Since including the music I was listening too while writing the review went over swimmingly last time *cough*, here’s a song that was a hit during the mini-Swing revival of the mid-to-late 1990s (Go Daddy-O by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy).
I think this is also a particularly perfect choice for this film as well because while there are three other characters in the film, this is really the father’s film. The father being Tanner Gray played by John Schneider.
The film begins with some dancing in kind of a dance floor nowhere. It just exists. By that I mean something like the eternal dance floor where there is always a couple dancing. Every time the film would come back from a commercial break there would a couple dancing in the dark for a few seconds before returning to the characters.
Now we are introduced to our leading lady named Cyd Merriman (Brooke Nevin). Named after Cyd Charisse of course, but the film will have the father be ignorant of that just in case the audience didn’t know even though his character would absolutely know that fact.
She runs a dance studio in a small town. We also meet her fiancee in these opening scenes named Zach Callahan (Christopher Jacot).
Notice the lighting in these shots. They will keep that style of lighting throughout the film whenever they are in the studio. However, those scenes will stand in rather strong contrast to the rest of the way the movie is shot. It’s a neat way of visually making the place special to us in order to fit with the way the characters think of it.
In short order, we are also introduced to Laura Williams (Roma Downey).
She’s here to plead with us to not let her next movie be Keeping Up with the Randalls. Actually she’s here because she’s a friend of the family who is also their lawyer. Cyd’s mother recently passed away and there is a stipulation in the will that the father she didn’t know she really had–he didn’t know he had a daughter either–now are co-owners of the dance studio. It also works out for him, unfortunately, because he is let go from his job at the same time he finds out.
In reality it’s plot convenience, but nevertheless. Meanwhile, we spend some more time at the studio, with Downey, and with the fiancee. Spoiler alert! The fiancee is not played like a bad guy as you might expect from a Hallmark movie. He’s a really good guy in this. Now the father shows up in town with the legal papers he received to talk with the daughter he didn’t know he had.
I mentioned it at the start, but I really want to drive home that while Cyd, Zach, and Laura have roles in the movie that are important, this really is the story of Tanner Grey. He sits down with his daughter to talk about who he is and what happened in the past. It basically comes down to that he wanted to see the world and he eventually did just that. He never really says he regrets going out and seeing the world or anything. It was a good thing for him and he appreciated what he was able to see as a young man, but you can tell that the loss of his wife over it is something that has always dragged on him.
Cyd wants to sell the dance studio to some developers who want to revamp the town so she can take that money to work towards becoming a child psychologist. This film does have some of the standard big business evil/we need to defend our small towns nonsense that you see in other Hallmark movies, but here it’s really out of place. Especially when that isn’t the reason Tanner isn’t ready to just sign over his half of the studio. We find out two things as the film progresses. One, now that Cyd’s mother is gone and seeing as she appears to be on a similar trajectory to leaving town the way he did, he wants to take it slow to make sure they all have a real grasp on the situation. In particular, why the mother essentially grabbed him out of her past and forced him into the current situation via the will. He doesn’t take that lightly. We also find out that Tanner likes to dance.
And honestly, that really sums up the movie. There isn’t a whole lot to talk about with this film. Hallmark movies don’t really have the time and money to spend on having a plot driven story, but that doesn’t seem to stop them by trying to maximize plot and minimize the amount of character development needed to crank out a movie. This time they really did try to go the character driven route with this studio that almost exists outside time as a centerpiece of the film in a similar way that the film Love, Again did with the bridge.
Throughout the film we get closer to Tanner as we see him teach more of the dance classes and in conversations with Downey. All the while, Cyd tries to come to grips with this turning point in her life while her fiancee is always on her side. He always stays on her side. I remember him having a scene at the end of the film that was similar to a scene the father had in the recent South Korean film Marriage Blue. In that film, an older man’s daughter is going to get married but she hides a much more wild side of herself from a lot of people, including her father. She shows up to tell him the truth. At first we think we’re going to get the response you often see in movies where someone comes out as being gay to their parents and in turns out they already knew, but not quite. He’s just happy for her, is a little surprised she bothered keeping it a secret, and is a little ticked off that his future son-in-law has known more about his daughter than him this whole time. Zach has a similar moment where he isn’t happier or sad for her when she decides to keep the studio. As long as she was being true to herself, then he’s happy to be right there with her.
One other thing I want to mention is a scene actor John Schneider has near the end. It’s a sweet and understated conversation he has with Downey.
He basically pours his heart out here about everything he has been thinking about concerning the whole situation and why he is ready to walk away now if it is necessary. It’s a nice and well done piece of acting that you usually don’t see in these Hallmark movies.
My final verdict on this one is that I do recommend it. There are little things I would have tweaked like the big business threat thing which was just out of place, but it’s still one of the good ones as far as Hallmark goes.
Clearly though, the only thing missing from this movie was Billy Idol singing at their wedding.
And okay, I know you saw the title and I mentioned music so you all probably expected it. Here’s Ballroom Blitz by Sweet.
I was very disappointed in Unleashing Mr. Darcy. It was nothing like Hercules Unchained (1959) and it’s not based on the recently restored version of Jane Austen’s classic about prejudice against the undead. Instead the movie has a Hallmark Christian Grey, a woman who doesn’t seem to know how schools or dogs work, and overall is a film that could have been condensed into something shorter.
The movie begins in a classroom and we meet a teacher named Elizabeth Scott (Cindy Busby). After assigning the students their homework and dismissing class, she is approached by a parent who doesn’t like that she isn’t letting his son pass so he can play sports. You know, the standard stuff. However, I believe this is the first time I have seen the parent actually whip out cash and try to pay off the teacher on the spot.
Of course she turns down the money and he throws a hissy fit before storming off.
We go home with Elizabeth and find that she owns a cocker spaniel. I don’t recall if it’s now or later, but she will actually say that one of the things she likes about dogs is that they don’t manipulate you. I get the feeling screenwriter Teena Booth has never owned a dog in her life. I have owned dogs all my life and if there is one thing they are masters of, it’s manipulating you. If they want something from you then they will make sure you are going to give it to them. I mean where do you think the phrase “puppy dog eyes” comes from. Minor thing, but being a lifelong dog owner, I found it very funny.
Now Elizabeth goes to pay a visit to her sister Jenna played by Tammy Gillis who is looking good after being rescued by The Postables in Signed, Sealed, Delivered: The Impossible Dream. She takes her cocker along with her. Little personal side note. My first dog was a Cocker Spaniel named Jenny. That was 6 dogs ago so it’s been awhile. Despite having their fair share of flaws, dogs really are wonderful.
When I review Hallmark movies I often point out goofs or the interesting ways they fake computers and cellphones. I could mention that the shot on the iPad she now uses is very likely just a screenshot they took on a computer and imported onto the iPad, but that’s not what is notable here to me.
I wanna know what happened to this poor iPad. Look at that home button all turned at a weird angle. This thing looks like it took a brutal beating before being used in the movie. I would love to know the story behind this.
Anyways, the process to let her go from the school begins. She seems genuinely surprised that the school would automatically side with the father and the mother who is on the school board. This is what I meant when I said she doesn’t seem to know how schools work. I remember when a friend of mine’s son got in trouble because apparently his school project looked too phallic to them. She shouldn’t have been shocked at all that she was going to be let go. Of course it works out for the best because she now gets to take her dog to a dog show.
This is as good a time as any to point out that actress Cindy Busby might just be able to give Rachel Boston a run for her money in the funny facial expressions department on Hallmark.
Can we see Mr. Darcy (Ryan Paevey) now?
Actor Ryan Paevey really is a high point of this film. Seriously, the best comparison, in recent memory, I can make is to the character of Christian Grey from Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015). Just without the dark past and he doesn’t attach women to leashes and then judge them or anything. He’s rich and judges dogs. He is slightly aloof, but never really off putting. Confident, but not full of himself. He’s also quite attractive. He still feels like a real person though. Long story shot, I think Ryan Paevey did a really good job with the character.
She now is officially let go by the school and accusations that she tried to bribe the guy have even been raised. Now she decides to move to New York City to take up a job offer to be a handler in dog shows. Of course not to be outdone by Busby, Paevey shows that he too can make interesting faces.
She runs into him almost instantly when she steps out of the cab and we meet his dog.
In short order she is swept up into this upper crust family. She actually finds allies on almost every side except from the aunt and the woman she wants her nephew to marry.
I’m just going to refer to them as Prejudice and Prejudice, Jr. We also meet his kid sister named Zara who is played by Sarah Desjardins.
She’s grown since I saw her in Kiss At Pine Lake. She is an ally too and we will find out that after he and his sister lost their parents, he took care of her.
What follows is the typical story of a normal person introduced into a rich family who has already had plans for one of the younger family members. It plays out in the papers too.
And yes, the filler text they put in is still humorous to look at.
We keep getting to know Mr. Darcy better and she moves closer and closer to him. He’s very much his own man despite what Prejudice and Prejudice, Jr. would like to believe. In the end, it comes down to a party. The evil ones make a scene so he kisses her on the spot to make sure she, and those two understand where his feelings lie. Even Elizabeth’s sister notices that the kiss wasn’t just to brush off Prejudice and Prejudice, Jr.
This is when the movie takes an odd turn. Instead of her getting that, she seems to think she was just used. Then her sister overhears Mr. Darcy talking to a male member of the family. This is what they say.
[laughter]
Henry: Donny, I gotta tell you, that kiss that you laid on Jenna’s sister, that was the highlight of the night, my friend.
Mr. Darcy: Oh, the kiss…the kiss was to…the kiss was to shut Aunt Violet up.
Henry: The kiss was because you like the girl.
Mr. Darcy: Why would I like Elizabeth
Henry: [chuckling] Oh, why?
