Hallmark Review: Chasing A Dream (2009, dir. David Burton Morris)

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You know, as much as I hated Freshman Father, I really like it when Hallmark actually tries to do something different. That’s the case with Chasing A Dream. This is going to be a short one because there is very little to this movie.

That’s our main character Cam Stiles (Andrew Lawrence). He is a high school football star. He and a runner friend of his are at a party. Cam wants to stay, the friend wants to go, and go he does. Of course something happens to him on the way home and he gets killed by a car.

Cam takes it hard and his father played by Treat Williams isn’t exactly understanding. His father coaches the football team on which his son plays. It’s not that his friend was some nobody that hasn’t been properly memorialized or anything. It’s just that Cam is having trouble getting over it. That is, until he stumbles upon a little booklet his friend had. In it his friend was keeping track of mile times. His friend was trying to do a 4 minute mile.

And that’s the rest of the movie. Cam decides that he certainly isn’t slow being an athlete and all. So he decides that for him, getting over the loss of his friend would be finishing what his friend started. That is it. Seriously, up to and including the last line of the movie, it is about Cam doing a four minute mile, then he’ll be okay.

Along the way he has to convince the track/cross country coach to let him in. He has to fight his father a bit because football was his way to college. And finally he has to actually do it, which includes his own Apollo Creed. HINT! HINT! HINT!

I liked this one. It does have a couple of problems that are worth mentioning though. It’s one of those Hallmark movies where it feels like the script was longer, then certain scenes were cut out. A couple of times there’s a bit of a jump where it feels like there should have been something in between to smooth it out. Also, the dead friend appears as a ghost of sorts in a couple of scenes. It’s just an idealized version of his friend that Cam is seeing encouraging him on, but I think given that they followed through with the right ending, then they should have left those parts out.

Otherwise, I recommend this one.

Hallmark Review: The Good Witch (2008, dir. Craig Pryce)

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Prior to watching this I had only seen the last four Good Witch films they’ve made. The difference is night and day. Sure, this movie also has Catherine Bell looking gorgeous in well chosen outfits, but that’s all it shares with those last four movies. This one has a believable romance, it has an explanation for why we really never see her do magic, and most importantly, it has an actual plot. You’d think that last thing would be a given, but it’s sorely missing in the last four films. Honestly, the only thing I can think of that I didn’t care for was the daughter.

They make her up and dress her in the little girl equivalent of the little boy who goes around dressed like Rambo. I get it, you’re a little girl. Enough with the colors and blonde hair. I’m in no way confused about her gender. Very minor complaint, but in a movie that dresses the other actors appropriately, including her brother, it feels a bit much. They probably felt they needed to make her look as kiddy and vulnerable as possible to have her asking Cassie (Catherine Bell) about being scared about monsters and later, bunnies.

Let’s talk about the movie now. The movie begins in the little town where all these movies take place, and we meet Jake Russell (Chris Potter) who has two kids and a wife that was killed off by being a spouse in a Hallmark movie. Jake also lives with his Irish father who will remind you numerous times that he is Irish. Then there’s Martha Tinsdale (Catherine Disher) who is the local busy body. If this took place in the 1980s, then she would be trying to get Huckleberry Finn banned in schools. She’s that type. That’s when the kids walk by an old, and thought to be, abandoned house. Enter Casie Nightingale!

She really is an incredibly gorgeous woman. Luckily, she can also act and is perfect for this role. In previous reviews I compared her to Terry Farrell who played Jadzia Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and that’s still true. They are both very pretty girls who do an excellent job of playing a character that simultaneously carries a wisdom brought on by many years, but without somehow transcending being a regular human being.

That’s the look of an actor who just realized he is working with a woman who looks like Catherine Bell. Jack here is the local sheriff and was asked to check out the house because everyone thought it was abandoned, but seemed to be suddenly occupied. These three screenshots sum up the remainder of this movie.

The first screenshot is of a woman who Cassie sells an aphrodisiac to at her shop called Bell, Book, and Candle. An aphrodisiac that apparently works because she comes back begging for more. In other words, Cassie does have some useful things to sell the people in the community. Thus, her business has a purpose other than just to simply make her a fixture in the community by having her own a business.

The second screenshot is of the son when he follows some advice of Cassies. Her instructions are a bunch of bullshit. She just totally made it up and sold it with her charm. It was just a way to convince the son to do something he was perfectly capable of doing himself and in no way needed supernatural forces to make happen. That’s one of the best things about this film. We almost never see her actually do anything remotely magical because she’s smart enough to know that most things can be resolved through practical means. And that the people involved will be a whole lot better off making it happen themselves, then her twitching her nose or something.

The third screenshot is the culmination of the busy body’s activities to try and drive Cassie out of the community because you know, she’s a witch! These two kids vandalize her place.

Jack and Cassie coming together occurs naturally around her becoming a valuable member of the community, her being wonderful with his kids, and that he keeps finding out how great a person she is in contrast to what the community is saying.

