Hallmark Review: Love’s Complicated (2016, dir. Jerry Ciccoritti)

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Last night at the Oscars we had a comedy bit where black actors were inserted into movies that were nominated for awards. They took somewhat humorous shots at The Martian and Joy. Then The Danish Girl came up. I haven’t seen it yet and I’ve heard it’s god awful. None of that matters. They inserted comedic actor Tracy Morgan into the movie, put him in a dress, then told us to laugh at him because he was a man in a dress who was being the black version of the trans woman from the film. Then for more shits and giggles, they actually had him eat a danish. That was vile and despicable. I have been laughed at for something as simple as wearing tights. I can’t possibly imagine walking outside in a dress right now, and have even less courage to do so after last night’s display of kicking an even smaller minority to the curb while supposedly trying to send a message about having another minority appear more often in films. While I seriously doubt she would have done it, having Laverne Cox of Orange Is The New Black fame, who is both black and trans, do that might have actually sent a positive message. Thank you very much Oscars for making it clear that not only was it worth dragging on the blacks in film thing so long that it started to feel like a joke itself, but for giving all trans women a punch in the face. Much appreciated.

That right there is an example of the central theme of this movie. Not avoiding conflict. That can be for a number of reasons. Not letting other people make decisions that should be yours since it is your life. Not being paralyzed by a fear of conflict when facing it could lead to a much needed reconciliation. Not letting other people treat you like trash, but standing up for yourself instead. It can also be something as simple as saying, “No, you have no right to do that. I want the refund I’m owed.” The book this movie is based on is even called My Life As A Doormat. So how the hell did this movie end up being called Love’s Complicated? I’m guessing Hallmark has a quota to meet of movies with “love” in the title. Honestly, love barely is a part of the movie.

The movie begins by quickly showing us Leah (Holly Marie Combs), who is a writer, at home before cutting to a radio station to introduce us to Cinco (Ben Bass). He isn’t a shock jock or a woman hating radio personality. I think the best way to describe him is as a debater. He is someone who isn’t afraid to express his opinion, but we will get to his fear of conflict issue later. During this opening credit sequence it cuts back and forth between them. We find out one useful piece of information here, and that is that Leah isn’t a big fan of his. We’ll find out later that he didn’t give a favorable review to her last book. And segue!

We are now with Leah and Catherine Disher from The Good Witch. Hmm…I think there’s an in-joke here. She is told her book needs serious work. Basically spice things up by adding some conflict. The very thing that is the Source of the problems in her life.

I love that Leah has one of those keyboards similar to the old IBM keyboards. Those things are very satisfying to type on. It makes sense that a writer would have one. I could mention the roommate here, but she’s a minor character. She’s what I call a nudger character in Hallmark movies. A character who isn’t unimportant, but is really there to show up occasionally to nudge the main character in the right direction.

Now we meet Leah’s boyfriend Edward (Randal Edwards). As you can see, it looks like Leah just wishes she could freeze him in place so she could get up without having to confront him. Anyways, the two of them soon go off to a party where she insists on wearing a red dress that he isn’t so happy with. Now for plot I guess, here’s Cinco just hanging out in the flowers to run into Leah at the party.

He actually tells her to throw the wine in his face because of his bad review of her book. Of course her being non-confrontational means she doesn’t. Although, I bet she would have liked to make him explode if she could. She’ll come around eventually.

Phew! Three references to Charmed should be enough.

Next for reasons that are beyond me, Leah’s boyfriend gives her a coupon to a conflict management course. I’d say just for plot, but Edward is really odd in this so I buy that he gives this to her, and then doesn’t show up because he meant it to be just for her.

She goes, and of course for again reasons, Cinco is there. There also are a few other people there including a married couple named Robert (Brad Borbridge) and Glenda (Precious Chong). Sorry, I wasn’t able to avoid that witch reference. It’s in the movie after all. Although, I’m still not sure why Catherine Disher’s character is named J.R. I’m really not sure what a reference to Dallas is doing here, but okay.

Believe it or not, that’s all the setup that’s necessary for this movie. She keeps going back to the group and never tells them Edward is a boyfriend till the end of the film. She does learn to not be afraid of conflict, which was systemic in her case. She helps Cinco in turn to take a chance and visit his father who he hasn’t spoken to in awhile. Instead of fearing a confrontation, he just gives him a hug. In his case it works. At the end of the film, he and his father, who both love to argue, are having a lively debate on the radio. The other people in the class come around too. In the end, she breaks it off with Edward, writes a book called My Life As A Doormat, and winds up with Cinco.

As I hope you can tell, the love part is incidental to the story of overcoming a fear of conflict. I like that the film was clearly done on the cheap, but they told a story that didn’t require more money in order to tell. I appreciate it when a film molds itself to the production constraints rather than feeling like it’s running into money walls. That said, there are several times when it feels like the movie thinks we have spent more time with the characters than we actual have. I would give it a marginal recommendation.

Now since I feel better than when I wrote my last Hallmark review, here are the normal things you’ve come accustomed to seeing in my reviews.

I actually like this fake computer screen. It’s cartoony sure, but it has the right elements.

This shot tells us that at least this part was done in Sudbury, Ontario. I believe this is the first Hallmark movie I’ve seen shot there.

This shot though, is from Minnesota.

However, the movie either doesn’t mention it at all, or makes very little fuss about where it’s supposed to take place. It’s not like so many Hallmark movies that really try to convince you it’s the US when it’s Canada.

Hallmark Review: Signed, Sealed, Delivered: From The Heart (2016, dir. Lynne Stopkewich)

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

When I made that ordering of the best Valentine’s Day movies from Hallmark this year on my post for Appetite For Love, I was not aware the new Signed, Sealed, Delivered movie was also going to be part of their Valentine’s Day lineup. To put it bluntly, screw the other five, and watch this. I hope more Hallmark fans are tuning into their Movies & Mysteries Channel movies because the Signed, Sealed, Delivered films are the best ones Hallmark airs. Nothing else really compares. That said, this one needed some trimming. The main plot and a little furthering of the relationship between Norman (Geoff Gustafson) and Rita (Crystal Lowe) was all we really needed. The rest of the plots feel extraneous and just add more to follow without much payoff.

Interestingly, this is the first of the Signed, Sealed, Delivered movies to not be helmed by Kevin Fair. This time around they brought in October Kiss director Lynne Stopkewich. She has had an interesting career so far to say the least. She does a fine job here. I have no complaints about the directing.

Often we get the title card of a Hallmark movie almost immediately, but not this time. A fair amount of setup occurs before that happens.

The movie begins back in 1835 with a woman making a Valentine for someone in America. We will eventually be told who the Valentine was meant for, which is kind of neat, but not really. It winds up in Norman’s hands, and it does serve a purpose for a scene with him near the end, but he didn’t need the letter for his lines to work just as well. This is a part that really could have been trimmed in my opinion. The movie already had enough plots going that it didn’t need this one thrown in as well.

Then matching on the action of the 1835 handmade Valentine, we jump to present day and see Oliver (Eric Mabius) making his own Valentine for Shane (Kristin Booth). He then hands it off to be mailed to her instead of just giving it to her…for reasons? This is another part that could have been snipped. The letter will take the entire film to end up in Shane’s hands. It ends up in a box she doesn’t know has anything but Valentine decorations in it.

Now you’d think that title card might pop up now, but nope.

The dead letter comes in, and Oliver instantly takes it to run off to a restaurant.

We now go back 15 years to find a kid mailing that letter before asking a police officer where he needs to go to turn himself in.

Now we get the title card and title track of the series. It took awhile. I was wondering if it would ever show up. By the way, that 15 years earlier thing is the main plot of the film. Unlike previous Signed, Sealed, Delivered movies, this one does act more like a procedural rather than having the letter lead to a major revelation about the characters that moves them forward for the next film. I liked that. I’ve always wanted the tracking down the letter to truly be the center of attention instead of say Oliver discovering the truth about his father. There is a little bit of a blast from the past, literally, but it’s minor compared to previous installments.

Another plot is that Rita will get called in to be Miss Special Delivery because the people above her were disqualified in some manner. This goes nowhere really. It goes viral that Rita and Norman are an item and for no real reason she denies it during a press conference. Of course she ends up coming around in the end. I’m really not sure of any good reason for this plot to happen. Maybe a little reinforcement of their relationship since she certainly hurt Norman in the process. She must have been a little uncertain on her end. Otherwise, it just leads to some lines about how people share things today. Blah, blah, blah. People have been doing that sort of thing for a long time. Even as far back as the 1930’s, if not earlier. I’ve read stupid old newspaper stories telling us someone is leaving to go on vacation. I wouldn’t say this should have been snipped, but they could have found a better way to forward the Norman and Rita thing. Oh, and this happens to Norman at one point in the film.

It’s the funniest part of the movie, and since I don’t intend to do this movie blow by blow, I had to stick it somewhere. After picking up two baby doll arms in a dumpster, Norman says, “You wake up in the morning, and you never really know how your day is going to end.”

Here is the literal blast from the past. Back when Oliver was Cliff Clavin, he was going to pick up the mail from the mailbox where the kid dropped off the now dead letter. He decided to wait a little bit before he was supposed to pick up the letters because of a police officer who would be in the area that he liked. Since he waited a little bit, an actual clown showed up, and after a little accident with helium…KABOOM! Since Oliver really does take things seriously USPS wise, he never really forgave himself. As a result, he really wants to get this letter that was involved in the accident to its intended recipient.

You got all that? We have an 1835 Valentine that winds up in Norman’s hands that we don’t know who it’s for at first. We have Oliver’s Valentine for Shane going everywhere but her hands. We have the policewoman that Oliver likes. Oh yeah, that actually is a really tiny little plot in this too. We also have Rita and Norman needed to mend fences after she denies publicly that she is seeing him. Then finally, we have the main plot of the movie. All of these plots are affairs of the heart, which ties into the title, and the main plot, but it was a bit much.

These two are the main plot. That’s Ryan (Nick Purcha) and Maddie (Mackenzie Cardwell) 15 years earlier. They meet because they are both on the debate team. She isn’t very charismatic, but is good with research. He is the opposite. He’s charismatic, but usually doesn’t have that much substance to back what he is saying. Their plot is the best part of the movie. It leads to tragedy, which is why he turned himself into the police at the beginning of the film. A little spoiler: he killed somebody. It will also jump the 15 year gap when the letter finds it’s way to the two of them when they are adults.

I know I normally take you through the whole film, but not this time. I haven’t felt well lately. Also, that would have me trying to juggle all these plot lines or try to tell each one separately. This isn’t a Godfrey Ho movie where telling the plot lines separate makes the film more coherent. This is like the first two Godfather films where you lose something by rearranging events into chronological order. There is a reason these plots are woven together the way they are.

Like I said at the start, forget the other Hallmark Valentine’s Day movies this year, and watch this one instead.

Following The Amazon Prime Recommendation Worm #5: Shadows in the Distance (2015), Love Affair (2014), Virgin Theory: 7 Steps to Get on the Top (2014), 9 1/2 Dates (2008)

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I finally got out of South Korea for at least two of these movies. That’s something. Too bad none of them were very good. Let’s begin.

Shadows in the Distance (2015, dir. Orlando Bosch) –

I wrote a longer review here if you want to read it.

Oh, “Lust At First Glance”. That sounds interesting. Let’s look at the trailer.

At least the trailer is honest. Somewhat. What it doesn’t tell you is that the movie is really director Orlando Bosch throwing every art film cliche he can think of at the screen. It really doesn’t work. The movie even shows a clip of Breathless (1960) in it. The film is supposed to be about a couple who notice each other in a movie theater then pursue each other, kind of, sort of, not really. That shot at the end of the trailer that looks like a ridiculous art exhibit scene is an example of the kind of art house cliches I’m referring to.

Look familiar? Sure reminded me of something.

Yep, the “documentary” on black people having sex called Black Love (1971).

I particularly love the scene where they both go into a telephone booth to get out of the rain. Who does that? The rain could go on all night. Are you going to sleep there? You are better off making your way home and taking a shower.

I hope director Orlando Bosch really tries to forget this movie and move on from that third stage of cinephilia where you become obsessed with the world canon. Please drop the art film cliches. I was sick of these a long time ago. It was already really old when Leos Carax broke them out and filtered them through the MTV version of the French New Wave to make the lousy The Lovers on the Bridge (1991). But I remember Carax using them sparingly and knowing when to use them even if I didn’t like the movie. It really feels like Bosch just tried everything he had ever seen show up in a foreign film.

Spare yourself this movie. The least I can say is that it should be labeled as a comedy on IMDb. I kept laughing throughout the film every time something I had seen in another foreign film showed up for no apparent reason.

Love Affair (2014, dir. Jung Hwan Kim) – Yes, South Korea again. At least that poster is close to being accurate. This was an un-IMDbed movie that I had to add. It actually took two attempts and a lengthy explanation to prove to them this actually exists. It doesn’t help that on Amazon Prime it’s listed with the title Intimacy and uses the poster from the 1966 movie with that title. I think what sealed the deal was that Intimacy is in English, but their link to it on Amazon Prime clearly shows that it has English subtitles. I would love to show you the trailer, but I can’t find it.

