Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Murder in Mexico!
Why Was I Watching It?
I may be on vacation but that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to watch and live tweet the latest Lifetime film!
What Was It About?
This was one of those based-on-a-true-crime-story Lifetime productions! Bruce Beresford-Redman (Colin Egglesfield) is a successful reality TV producer who has trouble being loyal to his wife (Leonor Varela). When they take a vacation in Cancun, Bruce’s wife is murdered and Bruce quickly becomes the number one suspect.
What Worked?
Colin Egglesfield and Leonor Varela were both well-cast. Also, the scene where Bruce crosses the Mexico-US border reminded me of the border scenes from No Country For Old Men.
What Did Not Work?
Just speaking as somebody who enjoys live tweeting Lifetime films, it’s always hard to know how to deal with these “true crime” movies. The whole point of live tweeting is to be snarky and that can be difficult when you’re talking about real murderers, real victims, and real children who will now grow up without their mom and knowing their dad is in prison. For that reason, Murder in Mexico was not as fun to live tweet as A Deadly Adoption or The Unauthorized Full House Story.
Beyond that, it was hard not to feel that Bruce Beresford-Redman and his crimes were not worthy of the attention that this movie gave to him. The film attempted to make him interesting by playing up his past as a reality tv producer and trying to maintain some ambiguity as to whether or not Bruce was actually guilty but, ultimately, Bruce just came across as your standard cheating asshole. In the end, both his guilt and his motives were too obvious to be intriguing.
“OH MY GOD! Just. Like. Me!” Moments
In 2008, I went to Cancun for Spring Break and it was a blast! Seriously, I had a great time and did a lot of things that I probably shouldn’t post in public. However, none of those things involved murder and I suppose that’s a good thing.
If I wasn’t already scared of heights, I definitely would be after seeing Everest.
Based on a true story, Everest tells the story of two expeditions attempting to climb to the top of Mt. Everest. One expedition is led by a New Zealander named Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), an experienced climber who, we’re told, pretty much invented the entire industry of taking commercial expeditions up to the top of Mt. Everest. Criticized by some for being a “hand holder” who gets too emotionally involved with his clients and, as a result, cheapens the Everest “experience” by helping weaker clients make it to the top of the summit, Rob is married to a fellow climber, Jan Arnold (Keira Knightley). While Rob tries to lead his clients to the highest place on Earth, the pregnant Jan stays home and waits for his return.
The other expedition is led by Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). Scott and Rob are friendly rivals, with Scott taking a much more hands off approach to his clients. (It’s not a coincidence that Rob’s company is called Adventure Consultants while Scott works for Mountain Madness.)
Everest details what happens when the two expeditions are both caught in a sudden blizzard and find themselves trapped at the top of Everest. The rest of the film is about the attempts of a stranded few to make it back to civilization. A few make it, though not without suffering a good deal of pain and, in one particularly case, sacrificing a few body parts as a result. Tragically, several others fall victim to the whims of nature, some dying of hypothermia while others, hallucinating from the lack of oxygen, literally walk off the side of the mountain.
Everest is one of those films where men die tragically but we’re supposed to find some sort of comfort from the fact that they died doing what they loved. To be honest, I usually have a hard time buying into these type of narratives. For instance, I love shopping but I wouldn’t expect anyone to be happy for me if I died while looking for a new purse. (In fact, that’d probably upset me if not for the fact that I’d be too dead to know about it.) At the same time, guys seems to love movies like this and I think, in the future, Everest will probably be remembered for being the epitome of a guy movie.
And that’s not meant to be a criticism on my part! Everest does what it does with a lot of skill and confidence. It’s an exciting film that, once the disaster hits, will leave you breathless. And yes, at the end of the film, I did shed a tear or two. Narratively, there’s really not a surprising moment to be found in the entire film. I went into Everest not even knowing it was a true story and I was still able to guess who would survive and who would not. But Everest‘s amazing visuals make up for the predictable narrative. The term “visually stunning” is probably overused (especially by me!) but Everest is truly a visually stunning film. For someone like me — who has asthma, a huge fear of heights, and who lives in North Texas (where, regardless of what you may see in the movies, the land is remarkably flat) — Everest is probably as close as I’ll ever get to climbing a mountain.
I should also mention that it never ceases to amaze me that Josh Brolin was born in Santa Monica, California because, on the basis of this film and No Country For Old Men, he is one of the most convincing Texans to appear in the movies. In this film, he plays Beck Weathers, a Dallas doctor who is a member of Rob’s expedition team. Usually, of course, if a Texan (especially one who is specifically identified as being a Republican, as Beck is at the beginning of a film) shows up in a movie, you know he’s going to end up being the villain. Fortunately, Everest was based on a true story and, as a result, Beck turned out to be one of the most compelling characters in the film. (If you know the story behind the film, you already knew that. However, I went into Everest blind.) Josh Brolin brings a lot of strength to his role and to the film overall.
Everest may predictable but it’s still an exciting film. Make sure that you have someone beside you to whom you can hold on and that you see it in 3D!
