Marcus Rosner

An Ice Palace Romance

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The Skating Continues

This premiered in December 2023 on Hallmark’s Streaming Channel. Last night was its network premiere. I didn’t hold that against it because this month’s Rescuing Christmas which had the same kind of roll out was one of last year’s best Christmas movies in my opinion.

I am not going to summarize the plot of this one except to say City Girl, Small Town, Single Father, Old building Saved. The rest of the movie only piles on the tired cliches and tent pole scenes one right after another as the 80 odd minutes tick by. Some of this is to be expected and actually OK for those to who only look at Hallmarks to provide comfort, reliability, and escape from reality. I’m not one of those and there is too much else wrong with this one. Here’s 5 things.

Lori, the city girl, was an Olympic hopeful ice-skater who fell during the trials and “never skated again”. So. No dedication, no courage, no commitment. No nothing. Including sympathy from me.  Not the stuff that Olympic champions are made of and it was probably for the best for all concerned. So the lead girl did not make a good first impression and did nothing to endear her to me later.

The actress was stiff and awkward in this role. Though young and pretty, her makeup was slathered on, even in a scene where she was awakened in bed by a morning phone call. I really thought we were starting to get past that. Plus, in the context of the phone call the makeup situation actually undermined the script. I won’t go into it. But, my God, the lip liner.

Her obligatory  work colleague and confidante embodied every stereotype of the flamboyant gay male possible. He was exhausting.

The lead guy, Mark, who actually is likably played by reliable Hallmark workhorse, Marcus Rosner, is trying to save his skating rink from an evil (and he actually is) corporate developer. He keeps nattering on about how it is the “heart and soul” of the community, how it is all “for the children”, and trying to fundraise to make the improvements necessary to keep his lease. This is not a charity or publicly funded community (one of his favorite words) project. This is his for-profit business and he lives in a huge expensive house.  So-o-o-o-o-o. What is wrong with this picture? A little self-serving maybe?

Lori goes through the whole movie falling for Mark, supporting Marc’s efforts with his rink, accepting gifts from him, and listening sympathetically. She is noticeably disgusted by the the evil developer who is also trying to date her. She befriends Mark’s daughter and coaches her for the skating tournament. After she conquered her little skating aversion, she skates at the Ice Palace incessantly. But when her article comes out, it was not favorable to Mark’s cause! And it’s not because her intimidating female boss edited it behind her back either. It is totally what she wrote. And she doesn’t even warn Mark or have any kind of conversation with him that her article will not be backing him 100%. He is blindsided and humiliated by the smarmy developer who can’t resist taunting him. It is a total stab in the back. The fact that her article is right is beside the point. It was a shocker, but in a WTF way, not in a good way.

I could go on and on (trust me) but I’ll stop there because I don’t want to be tedious about it. I will just assure you that the bad guy is defeated, the ice rink is saved, the development the town needs for rejuvenation happens, and Lori abandons her city career for small town life, ice-skating, love, and motherhood. Didn’t want you to worry. There were some bright spots. Shannon McDonough as Jen, Lori’s local camera operator was good and her little romance with a nerdy architect could have used a lot more attention. And I am always glad to see Mary Long who played the Mayor. And her necklace in one scene was quite eye catching. But I guess that’s a Canadian thing and it’s not really a necklace per se.

Every so often, Hallmark will throw one of these lazy efforts up on the screen.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Falling Like Snowflakes

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Flakey

It’s Christmas in July time at Hallmark only in June. It was nice to get back to a Christmas story in the summertime. All that cold weather and snow when it’ so hot outside! And in this one, the snow, or at least the flakes, were (was?) the starring attraction, not just white background.

Teagan is a photographer who specializes in taking pictures of snowflakes. She also  works closely with the community center as a photography teacher. Her best friend runs an Art Gallery and Teagan’s snowflakes are center stage. There are 35 main types of snowflakes and she has  photos of 34 of them. She has been on the hunt for the last one to complete her collection for 3 years, since her Mom died. If she finds it by Christmas Eve, a collector will not only buy all 35 of the pictures, but donate enough to the community center to fix everything that ails it. Finding the rare and elusive 12 sided stellar dendrite will be like finding a needle in a haystack but if the needle kept melting!