Mr. Darcy: Why would I like Elizabeth Scott? She’s over proud.
Henry: Beautiful
Mr. Darcy: and crass
Henry: intelligent, kills it in a ball gown. Brings you trophies, all those kinds of things.
Mr. Darcy: Yeah, yeah, all those—
Henry: You are absolutely fascinated by her, that’s a fact.
Mr. Darcy: [laughs]
Henry: Admit it.
Mr. Darcy: Mmm-hmm
Henry: [sighing]
The whole conversation is said with Henry speaking in a tone that says you know you like her, just admit it already.
Now the sister runs back to Elizabeth and has just flipped out. Elizabeth immediately flips out too and storms off in a cab. She tells him to not pretend Jenna misunderstood him even though it’s clear as day to anyone who isn’t nuts that she did. He then says he said some unflattering things. When? He tells her right out his feelings for her, but since he says “I’ve decided we belong together” that some how is even more reason to act like a nut job saying “you don’t get to decide who I belong with!” She will even tell her friend he had the nerve to tell her he’s in love with her. Oh, dear God! To give you an idea how crazy this all plays out, take a look at the beginning of The Cinema Snob review of My Baby Is Black! (1961) where he shows the trailer.
I know that Hallmark loves a last minute romantic speed bump, but this is ridiculous and baseless.
She gets an offer to come back and teach because they figured out the accusations were ridiculous and disproven when Mr. Darcy put some pressure on the people driving her out of a job. She turns them down, as she should. She quickly comes around, and they kiss at a dog show while the dog stares right into the camera.
You may or may not have noticed my review was somewhat sparse. It’s not just that I don’t feel well, but that the movie feels like that. It could have been tightened up into something shorter. It always seems to be under the impression that there is a grander plot line playing out with richer characters than are actually presented onscreen. Honestly, I don’t think I can recommend this one. It’s an okay 90 minutes or so, but it really isn’t worth your time.
Been a couple of months since I did my last Navy Film Review so lets hammer out a short one before dealing with Hallmark’s unleashing of a man named Mr. Darcy.
You may recall that last time we took a look at how to unnecessarily pad out your movie so that by the time the plot you promised happens it’s way too little too late. That being the Greek film Alice In The Navy. This time around we have a short from 1949 made by the United States Navy to try and get sailors to re-enlist after WWII. It’s got everything. Talking animals, green skinned bartenders, and tits. Unfortunately, there is no perky blonde running around in pretty outfits. That is one thing Alice In The Navy did have going for it.
The movie starts off by telling me it is restricted before the fact that it’s a United States Navy Training Film. Then we meet one of the stars of the film. It’s McGinty!
No, not that McGinty. He was still tending bar in 1949. That joke is for you Gary. Our resident Hollywood Snob.
This is just plain old sailor McGinty. We start off by seeing that a sailing life looks rather fun. Although I’m pretty sure this singing sailor was on loan from the Greek navy.
But McGinty is not happy like his fellow sailors.
He wants to be a civilian and make some real dough. They only pay him “90 lousy bucks” in the navy. That’s when the talking seagull shows up of course to tell him he should put that money to good use and get drunk!
By the way, the seagull is voiced by veteran voice actor Daws Butler.
So it’s off to get drunk. That is after sneaking past some S.P. Then he orders a “double zombie and scotch chaser”, but oh no!
It’s either E~3 from E~3: The Extra Testicle (1985) or the Hare Krishna zombie from Dawn Of The Dead (1978). Take your pick.
Now McGinty shares how it really is in the navy. By that I mean that he thinks it’s like being on a slave ship from Ben-Hur (1959) while a guy who sounds like Hitler whips you. Well, one minute you’re a drinking and complaining, then one of those damn dream sequences starts on you.
Hmmm… I see his problem. He should have joined the WAVES. I mean if Cary Grant could be a war bride and Donald O’Connor could join the WACS with a talking mule, then surely this guy could have pulled it off. Of course women were integrated into the regular navy by 1949 so actually I don’t see his problem here.
This is only a dream though, but he’s still in luck because the talking seagull shows up again to magically transport him to civilian life. This is when this recruitment video starts to lose me. The first thing we learn about civilian life is that you have to wake up for work.
As we all know, the navy lets you sleep to your hearts content and simply wake up at any hour you please. He also has to shave because civilian life doesn’t approve of beards unlike the navy. The navy encourages them and later would require it’s female sailors to never shave their legs nor their armpits. All totally true bullshit. Then it’s off to work on a crowded bus.
Okay, I will give them this. Not everyone in the Navy served on a claustrophobic submarine such as in Das Boot (1981). Then he has to clock in because the navy doesn’t keep track of that sort of thing ever.
Now he has to work on an assembly line. Could be worse. Those could be chocolates like Lucy had to deal with. I like the “Positively No Smoking” sign. This part is clearly trying to evoke memories in the sailors watching it of adventures that aren’t like this while apparently also trying to remind them that the navy lets them smoke like chimneys I guess.
Then it’s off to the Cafeteria to wait in line. I’ve never served, but I seriously doubt that lines like this don’t exist on naval vessels.
Now it’s pay day! His paycheck is 300 bucks. Well that is till it’s put through the “Little Gem Deductor”.
Now he gets pulled into an insurance office to discover that it’s going to cost him to retire. Apparently, he could retire for free in the navy. How does that work? The only way that’s actually possible is if by retire they mean a bullet to the head. Regardless, now he has to go shopping.
I like that he goes into all the shops except the one with the big sign that says “Drugs” on it.
After paying rent, it’s back to his room to bitch about civilian life to the talking seagull. By that I mean he threatens to kill the seagull.
But in the dark, the seagull reminds him that he can just re-enlist within 90 days. That’s when the seagull checks off McGinty.
Now McGinty is back swabbing the deck when that damn seagull shows up again. That’s when the seagull drops the bomb on McGinty.
He works for the U.S. Navy! I always knew they were training talking seagulls in secret. Clearly, that’s why it said this video was “Restricted”.
And thus ends this short film with the message “Keep the Fleet to Keep the Peace”. I would love to know how successful this was. I know why they spend their time trying to make civilian life sound terrible because their audience was sailors who already knew how it actually was to serve in the navy at the time. However, notice that they make sure to show this guy being cast out of a family of sailors into a world where he is all alone. I would think that people who were in the navy because of the family and structure were probably already going to re-enlist. As for the one’s for whom family and structure were either not important or already in their civilian life, I can’t see this convincing any of them to stay. It just seems like a video that ultimately isn’t really for anyone. Still, it was fun to watch, and here it is if you want to see it yourself.
It’s not often that I review two movies from two relatively different sources that are both by the same director, but that’s the case this time. David Jackson is also the director who brought the Halloweentown series to an end with Return To Halloweentown. This time he took on something much easier than ripping off Harry Potter with a miscast lead. It’s about a wishing well! Sort of.
The movie begins before the title card appears, and we meet Abby Jansen played by Jadin Gould. She will be your smiling one-dimensional little girl for the movie. I mean your Hallmark Bailee Madison stand-in for the movie. Then we cut to stock footage of New York City before we meet our leading lady named Cynthia Tamerline played by Jordan Ladd.
She works for Celeb magazine where not only is Charles Shaughnessy her boss, but her secretary is Lurch with a nose ring.
Obviously this movie needs to find an excuse to get Cynthia out with the country folk now. That’s why Shaughnessy calls her in and tells her either publish, perish, or become a nanny for my kids. He suggests that she write a story for one of his other magazines called Great Housekeeping. It’s for people who think Good Housekeeping just isn’t good enough. I thought she chose to write about a woman named Angela and her charity to save the vampire flies, but somehow that will cause her to end up in Slow Creek, Illinois to find a celebrity who may have visited their wishing well. But before that, she looks up Angela’s push to save the vampire fly on CelebrityCauses.us. No affiliation with CelebrityCauses.org. This one has Darcy from A Gift Of Miracles writing for it too.
Anyways, she’s off to Slow Creek, Illinois, which is the “Home of the Wishing Well.” Not just any wishing well, but the Wishing Well. That is till the 2011 Canadian film Wishing Well came out to give them some stiff competition for that title.
She arrives at the hotel where she is going to stay and finds that Ernest Borgnine runs the place. Cynthia is in town for a story that she can take back to Celeb magazine…I thought. Regardless, this is where I am obligated to say that these townsfolk are probably hiding a terrible secret about a Muslim American solider who died overseas and whose father was murdered in the town. I mean the movie has Borgnine, it’s a small town, and Cynthia’s last name is Tamerline which is close enough to Cass Timberlane played by Spencer Tracy in the movie of the same name. That meant while watching this movie, I immediately thought of the film Bad Day At Black Rock (1955) which had Tracy and Borgnine in it. Great movie by the way that I simply updated to a modern context. Here’s the trailer.
But onward with this movie now.
Annoying little girl tells us that wishes come true if you believe and make the right wish. Then we find out that not only is the hotel run by someone Retired and Extremely Dangerous, but that the diner is run by ‘Hot Lips’ O’Houlihan (Sally Kellerman).
Now Cynthia visits the local paper and finds out that it’s run by the little girl’s dad played by Jason London.
So this is what happened to Eric Camden’s associate pastor’s twin brother.
Cynthia starts to look into this wishing well of theirs. Turns out it was once a hot attraction, but then this happened.
Don’t you just hate it when your ex shows up and your wish doesn’t come true, but your ex’s does. Now writer Enid Jones had it out for the well.
But this isn’t enough for her so she goes to dig in the archives. Long story short, Ronald Reagan once visited their well back in the 1960’s.
