“Living Lohan” Episode 9: And “Ali’s” Dreams Finally Come True

Last week on “Living Lohan” Ali leaves Vegas. After returning to Long Island, she has an offer to audition for a movie. Now we can see Dina really shine: not as a pushy music momager, but as a pushy stage mom! Hurray!

The episode starts off with a little “Just a normal family” slice-of-life shtick. We see Michael home, visiting with his girlfriend Nina. They’re hanging out in the room they share upstairs, and she’s walking around half-naked after getting out of the shower. Now, I don’t expect everyone to be as old-fashioned as me, but I will say that even the most liberal of my friends’ parents still enforce a separate-room policy for non-engaged couples. And when the kids are barely out of their teens, as is the case with Michael Lohan and company, it’s even more strange. And I suppose it wouldn’t be a big deal if Dina Lohan was a responsible mother in other ways, but to me, this whole thing smack of the kind of “I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom” attitude Dina seems to adore.

Anyway, that was a tangent. Michael’s girlfriend wants to go on a date, and Cody Lohan wants the attention he clearly isn’t getting from his mom, so he’s running around with a water gun trying to play with them. Nina wants to sneak out, and asks Ali to help keep Cody occupied, and Ali simply can’t do that. Oh my gosh, she has a life.

Cody keeps lashing out at Nina, saying mean things to her because she’s a competition for attention. It’s really very sad in a very real way, because no one in the house has the slightest clue why he’s upset.

Dina is too busy getting Ali ready for her “Troll” audition to care much about her son. It’s as if, because she can’t sell him to someone, she doesn’t know what to do with him.

Ali asks Michael to run some script lines with her, and Nina plays H.O.R.S.E with Cody. Am I supposed to think they’re a normal family or something? Because, really, I’m just bored.

Ali is starting to freak out before the audition, saying she’s not feeling well and she’s sick and doesn’t want to go. Everyone keeps talking about all of Ali’s “natural talent.” The difference between Ali and Lindsay is, according to Nana Lohan, that Lindsay was “much more composed”, more professional, she just sort of went in and did her thing. Ali’s freak outs come across as prima donna more than anything else, so it’s difficult to be sympathetic for her.

Meeting with the director, Ali sits in the chair with her hair blown out and a ton of eye-makeup on, looking 35 or 40. Maybe not so much the look when you’re supposed to be playing a fresh, independent young magician. The director looks a bit like a ginger Peter Jackson, and he’s wearing a black t-shirt with “Troll” emblazoned across it. I can tell just by looking at him that this is an A-plus director, and that this is going to be an Oscar contending movie.

Ali’s audition goes predictably terrible. A lot of it is nerves: she’s stammering, rushing, not looking up as she reads. Some of it is just lack of talent. She’s trying to sound like she thinks actors sound, and there’s a tinny, artificial pitch to her voice which is a bit terrible.

Nana and Dina are talking in the waiting room. Nana wonders how things are going for Ali, and Dina, who knows everything about making movies, responds “Mom, if you’re a REALLY GOOD director, you can see if someone has talent whether they know the lines, they don’t know the lines…” I’m thinking that’s pretty much the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. What’s the point then of even knowing the script? Actors should show up for aura test-screenings and just stand there and the directors can just sense who should be in the role and who shouldn’t be.

Once Ali calms down a bit, she has some very good moments. She isn’t a very likable actress—she’s too precociously sexual to have, say, her own show on Disney—but she plays tough very well. She’d be a great tween character actress to play gritter roles that could make good use of her oddly smoky voice. But one gets the sense that her heart isn’t in this. She’s doing it because she’s fun, she’s doing it because she wants to be famous, but one senses she doesn’t really love it, there’s no a passion for it. But regardless of what I think, the director gives her the role because she’s “made for this.” More like “the free publicity E! is giving us is made for this!” Ali calls Lindsay to tell her she got it, and Lindsay literally says hello and then hangs up 5 seconds later. Apparently she’s “on set” and “filming.” And by “set’, we mean Samantha Ronson, and by “filming” we mean “scissoring.”

They get back to the house and the final mix of Ali’s song is finally remixed and retooled so she finally sounds great. Hurray computers! The song, by the way, isn’t terrible. But it isn’t good either. Kind of like Ali.

“Living Lohan” Episode 8–Smallpox for Decency

I can’t believe we’re only on episode 8 of this series. I could have sworn I’ve sat through over 20 episodes of brattiness and self-indulgence. Why doesn’t Dina Lohan just kill her children on camera and get it over with? It’d be faster than the death march she’s doing now. It’s like every episode is one more step on the Lohan family Trail of Tears.

