Bronx Babe
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Posts posted by Bronx Babe
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Could not get into Love in the Limelight. Watched about a half hour, then gave up and switched to Summer Under The Stars on TCM with Audrey Hepburn.
Ridiculous premise -- Rock star carries on a 15 year correspondence "relationship" with one of his adoring female fans. For some reason they consider themselves "friends".
He finally meets her but unfortunately she doesn't turn out to be Kathy Bates in Misery.
That I would have liked to see!
My Favorite Wedding:
"Best steaks in town!"
"Best bakery in the city!"
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Saw three movies during the space of this week where the male lead/ex-boyfriend is called Marcus. So weird.
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What's the one about "Aunt Dee's Candy Shoppe"? Lead actor rhapsodizes: "I remember raspberry, strawberry, chocolate, and SWEET CANDY CORN"
All candy corn is sweet.
JHC!
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On 8/3/2022 at 4:36 PM, luvthepros said:
WOW, I'm impressed you know who Dan Duryea is. LOL.
Long-time member of the TCM message boards; movie nerd of long standing.
Oh God, A Splash of Love is on again.....Mayday! Mayday!
Saw another one this afternoon, or rather, landed on it. Can't remember title.
Lead actress takes City Boyfriend to her favorite Italian restaurant. And sure enough: "It has the best pasta in town!"
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Sand Dollar Cove, another winner, lol.
The worst male lead performance I've ever seen. This actor SNIGGERS and SNIGGERS like Dan Duryea in any number of noir movies. However, unlike Dan, this guy is a terrible actor.
And of course there's a "best food in town" moment when he takes heroine for a lobster roll ("if this isn't the BEST lobster roll in town, you can remove the pier") where apparently they are still serving them AT NIGHT, behind the restaurant where the shabby looking owner/waiter plops some unidentifiable stuff on plates.
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On 8/1/2022 at 4:38 PM, Cetacean said:
My "favorite" dumb moment was the Mayday call from a boat that was not only not in any danger but was obviously able to radio for help and the area is crawling with fishing boats. Mayday is used for life threatening emergencies, not as a plot point so the shrieking girlfriend can fling herself on to the rescue boat and overact the hysteria.
Damn, that was one awful movie. One of the worst.
My God yes.
Is Hallmark so tone deaf that they don't realize how utterly ridiculous the scripts are? And that viewers won't notice or care?
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Chloe was supposed to be a marine biology grad student, from Florida yet, but looked at that oyster as though she had never seen one.
And responded like a frightened toddler whenever her feet touched water.
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Mary continues to gush: "You've made your mark on everyone"
My favorite dumb moment, however, arrived when Ben, after Chloe comes up with her spectacularly innovative, alternative idea about a seafood boil, walked into her room with holiday wrapping paper in one hand and brown paper in the other: "I need your Southern expertise. Which one do we use for the table?"
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On 7/31/2022 at 9:53 AM, bankerchick said:
Didn't she end up getting the cabin for free because she saved the inn with her brilliant ideas?
Yes, Chloe will never have to pay for anything up there ever again because Mary tells her "You've changed this little town for the better"
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Was "Mary", the B&B owner, related to "Chloe" or her family in some way? Because she was just so super solicitous and caring to the girl: "I'm going to give you my favorite cabin" and in general hovering over her with such nurturing attention. (the way that overly friendly concierge person did in the movie where the dumped female lead goes to her Hawaiian honeymoon resort alone)
How old was Chloe supposed to be? I'm assuming the character was a grad student? But half the time, in true Hallmark fashion, she acted like five years old. The other half had her as a sexy, assertive (telling Ben: "I want to take you to dinner") woman.
I like how the corporate tropes were always in place: Chloe as a grad student Skypes her professor who was made to sound like the typical demanding, curt Hallmark CEO instead of a more laid-back academic.
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I liked how Big City Boyfriend was quickly dispensed with not only by "Chloe" but also the script.
Comes up from Miami to confront her, apparently right from the airport. It's not even established that he's staying at an inn or anything. She immediately tells him, without any fanfare: "We just don't click" and he responds, "Okay, I'll take a flight back now" After the guy JUST GOT THERE.
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Hallmark Christmas movies: What it's like to write a holiday hit | EW.com
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In THE MISTLETOE PROMISE, the leads are eating take-out wonton soup (in those wonderful old-fashioned white cardboard containers) with chopsticks, but there's not a spoon in sight. The actress then proceeds to slurp the remainder out of the container. Is this a strictly Canadian thing?
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One of the more unusual aspects of a Hallmark Christmas movie is that one might hear dialogue not often, if ever, written into any other company's screenplays. I'm thinking of THE MISTLETOE PROMISE, which just aired.
Lead actor, introduced to the joys of this holiday, later remarks to lead actress: "I can't stop singing 'Bring us some figgy pudding'!"
On a more serious note, I was quite disturbed by DOUBLE HOLIDAY, and I do not say this lightly or in any kind of "cranky" way. The characters are celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah, but the lead actress who is represented as Jewish and a person who helps her non-Jewish friends decorate for the season, is clueless about Christmas trees. She thinks a Douglas fir is a name made up by the gentile leading man.
Further along, after meeting her relatives at a Hanukkah party, he says "I've always wanted to be a part of a big, loud, crazy family"
"Loud" made me uncomfortable, and even more so towards the finale, when he tells her "I love how unique your traditions are....."
Sounded like back-handed comments amidst the "inclusion".
