God Damn the Poor

Edge of Doom’s less-than-captivating
poster is probably not the sole reason
the movie failed at the box office, but
I’m sure it didn’t help.

“I find it impossible to serve these people,” complains a priest at the opening of the noirish 1950 drama EDGE OF DOOM.

“Poor people are difficult to serve, George,” reminds Father Roth (Dana Andrews), the senior priest of Los Angeles’ St. Stephens’ Church.

Yes, ministry would be so much easier if it weren’t for all these fucking poors, who jeopardize their dead-end jobs by carrying illegal weapons and who refuse to call the police on their abusive husbands (that the church insists they remain wedded to). But, as long as they keep those tithes coming, the priests might as well try to save their wretched souls.

But Father Roth isn’t that cynical. Sometimes it’s the poors who bring the priests closer to God. He tells of one former parishioner who, after the church denied his alcoholic father a Christian burial because he committed suicide, was determined to keep his tithe money and wretched soul to himself.

Flashing back to what appears to be the previous week, we meet Martin Lynn (Farley Granger), working as a delivery driver for a flower shop, barely making enough to scrape by, let alone pay for his ailing mother’s medical care — or, at the very least, move her out to Arizona, which is healthier, somehow. And marrying his girlfriend Julie (Marla Powers) is out of the question, which, in 1950, means Martin is also suffering from a serious case of blue balls on top of crushing poverty. He asks his boss, Mr. Swanson (Houseley Stevenson) for a raise, reminding the old man he was promised one the previous year and, besides, Martin’s worked at the shop for four years. Mr. Swanson kicks the can down the road, telling Martin that the shop has had a lot of expenses and can’t afford any pay increases. Martin is then assured that he’ll always have a job as long as Mr. Swanson is alive. Translation: Be grateful you have a job. Now shut the fuck up.

Like a prayer.

“Who’s your daddy?”

Martin’s mother is still very devout, much to her son’s chagrin (“You’ve prayed enough, Mother.”) Her prayers don’t spare her the inevitable, however, leaving Martin is saddled with the expense of burying her. His skeevy neighbor, Mr. Craig (Paul Stewart), rants about how “it’s a rich world, but it hates to give.” Someone, somewhere, owes Martin money, Mr. Craig continues; all he has to do is have the nerve to collect. Martin takes the older man’s words to heart. His mother deserves a big funeral, and St. Stephens is going to pay for it.

The late Mrs. Lynn was usually counseled by St. Stephens’ beloved junior priest Father Roth, but it’s the grumpy Father Kirkman (Harold Vermilyea)—the same priest who refused Martin’s father a church funeral—who is available when Martin shows up at the rectory. We know the church isn’t going to pay for shit, no matter who Martin asks, but at least Father Roth would be more diplomatic in rejecting Martin’s demands. Father Kirkman’s first response, upon hearing that Martin’s mother has died, is to chastise the young man for not calling him sooner to administer her last rites (priorities). Furthermore, he can’t understand why Martin wants his mother to have such a lavish funeral (“Your mother was a simple woman.”)

Martin confronts Father Don’t-Give-a-Shit

Father Kirkman isn’t a total bastard, though, giving Martin cab fare to the funeral home. Martin, in turn, smashes Father Kirkman’s skull with a brass crucifix, killing him instantly. Oops.

Most tragic of all, no one said Father Kirkman’s last rites.

Martin barely avoids discovery by Father Roth and Father Kirkman’s misbehaving niece Rita (Joan Evans, who gets third billing even though she’s barely in the film), only to have police cars come speeding up beside him as he’s walking down the street. The cops aren’t coming for Martin but, rather, responding to a robbery — committed by Mr. Craig — at the nearby Galaxy Theatre. A mob of onlookers swarm the theater (Los Angelenos just loved gawking at robbery victims back in the day, apparently), practically carrying Martin to this other crime scene. A panicked Martin fights his way through the crowd, running to a nearby greasy spoon where he is the sole customer.

Martin’s been seen fleeing the Galaxy, which leads to two detectives flanking him in the diner and treating Martin like he’s been Driving While Black, though they keep their guns holstered (#WhitePrivilege). The cops ultimately take Martin to the station, suspecting him of committing the Galaxy Theatre robbery. He’s questioned by Det. Lt. Mandel (Robert Keith), who’s just as pleasant as the arresting officers. Martin not only fails to convince Det. Lt. Asshole that he’s innocent of the Galaxy hold-up, but he also inadvertently gets himself added to a list of potential suspects in Father Kirkman’s murder as well.

Martin is questioned by Det. Lt. Asshole.

Father Roth happens to stop by the station to vouch for one of his parishioners (“Lock him up for a week. Throw a good scare into him.”) Roth is a little more compassionate when he learns Martin is also in jail. “Martin is not a thief,” the priest tells Mandel, “and he wouldn’t go robbing theaters on the night his mother died.” (Hold on to your wallet on any other night, though!) Mandel releases Martin, but he stresses to Roth that it’s against his better judgment: “He bothers me.”

“Frankly, I’m glad the old bastard’s dead.”

Roth plans to take Martin to the rectory, but Martin insists on going home. But after Roth drops him off, Martin goes to Julie’s apartment. Though she means well, she offers little comfort (“It’s not the end of the world tonight, Martin.”) Martin returns to his apartment, just in time to see Mr. Craig being hauled away by police (“Every time something happens around here, they pull him in,” gripes Craig’s girlfriend Irene). Craig tells the cops he was nowhere near the Galaxy when it was robbed, but he’s actually been taken in as a suspect in the Father Kirkman murder.