The episode opens with Dina on the phone trying to find a new producer because, OH MY GOSH GUYS SHE WAS TOTALLY RIGHT that Jeremy’s song was just too much of a “guy’s song” for Ali. Instead of Jeremy, Ali decides she wants to do another track with a sketchy, child-molester type named “Eman” (Emanuel Kiriakou). Ali prefers him because he makes her feel “comfortable with herself, and with singing”, something Jeremy didn’t do. Right, because Jeremy didn’t kowtow to her pouting and mooning, something Kiddie “E-man” Porn clearly has no problem doing. E-man. WTF—is this 1994?

Eman gives them a song he wrote about letting go of the past, and asks Ali and Dina if they can relate to the lyrics. “Boy, I can” Dina interjects. Right, because your opinion matters. I hate this woman so much—every week it’s a struggle not to throw something at my television set.

More footage of Dina at the gym, blah blah blah, hot choreographer talks to her, blah blah blah “I’m so scared I’m Dina Lohan, and everyone wants a piece of me.” I bet the producer paid the guy $50 to talk to her.

So E-man lies and tells Ali how awesome she is, even though she sucks, and she says she sucks, E-man tells her how amazing she is, so right away, he’s a way better producer than Jeremy, right? Because the roll of a producer is to baby-sit the talent—that’s my understanding. And I’m not out to make Jeremy look like the hero here; I saw his blurb in US Weekly, I know he’s a colossal tool. But I also know a brat when I see when, and Ali’s a brat.

Continuing the earlier Trail of Tears analogy, if the Lohan siblings are the Blackfoot and Navahos, and Dina is the US Army, this episode dancing becomes the equivalent of a small-pox blanket. Determined to make her daughter even more precocious and over-sexualized, Dina decides to call the choreographer Jonnis after checking out his totally sweet MySpace page. It  had spinning graphics, y’all, so it’s legit! Dina watches Jonnis dance, which is the kind of awkward popping and locking you’d see at tryouts for Step Up 2: The Streets.

Dina of course finds a way to make this tryout all about her, by dancing with Jonnis TOTALLY SPONTANEOUSLY to see how his teaching skills are. As I watch Dina to spirit fingers and jazz hands, I have to listen through gritted teeth as she says things like “I totally feel at home dancing, because I grew up on the stage.” Really Dina? Really? I was under the impression you were a two-bit Rockette and failed actress who tried to shove her dreams down the throats of her children. You’re really and truly and artist, a true-blue artist, who grew up under the limelight and everything? Gosh, I’ve been so wrong about you!

I will give her this—Dina does have great legs.

Cody decides that since he’s never seen his mom dance, he’s going to arrange a dance recital for her. While Cody Lohan is the only Lohan I don’t hate (next to Nana, natch), I’m still terribly annoyed by this bit of producer interference. There is so obviously no material for this show, and this is so clearly a painful way to drum up anything that resembles a plot arc, I’m embarrassed for the show. And as Dina feigns surprise, I feel as if the show has reached the lowest point it ever has. But hey, at least Dina’s 14-year-old daughter is there to support her in a tank top pulled up to show off her whole stomach. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how to groom your daughters for a career on “Girls Gone Wild.”

In a terribly lucky coincidence, Cody’s makeshift concert (for 20+ people you guys!!!) occurs JUST as Dina is introducing Jonnis and Ali in the lobby. So Jonnis just HAPPENS to be there to dance with Dina. I swear this episode is worth watching just to see the look on Dina’s face as she swoons and spins onstage. It’s the only bit of happiness I’ve ever seen from her—a kind of pure, self-serving happiness that can only come when an attention seeker finally gets all the attention. It was cute watching her pretending to be embarrassed/mad afterwards.

Back in the studio, E-man and Ali’s track is finally done, and her demo is done, so we get to listen to the demo, and it really and truly is terrible. Highly mediocre song, with really terrible vocal lines. And oh course, there’s an embarrassingly fake wrap party in the studio where everyone gives toasts, and Ali says she’s so grateful to her awesome and Amazing Mom and Manager. And I’m grateful that they’re leaving Vegas so I don’t have to see anymore awful Vegas people.