A remake of a Belgian film, The Loft was originally filmed in 2011 and was meant to come out in that year. It was due to be released by Joel Silver’s Dark Castle Entertainment and Warner Bros. However, when Silver had a falling out with Warner Bros and moved his operations over to Universal, he took The Loft with him. And it turned out that Universal was in no hurry to distribute The Loft. After sitting on the film for three years, Universal announced that they would release it in August of 2014 but, at the last minute, they changed their mind and instead released the horror film As Above, So Below in the spot that was originally set aside for The Loft. Dark Castle then dropped the film, leaving The Loft in limbo until Open Road Pictures picked up the distribution rights and gave it a limited release in January of 2015. The critics hated it, audiences were indifferent, and The Loft quickly vanished from theaters. It’s now available on Netflix.
And, having watched the film, I can understand why the studios weren’t exactly enthused about it. It’s not the type of film that works on the big screen. The characters are too unlikable. The plot is an unstable combination of silliness and melodrama. The big twists are more likely to inspire groans than cheers. It’s just not the type of film that you want to spend too much money on.
And yet, it’s the perfect film for Netflix. What may seem over-the-top and annoying when viewed in a public theater becomes a lot more entertaining when viewed in the privacy on your own home. The Loft is a film that works best if you don’t spend too much time thinking about how little sense it all makes. It’s the perfect film to watch while you’re doing something else.
And if that sounds like faint praise, it’s not. I thoroughly enjoyed The Loft without once mistaking it for being a “good” film. Instead, it’s an over-the-top melodrama, with all that entails. It’s ludicrous, it’s silly, and — when taken on its own terms — it’s also a lot of fun.
The film is about five friends and the loft to which they all have a key. All five of the friends are married and all five of them have secrets. Vincent (Karl Urban) is the unofficial leader of this group of friends, an architect who is also a compulsive cheater. Luke (Wentworth Miller) is a nervous guy who appears to worship Vincent. Marty (Eric Stonestreet) is an alcoholic who always manages to say the wrong thing. Chris (James Marsden) is a psychiatrist who often seems to feel that he’s morally superior to his other friends. And Phillip (Mattias Schoenarts) is Chris’s half-brother, a mentally unstable and violent guy who snorts cocaine and may have incestuous feelings towards his younger sister.
The five men use the loft to cheat on their wives. The men are all confident that only they know about the existence of the loft and that they are the only ones who have a key. So, naturally enough, they are all a little shocked when a woman turns up dead in the loft. As the men gather in the loft, they debate who killed her and we get numerous flashbacks to how this all came to be.
Of course, it all leads to many secrets being revealed. This is one of those films that simply cannot stop with one plot twist. Instead, every twist leads to another twist until eventually, it becomes nearly impossible to keep up with who knows what. In fact, the film features so many twists that it all quickly gets a bit silly. But, at the same time, it’s also undeniably entertaining. Strangely enough, the fact that it doesn’t make much sense only add to the film’s melodramatic charm.
As for the five men — well, none of them are particularly likable but at least they’re all interesting to watch. Wentworth Miller is properly strange, Matthias Schoenarts is properly sleazy, and Eric Stonestreet is properly pathetic. James Marsden often seems wasted in mainstream films (like Straw Dogs and The Butler) but he’s actually very charming when he appears in B-movies like this one and Walk of Shame. And finally, you’ve got Karl Urban, doing great work and turning Vincent into the epitome of every middle-aged guy who has ever tried to flirt with me while I was waiting at a red light.
The Loft may not have got much respect when it was released into theaters but it’s entertaining enough for Netflix.
Yay! I’ve cracked 100 of these Hallmark movies now and with this post I will have reviewed 96 of them. Oh, yeah! There’s more of them.
Healing Hands (2010) – When I read the plot summary for this I thought of the movie Powder (1995). That’s reaching back to my childhood there. Then I thought of the hilarious Mad TV sketch where the Terminator is sent back to protect Jesus. In particular, when Jesus keeps resurrecting Judas because he is supposed to betray him.
Sadly, that sketch is better made and has more interesting things to say then this movie. It really is amazing the difference in quality between Hallmark movies. Same thing can be said about late night cable movies. As the title suggests, this movie is about someone who has “healing hands”. It’s about a guy named Buddy (Eddie Cibrian). Buddy works as a janitor. One day Buddy is on a roof with his friend. Buddy’s friend hurts his finger, but is stubborn about putting a bandaid on it. Buddy finally convinces him to, but then Buddy falls off the roof.
Now Buddy is in the hospital and apparently his temperature is 105, which a nurse says is the highest a body can survive. While that doesn’t sound right to me, what happens next certainly isn’t right. If this were ER they would probably try inducing hypothermia. In Healing Hands, Buddy is put in water. Not ice, but water. I’m sure it’s meant to remind us of baptism, but it looks like they’re not even trying to save Buddy. Luckily, Buddy recovers anyways, but not without a really odd musical choice first. During the fever, we get a flashback, but at this point we really have only seen Buddy and his now fiancee, since Buddy did propose, for only a few minutes. So it only has like two scenes to show because that’s all of the movie so far. During this part, it plays what sounds like Quiet Storm jazz. It’s a strange choice of music to play.
Well, now Buddy has “healing hands”. It takes him a little bit of time to figure it out, but after he heals this…
with just his touch, Buddy knows something is up. We can also see that it is taking a lot out of Buddy doing it. I usually don’t care, but I don’t really want to spoil the surprise. I’ll just say that Buddy is adopted and that comes in to play. Of course, the news and the townfolk eventually catch on to Buddy and his miracle hands. It’s about Buddy trying to help, while the world either wants to treat Buddy as a freak of nature or just a tool, rather than a person. That’s giving it a lot of credit.