Things continue to worsen for Martin. He loses his job, and the mortuary won’t extend him any credit (“Obviously, Mr. Lynn, you can’t afford your desires.”) He’s again picked up by the cops, this time as a suspect in the crime he actually committed. In an uncharacteristic bit of luck, the eyewitness who saw him leaving the rectory doesn’t pick him out of a lineup, instead identifying Mr. Craig as the man she saw.

It looks like Martin is going to get away with murder. Alas, you can take the boy out of the Catholic church, but you can’t take the Catholic church out of the boy. (Maybe I should re-phrase that...)

“Goddammit.”

More Secular than Faith-Based

Edge of Doom is based on a novel by Leo Brady, who, though a devout Roman Catholic, didn’t shy away from criticizing the church, and while liberties were taken with the film adaption (the prologue and epilogue scenes, as well as some narration, were added to give the story a more inspirational spin), it’s far from Catholic propaganda. Part of the reason so many current faith-based movies fail as films, aside from the fact that they are uniformly terrible, is they have no nuance, with all their stories boiling down to “secularism (and non-Christian religions) bad; evangelical Christianity good.” Faith isn’t examined, it’s presented. Edge of Doom’s approach is far more palatable. Religion is a part of the story, but it’s not THE story.

Edge of Doom is more secular than faith-based — you’ll hear more about Catholic church protocols than the Lord — and ultimately, it’s Martin’s story that makes the movie compelling viewing. Martin’s mother finds comfort in the church, the promise of a rewarding afterlife validating her mortal struggles. For Martin, the church is just one more institution that’s let him down. What he wants is a way out of the misery of poverty, not justifications for why he should suffer through it.

Farley Granger made Edge of Doom between starring in the film noir classics They Live by Night (1948) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), and while Doom isn’t as good as either of those movies, it’s still worth seeking out (it’s streaming on Prime as of this writing). Though the inspirational bits are hokey, and several supporting characters are a bit too stock (Mr. Craig, Mr. Swanson, Mandel), Granger, who, I’m obligated as a gay man to inform readers came out as bi in his 2007 memoirs Include Me Out, keeps Martin — and the movie — grounded in reality, resulting in a movie that’s just as relatable today as when it was first released.

Irene (Adele Jergens) crashes a scene to calm audiences
worried Edge of Doom was becoming a total sausage fest.

TL;DR: ‘Deadly Illusions’ Fucking Sucks

A generic poster for a generic title.

In the 2021 Netflix thriller DEADLY ILLUSIONS, the main character, Mary, may or may not be mentally ill, but she is, quite definitively, fucking stupid.

Deadly Illusions is pretty damn dumb itself, which I’d forgive were it not for the fact that the movie expects its audience to be as well. For starters, there’s its tortured set-up. Mary Morrison (least-talked about Sex in the City cast member Kristin Davis) is the author of a lurid mystery series — or rather, she was. When we meet her, she’s settled into the life of a rich, white stay-at-home mom and would like to remain such, which is why she’s incensed when her editor shows up, with his assistant Darlene (Abella Bala, who’s not in this movie nearly enough) in tow, to propose that she write another book. She immediately ushers the editor and his assistant out of her house like they’re reporters at a Trumpist’s town hall. The editor meekly apologizes and assures Mary that those royalty checks will keep coming. Darlene, however, isn’t so meek, at least when her boss is out of earshot.

“Bitch, please.”

“You’re Mary Morrison, best-selling author. Yet there was a time when Mary couldn’t get one publisher to read her work,” Darlene says, barely fighting back a smug smile. “So, she resorted to writing salacious stories and now she gets to sit back and rake in residuals without a single thought to how she got there or who put her there.” 

Mary tells Darlene she should be fired and storms back into her mausoleum-like home. Asking a writer to write — how dare they! (Even before this meeting one senses that Mary is the type of author who puts more effort into her book jacket glamor shot than writing, so this actually tracks.) She’s so pissed that she doesn’t even open the envelope containing her publisher’s written offer. 

It’s Mary’s husband Tom (Dermot Mulroney) who actually looks at the proposal, discovering her publisher is offering to advance her $2 million to crank out another book. “That’s more money up front than all your other books combined,” he points out in a so-why-aren’t-you-writing-you-silly-bitch? tone of voice. But Mary just wants everyone to sit down for dinner.

Later, the couple has some under-the-covers sex, during which Tom deflects Mary’s attempt to blow him, like no man ever. Afterwards, Tom tells Mary about how an investment he made six months ago went tits up, costing them half their life savings, which is why it would be really super helpful if she took that $2 mil advance. Though Mary is upset that Tom risked their money without consulting her, learning that they’re now only half as rich as she thought still is not enough to convince Mary to resume her writing career.

Now, I don’t think people should do things just because they are paid a lot of money, but it’s never made clear why, exactly, Mary’s reacting like her publisher asked her to clean the grease traps at her local Carl’s Jr. “You’ve never seen me when I write. I turn into a different person,” she tells her friend Elaine (Shanola Hampton, whose character outline in the script, I suspect, was simply “Mary’s Black friend”). But ultimately, it’s Elaine who convinces Mary to write the book, suggesting she get a sitter to help with her children while she works on it, and refers her friend to a chichi childcare agency. 

So, that was why Mary didn’t want to write, because she didn’t want anything to take time away from raising her children? I call bullshit. Her two kids — basically props trotted out whenever the movie needs to remind the audience Mary is a mom — are roughly 8 or 9 years old, so they’re away at school for a good chunk of the day. Also, Tom clearly wants Mary to write this fucking book so, presumably, he could shoulder a lot of the childcare duties in the evenings while Mary’s in her office cranking out another one of those salacious stories. They may need a sitter for the occasional date night, but they do not need one to free up Mary’s “busy” schedule. (Of doing what? Going to the gym with Elaine?)

