Ginna Claire Mason

A Newport Christmas

/ Rebekahrox / 4 Comments
The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: anewport.jpg

Dimensional Fractures Cannot Be Tolerated.

Strange. For the second time this year, Hallmark, in a way, buried the lead on two weekend Christmas movies. The one premiering Saturday night was OK, but nothing special, but the one on Sunday Night, which I assume would have less viewership, was really great.

A Newport Christmas was a time travel romance, one of my favorite plots, responsible for some of my favorite Hallmark movies like Next Stop, Christmas, Love Strikes Twice, and last year’s A ‘90s Christmas. This, unfortunately, was not quite up to those standards, because of a couple of things, but it was right up there in the conversation. The plot, the concept and the writing were outstanding. It also included some unique wrinkles that I was not expecting. As for the couple of things, nothing against Wes Brown, but he just didn’t seem like a good match for the time traveling Ginna Claire Mason. I thought their chemistry seemed off. Also, GCM’s acting was a little over done.

Ella (Mason)  is a wealthy resident of Newport, Rhode Island in December of 1905. She is somewhat of an independent dynamo and is engaged in numerous charitable activities. She is not interested in marriage but wants to use her dowry to start a charity to help the less fortunate.  While preparing for her father’s inaugural Christmas Ball, her father calls her in to his study and informs her that he has arranged a marriage for her with a man called Everette Thornton whom she has never even met. She is not happy and goes out on her boat alone to clear her head. She sees a comet while wishing for a different life and to fall in love one day. Suddenly, out of nowhere, in the boat with her is Nick, played by Wes Brown. He was on a rescue mission for a missing boat and is as shocked as she is to find a stranger in the boat. Ella has jumped forward 120 years to 2025, which she is forced to admit pretty quickly once they land back in Newport and she gets a load of all the modern stuff. Her former home has been turned into a museum, The Grafton House. Nick is the local historian there and she also meets Christine, the museum director, and Francis, her assistant (secondary romance!). Nick, supported by Christine and Francis, shows Ella around and introduces her to the 21st century. She loves it. Paper cups! Pants! Lady Bosses! Lattes! Computers! Inflatable Snowmen! She finds out that she became a prominent historical figure and an important philanthropist, helping many many people through the years. But this means that she must go back to that influential life. It is not an option, despite the fact that she and Nick have fallen in love.

In addition to the usual “fish out of water” amusing situations and quips, there were many interesting  complexities to Ella’s predicament.  As Ella learns more about her life (it turns out she was happily married to an ex-naval officer named Rex Grafton who supposedly rescued her at sea after her “disappearance”. But it is very mysterious that they can’t find a picture of him anywhere. They figure out that The 1905 “Christmas Comet” that seemingly is responsible for her time travel is reappearing on Christmas Eve in a matter of days and is her best chance of getting back to the life she was meant to lead. It soon becomes apparent that the longer Ella stays in the future and the more she learns about herself and history, the closer she comes to creating a “dimensional fracture” which is symbolized by her portrait disappearing and a biography of her turning into blank pages. One day, Ella spots an old coast guard buddy of Nick’s named Adam and she knows him from somewhere! How can that be? Ella remembers that Adam sold her her boat over 120 years ago. He is a time traveler too, but got here 20 years earlier!  And that is all I will say about that, but the whole situation actually had me pretty mystified and marginally concerned as to how this was all going to resolve itself into a happy ending for Nick and Ella. To further complicate matters, I liked Adam better than Nick. 

This movie was entertaining and sure kept my interest. There were some anachronisms where they got history wrong. Christmas lights were actually pretty common in 1905 as was the QWERTY keyboard. The arranged marriage between two people who had never met? Nope. Not in America, anyway. Ella’s hairstyle was all wrong. And once again, Hallmark missed an opportunity for a little fun social commentary by having Ella ignore the fact that Christine is black. It’s the usual stuff that just has to be ignored or will drive you crazy.  Other than those quibbles it was well thought out and I liked it. I really did.

Rating: 8 out of 10.


Hats Off to Love

/ Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Mean Girls

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

Man, are all women in Kentucky this mean, or just the rich ones? Yikes. If I were from Kentucky, I might be a little offended.

Stella is from St. Petersburg Florida and has moved to Lexington Kentucky to be a milliner. She was inspired by a photo of a woman at “The Derby” wearing a hat she really liked. She sneaks one of her hat designs into a society maven/ horse farm owner’s hotel room, and wins her favor because her designs are something different from her usual milliner. It is decided that Stella will work from the usual milliner’s, Odette’s, studio and, under her guidance, produce the hats for all of the outfits that the wealthy society and horse lady, Rosalind, will wear to all of the Derby events, of which there are many. Odette is a real witch and a hard taskmaster. To add to Stella’s troubles, of which there are many, Rosalind’s PA is also put in the studio and tries to sabotage Stella at every turn. We don’t know why she hates Stella so much. I guess she’s jealous? Why? Meanwhile Stella meets Rosalind’s son, Christian, who is also the horse trainer for the stable and that’s the romance part.

