Filipino Batman: Alyas Batman en Robin (1991, dir. Tony Y. Reyes)

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

A Filipino Batman. Of course! There’s Turkish Supermen. There’s an Indonesian Lady Terminator. There’s Brazilian Star Wars. There’s a Mexican Batwoman. There’s a dancing Indian Superman and Spiderwoman. So why not a Filipino Batman? Actually, this is one of three that I know about. There is another one with the same title as this film from 1965, which I don’t have, and a movie called James Batman from 1966 that I do have. I’ll review that one later.

Let’s talk about this particular Filipino Batman. The title literally translates to Alias Batman and Robin, which is actually a very appropriate title. While the movie does have Batman, Robin, Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, and numerous other superheroes that show up at the end, they are all regular people who take up the roles rather than actually being the real characters.

The movie of course opens with the Batman TV Show theme song playing. However, it’s like almost all the lifted songs in this movie. It’s not the exact song. It’s not like if you watch the Taiwanese film King Of Snake (1984). In that film you will hear the main theme from The Terminator (1984) and music from Once Upon A Time In The West (1968) unaltered. In this movie, the songs will be tweaked or sampled, and have new lyrics. There is one exception, but we’ll get to that.

I’m gong to just cut through the very beginning of this movie cause the film sure does, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. The movie opens up and we meet our future Batman (Joey de Leon) and Robin (Keempee de Leon).

As far as I can tell they are supposed to be high school or college students. The only person they are really clear about is the guy who becomes the Penguin. Now we meet our future Joker (Rene Requiestas) reading about the character.

I’m going to say it here. He has a great maniacal laugh. It never feels like there’s a psycho or a really bad guy behind it like you see in The Dark Knight (2008) or Batman (1989). Nevertheless, it still is pretty great, and he does it a lot. He also does great crazy eyes.

There are some girls here, some rivalry, and some fighting. None of it really matters. Trust me. Even the film will tell you later how meaningless these opening scenes are to the movie. The next thing you know Joker’s uncle gets out of jail and this happens.

There you go! Now we have Joker and Penguin (Panchito). They immediately go to rob the Treasury Office, but first!

The director of this movie made other films like this such as Bobo Cop (1988), Goosebuster (1991), and his own line of Tarzan films. I seriously doubt that sticker having the year Tim Burton’s Batman came out is just a coincidence.

Anyways, they rob the treasury and gloat about it.

They also talk about hiring some goons.

After our future Batman and Robin read about the robbery, we get Kabuki Joker.

Now the Joker and Penguin start hitting more places including apparently Gotham Bank.

I always suspected Gotham was really Manila. Now they’ve gone too far!!! The brothers decide to become Batman and Robin.

Well, to be fair. The brother who will be Batman actually wants to be Starzan. Starzan is this movie’s director’s Tarzan knockoff. Do I have to tell you? The actor who plays the brother is the actor who plays Starzan. However, future Robin tells him he can’t do that because it will turn “this movie into shit”.

Meanwhile, we need Catwoman (Almira Muhlach). So here she is with her posse.

After quoting the title of Bobby McFerrin’s Don’t Worry Be Happy, they are off to rob the Smith & Wesson Dollar Exchange! Now we get our first musical number.

My original sentences here were going to be that I couldn’t figure out where the song is from, but a friend came through. The song they use is Bird Dog by The Everly Brothers.

While I may have had trouble with that song, I sure as hell knew what the next one was! After Joker and Penguin rob a jewelry store, we get a montage of Batman and Robin becoming Batman and Robin.

“Do you still remember from your comic book. The series of the Dynamic Duo. The Caped Crusader and the Wonder Boy. They fight all the goons. Holy smoke, Batman and Robin. Oh my God, Batman and Robin. Praise the Lord, Batman and Robin. Shoot now, shoot. Batman and Robin. Let’s do Bruce Wayne now and Dick Grayson now. They are a part of me.”

In other words: “Let’s go surfin’ now. Everybody’s learning how. Come on a safari with me.” It’s Surfin’ Safari by The Beach Boys with lyrics about Batman and Robin.

It is glorious!!! I love the next one too!

Now the Joker and Penguin pull up to rob a place and that riff sure sounded familiar to me. It’s because it’s a riff from Oh, Pretty Woman. The lyrics are totally different.

But we have more important things now. To the Batcave!

Now the Joker and Penguin are going to strike again, but this time Batman and Robin are on the case. Oh, there’s also a little in-joke here about two Filipino production companies called VIVA and Regal. It’s not important.

To the Batmobile!!!

Action!

Oh, and some days you just can’t get rid of a coconut.

Now Batman goes where Batman always goes. No, not to the Bat Room. That’s later. He goes to the girl (Dawn Zulueta) he is interested in while dressed at Batman.

He asks her to meet him at the PPC. Apparently, PPC stands for Paco Park Cemetery. Why there? Your guess is as good as mine because before she can ask, he’s out the door.

Now we get reminded that Joker and Penguin aren’t the brightest of people. Well, the Joker that is cause they try to rob a Blood Bank.

Meanwhile, at the cemetery, Batman is resorting to jump scares.

While I was dishappiest, to quote Pat Buttram in Texans Never Cry (1951), with the jump scares in the awful Ex Machina (2015), I like the line “You son of a bat!” he gets from her after jumping out at her.

They go back to the Batcave now. She works for the Daily Planet…I mean the Daily Star. While he may be a son of a bat, he is a good host. He offers her something to drink.

Look! Batcaves are expensive and he needs to recoup costs somehow. She goes with Bat Tea. She asks if he can “take that off?” So of course this happens.

She meant his mask. He then asks her to take it off. She’s offended. Of course Batman meant her glasses, and he compliments her.

Given how this film is, I totally believe Batman told her she’s “even more beautiful with [her] eyes nude.” Now she asks the next logical question: “Can you tell me how Batman and Robin began?” Good question! I’d like to know that too. That’s when a Batarang flies across the screen…

because I’m pretty sure the film doesn’t understand how that happened either. Batman says they won’t stop till the super villains are stopped, and she asks to use the Bat Room. Scene!

Now we get a pointless part that amounts to Robin not being able to get his girl by telling her he’s Robin because it’s just as easy for anyone else to make a Robin uniform so this happens.

Well, it didn’t take them long because in the next scene Batman and Robin capture Penguin and Catwoman. Joker is still free.

Honestly, this is when the film begins to drag because it starts to try and take itself seriously. Batman and Robin try to get the girls they like. In fact, Robin shares a musical number with the girl (Vina Morales) he likes. This time around they didn’t bother to change anything. The song is Until Forever by Evan Rogers and D’Atra Hicks off the soundtrack to the movie Everybody’s All-American (1988).

Now we go over to Batman, and this is one movie that’s kind enough to tell you when a dream sequence is going to begin.

Unfortunately, it’s one of those dreams as realizes after waking up.

There’s another really immature moment next where we see Batman’s package through his underwear. I’m not showing that.