This whole movie just feels like amateur hour in every way. I don’t know of any other way to describe it. It’s like a high school production of a play called Healing Hands that a student wrote. Something like Highlander or Heroes did more with this kind of material. The movie barely does anything with it, which is a shame cause it’s not a concept doomed from the start. Too bad.
Oh, and notice the number of times I called him by his name? The movie does it even more. It kind of sucks the seriousness out of the whole thing when people keep saying Buddy over and over again.
Freshman Father (2010) – Ah, college. Six yeas of education at a junior college, then three years of suicidal inducing hoop jumping at Cal. But at least I passed first semester calculus on my first attempt. Cause apparently, when you go to Harvard at 18, married, and with a baby, the hardest thing will be passing first semester calculus. No joke, this movie inspired by John Wand, a guy who actually did go to Harvard with a wife and baby in tow, makes almost the entire movie about him passing first semester calculus. It’s kind of a disgrace to John Wand. Especially when they were even to lazy to copy some actual Calculus problems from a text book, but instead we get this.
You see part d! It says find and simply f(0) when f(x) = (x+1)(2x+1)(3x+1)(4x+1)(5x+1). In other words 1*1*1*1*1 = 1. Also, c which says here’s a function, don’t take the derivative of it, but just write it again. This after a question that spells out exactly what the subscript on the function means. And look at the rest of that test. I see no summations anywhere. Those are just derivatives. The test layout doesn’t makes sense. None of it makes sense. If they couldn’t even get that right, then wow!
Before we lay more stuff to bare, let me tell you the setup. It begins at senior prom where we meet John Patton (Drew Seeley) and the future Kathy Patton (Britt Irvin). Notice they didn’t use John Wand’s actual name nor do they say it’s based on, but only inspired by a true story. Of course she gets pregnant and they get married. After her mom tells her the key to marriage is a “happy boss”, it’s off to Harvard on a full scholarship to the nicest apartment ever for a student on scholarship, married, with a kid, going to a very expensive school.
Yeah, in what world does this movie take place? In a world where this is Calculus 101. On the first day if I’m not mistaken.
I love when she brings home a fan and he says they can’t afford it. Sure, because it’s the fan that doesn’t make financial sense here. None of this would matter if the whole film wasn’t about this kid overcoming the very things that are totally misrepresented. And it never gets better. The only thing I can say in it’s defense is that it does get across that the kid cares about his child. However, I would bet John Wand has a few choice words for how they present his ex-wife. She barely exists except to complain about how the baby doesn’t seem to like her, confess she got herself pregnant, then she just abandons the baby with him. You thought they would explain how she got herself pregnant? Of course not! That would possibly make John Patton seem like an idiot for not wearing a condom. And no, I don’t think she poked holes in a condom she gave to him like in the movie Your Sister’s Sister (2011).
Oh, and this is another one of those Hallmark movies that censors itself. The two of them are at a theater when she starts having contractions. She curses and the movie bleeps it. This is one of several Hallmark movies that censor words as innocent as “butt”. Sometimes inconsistently like in The Last Cowboy. If they can’t air it that way, then why is it shot that way? There must be something to the process of making these movies I’m not aware of or there is that much of a disconnect between the producers and the network.
He keeps trying to do the herculean task of passing first semester calculus, which seems like it takes him several semesters. The timeline in this movie isn’t exactly clear. It must go more than one semester though because we see he celebrates Halloween and appears to be at a Christmas party with his calculus professor. Also, I believe she has the baby during the holiday break.
Yeah, we meet two of his professors and they are remarkably kind to him. That part isn’t misrepresented. I did encounter several professors who were very nice and personable people when I went Cal. I can even say that’s it’s not unheard of for a professor to give you a passing grade when you should fail because it isn’t important that you actually passed. That happened to me. Granted there were health circumstances involved, but you get the point.
Which reminds me, my upper division computer science courses still had way more students in them then his first semester calculus class. The only time I saw classes that small were labs and discussion sections. Those two things are also oddly missing from this movie. It makes it seem like it’s just you, the professor, and the material. I doubt things were that different 7 years before I went to a four year college. This movie takes place in 2000.
There’s also this ridiculous back and forth with the dean as if she is there anytime you need to talk to her. Granted he is a rather unique student that she would be aware of, but it comes across as pretty ridiculous. Especially when he says to her that he thinks she got her PhD in 5 years, but she corrects him and says 6. Really? 6 years? Seriously? That’s pretty quick to get a PhD in physics. A simple Google search says 8.2 years. I mean it takes 4 just to get a bachelors, how is possible to get two degrees higher with only two more years? Makes no sense.
None of this makes any sense. It guts, flattens, and trivializes what this guy did in real life. At least they didn’t show some footage of the real John Wand at the end like The Blind Side (2009) did just to make sure we knew how much they screwed up. Don’t put yourself through this.
Portrait Of Love (2015) – And don’t put yourself through this either. Although this is just boring rather than almost offensive. This is just absolutely paint by numbers Hallmark. Just like the movie Chance At Romance is. A woman who is a successful fashion photographer is offered a job in Paris. Take a minute and see if you can guess what happens next?
Did you think she goes back to the small town she came from because of a flimsy excuse by the writers so she can reconnect with an old flame? Of course you’re right. I really wonder how many of these Hallmark movies are the exact same movie.
Oh, and how small of a town?