There were some good things in this one, but in the final analysis, there were just too many things that just didn’t track with me.

  •  It was not a good look for the professional horse trainer that his mother’s hat maker knew more about horses and even specifically the horse he has raised from a foal, than he did.
  • Now Central Florida, even though it is geographically more southern than Kentucky, isn’t really “The South” as far as attitude and culture. (For that matter, is Kentucky?) But it’s not New York or Alaska. Surely Stella should know that “Bless Your Heart!” is not a compliment. It’s so famously an insult, that even Southern Women can not say it to your face anymore. 
  • The Hats. They were not good. Or, let’s just say they were not to my taste. It was like the costumers knew they didn’t have the skills to make really pretty hats, so they decided to make them as ugly as possible, so viewers would think it a case of “It must be me-no one would really go out in public with that on their head.” Kind of like “A good offense is the best defense”. Some were OK, to be fair.
  • Christian, the love interest, behaved very problematically at several key points. He was really rude to his friend Davidson who came to stable his horse as previously agreed 8 months ago. He yelled at him and almost kicked him off his property with no explanation other than his horse Toreador has been on a winning streak. I thought it would turn out that the guy was a real scoundrel but no, he was super nice. Since we were not given an explanation, it made Christian look like a brat.  Also, even though Christian knew that Hannah the PA had it in for Stella, he believed all her lies and put her in social jeopardy more than once. I know there always has to be a big misunderstanding near the end, but this one just made Christian look even more stupid and childish. 

Ah, me. There was some other stuff too. I won’t compare and contrast The Kentucky Derby versus The Lexington Derby. Nor will I address Amusement Parks or disastrously placed cups of coffee. The horseracing setting was something different and it was good. I liked  Ginna Claire Mason’s portrayal of Stella, and Holly Robinson Peete’s portrayal of Rosalind, a woman struggling to break out of her comfort zone and take some risks in chapeaux as well as horse racing. A little secondary romance there would not have come amiss. But it was not to be.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

A Carol for Two

/ Rebekahrox / 3 Comments

Broadway Baby

I really really liked this classic Broadway/old 1930s-ish story. There was lots of entertainment to be had including well-chosen Christmas carols and singing that was off the charts thanks mainly to the two leads. They had a very romantic vibe together throughout. Ginna Claire Mason, who has been in two previous Hallmarks, one of which was also set on Broadway,  was very talented and appealing in this one. Jordan Litz, a legit Broadway and theatre star was also a real standout in this, his first film role. He doesn’t even have a picture yet on his IMDb profile as of this writing.

Violette’s talent has made her a big frog in a little pond in her small Idaho town and, supported by her now cancer-free father and the rest of the town, including chipping in some cash, has decided to try her luck on the Great White Way, fully expecting a smooth road ahead. If you think this sounds like one of those old Busby Berkeley musicals, you would be right. Literally right off the plane, train, or bus, she finds out that the show she was going to be in has lost all of its investors and the plug has been pulled. Luckily, she has a safety net. Her late Aunt Carol was once a big name in the theatre world and her best friend owns a kind of restaurant/talent show mash-up where she supports and promotes the budding careers of young aspiring Broadway hopefuls. Hazel takes Violette in and immediately gives her a spot singing and waitressing. The other staff aren’t pleased with this bit of nepotism as they all had to pay their dues before being given a chance to display their talents. But it isn’t long before her talent and Midwestern Nice win them all over. Particularly impressed is Alex, the most multitalented of them all.  We get to know him and his leech of a cousin and roommate, Brad, who falls for Violette at first sight. He has to be her boyfriend and gets Alex to help him impress her kind of like Cyrano de Bergerac. Meanwhile, Alex and Violette are picked to perform at Fiore’s on Christmas Eve where a big Broadway bigwig will attend and give them their big break. As they rehearse, Alex and Violette, who have everything in common, grow closer, while he is feeding Brad, who has absolutely nothing in common with her, intel to keep her interested.

