Late Night Cable Movie Review: Carnal Wishes (2015, dir. Jon Taylor)

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This is one of the movies in the Cinemax app so I didn’t expect much. However, it’s rather ambitious for one of these. It’s like a version of Double Indemnity (1944). Well, maybe a little more like the remake of Double Indemnity called Body Heat (1981). It has the spider woman, the detective, the husband who has to die, and what was sorely missing from Double Indemnity and Body Heat: lesbians. Let’s talk about this movie.

The movie opens up with Rachel (Jayden Cole) shooting a man who we find out was her husband (Ryan Driller). He dies and falls into a pool. Since he isn’t William Holden, the movie plays the opening credits, then takes us back a week instead of him narrating the story. Of course by taking us back a week, I mean to a sex scene between Rachel and her husband. This is where I’d like to note that the sex actually has a purpose and is integrated into the story. Heck, this movie does something I never expected to see. Several times two people enter a room and don’t proceed to have sex with each other. That’s a rarity in the ones I’ve watched. In this one, for whatever reason, they basically tried to make a low budget film noir that happens to have sex prominently featured in it.

After they finish, he pops up, checks his phone, finds he has a meeting to attend at night, and basically just leaves. The next morning Rachel moans and groans about her husband to a female friend of hers named Daphne (India Summer). Kudos to this film for that not leading to a sex scene. It wouldn’t make sense here, so they don’t. That really was surprising coming off a movie like Scared Topless where three girls entering a house together means they all go to do a shower scene.

Now we meet the detective (Sean Juergens) and his friend with benefits who wants to get into the PI business. Of course we meet them when they are having sex. But like all of the sex scenes in the movie, it has a purpose. It establishes that the detective is an easily manipulated person. He kind of reminds me of actor John Heard in this movie. As for those two statues behind him, I’m assuming those are in case of premature ejaculation since The Joy Of Sex album no longer comes equipped with Big Jim Slade.

Now Daphne introduces Rachel to the detective since Rachel thinks her husband might be cheating on her. I mean he keeps leaving in the middle of the night for business meetings and is a little on the cold side when he’s with her.

Then comes a sex scene that I would say they messed up. Not in terms of it having a reason to exist. In this movie, when a girl is with a girl, it’s not because like most of these that just expect you to believe that all men are straight and all girls are bisexual. Here, when we see Daphne with a girl, it’s to establish she’s into girls and foreshadows the ending of the movie, which I will reveal since it’s very easy to figure out given this movie is a film noir. The reason I say it’s messed up is because it’s the only one that really feels like it’s just an act. It’s like buying that the Seyranyan sisters actually enjoy hanging out contorted into a small cube together rather than something they are doing for your enjoyment as a performance.

The detective returns to tell Rachel about his findings. He found out that as weird as it seems, the husband actually is going out to business meetings at these really odd hours. They have sex here after she tells him a sob story about her unhappy relationship with her husband. Now you’d think that screenshot is from before the sex scene when he tells her the news she didn’t want to hear, but it’s not. They cut to that after the sex. You’d think he just told her that he found her father raped and murdered on the side of the road, but they actually just had sex.

Then I went hiking. It’s really pretty out there when you’re not racing to get back to your car in a thunderstorm. But seeing as I’ve only once come across two people making out on the trail, let’s get back to the movie.

After the detective briefly texts with the girl from earlier, Rachel returns to lay it on this movie’s Fred MacMurray a little more. This time that her husband might be abusing her. They have sex again. Then we get a scene that honestly while it does serve another purpose, it’s almost there just to say this isn’t one of those movies folks because two girls enter a room and don’t go at it. The way it’s setup, they would in any other one of these, but they don’t here. Now the movie starts to speed to it’s conclusion as we immediately cut to her shooting her husband as we saw at the beginning of the film. After reporting the possible abuse to an actual cop with Rachel by his side, we get like a quick version of the end of Blowup (1966) or Blow Out (1981). By that, I mean that it all seems in place for him, but then it all slips through his fingers leaving him with nothing.

That’s right! Rachel’s friend is more than a friend. Same ending as you would expect, but it’s another girl she runs off with, rather than another guy. That’s it! I think Erotic Ink is still the best of these I’ve watched so far. But if you’re looking at the one’s available through Cinemax, then this is probably the best I’ve come across so far. It’s not perfect by any means, but they seemed to put an effort into this one. An actual movie that happens to have sex in it instead of a bunch of sex scenes hung on a clothesline.

Hallmark Review: Christmas Magic (2011, dir. John Bradshaw)

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I wanted to like this movie. I kind of do, but it’s really bogged down with problems. Let’s talk about it.

That woman is Carrie Blackford played by Lindy Booth and if there’s one thing I can’t complain about in this movie, it’s her looks. She’s quite an attractive woman in this movie. In fact, the whole movie is rather attractive. By and large, it looks good from the actors to the sets. It just has a litany of other problems.

