Hallmark Review: Murder, She Baked: A Peach Cobbler Mystery (2016, dir. Kristoffer Tabori)

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I know he probably didn’t, but seeing as Ron Oliver and David S. Cass Sr. have seen some of my reviews of their Hallmark films, I am going to just assume director Kristoffer Tabori read my reviews of Love On The Air and Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery. I say this because he fixed the problems with the way he shot those two films, but still kept some of the style he seems to be going for with his recent Hallmark movies. He still has a fondness for mirrors.

Still doing some framing.

The obstructionist stuff in front of the camera is drastically reduced. I’d say it’s only there when it actually does add something to the shot like these parts.

Thankfully, there was no repeat of the blinded by the light shot from Love On The Air and Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery. The good framing and composition in depth are used sparingly. It’s not something that seems to have been just thrown into every shot like it was before. That alone makes this way better than the previous Murder, She Baked film. I honestly don’t know why Tabori chose to do it this way this time, but I want to thank him for it.

The movie starts off with Hannah (Alison Sweeney) discovering a body in a kitchen after a little film noir voiceover from her. I liked that it chose to open up that way. Then it cuts to a title card telling us: “Two Days Earlier”. This is when the movie reintroduces us to Hannah, the bakery, and the town of Eden Lake. Do I even have to say it anymore? Yes? Okay. And by Eden Lake, they mean Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. I know this because of this shot.

However, kudos to the production crew for knowing this shot of her cellphone would be onscreen for an extended period of time so they simply removed the SIM card.

Of course, the rest of the time it’s just Minnesota license plates where the film is supposed to take place.

A competing bakery has opened up across the street and is run by Melanie and her sister Vanessa both played by actress Michelle Harrison.

Vanessa

Melanie

I thought the two sisters looked awfully similar to each other while watching it, but I wasn’t sure they were supposed to be twins. I don’t think the film ever says they are twins. I think they had the same actress play both sisters for the convenience of the murder mystery plot. Can’t give away too much, but having the same actress play both sisters makes it easier to swallow the resolution of the mystery. However, it is a little confusing and provides a red herring that I’m not sure they were going for. Melanie is the one who is murdered. Since both sisters are played by the same actress it’s perfectly reasonable for the viewer to think that the one sister killed the other and swapped places with her. Especially since they don’t seem to like each other. Not sure if that was something the filmmakers intended or not. Something tells me they did though because the reason Melanie has her hair up in that shot above like her sister is because Hannah puts it up that way under the guise of protecting it while she bakes.

For reasons that don’t matter, Melanie and Hannah end up in a cook off to see who can bake the best Peach Cobbler. It doesn’t even matter who wins either. All that matters is that Hannah discovers Melanie doesn’t know how to bake because she bought her Peach Cobbler at a store. This is how the film gets Hannah to know Melanie as Hannah tries to teach her how to bake and introduces us to Melanie’s mean sister Vanessa. She’s nasty. Then Melanie dies.

Now here’s something I didn’t notice in the previous film, but it sure was an issue for me this time around. Both this and the previous film have Mike played by Cameron Mathison and Norman played by Gabriel Hogan in them. The problem is that both actors bare a strong resemblance to each other in this movie. I kept confusing the two of them. It really doesn’t affect the movie, but it was part of my experience watching it, so I am passing it on.

Gabriel Hogan

Cameron Mathison

With Melanie dead, Hannah, her mom, and her sister, AKA The Blonde Brigade, begin to work towards solving the mystery. Or better put, Hannah works towards solving the mystery while the other two blondes are around playing their roles in the story. One of the episodes of Murder, She Wrote that I remember the most is when Jessica Fletcher was really suspected as the murderer. That happens here to Hannah. Something else that I know everyone who has watched Murder, She Wrote thinks is that if Jessica comes to town, then RUN!!!! When Hannah discovers the body it’s:

And this isn’t all there is. Hallmark is well aware that people know they film a lot of this stuff in Canada. I mean it’s spelled out all over the credits for crying out loud. However, it wasn’t until this film that I actually saw them make a joke about it.

