Mystery

A Little Park Music

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Stop and Smell the Flowers

I found this movie to be perfectly fine, overall, with one big glaring overarching problem that drove me absolutely batshit throughout the whole thing. But somehow, it didn’t overshadow the overall pleasantness of the main and side characters and the plot. Also it was very spring-y.

Laci J. Malley plays Allie, the city manager who is also in charge of parks, in the cute little town of Springville, which forcibly reminded me of The Gilmore Girls’ Star’s Hollow. Especially with some of the goings on that are going on. She is the busy busy busy type going at top speed all the time so she can get everything on her plate done as expediently as possible. She doesn’t want to miss anything. This personality trait is blamed on her hippie mother and her very casual parenting style which caused Allie to miss out on a lot of school trips because of missing permission slips. I could relate. She meets Ryan, the love interest, when he writes her a ticket for jaywalking. Ryan is a rookie cop and is just in Springville for 6 months until he can re-interview for a job in nearby Seattle. Ryan is a little bit of an unusual character for a love interest. He is overly conscientious about following all of the rules, taking his duties way too seriously. He got fired from the traffic division because the tickets he wrote were so detailed they were holding up the processing. The woman he reports to advises him to lighten up and relax. Springville isn’t exactly the murder capital of the world, and community and connection with the citizens are more of a priority than writing tickets. He’s the kind of character that, in a mystery or police procedural, would be the real main detective (and hero’s) Man Friday who maybe isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer but is hardworking, earnest, and well-meaning. His initial “Dudley Do-Right” qualities are reflected by his physicality. He is the “square-jawed” very muscular type of handsome and his uniform fits him very snugly. Strangely, Hallmark couldn’t find a way to take his shirt off, but there is a yoga scene.

The plot revolves around Allie and Ryan trying to solve kind of an intriguing mystery. The town is the recipient of a huge grant which will be used to revitalize the little town contingent on honoring a “VanWilkinson”, presumably a relative of the source of the grant, with a memorial fountain in the town park. The fountain has been planned to be set in the location that the town gazebo currently occupies and demolition has been scheduled. But on the day of the demise of the gazebo, a piano suddenly and mysteriously appears in the doomed structure. And the incident must be investigated by our rookie cop, working with Allie, before the gazebo is demolished, because the piano might be stolen, making the gazebo a possible crime scene. So, as they investigate, a romance is born. The chemistry between the two was excellent.

To make a long story short, the townspeople love the piano! A dance class practice is moved to the park to dance outside to the music, park walkers walk to the tinkling of the ivories, outdoor concerts spring up, marriage proposals are staged, and in a sweet side story, a teenage boy discovers his true calling is piano-playing not football. Every time the piano is hauled away to make way for demolition, another one appears to replace it! How? Why? Who?  It soon becomes obvious to everyone, even the mayor, that the piano is a blessing to the community and should stay there in the gazebo. But what about the grant? Everyone is tearing their hair out trying to think of a solution to the conundrum even as I, and every other viewer I’m sure, is shouting at their TV screens to just put the damn fountain somewhere else in the park! The grant says “in the park” it does not specify the longitude and latitude of the exact location of the gazebo! 

I won’t give away who is responsible for the piano in the gazebo or why. But a solution other than the obvious easy answer that concerned viewers have been yelling at them for an hour, is eventually found. Of course, Ryan does not move to Seattle, learns to lighten up, and starts a promising relationship with Allie, who learns to slow down and smell the flowers. It was a nice Hallmark. 7 stars.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Caught by Love

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Ho Hum Heist

Nothing could save this one from being boring. Not the not-seen-often-enough charm and talents of Luke Macfarlane, the proven acting talent of Rachael Leigh Cook, nor the beautiful setting of Malta. All were pretty much wasted on a phone-it-in script. I went into this one with optimism thanks to the presence of Luke, for whom Hallmark usually makes a greater than usual effort, and the fact that it was set in Malta which I last visited only a few months ago albeit in a book and albeit in the mid-16th century. It’s changed a lot. In this one all of the effort went into filming in an exotic land, which helped, but was not enough to engage me much.

