Eva Tavares

A Royal Montana Christmas

/ Rebekahrox / 6 Comments
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Dude!

It’s not often that I have nothing to say. The title says it all. But it’s the Saturday premiere of the first movie in Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas. So. The overscheduled and stressed out Princess Victoria of Zelarnia escapes to a Montana dude ranch where she went as a child with her late father for a little R and R and falls for Huntley, the son of the owners. Besides having no free time in Zelarnia she is discouraged from being herself or straying outside the lines in any way, shape, or form while doing her princessly duties. After Christmas she will be taking over for her mother the queen full time. Luckily her mother is supportive and Victoria doesn’t really so much as “escape” but is allowed to go to Montana as long as she takes her head scheduler and assistant, Gabriel along with her and is back by December 19th for the official lighting of the third Advent candle. Also she has a nice sister, who is much more suited for her duties than Victoria is, to fill in. Gabriel is from New York City, and he will help Victoria navigate the strange ranch customs of America. In the one amusing line, Gabriel protests that the only ranch he is “acquainted with is ranch dressing.”

And that is pretty much that. No one recognizes her at all, so there is no cloak and dagger hiding her identity or escaping from the paparazzi going on. The fact that she is a royal princess doesn’t really play into the story at all. No culture shock, no nothing. She might as well be another Hallmark American stressed out business woman on vacation. Except for the German (?) accent. Even citified prissy Gabriel is a good sport about all they have to go through. For some strange reason, Victoria and Gabriel, paying guests mind you, are given nasty chores on their first day including mucking out the stalls (“Charlie made a big ole mess last night.” snicker snicker. Charlie being a horse.) There is some mystery about why they no longer have the annual Christmas dance which Victoria remembers so fondly.  But with the help of Huntley’s gorgeous high school friend, Shelby, she enthusiastically and competently revives it to raise money for the volunteer fire department. Shelby is nice and even though she and Huntley were the homecoming Queen and King there is no romance there at all. Drama and misunderstandings averted. Huntley’s deal is that he used to be a baseball player and even made it to the pros. But he blew out his rotator cuff during his first spring training, letting down his community who cheered him on at the last Christmas Dance that they held many years ago.  Next year’s dance was canceled because his parents were too busy seeing to his recovery. Ever since, instead of helping his parents run the ranch full time he has been assistant coaching unhappily in the minor leagues there in the hinterlands of Billings Montana and struggling with some kind of complex for letting down his community. The community doesn’t care, bro. They are too busy with their own lives.

When the Christmas dance is scheduled the day after Victoria is supposed to leave she just calls up her mom and gets an extension. No problemo. Meanwhile Huntley and Victoria have fallen in love while doing ranch activities under the big sky of Montana. At one point things get serious (they almost kiss) and she tells him she is a real princess. No problemo. Even though he is now going to help run the ranch full time, and her destiny is in Zelarnia, they are going to work it out and be together “as a team”, “whatever that looks like.” Holy matrimony is not mentioned. Sure enough, she goes back to Zelarnia to light the last Advent candle, and comes back seemingly the next day (going by what I know about Advent Candles) on Christmas to live the dream in Montana with her mother and sister in tow. They fit right in and little sis happily agrees to take over Victoria’s princess duties for ever after they get back home.

This one was not an auspicious start to Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas 2025 version. Fiona Gubelman and Warren Christie were well cast, had good chemistry and did the best they could with a really boring script. Warren looks excellent in a Cowboy hat and the kisses were solid.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

An Easter Bloom

/ Rebekahrox / 15 Comments

Flower Power

Aimee Teegarden plays a young lady in her mid twenties who has lost her faith because her Dad, who was very into church and Christianity, died of a heart attack. She has come home to “the farm” to help her still religious mother. The farm is a flower farm that is struggling because of what I like to call “bad business.” This is a condition that most Hallmark businesses that need to be saved suffer from. Basically, it can be defined as owners who, allergic to making a profit, try to run a business based on a very flawed business plan. This includes but is not limited to having a store with little to no merchandise in it, having a store with merchandise that people only buy a  month and a half out of the year, merchandise that no one would ever want and refusing to sell merchandise that they actually might want, a business that gives its products away for free, a business with no workers or volunteer workers, owners who have no idea how to use modern business tools like social media, etc., etc. To add to the financial difficulties, usually the owners live in huge and gorgeous  McMansions as do Aimee and her mother. Their lifestyle is supported by people who come to the flower farm to “pick their own bouquets”. There is no mention of any large clients who buy their flowers wholesale in bulk. No 1-800-FLOWERS inc., in sight. Plus this is one of those farms that don’t have any farm workers.

