RavenGlamDVDCollector
I noticed early on as I was collecting that I have Nicole Eggert's life on DVD. As daughter, little Chrissie, on T.J. HOOKER, as Summer Quinn in BAYWATCH, and, though not a favorite, as Laurel Canyon in National Lampoon's CATTLE CALL. Recently watched KINJITE FORBIDDEN SECRETS and her performance there gracing the screen as a very young prostitute spurred me on to really go for it, get all the rest, so now I have BLOWN AWAY lined up, I was assured by my research here on IMDb that it is *the* Nicole Eggert movie. But then something else crossed my path, a picture named MELISSA, also known as SECRET SINS. Hell, MELISSA on import was an expensive prospect, but then I lucked out, SECRET SINS was on a local release at a giveaway bargain basement price. Feverishly checked, same movie? Yeah, yeah, yay! Stars Nicole Eggert. I had my misgivings, but have learned, don't hesitate, so grabbed it while it was available, but... ...one thing I can tell you, the box is very down-class. A mainstream movie marked ADULTS ONLY. I collect, and believe me, I own some wild stuff, but marked ADULTS ONLY...? That is a freaking marketing ploy. I'm an aging white South African, I grew up in a staunch Calvinistic repressed country, and ADULTS ONLY is a way to grab attention, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more, say no more. It is not protect the little children from corruption, it is buy me, buy me, I promise illicit thrills, WHICH I WON'T DELIVER.That is this movie exactly. It is badly shot, might have been passable as Seventies fare, but it was done in 1995 it seems, then sat on the shelf till little Michelle Trachtenberg became a household name......for crying out loud, Michelle Trachtenberg has a walk-on part as this loser jerk-off's kid daughter who sits there waiting to be fetched by her mother. She is seen and almost not heard. She is a kid and given very little by way of acting. She is pretty and has a presence but the part is virtually non-existent YET THIS IS BILLED AS NICOLE EGGERT AND MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG when Googling. That is laughable. She isn't even credited.Nicole Eggert kinda has me squirming for the wrong reasons. She is clearly on the way down, having peaked at BAYWATCH. She had the looks, the star potential, why-ever...?Well, I suppose, maybe BAYWATCH itself was the nail in her (career's) coffin?As for that smarmy reviewer who 'breathlessly' announced that this is Nicole's best ever acting, well, there is some (ahem) effort here, and this is Oscar material compared to her regular stuff, so, while every word by that one over there is true, don't be misled. Certainly, this movie, despite, yes, a bare- breasted NOT NUDE scene by T.J. HOOKER's daughter, doesn't deliver true excitement. It looks wan, bleak, tired, dull, anemic, poor, worn out, pale, the only real high point is that girl with the long, long legs... And she was wearing high heels and bending forward and those legs, those legs... Sob.Oh, and the other leggy model, the one who appears on the menu, the bare-breast show-off dream model on the high chair enjoying herself (notice the pointed toes showing the length of her legs to full effect - yum!), but she just shows that the really hot part couldn't be played by the household name BAYWATCH star, what would David Hasselhoff have said? So somebody else was written into the script, a character that appears only briefly, but who gets pride of place on the menu page. Yet she is also uncredited. Research shows her to be Brette Taylor, her character name, though not encountered in the story, is Amanda. And there should have been more of her. No pun intended. On the other hand...But it isn't that kind of movie. Not that there's nothing to look at. There's plenty.Anyway, I wouldn't recommend it. Nicole fans would be mostly disappointed. This is sorta desperate, crumbs for a star. She must have realized she was sliding down. It shows. The topless shot is kinda far off too. And a stand-out gigantic goof is that lame attempt trying to convince the viewer that Melissa's first dance scene is actually done by Nicole Eggert when oh so clearly it is not, her stand-in's face is obscured by the stripper's pole, but the overt boob job and the much darker hair gives the game away, and the game is called Rip-Off Movie.As for myself, I got value for the little money I plonked down. If I made a movie myself, the film quality would probably be something like this. Not satisfactory at all, not the work of an expert. Not by 1995 standards at all. Strictly amateur. Comes across as a corny, predictable based-on-a-true-story little morality tale.One look at the basically empty script, and it's patently clear as day it couldn't have even remotely promised to help Nicole's career. Why-ever? Money? But it's a little ant-hill project, surely there'd have been a better prospect for a BAYWATCH red swimsuit starlet?
annevejb
This is likely filmed a bit more than a year after season 2 of Pete and Pete, it looks more like two years. It is a role with dialogue, despite her not being listed in the screen credits. Michelle's part occurs around the mid way point as the story takes a turn for the worse. She is the daughter in a divorced family and arriving for some time with her dad, just her mum notices big signs that dad is off track, he has been drinking. The visit is no go. MT as a kid under pressure, but looking to cope with it, mostly, on the surface anyhow. I had not understood the flow of MT's early work that I have so far. Pete and Pete she is magnificent if wayward, a warrior for her friend Pete, willing to consider law and good to be what is good for her friend. Bits of that lead into Harriet and early Dawn, but only bits. Pete and Pete leads more clearly into the more sensible MT of Penny (Inspector Gadget) and Gloria (Christmas Wish). For Harriet to feel natural and less like puke I do find Secret Sins to be helpful. Not that I have re-watched Harriet, just yet. Later, soon, honest. * Further, the story is one of a young woman, Melissa, age 24, who has some childhood mess that she has not been able to clear up. Grow up, leave school, she grew a vocation to head to New York to be a dancer, but she was haunted by her past that she had not been able to deal with in an okay way. Her friend leads her to a bigger source of income for while she is getting rooted in dance. Her friend also gives her a tool for necessary self defence. But instead of these being solid helps, Melissa is shown to no longer be able to exercise free will in an effective way, these helps are both parts of her crash. Two guys are helps, too. She is getting more and more tied up and cannot avoid the crash. The nudity is topless only, it relates to women working in a strip club. Some object to the fuller nudity and sex in Poison Ivy 2, a feature that I rate a lot, I would actually find sex and fuller nudity to be healthier in this context. A strip club where customers can look, but not much touching. Pay extra to the girls and customers might chat and look more, boobs only, but not much touching. And no dating afterwards, not a place for her guy to go to. Some might smile but is the club in Cabaret (1972) healthier than this? Cabaret club as low but alive, this club as antiseptic, it caters for the dead and offers a placebo. The guy who ends up dead. This characterisation feels to be the most unreal element in the story. It is like he is scripted as a mixture of very different types of confused tied person. He is a Frankenstein monster created for the purposes of the story. That is so unlike the rest of the storytelling that I assume it serves a purpose. The good guys in this story are the ones who deal with her as she is being channelled through the legal system towards prison. This is very different to other stories in this sort of genre that I can remember. She is helped to identify her root, an event that got her escalating towards this specific loss of freedom. So, to fit a simple story the concept of root will need to be oversimplified? Chicken and egg, the root is just an egg, as are the helps that seal her fate. Could be that Cheerleader overdoes suspicions re the concept of root because in that context that was proper, here is a different context.
