Author Archives: Dazzling Erin

I Watched Backwards (2012, Dir. by Ben Hickernell)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Want to feel old?  Remember James Van Der Beek from Dawson’s Creek and how he was an aspiring film director who went to high school and thought he knew better than all of his teachers?  In Backwards, James Van Der Beek is the teacher!  He’s not just a teacher but he’s also the head of the school’s athletic department.  He still looks and sounds like Dawson, though.

When Abi Brooks (Sarah Megan Thomas) fails to qualify for the Olympic rowing team and is instead offered a spot as an alternate for the second time in a row, she decides to take a job coaching a high school team instead.  It’s not an easy transition.  At first, Abi pushes her rowers too much and forgets the importance of having fun.  But then she falls in love with school’s athletic director, Geoff (that would be James Van Der Beek), and she starts to loosen up.  Her rowers start to win and soon, they have a chance to go to London and compete in a prestigious race!

Then, Abi is contacted by her former coach (Glenn Morshower).  There’s an opening on the Olympic rowing team and he needs Abi to come to practice immediately.  When Abi asks if she can come after coaching her students in London, her coach tells her that he’ll have to pick someone else if Abi isn’t at practice on Monday.  Abi wants to go the Olympics but James Van Der Beek says she’ll be abandoning her students if she goes.  Abi has to make a choice, her students and her love or her lifelong dream.

I liked Backwards up until everyone started to give Abi a hard time about accepting a spot on the Olympic rowing team.  Abi has spent her entire life working for her chance to go to the Olympics.  She’s nearly 30 so this is probably her last chance to go as a competitor.  Abi took a job coaching because she was told that she wouldn’t be on the team.  Now, out of nowhere, she finally has her opportunity to fulfill her lifelong dream and be a part of the Olympic tradition.  Should she leave her job to start training for the Olympics?  Of course, she should!  Anyone in the real world would understand that this is an opportunity that Abi can’t pass up and no one would expect her to.  True friends would have wished Abi luck and promised to cheer for her instead of guilting her!  Dawson was always guilting Joey about something too.  That’s why I liked Pacey.

Up until that point, Backwards was pretty good.  Sarah Megan Thomas was believable as an athlete and Glenn Morshower had the coach thing down perfectly.  I was happy with Abi and Geoff finally admitted how they felt about each other.  I still think Abi should have gone to the Olympics, though.

 

 

So, I Watched Lake Lavon (2022, Dir. by Andrew Thomas)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Last night, Lisa Marie and I watched Lake Lavon on Tubi, just because it was filmed in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and we wanted to see if we recognized any of the shooting locations.

An hour into the movie, there’s a scene where Bob (Vincent Charles Marquez) is reunited with his ex-girlfriend Avery (Mallory Florey).  They go to Lake Lavon, which is a lake down here in Dallas.  Bob tells her that, in the two years since they broke up, he’s been checking up on her by looking at her social media.  “I didn’t see you carousing with any other men,” he says.

“What a jerk!” Lisa yelled.

“Red flag alert!” I said.

The weird thing about Lake Lavon is that Bob isn’t supposed to be a jerk, even though he is.  We’re supposed to like Bob, even though he’s a judgmental stalker who has the nerve to judge how his ex-girlfriend has been living, even though he’s the one who broke up with her.  I understand that this is a faith film and it’s trying to celebrate traditional values but Bob still comes across as being smug and judgmental.  Plus, who says “carousing with other men” in this day and age?  Who talks like that?  Serial killers, that’s who.

Lake Lavon was filmed in Dallas and Lisa and I recognized almost every location in the movie.  We’ve been to Lake Lavon more times than I can count!  I enjoyed seeing all the familiar places while I watched the movie but I’ve never been more turned off by a love story than I was by the one in this film.  Everyone in the movie acts like Bob is perfect.  Everyone judges Avery because she’s had a lot of boyfriends in the past.  Avery admits that she doesn’t go to church and everyone worries that Bob is getting involved with a fallen woman.  Bob breaks up with Avery over a stupid misunderstanding but everyone still acts as if it was Avery’s fault.  Bob and Avery get engaged but after Avery is nearly raped by her stepfather, Bob says it’s because they haven’t declared their love in front of God so even that is somehow presented as being Avery’s fault.  The movie may have been filmed in Dallas but it was set in Red Flag City!