Annie (Cook), a bank teller, arrives at a White Lotus type resort hotel (except no alcohol or caffeine-lolwut) in Malta and quickly falls into the arms of Jake (Macfarlane) thanks to her high heels which she is not used to. Her best friend, Joanna, a cosmetics magnate, has given her her place at a 7 day self help get away. How humble Annie got to be best friends with a millionaire tycoon might have made a more interesting story. It turns out that Jake, who at first we are led to believe might be up to something nefarious, is actually a private investigator who is trying to catch a thief for the reward money. Of course he was not up to anything nefarious: It’s Luke Macfarlane, for cripes sake. Jake has gotten an anonymous tip that the thief who stole a valuable necklace from “The Met” has arranged to sell it to one of the very wealthy guests at the hotel during the 7 day retreat. Annie, Jake, and Jake’s partner Laura, sleuth around for the rest of the movie trying to figure out who the buyer of the necklace is and catch him/her and the thief in the act. We get to know the other guests whose stories are supposed to fill in the plot but unfortunately they are not very interesting. We have the typical social media influencer, the typical billionaire real estate mogul and his neglected wife, the typical tech-god, the typical new-age motivational speaker, and the typical spoiled and entitled female member of royalty. All of them behave suspiciously but all turn out to be red herrings. Jake’s investigative skills are considerably aided by the fact that the suspects expediently allow him to do things like scroll through their phones and open their suspicious suitcases at will. We start to think that maybe the anonymous tip that Laura and Jake received might be a little sus after all of the possible buyers of the jewels are eliminated. But never fear, there is one person left, and it is someone they didn’t even think of (!).

There were some bright spots. The character of Laura (so far uncredited on IMDb-that figures) was pretty amusing. She is undercover as a very versatile employee of the resort. She fills in wherever needed going from a pool girl to a room maid and even filling in teaching a class on herbal medicine when the original instructor goes on maternity leave. You’d think a resort that caters to billionaires and royalty would have more of a tip top staff. But anyway, her dead pan expression when the spoiled royal female confronts her about taking out the excess chlorine in the pool was worth a chuckle. As was her attempt to teach the class when everything she knows is straight out of Wikipedia. The pace was good and there were some cute lines and isolated situations (Aerial Yoga). But the whole concept, although a little out of the usual Hallmark box was so predictable. Each guest, none of whom are at all entertaining, comes to the sleuths’ attention one at a time, is duly investigated, but of course is found misunderstood and innocent until we get to the last 5 minutes of the movie. **Spoiler Alert** The three investigators get the reward money even though it was really the federal agents who caught the bad guy. This convenient but totally unrealistic happenstance saves Jake and Laura’s struggling P.I. business, and helps Annie’s escape from bank teller-dom into law school. This was supposed to be light-hearted and fun but missed the mark.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

Providence Falls

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It Fell

Am I the only one in the whole wide world who did not absolutely love this 3 part mini-series? Apparently so. Oh, there were some good things about it, for sure. I liked the actors: 4 new fresh faces in lead roles, an old favorite (Matty Finochio) in a pivotal role, and 2 Hallmark mainstays in small but important parts. Kudos to Niall Matter who played a bad guy against type. The set direction and production values were top notch, and there were parts of the script that were just fine. But the whole thing felt forced and manufactured around a very faulty premise. It didn’t make sense and was just wrong. And I’m not talking about the angels and devils, the dual timeline, the time travel, or the reincarnation. I usually like that stuff. Some of Hallmark’s best movies have been based on those kinds of plots. And part of what bothered me was that they dropped the love story and all the supernatural stuff right in the middle of a police procedural for no reason I can think of that made any sense. Except to stretch maybe 3 hours of story into 6 hours. 

Cora and Liam are star-crossed lovers in 1844 Ireland who met when Liam, a thief and a rogue, broke into her father’s country estate to steal some things. They fell in love and were running away together, when, chased by dogs, torches, and pitchforks, Cora fell off a cliff and died. Liam is miserable and blames himself, but instead of being reincarnated or sent to heaven or, as they call it here, “H.E. double hockey sticks”, he is put in Limbo for almost 200 years due to a clerical error. Doesn’t heaven have some kind of quality control department? That was disturbing. Of course he had to die first and I am afraid I am a little fuzzy on how that happened. He comes to our attention because they are “clearing Limbo out”. Liam is given a chance to make up for cutting Cora’s life short and taking her away from her soulmate (who she barely met) and her important destiny and earn his way into heaven. Somehow, her death is all Liam’s fault, not her own nor the trackers chasing her over hill and dale and off the cliff. Or just an accident for that matter. All he has to do, in the present time, is to get Cora, who has been re-incarnated, back together with her so-called soulmate that she barely met, who has also been reincarnated. Cora is now a newly promoted police detective in Providence Falls, and Liam is a visiting detective (Ha!), her new partner. Her soulmate Finn (Evan Roderick) is an Assistant D.A. and is a good guy and very attractive. But despite Hallmark trying to fool us, savvy Hallmarkies know he is not the one because instead of coffee he drinks tea with sugar in it, is a lot shorter than Liam, and is a little too well-groomed. Also an old cohort of 1844 Liam is back and has been re-incarnated as the police chief. And maybe some other people? I don’t know. 