That and a UFO was seen on a farm in Slow Creek. Interesting! What else is interesting is that they didn’t pull this Reagan and a wishing well thing completely out of their ass. Reagan actually did visit a wishing well in Dublin, Ireland back in the 1980s. Hmmm…I guess that means I need to listen to some Irish music while I finish writing this review. Well, Dropkick Murphys (Flannigan’s Ball) is Irish enough for someone who is a quarter Irish and from the Bay Area.
Oh, and since Reagan was mentioned. I guess I need to break out Genesis’ Land Of Confusion as well.
More annoying girl, and then Cynthia wakes up the next day to find out that she is now in the Twilight Zone. She is just somebody who has been hired as a local reporter. She calls up people back in New York City, but they don’t know who she is. She doesn’t try to tell them anything personal that only she would know, but just keeps calling.
This is when you can say the film goes on autopilot. Cynthia becomes more of a fixture in the town and discovers just how important this paper is to its residents. The paper is in trouble and might be bought out soon. The little girl is still annoying. A guy dies and she writes his obituary. Another guy sets his house on fire trying to beat his record for how many of his collectible lighters he can have going at once. I’m not making that up. During the scene where he explains his little game and current record I said to my dad that he didn’t mention this is the third house he’s gone through playing this game. Then she is waking up in bed to a phone call telling her his place is burning down. Of course! She writes an article that moves people about the fire. Finally, the townsfolk watch a meteor storm.
Then this big city guy’s mustache shows up to buy the paper. It’s okay though because it turns out the guy who died left a huge amount of money to the paper in his will. I guess that’s better than the huge wad of cash in a can from Christmas Land.
Now just in case you thought you were finally getting this Twilight Zone like story, she wakes up on a plane back to New York City to receive praise for the story she wrote for the magazine. Yep, makes as much sense as you think it does. By that, I mean very little. She leaves her job at Celeb magazine and goes back to Slow Creek where smiley and her dad know who she is. Then it just ends abruptly.
That’s it! It’s quite lousy. Even my Dad said this was a stinker and he’s usually easy to please with these movies. No reason to waste your time with this. Go watch Bad Day At Black Rock instead.
Since I happened to catch her this way. I’m really sorry Jordan.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to throw a coin in a wishing well because I’m shipping up to Boston to find my wooden leg and I can use all the luck I can get.
Now that’s just Oldboy (2003) crossed with The Lawnmower Man (1992).
With those two movie reference jokes out of the way, let’s talk about these four films before I completely forget them.
Man in Love (2014, dir. Dong-wook Han) – This was a whopper to start with. Let’s look at that poster.
“SHE becomes HIS reason to live”.
At least it’s honest and puts SHE and HIS in all caps.
“HIS FIRST YET LAST ROMANCE”
Yes, because I know that my first romance which occurred in my late 20’s back in 2012 began with me acting like a complete psychopath. Actually, it essentially began when I gave into being hit on for about 8 months or so. Then I largely screwed it up because it was my first, I didn’t know I was transgender, nor that I was a lesbian. There were of course issues on her end too, but I certainly didn’t help. I really should have seen Man in Love first, then that relationship would have lasted a lifetime. Okay, let me lay this out for you.
The movie begins and we are introduced to our main character who is a collection guy for a gangster. He is rather nuts and even drinks gasoline in order to pressure one guy. He then visits a hospital room where we meet our girl. She is there because her father is in a coma. He is there to make sure that she signs a contract to take on the debt her father acquired before ending up in the hospital. He’s rather brutal and makes her sign it. He now immediately begins to stalk her. He goes to his boss and convinces him to give him the contract so that he has control over her. He draws a picture on a piece of paper with boxes on it and tells her that every hour she spends with him will make him fill in one of them. When all the boxes are filled in, then the contract will be void. Now he visits a hooker to ask her if thinking constantly about a person means you’re in love with them. Okay, but it’s not like he’s going to try and have sex with her or insinuate himself into her relationship with her dad or anything, right? During one of these hours he tries to take her to a motel. She just walks away, but the camera pans up to make sure you know it’s a motel. Then he is caught reading to her father at the hospital. After going to bother the hooker some more, he tells her he doesn’t love her. At this point, her dad dies and he either sets up the funeral or just shows up and pretends to be a son-in-law. Either way, she apparently wants him now and they kiss shortly afterwards.
So he does what we would all do in his situation of course! He takes her to a stairwell and proceeds to try and sniff her.
She obviously thinks this is weird, but that’s not your cue to stop. Amp that up!
He drops trou and proceeds to try and dry hump her. LOVE!!!
They are together now. This is only about 45 minutes into a 2 hour movie! Let me attempt to lay out how they try to explain all this.
It cuts to two years later and he is in prison where he is released early because he has a terminal illness that will kill him soon which is why they can’t legally hold him apparently.
Oh, you actually thought there would be more to it? Nope! That’s really this movie’s excuse. He has a terminal illness that he doesn’t discover till two years later. The rest plays out like some tragic epic romance with him slipping away till he dies leaving her with his father crying on a bus.
Okay, here’s what I think they were trying to go for here. We meet a man who essentially was born into this lifestyle and like myself has lived such a solitary life that he is very confused about these emotions he is feeling so he acts on them the only way he knows how. Since his life is one of threats and coercion, he uses those thing to keep her in his life. Being such a shut-in emotionally he even does something as strange as sniff her and try to dry hump her in response to something as innocent as a kiss. He entered her life at a time when the most important man in her life was leaving here for good. As strange as it was, through all his crazy attempts to be with her, she can sense genuine feelings behind his actions and acts on her feelings during a vulnerable time in her life. He never really can break from violence both in terms of his life till now, but also in that socialization that would have allowed him to be “normal” was robbed from him. Finding out that he is going to die only drives him further along the downward spiral. In the end, he essentially dies alone, but tells his father to please watch over her.
I really feel that’s what they were going for here, but it doesn’t work. The linchpins in this storyline are his character knowing he had a terminal illness, the movie being far more obvious about his awkwardness that is hiding real feelings for her, and us believing that she would actually fall for him. The character doesn’t know he has a terminal illness until well after he is gotten her. This means the film expects you to project backwards two years in a sense as a partial explanation for his actions. The movie doesn’t make his lack of ability to exist in regular society clear enough for us to see anything but a crazy man doing crazy things that should cause her to run and not result in reward for him. There’s actually a scene with the police where the cop seems to take his side because the contract says she owes him money. Also, there is never a satisfactory explanation for why she falls for all this. Nor is this man ever really admonished for his actions at the beginning of this film.
Throughout this I couldn’t help but think of another film. That film being Joan Micklin Silver’s Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979). That movie covers similar territory, but so much better. It’s a personal favorite of mine. It features actor John Heard back when he was still on track to become a star, but largely wound up as that guy everyone remembers as the father from Home Alone (1990). It’s the story of a man who spends the entire film stalking and insinuating his way into the life of his ex-girlfriend Laura. We get a flashback to when they met at the beginning of the film. He doesn’t threaten her into a relationship. It is love at first sight for him, but he does what a lot of us would do when they notice somebody that catches their eye. They find a reasonable excuse to spend some time around them. You know, like a sane person does. In his case, he moves rather quickly. I won’t get into the details.
As for the stalking, which even involves him entering her house and completely embarrassing himself and her in front of her new man, is never condoned or rewarded. The film takes us through this man’s crisis of losing somebody he deeply cared for and just can’t let go of. We get it, understand, but never are asked to find his behavior acceptable. We also understand why she loved him and why she goes out of her way to try and let him down easy throughout the film. In the end, she doesn’t come back. The ending of the film has him coming around. It finally sinks in that “it’s over”. We see him at his desk when it’s time for work to end. “It’s not that doesn’t still hurt. It’s that you get used to it.” The last scene has him in a park where we see him make a mad sprint before stopping, turning, and freeze framing.
Chilly Scenes of Winter came into my life in the aftermath of losing my first and only romantic interest. I would say I went through a similar crisis and it took several years for it to truly stop being a daily fact of my existence that I lost someone who at least was very special to me. I believe that Man in Love is well meaning, but it never really gels properly. Using Chilly Scenes of Winter again, it originally was titled and released as Head over Heels and had her come back to him. It was changed in 1982 to have the appropriate ending that matched the book it was based on and the title was changed to match that of the book. Man in Love needed that kind of work, but the changes would be more systemic than a simple change of the ending.
Now that I have poured my heart out to you in a sense, let’s move onto three comedies!
My Ordinary Love Story (2014, dir. Kwon Lee) – I actually saw (500) Days of Summer (2009) in theaters back when it came out. I can’t say I ever thought it needed to be taken and add a really dark turn by having Joseph Gordon-Levitt turn out to be a killer. Seriously, it’s like an Italian Comedy in that sense. Don’t know what an Italian Comedy is? Despite it’s name it’s not called that because it’s a comedy made in Italy. They made those before this genre appeared and they made them after it disappeared. These were comedies that would always have something dark or something you would never think to incorporate into a comedy. I love these movies. Here’s an example of what I am talking about.
Seven Beauties (1975) has our lead wind up in a concentration camp during WWII starving trying to seduce the female commandant in order to survive at the end of the movie. He is taken in front of a bunch of his fellow prisoners and handed a gun to execute someone. The man begs him to shoot him because he can’t go on living. He does shoot him. In the end he makes it home alive to his sisters in Italy. He receives a hero’s return. Our lead looks right into the eyes of his love interest he left behind. He knows and tells her that it’s okay she had to prostitute herself while he was gone to survive. He wants to be married. He tells her:
“There isn’t much time to lose. I want children. Many children. 10. 20. It’s a matter of self defense. Many, and they must be very strong. Look at the crowds out there. In a few more years they’ll be murdering each other. Families slaughtered just for an apple. So we must see to it our family is large. That’ll be our defense. Understand?”