Carrie is at a gas station where she meets the attendant named Henry (Derek McGrath). Henry is a nice guy. She of course gives the Hallmark standard speech about how she doesn’t like Christmas. Henry is nice and just tells her that she should be careful on the dangerous roads and should stay off her cellphone while driving. This is where the movie goofs a little. The whole movie is supposed to take place in New York City, but they make the mistake of showing her cellphone screen.

Rogers is a Canadian cellphone company. It’s a really stupid little mistake that could have been solved so easily. Make the call to the phone. Take a screenshot of it coming in as it is shown above. Edit the image so that the provider is missing. Then for the shot in the movie, have her look down at the screenshot on her phone. Problem solved.

Well, since she obviously did use her cellphone against Henry’s advice, she gets into a car accident. This is where I have to give the movie major credit. I have had issues with my cable signal tiling over the years, but I never thought of actually sticking it in the movie as sort of a replacement for tilting the camera to tell us something is off.

Actually, it was just a weird quirk that occurred at the beginning of this movie. When I watch these I have it playing on the TV for my Dad to watch while I stream it to my iPad where I can take screenshots, and I keep the two in sync. For some reason it decided to tile like crazy only on my iPad mostly at this exact moment in the movie. Odd. Anyways, just before she dies she was having a little argument with a business rival named Lynette (Tricia Braun).

Course Henry turns out to be an angel and now she is too. He even has an assignment all ready for her. She is to go help this guy whose restaurant is having trouble. Given that she was an event planner in real life, it makes sense that she would have some experience that could prove useful. Of course there’s a few conditions. The only one that really is important is that she can’t have contact with anyone from when she was alive. Keep that in mind because that’s where one of the problems with the film is.

She is assigned to Scott Walker played by Paul McGillion of Stargate: Atlantis fame. And this is where the film shows that yes, she’s beautiful and so are the sets even if they don’t really make sense.

Somebody is a fan of Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974), and that person is me, because this restaurant made me think of the bar from that movie.

By the way, if you haven’t seen Ali: Fear Eats The Soul, then stop reading this review right now and go watch it. It’s one of my all time favorite movies and I almost came to tears just capturing those two screenshots.

Back to this movie. You see the size of the restaurant. Realistically this set can’t hold more than a couple of customers. Also, he says the regulars keep him afloat, but you will only see a couple of people actually eat at his place. Luckily, they kind of work around it. It still is a sign that this was done on the cheap.

Of course he has a daughter from a previous marriage, and that wife is dead. I was quite surprised that the daughter wasn’t played by Sierra McCormick. This actress certainly made me think of her, appearance wise. Scott agrees to let her help promote his business and help with his kid in the process. Where does she go since she can’t go home. It never says. She just leaves and sometimes goes to talk with Henry. Although, she does spot her father on the street and hides. I’ll come back to him at the end of this movie.

Oh, and the daughter some how knows she is a real angel. It happens really fast as if she has been around for a long time, but they just met. Also, they never explain this. All they had to do was throw in a couple of lines where Carrie asks Henry how she knows and Henry responds that it has something to do with the innocence of children. Hey, it worked to explain how children could see Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap no matter whose aura surrounded him, so why not here?

Well, the reason his restaurant isn’t doing well is because his food isn’t very good. Apparently, he took over from someone else and promised the regulars he wouldn’t change the menu. Doesn’t mean he’s a bad cook, but he’s afraid to try something new since the regulars are the few customers that keep him in business and they are adamant about sticking with what they like.

Luckily, there’s a local guy who looks crazy in that screenshot giving an art exhibit. Carrie goes to see him. This scene seems to come out of nowhere and goes on for quite a while before it ties itself back into the actual plot of the film. She convinces him that, among other things, he needs a caterer.

The event goes well and that’s Lynette from the beginning of the movie. Now I know what you’re thinking. This means that Carrie now has competition for the heart of Scott and someone she’s not allowed to come in contact with. So of course Henry comes to have a conversation with her about it.

Well, you’d think Henry has come to have a conversation with her about not coming into contact with Lynette, but he hasn’t. It doesn’t make any sense, but he’s there to remind her that she can’t come in contact with her father. A guy who has barely been in the movie and will hardly be in the movie at all. This conversation just comes out of nowhere. But then just to confuse matters more, it’s immediately followed by a scene where Lynette shows up at the restaurant forcing Carrie to duck out. After Carrie and Henry have a little heart to heart, this happens.

This is Scott singing and playing a piano. He is badly dubbed here and it comes around to bite this film in the butt at the end. I don’t know why they had to dub him. Even if he has a terrible voice I can fix that without dubbing him. During this scene Carrie comes up behind him and they talk a little about him giving up playing. All they had to do was have her say he sounded great to her. He says he knows he sounds bad, but that his wife would always say what she said, and he can tell she means it just like his wife did. Then he doesn’t have to be dubbed for the final scene of this movie because it’s not whether he sounds good to the viewer, but that it establishes a connection he had with his wife, and now has with Carrie. The movie winds down pretty quick now. It turns out Carrie isn’t dead, but in a coma. She has a chance to come back and Scott goes to her side.

