at the back window, getting so turned on watching a hot Black guy go down on Bianca that she can’t help but touch herself. 

There can be a fine line between sexy and sad,
and Elise quickly crosses it.

It’s while tailing Rick, hoping to catch him in the act of cheating, that Elise meets Felix (Arron Blake), an attractive, if somewhat hawk-faced, photographer. Felix immediately starts chatting up Elise, who blushes at his smarmy compliments but clearly enjoys the attention. When he asks if he can photograph her, she gives the request a millisecond of consideration—the same amount of time required to cut to Elise in her apartment, posing for Felix. Felix just as quickly jumps to suggesting Elise take her dress off. “What?” Elise gasps. “I don’t even know your name.” Wait, what? I’m sorry, even in my desperate bar trash days, when my affection was won by anyone who would talk to me for more than three minutes, I still knew the names of the men I was about to leave the bar with, at least until the next morning.

Once introductions are out of the way the pair kiss. Though Elise isn’t exactly resistant, this seduction feels more like an uncomfortable assignment in a James Franco-led acting class. Elise stops Felix before things go too far, but her marital commitment snaps a day or so later when Rick and his assistants, doing some pre-meeting prep work at the apartment, respond to her offer of refreshments like she just farted. Rick and company are barely out the door before Elise is inviting Felix over to initiate her into the joys of adultery.

Felix shows us the pale side of the moon.

Because movies can’t let female orgasms go unpunished, Felix quickly proves to be every bit of the creeper we suspect him of being. In the first of many red flags, he shows up in Elise’s bedroom while Rick is in the shower (this apartment building either has really shit security or Felix can scale walls like Spider-Man). Despite her protests, Felix fucks Elise (quickly), ducking out of the room—but not out of the apartment—the moment Rick asks his wife to hand him a towel. But, uh-oh, Rick decides now is time to tend to his husbandly duties and initiates sex with Elise, thinking her flushed face and WAP are the result of watching him shower (Vilés is cute, but “moisture-inducing” might be a wee bit of an overstatement).

Felix enjoys the show.

But watching Elise bone her husband gets Felix dripping, so after Rick leaves on yet another business trip the photographer proposes inviting random men over to fuck her while Felix watches. How would she like that? Elise responds as if just offered a cup of tea: “Yeah. I guess so.”

Felix wastes little time finding participants for his voyeuristic fantasies, though it’s clear what he really enjoys is Elise’s terror when these randos suddenly appear unannounced in her home, like the hunky Black man (not the same one who ate out Bianca), who walks into the bathroom while she’s bathing and begins undressing.

He quickly breaks the ice.

Later, Felix brings two twinks over to have their way with her. Elise is so blinded by all this nubile British boi-flesh that she fails to notice Felix has set up his camera to record the action. Or maybe she’s too horny to care. It’s not until brings home Mindy the Half-Price Dominatrix (Claire-Maria Fox) that Elise realizes this affair has to end.

The moment Elise re-evaluates her relationship with Felix.

Felix isn’t one to let go easily, however, and he quickly launches into a campaign of harassment that begins with threats and humiliations before quickly escalating to revenge porn and gang rape. Elise, feeling she has no other option, confesses the affair to Rick. That’s when things get all murder-y.

Though its title and marketing suggest Elise is a down-market Fifty Shades rip-off, it’s really just a kinkier (and significantly cheaper) Fatal Attraction, with a little bit of Animal Instincts thrown in. With a beefed-up script, higher production values and an effort to make the sex scenes sexy, Elise could’ve been an OK direct-to-streaming erotic thriller. As it is, Shannon Holiday’s script is populated with one-note characters spouting bland and/or dumb dialog (including a police detective making the most ridiculous/offensive request of a victim ever) and Jamie West’s direction does nothing to elevate the material. Whereas Fifty Shades and 365 Days are as much lifestyle porn as they are just porn, Darker Shades of Elise is aggressively drab, as if West shot the entire movie through a dirty window.

Director Jamie West captures the romance of the London setting.

The cast is largely comprised of actors who have worked together on similar Z-grade titles, and while none of them are especially good, a few are better than the material they are given. Had Elise’s character been given a few more shades, I have no doubt that Hirani could’ve made her seem more like a fully realized human being instead of a doormat in need of a good lay. Similarly, I’d like to think Blake might have displayed some charm in the early scenes had the script supplied Felix with any, which would make Elise’s attraction to him more believable and his psychopathic behavior a bit more shocking. Instead, he comes across as a predator from the start, though, for what it’s worth, Blake is quite effective the nastier he gets. Weirdly, the only character given any sort of nuance is Rick, who is first shown to be an insensitive dick, only to soften up over the course of the movie. I found myself wondering if the movie might’ve been better served if Vilés and Blake switched roles, though both actors would’ve been better served taking different jobs.

I know I’m trespassing on Nick DiRamio’s territory, but girl,
who did your make up?