I guess there is one other little problem I have. The relationship feels a little one-sided. Like he fell in love with her, and that’s what she wanted him to do. And this final shot of the film doesn’t help.

Maybe the sequel explains this. Just as I swear “all streams lead to the toilet” is a saying in Computer Science. Apparently, all movies eventually wind up in front of my eyeballs.

Halloween Film Review: Return To Halloweentown (2006, dir. David Jackson)

Posted on October 25, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

We’ve reached the end of the Halloweentown movies. I love how the trivia section for this movie on IMDb says that “Kimberly J. Brown has publicly stated her disappointment with the recasting of her role for unknown reasons even though Brown was fully available for the shoot.” Unknown reasons?

Hmm…flip her around.

Yeah, unknown reasons. Seriously, they parade Sara Paxton around at the beginning of this movie just to make sure you know they got a girl with tits, ass, and a slinky figure. I’m sure there were other reasons as well, but the Disney Channel does like to hire these kinds of girls. That’s not to say that I don’t like actresses such as Dove Cameron, Bella Thorne, or Debby Ryan, but they all share something in common aside from being entertaining. And let’s be fair to Sara Paxton, this movie wasn’t going to work anyways. Even if they had cast Brown in the role. Paxton isn’t a bad actress either. She’s just cast against type. When the three Sinister sisters show up to harass Paxton, Paxton looks like she should be with them. If they wanted to have Paxton in the movie, then they should have condensed the three Sinister sisters into one character who is sweet and kind, but ultimately evil, and cast Paxton in that part. She seems like she could have nailed that role. Let’s talk about the movie.

After we see some scary things such as a pumpkin, a gargoyle, and Sara Paxton, we see the most terrifying thing of all.

And if I didn’t know that there is a scene later in the movie where Reynolds is physically in the same room with Paxton, then I’d say that she is in this movie the way Pierre Kirby is in Movie A within a Godfrey Ho film.

Luckily, hot mom played by Judith Hoag returns who by the way played the original April O’Neal in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990). It’s funny that they replaced a girl like Hoag with Megan Fox, just like they replaced Kimberly J. Brown with Sara Paxton.

Joey Zimmerman also returns as the brother who only exists to be a smartass. But what about that younger sister that made such an impression on me that I don’t think I even mentioned her existence in my reviews of the other films? Yeah, they wrote her out of the movie. Now it’s off to Witch’s University in Halloweentown.

At least the cab driver makes an appearance in this movie. But they can’t even get him right. His face doesn’t move properly. I don’t remember his face making that much bone on bone noise. And I certainly don’t remember his jokes being so lame. Oh, well. We now arrive at Hogwarts…I mean Witch’s University where we meet the main villain of the movie named Silas Sinister.

That’s all well and good Silas, but I’ve seen Monster High and this guy has a much more impressive title.

This is when Paxton runs into the three Sinister sisters.

We can tell they’re evil not because they are rejects from Mean Girls (2004), but because they are desperately trying to make you forget that Paxton is miscast by acting over the top bad. Then we meet totally not Lucius Malfoy.

He informs Paxton that use of magic on campus will be grounds for immediate dismissal. As we find out, it’s Paxton’s fault. As you may recall, Marnie was bragging that she opened the portal between the real world and Halloweentown at the beginning of Halloweentown High. That resulted in a bunch of students from Halloweentown going to real world colleges. As a result, Witch’s University needed to increase enrollment so they opened it up to creatures other than witches. To level the academic playing field, witches are not allowed to use magic. We find this out when we meet Paxton’s Resident Advisor (RA) who is a genie.

I had an RA that was a gay business major who was followed by an Apartment Assistant (AA) that was an optometrist when I went to college. But I guess if they had her twitch her nose in one scene to get in a reference to Bewitched, and they’ve referenced everything else, then throw in I Dream Of Jeannie as well. Two more pieces of setup before I can leap over the rest of this nonsense, which includes time travel again. Yeah, because that part was clearly the best part of Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge.

That’s Paxton’s boy toy for this movie.

And that’s what the rest of the movie revolves around. Basically, Paxton is extremely powerful, and a group called the Dominion wants to use her to rule over the world. The rest of the movie is about that, which includes a scene where Paxton goes far back in time to find an old queen played by herself who becomes the Debbie Reynolds character. And how does it end?

Well, how do you think it ends? The same way as the others. The Cromwell witches use their magic to allegedly destroy the special amulet thingy that is like the ring from The Lord Of The Rings. They even directly reference Charmed again by having Paxton say “by the power of 3” before she, Hoag, and smartass brother do their thing. And yes, I said “allegedly” because they didn’t actually destroy it, but hid it away in case they wanted to make a sequel.

Actually, even though this didn’t work, I could’ve gotten behind a sequel where the brother turns evil. I mean they already used the term the Dominion and one of the things that made Star Trek: Deep Space Nine great is how long they spent slowly building up the ultimate war between the Federation and the Dominion. It could have been neat to see this character that was simmering on the back burner come to the forefront. Oh, well.

