Author Archives: Dazzling Erin

I Watched Love Is On The Air (2021, Dir. by Arvin N. Berner)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Adam Smasher (Jason London) is the family friendly version of Howard Stern, an obnoxious shock jock who has just been fired from his radio job and, due to nearly crashing into a cow, finds himself stranded in a small North Carolina town.  He gets a job on the local radio station, co-hosting a call-in show with Eve Cassidy (Lauren Harper).  At first, Adam and Eve don’t mix.  Adam is cynical and Eve actually wants to help people with their relationship issues.  After a few days, Adam learns to appreciate country living and Eve falls in love with him even though she’s dating the station manager, Jamel (Ian Reier Michaels).  Adam shows he’s a soft touch when he buys a bunch of sandwiches for a poor family and Eve starts to loosen up and have more fun on the air.  Eve is offered her own show in Chicago and has to decide between her career and Adam.

This isn’t a Hallmark film but it might as well be.  I enjoyed it even though I knew everything that was going to happen, from the minute Adam first heard Eve on the radio and called in to “smash” her.  (I actually had to check to see when this movie has been made because Adam’s whole act seemed to be from the 1990s.)  This is one of those movies where you know what you’re getting from the start.  If you’re surprised that Adam brings a carousel down to the station for Eve to ride during a commercial break, you’ve probably never seen one of these movies before.  I liked the cozy small town town feel of the location and I think Jason London should be in more movies.  I also think it’s funny that 99% of these movies start with someone having car trouble.  If people knew how to drive, they would never fall in love.

Song of the Day: Centerfield by John Fogerty

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Lisa asked me to pick today’s song of the day and you’ll never guess what it’s about!

Baseball!

If you’ve been to a game, you’ve heard Centerfield.  If you’ve been to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, you’ve heard Centerfield a lot.  This song captures everything that I and so many other people love about the great American pastime!  I can’t wait to hear it again in just a few more weeks!

Well, I beat the drum and hold the phone
The sun came out today
We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field
A-roundin’ third and headed for home
It’s a brown-eyed handsome man
Anyone can understand the way I feel

Oh, put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Look at me, I can be centerfield

Well, I spent some time in the Mudville Nine
Watching it from the bench
You know I took some lumps
When the Mighty Casey struck out
So say, “Hey Willie, tell Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio”
Don’t say it ain’t so you, know the time is now

Oh, put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Look at me, I can be centerfield

You got a beat up glove, a homemade bat
And a brand new pair of shoes
You know I think it’s time to give this game a ride
Just to hit the ball and touch ’em all, a moment in the sun
It’s a-gone and you can tell that one goodbye

Oh, put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Look at me, I can be centerfield (yeah)

Oh, put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Put me in, coach
I’m ready to play today
Look at me, gotta be centerfield

Yeah

Songwriter: John C. Fogerty

4 Shots From 4 Films: Play Ball!

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Here are 4 shots from 4 films about my favorite sport!

4 Shots From 4 Baseball Films

Eight Men Out (1988, Dir. by John Sayles)

A League Of The Own (1992, Dir. by Penny Marshall)

42 (2013, Dir. by Brian Hegeland)

Everybody Wants Some!!! (2016, Dir. by Richard Linklater)

A Scene That I Love: The End of Eight Men Out

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

It’s almost time for Spring Training and I’ve been thinking about some of my favorite baseball movies!

There are a lot of movies that I like but my absolute favorite baseball movie has to be Eight Men Out, which is about how the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.  What I like about is that, while looking at the economics and the politics about baseball, it never lost sight of everything that makes the game so special.

In the scene below, fans at a minor league game think they’ve spotted Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the best players to have ever been banned from baseball, at bat.

I Watched Hello, It’s Me (2015, Dir. by Mark Jean)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Hello, It’s Me stars Kellie Martin as Annie, who loses her husband to a freak accident at the start of the movie.  Two years later, Annie is still struggling to accept his death.  She’s a baker who sells her baked goods on the beach and she tries to be a good mother to Ella (Erin Pitt) and Milo (Jack Fulton).  A chance meeting with James (Kavan Smith) leads to an unexpected friendship, though James wants it to be more.  James helps Annie to open her own bakery.  (Why do people in Hallmark movies always want to open up a bakery?)  Even though she is attracted to him, Annie cannot bring herself to move on from her husband’s death.  But then she starts to get messages from her husband, encouraging her to move on.  Just as Annie starts to open up to James, Ella gets angry and starts acting out.  Will Annie and James’s love survive?

Hello, It’s Me was the last movie that I watched for this Valentine’s Day blogathon and it was also the best.  It’s a Hallmark movie but it’s also realistic about the grieving process and Kellie Martin gave a really good performance as Annie.  The movie really didn’t even need the supernatural element to be memorable and to work.  I was cheering for Annie and James all the way.  I could also relate to Ella and understand why she was so upset and worried to see her mother getting close to another man.  Losing a loved one is never easy and I appreciated that, even at the end of the movie, Annie was still learning how to keep moving forward in her life.  There is one embarrassing scene that takes place at a comic book convention, just due to some of the costumes that the movie has the background extras wearing.  But it doesn’t detract from the movie’s effectiveness as a whole.

Some movies really touch your heart.  Hello, It’s Me touched mine.

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!