Now for no real reason at all, Penguin breaks out of prison and flies away in a helicopter. Batman decides he doesn’t want to play the part anymore. This leaves Robin to go fight crime alone.

Like I said before, this is where the film started to lose me. It will pick up at the very end, but till then the fun starts to stop.

Now Robin tries to protect himself against Joker and Penguin…

but he is beaten and Batman’s girl is taken prisoner while Robin is sent to the hospital. Batman must once again don the suit.

Now Batman goes to rescue his girl, and apparently does the same diving jump as Superman did in Kilink in Istanbul.

Kilink in Istanbul (1967, dir. Yilmaz Atadeniz)

Everything goes fine. The Joker and Penguin are now in jail. However, after crazy eyes…

they dig out the toilet and escape through the hole. Now you’d think the film would stop already, but no. There’s still a little left. Joker and Penguin decide to dress up as Batman and Robin to commit crimes, and blame it on them. The real Batman and Robin catch up with them and tell them as long as they return what they stole with interest, then they can go free.

After a stupid conversation between Batman, Robin, Joker, and the Penguin, Batman, out of the suit, goes to take out his girl, but look!

Now begins the final dance number and I think we all know this one. It’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Here To Stay by Danny & The Juniors, but of course we all remember it as performed by Sha-Na-Na in Grease (1978).

Everyone gets in on this number. Like mini-Spiderman here!

We know Batman and Superman are rivals, but for at least one dance they were able to put aside their differences.

If anyone knows who these two are, then tell me.

In the end, all that matters is that we’ll always be together!

My final thoughts on this movie are that I enjoyed it and would recommend it. The stuff near the end does take you out of the fun, and it really can’t pull of being serious, but that’s short-lived. It doesn’t ruin the movie. I know that some people cry foul whenever they see something like this and get outraged. I’m not one of them. The movie never felt like it was being mean spirited. It feels like a group of comedians with a love of 50’s and 60’s music got together and made a humorous Batman movie largely for fun. I always find it interesting to see such tightly controlled properties in new and interesting places. If that kind of thing bothers you, then don’t watch it. If it doesn’t, then check it out.

Following The Amazon Prime Recommendation Worm #7: Dolls and Angels (2008), Girlfriends (2000), Just Sex and Nothing Else (2005), What Ever Happened to Timi (2014)

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

This time around I actually have a couple of movies I can recommend. One of them I can recommend strongly. We also have the return of the ridiculously misleading Amazon Prime posters for foreign films.

Dolls and Angels (2008, dir. Nora Hamdi) – Ah, ha! The return of the poster to make you think it’s a lesbian movie. They went further this time than that poster for 9 1/2 Dates. First off, only one of those girls on that poster is a main character. The other one is just her friend. Her friend played by none other than Léa Seydoux. She also gets top billing on that poster while the actual two main characters are listed after her. You may know Léa Seydoux from Spectre (2015) or The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). I know her from somewhere else. I wonder what they were trying to confuse people into thinking this movie was like?

Yep, only one of the most well known and lauded lesbian/bi-sexual/fluid sexuality love stories of the past few years. I’m telling you, one of the most fun things about watching these movies is to see these posters. Makes me think of when they retitled the Sylvester Stallone porno The Party at Kitty and Stud’s (1970) to The Italian Stallion after Rocky came out. They even made this incredible bullshit trailer.

Here is a realistic poster for Dolls and Angels.

That trailer is even misleading. Not because it doesn’t lay out the actual characters and give you an idea of what is going on, but that it’s way better made than the movie itself. This is one of the worst directed, edited, written, and shot movies I’ve sat through in a while. The closest is David A.R. White’s film Redeemed (2014), which is a mess. I think this movie even beats it.

Oh, and as for that talking that is played over things actually happening in the trailer. Yeah, that is in the movie, but all we see is the tomboy-ish girl frantically writing or walking around a roof while an incessant and annoying voice over plays with a little musical accompaniment. Ugh! The director also wrote the book and the screenplay. I get the feeling she didn’t know how to adapt some of her internal monologues that are common in books to the screen where they rarely belong or if they do, sparingly and kept short. A good example of this type of thing done right is The Hunger Games (2012). The book has a bunch of Katniss’ thoughts, but when they adapted it for a film, they transferred it to the visual medium instead of having us hear all those thoughts via a voice over. This feels like Nora Hamdi thought if Godard did it all the time, then surely it will work here. It doesn’t. If the editing and other things weren’t worse, then this would be the thing that made me the angriest while watching this film.

This movie even made a mistake that is so simple that I rarely see it done. It’s when you don’t make it clear a character has left the movie or will come back. Yet, they are gone long enough that the viewer is left wondering if they missed something. You are wondering if the character will come back, or if they are really gone now. Not because you should be, but because the movie is confusing and thus, unintentionally frustrating for the viewer. Then sometimes they suddenly reappear to say, “Hi! Yeah, I’m still in the movie,” only to possibly disappear again.

It wouldn’t be as much of an issue if the film had a single protagonist, but this one doesn’t. When you have only one person, then the world of the film is created around that character. Where they go, we follow. To modify a very tired cliche: If the character isn’t in the forest to see the tree fall, then the tree doesn’t make a sound. If the character hasn’t been to the forest at all, then the forest itself doesn’t exist.

However, when you have multiple protagonists that you switch between, then you no longer have a world being created by a single character as they travel through it. Now you have a living world in which your multiple protagonists exist. When you do that, then you can’t be unclear about things such as whether a character is no longer part of the world of the film. This is also true in TV Shows. That’s why they usually make it quite clear whether a character has truly left the world of the show or not. You actually can have a character disappear for a long period of time, but there needs to be a reason, and/or a payoff. Not just a, “Oh, they are still here. I almost forgot they were part of this movie.”

I guess I need to talk a little bit about the plot now.

The movie is about two sisters named Lya (Leïla Bekhti) and Chirine (Karina Testa). They are ethnically Persian and live in the projects of France. It was funny to actually see a character named Chirine in a movie. I knew a girl in college named Shirine who was also ethnically Persian. But enough of me reminiscing about someone that is both way more beautiful and smart than this movie.

The trailer tries to play up that the father, mother, and the youngest daughter are part of the story, but it’s not really true. What you have are two sisters that take opposite directions after being given a Barbie doll as kids. Lya became introspective, tough, and kind of a tomboy. I say “kind of” because I knew an actual tomboy in elementary school. Lya is just a girl that doesn’t doll herself up all the time. She leaves that to her sister Chirine who went in the opposite direction and tried to become that doll.

Chirine tries to get into modeling, but she really just gets stuck with a guy who claims to be an agent, but is rather shady. While that is going on, Lya is doing her own thing. The next movie was so good that it kind of obliterated my memory of this one. Lya just mainly battles with her identity in various ways. Sometimes it’s the annoying voice overs, and other times it’s actually trying to do what her sister does, but quickly finding out it doesn’t work for her.

