Antonio Cupo

Junebug

/ Rebekahrox / 12 Comments

Inner Childish

I thought this one had some promise. Autumn Reeser has consistently starred in some of the better Hallmarks. Her presence alone insures a certain level of credibility. Not a huge fan of Aaron O’Connell but he was well cast and perfect in Made for Each Other. The plot had a fantasy element that I usually welcome. Juniper (Reeser) is visited by her 8-year-old self that only she can see. “Junebug” has come out of her childhood “wish box” to help her almost 40-year-old (birthday imminent) self out of a rut professionally and personally. But ultimately it was a big disappointment, I’m very sorry to say.

Juniper dreamed of being a writer as a child. One compromise after another led her off that path but she is a big success as a well-respected editor for a boutique publisher of YA and children’s books. Now this seems like a pretty cool career to me, but what do I know? Juniper is vaguely dissatisfied and bored by her job. And also her stable predictable boyfriend. When Junebug appears she calls Juniper out on her boring wardrobe, her boring duties at work, and her boring boyfriend whose idea of a hot date is a home-cooked pasta dinner every Wednesday night. Again sounds nice to me, but when Juniper asks that he bring any other pasta other than their traditional penne, and he shows up with penne anyway, she breaks up her 3-year relationship with him. At work, her boss, Paula, has tasked the team with finding fresh new illustrators for their children’s line. Juniper, guided by Junebug,  finds one in a mysterious and hot muralist, Alex Ripley (O’Connell). Research reveals that he is an icon of the art world who shot straight to the top after his first show. But he disappeared when his second show was savaged by critics. Now he travels from city to city doing unsigned murals. Red flag. Inspired by Junebug, Juniper has decided to get back to her writing. After her meet cute with Alex (she destroys the mural he is working on and he is very nice about it) they decide to work together on a children’s book.

From then on the movie is all about Alex and Juniper talking about doing the book and dealing with Juniper’s writer’s block. They go on a road trip, eat raspberry swirl ice cream (a lot), walk on the beach, shop for clothes, flirt, and kiss chastely. (Very chastely considering they are two attractive single 40-year-olds who might be in love.) Not exactly compelling viewing. No, not a lot of excitement, but there was quite a bit of comedic potential in a 40-year-old sophisticate being followed around by her interfering 8-year-old self that only she can see. But nada. Other than a few quizzical looks and an occasional “Are you all right?” when Juniper is apparently having conversations with herself, it’s just wasted. It’s all just Juniper and Junebug talking boringly mostly by themselves.

The big crisis is when Alex and Juniper’s book is rejected by her boss as being too much of a risk for the company. But why? It made zero sense, unless her boss was just being nice and the book was really awful. She points out that Alex’s muralistic illustrations were “on too large a scale” for a kid’s book, which makes sense and seems like a fair criticism. I guess, because we never actually get to see his work.  But Alex is highly insulted and flounces off petulantly. “This is not why I make my work-To have someone tell me what market it’s right for!” Boo-de-hoo-hoo. Grow. Up. Juniper quits her job without notice the next day. “Is this because I passed on your project? No it really isn’t, Paula” Right. Juniper wins Alex back by hoisting a boombox in the air a la one of my favorite movies, Say Anything. Lots of tributes to that movie in this one. For the happy ending, Alex and Juniper, together for her birthday, open a box of their newly published (by another publisher or self-published-we never know) book. The cover is really bad. Maybe Paula was right.

I won’t be watching this one again, but I might give Say Anything another go. Now that’s a good movie with a lot of heart.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

P.S. I was just reminded by a user review on IMDb that there is a 25 year old movie that is very similar to this one, only done right, with real drama and bite. Its called If You Believe, and I highly recommend it. I thought there was something familiar about this.

Guiding Emily

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That was the First Time I Saw Emily, and the Last Time She Saw Me.—Garth.