So, Darker Shades of Elise wasn’t as unwatchable as I feared, but that’s about the most that can be said for it. It isn’t sexy, it isn’t good, and it’s not worth your time.

On the other hand….

Let There Be No More Tomorrows After This Day

Binge and purge.

While Darker Shades of Elise is bad, 365 DAYS: THIS DAY, as most readers already know, is fucking dreadful, and just as offensive as the first movie. The “story,” using the loosest definition of the word, picks up several weeks/months (time doesn’t matter in this universe) after the first movie, on the wedding day of Massimo (Michele Marrone, who again contributes to the movie’s soundtrack, as grating as it is relentless) and “Low-ra” (Anna-Marie Sieklucka). The final scene of the previous film, in which Laura and her friend Olga (Magdalena Lamparska) are seen being driven into a tunnel but never coming out the other side, is explained away in a few lines of dialog: there was an accident and Laura miscarried (but don’t tell Massimo she was ever pregnant!). Now let us never speak of it again.

Massimo has his own secrets, like the fact that he has a twin brother, Adriano. The brothers may be identical, but they are quite different: Massimo looks like drug trafficker while Adriano looks like a drug trafficker who uses the product. Henceforth, they will be known as Scowly and Twitchy. Anyway, Laura is pissed that Scowly—who, you’ll remember, kidnapped her and held her prisoner until she finally submitted to fell in love with him—withheld this information from her. She’s also starting to get a teensy bit annoyed that Massimo treats her like his property (who would’ve guessed?). But while Laura is relatively accepting of her abusive relationship, cheating on her is just a bridge too far. So, when she catches Scowly in flagrante delicto with his ex, Anna (Natasza Urbanska), she storms off, not realizing it was Twitchy the whole time.

Scowly and Twitchy

Nacho undulates into Laura’s life.

Enter Nacho (yes, Nacho), Scowly and Laura’s new gardener, who conveniently shows up to give the cuckqueaned gangster’s wife a lift, ultimately taking her to his place. It turns out Nacho, who is never once shown gardening, lives in a beautiful seaside villa. It’s his father’s place, he explains. Laura doesn’t ask any more questions, since Nacho, played by reality show contestant Simone Susinna, has a smile that can melt away panties and cloud minds. Yet, while Nacho is significantly more pleasant than Scowly, viewers—those who have made it this far, at least—will suspect that he, too, is a piece of shit, and they’d be right. He’s just significantly less shitty than Massimo.

The only reason to watch the film adaptations of Blanka Lipińska’s porno trilogy is the explicit sex, and even there This Day disappoints. The sex scenes may be early and often (the first one happens a mere two minutes in), but there is significantly less flesh bared this time out. It’s not like Sieklucka and Marrone decided to beef up the nudity clauses in their contracts. They still get naked, just not as frequently, though you can still rest assured that Sieklucka will be baring more than either of her male co-stars. And it’s not like the sex is all that daring or interesting, the movie failing to realize that in the internet age it will take more than whipped cream and toys to get audiences’ collective blood pumping. However, there is a scene on a golf course that will get them laughing.

Olga and Domenico are interrupted—again.

As with the first one, I’m providing the time codes for the “good parts” of This Day. I’m not counting that first sex scene, in which Laura and Scowly have pre-wedding sex (sample romantic dialog: “I don’t have panties”) as both actors remain fully clothed. The same goes for Olga and Domenico’s frequently interrupted couplings (people are always walking in on each other fucking in this movie), which aren’t very explicit and meant solely as comic relief. So, for those who want to see the hot people have simulated sex without having to sit through the movie’s remaining 95 minutes of watching them drive Lambos, eat spaghetti, shop, jet ski, drive Corvettes, walk on the beach, lounge on patios, lounge by the pool, and model comically large sunglasses, here are the parts to fast-forward to:

I eat your face!

10:40 – Massimo and Laura’s wedding night. “You have one hour. Then I’ll do whatever I wan’ w’ju,” Scowly tells his bride. “No,” she replies, “I’ll do whatever I want with you.” She ties him (fully clothed) to a chair, then gets naked and pleasures herself with a vibrator until Scowly gets so horny he breaks free of his flimsy restraints and pounces on her. This scene segues into the movie’s honeymoon montage, which includes hot tub sex (non-explicit), Laura walking topless along the beach and, during a game of golf, Laura squatting over one of the holes as her husband/kidnapper putts a ball toward her cooch. 

 

Laura proves that nothing will make golf sexy.

21:10 – Massimo and Laura, who had sex on a patio table during the movie’s first two minutes, have sex on a dining room table after she slinks into the room wearing skimpy lingerie (almost everyone in this movie walks as if they are about to make a stripper pole their bitch). Scowly finally shows his ass (Marrone isn’t much of an actor, to put it kindly, but his body—woof!). He also goes down on Laura, which may not be entirely simulated.

Michele Marrone displays his greatest strength as an actor.