Back in Long Island, business as usual. Ali looks like a French child prostitute in her confessionals, and Dina’s pretending to be stressed and busy with her personal assistant in her Lindsay Lohan shrined office. More faux drama—Ali doesn’t understand the idea of ‘mixing’—a polite way of saying “making your voice good with the aid of computers.” A director wants to cast Ali in a horror movie. Dina, smirking, blows this offer out of proportion: her daughter is so brilliant you guys, she’s getting movie offers, her album is about to drop, it’s insane. Um, her album still hasn’t been picked up, it’s in the demo stage. And also, she’s been offered a bit roll in a horror movie called “Troll.” I’d hardly call that blowing up. But Dina did leave us with these wonderful words:

“Just like her older sister, you cannot control that talent.”

…yeah. Talent. That’s it.

Episode 6:Fear and Loathing in “Living Lohan”

This week’s episode of “Living Lohan” starts pretty typically: Ali falls and hurts her ankle, and Dina is annoyed they might miss their plane. Man, this woman is so full of maternal sympathy I tear up sometimes as I remember my own childhood.

Dina, Ali, and Cody fly in to Vegas (staying at the Plams, natch), where they almost immediately go to a party with a whole slew of music executives. Everything from Dina’s poor-man’s Farrah Fawcett hair to her minidress screams of a sort of predatory sexual competition with her daughters that seems terribly disturbing.

Ali is recording at the Palms recording studio (who knew they even had one?) in her white booty shorts and whore eyemakeup. I wanted her to have a good voice, I really did, because I don’t want to have to rip on a young girls looks AND her “talent.” But despite her good intentions, Ali is terrible. Flat and awkward and trying way too hard to be sexy at an age where I doubt she even knows what sexy is.

Dina is always talking, refusing to shut her mouth in order to keep the focus on her, rather than the daughter she ostensibly represents. This includes talking over her children. While Ali is in the recording studio, Dina takes Cody into Vegas. Dina promises it’s all about what Cody wants, and he sees the New York rollercoaster and excitedly says he’d like to do that. But Dina makes an executive decision that they will instead go have lunch with a magician.

Meanwhile, back in the studio, the scene is cringe-worthy. Poor Ali is dreadful, and facing a room full of eight or so guys in their early-thirties. The producer and her vocal coach are trying to tell Ali that her problem is lack of confidence, but it isn’t. Despite the fact that the producer is sucking up like a hoover, everyone else looks bored or embarrassed. Ali isn’t suffering from lack of confidence so much as she is aware she is average, she knows everyone else knows it.

After lunch with the magician, there is a genuine moment of mothering where Dina takes Cody to Madame Tussaud’s. But when they get home and Ali hears about the fun day they had without her, she starts crying. Dude, singing is so hard, and she hasn’t been out all day. Part of the breakdown is inevitable, as Ali is a brat, but a good part of it is that she’s a kid, and she doesn’t want to be working, she wants to be having fun. After a good brow-beating from her mother, Ali decides this is totally what she wants to do. Uh-huh. To drive the point home, Dina takes Ali to The Pearl concert hall, where she makes Ali sing her new song on stage. If you watching at home noticed how Ali’s voice improved, it wasn’t because of Ali’s “newfound confidence,” but rather the result of E! producers having her sing along to the pre-recorded, ProTools-enhanced track. And thank heavens for ProTools and vocoder technology, or how would Ali ever live her dream?

And of course, the episode ends on a high note, with Ali triumphing with her new, confident voice, blushing as her final cut is played for everyone in the studio. It’s a sad state on the formulaic nature of pop music when a girl with a weak, average, and overly-breathy voice can turn out a passable dance track in a day and a half.

The most painful-yet psychologically interesting-part of this episode is watching the awkward “conversations” between Dina and whomever she can find, where she justifies her mothering and her lifestyle. These “moments” are so transparently setup after the episode has been stitched together in order to make Dina more likable, that they have the opposite effect: instead, they make her look cloying and desperate. But you know, so is this whole show.

Living Lohan: Tabloids, Haterade and Mommy Dearest

by Mary Jones

There’s a scene in Lindsay Lohan’s “Mean Girls” where Cady is talking to Regina’s mother (Amy Poehler), who proclaims “I’m not a regular mom, I’m a cool mom as her dog gnaws on her hard breast implants and her five-year-old daughter pulls up her shirt to a “Girls Gone Wild” commercial. So when I see Lindsay’s real-life mom Dina “White Oprah” Lohan in tabloids going from club to club, partying with her daughter, acting as a bratty momager, wearing as much makeup (and practically the same clothes) as her 14-year-old daughter Ali, it’s a bit uncomfortable. Especially since the purpose of her new reality series “Living Lohan” is to show how fabulous Dina is, how busy and admired and hated on. She isn’t a regular mom, she’s a cool mom! And if you’re going to drink, she’s rather you’d do it in the house.