So small it’s just called Bank. How hard is it to just come up with a fake name for things like this? I’ve seen them do it in other Hallmark movies. In Second Chances they needed an author for a book so they took one of the screenwriter’s names that worked with the producer Larry Levinson and just dropped the ‘c’ in Rachel to get Rahel Stuhler.
See! It’s not that difficult.
When she arrives it turns out there is an art contest going on and all you need to know is that he has a daughter who helps to push them back together. You know how it plays out. There is a little bit of nice genuine emotion near the end that the film does deserve credit for. However, the rest feels like it was made by zombies with their aspiring acting zombie friends. There’s a continuity error at one point and this horrible go to out of focus transition that is used at least twice.
And it’s not short either. It hurts the eyes. Also, the same director who did this uninspired film did the uninspired Just The Way You Are. I’m almost 100% positive that he even uses this exact same shot in that movie as he does in this movie.
I’m beginning to feel for the directors of these movies. They must be handed some awful scripts, shoestring budgets, and very little time in order to make these movies. I refuse to believe that these same directors would make these kind of stupid mistakes or take such generic stuff if they had any choice in the matter.
Won’t kill ya, but it may put you to sleep.
A Kiss At Midnight (2008) – Thank goodness I watched this film for this batch of Hallmark movies cause it’s actually enjoyable. No, not because it’s script is any less generic. No, not because they get computer screens correct. It’s because of the actors young, middle aged, and old. The kids do a good job. Faith Ford is funny. Hal Linden of Barney Miller is in this and is a welcome presence. Even if he does make a sexist joke that is meant to be sexist, but is oddly out of place. But most importantly, it has the Got Milk? guy.
Just like the games Truxton and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are running jokes on Classic Game Room and AVGN respectively, I take every opportunity to reference Tammy And The T-Rex, in which he gets killed in by a T-Rex with Paul Walker’s brain in it.
But back to this movie. The plot is that the boy and girl run competing dating websites. The girl, played by Faith Ford, signs up on the guy’s site to bring back information that his computer dating site doesn’t work. Of course, the guy has two little girls who get involved to ultimately bring them together. Also, Faith Ford’s mom and Hal Linden get married as a little subplot. It’s all just well acted and pleasant enough to be an enjoyable, all be it forgettable, hour and a half or so. I think that’s all anyone asks of a Hallmark movie. It’s just remarkable how illusive that can be at times.
This one did have computer screen screw ups or at least stupid attempts to make generic versions of Google.
Clearly, GMail is dead and we should all be using Toogle Mail. Also, notice that it looks like you are seeing a screenshot of a browser being looked at within a browser.
Of course Toogle is also a search engine.
The religion listed in this dating profile is “Spiritual”. They didn’t have a problem showing a dating profile saying a person was a Christian earlier, but then there are two of them listed as “Spiritual”. I’m guessing those people are Satanists and don’t want to scare away potential sacrifices. At least that seems to have been the logic that went into the video Katy Perry, the Super Bowl and Satan based on the quote in it’s description.
Out of the four here. This is the one to go with. It’s a good time.
Every section of this country has their own separate folk tales, their own stories about mysterious monsters and unsolved mysteries. New Jersey has the Jersey Devil. Bigfoot is rumored to live near Seattle. If you stop by Fouke, Arkansas, be sure to ask about the Boggy Creek Monster and, if you’re ever in Colorado, be sure to keep an eye out for the jackalopes. They say that Chupacabras live in South Texas and there’s a goatman who lives near Ft. Worth. I was born in the southwest and I grew up hearing stories and having nightmares about La Llorona, the weeping woman who cried for the children she had drowned.
I have to admit that, even with my love of folk tales and urban legends, I wasn’t really familiar with the legend of Tailypo. Or, at least, I wasn’t until I saw Tailypo, the latest short film from Cameron McCasland, the director of The Lashman.
Taking place in Appalachia, Tailypo opens with Levon (David Chattam) and his dog Jasper (played by Ranger) out hunting. When Levon hears something rustling in the nearby bushes, he opens fire. Though the creature runs off, it leaves something behind. Specifically, it leaves behind its tail, which Levon proceeds to pick up and take home with him. Later that night, as Levon relaxes at his isolated cabin, he starts to hear a voice hissing in the darkness. The creature is back and it wants its tail…
Tailypo is an effective 14 minutes exercise in claustrophobic horror, one that pays homage to the type of scary stories that people used to tell while sitting around in the dark or in front of campire. Even the sound of the creature hissing brought to mind a particularly creative storyteller using every technique at her disposal to lure her listeners into the world of her story. As such, it’s a scary film but it’s also a really fun film, with David Chattam bringing a sly humor to his role. If you’ve ever spent any time in the country, you’ve met someone like Levon and Chattam is authentic and likable.
McCasland makes good use of the film’s Appalachian setting, emphasizing the isolation of both Levon and the creature from the outside world. Both of them live a life outside of “normal” society and, when their paths cross, it’s a reminder that there are still mysteries lurking in the shadows. Interestingly enough, while Levon was hunting and also when I got my first glimpse of his cabin home, I found myself thinking about Winter’s Bone. Both films take place in a part of America that many would consider to be “the backwoods” and both of them use that setting to remind complacent viewers that, virtually next door, there’s an entire world that most know little about.
