Leapin' Lizards!

When I see Jennie Garth with highly shaped '90s eyebrows and Kelly Taylor college hair draped in the meaty arms of Costas Mandylor, you can bet I'm diving in.

Tubi, hold my Zima. 

Quick Plot: Someone is murdering attractive and successful blonds in the big bad city of New York (sure)motos, giving them silver tennis bracelets and rose bouquets before tossing them out the windows of their own high rise apartments. I say "someone" because despite this being a VERY specific modus operandi, the press and police can't seem to come up with a clever or catchy serial killer name other than "The Killer".

Meet Meg: an attractive and successful blond in the big bad city (that's sort of New York?) who, you guessed it, lives far up a building with a Chekhovian rarely working elevator. One night, Meg catches the eye of beefcake Paul. They laugh, dance, order room service they don't eat, and even attend a spoken word poetry reading set to jazz. "New York" in the '90s was wild!

And yes, minor spoiler: Paul is "The Killer", and while he though Meg could finally be the one to break his dirty habit of murder, it's not to be. He throws her out the window and moves on.

Luckily for Meg, her window just happens to be located over a perfectly sized ledge, meaning her fall is broken and she's left instead with some bad bruises and that all-too-common ailment known as selective cinematic amnesia. Grizzled detective Frank Lazaro (BILLY DEE F*CKING WILLIAMS) is on the case, with so much world weariness that you almost wonder if Morgan Freeman was taking notes. 

Falling For You is directed by TV veteran Eric Till, an uncredited director on A Muppet Family Christmas, and therefore, one of my (apparently uncredited) lifelong heroes. Based on a play, it unfolds with the kind of rhythm you'd expect from a television woman-in-peril thriller, though there's some slight relief in Meg seizing control of her own fate. 

Make no mistake: this is not Ms. .45 or even Mother, May I Sleep With Danger. It's an earnest, made-for-CBS primetime thriller without the ability to tap into any real sexy or scary energy. Still, when you watch a 1995 TV movie in 2021, one co-starring Lando Calrissian as every stereotype of a rebellious veteran cop, things are simply bound to be entertaining. 

High Points

We can make Kelly Taylor jokes until the next (hopefully) inevitable 90210 reboot hits, but let's be fair: Jennie Garth is an underrated actor. Yes, her California looks and tight little voice might have limited her ability to be cast as Lady Macbeth or a laboratory scientist, but when it comes to holding the television screen, she has that it factor, and it's more than on display here

Low Points

Is there any screenplay device cheaper than "randomly detailed amnesia that means our victim remembers most activities like how to apply makeup but not the face of the man who threw her out a window?"

Lessons Learned
You won't find many blonds at a punk club ... or "Vampire Sex Bars," as it were

There are only two people in all of Canadian Manhattan who read Robert Frost

There are surprise advantages to having a (literally) thick skull

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you're craving a heavy dose of the mid-to-late '90s, Falling For You will likely prove to be as satisfying as a bag of WOW Doritos washed down with an ice cold Surge (look it up, kids). The excitement of soft focus lighting might wear off quickly, so don't get too excited, but it's definitely a dose of a different time. You can find it on Tubi.  

Top 10 Reasons To Download This Week’s Girls On Film

10. You’re intrigued by the eerie love story in South Korean auteur Kim Ki-Duk’s celebrated (if frustrating to me) drama, 3-Iron. So intrigued in fact that you'll hear three opinionated women argue some of its merits and missteps.

9. You’re itching for a tangent where film-loving folks discuss their hatred of misused soundtracks in modern horror.

8. We somehow find a way to imagine a world where both Adventures In Babysitting and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead contained special edition DVD releases that include the only recently discovered deleted rape scenes.

7. We giggle like junkies at the dentist’s office over the wondrous design of the shirtless martial arts practicing, stripper face-cutting villain in Abel Ferrara’s 1984 classic sleazefest, Fear City, a film that includes Melanie Griffith’s breasts and Lando Calrissian uttering the words “Keep the pussy off the counter.”

6. Amber Heard (baggy Daisy Dukes included) in Drive Angry: hot or not? We give the verdict.

5. You can hear my impassioned explanation of how Attack the Block kicks the overlong bell bottom wearing ass of Super 8.

4. I do a grand impression of Tom Berenger’s slow motion battle cry in a boxing ring. 

3. No bra talk this week (yes, it probably has something to do with the rapture) but there's plenty of discussion about boobs (including Melanie Griffith's).

2. It’s free.

1. Joplin (my cat) speaks! I mean that in two ways: her cat voice (a high-pitched squeak of a meow) and her ACTUAL voice that I imagine she would have were she human, i.e., that of a chatty Long Island diner waitress.

(And yes, I'm aware that she's recently been turned into a Sentinel)

Why are you looking at me so funny? Don’t your cats have regional accents?

ANYWAY, head to http://girlsonfilm.podomatic.com or iTunes for Episode 27. It's epic. It's estrogen. It's fine film conversation with international appeal.

Just please, for the love and betterment of Cloud City, keep that pussy off the counter.