Oh, and what a house. “Living Lohan” takes place on Dina’s Long Island estate, where she lives with her two as-yet-uncorrupted children Ali and twelve-year-old Cody and a slew of gigantic SUVs. From this house, Dina is meant to show us how normal she really is, not at all the callous, egotistical stage-mom we have seen on TV and magazines! From this house, Ali’s dreams of music stardom will be made! From this house, we see a mirror into our own lives, and realize it is only our own jealousy that makes us dislike the Lohans, our own poverty and jealousy and ugliness that they have what we could never attain.

Or so Dina tells us. Part of the fun in watching the “Living Lohan” hype machine is the huge gulf between why Dina and Ali Lohan were given a reality show, and why they think they were given one. Dina’s selling the story that she wants to clear up all the rumors about her family and prove that she’s a “good mom.” In fact, she was given a reality show—and we watch that reality show—to witness how terrible a mother, in fact, Dina really is.

The debut episode of any series is concerned with setting up all the pieces, winding up all the toys, and stocking all the shelves with tensions, arcs, conflicts, and attractions. And despite all of Dina’s insistence on how “crazy,” “surreal,” and “out-of-control” her life is, the premier episode of “Living Lohan” has a tough time scraping together enough material to fill a half hour. The show opens with several montages, by way of an introduction, that allow us to see how a “normal” woman handles such extraordinary circumstances. In one section, Dina is called for jury duty, which she tells her assistant Alexis to get her out of. What a spectacular way to open a series! Jury duty! How normal, and how down-to-earth to let a personal assistant tend to it!

The premier then walks us through a day-in-the-life of Dina Lohan. Get up, come downstairs with your hair immaculately coiffed and impervious to water. Check the tabloids online, cut out tabloid articles at the table. Threaten to sue a blogger over a fake sex-tape their website has posted. Allow your preteen children to watch parts of said sex-tape to make sure they realize how fake and totally-not-Lindsay it is. Which, you know, I could totally relate to. Too bad Cody’s soccer practice interrupted the family bonding.

And in many ways, Lindsay really is the star of “Living Lohan.” If I had been accused of exploiting my daughters and leeching off their fame, and if I was given a reality show, I would probably try to avoid any obvious signs of obsession with said daughter. And Though she isn’t physically in the series, Lindsay is always the center of both Dina and Ali’s attention—whether it’s via the tabloids they check, or when Ali says she adores her sister and copy’s her hair, clothes, and makeup. And yes, listening to her say that makes the blood run cold.

The tabloids and paparazzi are probably the other star of the show. Oh my gosh, guys, are you aware the tabloids are totally all up in people’s business? And that they write things that are untrue and totally hurtful and sick? So sick we’re going to read it to Nana out loud during a pancake breakfast? Dina talks about the tabloids in the paranoid, vicious sort of way that makes me think they actually got something right. I have a feeling Dina resents the warts-and-all school of 21^st century journalism because she has a lot she wants to hide, and is annoyed she’s been found out. After all, if the tabloids really were so malicious and destructive, she wouldn’t be pushing for Ali’s music career.

The music career subplot of the premier is a bit embarrassing, as well. In three weeks, Ali’s demo needs to be recorded, so Dina’s shopping around for producers, because the one’s the studios sent over “aren’t Ali’s kind of music, and Ali isn’t going to sing something she doesn’t believe in.” As Dina talks on the phone with a record company representative, it is clear she is enjoying her ignorant condescension towards the poor woman, who (rightly and rationally) points out that this is only a demo, and three weeks is a cutthroat amount of time to begin with.

Clearly knowing better, Dina invites over a producer named Jeremy who has been stalking her on AIM. Jeremy’s in his mid-to-late twenties, terribly hot, and since his tracks are terribly mediocre I can only imagine there is a cougar-motivation behind his employment. He seems sweet, but also slightly opportunistic and shady, so Dina, as the protective mother, decides to leave Jeremy and Ali alone for several hours. There’s a lot of awkward eye batting as Ali clearly flirts with Jeremy in the slapdash and obvious way that was all-too-familiar to me from my junior high days. However, the innocence of this flirtation is corrupted by Dina’s brusque come-ons and Jeremy’s overall skeeziness.

Overall, the premier of “Living Lohan” is a mishmash of brattiness and brashness, starring that girl in high school who thought everyone was jealous of her, then grew up to get herpes and work as a manager at Hooters. Time will tell if it’s a trainwreck worthy watching. But I’m confident.