In that scene, she tries to tell Hannah to make a run for it by going to Canada. Of course the in-joke is that they are already in Canada.

There are also some well done computer screens and Tabori reuses the technique of overlaying some of the computer stuff onto the shot like he did in Love On The Air.

It’s nice, modern, and has the effect of showing both what’s important on the screen and the character’s reaction to it in the same shot. That helps to keep us engaged rather than having things broken with every cut from the screen to the character and back again.

I also appreciated the scene near the end where Hannah, then Norman, try to social engineer some information out of some people. For me it harkens back to movies like Sneakers (1992) and WarGames (1983), but since this is a murder mystery. It also made me think of The Rockford Files. Rockford socially engineered people all the time and in some episodes even carried around a little printing press to make fake business cards. It’s no wonder that even Kevin Mitnick mentioned The Rockford Files in his autobiography. She also does some dumpster diving.

So with all that babble out of the way, you are probably wondering if the mystery is any good. I could reasonably follow it which is a good thing. However, a section of it is quite obvious. The fact that the other part may be obscured from you till the end doesn’t change that you think you have figured it out from the start, and you basically have. Nevertheless, this installment has changed my opinion on this particular Hallmark mystery franchise. I could go for another one. Even Alison Sweeney who I felt didn’t pull off playing the good character in the previous films finally seemed to settle into the role. That may just be me or that I’ve seen her play the same role three times now, but her performance worked for me. I’d say give this one a shot, but for all the other things I mentioned aside from how well crafted the mystery itself is.

Hallmark Review: Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery (2015, dir. Kristoffer Tabori)

Posted on November 24, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I would have thought this movie was shot by the same cinematographer who did Love On The Air (2015), but IMDb tells me differently. Love On The Air was shot by Jon Joffin and according to the credits of this movie, a Todd Williams shot this one. But both films were directed by Kristoffer Tabori. I guess Tabori has developed a fondness for random camera obstructions and large sections of the frame being out of focus. The blinded by the light shot even makes a return from Love On The Air.

Now in all fairness to Tabori, you can tell that he is probably trying to bring some style to the cinematography of the Hallmark movies he makes. You can see it in shots like these.

I remember Rainer Werner Fassbinder having a fondness for using mirrors like this shot from Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974).

Just like one of Fassbinder’s idols Douglas Sirk did as shown in this shot from Written On The Wind (1956).

Even those other shots show a purpose. Throwing things in front of the camera is probably an attempt at composition in depth, which director Josef Von Sternberg was best known for. Here’s an example from The Scarlet Empress (1934).

That one shot where things are out of focus around the character is framing like this shot also from Ali: Fear Eats The Soul.

The point is, I think I see what he is going for, but it doesn’t come together in this, nor in Love On The Air.

He also brought us Just The Way You Are (2015), Portrait Of Love (2015), A Ring By Spring (2014), and My Gal Sunday (2014). So obviously this movie is going to be about a baker who has been burned by a previous relationship who wants to follow rules for dating someone new, which includes going out of focus transitions, reuses shots from other Tabori Hallmark movies, screws up at least one computer screen, and ends with a bomb being stopped by a wedding ring. Well, not quite. It’s shot the same way Love On The Air was. It’s considerably better than Just The Way You Are. It’s not sleepwalking through it’s plot like Portrait Of Love. It does screw up two computer screens, but not in particularly bad ways. Finally, while it is at least 1/3rd as confusing as My Gal Sunday, it doesn’t end with a bomb being stopped by a wedding ring.

I am actually going to take a shot at talking about the plot of this movie. Something that will probably be disappointing seeing as I’m terrible with these murder mysteries, and the Hallmark ones are particularly confusing for me. I even watched this with my Dad who reads murder mysteries, and he attempted to explain it to me afterwards largely unsuccessfully. I’ll try, but first.