It ends with sad piano music, a sad look on his face, and the words “Yes, I’m alive”. I assure you this is a comedy. A very funny one at that. In fact, here it is if you want to watch it. Assuming it is still available. I can’t recommend it more strongly. Warning, it is dubbed into English.
Other prominent examples include Divorce, Italian Style (1961); Seduced and Abandoned (1964); The Birds, The Bees and the Italians (1966); Il Sorpasso (1962); and many others.
With that backstory out of the way, this movie begins and we are introduced to the quirky, totally not Zooey Deschanel, girl named Park Eun-jin. We get a very modern and hipster introduction to her and her previous six relationships. It’s all presented like you are in for a fun 21st century millennial romantic comedy. She obviously feels burned by all these failed romances and she is only in her late 20s. She winds up in the back of a cab with a man. He is rather quite and reserved, but they form a bond. He does seem a little weird, but it’s nothing we take too seriously as something that should be a big red flag for her.
After entering into a relationship with him, he actually largely disappears from the film as it focuses on her becoming more and more obsessed with trying to figure out if he is cheating on her. We figure it will maybe go that he will leave her because she truly has become damaged goods, will turn out to be clean and find this aspect of her enduring, or maybe something in between where he leaves her, but she comes around and returns to him. Nope! She winds up finding a body in a case in his trunk. That’s when the film takes a sudden turn in every sense.
We are now back to the cab ride where he had an odd comment about the driver. It turns out that a cab driver was in some way responsible for the death of his father. His mother was left alone and eventually wound up dead too. I believe she committed suicide or something after being taken advantage by one man after another as she tried to help them scrape by. He grew up with a deep hatred that led him to kill the cab driver and others who had done his mother wrong. But the body was a woman in his car. Turns out that the cab driver had a wife and he only saw his mother in her which eventually led him to kill her too. I guess this is one of those movies that I won’t spoil, but this dark turn has very dark consequences that in some way are a lesson to her not to let any series of bad experiences with men consume her because hatred can fester and transform you in ways you may never be able to return from.
I recommend this as interesting look at what I see as a South Korean version of Italian Comedy. Otherwise, I wouldn’t seek this out.
Marriage Blue (2013, dir. Ji-Yeong Hong) – Phew! With those rather serious films out of the way, we can just talk briefly about a bunch of romantic comedies tossed together with a countdown that appears on screen as the wedding dates for the couples approach. Seriously, that’s it! Next movie.
Just kidding. Let’s talk a little. I am terrible about keeping track of characters and this one introduces a bunch within the first five minutes of the movie. It’s very quick. I remember the older guy who is going to get married to a younger girl from Uzbekistan and has erectial disfunction. I remember the doctor treating him who stabs a guy just off center of his penis. I remember the girl with short hair who is hiding her true identity from her parents and finds any excuse to try and put off the wedding to a really nice quirky guy who loves the hell out of her. There is a baseball player in there somewhere. Oh, and the lady who goes on the tour which causes her to run into the author of a book she’s reading.
The plots are somewhat difficult to follow. Especially for me. It really gives you no time to stop and think. A film like this sinks or floats based on whether you like the characters or not. Largely, I did. The two I remember the most are the guy with erectial disfunction and the quirky guy who has a tacky sense of fashion and loves his rocking chair. The guy with erectial disfuntion never comes across as if he is just marrying a younger woman because she’s hot or anything. We also don’t get the impression that he wants to cure his inability to get it up for him. It comes across like he feels deeply guilty that if he can’t do that, then he won’t be able to live up to his end of the bargain that she more than does for him. Just like a Howard Hawks’ film, as soon as the two of them really trust each other, the problem disappears just like the plot in a Hawks film. The tacky guy just always comes across as someone that is perfect for her and is willing to bend over backwards to try and break through her exterior. An exterior that she ultimately sheds because she isn’t happy hiding her true self. I love when she tells her father. He doesn’t appear to have known in advance like parents in movies seem to when their child tells them they are gay. He is just surprised that she hasn’t brought it up till now, and is a little pissed off that her fiancee knew his own daughter better than him.
You all know how this kind of movie comes to a resolution. If this is your kind of thing, then this really is a perfectly decent entry into the genre.
Moonshine Girls (2015, dir. Kim Ki-Young) – The plot summary on Amazon Prime told me that it was about a girl who keeps showing up drunk at school because she is trying to perfect/rediscover her dead father’s rice wine recipe in order to save her family brewery. Interesting plot, eh?
Well, it does start off with us quickly getting introduced to our leading lady and she is drunk at school alright. We also discover that roaming schoolyard bitch squads are a universal thing. We also find that teenage boys fighting on the playground for no good reason are also a universal thing. Well, that’s not completely fair. The were negotiating who held claim to all the girls in the school and those negotiations fell through. So logically they had to start fighting. This is when we are introduced to a new teacher at the school. By introduced, I mean he tries to break up the fight and gets punched in the face several times till he is on the ground. There’s your setup. Oh, and some of the kids are involved with gangsters. Believe me, that’s a footnote in this movie. The gangsters are the reason why the brewery is in trouble, but it will barely come up in the movie. But you know what does come up a lot? This guy!
No, not the guy on the left. We’ll get to him. I mean the guy on the right. He is apparently from America (a naturalized Korean) as if you can tell from the fact that he couldn’t look more British if he tried. I buy the Korean on the left as being from America more than this guy. I had a British chemistry teacher in college. He was part of a teacher exchange program. This guy could be his long lost brother. Oh, and the actor plays him like a gay stereotype too. I get no impression that he’s supposed to be gay, but that this is how Americans are meant to be portrayed in this film. As weak, meek, and generally will run from actually doing anything useful.
Now for the guy on the left. He is the new teacher at the school. I believe he used to go there when he was a kid and it apparently was a rather prestigious school test score wise at the time. This guy is basically a cross between Mr. Miyagi and the unkillable worker from Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s Arsenal (1929). Yeah, this movie definitely has a propaganda feel to it. Wouldn’t get that from the plot summary, but it’s here.
He hooks up with the girls and winds up getting everyone involved in this noble pursuit this young lady and her two friends have. The movie even reminds us that rice wine is for more than getting wasted. Also, that it’s matter of pride. He goes into Miyagi mode when he trains everyone in martial arts by having them do something that totally is not wax on wax off or jacket on jacket off. Yeah, this guy is apparently a martial artist, rice wine expert, teacher, and a Korean nationalist all rolled into one. At least he’s entertaining. Unlike the British American guy.
There is only one part of this that actually offended me, and it could be the translation along with a bit of misinterpretation. There’s a scene where the girls have an older guy taste their rice wine to test it’s quality for them. He likes it, but he can tell that their “five grains” rice wine really is only 4 grains. Why? Because he can tell that one of the ingredients is not domestic. They never use the word foreign, but it makes me wonder. Was he referring to ingredients from just their region of Korea? Did he mean South Korea as a whole? The way the rest of the film is and that the lead teacher looks like he could be in communist propaganda as a proud communal farm worker, makes me think he meant South Korea as a whole. The speech the girl gives at the end doesn’t help.
I can’t really say this is bad. It’s just a little odd. I really am not 100% positive this is or isn’t propaganda. I guess check it out and tell me what you think. If you dare! Duh, duh, duh!
Oh, and if you are a gamer, you will notice that one of the guys has a hairdo similar to the kid in the game Quest 64. Good thing I wasn’t watching this with my neighbor who I forced to play and beat that game when I was a kid. It would have given him flashbacks. I know I was already having flashbacks to In The Name Of The King 2: Two Worlds (2011) because the Korean superman teacher wears a scarf in numerous scenes. In The Name Of The King 2: Two Worlds had Dolph Lundgren wearing a scarf that he never took off. One final thing, Dolph Lundgren is going to be in a sequel to Kindergarten Cop (1990). Yeah! Let that settle in.
I remember sitting in a theater back in 1995 watching Clueless for the first time. I really enjoyed it and can still enjoy it today. Cher was certainly pampered, rich, and a bit of ditz, but she never lost her lovability. We could always tell there was a smart and wonderful person just underneath her exterior. We understood and believed her transformation from the superficial to the person we could see from the beginning waiting to spring forth from just under her persona. Even in the poor man’s Clueless that came out last fall on Hallmark called Harvest Moon they created a character that we could find endearing on some level. The Sweeter Side of Life does none of these things.
Just before showing that title card we are introduced to our main character named Desiree Harper (Kathryn Morris). We see her turn off her fancy alarm clock with a fancy watch sitting just next to it. Then we see that she not only sleeps with a sleep mask on but a pillow of sorts that wraps around her neck. Something someone uses for pain problems, but here is supposed to show just how rich she is. Then the typical walk-in closet scene happens while a maid cleans the New York City apartment where she lives. But she’s not unlikable enough yet.
That’s why we get this scene with her friends at the gym looking at an overweight woman while debating the maximum weight allowed for wearing latex. This is followed by the shopping montage before she sits down at a lunch with her friends. One of them is seeing a guy named Renaldo who they just found out has three kids and a wife back in Argentina. Another friend says, “Who cares as long as his family stays over there, right?” Our lead who is already unbearable says she’d care. That’s the one hint at this point that there might be a decent person in there. I know I can’t really get across how she manages to be so darn unpleasant already, but take a look at her.
Actress Kathryn Morris may be the nicest person in the world in real life, but her appearance combined with the way she acts in only these first few minutes makes it really hard to warm up to her. She goes home and finds her husband missed their anniversary for a last minute surgery so she gets drunk for the night. Couldn’t care less at this point.
The next morning she finds her husband at the dinner table and we see that they have a giant hand sculpture in the house. That’s interesting. Now we find out that her husband is going to leave her for his 20 year-old acupuncturist Olive. Here’s my requisite joke that he has also been sticking her with a little needle too. Couldn’t let that go. Now we get to the best character of the film.