No recommendation here at all. Next!

Girlfriends/Les autres filles (2000, dir. Caroline Vignal) – This is not to be confused with the TV Show that started the same year. In fact, if you are going to look this movie up on IMDb, then you are better off typing in the French title. If you type in Girlfriends, then it won’t show up in the results. If you click on “More title matches”, then it still isn’t in the list. Only when you click on “Exact title matches” does it suddenly show up.

I love that poster! First off, I’m quite sure neither of those girls are characters from the film. Secondly, notice there are no actor’s names listed. That’s probably because Julie Leclercq who plays the main character Solange, and the supporting character of Gary played by Benoîte Sapim never went on to do anything else. Lucky for them, it’s a very good movie. In fact at this point, out of the 167 films I’ve seen this year, it’s the best so far that I’ve watched. I don’t tear up easily, but I did. It takes a fair amount to get me to tingle, but this movie did it. Here’s the realistic poster for the movie.

Despite what that horrible poster makes you think, this is not a movie about two fun loving girlfriends who like to party. Although, the line “How was your first time?” does have something to do with movie. It’s about a teenage girl named Solange that is learning how to be a hairdresser. Think of those dental school type things where you can get the work done free or cheap because you are helping the students to learn. It’s like that where Solange and other girls are learning by working on actual people under the supervision of a teacher. The film is Solange coming of age in numerous facets.

Let me explain this in a couple of parts. First is what is in the title. Solange thinks that at her age she should have already had sex. She calls a radio show similar to Loveline in order to ask about losing your virginity. She even nearly loses it to a random guy who backs off as soon as he realizes just how young she is, and that she is a virgin. Even he has standards, and that means he can’t bring himself to make this girl’s first time be a random fuck in the grass no matter whether she wants it or not. She does eventually lose it, but at that point she has also undergone a drastic transformation in several ways. So much so that her losing it really isn’t that important at that point. It’s more of a capstone on her actual coming of age.

The second part of this is that the movie sends a bunch of hints at you to make you think she might be a lesbian, bi-sexual, or even transgender. Honestly, I think she’s probably bi-sexual and transgender, but the film will never actually confirm it. She starts off even more of a tomboy then the girl in Dolls and Angels. By the end of the film, she dresses more masculine and has cut her hair very short. She also carries herself in a more masculine manner. That is partially tied to her greatly increased confidence, but I believe there’s more going on there. Especially because the guy she ends up having sex with is shown wanting to cuddle while she just gets up, gets dressed, and leaves like that dumbass guy in a movie who goes off, then wants to get out of there as soon as possible.

The last part is hard to put my finger on. It’s just done so well throughout the movie in every respect. I would be lying if I said it was flawless. I’m not one of those people who buys all the crazy hype around Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), which is the same hype that once surrounded The Dark Knight (2008). Both of those movies have flaws, and so does this one. However, just like those movies, this is still very good. I actually enjoyed it more than Mad Max: Fury Road to be honest. That’s probably because I went into this movie not expecting anything. Going into Mad Max: Fury Road, I expected the moon based on what people were saying. As a result, I kept seeing the flaws. I need to see it again so I can just enjoy it for what it actually is rather than what people say it is. The big flaw I would say is that the shift in her character near the end felt a little sudden. Enough that I mention it, but not nearly jarring enough to be an issue.

Two special mentions here. The acting is excellent. In particular, the performance from Leclercq. The second thing is the scene that got me tingling. There is a scene when she cuts a guy’s hair. It was one of the most erotic things I’ve seen a long time, and it was just Solange cutting his hair. It sent a warm feeling through my body like I haven’t felt in a long time.

I can’t recommend this movie enough right now. Maybe I’ll end up seeing something better this year, but right now, it’s easily the best. If you are doing that 52 films directed by women thing that’s going on this year and want to go off the beaten path, then check this one out.

Just Sex and Nothing Else (2005, dir. Krisztina Goda) – Wow! “Young, Single, Ready to Mingle”. I wonder where that film is because if by young, they mean people in their early to mid 30’s playing like they are closer to their late 30’s/early 40’s, then sure. They are single. That’s true. As for being ready to mingle, that’s pretty misleading.

Even this poster is misleading. That poster says love triangle between the good girl, the bad girl, and a guy who seems like he wants to be with the good girl, but wouldn’t mind a little bad girl once in awhile. That’s not the movie. Oh, and yes. This is another Hungarian film. So is the next one. For some reason that’s a thing now for these posts. Every four of them, there is now at least one movie from Hungary. Over the course of this experiment so far, I’ve seen five Hungarian movies. Jeez!

Here’s is the trailer. Although, it’s dubbed into German you still sort of get an idea of the kind of movie you are in for. Even if it does leave out a pivotal character altogether.

Not Ali (Antal Czapkó), the nice Turkish baker who turns out to also like doing exotic dancing. He’s prominently featured in the trailer as he should be. He’s pretty great in this movie. No, the character that is very important in the movie, but totally missing from the trailer is Péter played by Zoltán Seress. Or as I like to call him: The Hungarian Patrick Norton.

Zoltán Seress

Patrick Norton

If you are a techie and maybe from the Bay Area, then he needs no introduction, but for everyone else. Patrick Norton is a prominent tech journalist and tech show host. The two most well known being The Screen Savers, from when TechTV was a thing, and Tekzilla on Revision3. Although, he’s all over the place.

Back to the movie. You can think of this movie as one part Hallmark romantic comedy. It’s got the girl looking for love. There’s a right guy and a wrong guy. The difference is that this movie makes them both good guys, and never delivers a brick to your head to tell you who she should be with. The other part is Samantha from Sex and the City if she were completely all over the place about what she wants.

The movie has four main characters. Dóra played by Judit Schell is the never knowing what she wants Samantha type character. Zsófi played by Kata Dobó has a lot of sex, but only appears to be happy. She’s part advisor to Dóra and part female counterpart to Tamás played by Sándor Csányi. He also has a fair amount of sex, but the unhappiness part never really completely overtakes him, and only starts to catch up with him when Dóra comes into his life.

The way Dóra comes into his life is rather humorous. We see her walk past four road workers who definitely take notice of her, and she seems to like it. However, she goes right to the obviously married guy who she doesn’t know is married. When his wife shows up he quickly puts her out on the balcony of his office with only her panties on. Tamás lives in the same building, notices her, and tells her she’s better off coming across to get out through his place. If nothing else, as he puts it, because if she doesn’t, then the four workers will never be done fixing the road.

Don’t ask me how this part comes together, but here it is in two parts. First, Dóra and Tamás are putting together a production of a Dangerous Liaisons type play. Yeah, I know. Two Hungarian movies in a row with ties to that novel. Weird. The second part is Dóra trying to figure out what she really wants. Does she want stability with the real good guy Péter? Does she just want sex like Zsófi and Tamás seem to enjoy having a lot of? Does she just want to get pregnant? She really bounces around quite a bit here. Actually, that’s the main flaw with this movie. She bounces around so much that it starts to stop being funny, and starts to feel like a chore following her around. It never ruins the film, but it started to get to me.