But with no sitter we have no evil nanny movie, I guess, so cue the montage of Mary interviewing potential babysitters, all of whom are rejected for one reason or another (too religious, too germophobic, too self-absorbed). But, just when Mary’s about to give up hope, she interviews Grace (Greer Grammer, Kelsey’s daughter), a sweet young woman who loves to read (they bond over the works of Gene Stratton-Porter and Judy Blume), is excited by the prospect of working for an author, and, most importantly, she’s great with kids, as she demonstrates when she quiets an argument between Mary’s two whining brats. Why, she’s perfect! Too perfect, you might say. And fake as an Ellen DeGeneres apology. But Mary—who, remember, has written a series of mystery novels—fails to see through Grace’s obsequiousness and hires her on the spot. 

She seems stable.

Grace quickly becomes a fixture in the Morrison household, preparing meals and keeping the kids occupied while Mary and Tom go into the pantry to fuck. But while Grace was hired so Mary can concentrate on writing, she’s actually a distraction for the author, their relationship going from employer-employee to BFFs to, maybe, BFFs with benefits. It’s Grace who first takes things in a sexual direction, guiding Mary’s hand to her breast while they’re bra shopping. (Do women really team up in the dressing room to help each other into a Victoria’s Secret demi bra? Seems like a scenario that exists only in porn. And bad Netflix thrillers.) 

When bra shopping goes too far.

Mary’s shocked… and also intrigued. She’s so intrigued that she does some sexual teasing of her own, first by asking Grace to rub sunscreen on her back, then encouraging her cute babysitter to doff that Catholic school girl get-up and go skinny dipping with her.

Grace opts to wear a control-top bikini instead.

These flirtations ultimately cross over fully into Sapphic territory, with Mary getting fingerbanged by Grace while luxuriating in a petal-strewn bathtub. Or was she? Deadly Illusions presents many of Grace’s seductions as possibly only happening in Mary’s head, with Mary beginning to doubt her reality.

Grace gives Mary a helping hand.

Of course, Grace isn’t restricting her flirtations to Mary. After dropping the kids off at school Tom invites the kids’ sitter to a brunch of quiche and Bloody Marys, where he gets around to asking Grace’s age. “How old do you think I am?” she asks coquettishly. Tom says a week ago he’d guess she was 20, but today, 40, which, in reality, would be when Grace would say fuck you and just go back to messing around with Mary as the only time you can get away with guessing a woman’s age as 40 is when the woman in question is obviously in her 60s. Instead, Grace stretches, causing her midriff-baring sweater to ride up, threatening to show Tom one of the sexy bras his wife helped her pick out. 

Actually, this is what I think lunch with Madonna looks like.

Poseur.

After a cutaway to Mary savoring a cigar (just… no), we see Tom and Grace bopping down the highway at night. What were they doing all day? Who picked up the kids? Mary’s not concerned, so I guess we shouldn’t be, either.

So, that’s the first hour, with not much happening beyond a bitchy confrontation with Darlene, the sassy assistant, and a few non-explicit sex scenes. Do things get more thriller-y in the second half? Yeah, but also a lot dumber.

The story jumps ahead three weeks, when Mary and Grace go on a bike ride down to a river, where they have a picnic and start to make out, Mary stopping things before Grace has a chance to burrow under her skirt. When they return to their bikes they discover their tires have been slashed. It’s nighttime when they get home, where they’re greeted by Tom and Elaine, who’s dropped by to share her suspicions — once she and Mary are away from Tom — about Tom is schtupping the help. Mary is indignant and accuses Elaine of having the hots for Tom.

Girl, don’t even.

The next night, Grace gives Mary a taste of the chili she’s preparing, then helps herself to a taste of Mary’s pussy. Things end abruptly when Tom walks into the room, though he’s so clueless I bet Grace could finish the job without him noticing. Mary is suddenly woozy (possibly roofied) and Tom has to help her to bed. Minutes later Mary comes to, hears the unmistakable sounds of people in the throes of passion and gets up to investigate. To her horror she discovers Tom, now blindfolded, going down on Grace in the kitchen (this movie really champions cunnilingus and sex in kitchens). Mary collapses, and as the screen fades to black we hear Grace tell Tom not to worry, his wife won’t remember any of this. 

When pillows attack.

But then, a few minutes later, Grace is once again getting out of bed and joining the family for that chili dinner, saying she had the most disturbing dream. And it does seem like it was a dream. To suggest that it wasn’t is to suggest that the kids were also roofied to allow time for Tom to go clam diving. It doesn’t matter, because Mary goes batshit at the table like this dream (or “dream”?) did happen (“You and my husband were fucking! Over there, on the counter!”) Later, Mary goes on a rant about how she’s been putting all her energy and talent into her family and all she gets is “fucking screwed!” I so wanted Tom to ask Mary by whom does she feel betrayed, him or Grace, but all he does is apologize to Mary like she’s an angry caller on a customer service line.

Mary then finds out that (gasp!) Grace just might not be who she says she is. She investigates further, starting with finding out Grace’s last name. Seriously. Grace has been working for the family for roughly two months and neither Mary nor Tom bothered ask her last name? And how does Mary go about learning this crucial information? Maybe ask Grace directly. Or, how about handing her a W2 to fill out? No, Mary goes to the library to see if the librarian will give it up. “She’s your best friend and you don’t even know her last name?” asks the librarian/audience stand-in, a rare moment of self-awareness on the movie’s part.