This is her somewhat slimy, comical, and lovable lawyer. If they could make his character this way, then why couldn’t they write her the same way? He’s here to remind her she signed a prenuptial agreement. The movie will never bring up whether the agreement had anything in it about adultery which is weird. He also reminds the audience that her family bent over backwards to send her to Columbia where she obtained an MBA which she never used. She says that the interview would ask her about job experience and that all she has experience in is shopping. There are jobs where that actually is a skill, but they don’t bring that up even though I have seen a Hallmark movie with a personal shopper (12 Gifts of Christmas). He asks her where the girl he knew in elementary school went. However, he doesn’t give us any details which would have been really important so we could see beyond her nasty exterior.
Now of course her credit card is taken away from her, she gets hit by a car, and she wakes up in New Jersey with her dad. Her family hasn’t changed her room since she was little. That’s nice. Her father even has breakfast ready so what are some of those first words out of her mouth?
Oh, and the fact that the husband said she shouldn’t drink so much dairy before dumping her doesn’t make this line any more digestible. She moans and groans including that she was a good wife. Could have been helpful for us to see something that hinted at her being a good wife. All I saw was body shaming and shopping. She wonders how she is going to support herself. The father reminds her that she knows how to bake. He runs a bakery. Since she hasn’t been shell shocked enough, we need to have her do some deliveries using the local florist’s car. This really only exists so she can meet a love interest. Yes, this movie will ask us to buy that this guy…
should have any reason to want to be with her, despite only being in a couple of scenes together. He’s rich too. Of course their first meeting has her hitting and knocking down his bird house.
I think the screenwriters may have seen Clueless. Here she was looking at someone getting into a chopper and saying she wants the rich life back before hitting the bird’s nest. Love?
She makes it back alive and we get a proper introduction to the florist. She is also a reasonably likable character especially because we find out she’s smart and cultured even when it comes to rap music.
Now we get a weird scene. The movie will never follow this scene up either to really explain it. There’s a black kid who works at the bakery. She catches him presumedly stealing from the register, but covering it up by saying that it has just been popping out on it’s own. This is never followed up on even though he asks if he can take on more duties than just cleaning up and that his family needs the money. Is the film saying he was going to steal and that she is helping him or not? And the fact that someone immediately comes up to the register, the drawer pops open, and he says it’s doing that again and needs to be fixed doesn’t help. Was this supposed to say that Desiree was racist? It doesn’t make sense. Especially when we will see her help a black policewoman by giving her one of her outfits a little later. A character that will come around at the end of the film in a relationship with the lawyer. Honestly, the movie would have made a lot more sense had she ended up with the lawyer who bends over backwards for her and has an affection for her. Also, remember Cher’s father was a lawyer in Clueless. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.
Anyways, it’s time to learn that Desiree is still stuck up because she wants to straighten her hair? I don’t get that at all. But what I really don’t get is why her hair dryer is shaped like a gun.
Then in case we didn’t know the dad is really supposed to be, dare I say, clueless, he apparently had no idea that some clothes have to be hung to dry and has shrunk one of her dresses. What? He raised her and isn’t gay or anything so he was a married to a woman. Not that there aren’t men’s clothes that aren’t supposed to be put in the dryer as well. It’s just a really stupid scene that just tells us she still hasn’t changed and her dad is supposed to be so different because he is an idiot. Actually, this scene exists just so that the next ridiculous thing can happen on her way to meet with lawyers in the city.
She has to wear the same clothes she wore when she lived with her father back in the 1980s cause she’s wearing the early Madonna clothes. Not funny, and nor did I feel sorry for her when one of her friends brushes her off because of her fall from riches. Oh, and when they have her walking through the crowded sidewalks they do it in slow motion with upbeat I’m going to show them music, but why? She hasn’t changed at all. She shrieked at the reality of having to wear the clothes and just finished complaining about her hair dryer as well as her father’s incompetence. Why use this type of shot that is normally reserved for someone full of confidence? Makes no sense.
Oh, and small complaint, but her former friend tells her the 80’s have come and gone twice after looking at her outfit. Can someone please tell that to all the woman I see with off the one shoulder tops in modern movies? This lady is right. It’s not the 1980s all over again. While we’re here. One of the things that made Clueless so good is that part of Cher’s transformation is to stop seeing and treating her friends as superficial and start to appreciate the good and special things about them. Why is it necessary to lump all her former friends in the trashcan for characters as deep as a puddle who we are supposed to accept as better simply because they live in New Jersey?
She now goes in to meet with her husband’s lawyer and you know why nothing is brought up in her defense? Like the adultery for example. It’s because the lawyer comes in and is stoned after a dental visit. Yep. The only thing of value here is that we find out Olive is pregnant.
After a kitchen accident which isn’t funny, it’s time to insult the black kid who shows up on a pink scooter. He’s wearing pink too. Just in case we thought this was a meaningless little joke it immediately cuts to two guys at the counter where one says to the other “I want the fruity one” to which the other replies “I pointed to it first.” Yeah, that’s great. They do come across as if they are supposed to be a couple. Wouldn’t have been an issue if they hadn’t just harassed the kid about the pink. In fact, it would have made them seem progressive seeing as they don’t seem to have any reaction to these two guys. If you think I might be reading too much into this, then go watch the Hallmark movies Nearlyweds with it’s really gay stereotype hair dresser or Strawberry Summer where the singer has to assure the country folk that he doesn’t come from “those parts” of New York City but “the good parts.”
After people talk behind Desiree’s back, she gives them a piece of her mind, and a nun pops out of nowhere for comedy, the florist sits down with her to have a heart to heart. And by heart to heart, I mean insult her for standing up for herself. She even says that while they may have deserved it, her father certainly didn’t. Oh, that’s nice except nothing she said was directed at her father, he was there to hear their insults, and he doesn’t defend her after she stormed out, but simply asked who’s next. She then insults her for her supposed lousy work ethic. Really? When? When she did her father’s deliveries even though she knew she was out of practice driving or maybe when she tried baking even though she really has no experience in it. That and covering the counter for him. Yes, lousy work ethic indeed. By the way, Desiree still manages to be unlikable even though she doesn’t deserve this from the florist. We also discover that her father’s business isn’t doing so well. She says she had no idea since why would she. The florist tells her because she didn’t even bother asking. Somewhere during this, when even the audience is given no reason to believe his business is in trouble, she was supposed to ask him about it while also dealing with all these other things. I don’t like her, but cut her a little slack for crying out loud.
Now she seems to take an interest in her father’s business. That’s nice, but now bird house boy named Benny/Benoit stops by. We find out that he’s rich. Yep, she’s going to go from a rich guy in the city to a rich guy in the “suburbs”/”country” of New Jersey. During this scene he hands her a check to settle his account for the month. He’s a major chef and the scene leads us to believe he’s buying his stuff from them seeing as he is giving them a check. Why is the father’s business in trouble? Is this meant as a handout? He asks for her phone number here so is he trying to buy her or lure her to him with his money?
I keep bringing these things up because this movie keeps doing stupid things throughout it. She’s still rather insufferable too.
Now out of nowhere she is suddenly making these lovely little pastries that will be called Paddycakes after her father Paddy even though only a few minutes ago she was a disaster in the kitchen. Yes, these paddycakes will be the savior of the bakery. That’s because of this lady.
She is very impressed, and of course will turn out to be a newspaper writer later on.
After stupid dancing and shtick, the lawyer shows up again to remind us he really is the only character we enjoy in this movie. Oh, but before that we need to get in another homophobic bit.
At least the guy says he knows but still likes coffee in a cup like that to which the father responds, “good grief”. The rich guy again shows up to get her phone number and the instant she says he still can’t call her, he just walks away.
When the lawyer shows up, the joint is apparently doing really well now. Those must be some paddycakes. A few scenes, then the article comes out in the newspaper! Just look!
The bakery is so great that it had to repeat “In Flamington New Jersy, life just got sweeter, and it’s all thanks to a little slice of nirvana, called Paddy’s Bakery” three times! But what is the rest of the article here? I’m telling you, Darcy from A Gift Of Miracles is everywhere and she can shapeshift into other people too.
-The “I saw something of my own childhood, albeit a decade’s remove, in Colson Whitehead’s memoir of growing up in the seventies with low-budget, low-esteem science-fiction movies. He writes, ‘If I was lucky, I’d come home from elementary school to find WABC’s…” comes from a New Yorker article written by Richard Brody.
-The “But the bakery swallowed its umbrage long enough to see an upside: it put up signs about Cookiegate, changed its outgoing phone message to mention…” comes from a New York Times article by Michael Barbaro.
The second one makes sense…sort of…since the magazine the article is in is supposed to be The New Yorker.
Now it’s off to dinner with Benny. She even fixed his birdhouse. This is when something weird happens yet again. Her and Benny are going down a hallway to have some privacy when she notices an open door with an office inside. He quickly closes it saying she doesn’t want to look at it which she responds with an odd “okay”. Now we find out for sure he’s single. Then they make out. Now she notices this painting as she is pinned against the wall being kissed.
He says it’s his great uncle. What was all that about? Is this supposed to imply his family was involved with the Nazis via the Vichy regime? I don’t really recognize the uniform. What was the point of the office and painting? It doesn’t make sense and is never brought up again.
After we have a stupid conversation about waiting three days before calling up Benny, the lawyer calls to tell her he has a deal to “franchise the bakery”. The father just sends her. Doesn’t come along at all. I know I can’t possibly get this across, but the movie really hasn’t given us any reason for this. He even corrects her when she says it’s not his bakery, but their bakery. Then doesn’t that mean he should be there even more? I know it’s supposed to show he trusts his daughter, but we don’t have any real reason too as the audience.