So we have 6 hours including commercials of Liam getting used to cell phones, cars, and other 21st century things and pushing his beloved Cora into the arms of Finn, who she really is not all that interested in. Just as she did back in Ireland, she has fallen for Liam at first sight. And Finn likes her best friend Suzette. Could it be possible that it is Liam and not Finn who is Cora’s soulmate? Nope, nope, nope, absolutely not. Destiny and Fate cannot be wrong, and Destiny has spoken. Even though against all of the rules in the Destiny Rule Book, Cora has started to remember her history with and love for Liam in her former life. So Destiny is wrong about some things then. But according to the angel Samael, the lady in charge of this fiasco, if she reunites with selfish bad Liam, instead of good and decent Finn, she will not be able to continue to help at-risk youth and keep them on the straight and narrow. Somehow this capable woman cannot do her good works unless she’s with the right man. I think Miss Samael got her centuries mixed up. Meanwhile Liam is proving over and over what a reformed character he is. But no, according to this angel Samael, he is selfish and bad to the end even when he is rescuing Finn from an old mine shaft and throwing himself in front of a speeding bullet to save Cora’s life. Repentance? Forgiveness? Grace? Free Will? Fuhgettaboutit. And all through this, there is a very drawn out murder mystery/burglary/criminal conspiracy to solve that was right out of the usual Hallmark Movies and Mysteries playbook.

I understand why everyone really liked this. It was a well-done ambitious production for Hallmark, and the trappings were off the usual beaten track, even though the love story was predictable and the mystery was tedious. I just couldn’t get past that damn angel Samael being so blind and misguided: Insisting that poor Liam could not get into heaven despite his proven goodness unless Cora ended up with Finn against both of their wills. I know it was to create tension and keep the thing going for 6 hours. But it was just wrong and flew in the face of what angels are supposed to be about. I couldn’t believe it when the Angel Gabriel (Brendan Penny) showed up to save the day, and he told her what a good job she did! He left Liam’s fate up to her as long as she first finally listened to the one good angel with some sense, her assistant, Agon, Liam’s handler. She should have been fired and threatened with H.E. double hockey sticks.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Christmas Charade

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Charade…A Nod to a Classic Caper Flick?

Whitney is an elementary school librarian who has always been wrapped in a cocoon of safety by her parents who own a home security firm. Reading a Christmas story to the kids, she concludes with a lecture on the dangers of using incandescent bulbs on a Christmas tree. The kids look at her quizzically. Rachel Skarsten is as appealing as heck in this role. She is single of course, and doesn’t use an online dating app because, you know, Murderers! And she has the stats to back it up. Plus, she is timid and shy, though one senses she wants to break out of her shell.

While on a blind date set up by a trusted friend, she sits down in front of the wrong guy in a green sweater and gets roped into an FBI sting operation. Corey Sevier is Josh, the FBI agent who does not act at all like a blind date should. When she is put in the picture she plays along and gets invited to help plan a Christmas Ball by the FBI target’s girlfriend. The very party that Josh needs to get into to trap his man! Unable to extricate herself without endangering the operation, Whitney agrees to be a part of the sting,  much to Josh’s consternation and objections. Josh is a surly lone wolf type who grew up in foster care, does not have a family, and is not a Christmas fan. “It’s just another day to me”. Cue montage of Josh “training” Whitney in basic FBI survival skills. Since Whitney learned how to defend herself at an early age thanks to her parents, during the martial arts tutorial she whips Josh’s butt. Whitney starts to enjoy herself. In fact, throughout the movie, Whitney proves to be much better at Josh’s job than Josh is. He is played by Corey Sevier, who is as good in his role as Rachel is in hers.  The chemistry between the two was terrific, as it has to be between the two leads in a caper movie. Or was this a parody of a caper movie? When I think about it, I’m going to go with parody. Nothing concerning their mission is grounded in reality and they are laughably inept at everything they do to catch the bad guys. But they never get caught out because the bad guys are even more inept. This theory also covers some inexplicable plot holes that I would have to blame someone for. It was helmed by the directing and writing team of  Corey, who is a favorite of mine, and his writing partner and real-life wife, Kate Pragnell.  What was with that Tango scene that dropped into the movie out of nowhere? And the magic rope that formed a loop in midair? The script was cute and clever. At one point when Whitney and Josh are crawling through the ventilation system, Whitney quotes from Die Hard, “the best Christmas movie ever.” Yes, they went there.