If you’ve read some of my other reviews you’ve probably picked up that I am a fan of The Cinema Snob. What’s odd is that watching this movie had ties back to the two most recent reviews he’s done. The first comes in the form of the commercials. During one of the breaks there was an ad for Liberty University. They are the ones who brought us Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas (2014). During these same commercials, Hallmark promoted their upcoming Thanksgiving Day thing hosted by Candace Cameron Bure, who is Kirk’s sister. The Snob reviewed that movie last week.

The other tie-in is a little more loose. The guy who dies in this movie is named Larry Jaeger. This week’s Snob episode is on a really really really bizarre Christmas special called Ms. Velma’s Most Incredibly Magnificent Christmas Week. Velma’s last name is Jaggers. And of course this special comes on a disc along with Rock: It’s Your Decision which I have reviewed on this site.

Odd coincidences that I had to mention. But let’s actually talk about this movie now. Or at least as much as I can before I say I don’t want to spoil things because I actually have reached a point where I’m too confused about the plot to discuss it further.

The movie opens on Hannah’s Cookie Jar Bakery & Cafe where Hannah is played by Alison Sweeney. I don’t remember her place looking like this in the previous film, but I also watched that movie back in August. During the opening scenes where we meet friends, customers, and her nutty mother, we learn that there are a lot of blondes in this town. Also, we hear a Dr. Love (Calling Dr. Love by KISS) on the radio.

No, not that Dr. Love. This lady’s catchphrase is “that life without love is only half a life.” So what’s the other half? I’m assuming it’s referring to having that other person whose happiness becomes and fills in the other half of your life. We also learn that “Crazy Elf is crazy!” And so are his prices!

Later in the film Crazy Elf learns that he should stay in his little house because he gets shot. Crazy Elf is the mascot for a Christmas tree lot owned by Larry Jaeger who as I said is found dead. This is one of those cozy mysteries where the main character really doesn’t have a reason to be investigating other than that she is a busy body. At least the cop friend played by Cameron Mathison keeps telling her this.

Wait…

the mother is played by Barbara Niven. Last time I saw her was in that lousy lesbian love story A Perfect Ending (2012). I thought I recognized her.

Anyways, now that the body has been discovered, it’s a good time to get a look at Hannah’s license plate.

And they make sure you get a good look at the plate several times throughout this movie. It’s kind of like those movies that want you to believe the movie totally takes place in America because of the American flag in the scene. Like Italian Batman and Prom Night III: The Last Kiss.

However, late in the movie they left in this shot.

Fido is a Canadian cellular company. It’s kind of sad they didn’t fix that considering they went through the trouble of getting the license plates, using actual text messages, and near the end of the film properly faking a phone call to her cellphone that even shows up as Cameron Mathison’s character’s name.

Easy to fix too. Oh, well.

The remainder of the film is her mother nagging her about dating, Mathison telling her to stop putting herself in danger, and a red herring that gets picked up by the cops and jailed. That being Dr. Love who turns out to have been and technically still is married to Larry Jaeger who apparently was a con man. The rest would be just laying out the plot point by point. Otherwise known as this is when the film really lost me.

At this point, having seen quite a few of these Hallmark mysteries, I would say this is a series they can drop. Lori Loughlin is enjoyable enough in the Garage Sale Mystery movies. It’s always funny to see Candance Cameron Bure run around playing Aurora Teagarden like she’s on speed. And I think The Gourmet Detective one’s are the best I’ve seen recently. Even though I wish they would just change Brooke Burns character to being an Inspector given that is what she would be called if she were really on the SFPD. You can even see Prentice E. Sanders referred to as an Inspector in my review of Law Enforcement Guide To Satanic Cults. I only recommend this movie if you are already a fan of the books, which I’m sure my book gal Michelle will probably tell me about if she reads this review.

And this has been possibly the longest and only film school dissection of a Hallmark movie that I will probably ever write.

Val’s Movie Roundup #9: Hallmark Edition

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

WHACK! You just got hit in the head with a greeting card.