In the process, we get the usual speed dating scene that is always in these kind of movies. The only thing noteworthy about it is that one of the guys is a trans man. He’s actually the sanest appearing one of the lot, but at that point she wants to get pregnant so that rules him out. Also, it was probably not the best idea for him to open with a line about how after he has bottom surgery it will work just like the real thing.

We also get the fun, nice, but quirky guy we know she won’t end up with, but we like having around. That’s Ali in this movie. He’s a Turkish baker who is really nice. She actually goes to him at one point, but he has to go back to Turkey for a couple of weeks. That’s until he figures out a way to make it work anyways and shows up at her door. He then drops his pants to reveal leopard print briefs and starts doing a little dance. I love the old lady across the hall who sees it, and Ali tells her to stop looking cause it’s not a peepshow. Of course, he does end up coming back only to fail once more with Dóra, but not with the old lady. After Dóra closes her door, she puts her hand out with some money to pay Ali to dance for her. He accepts it. You can tell, I really enjoyed Ali in this.

Overall, I’d say this is a reasonably fun romantic comedy. It looks like it might be getting a remake in the United States. If you type in the title on IMDb, there’s another film with that same title listed as being “in development”. It wouldn’t surprise me. I mean My Sassy Girl went from being a South Korean film to a Japanese mini-series, and was remade in the US the same year, which was 7 years after the original film. It could happen.

Also of note, the ending made me think of the Boombox Serenade scene from Say Anything… (1989) except she does it with her own voice instead of Peter Gabriel’s.

What Ever Happened to Timi/The Good, The Bad, and The Pretty (2014, dir. Attila Herczeg) – Yes, yet another Hungarian comedy. This one really can’t make up it’s mind poster wise. That’s the poster that is on Amazon Prime. Here is another one.

And here is yet another one.

I have to be honest here. I had almost no idea what was going here. Thank goodness there is a short plot summary available on Amazon Prime: “When a soon-to-be-married good guy has a one night stand with a beautiful former high school classmate, they think it’ll just be a quick fling. But the class bad boy has other plans.” There’s also a trailer.

Basically, what you have here is a Hungarian sex comedy that I really can’t recommend. But I probably should elaborate a little. The movie starts off with a high school prom dance. The narrator was there and slightly bumped his crotch against his dream girl’s butt. Very slightly, but it was enough that he went to the bathroom and jerked off. That tells you something about this guy right away.

Now we cut to the high school reunion where we think the two guys and a couple of girls are our only main characters, but none of the voices match the narrator. The narrator is actually a supporting jackass character. Sex happens here, and our scumbag narrator films it, then uses it to blackmail the other guys into getting him laid by the girl he had a crush on as a kid. That’s it really.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the characters. I really did find it confusing. I didn’t like story. I didn’t like the resolution. Oddly, I could have gone for a movie that just followed the douchebag around. He’s reasonably funny, interesting, and isn’t just a stock character like the others came across to me as being. I could have gone for something that actually did put him at the center rather than this film that actually teases you about that and says that the film is never about a guy like him. Why not? I might have actually enjoyed that movie.

Definitely check out Girlfriends and for some laughs Just Sex and Nothing Else. Avoid the other two.

————-

For those of you who waded through all of that. Here is the Joker from a 1991 Batman movie from the Philippines.

Hallmark Review: A Christmas Detour (2015, dir. Ron Oliver)

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I see nothing wrong there.

Or there.

Or there either. Nothing wrong at all.

I think I said the last time I reviewed a movie that had a plot based on rules for finding the perfect man that I would rather have hernia surgery again capped off with a catheter put in me again. While this does have Candace Cameron Bure in it, it’s still way better than Just The Way You Are. I guess this movie falls in between that one and Dater’s Handbook.

I finally got to it, Michelle! I certainly won’t be able to tear into this film the way she did, but I may have seen some of the same things.

Hmm…have no idea why that came to mind.

The movie begins as Paige Summerlind (Candace Cameron Bure) is arriving at LAX to fly out to New York to be with her fiancee. But first we find out that Paige writes for Radiant Bride magazine.

I was so convinced that shot was from Before You Say ‘I Do’, but looking at promo pics and the film itself turned up no results. I’m sorry.

Anyways, you see those hands? Those belong to a very smart lady. You see, Paige spotted her magazine being held by this lady, and immediately tried to push it on her. She even gave her the money to pay for the magazine.

The lady put the magazine back and pocketed the money. I love her!

Now we are introduced to Frank (David Lewis) and Maxine (Sarah Strange). You know it never fails. No matter how many screenshots I take throughout the movie, I will always end up with the worst possible shot, but it will be the one I need. Oh, and on this film, I took 2,738 screenshots.

Next we are introduced to Dylan played by Paul Greene who I’ve seen play a nurse, event planner, and now a bartender. Well, he might own the bar. I’m not sure. He looks as jazzed to see A Christmas Melody as he is flying home to New York after a four year absence. According to his friend, “the statute of limitations for licking the wounds of a broken heart expired a long time ago.” So he’s off to LAX.

Now Paige makes a bit of a scene at the check-in counter. She thought she was going to have an aisle seat, but she’s going to get stuck with a window seat. Also, she can only bring two things aboard the plane. She checks one of her bags because she must bring her “vision board” onto the plane with her.

So her dream wedding is the current cover of her magazine, and there’s her boyfriend Jack played by…

who is preparing for his role as the wrong guy named Reed in Appetite For Love.

We now cut to Doctor Zhivago 3D…

before cutting inside to meet Jack, then it’s back to the plane all these people are on.

Jack and Paige have to sit next to each other cause Hallmark. He nearly doubles over laughing about her magazine. She defends her “100 proven ways to find your perfect mate.”

Sometimes you do get the right screenshot. I would now put the screenshot of the ridiculous looking eye mask they put her in for the following shots, but let’s move on.

Of course a storm front forces the plane to set down in Buffalo, New York. Now they wait outside for a shuttle.

I’m pretty sure what they did here was tint it blue and CGI in foreground snow. The shuttle takes them to the Buffalo Airport Hotel, which from the exterior made me think of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining (1980). They end up with adjoining rooms again because Hallmark.

Now dialog that left me scratching my head happens. I’ll just say I nearly looked like this when I heard it.

After that, we cut back to house to see that this shot was probably done by a different person.

I think you know how it plays out for Paige and Dylan at this point. They spend more time together. Paige keeps calling Jack. We get another shot of a different house.

They kiss under a sign that says Mistletoe Junction. They wind up at the O Tannenbaum Inn. We see that they simply expanded the black region in the middle of the cellphone screen to cutoff the provider, which in turn cutoff Decline and Accept under those buttons.

She ends up running away from Dylan to Jack. She finds out she doesn’t want to marry Jack. Dylan reunites with his family. They end up together. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing you haven’t seen before, and nothing interesting either.