I get two strong impressions about this movie. First, I really think the version on Amazon Prime is dubbed into Mandarin. The reason is that I lived with a guy from China for 2 years in college and they sure sounded just like when he would be talking on the phone. Oddly, this film has another tie to that roommate from college. The second thing is that I think this was a film adaptation of a Korean drama. I even get the feeling that it was just the original drama edited down to about a 90 minute film. I know that at least Korea adapting their Dramas into regular films is a thing. I did watch My Sassy Girl (2001) back in college at the encouragement of my roommate.

The movie is the title. An older married guy who runs a bookstore has an affair with another married woman. There really isn’t anything else plot wise. The only thing in that area is that there are two friends of the bookstore owner. I think they are his brothers. Either that or they really like the whole “Hey, Bro” thing. His Bro that fancies himself a bit of a ladies man really reminded me of my college roommate Rocky. Rocky could have played this guy even though he wasn’t a ladies man type.

It’s reasonably good. It certainly is the best of the three films here. I liked the leads. I especially like the actor they chose for the bookstore owner. He has a great older, but still very handsome, kind, and beautiful face. I think he was perfectly cast in the role. It has some problems and some weird editing at times, but this is the one to check out of the films here. If it’s still up when you get here, then there it is. Otherwise, it should be easy to find.

Virgin Theory: 7 Steps to Get on the Top (2014, dir. Ahn Cheol-ho) – That is the poster they show on Amazon Prime. Any reasonable person would look at that poster and think they are going to watch erotica. It’s like the trailer for My Baby Is Black! (1961) that was made to look like an exploitation film for the American market.

Here is a realistic poster for this movie.

Oh, and you’re probably wondering what exactly has the girl on the left who is shocked and the girl on the right who is bored. They are looking at porn. No joke. They are looking at porn. That’s the movie in a gist. The girl on the left is a virgin and wants to get laid. The girl on right is certainly not a virgin and wants to be taken seriously by people. They end up together because the girl on right was sleeping with the girl on the left’s father who left the house to her when he died during sex. They make sure you know that even by showing a condom with sperm in the tip picked up off the floor.

The virgin wants to go out with a ballet dancer and even envisions him in his tights, but untucked. The girl on the right does art, wants to be taken seriously, but doesn’t seem to realize that maybe dialing back on the sleeping around thing might help a little. I mean she was sleeping with the virgin’s father who apparently is so important that a call to the president of South Korea can be made. Her sex life is a tad high profile. She winds up trying to give the virgin instructions on how to get a guy. By and large, they are the kind of instructions someone who has watched too many movies like Hooked Up (2009) would give. That’s the movie with Corey Feldman, who never appears to have aged after all these years, which is obsessed with blow jobs.

That’s the movie. I don’t even remember how it ends. That’s how little of an imprint this sex comedy left on me.

9 1/2 Dates (2008, dir. Tamás Sas) – Oh, yeah! That looks like a lesbian love story poster to me. I mean look at the one for Fingersmith (2005) which is a lesbian movie.

Or the poster for The Guest House (2012) which is also a lesbian love story.

This isn’t a lesbian story. Let’s take another look at the poster. It says the cast that get top billing are Ferenc Elek, Patricia Kovács, and Gábor Hevér. That’s two actors and an actress. So of course 80-90 percent of the movie is actually with actor Iván Fenyö. Here is the realistic poster for this movie.

Just wow! You probably want to know what the plot of this movie is now. Sorry, I nearly forgot with these misleading posters.

The movie is about a guy named Dávid who wrote a book that did well, but hasn’t really published anything recently. However, he is now under pressure to put something out and is told to date 10 women, then turn around to write about what he learned from the experience. Sounds like a simple enough concept. Shouldn’t be too hard to do. Well, they screwed it up.

First, the directing is sloppy. A quick example is when a musical audio lead-in starts so soon during the current scene that we aren’t sure if it’s coming from the radio or not. This kind of bad directing plagues the film.

Second, you’d think the movie would focus on the women he dates while having the lead be low-key and mainly listen to the ladies he is dating so he has material for his book. Yeah, you’d think that, but it’s not. The dates are pushed so far onto the back burner of this film that you could forget they exist. You could even forget that the women he dates paint a bit of sad portrait of modern Hungarian women. Seriously, they are so glossed over that you can totally miss that. They are really subplots in this movie. The main plot is him trying to get back in with his ex who has been assigned to work with him on the book.

Thirdly, while this is a problem with Amazon Prime and not the movie, the subtitles are fast as lightning. If you are going to subject yourself to this movie, then make sure you can read fast. You’d think they would be onscreen longer when there are a bunch of words on the screen. Nope! Sometimes that happens, but often it disappears so fast that you are missing half of what is being said. Also, I think these subtitles weren’t done by someone who has a good grasp on the English language. It’s not awful, but there are enough moments where the subtitles really don’t read right.

So, it’s sloppy, glosses over it’s plot, and has subtitles you have to be very quick to read. Avoid it.

Go with Love Affair if you want to see any of these movies.

Hallmark Review: Appetite For Love (2016, dir. David Mackay)

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

It doesn’t happen every time, but this time they did it. If you came here just with the hopes that I might know some of the songs that were used in the movie, then you can scroll to the end of this review. Hallmark actually included the songs in the credits this time. I’ve added the screenshot that shows them there.

Unfortunately, they also come right out and tell you in the credits the exact cities where they filmed the movie. Darn it, Hallmark! That takes out all the fun of trying to figure it out.

Note: Notice the Asian and black lady. I think this is the first Hallmark movie I’ve ever seen with so many people who aren’t white.

We open up with shots of a city which is supposed to be Chatham, Georgia. Seems like a nice place to live. The coffee truck comes right out and tells us that there are “No Bad Days”. Oh, and that’s Mina played by Taylor Cole who’s about it to have a bad day.

That’s when text boxes appear onscreen to tell us what text messages are going on between Mina and her boyfriend Reed played by Marcus Rosner. I’m sorry but these text boxes…

are no replacement for the computer and text overlays you get in Hallmark movies directed by Kristoffer Tabori. These look like they belong in a cartoon or something.

Mina works at a place called ICB, which stands for International Corporate Brands. Mina goes into the office building and has a short talk with Zoe played by Morgan Taylor Campbell…

who looks like she’s on her way to a Laura San Giacomo lookalike contest.

Before we setup the plot of the film we take a short trip to the boardroom.

This scene actually exists to super early tell us that Mina’s boyfriend is a jerk.

Now her boss (Michael Kospa) who sits at a desk in front of a poster with a butcher’s knife on it tells her she needs to go to Sycamore Springs, Tennessee. The reason she has to go there is when the plot confusion starts. Her boss named Larry actually says that “ICB recently purchased a small regional chain [restaurants] that corporate wants to re-brand and expand.” Apparently, all the stores except the flagship one have made the appropriate changes. She has to go there and make them fall in line. They aren’t responding to calls or emails. Oh, and she’s from that town because Hallmark. What’s confusing here is that later Mina will tell us that ICB is a brand management company. That would mean they don’t actually own anything. They are a go between for other firms who actually own this “small regional chain” of restaurants. Believe me, that may seem like it’s a small thing, but it does make the plot seem a little weird at times as things don’t quite add up.

Moving on, we have a short conversation with her friend Zoe to make sure we know that Mina left Sycamore Springs over a dude. Then it’s off so that Marcus Rosner can be just as much of a jerk boyfriend without having to stoop to alluding to bestiality like the guy in Christmas Land. Kudos to the cinematographer Eric Goldstein for this shot.

He made sure to keep the top part of the phone enough out of focus so that we can’t read the Canadian cellphone providers name. They will screw it up later, but credit where credit is due.

The way this boyfriend talks about a five-year plan and only having one baby it made me think of China or something. Just kind of weird, but we don’t have time to discuss that because now Mina is off to Tennessee. We know she’s getting close because the radio is playing nothing but country music.

Must be a bit of a Twilight Zone too seeing as 97.7 out of Jackson, Tennessee plays R&B and Old Skool according to their website. Apparently, also 95.3 has magically stopped playing rock and pop from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Weird. Anyways, I’m going ahead and turning on country/rock/pop mixture artist Ryan Adams.

I would give you A Kiss Before I Go by Ryan Adams and The Cardinals instead, but some of the videos I embed have a magical tendency to disappear on reviews of Hallmark movies when I don’t like the film. It’s magic, I tell you!

Now Mina nearly runs into some cows before getting out of the car and stepping in poop. Could be worse, Mina. You could be threatened with two years in jail for dancing to country music, being from the city, and getting a drink thrown at you like in Valentine Ever After.

Of course she immediately runs into her childhood friend that she left town to get away from. That’s Clay played by Andrew W. Walker. After Bridal Wave, I guess he became a cowboy. He deals with the cows, and drops the info that she was known as Willy in town. I love how everyone will keep calling her by that name and won’t stop no matter how many times she tells them too. It’s like they don’t actually care at all what she thinks or wants to do with her life.

Now she pulls into town and goes to the Sycamore Springs Inn. I love that the lady (Fiona Vroom) seems to be disappointed that Mina doesn’t recognize her. Of course we get the popularity line, but we also find out she was a year behind her in school. I grew up in a small town. A year ahead or behind in school usually means you basically exist in a separate universe. Don’t really know what her problem is here. She also tells us of the upcoming Sweetheart Festival. She now checks her PDF file…

and finds that they are booked solid. That means it’s off to her Aunt’s (Alley Mills) place. It was either that or a roll-away at the Squirrel’s Nest Inn.

Hey, it’s Norma Arnold from The Wonder Years! That’s all to that really. She’s just there to remind Mina that none of them are going to call her by the name she wants to be called. Off to the restaurant called Hart’s Country!

It’s at 23904 Fraser Highway in Langley, British Columbia, Tennessee. She’s showed up during United States appreciation month so the Canadian flag that is usually up was taken down. Inside, it looks like a nice diner.

I think my favorite sign there is “Soup & Sarcasm: Now Served All Day”. That could almost be the tagline for all of my reviews. Of course Clay runs the restaurant. We find out that Clay’s Dad died three months ago. That’s sad, and they will never explain why he sold the restaurant so if you were hoping for some logic there, then you’re out of luck. She informs him that Hart’s was bought by ICB even though they can’t buy anything being a brand management company.

As I seem to do a lot with my reviews, this is as good a time as any to mention something about this movie I don’t know where else to include.

I really did like the character of Lucien played by Antonio Cayonne who works at the restaurant. He always seemed to be nice and had a kind face throughout while never seeming wasted or a complete cutout of a character. Just wanted to point him out cause he’s a bright point in the film.

Let’s speed things up here since there really isn’t much to this story and you’ve got the setup now. She’s there to make sure they fall in line. It’s how she’s gonna spend time with Clay. Nobody is going to show a shred of dignity by simply calling her by the name she prefers without her reminding them to do it. But most importantly, the restaurant will sort of fight the changes. They kind of compromise, but still prefer to get their ingredients from local sources. It’s like they gave Damon Hill and Howard Chesley some sort of Hallmark movie writing bible and they wrote something quite generic and lazy. Let’s try to hit the main points.

While I had to use the crib notes credits about the locations, this scene does reveal that this part of the movie was shot in Abbotsford, British Columbia. Also, this scene is one of the very very few times you’ll see Mina check-in with headquarters. It winds up making the final boardroom presentation she gives seem a little weird since you’d think they would have already known this stuff was in the works. That is unless they really trust her that much, which would contradict her boss telling her he thinks “it’s time you took the lead on your own project.” Just another hole in the script. None of these holes ruin the romance part really, but they do make the film needlessly confusing.

We get a conversation now that makes it clear Clay’s Dad did make a deal to sell his place and it included all the changes she is asking of him. That would mean it wasn’t like Hart’s was a public company that was bought out. Yet someone will tell Clay that his Dad would be spinning in his grave if he knew what was going on.

Now we get yet another scene to confuse matters more. Clay goes to the local bar to vent to his friend. We will ultimately find out that Clay took a big loan out to help his friend who runs the bar and Mina will tell him that’s a reason he has violated the agreement, but then that plot point seems to magically disappear from the story and return in a weird way near the end of the movie.

The next notable scene is one where Mina says that Hart’s will serve Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, and Chicken among other things. One of the people says “it’s not actual food.” Another line that really doesn’t quite make sense at the time it’s uttered. Later we will find out that “actual food” according to her is homegrown which is really the restaurant’s main point of contention with being bought. The rest is small stuff that they can realistically all work out, but using only homegrown ingredients is expensive. This is also the part where we actually find out ICB only manages brands. They don’t actually own the brands in question. And scene! Seriously, as soon as she drops that bit of information so that future parts sort of make sense, it just cuts to Clay fishing.