Anyway, and you won’t believe this, One of Teagan’s star students, Julie, is the daughter of Teagan’s former high school honey, Noah,  and he is a not-too-sad widower. Now that his wife is dead, he has returned to his old hometown after giving up his former career as a climate scientist (weatherman) to become the world’s worst professional snow plow driver. Not sure why he did that since since the usual loving grandparents or other hometown family who could mother his little girl were noticeably absent. The two prospective love interests meet, sparks fly, etc. Being a snow plow driver,  Noah volunteers to take Teagan to a gathering severe snow storm on a mountain to hunt for the snowflake that will complete her collection and save the community center. Driving around, looking at the scenery, and staying at an Inn, they get to know each other. Excitement occurs when Noah runs into some black ice and crashes his snow plow into a snowbank. Now you would think that wouldn’t be a problem for a snow plow, but, like I said, he is the world’s worst. He failed to stock the humongous cargo box with the usual snow fighting tools such as salt, sand, and shovels to get him out of trouble.

Empty

Also no chains on the tires. But adorned with bows and wreaths aplenty! Meanwhile, back in Willow Creek a rival photographer is also on the hunt for the rare crystal. She looks like Sarah Silverman. Sarah starts cosying up to Julie trying to learn Teagan’s secrets for photographing snowflakes which are easily found on Google. She is so hopeless and incompetent that she ends up being comic relief rather than a source of tension and suspense. Nevertheless, she is taken dead seriously as a legitimate threat throughout the movie.

Back on the mountain, Teagan and Noah are somehow rescued. They continue chasing the elusive snow storm, but when they find it Teagan has barely gotten her camera out of the bag before she almost gets lost and is almost flattened by a falling tree branch. Thoroughly cowed, they give up on the snowflake and return to safety but without Teagan’s camera which she forgot and left on the mountain in the snow (IKR?). Just to set your mind at rest, the next day, Noah goes back to get it and somehow the camera snuck back into it’s insulated camera case which saved all of the pictures. It turns out she captured a shot of the rare flake (perfectly centered!) without even knowing it,  the community center is saved, and Julie looks like she is going to get a new mom.

I just touched on some of the stuff in this movie that didn’t make sense. Good ole reliable Marcus Rosner is OK, but for some reason I am not a fan of Rebecca Dalton who played Teagan. I’ve disliked most of the movies she has starred in and my dislike has mostly been  due to the obnoxious characters she has played. This one did not win me over.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Love on the Right Course

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Par for the Course

This movie had some odd things about it although it certainly broke no new ground, staying firmly within the Hallmark standard formula, romance-wise. Except it was about golf, which surely must be a first? And was set in Hungary, the latest stop on producer Lief Bristow’s world tour. He likes to do Hallmark movies that are set in foreign countries that are not Canada. And likes to bring his daughter, Hallmark actress Brittany Bristow, with him sometimes. She actually wrote this one. Good for her. One of the foremost odd things is that, as of this writing, the description of this movie’s plot on IMDb has nothing to do with this movie’s plot.* Our Heroine’s Dad is not injured, His golf course is not struggling and It’s a whole resort. The leading man is not a groundskeeper named Austin but a golf pro named Daniel, and our leading lady is not “reluctantly” entering an annual tournament to “win the purse”.

Ashley Newbrough plays Whitney, a championship golfer who has hit a rough patch since the death of her mother, her coach, and herself a legendary golfer. Her caddy who wants to be her new coach is a jerk and not happy about her placing in 12th  at the latest tournament and barely qualifying for the Eastern European Open. He is a most annoying “Type A” personality who won’t shut up badgering and criticizing Whitney on her game.  When Whitney refuses to promote him from caddy to coach and tells him she is not going back to Arizona with him to practice for the big Open but going home to Hungary for her widowed dad’s birthday, he quits. She is not unhappy about that. Not at all. Unfortunately, I sensed that this would not be the last we saw of him.