Of course big city folks meddling in small businesses are usually portrayed as evil, so she turns down their deal.
You’ll have to take my word for it, but these are the only lines in this that she delivers that are done right. They make sense, we feel that she really believes in what she is saying, and we finally see some believable change in her character. Why couldn’t this have been going on throughout the movie? I don’t get it.
She goes home when the husband shows up. No reason given for why he shows up other than that Olive dumped him and the pregnancy was fake. That’s nice, but the only thing we saw Desiree do prior to being dumped is spend his money in the short time we spent with her prior to the breakup and we could hardly stand her afterwards. Again, it doesn’t make sense. We just are supposed to believe from their really short little exchange that she brought something to the marriage that he would want back. Just a simple scene where we at least see her being used as a trophy wife would have gone a long way.
Obviously she shuts him out, she winds up with Benny, the lawyer shows up with the policewoman from earlier, they dance out the door of the bakery, Desiree and Benny kiss, etc.
This movie sucked. Plain and simple. In the end, she has changed, but it’s too late at that point. Go watch Clueless or Harvest Moon instead.
Now a tribute to the best character in the entire film: the lawyer played by Steve Varnom.
And look at all those American flags!!! Wow! I had no idea that North Bay, Ontario, Canada had a United States appreciation day where they take down all the Canadian flags that normally line the street to put up Old Glory. Actually, the city behind the title card is Littleton, New Hampshire, but the movie was done in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. However, they did take down the Canadian flags that normally line that city’s Main Street. Unfortunately, I don’t know the city they show just before the title card. Only so much I can do.
This time it was really easy to figure out. While they do make sure the license plates are Illinois…
and American flags are even in the windows of motels…
they left plenty of local business names just lying around.
They even directly reference this coffee house and it really exists on 473 Fraser Street North Bay, Ontario.
Figuring out Littleton, New Hampshire goes to the Hunkins & Eaton Insurance Agency, Inc. sign that just barely shows for a second before the camera pans up to the shot at the beginning of this review.
With that out of the way for now. This is Hallmark’s new mystery series. It takes place in the small town of New Chapel, Illinois, which is only about 4,000 km by car from Eden Lake, Minnesota where Hannah Swenson runs her bakery.
It starts off by introducing us to a dead man walking named Elvis. Abby Knight, played by Brooke Shields, once knew the man who has since run on hard times.
After speaking in exposition dialog to introduce us to her, the flower shop called Bloomers, and her employee, Brooke sits down to have a talk with her daughter. A daughter who, I kid you not, is attending Mills College. Mills College which, according to Brooke’s flower shop friend, is “far enough away to live on campus, but close enough for Mom to drop in.” I had no idea Mills College had moved from the Bay Area to near Illinois, Ontario, Canada.
Oh, and just in case we thought she was on vacation and not in the middle of classes.
This scene only exists to tell us that Brooke used to be a lawyer, but stopped when her husband died and opened a flower shop instead because “none of it just seemed as important.” In other words, her husband died so that the character will be able to be a detective and Beth Davenport from The Rockford Files at the same time. Works out because her neighbor Marco Salvare, played by Brennan Elliott, shows up next at the flower shop. He owns a bar and was a PI. Oh, and Brooke’s car got hit by another car that may have been involved with the murder that happens soon.
And by soon, I mean now. Someone turns up dead at the Canadian American flag waving motel, Elvis is a suspect, and Brooke and Brennan are on the case. Not for any real good reason. They are really just busy body snoops, which is one of the reasons I kind of like this series already. Normally that would drive me nuts, but it makes them made for each other in this series. I liked that.
With Brooke on the case, she goes on her iPad to read a screenshot of a newspaper article about the murder, which apparently took place on November 2nd, 2016.
Then she goes to the family album of her photos on the iPad where we see a picture of her husband who may have died the day before during a fishing trip. Either that or she only got around to importing her family photos onto her tablet the day before on November 1st, 2016.
Next we are introduced to this series’ version of Norman from Murder, She Baked, but he barely exists in this movie. Then there’s a little girl talk back at the flower shop that I’m pretty sure has no customers that come into it. This is followed by a scene where Brooke sits down with a woman who wants a divorce so that we make sure we still remember she was a lawyer. Oh, and something plot related about a Green Thumb Nursery. I couldn’t care less about the plot because just like watching The Big Sleep (1946), you are watching for the Brooke and Brennan back and forth, not the plot. Also, Beau Bridges is in this as a sounding board and in case we need more exposition. Whatever is needed, you can count on Beau. I mean the man got the scroll weapon and he almost beat mega turtle at the end of level three in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES back in 1989. He can do anything.
Time to hit the “Internet” running locally at file:///C:/Users/Mike/Desktop/sc20-Chicago-GreenTumb/results1.html AKA ExploreNet to look up the Green Thumb Nursery.
The local URL’s keep popping up in the lower left hand corner as a tooltip while she continues to browse the local filesystem for info on the nursery. I wonder who this Mike is? Did she take actor Michael Vincent Dagostino’s laptop? He plays a detective in the movie.
Anyhow, after Brooke reminds us again she was once a lawyer, she walks pass some street signs to make sure we know this shot took place at the intersection of McIntyre Street and Plouffle Street.
Then Brooke and Brennan visit the Green Thumb Nursery to forward the plot and have some more back and forth. Might as well mention now that Brooke has some weird pseudo-feminist lines in this. You know those lines somebody who thinks they are a feminist, but really are just looking for any excuse to pick a fight over say. There’s only a couple of them, but it’s kind of weird. Maybe she can argue with Calista Flockhart about the semantics of calling her Supergirl.
Now they go on a stakeout! By that I mean they have some humorous lines and talk in exposition dialog. Who cares! All you need to know is that with a little more work they could be fun as a mystery solving couple in this franchise. And no, despite being written by Gary Goldstein, there will be no mention of Brooke’s feet. More plot and dead flowers left for Brooke, then finally Elvis is charged with second degree murder.
Plot, plot, plot. Nursery looks awfully shady and we know that’s where the mystery is going to lead us. Now Brooke and Flower Shop Norman take a trip to Partners Billards & Bowling Center on 361 Main St East.
After more talking between characters, an inspector shows up and shuts down Brooke’s flower shop. Now it’s personal! I know this because I have almost run out of screenshots. Luckily, I have two more funny things to show before I close up this review. Also, Elvis is found hung dead in his cell. Winding down now.
At the nursery, Brooke noticed that one of the guys carried a gun. She asked him why and he gave a lame answer. No joke, I immediately said to my Dad that he should have said that they carry rare orchids and people try to steal them. So of course she figures out that an orchid bulb is hidden inside a pot of Mum flowers. Yep. This is also when Hallmark popped up to tell us that if we don’t like this series then not to worry cause it can go the way of Wedding Planner Mystery if necessary.
And now the final goof, and it’s a whopper. She goes online to read an article about expensive orchids. Take a good look.
“U.S. inspectors broke the Kolopaking case in 1993, when they discovered he had sent 60 boxes of rare orchids into the United States via the West Coast clearinghouse for international mail in Oakland.”
“Fisher said the biggest threat to orchids is loss of habitat: Each year, millions of acres of rain forest, where billions of orchids live, are cut or burned down for mining, timber, farming and development.
He added that orchids taken from the wild are now growing in greenhouses and new plants including hybrids are made from them. ‘There are a lot of species in greenhouses that don’t exist in the wild any more due to habitat loss.’
Law enforcement officials insist that smuggling can hasten the death of a species. They contend that over-collection often takes place when a rare orchid’s habitat is nearly destroyed.”
I think Brooke Shields should contact Brooke Burns of the SFPD. Her and The Gourmet Detective should get right on this. This clearly means that Darcy from A Gift Of Miracles who plagiarized her PhD research pitch from an actual WWF report was writing under the pseudonym of Samson O’Doyle three years before the events of that film.
Obviously Brooke does figure it all out and brings the criminals to justice. The mystery is okay at best. It’s not too difficult to follow. Take the fact that the majority of this review is made up of jokes to tell you how enthralling the plot is. There’s a fair amount of setup here so don’t expect to escape a lot of those types of scenes and the exposition dialog that comes with them. The promise here is the stuff between Brooke Shields and Brennan Elliott. I really have a feeling this one is heading for the same bin as My Gal Sunday, Wedding Planner Mystery, and The Mystery Cruise, but if not, then I hope they really polish up the dialog and just drop the unnecessary extra guy. That kind of works on Murder, She Baked, but here I didn’t feel it added anything. Just have Abby and Marco hook up so we can enjoy them being screwball comedy murder mystery solvers. Otherwise, I am not looking forward to a poor man’s Murder, She Baked with touches of The Gourmet Detective.
I doubt that people who read my Late Night Cable reviews are the same people who read my Hallmark reviews, but there’s a connection here. There’s an actor named Frankie Cullen who is in a bunch of the movies that wind up on late night cable. The thing is he’s too good for those movies. He really isn’t a bad actor at all and usually raises the quality of the movie by being in them. June in January is the second Hallmark movie i’ve seen with actor Wes Brown and he also raises the quality of the movie just by being in it. I also saw him in Love Under The Stars where he always conveyed a deep sadness and concern for his daughter simply without saying a word. In fact, his words were usually upbeat, but he always made sure we knew what was going on underneath without spelling it out for us. He does that kind of thing in this movie too. Just like Frankie Cullen, Wes Brown is too good for these movies in my opinion.
This is also the second film i’ve seen with actress Brooke D’Orsay and she is pretty good here too just like she was in How To Fall In Love. She is possibly one of the few actors i’ve seen on Hallmark that can play against type. She naturally fits the irresponsible ditz, but is good enough to convincingly play other characters despite what her appearance tells us she should be. How To Fall In Love was also directed by Mark Griffiths.