 

I Watched Love In Focus (2023, Dir. by Brandon Ho and Joseph Reidhead)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

This movie was so cute!

Jenna (Nicola Posener) is an actress on a detective show called Echo Park.  She is dating her co-star, Trevor (Trey Warner), even though they don’t have anything in common other than being actors on the same show.  When Jenna finds out the show is being canceled, she accepts her agent’s offer to stay in the family cabin until she gets things sorted out and figures out what she wants to do next.  When Jenna gets to the cabin, she finds out that it’s already being used by her agent’s son, Chris (Dan Fowlks), a nature photographer.  At first, Jenna and Chris don’t get along but then they discover that they misjudged each other.  Jenna actually is a good actress (and a great cook) and she wants to do work that she can be proud of.  Chris really isn’t as arrogant as he seems at first.  They fall in love.  Meanwhile, Trevor is trying to track down Jenna with the help of Roxanne (Shona Kay) and it doesn’t take 20/20 vision to see that Trevor would be happier with her than with Jenna.

Love In Focus is totally predictable but I still liked it.  The scenery was gorgeous and Nicole Posener and Dan Fowlks were a really appealing couple once they stopped fighting.  (People who fall in love in movies always have to start out fighting each other over something.)  There’s a really sweet scene where Chris’s parents talk about how they first met and fell in love and listening to their story made me smile.  The best part of the film was Trey Warner.  Even though Trevor was Chris’s romantic rival, he wasn’t portrayed as being a villain or a jerk or anything like that.  Everyone in the film was so nice that you really hoped everything would work out for them.

This was a sweet movie and I really liked it!

So, I Watched After The Storm (2019, Dir. by Emma Jean Sutherland)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Hey, ladies!  Take it from someone who has been there, if your family home is destroyed in a storm and someone offers to help you rebuild it so that you have a place to live with your adorable Siberian Husky, accept the help.  I don’t care if you used to date him.  I don’t care if you’re engaged to marry someone else.  That person that you think you’re going to marry?  Where is he?  He’s not the one at your house offering to help your rebuild.  The man who does show up, does he have a criminal record?  Does he have a history of being an abuser?  Is he a Nazi?  If the answers to those three questions are all no then accept the help and be sure to say thank you every chance you get.

After the Storm is about Lauren (Madeleine Leon), who reconnects with her ex-boyfriend Colin (Bo Yokely) after a storm destroys her home.  Lauren is a teacher, which is extremely cool.  I like and respect teachers.  And she owns an adorable dog!  I liked that Lauren was as concerned about rebuilding the community as she was rebuilding her house.  I could relate.  Last year, our neighborhood got hit by one of the worst storms that I’ve ever seen and it took over a month for the city to clean up all the debris and ge everything back and running.  I checked on my neighbors every day to see if they needed anything and a lot of very kind people helped us clean up the branches in the front and back yards.  (One of them had fallen on our wooden swing, crushing it underneath.)  Cleaning up wasn’t easy but we worked together and got it done and we were stronger as a community as a result.

But I got so frustrated watching this movie because Lauren kept getting upset whenever Colin tried to help her and I couldn’t understand why.  She was still angry about how they broke up five years in the past but Colin had obviously grown up since then and he wanted to help both her and the community.  The movie lost me whenever Lauren get angry with Colin.  Her main excuse was that she was engaged but when her fiancé did show up, he turned out to be useless.  Lauren’s stubbornness was hard to take.

I did like Bo Yokely as Colin.  Colin was a good friend to have in a disaster and, when it came to Lauren, he had the patience of a saint.  I got frustrated with Lauren but I did enjoy the scenes of her house being rebuilt once Laruen finally accepted the help and admitted that she was still in love with Colin.  You’d have to have a heart of stone not to smile at Colin carrying Lauren over the threshold while that adorable dog.  Love can overcome anything, even stubbornness.

I Watched Romance On The Ranch (2024, dir. by John Lyde)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

In Romance on the Ranch, Suzanna Pereira plays Sara, who gets to live out one of my favorite fantasies.