38:42 – Massimo gets his Christmas gift: a night of BDSM Lite with a box set of sex toys. So, just like any other night. Laura is gift wrapped in a garter belt and leather cuffs with gold lettering spelling out “Fuck Me” (Eat your heart out, Nicholas Sparks.) Scowly once again gets naked, though the illusion that he’s really giving it to his victim/wife is shattered with a brief full-frontal flash.

No wonder he had to use the toys on Laura.

51:00 – Laura walks in on “Massimo” and Anna. Not terribly explicit but you a brief glimpse of Urbanska’s naked butt (Marrone’s is kept covered by his shirttail).

1:09:17 – Laura and Nacho get it on (though it might be a dream; the movie isn’t clear, and you won’t care). Lots of close-ups of Laura looking pre-orgasmic and Nacho looking sleepy. Nacho kisses his way down her naked torso before dining downtown.

Hel-lo!

1:25:25 – Laura may/may not be dreaming of Nacho eating her pussy for breakfast. “Are you having a nightmare or just an erotic dream?” asks Nacho when she wakes up. Then they have spaghetti for breakfast, because they are in Italy.

1:30:18 – No sex, but Nacho finally shows his ass. 

Not bad, but Sussina looks better from the front.

You’ve got 20 more minutes to go after Sussina shows his two handfuls—20 loooong minutes. Not only is This Day unerotic, offensive and stupid, it’s also punishingly dull. At this rate, watching the third installment will likely feel as if time is standing still. It’s time that would probably be better spent watching real porn (see the internet for details.) But who am I kidding? I know I’m going to watch it when it drops on Netflix.

Short Takes: ‘Operation Hyacinth’ (2021) ★★★★

A heterosexual police officer goes undercover in the gay community to solve a string of murders targeting homosexuals, and soon finds himself pushing himself further and further to not blow his cover (so to speak). No, they didn’t remake William Friedkin’s 1980 film Cruising; this is the set-up for the much more recent, and much more dour Operation Hyacinth (a.k.a. Hiacynt), director Piotr Domalewski’s 2021film currently streaming on Netflix.

Though I flippantly compared it to Cruising, Operation Hyacinth has more in common with the paranoid political thrillers of the 1970s—like a homoerotic version of The Parallax View, or Three Days of the Condor if Jan Michael-Vincent were cast in the Faye Dunaway role (you’re welcome.)

Robert (Tomasz Zietek) is a young officer on Warsaw’s police force in 1985, when Poland was still a communist country and being an out homosexual meant having a target on your back (not that it’s much better today). At the beginning of the film Robert and his boorish partner Wojtek (Tomasz Schuchardt) are investigating the murders of two gay men. The murders are quickly pinned on a pimp who crossed paths with both victims. Robert, however, isn’t convinced they got the right guy. He appeals to the captain (Marek Kalita) to leave the case open for further investigation. The captain—also Robert’s father—tells him to take the win and move on. Robert instead elects to conduct a more thorough investigation on his own.

It’s during a raid of a notorious Warsaw tearoom—part of the real “Operation Hyacinth”—that Robert meets Arek, one of the fleeing “suspects.” When young art student mistakenly assumes Robert is also running from the police and not chasing him, Robert lets the assumption stand and begins cultivating Arek as an informant. That Arek quickly develops feelings for Robert is no surprise (Zietek does rock that mustache), and Robert exploits that attraction. But as the movie progresses, Robert—who’s engaged and regularly hooks up with his fiancée Helinka (Adrianna Chlebicka)—begins to regard Arek as more than just an informant.

Though Operation Hyacinth is primarily a police procedural, the movie’s setting makes the gay romance just as tense. Robert not only runs the risk of his identity being found out by Arek, but the risk of being outed to his colleagues and family is even greater. A scene of Robert and Arek narrowly avoiding discovery by Robert’s father are just as suspenseful as when Robert is almost discovered by the suspected killer he’s investigating.

Operation Hyacinth reassured me that not everything on Netflix sucks, as well as reminded me that 365 Days is not representative of Polish cinema. It also provides me an opportunity to show readers that I can give a movie more than three stars. Thriller fans, be they LGBTQ or straights who don’t shudder at the sight of two dudes doing it, should consider giving this one a watch. Just be warned that it gets pretty grim. As much as I liked it, I couldn’t help wishing it, too, had a WTF interrogation scene like Cruising, just to lighten the mood.

Double Takes: 'Madame Claude' (1977) ★★ 1/2 / (2021) ★★★

Before the Mayflower Madam, and well before the Hollywood Madam, there was Madame Claude, who in her 1960s and ’70s heyday reportedly supplied women for John F. Kennedy and the Shah of Iran. All three women got their stories told in made-for-TV movies, but only Madame Claude (real name Fernande Grudet) merited a feature.

