Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life

Due to insomnia - must be to many energy drinks or no decent Internet porn perhaps - I found myself watching what must be the funniest movie this side of " Tell Your Children: Reefer Madness" (1939) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028346/ Seriously people, I am reading comments on here by people that seem to be taking this film seriously. This is some sort of American in-joke - right? We have a family and school so concerned about a lad watching a bit of porn and - shock horror - it is inferred that he may even be masturbating!!! And his parents and school want to send him to a therapist due to his...um...addiction? (By the way, the constant energy drinks he was taking was bloody hilarious - "this is USA TV. We'll have no direct references to masturbation here. O no. Like a Jane Austin novel when a couple ...um..consumate their relationship and a red rose is described on a table, we will just show the poor bugger drinking an energy drink.

There were moments in the this movie that could only be described as coming form a creator who has graduated form the Ed Wood School of film direction It will send you blind you know - which is oddly what I thought might have been an improvement to watching this bile of old horse poo.

This is someone's worst nightmare, be it eagle-eyed fundamentalist authoritarian parents, their wide-eyed naive offspring living in the cyber-age OR the casual Lifetime movie viewer looking for an aggravation-free evening. Lifetime has often dared to tackle modern living via their dramatic mothers-at-arms approach to parenting; but this is almost obscurely misinforming, and capable only of instilling groundless fear in overcautious mothers. Nobody really wins, Lifetime can and has done much better (see 2003's "On Thin Ice). The presentation of Lifetime films has become quite formulaic and stagnant as of late: Yesterday's A-List celeb is mother to Tomorrow's up-and-coming rising star. Drama ensues.

This type of Made-For-TV event seems beneath us as we discover the broad and careless strokes made early on. This may have worked better as a novel, since the convoluted 'my the son the sexual deviant' storyline needn't be divulged all at once. As is, it's an over-hyped production that lacked any memorable performances. Director Tom McLoughin is rather accomplished at the helm on this project; he's worked on many projects in TV and film over the past 25 years, but not one of his projects leaves a lasting impression or is worthy of owning ("Friday the 13th Part VI", anyone?). He's a capable director, generally filming with unobstructed aplomb.

It's hard to believe any film solely about teenagers addicted to porn, but these are the same two 50-year-old men writing such turgid and stagnant Lifetime films as the 'teenage sex awareness' modern flit-pieces like 'She's Too Young'[2002] and 'Odd Girl Out' [2005]. As you could imagine, it plays out as bad as you'd expect; all we learn is that teenagers are drawn to the internet like moths to a flame whenever it concerns women dancing lasciviously. We see our protagonist become increasingly addicted to pornography; he eventually becomes ostracized from his peers (like all the young counterparts in Lifetime films), initiates his mother's new authoritarian parental regime and frequently makes his father (the stereotypical 'don't ask, don't tell' permissive Lifetime dad) uncomfortable. Occasionally the young person even considers suicide as an answer to his problems, most of which are rooted in puberty.

The cast dynamic is awkward at best; Kelly Lynch is so frayed she looks literally like she's only a flat-tire away from a nervous breakdown in the breakdown lane. It's pretty disconcerting to see her resorting to such puritanical parenthood ideals in her mid-forties after a career sustained previously by so many steamy bedroom scenes. I imagine there's the need to prove she's still a capable actress, but this is not her defining moment as an actress, nor a memorable performance; this is merely histrionics, much like you'd expect when puberty and menopause collide in the dark alleys of Suburbia. *+ / ****

I hate lifetime movies, we were forced to watch them in high school health classes ugh. the only reason i saw this movie, is that i read it's plot description from a newspaper, it sounded too awful to be true. The acting in this movie is so cheesy and over-dramatic, extremely over-dramatic and wooden. The mother character was horrible, she was so dense to everything (such as how she didn't know kids could clear the computers history), the little brother was also annoying, the plugs for switchfoot...pointless. The overall message was loud and clear...porn is evil...and going to church will make everything better along with some hugs and alittle therapy (in the words of the main character, "it would be radical"). Overall an awful film, but it retains a certain so bad it's good humor.

It is incredible that something like this has been made in the 21st century. Firstly, the awful title initially sounds like some porn film. Think about it! Secondly, the script is so clichéd, clumsy and moralistic as to have absolutely no artistic merit whatsoever. Thirdly, the acting is wooden and terribly performed. Poor Kelly Lynch. Hard to believe how great she was in Drugstore Cowboy (1989).

I won't even bother going on about the actual plot. The creators of this have offered no original artistic voice, no real analysis of addiction, no depth to their characters and, well, no point. It smacks of cynical opportunistic filler between commercials.

If anything in this film disturbs you, it's the waste of talent, time and money.

Horrific stuff, really. All connected with it ought to be ashamed. But I bet they sleep like babies.

I can't spend too much time writing this review (on account that I'm laughing SOOOO hard at watching this movie at the present moment) so I'll sum it up in a nutshell: Chaste would be an extremely gross understatement of this cheesy exposé on how a model, All-American sophomore teenager (with a piously flirty c**ktease of a GF)--who is a popular swim champ--goes to a seniors' party and is introduced to the sinful demon seed of porn. This is some hilarious camp, and the emoting has to be seen to be believed. What's really sad is seeing how far Kelly Lynch, who made a great impact in 1989's "Drugstore Cowboy" (which, incidentally, treated that film's subject matter--pill addiction--with the brutal candor that this film painfully lacks) has sunk career-wise. And, ughhh...the obvious question: just how did this porn-surfing miscreant come to even exist? By procreative methods more graphic than ANYTHING in this dreck, I assure you; that's the hypocritical part. If you've ever wanted to see some G-rated porn, then this dud's for you.

*Note: One might just have to be a reefer addict to sit through this one.