As you might have already noticed, this thing was doomed. One, shows or franchises that make the jump to college are the exception, not the rule. There is far too much upheaval that occurs when you do that. Two, Sabrina, The Teenage Witch was off the air, Charmed had worn out it’s welcome, and Harry Potter had just cranked up the maturity level to the point where kids not only could, but did die in that universe. It was also dominating the kids at a magic school thing in 2006, which this tried to compete with. The Disney Channel couldn’t compete. Sure Wizards of Waverly Place came out the next year, but that didn’t try to do the Harry Potter thing. Finally, the first film was a fluke, the second film fixed the problems of the first, and the third film should have spawned a TV Show, but didn’t. This just wasn’t going to happen.

Ultimately, a disappointing end to a reasonably enjoyable series of Halloween themed movies. Now I just need to watch those two Twitches movies before they expire at the end of this month.

Horror Film Review: Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (1990, dir. Ron Oliver & Peter R. Simpson)

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Prom Night III opens on a cemetery where we quickly settle on a gravestone for Mary Lou Maloney. Apparently, she was born in 1940 and died in 1957. Knowing the end of this movie, that really should say 1938-1955.

Then we cut to A Chorus Line (1985) if it were filmed by David Lynch. I’m so glad that they say this is supposed to be Hell at the end of the film cause not having seen the previous Prom Night films, I honestly wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Luckily, the only thing keeping you in Hell is a foot brace. Once Mary Lou gets that off she begins to terrorize a school with her ability to POV around the halls at night. That’s when we meet Jack Roswell (Terry Doyle). A simple man who just wants to mop floors and keep his alcohol chilled in the slop bucket. This was two years before it became the “it” thing to keep doughnuts in there.

Now since all horror films of this era had bad things happen in boiler rooms, he goes down into the boiler room. And what’s this? That’s a jukebox! Maybe if he’s lucky there’ll be some Foreigner or Tears For Fears on it. And that’s the cue for Sherilyn Fenn…I mean Courtney Taylor as Mary Lou Maloney to make her entrance. They knew each other and that’s not a good thing.

Standing in the boiler room, with his head hung low
Had no way out, his time was up
Heard the generic 1950s tunes, he could picture the scene
Turned around and saw Mary Lou, then like a distant scream
He heard “been a long time Jacky boy, did you miss me?”
He had lightning in his chest, and the very next day

He was found dead

Cut to a school assembly and we meet Alex Grey (Tim Conlon) playing La Bamba! That was common in films of this era. I mean Surf Ninjas (1993) used Barbara Ann, but at least here it makes sense since the film makes constant references to the 1950s for a reason. That’s when the principle reopens the gym by slicing off his finger with the giant ribbon cutting scissors. I’d say something must be going on here, but after what he just said before doing it, he probably just screwed up. I really don’t think Mary Lou had anything to do with this. He does seem that stupid.

Then his friend, who by the way is totally not supposed to be gay, tries to lure him into a summer reenacting On The Road while his girlfriend wants to lure him into a Hallmark movie on a ranch. Now Alex must go see the guidance counselor who has one of those penis cactuses on her desk that keeps getting in the way of the camera. Seeing as Alex is an idiot and can’t take her hints, he won’t be going to medical school anytime soon. I’m glad this scene was here so we know that he has the sexual imagination of someone who makes movies like Bikini Spring Break (2012). It’s important so that we actually believe that Mary Lou can use sex as a way to control him.

Now cut to what Alex believes is a romantic candle lit dinner. It’s about here where I realized that Tim Conlon reminds me of Bruce Campbell. So, since Alex needs to pick up a book at school, he goes inside and finds Mary Lou. He falls down where she proceeds to have sex with him on the American flag that he tore off the wall while the United States national anthem plays.

Just like Canadian teenagers are known to do. Waking up the next morning, Alex finds himself still at school, but during the day. Luckily he makes it to the bathroom.

Just like Italian Batman.

After Alex talks on a phone to voices from Fighting Street on the TubroGrafx-16 CD, we hear an announcement that the chess club tournament has been canceled. They are to report to the library to play with themselves. I guess even the guidance counselor has standards. Anyways, now Alex and his right ear ring rule friend look up an old newspaper about how Mary Lou died. Apparently, it was during a fire. Explains the burns on her face in a few scenes in the movie. Then Mary Lou gives him a hand job. We only hear the zipper, but before you know it, the test he was taking is over.

Then there’s a quick announcement for the girls weight lifting team. There’s a mandatory clinic on facial hair removal. I’m sure there’s also going to be a mandatory clinic for the boys ballet team on tucking. Especially on dealing with those pesky testicles by popping them back inside. But we don’t hear that part cause it’s football time!

