As soon as Elliott Gould showed up, I knew he was going to die.
Now, of course, I should clarify that I didn’t think that Elliott Gould the actor was going to die. Instead, I thought that the character he was playing — Leonard Wellesley — was going to die. Leonard, after all, is a wealthy man who has no family left and who is in bad health. He keeps trying to give money to his caregiver, Katie (Camila Mendes). Katie consistently refuses the money, even though she could really use it. She and her husband, Adam (Jessie T. Usher), are drowning in debt. Even after Leonard hires Adam to work as his gardener, they’re still struggling to make ends meet. Still, Katie doesn’t want to take Leonard’s money because Katie doesn’t want to take advantage of him.
For the plot to move forwards, it’s necessary for Leonard to die, though not before changing his will to leave everything to Katie. Normally, when this happens in a movie, it turns out that the caregiver actually manipulated her employer into changing the will before murdering him but, in this case, Katie is totally innocent. It’s actually kind of a nice twist. As played by Camila Medes, Katie is someone who sincerely is trying to do the right thing, even if it means her life is occasionally difficult. As played by Elliott Gould, Leonard may be a bit eccentric but he’s still just sincerely trying to thank the person who made his final days bearable.
(Admittedly, another reason why I knew Leonard was going to die was because, whenever a veteran actor like Elliott Gould shows up in a movie like this, he’s usually going to end up playing someone who dies under mysterious circumstances. Call it the Rule of Eric Roberts.)
Moving into Leonard’s house, Katie and Adam are surprised to discover a large trunk of cash. While Katie wonders why exactly Leonard would have a huge trunk of money hidden away in his house, Adam is more concerned with what they can do with that money. While Katie tries to resist the urge to get greedy, Adam starts obsessing on the money. What else does Leonard have hidden around the house?
Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Hayden (Cam Gigandet) watches the house and plots his next move….
Dangerous Lies is a thriller that was released on Netflix back in April. This is probably one of those low-budget movies that would have been overlooked if not for the fact that everyone was pretty much locked inside their house when it was released. Watching Dangerous Lies provided a nice escape from the bad news of the pandemic. Speaking for myself, it was kind of fun to watch Katie and Adam explore their new home. After being stuck inside of mine for a month, the idea that I could suddenly inherit a mansion provided a nice bit of wish-fulfillment.
As for the film itself, it was a diverting thriller. Elliott Gould brought some unexpected depth to the role of Leonard and Camila Mendes and Jessie T. Usher were believable as the couple at the center of the story. They had a believable chemistry and Usher did a good job of portraying Adam’s losing struggle with his own greed. This is the type of simple but entertaining film that you watch if you have a few hours to kill in the afternoon and there’s nothing wrong with that.
It’s become a bit of a cliché that all Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas movies take place in a small town and feature someone returning to visit relatives for the holidays. Christmas Lost and Found, however, breaks with tradition. While it is true that film begins with Whitney Kennison (Tiya Sircar) returning to her former hometown so she can spend the Christmas with her grandmother (Diane Ladd), the hometown in this case is Chicago.
(Of course, in all fairness, I guess we should keep in mind that Whitney left Chicago for New York City, where she found employment as an event planner. And, from what I’ve seen, it does appear that a lot of people in New York consider almost every other city in America to be a small town by comparison. That being said, I live in Dallas and I spend my holidays in Fort Worth so, to me, both New York and Chicago are huge metropolises.
Anyway, where was I?)
Whitney is an extremely successful in event planner in New York City but her success has come at a cost Whitney is so driven to succeed and such a workaholic that she’s running the risk of forgetting about the things that make life worthwhile, things like love and family.
Fortunately, Grandma’s here with her box of ornaments!
The ornaments are several years old, each one representing a different Christmas that Whitney spent with her grandmother. (For instance, a snow flake ornament represents that Christmas when they got snowed in.) Grandma gives Whitney the box of ornaments and tells her to keep them safe until it’s time to decorate the tree. However, the very next morning, Whitney is cleaning the house and the ornaments accidentally get thrown out!