This is now when Clay suddenly pulls a will out that says his father left the title to the restaurant to him. He says that means ICB owns the brand, which they don’t since they are just a management firm, but that he owns the restaurant itself. What? That just sounds like someone had an afterthought when writing this script. Also, this will not lead the movie to a conclusion of them giving up the Hart’s brand name and keeping the restaurant. That would end the film too soon and make too much sense.

Now we have a brief scene where they complain about uniforms and name tags. Why? The point of a uniform and/or a name tag is so you know who works there when you eat at a restaurant and so you can be polite by calling them by their name rather than “waiter” or “hey you”. It just makes the restaurant sound like they deliberately don’t want anyone from outside their small town coming to this restaurant. It’s weird and out of place.

Then we get the Sweetheart Festival scenes. It’s like they finally decided to stop heavily focusing on this re-branding stuff and give us some fun back and forth between the two leads. People still keep calling her Willy though. Yes, I know that it’s mentioned over and over because it’s supposed to represent that she has been re-branded herself with the new name, but it just makes the locals seem mean. This is especially noticeable with her Aunt.

My favorite part of this festival is when they have a race where they have to stop at stations and eat food from the restaurant. Sounds like a recipe for a lot of people throwing up to me. However, I love when they come to the station that has The Pecan Tsunami on the table.

The looks they get on their faces when they realize they have to eat that much desert this far into the race are pretty funny.

After the race, both of them start to loosen up and the movie winds down pretty quickly. The two spend some more time together. We find out more about how Clay is going to use local resources even more in the restaurant. The ex-boyfriend shows up and disappears pretty fast. But he doesn’t leave us before giving us two cellphone screen screw ups and a little more plot confusion. He’s not totally selfish.

You can see the Canadian cellphone provider Bell at the top. The rest of the screen looking weird may be just because I caught the screenshot while the screen itself was changing, but probably not because this likely is just a screenshot given the next thing we see.

Anyone who has ever used a cellphone knows that thankfully they turn off the screen when you put it to your ear so you don’t accidentally hit buttons. It wouldn’t do that, like it doesn’t here, unless he is simply talking to a cellphone with a screenshot displaying on it.

Now Reed tells Clay at the festival that the agreement Clay’s Dad made prohibits transferring of the property meaning Clay doesn’t own anything. He also says that the $100,000 loan he took out against his business to help his friend’s bar means that “the mortgage and entire property being turned over to ICB.” Wait…what? So first the will is invalid meaning Clay doesn’t own anything, but the loan he took out to help his friend is going to cause the property to be turned over to ICB that owned it in the first place. Did he mean that the bar was going to be turned over to ICB who again doesn’t own anything themselves? I don’t know. It ultimately doesn’t matter, but just adds needless confusion to the story which should be simple.

Now Mina goes back to ICB to tell them they shouldn’t turn Hart’s into “just another cookie-cutter chain”. She shows some photos that she has been taking with her iPad during the movie to show them what she is talking about. But then she starts to talk down to these people. She starts off with some reasonable things about having a place where they serve fresh food and everything. That sounds nice. I mean they have made it clear up to now that the business has close ties to the local farmers that supply them with the ingredients for the food, which the farmers in turn come to eat. They even can get the water locally. Sounds like that could bring down costs a bit and it seems like a neat idea to have a flagship store that is unique in a chain of stores. To my knowledge, this is something businesses do in real life. But of course there’s also the bit about “relentless advertising”, “60-inch TVs”, and “pictures of little league teams”. She also says, “We don’t need to re-brand Hart’s, sir. We should be using Hart’s to re-brand ICB.” Then this happens.

She says that it would be nice for restaurants to go back to being a place where people “actually talked while they ate”. Not a bad point were it not for the fact that we saw her talking to her friend in a coffee shop just fine at the beginning. We also saw her and many other people talking in a restaurant at the beginning of the movie too.

Aside from being insulting even though some of her points make sense, again, ICB DOESN’T OWN ANYTHING. At the end of the day, it’s not their decision to make.

Well, of course after Jimmy Mina Stewart gets done with her speech we found out that it works, and in short order she winds up back with Clay. Cut to One Year Later and the business seems to be doing better than before. Must have been the relentless advertising and selling their own bottled water.

Then they do something I never thought I would see in a Hallmark movie.

They break the fourth wall for the final shot. Oh, and she’s pregnant.

My final thoughts on this one. The pros are the more ethnically diverse cast, the beautiful outdoor areas in Canada, and definitely actor Antonio Cayonne. The cons are the incessant it’s Mina not Willy thing, the confusing plot with ICB that didn’t really need to be that way, and the usual small towns are the bastions of the real America nonsense. The cons were too much for me this time around. I can’t recommend this one. Out of the recent crop of Valentine’s Day Hallmark movies, I would say it goes like this:

1. Anything For Love
2. Dater’s Handbook
3. Appetite For Love
4. All Things Valentine
5. Valentine Ever After

Here are the songs:

Hallmark Review: Anything For Love (2016, dir. Terry Ingram)

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

“And I would do anything for love. I’d run right into hell and back. I would do anything for love. I’ll never lie to you, and that’s a fact. But I’ll never forget the way you feel right now. Oh, no. No way. And I would do anything for love. But I won’t do that. No I won’t do that. Anything for love. Oh, I would do anything for love. I would do anything for love. But I won’t do that. No I won’t do that.”
-I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) performed by Meatloaf and written by David Steinman

Okay, as much as that song fits the tile, they really couldn’t open a romantic comedy with such a serious operatic song. Instead, we dip into another 1970’s artist’s repertoire for a song. Well, 1970s when she was solo. That being Linda Ronstadt singing When Will I Be Loved.

The movie begins and we are introduced to Katherine Benson (Erika Christensen) and Jack Cooper (Paul Greene) as they both get ready for work. She’s a president of a real estate firm and he is a nurse. I have to admit that while I recognized Linda’s voice, I wasn’t sure who it was till I looked it up later. Also, it didn’t help that the movie cuts to Jack in bed during the song and his Great Dane is named Roxy. Of course that made me think of Roxy Music and their song More Than This.

However, while Bill Murray was in Lost In Translation, sang the song, it was directed by Sofia Coppola, and Paul Greene was in her film Somewhere (2010), there is a more appropriate Roxy Music song for a later scene.

As soon as Katherine arrives at work we meet her secretary named Debbie.

I’m really not sure if we are meant to look down on Debbie for dating so many men or not. I get the feeling that we aren’t. She is supposed to stand in contrast to Katherine as someone who may be just an executive assistant, but seems to be a whole lot happier because she puts herself out there. Katherine seems wound pretty tight and isolated even if she is rich and powerful.

Despite her tough exterior and what she soon says to her father, I’d say Katherine wants to know what love is (I Want To Know What Love Is by Foreigner).

Hey! If Hallmark can start whipping out Billy Joel, REO Speedwagon, and Linda Ronstadt, then I can add some great music to my reviews too.

We now meet Katherine’s father named Edward Benson (Tom Butler). He walks right in and tells us her it’s about time she gets serious with her boyfriend named Charles (Antonio Cupo). She’s worried that he might just want to get his hands on her company. That’s when Dad pulls out the big guns.

That’s right! A picture of her on a pony. He reminds her of how scared she was to get on it till he got her on it and walked with her the whole way. He says he would walk “a million circles before I’d ever let any harm come to you”. That may be true, but she deserves a man who would walk 500 miles just to fall down at her door (I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)).

I kind of feel bad if the movie is going to make this so easy for me. Nevertheless, since he did whip out the pony and they did start with Ronstadt, I simply can’t let it slide. Here is The Stone Poneys’ Different Drum. Even if it is getting a little ahead of myself.

Now we go to work with Jack at the hospital. There is a little subplot here, but I’m gonna be blunt. That subplot is really just there for one reason. So that we can at least see Jack do some nursing. He just basically tries to help the kid from shutting himself out from the world and only living in fear of his upcoming surgery. He sort of takes away his gaming device to give him a book. I thought it was a bit ridiculous since studies have shown that gaming really helps patients in hospitals. However, honestly, it isn’t helping this particular kid. It still comes across as a bit of pandering to a fear of technology and modern culture, but I’m okay with it here.

This is as good a time as any to mention that any weirdness about male nurses in this movie is kind of stupid. I mean if this were the pre-ER days, then sure. But it isn’t. That show had plenty of male nurses and was extremely popular. It just seemed dumb to me. Luckily, our man Jack basically feels the same way even if his unhelpful friend here is making him a bit of a jealous guy when they are looking at ladies throwing themselves at the doctors. I’m going with the Roxy Music cover version here since I promised at least one more their songs (Jealous Guy by Roxy Music).

Now we go out with Katherine and her boyfriend Charles. Charles does the standard low key I’m not the right guy Hallmark thing. He also proposes. Well, sort of.

He seems to want to pin her and go steady. I’d cue up Neil Sedaka, but that would imply this is them going steady again. I’d say he’s thinking more When In Rome’s The Promise…

while she’s feeling more like Real Life’s Send Me An Angel rather than sticking me with Charles.

That awkward moment when you spend a bunch of time looking for the appropriate song for a scene, go with Send Me An Angel, then come to the next scene only to remember that one of the minor characters is named Angel. These girls are just here to setup what both Katherine and Jack are going to do for love. We find out from Jack’s friend that he should lie about his job to get girls. In his case it’s upscaling to a doctor. In the next scene, it’s Debbie convincing Katherine that she should downscale to an executive assistant like herself in order to get men. This leads both to put up fake profiles on a dating website. It also means I get to post Lies by The Knickerbockers.

Yes, you are reading the title of the website right. So here you go with The Go-Go’s Head Over Heels.

And yes, Debbie is signing Katherine up as if she is her. I love that her favorite food is “Black Coffee”. That, and is that a fake pharmaceutical type ad at the bottom of the dating website?

I guess that’s a yes. You can see that Jack is being honest. Sadly, his friend is in the room. While Jack steps out of the room, he changes Jack’s occupation to a doctor and submits the profile causing Jack to not know he hasn’t been truthful.

The funny thing is, that’s a real dating website run in the UK.

Now we get something that I just plain don’t get.

The sign behind the lady. There’s no drugs on the premises? What? This is a hospital. Wouldn’t drugs be all over the place. Please if you have an explanation for this then tell me cause it makes no sense to me. However, I think it’s a mistake cause the sign is covered over later in the movie.

Now they start dating which begins with bowling. I’m sorry, but we’ll just have to imagine they left the skinheads at home cause Camper Van Beethoven has the only bowling song I know (Take The Skinheads Bowling by Camper Van Beethoven).

I like the sweet scene that follows. Katherine walks into her office to find two sets of flowers. One is from Charles and the other is for Debbie, as Katherine tells her father. However, they are for Katherine and she treasures them. It’s a nice scene.

So there’s your setup. You have Jack who believes he is dating a woman named Debbie who is an executive assistant that thinks he is a doctor. You have Katherine who is playing along, but only in that she is named Debbie and an executive assistant. Not in her feelings for him. Jack does figure it out though, but decides to play along that he is a doctor.

Ultimately, they are going to end up together after a minor speed bump. Yes, the whole he’s not a doctor thing of course, and Charles is behind the reveal. We have stuck with largely 1980s songs so let’s go with what Charles does to get information on Jack. Sing it, Hall & Oates!

She actually breaks it off with Jack and nearly ends up with Charles, but after saying things that are important to a relationship, she throws him a curve ball. He asks him if he would want her if she had Debbie’s job. This is not the face you want to give anyone you want to believe that you are never gonna give up.

And yes, that means Rick Astley.

Didn’t think you were going to get away without him, did you?

The movie has a cute scene where Katherine goes to the hospital and pages Jack. Jack hears it then pages her. They briefly talk, then kiss.

The movie doesn’t explicitly say it really, but it’s very much implied that this is one step away from marriage. In other words, together forever, which of course were the words I used so that I could include Rick Astley again.

Oh, and of course the kid goes off to surgery okay. The book did help him to stop ruminating, calm down, and go forward with what he needed to do.

What are my final thoughts? It’s just a little above average I would say. It avoids some of the typical cliches and doesn’t feel cheap. Case in point, when they are on the roof of a building, they are actually outside. Sadly, that is not a given in Hallmark movies. Don’t seek it out, but if it’s on, then I don’t think you’ll be disappointed if you like Hallmark romance movies.

If you’ve put up with all my musical references, then I end this with probably the most bizarre music video for a love song I’ve ever seen: I Believe In A Thing Called Love by The Darkness.

Transgender Film Review: I Want What I Want (1972, dir. John Dexter)

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I can’t get my hands on a copy of The Danish Girl through Netflix until March. As a result, I decided to finally do something I promised on this site last August. That being, among other things, that I would review the film I Want What I Want. I came across this film on a list of Queer Cinema I found on Letterboxd. Well, it’s sort of a transgender movie. Kind of. Not exactly. More like a feminist film from the early 1970s that happens to have a trans woman at the center of it. If that sent shivers down your spine, then you are probably transgender like myself.