Because of too cold weather, the flowers of Aimee’s flower farm won’t grow in time for Easter, prime bouquet season. We know this because Aimee keeps stabbing at the concrete-like ground with a farm implement and muttering things about God in a bad way. Also they apparently don’t have a greenhouse. Presumably her farm is all perennials because there is no mention of not being able to plant seeds, which wouldn’t bloom in time for Easter anyway. But the odd thing is that there are flowers all around everywhere you look in this town, including in Aimee’s house. Where are those flowers coming from? Maybe Aimee and her mother’s farm is cursed, because it is apparently the only flower farm in the north east that can’t grow flowers. Maybe they need an exorcist in addition to the mother’s faith and prayer.  Anyway, the mortgage has not been paid in months and they just got a foreclosure letter from the bank. Aimee can’t believe it and doesn’t understand. Plus, the bank has turned down their loan application which is not surprising because they have not paid their mortgage in months and are foreclosing. It’s like trying to pay your credit card bill with your credit card. But Aimee and her mother are very disappointed that their fool-proof plan of borrowing money from the people you owe money to did not work. Possible salvation arrives when their good-guy neighbor offers to buy the farm for a generous amount of money which sounds like more than the farm is worth. He is turned down because that is the way it is with struggling businesses in Hallmarkland. The struggling owners always prefer to have the bank take over leaving them with nothing rather than selling their failing businesses for mucho dinero. In order to stave off disaster, Aimee is going to increase her hours at the coffee shop she works at and her mother will do more baking of Snickerdoodles that the coffee shop owner has generously offered to sell without taking a cut of the profits. Good plan. Solid. People like to give Aimee and her mother stuff throughout this whole movie. Also, the mom is going to increase her hours at the accountants. What? She works for an accountant? Amazing.

Thanks to her new friendship with a nice woman and former florist who has moved back to town from a long absence, Aimee enters a statewide flower arranging contest which she had no idea existed despite selling flowers for a living. The prize money for first prize is $20,000 dollars! Who is sponsoring this contest that can afford to offer a $20,000 purse for first prize? That’s the business I would want to be in. This nice woman is the mother of the new pastor at church who is the love interest. While teaching Aimee the basics of flower arranging she is also one of the several sources of inspirational quotes that inspire Aimee throughout the movie and, along with the handsome new pastor, lead her back to church and God.

Spoiler alert. To make a long story short, Aimee comes in second and doesn’t get the $20,000 needed to save the farm. The pastor and she become a couple after a breach is healed caused by Aimee eavesdropping on a private conversation the pastor was having and her misunderstanding of what was going on.  His mother heals a beef she has had with the town grouch with a heart of gold, who happens to be the winner of the $20,000 prize. Also the pastor tells his parishioners his big secret that he is a fan of extreme sports and because of an accident he had, he was almost paralyzed and one of his former students was left in a wheelchair. Throughout the movie, Aimee has been accepting gifts from enablers kind townspeople. Buying all of Mom’s snickerdoodles, free flowers so she doesn’t have to practice with artificial ones, free flower arranging lessons, free clothes, etc. So it is no surprise when the winner of the contest, for no reason whatsoever, bestows her prize money on Aimee with no strings attached. Aimee is pleased to accept.  So the farm is temporarily saved. Do the flowers ever sprout? We never find out. But it doesn’t matter, because Aimee and Mom are finally going to have another income stream thanks to the bright idea of turning the farm into a wedding venue. There is no evidence that they know any more about weddings than they do about flowers, but let’s have faith that it just might work. Bless them.  I’m giving this 5 stars because I like Ben Hollingsworth who played the pastor. His mother was nice and I liked the actress who played her too. It was a sweet movie that was very appropriate for Easter, being about miraculous happenings and such.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Christmas on Cherry Lane

/ Rebekahrox / 8 Comments

Pass the Advil, Please.

