When one sees "The Hallmark Channel" or "Lifetime" logo -- and the related "MarVista Entertainment" logos -- in the opening credits of a cable movie: they've already decided they hate the film (and any review that speaks in the positive of said film). Now comes the new streaming variant of those films via Tubi to hate on -- which connect back to those Hallmark and Lifetime movies of old.
Yes, the FOX Network-owned Tubi-verse of the new, Smart TV streaming tundras does remind of the '90s Lifetime-verse of cable television. For each share a production common denominator: MarVista Entertainment, a shingle that produces effective, budget-conscience made-for-TV and direct-to-SVOD content for ION, The Disney Channel, and The Hallmark Channel.
So, as with those cable films of Hallmark and Lifetime old, the MarVista narrative model for Tubi -- which began in May 2022 when FOX purchased MarVista to align with Tubi, which FOX purchased back in April 2020 -- are analogous. The films -- when not utilizing the "ripped from the headlines" narrative (December 2022's pretty fine Prisoner of Love) -- are knockoffs of popular theatrical films, e.g., the Sandra Bullock-starring While You Were Sleeping (1995) becomes Hallmark's (one of their better) X-Mas offerings, A Very Merry Mix-Up (2013), while Paramount's The Prince and Me (2004) becomes the fun, Fred Olen Ray-directed, A Christmas Princess (2019).
In Good Wife's Guide to Murder our narrative model is the superior Basic Instinct (1992), as that film's Catherine Tramell, who writes best-selling, erotic crime novels, becomes the prime suspect in her lover's murder (with an exciting, ice-picked eyeball rage killing; here, we get PG'd wideshots of handheld weights and 2x4s to the skull).
At least Cathrine Tramell had a Mary Higgins Clark-successful career to justify the wealth on screen. In the MarVista-verse: we are just down the street from Ross and Rachel and Jerry and Elaine: a tele-verse where you get amazing jobs with no training and amazing Manhattan Island homesteads beyond your meager, coffee house existence (and no journalism degrees required).
Here, our Rachel Green-damsel-in-distress is Kate Kelsey (Nola Martin). Our "Ross Geller" is Matt (Liam Toobin). Together, they live a Nantucket-styled amazing, five-star life by way of Kate's vlogging and Matt's backyard, barn-based craft brewing. Oh, and on top of the amazing Frank Lloyd Wright-abode: they own an amazing restaurant (floundering in backbiting deceit amid its red-herring partners).
"You're the reason I got into journalism!" gushes one of Kate's fishy fans.
Yeah, this is a film where vlogging from a home office (read: spare bedroom) passes as "hard journalism" that, apparently, oh, never mind. . . . As with Ross and Rachel, or Monica and Chandler for that matter, I've already lost any sympathies for these disconnected, spoiled folks with "careers" that don't jive with their lifestyle.
Anyway, the vlog that seems to have captured the digital-cultural zeitgeist (on equal with the #1 rated "Joe Rogan Experience") is Kate's "Good Wife's Guide to Murder" podcast. Kate's low-rent Nancy Grace pontificates on spouse-related true crime stories, advising you, the cheated-on and abused wives of America: learn from the mistakes of those other cheated-on and abused wives who got caught.
Yeah, you guessed it: everyone one with a "Y" chromosome "is a pig," but the females of the species with one more "X" in the pool -- the ones who have sexual kinks and swing the blunt force trauma objects, mind you -- are cool. For they are women: hear them roar.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate's husband turns up dead.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate -- who is so unlikable, she deserves to be framed -- is "innocent."
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate is the "prime suspect," yet allowed to Scoobie-Doo her husband's murder, as she tramples crime scenes and evidence in a world where there's no law regarding interfering with a police investigation.
Yeah, you guessed it: Kate's next door BBF (Tennell Read) is the lead detective on the case. Thus, Kate gets the 'ol "I'm sorry you're going through this" hug and coffee talk interrogations instead of the clink of the cuffs for obstruction. Yeah, these Canadian lassies still got to stick together in a Lifetime 2.0 world.
Yeah, you guessed it: I liked this latest MarVista-Tubi production.
It hits all the unlikable-to-dumb characters notes along with the implausible and convenient film noir cues of yore. All of the Italian-bred, '70s gialli components I cherish -- complete with the herrings of red having a little black leather sex kink with a too-close-to-home affair on the side -- are in the frames. Perhaps if this noired from the troubled detective's perspective instead of the spoiled vlogger and showed a little ball gagging. Oh, never mind.
This is a Tubi-cum-Lifetime flick with an 80-minute run time, after all, so check your hopes for some Maria Bava, Jess Franco, and Jean Rollin-styled sleaze and gore at the door and you'll enjoy the noir. Oh, what Dario Argento could do with vlogs, twitter feeds, hacked tech, and leaked photos: that would be an amazing movie.
As for this one: It's pretty darn good! It feels like cable '90s home.