Tailypo is the first in a series of short films that McCasland is planning to put together for an anthology film that I hope I will someday get a chance to review. Along with playing at various film festivals, Tailypo can currently be viewed for free at both redheadedrevolution.com and on youtube.
Lead With Your Heart (2015) – At this point, I have seen 98 Hallmark movies. I think this is the best one I have ever seen. Honestly, there isn’t a whole lot to say either. The movie is about a couple played by Billy Baldwin and Kari Matchett. Their children are leaving for college and she gets a temporary job out of town. As a result, the two spend more time apart then they probably have in close to 20 years or more. What follows is just a nice little story about how they adapt to their situation. It doesn’t go the easy way and have one of them cheat, or almost cheat, then reconcile. That’s what you would expect. That’s not to say that some people don’t show interest in them, but instead of being a true temptation, it acts as a signal to them about how they need to change to keep their relationship together into this new territory. I especially liked the ending because it involved real compromise and not some fairy tale giving up success for something humble.
You have no idea how refreshing this was to see. Especially considering Hallmark then aired a movie called Just The Way You Are, which I will talk about, that is basically the same, except terrible.
For a Hallmark movie, I can’t recommend it enough.
Family Plan (2005) – This is more of the standard middle of the road Hallmark movie based off of a plot device that would have made for a screwball comedy in the 1940’s. In this case, Tori Spelling’s company is taken over and for no other purpose then to give this movie a reason to exist, she is advised to pretend she is married. Seriously, this other lady gives her a ring, she puts it on, then she can’t get it off. So, she has to pretend to her boss that she’s married. She hires an actor to play her husband. She also picks up a daughter from her friend. You know how the rest goes.
This kind of movie sinks or swims on the charm of the actors involved. They are no Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, or Katharine Hepburn, but they work well enough. Spelling has never been a great actress, but she does a certain kind of part well and this is one of them. The other actors are in the same boat.
It does get a little boring because it’s so by the book, but that just means it’s a little below average. Like I’ve said before, it won’t kill ya.
One funny goof. In the credits, they forgot to capitalize this guy’s last name.
Just The Way You Are (2015) – This movie on the other hand can kill you. It will make you beg for another Aurora Teagarden mystery movie where you can just watch Candace Cameron Bure run around like she’s high on cocaine. Also, you won’t be able to listen to Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are for awhile. At least there’s still She’s Got A Way!
It’s basically the same thing as Lead With Your Heart. It even used a licensed song like Lead With Your Heart did. In this case, it’s the original. In Lead With Your Heart, it was a cover of Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong. A couple a ways into their marriage are getting stale in their relationship. Unfortunately, Candace Cameron Bure’s character works for a matchmaking company that uses stupid rules for making relationships work. Yep, it’s one of those movies.
Bure’s idea is for her and her husband to start blind dating while following the rules. It’s all a bunch of boring and stupid nonsense. I remember when that book The Rules came out in the 90’s. Why are we still doing this stuff 20 years later? It’s always the same thing. Yes, statistically certain things show up as significant, but of course following them blindly won’t work. Human beings are far more complex than any set of rules you can attempt to derive through study of them. This isn’t news, and we don’t need yet another movie to remind us of this fact.
Don’t watch this one.
Perfect On Paper (2014) – I usually save the computer screen goofs for the end of the review, but I think this time they belong at the beginning.
Near the start of the movie, they do a decent job of faking a site called SomebodyDateMe.com.
But later in the movie, they show a horribly faked website for a fictional school called The Horrock’s School.
Look at that thing! First, no school would have a webpage that looks like that in 2014. Second, notice the URL is a local file. Third, notice the specific HTML document they are looking at is called “donovan2.html”. Finally, notice that the URL clearly shows they did, or tried, to setup an XAMPP LAMP stack, then either couldn’t figure it out, or just didn’t run it for some reason.
The whole movie is kind of like that. It feels slapped together. It’s about a book editor who is offered a glamorous position in Los Angeles. The whole thing is about her friends trying to reshape her into an LA power girl stereotype to keep their major client played by Morgan Fairchild. Of course, it’s Hallmark, so there’s also a guy.
See that little bit of grey peeking out from behind that bush? That’s the guy. She throws the coffee over her shoulder and hits him. If you don’t pay close attention, then you won’t see what looks like shears drop from his hand and it’s not mentioned. In other words, you’ll likely think this guy was just behind that bush for no reason except to have coffee land on him and meet her.
He’s the opposite of the “Perfect On Paper” guy that her friends want her to be with for her job. Of course, she was never the glamorous type to begin with. Here, I have to give them some credit because they went with a girl who honestly isn’t glamorous. She’s not especially attractive. That was really nice to see and it fit her character.
You know how it all works out. The only thing to mention is that since they want you to clearly see the difference between the main character and the other girls, questionable trendy clothes show up. I hope they burned this thing after they shot the movie.
This one is definitely below average. Like I said, it feels slapped together, people kind of stumble through it, and you just want it over with.
Last night, after I watched UnGodly Acts, I watched The Bride He Bought Online.
Why Was I Watching It?
The Bride He Bought Online actually premiered a few months ago but, for some reason, I missed it. Even though all of my friends told me that I had not missed much, I took a solemn vow last December to watch every Lifetime film released this year. So, when I saw that The Bride He Bought Online would be airing again last night, I made sure to watch it.
What Was It About?