Unfortunately for Grudet, that theatrical film, 1977’s Madame Claude, was directed by Just Jaeckin, the same man who gave the world Emmanuelle. While Jaeckin does provide some biographical details about the Parisienne madam (excellently portrayed by Françoise Fabian), such as her acting as a police informant in exchange for police protection, he primarily uses her as a framing device for setting up a series of softcore sex scenes. The movie seems more focused on the character David Evans (Murray Head, post-Sunday Bloody Sunday and pre-“One Night in Bangkok”), a sleazy photographer being used by police to get incriminating snapshots of Mme. Claude’s girls with their clients. Another story thread focuses on Elizabeth (a better-than-usual Dayle Haddon), the madam’s newest recruit who is alternately too headstrong to tolerate the controlling madam’s bullshit, yet too naïve to realize she’ll never be more than a whore to her clients. The movie also features Robert Webber as a JFK stand-in and Klaus Kinski as a hedonistic business tycoon (don’t worry, neither of them get naked).

As one might expect from fashion photographer-turned-erotic filmmaker Jaeckin, Madame Claude looks great and it has a few spirited sex scenes, but the movie’s tone is all over the place, bouncing from frothy sex romp to sexy drama to political thriller. The movie is further hampered by its disjointed narrative, which is often hard to follow. Only Fabian’s performance as the steely Claude gives the movie any real dramatic weight. Jaeckin may have been going for something a little more substantial than his previous softcore outings, but ultimately the movie is less Klute with a French accent and more akin to The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington remade as a French drama.

Madame Claude did spawn a 1981sequel, Madame Claude 2, directed by François Mimet, though its a.k.a., Intimate Moments, is more fitting as it has even less to do with the infamous madam than the first movie. It’s pure Skinemax trash. No, Mme. Grudet didn’t get a proper biopic until Sylvie Verheyde’s Madame Claude landed on Netflix last year.

Verheyde’s film is more serious—way more—than exploitative, and its story is structured more like a traditional biopic, making it easier to follow than Jaeckin’s film, though viewers still need to be fast on their feet to keep up with some of the political machinations. The titular madame is played by Karole Rocher, and while her acting is fine, I thought her portrayal reduced Mme. Claude to little more than a neurotic bitch—you know, the kind you see in almost every other French melodrama. (I don’t know if this portrayal is more accurate, but it's certainly less interesting.) Fabian’s performance showed a woman who was always in control, while Rocher’s madam is frequently throwing tantrums and breaking shit like she’s on The Real Housewives of Marais. She’s also colder than any street pimp. After one of her girls returns from a date all bruised and bloody, the madam blithely tells her, “It’s nothing. A nice shower, a good night’s sleep, and that’s the end of it.”

Unlike Jaeckin’s film, which never looks like it’s taking place in a time other than the mid-’70s, Verheyde’s Madame Claude pays more attention to period detail. Still, there are anachronisms, primarily with the character Sidonie (Garrance Marillier), who is sort of this movie’s Elizabeth, if Elizabeth was a wealthy girl with daddy issues. Sidonie is always smoking 120s, even in the scenes set in the late 1960s, when that length of cigarette wasn’t introduced until the early ’70s. Worse, Sidonie’s look never, ever changes. Whether it’s the 1960s or 1990s, Sidonie always looks like a 20-something woman with the exact same hairstyle. This oversight is pretty fucking glaring considering that the movie takes great pains to make sure 1990s-era Mme. Claude looks like she’s in her 70s. The movie also can’t escape its cheapness, with much of it being shot on cramped sets, giving it an overall claustrophobic feel. Madame Claude 2021 may be leagues above Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss, but it’s still a made-for-TV movie.

For all its flaws, I think Verheyde’s movie is the better biopic, which is why I’m giving it a half-star more. However, I think Jaeckin’s brand of highbrow Eurotrash is the more interesting watch.

Let's Leave the Lifetime Movies to Lifetime, Shall We Netflix?

Netflix’s Brazen attempt to rip-off
Lifetime schlock.

Last December I cancelled my subscription to the Lifetime Movie Club. Though the service brought me plenty of joy for the year I had it —not to mention material—it was beginning to bring more sighs and shrugs than shits and giggles. The monthly $4.99 subscription fee may not be much, but it’s too much to spend on meh.

Besides, subscribing to whole other streaming service might not be necessary. In its desperate bid to become our everything, Netflix has been offering its own versions of Lifetime movies, because it knows that the one thing viewers crave when subscribing to a streaming service is basic cable content. Last month I watched Netflix’s stab at Hallmark/Lifetime’s stab at schmaltzy holiday inclusivity, the sugar-coated gay romcom Single All the Way. This month, I decided to check out the streaming service’s new Lifetimey thriller, BRAZEN, starring Alyssa Milano, a weirdly controversial casting choice.

Milano plays Grace Miller, an author of mystery novels and thrillers that are so popular that her bookstore appearances are standing room only.

Her books may also be the only ones stocked in this mall atrium.

