Schlock-Mas: Day Twelve

Today's Feature: Holiday Road Trip

A pet-supply employee and her co-worker fall for each other while embarking on a cross-country adventure.

Journeying deeper into the uncharted waters of Deep Cable (I don't know why I'm bothering to keep up with this ridiculous nautical theme, but whatever), I've finally found my fabled destination: ION Television, the last frontier in this terrifying world of family entertainment. Okay, so it's not really the last frontier in this bloated channel lineup, but it's as far as I dare to go without risking permanent damage to my fragile psyche.

There are some deeper torments that lie further on up the dial, but they tend to skew towards the religious fundamentalists out there, and I won't abide that brand of Christmas cheer, so I'm planting my flag... I wanted to say proudly, but there's nothing to be proud of here, so I'll just say apathetically, on the distant shores of ION Television, a channel that claims to be "positively entertaining". Because the network is all about positivity.

You know what? The busted automatic spellcheck on this Blogger dashboard is insisting that "positivity" is not a fucking word right now, and that's just making me unreasonably angry. What is your fucking problem, spellcheck? Positivity isn't a fucking word? Since when? It's listed in the fucking Oxford English Dictionary, you worthless motherfucking software! Right fucking here! What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm trying to write about some dumbshit fucking upbeat Christmas movie here, and I can't even get past the fucking introduction to the fucking network that aired the fucking movie I watched this morning because you stupidly insist that the Oxford fucking English Dictionary doesn't know jack about the word "positivity". You think you know better than them, spellcheck? Are you fucking dense?

You're not the final word on words, asshole, and if you had a throat I would strangle you to death right now. You're fucking worthless, and you deserve to die screaming.

So ION Television was founded in the year of our lord 1998 by Home Shopping Network co-founder Lowell Paxson as PAX TV, and it was all about spreading goodwill and cheer to families all across the U.S. of A. The network relied exclusively on vintage family-friendly syndicated television shows and movies with positive messages and that worked just fine for these clowns for a little while, but there are only so many reruns of Highway To Heaven a loving family can watch before they're all at each other's throats like a pack of rabid coyotes, so things eventually needed to change in order to keep the network from closing up shop. At first, the network filled their ad revenue gap with additional paid programming, meaning obnoxious infomercials. Eventually, paid programming came to monopolize the network's schedule, taking up roughly 18 hours of their daily broadcast at its worst, which is just insane.

In 2005, the network became I: Independent Television, cutting back on the infomercials and introducing more recent and slightly edgier (I'm talking TV-PG and sometimes even TV-14 programming) stuff to attract a broader audience. In 2007, the network finally settled on the moniker ION Television, which has stuck to this day. ION Television is a slightly bigger deal than their dumpy kid brother UP TV, because they have a larger distribution network, not only being carried on every major cable and satellite television provider in the U.S.A., but also being broadcast over-the-air, piggybacking as a sub-channel in many regional NBC affiliates. They also have a bigger operating budget and can afford more popular recent procedural dramas like Criminal Minds and various iterations of Law & Order for their schedule. They also co-produce a Canadian weekly medical drama called Saving Hope, which has become a ratings darling.

But one thing ION shares with UP is its love of Christmas, devoting large programming blocks to numerous low-rent Christmas-themed family films during the month of December, most of them purchased from various small-time studios that specialize in churning out these flicks using assembly line tactics to keep costs as low as possible. It's a Christmas Machine, baby, and you don't want to know how this sausage is made. If you did, however, you could always ask a guy like Fred Olen Ray, and he'd be glad to tell you everything you'd care to know about the process.