Ohhhh my head!  This one made my brain hurt.  I love ensembles, and movies with multiple stories that tie together in some way are favorites of mine, so I was really looking forward to this one. It did not get off to an auspicious start. We are introduced to 3 different sets of people and their stories. Right off the bat, I hated either the people or what was happening with them. The first featured Erin Cahill and John Brotherton as Lizzie and John, a happy couple expecting their first baby. These two are not my favorite actors, although it may be because of the parts in which I have seen them in the past more than anything personal against their talent. Actually, I was kind of looking forward to having this one change my attitude towards them as Ms. Cahill is a Hallmark mainstay, and John Brotherton looks to become one. And they were fine in this. The two are looking forward to enjoying a quiet Christmas together nesting in their brand-new house and waiting for their baby, when Hell descends upon them in the form of her mother and father. They barge in uninvited and unwelcome announcing they are intruding staying for the holidays. And they have the gall to have invited more members of the family to overflow our couple’s modest little home. And the gall continues. The mother and father start insulting their housekeeping (they haven’t even unpacked the moving boxes yet), implying they are incompetent at everything, and needling John about his job, which is owning a struggling gas station/body shop, unlike Lizzie’s brothers who make a lot of money as professionals. The father even reminds them that he had to help them buy their house. So strike one. I was filled with rage.

In the second story, we meet Regina (a radiant Catherine Bell), who is expecting her two adult children for Christmas Eve dinner. She plans to tell them that she is engaged to be married to her boyfriend Nelson (James Denton), selling their childhood home, retiring, and moving to Florida. The kids do not take it well. At All. They worshipped their late father and love their old home. In fact, they (especially the son) act like petulant brats about it. The son informs his mother that he does not approve of her plans. Regina responds that it is none of his business, they are her and Nelson’s decisions, and he can get on board or….Not. Yay for Regina. Loved it. The son storms out in a self-pitying huff and takes off for a friend’s house. Strike two. So far, all I am getting out of this movie is rage and disgust.

In the third story, we meet Zian and Michael, a gay couple who are hosting a Christmas Eve dinner party for 12 guests, are waiting to be approved as foster parents, and whose kitchen, where Michael, a chef, is cooking the fancy dinner, is still not finished and a wreck. The contractor who is doing the remodel does not inspire confidence (“How badly do you need your oven?”) and is too busy chatting and doing anything else except working on the cabinets, appliances, and countertops. The turkey has to be in by 5pm and it is not looking good. In the midst of the chaos, the couple learns that they have been approved for their first foster child and the little girl will be arriving that very evening. Strike 3. I was angry at the contractor and full of tension over the turkey deadline and the nice couple having to redecorate the little girl’s room, buy her some presents, and prepare for a 15-person dinner party in a matter of hours. And Jonathan Bennett, who plays Michael, gets on my last nerve sometimes.

In fact, these 3 stories take place in the same house, but approximately 25 years apart, in 1973, 1999, and 2023. We learn this about 20 minutes in, in a blink and you might miss them fade-in/fade-out pictures of the house through the years. I knew something of the sort was going on, but I didn’t fully grasp all of the implications until way over halfway through the movie. For some reason, I thought we were only looking at 1973 and 50 years later, and was very confused.  I didn’t get right away that they were all in the same house, but around 25 years apart. Were they members of the same family? Yes? No? Are their ages right though? No. Is this like This is Us? Not Really, but Kinda. I knew that the 3 couples were somehow connected but trying to figure it all out took second place to my anger and disgust with Lizzie’s parents, Regina’s son, and the contractor for the gay couple.

