Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret

This was BRILLIANT. Both actors nailed these parts and they were both very difficult to pull off. But they were utterly convincing and I think this TV movie was smashing. Not at all clichéd and stuck to the facts that I know of the case, having followed it, from London, for the last two years.

Jesse Lee Soffer not only got Travi's charm and obvious boy next door magnetism, but he also successfully reminded us that Travis was a flawed character, certainly sexist, perhaps ambitious at the expense of others, but most of all bound and brainwashed by his particular religious brand of zombieism, Mormonism. Also, it was clear from the show that the two of them had a very very powerful connection that went beyond the physical. Travis liked Jodi for quite a while, and intermittently throughout the saga. We like her too, in this reconstruction. We consider her point of view. At times we are totally on her side even.....until, of course, that fateful, epic, bloody road trip.

Production values are serious and classy and very effective. This is no regular daytime TV true story. This is a highly accomplished piece of work and everyone involved can be very proud of what they achieved. Im looking forward to seeing these two lead actors in other material.

I'm very fussy about I watch and what I enjoy and I give this an unreserved 10/10

I for one never followed the real life Jodi Arias murder trial, because it always tied up HLN during the day so I never got to see any of the cute female news anchors on the network! No just kidding I'm not much into real life trials, anyway when a movie is brought to life about a shocking real life drama I'm in for a watch. And seeing that they would be plenty of eye candy in the form of Tania Raymonde made me a numerous watcher of this Lifetime TV movie. Boy if the real Jodi Arias looked this beautiful more people would have watched the real life trial! Tania Raymonde rocked with her performance her turn was cold and obsessive, and jealous possessive like a little devil. Yet the many scenes of Tania in those many sexy colored bras and panties was sexy it made the film thrilling to watch! Anyway starting in 2006 when Jodi(Raymonde)meets Travis at a motivation convention in Las Vegas, a sparkle is in the air. And upon a moment of hotel seduction where Jodi(Raymonde's such hot body) sports a green strapless bra with a lap dance showed that this was one wild push the limit get her way kind of girl! Yet from the get go Jodi showed signs of being jealous, and very possessive with being upset when another woman looked Travis's way she didn't even want any friends for him. The relationship was based on their hot and wild sex sessions that involved nude photos, online porn and of course Jodi wearing very sexy lingerie. This California girl was rocking the world of Travis now in his home state of Arizona.

Thru it all it proves that without real love the sex and lust will fail in the end as the obsession and jealous like possessive behavior of a wicked woman leads to tragic ends for all involved, a blood death and a life sentence as passion kills and dies with the wrong person and when no love is around it's doomed. Still the performance of Tania Raymonde is so hot and sexy she's one actress on the rise.

I felt the made-for-TV movie about Jody Arias was actually very good and was a balanced presentation of a sensational story. Jody Arias is obviously unbalanced, paranoid, has super-low self-esteem, and many other psychological defects. But as the story is shown, it also balances this with Travis Alexander's duplicity. He wanted to maintain the appearance of being a good, pious Mormon but kept Jody Arias as his secret life and kept her out of the mainstream of his life. When he tried to break up several times, he always ended up back in bed with Jody. He certainly did not deserve the terrible thing that happened to him, but he contributed his share. I thought the film was balanced and worth watching.

The 1997 film "Fatal Attraction" was nominated for 6 Academy Awards. This has been called the real life version for the 21st Century; sadly as a TV film it can't win an Oscar, even more sadly is the fact that it "is" the real life version. It probably wouldn't in any case because in spite of the excellent portrayal of "femme fatale" Arias by Tania Raymonde, like "To Catch A Killer" (about John Gacy) this was a film that was made with a higher purpose than mere entertainment.

Although Jodi Arias was convicted of the murder of Travis Alexander only last year, it cannot be said to have been made entirely in indecent haste because the crime happened in June 2008, but it was released only a month after her conviction.

The dialogue aims for realism rather than dramatic effect; the line "dildo with a heartbeat" was in fact used by Travis. As undoubtedly was Jodi's line "delete it and it's gone forever", except that it wasn't. Did she really expect to get away with murder?

She was indeed his dirty little secret, and he could have treated her better, but did a man who had never so much as slapped his lover deserve to die at her hands like this?

The only charge that may be made against this film – apart from the above one of indecent haste – is that it is bad taste to portray a real and recent murder so graphically. Far worse though was the release of the actual crime scene photographs, which could have been avoided even for a trial broadcast live on the Internet. In the UK this would not have been allowed, and Travis would at least have been granted dignity in death.

Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret (2013)

* (out of 4)

A new crime tale overtook mainstream America so naturally Lifetime would turn it into a movie. Jodi Arias (Tania Raymonde) begins a torrid sexual affair with Travis Alexander (Jesse Lee Soffer) and soon she becomes obsessive and kills him. Am I the only person in the world who finds Travis to be a bad guy? I certainly don't agree or condone what happened to him but at the same time I must admit that I found him to be a jerk by the way he just wanted to use this woman for sex, keep her in the background and hidden from his friends and pretty much just use her whenever he needed her. Sure, thousands if not millions of guys do this to women but most of them don't do it to someone crazy, which is obviously what Jodi was. This Lifetime movie is pretty awful all around and largely because you really don't learn anything about either people and we're left with a story of unsympathetic characters and certainly no one to life. Director Jace Alexander takes a fairly interesting "case" and turns it into a pure case of boredom because there's no energy, no life or anything else going on here. The entire film seems to run on longer than the real-life trial because we just keep getting scenes that add up to nothing. This here is more like a low-rent version of FATAL ATTRACTION but without the performances, tension or style. The movie has all sorts of problems including how it goes all out to paint Travis as this clean-cut Mormon who did nothing wrong and just wanted to help people. We get at least two scenes where Jodi sexually comes onto him while he turns away. Yet, minutes later, we see them two in a steamy sex affair where he's the one using her. You can't have it both ways. Even worse is the fact that these scenes trying to make Travis look clean are done in such a way that you really can't help but laugh at them. Both Raymonde and Soffer are good in their roles but sadly they're just not given much to do. When one watches Lifetime you really don't expect quality but I must say this here is without question one of the worst products they've'e turned out.