With that out of the way, we start off the movie with D’Orsay and Brown getting ready to go somewhere seeing as they are dressing up. They are doing it in two different places. And as usual the woman in the movie tries on several dresses and always goes with a dress I don’t like.
Oh, and that’s her mom who was frozen in the picture by evil witches and can only be released when her daughter has the perfect wedding. Just kidding, it’s her dead mom who will be a guiding spirit for D’Orsay through voiceover and flashbacks. Now D’Orsay and Brown go to a party and D’Orsay feels out of place because these are upper-crust people and she’s just a lowly nurse practitioner. Those non practitioner nurses are even worse. They just always sat around doing nothing on ER all the time. Someone actually left a review on IMDb complaining how this film bashes nurse practitioners and more specifically regular nurses even though the villains of the movie say it, but she stands up for herself and we see her helping people in her job.
This is when a Hallmark banner popped up to tell me they have a cannibalism related Valentine’s Day movie coming in February.
Should be more interesting than The Cabin (2011) which I did watch, but since it didn’t have the Hallmark seal on it before the title card, among other things, I don’t think it is a real Hallmark movie and won’t be reviewing it. Also, it was pretty lousy and felt edited.
Anyways, we now meet Brown’s parents.
That’s Marilu Henner who will be our Jaclyn Smith from Bridal Wave for this film. D’Orsay is always nervous around her because she feels like she’s always “auditioning for her.”
Meanwhile, this guy is eating a pizza in a bedroom.
Back at the party, we meet the bitch played by Chelsea Hobbs.
She just by coincidence also played the bitch in The Nine Lives Of Christmas. Yes, that is the best word to use. Even my Mom who has become rather conservative about cursing as of late started referring to her as such near the end of the film.
The Nine Lives Of Christmas (2014, dir. Mark Jean)
Also by coincidence, this movie was shot in Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada just like The Nine Lives Of Christmas. I know that because of this shot.
What’s hilarious is that if you go to Google Maps Street View right now that building has a big Canadian flag hanging from it.
Anyways, after D’Orsay squats…
she pulls out a book complete with her dream wedding flowers in it and a flashback to her talking with her mother. Then D’Orsay comes out to show her father herself wearing her mother’s wedding dress. This is probably as good a time as any to tell you that the father’s are both really decent guys in this movie.
Then we cut to D’Orsay at work to see just how damn incompetent nurse practitioners are when she is able to help a man who turns out to have Seasonal Affective Disorder without having to consult a doctor. Totally useless I tell you.
After a few things that are just there to remind us of the importance of their wedding, Brown drops a bomb on D’Orsay. He tells her that he’s actually named Luke McDonald and is a member of an anti-vampire church.
Actually he’s there to tell her that since her character’s name is June and the film is called June in January, they are going to have to move to Cleveland for a new job he just received and have the wedding now in January. Why they couldn’t move to Cleveland and still have the wedding in June, I have no idea. Luckily, this is not a Hallmark movie that sends the message that her having her dream wedding is more important than marrying someone she loves. That’s extremely refreshing.
Meanwhile, the bitch has been assigned by Marilu Henner to do something about the upcoming wedding. Got to admit, I really thought she was Brown’s sister until late in the movie where she states she is just a friend of the family and works for Henner at her “design” business. Then Brown and D’Orsay check out some of the worst places possible to hold a reception…
before settling on having the ceremony at Marilu Henner’s place. I say both reception and ceremony in there because while we do see the ceremony at the house in the end, but the places they visit look like where you would hold a reception so I’m not really sure.
Now it’s time to go back to find out that D’Orsay somehow, i’m sure by complete luck, cured the poor guy who was suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Believe it or not, that is one of those things that is terrible to have, but is surprisingly easy to fix. Simply having a special light bulb shine on you for a certain amount of time each day stops it. Rather remarkable. He will actually repay her by saving the day at the end of the film.
Oh, and it’s discovering I have taken screenshots like this that make writing these reviews for you worth it.
No idea what was going on here.
At this point, the film kind of goes on autopilot. You have D’Orsay starting to panic, but quickly realizing that it’s marrying someone she loves that makes the wedding special. Her mother even left a note after her death for D’Orsay to make sure she remembers that. The fathers do there part to comfort D’Orsay and bring Henner down to Earth. Oh, and this happens.
During this scene the bitch tries one last attempt to ruin the marriage by telling Brown that she has a crush on him. Look at Brown’s face. Without saying a word he could have simply gotten up and left and we would have completely understood his feelings on what she was saying. Surprise followed by disgust followed by sheer amazement that she would actually stoop this low. I’m surprised they actually had him say anything. Brown is good enough with his acting to convey everything with his face and body language. And a prenup gets thrown in at the last minute, but that goes nowhere just like any of the normal Hallmark speed bumps which just lead the characters to a better understanding of their love for each other rather than stupid panic.
But the bitch has one last trick up her sleeve after being fired by Henner. She tells the revered that the wedding is off so he won’t show up for the ceremony. However…
that guy who D’Orsay cured by pure chance has a friend who can marry them and they live happily ever after.
My summary thoughts on the movie are as these: It’s one of the best Hallmark movies i’ve watched especially considering it’s just about a rushed wedding, Wes Brown is a good actor, D’Orsay is no slouch herself, nurse practitioners and regular nurses deserve a lot of respect, and I carried that one joke on way too long.
Note: I’m aware that the IMDb reviewer’s main point was that the film can appear like it’s saying you have to be a nurse practitioner instead of a regular nurse in order to be taken seriously. I get the same impression from people when I tell them i’m transgender, but not on hormones so I can understand why it bothered her. My jokes still stand though because my point is that it’s ridiculous to look down on nurses as if they aren’t to be taken seriously and the film never really does that.
Secret Travel (2013, dir. Park Chang-Jin) – The plot of this film is that a guy starts a suicide club after a female prostitute gets into his cab who is obviously very depressed. Based on that plot would you think this movie is a comedy? Would you think that by looking at that poster? This movie also goes under the title Secret Confessions. Either title tell you it’s a comedy? Only the third title called Wish Taxi betrays that this might be a comedy. No wonder it also uses this as it’s poster.
Now that tells you it’s a comedy! The best way I can give you a feel for it is to take Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) and cross it with The Breakfast Club (1985). The guy meets the girl in his cab and decides a way to get close to her is take up her apparent interest in killing herself. Rather morbid. He puts up a post online and two other girls along with her show up. There’s the perky one who is pictured on the right of that poster. The prostitute in the middle who is in the middle as far as depression goes. Then there’s the girl on the far left who in the movie you can tell is actually in danger of offing herself. The idea is that they are going to fulfill their bucket lists before killing themselves together. Again, rather morbid, but it all plays out like a comedy. I would compare it to the film The Bucket List, but I haven’t seen that one yet and it really is like a bunch of kids taking a day off of school who would normally not hang out together, but then get to know each other by having a good time in the city, thus becoming life long friends. In other words, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off crossed with The Breakfast Club.
Overall, I enjoyed it. I’ve said it several times already, but it is kind of morbid considering it’s a suicide club and all. Also, they all end up having sex with him. That’s really not much of a spoiler. One could read a little too much into it and think that having sex with him solves their problems. It really doesn’t. You can also look at it as a guy who gets sex by preying on three emotionally disturbed girls. I think that’s not giving the girls enough credit. He never really takes advantage and they all know what they are doing. It’s easier to argue that The Twilight Saga is about a pedophile considering the entire story can be stripped to a 100+ year old man who gets into a relationship with a teenage girl and freezes her at a young age.
I recommend this one.
One Thing She Doesn’t Have (2014, dir. Yu Jeong-Hwan) – This one on the other hand, I can’t recommend. The one thing this film doesn’t have is focus. One minute it wants to be a screwball comedy. Then it’s 8 1/2 (1963). Then it’s Soapdish (1991). Next it’s All About Eve (1950). Next it’s trying to be clever about how sex tapes affect the careers of actors. The cult of celebrity. It’s all over the place. Speaking of Soapdish.
The movie is about an actress whose career is on the downswing. Nobody is taking her seriously. On the other hand, you have a director who is also not doing so good. He is going to do a, what I thought was a movie, but it turns out to be a play. A rather racey play that has pole dancing in it. The actress’ production company encourages her to do it so she does…sort of. Do I have to tell you she’s a total diva? Well, she is. The film is about this play coming together, her using a body double for the pole dancing stuff, and a scandal. I think it fancies itself to be insightful and clever, but it isn’t. It’s all over the place.
Case in point, early in the movie the actress and a friend all but date rape the director to take pictures of him in sexual positions while he is heavily drugged so she can get her way. That is played as if it’s all light and funny. However, later in the film a sex tape gets out of the actress, which the director had nothing to do with, but it’s suddenly something we are supposed to take very seriously. It’s fake too by the way while the pictures are very real. So, the all but date rape is perfectly fine, but this sex tape of someone who is already doing a play where she is pole dancing almost entirely naked is supposed to be meaningful and tragic? Sorry, it doesn’t work. Yes, I know they try to explain this away with her little tale about her early acting career, but I’m sorry, swap the genders of that drugging and people would scream bloody murder. When you can swap gender and suddenly you feel repulsed, then it wasn’t right in the first place.
I don’t recommend this one.
Kiss Me, Kill Me (2009, dir. Yang Jon-Hyeon) – First things first. I can’t possibly be the only one who looks at that poster and thinks of the game Lethal Enforcers with the pink gun.