Before we actually get to this film we need to look at the full DVD title for it: “I don’t want to live the rest of my life as a man…I want what I want…to be a woman.”

First off, she always was a woman. Trans women are women. End of story. Any mythical idea of transition is only to make ourselves feel more comfortable with who we are. That means we don’t have to do anything whatsoever and we are women. The same goes for trans men. A point lost on people even today so I guess I can let it slide in 1972 even though I don’t want to.

Secondly, was it necessary for Geoff Brown, who wrote the book, and the filmmakers to choose the same words for their title as what a child would say when their parents ask why they need a Wii U in addition to the PS4 and Xbox One they already own? The answer of course being no. They wanted to sell tickets. The same reason Doris Wishman entitled her 1977 mondo movie Let Me Die A Woman. Well, at least the DVD cover is very honest about what you are going to see, right?

See! The cover clearly shows us that a genetic male played by Harry Andrews will play the trans woman prior to transition as shown by the man standing in front of the mirror. Then Anne Heywood will take over to play the main role after the transition as shown by the woman in the mirror.

Well, that DVD cover is a little misleading. By the way, if IMDb is to be believed, then this is how The Danish Girl was going to be except that cisgender woman would have been Nicole Kidman. Hmm….I guess that might have been better. Then the Women Film Critics Circle could have awarded their “Invisible Woman” award (performance by a woman whose exceptional impact on the film dramatically, socially or historically, has been ignored) to the person playing the titular trans woman character instead of Alicia Vikander playing a cisgender woman who isn’t the “invisible woman” the movie is supposed to be about.

The movie begins and we see Roy played by Anne Heywood. Yes, I know the deadname thing and all, but at this point in the film she hasn’t chosen a female name. She’s looking out at the women passing by, some who are talking amongst themselves, and others are talking with men. She doesn’t look happy. For trans women who aren’t happy with their bodies and/or presentation, we call this everyday of the week. At least I do.

Now Roy leaves her office. She walks down the street looking at some women and female clothes in a window before passing right through a visual metaphor.

We go home with Roy and once again are greeted with a visual metaphor.

I look over at my mirror and all I see in it is my reflection, a stack of unreviewed DVDs in the closet, a couple of prom dresses, and an Ao Dai. Hey! I took a course on the history of Vietnam in college and those Vietnamese dresses are gorgeous. Don’t you judge me! No seriously, I do own one of those. The prom dresses are another story. But now it’s time for Roy to go downstairs so we can meet her sister Shirley played by Virginia Stride.

This is as good a time as any to bring up two things to do with the voices in this movie:
1. The audio on the DVD isn’t perfect. It has some issues that combined with British accents can cause you to miss a word here or there if you aren’t say, British yourself. I grew up watching Are You Being Served? with some of those accents, and even I had trouble with these otherwise very easy to process accents.
2. You are probably wondering what Anne Heywood sounds like. If you’re close to my age (32), or grew up in the 1980s, then I have a good way for you to picture how she sounds. It’s like the movie Just One Of The Guys (1985). Trying a little bit to deepen the voice, but largely just altering the presentation towards something stereotypically masculine.

Now we meet dad played by Harry Andrews. He’s not so happy with Roy. Hey, it could be worse dad. Roy could grow a mustache and then your “son” would look a little like Rita Pavone in Rita The Field Marshall (1967).

Honestly, that’s what I expected when I found out this movie had Anne Heywood playing a trans woman and saw a picture of her on the back cover.

I get the next scene. It makes sense. Roy is babysitting for her sister and looks at her clothes as well as her wig. That all makes sense to me. What doesn’t make sense is why this was the final shot they chose to go with when Roy’s sister comes home.

Roy, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you? Even Elizabeth Shue was more presentable at the end of Adventures In Babysitting (1987).

Regardless, now we get a scene of Roy at work. It doesn’t really matter what she does. All you need to know in that department is that she has money of her own.

If we weren’t sure the Dad was an asshole, then we get a scene of Roy and him at the grocery store. Basically, the entire scene is Dad telling Roy to leave the upcoming dinner party early so he can go out with a woman.

Then the film reminds us it’s arty, but without water falling from the sky like in Laurence Anyways (2012).

Next Roy is having a conversation with this woman about fashion. The woman is obviously interested and likes him. She will even state this explicitly in the next scene. So why does the father look upset? I mean assuming I buy into all the BS out there about men, which I don’t, wouldn’t this guy love that his “son” is being so devious and taking advantage of women’s supposed only interest to potentially get laid? One of the other guys at the table even points out that Roy is doing very well “for someone who hasn’t been keeping up with the mark.” I guess it’s just supposed to tell us he is already suspicious. Came across as a little weird to me.

After another shot from the top of the table, it’s time to separate the men from the women for the after dinner part. The women seem to like it because it means they “can tear them to pieces” afterwards. Now we cut to Dad who apparently is in the middle of a lecture. He says “there’s change for a reason, then there’s change just for the sake of change.” I totally agree with the man. I don’t buy the universal app excuse from Twitter for the new iPad app. I also don’t appreciate the YouTube app looking like a Speak ‘N Spell.

Anyways, we now see the Dad try and make a move on a woman in a car. I’m sorry, but once you’ve seen Ruthless People (1986), then it’s a little hard to look at this…

and not think of Bill Pullman throwing up.

Now shit gets real cause Dad comes home with her, and after trying to feel her up, discovers the reality about Roy.

The review of this movie on the inside of the DVD by Dennis Dermody is right! The 1970’s really wasn’t the greatest era for women’s fashion. Also, she has heavy blue eyeshadow on. Maybe it’s just me, but after binge watching 7 seasons of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch last year where they seemed to wear nothing but blue eyeshadow, I’m a little sick of it. Also, I would take this otherwise cringe worthy scene more seriously if it didn’t end with Roy leaving with enough money to be completely independent and start presenting as a woman in the blink of an eye. In reality, things like this end with far more deadly outcomes such as the suicide of Leelah Alcorn in December of 2014.

I do like that throughout all of this anger and beating, Roy stands up for herself. She even gives the right answer about how long it’s been going on. She says, “All my life”. Technically that’s not true for all trans women, but some do figure it out quite early like Jazz Jennings. He threatens her with cures. Then he asks her if she’s a homosexual. That means he’s actually asking if she’s straight. Her response is “no”. That would mean she’s a lesbian, but the movie is wishy washy about her sexuality. However, I believe she is meant to be straight.

We now find out that Roy’s mother is dead. She says it’s his fault and he throws her. Then he says that the Germans used to send people like her to the gas chambers. She responds that they used to decorate “people like you”. There’s another line here, but then…yeah…here’s the line after that one:

“God made man in his own image, and he blew it.”

That’s when you start to realize this is less of a transgender film and more a feminist one. Unfortunately, a nasty feminist one considering the ending. Some of you probably reasoned out what that is, but I will get to it eventually for everyone else.

Roy flees for good. Makeover!

I actually appreciate this scene. So many movies spend all the time in the world making it seem like heels are the hardest thing in the world, but almost never mention makeup or anything else.

This movie even has her have difficultly putting on a bra. Makes sense. She is doing it from the back, which takes some practice and no one was around to teach her the trick of doing it in the front, then simply turning the bra around. Of course this movie absolutely couldn’t do that because Anne Heywood may have put up with binding for the film, but she isn’t going to have chest reconstruction surgery. Although, they do use a male stand-in later for a brief shot, but that doesn’t count because the movie will also show her with a woman’s figure for one scene even though there’s no mention of hormones.

There’s another limitation too caused by hiring a genetic girl for the role. Unless we are going to put fake hair on her legs and arms, then we really can’t show her shave them without breaking the illusion.

Let me just tell you now that they don’t show a fake penis unlike more recent films and TV Shows have. Thank God! Anyone who has or has had one only needs to see that fake penis twice and the illusion is broken. Unless the film uses multiple fake penises, which I haven’t seen done, then the movie has a penis that will look identical every single time it’s shown. The penis don’t work that way.

Finally she’s ready! Meet Wendy Ross.

That Girl! Unfortunately, this film will tell her she’s not what every girl should be till the unfortunate ending.

She goes around town and seems to pass just fine. She’s a little nervous about her voice, but that doesn’t appear to be a problem. Even a police officer calls her “Miss”. Then those damn visual metaphors attack again.

Hmm…I had no idea that the UK had a large giant female population in the 1970s. Think this is going to lead to anything? Well, you’re out of luck. All that happens is a couple of guys who were clearly just about 10 years early to appear in Fulci’s The New York Ripper (1982) and Gorris’ A Question of Silence (1982) scare her, causing her to run into the “Ladies Room”. Nothing happens in there. No bathroom usage. She just washes her hands and says something that is incomprehensible to a woman in there. I think she is saying “driving a truck”, but that makes no sense and it is just a guess.

After a few more lines to remind us men are pigs and all that, we get this shot to make sure you don’t forget feminism.

Can’t leave out the novel that is credited with starting the second wave of feminism which had people like Gloria Steinem referring to trans women as…don’t want to spoil the ending.

Wendy gets herself a room adjoining with another girl in the house of a woman named Margaret (Jill Bennett). Margaret is married to man named Philip (Philip Bond) and works as a teacher. She is friendly with a man named Frank (Michael Coles) as well. I’m still confused about his character in relation to Margaret. I get the impression she is or wants to have an affair with him…maybe…this movie can be a little tough. What I’m not confused about is this shot.

It’s not uncommon for a trans woman or a trans man to start dressing in the “appropriate” clothing, but go over the top at the start. That’s my story of the prom dresses. However, this will be a running thing throughout the film to differeniate Wendy from other women. Note that by comparison, she looks like a 1950s housewife/hausfrau next to this clearly modern day 1970s woman. It’s the girl she’s living next to.

Think maybe the hausfrau comment is too much. Don’t worry, cause in one of the scenes almost immediately after this Margaret says the word herself to describe herself while serving drinks at a party. She also says that Wendy is “all a front” to Frank. I don’t think she actually knows, but the line is dropped in there anyways the second Wendy pays attention to Frank. Oh, and then she says, “The only thing that sets Wendy apart from us is she has a private income.”

I know all this can be chalked up to general cattiness if you will over a guy they are both interested in, but it all kind of weaves together into something that doesn’t go down all that well. Then we get this scene.

Basically the scene is there to remind us that Margaret is very much a feminist. She talks down about women who are pretty and dumb as happy to be considered inferior, but that if you show any independence or a mind of your own that you’ll be determined as unfeminine. Okay, so she’s a little angry. So of course they have Wendy respond that she likes bras and wouldn’t mind depending. In other words, they make sure you know how much Wendy stands in contrast to Margaret. Margaret responds to what Wendy says by telling her that she’s a “strange girl”. Don’t worry, we’re getting to the wonderful ending, but first another assault by a visual metaphor.

Wendy goes to get a job. What kind of a job you might ask? A beautician. Why? We know she has plenty of experience in other areas since we saw her in a business position earlier. Yes, I’m aware that in Boy Meets Girl (2014) she does fashion. Yes, I’m aware that in Orange Is The New Black they have Laverne Cox doing the other girls’ hair. However, this follows immediately after she’s called strange and all but unacceptable by Margaret. She doesn’t get the job. Then the film goofs.

That is a woman’s figure. A genetic male’s body doesn’t get into that shape without hormones, which this film has given us no indication to tell us she’s on. In fact, later she is told by a doctor that her thinking she is growing breasts is imaginary. That is also when they use a male stand-in to emphasize that fact, which also has a straight up and down figure.

By the way, she’s tucking in this scene. I use a gaff personally. It’s basically a strong pair of panties that pulls down, flattens, and also in the process, pops your testicles back into your body. Some use surgical tape to hold the penis between the legs. An example of that on film is in the Danish movie A Soap (2006). This is the first time I’ve seen tucking done this way by what appears to be her wrapping everything in a gauze of some sort. Whatever works for you. The penis is the primary issue, not the testicles. They really do just pop away. Heck, Sumo wrestlers do that before a match to protect them.

Time to visit Sis! I love that when Wendy’s sister calls her Roy, she responds by saying that she’ll call her Sam then. Oh, and Sis does mess up once after being told that and immediately is met with the name Sam. Notice again, the strong difference in clothes. Her sister even digs into her about how she looks. Sis even suggests a cure to which Wendy says, “I am cured.” Doesn’t dig into me, but the correct response would be to say I was never sick. Gone too long without a visual metaphor?

The sister brings up that women’s clothes are similar to men’s clothes nowadays. Wendy says that she doesn’t care. Wendy says, “If women’s clothes were made out of old sacking. I’d want to wear them.” Again, that feminist stuff slipping in here by making her seem superficial and not a real woman for wanting to wear stereotypically feminine clothes. And again in contrast to a cisgender woman in modern 1970s clothes who even has a baby to prove she’s a genetic girl.

Now we get Frank acting like a jerk. It’s relatively light-hearted actually, but of course Wendy is deathly afraid of anyone finding out. Then it gets dark literally and figuratively.