Terrified that she’s lost the ornaments and ruined Christmas foever, Whitney puts off telling Grandma what happened. However, then the notes start to show up, rhyming riddles that inform Whitney that she’s going to have to go on a scavenger hunt across Chicago to get the ornaments back. Now, this may sound like the set up for a holiday-themed horror movie but have no fear! The first riddle says that it might sound like a stunt but promises that it will be fun.
Working with the neighbor, Brian (Edward Ruttle), Whitney goes searching for both the ornaments and, in a larger sense, Christmas itself. With each ornament that she finds, she’s reminded of yet another Christmas. The unseen letter writer continues to give Whitney tasks, making her write a letter to Santa Claus at one point. While Whitney searches for the ornaments, she also tries to figure out the identity of the letter writer. And, of course, she also has to finish designing a department store display window because …. well, why not?
How you react to this movie will probably depend on how much tolerance you have for Lifetime holiday movies in general. This is an unabashedly sentimental film and it takes place in a world that’s almost devoid of cynicism. You have to be willing to accept that someone was somehow able to put together an extremely elaborate scavenger hunt and have it play out without a hitch. Is the film implausible? Kinda. And if that matters to you, you’re probably not into Lifetime Christmas movies.
As for me, I always get sentimental around this time of year so I enjoyed Christmas Lost and Found. Edward Ruttle was likable as the neighbor and he and Tiya Sircar had enough chemistry to make them pleasant to watch on screen. And, of course, you’ve got the great Diane Ladd playing Whitney’s grandmother. It’s hard to think of anyone who could have done a better job with the role.
If you’re not naturally inclined to like these type of movies, Christmas Lost and Found probably won’t convert you. But if you enjoy sentimental holiday entertainment, Christmas Lost and Found delivers exactly what it promises.
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.
Sorry if I forget some things, but last night after watching this movie I lost cellphone reception and thus went into a severe panic attack. Just kidding, I just said that to make the point that the losing cellphone reception thing to show how shallow and disconnected someone is in a movie is a cliche that is getting really really old. Also, I’ve been quite surprised. I can drive many miles out into the middle of nowhere and still get near perfect LTE where I live. In fact, I only know of two places where I lose cellphone reception. A room that is basically a bunker and one of my favorite parks that is in a canyon. At least this movie didn’t have people in wide flat open spaces losing GPS signals because the writers don’t know how that works.
With a title like Bridal Wave you might imagine that there must be some surfing going on here. That maybe someone is going to end up in a wedding dress on a surfboard. No such luck. This movie opens up at plastic surgeon’s office. We meet Dr. Phillip Hamilton (David Haydn-Jones) and his assistant Georgie Dwyer (Arielle Kebbel). Wait…that means!
Now we meet a girl who for her 21st birthday has just received a nose job. I’ll have to take this movie’s word at that because I look at this girl and think she has had some work done on her eyes instead.
As I’m sure you’ve guessed already, Georgie and Phillip are closer than just colleagues and are going to be married. Now we meet the parents. It’s not worth your time introducing them. All you need to know is that all the scenes with the parents make you think this is the first time either of them have met the other’s parents. And given a conversation at the end of this movie, I think that was done on purpose. That you are supposed to read it that way. This is a movie that has some uneven writing. This bit about the parents and two conversations at the end of the movie make perfect sense and are based in reality. However, the stuff in between falls back on stupid stereotypes yet again.
Of course that means we need to introduce the right guy. His name is Luke Griggs (Andrew W. Walker). How do we know he’s the right guy? Because we see him mention that he doesn’t own a cellphone anymore. While we are talking about cellphones. Kudos to this movie for not screwing up the fake video chat scenes the way A Ring By Spring did by accidentally leaving the the bit at the top of the screen that shows what we are seeing is a pre-recorded video.
The setup is that Phillip and Georgie have come to an island that has a hotel which is a popular place to have weddings. In other words, they see wave after wave of brides come through their place. Hence the title Bridal Wave. Griggs is an architect who lives right next door to the hotel and is a little teed off about it because of the loss of the natural beauty of the island. However, up until the end of the movie he kind of comes across like an angry old man waving his cane at the modern world. My favorite part of this is when to explain his point about how imperfections in a person are what make them perfect, he compares them to an outcropping of rocks. Yes, because human beings are exactly like inanimate objects.