I have been looking forward to this one as soon as I started to see the previews. The story is about how a woman who suddenly loses her sight due to a rock climbing accident learns to cope with her new life. It is also the story of Garth, a guide dog in training, voiced by Eric McCormack, and how he learns to curb his rambunctiousness and love for snacks in order to focus on his role of being the eyes for a blind person. Unknown to his trainer and the head of the guide dog facility, Garth has already decided that Emily is his person even though they met only briefly. She is his motivation to be a good dog, learn his craft, and graduate from guide dog school. Unfortunately, there are many people ahead of Emily to be assigned one of the highly trained dogs. The wait time for a blind person to get a guide dog can be years. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Besides the story, one of the reasons I was anticipating this one was the cast. I’ve been very impressed with Sarah Drew, who plays Emily, in earlier Hallmarks. I like her natural acting, and I am a sucker for long red hair and girl-next-door looks due to my love for Anne of Green Gables. I also love Antonio Cupo. Have a little crush on him, actually, but he has been spending more time behind the camera in recent years, other than a few cameos and supporting roles. I figured it must be a special movie to tempt him into a lead acting role in a Hallmark production. I was also happy to see good ol’ Matty Finochio in a secondary role as well. He is a Hallmark “go-to” for a supportive friend and comic relief. And he did a wonderful job in this as usual. And Peter Benson, another Hallmark stalwart plays the owner/manager of the guide dog facility.

Emily is the head of a professional team at work and is popular and respected. She is also engaged to be married to someone who was not Antonio Cupo. So I knew he was destined to exit stage left after Emily had her accident. He was not a bad guy, but he did not have the time or focus to give Emily what she needed after she lost her sight, even though there was every reason to believe it would be a temporary situation. About an hour in, when the bandages are removed, Emily finds out it is permanent. We follow Emily through her despair, depression, and apathy for doing anything other than sitting on the couch. She struggles to cope with everyday challenges and is pretty defeated. When she asks her friend and work buddy, Matty F., to give HR her resignation letter, he returns with the whole team, and they refuse to let her give up. This is a turning point for her. She enrolls in blind school, eventually returns to work, and reconnects with her old friend Matthew (Antonio Cupo), who runs a rock climbing fitness thingy. It’s all uphill from there. No pun intended.

Meanwhile, Garth is having his own journey with his training. When Emily shows up at the guide dog facility, Garth is overjoyed. But this is where he learns that dogs can’t pick their owners and vice versa. There is a waiting list, and they are matched accordingly. Will Garth and Emily be reunited? Well, it’s Hallmark, so we know the answer. But how it all came together made sense and was quite touching.

This was an excellent movie. It was a romantic and very engaging story, full of suspense, interesting, and educational. They did a good job condensing Emily’s journey into the last hour of the movie and still found time to fit in a romance and Garth’s story as well. I liked that she does not go from defeat to triumph but to just learning to cope with challenges, standing on her own two feet, and getting back to her old self. It was good that other than Sarah Drew, the blind characters in the story were all played by blind actors.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Game of Love

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Let the Games Begin

I think so highly of Kimberley Sustad that I’m not sure whether I liked the non-Kimberley Sustad parts or not. I suspect if her character had been played by anyone else, I would have absolutely hated her. As it was although she was very flawed with many issues to tackle,  Sustad managed to make her sympathetic and likable enough that I could put up with her with patience until she started to see light. If only how she managed that could be formulated, bottled, and distributed to her colleagues.