Tossing down a lamp she seems furious that she is attracted to a man. She says nasty things about herself such as being fake, a bitch, and insane.

That scene ends quickly and she tries to borrow money from her sister to go see a doctor. She asks her sister to not tell the baby about her. She says to just let the baby believe what she sees. She gives a nice speech here about not committing any crimes or doing anything wrong. Of course she shouldn’t have to say that or specifically mention she isn’t having any kind of sexual relations. She does say that though.

Now we meet the doctor. We are very near the end of the film.

You could probably do a whole post picking apart only this part of the film if you wanted to. I don’t.

The doctor is not all bad by any means. However, he basically does do two things:
1. Makes it clear that nothing will make her a real woman. By that I mean someone who will 100% pass as a genetic girl even under the scrutiny of a man.
2. That it will take a long time and a lot of work before she will be granted the chance to have bottom surgery. This is an area that is a difficult thing. This can be blatant gatekeeping. Other people deciding your life against your will. However, this is not something I believe should be tossed aside completely either. It is important for the person involved to be given a chance to basically vet themselves. For example, a lot of trans women don’t have bottom surgery. They just decide it’s not important to them. Same goes for trans men. Watch the movie Mr. Angel (2013) about the male porn star Buck Angel. If you come away with nothing else, it’s that Buck loves his vagina. Also, you are asking surgeons to permanently alter your body in a rather significant way. We aren’t talking about a boob job here. We’re talking about something that if done in haste could put you in a David Reimer situation. He was a boy that lost his penis in a botched circumcision, had his parents told to raise him as a girl, figured it out, transitioned back, there’s a book, he went on Oprah, and then killed himself. I think some of this is okay, but it often can be taken way too far and push people to take drastic actions. In this case, she is told that it’s going to take a full year of being analyzed.

She leaves and goes to pack. She has a line here that says: “Is the point of no return the only point.” I read this as meaning she is considering that she doesn’t have to have surgery to be a real woman. However, she then follows that with lines about how she could wake up one morning and find she’s a middle aged man. The gist is that the surgery is that important to her, but she seems to have given up even if that means being a woman only in her own head. She also mentions about not buying more clothes because it means living beyond her means and her sex. Again the feminist thing there.

Now Frank enters the room. This part alone is tough to sit through. What’s weird is that they really haven’t established a relationship on his end. We get Wendy’s side, but he’s barely been in the movie. He tries to kiss her to strongly tell her how much he loves her and to not leave. She is into it at first, then becomes repulsed by herself. She doesn’t believe anyone can really love her. They don’t really make it clear at first, but Frank glances down slightly, then gets violent. He kicks her where it hurts. She goes down and takes a mirror with her which breaks. Here’s the ending…sort of.

She appears to cut off her genitals with a shard of glass. I mentioned Gloria Steinem before. She and other feminists of her time referred to trans women as people who mutilate themselves. That’s not all she said either. I don’t care to go into that any further. It’s a huge mess even to this day.

However, I did say “sort of” for a reason. The movie is still going.

That’s right! She’s alive! Didn’t bleed out or anything. Suddenly she’s just in a hospital bed where she acts like that was a dream or maybe wasn’t. She says, “She was confused for a moment”. She says, “It was about a year ago she woke up in a bed like this.” Regardless, the doctor tells her the operation was a success and that he’ll check in again with her later. He calls her “Miss Ross”.

We now cut to a regular room and find that she has a proper passport now. She’s not in a hospital. Then she says, “I must always remember. How lucky I am to be a girl.” And cut to the end of Working Girl (1988)…

as the camera zooms out from the window till it stops and the credits roll. Yes, I know that’s also the ending of King Vidor’s The Crowd (1928).

So if I am reading this right. She tried to cut off her genitals, but failed and survived. She had bottom surgery, which made her a real woman in the eyes of the British government. Then she ends the film by saying how lucky she is to be a girl? What? You mean as opposed to the men who she said earlier were made in God’s image which he screwed up? This was supposed to be a transgender movie, right? It certainly has a lot of the elements, but there really is this constant anti-man thing going on here. It’s more like the story of a woman who is trapped in a man’s world. She tries to become a woman be merely adorning herself with the appearance of a woman. She is berated for not essentially being a modern woman/feminist. The person who ultimately drives her to a suicidal action is a man. Then she wakes up with female genitalia, accepted as a woman, and says to herself that she must remember she is lucky not to finally be living as the gender she is, not to be accepted as woman, or anything that makes sense. She says she must remember she is lucky not to be a man.

And to drive all this home about her being lucky not to be a man.

She says the line after she picks up and looks at the picture of, to the best of my knowledge, her dead mother. The mother she said her father drove to death.

What I do love about all this is that the movie with the ending like this is quite similar to A Clockwork Orange that came out one year prior to this film. The two books are separated by 4 years. Alex has an apparent disease and is given a superficial cure that opens him up to hatred by society and in the end is driven to a suicidal action that truly cures him. In his case it returned him to his previous state. However, the book actually has an additional 21st chapter where Alex decides to give up his violent ways. In I Want What I Want, a woman with an apparent disease gives herself a superficial cure that opens her up to hatred by society and in the end is driven to a suicidal action that truly cures her. Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a little borrowing going on here.

I’d be really remiss if I didn’t mention that according to the review of the film inside the DVD box it says that the director was quoted as saying: “I am known to be difficult, British, homosexual and expensive and whilst I can, with modified rapture, admit to the first three charges, the last is deeply wounding.” Also according to that review, the author of the book Geoff Brown wrote only one other book which was about a schizophrenic. Both things could have played a role in how this film turned out.

You can say a lot of things about this movie, the DVD itself, the box, the reviews, my own review, etc. What you can’t say though is that Anne Heywood didn’t give it her all here. She did. I may not like what I saw in the film, but she did a good job with very difficult material.

I don’t recommend the film. I just can’t. But if you think you can handle it, then just like Let Me Die A Woman, it’s a historical curiosity.

Hallmark Review: Valentine Ever After (2016, dir. Don McBrearty)

Posted on February 15, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Note About Music: If you have come looking for the song at the end, then your answer is This Girl by Justin James. Thanks to Kayla Holder in the comments and Robert Carli for responding to her request about the song. You can find the song here on Justin James’ YouTube channel.

I’ve seen Northern Exposure, Doc Hollywood (1991), Finding Normal (2013), and Christmas Under Wraps (2014). All four of these use the same plot of a doctor who either gets in trouble in a small town or through normal unlucky circumstances winds up having to perform their doctoring services in a small town for a certain amount of time. In Northern Exposure, the doctor simply didn’t read the conditions of his scholarship and wound up being a doctor in a small town in Alaska. In Doc Hollywood, a doctor nearly hits a couple of people walking cattle on a street, but swerves to avoid them and destroys most of a judge’s fence so he has to do a handful of days as doctor in the town. In Finding Normal, a woman taking a cross country trip is pulled over by a cop for speeding and has a litany of past unpaid tickets as well as a warrant out for her arrest. She is sentenced to work as a local doctor in the town she was speeding through. In Christmas Under Wraps, a woman ends up getting an internship at the last minute which means just like Northern Exposure, it’s to Alaska she goes to serve as a local doctor. In all four of those movies/TV Shows, working as a doctor there meant helping to save lives and those towns were in need of a doctor. So let’s see Valentine Ever After’s rehashing of this story.

First off, take a look at those credits. Dylan Neal we know from The Gourmet Detective series. However, Alana Smithee is a new one on me and IMDb…sort of. It is a long standing tradition for people working on films, especially directors, to ask to be credited as Alan Smithee because the film was so taken away from them, recut, or basically changed so heavily that they don’t want to be associated with the movie. Alana Smithee sure reads like that is what happened here to the person who wrote the teleplay for this film and co-wrote the story with Dylan Neal. What’s really interesting is that until I changed it last night on IMDb to match the onscreen credits–you can still find the name on other sites–Teena Booth who has written numerous Hallmark movies was credited as one of the writers. She could be this Alana Smithee since I have no reason to believe there is an actual person with that name who has a completely blank profile with this film as their only credit.

The way it looked last night on IMDb before I updated the page myself.

This could mean that Teena Booth is Alana Smithee. It could also be a simple mis-crediting. However, there are some other things that are a little funny here. If you go to the plot summary on IMDb, you will find it is written by Becky Southwell. Becky Southwell is Dylan Neal’s wife.

It’s a little weird to me that she would have put in the plot summary, but not noticed that her husband doesn’t have writing credits listed on IMDb.

Then if you go to IMDb and look at the full credits for the film you will see Dylan Neal listed as an executive producer for the film.

There is no onscreen credit for Dylan Neal as an executive producer. There are three onscreen credits for producing the film: Steve Solomos, Jonas Prupas, and Joel S. Rice.

Adding even more confusion to the matter, if you go to Muse Entertainment’s website, who was the production company, they list only Jonas Prupas and Joel S. Rice as Executive Producers.

It’s a mess. At the very least, I think it’s highly likely that unless an actual person named Alana Smithee comes forward, then this is probably someone who wanted nothing to do with this film. If you look at the film Hidden 3D (2011) you can see the writers used the names Alan Smithy and Alana Smithy. Considering the material of this movie, I get why someone wouldn’t want to be credited for it. I thought I should lay this out there for you since even last night a question about it had already popped up on IMDb’s message boards for the movie.

Now let’s talk about the actual film. If you know that you are going to watch this movie no matter what I have to say, then skip to the end of the review where I give my advice about how to do that and spare yourself some trouble. I know this is a long review and all. I also mention a list of tactics for figuring out the music in a Hallmark movie. I have noticed that quite a few people look for that information.

The movie opens up in a lawyer’s office and we meet our leading lady named Julia (Autumn Reeser). We find out that not only has her mother passed on, but that she is planning to become a lawyer herself but hasn’t passed the bar exam the first two times. She is working on the website for her father’s firm. The dad offers to have her come over for the weekend so he can help her study to take the bar exam again in a couple of weeks. He is proud of her and says he wishes her mother were here to see how well she has done “filling the empty space in this office” left by her dead mother. The scene began with him congratulating her on a brief she wrote for a case that reminded him of how her mother used to construct an argument. But now it’s off to meet her current boyfriend Gavin (Damon Runyan).

He proposes to her. The movie makes sure we know he is a little odd seeing as he starts the proposal by saying “if there’s one thing you know about me it’s that I pick winners.” On the surface, I will grant you that’s not the most romantic way to begin a proposal. Hallmark movies like to setup the wrong boyfriend with these less than subtle hints that the guy doesn’t see it as a union of two people who love each other, will make a great team together, and will do great things, but simply the latter two parts.

His parents jump in and are little rude about the wedding. Standard stuff for a Hallmark movie.

Now we go to meet Julia’s friend Sydney (Vanessa Matsui). We also see that Julia’s wedding made the papers so we know that she is well known in Chicago where she lives. Sydney speaks tells us her cousin announced at her father’s birthday party that a man named Chad was cheating on her. We also find out that people are calling her all the time about it. Sydney tells her, “Welcome to the upper crust. Say hello to five-star restaurants and goodbye to privacy.” We find out that while Sydney was born into the upper crust lifestyle, Julia had to work her way to get where she is. They decide it would be fun to get out of town for a while and visit Wyoming to go skiing. Sounds neat to me.

Gavin is a little mad that she just suddenly decided to leave town right after he proposed to her. I can understand. He even offers to just drop all the crazy wedding stuff if that is what’s bothering her and just simply go get married now. She doesn’t want to and so he says as long as she comes back. Again, not the perfect choice of words, but nothing here to indicate this is a bad guy. Off to Wyoming we go!

This means we get a shot of a plane and driving on one of those beautiful highways that take you through the mountains. Makes me long for the days when I used to take trips to Lake Tahoe with my parents. Then Sydney tells Julia that the GPS says turn right.

I’m grateful that this is one of those Hallmark movies that knows how GPS works. It doesn’t require cell towers, but just visibility by a couple of satellites orbiting the Earth. However, sometimes the maps can fail you. I haven’t had it happen often, but it does occur. The United States is big. It also doesn’t help when you apparently think you can clear a rock, but it hits the underside of your car. Course they don’t show it cause budget and it really isn’t necessary. Seeing as they really got themselves lost, they are out of range of any cell coverage. To my knowledge, rare in 2016. Even in rural areas where having a way to call for help is rather important.

Lucky for them, a cowboy shows up named Ben (Eric Johnson). I love that he knows about this rock that they hit. Why don’t they move it seeing as they obviously have had other people who have hit it and probably have been stranded out there? Well, don’t worry. It will fit right along with the logic of the upcoming scenes. He helps to take them back to his family ranch called the “Destiny Ridge Ranch”.