This part happens during Luke and Georgie’s nature excursion. Phillip was called away to perform some surgeries because it was too hard to have both him and Luke in the movie at the same time and have Georgie still pick Luke. During this scene is when we get the ridiculous cellphone reception thing. We also get Luke being confused as to who might want to get their ears pinned back. I totally can’t think of anyone who might want that procedure done.
Everything else is standard stuff except for two conversations at the end of the movie. The first is when Georgie and Phillip finally sit down and talk about that they probably shouldn’t get married. The reasons they bring up make absolute perfect sense and don’t rely on BS. They do have feelings for each other and they work together so much and so well that marriage just seemed like the next logical thing for them. That’s why they really hadn’t met each other’s parents because they are so busy all the time that they kind of wind up in their own world. Makes sense!
The second conversation is when Luke sits down with the owner of the hotel. Luke basically says the hotel and the marriages don’t bother him, but what bothers him is that the design of the place robs people coming there of the beauty they should be getting by coming to this island. He wants to sell off his place next door, tear it down, and restore it to the way it looked before as a natural grotto to hold weddings in. Again, makes perfect sense!
Why couldn’t the whole movie be like that? Although just to pander to people who want one last laugh at Phillip because he must be superficial and shallow since he does plastic surgery.
After they cut to one year later to show Georgie and Luke getting married in the grotto, we see that Phillip is with a girl he gave a nose job.
This one is far far better than A Country Wedding, but it still uses too much stereotype BS. You can do better in general, and even from Hallmark.
The other day I went hiking at one of my favorite regional parks in the Bay Area. It’s basically a straight path through a canyon. A ways in you can turn left and start to go up to the top of the canyon. Although my leg was hurting, I decided I hadn’t been up there in awhile, so I did it. When I reached the end of the path and looked down at the canyon my iPhone starting playing Captain & Tennille singing Love Will Keep Us Together in Spanish. Had no idea I had that in Spanish.
This is one of those Love Will Keep Us Together Hallmark movies. Just The Way You Are is the worst of these I have seen. Lead With Your Heart is the best. Love, Again is very much on the Lead With Your Heart end of the spectrum.
The movie opens up with our couple on the beach with their daughter. They are Chloe (Teri Polo), David (Paul Johansson), and their daughter Amanda (Chloe Babcook). The look all nice and happy. Then cut to 15 years later, and things don’t look so good anymore.
The separate sinks and the distance between them represent the distance in their marriage. Not so subtle. But not as blunt as what happens next. The two of them go downstairs, get into their cars, and both try to pull out at the same time nearly hitting each other. That’s where this movie’s biggest issue is. Nothing is subtle about the problems with the marriage. It’s all blunt force trauma to the head stuff to make sure you know they are in trouble. However, they never really give a reason why. Yes, their daughter no longer lives at home, but that’s all. The marriage just seems to have gone stale like bread.
In Lead With Your Heart, their children were leaving home, a new job opportunity opened up for the wife, and the movie was about adapting their marriage to new circumstances. Here, it’s more a journey of rediscovery. They never really adapt, just remember. Hence the title.
After talking about divorce a little, their daughter comes home much to their surprise. But she isn’t alone. She has a fiancee in tow. Chloe and David don’t want to rain on her parade so they decide to pretend they are okay.
It’s now off to Camden, Maine where the wedding is going to happen. The soon to be married kids and another couple’s stories run parallel to the main characters. Their part of the story isn’t that important. The focus is on Chloe and David. There’s more of the obvious stuff you would expect from a couple who is only pretending to be happy. But there are also moments here and there where they get a glimpse of reality. That being they still have strong feelings for each other.
The centerpiece of this whole movie is a bridge. Chloe is afraid of heights. While the family is out hiking they reach it and Chloe just can’t cross it even with encouragement from David. He turns back to stay with her. She feels sorry that things like this prevent her from stuff like skiing with him. He tells her that’s simply not true. That they have had great trips with each other. Then they go back to the resort together.