He goes to her side, sings badly dubbed, she wakes up, and that’s the end. However, this is when the father shows back up. He barely is onscreen for a couple of minutes and only has a couple of lines, but he delivers a more genuine performance without saying a word then I see in most of these Hallmark movies. I didn’t think this guy was in the credits, but for some reason he is credited as a character named Jefferson. I don’t remember him having a name in the movie. The actor’s name is Don Allison. He appears to be some sort of character actor. He nearly saves this ending scene that is largely ruined by the totally unnecessary and bad dubbing.

I really can’t recommend this movie for the reasons I mentioned, and others I didn’t. I really wanted to like this, but it’s bogged down by so many problems. Won’t kill ya, but I don’t recommend it.

Because anything this divisive gets my attention. So, I also watched The Leisure Class…

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

First off, I have never watched that TV Show, and based off of Lisa’s description in her review of this film, I’m glad I don’t. It sounds like a seasons worth of footage of that dog from Godard’s Goodbye To Language (2014) pooping. In other words, I had no vested interest in this movie developed by watching the show. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

The movie opens with that title card which would make you think you’re about to watch something like Last Year At Marienbad (1961). Then we cut to a party and meet some of our characters.

That’s William (Ed Weeks) and Fiona (Bridget Regan). One thing that stuck with me from Lisa’s review about the production of this is that it was shot on film, and it shows. I don’t know if it comes through in that screen shot, but it feels like it’s trying to remind me of Merchant Ivory Productions from the 70s and 80s.

That’s Edward (Bruce Davison) and Charlotte (Brenda Strong). This is a party the family is having to celebrate the wedding of William and Fiona that is going to take place the next day. William is marrying into this wealthy political family.

This is Carolyn (Melanie Zanetti) who is Fiona’s sister. She’s the short horny sister whose character is abandoned rather quickly and seems to exist only to give the next character who shows up a foothold in this whole setup.

Then this guy shows up at the party. He is William’s brother and is about to throw a wrench into William’s plan to marry into this family. William is actually a conman. A lousy conman cause this movie already starts telegraphing the ending of the film to you at this point. Now the brother does have a name in the movie, but let’s call him what he is. He’s Withnail (Tom Bell), minus any lines people will be quoting decades from now. William tells Withnail to leave the party, but of course he doesn’t even for money. He latches on to Carolyn and generally begins acting like a jackass.

Since night is upon them, they move inside. Then what I can only assume is the boom mic pops in from the upper left hand corner.

But enough of that little technical goof because we need more characters. We have the parents who seem to be basically oblivious at this point. Fiona is basically the same way at this point. Carolyn wants With to Nail her. And of course there’s our conman William. Naturally that’s why the movie needs a detective character. That comes in the form of another sister named Allison (Scottie Thompson). She tends to stay away from the family and is a lawyer.

And you can tell she doesn’t like him because of that I just met you, but I already know your kind very well look on her face.

Well, after William tries to get some.

And so does take me now Carolyn.

Withnail decides to round up some booze and people to go off to a party!

Now take a good look at Fiona’s hair here. I’ll bring that up later. Now a couple of them, including Fiona jump in a pool.

Oh, did I say a pool. I meant a plot device to clearly establish that Carolyn is drunk, Fiona is her own woman, and William is in over his head. Well, seeing as Carolyn is drunk and something needs to bring things to a head, we get a car accident.

You see the look on Fiona’s face. That’s the look of the audience when they realize this scene only works if William has never seen a movie where rich people get away with things like car accidents they are at fault for. I hate when movies depend on their characters existing in a world where movies don’t exist that have covered situations they’re in. But again, they are trying to foreshadow the ending of this movie some more here.

This is when you need to take another look at Fiona’s hair. I have taken physics before so I’m aware of how hair works when it comes to hydrogen and disulfide bonds, but something tells me being in a pool for all of a couple of minutes doesn’t transform hair from looking perfectly straight to looking like you just had it curled at a salon. I’ll have to ask the lady who does my hair, but this struck me as a continuity error. A minor error like the boom mic, but my only guess is that it was left in to make her character appear more vulnerable and less hoity toity so that we would see her come full circle back to the way she was at the beginning, but worse.

Anyways, this is when Edward decides to give William a good talking to. So he pulls out a report that apparently shows all sorts of inconsistencies in William’s story. Hmmm…and why he didn’t pull this report out I don’t know… prior to the night before the wedding? The movie never really says. The best explanation we are given is in a scene coming up when Edward makes it clear that he wanted a son to carry on his name, but he only seems to produce girls. Perhaps we are expected to believe that Edward was willing to turn a blind eye to this report that he clearly had before because it meant he would have a son-in-law. Fiona also gets a talking to about how the wedding could affect his and her political careers. But who cares about that because we need another character…apparently…for reasons?

This is Carla the prostitute played by Christine Lakin. I actually know who she is since she played Jackie on Melissa & Joey. The girl who wanted Joey’s sperm to impregnate her one way or another. Here she plays a pointless character thrown in so that Withnail won’t leave the movie alone. At least I hope that’s the reason because otherwise she’s just a character who brings Fifty Shades Of Grey (2015) into this movie by bringing up nipple clamps. I know what you are thinking. This movie needs a scene that looks like it belongs in a Tarantino movie or something like Funny Games. And it comes next.