Bound By A Secret (2009) – This is a good one. It’s very refreshing to come across a Hallmark movie like this. It’s about an actress (Lesley Ann Warren) who quits her career and goes to visit her friend played by Meredith Baxter from Family Ties. I really want to find a movie where she plays a villain. I mean we have Michael Gross as a gun nut in the Tremors movies. I think she has the acting chops to pull it off. But getting back to this movie, there are four issues being faced by the characters. The actress is dying and Baxter’s daughter is actually hers biologically. Baxter is overprotective of her daughter and life in general. Amazingly for a Hallmark movie, they even use the way she treats her china as a metaphor for the way she treats her family. A nice touch that I didn’t expect in a TV Movie. The daughter’s problem is that her husband is out of work and is kind of proud. Think, kind of like the husband in The Crowd (1928), just not as extreme. It’s not tearing the family apart in the same way, but he doesn’t appreciate Baxter helping out. Things move forward, the secret comes out, and it works it’s way to the happy ending. The acting is solid and the script is good. It’s a well made film. This is a Hallmark movie that I can get behind.

Gourmet Detective: A Healthy Place to Die (2015) – This is another one I liked as much as Bound By A Secret. Yeah, I’m a little biased because I already like Brooke Burns. I enjoy watching her host The Chase. I think she does a good job. I think this is the first of these mystery movies they make for Hallmark that basically did it right. The other ones I’ve seen have issues that make it difficult to follow the story, or to even care. That’s that not present here. It’s just my issue with mysteries in general. I’m a simple person and these plots tend to be too much for me. It starts with a short setup, which I like. It’s almost like they were making a subtle jab at the excuses given in movies for why two people need to go off together. They don’t even try. Dylan Neal shows up at the police station. He mentions he’s going to a resort to give a talk on cooking. The chief basically then just tells Burns you don’t take vacation days, that’s pissing people off, so you’re going. End of story. That happens inside of a couple minutes. During a dinner scene at the resort we meet a reporter who isn’t well liked. Anyone who grew up watching Murder, She Wrote knows that means she’s marked for death. The rest is pretty standard stuff of leading us around till we finally settle on suspects they hope aren’t out of left field, but not incredibly obvious. I think the chemistry between Burns and Neal works. I also like that because of the way Burns is built and carries herself, we really do feel like we’re just watching two people working together. Rather than we’re watching a guy and girl work together. It’s a small thing, but it was just more reason for me to like this movie. I want to see the other one of these they did together.

My Gal Sunday (2014) – This one on the other hand, my recommendation is to pretend this doesn’t exist. And run far away from anyone who tries to get you to watch it. Honestly, I’m up to 27 Hallmark movies now and this is easily the worst I’ve seen. They might as well have called this The Mystery Cruise II because it has all the same problems as that film and more. It’s also based on a book by the same author. It has the same abrupt beginning. I really think what happened here is that someone picked up the book, didn’t actually read it, but skimmed it looking for key scenes, jotted them down, then wrote the screenplay. I can’t imagine much thought went into the adaptation. Abrupt beginnings are common in books. It works just fine in that medium. It doesn’t work in movies. It especially doesn’t work in TV Movies. An abrupt beginning like this one, which is cringe worthy for other reasons, makes you think you have come back from a commercial in the middle of a show. You could easily think you must have missed something, but no. The movie actually just started. Then it only gets worse. Things just jump around for lack of a better description so you have little chance of really following things or caring to follow things. There are flashbacks that are confusing. The director tries to add a little bit of an artsy transition into them, but it just makes things worse. And there’s no chemistry whatsoever. Sometimes the camera lingers on Rachel Blanchard’s face and what? Is she emoting? Did they forget to say cut? It’s stupid. If you manage to suffer through this whole thing then you are treated to one of the dumbest resolutions ever. If you get there, then you’ll know exactly what I am talking about, but please don’t. Spare yourself this abomination.