Then there’s a murder and all evidence points to Mary as the prime suspect. With only 24 minutes left in the movie, Mary will have to act fast if she’s to clear her name and find the real (or “real”) killer. Good thing for her the cops at the station don’t keep too close an eye on their murder suspects.

Potential as an R-Rated Lifetime Movie Squandered

So much of Deadly Illusions’ story plays out as if writer-director Anna Elizabeth James was selecting tropes like they’re dishes on a buffet line: “Let’s see, I’ll start with The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, with a generous side of Single White Female and just a dallop of Basic Instinct—but hold the cooch flashing, please. Ooooh, and how about a helping of Identity? And let’s ladle on some of that old-fashioned Gaslight gravy.” This wouldn’t be so bad if these tropes were used in an interesting way, but James struggles to use them competently. She frequently loses her place in her own script, introducing some potentially interesting story elements (alluding to Mary’s dark past; rifts in the Morrison marriage) only to forget them a scene later, then summon them in the last act when they’re useful to the plot. 

The people most short-changed by Deadly Illusions, second only to the audience, are the movie’s cast. Kristin Davis seems game for Mary’s many mood swings, but I have to think that even she wondered at some point if her character was A.I.-generated. Greer Grammer fares a little better in that Grace is a bit a more of a fully realized, if poorly written, character. Elaine has little character beyond being The Best Friend, but Shanola Hampton doesn’t let that stop her from injecting a little personality into her role. On the other end of the spectrum, Dermot Mulroney is barely present in the part of The Husband (at one point he clearly calls Grace Chris). Then again, the role gives him little reason to be.

Mulroney does show some skin, so if you like your men to
have some mileage on them, enjoy. Lookin’ good, Dermot!

Only Abella Bala seems to realize this movie’s potential as an R-rated Lifetime movie, making me wish that Deadly Illusions was about an editor’s assistant out to sabotage a best-selling author’s career rather than an evil nanny story. 

James’ previous films have been family friendly, equestrian-focused fare like Destined to Ride. Deadly Illusions is her first produced thriller, and if it’s anything to go by perhaps James should just stick to stories about girls and their horses. The rest of you should just avoid Deadly Illusions, which isn’t even worth a hate watch.

A Gay Man Watches Straight Porn #4: ‘Roommates’

Roommates, the Beaches of adult movies.

Well, this was unexpected: a pornographic chick flick.

I don’t mean “chick flick” as a pejorative — honey, I love chick flicks — it’s just surprising to encounter one in the genre of adult film, especially one made in 1982, two years before Candida Royalle founded Femme Productions, and directed by a man. Of course, the director in question, the late Chuck Vincent, was gay, so maybe it’s not that surprising that he’d make a movie that’s reminiscent of A Life of Her Own or a less outrageous Valley of the Dolls.

ROOMMATES is the story of three young women — yes, roommates — trying to make it in New York City’s entertainment industry. There’s Joan (Veronica Hart), a naïve drama student who moves to the city to pursue a career in theater, even though she’ll be separated from her married college drama instructor, with whom she’s having an affair. Sherry (Kelly Nichols) is a model who’s decided to stay in NYC because she’s “tired of those Hollywood jerkoffs.” Billie (Samantha Fox) is an ex-call girl embarking on a career as as an assistant producer of TV commercials, taking in roommates so she can remain in her chic-for-1982 high rise apartment.

Billie tries not to be intimidated by her former madam’s
(Gloria Leonard) hat.

We immediately get a sense of each of the three characters in their first scene together. Billie is friendly but understandably guarded. Sherry is a bit cold, more interested in taking advantage of the city’s club scene than making new gal pals. Joan, on the other hand, desperately wants to make friends, and she tries several times to engage Sherry in a conversation, never picking up on the fact that the model has little patience for her sunny optimism. Joan is also the most sheltered of the women (when Sherry asks for Jack Daniels straight up, Joan says she’ll have the same thing “with orange juice, please”), clearly not realizing you try to take a bite out of the Big Apple, the Apple bites back.

Fortunately for Joan, she’s kind of the comic relief character so the Apple’s bite isn’t too deep. There’s a funny audition montage where we see Joan calibrate each succeeding reading or interview answer based on her previous audition (e.g., after giving her age as 25 she’s told she’s too old for the part; at the next audition she gives her age as 21, only to be told they’re looking for someone “with a little more maturity”). After a string of rejections, she ends up at a small showcase theater where she meets Eddie (Jerry Butler, the hottest guy in the cast), who gives her a little coaching before she auditions, advising her to lose her glasses because this movie, like its Hollywood analog, believes women only wear glasses to look frumpy.

Then again, Joan’s glasses are fucking hideous.

Joan pleads for her lover (Don Peterson) to
give her the courtesy of a reciprocal orgasm.

Joan gets the part and develops a friendship with Eddie, her mind put at ease when he tells her he’s gay (spoiler alert: not really). He even gets her a waitressing job at the restaurant where he’s a maître d’. Life is going great for Joan. If only her college professor lover (Don Peterson, billed as Phil Smith) would leave his wife. Or, at the very least, stick around long enough to get her off.

Things aren’t going as smoothly for her roommates. Billie impresses her co-workers, especially Jim the jingle writer (Jack Wrangler, a fixture in gay porn but cheerfully eating pussy nonetheless). But it turns out Billie’s sleazy boss Marv (Bobby Astyr, Fox’s real life boyfriend at the time) is a former john, something you’d think she’d have discovered during the interview process. He proposes that she could make additional cash by “entertaining” prospective advertising clients — that is, if she values her job. To add insult to injury, the first man Billie is whored out to is Ron Jeremy.  