Audrey is a quest and adventure game designer. She is a loner in her personal life-her only friends are an older woman whom she plays board games with at a cafe, and an unseen person that she plays a word game with that is not Words with Friends, but she does “chat” quite a bit with him (or her). Of course, she is not interested in romantic love and dating is a big no-no. If she were a guy, she would be living in her mother’s basement. Right off the bat, she has to be shamed into going on a blind date she had already agreed to arranged by her only friend. She shows up to the elite restaurant in a hoodie and jeans. She has the grace to be embarrassed when her date is a real hottie and smartly dressed. They get thrown out because there’s a dress code. Her date calls her out on her rudeness and arrogance and leaves. Her behavior did not endear her to me either. But you know, Kimberley Sustad.  In her professional life, she is known as “Not a Team Player.” She works on her own and doesn’t want help or input from her fellow employees. She wears headphones all the time to keep people away. Nice little detail. When eagerly approached by Patti, a hero-worshiping new employee, adorably played by Christin Park, as yet uncredited on IMDb, she is politely dismissed. Actually, how Audrey treats her is very rude and unkind, but Kimberley plays it so you don’t hate her.

Needless to say, because PLOT, Audrey’s world is about to be rocked. Her boss tasks her to work with a marketing consultant (Matthew, played by Brooks Darnell) to develop a game that will finally win a coveted award and the deadline is only a month away. It will be called “Love Life” and is based on the search for love (Uh-Oh!). Audrey is horrified but she has no choice. Kimberley needs a strong co-lead to keep up with her, and Brooks Darnell fills the bill nicely. Matthew has the opposite problem from Audrey in that he is anxious to fit in and be accepted by everyone. Everything he does is “on trend.” Meanwhile, he has lost his true self.

Audrey does a terrible job developing a game about something she has no use for and finally realizes, thanks to Matthew, that she needs help from others. With the help of her newly formed team, including adorable sweet Patti, they start to make great strides. Both Matthew and Audrey learn about each other and start to like each other. We learn why they are the way they are and they help each other become better. Audrey learns how to play well with others and also starts to get close to Matthew. Matthew starts to shed the need to pretend to be something he is not. He takes down the trendy anonymous abstract painting in his stark apartment and replaces it with his own original photographic art. Symbolism! This from his former profession that he had been pressured to give up as too quixotic and unprofitable. Their learning curve which involves a lot of game stuff takes up the bulk of the movie, and got a little long.

This movie did not escape the usual “big crisis with only 18 minutes to go” syndrome. Kimberly backslides into her old ways which was stupid and didn’t make sense, but it was brief. Had to be because only 5 minutes to go by this time. Anyway, the Hallmark Happy ending followed apace with love, happiness, and professional success for all. Oh. And guess who her Not-Words-with-Friends chat buddy turned out to be? Yup.

The backdrop of game development was pretty interesting and unusual, the script had some nice details, the set decoration and graphics were on point, and the romance was serviceable. The acting and character development were its strength. There was not a lot of humor, except stemming from Sustad’s delivery, warmth, and authenticity.  It was good but not outstanding. All in all, I give it a 7 1/2 on my special Hallmark scale.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Christmas at the Golden Dragon

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The More the Merrier

This is a delightful interconnected multi-story movie with an ensemble cast along the lines of Love, Actually, and the Garry Marshall helmed holiday-based productions. The casting and the acting were impeccable. The stories center around a popular Chinese Restaurant whose owners are retiring and will permanently be closing its doors on Christmas Eve. Each story is an engaging little gem and they all come together in a well-organized and balanced way. All of them are wrapped up like a neat little Christmas gift, but leave us wanting more.

First, we meet a lonely widow, played by the classy Barbara Niven, whose CEO daughter, Sara Canning, is frustrated with her for her inability to move on from her husband’s death. They do not remember their late husband and father in the same way at all. At the restaurant, she runs into an employee of her corporation she is friendly with, a divorced father (Antonio Cupo, Wow!) of two girls. He is struggling with how to parent his girls as a single father. Next, we meet the weak son of the owners. He flunked out of college, is quite lost, and with the restaurant closing, his future is up in the air. He is secretly a talented chef but is discounted and dominated by his traditional father. Will he find a backbone with the help of an old friend and classmate? Working as the restaurant delivery boy is a hard-working, kind, and caring young Hispanic who has been accepted at several prestigious universities but can’t afford to go without a scholarship. He is afraid of his father’s reaction if he tells him about his college aspirations. Finally, we have the daughter of the family who has never experienced a traditional American Christmas because she has always worked at her family’s restaurant on Christmas Day. This one provides most of the humor. She is finally free to leave and visit her non-Chinese boyfriend’s family for a “real” Christmas, which, to her confusion and disappointment, turns out to be nothing but a fantasy. It’s actually pretty funny thanks to the lovely boyfriend and his patient family.