Now we have a surprisingly normal conversation around the dinner table. We even find out that Ben wants to make the place a dude ranch. Seems like a great idea to me. He’s quite enthusiastic about it actually. One of the great things about living even next door to San Francisco in a suburb, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to be able to go only a few miles and encounter endless parks. Even if places like “Destiny Ridge Ranch” aren’t somewhere you’d want to live, they are great places to visit and help to support the people who do want to live there. However, Sydney stumbles upon something that I guess Ben didn’t think of. That being the question of what are these people going to do at night. All the activities he lists are daytime ones. I can honestly see Ben completely missing that himself. Given where he lives he must be exhausted come night time and probably checks out early to sleep. However, this is when mom chimes in and things start to get weird.

His mom tells him to take the ladies where he goes to have a good time. He takes them to a place called “Million Dollar Cowboy Bar”.

Seems innocent enough. He tells them “it’s a little different than the bars you’re used to.” Doesn’t seem that different to me. We see a waitress serving alcohol. There’s pool tables. There’s live music. There’s a dance floor. I guess because the live music is country music? Definitely a stereotype, but he’s kind about it. He doesn’t call them hicks or drop lines about Italian boots like Autumn Reeser did in the film A Country Wedding. Sydney makes a beeline for the dance floor and Julia sits down at a table with Ben. She takes notice of a statue in the bar.

It’s an important and historical statue for the community. Like the kind of statue a town would keep in a town square or at the local historical society so that it doesn’t get damaged or anything. It’s even worth a “pretty penny”. She asks the obvious about why would you keep it in a bar. Ben tells her that they keep it there where they serve drinks and place it right next to a dance floor so that it’s “where people will be to enjoy it.” Does that sound anywhere near logical to you? Does that mean the bar is the most popular place in town? That statement also doesn’t explain away why something worth a “pretty penny” would be somewhere that even an innocent stumble by a waitress could spill a drink on it. Not to mention all the other hazards introduced by keeping such a important and expensive statue uncovered and in the middle of a bar. But that is enough for Julia and she doesn’t follow this up with any more lines.

We also get a brief appearance by an old school friend of Ben’s who wants to dance, but he obviously doesn’t share her feelings. He doesn’t say that, but just that he’s known her since grade school. Julia says she’s obviously waiting on you to get a clue and notice her. True. Not the best choice of words, but we get no impression that he has told her no and doesn’t respond to Julia’s statement except with the grade school comment. Earlier at dinner there is a little girl who likes to “dote” on him. Julia refers to this lady as another woman who dotes on him. The point being that he is a hot item in town and well liked. He’s also responsible and only orders a club soda since he’s going to be doing the driving.

Here’s a nice shot of how things are laid out in the bar.

Note where the table, Julia (on the left), Ben (on the right), the statue, and the dance floor all are in relation to each other. Now comes the incident.

Sydney is dancing with a man. The man appears to twirl her, but it’s not a full handholding thing. It’s more like she twirled on her own. It causes her to bump into the woman standing behind her holding a drink which spills onto her shirt. The woman asks “What’s wrong with you?!” Sydney apologizes to the woman. She even offers to pay to replace the woman’s shirt. I would call this a simple incident that both of them are at fault for, but it’s the right thing to do on Sydney’s part to offer to pay to replace the shirt she potentially damaged. The woman responds with “I’m asking what you think you’re doing, waltzing in here wearing that getup and flailing all over the place.”

Here is the shot showing Sydney “flailing all over the place” while the woman behind her is flung way far out by her partner.

Here are two shots of the “getup” Sydney is wearing.

She waltzed in there because Ben’s mother told him to take them there. That’s why they are at this bar. Sydney didn’t do anything wrong by dancing on a dance floor.

Now Sydney says, “Ok. You can insult my dancing, but not my fashion sense. I’m not the one wearing country floral in the winter.” Very restrained response to an insult that implies Sydney is a big city slut for simply wearing an expensive dress and dancing on a dance floor.

At this point, Ben and Julia stand up from the table. The lady now says, “This is my favorite shirt. Let’s see how you like it.” The woman throws her drink onto Sydney.

Sydney is surprised by this, stumbles back, and reaches out for something to stabilize her after she has been attacked by the this other woman. She of course ends up touching the statue which causes it to fall over. Julia appears to get up and try and save the statue from falling, but can’t move quickly enough from the table to do so. We don’t see Ben do anything here. The next shot we get of him shows him appearing to be on the dance floor.

That means he appears to have done nothing to stop the statue from falling over even though he was only a few steps from it and was already standing. So of course this goes right where you think it does. The woman who threw her drink on Sydney is arrested, Sydney and Julia are questioned by the cops, and Ben who witnessed the whole thing explains what happened. Nope!

Sydney, who was attacked, is booked and has a mug shot taken of her. Julia, who was sitting at a table, stood up, and tried to stop the statue from falling is also booked and has a mug shot taken of her. Nothing happens to Ben and the girl who attacked Sydney. This all occurred in a room filled with witnesses. Most notably Ben, who saw the whole thing.

Now Julia and Sydney are dragged into the judge’s chamber for an “emergency session”. Note that Julia who is going to become a lawyer is looking at the law books on the shelf. She says, “It means they’re not sure they arrested us on the right charge and they want the judge to weigh in,” when Sydney says she doesn’t understand what an “emergency session” with the judge means. Guess what Julia is looking for on that shelf? She is looking for and finds the “Emmettsville Municipal Code”. That’s when the judge enters the room and immediately takes the book away from her telling her “this is not a library”. The judge, his deputy, and Ben follow in after him.

The judge lays down the hand of the statue and tells them it’s “evidence of the careless destruction of a historical monument. And that’s a felony.” To that Sydney tells the judge it was “an accidental felony”. I would have mentioned that a drink was thrown at me, but the next thing we hear is the deputy tell her that witnesses saw Julia “rush at the statue and push it right over.” Not Sydney who reached out for something to stabilize herself, but Julia who got up and barely had a chance to move towards the statue.

Now we find out from the judge that the “statue was a monument to my great-grandfather, with an appraised value of $30,000.” When Julia asks to see the statute covering this situation because it might be being misinterpreted, she receives a response from the judge saying “are you saying I don’t know the laws of my own county?” She tries to speak, but is interrupted by the judge who tells her “you two are responsible for the willful destruction of this town’s most cherished possession” which they keep in a bar next to a dance floor. And note that he now blames both of them for this supposed felony even though the deputy just said they only have witnesses that said Julia rushed the statue and pushed it over. Ben still hasn’t said a word even though he saw the whole thing.

Now the judge says he’s not an unreasonable man. He threatens to send them to two years in prison. However, he’s willing to be so reasonable and in this room located in the middle of nowhere where they have been dragged to they are going to be offered a plea bargain. He says the charge would be “disorderly conduct”. Apparently, that would only be a misdemeanor and it would give them 30 days in jail. After being asked if this could be settled by a fine, we find out that the judge doesn’t like fines. “He doesn’t feel that people actually learn their lesson that way.”

Finally, Ben actually speaks up. He says why not community service instead of jail. He says he can “personally vouch for these two, that they meant your granddaddy’s statue no harm.” He is willing to “vouch” that they meant his “granddaddy’s statue no harm”, but he’s not going to speak up in their defense as the only witness to this supposed felony. That’s too much for Ben apparently.

The judge finds this reasonable. He says that would be fine with him if Ben kept them at his place. Where? The judge says, “put them in one of those worker’s cabins you got.” He seems to like the fact that it would save “the town the cost of putting them up.” Shockingly Ben responds that it sounds like the judge is trying to punish him, not them. So he considers having to spend any more time with these women as a punishment, but has no problem with them being sent to jail for two years for an accident he witnessed. What’s the judge’s response to this?

He condemns Ben for taking them Charlie’s, which by the way, isn’t even the name of the bar as is clearly seen in the shot of the town. As you can see in the screenshot above, the bar is called the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar actually located in Jackson, Wyoming. It even had a big sign saying WELCOME. Also, it wasn’t Ben who even suggested the idea. His mother told him to take them there. Now it’s time to lay into them a little more for being from Chicago.

He gives them a choice between jail or “community service”. So what’s Julia’s response?

She asks to make a phone call before being forced to be charged with a felony or take a plea bargain. He refuses her request. No opportunity to defend herself. No legal representation. No opportunity to call for legal representation. She just takes the plea bargain. Who knows how long they would actually be held in the county jail for a felony they didn’t commit.

So let’s sum this up. A woman and her friend get lost and a nice man helps them to get to town. The mother of this man tells him to take them to a bar. This bar has a statue valued at $30,000 sitting in the middle of a place that serves liquid that causes you to lose control of your mind and body. They also place it next to a dance floor. Then one of these woman twirls on the dance floor, doesn’t fling out far from her partner, but bumps a drink another woman is holding behind her. She offers to pay to replace this woman’s shirt. That woman responds by attacking her by throwing her drink at her. While shocked by the drink thrown on her, she reaches out, and touches this statue. As the statue begins to fall, this woman’s friend tries to prevent it from falling. These two woman, not the woman who caused the incident, are arrested and dragged before a judge. The judge threatens, insults, and intimidates them into either spending two years in jail or serving 30 days of labor with the suggestion they be held in “worker’s cabins”.

And that is only 21 minutes and 23 seconds into this film. Are you happy or want to sit through this Valentine’s Day romance film? I sure as hell wasn’t and didn’t want to. No wonder it appears the screenwriter didn’t want their name on this. The original title of the movie was Disorderly Conduct. I can only imagine the screenplay laid this out in a manner that makes sense, but after seeing how the filmmakers actually implemented it, they didn’t want anything to do with it.

I’ve taken up a lot of your time so let’s try and get through the rest of this fast.

The two ladies are then put up in the cabin and given a heater. Then the next morning comes and someone must have realized they really needed a way to explain away the previous scenes. Julia wakes up to a call on her cellphone. It’s her fiancee. He can’t believe she took a plea bargain on a “bogus charge”. He asks if she called her father who runs a legal firm. She says yes, but that he told her “that in a small town, the judge can basically do anything he likes.” Julia then says, “Technically, we did break the law, even though we didn’t do it on purpose, and we were lucky to get this offer.” Any follow up on that? Nope, just implications that maybe she took this judge’s offer because she didn’t want to marry him. Also, no I’m on my way honey from the father because you should have at least been allowed legal defense, you’re my daughter, and I should come there. None of that. The movie is now setup for the typical woman from the city discovers she prefers country life that Hallmark has done so many times over.

In Finding Normal (2013) they had the judge be smart, kind, reasonable, and offer her the option to pay a fine. Also, his charge is “16 hours, 8 hours a day, community service”.

Finding Normal (2013, dir. Brian Herzlinger)

Now you get the normal stuff. The ladies learn the typical duties on a ranch. Some are fun like learning to ride horses. Some are not so fun, but they are the realities of living on a ranch. They also are able to help out in the community. Julia even overhears that Ben’s ranch isn’t doing so well and tries to help. Of course you know he’s stubborn about that, but she pushes. The mother gives Julia some backstory one how the ranch ended up in the financial predicament it’s in. Basically, the big corporations are to blame, development in the town, and one thing lead to another. The recession didn’t help either. Strangely, the mother tells her that’s why he won’t take her money to help out. No mention of this dude ranch he was obviously trying to put together to transform his place into a source of revenue.

During this stuff they make sure to show that Sydney is clumsy by having her mess up driving a tractor and dropping a window. Nope, she was attacked in that bar. This doesn’t change that fact.

There’s a scene during this that I actually like. Sydney gets assigned to work with a stubborn old guy at a hospital. Well, not stubborn for long. Sydney is checking Twitter instead of talking to him. He says that the last girl “was so chatty, she got on my nerves but right now, I’m starting to miss her.” To her response that she is checking Twitter, he says he knows what Twitter is. He is even interested in what she is doing on there. But it gets better. He asks her exactly how she ended up having to do this for him. As she starts to explain that it was “just a disorderly accident” and that it was at Charlie’s bar he interrupts her and calls the place a dump.

Yeah, this guy calls the place with this apparent town treasure “a dump”. It’s like the screenwriters came in after those earlier scenes and tried to rewrite the remainder of the film to try and make up for it. Or this is some of the original screenplay. Don’t believe me? After a brief conversation with the mother we cut to the judge.

He’s watching cat videos. We even get the girls visiting him in a comical matter as if he is actually a lovable judge who really does have a kind heart. The girls come to him because they want to do something a little unusual to raise money for the hospital that is need. The ranch is going to host it. The judge even likes the idea. However, then we get two more sets of people who are sent by the judge to the ranch for community service.

Umm…considering how Julia and Sydney wound up there it makes me wonder if these people’s “multiple parking tickets” are real. This happens one more time too.

I get a weird feeling that we are supposed to read these as volunteers that are sent there under the cover of doing community service cause the judge knows they need the help, but considering the beginning, I don’t know.

Now the film goes on auto-pilot. All you really need to know is that the fiancee shows up along with Julia’s family for this grand fundraiser. That’s when we get the scene to make the fiancee a villain. After starting out kind, then being a little nasty talking about Julia, he says “but if Julia develops a taste for the coddling the downtrodden, well, I’ll just have to put my foot down.” Sound familiar? There is a near identical scene in Unleashing Mr. Darcy. Except there it’s not to vilify Mr. Darcy, but simply to provide a last minute romantic speed bump. Unleashing Mr. Darcy was written by Teena Booth. I can’t help but wondering if she is Alana Smithee.