 The big mystery is why she continues to tolerate Brad with handsome Alex right there bonding with her, singing with her, and tinkling the ivories for her. Also why doesn’t Alex put a stop to all the deceit? Thanks to him, Violette thinks Brad is sweet and thoughtful, and Alex, who ought to know better, thinks Brad is a “good guy” at heart. Which he is not. At all. I hated him, the little worm. He was the major strike against this generally wonderful and entertaining movie. I am not kidding. I think he was supposed to be funny but every time he came on the screen, I just wanted to slap him into next week. Unfortunately, I also wanted to slap Alex for putting up with his mess. Another strike was Violette’s relationship with her super super loving and super supportive father. He kept bugging her on the phone for tickets to her big show and she kept lying to him because of the old “I don’t want to let him and all the townspeople down” thing. They seemed too needy and dependent on each other and it gave me the creepy crawlies. It’s probably a “me thing” but father and daughter matching pajamas? Really? The last strike against this one was when Violette found out the truth about Alex and Brad a minute before they had to go on stage for their big break. Instead of sucking it up and acting like the professional “the show must go on” she aspires to be, she completely collapses in front of the Broadway impresario and the audience filled with influencers (and her father! surprise!).  This also ruins long-suffering Alex’s big chance as well. Theoretically. Luckily, they get another chance and this time they sing Alex’s own original song. It was all right for that kind of thing. The last scene is one of those old cliche (but lovable) scenes with the two in a clinch floating in front of the lights of Broadway with all of the rapturous headlines about their future triumphs whizzing by. It sounds like I didn’t like this since my last paragraph is all about what I didn’t like. But thanks to the New York vibe, the nostalgic plot, and the chemistry between the two leads, the bijous outweighed the blights.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

A Holiday Spectacular

/ Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

To Keep it Light, skip my last paragraph.

Visually, this was a treat. I loved the vintage costumes and set decorations. The Rockettes and their costumes were fabulous. I loved seeing Ann-Margret in the role of a grandmother in the present day telling her granddaughter the story of her past and how she got to be a famous Rockette.  And seeing an Un-rec-og-nize-able (at first) Eve Plumb as the mother of the love interest was great casting as well. I know seeing Eve Plumb along with Ann-Margret’s names in the promos was definitely an incentive for me to watch this one. The rest of the cast have their backgrounds in the theatre or otherwise have very few TV/Movie credits to their name. Also something I liked. Ginna Claire Mason as the lead, Maggie, was particularly appealing. Although her hairdo was very distracting; I couldn’t quite figure out what was going on there. It looked like a wig, but why?

Margaret (the young Ann-Margret) is from old-money Philadelphia society and is engaged to be married to the scion of another prominent family. It is the 1950s and it is an arranged marriage of convenience. However, Maggie loves to dance and she escapes to New York to try out for Rockettes keeping it a secret from everyone. She is hired but plans to only stay until one Christmas and then go back to her real life. While learning how to survive in the boarding house the girls stay in (no doorman to carry up her bags! Sharing a bathroom! Going out of doors in pants! Running out of hot water!) she also meets a young grocer on some kind of leave from the Navy with aspirations to be a photojournalist. She soon realizes she is living her authentic life in New York and is only now the person she was meant to be. Now it’s just a matter of getting up the courage to tell everyone the truth. Including the young grocer/navy man she has fallen in love with and who doesn’t know her family is wealthy and aristocratic or that she is engaged to be married. Meanwhile, she doesn’t hesitate to advise him to tell his parents the truth about wanting to go to college and not carry on with the family business. Of course, we get to know her 4 main roomies and their troubles as well. The ever-present anticipation of the fit hitting the shan when she finally does come clean with her new love, her fiance, and her family, keeps interest pretty high. It takes her way too long, but when she finally does, it’s worth the wait. There are some off-kilter reactions that don’t make sense by more than one involved party but only serve to advance the plot. Not unusual. And returning to the framing device of the grandmother and her granddaughter ends the story neatly.

It is a story of following one’s dreams, standing on one’s own feet, and the power of friendship. It is not the story of what life was really like in the 1950s for non-white people in New York City. In a right-minded effort to correct their past lack of diversity in their movies, I feel, with this one, Hallmark has done a disservice to their viewership and to the truth of the African American experience. It shows an integrated dance troupe with a black dancer who is even promoted over the other girls at the end. In truth, the Rockettes did not have even one non-white dancer until 1985. And she was Japanese. It wasn’t until 1987 that a black dancer was famously accepted. As much as I appreciate Hallmark’s efforts at inclusion, falsifying history is just wrong and harmful. And I don’t think you can just gloss over this situation by glibly proclaiming “It’s the Hallmark Channel, not the History Channel!!!!!”. There’s a quote about being doomed to repeat history that might apply here. Not to belabor a point, but something similar happened in 2016’s A Journey Back to Christmas. In that one, a nurse fresh from segregated 1945 is transported to 2016 and is questioned by a black doctor and interrogated by a black Chief of Police. No incredulity, nor even a blink on her part. What a lost opportunity for a short but dramatic (or comedic!) history lesson! And it would have taken all of 10 seconds and a line or two. Not sure how I would have fixed this one, but even an expository paragraph at the beginning or end about the truth of the matter would have gone a long way toward remedying the problem while still giving a talented black actress a job.

Rating: 7 out of 10.