After Mary Lou helps Alex out on the football field, we find out that Alex didn’t do so well on that test of his. The teacher was going to give him an F. No way that’s going to happen. The only F Alex is going to get is from May Lou. That’s when Mary Lou appears in the back of the classroom having made it look like a 1950s diner. I see nothing weird here. Slaughterhouse Rock did the same thing with an apartment two years prior to this movie. But there, someone was having sex on the other end of the wall pictured below.

Can Mary Lou top that? Mary Lou?

“How bout some of this. So tasty and hard and firm. And it just melts in your mouth.”

She’s got the lines, but it’s no scene of somebody getting killed with a porcelain penis like in A Clockwork Orange (1971). She then shoves a blender in his mouth and through his head. It’s a good scene, but I would have preferred if she had said this before putting a hole in his head:

“Bow down before the one you serve
You’re going to get what you deserve”

This is when Alex discovers the price of having a hot girl from Hell helping him out in more ways than one. He’s going to have to hide the body of his teacher. And look!

More American flags! Mary Lou truly is an American girl! Yankee Doodle Dandy even plays! Since Alex isn’t ready to tell Mary Lou to not come around here no more, he proceeds to hide the body in one of the cabinets. Now Alex’s friend pops up to remind us that the Cold War was going on in the 1950s and that the Soviet Union was still around in 1990.

Alex goes back to his home on Degrassi St. to find his girlfriend and family are throwing a little celebration for the perfect score he got from Mary Lou’s hand…I mean his on his test. Time to go back to the school at night and bury that body, but first we get a little reminder that sex ain’t coming his way from his girlfriend. Luckily, that’s what Mary Lou is for!

Of course Alex ultimately buried the body on the football field which causes a problem when he spots the teacher’s hand popping up through the field. Alex really needs to be more careful. I mean the camera crew is watching his every move from the bottom of the frame.

This is when the overall grades come out and the guidance counselor finds out that Alex is number one now. Since she once knew a student named David who figured out the password was “pencil”, she figures Alex must have broken into the computer system. Of course Mary Lou isn’t going to let this go anywhere.

Mary Lou drags the counselor into a dark classroom and makes her all wet. By that I mean she drenches her in battery acid. What did you think I meant? Mary Lou is a 1950s girl! After several of the best lines Ron Oliver wrote for this movie are said, Alex and Mary Lou have sex again. Then his parents reward him again for his good grades with a Harley Davidson. And they make sure we know that thing is from the good old USA!

I’m surprised they brought a Harley Davidson onto the set. Those things can be dangerous, which is why, according to the credits on this movie, they had a Harley Wrangler by the name of Jake “Live To Ride” Fry. After a reference to Cool Jazz, Alex dons his leather jacket and shades then gets a lecture from his dad on sexual frustration. Time to bury that body! Unfortunately, a football jerk shows up to give him a hard time. Mary Lou shows up to throw a perfect spiral.

This really is the funniest death scene in this movie. Anyways, now Alex thinks she has gone too far. Since Alex doesn’t decide to get creative in dealing with her, he simply tells her off. This leads to her throwing a supernatural hissy fit and disappearing. Now Mary Lou won’t leave him alone. Not even when the teacher is trying to show a sex ed film called Social Disease.

The police also show up and we know they are detectives because a short clip of the Dragnet theme plays. After having a nightmare about the bodies of the people Mary Lou killed rising from the dead, Alex’s sister and the boom mic wake him up.

At this point, the bodies have been found. Also, Mary Lou now visits his friend in the form of Alex’s sister. I can’t say I thought I would see another scene like this that had a giraffe in it after watching An Erotic Tale Of Ms. Dracula recently.

She tears out his heart literally. Now Alex is going to take things really seriously. He gets a shotgun, come Coke, and Stay-Ups, which I’m sure work much better than Sta-Ups from Nightmare On Elm Street 2. This is when some rap that samples The Guess Who’s American Woman kicks in. Then the cops show up and I must say it was nice of Blood Simple (1984) to make a guest appearance.

The police capture Alex. Then the boom mic pops down again just to toy with us by making us think Dolemite might show up to save Alex. Instead, Mary Lou shows up as a guard and basically lets Alex out of prison. I mean the movie has to have it’s climax at the prom. It’s in the title!

Ah, movies from this era truly had hideous school dance dresses, but I’d collect them if I could. After killing off George McFly…

Mary Lou, Alex, and the girlfriend go to Hell. Not a whole lot to this part other than that the girlfriend does have some sweet flamethrower action.

Luckily, there is a car in Hell. And after driving it through Mary Lou…

her body sends the 1.21 gigawatts into the flux capacitor to send them back to 1957. No seriously, they do this whole part like it’s straight out of one of the Back To The Future movies. So, girlfriend dies and Alex is stranded in the 1950s with Mary Lou.

Then the rap kicks in again over the credits. It’s stupid and campy, but kind of fun. And this has been another edition of Valerie talks way too much about a movie.