There were some things that I kept seeing that were in all 3 stories besides the house. A helpful neighbor, Daisy, a car, which sometimes looked brand new, and sometimes looked like a beater, and a Christmas ornament. In the end, all of the stories were resolved satisfactorily (if a little too patly) and tears even came to my eyes…even though I wasn’t quite sure why! I understood most of the connections but there were still so many loose ends and links between the 3 families I didn’t comprehend that I had to go through and replay the movie a second time. Thank heavens for fast forward. I’m the type of person that has to understand and fully grasp what is going on. I can’t stand aspects of a story slipping through my fingers. After the second go-round and with the help of Twitter (Ok, Ok, “X”) and Reddit things were clarified considerably. And I also learned that I was not the only one who was tearing their hair out. Once I got all the ins and outs of the timeline and between the characters, I have to say that this was, indeed, a very clever, well-plotted, and touching story with a great message. I even cried a little at the end again, and this time I knew why. But though I loved the ambitiousness, points off for being so worrisome and confusing. That is something I don’t need in a Hallmark movie. More clarity early on would not have been hard to provide. Call me. And we never find out who Linda and Emily are. Do we?

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Single and Ready to Jingle

/ Rebekahrox / 1 Comment

Tinsel Town

The premise for this one had a lot of promise and opportunity for laughs and romance and largely succeeded. Emma is a senior vice-president of Tinsel Toy Company, and being the Christmas season and in the toy industry she has had it up to here with Christmas. For her vacation, which is a couple of weeks before the toy-centric holiday, she is looking forward to going to a Christmas-free zone in the Caribbean. I guess toy companies aren’t too busy a few weeks before Christmas? Whatever. She has her airhead assistant book a trip to St. Johns for a week of beaches, bikinis, and drinks with umbrellas. She gets on the plane for a direct flight to the tropical island but when she deplanes, she finds herself in fictional St. Johns, Alaska. We are treated to a pretty funny visual of her in a sun dress with all of the fur-coated and parka-ed fellow passengers fighting minus 12-degree cold and fierce winds to get from the plane to the terminal. It doesn’t say much for her situational awareness that she never notices that something might be a little off with this airplane flight before she is hit with a blast of cold air instead of balmy heat and sunshine, but whatever. It is pretty funny. The love interest is Connor, the brother of the inn owners who put her up until she can get the next plane out of town. He also has a secret identity which is a big reveal towards the end. Don’t worry, he’s not Santa Claus. Both the Inn and the whole town are like a Christmas bomb went off. Emma stays and stays. First due to a snowstorm and lack of cell service and then she waffles back and forth saying she’s going to go the next day but never actually leaves.

Much of the humor in this is due to the excellent comic timing of Natasha Wilson who plays Emma. One of the funniest scenes is her confronting her clueless assistant over the phone about booking her to the wrong St. Johns.

“And you thought there was only one St. Johns on the planet?”

“ It’s the only one I’ve ever heard of! Except the one in the Bible!”

 There were enough other funny bits to keep it entertaining. Unfortunately, there were a lot of hard-to-believe aspects, situations, and behavior some of which were easy to ignore, but there were way too many of them. They started to pile up which made them a distraction. St. Johns is one mysterious town. Large enough for an airport that had regular non-stop flights to Miami Florida, and lots of fancy stores, but small enough to have our hero as the small-town style part-time mayor. It certainly didn’t act like a town in Alaska.

It was refreshing that Emma didn’t hate Christmas, she was just sick of it. And though she was fish out of water, she was a pretty good sport about it most of the time. When there was the inevitable fight with Connor, they made up pretty quickly and she rightly apologized for her rather incomprehensible behavior. Despite the silly title it was fine. And it refreshingly ended with Connor and Emma going back to the big city rather than staying near home and hearth in the frozen north.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

A Bridesmaid in Love

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“The Big Misunderstanding”

**Spoilers**

I really like Tori Anderson and her pretty smiley eyes. She’s been in at least two other Hallmarks I’ve seen, and she was the primary reason why those movies were at least watchable. In one, she was the only bright spot, and in the other, she was an important ingredient in a production that worked in several ways. In this one, everything was going along fine, until towards the end when we came to “big conflict” time.

Let me back up. Tori plays a freelance writer whose specialty is tips and advice for brides and weddings. She is kind of like a wedding planner, but she actually is a “professional bridesmaid” who solves problems or possible disasters that crop up and adds great ideas to make good weddings even better. She does this for brides in exchange for a healthy contribution to a worthy charity. Then she writes about it. When her childhood friend whose brother Matt was also once one of her best friends, is planning her wedding, Tori steps up. She has recently broken up with her loser boyfriend of 1 year, and Matt is her love interest. I really liked Matt. He was very attractive in a guy-next-door kind of way and was super sweet, like Tori. They were perfect for each other and were soon well on the way to googly eyes and true love, with Tori saving her friend’s wedding from disaster right and left. Venue, caterer, dress, you name it and Tori saves it.

Everything was burbling along fine, with a few side plots in addition to the wedding adventures. Her veterinarian ex starts to pop up as well, which added to the anticipation and suspense. We see that he is regretting his assholery, and we are seeing that Tori (along with the viewer) is wondering what the heck she saw in him in the first place. I mean, when he shows up at her Dad’s coffee shop on his way to the “Hamster Rehabilitation Conference” and her eyes start to dart around looking for escape, we know she has moved on. But he is clueless and he makes time in his busy busy Kitty and Puppy schedule to trap her alone so he can propose marriage.

And this is where the movie takes a turn for the worse. Nice Matt sees him getting down on one knee and, despite their burgeoning love, good times, soulful gazes, and intimate conversations, he turns his back and leaves the premises without bothering to see the outcome. Because of course if a guy gets down on one knee, there is only one conclusion one can make, right? The girl has to say yes. No. There are two possible outcomes, Matt. “Yes, I will marry you,” or “Thanks, but no thanks.” To make his insulting conclusion jump much worse, he acts like a total jerk to her for the last 20 minutes of the movie. He gives her the cold shoulder and is very rude. Tori is confused and heartbroken, and I was irate. It was a very very bad example of “The Big Misunderstanding”. The utter stupidity ruined a pretty decent movie.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

March 11, 2022

A Vineyard Romance

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Four Strong Performances and a Scene Stealer

I approached this one with not a whole lot of enthusiasm or hope. I’d never heard of the main actress before, and Marcus Rosner has never really stood out for me one way or another. I had just seen him in Love Stories in Sunflower Valley with an actress that I really do not like and I was unimpressed once again. He is very handsome, but not much personality. What a difference an easy rapport and chemistry with your co-lead can make! He was very engaging, entertaining, and even funny in this one. The lead actress was gorgeous in a fresh natural way that really appealed to me. They were a great match.

The movie got my attention right away when I learned Marcus Rosner was actually engaged to an internet influencer and our heroine was sent to do a piece for her magazine on their imminent wedding. They were exes and each thinks they were rudely and coldly ghosted by the other. We only know her side of the story at first, and she is understandably upset to find out that he is the prospective groom. When the love interest is set to walk down the aisle, it really raises the stakes on the tension and anticipation of what is to come. The dialogue and situations were fast-paced and funny. The secondary couple’s courtship was cute and involving. He is a widower and she is our heroine, Sam’s, best friend in the old hometown where the action takes place. The two have massive crushes on each other, but they are shy and scared. It was sweet.

But the star of the show is Leanne Lapp playing against type as the self-centered, shallow, and very bubbly fiancé. I have always liked her but she usually plays the supportive friend or sister to the heroine. I didn’t even recognize her at first. She is hilarious as the bride who is more concerned with getting her wedding perfect and publicized than the actual marriage. On top of that, she is angling to get Marcus away from the small town and vineyard (yes, there’s wine-always a plus) he loves and back to the big city she loves. Despite her machinations, such is Leanne’s take and performance of the character, we somehow still like her. When Marcus finally stands up to her and states the obvious, that they are not a good match, we are relieved for him and her. It was about time. Despite her being dumped she doesn’t have the expected meltdown but is a good sport about it. It was very refreshing.

All ends as it should for the two couples and Leanne, who is not exactly heartbroken. I hope this movie propels this talented actress out of the friend zone and into the lead role she deserves.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

02/22/2022