Grace’s latest novel is Brazen Virtue, the same title as the Nora Roberts’ novel on which Brazen is based. How meta! The passage Grace reads from it, describing an “unremarkable” murder victim and wondering if she had a secret life, might have counted as foreshadowing if Brazen had the patience to let us discover those secrets in due time, instead of revealing them in the movie’s prologue. Grace’s readers are enthralled and applaud as if they just heard Beyoncé perform her latest. “That was the best turn-out we’ve had all year,” gushes the bookstore’s manager. “Keep writing, Grace Miller. You’re the best.” Interestingly, her fans keep their distance, which is telling because wait until you get to know Grace!

You see, Grace is supposed to be a strong, confident woman. Unfortunately, to convey her strength screenwriters Edithe Swensen and Donald Martin have made her into a self-satisfied asshole, someone who is superior in all things, be it investigating crimes or uncorking wine bottles. Of course, her greatness comes at a cost: all other characters must be slightly (or a lot) dumber. Near the movie’s climax, she actually tells a police captain to make sure the evidence they have on a suspect is solid to ensure the arrest sticks. That the captain doesn’t respond with a well-deserved “No shit, Sherlock” should tell you how far up Grace’s ass this movie is.

Despite Grace’s grating personality, she is the first person her sister Kathleen (Emily Ullerup) calls when she needs help. Grace immediately ditches her book tour to fly to D.C. so she can criticize her sister’s taste in wine, as well as pointedly bring up Kathleen’s past mistakes: a disastrous marriage, a drug addiction (just pills; she wasn’t a filthy heroin addict or scabby faced tweaker), leaving her son behind when she left her husband.

Kathleen assures Grace that she’s gotten her shit together. She’s kicked “the meds” and is now teaching English at an exclusive private school. She’s also decided to fight to regain custody of her son. Because this is an expensive undertaking, she needs money, which is why she called Grace—not for a loan, but for Grace to consent to a second mortgage on the house they inherited from their parents and that Kathleen now lives in. Grace, likely thinking, I cut my book tour short for this?, is dubious the loan will provide enough money to finance the impending legal battle, but Kathleen assures her she’s working on “other things” to raise the money.

But enough about Kathleen and her problems. The next morning, while Kathleen’s at her day job of teaching rich kids about Shakespeare, Grace tries to work on a new book but can’t concentrate because her sister’s neighbor keeps firing up a buzzsaw every few seconds. Grace, incensed that someone would have the audacity to work on a construction project at 10 a.m. on a weekday, complains because of course she does. But then, upon seeing that the neighbor is played by Sam Page, decides to make peace and bring him an empty mug that she says contains coffee. The neighbor, Ed, doesn’t do caffeine, but Grace forgives him because it turns out that Ed is a huge fan of her work. Making the previous sentence a bit more implausible is that Ed is also a detective on the D.C. police force. A cop who doesn’t consume caffeine? I’m not buying it, just as you won’t buy that he’s immediately attracted to Grace, but who knows. Maybe her books are just that good.

Sam Page (left) is ready to be your new Greg Evigan.

Their unlikely romance stalls temporarily when Grace returns from her first date with Ed to discover Kathleen murdered. She also discovers the nature of the “other things” Kathleen was working on to pad her bank account: doing cam shows as a dominatrix named Desiree. 

Beats the hell out of being an Uber driver.

We in the audience knew this secret already as it’s revealed before the opening credits, presumably to hook us with the salacious stuff. Except Kathleen’s kinky internet show is tame enough to make her viewers think they’ve accidentally logged on to Disney+ (“Well, I guess I can rub one out to Maleficent.”) I’m not suggesting she be wearing nothing but thigh-high boots and a clit ring, but maybe spice things up with some puppy play, or leading her viewers through elaborate omorashi scenarios instead of this tired whip cracking crap.

But I digress. The prime suspect is Kathleen’s ex, Jonathan (David Lewis). David is a smug prick, but he’s got an air-tight alibi and he’s too obvious besides. He also provides Brazen with its best scene.

Grace, perfect at everything else, also throws a mean left hook.

Finding Kathleen’s killer is further complicated when other online dominatrixes are murdered. Now there’s the possibility that the cops are dealing with a serial killer, one who is targeting PG-rated doms. Seriously, movie, no one is paying $40 a month to watch moms do steampunk cosplay.

Especially when they wear their Maidenform One Fab Fit®
underneath their leather corsets.

But stopping a serial killer isn’t the only thing the cops are up against. They also have to contend with Grace’s “help.”

Though Ed was given a week off for solving a big case (or maybe he’d already put in for the time, which is more believable), he forfeits his PTO in favor of investigating the murder of his love interest’s sister. No good deed goes unpunished, of course. Grace doesn’t just do the typical mystery/thriller thing of trying to solve her sister’s murder on her own, or even unofficially assisting Ed on the downlow. No, she wants to be an active member of the investigating team—and Ed’s captain (Alison Araya) allows it.

With Grace now appointed as a consultant, Ed and his partner Ben (Malachi Weir) are now having to suffer her company as she accompanies them to interview suspects. Ben is strangely accepting of this arrangement, but then, Ben’s a pretty chill guy. Yet even Ben gives their “consultant” an eat shit look when she barges into a meeting between the detectives and the captain to share evidence she’s turned up from her solo sleuthing.