Wedding Planner Mystery (2014) – Jeez! What’s next Nail Technician Mystery or Retro Video Game Salesperson Mystery. Time is money. Don’t think of a title, just throw something onto the word “Murder” or “Mystery”. This is not My Gal Sunday. It’s not good, but it’s a far cry from that movie. It’s also a far cry from Gourmet Detective: A Healthy Place to Die. It’s about a wedding planner and there’s a mystery. Go figure! The wedding planner is played by Erica Durance of Smallville fame. I don’t think I’ve ever complained about the makeup in a movie, but here I go. Durance looks like a plastic doll. I thought maybe surgery, but I think it was just bad makeup cause a couple other of the young actresses also didn’t look good in the same way. Even the guys seemed to be wearing too much makeup. Also, one of the older ladies was wearing a lousy wig. Not like the Lies Between Friends wig, but it’s not good. The movie begins at a wedding and a bridesmaid dies in a car accident. Honestly, I can’t really tell you why Durance investigates. I guess it had something to do with alcohol being served at the wedding, but it just seems like she can’t mind her own damn business. What follows is just boring. In some ways, it’s more like an attempt at a romantic comedy between Durance and some paparazzi-ish reporter. None of it really works. Especially not the voice overs from Durance like she’s suddenly Sam Spade or something. She’s a wedding planner! I can’t recommend this one, but it’s not awful. I just can’t say that you will enjoy it.

Embracing the Melodrama Part II #95: 54 (dir by Mark Christopher)

Posted on June 1, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“A guy named Steve Rubell had a dream: To throw the best damned party the world had ever seen and to make it last forever. He built a world where fantasy was put up as reality and where an 80-year-old disco queen could dance till dawn. Where models mingled with mechanics, plumbers danced with princes. It was a place where all labels were left behind. A place where there were no rules.”

— Shane O’Shea (Ryan Phillippe) in 54 (1998)

So, did you actually read that quote at the beginning of the review? I don’t blame if you didn’t because not only is it ludicrous overwritten but it just goes on and on. It’s one of those quotes that you read in a script and you think to yourself, “They better get absolutely the best actor in the world to deliver these lines,” and then you realize Ryan Phillippe has been cast in the role.

Except, of course, I doubt that any of those lines were found in the original script for 54. 54 is one of those films where, as you watch it, you can literally imagine the chaos that must have been going on during the editing process. Subplots are raised and then dropped and the mysteriously pop up again. Characters change both their personalities and their motives in between scenes. Huge dramatic moment happen almost at random but don’t seem to actually have anything to do with anything else happening in the film.

In short, 54 is a mess but it’s a mess that’s held together by incredibly clunky narration. Shane O’Shea, who spent the waning days of the 1970s working at Studio 54, narrates the film. And, despite the fact that Shane is presented as being kinda dumb (think of Saturday Night Fever‘s Tony Manero, without the sexy dance moves), his narration is extremely verbose and reflective. It’s almost as if the narration was written at the last-minute by someone desperately trying to save a collapsing film.

I watched 54 on cable because I saw that it was about the 70s and I figured it would feature a lot of outrageous costumes, danceable music, and cocaine-fueled melodrama. And it turns out that I was right about the cocaine-fueled melodrama but still, 54 is no Boogie Nights. It’s not even Bright Lights, Big City.

54 does have an interesting cast, which makes it all the more unfortunate that nobody really gets to do anything interesting. Poor Ryan Phillippe looks totally lost and, in the film’s worst scene, he actually has to stand in the middle of a dance floor and, after the death of elderly Disco Dottie (that’s the character’s name!), yell at all the decadent club goers. Breckin Meyer is cute as Phillippe’s co-worker and Salma Hayek gets to sing. Neve Campbell plays a soap opera actress who Phillippe has a crush on and…oh, who cares? Seriously, writing about this film is almost as annoying as watching it.

Mike Myers — yes, that Mike Myers — plays the owner of the club, Steve Rubell. The role means that Myers gets to snort cocaine, hit on Breckin Meyer, and vomit on the silk sheets of his bed. I think that Myers gives a good performance but I’m not really sure. It could have just been the shock of seeing Mike Myers snorting cocaine, hitting on Breckin Meyer, and vomiting on the silk sheets of his bed.

If you want to enjoy some 70s decadence, avoid 54 and rewatch either Boogie Nights or American Hustle.