Prepare to drop letters from words with Wally Lamb’s Wishin’ and Hopin’ on Lifetime Channel!

Wally Lamb Wishin Hopin Lifetime

Breakfast Club: The Next Generation!


[adrotate banner=”7″]I will admit not being too familiar with Wally Lamb, and nor do I appear to be his target audience, but for those of you who can’t get enough of the Lamb, Lifetime is bringing one of his books to life. Wally Lamb’s Wishin’ and Hopin’ will be part of Lifetime’s power pack of Christmas flicks, and it features narration by Chevy Chase. I’d make a Christmas Vacation joke, except I already made a Breakfast Club joke about Molly Ringwald, and there would be too many cute joke references for one small news article to handle. Which means they’d have ot fight to the death, and then I’d have to clean up the mess. No thank you.

Wally Lamb’s Wishin’ and Hopin’ harkens back to the days of yore, when kids knew who Annette Funicello was and didn’t know who Meat Loaf was. Okay, they probably still don’t know who Meat Loaf is, but he’s in the movie as well. Watch Fight Club, kids!

Based on the New York Times best-selling Christmas novel by Wally Lamb comes the new Christmas classic, starring Molly Ringwald and featuring narration by Chevy Chase as the narrator. Set in 1960s, Wishin’ and Hopin’ story of 10-year-old Felix Funicello (Wyatt Ralff, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby), doing his best to navigate fifth grade at St. Aloysius Gonzaga Parochial School. His father (Danny Nucci, The Fosters) runs the local diner, and their family’s claim to fame is their cousin Annette Funicello (Krysta Rodriguez, Smash), the famous teen star and Mouseketeer. With the dreaded Christmas pageant on the horizon, the holiday season gets even more exciting with the sudden arrivals of a substitute teacher (Ringwald) and the feisty Russian student Zhenya, promising to be one Christmas Felix will never forget. Also stars Meat Loaf (Fight Club), Annabella Sciorra (CSI), Cheri Oteri (Saturday Night Live) and Conchata Ferrell (Two and a Half Men) and Camila Banus (Days of Our Lives).

The film is directed by Colin Theys, and written by John Doolan (based on Wally Lamb’s original story). Both the writer and director worked on Alien Opponent and Banshee!!!, but sadly I don’t think monsters and aliens are going to stop on by, unless my theory that Annette Funicello is a Reptillian is proven by Wishin’ and Hopin’. After all, something happened to those missing G’s, it probably was aliens!

Wally Lamb’s Wishin’ and Hopin’ premieres Saturday, December 6, on Lifetime!

Photo by Pietro Camardella provided via Lifetime/A&E Media

Horrible Vacation

[adrotate banner=”1″]The next chapter of the National Lampoon’s Vacation series is still moving forward, with the team behind the not very good Horrible Bosses writing and probably directing it – Sam Brown and Dave Neustadter. Granted, they didn’t write the film, they were brought on board to fix it, so it must have been 1000 times more awful before. Variety’s article then mentions the previously rumored story that we’ll be following Rusty’s family and Clark and Ellen Griswold show up as the grandparents. I do not know if that is the way they will be going, but I sure hope so, and it may be true if Variety isn’t copy/pasta-ing previous stories about the Vacation sequel.

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Vacation Griswold

The Karate Dog (Review)

The Karate Dog


2004
Starring
Jon Voight as Hamilton Cage
Simon Rex as Det. Peter Fowler
Pat Morita as Chin Li
Chevy Chase as Cho-Cho (voice)
Jaime Pressly as Ashley Wilkens
Nicollette Sheridan as White Cat (voice)
Directed by Bob Clark

Premiering on ABC Family of all places, the movie Karate Dog suffers from many flaws, but is altogether not a complete failure. There are a few moments of glory that shine like specks of gold in the sewer system stream that is the rest of this film. Right off the bat, in a movie called The Karate Dog, flaw number one is the Karate Dog, or Cho-Cho as he is called in the film. Cho-Cho is voiced by Chevy Chase, who seemed to phone in a majority of the readings, but in certain places it sounds like he got away with ad libbing and putting some effort into improving the script. The times that it sounds like Chevy is going off script are usually used during movement scenes so Cho-Cho isn’t even bothered to be animated, and those quips are generally more funny than the standard tired jokes that get passed around in this film. This was probably allowed because Cho-Cho constantly making quips while walking away from the camera not only helps in the ad libbing, but allows for cheap additions, as the dog doesn’t need more animation for his waggling jaw. Director Bob Clark is known for such wonderful films such as A Christmas Story and Porky’s, but more recently has been helming the Baby Geniuses franchise. The roller-coaster ride that is Bob Clark’s life seems to be jammed at the bottom of the hill. Karate Dog also features Pat Morita as basically his Mr. Miyagi character, as well as former gay porn star Simon Rex and his then-girlfriend Jaime Pressly as police officers who date in film. Finally, the villain is played by Angelina Jolie’s dad, Jon Voight, who continues to make bizarre career choices, but is a highlight of this film toward the end as he goes crazy. If all of this doesn’t make you salivate with desire, then you’re just like most people. Luckily, some days simply nothing else is on TV, and as far as new TV movies go, this would beat The Cheetah Girls Movie or Lifetime’s latest movie where a woman is mistreated by her husband.


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