The one strike against this movie, for me, was Whitney’s parents. They made me feel very stabby, especially her controlling father, who smothered her with over-protectiveness for most of the movie. I don’t want to spoil anything (this time) but in a very funny twist at the end, their whole schtick led to the best scene in the movie. All was forgiven by me, (but not Whitney.) That is, until the inevitable reconciliation scene which concludes the story. Of course we also have the kiss at the very end when Whitney and Josh decide to be girlfriend and boyfriend for reals.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Cut, Color, Murder

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Dye, Die, Don’t Bother

I don’t have a bad word to say about the actors in this new Hallmark mystery series. Gonzalo and McPartlin were just fine, and they had a good rapport. But boy oh boy was it dumb. This is a new entry in Hallmark’s spunky female amateur detective line. They usually run their own “womanly” business so they can take off whenever one of their acquaintances or customers gets murdered in order to catch the killer. We have flower shops, bookstores, antique stores, and bakeries. We also have matchmakers(!?), wedding photographers, crossword puzzle editors, and podcast hosts. Strangely, in two of my favorites, Aurora Teagarden and Mystery 101, the spunky female amateur detectives actually have mainstream professions. With the arrival of Cut, Color, Murder, we now have a beauty shop owner. What took them so long?

In this one, Julie is taking her talents to the world of beauty pageants in which her younger sister is a participant and she is doing hair. The bitchy showrunner gets murdered and there are plenty of suspects because she was evil to absolutely everyone. Julie is the widow of a policeman who was killed in the line of duty (or was it an unsolved cold-blooded murder?). So she has ties to the police department primarily through the chief of police who she has wrapped around her little finger. Enter new guy, Ryan McPartlin, a handsome hotshot detective with whom she butts heads because he is a professional. After Julie meets an anonymous text messager alone in a spooky abandoned house at night because he/she has info about her husband, it was remote throwing time. Except I had to find it first because I had already thrown it after all the laws she broke and chain of evidence procedures ignored in the meantime.  She is rescued from certain death by Ryan and let’s just say this show leaves no cliche unincluded.

We know this is a series because after the mystery is solved we have a bit of a cliffhanger while Julie is having a pow-wow with her dead husband at the cemetery because she has decided to move on (is that something you just decide to do?) and wants to give him a heads up ( I guess?). We know that there is going to be an over-arching mystery of her trying to solve her husband’s murder and getting into all kinds of trouble. Not a spoiler, because I’m not psychic, but I predict that the murderer of her husband turns out to be the indulgent good-guy/father-figure/police chief in an unknown number of episodes hence.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

February 9, 2022

Along Came a Nanny

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It’s the Script, Stupid!

**3 out of 10 stars**I watched this all the way through so that earns it at least 2 stars. but man oh man was this Manny,(Cameron Mathison) though cute, the dumbest detective ever? His whole methodology consisted of A) writing all the of the names of the people in the neighborhood and drawing arrows from one to another and then studying his drawing in bed night after night like it was Holy Writ. B) congregating on the sidewalk with the other Nannies and asking if they’ve seen anything unusual. And C) flirting with the pretty Nanny (Sarah Lancaster) on walks while they are pretending to be sleuths. D) Leave brain disengaged. The perp was entirely obvious, though the motive for the robberies was so dumb, I kept saying to myself “No, It couldn’t be…too lame.” Plot holes a mile wide. The big clue is a pen with the burglars fingerprints on it, yet they just had to match the prints found at the crime scene with the suspects prints on file as he had a previous record. If you are watching this for the romance, forget that too. Not a bit of charm or chemistry. Lazy and lame, the scriptwriter should have been ashamed to take a paycheck for this drivel.

Rating: 3 out of 10.

October 13, 2014