When their two most likely suspects/obvious red herrings are cleared, there’s only one thing left to do, and that one thing telegraphed by a lingering shot of one of Kathleen’s leather costumes laid out on display on the bed of her “dungeon.” 

The star of Poison Ivy II shows us she’s still got it!

Safe to Assume the Book is Better

Phone sex was Kathleen’s
porny source of extra cash in
the book as it was originally
published in 1988.

I’ve only read only one Nora Roberts novel, ever: Montana Sky. An aunt gave it to me, evidently thinking I’d read anything plucked from a CVS book rack (that’s fair). I thought it was all right, but not really my thing. The only part of the book that stuck with me was a sex scene in which a character rides her lover “hard and fast and well.” Still, while I’ve never read Roberts’ Brazen Virtue, I think I can say with some confidence that the novel is better than its Netflix adaptation.

It’s not that Brazen is a complete piece of shit. Monika Mitchell’s directing is competent if uninspired and, apart from some flat performances by actors in minor roles, the acting is decent enough, though no one should hold their breath for an Emmy nomination. It’s just that the movie is so goddamned soulless. It’s a thriller without suspense; a romance without heat. As irritating as I found the character of Grace (just the character; Milano’s performance is fine), hating her was what kept me invested in the movie. That, and hoping Sam Page would strip down to boxer briefs at some point (spoiler: he doesn’t). You’d do better to just watch an episode of Law & Order: SVU.

At the end of the day, the only thing that sets Brazen apart from any other Lifetime movie is it’s on Netflix. I don’t think I’d be any more forgiving had it been an official Lifetime movie, but then my expectations would be calibrated accordingly. On Lifetime, Brazen would rank among its more mediocre offerings—too proficient to enjoy ironically, not good enough to merit anyone’s time. On Netflix, it’s just one more example of the streaming service’s putting quantity over quality. If $4.99/month is too much to spend on meh on the Lifetime Movie Club, Netflix’s (increasing) fees are tantamount to robbery. Considering Netflix’s recent numbers, the streamer might do better to focus less on trying to be all things to all viewers and more on offering content that’s actually worth watching.

Short Takes: 'The Hater' (2020) ★★★

Director Jan Komasa’s The Hater (Sala samobójców. Hejte) is about a young Polish man who finds success by using social media to foment hate and paranoia. Which, too soon?

Making it a little easier to watch is the decision to tell the story more as a slow-burn, semi-satirical thriller than a drama about far-right politics. Tomasz (Maciej Musialowski), the titular hater, begins his journey to becoming a Machiavellian master of media manipulation from a place of failure. He’s kicked out of law school for plagiarism, then has his heart broken when he learns what his childhood crush Gabi (Vanessa Aleksander) really thinks about him. The latter happens via some DIY electronic eavesdropping, which should teach Tomasz a lesson. It does, but it’s the wrong one.

Tomasz talks his way into a job at an ethics-averse PR firm, quickly rising through the ranks when he launches a successful smear campaign against a client’s rival, to the delight of his boss Beata (Agata Kulesza), who cackles maniacally watching the rival’s tearful apology video, and the ire of her abusive asshole right-hand Kamil (Piotr Biedron). Tomasz is then tasked with getting dirt on Pawel Runicki (Maciej Stuhr), a progressive candidate in Warsaw’s mayoral race (you can see Tomasz’s ears perk up when he’s told bugging offices isn’t off the table). He outs Runicki as a homosexual, but that causes only a momentary dip in the candidate’s numbers. Far more successful are Tomasz’s xenophobic and Islamophobic posts, of which we’re all too familiar. But Tomasz isn’t content to just fan the flames; he wants to cause an explosion, and so he recruits Guzek (Adam Gradowski), a neck beard who vlogs about his love of guns and hatred of immigrants, to be his detonator.

The Hater is a sequel to Komasa’s 2011 film Suicide Room. I haven’t seen it yet, but from what I’ve read it’s also a story about the evils of social media, only focusing on one of its victims. In The Hater, Tomasz is on the other side, doing what he does for no greater reason than the thrill of stirring shit up, regardless of the politics (he has no qualms about playing both sides). He’s not a white supremacist, he’s a budding sociopath. Musialowski’s performance as Tomasz keeps us guessing by showing us occasional flashes of empathy or fear, but by the movie’s end he’s gone full Patrick Bateman—or Damien.

The movie has its weaknesses. Much of Mateusz Pacewicz’s script is a bit too on-the-nose, as if it is illustrating key points culled from a Polityka article examining the forces behind democracy’s decline, with some characterizations being less satirical than full-on parody (the mustache-twirling villainy of Beata and Kamil; Gabi’s liberal elite parents). Luckily, Komasa and his cast manage to keep the story grounded, even during some of its more far-fetched moments. The Hater is still a good movie, it’s just not a good time.