Who's Fred Olen Ray? He's the mad genius who directed 1988's Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, one of the greatest films ever made. He also directed 1980's The Alien Dead, 1990's Bad Girls From Mars, 1995's Bikini Drive-In, 1996's Invisible Mom, 1998's Billy Frankenstein, 1999's Invisible Mom 2, 2001's Emmanuelle 2000, and over 140 other movies, most of them shot with shoestring budgets over extremely tight schedules and released direct-to-video. Fred Olen Ray is a man who follows the money in this industry, directing everything from blood-soaked exploitation sleaze to cheesy sci-fi monster trash to life-affirming family pablum to buoyant softcore sex comedies, often in the same calendar year. And he doesn't just show up as some director for-hire, either, often developing these films independently before seeking financiers to bring his surprisingly affordable directorial visions to life. He's a versatile filmmaker, able to hop from genre to genre without missing a step, and I respect the hell out of the guy.

He also directed Holiday Road Trip, the movie I caught on ION Television this morning, and man, what an eclectic cast this picture's got. We've got Ashley Scott (Gigolo Jane from A.I.: Artificial Intelligence) as Maya, our female lead, a harried mid-level employee at a nationwide pet supply conglomerate, Patrick Muldoon (star of Night Sins) as Patrick Muldoon, our male lead, the aging slacker son of the conglomerate's constantly disappointed owner (George Hamilton, from All The Fine Young Cannibals), and that's fine, because most people out there have no idea who Ashley Scott is, and maybe they recognize Patrick Muldoon from something, but they just can't place his face, so you'd expect these guys to headline one of these movies.

But the supporting cast holds the real surprises. We've got the aforementioned George Hamilton, looking as leathery and lecherous as ever playing the king of pet supplies, Jerry Lacy (who played the brilliantly overwrought Reverend Trask in the classic Dark Shadows) as Hamilton's right-hand man and oldest friend, Windslow, Shelley Long of all people as Maya's overly friendly, Christmas-obsessed mother, Kip Pardue (that asshole with the most punchable face ever created from The Rules Of Attraction) as Maya's scumbag boyfriend, ex-stand-up comedienne Mo Gaffney in a bit part as a suspicious small-town cop, Mindy Cohn from The Facts Of Life as a friendly waitress who has never heard of green tea, the ghost of Wink Martindale playing a version of himself from a parallel universe where he's the star of a popular daytime talk show, and Susan Olsen (little Cindy Brady from The Brady Bunch, who was recently fired from her radio show after outing herself as a homophobic bigot) as the proprietor of a retirement home populated by a gaggle of horny old women.

That is one weird bunch of people, right there.

But what about the movie? I know it's been a while since I started today's article, and I haven't even discussed the movie, which is kind of the whole point of this ridiculous exercise, but this is my blog, and I can write about whatever tickles my fancy, and nobody can stop me. Except maybe Blogger
after they notice how I threatened to murder their spellcheck software for refusing to accept the word "positivity" as valid. So maybe I should talk about the damned movie.

Holiday Road Trip is the story of Maya, a pretty young lady who kinda looks like a knife with eyes if you squint, and she just wants her awful boyfriend Davis to propose to her during their planned Christmas vacation in Nassau, but Davis breaks up with her before they even pack their bags because he's a rude dude who doesn't want to be tied down to any broads right now, and so Maya volunteers to escort her pet supply company's mascot, an adorable Jack Russell terrier named Scoots (played by Uggie. Yes, that Uggie. The one from The Artist. He was probably the most valuable member of the cast, and he has excellent chemistry with his co-leads, almost stealing the show on more than a few occasions) on a promotional cross-country tour culminating in a grand Christmas Day parade to raise brand awareness for their company, because at least this trip gives her the opportunity to spend Christmas with her parents in Los Angeles since she has nothing better to do after being kicked to the curb by her worthless boyfriend. I just now realized that was just one big run-on sentence. Huh.

Rest in peace, little buddy.

Slacker Patrick, who holds a mostly ceremonial position in the company, is volunteered by his distant father to accompany Maya and Scoots on their voyage, driving their spacious RV across these United States during the heart of the Christmas season. Patrick doesn't want to go because he'd rather be banging big-boobed babes on some beach somewhere since his busy father declined to spend Christmas together due to prior obligations, but he's stuck escorting this famous dog and a real stick-in-the-mud co-worker on this journey into fear, so he tries to make the most of it by being a basically decent guy.