This is when Edward just flips out on the boys and his family. He pulls out a gun, he strips and whips Withnail, and probably give the best performance in this whole movie. Even if it is a bit much.

Cut to the next morning and Edward with two penises drawn on his face makes his daughter and Withnail offers they can’t refuse. Much to the dismay of William who at this point probably figured he and Fiona would be riding off into the sunset having told her the truth about himself and that he truly does love her. At least Carla leaves the bride with a wedding present.

Then a little wedding stuff before the movie ends on this shot.

And that’s The Leisure Class. Why did this movie stir up so much crap over Lisa’s review? It’s a movie with it’s fair share of problems, but those are a dime a dozen. Director Jason Mann tried something probably a little too ambitious for the conditions he was working under, and it never really came together. It happens. It’s his first film. What were people hoping for here? I don’t know. I just know what the finished product is. A forgettable movie that amounts to Withnail Crashes A Wedding.

As for some of the nasty comments that came Lisa’s way. I don’t mind the down votes. That’s what they’re for, but if you only want to hear what you have to think about something then don’t read other people’s reviews of things. You don’t need anyone else’s validation to have an opinion about something.

Well, I’m moving on with my life now.

Film Review: Invisible Sister (2015, dir. Paul Hoen)

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I really should have watched something else that featured invisibility before I watched Invisible Sister. It felt weird that I went from the late night cable movie Invisible Centerfolds (2015) to this Disney Channel movie. Oh, well.

The movie begins when we meet Cleo (Rowan Blanchard). She proceeds to give us a little sob story about how she feels invisible, especially next to her popular sister. I’m sorry, but I can’t possibly be the only one who had a thing for the 90s indie girls who listened to Green Day. She is that girl except a modern incarnation that listens to The Hives instead. Luckily, the movie knows we exist and very quickly calls the character on her BS when a guy comes up to her, tries to ask her out, and gets rudely brushed off.

Apparently, nice blonde boys who take notice of her are her main offender. He won’t be off to find another girl, but will come back later when he’s needed the most.

She is friends with George played by Karan Brar. I can handle Karan without his accent, but it’s not the same without his character having a giant lizard for a pet. In case we didn’t know she was smart because her sister is popular and she hangs out with the nerdy kid from Jessie, then her teacher reminds us by giving her a tough assignment.

Thankfully, despite the speech at the beginning, she’s science smart. I don’t think I could have handled Cleo if she spent the film engaged in the dead quote olympics. The details don’t matter. All you need to know is it involves a moth, and her sister soon drinks it from a glass of water.

Now her sister doesn’t just have a see through head, but her body is entirely invisible. In order to make sure the sister remains invisible, the writers made it so that anything she attempts to cloak herself in soon becomes invisible as well. Think this movie is really about the sister being literally invisible? You got it all… wrong. This movie is a body swap comedy minus the literal swap, and makes one of them a ghost following along. This is an important time in the life of the newly invisible sister so she hatches a diabolic scheme.

Her sister will go in her Halloween costume with a mask. This movie takes place in Louisiana, so she’s Mardi Gras Dorothy! Of course we all know where this is gonna lead.

That’s right! All the pep girls give each other a massage. Oh, I can always count on you Disney! Whether it’s the pillow fight between Debby Ryan and Maia Mitchell while Cameron Boyce watches on Jessie, then it’s Ben Savage telling one girl to stop eating the other on Girl Meets World. Really, why did they think this was a good idea to put in the movie?

Since Cleo didn’t really know how much her sister did, she now finds out that she has a bigger hole to fill than she thought because there’s a lacrosse game she needs to play in. Luckily, this is where that whole invisible thing does really come into play.

It comes in handy when the opposing team suddenly gets knocked off their feet into the air. This is one of two times where the invisible sister appears to have acquired super strength by being invisible.

As you can see invisible sis isn’t happy. I mean she’s invisible. Now the movie gets to the fixing her part. This is when the film drives home that this really is a body swap comedy in disguise. While they try to get the right ingredients to make an antidote for what made her invisible in the first place, the sisters share some tender moments. The literal invisibility is just to teach the two about the metaphorical invisibility they had of each other and themselves that only existed because they let it. I’m forgetting something…oh, yeah! The boys!

Turns out the nice blonde boy is also really smart and helps Cleo to make her sister visible again. Also, he thought that if she was going dressed as a bear to the “Romp the Swamp” party, then he would go as honey. There’s an inappropriate joke in that somewhere.

And this is the boy for the invisible sister. He’s kind of the missing link, but seems to be a really nice guy even when it came to the prospect of dating an invisible girl.

The ending is a little much given that the sisters already had their tender moments. It’s a voiceover narration speech to end the film that feels unnecessary.

Well all right! I got in 10 song titles by The Hives into the review. That’s good enough for me, and this is certainly one of the better Disney Channel Original Movies I’ve seen. I enjoyed Rowan Blanchard and Paris Berelc as sisters. If you like these movies, then this is one of the good ones in my opinion.