This is the story of three teenage girls who have a blog where the specialize in doing mean things to their friends and occasionally to complete strangers. Kaley (Annalisa Cochrane) dreams of making the blog so successful that she’ll be able to sell it for so much money that she won’t have to bother going to college after high school. Mandy (Lauren Gaw) is a former unpopular girl who is now awkwardly trying to decide if she really wants to be a mean girl. And Avery (Anne Winters) is the responsible one who worries that Kaley is going to go far.
And Avery has ever right to be worried because Kaley does go too far. Pretending to be a mail order bride, Kaley starts an online relationship with a dorky guy named John (Travis Hammer). Convinced that he’s finally found a woman who will love him, John sends her money and even takes guitar lessons so that he can serenade his bride to be. When he spends hours waiting at an airport for his nonexistent bride to show up, Kaley and Mandy record him and then upload the video to the blog.
Up until this point, you’ve been feeling pretty sorry for John. But it turns out that John is actually a pretty dangerous and unstable guy. Once he figures out what has happened, he kidnaps the three girls and makes plans to sell them to a group of human traffickers.
What Worked?
A lot of people have told me that they didn’t like The Bride He Bought Online but I thought it was actually a very well-done and well-acted film. It’s a great example of one of my favorite Lifetime movie genres — the Everything Bad That Can Happen Will Happen genre. Yes, it’s melodramatic and it’s a bit extreme but then again, that’s kind of what we want from Lifetime.
Plus, I’ve had friends just like Kaley, Mandy, and Avery. Their friendship felt very real to me. Also way too plausible was the character of John. As played by Travis Hammer, he was both pathetic and scary at the same time.
What Did Not Work?
Lifetime movies are always so phobic of the internet. Anytime someone says that they have a blog, you know that something bad is going to happen as a result.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
I’m happy to say that, even at my brattiest, I was never as bad as Kaley. However, I did know quite a few girls like Kaley and I often found myself wondering just why exactly I was friends with them. So, in the end, I related to Avery.
A Stranger’s Heart (2007) – This is a movie A, movie B, type film. Movie A is about being in a hospital morbidly awaiting someone to die, but have a heart left over for you to receive via a transplant. Movie B is about how all those things we ascribe to our heart in metaphor are literally transferred by what the film calls “cell memory”. Movie A works. Movie B is honestly a little creepy.
The movie begins by introducing our leading lady as a child. This part is kind of unintentionally funny. I know why we need to kill off her mom, but did it need to happen by her stupidly wandering onto a street while singing Oh, Susannah? Then we learn that the little girl had heart problems and then suddenly we’re in the present with her grown up in the hospital. Like I said before, this part works. She is in there with several people including the guy she ends up with. The movie does a good job of getting across trying to find humor in that kind of a situation while waiting for something horrible to happen to somebody else in order to save your life.
Then movie B kicks in. She gets a heart, her female friend gets a heart, and her future boyfriend gets a heart. The female friend starts craving something she hadn’t drank since she was little. Then a little later in the film she goes and meets the family whose daughter’s heart she now has. She comes back complaining that the family basically didn’t see her as their daughter reincarnated. That’s where this film switches from your biological structure changing to a literal transference of high level thoughts and feelings via the heart.
It turns out our boy and girl both received their hearts from a couple who died in a car crash leaving behind their daughter. Then the two of them basically start stalking the little girl who is now without her parents. It’s kind of well meaning, but it is creepy because the movie does want you to believe they have somehow received the love her parents had for her through a heart transplant complete with dreams about the little girl. And yes, it carries this idea all the way through to having the little girl with them as essentially new parents carrying their old parents within them as if the heart is like a symbiotic creature we carry within us.
This movie is a mixed bag, but since it is a Larry Levinson Production, that does mean computer screen screw ups.
If you can, read that fake webpage. It’s like reading someone’s template rather than an actual post. Also, look at the bottom left hand corner. They took a screenshot of a Windows XP machine and have her looking at it on a Mac.
The Confession (2007) – This movie is a standard you’ve seen it a million times before soap opera type plot. You have a rich lady who gave up her daughter for adoption a long time ago and is fading health wise. You have her husband who is a gambling addict that wants to inherit her money, but has just been cut out of the will because of his addiction. He runs into an aspiring actress and hires her to play the long lost daughter so he can get the estate through her. The actual daughter turns up a little late and gets taken in as a servant. You know how the rest plays out.
The only difference here is the girl is Amish. That’s it. This is the second in what is either going to be a trilogy with the upcoming film The Reckoning or an ongoing saga. There is enough open ended stuff attached to this movie to warrant another film.
There are two actors you’ll recognize here. Sherry Stringfield from ER is the rich lady and Adrian Paul from Highlander is the husband. I thought they did a good job. The only real problem I had was with the Amish girl who is played by Katie Leclerc. She tries to do a Pennsylvania Dutch accent and it doesn’t work. She’s Texan born and raised in Colorado. Also, it doesn’t help that the actress in the movie fakes a Pennsylvania Dutch accent, thus making us notice Leclerc’s fake accent even more. That is, when she’s actually doing it. When Leclerc gets hired as a servant she magically switches to an American accent. I get why she needs to do it, but people don’t naturally have that ability. I haven’t seen the first film called The Shunning (2011) where the same character was played by Danielle Panabaker, so I can’t speak to whether she was any better at pulling off the accent.
If you don’t let the accent part bother you, then this is fine little soap opera. I am curious how they are going to reconcile her suddenly being in the money with her Amish past since they don’t do it here.