Back home in Hungary at her father’s posh golf resort, she finds him bordering on, if not smack dab in the middle of, what appears to be clinical depression over the the death of his wife, Ashley’s mother. He has become a recluse and doesn’t get up early because “it makes the day too long.” He shows no interest in getting on with life even seriously looking into selling the place. He has closed the resort restaurant and has delegated running the place to Daniel, Marcus Rossner, who is also the golf pro. She is justifiably very worried. Instead of a good grief counselor or therapist, Whitney brings him a doggy to foster for a while. Smart move. Along with getting him out and about beautiful nearby Budapest and planning a barbeque for him to host, the dog does the trick. Dad is well on the road to recovery by the time the movie is half over. There’s even a possible love interest on the horizon. Meanwhile, Whitney is training for the Open and falling into strong like with Daniel, who loves teaching and coaching. How fortuitous.  She asks him to coach her as his laid-back approach, which has brought the fun back into the game for her, is proving very effective in getting her back on track. He is the complete opposite of Andrew the pest, who, as predicted, shows up unannounced wanting his job back. You quit, Dude. Go. Away. Just to be nice, she lets him follow her around carrying her clubs, and it isn’t long before he is back to his old heckling ways. Marcus misunderstands the relationship and backs off from coaching her. She has no choice but to give Andrew another chance as she needs a caddy for the big tournament. Meanwhile, her dad has gotten into a pickle with his greedy skank of a real estate agent, Bianka, who is charging him a large commission even though he has decided not to sell his resort after all. He even wants to re-open the restaurant! What luck that Marcus’s brother is a real estate lawyer and Whitney’s best friend is a talented chef whose own restaurant has fallen on hard times and needs a new position! Daniel’s brother deems Bianka’s claim that she is owed 200,000 euros for not selling the resort utter nonsense. So that problem is solved. Anyway, during the tournament Andrew persists in pressuring Whitney, nagging at her, and getting on her last nerve. This guy just doesn’t know how to read the room. In frustration, she just quickly whacks at a very difficult putt and it miraculously goes in the hole for an eagle! Andrew whisper-yells at her that it was just luck and this is where he gets himself permanently fired. I loved it. Marcus to the rescue and Ashley wins the tournament over her chief rival played by Brittany Bristow in a brief cameo appearance.

I mentioned some odd things. Although Marcus Rosner and Ashley Newbrough, last seen together in Countdown to Christmas’s Flipping for Christmas, seemed to have good chemistry (Argh! I have come to hate that word) the acting was very low-key and at times seemed stiff and stilted. In addition, the editing was not the best with some awkward transitions from scene to scene. The first hour or so was very slow and repetitive. And then there is also the mystery of Ashley’s biological father. Marcus asks her why she is based in Arizona. She says her “mom and dad” met when her mom was on a golf scholarship to the University of Arizona and she met “her Dad” there when he was studying Golf Course Management. But wait. She then throws her whole history into confusion by adding that she was not born in Arizona but in Florida and that her mom was a single parent when she married Hungarian Marton, who adopted her when she was 8 years old. And “he is the only father she has ever known.” What happened to the guy her mother met in Arizona and had a baby with in Florida? Did he drown in a water hazard? Cruelly abandon his wife and little daughter? Did he pay child support? Why does she refer to him as “her Dad,” just like her real Hungarian father? Sounds like this movie should have been about her mom because there is a story there, I bet! It was just a totally unnecessary and gratuitous detour into the land of TMI. And what was a Hungarian doing in Florida anyway?  I watched this scene 3 times to try to untangle the thing and still don’t know why she was based in Arizona. Marcus needed to ask some follow-up questions instead of just responding “That’s incredible” at the end of her tale (even though it was). Why so complicated? couldn’t Marton have just been her real Dad?

Despite its problems, I quite liked this one. It really picked up after the first hour, and I enjoyed the vanquishment of Bianka the slimy real estate agent and Andrew the pest. It also could have been beautiful Budapest and the lack of Christmas decorations and snow.

* it has since been corrected, but that was really funny.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Flipping for Christmas

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A Throwback to the Olden Days

This was a typical old-school standard issue dyed in the wool “Hallmark Christmas Movie”. It hits all of the buttons and no trope is left behind. Abby is an ambitious successful New York City home designer who is all about “go go go” and taking her company to the top. She has just snagged a huge contract to design a condo and retail development in the New York City area. We meet the corporate mogul who has just hired her for her devotion to work and profits. She has adopted her father’s motto, ” You don’t stop when you’re tired you stop when you are done.” And, of course, she has no problem working through the Christmas holidays. This developer guy, Antonio, exudes menace and ruthlessness. There is no need for him to twirl a non-existent mustache because it’s all in his eyes and tone of voice. Actor Ray Galletti does a very effective job in his role.