Hallmark Review: The Christmas Choir (2008, dir. Peter Svatek)

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

There isn’t a whole lot to talk about with this one. And that’s a good thing. This isn’t another Hallmark romance, and they kept it simple. Basically, take the choir portions of Sister Act (1992) and merge it with the full employment speech from Dave (1993). The speech where he says, “it’s not about the paycheck. It’s about respect. It’s about looking in the mirror, and knowing you’ve done something valuable with your day.”

That’s Peter Brockman (Jason Gedrick) who has just been reminded by his secretary that he’s supposed to go see his girlfriend Jill (Cindy Sampson). Jill promptly breaks up with him cause he’s basically just too busy and living in a work bubble. This leads him to a bar where he meets a man named Bob (Tyrone Benskin).

He follows Bob back to where he lives, which happens to be a homeless shelter run by Sister Agatha (Rhea Perlman). Of course she gives him a little speech, and in short order Peter decides to do something to help. He wants to round up the guys into a choir in order to give them something to do that can also earn them some extra money.

That’s it! There’s a couple little subplots involving a woman at the subway and Peter’s father, but they really don’t matter. What you are getting here is a nice a little story about a guy who in the process of trying to help some others, also helps himself. The only thing I thought was an actual problem was the minor wrench they throw into things at the last minute. It’s like including a birth narrative because you don’t think the audience will accept the story without it being pre-ordained. Here it’s people will feel let down if it doesn’t end on a super high note.

Nothing to seek out, but it’s a perfectly fine little Hallmark Christmas movie.

Hallmark Review: Hitched For The Holidays (2012, dir. Michael Scott)

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Wait, this was written by Gary Goldstein? Well Gary, if there was ever one of your Hallmark movies where the characters should be singing When The Saints Go Marching In, then this is it! If nothing else, at least Joey Lawrence can sing. But I guess just rehashing My Fake Fiancee (2009) with a holiday twist is fine. At least this is back when Joey had some of his hair again.

So there’s Joey Lawrence playing Rob. Rob is a bit of downer. His grandmother is in the hospital harassing him to get married since this is a Hallmark movie. He claims to be dating a woman named Rosemary.

That’s Emily Hampshire playing Julie who doesn’t look happy because her mom, played by Marilu Henner, is harassing her to get to dating. But that alone doesn’t put that look on your face or cock your neck to the side. So let’s have her mom trying to make her date a guy with a foot fetish. This guy.

Oh, and even at the end of this movie when this guy shows up again the movie switches from the kind of music you’d expect to foot fetish music as he stares at her feet. It’s pretty funny. Wait…foot fetish and this was written by Gary Goldstein. I wonder if Gary has a thing for feet? The leading lady put “nice feet” on her list of things that must be in the man she marries in The Wish List, which he also wrote.

Well, you’d think after Hampshire survived My Awkward Sexual Adventure (2012) that she’d be able to handle Mr. Foot Fetish, but she’s pretty non-confrontational. So how do these two meet? Well, through Rickyslist.org of course!

They are each looking for someone to be a temporary stand-in lover for the holiday season. Seeing as this is a Hallmark movie, she can’t go with the more interesting and humorous option this screen affords. I wonder what “misc romance” means.

Still, this movie probably would have been more interesting had she accepted that message from SatanSpawn.

They hook up and go to a party together as a couple. Unfortunately, Rob tries to do the dance number from The Wish List, but seeing as there isn’t another dude there and his character is drunk, it doesn’t work out. Of course they end up making amends, but there’s another issue. She’s Jewish and he’s Catholic. They even throw Kwanzaa into the mix. Actually it’s snuck into the movie in a rather humorous way. At least it’s funnier than this scene.

Julie of course tells her parents that Rob is Jewish too. So that means they need to light the Menorah. She leads him through this whole elaborate ceremony only to have him blow the candles out immediately after he finishes lighting them. Yeah, I believe Rob is that ignorant and stupid about as much as I believe Anastasia Steele didn’t know what butt plugs were in Fifty Shades Of Grey. At least the worst that happens to her is she breaks an old family ornament of Rob’s after trying to hang it on his family’s Christmas Tree, which later becomes a Hanukkah Tree.

That’s this movie in a nutshell. It’s a series of religious misunderstandings that ultimately ends up with Rob and Julie finding out that their families care about them being happy before anything else. Even when Rob says he’s going to convert to Judaism he’s surprised when his family is happy about it because they know he obviously cares for Julie and that’s what matters to them.

Of course there’s a minor hiccup at the end. But it all works out because Rob ends up with a horse. I guess that’s what “misc romance” means.

Actually, he does wind up on a horse in order to reach Julie through bumper to bumper traffic on New Year’s Eve. All I can think while writing this is that Crocodile Dundee (1986) did it better.

If the clip is gone and you don’t know what I’m referring to, then go watch Crocodile Dundee now.

In the end some title cards tell us what happened after they found each other. It includes that they were married by both a priest and a rabbi. There’s a joke in there, but I’m still busy trying to figure out the rest of that joke email about the brunette and the redhead trying to break out of jail from Midnight Masquerade.