A Gay Glucose Drip for Christmas with a Booger Sugar Chaser

My husband had this to say about Christmas movies: “You can go schmaltzy or take the piss out of the holiday. Neither the twain shall meet.” Though there have been a few exceptions (A Christmas Story, kind of), he’s right. As far as holiday movies are concerned, Christmas is a time of either sugary sentimentality or unbridled debauchery (or terror), no mixing.

Now that holiday movies are trying to be a little more inclusive—and I stress a little— studios might also want to try to combine sappy and the cynical. And who better to tie the nice, the gaudy and the naughty into one fabulous bow than the queer community? I’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, the Netflix movie SINGLE ALL THE WAY would be the one to break down this barrier between the sentimental and the salacious.

I took the inclusion of Kathy Najimy and Jennifer Coolidge in Single All the Way’s cast as a good sign, and though I’ve been burned by Netflix queer content before (the platform’s 2019 version of Tales of the City qualifies as a hate crime, against Laura Linney if not LGBTQs), I held out hope that since Netflix wasn’t bound by the same restraints as the Hallmark Channel, its queer holiday movie would at least spike its eggnog.

The opening scene suggests this gay Christmas might be
a little sexier.

Netflix decided to go another way, which is to say they decided to go the same way: same as Hallmark, same as Lifetime.

Michael Urie tries his best to act against
Tim Lund’s wig-like hair.

Peter (Michael Urie) lives in Los Angeles, works for a social media marketing company but his true passion is plants (he has a separate Instagram account dedicated to them), and for the first time in a long time is genuinely excited about visiting his family in New Hampshire. Why? Because he’s finally bringing home a boyfriend—a doctor no less (“What do I have to do to get cardiac arrested?” swoons one of Peter’s colleagues when the doctor makes his entrance to a plaid-themed Christmas party). But marriage to the doctor is out of the question, especially once Peter learns the doctor is already married. To a woman. Now Peter will have to return home single once again, and after he’s hinted to his family that he’s bringing back a “surprise.”

Instead, Peter convinces his roommate Nick (Philemon Chambers) to come home with him and pretend to be his new beau. Nick is understandably reluctant, first claiming he’s looking forward to having a Christmas staycation, then saying he doesn’t want to dip into his savings to buy a plane ticket (both valid reasons). Peter counters with rapid exposition: he doesn’t want Nick to be alone with his memories of his recently deceased mother, and as for Nick’s finances, he has the money he got from publishing a children’s book about his dog, Emmett. “Now you have all this money in the bank that you’re saving for a rainy day. And look—” Nick gestures at his own anguished visage—“it’s pouring.”

Philemon Chambers mimics my reaction to Single All
the Way’s dialog.

Movie premise established, Peter and Nick head to New Hampshire, where they’re greeted by Peter’s mom Carole (Najimy, doing her best with what’s she’s given), who not only insists on being called Christmas Carole for the month of December but also occupies herself making signs with cute/inspiring sayings, the kind that are derided in Progressive commercials.

Kathy Najimy’s face hidden to protect her dignity.

Before Peter can spring the news that he and Nick are a (pretend) couple, Carole (I refuse to call her Christmas Carole, and Netflix can’t do shit about it) springs a surprise of her own. It turns out her spin class instructor James is gay and single, so she has set the two up on a blind date! Peter is understandably horrified, but that’s before he meets James, who is played by Luke Macfarlane.

“I don’t care if my mom is standing there, I will suck your cock
right now!”

But while Peter is rapidly warming up to being a real boyfriend to James, his teenaged nieces (Madison Brydges and Alexandra Beaton, their performances actually more palatable than I expected them to be) think he and Nick are a better match. Peter’s dad (Barry Bostwick) would also like Nick as a son-in-law, though I suspected he might prefer keeping Peter’s hot roommate to himself. Seriously, I think Peter’s dad wants to fuck Nick, though I may be reading too much into Dad’s cajoling Nick to go down into the basement with him to fix a pipe.

OK, he meant that literally, but I still felt the heat
between these two.

The nieces—with the help of their parents (Schitt’s Creek’s Jennifer Robertson and Victor Andres Turgeon-Trelles) and, of course, Grandpa—make it their mission to gently sabotage Peter’s relationship with James. They needn’t bother, as Peter seems to be doing a good job of auto-cockblocking, fending off James’ invitations to go back to his place because of lame plot contrivances. 

Regretfully, Single All the Way doesn’t take this opportunity to
make a facial joke.

Meanwhile, there’s a subplot involving a Christmas pageant written and directed by Aunt Sandy (Coolidge), an actress whose career high was being Ellen Greene’s understudy in Little Shop of Horrors. It’s this pageant, weirdly, that bridges the dueling efforts to meddle in Peter’s love life, shoveling the snow off the movie’s path as it slides toward a predictably happy ending.

I spent the first thirty minutes of Single All the Way groaning and rolling my eyes at the obvious jokes (old people struggling with their smartphones; referring to HGTV as the “Homosexual Gay” network; “Christmas Carole”), but the movie eventually won me over as it went along. 