I want to call special attention to the other plot line running while this is going on. Remember Maxine and Frank? They are the best part of this movie in my opinion. Although, it was a little weird at first. I thought they were just a lovable bickering married couple, but by the time we got to the inn, I realized they were having trouble.

They weren’t even supposed to be sleeping in the same room. Even when they do, they push themselves to the opposite sides of the bed. However, they eventually come around in the end. There’s nothing fancy or overly dramatic about it. They just acknowledge that neither of them are very happy pretending to be bitter at each other. The charade is over, and they go into a house together holding hands having arrived at their destination plotwise and completing their character arcs.

So why did we even need the whole Paige and Dylan storyline? I’m not a big fan of Candace Cameron Bure. She’s okay in the Aurora Teagarden movies cause it’s fun to watch her run around like a crazy person in those films. I do kind of like what I’ve seen Paul Greene do so far. However, I’ve seen Hallmark do the mature couple story, and do it well. I’m thinking Lead With Your Heart here. I think David Lewis and Sarah Strange could have carried this film all by themselves as a seemingly lovable bickering couple who are actually in trouble, but discover they seemed lovable because they do still love each other. If they had fleshed that out to a complete film, then I could have enjoyed this a lot more. As it is, don’t bother.

Oh, and Hallmark, please give Ron Oliver a budget next time. This house thing was ridiculous.

Not to mention the CGI’d in Christmas decorations at the beginning of the film, and other things.

Here’s the songs since they did include them in the credits:

Following The Amazon Prime Recommendation Worm #6: A Touch of Grey (2009), Truth or Dare (1994), 57,000 Kilometers Between Us (2008), Login (2013)

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Well, this one should be short because there really isn’t much to say about these movies other than don’t watch any of them. At least none of them are South Korean this time!

A Touch of Grey (2009, dir. Sandra Feldman & Ian Mah) –

Well, at least the trailer is honest. It shows you four women whining in a room, and that’s exactly what you get. I love how there’s a review on IMDb that calls it a post-Sex and the City film. Wow! That’s high praise there. Not really. I call it what happens when you have four good actresses and no budget to actually film outside of a hotel room so the audience is constantly left wondering why these four women are doing absolutely nothing but ruminating about their lousy lives.

I believe they leave twice and we never see it, but just see them come back. I remember the first leading to the especially annoying girl getting duct taped to a chair for what they say was a “penis foot wrestle.”

The second time I think the annoying girl just leaves for a while before coming back. If you want to hear middle-aged women waste getting together for the first time in a long time instead of actually going out and doing things together, then here you go. Oh, and none of their endless rambling causes any of them to really change either. They are the same as when they arrived.

I particularly enjoyed the part when they bitch about women’s lib. Hey geniuses! Go home, put your foot down, and tell your husband the household duties get divided or you leave. I know it isn’t easy, but I don’t recall this even coming up as a solution. In fact, the lady who put this thing together even rolls over and takes it via a cellphone call at the end of the movie. They really just go on and on ruminating over their problems instead of actually talking about solutions. As I already said, they also don’t bother to go anywhere to help clear their heads so they only get dumber as time goes on. And no, this is not like Jeanne Dielman (1975) where there is a point to all the tedium and boredom so that we understand the final action of the movie. In the case of this movie, that would be the main lady agreeing to pick up groceries on her way home.

It’s not awful, but it really felt like a waste of my time. It’s for people who want to watch four women in a room drink, yack, and complain about taking it up the ass from their husbands, but not actually accomplishing anything in the end.

I’m sorry if I’m especially harsh on this movie, but I’m really sick of these cheap movies that think getting actors in a room, maybe knowing how to shoot them, and having them talk at length equals something meaningful and insightful.

Oh, and for that one person who might want to leave this comment. I am well aware that women tend to bond by sharing secrets/talking and men tend to bond by doing things together. That fact doesn’t make this movie any better.

Edit: Yes, I am aware one of the ladies left her husband and still isn’t happy. This making it seem like there is no way out doesn’t make any difference to the film.

Truth or Dare (1994, dir. François Ozon) – I guess cause the other movie had adults sitting around drinking and doing nothing, then Amazon thought I would want to watch a really short film about some kids playing truth or dare. Basically a few kids play truth or dare and the game leads towards sexual things till all of sudden I guess one of them said a dare that was especially noteworthy cause one of them looks into the camera and the movie ends. Unless you are already a fan of the director who has gone on to do numerous feature films such as Swimming Pool (2003), then don’t bother with this.

57,000 Kilometers Between Us (2008, dir. Delphine Kreuter) – Since Truth or Dare looked like an episode of The Kids Of Degrassi Street, but in French and Amazon Prime apparently knew I am transgender, it recommended this piece of French arthouse garbage that is shot like it belongs on public access television in the late 1970s/earlier 1980s with transgender actress Stéphanie Michelini playing a trans woman. It was awful.

Here is the plot. Sort of. The movie is based on the title. The distance created by technology although the filmmakers apparently couldn’t afford to use technology that didn’t make this thing look 35+ years old (or a bad Dogme 95 film). Some girl and a kid in a hospital play an MMORPG. A father likes to broadcast everything that goes on in his home with his wife and family on the Internet. One of the kids in here is estranged from her “father” that is played by Stéphanie Michelini as Nicole. That’s it! The movie frantically jumps around this stuff and never amounts to anything.

I love the reviews on IMDb for this one. One person really saw way more than there is while the other person was actually at the preimere where apparently 80% of the audience got up and left before the lights came up even though the director was their for a Q & A.

Don’t waste your time on this one.

Login or Log In (2013, dir. Ákos Barnóczky) – Yep, just like last time, we end with a Hungarian film. I have very little idea what was going on with this film. It’s all told via webcam chats. There are a few times when you can see both sides at the same time, but it largely cuts back and forth of single shots of the actors. That is if there is even someone there to talk to. I believe sometimes they are just leaving a video message for the other person, but it wasn’t clear to me.

The movie begins with a woman logging into her estranged or ex-husbands video dating account to find a woman with a mask on. This somehow then leads her to find a guy I just refer to as Hungarian Christian Bale.

I don’t know why, but he agrees to help her I guess track down who this woman is. There’s something tying them together and two other people are trying to manipulate both of them. I not only lost the plot, but any interest in this movie quickly. It’s apparently based on Dangerous Liaisons, which I haven’t seen or read. However, the plot summary on IMDb makes it clear it’s just more period piece backstabbing garbage, which is how this movie came across to me.

If you do like Dangerous Liaisons and can put up with the webcam style of storytelling here, then maybe see it. I can’t recommend it to anyone else unless you really want to see Hungarian Bale actually talk and move. This movie isn’t even in IMDb as I write this post. I submitted it though so it will show up eventually.

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Here’s hoping I will be able to recommend at least one of the next four movies in what appears to be a never ending journey. I am up to 54 films now.