This one’s okay if you can push past some of the ignorance it expects you to buy here and there about the characters and religion.

Belated Halloween Film Review: Twitches Too (2007, dir. Stuart Gillard)

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Okay, I exaggerated a little about how bad this movie is, but it still stinks. Let’s go back to the way I started the review of Twitches. There I likened it to finding that burning bag of dog poop on your doorstep. Now a story from my childhood which did involve twins. One time as a prank, these twin girls that moved into my neighborhood when I was in high school decided to do the dog poop thing at a friend’s house. They had a bag. They had poop. They rang the doorbell. They forgot to set it on fire. That meant my friend answered the door to just find a bag of poop on his doorstep and nothing else. That’s Twitches Too. It get’s rid of Jennifer Robertson as Illeana and replaces her with Leslie Seiler. However, Pat Kelly does return as Karsh. Seiler and Kelly are nowhere as good together as Robertson and Kelly. Also, this movie does something I never would have expected in a Disney Channel Original Movie. The boom mic drops into the frame.

That kind of screw up I would expect in a low budget horror film, an exploitation flick, or Chatterbox! (1977) where it pops in from the bottom as if her vagina can actually talk. It’s in at least two movies I’ve reviewed: Trancers and Prom Night III: The Last Kiss. A B-Movie and a low budget horror flick.

So what is Twitches Too about? Well, what do you think it’s about? The darkness is not quite gone and their actual father might be in there somewhere. Oh, and the “Go, Twitches” thing makes a return in this movie. Just great! Oddly, this one also has a cast member from Degrassi: TNG in it.

That’s Nathan Stephenson.

There really is very little to talk about with Twitches Too. They have some fun with magic. Illeana and Karsh aren’t as good as they were in the first film. There’s more of Coventry since that’s no longer a secret from the girls. And ultimately it comes down to the girls and their birth mother fighting off the bad guy from the first one and brining back their birth father from the shadows. I mean literally the shadows. At one point he is hiding in the shadow of a lady.

Yeah, we are supposed to be scared for her in this scene near the end, but I didn’t care because the rest of the film was terrible. Whereas this similar scene in Blow Out (1981) does work and is heartbreaking because the film is amazing.

Don’t let your children watch this, don’t let them make you watch it, and just simply don’t watch Twitches Too for any reason.

Belated Halloween Film Review: Twitches (2005, dir. Stuart Gillard)

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

I know Halloween already happened, but I did promise to review the two Twitches movies when I reviewed Return To Halloweentown. So here they come. And it’s kind of like answering the doorbell and finding that burning bag of dog poop.

Also, just for your information, there’s no way I am going to be able to keep Tia and Tamera straight. I knew twins in real life growing up and couldn’t tell which was which so I’m not even going to try. Not that I’m gonna talk much about them anyways.

The movie starts off with two twin witches (Tia Mowry-Hardrict and Tamera Mowry-Housley) being taken away by the two most entertaining people in this movie as darkness envelopes Coventry.

This is Illeana (Jennifer Robertson).

This is Karsh (Pat Kelly).

They are the bright points of this movie. It begins with them rescuing the twin witches and taking them to the human world to hide them from the darkness. Illeana makes it to a hospital, and Karsh makes it away safely as well, but first he encounters something horrifying.

That’s right. It’s Jake Goldsbie from Degrassi: TNG out trick-or-treating. Apparently, whether it’s Lifetime, Hallmark, or Disney, you’ll likely see actors from Degrassi: TNG pop up. Actually, I just saw Aislinn Paul on Heroes Reborn so I guess they’re everywhere!

Anyways, getting back to the lousy movie. 21 years later, on Halloween, we find that one of the Twitches has grown up in privilege while the other hasn’t. Standard stuff. We also find out that all this time Illeana and Karsh have been hanging around waiting for them both to reach 21.

These two really are good in this movie. They bicker like an old couple. They have far more chemistry than most of the couples in those Hallmark movies I watch. I could have watched a prequel to this that just has them following around the Twitches while cracking jokes. I love when Illena walks through a wall, then proceeds to complain about the fact that she had to pass through 70’s wallpaper. Honestly, if I knew of a supercut of this movie that only had their scenes then I would embed it below. Unfortunately, while they are being funny, this is going on.

I can’t tell you how much it irritated me when they would say “Go, Twitches. Go, Twitches”. I really just wanted Illeana and Karsh.

The Twitches just return home and vanquish the darkness. Blah, blah, blah. Seriously, I want my Illeana and Karsh movie! I know that kind of movie can be done. Heart And Souls did it back in 1993. That movie had actors like Charles Grodin and Alfre Woodard following around Robert Downey, Jr. as ghosts and they were funny. That’s essentially what Illeana and Karsh did for all those 21 years.

And according to IMDb reviewers, this is worse than I could have thought because it’s based on a series of books that of course it doesn’t follow well. Course I did just sit through Masters Of The Universe (1987) so how much worse could it be if it wasn’t true to the source material? Well, I don’t know, but I do know what happens when you swap out one half of the Illeana/Karsh duo with a different actress. That’s Twitches Too, where joy and happiness goes to die.