And this is Ron Jeremy when he was at his most fuckable.

Sherry’s story is the bleakest, her growing drug addiction leading her down some dark roads. In one grueling scene, Sherry, stoned out of her mind, is gang raped in a vacant building. The rapists take their turns, urinating on her and even shoving a bottle inside her (neither act is shown, mercifully), until they’re chased away by Paul (Jamie Gillis). Paul cleans the spooge and piss from Sherry’s body, but he’s not one of the good guys. “Did they hurt your pretty pussy?” he asks before whipping out his cock and jerking off on her. Soon, Paul is stalking Sherry, coercing her to go on dates with him and goading her to remove her panties while they’re dining at a restaurant, similar to how William Baldwin got Sharon Stone to do the same thing in Sliver, except in Roommates the scene is uncomfortably tense instead of stupid.

Jamie Gillis has Kelly Nichols’ panties as an appetizer.

Our three heroines are all pushed to the brink in various ways, with Joan again having the softest landing. While serving her professor/lover and his wife at the restaurant where she works, Joan learns the couple are going to have a baby, ergo Joan will always be the side piece. Eddie is there to give her a shoulder to cry on, and a few scenes later, a new man to love, Eddie evidently not that gay. (My first thought was, Great, Joan’s gotten herself into another doomed relationship, but then I remembered that Wrangler was happily married to a woman, though in the documentary Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon, he described their sex life as “masturbatory.”)

If Eddie took the time to light all these candles, you know
he’ll take time to find Joan’s G-spot.

Meanwhile, Marv leases Billie out to a bachelor party, then pressures her to give him a BJ in the men’s room—during the filming of a cat food commercial, no less. Billie puts on a smiling face for the guys at the party, but there’s no masking her feelings when the groom shows up (you get one guess who the guest of honor is). Billie isn’t the first person to reassess her career while getting fucked, though for most of us that’s a figurative, not literal, fucking.

Samantha Fox’s I’ll-bite-your-dick-off face.

Sherry has it worse still, getting violently attacked by Paul while she’s alone in the apartment. It’s a pretty harrowing scene, with Gillis so convincingly terrifying that I wondered if Nichols was acting or if she really was afraid for her life. Sherry survives the encounter and decides that she needs to make some changes if she expects to see her thirtieth birthday.

A Great Adult Film, Sub-par Porn

Critic Judith Crist praised Roommates
for its “frankness, humor and heart.”
Presumably she had no issue with
the movie having only two cumshots.

 

Roommates has all the trappings of a “real” movie, with high production values and an involving story with real characters brought to life by convincing performances (Hart is generally singled out, but Fox and Nichols are equally impressive, while Gillis solidifies his reputation as the best actor in porn). It even has a Streisand-esque theme song. It’s not surprising it got good notices from the likes of mainstream movie critic Judith Crist. Were it not for the scenes of hardcore sex, I’d think I was watching an indie drama, something that might be distributed by New World Pictures or Crown International. That’s the movie’s greatest strength, and also its biggest weakness. 

As good as it is as a film, I don’t see it appealing to my straight brethren. The sex scenes, while plentiful, are brief, allowing more time for all that character and story development. Also, unlike most porn movies, the sex scenes are actually part of the storytelling and not just inserted (so to speak) to get the audience jacking, meaning their tone is dictated by the narrative, and considering that sex for our three main characters is usually unfulfilling, transactional and/or abusive, that tone is usually less than erotic (unless you’re a misogynist asshole). There are, in fact, only two scenes in the whole movie — the one with Fox and Wrangler, the other between Hart and Butler* — that are truly romantic, and they go by so fast that only guys suffering from premature ejaculation or still in their teens will be able to get off before they’re over. 

“Ta-da!”

According to A History of X: 100 Years of Sex in Film, Roommates, wasn’t a huge success when first released as the thoughts of Judith Crist aren’t generally considered by men seeking masturbation material. “Somebody looking to get off would rather see five barrels of cum on some girl’s face than emotion or drama,” the book quotes Jerry Butler. 

Sexy? (via GIPHY)

Five barrels of cum? That’s... gross, actually, but Butler’s point is well taken. I wonder if the movie would’ve fared better marketed to women, or, more accurately, if the porn industry and American culture at the time (this was back when WAP meant something entirely different) acknowledged that a female market for porn even existed.

Joan and Sherry say good-bye to their security deposits.

I didn’t watch Roommates with masturbation in mind, so I had no problem enjoying it as a movie. In fact, I think it would have worked better as a softcore film. It really is an X-rated movie with an R-rated heart. So, I guess it’s no surprise that the bulk of Vincent’s output during the 1980s was R-rated fare like Hollywood Hot Tubs, Warrior Queen and Bedroom Eyes II, with his last film being the sexploitation comedy New York’s Finest (also featuring Veronica Hart) before his death of AIDS in 1991.

*Interesting that the two sex scenes that appear mutually enjoyable involve a performer who identified as gay IRL and a gay character. I wonder if this was intentional on Vincent’s part.

Holy Shit, Courtney Love Starred in a Lifetime TV Movie!

A notorious 1990s murder case AND
Courtney Love? Yes, please.

I was pretty busy in 2017, so I missed the news that Courtney Love—the answer to the hypothetical question: What if Nancy Spungen lived?—was appearing in a Lifetime movie based on one of the most notorious murder trials of the 1990s (not the O.J. case, the other one). 