That's surprising, really, because these movies don't usually just start out with a character like this being just a decent guy. They always feel obligated to force a few extra flaws on these guys to make their evolution from "bad boy" to "knight in shining armor" a but more dramatic. But Holiday Road Trip throws all that shit out the window and presents Patrick as just a good dude who never applied himself in his career because he never felt a reason to do so, since his father just tended to ignore his only son no matter what he did in life up to that point. But wouldn't you know it, spending a week in an RV with Maya and Scoots gives him a reason to try a little harder, to stop acting like such an aloof nimrod and grow up a little.

And Maya, who is once again an essentially fine person at the beginning of the narrative, merely learns to unwind a little on her voyage across the country, taking a little time here and there to stop and enjoy the scenery instead of feeling like she has to be constantly moving to keep her head above water in her life and career. She realizes that Davis is a complete tool as soon as he dumps her, and she never even considers taking him back for a moment throughout the film, not even during the climax when he shows up at her family home in Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to beg her forgiveness.

That's the greatest gift this movie Holiday Road Trip could have given me, by the way. It didn't waste my precious time with any bullshit manufactured drama in its third act when Davis showed up to win his lady back. Instead, Patrick shows up with a very expensive-looking engagement ring and sweeps Maya off her feet right in front of a bewildered Davis, his face covered with bruises from getting his ass kicked by every single man who crossed his path as he followed his ex-girlfriend across the country. No, that's really a subplot in the movie. Every dude Davis meets as he stalks Maya across America beats him up. One lady with a shotgun even tries to blow his head off after he accidentally walks in on her undressing inside Maya's RV after it gets stolen by some hillbillies in Tennessee. It's great.

Patrick just proposes to Maya on the spot, with Maya's parents, Patrick's dad, and his right-hand man Windslow spying on them from the kitchen, and she immediately accepts, even going a little gaga when she notices how big the diamond on her ring actually is. Then they make out like horny teenagers in front of Davis' stupid face for a few minutes, just to rub it in. I love this scene so much, because it cuts all the bullshit and just goes for comedy. Maya's not conflicted at all, and she never even pretends to hesitate when Patrick asks for her hand in marriage. Then the pair just rub her jilted ex-lover's nose in their passion for a little while. More movies need to do this. It's so much more entertaining that making up some bullshit to keep the romantic leads apart for a little manufactured dramatic tension.

Patrick even reconciles with his father, who flew out to L.A. just to spend Christmas with his son for the first time in ages, because he missed his boy and finally got to tell him how proud he was for following through on something for once in his life. It's touching stuff, and maybe it even got me a little choked up, but I admit nothing.

Holiday Road Trip is a lot of fun. It's well-paced, well-acted, and it even throws in a few bizarre curve balls to keep the straight-forward plot from getting stale. Curve balls like the owner of an auto repair shop convincing Patrick to dress up as Santa Claus to entertain a bunch of old people in a nursing home in return for repairing their damaged RV. Patrick thinks he's just doing a boring charitable act until he's locked in a room filled with very excited old women who start hollering like mad and pelting him with wadded-up dollar bills. Patrick, realizing he's been duped into playing a holiday stripper for these lathered-up old biddies, just shrugs and goes along with it, because at least he's getting paid.

A gig's a gig.

And when Maya tracks Patrick down to the nursing home and catches him getting sexually assaulted by a dozen horny old women, she doesn't freak out and try to catch the first Greyhound bus back home. She thinks it's cute. She jokes about it with Patrick, who is good-natured about the whole misadventure, even poking fun at himself. It's so refreshing to see one of these movies that isn't afraid to just throw out the rule book and have a little fun.

So my journey to the treacherous realm of Deep Cable has actually paid off. I've struck paydirt with Holiday Road Trip, thanks to Fred Olen Ray. But now I think I'm ready to return to the familiar waters of home, so next time I'll be back in the safe harbor of Hallmark Channel with a brand-new movie to tolerate.

VERDICT: I LOVE YOU, FRED OLEN RAY