Hallmark Review: October Kiss (2015, dir. Lynne Stopkewich)

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This is one of those Hallmark movies that has me scratching my head. Not because it doesn’t make sense. It does. Not because it is screwed up. I actually like this one quite a bit. What has me confused is the title. Yes, it takes place during October. Yes, the boy and girl eventually kiss, but it’s not like that is some central plot point. Oh, well.

That’s Poppy (Ashley Williams) running a yoga class when she invites another lady up to show something. Poppy notices that this lady is quite good and asks if she wants to run the class. She says sure, so Poppy leaves. We then see her leave another job. The point is that she seems to have a fear of committing, but it really isn’t quite like that. It’s more that she just hasn’t found something that truly makes her happy and is willing to quit something at the drop of a hat.

That’s when she stumbles into the job of being a temporary nanny for a couple of kids. She is going to be their nanny through Halloween since their dad is in the middle of the release of a new app he has been developing. He’s going to be busy and could use some help. Seeing as its only temporary and everything, she agrees to do it.

What do you know? She’s good at it. Williams is a delight in this movie. I hate when a review is this short, but there is really not much more to talk about. As she spends more time with the kids, she spends more time with their father.

There is a wrong girl, but she has class and steps aside. He decides he needs to spend more time with his family. She figures out that she’s found someplace and someone that doesn’t just satisfy her temporarily, but is something more permanent. It’s not a particularly original Hallmark movie by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just done well, which makes it an entertaining, but throwaway movie. That’s all a Hallmark movie really should be. There’s a reason they make so many of them. I just wish more of them could be like this and none of them be like A Country Wedding.

Halloween Film Review: Halloweentown High (2004, dir. Mark A.Z. Dippé)

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

This is definitely my favorite of the Halloweentown movies I have watched so far. Yes, it comes across as a failed TV Show pilot, but I still enjoyed it more than the first two. I can’t believe it took me this long to really appreciate him, but the character of Marnie’s brother named Dylan Piper (Joey Zimmerman) is great.

He has a little bit of a subplot in this, but basically his character exists for the sole purpose of being a smartass in these movies. I like that.

The film opens up with Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) acting liked she cured cancer or something by opening up the portal between the human world and Halloweentown. Up till now that was only open on Halloween. Now two way travel is possible all the time so that this film doesn’t have to re-hatch the plot of the first two films, but can continue really being about accepting people who are different from yourself. Since it seems all these movies or TV Shows with witches must have a council that the character is dragged before…

They really only exist so that there is some sort of thing on the line if Marnie’s dream of having some kids from Halloweentown attend a human high school fails. In this case, she loses her magic. And of course the deadline is midnight on Halloween. So there’s your setup.

Then since Debbie Reynolds will be damned before she’ll be upstaged by Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, which actually had Coolio in it, she references one of his most famous music videos. She pulls an endless stream of kids out of a VW Bug. For those of you too young to remember. Here’s Coolio’s cover of Fantastic Voyage.

Reynolds also comes with a living purse.

Yeah, screw you lady from Smart Cookies and your purse big enough to hold a severed head. Reynolds purse doubles as an attack dog. Reynolds not only arranged for the kids from Halloweentown, I mean Canada as there cover story says, to attend the school, but she is going to teach there too. Thankfully, they do next to nothing with that because the one scene where she really does that is embarrassingly bad.

There is a special locker through which the kids from Halloweentown can travel that acts as a lounge where they don’t have to wear their human costumes. This is when a short little part caught my ear. I even had to rewind it to make sure I heard it correctly. It’s not emphasized or anything, but it’s a nice little subtle touch. One of the girls talks about an experience she had with two “cheer leaders”. She says it the same way someone who isn’t from the human world would. Something like this isn’t too unusual in a movie with a plot like this, but it’s done with so little emphasis that you could miss it. It’s like when I notice a Hallmark movie that properly fakes a computer screen. Realistically, most of them don’t show the screen long enough for it to really need to be done with authenticity, but it shows they cared enough to get it right. That’s how this felt.

In this one Marnie has a romantic interest again. Or I should say there’s a guy who likes her, but the poor dude keeps getting screwed over by the plot when all he wants is to ask her out. She likes him and everything. She gets her metaphorical erection the moment he shows up, but the plot just keeps getting in the way.

As you can guess, the rest is mostly about acceptance. However, you need a villain. They come in the form of what are called knights. Just imagine one of those last episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise where Peter Weller tries to stop the creation of the Federation just before it’s formation. They want to keep the human world and Halloweentown separate and close the portal forever. This part takes a bit of a backseat to the whole getting along thing and only really pops up so that we can have a confrontation at the end.

This guy is the main baddy and I love this scene where he manifests himself at a Halloween fair the kids are having. Even before it happens, you know instantly that Debbie Reynolds is not going to have any of this man’s shit (excuse my language). And you’re right because she immediately smacks him down with her magic. I loved that.