And ignorant I might have remained were it not for a subscription to the Lifetime Movie Club purchased last Christmas. I was scrolling through the “Ripped from the Headlines, and Beyond” category when I encountered MENENDEZ: BLOOD BROTHERS. The title didn’t grab me but the name above it did: Courtney Love. Oh, hell yeah!

Love is cast as Kitty Menendez, the wife of entertainment executive José Menendez, both of whom were murdered in 1989 by their sons Lyle and Erik Menendez. Casting her as a murder victim tracks. After all, who hasn’t heard the name Courtney Love uttered in a news broadcast and waited for the phrase “found dead today”? But Love—who, among other things, revealed in a 1992 Vanity Fair interview that she used heroin while pregnant (vehemently denied at the time the article was published, then Love later confirmed that yes, she did); was arrested on drug charges in 1994 on the same day her husband Kurt Cobain shot himself; was arrested for an “air rage incident” at London’s Heathrow Airport in 2003 and subsequently banned from Virgin Airlines; was arrested on her 40th birthday for failure to appear in court and later taken to Bellvue Hospital in NYC; had a temporary restraining order issued against her in 2009 prohibiting any contact with her daughter Frances Bean Cobain; and was evicted from her Manhattan townhouse in 2011—as a Beverly Hills housewife? This has got to be seen.

“I’m not a woman. I’m a force of nature.” — Courtney Love

While it is kind of jarring to see Love, now so surgically altered she looks more like Tori Spelling in The Courtney Love Story than Courtney Love, wearing tie neck blouses, tending to the flowers in her greenhouse and using a treadmill, there is little in her performance that pushes Menendez: Blood Brothers into the Valhalla of camp TV. She has her moments, though, like when she tries to defuse the tension between her husband José (Benito Martinez, appropriately menacing) and their son Erik (Myko Olivier) by blurting out, “I can’t believe Lucille Ball died. I really did love Lucy.” 

The taming of Courtney Love.

Later, she suggests she and her sons could go see When Harry Met Sally, approximating the same level of eagerness she might display if responding to an invitation to do a couple lines with Tarantino while at Sundance. The delightful weirdness of Love feigning enthusiasm for a romcom is dashed, however, when the boys mockingly suggest their mother instead go see that movie with her girlfriends. I actually felt sorry for Love at this moment, imagining this was the same response she got from her castmates when she asked if she could tag along with them for lunch.

With his bad toupee removed, Lyle Menendez
is transformed into a young Peter Boyle
in Young Frankenstein.

Love’s most Lifetime TV moment comes a couple scenes later, when she tears off Lyle’s (Nico Totorella) toupee. Lyle storms off, leaving his mother to confront the cold, judgmental glare of Erik, who witnessed the whole thing. “He’s my son,” she sobs. “He’s supposed to love me.” Oh, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! Then I considered that Love has probably cried something similar in open court when she lost custody of Frances Bean, and felt shitty for enjoying the scene ironically. But only a little bit.

I had zero remorse for the shit-eating grin on my face while watching Love’s desperate struggle to find her inner Shelley Winters during her death scene.

Evidently it is possible to under- and over-act at the same time. Her bug-eyed approximation of terror borders on parody, while her unconvincing screaming had me wondering if she thought they were still in rehearsal. Love sticks the landing, though, sounding genuinely terrified as she pleads for her life. Still, I found it hard to separate Love from the character she was playing. You know if Courtney Love were ever staring at the end of a gun barrel (Wait, has she? A quick Google search tells me no, not yet) she’d go down fighting, screaming words not suitable for Lifetime TV. 

We’re not even 30-minutes in before José and Kitty are murdered, but don’t worry, the producers aren’t done with their high-profile cast member just yet. Throughout the rest of the movie, we get Ghost Kitty — and, on occasion, Ghost José — who appears to Erik, sometimes to beg his forgiveness for not helping him (“I was weak”), sometimes to comment on the love letters he receives in jail (“I’m glad to see you like a girl. I never thought you’d have a normal relationship.”)  She even sings a few lines of “Beautiful Dreamer,” her raspy rendition making me think she could pull off an album of Marianne Faithfull covers (🤞).

The specter of Courtney Love haunts the Menendez trial.

As for the movie as a whole, Menendez: Blood Brothers is pretty much what you’d expect from a Lifetime movie. It’s cheap looking (the sets for the Menendez’s home look pretty cramped for a Beverly Hills mansion), and the 90-minute runtime means we don’t get more than a Cliff Notes account of the murder and sensational trial. Consequently, the movie has little patience for nuance and subtlety, often at the expense of good taste. At its ickiest are the scenes where José is sexually abusing Erik. Not content to just show José entering his son’s room and closing the door behind him, Menendez: Blood Brothers takes us inside the bedroom. And though the action does take place offscreen (there are still some lines you can’t cross on basic cable), the Foley artist leaves little doubt as to what Erik is doing.

As does the closed captioning.

Not quite as uncomfortable but still questionable are the scenes that seem to exist solely to show off Olivier’s hot bod, such as when he’s strip searched upon being booked into jail or working out in the yard. Ordinarily I wouldn’t object to gratuitous man-ass (you go, Lifetime!), but do you really want your audience thinking I’d hit that while watching your docudrama about sexual abuse and murder? I guess one could argue that co-directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (yes, the same team behind the documentaries The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Inside Deep Throat) are simply acknowledging that the physical attractiveness of the real-life brothers played a part in the nation’s fascination with the Menendez trial, but, no, sorry, it’s strictly for audience titillation.

Am I being a hypocrite, showing screen shots of Myko Olivier
nude after calling the scene out for being exploitative? Yes.
Do I care? No.