Hallmark Review: I Do, I Do, I Do (2015, dir. Ron Oliver)

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I didn’t want to see another movie starring Autumn Reeser right now. I didn’t want to see another movie written by Nancey Silvers right now. However, I haven’t done a Ron Oliver movie in awhile, and he has been nice to me in the past. So let’s talk about I Do, I Do, I Do.

The movie opens up and we meet Jaclyn Palmer (Autumn Reeser) on the right, her sister Kate (Ali Liebert), and Kate’s camera. This time Hallmark is more subtle with the camera. No obvious Nikon camera strap. Also, it’s a Canon camera anyways. Just thought I would point that out for long time Hallmark fans who remember the Nikon product placement scenes from movies like For The Love Of Grace. Oh, and you can easily miss that Kate is her sister. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t tell you till later. Up till then my Dad and I thought they were just old friends. Even the credits of this movie don’t tell you.

Then probably the weirdest way I’ve seen the wrong guy introduced in a Hallmark movie happens. Jaclyn and Kate are in front of a hospital. An ambulance pulls up, someone is wheeled out of the back of it. Then up springs Dr. Peter Lorenzo (Antonio Cupo) from the gurney.

He comes over and proposes to Jaclyn while someone films them. I’m quite sure he arranged to have someone film it. At the very least it winds up on sort of YouTube.

That’s a lot of views! Obviously Dr. Peter Lorenzo is the PewDewPie of doctors. It goes without saying that she accepts his proposal. Now she’s off to some hotel in the woods next to a lake that’s probably in other Hallmark movies. After Autumn does her best shocked look as she pulls up to see a big sign that says “Jaclyn & Peter Forever”, she is greeted by his parents. It’s always a good sign when your mother-in-law to be says this to you.

Jaclyn is introduced to more craziness such as the “Bridal Cabin” and the wedding dress her soon to be Mom wants her to wear. Seeing as Jaclyn doesn’t like her wedding dress and she arrived in a car, she of course proceeds to get on a bike to ride through the woods to get to town.

You got me! My only guess is that since her husband is crazy about health and forces that on Jaclyn too, that she felt she had to use a bike instead of a car. Why she has to go through the woods, I have no idea. Regardless, as she is traveling through the woods she runs into Peter’s brother Max played by Shawn Roberts.

You know, Dexter Durant from Recipe For Love, or Dean if you are a fan of Degrassi: TNG. Since Jaclyn’s sister mentioned earlier that she wishes the two of them could throw caution to the wind like when they were younger, Max jumps off a ledge into the water. You can think of Max as basically the complete opposite of his brother. Oh, and they kiss for reasons. It kind of comes out of nowhere. Let’s move this along now by leaping over some scenes to get to the good stuff.

The next big thing that happens is that Jaclyn wakes up the next day. That day happens to be Valentine’s Day when her wedding is because who gets married on Groundhog Day? Yes, this is one of those movies. People burst into her room to make her up for Peter’s mother’s dream wedding. I think this shot sums up how Jaclyn feels about this.

You may notice that there is a wipe transition in progress in that shot. Director Ron Oliver uses them a bunch in this movie to good effect. George Lucas used them in Star Wars. It’s a good way to maintain a quick pace by giving you no time to mourn the loss of what was onscreen. It just picks you up from one scene and throws you into the next one. He also matches this with how he progressively shortens the days. Groundhog Day (1993) and the Groundhog Day episode of Stargate-SG1 did this too.

The marriage happens, but it’s a little rocky including wine getting spilled on her. That’s when back at the Bridal Cabin, Jaclyn wishes for a do-over, and her proposal video rolls over to 1,000,000 views.

Poor Ron Oliver! His video in upper right hand corner only has 567,983 views. At first I thought they would repeat that the way the clock would turn over in Groundhog Day, but it doesn’t. The equivalent here is the phone next to her bed, which rings with a wake up call.

This time she shows up with heavy eyeshadow and blush. I guess she is trying to maybe get him to not want to marry her. No such luck.

On the next repeat she starts to flip out. I love that they even bring up the possibility that she’s on drugs.

The doctor thinks she might have cold feet. She keeps telling him she’s living the same day over and over. So of course the doctor says he is going to get her tested for drugs. To get away from crazy town, Jaclyn flees with Max to the main set of the movie.

Remember the whole learning how to play the piano thing from Groundhog Day? That’s the kind of things that start to happen as the repeats get shorter and shorter. The first thing is to overcome her fear of the water. She didn’t used to be afraid of the water, but Peter kind of got her scared of taking any risks. Apparently, this included going into the water for her. So over the course of several loops Max takes her further and further into the water.

Once that is done, the next thing on the roster is to finally learning how to dance. Again, this repeats over several days. I have to give credit to whoever was responsible for the continuity on this film for these scenes. Take a look.

Those are from two loops that follow each other. Note that his outfit doesn’t change. It wouldn’t because since he isn’t aware of the time loop, he would be always wearing the same thing. However, since she is aware of the time loop, she wears something different. It’s a nice little detail that also helps to make sure we know another loop has gone by without having to cutaway from the beach.

With that done, learning Italian is next for Jaclyn. The reason for this is that earlier a member of Peter’s family came up to her and just assumed that Max and her were together. However, the whole conversation was in Italian and they lie to her about what she said. She spends several loops learning Italian.

Next is picking out a wedding dress she likes. She even has the wedding she seems to like, but of course Max isn’t convinced. Obviously Max is lord of time because she wakes up once again.

After spending more time with Max, we get the sort of YouTube thing at the start of another time loop.

I guess we know which one of the producers on this movie was the most important seeing as Kevin Leeson’s Seagull video has 996,876 views over Dan Paulson’s 36,995 views. Although, the production coordinator Alison Stephen tops them all with her 2.9 million views.

Anyways, this is when Jaclyn finally decides to stop the loop by saying that she doesn’t want to marry him. Just like in Bridal Wave, it turns out getting married wasn’t really something either of them wanted to do. She seemed to have been swept off her feet and he was kind of under pressure from his Mom. Even Dad chimes in to tell Mom to sit down here. When somebody tells you to sit down with these eyes…

then you sit down.

She and Max fall asleep at the beach. The time loop breaks, and they wake up together. After jumping in the water, they go and get married.

My final thought on this one is that it comes in third out of the four Groundhog Day movies/TV episodes I’ve seen. The first two are Groundhog Day and the Stargate SG-1 episode. However, number four, called Pete’s Christmas, is a huge drop off from this one. I really didn’t like that film. So check out the Stargate SG-1 episode called Window of Opportunity, and this one too. I recommend it.

Here are the songs from the credits:

Film Review: The Encounter: Paradise Lost (2012, dir. David A.R. White)

Posted on March 1, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

Update: I don’t like to change my old reviews because good or bad, they reflect where I was at the time. However, since writing this review, I have been assured by Sean Paul Murphy who wrote and edited the film, that it was not directed by David A.R. White. He has told me that it is a pseudonym, but just not for White. It was a DGA issue. I’m going to take his word for it unless something else comes up, in which case I will obviously update this again.