Abby receives a call from her sister, whose husband’s grandfather has just died, and left them his old Victorian house. She needs Abby’s help and expertise to renovate and flip it because they need the money. The two sister’s mother has recently passed and their devastated father has come to live with her because he also lost his company and his pension. So much for that motto. He lives in the family’s made-over garage and she wants the profits from the house to expand the family home so Dad can get out of the garage and live inside the house. Plus they are living paycheck to paycheck. This is a little more depressing than usual for Hallmark, I have to say. Abby is a good person in spite of her big-city workaholic ways and is happy to come to the picturesque and idyllic small town to help out over the holidays. She will work on her new big-city project remotely.

What her sister does not tell her is that Grandpa’s will left half of the house to the local carpenter/handyman/do-gooder who does not want to sell the house but turn it into a B&B because it will be more of a benefit to the community. Also, Bo doesn’t really have any other visible means of support as he never sells anything but is always donating his projects and working for free. So just the opposite of Abby. They both start to renovate the house at the same time hoping to work it out mid-job (?). In addition to their opposite philosophies and personalities, the initial antagonism between the two plays out pretty well. The conflict between them is for good reason, not some stupid high school misunderstanding that has festered for years. Both of their plans for the house are worthy, and both will not give an inch. (When they can’t agree on a paint color the room ends up in alternating stripes. Those crazy kids.). There was plenty of tension and I was semi-engaged in their struggle of wills when all of a sudden all of the drama left the building like air out of a balloon. They start to like each other for no apparent reason. We know this because they start to smack each other playfully with their paintbrushes. The flirty shenanigans commence and continue unabated with Christmas activities thrown into the mix. Cue Christmas tree cutting and the snowball fight.

The rest of the movie follows the formula to a “T” involving Abby embracing small-town values, saving a park from the evil developer. The word “gentrify” is used many times in this movie with the same tone one might say “salmonella poisoning”. And of course we have the last minute temporary break up because it’s Abby’s fault the park is in danger in the first place. Sound familiar?  Must I go on?

I can’t be too hard on this. The stars, Ashley Newbrough and Marcus Rosner are attractive Hallmark veterans. I have no problem with them. The comfortable formula has its place, and, indeed is treasured by a certain segment of the Hallmark audience. There is no controversy, No gays (that we know of), and only the lightest smattering of diversity. For GAF devotees who still sneakily look at Hallmark movies, it’s just what the doctor ordered for the hectic and stressful Holiday Season.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Notes of Autumn

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Trading Places

This is a “trading places” romance wherein two long-distance friends exchange homes for a week or so to figure things out regarding their professional lives.  Ever smiley Ashley Williams plays Ellie, a former professional pianist, who just got fired from her event planner job because she kept getting distracted by pianos. She gave up her true vocation because, she says, she likes to eat, have a roof over her head, and wear clothes. But it’s really because her confidence was shattered by a mean conductor. One of her good friends in the hotel she worked at is Matt, the chef, who is using her apartment kitchen to create new recipes for a restaurant he hopes to open soon. The ever charming and adorable Luke McFarlane plays Leo, a romance writer with the curse of all Hallmark characters who write for a living: the dread Writer’s Block. His neighbor is Sam who is trying to whip a string quartet into shape for a charity event called a Piano Ball even though he is not a musician. Friends Leo and Ellie change places a la The Holiday Or Hallmark’s own Trading Christmas or last year’s Sister Swap movies. Yes, it’s been done before. And disappointingly a lot better in two of the cases.

To make a long story short, Ellie falls for Sam while getting her music mojo back, and Leo falls for Matt who inspires him to write something new as he is tired of writing his very popular series of historical romances. The fictional characters of Isabelle and Jack, amusingly played by Pascale Hutton and Kavan Smith,(who play a couple in Hallmark’s super popular series, When Calls the Heart) keep intruding in Leo’s real-life struggles writing on his computer. I kept getting distracted by Ashley’s smile and Marcus Rosner’s dimples, imagining what their children might look like. Can we make that happen?