Oh, and no, it doesn’t end with Leclerc chopping off the fake Amish girl’s head because there can be only one. Adrian Paul also keeps his head.
Be My Valentine (2013) – Since Hallmark just aired a new movie called Lead With Your Heart (2015) with Billy Baldwin, they played this one that also has Billy in it. The movie begins with Kate Burlingham (Natalie Brown) who is about to watch Alec Baldwin in It’s Complicated (2009), when Billy climbs in through her window and rescues her. Just kidding. Her flower store is in a fire and Dan Farrell, played by Billy Baldwin, is the head firefighter. Of course the two are going to come together during the upcoming Valentine’s Day.
Just like Second Chances (2013), while the adults are supposed to be the feature presentation, it’s the child actors that are the most enjoyable part. In this case, it’s Baldwin’s kid and a girl named Rebecca. I don’t know why the adult romance had to be here at all. The story of the two kids is far more interesting and I think Baldwin does a good job as the dad trying to guide his son through young love. It’s also where one of this films funniest parts comes from. When he first meets Rebecca, she is reading a book. He asks her if she plays the games too because apparently, the books don’t make sense if you don’t play the games as well. She says she plays the game on her phone, notebook, and computer. But then he says a version just came out on “the cloud”. He says it’s “majorly interactive” to which she responds “I’m so going to hook into that.” What I want to know is if I can play Teddy Boy on “the cloud”.
Or, since this is a Hallmark movie, will my Bible games play on “the cloud”?
It’s stupid questions like this that come to mind when the characters say stupid things because the writers wanted to sound hip. Or maybe that’s just how Canadian kids actually talk. Oddly, while that part of trying to make the kids sound like kids, they get something else almost right on button. Baldwin suggests that instead of brining Rebecca flowers or chocolate, he get more creative and make a mixed tape. After a little confusion for the kid, he figures out that he can make a DVD composed of videos (I think music ones) for her. That’s kind of a reasonable update of the classic mixed tape. Kudos on that one.
This is one of those films that is shot in Canada, but Baldwin walks around with an American flag on his uniform so it’s totally the United States.
It’s fine and enjoyable. It’s a little out of the blue when an old boyfriend shows up to sort of disrupt things a little, but he goes as quickly as he came.
Chance At Romance (2013) – This one is a real skipper. It doesn’t get much more generic and forced for a Hallmark romance movie, then this one.
It’s about a girl named Samantha Hart (Erin Krakow) who wanders into a photo gallery showing. Heath Madsen (Ryan McPartlin) is the photographer. She likes his work so she goes to his website to look at some of his photos. In this movie he’s a pioneer of HDR photography. She decides to shoot him an email to tell him she likes his work. However, the email ends up in his son’s hand who proceeds to have a back and forth with her pretending to be his dad. He wants her to meet his dad. Her invites her over, something happens weather wise, and that’s how the two are forced to spend time with each other till they fall in love. This movie goes so far as to have him literally show up on a white horse at the end to take her away.
It’s really boring. There are much better Hallmark romance films out there. Go with Be My Valentine out of the four movies I mentioned here.
However, it does have one thing that is of note for someone like myself who has seen too many Hallmark movies. In three other Hallmark movies they either mention or outright have one of the actors play the Wii. In this one they have moved from pushing that Nintendo console to pushing the Wii U.
Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, UnGodly Acts.
Why Was I Watching It?
Because it was on Lifetime, of course!
What Was It About?
Outside of a farmhouse in Georgia, Melissa (Megan Park) has been discovered dead. At first, it looks like she committed suicide but then a bearded guy named Adam (Iain Belcher) announces that he killed her. It turns out that not only is Adam a schizophrenic who hears voices but he’s also the member of a fundamentalist religious cult. The head of the cult is the clean-cut Daniel (Brant Daugherty). Daniel has teeth that are so white that he can probably hypnotize people just by smiling at them. Another interesting fact about Daniel? He was married to Melissa, which didn’t prevent him from having sex with the other men in the cult.
Through flashbacks, we discover how Daniel first recruited his cult. We see how Melissa arranged for Daniel to perform an exorcism on Adam and “cure” him of the voices in his head. We watch as Daniel becomes more and more domineering and Melissa finds herself becoming disillusioned with him.
What Worked?
UnGodly Acts was a gorgeous film to look at. British Columbia stood in for Georgia and it looked absolutely beautiful! Cult life is definitely not for me but I was impressed with how neat and impeccably decorated the inside of that farmhouse was. I give the cult mad respect for its housekeeping skills.
Brant Daugherty was appropriately charismatic as Daniel, though the film was ultimately stolen by the wonderfully jumpy Iain Belcher. That said, my favorite character was Matt, who was played by Aidan Khan and who has a truly legendary mustache.
What Did Not Work?
The film was a bit overdirected. I’m as big a fan of dutch angles as anyone but, after a while, it got all too predictable and I was just like, “Oh, someone’s being interrogated. Time for the camera to start tilting again.”
It was a strange viewing experience, to be honest. It was a good film but it was never truly memorable. It was just missing something. Add to that, the film ended without definitely solving its main mystery and, needless to say, that was more than frustrating.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
For once, there were none. I was surprised. Maybe I would have related to the film more if I was a protestant. Who knows?
Lessons Learned
Just because you’re in a cult, doesn’t mean you can’t keep a clean house.