This is a bit of a turning point in the story. Things shift somewhat from them finding stupid signs that their marriage is in trouble to finding real signs that they simply have forgotten their feelings for each other.
An example of the stupid things comes very early in the film when they poor some wine for each other, their daughter, and the future son-in-law. The wine isn’t good. He says that ’89 must have been a bad year. Of course she responds that they were married that year.
An example of something that reminds them of their love is when they loosen up a bit and dance together. They also play limbo. They wind up sharing the bed that night.
Near the end of the movie Chloe grabs David and they return to the bridge. This time she summons up the courage to try and cross it. She doesn’t make it all the way, but she gets as far as she does because she let’s herself be more than she can be alone. She listens to David’s words and trusts that no matter what happens, he will be there for her. He then goes out and joins her.
As you can see, the bridge wasn’t very high at all. However, making this happen finally shifts their mindsets back to being greater than their individual selves.
It’s a nice symbolic touch that I thought worked well. It reminded me of the father counting in Love Under The Stars and the china in Bound By A Secret.
With the couple’s love reignited, the wedding goes ahead even though the rain chases it inside.
This was one of the best Hallmark movies I’ve seen so far. I just wish there was less of the brick to the head obvious they are in trouble stuff. I think they should have dialed that back. I believe it would have worked better.
There was one thing that had me confused. When they show up at the resort they run into a guy they once knew and a story about a missing necklace comes up. Later it seems like that same guy has the necklace or a similar one. I’m not sure if that was meant to indicate that there was an affair at one point or not. It wasn’t clear to me. However, it didn’t make any difference for me.
Also, cause I always seem to notice this stuff. They replace the tablets and docking station company names with a fictional one called Lintus.
Yay! I’ve cracked 100 of these Hallmark movies now and with this post I will have reviewed 96 of them. Oh, yeah! There’s more of them.
Healing Hands (2010) – When I read the plot summary for this I thought of the movie Powder (1995). That’s reaching back to my childhood there. Then I thought of the hilarious Mad TV sketch where the Terminator is sent back to protect Jesus. In particular, when Jesus keeps resurrecting Judas because he is supposed to betray him.
Sadly, that sketch is better made and has more interesting things to say then this movie. It really is amazing the difference in quality between Hallmark movies. Same thing can be said about late night cable movies. As the title suggests, this movie is about someone who has “healing hands”. It’s about a guy named Buddy (Eddie Cibrian). Buddy works as a janitor. One day Buddy is on a roof with his friend. Buddy’s friend hurts his finger, but is stubborn about putting a bandaid on it. Buddy finally convinces him to, but then Buddy falls off the roof.
Now Buddy is in the hospital and apparently his temperature is 105, which a nurse says is the highest a body can survive. While that doesn’t sound right to me, what happens next certainly isn’t right. If this were ER they would probably try inducing hypothermia. In Healing Hands, Buddy is put in water. Not ice, but water. I’m sure it’s meant to remind us of baptism, but it looks like they’re not even trying to save Buddy. Luckily, Buddy recovers anyways, but not without a really odd musical choice first. During the fever, we get a flashback, but at this point we really have only seen Buddy and his now fiancee, since Buddy did propose, for only a few minutes. So it only has like two scenes to show because that’s all of the movie so far. During this part, it plays what sounds like Quiet Storm jazz. It’s a strange choice of music to play.
Well, now Buddy has “healing hands”. It takes him a little bit of time to figure it out, but after he heals this…
with just his touch, Buddy knows something is up. We can also see that it is taking a lot out of Buddy doing it. I usually don’t care, but I don’t really want to spoil the surprise. I’ll just say that Buddy is adopted and that comes in to play. Of course, the news and the townfolk eventually catch on to Buddy and his miracle hands. It’s about Buddy trying to help, while the world either wants to treat Buddy as a freak of nature or just a tool, rather than a person. That’s giving it a lot of credit.