Ultimately, it comes down to referencing Charmed by having the three Cromwell witches imprison the bad guy inside of a mirror. Then Marnie finally has nothing to get in her way of getting a little, so she takes the guy who has been trying to ask her out for a ride on her broomstick.

I honestly expected this to be worse than the previous two, but I really did enjoy this more. I still have to see the fourth one, but yeah, if you are going to watch these, then feel free to jump right to this one.

Hallmark Review: Stranded In Paradise (2014, dir. Bert Kish)

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Based on the title you can basically guess where this film starts. It begins at a big company called Connor.com where after a little foreshadowing, Tess Nelson (Vanessa Marcil) is going to end up with James Denton’s character Carter McConnell who clearly lost his thumb in paradise and obviously needs someone to help him track it down. Actually she has been fired because the new boss wants to do some restructuring and she’s going to get the boot. This was shortly before she was going to go to Puerto Rico to a human resources convention since that was her job at Connor.com. Well screw getting fired, she’s going to go anyways. There might be a job there!

As soon as she gets on the plane is where this movie starts to do things the way I like it. Sure, the plot ultimately nudges these two in a certain direction so that they will end up together, but it never really feels forced, shoved down our throats, or just flat of place. The two of them have a mix up on their plane seating. They both happen to have the bad luck of losing their luggage. They stay at the same hotel. Plot convenient coincidences sure, but nothing feels forced, for lack of a better word. We just spend some time with these characters, and they spend some time together.

He used to have a job that kept him in one place, but now he does the lecture circuit as kind of a life coach/motivational speaker. She is finding that word has gotten out about her job loss so she is a bit of a pariah. Because the hotel they were both staying at isn’t the brightest when it comes to the construction work being done on it, an electrical fire starts in the middle of the night. Then something happens you’d never imagine. No, not that they both go to a friend’s home who spouts platitudes while a hurricane approaches. No, no, no. She finds a working pay phone in 2014.

They then both go to Carter’s friend’s home. She used to be a Hollywood starlet, but when that dried up, she moved to Puerto Rico. She would be quite likable if they had dialed her back a little. She is so at peace, so I couldn’t care less about the hurricane, that you’d think she actually wants to die. It really is that bad. I can understand having been through many of them and understand that going into a complete panic is unnecessary, but it’s really like she’s totally oblivious to it. I’m sure you know where this leads.

That’s right! After the hurricane seems to reverse direction like it’s a car in a different gear, a faked computer screen that uses a local URL shows up. During the hurricane the new boss at Connor.com was trying to get ahold of her. He figured out that with her gone things were kind of thrown into turmoil. Not only was she good at what she was supposed to be doing, but there were things that she was doing that didn’t show up in any paperwork.

Of course they end up together. She is not only offered her position back at Connor.com, but a promotion to Vice President of Corporate Affairs since she really was doing more than her previous position. This is where I have a little problem with the story. I can understand that Carter would decide that he swung from the extreme of being only in one place all time to traveling all the time, but I’m not sure why she couldn’t find a way to strike a balance between the two. Instead, she goes back to Puerto Rico to catch him at the airport. However, I can kind of still get it because she did hold her previous position for 15 years. That’s a lot of time, and even if it doesn’t make complete sense, I can still buy her making that choice anyways.

This one is worth seeing.

Halloween Film Review: R.L. Stine’s Mostly Ghostly: Who Let The Ghosts Out? (2008, dir. Rich Correll)

Posted on October 21, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Wow, this one is much better than the sequel. Except for one issue that I will bring up when I get to it.

That’s Max Doyle (Sterling Beaumon) who is really into magic. And that’s Phears (Brian Stepanek) behind him who is considerably more of an actually scary character than he is in the sequel. In the sequel he is an absolute joke. Here he’s just like Nukie, but that’s getting ahead of myself to the problem with this movie. Max has moved into a house that once held a family that Phears murdered (although in the sequel we find out he only made them ghosts, but didn’t actually kill them). He pops out of the mailbox and goes into Max’s room. Max is practicing his magic when he says some words that catch Phears’ ears. We will find out that those words are part of a spell that can be used to send Phears away and not just some fancy magic sounding words as Max believes. Then we hear voices whispering from the vents. Phears refer to them as his children, and leaves the room.

After we get introduced to Max’s family, the two other important parts of the movie are shown to us. First, are the two kids above. They are ghosts of two kids that lived at the house, but were killed by Phears along with their family. We occasionally see the ghost of her mother, but she’s barely in the film. The second thing is where those voices are coming from. There’s an invisible hole in a wall in the basement. On the other side is where Phears comes from and where he has a bunch of spirits he is waiting to unleash on the world. Phears needs to find the ghost kids because there is a spell and a ring that could ruin his plans, which they may have knowledge of.