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Reunited At Christmas: "These are the best gingerbread cookies I've ever eaten!"
Love, Lights, Hanukkah: "Best dumplings in the city are right around the corner"
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Next Stop, Christmas: Time travel/hallucination theme doesn't ignore the this-food-item-is-the-greatest trope. Small town dad offers breakfast at home to daughter's friend. Friend: "I've heard about your world-famous French toast"
Cross Country Christmas: Fake rubber turkey at the male lead's holiday table, which is why he doesn't (in lieu of his dead father) start carving.
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My Grown-Up Christmas List:
"There's nothing like hot and sour soup on Xmas eve. Reminds me of your mother"
"You're a soldier, aren't you?" -- "How did you know?" -- "Oh, the way you stand straight"
"One minute I was knitting Xmas ornaments for my family and the next thing I know, I'm getting requests from Katmandu!"
How did Luke know where Taylor lived to send her the candy-cane basket? They didn't know each other from Adam and Eve at that first "cute" meeting where he played Santa Claus.
Dead mother, check
Outer space reference, check
Super maudlin (even for Hallmark)
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Never Kiss A Man In A Christmas Sweater:
"These blueberry waffles are the best I ever had!"
Attack of the Puppet People on Svengoolie tonight.
I won't make jokes.
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MerBearHou, I was delightfully surprised! Hallmark can indeed turn out a winner when they want to!
Now, from the sublime to the ridiculous -- Christmas Made To Order, another holiday "classic" where the scarily manipulative script has the characters repeating the word Christmas every five seconds in order to make the audience respond in a drooling Pavlovian way.
The Mistletoe Secret is playing in the background.
"Honey, where did you find this guy?" -- "Ah found him sneakin' into the restaurant askin' fer pah!"
Not making fun of the accent -- just glad that something is authentic in a Hallmark movie!
Of course, as soon as the lead actor takes a bite of her pie, he intones "This is the best I ever tasted!" What else is new?
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In fact, I was so excited waiting for the next appearance of "Brennan" that I (almost) didn't care about mermaid hair or the obligatory talk about marketing pitches!
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Guys, guess what?? I saw AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT for the first time today and........I....kind of......liked it! Yes, there were the usual Hallmark tropes -- ridiculous premise of developers wanting to tear down an authentic Irish castle and replace it with something modern; lead actress falling/stumbling (in this case almost tripping over a small mud pile); the interrupted kiss.....BUT! I fell head over heels for the male lead! Yes! Not the usual wooden, bland, model type at all but a real Irishman! Looked a bit like Gary Oldman or someone like that. I couldn't believe it! And the female lead was actually charming! The two of them definitely had chemistry! Filmed in Ireland, not some fake location! And there is a real yearly matchmaking festival in some Irish town -- the name escapes me but they do feature it in a film I coincidentally referenced -- The Matchmaker. (in fact, on the imdb board, a reviewer says As Luck Would Have It is the Hallmark version of that movie. I agree)
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I know Hallmark certainly has the capacity to do better along these lines, but they choose to value quantity over quality. Would it be so financially negative for the company to cut back on the sausage factory output and instead concentrate on more original productions? Or do they view these tropes cynically -- "this is what the audience loves and keeps tuning in for without any critical perspective"
But their audience from what I can glean are all highly intelligent and perceptive individuals who do see through the well-worn formula -- even to the point of snark -- and yet still embrace it on a deeply emotional level. I know -- we all want a "perfect" world; hell so do I. I'm not talking about substituting anything super-gritty or "distasteful" (although the latter is subjective), I just think escapism needs to be more.....down to earth, if that makes any sense!
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Unfortunately I think this is true, Cetacean.
I get so turned off by Hallmark's "corporate"-ness. Yes, every company has to think of the bottom line but why does it have to seep into almost every storyline? The competitive-ness, the robotic Type A workaholic characters who even when they finally stop and smell the roses, are still thinking how to market those roses into a more "gentle" business model.
It's just all very weird, lol.
Oh, and remember how I go on and on about a lot of science-fiction/alien/outer space references in many of their scripts? Turns out to be not some crazy "conspiracy" type thing in my own mind, lol -- there's an online article stating that more than a few Hallmark writers come from that field -- horror/sci-fi movie directors and the like!
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On 6/27/2022 at 10:53 AM, ShelleySue said:
I agree with both of those things. I was ready for a big rebound romance that was going to make my eyes roll. I was sure I was going to be screaming, "TOO SOON!!!" at the tv screen. I actually liked the way that it was handled.
This weekend my husband and I went away for the weekend. I think that something must be wrong with me. We stayed at a very nice hotel. We stopped and asked the concierge a few questions. But we didn't end up being best friends for the weekend. She didn't even know my name. I'm not sure what I did wrong. My expectation was that we'd be having coffee together at least once and that she would solve an existential crisis for me. I wonder what other false expectations Hallmark movies have given me about life.
lol I got the feeling that the overly friendly and helpful Hawaiian concierge woman was "filling in" for Ashley's stateside friend who wanted to come over but was told she wasn't needed.
Hallmark Movies: Small Town Royalty Magically Celebrating Rekindled Love! - General Discussion
in Hallmark Movies: Small Town Royalty Magically Celebrating Rekindled Love!
Autumn Love:
Lead actress reminiscing to her son about Grandma Gilson's recipes at the farm: "That was the best pear cobbler I ever ate"
"Mom, this is the best apple I ever had!"