This whole movie just feels like amateur hour in every way. I don’t know of any other way to describe it. It’s like a high school production of a play called Healing Hands that a student wrote. Something like Highlander or Heroes did more with this kind of material. The movie barely does anything with it, which is a shame cause it’s not a concept doomed from the start. Too bad.
Oh, and notice the number of times I called him by his name? The movie does it even more. It kind of sucks the seriousness out of the whole thing when people keep saying Buddy over and over again.
Freshman Father (2010) – Ah, college. Six yeas of education at a junior college, then three years of suicidal inducing hoop jumping at Cal. But at least I passed first semester calculus on my first attempt. Cause apparently, when you go to Harvard at 18, married, and with a baby, the hardest thing will be passing first semester calculus. No joke, this movie inspired by John Wand, a guy who actually did go to Harvard with a wife and baby in tow, makes almost the entire movie about him passing first semester calculus. It’s kind of a disgrace to John Wand. Especially when they were even to lazy to copy some actual Calculus problems from a text book, but instead we get this.
You see part d! It says find and simply f(0) when f(x) = (x+1)(2x+1)(3x+1)(4x+1)(5x+1). In other words 1*1*1*1*1 = 1. Also, c which says here’s a function, don’t take the derivative of it, but just write it again. This after a question that spells out exactly what the subscript on the function means. And look at the rest of that test. I see no summations anywhere. Those are just derivatives. The test layout doesn’t makes sense. None of it makes sense. If they couldn’t even get that right, then wow!
Before we lay more stuff to bare, let me tell you the setup. It begins at senior prom where we meet John Patton (Drew Seeley) and the future Kathy Patton (Britt Irvin). Notice they didn’t use John Wand’s actual name nor do they say it’s based on, but only inspired by a true story. Of course she gets pregnant and they get married. After her mom tells her the key to marriage is a “happy boss”, it’s off to Harvard on a full scholarship to the nicest apartment ever for a student on scholarship, married, with a kid, going to a very expensive school.
Yeah, in what world does this movie take place? In a world where this is Calculus 101. On the first day if I’m not mistaken.
I love when she brings home a fan and he says they can’t afford it. Sure, because it’s the fan that doesn’t make financial sense here. None of this would matter if the whole film wasn’t about this kid overcoming the very things that are totally misrepresented. And it never gets better. The only thing I can say in it’s defense is that it does get across that the kid cares about his child. However, I would bet John Wand has a few choice words for how they present his ex-wife. She barely exists except to complain about how the baby doesn’t seem to like her, confess she got herself pregnant, then she just abandons the baby with him. You thought they would explain how she got herself pregnant? Of course not! That would possibly make John Patton seem like an idiot for not wearing a condom. And no, I don’t think she poked holes in a condom she gave to him like in the movie Your Sister’s Sister (2011).
Oh, and this is another one of those Hallmark movies that censors itself. The two of them are at a theater when she starts having contractions. She curses and the movie bleeps it. This is one of several Hallmark movies that censor words as innocent as “butt”. Sometimes inconsistently like in The Last Cowboy. If they can’t air it that way, then why is it shot that way? There must be something to the process of making these movies I’m not aware of or there is that much of a disconnect between the producers and the network.
He keeps trying to do the herculean task of passing first semester calculus, which seems like it takes him several semesters. The timeline in this movie isn’t exactly clear. It must go more than one semester though because we see he celebrates Halloween and appears to be at a Christmas party with his calculus professor. Also, I believe she has the baby during the holiday break.
Yeah, we meet two of his professors and they are remarkably kind to him. That part isn’t misrepresented. I did encounter several professors who were very nice and personable people when I went Cal. I can even say that’s it’s not unheard of for a professor to give you a passing grade when you should fail because it isn’t important that you actually passed. That happened to me. Granted there were health circumstances involved, but you get the point.
Which reminds me, my upper division computer science courses still had way more students in them then his first semester calculus class. The only time I saw classes that small were labs and discussion sections. Those two things are also oddly missing from this movie. It makes it seem like it’s just you, the professor, and the material. I doubt things were that different 7 years before I went to a four year college. This movie takes place in 2000.