Olivier, BTW, is quite effective in the role of Erik, and a good thing, too, as most of the movie is told from his POV. Totorella doesn’t fair quite as well in the role of Lyle, that awful hairpiece distracting us from his performance. Speaking of wigs, the one Meredith Scott Lynn wears as defense attorney Leslie Abramson is reminiscent of Barbra Streisand’s perm years, and though Scott Lynn’s performance is perfectly adequate I couldn’t help thinking it would be worth the sacrifice of a testicle to see Barbra as Abramson, never mind that’s she’s too old for the part. Barbra Streisand and Courtney Love in the same cheesy Lifetime movie—Oh! I just came.

Meredith Scott Lynn is fine as defense attorney Leslie Abramson,
but the thought of Barbra in this role is positively moisture-inducing.

If you have a genuine interest in the Menendez case, you’d do better to check out the 1994 mini-series Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills or, even better, Law & Order True Crime: The Menendez Murders, released the same year as Menendez: Blood Brothers. There are also numerous documentaries, including a couple currently streaming on Hulu. If, however, you want to see the spectacle of Courtney Love impersonating a functioning adult, well, you know where to go.

The prosecuting Karen demands a word
with the Menendez brothers’ manager.

What if Tyler Perry Directed a Male Stripper Movie?

“Y’all seen Magic Mike, right?” Michael Jai White asks an audience of screaming women during the opening scene of CHOCOLATE CITY (2015). “Now we’re gonna add a little chocolate.” 

Consider that bit of dialog Chocolate City’s thesis statement. You’ll be reminded several more times throughout the course of the movie that this is supposed to be the Black Magic Mike. Writer-director Jean-Claude LaMarre even went so far as to name his movie’s protagonist Michael. It’s good to have goals.  

The story is pretty boiler plate. College student Michael McCoy (Robert Ri’chard) is trying to focus on academics, but he can’t ignore his family’s financial struggles. His mother Katherine’s hours have been cut at her job, and Michael’s part-time job flipping burgers at a local diner doesn’t even net him $150 a pay period. Not helping matters is Michael’s older brother, Chris (comedian DeRay Davis, quickly wearing out his welcome), who lives at home but doesn’t work. “You’re thirty and still living under my roof,” snaps Katherine (Vivica A. Fox, a long way down from Kill Bill but leagues above Cool Cat Saves the Kids). “Get a J-O-B! What’chu waitin’ on?”

“’Til I’m forty?” replies Chris, his first and only line of genuinely funny dialog. 

“Hey, weren’t you in Cool Cat Finds a Gun?”

A solution to the family’s financial woes comes in the muscular form of Princeton (White, phoning it in yet still too good for the movie), who sizes Michael up — in the men’s room of a strip club, no less — and hands him a business card, suggesting Michael contact him if he “ever thinks about making some paper.” Were this a different kind of movie I’d think Princeton was coming on to Michael, and that would be a movie I’d very much like to see. But this is a movie from the creator of the Pastor Jones films, so we just get a few lame gay panic jokes instead.

Michael Jai White literally phoning it in.

Michael, with Chris tagging along, pays Princeton a visit at the club he manages, the titular Chocolate City, discovering that — gasp! — it features male dancers, the brothers seemingly baffled by the very concept. Conveniently, it’s amateur night, and Michael, predictably, refuses the offer to get on stage, then just as predictably reconsiders. Before he performs the house DJ (a pointlessly cast Carmen Electra, but then, isn’t she always?) asks for a stage name. Unfortunately, she asks Chris, and hence Michael becomes Sexy Chocolate.  

And so a star is born. In no time Michael is taking home gym bags full of cash, paying off the family’s debts and buying himself a new Merc. Pretty impressive when you consider that the Chocolate City dancers seldom take off their pants, the ladies in the audience lucky if the dancers bare their asses. And you can just forget about seeing any dick in this movie.

This is as close as you get to seeing a cock in Chocolate City.

Robert Ri’chard tries to make the White Man’s
Overbite sexy.

Life as Sexy Chocolate does have its share of problems. Michael falls behind in his studies, specifically in his French class, the only class he’s ever shown attending (presumably so action movie never-was Xavier Declie has some screen time as Michael’s professor). His girlfriend Carmen (Imani Hakim, uncredited for some reason) is starting to ask questions, which he deflects with a lie about working with children. His God-fearing mother suspects he’s dealing drugs.

On top of all these pressures in his personal life, Michael has to deal with the resentment of Chocolate City’s one-time headliner, the aptly named Rude Boy (Tyson Beckford). While Rude Boy is an unpleasant character, I have to say I was in his corner. Michael’s young and cute, sure, but he isn’t all that. Adding an uneasy subtext to his stardom is that Michael is lighter than all the other dancers. In lieu of exploring this uncomfortable nuance, the movie chooses to have Rude Boy enlist a few guys to beat the shit out of Michael and steal his gym bag of money. 

At least Rude Boy knows why we watch male stripper movies.

It takes more than a beating to keep Sexy Chocolate off the stage, however. But then Carmen joins her friends DeeDee (Eurika Pratts, who should be informed she’s not as endearing as Rosie Perez when she talks like that) and some other chick for a night out at Chocolate City, on the exact same night Sexy Chocolate performs with his face covered by a gladiator helmet to insure a more dramatic/contrived unmasking. Rest assured, neither Michael inadvertently revealing his secret identity to his girlfriend nor his unsatisfying confrontation with Rude Boy is going to stand in the way of Chocolate City’s happily-ever-after. 