Hallmark Review: Cloudy With A Chance Of Love (2015, dir. Bradford May)

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Okay, before I review this, I have to point out that this is the second Hallmark movie I’ve reviewed that stars Katie Leclerc which has a lazy title card. At least this one has something going on behind it. Unlike the plain white text on a black background for the movie The Reckoning.

With that out of the way. Let’s talk about this movie. Remember A Gift Of Miracles? Yeah, it’s the same setup here. A girl played by Katie Leclerc needs to get a research fellowship in order to get her PhD. The difference is that it in no way means she needs to believe in an afterlife, and she doesn’t get her pitch from a real world World Wildlife Federation report. So, there’s that going for this movie.

In digital computers there’s no such thing as a curve. Curves are approximated by a series of lines. Use enough of them and you get what looks like a curve. In movies, story arc and character arc are approximated with scenes instead of lines. Use enough of them and you get what looks like an arc. But if you don’t, then you end up with awkward jumps that have your audience asking questions like: “Why are they talking like she’s worked there for months? Didn’t they just hire her?” That’s this movie. It was also clearly done on the cheap, and it shows. Also, for fans of the Mystery Woman Hallmark movies.

They show establishing exterior shots of the fictional Pacifica University that Leclerc’s character attends over and over and over again. I get it! You came up with a more realistic sounding university than California University from Beverly Hills, 90210, but every time you show it I notice that it says “Library and Learning Resource Center” on the building that also apparently houses this “Meteorology Weather Center”.

The movie is about Deb, played by Katie Leclerc, who is a doctoral candidate meteorologist that gets called in at the last minute to replace a TV meteorologist. She’s encouraged to do it because it will make her stand out. The movie is about her trying to decide whether she really does want to pursue that research fellowship or if this TV thing is actually something she enjoys. Of course they need to give her a makeover. And who better than fashion victim survivor Stacey Dash. This girl.

Who 20 years prior in Clueless (1995) was this girl.

I mentioned this movie was done on the cheap. Here’s an example.

That’s Leclerc standing in front of a green screen that we are supposed to know is a green screen, but then it cuts to a reporter on the scene.

Oh, did I say “on the scene”? I meant in front of another green screen.

Also, this is one of those Hallmark movies where we can hear the rain in the scene, but it isn’t actually there. However, this movie does have an excuse for that. For plot convenience so that there’s conflict at the end, Deb’s friend is doing a documentary on the drought in my home state of California. I’m sure that’s why they didn’t use a rain machine. At least the scene is way better than the one I remember from one of the Garage Sale Mystery or Aurora Teagarden movies. In that one they were outside, umbrellas with drops on them, probably in Fall, with puddles around them, and the sound of rain, but there was no rain as noted by the perfectly still puddles.

Jumping ahead to the end. I totally believe this is not a backdrop behind them.

Also…

that’s Deb’s competition for the fellowship and that’s almost 100% of everything you see and hear her doing for that fellowship. And yet, the movie will constantly have Deb’s mentor saying that this girl is giving her really stiff competition and that she’s at serious risk for losing the fellowship. The least they could have done was tell us what she’s doing, right? Nope, there’s a speech at the end she gives, but we come in at the very end of it and they just have a generic blue Powerpoint card with the name of the university up throughout the whole scene.

Does it matter who the guy is? Well, that’s him. That’s the scene where he and Deb talk as if they’ve worked together for months, but for the viewer she just got hired.

It really doesn’t matter what I say about this. It’s not worth watching. Leclerc is fine and the news anchor is a bright point in the movie. However, it’s done so cheaply and jumps so much plot and character wise that while it’s conceivably possible to push past all that, it’s like this actor trying to actually believe he’s outside.

Hallmark Review: Midnight Masquerade (2014, dir. Graeme Campbell)

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Midnight Masquerade my ass! It should have been called Gender Swap Cinderella and the Unnecessary and Confusing Domain Registration Story. Let’s do the first part, then the second part.

That’s our Cinderella on the left named Rob Carelli (Christopher Russell). He works at a law firm run by a guy and his two sons. In other words, the father is the stepmother and they’re the stepsisters. The guy on the right is one of the stepsisters.

That’s our prince named Elyse Samford (Autumn Reeser). She has recently been given control of a candy company by her father. There’s a trademark infringement issue and the law firm representing her company is the one that Carelli works at.

Yes, there is a young girl who is attached at the hip to Carelli, but in a refreshing turn she isn’t a daughter from a former marriage. Carelli is simply a cool uncle who likes to go bowling with his niece named Ruby (Helen Colliander).

Samford is going to hold a Halloween ball and she invites everyone at the law firm to attend. Of course some work gets dropped on Cinderella and he has to sneak out to attend the party while masked. Cinderella goes dressed as a prince since she is going dressed as a prom queen apparently.

Oh, and they make sure you know his prince costume is custom made because his sister insists on making it and we see her measure him several times. Yet, that will not be the way Cinderella is identified at the end. I actually prefer the way they figure out it was him, but then why making sure we know this thing is custom made?