The moment I was won over.

The movie is basically a feature-length syndicated sit-com, and most of the performances are pitched accordingly, meaning most of the cast displays Kelly-and-Ryan-on-meth levels of enthusiasm, though a few (Chambers, Macfarlane, Bostwick) favor of a more grounded approach. Coolidge, as always, is in a class by herself, but her scene-stealing potential is squandered by a script that is too beholden to a TV-PG rating, reducing her Aunt Sandy to little more than a sight gag.

And Bette Midler impersonator.

Netflix gets points for casting gay actors (all three male leads are out IRL), as well as presenting interracial dating as the non-issue it should be. Had it remained a gay version of a Christmas fake engagement movie (and, goddamn, are there a lot of them), Single All the Way might have held its own. But it more closely resembles Lifetime’s The Christmas Setup, and it suffers from the comparison, failing to have half the charm of that movie. While Single All the Way is a pretty good approximation of a Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movie, considering all the holiday movies those two channels churn out one would think Netflix would want to do something different to distinguish itself. Oh, well. At least we can watch it with our parents without fear of any uncomfortable conversations.

“What is felching?”

Straight Christmas Cynicism

After watching Single All the Way, I immediately wanted to watch something cynical to cut the sweetness, so I watched Zach Clark’s 2013 black comedy WHITE REINDEER. 

Single All the Way also gave me a strong desire to subscribe
to Noir Male, but I guess that’s not Christmas-y
enough for this post.

Jeff gives Suzanne an excuse to buy Hawaiian
Christmas CDs.

Washington, D.C.-area real estate agent Suzanne Barrington (Anna Margaret Hollyman) loves Christmas in a way only a woman with the middle name Noel can. And at the start of White Reindeer, Suzanne’s Christmas is set to be an especially merry one: she sells a house in her neighborhood to a charming young couple, George and Patti (Joe Swanberg and Lydia Hyslop), then, after a pre-dinner fuck, her TV weatherman husband Jeff (Nathan Williams) surprises Suzanne with the news that he got a job at a station in Hawaii.

But Suzanne’s dreams of a holiday luau end abruptly when she returns home from Christmas shopping to discover her home ransacked and her husband’s brains splattered across the floor. She’s still in the early stages of grief when one of her husband’s colleagues, wracked with guilt, reveals that Jeff was having an affair with a stripper named Autumn, who worked at a club near the TV station.

Autumn meets her lover’s widow.

Suzanne goes to the club confront Autumn (Laura Lemar-Goldsboro in her only film role), except their interaction isn’t confrontational. Suzanne is more curious about the other woman than angry with her. Suzanne is quickly bonds with Jeff’s lover, joining her and the other strippers for coke-fueled nights clubbing and going on shoplifting sprees at Macy’s during the day. They even get close enough for Autumn to share her real name: “Autumn is my stripper name. My real name is Fantasia.”

The high holidays.

Partying with strippers isn’t Suzanne’s only diversion from her grief. She spends thousands of dollars shopping online. She also angles for an invite to George and Patti’s housewarming party and attends even after she learns it’s not your typical holiday soiree.

Unless you’re Thomas Middleditch.

Though she’s game, sex with strangers isn’t as much fun as Suzanne hoped it would be. I’ve never been to a swingers’ party, but I suspect White Reindeer’s portrayal, which includes guests standing naked around the kitchen discussing one of their children’s struggles with little league, is closer to the unsexy reality.

The party always ends up in the kitchen.

But getting pounded by George while blowing a roly-poly guy with erection issues isn’t Suzanne’s rock bottom. No, what sends Suzanne crashing back to earth is discovering her credit cards are maxed out from her indiscriminate spending.

Though a few other things happen on the way down.

Hollyman is perfect as Suzanne, portraying her character with the right mix of optimism, despair and cluelessness one would expect from an upper-middle class white woman whose world is crashing down around her. Likewise, Lemar-Goldsboro’s Autumn/Fantasia is quietly tough, a woman who has dealt with enough shit by her early twenties that she’s unfazed by whatever shitstorm comes her way. The two actresses play well off each other, both deadpan but far from wooden. 

Suzanne is determined to have the best Christmas
money can buy.

White Reindeer is, as far as I’m concerned, a holiday classic. It fits neatly in the empty space left when I had to banish The Ref to the same purgatory where all the other Kevin Spacey movies I’ve enjoyed now reside. White Reindeer is a bit rough around the edges due to its limited budget, and some of its humor can be a bit cringey (Suzanne to Autumn/Fantasia’s mother: “Oh, you look pretty healthy for somebody on disability”), as well as kind of juvenile (Suzanne sniffing her own fart), but it always had me laughing. Given the past couple of years, I found it much easier to relate to Suzanne processing her grief in unhealthy ways than Peter’s deciding which hot man he wanted to be his boyfriend. I’m all for holiday escapism, but maybe next year Netflix could give us something we could watch with Family instead of with our families.