You may have noticed that I credit this film as being directed by David A.R. White instead of Bobby Smyth as it is listed on IMDb. I have looked at numerous reviews and I can’t find anyone else that seems to have noticed this is an obvious pseudonym for David A.R. White. Let me explain.

David A.R. White is credited as directing the first Encounter movie. Do you really think he would entrust the sequel to someone who has absolutely no other credits to their name?

Of course he wouldn’t. He would helm it himself, or maybe co-direct it the same way he did with Me Again (2012).

The next bit is the name itself. The last name Smyth sure sounded familiar to me. It should sound familiar if you are a Baptist or have studied religion. John Smyth was one of the founders of the Baptists churches. He is also particularly noted for reconciling with the Mennonites near the end of his life.

According to the bio for David A.R. White, written by his own company Pure Flix Entertainment on IMDb, he grew up in a small Mennonite farming community outside of Dodge City, Kansas. Also, Smyth is a variation on Smith. The infamous pseudonym used over the years by many people is Alan Smithee.

The Bobby part is probably two-fold. First, it’s not Alan, which would be way too obvious. Second, the real star of this movie is an actor named Robert Miano. Miano has been in numerous Pure Flix films. That’s most likely where he got Bobby from.

Another thing takes us back to the movie Me Again. In that film, Bruce McGill plays a character named Big Earl. Big Earl is an anagram for Gabriel. As in the archangel Gabriel. So this kind of thing is in David A.R. White’s wheelhouse.

Finally, the movie has the same problems as The Encounter as well as another David A.R. White film called Redeemed (2014). It has his signature on this movie, which is especially noticeable because The Encounter and this film had different cinematographers. To me that says the director told them to shoot it this way, which means a common director between the two movies. There are also other little things as well. Unless someone actually called Bobby Smyth turns up, then it’s a pseudonym for who I can only conclude must have been White himself.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the film.

Before giving us the title card, the movie gives us a little background information on the 2004 tsunami. This is another reason I’m sure it’s a pseudonym. The Mennonite’s have a thing called the Mennonite Central Committee. They responded to the tsunami by sending millions of dollars in aid. That tsunami is sort of a thing in the movie. Kind of. Just a minor plot point, but important enough that it gets a couple of title cards at the start.

Now we have to explain a little more. This is a bit like a Godfrey Ho movie. There is a Movie A and a Movie B that are spliced together. Not clumsily like Ho would do, but it is enough that it really is appropriate to discuss them as if they are two separate films.

Movie A:

Movie A opens up with DEA Agent Rik Caperna (David A.R. White) showing up in Thailand 7 years after the tsunami hit the region. He is itching to take down a drug kingpin named Bruno Mingarelli (Robert Miano).

Luckily, he spots him just as he pulls up in his car and Rik calls his boss. Since Bruno isn’t actually holding any suitcases or anything that could be holding drugs, his boss says to hold back. Rik doesn’t like that at all. He is given orders to stay in his car, which is exactly why he leaves his car to follow Bruno.

Now one of the parts that sort of connects the two stories together happens.

Jesus, played by Bruce Marchiano, appears, looks at Bruno, then disappears. To be honest, it’s a little weird. It’s something you would expect a slasher movie character to do before he finally gets down to the killing. Of course, that is exactly what Jesus is doing here except he is making these brief appearances to allude that Movie B is eventually going to happen.

Bruno has a bodyguard of sorts named Charlie Doles played by Gary Daniels.

Now we get a strange flashback that isn’t clear it’s a flashback. It’s of a little girl that we will find out later is, or represents, Rik’s sister who died when he was a kid because of drugs. It’s this lousy indication of when something is real or a flashback that was also present in Redeemed, which David A.R. White is explicitly credited as having directed.

Next we meet Bruno’s boss, and guess who?

It’s Kass Connors here to make barely an appearance just to let you know the Devil is around here somewhere.

Bruno is here to tell him that this will be his last shipment, but soon Rik is spotted outside, and the chase is on.

These scenes are actually shot reasonably well. Almost as if White is familiar with these kinds of movies so he had an idea of how to shoot these properly. These action oriented outdoor scenes are not a part of Movie B, and weren’t in the first film. Movie B and the first film are all close quarters dialogue heavy films. In other words, films like My Dinner With Andre (1981), Persona (1966), and the dialogue heavy works of Eric Rohmer. Or to put it even simpler, they are foreign films, but shot like they were done by someone who isn’t exactly familiar with those kinds of movies.

Getting back to the story of Movie A now, Rik catches up with Bruno and takes him into custody. One problem, he actually has no evidence whatsoever. As a result, the police show up and let Bruno go. Then Rik flips out, attacks the cops, and is taken into custody himself.

Now we go to meet Bruno’s drug addicted wife Mimi Mingarelli (Ammy Chanicha). Think of her as the nice girl who picked up the runaway from the first movie, except she’s a drug addict in this one.

Now we cut back to Rik in jail, and hey Rik!

Jesus, Man!

Look, if David wasn’t going to put in that priceless one-liner somewhere, than I had too. If you don’t know what that’s from, then here’s The Cinema Snob review of Second Glance (1992), which David A.R. White was in.

Now what you expect happens. By that, I mean Rik is let out of jail by his boss, and immediately goes to see the Devil.

After passing him a copy of the script for God’s Not Dead (2014), the Devil also gives him a gun and tells him to go after Bruno with his blessing.

I have no idea how he knew exactly where the Devil was. One minute he’s in jail being told he’s suspended by his boss, then he’s suddenly walking into the conveniently lit with red hallway to the room where the Devil is waiting.

Now the Devil places a call to Charlie telling him to let Rik kill Bruno, then to kill Rik.

Oh, and Jesus is out there in the ocean standing on the water. You know, as you do. Actually, I am glad they put some of these things in after the first film. I mean you have a character that is literally supposed to be Jesus. Let the man do his thing.

Rik catches up with Charlie, Bruno, and Mimi. He engages in a gun battle, but is taken hostage. Rik eventually breaks free, and Bruno is killed in the crossfire between Rik and Charlie.

Rik chases down Charlie and fights him. Rik nearly drowns Charlie to death, but decides not to, and instead bring him in properly so he can be tried for his crimes.

The last we see of Rik is him sitting on a beach being told by his boss that Bruno kept good records so they are going to be busy for a long time.

Movie A has come to an end. Time for Movie B!

Movie B:

Movie B opens up in 2004 with a black couple and their son Timothy (Steven Clarke). They are kind of like the black couple from the first one in that they are married, black, and the wife will end up wanting a divorce, but that’s really all they have in common with them. The wife wanting a divorce was ambiguous and kind of offensive in the first film. Here, we completely understand. She (Shelley Robertson) has every reason for wanting out of this situation the husband (Rif Hutton) has dug himself into and doesn’t appear to be emerging from anytime soon no matter what she does. The couple runs a resort in Thailand. Now Dad goes to sit down and talk with his son.