That’s the setup. The kid just wants to just do his magic show at school and his greatest dream is to have Ali Lohan’s character be his assistant. But the two ghost kids, the “tunnel” in his basement, and Phears are having none of that. Hell, Phears literally splits Max’s dog Buster in half, emerges from the dog’s body, then shows that he can strip the skin off of Max and make it hurt next time. The dog then does snap back together though. So, this establishes that Phears can travel inside animals. In fact, he refers to himself as “the animal traveler”. Now is where the real problem in the film comes out.

That’s not the little girl ghost. That’s Phears having taken on her form. He takes on her form, the little boy ghost, and Max in quick succession in front of his underlings before revealing his plan to travel amongst them. Then he turns into a humanized form of himself. By that I mean he turns into the actor without all his makeup on.

That’s the same actor who played Arwin from The Suite Life. Makes sense since the Mom is played by Kim Rhodes who was the Mom on The Suite Life. The problem is that they showed that he can take on the form of other people and not just a humanized form of himself. Once you know he can do that, then just like when you find out Nukie can turn into light and fly anywhere, you wonder why the hell he doesn’t use this incredibly useful ability. I mean, go and replace the Mom. She’s the character that Max trusts the most and the film even provides a scene where he could have done it. Or replace Ali Lohan’s character to stick close to Max. This movie even sets up a scene where knowing that he can shapeshift, we expect him to do something with that ability which makes sense, but he doesn’t.

You see that? That’s a scene near the end of the movie where Phears pops out of a mouse on a teacher while she is alone in a classroom. Makes sense to get her alone by disguising himself as a mouse. Then he freezes her. Makes sense so that she can’t tell anyone what she just saw. Then he takes on her form so he can easily move about the school without anyone noticing someone who doesn’t belong. Nope, he turns into the humanized form of himself. What? Why do all that setup and then not have him do that? It’s really the only material problem with this film.

The rest of the film is a mixture of comedy and scares as it builds to Max finally getting the full spell and ring to send Phears away…till the sequel.

The movie ends with a cockroach laughing sinisterly, then the movie Joe’s Apartment (1996) begins.

If you can get past Phears not using that incredibly useful ability for anything useful, then this is perfectly fine. It’s much better than the sequel.

Horror Film Review: A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985, dir. Jack Sholder)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

You’ll have to forgive me, but I watched A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) back on September 6th, 2008. So it’s been awhile. Luckily, this film doesn’t really ask you to know anything about the original. Also on the plus side, I’ve reviewed Rock: It’s Your Decision (1982) and Law Enforcement Guide To Satanic Cults (1994) this year, so imaginary subtext is still fresh in my mind.

The movie opens up with Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) riding the bus. Just in case we didn’t notice that Robert Englund is driving the bus, the movie makes sure we know right away that something isn’t right. They have Jesse looking like he doesn’t think very highly of himself in real life. Of course Freddy Kruger is driving the bus and a nightmare sequence ensues. Then we cut to Jesse waking up sweating. Heat plays a major role in this film because of course it does since Freddy was burned.

Unfortunately, Jesse does go downstairs to find that Fu Man Chews cereal is very real. That’s scary! This movie is cerebral. I remember the original also playing with what was real and imagined, but here it’s a little different. The things here are mostly real in that something really is happening in Jesse and it does have him take actions in the real world against his will. Freddy isn’t something that gets you in your dreams. In this sequel, Freddy is inside Jesse slowly but surely taking hold of him. Doesn’t really fit with the first one, but who cares. It’s much better than just getting a retread of the original.

Pretty quickly, Jesse and his girlfriend Lisa (Kim Myers) find a diary written by the girl from the first film. They find it because it turns out Jesse’s family has recently moved into the house from the first movie, unbeknownst to anyone but the dad. One of the things people might latch onto in the hopes of reading gay subtext into this movie here is the “No (out of town) Chicks” sign on his door. Yes, because kids in high school are totally not so juvenile to have something like that on their door. And just in case we don’t remember that kids at that age are that juvenile. When Jesse and his friend are forced to do pushups by their coach on the field because they were fighting, they of course assume the coach must be “queer” because they know he frequents an S&M club.

While we are here. I believe the cleaning the room scene pictured above means he’s gay about as much as I believe the girls from Teen Witch (1989) went home and made out with each other after the I Like Boys musical number.

As stupid as they are, these kind of scenes are all over 1980s movies. Remember this one from Risky Business (1983)?

Hell, going back to Teen Witch again. The infamous Top That! rap is just as goofy.

The first time we really see Freddy truly taking hold is when Jesse appears to leave his house in the middle of the night. He goes to the S&M club where his coach goes. It takes no time at all for the coach to spot him and punish him by making him run laps at the school gym. Of course they didn’t mention the coach was into S&M for anything. I can’t think of one off the top of my head, but movies from this period loved to throw in characters who were perceived sexual deviants, then punish or kill them in a manner similar to what turns them on. That’s what happens here to the coach. However, instead of Jesse waking up in his bed to find out the coach is dead the next day. He is actually brought home by the police, meaning it really happened. This obviously scares the crap out of Jesse.