I liked that almost all of the characters start out with some unlikeable qualities. Their relationships with each other with the restaurant serving as the foundation serve up much-needed personal growth, shaking up, and change for the better. As they all come together to keep The Golden Dragon open through one more Christmas Day, we see sadness and frustration left behind and reason for hope and optimism in the future. And just maybe a few promising romances on the horizon.

Rating: 8 out of 9.

A Glenbrooke Christmas

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Autumn and Latonya Shine in This. More Latonya, Please.

This was an adequately entertaining Hallmark, and as such, I was a little disappointed because I really expect the best from Autumn Reeser. Also, Antonio Cupo looked super hot and perfectly cast as the fire chief she falls for. I also like the poor little rich girl trope as well. Autumn plays Jessica, a powerful and wealthy businesswoman who is soon to completely takeover her Grandfather’s real estate company. Before her life gets even more consumed, she decides to visit the small town of Glenbrooke, a place that her beloved late parents held dear. She hides her position and wealth so she will be treated like a normal person. As she settles in, she learns the famous Glenbrooke Church Bells are broken and the town can’t afford to fix them. Of course, the needed $10,000 is chump change to her, but she doesn’t want to reveal her wealth. Especially since Antonio Cupo hates rich people.

First of all, Mr. Fire Chief got off to a bad start with me by yelling at nice Autumn for something that was totally his fault. He jaywalked out in front of her car without looking and blamed her for not paying attention! Grrrrrrrrrr. He was sexist and entitled as Mr. Small Town VIP. He got better, then reverted to type again near the end, where he accused Autumn of the same bad behavior he was guilty of. Latonya Williams was adorable as Ruthie, another firefighter, who tells Antonio a few home truths at the end. Overall it was good, although not problem-free, in addition to Mr. Fire Chief’s character flaws.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

December 14, 2020

To Have and to Hold

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Really Good!

I was thoroughly entertained by this movie in the “Books to Screen” series on Lifetime. I particularly enjoyed Erica Christensen’s performance. Even though she did not throw the bum out at the first infidelity, she did not come across as a doormat. There was lots of Drama, but it was not over the top so as to be squirmy. I liked that the bad husband was not thoroughly evil and hateful. He did not physically or verbally abuse her, he just could not keep it zipped and wanted her to be a certain type of wife. Which she went along with until she decided not to. The movie kept me engaged through both her personal and professional development and I liked the final outcome with the fresh start with both.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

July 1, 2019

Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade

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Doris and Rock 2.0

This was a charming romance with the talented and funny Autumn Reeser and the too handsome to live Antonio Cupo. Despite his fictionally good looks, he managed to be appealing and a worthy match for one of my favorite Hallmark actresses. They had great chemistry. This older effort (2012) is so heads and tails above the romances that Hallmark is spewing out these days. No cheesy cheap looking decorations or the phony Christmas tree. No small town with the Christmas name. I absolutely loved that Autumn’s character loved and wore vintage clothes. That was a great imaginative detail written in that wouldn’t even occur to whoever is writing the efforts of the last 2 years. And it really added even more to the homage to an old Doris Day romance. Her stupid boyfriend was not evil, but such a loser that it was fun to hiss and boo at him. There were a few little glitches, such as Henry dressed up as Santa at the end and making out with Emily in front of everyone at the parade. WTH? but other than that, Great writing, a sense of humor, talented stars, a good supporting cast, and lack of Christmas cheesiness made one of the best Hallmark Christmas movies ever.**9 out of 10 stars**

Rating: 9 out of 10.

November 17, 2017