Well, with that out of the way. Ever wanted to see Branded To Kill (1967) sorta reworked into a romance between a hitman and a suicidal woman? Neither did I, but that’s essentially what you have here. For those of you who haven’t seen Branded To Kill, then stop reading this and go watch it. You’re in for a bizarre treat. Oh, and here’s the trailer for Branded To Kill which will explain nothing…
because you can’t really make a trailer to Branded To Kill that explains it. I can barely explain it and I’ve seen it. Also, you have probably seen it referenced in other movies. From something like Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai (1999) to that really short-lived trans woman British contract killer TV show Hit & Miss. Yep, Chloë Sevigny with a penis. That’s something that exists in that show. I mean they actually show it several times. What also exists in both that movie, that TV show, and this movie are direct references to the famous butterfly sniper rifle scene. In Branded To Kill the lead played by Jô Shishido misses his target because a butterfly lands on his rifle. In this movie, it’s a leaf that happens to pass in front of the lead’s scope. This causes him to screw up a hit.
The movie starts out by introducing us to the suicidal girl as we see her jump onto the tracks while an oncoming subway train approaches. She lands on the tracks next to the tracks that the train is on before getting up and running away. Comedy? Anyways, she winds up at the scene where the hit is going to go down. There is actually a funny moment here when our contract killer goes to setup his gun on top of a building and notices a police sniper already there on the neighboring roof. The two just kind of acknowledge each other, then our killer goes somewhere else to setup. The girl happens to be there, but he doesn’t really meet her yet.
He’s then hired to kill a guy who is just going to be lying in his bed sleeping. Of course it turns out it’s her and she has hired him to kill her. He doesn’t do it though recognizing she’s suicidal and that’s not his thing. This is when he becomes romantically linked with her by basically just moving in with her. He still is going around killing, but he’s now sort of living with her and I believe his mother too. It reminded me of when the #1 Yakuza killer moves in with the lead in Branded To Kill. There’s even a shot of them just both sitting looking dead at some park like I remember the two killers doing on a couch in Branded To Kill.
Oh, and yes, I know him being hired to kill a woman could also be a reference to Murder By Contract (1958). So here’s that trailer too. Worth seeing even if the ending of the film is disappointing.
Ultimately, the movie has a neat setup, and I kind of like the actor playing the contract killer, but then it just settles into a soap opera. And yes, I’m well aware that soap operas are uber popular in South Korea. If I had forgotten, then the next film I’ll talk about sure reminded me of that fact. I didn’t like it. I kind of wish they had just gone all out and simply remade Branded To Kill. Oldboy (2003) proved the Koreans have what it takes to remake something so bat shit crazy. Unfortunately, after watching the movie I couldn’t satisfy my Jô Shishido fix since I don’t own any of his films. So I had to settle for the final scene from A Colt Is My Passport (1967). Enjoy!
Love Me Not (2006, dir. Cheol-ha Lee) – It doesn’t look like Amazon Prime is going to let me out of South Korea anytime soon. This makes 6 of them in a row. This one is a straight up Old Hollywood 1950’s weepie. Even has sections with strong use of color that you would expect from a Douglas Sirk movie. Although, the main guy also wears an all white suit at times during some scenes with strong use of color so for all I know that was a reference to Tokyo Drifter (1966). Might as well have two movies in a row that reference a Seijun Suzuki film. Also, this one appears to reference Citizen Kane. I actually took a couple of screenshots here.
The plot here is that they needed an excuse to have a conman spend time with a blind woman who can appear as if she has just lost her sight even though she lost it a long time ago. To do this, they have a guy that suddenly needs massive amounts of money to pay back a debt he owes. He is going to go and pose as the blind woman’s long lost brother in order to get her inheritance since her father recently passed away. We get her acting as if she just went blind because the movie tells us she never left the house after losing her sight. That is until he shows up, then it’s time for the two to go out on the town so we can see her acting pathetic and him growing to love her.
There is seriously nothing else to this. This would have made a perfectly okay 1950s Hollywood romance film. Maybe Cary Grant or Robert Mitchum as the conman and maybe Ingrid Bergman as the blind woman. Actually, Audrey Hepburn is probably a better choice seeing as she was awesome playing blind in Wait Until Dark (1967). That or I needed an excuse to include the trailer for Wait Until Dark here.
I only recommend seeing Love Me Not if you know that Old Hollywood weepies really are your thing, and even more so if you already know the two leading actors: Geun-young Moon and Ju-hyuk Kim. If so, I can tell you that you will most likely enjoy this movie. It’s average, but I didn’t enjoy it because I am really not the intended audience.
And here’s some scenes from Wait Until Dark because I can. You’re welcome! Call it adding a “Scenes That I Love” section to a “Roundup” post.
I know he probably didn’t, but seeing as Ron Oliver and David S. Cass Sr. have seen some of my reviews of their Hallmark films, I am going to just assume director Kristoffer Tabori read my reviews of Love On The Air and Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery. I say this because he fixed the problems with the way he shot those two films, but still kept some of the style he seems to be going for with his recent Hallmark movies. He still has a fondness for mirrors.
Still doing some framing.
The obstructionist stuff in front of the camera is drastically reduced. I’d say it’s only there when it actually does add something to the shot like these parts.
Thankfully, there was no repeat of the blinded by the light shot from Love On The Air and Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery. The good framing and composition in depth are used sparingly. It’s not something that seems to have been just thrown into every shot like it was before. That alone makes this way better than the previous Murder, She Baked film. I honestly don’t know why Tabori chose to do it this way this time, but I want to thank him for it.
The movie starts off with Hannah (Alison Sweeney) discovering a body in a kitchen after a little film noir voiceover from her. I liked that it chose to open up that way. Then it cuts to a title card telling us: “Two Days Earlier”. This is when the movie reintroduces us to Hannah, the bakery, and the town of Eden Lake. Do I even have to say it anymore? Yes? Okay. And by Eden Lake, they mean Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. I know this because of this shot.
However, kudos to the production crew for knowing this shot of her cellphone would be onscreen for an extended period of time so they simply removed the SIM card.
Of course, the rest of the time it’s just Minnesota license plates where the film is supposed to take place.
A competing bakery has opened up across the street and is run by Melanie and her sister Vanessa both played by actress Michelle Harrison.
Vanessa
Melanie
I thought the two sisters looked awfully similar to each other while watching it, but I wasn’t sure they were supposed to be twins. I don’t think the film ever says they are twins. I think they had the same actress play both sisters for the convenience of the murder mystery plot. Can’t give away too much, but having the same actress play both sisters makes it easier to swallow the resolution of the mystery. However, it is a little confusing and provides a red herring that I’m not sure they were going for. Melanie is the one who is murdered. Since both sisters are played by the same actress it’s perfectly reasonable for the viewer to think that the one sister killed the other and swapped places with her. Especially since they don’t seem to like each other. Not sure if that was something the filmmakers intended or not. Something tells me they did though because the reason Melanie has her hair up in that shot above like her sister is because Hannah puts it up that way under the guise of protecting it while she bakes.
For reasons that don’t matter, Melanie and Hannah end up in a cook off to see who can bake the best Peach Cobbler. It doesn’t even matter who wins either. All that matters is that Hannah discovers Melanie doesn’t know how to bake because she bought her Peach Cobbler at a store. This is how the film gets Hannah to know Melanie as Hannah tries to teach her how to bake and introduces us to Melanie’s mean sister Vanessa. She’s nasty. Then Melanie dies.
Now here’s something I didn’t notice in the previous film, but it sure was an issue for me this time around. Both this and the previous film have Mike played by Cameron Mathison and Norman played by Gabriel Hogan in them. The problem is that both actors bare a strong resemblance to each other in this movie. I kept confusing the two of them. It really doesn’t affect the movie, but it was part of my experience watching it, so I am passing it on.
Gabriel Hogan
Cameron Mathison
With Melanie dead, Hannah, her mom, and her sister, AKA The Blonde Brigade, begin to work towards solving the mystery. Or better put, Hannah works towards solving the mystery while the other two blondes are around playing their roles in the story. One of the episodes of Murder, She Wrote that I remember the most is when Jessica Fletcher was really suspected as the murderer. That happens here to Hannah. Something else that I know everyone who has watched Murder, She Wrote thinks is that if Jessica comes to town, then RUN!!!! When Hannah discovers the body it’s:
And this isn’t all there is. Hallmark is well aware that people know they film a lot of this stuff in Canada. I mean it’s spelled out all over the credits for crying out loud. However, it wasn’t until this film that I actually saw them make a joke about it.
In that scene, she tries to tell Hannah to make a run for it by going to Canada. Of course the in-joke is that they are already in Canada.
There are also some well done computer screens and Tabori reuses the technique of overlaying some of the computer stuff onto the shot like he did in Love On The Air.
It’s nice, modern, and has the effect of showing both what’s important on the screen and the character’s reaction to it in the same shot. That helps to keep us engaged rather than having things broken with every cut from the screen to the character and back again.
I also appreciated the scene near the end where Hannah, then Norman, try to social engineer some information out of some people. For me it harkens back to movies like Sneakers (1992) and WarGames (1983), but since this is a murder mystery. It also made me think of The Rockford Files. Rockford socially engineered people all the time and in some episodes even carried around a little printing press to make fake business cards. It’s no wonder that even Kevin Mitnick mentioned The Rockford Files in his autobiography. She also does some dumpster diving.
So with all that babble out of the way, you are probably wondering if the mystery is any good. I could reasonably follow it which is a good thing. However, a section of it is quite obvious. The fact that the other part may be obscured from you till the end doesn’t change that you think you have figured it out from the start, and you basically have. Nevertheless, this installment has changed my opinion on this particular Hallmark mystery franchise. I could go for another one. Even Alison Sweeney who I felt didn’t pull off playing the good character in the previous films finally seemed to settle into the role. That may just be me or that I’ve seen her play the same role three times now, but her performance worked for me. I’d say give this one a shot, but for all the other things I mentioned aside from how well crafted the mystery itself is.
Through the Shattered Lens 