A puzzled Carmen watches her boyfriend Michael
fellate a soft-serve cone.

Chocolate City is nowhere near being a Black Magic Mike, coming off more like Magic Mike XXL if it were directed by Tyler Perry, only not quite that awesome. LaMarre employs Perry’s same approach to storytelling, mixing lurid subject matter, religion (LaMarre shoehorns his Pastor Jones character into the story), broad comedy, melodrama, racial stereotypes, and regressive sexual politics, and then throws a wet blanket over the whole thing. The movie is too tame to be titillating, too by-the-numbers to be engaging, too competent to be so-bad-it’s-good, and yet it somehow made enough money to justify a sequel.

Less Nudity, More Assholes

I don’t want to make generalizations, but I think the quality of a movie is automatically suspect when the writer and director is listed by their Instagram handle, as LaMarre is in the opening credits of CHOCOLATE CITY 2: VEGAS (a.k.a. Chocolate City: Vegas Strip, as it appears on Netflix; or Chocolate City: Vegas, as it’s listed on IMDb). Most of the principles reprise their roles in this 2017 sequel, which finds the Chocolate City nightclub struggling to keep its doors open (no reason is given, but I’d hazard a guess that it has something to do with their strippers not really stripping). Princeton’s financial troubles are compounded by his ailing father’s mounting medical bills. Foreclosure is imminent. In the face of all this adversity, Princeton does what any man would do: turn the whole mess over to Scary Spice.

Mel B. let’s the boys know they’re fucked.

Ernest Thomas is allowed one more moment
of dignity...

...before doing whatever this is, because comedy.

All is not lost, however. If the guys enter the upcoming National Male Exotic Competition in Las Vegas, they have a shot at winning a problem-solving — and highly improbable — $500,000. Securing sponsorship from Michael’s former employer, diner owner Mr. Williams (Ernest Thomas, his role expanded to the actor’s detriment), Sexy Chocolate & Co. head to Vegas, a city teeming with assholes.

After a run-in with some racist rivals (“Obama really got y’all believing anything is possible, huh?”), the Chocolate City guys discover that one of their former dancers, Pharaoh (Ginuwine), has become a celebrity exotic dancer in Vegas, even though his physique, undoubtedly the best in his bowling league, is not exactly jacked. Interestingly, Pharaoh’s troupe, the Hippz—which, because a poor font choice in the group’s advertising, I thought were the Nippz—includes the very same racist white guys who taunted the Chocolate City team earlier. Our protagonists aren’t all that concerned about Pharaoh gyrating with the Alt-Right, but they are seriously pissed that he stole their moves, which I can’t say looked all that unique. Now they have to re-choreograph their entire act.

But first they avail themselves of all a green screen Vegas has to offer. The next morning, hungover and still half asleep, they seek out the help of—I’m not making this up—Best Valentine (Mekhi Phifer), the “player who shows other players how it’s done” (i.e., he’s an arrogant asshole), who in turn and puts them in touch with former dancer Carlton Jones (Marc John Jeffries). Carlton isn’t as big of an asshole as Valentine, at least, and hearing Jefferies’ delivery of the line, “The women associate your sexual prowess with buuuulge and definition,” almost justifies the movie’s existence.

And the award for Best Cinematography goes to...

Michael/Sexy Chocolate squanders a night in Green Screen Vegas.

Rattling around elsewhere in the movie, Pastor Jones’ chubby son wants to pursue a career in exotic dancing; Michael’s ex-girlfriend Carmen, now an insufferable bitch, heads to Las Vegas, accompanied by DeeDee, their gay friend Kevin, and some other chick, to become Sexy Chocolate’s manager now that his brother Chris is out of the picture; and Michael’s French professor goes to great lengths to ensure his failing pupil takes his “state exam” (in this movie’s universe, not even France values the French language as much as much as Michael’s home state, which turns out to be Georgia, the same place that put this crazy bitch on the national stage). With the exception of the pastor’s son’s ill-chosen career aspirations, these subplots have no purpose beyond giving actors from the first movie another paycheck and letting the audience know that, even though it looks like it’s set in Los Angeles, Chocolate City was set in Atlanta all along (but filmed in L.A.). 

Pharaoh stands amidst his Alt-Right dancers and proudly
displays his one-pack.

Much of Chocolate City 2 is padded with footage of that male exotic dancing competition, which achieves the rare feat of making scenes of hunky men suggestively undulating boring. We already know who will win, anyway, so why stay awake until the end? There’s certainly no reason to start watching Chocolate City 2. Its predecessor, while not an example of masterful filmmaking, at least showed some technical proficiency. Chocolate City 2 is worse in every way, and on top of all that it has even less nudity. Clearly, @JeanClaudeLaMarre needs to stick to his Pastor Jones franchise and stop trying to make inspirational sexploitation a thing. 

One of only two scenes of gratuitous nudity in Chocolate
City 2: Vegas, a movie allegedly about male strippers.

I’m suddenly in the mood for kielbasa.

The Chocolate City saga didn’t end with this shitty sequel, however. LaMarre went on to executive produce Vivica’s Black Magic, a reality show in which, per IMDb, “[r]enowned actress and icon Vivica A. Fox starts on a new project: creating the first all-male exotic dance group.” (Really, the first one?) The show only lasted a season, ending with lawsuits and accusations of homophobia. LaMarre continues the Chocolate City franchise — sans Fox — with Chocolate City 3: Live Tour, in post-production as of this writing. I’m just going to stick with This One’s for the Ladies, thank you. At least those guys know what I want to see.

Pharaoh — but most likely not Ginuwine—flashes the crowd.