Now the film has Julia kick Gavin to the curb and go after Ben. She buys him in a cowboy auction, and they dance. What’s weird is how uncomfortable he is dancing with her. It’s probably nothing, but in addition to his behavior around the woman he knew from grade school at the bar, it seems a little odd. Regardless, they end up together.

So why the setup that I’m sorry, is offensive. It could have been fixed so easily too. That’s what angers me more than anything. I felt the same way about A Gift Of Miracles. The simplest thing would have been to have Julia just decide this town is an interesting place to take her vacation after accidentally ending up there. I know there are stupid people out there, but I don’t expect the movie to make me believe that two girls on vacation must be forced to spend time in the town or they would leave. The place where the bar is located is in Jackson, Wyoming. That’s a town surrounded by a bunch of large parks including Yellowstone National Park. If they wanted to keep as much of the script as possible, then start by having the girl who attacked get punished appropriately. If you carefully watch the scene at the bar when the incident occurs then you’ll notice they made sure to direct all the non-principle actors to be completely oblivious to what is going on till Julia has rushed forward to try and save the statue. It’s a little ridiculous, but it’s also a movie and I think most people would have let that slide if they were paying attention to notice that everyone else was just minding their own business. Have Ben go use the restroom and come out just afterwards so he isn’t shown as lying to the judge and his deputy. Have the judge suggest the community service in the first place. I wouldn’t like the judge so much for not offering or even demanding the money to repair the statue, but again, it’s a movie and I can let that slide. These would have all been little changes that wouldn’t have cost a dime to make. They wouldn’t even have had to have the lady who threw the drink appear in the movie again and thus potentially pay her more. Ugh! It’s not as bad as Your Love Never Fails/A Valentine’s Date. That one is disturbing. I still do not recommend this movie.

If you are going to watch this anyways, then I highly recommend recording it or in some way not coming till after 22 minutes of the movie. The rest really isn’t bad at all.

I said it already, but I’ll say it again. The guy at the hospital is pretty awesome. He really is. I loved him. The character’s name is George and he is played by actor Eric Peterson. Kudos, Eric! The world needs more small, but excellent character actors like you.

For those who are looking for things like the songs in this or any Hallmark movie: I try to pay attention to the search terms on my reviews and also always try to respond to comments. I have noticed people looking for the name of songs in Hallmark movies and winding up on my reviews. Luckily for the person who did so to find out the song at the end of Dater’s Handbook, it was an REO Speedwagon song and was prominently featured in the movie and my review. Another time I was asked kindly in the comments section if I knew who did a particular song in a Hallmark Christmas movie. I bent over backwards trying to find the answer for them. I did and responded to them. I didn’t receive a thank you, but was suddenly greeted by a down vote on my review the very next day instead. Regardless of whether it was the same person or a coincidence, I’m going to give you a little lesson on how to figure this stuff out for yourself. Here’s what I would do:

1. Check the movie’s credits. This doesn’t always work, but some Hallmark movies do credit the songs that are in the film.
2. Get to the relevant scene, turn up the volume, and use an app such as SoundHound. That’s an application for phones that is amazingly powerful at listening to small snippets of a song and managing to find out exactly who the song is by and on what album you can find it. That’s how I was finally able to answer the person who had asked for my help.
3. Turn on captioning so if the song has lyrics then you have something to Google. Make sure you get the words right and place them within quotes. Sometimes adding the word “lyrics” outside the actual lyrics can help. Again, surprisingly effective. It helps if the song is well known, but it’s Google. They have reached into every dark corner of the Internet.
4. This one is a little bit of a long shot, but not too much. Try contacting someone involved in the movie. Hallmark has an official Twitter account and I’m sure has a presence on Facebook. Shoot the production company a message if you can find them. Sometimes you can get really lucky and there is actually an official Twitter account for the movie in question. I know The Christmas Note and Love On The Sidelines have/had them. Also, you can find people who worked on the film on social media. It can’t hurt to ask. People can be remarkably responsive and kind if you are to them.

I probably should create a whole post to lay out these instructions, but I have gone ahead and included them here as well.

I know that the majority of people appreciate me not acting like a PR department, but trying to give you my honest opinion about Hallmark films I see. However, my disabilities make it very hard for me to take things such as totally anonymous down votes when I can clearly see exactly what in my review triggered it. I have disabled my ability to see those so I can continue to write these reviews. I hope you can understand.

If you’ve reached here, then I thank you for putting up with me.

Late Night Cable Horror: College Coeds vs. Zombie Housewives (2015, dir. Dean McKendrick)

Posted on February 12, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Sylvester Stallone, Russ Meyer, Jill Clayburgh, Ron Jeremy, David Duchovny, Abel Ferrara, Frankie Cullen, Catherine Bell, Zalman King, Lloyd Kaufman, Roger Ebert, Ed Wood, Jacqui Holland, Andy Warhol, Jim Wynorski, and many others have worked in erotica, softcore, and/or hardcore. That’s all I have to say about the stupidity that happened today.

Since this movie didn’t have the courtesy to start with a usable title card and I’m still refusing to resort to black boxes, I am beginning where the movie actually starts. We have a black screen and hear a woman say, “What the hell is wrong with you bitches?!” Then we cut to cheerleaders, such as that one played by Erika Jordan, beating up the “zombies”. I put zombies in quotations because they are about as much zombies as the zombies were in the Pierre Kirby movie Zombie vs. Ninja (1989). By that I mean people moving stiff as a board and that’s about it. You’d think they’d go for the obvious joke here, but they don’t.

Funny fact: According to the credits, Erika was the fight choreographer for this movie.

We are now taken back three days so the movie can introduce us to our main couple.

For those of you who have seen Invisible Centerfolds, yes, that is Frankie Dell. Yes, he once again plays a scientist. And yes, that does mean this is a wacky Dean McKendrick movie like Invisible Centerfolds. Just thankfully they don’t dress Frankie Dell in such a way that he becomes porno Bill Nye. However, this is one where they have music that sure sounds similar to Santana’s Smooth. They don’t directly rip it off, but if you watch this, then you’ll hear what I’m talking about.

The setup here is that Jennings (Frankie Dell) isn’t getting laid at home by his wife any more. Being a scientist he decides that if men get Viagra, then surely he can come up with something similar to help out women. Of course he’s as bright as the guy in the first part of Pietro Germi’s The Birds, The Bees, and the Italians (1966). By that I mean he just leaves his friend with his wife to go to work not even thinking there might be something going on there. Of course there is.

There’s a documentary called Aroused (2013) where the director Deborah Anderson interviews numerous female porn stars. I don’t recommend it. It’s self-serving and the cinematography is headache inducing. However, an interesting piece of information slipped out from one of the ladies. She mentioned that people usually don’t realize that it’s actually harder on the guys. Of course that wasn’t on the agenda so it wasn’t followed up on. I mention it because several times in this movie you can see the guys go into a Buddhist-like meditation to keep going for the scene.

Now we go to the lab and meet Jennings’ assistant Marilyn (Mary Carey). Apparently, they have brought in rats, monkeys, rabbits, raccoons, chipmunks, and beavers to test out this stuff on. There is actually a payoff later in the movie for them stopping to list those animals.

Mary decides to be a guinea pig herself and drinks the stuff even though there are apparently some early signs of a secondary effect. She pretends that it works and has sex with Jennings. Of course he does it in the name of science. By the way, here’s what I mean by a Buddhist-like trance state.

That is not the face of a happy man. That’s the face of either a man who can’t go off at all or is desperately trying to work in a symbiotic relationship with it rather than a parasitic one. People may tell you myths about it, but that it has a mind of it’s own is not one of them. It doesn’t control you, but it sure does its own thing.

However, it’s not all fun and games. After Jennings leaves the room, that secondary effect kicks in, but only for a moment.

She acts like she is partially possessed by a spirit. She bumps into a few things before regaining control. I love that one of the things she bumps into is a bottle of the very pain killer I take for fibromyalgia.

Meanwhile, back at what I’m pretty sure was Atomic Hotel Erotica (2014), we meet two of the housewives. That’s Tracy (Karlie Montana) and Carrie (Christine Nguyen). Jennings convinces them to have a drink, which of course spikes with the experimental drug. Seeing as they have no reaction whatsoever, he figures Marilyn was lying to him.

After tennis so that the guy boning Jennings wife can rub it in how about much better his sex life is, we finally meet the “coeds” of the title.

By that I mean cheerleaders who have apparently moved in next door. Guess it could be worse. Could be vampires who suddenly become your neighbors like in Erotic Vampires of Beverly Hills. Oh, and yes, they are terrible cheerleaders. And that’s coming from someone who suffered through the last two Bring It On movies without having seen any of the others. That is definitely Erika Jordan in the center. You can always tell it’s her. She’s the porn star who looks like she went back in time to 1915 and was branded by Sessue Hayakawa in The Cheat (1915). Course while he’s over there getting googly eyed at cheerleaders, Jennings’ formula kicks in.

After they are done giving each other thorough cleanings and inspections for lumps, we cut back to the lab and Marilyn receives a call. I have to mention that they even bothered to put in a quick line here that Marilyn has no boyfriend. I can’t tell you how nice it is when any movie that prominently features sex provides a reason for it to occur. Even if it’s something wacky like a potion. He has the bad news that the stuff she drank does after awhile induce a trance-like state. This is going on as we crosscut to the couples playing tennis when…

zombie housewives!

Then Erika leaves two of the other cheerleaders to go meet with their coach. Then as Bring It On: Quest For The Mighty Spirit Stick taught me, cheerleaders do need to limber up. Yeah, that is a weak excuse, but these movies often do try to have a reasonably equal mix of both girl-on-girl as well as guys with girls.

Some stuff happens now that doesn’t matter. But we do get this line from Jennings’ wife.

Could be worse. Could be the potion that turns you into a gorilla Frankie Dell made in Invisible Centerfolds.

Then we get a call to Steve played by Mike Gaglio. By the way, among other things, Mike Gaglio is in the religious movie God’s Club (2015).

He’s not having a good time over there. According to him he’s “got a roomful of killer zombie rabbits over here.

I got squirrels going after raccoons. The rats have overtaken the commissary. I don’t even want to tell you what the monkeys are up to!” But he does comfort her that he has someone working on an antidote.

Back home, Frankie Dell has a short scene that once again reminds us that he really doesn’t belong in these movies. Frankie Cullen could make a career in these films if he wants to, but Frankie Dell should jump ship ASAP. He is just a comedian. Heck, one of his earliest roles was as a voice on Daria. He doesn’t belong here at all.

Then we go to Andrew Espinoza Long who played G.W. Bushwhacker in Bikini Model Mayhem and plays Hank who is married to Carrie hanging out with the cheerleaders. This leads exactly where you think it does. I just wonder a bit of how the girl on the bottom is getting any fun out of the situation.

Now we get a little zombie action out of Marilyn.

Then Carrie complains to Marilyn about her husband hanging out with those cheerleaders. Of course this means Carrie needs to give Marilyn her annual checkup.

After Carrie points out the obvious to Jennings that the cheerleaders are closer to his martial problems than any stupid formula, we finally have our stand down between the college coeds and zombie housewives.

It’s kind of funny, but pretty stupid. I was much more interested in Mike Gaglio who shows up in the lab with the antidote. He’s been dealing with “killer zombie raccoons, and killer zombie squirrels.” I wanted to see that!

They do get the antidote to the girls in time and Jennings wife breaks up with him. You know, it is appropriate that I review these movies and Hallmark movies cause aside from, of all movies today, Carnal Wishes is the only one I remember that doesn’t have a super happy ending like Hallmark movies do. Even Jennings ends up with Judy (Erika Jordan) six months later after losing his wife. He is still up to his experimental hijinks too.

This is not as good as Bikini Model Mayhem or Carnal Wishes. See those first, then come back for this. It’s Dean McKendrick in fine form. Also, Frankie Dell is a funny man. I strongly hope he starts showing up in other kinds of movies. It’s kind of sad that since he has done some of these films he most likely can’t make the jump to a Disney Channel show. He would make for a very humorous supporting character on one of those shows as a bumbling scientist at the kids’ school. Oh, well.

Hallmark Review: The Good Witch’s Garden (2009, dir. Craig Pryce)

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

This is actually the first Hallmark movie I’ve watched on DVD. I only mention that for others who might watch it on their computer using VLC like I did because it makes taking screenshots easy. This movie’s particular DVD really gave me trouble and I had to force it to bypass the menu in order to get it to play. Sadly, the captions on the DVD were not very good so if that’s important to you then I’m sorry. They drop out at times and get wonky. At least that was my experience.

