Call a leer a leer

True confession: Who doesn't want to see Jennifer Love Hewitt playing a Texasmom turned massage parlor hooker?

The Client List is another opportunity for Jennifer Love Hewitt to show off allher wardrobe choices.
Deep sociological study? No. Maxim magazine cover come to the small screen? Yes.
Jamie-Lynn Sigler explored similar territory in an equally-classy USA originalmovie.

OK, I'll admit. it. I'll be watching Lifetime at 8 Monday night or more likely DVRing it.

Unlike Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik, I'm not going to pretend there are some deep sociological examination motivations behind the unlikely tune in either. No, this is all gratuitous viewing, all about seeing Jennifer Love Hewitt playing a hot mom turned massage parlor prostitute. (As a bonus, she's a Texan in the movie from a fictional town, guaranteeing unbelievable accents).

Yes, it really is as classy as it sounds.

Like many in my generation, I grew up watching Jennifer Love Hewitt on Party of Five (though I was much more of a Neve Campbell man back then) and while this show choice is a largely embarrassing admission today (re-watch Party of Five these days and it's so over-the-top angst-riden that it's hard to imagine anyone could have ever enjoyed it let alone made it appointment TV like I did), it's a key to Lifetime's original movie The Client List.

The formula for basic cable networks' most buzzed-over productions is pretty simple these days: Put a beautiful former TV series star in a role where she'll have good cause to wear a lot of lingerie.

See Jamie-Lynn Sigler in the USA original Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss. High-brow marketing it's not.

Which is fine as long as people don't pretend it's something else. There's nothing wrong with some trash TV. The reason that Jennifer Love Hewitt has been dominating Google search trends for most of the weekend has absolutely nothing to do with a desire from budding amateur sociologists to investigate what could cause a young mom who lost her job to go into massage parlor hookerdom. Instead, it's all about a desire to see what basic-cable-testing outfits Lifetime's stuffed Hewitt and her considerable assets in.

Still, critics like Zurawik (and he's not the only one) cannot help themselves.

"Normally, I wouldn't be writing about a made-for-TV movie on prostitution," the Baltimore Sun's prominent TV voice begins his piece. "But The Client List starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, is different. The sociology of this Lifetime film that premieres Monday night at (8) is what matters."

Sure it is.

Zurawik continues later, "That's what makes The Client List worth looking at and thinking about: It is all about prostitution as it relates to the economy. Furthermore, I believe it is barometer, as only pop culture can be, of how bad the economy is still perceived to be by middle-class Americans. And that means big trouble for Democrats come November. But let me explain how Jennifer Love Hewitt as a prostitute speaks to the anxiety and pain middle-class Americans are feeling today."

Yes, he made the argument that a titillating tone Lifetime original could hurt the Democrats at the ballot box four months from now. Come on Zurawik!

You've seen the clips on The Joy Behar Show where Jennifer Love Hewitt talks about the movie with Joy as a running montage of scenes of Hewitt in negligees from The Client List plays on a big screen in the background (by my count, there are three different babydolls alone and a whip cream scene, not that I could concentrate on such frivolities while concern for the Democrats' hold in Congress was racing through my mind).

And Lifetime's own poster of the movie features a basic cable nude Hewitt sprawled across a bed while a shadowy man leers in the background. In other words, the poster shows what most of the viewers of this "classic character study" will look like.

Even Hewitt isn't trying to sell the movie as basic cable's version of an Oscar winner. This isn't HBO. They're not even pretending it's high art.

Trash TV may rule the world, but let's not pretend it's saving it too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a DVR to program.

A preview of the deepness that is The Client List:

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Movie Review

Animated Lord of the Rings prequel offers nostalgic return to Rohan

Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Hèra (Gaia Wise) in The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim.

The Peter Jackson-led Lord of the Rings movie trilogy in the early 21st century was such a smashing success that people have been trying to recreate that magic for a long time. First came the ill-conceived The Hobbittrilogy, which made lots of money despite mostly poor reviews. The recent Amazon TV series, The Rings of Power, has gotten generally good reviews, but doesn’t seem to hold a place in the wider pop culture consciousness.

And now comes The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an anime-style film that seems like an attempt at both reclaiming the world in animated form from the weird 1978 film, and a nostalgia play for fans of the original series. Set 200 years before the events in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, it nonetheless takes place in two very familiar locations that are recreated to appear exactly like they looked in Jackson’s films.

The story centers around Hèra (voiced by Gaia Wise), the only daughter of King Helm (Brian Cox) of Rohan. An early conflict with Lord Freca (Shaun Dooley) leads Freca’s son, Wulf (Luca Pasqualino), to develop a deep grudge against Helm and his family. Wulf pursues that ill will for years, eventually driving his foes into a fortress in a valley to make a final stand against his aggression.

Based on information found in the appendices of Tolkien’s novels, this is the rare instance when choosing to use animation holds back the creativity of a film. Typically, animation allows filmmakers to do things that wouldn’t be possible in the real world, but director Kenji Kamiyama and his team seem beholden to the look of Jackson’s films. While the animation itself is great, it doesn’t offer the fluidity of live action, and so the action scenes are often stilted and flat.

The story itself is not very compelling, as a quartet of screenwriters have concocted a plot that relies on revenge and heroism tropes that allow the audience to predict almost everything that happens. There are a few surprises to be had, but as the conflict revolves around a strong-willed female and her unwillingness to be told whom to marry, it’s generally clear how the story will be resolved, with only the specific details left to be discovered.

It also would have been great if the film weren’t so dependent on nostalgia for the original films. The two main locations are ones that played a big part in set pieces from those films, and their usage here doesn’t measure up favorably. Eowyn (Miranda Otto) serves as narrator, and other characters/actors from the original trilogy also make appearances, leaving little room for this film to establish itself on its own terms.

The majesty of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, with its New Zealand vistas and incomparable visuals created by Wētā Workshop, set a high bar that none of the subsequent projects have been able to meet. The War of the Rohirrim is a competently-made film, but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny with the Oscar-quality work of 20+ years prior.

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The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim opens in theaters on December 13.

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