Besides the cute gimmick of Pascale and Kavan’s occasional appearances, the writing was average but the actors made the most of their lines. All of them were likable and funny, although Ashley’s struggles made no sense whatsoever. The gay romance was well done and sweet. Their sexual preference was pretty much in deep cover. Even Leo was surprised Matt was gay even after they had spent a good bit of time together. Guess his writer’s block also broke his Gaydar. At the end though we get some pretty loving looks and a couple of kisses. They all end up in Pinewood, Leo’s and Sam’s picturesque Canadian hometown, the city where Ellie and Matt lived abandoned in true Hallmark fashion. The love lives and professional lives are destined for success.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Love Club: Nicole’s Pen Pal

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It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie

As of this writing, this same movie is on IMDb two times with different titles, different ratings, and different reviews.  Both iterations have the release date as March 4, 2023, but one has 9 reviews dating back to February 10. And that right there is the most interesting thing about this movie.  Will this ever get corrected? I’m betting no. They still have two Cindy Busby movies, Heart of Down Under mixed up with Follow me to Daisy Hills mixed up with Love on the Menu and it’s been 3 years. This one, titled The Love Club: Nicola’s Pen Pal or just  Nicola’s Pen Pal or just The Love Club (episode 1) is the first of a 4 part series. Each episode is a stand-alone and features one of the 4 women in the club. The Wedding Veil double trilogy seems to have been the inspiration for this concept. It is a good concept and a pretty clever strategy to theoretically increase the ratings of all 4 movies. Once people start on a set of something, it is human nature to try to finish it. Unfortunately, this was not good. Any romance based on lying and cheating is just not good. Do not recommend. Nope. FGI (For Get It).

On New Year’s Eve, 10 years ago, Nicola is stood up by her anonymous male pen pal she has grown close to through their correspondence. His support and compassion saw her through a difficult period. At that New Year’s Eve party, she meets 3 other women who are also dealing with romantic disappointment. They form The Love Club and agree to help each other through romantic problems and crises. Despite her recent engagement, she has never been able to forget her connection with “J.” When her unsuspecting fiance leaves for a business trip, she finds her old letters and decides she must find “J.” to see if he is “the one” instead of her fiance. And why did she promise to marry her fiance again? Why is she searching for a better alternative now? With the help of her 3 friends, she narrows the field down to 2 possibilities. Instead of going  to see him and just explaining the situation and asking whether he could be her pen pal of long ago, she conceives this elaborate plot to impersonate the interior designer he has hired for his Bed and Breakfast to covertly figure out if he is J and see if they still have a “connection.” (despite the fact that he stood her up all those years ago and they haven’t been in contact since. And despite the fact he might not be the guy at all) Believe it or not, it just gets even more silly and stupid from there. I won’t belabor all of the boring ridiculousness-es that follow. But for one, it turns out that Josh (J.) is her pen pal, but he did not write the letters because he had dyslexia at the time. He confesses this after they start to fall in love so she is all angry, betrayed, and self-righteous. Keep in mind that she hasn’t told him she is engaged to be married and has been and still is impersonating a professional colleague behind his back. It is not until the end that it comes out that even though he didn’t put pen to paper, he actually dictated his thoughts to a guy who essentially wrote them out for him. So after all of the drama, shenanigans, and resulting stupid rabbit holes (and more lies) which I won’t even go into, he actually, for all intents and purposes, although a cheater, was her pen pal after all. Why didn’t he just say that at the beginning? Dyslexia of the vocal cords? So I guess he was kind of lying about lying? she surely wouldn’t have had a problem with him being a cheater in his class. With her being a cheater too and all.

All of this hot mess, which includes a very uncomfortable and creepy massage scene, is acted with the energy of a deflated wet balloon. The two leads are Hallmark veterans Marcus Rosner and Brittany Bristow. Marcus does the best he can and isn’t too bad. But Brittany acts her role as if she is under some kind of duress or a spell of some kind. The other three in the series have already been made and are showing somewhere mysterious. Possibly Canada? But I won’t be seeking them out.

Rating: 3 out of 10.

Romance to the Rescue

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It’s All about the Dog

The human cast was OK but the dog stole every scene. He was adorable and hilarious. What an actor! Hallmark better get “Nova” locked down with an ironclad contract before GAC comes a-callin’. Just saying.

