Chad Connell | Through the Shattered Lens

I asked Tubi for a soccer movie and this is what I got.

Steve Guttenberg plays Henry Butler, an American soccer player whose love of gambling gets him arrested. He’s given a year’s probation and ordered to work as a handyman at a “boys’ home” that is managed by Karen (Sophie Lorain). Karen wants the boys to start playing soccer so that they can feel good about themselves and Henry just happens to know something about that. The team might not be any good but Henry teaches them to believe in themselves and Henry finally stop loathing himself. Then the boys’ home burns down but luckily, Henry and the cook (Michel Perron) make enough money at the horse races to build a new one. Sometimes, gambling is good!

This sucked. All of the boys were obnoxious and Steve Guttenberg spent the whole movie talking extremely fast and jumping up and down. A typical recurring joke was that the flatulent goalie’s shorts kept falling down. One of the boys was played by Christian Slater’s younger brother but he didn’t sound like Jack Nicholson so who cares? There’s a whole other subplot about Karen blackmailing the local funeral home into sponsoring the kids so that they can goet uniforms. Karen and Henry fell in love but I didn’t. Even the soccer games were boring.

This movie had a kick, straight to the head. It didn’t have the fighting spirit of the best baseball movies.

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.