Carlo Marks

Sugarplummed

/ Rebekahrox / 5 Comments
The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: sugarplummed.jpg

A Very Meta Christmas

Hallmark making fun of itself in their own movies seems to be a bit of a thing lately. They take all of the usual Romantic Comedy ingredients, fold in all of the cliches and tropes that are exclusive to Hallmark itself, and fill up a movie with them. If I was a cynic, I would be  a little suspicious that it’s an excuse to get another Christmas movie in the tank without having to think of an original plot. And they can still say, “ Hey, aren’t we clever? See how we are laughing at ourselves!? Our movies are filled with cliches but that’s OK!”  I thought this was the way this one was going and I felt the tedium coming on, but then it took a turn.  And I started to really enjoy it.

 We meet lawyer Emily (Maggie Lawson), her architect husband (Brendon Zub-love him) and her two teenage children. Although the family love each other, we see there are troubles a brewin’ . Emily is over-organized and tightly wound. She is determined to give her family “the perfect Christmas” (or else) so they can reconnect and become closer together the way it used to be. We see her husband is overworked by his bully of a boss who has been making his and all of his coworkers miserable since his divorce. “It’s like I’m working for Scrooge, but instead of 3 fun ghosts, he’s just haunted by regret.” Their son is struggling in a new school and feels like an outsider. Emily’s relationship with her daughter though is the most troubled. Nina has dreams of being a singer and going away to a performing arts school. Emily discounts her dream and insists she go to the university close to home and study for a more practical career.

Emily gets to the office and and her assistant is watching the famous  and beloved series of Sugarplum Christmas movies. Sugarplum saves a bakery, Sugarplum meets a secret holiday Prince, etc. They have a long conversation over the rules of Christmas movies, as seen on the “Harmony Home Network”, where following these rules will always result in a perfect Christmas for the cast of characters. Later that evening, Emily wishes on one of her mother’s old ornaments, a Christmas star, for the perfect Christmas to make her family happy and create special memories like her mother did for her. Christmas Magic happens and Sugarplum herself appears, a little discombobulated over being sucked out of her perfect Christmas movie world and into the real one, where she assumes things will work just as smoothly as she is used to. And at first, it does! Everything goes according to the rules in her very thick Christmas rule book (which she pulls out of her bottomless purse where all of her fashionable coats and matching accessories also live.)

**Spoilers**

She replaces the artificial tree with the perfect real one, which she cuts down herself from Emily’s grinchy neighbor’s yard. She uses a magic snow globe to cause a snowfall inside the son’s school which proves very popular with the students and helps him bond with his classmates. She solves a dispute between one of Emily’s clients, the owner of an old ski lodge/Christmas tree farm and a developer who wants to knock it down and put up a resort. Sugarplum takes one look at the couple (played by Fiona Gubelman and Victor Webster, Hallmark regulars in amusing cameo performances) and knows they are destined to fall in love and come to a compromise solution on their own. And they do! Right before our eyes! Lots of other stuff happens, and Emily is well on her way to her “perfect” Christmas. Except her family is still disconnected and stressed out.

But then things start to go awry for poor Sugarplum and Emily. Sugarplum meets a handsome man by an elevator (another cameo-this time by Carlo Marks) and romance beckons, as it does when elevators are involved in Rom-Coms. Until he serves her with a summons for criminal trespass (the Christmas tree incident). The rapprochement between Emily’s  client and the developer turns out to be nothing but a ruse to get her to sell her land to him. And finally, Sugarplum is thrown in jail for starting the snowstorm and snow ball fight in the school lobby and causing damage to government property. Also, the police are very suspicious because “Sue Garplum” doesn’t exist according to the internet and she might be a terrorist(?) because her fingerprints all look like snowflakes. Apparently Sugarplum’s Christmas magic is fading due to all of the heavy lifting needed bringing magic to the real world. It’s just getting worn out. Can anything revive it? Hmmm. I wonder. Maybe Emily learning the true spirit of Christmas? In the meantime, it’s a good thing she is a lawyer.

After a slow start, this turned out to be one of the most entertaining, funny, and clever of  2024’s Christmas movies. At first, Janel Parrish as Sugarplum seemed too over the top cheerful and perky. She was getting on my nerves and I was getting antsy. Emily’s blindness to what would truly make a warm and wonderful family Christmas was frustrating. She confides that her favorite childhood memory with her late mother was the Christmas all of their presents were stolen, the tree caught on fire, and they ended up spending Christmas day in a motel. But it was great because they were together! She won’t listen to her own words! Her assistant, seeing Emily’s holiday stress, advises her to quit chasing perfection and live in the moment.  Emily cynically tells her she sounds like a Christmas movie and discounts that advice, which turns out to be the lesson of the whole movie. But then things got great.  I think it all turned around for me when Emily, fully invested in Sugarplum’s magic, makes gingerbread cookies even though she doesn’t have any ginger. But that doesn’t matter because in Christmas movies all cookies are delicious and perfect even if they don’t have all the ingredients! “I didn’t have any ginger so I just threw in a whole bottle of gin!”,  she boasts. Luckily, Sugarplum “couldn’t drink another bite.” because last thing we need is a drunk Sugarplum.

Being a Hallmark movie, Emily finally gets the message, the faded magic returns, and everything comes together for her and her loved ones in all phases of their lives. But it’s all about the journey to the inevitable happy ending, isn’t it? For Emily’s family, all is resolved very poignantly at the school Christmas Pageant starring Emily’s singing daughter.  But there’s more! The final scenes back home, with some unexpected visitors, were funny, surprising, and are what really tied the bow on top of this almost perfect gift of a movie.  Right down to the kiss under the mistletoe.

All of the actors in this did well but Maggie Lawson and Brendan Zub were perfectly cast and I was glad to see them again as Hallmark leads after such a long time. Kyra Leroux was also as stand out as Emily’s rightly resentful and talented daughter. The imperfections in her singing at the beginning turned out to be perfect in the end, reflecting the moral of the story. This movie was a solid 8 1/2 or 9 but those last scenes were just so fun.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

The Blessing Bracelet

/ Rebekahrox / 2 Comments

The Blessing Bracelet, Part 2: “Failure and Shattered Dreams”

**Spoilers**

There are a few things that really get my goat when it comes to Hallmark movies. One is inappropriate or strange makeup choices, and another is how out of touch with non-fictional business and financial realities Hallmark writers are. And don’t get me started on the magic suitcases because that has nothing to do with this particular story. And Amanda Shull’s makeup I had no problem with. There are so many examples of naivete and ignorance about financial matters from trying to save a store with hardly any merchandise, to dealing in products that will only sell one month of the year,  to people with little or no income who live in beautiful expensive homes.  Although I will circle back to the heroine’s bracelet business, I do want to talk about the more positive aspects of this movie.

First, this was very much a faith-based story with lots of church in it. I am not much of a church-goer anymore but I did like this aspect very much. It was a tad preachy, but the message was about hope, gratitude, and forgiveness and who can get upset about that advice and guidance, even though it comes from a minister as well as friends and family?  Amanda Shull is very good as Dawn, a single mother who is still trying to dig herself out of the financial mess her irresponsible ex-husband left her in when he took off 3 years ago. Luckily she has the little ray of sunshine that is her 13-year-old son to keep her spirits up. His one (and only) fault is that he keeps hounding her for a dog in every scene he is in. No pun intended. The bank is about to foreclose on her house, and though she goes there personally to beg for mercy it’s no dice because of all of her credit card debt and her car payments on top of her not paying her mortgage. She is pinning all of her hopes on trying to find a second job. It all seems pretty hopeless.

While getting ready for a night out with the girls she runs across one of her old “blessing bracelets” that she and her still best buddy used to make to raise money for a high school project. She starts to wear it and uses the 4 beads to count the few good things in her life. Kind of like a rosary but with bigger and fewer beads. It gives her a more positive confident attitude in spite of her crushing debt and the blessings start to pour in. She goes back to church. The rest of Dawn’s story is about how the bracelets and her new attitude save her house and get her out of debt once she starts to sell them.  The love story part is between her and the bank manager who has been unwittingly foreclosing on her. They don’t know who each other is because they first meet outside of the bank when he takes his pooch to the vet clinic which is her real job. Carlo Marks is well cast as Ben, the too-nice-for-his-own-good foreclosure guy. He is excellent as usual. Dawn and Ben are both very attractive and very kind and sweet and a perfect match. Ben also bonds with her son via said dog. Why isn’t this prize married already? Because he is “married to his job” (which he hates) is the only explanation we are given.

This was a good Hallmark with an uplifting message, some tension and suspense, and a nice romance between two good and likable people who you really root for. Hallmark usually handles religion and church-oriented stories pretty well: low-key, positive, and no Jesus talk, keeping things vague and all-encompassing. This one was no exception. I wish I could say the same about the way they handle money matters. A business plan that relies on an unsustainable no overhead and free labor does not bear looking at too closely. But of course that is exactly what I am going to do!

The whole enterprise gets started when she finally finds a second job (Blessing #1) as a waitress to help with her debt. The waitress who is training her tells her she gets better tips when she gives each of her customers a piece of candy. Dawn decides to give her customers her Blessing Bracelets. Whoa! That’s quite a leap! From a mint or a butterscotch button to free bracelets? I don’t know, if my waitress gave me a piece of jewelry along with my bill, I would think it was super creepy and sketchy. But maybe that’s just me.  And between her full-time job, part-time job, raising her son, and volunteering for her church, when does she have time to make them all? A lady from her church wants to buy 30 of them for her prayer group. This leads to a website and, the 30 bracelets are so popular that it leads to a second order for 500 from the same woman.  But when she can’t fill the huge order, the ladies of the same church (presumably including the prayer group who just bought 30 of them) pitch in to help her make the bracelets voluntarily for free.  It just doesn’t add up. It’s fairly clear that the bracelets are being bought by women affiliated with this church or their friends. They are buying the same bracelets they are making for free? That is just super nice and generous to do that, even for church ladies. And then further complicating the fantastical nature of this bracelet selling, orders are pouring in from the new website, and a local store wants to carry the bracelets, orders 1000 of them, and needs them by Easter. I paused on the website and they are selling for 24 to 30 dollars each retail. If you do the math, that is a chunk of change. Is she selling them to the head of the church group wholesale? Then to add to the already incestuous nature of this enterprise, Dawn announces that she is donating 15% of the sales back to the same church. That’s nice of her, considering. My eyes were rolling while my head was spinning trying to put it all together. And the pastor is so touched and grateful! It doesn’t even occur to her that maybe Dawn wants to keep her flock as free labor even when selling to stores and her retail website.

My favorite part was when her smarmy husband comes crawling out of the woodwork after 3 years, bearing a 10,000 dollar check for her, the first of many, he says.  Despite his apologies and claims that he has changed, it soon becomes clear that he has not changed a bit. She turns down the money and gives him a piece of her mind. A very good scene and I was cheering for her, but should she really have turned that money down? He is her son’s father, and he really owes her that support for his son’s sake. The roof over the boy’s head was still in danger from the bank at this point.

The final straw was when Ben (remember Ben?) quits his job foreclosing on people in order to help customers start new businesses. He buys a storefront in order to rent it to Dawn for her new bracelet business without even consulting her! Maintaining a bricks and mortar store is quite different than selling online, or so I’m told. Even if her son is willing to manage it (after school?) just for “free pizza.” At first, she thought he was giving it to her! “You bought this for me?!”  Of course, she couldn’t accept such a gift, but what if she had followed that with “Thank you!! Thank You!!”? That would have been a super awkward conversation.  “Well no, I really love you, and happy you are forgiving me for almost foreclosing on you when I didn’t know who you were but it’s not a gift. I’m renting it to you, not giving it to you. Your first payment is due Tuesday.”

I approach faith-based stories with an, I hope, open mind but on the other hand I am always on the watch for sanctimony and emotional manipulation. (Hello CCB and Gack/Gaff) In this case, the message was really nice and I liked Dawn, Ben, and their story a lot as a whole. Unfortunately, the bracelet selling may have been the answer to Dawn’s prayers, but there were just too many questions about it for me. Young Justin does get a puppy in the end, in case you were wondering.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Wedding Veil Inspiration

/ Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Terror in the Art Department

I liked most of this one. The script was smart and the plot was multilayered without being all over the place. All of the actors did a nice job.  Emma’s (Autumn Reeser) slowness to realize her professional life needed a reset got on my last nerve, but mostly it was very enjoyable, buoyed considerably by the charm of the secondary romance. The movie picks up a few months after the ending of  Lacey Chabert part II, A.K.A. The Wedding Veil Expectations. Paolo and Emma are living in Chicago with Emma pursuing her career goal of being the director of the Art History Department at the University.  Paolo is in the midst of opening the new Chicago location of his family’s lace business.


While her rigid taskmaster of a boss is preparing Emma to take her place as department head, Paolo is called back to Italy to deal with his father’s health crisis. Meanwhile, a cousin, Matteo, has left his home in Miami to live in Chicago and take over the day-to-day running of the new store. During the grand opening Matteo meets Lily, Emma’s assistant, and due to an almost accident, they both touch The Veil together and their fate is sealed. Carlo Marks as Matteo, and Kacey Rohl as Lily are both charming and appealing with Lily, in particular, having a quirky and well-rounded personality with a nice sense of humor. And a terrible haircut.

The main event, however, is the trouble Emma is having at work which is causing some hiccups in her and Paolo’s personal life and worrying her two best friends. The more she is groomed by her boss to take over the long-dreamed-of position, the more unhappy she becomes. Her very bossy boss insists she give up her teaching assignments, work longer hours (leaving less time with Paolo,) go to bureaucratic meetings, and stop posting her popular educational art videos. Emma complies unhappily with each new restriction. It is obvious to the viewer and everyone else except her that the post that has always been her professional goal is not a good match for her. When will the light dawn? When her tyrannical boss advises Autumn that she must give up her stylish wardrobe because it doesn’t reflect the image she must project, I thought that that surely must be the last straw. I mean, why would an ART professor have a wardrobe like a trial lawyer? But sure enough, she shows up at work the next day in a black “who died?” suit getting the side-eye from all of her friends and colleagues. At this point, I was getting remote-throwing level frustrated with her not putting her foot down. Adding to the pressure, are Paolo’s increasing obligations in Italy. Long-distance relationships don’t work for Emma, and she is in a quandary.

All is resolved finally with an unanticipated (by me, anyway) twist, that puts a new light on Emma’s struggles and bumped my rating up a star. I liked that Paolo was loving, clear-eyed, and patient throughout all of the drama, but was not a doormat.  I liked the lesson Emma learned at the end about building a happy life with your husband and working towards professional goals. But I wish she had learned it without being driven by force to the end of her rope.

Next week we have the last entry in this second trilogy. I am a little worried about that one because according to the previews it has Autumn and Lacey horning in on Alison Sweeney and Victor Webster’s delayed honeymoon. All I can say is that the reason for this intrusion better be good.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

A Kismet Christmas

/ Rebekahrox / 7 Comments

Kismet Kookies

Anyone who looks at Hallmark movies or their copycats to any great degree gets used to questionable plot points, plot holes, and many opportunities to suspend disbelief. But this one had more than the usual problems you just have to ignore and move past. Going in, I was hopeful and curious to see Sarah Ramos, because I remember her as Lauren Graham’s daughter on Parenthood. Carlo Marks usually gives a likable performance.

Sarah is a prominent children’s author who has to return to her hometown to reward the winner of a contest promoting her new book. Of course, as is required of fictional Hallmark authors, she is suffering from writer’s block and is having trouble finishing it.  It turns out the little winner is the daughter of Travis the boy next door she had a teenage crush on and had been avoiding for over 10 years. After humiliating herself by bursting into his wedding and declaring her love, she has never returned home because of the bad memories. Yeah, it was pretty embarrassing. But why did Travis even answer the door in the middle of his vows? Was this lout raised by wolves? And how did Sarah not know her friend and next-door neighbor was getting married?

Here’s the second problem. Her beloved grandmother Mia (Marilu Henner) still lives in the house across the street. Are they telling me Sarah never visited Grandma Mia when she is supposed to be so devoted to her? 10 years of phone calls, emails, and Hallmark Cards, I guess.

She meets Travis because he lives in his parents’ old house now and gets to know his little girl,(who hugs everyone all the time. I’ve never seen such a huggy little girl) and a rekindled romance ensues. But where is the wife? Is she dead? Divorced? On vacation? I was expecting her to pop up any minute. We find out after a great deal of flirting has been going on that they are divorced and she travels with her band a lot. Whew!

And why did Grammy stop making the beloved Christmas cookies again? She taped up the recipe after Sarah ripped it up. Sarah finds it hidden away behind a wall, and she goes ahead and whips up a batch of 12 cookies. These cookies have been missed greatly by the community because they have the magical power of revealing your true love in a dream. (this is what got Sarah into all that trouble)  Yet, we are told there was a line out the door for them. How could there have been “a line out the door” for  12 cookies, especially when at least 4 were already given away?

As usual, there was an unnecessary conflict at the end which was more fake than usual and made no sense. She runs away when Travis suggests that she stay in New Britain to explore their relationship and buy Grammy’s house. Why? After she has a convo with Benny, her agent, in which nothing she didn’t already know is imparted, she changes her mind. She also realizes that the cookies really are magic because she and Travis now love each other as adults and, Yay! He is now single.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

October 27, 2022

Christmas With the Darlings

/ Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

A Darling Family Story

**Spoilers**

I really liked this Hallmark movie when it first came out in 2020 but never reviewed it. With the Hallmark assembly line of new movies slowing to a crawl, I’m reaching back to some past favorites that I can re-watch without pain or boredom and review. Christmas with the Darlings focuses on family dynamics and the struggle of a younger son to escape from his irresponsible past and become a full-fledged contributor to his family and the family business.

An excellent script is bolstered by a great cast led by Katrina Law, Carlo Marks, and a personal favorite Steve Bacic. Steve (Charles) learns that his late middle brother’s three orphaned children can no longer stay with their relatives in Australia and their guardianship has fallen to him and his irresponsible youngest brother, Max. Unfortunately, he is leaving on a lengthy trip abroad for business so he sees no other alternative, given the flighty partying nature of little brother Max, to put them in a boarding school over Christmas. Fortunately, he has a long-time personal assistant in Katrina Law (Jess) who is not having it. She will soon be leaving her current role to be a lawyer in the corporation and convinces Charles to let her devote her last vacation to taking care of the kids for the Christmas season and showing the 3 orphans a good time. As Steve leaves the country, I reluctantly had to swallow that he was not the love interest. Boo Hoo. Oh well. Max steps up to the plate and Jess soon learns that there is more to Max the goofball than meets the eye. He has done a lot of maturing when no one was paying attention. The kids love both him and Jess. Max has always had a crush on Jess but thought he wasn’t good enough for her. (And he would have been right.) Now Jess is returning his feelings. When Charles comes home he has the opportunity to see Max’s hidden depths, especially since both he and Jess are responsible for wowing a potential client with their family-centric old-fashioned Christmas party instead of the sophisticated affair that he had originally planned. Unfortunately, Max has done too good a job at proving himself because Charles makes him the liaison of the Taiwan division which means he will be separated from Jess and the Children. (Don’t worry, (as if) he doesn’t get on the plane but still has a good future with the company and with Jess) This one could really use a sequel, unlike so many Hallmark sequels that should never have been.

I was initially disappointed that Steve Bacic was not the main man, but he really made the most of his role as the tough brother and boss, but who really wanted to do the right thing for the children. He was a good man as well as a great and successful businessman. His priorities were just temporarily out of whack. Carlo really won me over as the love interest. He conveyed his yearning for Jess, his love for the children, his regret at disappointing his family in the past, and the conflict of wanting to make his brother proud, but sadness of having to leave Jess and the kids. And the kids were great too. They each had their own personality(!).

It is worth noting that this was one of the first of the Hallmark Christmas offerings to include a gay romance, however secondary it was. Jess’s best friend Zoe, a shy surgeon, has a crush on a bartender, Kate, that we see is definitely returned. Not a lot is made of it but it is unapologetically there and very sweet. Later in this 2020 season, a gay couple is featured prominently as a main couple.  That movie incurred all kinds of wrath and bitterness (and happy support and praise.) This one was like, “Let’s put this one in there and get people used to it one step at a time. By the end of the season, they won’t even know what hit em’” Well, people did notice and many were not amused. Reviewing this halfway through 2022, I am proud of Hallmark. They deserve a lot of credit for doubling down on all kinds of diversity despite boycotts and even a rival “family-friendly” network starting up and wooing away some of their top stars. They have not backed down, and I even see by the previews that they are premiering a black-centric (is that a word?) series of movies called “Mahogany” this August on their Murders and Mysteries. So, “Yay,” Hallmark and “yay” Christmas in July.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

July 6, 2022

Love at Sunset Terrace

/ Rebekahrox / 1 Comment

UPtv Gets it Right Again

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: sunset.jpg

This was a very well-done little story. Up TV, in recent days, is really showing up Hallmark in terms of fresh faces, well-written scripts, and character development. The three leads were more than half the appeal. Ellen Woglom was appealing and charming as the female lead. She has a killer smile and I appreciated that she did not have a stick-thin runway model body. Carlo Marx was handsome and likable as the vulnerable father who was over-protective and almost needy with his daughter. The young daughter was played by Erica Tremblay. Again, a young actress who was hired for her talent rather than cutesy-wutesy looks and perky sparkles. She is the younger sister of the multiple award-winning film actor, Jacob Tremblay.

The romantic relationship developed naturally and believably rather than a series of “meet-cutes” and fake instalove based on nothing but two pretty people snarking and bickering at each other. The setting looked like a real place rather than a McMansion plopped down in front of a stunning view. I’d stay there and feel right at home. The conflict was the same old same old (workaholic big city girl reconnects with nature while meeting troubled widowed Dad of young girl and presto chango lifestyles are changed and a new family is formed). But Up TV shows once again that this tired plot can be done in an entertaining and engaging way. Hallmark really should be upping their game. I fear they are have become over-reliant on their “big” name stable of actors and actresses at the expense of giving exciting young talent a chance to shine and scriptwriters who work hard to offer a quality product while still falling within the genre’s parameters.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

March 21, 2021

Making Spirits Bright

/ Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Nicely Done

This was a very sweet story with a lot of charm. Even though this was pretty low-key, it kept my interest throughout. Taylor Cole and Carlo Marks were excellent together. I’ve not always liked Taylor Cole, but she really came through as a small-town family-oriented girl, which is not a part one would usually associate with her. I don’t think I’ve seen a Christmas movie based on the business of decorating houses for Christmas. So although the Romeo and Juliet outline was pretty standard stuff, the background it is set against is unusual.

Grace and Tony are the offspring of two fathers who have been feuding for years. They were once close friends and partners in a Christmas decorating business but their differing work styles drove them apart. Tony’s father is a perfectionist which has caused him to miss deadlines and not get the job done. He puts art above money. Grace’s father is into efficiency and making a profit. They both enter the town’s Christmas decorating contest as competitors. However, in an effort to defeat a mutual enemy who emphasizes technology over heart and tradition,  they end up trying to work together.

There are some genuinely touching moments in this and romance is sweet, thanks to the chemistry between the two leads. The Romeo and Juliet romance is appealing as they go from uncertainty to friendship and then love. I loved the relationship of the two mothers, who have remained secret friends throughout their husbands’ feud. Also adding an interesting dynamic was the fraught relationship between Grace and her partner in their home-staging business.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

December 1, 2021

Moonlight in Vermont

/ Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Nothing Special

Moonlight in Vermont is your typical country good-city bad, pretend boyfriend to make old boyfriend jealous, issues with dad Hallmark fare. The only thing to set it apart is good production values, a cute setting, and the always reliable Lacey Chabert. Unfortunately, she is not given too much to work with here. Her love interest is pretty cute as well and her stepmother is a nice smart woman and not a source of tension or conflict. Her rejection of city life for “stop to smell the roses” country living was too quick and not well supported. **6 out of 10**

Rating: 6 out of 10.

April 18, 2017