This now means there is only one more Good Witch film for me to see. That would be The Good Witch’s Gift (2010). If I didn’t notice it before, then I definitely did this time after recently watching Garage Sale Mystery: Guilty Until Proven Innocent. That one introduced Good Witch style subplots to it that I really didn’t like and should be taken out from future installments. I remember them being in, I believe, all of these Good Witch films. I have never watched the TV Show, but I get the strong feeling that this works far better as a TV Show than it did as a yearly series of films. The main plots and subplots are fine for a TV Show and even if they are completely self-contained to a single episode almost always would add to a character in some way. However, when I watch these Good Witch movies I just wanna scream: “Please have a single self-contained plot that all of the characters are involved in and which moves them all forward to a state that we will pick up in the next film.” The Signed, Sealed, Delivered movies do just that. I’m theorizing here, but that’s probably why that went from a show to a series of movies and the Good Witch franchise did the opposite. Let’s talk about the movie now.

The movie starts off and we have Martha Tinsdale (Catherine Disher) once again in full busybody mode. Luckily, she starts to come around by the end of this installment. She is joined by her friend Gwen (Elizabeth Lennie). I love the drastic difference in their faces here. Gwen is certainly interested in Grey House, but she acts like a reasonable person. Martha actually has some priceless nonsense that she comes up with here to say. First off though, yes, just like For The Love Of Grace, this one also prominently features a Nikon camera. The only other product I ever recall showing up in a bunch of Hallmark movies was the Wii and once the Wii U.

Anyways, they are there to scout out a location for the bicentennial of their town called Middleton. They decide to take a look at Cassie’s (Catherine Bell) house since it is 200 years old. Martha bumps into a creeper plant on the ground, freaks out, and runs to Jake Russell (Chris Potter) who is the top cop in town. He also happens to be dating Cassie.

There is a brief little period here where they quickly reintroduce us to Cassie, George (Peter MacNeill), and Lori (Hannah Endicott-Douglas). This time they tone down the she’s a little girl, get it, she’s a little girl, can we remind you one more time she’s a little girl stuff, but without changing the character. It’s just the way they present her. She fits in better this time around than she did in the first film.

Now we get probably the best part of this movie. Martha shows up at Jake’s office and among other stupid things, she actually alludes that Cassie is growing pot. She says she suspects some of her plants are “illegal”.

Can’t think of something else reasonable that she could be referring to in talking to a police officer and using that particular word. She also talks about this vine on the ground that she bumped into like she just saw the movie The Crawlers (1993). She seems to really believe that Cassie may have plants that are like the roots in that movie which will reach out to kill you. I think Chris Potter’s face gets across how hilariously ridiculous these lines are.

Disher does a great job delivering them. I just love her line that Cassie may be growing illegal plants. I can’t get over that.

Now we kick off the main plot and the subplots. Let’s do the subplots first.

That’s George meeting Gwen. I’m sorry, does that need an explanation?

That’s Lori on the right who has been assigned to do a paper with Jess (Jordy Benattar). However, you can see that Jess has gotten up to flee. For an adult audience the reason is immediately understood. Jess can’t read. Lori doesn’t find this out till a little later. Up till then she thinks Jess is just trying to get her to do all the work, which is understandable. People do that.

That’s Brandon (Matthew Knight) on the right and his two new “friends”. His subplot is these two guys are pushing him around to do something stupid to I guess be initiated into the stupid kids society. It’s similar to the one in the most recent Garage Sale Mystery movie except this time it’s not filled with humorous goofs, lines, and a resolution that had his friends looking like Bill Pullman from Ruthless People (1986). This time Cassie does almost the same thing she did in the first film. She gives him a mirror and just before they do their stupid thing, she shows up causing the item she gave him to come into play.

With the subplots going, this guy shows up to be our main attraction.

He’s Nick Chasen (Rob Stewart) and he has his eyes set on Grey House. He presents himself as the true heir to the house.

Again, Catherine Bell does the Jadzia Dax thing here. She always comes across as wise and with years of experience, but never appearing in some super state of nirvana above us mere mortals. She definitely has her suspicions, but still needs help and has to work through the situation with Jake and his family. She doesn’t just foresee it all and play along. That would make for a rather bland film in my opinion.

As you know from the later films, he does propose at the end of the movie.

There are a couple of little goofs, but nothing worth mentioning. Most of it seems to have been shot around Hamilton, Ontario. That’s really it in that department. I did not see the goof listed on IMDb about Martha’s shoes. Apparently the opening shot shows them as black, but after she goes in the gate of Grey House they are leopard print. Here’s the two shots. I didn’t see it.

With these Good Witch movies there really isn’t much else to talk about except to lay out the plots for you. That’s how these films work.

It’s not as good as the first film. That one felt like it could have been self-contained. This feels like what it is really: the second episode of a TV Show rather than a new film that continues a saga. The acting is good all around as usual. I actually forgot that Matthew Knight was on My Babysitter’s A Vampire. I liked that show.

I recommend this one, but I could tell it was already starting to drop off in quality from the first one more than I would have liked. I want to hear from anyone who has seen the show to tell me if it does seem to work better that way than as an annual TV Movie.

Footnote: Since I brought it up in a past review of a Good Witch movie, let me put it to rest. I did track down the relevant scenes from the one episode Catherine Bell did of Hot Line back in the 1990’s. It’s just really generic 90’s late night erotica. Nothing special or interesting at all. I thought there might be something, but there isn’t. Often when you come across an entry in someone’s filmography that is so different from their usual, then it turns out to be worth seeing if you are a fan of their work. Not here. I would only recommend this for Catherine Bell completionists who must see everything she has ever done. It certainly wasn’t even worth the couple of minutes it took me to find it. The clip I saw from an episode of Dream On that she was on looked like a much more interesting example of her really early work if that’s what you want to see. Just wanted to bring that to a close.

Following The Amazon Prime Recommendation Worm #4: High Kick Angels (2014), The Pinkie (2014), The Ravine of Goodbye (2013), Gyeongju (2014)

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I did make it out of South Korea for three films in Japan, but then was thrown back there. I feel like this is turning into MASH on me.

High Kick Angels (2014, dir. Kazuhiro Yokoyama) – Hmmm…can’t say I have. I unfortunately can say an elementary school girl tried to grab my genitals when I was in the 4th grade, but I don’t think that counts. Well, with a poster like that you might be thinking Sailor Moon.

Maybe Sailor Suit and Machine Gun (1981)?

Perhaps even Lollipop Chainsaw?

Nope, it’s Die Hard (1988).

Seriously, it’s Die Hard with schoolgirls in a school rather than a tower. It even recreates two scenes very obviously just to make sure you know this. And we have trailer this time!

If you are thinking you probably just saw all the fighting scenes in the movie, then you’re pretty much right. There are a few more, but not many.

The movie starts with some girls filming a zombie movie at a school when I guess no one is there. I really wasn’t sure if this school was abandoned or if everyone else was just on vacation. It doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that a girl they admire who knows martial arts shows up for some reason and bad guys show up looking for treasure or something.

The two scenes explicitly recreated are the safe lock bit and the body with writing on it dropped down to the bad guys. The body part is self-explanatory. The lock bit is done by having a little tower that requires several USB sticks which will allow the bad guys to see where this treasure is in the school. Of course the schoolgirls get one of the USB sticks and need to be tracked down. Basically it comes down to the big girl who knows martial arts working with these girls out of a safe room a la Die Hard. Really, what you see in the trailer is what you get besides conversations among the girls about not being very confident, but finding the strength to go kick some ass.

The only scene that really stuck with me is when the big martial arts girl convinces the girl who does ballet dancing that she can curl her toes and use them like a spear. I expect to read about Lisa doing this to someone who liked The Leisure Class any day now.

I really can’t recommend this one. It’s a bit of a letdown.

The Pinkie (2014, dir. Lisa Takeba) – Ever wanted to see a comedy by someone who wants to make a David Cronenberg movie from before his tragic accident when he lost the ability to make good movies while high on whatever Nobuhiko Ôbayashi was on when he made House (1977)? Too bad! Cause director Lisa Takeba essentially did just that with this weird slightly dark and bizarre romantic comedy with echoes of Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers (1988).

The movie is about guy who gets his pinkie cut off. It had something to do with the Yakuza. I learned back in the 90’s thanks to the TV Show The Pretender that they take your finger as punishment. What didn’t happen in The Pretender though is for that finger to wind up in the hands of a crazy stalker girl who then uses it to make a clone of a guy she is obsessed with. Having two of these guys going around made me think of Dead Ringers at the time, but in retrospect it also makes me think of Hirokazu Koreeda’s Air Doll (2009). That’s the one with Doona Bae from Cloud Atlas (2012) playing a blow up sex doll come to life.

Air Doll (2009, dir. Hirokazu Koreeda)

The movie is as wacky as that trailer makes you think, but it also definitely has it’s more Cronenberg-ey dark moments. In particular, the clone finding out it’s a clone and the issues that raises. The real guy is there too and actually uses the clone as sort of slave labor. He even has him prostitute himself as, I hate to use the expression since I’m trans but, a chick with a dick.

Oh, and did you notice the lightning near the end of the trailer around the guy? Yeah, that’s cause the clone shows up like The Terminator in a ball with lightning around him.

The problems with the clone basically start when she makes the clone aware it’s a clone and of course when the real guy shows up. From then on the movie just gets more wacky.

I kind of recommend it. It’s not that great, but I like really bizarre things and Japan is great at them. Plus, the movie is only about an hour long. It’s not going to take up much of your time. Unlike the next movie and the one after that!

The Ravine of Goodbye (2013, dir. Tatsushi Ohmori) – I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I will again, and probably again and again. I used to watch a lot of the established film canon. Basically that’s all I watched from about 2005 to 2012. I mean it’s not normal for someone to just know right off the top their head that Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni was commissioned by 1970’s China to make a documentary about the country, they hated it with a vengeance, and so they basically got Dutch director Joris Ivens to make another one for them. That’s really not a good thing. However, I bring it up cause is this is that kind of movie.

Let me be straightforward cause the movie sure as hell isn’t. The film is about two cops looking into how exactly this couple got together. Turns out he raped her, and neither of them really got over it, so they got together as a couple. There’s also something about a dead kid as well. Honestly, despite what IMDb says, that’s not really important. In my opinion, what the film does is try to reflect the confusion created by trying to follow a story as the facts slowly trickle out in the way its story unravels. The jumping to conclusions before all the information has come in thing. It does this by basically backing it’s way into what I told you in a couple of sentences. However, for me, it felt like the narrative structure was reflecting the experience of being a small child forced to watch Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi (1982), and then explain it. In other words, watching this was for me like how the children look in Godfrey Reggio’s anti-TV BS propaganda film Evidence (1995).

Actually, in that the kids were supposed to be watching Dumbo (1941). Yeah, right!

If you enjoy films like those of Michelangelo Antonioni, then you might enjoy this. The same probably goes for the next film as well. Amazon Prime doesn’t make these recommendations based on nothing. Just expect a lot of still shots on things that made me think of why I don’t enjoy a majority of Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s films.

Gyeongju (2014, dir. Lu Zhang) –

Wow! That may be the most deceptive trailer I’ve ever seen! It appears to be real, but it’s like a fake trailer that takes Antonioni’s L’Avventura (1960) and makes it look like a romantic comedy. That movie had someone mysteriously disappear. Then a man and a woman wander around drifting towards each other as the architecture/environment around them changes to reflect the state of their characters. It’s the first in his trilogy of alienation. Sound like a romantic comedy?

This movie is about a Korean professor on Asian relations living in China who goes back home for a funeral and basically wanders around with a woman from a tea shop. Sound like a romantic comedy? It isn’t!

That really is the movie. I have a feeling that just like Tarkovsky’s The Mirror (1975) is only fully understood by Russians, this movie is only fully understood by Koreans. I believe the movie is a long mediation on what it’s like for a Korean born person to return home to a place divided in two and in other ways pushes itself away from other parts of Asia as well. The movie reminds you of the conflict with Japan via a Japanese woman who wants to forgive the professor and the tea shop owner for the crimes committed against their country by Japan. Another time a man will ask the professor how long he thinks North Korea will stay in business and flips out when the professor says a century. North Korea potentially attacking is brought up too, but I’m not sure if it’s serious or not. It almost comes across as a joke. Of course technically to the best of my knowledge, South Korea is the only country I’m aware of that is in a constant state of war because I believe they never signed the treaty ending the Korean War. Perhaps that’s why this film seems to evoke Antonioni’s trilogy of alienation with it’s cinematography.

It likes to use still shots of the environment and a lot of pans. There’s at least one 360 degree pan in it. It also breaks the 180 degree rule. It just stops and freezes on a pole in the tea shop for no discernible reason. I think there’s a scene that’s out of order. Also, near the end it appears to flash black for a less than a second. I’m really not sure what to make of that last one.

I would say this film is for cinematic explorers. I won’t say it’s bad, nor recommend it. You know who you are if this is your kind of thing. I’m just telling you as somebody who’s seen quite a few of these sort of movies that you probably won’t be disappointed.