You know how sometimes you watch a movie and you’re happy because you know it’s a good movie but, at the same time, you end up feeling slightly disappointed because, as good as it may be, it never quite becomes the great movie that you were hoping for?
That was kind of my reaction to Black Mass.
Black Mass tells the true story of James “Whitey” Bulger, the gangster who controlled the Boston underworld from the late 70s to the mid-90s. Bulger was both famous and feared for his ruthless brutality and his willingness to murder just about anyone. Bulger was also famous for being the brother of Billy Bulger, a powerful Democratic politician. When it appeared that Whitey was finally on the verge of being indicted, he vanished into thin air and, for 2 decades, remained missing until he was finally captured in Florida. Whitey Bulger is now serving two life sentences.
Black Mass is a solid gangster film. We watch as Whitey (Johnny Depp) takes over Boston and essentially murders anyone who gets on his nerves. Helping Whitey out is a local FBI Agent, John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), who grew up in South Boston with the Bulger brothers. While Connolly originally only appears to be using Whitey as an informant to help take down the Italian mob, it quickly becomes obvious that Connolly envies the power and influence of both Whitey and Billy (played by Benedict Cumberbatch). Soon, Connolly has become something of a Bulger groupie and is protecting Whitey from prosecution and even leaking him the names of anyone who attempts to inform on Bulger’s crime.
Indeed, the film’s best scenes are the ones in which it is shown how the FBI’s determination to take down the Mafia allowed the far more violent Bulger to move into their place. Bulger was a criminal who worked for and was protected by the U.S. government and, as such, his story serves as a metaphor for a lot of what is currently messed up about America. While I appreciated the time that Black Mass devoted to exploring Whitey’s relationship with the FBI, I do wish it had spent more time exploring his relationship with his brother, Billy. The film places most of the blame for Whitey’s reign of terror on the FBI but it defies common sense not to assume that Whitey was also protected by his well-connected, politically powerful brother.
Black Mass contains all of the usual gangster film tropes. There are sudden and violent executions. There are drug addicted criminals who turn out to be less than trustworthy. (Poor Peter Sarsgaard.) There’s the usual talk of honor and respect. Beefy men with pockmarked faces stand in the shadows and shout random insults at each other until someone finally snaps. And, of course, we get the countless scenes where Bulger’s demeanor goes from friendly to threatening and we’re left wondering if he’s going to smile or if he’s going to kill someone. It may all be a little bit familiar but director Scott Cooper handles it all well and keeps things watchable.
In this 122-minute film, there are exactly two scenes in which Whitey is in any way sympathetic. In one scene, he breaks down after the death of his son and, in the other, he deals with the death of his mother. These are the only two scenes in which Whitey shows any hint of humanity. Otherwise, Bulger is presented as being almost pure evil. He’s no Michael Corleone, trying to go straight and making excuses for the family business. Nor does he possess the enjoyable flamboyance of Scareface‘s Tony Montana or The Departed‘s Frank Costello. Instead, he’s a pure sociopath and the film’s most effective shots are the ones that focus on Whitey’s expressionless gaze. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul and one only has to look into Bulger’s to see that they are windows without a view.
Johnny Depp deserves all the credit in the world for making Whitey into a compelling character. Wisely, Depp underplays Whitey’s most threatening scenes. He rarely raises his voice and the only time he loses control of his emotions is when he’s confronted with something — like the death of his son — that even he can’t change. Otherwise, Depp plays Whitey as always being in control. (It’s mentioned, at one point, that Whitey was the subject of 50 LSD experiments while serving time in prison and Depp plays Whitey as if he’s always staring at something that nobody else can see.) It’s his confidence that makes Whitey Bulger an interesting character. You may not like him but you can’t look away because you know that he’s literally capable of anything. Ever since the trailer for Black Mass was first released, Depp has been at the center of awards speculation. Having seen the film, I can say that the Oscar talk is more than deserved. He’s even better than people like me thought he would be.
Depp is so good that he overshadows the rest of the cast. There’s a lot of good actors in this film, including Kevin Bacon, James Russo, Peter Sarsgaard, Corey Stoll, Jesse Plemons, and Rory Cochrane. But few of them get as much of a chance to make an impression as Johnny Depp. Much as Whitey dominated Boston, Depp dominates this film. Joel Edgerton has several great moments as the not-as-smart-as-he-thinks-he-is Connolly but even he is thoroughly overshadowed by Depp’s performance. (That said, I did appreciate the fact that Edgerton’s too-eager-to-please Connolly came across like he might be a cousin to The Gift‘s Gordo the Weirdo.)
As I said at the beginning of this review, Black Mass is good but it was never quite as great as I was hoping it would be. There’s a few too many scenes where you get the feeling that Scott Cooper woke up the day of shooting and said, “Let’s Scorsese the shit out of this scene.” As a result, Black Mass sometimes struggles to escape from the shadow cast by Goodfellas, Casino, The Departed, American Gangster, and the countless other mob films that have been released over the past few decades. Black Mass is well-made and will forever be remembered for Johnny Depp’s amazing lead performance but it never quite reaches the status of a classic.
Finally, on a personal note, I did enjoy the fact that Black Mass dealt with the Irish mob. I’m a little bit torn in my loyalties because I’m Irish-Italian but, if I ever had to pick a mob to which to serve as a cheerleader, I would go Irish Mafia all the way!