And things only spin further and further out of control as Freddy manifests himself more and more in reality. This is another scene I’m sure is supposed to seal the deal on the gay subtext.

The gay is trying to get out of him so he flees being with his girlfriend to barge in on his friend. Of course he goes to his friend. This isn’t a big budget film we’re talking about here. The coach is dead, his parents think he’s on drugs, and Freddy just manifested himself while he was with Lisa. Who else is he going to go to but his friend? He’s the only other character of consequence left in the movie.

And this line that Jesse says shortly after coming into his friend’s room means a penis if you are in middle school. This is where the film does run into some issues for me. Up until now, the movie did a good job of showing Jesse slowing losing his mind as Freddy took further and further control, but now he literally appears to jump into reality as if Jesse were an incubator. It eventually kind of explains it, but I wish they could have smoothed this out a bit more. Especially seeing how good of a job I think Mark Patton did up till now with the character of Jesse.

After Freddy runs wild at a party, Lisa goes to where Freddy used to work. There was a scene earlier where Lisa took Jesse there.

This is where Lisa tries to get Jesse to fight Freddy’s control over him. In fact, we can hear Jesse sometimes and it’s clear that Freddy hasn’t destroyed Jesse quite yet. Or you can read this as reparative therapy with Lisa trying to call Jesse back to being straight. Even going so far as to kiss him because that’s never used in films to draw characters back from the dark side in a movie.

Then we get the ending of Ghostbusters (1984) in that Jesse emerges from the charred outer skin of Freddy. And then that little bit at the end of the movie just in case we weren’t sure that they were going to make more of these movies.

And I’m sure you can read this the way you can the ending of Taxi Driver (1976) in that Jesse has only resolved this episode, but hasn’t dealt with the real issue. And I’m just coming up with these things off the top of my head without actually referring to anyone else’s posts.

As a follow up to the original, I like it. They tried to do something different that still drew from the source material. I really did like Mark Patton’s performance in this.

As a horror movie in general. It’s not really scary in the traditional sense. You don’t perceive something or someplace as now being dangerous and a source of fear like a regular horror movie does. In that sense, it’s actually even scarier because Jesse does nothing, but is simply taken over just because. Near the end of last year my brain turned on me and I wound up in the emergency room. They didn’t know what was wrong with me and sent me home. It took around five days or so to come out of it. While I was in it, among other things, I honestly believed I was trapped in some sort of Matrix-like prison that just looked like reality. I kept looking for anything that could be a flaw in what my brain kept telling me wasn’t real. It’s an absolutely terrifying thing.

As for the supposed gay subtext in the movie. It’s just not there. You can add up all the scenes you want and apply any meanings you want to them, but it doesn’t means it’s there. I’m transgender and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) meant something to me as a kid. It doesn’t mean that the scenes where Robert Patrick is seen having transformed into a woman didn’t strike a note in me because they did. But it doesn’t mean that there is transgender subtext in it or anything that happens to have shapeshifting between genders. So please don’t take what I said as trying to take away something that might be special to you. I have no desire to do that. It’s just that you are reading your own meaning into it, not one that was hidden away and discovered by you.

Now I need to get back to something less serious. I’m in the middle of the first Mostly Ghostly movie and it’s not as stupid so far, but pretty close.

Hallmark Review: Jesse Stone: Lost In Paradise (2015, dir. Robert Harmon)

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it’s been 5 years since I last watched a Jesse Stone movie. That was Jesse Stone: No Remorse (2010). I remember that one being quite awful. This one isn’t. I hope this is a sign that Hallmark is pivoting when it comes to the material in their films. Yes, it’s just an average detective story, but it looks, feels, and uses much more adult material. Thank goodness! At times I feel like I’m watching Hallmark: The Heart Of Infantile Adults network. Yes, Jesse bitches a little bit about cellphones in this, but I buy that as part of his character, not as something put in to pander to people who don’t like cellphones. In fact, he really doesn’t complain about cellphones in general, but about texting.

The first question on your mind is probably whether you can jump into the series with this film. Yes, but you will feel like you have been dropped into a moving current. You really won’t be lost, but it seems to very much pick up where it left off. In this case, Jesse Stone (Tom Selleck) is working in Paradise, Massachusetts. The movie revolves around an unsolved killing that has been attributed to a man known as the Boston Ripper, played by Luke Perry. But it’s still an open case cause they really can’t quite pin it on him even though they have put him behind bars for three similar murders. Stone is curious to figure it out.

There’s also this subplot involving this girl that Stone finds on the street and helps out. It might have ties to earlier material, but the only tie to the material in this movie I noticed is that helping her is like preventing a possible future victim of someone like the Boston Ripper.

There’s honestly not much else to say. The case is somewhat interesting, but the movie really isn’t about the case in particular. It’s like the title suggests, Jesse Stone is lost in the metaphorical paradise and lives in the literal town of Paradise. It’s about a transitory period in his life. Heck, they even put up this title card at the start just in case you don’t pick up on that.