His son spent 4 years in pre-med, then decided to abandon it to become what they call a “doctor of divinity”. It’s kind of a wishy washy honorary theology type degree. The point is, he wants to help people by actually being a Christian and what they are supposed to embody. The father is a little perplexed as I would be myself. That is a lot of work to be tossed aside. Also, being a real medical doctor doesn’t preclude doing what he wants to do. In fact, he could do even more good being an MD that is willing to do things like Doctors Without Borders and Christian type aid programs. However, of course it’s his decision to make. His father seems to respect it even if he doesn’t completely understand it. Sadly, the son is killed by a 24 style countdown and a title card.

Next we see the father 7 years later ruminating about his son’s death. He also talks to him like he’s there, which he is because this is a Christian movie.

You can tell by the stink eye his son is giving him that he isn’t too happy with his Dad’s plan here. Neither is his wife happy with his inability to move on instead of not only digging a hole so deep that he’ll never get out but also dragging her into it as well. He is also so far gone that he doesn’t even want to evacuate as a new storm is approaching. That’s when Dad walks out into the water so David can try and fix the gun clip goof from the first Encounter movie.

In the first Encounter movie Jesus recounts a tale of how he saved the runaway girl from killing herself. He caused her abusive father to stumble so he would take the clip out of the gun he was carrying. The point being that when she picked up the gun it wouldn’t have any bullets in it. The problem was that the father set the clip right next to the gun, but then it disappeared when the camera cut to her coming into the room. That left me saying, “Thanks Jesus, but who moved the clip?” I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed that mistake in the film. This is basically a repeat of that scene except you can see that the red dot is on indicating the safety is off. That isn’t just one quick shot either. They really make sure you get a good look at that gun to make sure you see the dot. It’s also there to build up some tension till Jesus tells him to put down the gun. Think that scene is going to go anywhere? Nope!

The next thing we see is Rik pulling up in a boat, the father putting the gun in his belt, and then Dad taking Rik away to show him the place. Now the gun battle breaks out and everyone in the story is taken hostage by Bruno and Charlie. That means the drug addicted wife, the married couple, and Rik tied to a chair in a room at the resort. Thus begins the Encounter as Jesus appears outside their window.

I must be right up front and say that despite the problems in this part of the film, Jesus is way more like Jesus than he was in the first film. In that one he was like someone selling a time share in Heaven or damnation just down the road. That said, let’s take a look at this part.

Jesus sits down next to the drug addicted wife. Of course he knows everyone’s name. They ask him what his name is and he doesn’t just come right out with Jesus. Again, he’s much more like a kind person in this then in the first movie. He doesn’t immediately dump the Jesus and believe in me stuff on them. He tends to talk to them like he’s just a person there who wants to defuse this otherwise deadly situation. In fact, he doesn’t say his name until he is explicitly asked by Bruno.

In this situation you can think of Charlie as the businessman in the first film. However, as Movie A shows, he isn’t sent to eternal damnation. He is given a chance to pay for his crimes in prison. Much better than the first film in this regard.

The next part that is worth mentioning is when Jesus takes some potshots at Buddhism. Mimi grew up in a monastery before ending up becoming addicted to drugs. She was then bought by Bruno who couldn’t stand seeing her the way she was, but also fell in love with her on sight. I could have done without that. It’s that whole teams thing. It’s not necessary in religion any more than gender. In fact, it’s not needed anywhere, but in sports where we emphasize having good sportsmanship.

She is the first person he tries to help. You can say he preys on her because she’s the weakest point. There’s something to that, but it also makes sense to start with her since she’s the easiest to fix. It also makes sense to start with her because aside from the married couple, the other’s lives revolve around victims like herself. Still, instead of working through her pre-existing religion, he tries to directly contradict it and convert her.

Throughout this there are problems with focus and other camera issues. Here’s an example.

The camera really doesn’t seem to know where to focus, tries to focus on Jesus after Bruno passes in front of him, then just quickly cuts away. There was a similar shot in the first film where the camera was changing from a background character to one in the foreground, but then just suddenly cut away.

Here’s another example.

Late in Movie B, Jesus reaches out and takes Rik by the hand. The focus, framing, and who is talking don’t come together properly in the shot. The hand holding is too low to really be a focal point. The focus leaves just about everything out of focus, but the hands. Yet, despite the hands being in focus, Jesus is the one doing the talking and is all blurry. This is the kind of thing that needed some work.

The next major plot point is that we find out the husband did some shady business deals to buy the hotel in the paradise of Thailand. Also, that while the mother never really believed her son was gone forever, he did, and his wife taking comfort in her beliefs drove him to the brink of suicide.

Oh, and then he heals Mimi.

Again, while Jesus does have his “join me” lines, he really is more like a good psychologist who just wants to help. Can’t tell you how refreshing that was after the first film, which was arduous to sit through, much less write about.

Another problem is that some times the camera spends so much time with a couple of the characters that the suspension of disbelief that all of the actors are actually in the room begins to wear thin. I don’t remember feeling that in the first film. This time around, I kept wondering if David A.R. White as Rik or Gary Daniels as Charlie were even around anymore. You’ll also see this shot…

several times where the camera pans as if to remind the audience of who is there and the layout of the room. That shouldn’t have had to be done if there was better camerawork that didn’t explicitly need this kind reorientation.

Oh, and just like several other elements are recycled from the first film, we get the equivalent of the two ladies in the bathroom scene. This time around, they are in the kitchen.

Let’s cut to the chase now. Jesus heals Mimi literally. Jesus brings the married couple around. Rik breaks free. Rik tries to shoot Charlie, but Bruno jumps in front of him to die for Charlie’s, or all of their sins if you will. That’s when Jesus opens the imaging chamber door…

and the two of them leave.

That’s where movie A picks up.

Oh, there is one final bit.

You didn’t really think you’d get away without some sequel baiting, did you? They did it at the end of the first film too. They are talking about Rik here who is sitting on the beach near them.

My final thoughts on this are that it feels like an aborted experiment. It feels like the movie was supposed to be about Rik and his journey while Jesus and the Devil fight for how he will deal with Bruno and Charlie. All the while, the two of them also fighting for the hearts and minds of Bruno and Charlie. However, for whatever reason, they had to toss that idea out the window after certain footage was already filmed and just go with a far less preachy and contradiction filled version of the first film. Too bad. I might have enjoyed that film better than I did this one. If you must see one of the Encounter films, then this is the better of the two. I doubt we will get another sequel till the God’s Not Dead gravy train ends for Pure Flix. Then they’ll probably take another crack at this franchise.

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

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phew! Three references to Charmed should be enough.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This shot though, is from Minnesota.

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

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

Posted on February 28, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

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

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

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

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

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

Look familiar? Sure reminded me of something.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is a realistic poster for this movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on February 21, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are the songs: