Food or Drink-based

A Very Vermont Christmas

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Hoppy Christmas!

As is often the case when a Hallmark has no one in the cast I am a big fan of, and the plot seems the usual standard fare, I did not hold out much hope for this one. But I sucked it up and devoted 2 hours to it last night. Although it did not not exceed my expectations, it had a few aspects that rescued it from utter mediocrity. First, I liked the craft beer angle. Wine has been overdone (in the movies) as has confections. They leaned into the process pretty well, and it added some interest.  Second, the main antagonist provided some tension and suspense. He was a curious and layered character. Ultimately he was a bad guy who behaved atrociously, but who was, at times, rather sad and pitiable. It also managed to avoid some bad behaviors that plague Hallmark couples. Specifically, conducting the romance under a cloud of lies and obfuscation. Of course, one of them is accused of lying, but it he wasn’t. Lies and romance are hard to separate in any fiction, not just Hallmark.

Katie Leclerc plays Joy, a former champion skier, who is trying to keep her family’s small craft brewery and bar from being absorbed by the corporate meanies trying to buy them out. Her main competitor, Frosty’s, I think, is owned by her former ex-boyfriend. He is all about the bottom line and only sells mass market national brands. So a clear definition between Good and Evil according to Hallmark. The ex seems to be working against Joy constantly while trying to get back together with her. It’s confusing. Our Hero, Zac, is a lover and connoisseur of craft beers but is a representative of one of these national brands and is there in Vermont on some kind of business related to Frosty’s. He is also meeting his formerly estranged father there later to cement their new found bond by going skiing. Zac is a terrible skier and he gets Joy to give him lessons. So between the Craft Beer and the skiing, the romance happens. Also a contest happens for the best craft beer, the winner of which will receive a national distribution deal from Zac’s beer company.  When Joy’s recipe for the beer she is entering in the contest is stolen, she blows up her romance with Zac by accusing him of the espionage, completely forgetting that she left her weasel of an ex and long-time adversary who has a history of bad behavior alone with the recipe. Needless, and I do mean needless, to say, Joy prevails with Zac’s help, and skip skip skip, her brewery/pub is saved and Zac decides to stay in Vermont.

I like Katie LeClerc all right. She gets the job done and looks younger than her years. And, bonus, her forehead wrinkles when called for.  John Forrest,  who played her ex-boyfriend really brought the creep factor, which was compounded by the fact that he was supposed to be her same age, but looked a lot older than even the 6 years that separate the two actors. Funnily enough, Ryan McPartlin, who looked very age appropriate for Katie, is actually 5 years older than John Forrest. Somehow, it all worked. This is one of those Hallmarks which telegraphs everything that happens well in advance but that chugs along to the end without anything to really love or hate.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Two Scoops of Italy

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Italy and Ice Cream. What Could Go Wrong?

We meet Danielle, our heroine, in Chef’s garb, constructing some fussy, fiddly, fancy Jenga towers of multicolored food that personally, I would be hesitant to eat, although they photograph well. Her restaurant, which is an expensive “special occasion only” type of place has temporarily closed its doors due to lack of customers. She is trying to construct a new menu in order to retain the investment of her rich friend, whose Dad is urging him to stop putting money into Danielle’s restaurant and invest in something safer. But Richie Rich is going to give her one last chance. She has a month to convince him that she can make a success out of her restaurant. Yes, the dreaded Hallmark Deadline. When she gets home to her sister, she flops down on the couch and scarfs down a take out pizza with gusto and decides she must go to Inspirational Italy to get inspired.

**Spoiler Alert**

The first 5 minutes is a metaphor for the whole movie. To wit, to be a successful chef, she must learn she should cook what she loves to eat: down home Italian food in a setting in which people feel comfortable, at ease, and want to gather. Of course she doesn’t get this until the movie’s 1 hour and 45 minute mark including commercials and promos for Hallmark’s “Merry Movie Week” marathon. And first she has to meet a handsome gelato-obsessed cafe owner, travel around the Italian countryside with him on a Vespa, and hobnob with the local townspeople.

**End Spoiler**

Just to fill in some details. It is Smokin’ McDamn-inetti’s father’s cafe and the old stick-in the-mud refuses to let his son offer unusual exciting flavors of gelato to his clientele. Despite the fact that this is what his beloved dead wife did every summer, he won’t budge an inch and let his son honor his mother and indulge his adventurous side. He was just awful seemingly just for the sake of being awful because I really didn’t get it. I mean, what is the big deal? One of the townspeople is Danielle’s pretty landlord who becomes her wise friend and gives her a memoir of an American tourist who visited their small picturesque town many years ago.  Danielle’s activities start to mirror the activities of the lady in the book. One gets the feeling that this book will have something to do with Danielle’s epiphany and the happy ending! The pretty landlord is the one who gets the requisite secondary romance.

**Another Spoiler**

It turns out the lady who wrote the book is the mother of one of the cafe’s regulars, the archetypal wise old sage,  who gives Danielle some wise advice and sparks her breakthrough regarding the kind of food and atmosphere the new version of her restaurant should have. She wins over Richie Rich via a zoom call, but what about her relationship with the hot lovelorn Gelato-making frustrated world-traveller? One of them is going to have to move. Guess who?

Despite my  world and Hallmark-weary tone, I did like this one, as I’ve liked 2 of the other the #PassportToRomance offerings. (But I am ready to move on to the next theme.) The story was well constructed and Danielle and Giancarlo’s  romantic and career journeys made sense. The Italian small town and countryside settings were fine and the side characters were engaging, except for the awful father. Special mention to the kid who played the 9 year-old “I prefer Strawberry” food critic, Nico. I particularly liked Michele Rosiello who played Giancarlo. He really made me believe his sizzling attraction and love for Danielle despite getting little to no reciprocal help from his leading lady, Hunter King, in my view. God knows why, he was very attractive, and I’ve had no problem with the actress in the past. The character was likable, but I just didn’t feel the romance on her end.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

A Greek Recipe for Romance

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She Can Pronounce “Spanakopita” but not “Gyro?”

 This was a very well done movie! It combined what is often so good about the travelogue-type Hallmarks with a good story and likable characters. The travelogue part and local culture part was smoothly incorporated into the story. It didn’t take place on one of the touristy islands so we are spared the usual famous ruins. It had affecting family conflict, a fair amount of tension and suspense, and a believable love story. Best of all, the characters not only did not act like idiots, but were sensible, capable, and smart. The two leads were attractive with the added bonus of being fresh faces.

Abby is fired from her job in New York as an Assistant Manager of a prestigious hotel. Not sure why, since she is demonstrably very capable at it. She goes up in the elevator expecting to be deservedly promoted and comes down fired. Weird. She takes the opportunity to visit her mother who moved to Greece a few years prior. Her mother is a real estate agent with a pink office building which just doesn’t fly in Greece where everything is white and blue. She is also dating a handsome Greek man. Abby, being the good manager she is, soon puts a stop to the pink, revises her mom’s website, and her real estate business starts to take off. Thanks to her Mom’s Greek assistant, she also partners up with Theo, who is a wonderful Cordon Bleu trained chef who wants to open his own restaurant but knows nothing about business or customer service.  Helping Theo will give her resume a much needed dose of restaurant experience and Abby is nothing if not a go-getter.

Theo at first comes off like an entitled jerk but as the movie goes on his character softens and he comes across as rather sweet and shy.  The two work together to outfit the restaurant, work on a menu, tackle zoning problems, and get the place up to snuff so it will pass inspection. They butt heads over some things, but refreshingly, they compromise and keep moving forward. To keep things interesting, unbeknownst to Abby, Theo is a billionaire scion of a powerful shipping family who wants to make it on his own. He goes by his down-to-earth late mother’s name and it’s a big secret. The ongoing conflict is with his powerful father who, of course, like all powerful Hallmark fathers, wants his son to join the family firm. Definitely not follow his own different drummer by opening some rinky-dink cafe.

While we tour around Greece, make olive oil, and eat delicious Greek food there is a specter of vague menace and disaster lurking around the corner. His Dad has sent his minion (or maybe it’s his other son) Dmitri,  to get Theo back to Athens. Although not stated, there is a distinct threat of “Or Else”. Dmitri is as scary as he is attractive. We suspect that he might be responsible for the chain of difficulties Theo and Abby have to contend with business-wise. Whether that is actually the case is left up in the air. Also adding to the suspense is how the big secret of his true identity will go over with Abby. When she inevitably finds out, she does not freak out but is level headed about it. In fact, she uses  his renowned name on her resume to snag an even better job than the one she didn’t get a promotion to!

What I liked about this one was that the roadblocks to Abby and Theo’s relationship and the challenges they run into opening the restaurant are resolved with common sense, hard work, and effective communication. I thought “Well good for her!” or “Good for him!” more than once. That is more unusual than it should be in a Hallmark movie. The end is predictable, of course. But when Theo’s powerful father shows up at the restaurant and concedes his formerly intractable position on Theo’s future, I almost choked up a bit. Nice closure at the end as well.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Savoring Paris

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Cheese is Life. Apparently.

This is about a lady who flees America, the land of bad cheese,  to Paris, the land of good cheese. And through her love of cheese, she finds her true self and what she wants out of life. So if you love cheese and enjoy movies set in Paris, you will love this one. I like both, but then, I don’t think American cheese is so bad either. Bethany Joy Lenz stars in this and that is always a big plus. But boy, her character, Ella, really really likes cheese!

After a disappointment at work involving cheese, believe it or not, Ella decides she needs a vacation. She had created a dish for the chain restaurant she works for using a good quality specialty cheese, and they used a cheap substitute. Also, she didn’t get her well-deserved promotion, the higher-ups stole her ideas, and her mother is pressuring her to buy a condo and freeze her eggs. It is all too much. She remembers Paris with fondness where she visited with her father after college, picnicked on the Seine, and where her life was changed by eating Comté cheese. Off she goes. Her first stop is a Fromagerie (what else?) where she meets the owner, the very handsome but grumpy Serge. She also makes friends with her landlady, the wealthy and charming Clotilde, with whom she shares her gorgeous apartment. And she meets Gaston, a handsome food critic with a reputation for being a player, who is slender, elegant, flirty, and dresses very french, all in black with tight rolled up pants and no socks.  She immerses herself in Paris life and makes lots of friends because she is BJL and everyone likes her despite her atrocious French. She also gets to know Serge who sells her cheese on a daily basis. One thing leads to another and Ella decides to quit her job and extend her stay in Paris for 3 months. Her mother is very dismayed by this, because she misses her daughter and thinks she is living in a fantasy world. Also, $ $ $ $ $ ? She is not wrong. Serge is expanding his cheese store and needs help. Ella offers her assistance as an intern, unpaid, except for 5 pieces of cheese a day and Serge’s personal tutelage about the beloved dairy product.

Meanwhile, things are heating up romance-wise with both the slippery handsome Gaston and grumpy masculine Serge. We kind of know who she is going to end up with because Serge is challenging, rugged, and attractive and Gaston is a little too French. And when Ella finds out that he isn’t a big cheese fan, it kind of seals the deal. He even buys her a bottle of Chanel No. 5 because he thinks she smells too much like cheese! Rudest Present Ever! In the end, Ella gets the type of visa that allows her to work for money, Serge gives her a real job, she stays in Paris with all of her friends and the life she loves, and her mom will visit her from America. A lot. Ella and the cheesemonger have a promising future together because their love will age and mature like a fine Cheddar. I paraphrase a real line from the movie.

This one was just “pretty good” for me. It did not meet my expectations because I always hold Bethany Joy to a high bar, she is just so good. She didn’t quite hit it with this one. All of the cheese and cheese metaphors got a little much at times. But a big plus was Stanley Weber, who played Serge. For such a romantic-looking guy, he has a very unromantic name. But anyway, the two made a great couple. Sometimes BJL’s co-leads just can’t quite measure up to her charisma and talent. The set decoration, ambiance, and Paris photography (lots of montages) were marvelous, and Bethany’s wardrobe was fabulous as usual. She must have a special rider on her contracts with Hallmark so that she can pick out her own clothes and accessories because they always have lots of pizzazz. It has become kind of her signature, in my opinion.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

For Love & Honey

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No Maltese Cats or Falcons, but Lots and Lots of Bees

Ignore the plot, if you can find it. This one’s about the Isle of Malta and Andrew Walker’s new Glasses, Beard, and Biceps. Yes, it’s one of the Destination Hallmarks where the setting takes center stage. And this one has an extra bonus of also being about Bees and Honey which I find fascinating. So between doing a pretty deep dive into beautiful and history-rich Malta, apiaries, and the honey that Malta has been famous for since ancient times, I was sufficiently entertained and educated. I never knew that Malta was famous for it’s honey before watching this movie…So there you are!

Andrew plays an Archeologist and Professor who is in Malta teaching and in hot pursuit of a project that will get him funding and tenure from a university somewhere in Michigan (my old stomping grounds). He meets Eva who has inherited her mother’s apiary which has been in her family for generations. They are thrown together when Eva is trying to save a wild bee hive which has attached itself to the side of a building where bee and honey-averse Andrew has been researching an old diary of a Jesuit Priest. The priest, who came to Michigan in the 1600s, wrote of “The Golden Road” and the diary has a picture of a box in it which seems important. While taking the hive down, they unwittingly reveal an ancient fresco right there in the middle of town. It takes them about a minute to chip off all the ancient paint and plaster. The fresco is in 3 parts. It features a tower, another couple of buildings, and a field or a map. So the apiculturist and the archeologist take to the road sleuthing out it’s meaning.  And thus it is that we are treated to the grand tour of gorgeous Malta and the romance part.

When Andrew comes down to the deadline for submitting his proposal, Eva meets her beloved old Uncle(?) Grandfather(?) sitting in the sun who casually starts talking about the honey road or golden road that is famous in Maltese history. It seems the ancient Maltese would carry honey from the apiary to the storage buildings, stopping at a farm field to bless the harvest, and then ship the honey out across Europe. Sounds like that fresco. ”How did I not know this!”, Eva cries. Now that is a mystery indeed, Eva, great lifelong beekeeper and honey expert that you are. I guess you must have been sticking your fingers in her ears and chanting  LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA whenever the subject came up in school or when sitting at your mother’s knee. She takes Andrew to the field depicted in the fresco (which her mother used to take her to all the time since she was a child) and there is a pile of rocks in the middle of the ruin with bees going in and out. There is something under the rocks! Andrew, revealing some truly impressive biceps for an otherwise medium-sized guy, moves the rocks which have remain untouched for centuries, and there is an ancient storehouse with honey still in the crocks! And also other ancient stuff and the real-life box from the diary! Well dang! Anyway it all ties in to the Jesuit Priest who, it turns out, took the Maltese bees to Michigan in that box. And Eva knew what that box was all the time! It’s a bee box, used for transporting bees! Wonder why she didn’t say something earlier. And thanks to the bees from Malta, Michigan flourished.

Thank goodness we don’t watch Hallmark for an accurate depiction of how Archeology works. I’m done being driven crazy by all the wild leaps from reality Hallmark takes when portraying such things.  So the “golden road” was not about pirate treasure but liquid gold: Honey. I knew that from the very beginning, and I bet you did too.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Everything Puppies

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Underdog

I admit I didn’t go into this one with the most open mind. The preview did not impress and I am not a fan of the lead actor or at least the type of hero he usually represents. I like puppies but I was suspicious of the sheer numbers of them in the preview. From the beginning, the acting seemed very stilted and I immediately noticed that little tinkling background music that I thought Hallmark had quit doing and which, to me signals what I don’t know, but I always feel like the production company is trying to hide something or they are trying to lull me into not noticing any rough edges the movie might have. The main thing that put me off though, was the wrong season. If this is a “Countdown to Summer” Hallmark movie, and it is, because I checked, why is everyone wearing sweaters and puffy jackets? And why are there dead leaves swirling all about, an orange wreath, and a hay-bale prop for decoration? What was Hallmark trying to pull here? Pitiful! It violates the unspoken Hallmark covenant that we will have spring movies in the spring, summer movies in the summer, Pumpkin etc. movies in the autumn, and Christmas movies all year round but especially at Christmas. Just kidding, but not really.

Anyway back to the movie. Scarlett and her Dad are totally immersed in the dog and puppy business. The dad breeds and sells golden retrievers in his immaculate home.  He is supposed to be a lovely guy and loves dogs but there are so many puppies at his house, it should be a chaotic mess but it’s not. It was an immediate alarm bell. Scarlet holds 20-something patents or patents pending on dog toys, and designs dog parks and dog houses. Her current project is a dog treat that is very healthy for dogs and is also delicious. And dogs do love it. She and her friend and pet store owner played by sometime Hallmark lead, Kathryn Davis,  are trying to get other pet stores to carry it. After a lot of “no”s she finally pitches it to the hunky general manager (Stephen Huszar, our hero, Alex) ) of one store in a national chain. He agrees to carry the treats when his own dog goes apeshit over them. His regional manager, who has a romantic interest in him, agrees to put it in the other stores in the region and if things go well, there is a prospect of national distribution. It really is a great dog treat and Scarlett is in seventh heaven and goes all out investment-wise. This is where the evil villain, the owner of the big powerful rival dog food corporation named “Pup-Chuck” (Yes! Loved it!) pops up. He knows nothing and cares nothing about dogs or what they eat, he is just interested in profits. He is a caricature of the worst sort of avaricious businessman. He threatens Michelle, the aforementioned regional manager of Pets and Wellness Emporium, that if they allow the vastly superior product in their stores he will pull strings and even turn the FDA loose on them. She has no choice but to cancel the large order from Scarlett’s Pup Palate and break Scarlett’s heart.

Given the subject matter, I was on the watch for the usual ”bad business” scenarios that usually plague Hallmark productions and there were plenty. I am not going to go into all the could-never-happen-in-real-life business stuff, but the highlight was when Scarlett set up a booth promoting their rival product on Paws and Wellness’s private property and right outside their door! Why did they even think they could do that? And the love-struck  store manager lets them! Not surprisingly, higher ups and law enforcement get involved.

There is a good bit of Hallmark’s recurring theme of “work-life balance” tossed into the script and the romance has the usual ups and downs. Really nothing to talk about there. But I love a good David and Goliath story and when the Goliath role is as hiss-worthy as this one was, I couldn’t help but get somewhat invested in the story. When Alex and Scarlett invade his pet store company’s corporate headquarters and crash a big meeting where evil guy is trying to get the CEO to sign an exclusive contract with him, I was on high alert. It turns out that the CEO of the pet store chain was a super great guy and all but told the bad guy to sit down and shut up, he wanted to hear what his store manager and the girl dressed in the dog costume had to say! When he opens the package of Scarlett’s dog treats, his own doggie comes running and pounces on the treat in greedy delight. The head honcho is sold and says, and I quote, “We’ve gotta ask ourselves, what’s more important, a healthy profit line or a healthy puppy? My hero. I really appreciated that the personification of evil and ignorance in the corporate world was balanced by this wise and good man. Can we have a movie about him please?

However, while I appreciated the triumph of the underdog, The vanquishment of evil, and the heroic, wise and good CEO at the end, there were just too many weaknesses and questionable aspects to overcome the positives. It was an unchallenging Hallmark comfort movie full of cute puppies, which is fine for many, but not for me.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

A Taste of Love

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Keep the Fried Chicken but Go Back to the Chili con Queso Dip and the Sliders.

Although generally pleasant with a nice beach location in Dunedin Florida, this was just not up to snuff. All of the plot points were utterly predictable from the romance to her career decision to the fate of her parents’ restaurant. I won’t review the plot because you know it even if you haven’t seen this particular version. I will just say: Unfulfilled TV chef,  Parents’ selling their small town restaurant, Memories of Granny, Looming decision over taking $$$$ vs. Creative Dream, and hometown old boyfriend living his best life. Throw in a black best friend/agent, a token gay couple, a festival, a cooking contest, a mean-girl rival, kitchen shenanigans, cooking montages, and lots of misunderstandings due to miscommunications. I was suspicious of this movie when it premiered on a Monday instead of the usual Saturday. Sadly, my suspicions were confirmed.

I am not an Erin Cahill fan, though I can’t give you a good reason. No matter her role, I always feel kind of stabby at her at some point. She is very popular so it’s all on me. I did like the guy who played her farmer love interest though (yes, farmer not former, He’s a farmer and he wasn’t former well before the first hour.) The guy who played her father was the bad guy in the Karate Kid and I couldn’t get over that. “Yes, Sensei.” The plot centers around Taylor (Erin Cahill) being offered millions of dollars to take her popular cooking show to primetime, but she doesn’t like the show’s “Quick and Easy” theme because she wants to be a real chef and do her own thing. I mention this only because after lots of angst, she actually decides to take the money! I was very pleasantly surprised. Throughout all of the waffleing (pun intended), I was like “Take the generational money now, girl, you can be a great chef later!” With the fame and the dough (pun intended), the sky’s the limit! But get this. Her agent/best friend doesn’t send in the contracts! Contracts that would make her close to a million dollars on the deal herself! For no other reason than it “felt off” plus a mysterious phone call from the formerly benign farmer boyfriend behind Taylor’s back. Words fail at the utter gall of the agent and all of the red flags being waved by the boyfriend.

Well of course, no harm done, she ends up doing another cooking show filmed in the family restaurant that she now owns and being all creative with her food. Oh, and she won the cooking contest at the festival albeit with two horrible-sounding creations featuring fried chicken, blueberry syrup, waffles, ice cream, donuts with blue icing, bacon, and something that looked like, I swear, jalapeños.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

A Scottish Love Scheme

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Matchmaking Moms Strike Again

I’m surprised this one was on the main Hallmark channel and not on Movies and Mysteries as it was about older singles pushed by loved ones to recover from divorce and death. It also involves difficult single parenthood and a secret deathly illness. And it stars Erica Durance who has starred in more than her fair share of the more serious-minded Movies and Mysteries end of the Hallmark brand.

Lily is leaving her old position in her ex-husband’s family’s brewery because she is really not part of the family anymore. She was the marketing director and somewhat of a guru responsible for putting the brewery on the map. But now she is going to pursue her own dreams of being a photographer and going to Seville Spain for a photography course (eye-roll). She is going by way of Scotland so she can go on a vacation with her ever-perky and sparkly mother who grew up there.

Little does she know that her cheerful mother, Cait, is suffering from a terminal illness and is keeping that information from her so it doesn’t cast a pall over their last trip together.  The two women are staying with the mother’s childhood friend, Mairi Campbell, who knows about her friend’s fate and that it is a secret. Not that that stops her from openly discussing her illness in front of her oldest son, Logan. He somehow  doesn’t catch that it is a big secret even though he hears her remonstrating with Cait about not telling Lily

The Scottish Campbell family own a struggling distillery whose salvation rests on their latest venture, a sweeter tasting whisky called “Frost” which will fail if they can’t get a last minute new label for the bottles. If only they knew someone familiar with the adult beverage  business and was artistic and a marketing guru! Fear not Scottish family! Salvation is right around the corner! Logan, who is a too-busy single father (is there any other kind?) runs the company and seemingly has some kind of past with Lily going by the smoldering looks and awkward meeting. She is, indeed, persuaded by the moms in spite of herself to give Logan a hand with the marketing of their new product.  She also establishes an immediate rapport with his young son, Finn, but Logan does not want the motherless bairn to get any ideas  since he knows Scotland is just a brief stop-over for her on the way to Spain. They agree to keep it professional, especially in front of his wee son. They forgot to tell the Moms though because when Lily and he go out to dinner to discuss the marketing plan they start  in gossiping about how attracted their children are to each other, how it’s really a hot date, and all the “naughty fun” they hope they are getting up to. And right in front of the little kid! Honestly, talk about inappropriate!  I think their scheming was supposed to be cute, but I did not find it so. Logan had a point about getting his child’s hopes up for a new mother and what about Lily’s dream?

It all comes to a head when Cait collapses due to her illness and Lily learns the truth and that Logan and everyone knew about it all along. And we learn that her illness is liver cancer, of all things. This was a little surprising since both Lily and the Campbells have been in the alcohol business forever. All through their Scottish adventure, they have been mighty free with the wine and whiskey and Cait has been an enthusiastic partaker. Now I’m not accusing Hallmark of an attempt at black humor, irony, or trying to send some kind of puritanical message on the dangers of alcohol. Drinking wine and eating ice cream out of the carton are pretty much S.O.P for Hallmark heroines. I’m pretty sure this was just careless writing on the part of the scriptwriter. But really, of all of the terminal illnesses to choose from they pick liver cancer for this particular one?

The plot offered nothing more than the usual for this kind of thing except that Lily’s blow-up with Logan was thankfully of short duration. Everything seemed even more telegraphed than usual for a Hallmark. The acting of the 3 main women characters was a little too artificially chipper. Kind of stagey. Erica Durance is a beautiful woman, but the stylists for this movie did not do her any favors. 8 to 10 years needed to be shaved off her age to make her appear to be in the mid to late 30s of her character. Not a challenging assignment. Instead they stick her with a hair-do that makes her look like post 1950 Betty Crocker. Despite the Scottish background, I wasn’t a big fan of this one.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

A Very Venice Romance

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Bella Venezia

There was very little wrong with this one other than some gaps in storytelling that could have been fixed with an extra scene or two that were apparently left on the cutting room floor. And, set in Venice, Italy, it was beautifully photographed and a pleasure to gaze upon. Thankfully we were spared a depressing scientific lecture about rising seas and how the city is doomed. This was one of Hallmark’s foodie shows (yes romantic dough kneading and a tiny pinch of flour throwing were included) and the interiors and the food were also shown off to perfection. Great lighting throughout. The Italian leading man, was, of course, incredibly handsome, as they are, but he was also a good actor and very charming. As the leading lady, Stephanie Leonidas, was also very attractive and classy without the beauty pageant look of some of the other Hallmark regulars.

Amy is in charge of launching her company’s new venture which is home meal prep kits which, true to her health and wellness company’s brand, are packed with the supplements that they sell which supposedly boost metabolism, energy, immunity, and stuff like that. Her boss and head of the company, Naomi, at first comes across as an airy-fairy new-age guru type who exists on another plane entirely. But not for long. The Asian actress, whose name I could not find anywhere as of this writing, steals every scene she is in. While never letting her peaceful smile or her calm demeanor slip, it is not long before we see that she is pretty tough and no-nonsense. The word “steely” came to mind.

Unfortunately, for Blossom, the company, The meal kits do not taste good and take too long to make. After Amy tries to get the chef to work with their food scientist, known as Dr. Frankenfood, he quits in a temper tantrum. (typical Hallmark chef). Amy needs to fix the mess which leads her to recruit our hero, Marcello, a handsome (good for marketing), renowned, and respected chef to curate the kits and make them delicious while still loaded with supplements. He turns the job down in no uncertain terms without even hearing her offer. The meal kits go against his core beliefs about the art of cooking and food. He is all about fresh quality ingredients, no preservatives, and cooking with love and imagination. If the food was healthy, it wouldn’t need supplements! Amy decides to go to Venice (Without permission from Naomi! But doesn’t get in trouble!) to join his advanced cooking class so she can give him her “pitch.” The two fall in love over food and touring around Venice. It is not long before Chef Marcello wins Amy over to his way of thinking about food. There is a lot going on behind the scenes that we don’t see because we learn that surprisingly Naomi has led Amy to believe that the company will make enough concessions to Marcello’s way of thinking and let him work from Venice, to get him on board. Also one minute she is telling Amy to close the deal with the chef and get her butt back to New York pronto and the next, Amy is staying another 2 weeks to complete the course. I didn’t blame her for being tired of funding Amy’s 3 weeks in Venice with no progress on changing Marcello’s mind. I’d be suspicious and fed up as well. But we never see how or why Naomi changed her mind and let her stay. The side characters of Amy’s fellow students, one of which is famous British actress, Frances Barber, add interest as well as Marcello’s nice mother and father. Unfortunately, Amy herself is rather boring and personality-free.

Amy is finally ordered home and during the phone call, she finds out that her boss will not go “off-brand” to compromise on supplements nor accommodate Marcello’s insistence on curating the meals without moving to New York. Will Amy choose her life and career in New York, or love in beautiful Venice? The answer is to be found under The Bridge of Sighs.

I guess there is a lot I could pick apart in this movie, but I won’t because it was so nice to look at, and just nice in general. All of the actors were good, and none of the characters got on my nerves at all with silly or questionable behavior. So despite its contradictions and missing expositions, it was a pleasant watch.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Notes of Autumn

/ Rebekahrox / 2 Comments

Trading Places

This is a “trading places” romance wherein two long-distance friends exchange homes for a week or so to figure things out regarding their professional lives.  Ever smiley Ashley Williams plays Ellie, a former professional pianist, who just got fired from her event planner job because she kept getting distracted by pianos. She gave up her true vocation because, she says, she likes to eat, have a roof over her head, and wear clothes. But it’s really because her confidence was shattered by a mean conductor. One of her good friends in the hotel she worked at is Matt, the chef, who is using her apartment kitchen to create new recipes for a restaurant he hopes to open soon. The ever charming and adorable Luke McFarlane plays Leo, a romance writer with the curse of all Hallmark characters who write for a living: the dread Writer’s Block. His neighbor is Sam who is trying to whip a string quartet into shape for a charity event called a Piano Ball even though he is not a musician. Friends Leo and Ellie change places a la The Holiday Or Hallmark’s own Trading Christmas or last year’s Sister Swap movies. Yes, it’s been done before. And disappointingly a lot better in two of the cases.

To make a long story short, Ellie falls for Sam while getting her music mojo back, and Leo falls for Matt who inspires him to write something new as he is tired of writing his very popular series of historical romances. The fictional characters of Isabelle and Jack, amusingly played by Pascale Hutton and Kavan Smith,(who play a couple in Hallmark’s super popular series, When Calls the Heart) keep intruding in Leo’s real-life struggles writing on his computer. I kept getting distracted by Ashley’s smile and Marcus Rosner’s dimples, imagining what their children might look like. Can we make that happen?

Besides the cute gimmick of Pascale and Kavan’s occasional appearances, the writing was average but the actors made the most of their lines. All of them were likable and funny, although Ashley’s struggles made no sense whatsoever. The gay romance was well done and sweet. Their sexual preference was pretty much in deep cover. Even Leo was surprised Matt was gay even after they had spent a good bit of time together. Guess his writer’s block also broke his Gaydar. At the end though we get some pretty loving looks and a couple of kisses. They all end up in Pinewood, Leo’s and Sam’s picturesque Canadian hometown, the city where Ellie and Matt lived abandoned in true Hallmark fashion. The love lives and professional lives are destined for success.

Rating: 7 out of 10.