32 replies to this topic

[Earwolf Admin]

Join us as we discuss the crazy time jumps and smashed bottles that make up Lifetimes Liz & Dick. We discuss everything from the career of Lindsay Lohan to the inexpiable togas seen throughout the film.  Don't forget to grab your Vodka Vodka and "Norbit it up" for this spectacularly bad made-for-TV movie that we saw with the incomparable Groundling, Drew Droege.

[Picklefucker]

To be fair, Vodka brand vodka is somewhat common practice in movies and TV. Beer beer is also everywhere, and it's consistently hilarious.

[Patrick LeJeune]

Hey Jason, don't knock Dean Stockwell, he was amazing in Blue Velvet.

[Patrick LeJeune]

Also Bret Easton Ellis saying Lindsay Lohan "is in the canyons" is a plug for his own movie that he wrote staring Lohan.

[Gym Sockerman]

I had the EXACT same experience with Brett Easton Ellis's twitter. He's one of my favorite authors and I think there's some legitimate genius there. But his twitter feed is patently insane. Espousing the virtues of the worst pieces of trash, and trashing great things. Pretty infuriating.
He did do a string of tweets about the notes he was writing for an American Pscyho followup that sounded amazing. But yeah, no fun to follow.

[klem_johansen]

Dazzle! So good to hear you weren't freaked to death at the end of that movie.

[Jacob C]

"That wig deserves an Emmy."

[danm_999]

This was utterly, utterly baffling to me.

So the impression I got was the same one Paul, Jason, June and Drew had; that those all in black confessionals were supposed to be Taylor and Burton reflecting on their life, love and careers from the afterlife. At one point I toyed with the idea that it was all some cosmic version of the Office, which was only strengthened when Creed Bratton showed up.

But then, Taylor started talking present tense about how she missed Richard. Wait, aren't you both dead and giving an interview together? Wasn't he just sitting besides you for the past 40 minutes? What the fuck is happening here?

It really feels like Lifetime cast Lohan in this because of some cynical belief that one actress struggling with alcoholism and substance abuse should be able to method act her way into portraying another actress struggling with alcoholism and substance abuse, kind of like a shitty Daniel Day Lewis. The results were hilariously bad, even by Lifetime standards.

[katieofpluto]

I had been waiting for this episode so intently. It's not a disappointment!

I am so glad that you guys jumped on the one line that genuinely made me burst out laughing (one of the very few times in this movie): "I'm not saying it's colon cancer..." What kind of beside manner is that?! There's better bad news delivery in Scrubs!

Oh god, and the black box scenes! Once they used it to explain Richard Burton not winning his Oscar, I stopped trying to interpret its use. Sometimes they're reflecting on their life with some hindsight, sometimes they're just narrating, sometimes they're riffing off each other, sometimes they talk as if they're not right next to each other, sometimes they act like they're dead, sometimes they act like it's an interview from late into their live. Who even knows! Also, you guys didn't stress how randomly they're placed in the movie: they can be a big part of the film for 5 to 7 minutes, then disappear for ages before being brought back again. It's never consistent.

I used to sort of silently root for Lindsey Lohan to get back up and stop being such a mess, a la Britney Spears. This movie could have been her Blackout, to keep up the comparison: not great, but something that proved that she was willing to really push herself, to prove that she really was going to try to get back into the acting world, as June was pointing out.

But instead she decided to turn in that type of bored, doesn't-want-to-be-there, irritatingly bland anti-acting that actresses like Kristen Stewart are turning out constantly. She can't be half-assing these things! K-Stew can sort of get away with it because she was in a billion dollar franchise. Lohan has been out of the game pretty much since I was in middle school!

[Michael Wo]

"In the canyons" would make a great euphemism to describe someone whose career/lifestyle is following the same arc as Lohan's.

[Jtoddles]

THANK YOU JASON! I knew I wasn't the only one who was mesmerized by how bloated and absurd her face looked throughout the entire movie.
Was anyone else just disturbed by her lips? They seemed to be pushing them to be bigger. That or the makeup department were just like "yeah we can't save this" and just left them alone.


also, no requesting action on twitter until YOU get on twitter.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace]

Does anyone remember about 10-15 years ago, when VH-1's "Behind the Music" was at it's most popular, they started producing biographical flicks that more or less recreated all of the bullet points of the BTM episode and blew it up to 90 minutes? THIS. That's exactly what this is, only the narrators are the characters and not the voiceover guy.

That said, I LOVE when huge real-life events like big concerts or the making of big movies are reproduced on basic cable made-for-TV budgets. I wonder at what point in the pre-production stage they just give up and say "Fuck it, no one's going to buy it anyway, so let's just film the 'Cleopatra' scenes in my garage. My backyard can be Spain".

[Herself]

Regarding the "40 movies in 11 years", I went to IMDB on a hunch. Apparently the two made 40 movies between the two of them, not each.

[Chester]

I enjoyed listening to this, but I couldn't help but be bothered by a lingering sense that this episode will come off as being in pretty poor taste in another few months if and when Lindsay Lohan is no longer among the living. Maybe this is not likely, but it's certainly not unlikely.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace]

Chester, on 11 December 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

I enjoyed listening to this, but I couldn't help but be bothered by a lingering sense that this episode will come off as being in pretty poor taste in another few months if and when Lindsay Lohan is no longer among the living. Maybe this is not likely, but it's certainly not unlikely.

Hey, that's on HER, and this is hardly the only place you'll find anyone bagging on her and her lifestyle. If anything, shame on the makers of this film for exploiting the Lohan situation, because like they keep pointing out, the movie is one big wink to the audience. It's based on ANOTHER person, but it really seems like a big excuse for Lohan to basically play herself.

[Wien]

This movie hurt my ribs.

[Chalkdust]

Oh god, that montage of heaven scenes. I didn't get a chance to watch the movie, but Lohan's performance is so amateurish. It sounds like a high-schooler reading aloud from a script they were just handed! In Jason's trademark exasperation, I too say that this is GARbage.

[Wien]

I didn't take it as them being in heaven. I thought it was an Inside the Actor's Studio type thing, as if Liz Taylor and Richard Burton themselves were actors portraying "Elizabeth Taylor" and "Richard Burton".

[PlanBFromOuterSpace]

Wien, on 11 December 2012 - 12:50 PM, said:

I didn't take it as them being in heaven. I thought it was an Inside the Actor's Studio type thing, as if Liz Taylor and Richard Burton themselves were actors portraying "Elizabeth Taylor" and "Richard Burton".

I didn't think they were dead either, but I also don't think the movie was smart enough to be THAT meta. It just seems like another made-for-TV movie convention, like you would see that framing device being used, and you would never make the mistake that this was a REAL movie. More than "Inside the Actors Studio", it seems like a play, because they're still coming off as just completely insincere performances. They're still "on".

[Julia Hays]

Jtoddles, on 11 December 2012 - 08:06 AM, said:

THANK YOU JASON! I knew I wasn't the only one who was mesmerized by how bloated and absurd her face looked throughout the entire movie.

I cried laughing when Jason said: "The only thing that's fat is her weird, bloated face. Is that too far?! I don't know, guys! I don't understand what is happening here."

That made it all worth sitting through this awful Lifetime movie. They can't all be winners like Rob Lowe's Untouchable, guys!