Andrea Brooks plays Kyra, a young and ambitious marketing person who works in a pet store. In order to impress her new boss, who she is also crushing on, she lies about having a dog. In order to cover her tracks, she goes to a local rescue organization to adopt a dog. The owner (Marcus Rosner-Kevin) is very picky about who rescues his dogs. She has to lie to him about her qualifications in order to fulfill his strict requirements. She really had to jump through a lot of hoops. Believe me when I tell you that Nova, who plays Sam, the dog, was absolutely pure liquid joy.

On a home visit(!) to Kyra’s house, to make absolutely sure Sam and Kyra are doing OK, it is obvious to Kevin that she doesn’t know what the hell she is doing as far as discipline and training are concerned. Sam has trashed her house in 10 seconds flat. Kyra goes through an amusing montage of prospective dog trainers. They range from militaristic to a holistic new-age approach, and none are a good match for the dynamo that is Sam.  Kevin ends up with the job and the rest is history.

Andrea Brooks was energetic, perky, and cute. I liked her, but I can see that a little of her could go a long way. After many many secondary roles in the Hallmark factory, she deserves the promotion to head girl. Marcus Rossner was fine, but I felt he was a little miscast. I feel like the part was written for a nerdy underdog type (no pun intended), and Marcus is anything but. But he carried it off.

Anyway, this was a perfectly serviceable Hallmark as far as plot and character, but OMG, that dog!

Rating: 7 out of 10.

May 23, 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

Christmas With a Crown

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Save the Library

This is a no more than serviceable Prince Pretending to be a Commoner in America story. He is visiting a small town trying to discover the true meaning of Christmas, so camouflaged as it is in the palace by meaningless tradition and formality. He goes to the town where a late former friend of his mother lived and that to him embodies the spirit of Christmas via her letters to his mother, the queen. He gets on the wrong side of a woman who is trying to save the local library by reviving her mother’s yearly project, the Winter Fest. Her mother, it turns out, just happens to be the woman whose letters to his mother have brought him to town.

Teryl Rothery plays the queen, who is pretty unpleasant throughout almost the whole movie. Marcus Rosner, a Hallmark veteran is good as the square-jawed dimpled prince. He was princely. I actually liked his use of a quasi-English accent when in his prince persona and an American accent when in disguise. Unfortunately, the actress who played his love interest was not a good match, in my opinion. For one thing, she seemed too mature and worldly-wise to be a romantic lead for a prince in disguise in Small-Town U. S. A. The character got on my bad side right away by foolishly turning down his enthusiastic offer of help with saving the library because he was a visitor and not “part of the community.” Especially since No One in the Actual “Community” stepped up to the plate. Everyone had an excuse.

There is a priceless scene near the end of the movie where Queen Teryl orders Prince Nicolas to kneel before her and pulls out a crown that looks like it was snagged from the Burger King mascot. She **spoiler alert**coronates her son right there in the middle of Winter Fest. I’m not sure whether this added a star to my rating or subtracted a star. But one thing for sure, Teryl and Marcus looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

December 14, 2021

Christmas in Evergreen

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No Surprises Here. And that was OK in this Case

This one had every freaking Christmas cliché in the book. Country good/city bad, specious current boyfriend/fiancé versus Christmas-phobic single Dad, Save the festival, magical Santa, frolicking in the snow, Christmas Cookies, and Christmas-centric small town. And… the boyfriend who appeared like a jump-scare in a horror film. I still liked it. I am one of the majority that really likes Ashley Williams. The screen loves her and she is never less than a sweetie-pie. This entry also featured two other shining stars: Jaida Lily Miller and Rukiya Bernard. Young Jaida is a Hallmark regular for good reason. She is a great little actress and a charming presence. I wish Rukiya were more of a regular than she is. I have seen her as a supporting player in 3 other Christmas Hallmarks and she quite simply lights up the screen. She needs to move over to Lifetime, Hallmark mysteries, Up, or Ion and start starring in her own movies. Move over Tatiana Ali. All this goodness was marred by the irritating mother who was a little too dependent on her beloved daughter. She needed a little therapy, as does many of these Hallmark mothers. As did the town, which couldn’t seem to function without the capable heroine.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

December 5, 2019