There’s also this ridiculous back and forth with the dean as if she is there anytime you need to talk to her. Granted he is a rather unique student that she would be aware of, but it comes across as pretty ridiculous. Especially when he says to her that he thinks she got her PhD in 5 years, but she corrects him and says 6. Really? 6 years? Seriously? That’s pretty quick to get a PhD in physics. A simple Google search says 8.2 years. I mean it takes 4 just to get a bachelors, how is possible to get two degrees higher with only two more years? Makes no sense.
None of this makes any sense. It guts, flattens, and trivializes what this guy did in real life. At least they didn’t show some footage of the real John Wand at the end like The Blind Side (2009) did just to make sure we knew how much they screwed up. Don’t put yourself through this.
Portrait Of Love (2015) – And don’t put yourself through this either. Although this is just boring rather than almost offensive. This is just absolutely paint by numbers Hallmark. Just like the movie Chance At Romance is. A woman who is a successful fashion photographer is offered a job in Paris. Take a minute and see if you can guess what happens next?
Did you think she goes back to the small town she came from because of a flimsy excuse by the writers so she can reconnect with an old flame? Of course you’re right. I really wonder how many of these Hallmark movies are the exact same movie.
Oh, and how small of a town?
So small it’s just called Bank. How hard is it to just come up with a fake name for things like this? I’ve seen them do it in other Hallmark movies. In Second Chances they needed an author for a book so they took one of the screenwriter’s names that worked with the producer Larry Levinson and just dropped the ‘c’ in Rachel to get Rahel Stuhler.
See! It’s not that difficult.
When she arrives it turns out there is an art contest going on and all you need to know is that he has a daughter who helps to push them back together. You know how it plays out. There is a little bit of nice genuine emotion near the end that the film does deserve credit for. However, the rest feels like it was made by zombies with their aspiring acting zombie friends. There’s a continuity error at one point and this horrible go to out of focus transition that is used at least twice.
And it’s not short either. It hurts the eyes. Also, the same director who did this uninspired film did the uninspired Just The Way You Are. I’m almost 100% positive that he even uses this exact same shot in that movie as he does in this movie.
I’m beginning to feel for the directors of these movies. They must be handed some awful scripts, shoestring budgets, and very little time in order to make these movies. I refuse to believe that these same directors would make these kind of stupid mistakes or take such generic stuff if they had any choice in the matter.
Won’t kill ya, but it may put you to sleep.
A Kiss At Midnight (2008) – Thank goodness I watched this film for this batch of Hallmark movies cause it’s actually enjoyable. No, not because it’s script is any less generic. No, not because they get computer screens correct. It’s because of the actors young, middle aged, and old. The kids do a good job. Faith Ford is funny. Hal Linden of Barney Miller is in this and is a welcome presence. Even if he does make a sexist joke that is meant to be sexist, but is oddly out of place. But most importantly, it has the Got Milk? guy.
Just like the games Truxton and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are running jokes on Classic Game Room and AVGN respectively, I take every opportunity to reference Tammy And The T-Rex, in which he gets killed in by a T-Rex with Paul Walker’s brain in it.
But back to this movie. The plot is that the boy and girl run competing dating websites. The girl, played by Faith Ford, signs up on the guy’s site to bring back information that his computer dating site doesn’t work. Of course, the guy has two little girls who get involved to ultimately bring them together. Also, Faith Ford’s mom and Hal Linden get married as a little subplot. It’s all just well acted and pleasant enough to be an enjoyable, all be it forgettable, hour and a half or so. I think that’s all anyone asks of a Hallmark movie. It’s just remarkable how illusive that can be at times.
This one did have computer screen screw ups or at least stupid attempts to make generic versions of Google.
Clearly, GMail is dead and we should all be using Toogle Mail. Also, notice that it looks like you are seeing a screenshot of a browser being looked at within a browser.
Of course Toogle is also a search engine.
The religion listed in this dating profile is “Spiritual”. They didn’t have a problem showing a dating profile saying a person was a Christian earlier, but then there are two of them listed as “Spiritual”. I’m guessing those people are Satanists and don’t want to scare away potential sacrifices. At least that seems to have been the logic that went into the video Katy Perry, the Super Bowl and Satan based on the quote in it’s description.
Out of the four here. This is the one to go with. It’s a good time.
Sorry, but there’s going to be a few of these in a row because I have a backlog of Hallmark movies on my DVR that really need to be cleared out. In other words, prepare for death by a thousand greeting cards.
Three Weeks, Three Kids (2011) – Anyone my age remembers Anna Chlumsky from My Girl (1991). It’s nice to see her as an adult. This movie introduces us to Chlumsky’s character Jennifer who we are supposed to believe is a wee bit irresponsible, or at least hasn’t really grown up. Well, no fear because her sister is going to go on vacation and needs a babysitter quickly for her three kids. Of course the experience is going to give her a kick in the butt. It also gets her off the boyfriend that isn’t right for her and moves her onto the one that is. Oh, lord! This is a Hallmark movie. I know there was incest in For Better Or For Worse, but I didn’t intend that pun. Well, the movie isn’t all about her. Her sister just can’t relax on the vacation and the movie is about getting her to calm down and enjoy her life and marriage more too. There is a little corny twist at the end, but I’ll leave that for those who want to see this. The movie is decent.
Your Love Never Fails (2011) – However, I can’t say they same for this one. This is just propaganda. Honestly, the pastor in this says almost word for word a speech given in a very blatant piece of propaganda called Every Young Woman’s Battle. When you boil off the attempt to couch it, the movie is about a woman who has a successful job in the city, but is dragged back to rural Texas by her husband and is legally coerced into spending time with him. The pastor gives a speech that says that no relationship is perfect, but that’s human nature. Just let God into your heart and that will fix the issue. Yeah, in other words, once you’re married, if the relationship isn’t working, then that just means you’re not a good Christian. He even talks to her and says she clearly still has feelings for him because she is choosing to stay even though we know she is required to stay because the court said so. There is no reason to watch this. It’s no wonder that Hallmark aired this last month under the title of A Valentine’s Date rather than the original title that is still displayed onscreen. If I want propaganda of this sort then I will watch Deception Of A Generation thank you very much. At least that’s hilarious rather than uncomfortable. They say Smurfs are homosexual zombies in that video.
Kiss At Pine Lake (2012) – This one is much better. The only issue I picked up is a minor one. Mia Kirshner has put on a little weight. It’s only noticeable because she used to be particularly petite. This works to her advantage because it helps to make her character more believable as having aged from the younger version of herself in the movie. Also, the girl who plays her younger self bears a resemble to Kirshner. Barry Watson on the other hand doesn’t seem to change. I swear, he looks the same as he did in the first episode of 7th Heaven. It also doesn’t help that we are familiar with the way he looked on that show. On top of that, the guy who plays him as a kid doesn’t look like him at all. Luckily, the flashback scenes are short and there are very few of them so it doesn’t really harm the movie at all. As for the story, it’s about a boy and girl who liked each other at summer camp as kids, but never followed through. Their lives bring them back around to each other at the same camp many years later, but this time things work. Nice and simple. Of the four here, this is the one to watch.
Real Murders: An Aurora Teagarden Mystery (2015) – TV Movies should not have complex plots. Commercials ruin them. I wish I could describe the plot to you, but I quickly lost track of the investigation. Didn’t help that it seems to move at a breakneck pace. It actually starts off feeling like it’s going to parody these types of murder mysteries. The murder is committed, but even the person being killed doesn’t seem to care. Then the characters act in humorous ways once the murder is discovered. Teagarden (Candace Cameron Bure) dives in and moves very fast. She also talks about historical murders like you’re talking to Quentin Tarantino about movies. Quick and with a great deal of knowledge. If you are able to follow the plot better than I did, maybe catch it without commercials, then you will probably enjoy it more. Still, I just can’t recommend this one at this point. I wonder if the other Aurora Teagarden movie is better.
Through the Shattered Lens 