Sara quits her job, sells her place, gets in a camper with her dog, and drives out west.  She has another job waiting for her, as a doctor at a big-city hospital.  But before she starts her new job, she just wants to see America and capture it with her camera.  I knew exactly how Sara felt.  There have been so many times that I’ve been tempted to just grab my camera, jump in my car, and just take off for parts unknown.  It’s not very practical in the real world but that’s why we have movies like this one!

Sara’s camper breaks down outside of a ranch.  Luckily, the ranchers invite her to stay with them while the camper gets fixed.  Sara volunteers at the local assisted living facility and she rides a horse for the first time in years.  She also meets two handsome brothers and she falls in love with both of them.  Aidan (Chris Reid) is quiet and likes to spend his time working on the ranch and with the land.  Porter (Brando White) is a rebel who gets his work done but at his own pace and who feels like Aidan looks down on him.  Sara wants to stay at the ranch but she doesn’t want to cause trouble between the two brothers.  The brothers, though, have issues to work on that go far beyond of them liking Sara.  Who will Sara choose?  The handsome rebel or the handsome cowboy who has a daughter who needs a stepmother?

I liked this movie, even though I knew everything that was going happen.  It’s basically a Hallmark movie, even if it didn’t air on the network. Everyone in the movie is very pleasant and nice and the ranch was a really pretty location.  I liked that the two brothers were both nice guys and loved each other deep down, no matter how much they fought.  They had different ways of looking at the world but neither was necessarily wrong.  There’s just something incredibly romantic about big strong men working in the Great Outdoors and learning to express their emotions.  Mostly I liked the movie because I could relate to Sara.  I looked at those beautiful mountains surrounding the ranch and I wanted to get out my camera and start snapping pictures too.

It’s Love, Part 11

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today is the day that we celebrate love and romance and everything that goes with it!

Love isn’t always easy and some people have a hard time around Valentine’s Day. If you’re single, do not despair. The path to true love is never an easy one to travel but the destination makes the trip worth it. Even in the 1950s and the 1960s and the 1970s, Valentine’s Day wasn’t an easy day for everyone. Love can hurt.  Love can bring tears to your eyes.

As difficult and as frustrating as it can be to find true love, we will never stop searching because finding it makes it all worth it.

So. if you’re alone or if you’re a part of a couple, if you’re single or married, in love or simply enjoying life, happy February 14th!  May it be a good day, no matter what it means to you.

By Gene Colan

Baseball On Valentine’s Day

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Are you still having trouble getting in the mood for Valentine’s Day?  Allow me to help with a series of covers that combine my two favorite things, love and baseball!  These baseball romances are guaranteed to touch even the outfield of your heart.  Plus, if you’ve been confused about the difference between first base, third base, and all the way, these books are here to help, just in time for Valentine’s Day!

 

The Two Sides of Valentine’s Day

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

St. Valentine heals an epileptic.

No one knows when the first Valentine’s Day was celebrated.  Saint Valentine lived in 3rd Century Rome and provided care to persecuted Christians before being martyred by Emperor Claudius II.  Valentine is the patron saint of Terni, epilepsy, and beekeepers.  How his feast day became associated with the celebration of courtly love, no one is sure.  References to Valentine’s Day as a romantic holiday can be found in the works of both Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare.

No one knows when the first Valentine’s Day card was sent but, by the time of the Victorian era, they were a part of the tradition.  Here is a beautiful Valentine’s Card from the 1890s, with a romantic scene of courtship and a paper lace design.  Sold in London, this would have been an expensive card that would have been sent by a member of the upper classes.

However, during the Victoria era, there were also what was known as the Vinegar Valentine Cards.  These were cards that were sent to let someone know that they were either not loved or that the person they thought they love was not worthy of them.  These cards were often sent and left anonymously.  Can you imagine the feeling on Valentine’s Day of not knowing whether you’re going to get a card like the one above or a card like the one below?

That’s one Valentine’s tradition that I’m glad we no longer have to deal with!

 

Happy Valentine’s Day From The Shattered Lens

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Whether you’re single or if you’re in a committed relationship or even if you don’t care about any of that stuff, the Shattered Lens wishes you a happy Valentine’s Day!  Or, if you’d prefer, a happy February 14th!

(As for myself, I think any day is a good day to celebrate love!)

Have a wonderful day, no matter what you celebrate!