This happens, but he has to get back to the firm before midnight or he’ll be caught as having snuck out. Since she doesn’t know who Cinderella is, one of the stepsisters takes credit, but he acts like a douchebag when they go out so she has her doubts.

Ultimately, she figures out who the person was dressed as a prince and Cinderella marries his prince in a bowling alley and in bowling shoes since she also likes to bowl.

Thought it was a little confusing that I kept using he for she and visa versa? That was on purpose. That was to give you a little taste of the second part of this story, which is the domain registration story. I’m still confused about it, but I will try to lay it out for you. Maybe you can figure it out. Let’s run this back to the start of the film.

The reason she came to the firm that represents her company called Samford Candy is because of a trademark infringement. Another company has changed it’s name to Sanford Candy and is selling candy in a similar packaging.

That part makes sense, but the rest doesn’t quite add up. Now Cinderella chimes in that Sanford Candy is cybersquatting. As far as I can tell cybersquatting is something companies made up and got put into law because they didn’t like that anyone can register any domain they want including your company’s name. It probably dates back at least as far as the bickering between MTV and Adam Curry over the domain name mtv.com. Anyways, that would mean that Sanford Candy has registered the domain name samfordcandy.com. At least you’d think that, but Cinderella says that no one has registered samfordcandy.com. If that’s true then Sanford Candy isn’t cybersquatting at all. At best, they are typosquatting as it’s called in the hopes that people will accidentally type sanfordcandy.com when they meant to type in samfordcandy.com. Except that can’t be true either as we will find out.

Later in the film the father yells at one of the sons for having registered sanfordcandy.com by accident. But it gets worse because during that scene the father says this to his son.

That means Sanford Candy didn’t have either sanfordcandy.com or samfordcandy.com registered before and thus were not cybersquatting. However, this scene now tells us that Sanford Candy now has the domain name samfordcandy.com. At least you’d think that was the case, but then the next scene happens.

Cinderella explains to the son that the son registered sandfordcandy.com instead of samfordcandy.com. Fine, but then he says that Sanford Candy can still buy the domain Samford Candy needs. It’s a little unclear here whether he actually means that Sanford Candy can still buy the domain or he is explaining that by registering sanfordcandy.com, it means that it left it open for Sanford Candy to register samfordcandy.com. Either way, this apparently leaves Cinderella with the job of filing a motion to set aside, which is the movie’s reason to keep him from going to the ball.

Later on a deal from Sanford Candy comes in to buy Samford Candy. The father tries to encourage the Prince to buy it. She of course doesn’t want to do that. As Cinderella investigates, he finds out that the father is buying up stock in Samford Candy in order to make a killing if a buyout occurs. Okay, except the non-existent cybersquatting that was supposedly going on at the beginning of the movie is brought up again during the finale.

She points out that she had to find out Sanford was cybersquatting from Cinderella. Okay, then that means the father knew about the cybersquatting? So why was he mad at his son for registering the wrong name? I mean other than the movie needed some excuse for Cinderella to have to sneak out to the ball. It also means that the movie really did mean that Sanford Candy had already registered samfordcandy.com at the beginning of the story.

None of this quite adds up for me. Luckily, there is an easy way to figure this all out. I did a whois lookup for the domain names sanfordcandy.com and samfordcandy.com and they were both registered by Deborah Marks, who is an executive producer of this movie. There, she’s the real villain of the film.

That whole domain name thing is unnecessary and confusing. It gets in the way of what is otherwise an okay gender swapped Cinderella.

Of course there are a few fun things to point out.

First, this movie came out in 2014, but her receipt is dated October 17th, 2015. Second, that’s a bill for hosting, not for registering a domain. Those two things are not the same thing. Finding this bill is also a reason why she believes Cinderella’s story about the father trying to get her company bought out. So again, why the scene with the son over registering the domain name sandordcandy.com? And if this was some secret, why was she billed for it by the law firm?

When Cinderella tries breaking into the father’s computer, he tries three different passwords: Dottsandcrossis, EmmettandAndrew, and 150%. Except only the last password has the number of characters that correspond to the password typed in on the screen. The one above is what we are shown for Dottsandcrossis.

When Cinderella does get into the computer he launches the standard Mac mail program called Mail to look for anything with the name Sanford in it. Except he never does a search for it. He just quickly browses over several emails, then leaves. That said, I love that they actually tried to come up with emails that look real. Look at the one with the subject line “Ball” about a “LARGE Sucker Spider”. There is another email later on that has some joke about a brunette and a redhead trying to break out of jail.

Does that chart make sense to you?

Kudos on this screen. Even if SAM is the stock symbol for Samuel Adams beer, and NOK is Nokia.

And finally, when they are trying to find out how that father is involved in the buyout, they look up individual investors. I’m sure Mister Rogers probably pooled money from everyone in the neighborhood to buy stock in the company. I actually love that they stuck that name in there.

All in all, if you can block out the domain registration thing and just focus on the Cinderella story, then you’ll be fine watching this.