Hallmark Movies: Small Town Royalty Magically Celebrating Rekindled Love! - General Discussion

[LuvMyShows]

2 hours ago, catrice2 said:

Thanks!  I don't watch Hallmark that much and mostly it is the Mysteries.  I must be the only one who does not like Signed, Sealed Delivered. 

Speaking of SSD, I'm hoping someone can help me.  I just watched One in a Million on YouTube (this is my first time watching the series and I only have four more episodes to go!), and I think the movie cut out a little early, so I'm hoping someone can let me know what the full ending is.  Where it left off was Shane taking a flower from her hair and saying "it's the first rose of summer"...so then what happened? 

[Kitty Redstone]

You're not alone, catrice2.  The series is too contrived and twee for my liking.  I can suspend disbelief with the best of them, but that one movie that featured a pageant for USPS workers strained even my credulity.

[JenMD]

I couldn't get in to Signed, Sealed and Delivered, either.  It's been a long while but I remember finding something very off-putting about Eric Mabius' performance and didn't make it past the first 30 minutes of the first one.  I've liked him fine in other things, just didn't care for his character at all and I think the premise just didn't grab me.  I know people rave about it, but I've just never had the urge to try again.

[Kemper]

This is shocking!  I thought I was the only one who did not like Signed, Sealed and well, you know.  

Eric Mabius is okay...wasn't he in Ugly Betty?  But.  I see him as the usual Hallmark-Ken-Doll type.  I also could not see why Betty was so hung up on him in her series, either.  He is bland and vanilla.  Nothing wrong with that...just not my cup of tea.

[Karen885]

I'm burned out on hallmark movies.  There has been at least one new movie on the main channel since the fall festival movies in September.  Are we getting a movie every week for all eternity now?  I have like 10 movies stacked and will probably erase all of them except the ones mentioned here as being good.

I think the old schedule was winterfest in January, Valentine's in February, a break in March, spring fling in April, a break in May, June weddings, a break in July, hot August nights, fall festival, then Christmas extravaganza.

[catrice2]

What is wrong with Andrew Walker? I saw previous for some new movie and I almost would not have recognized him if they had not said his name....! Very skinny , looks ill. 

[Kohola3]

1 hour ago, Karen885 said:

I'm burned out on hallmark movies.  There has been at least one new movie on the main channel since the fall festival movies in September.  Are we getting a movie every week for all eternity now? 

And they are all the same movie, over and over.  If you don't know who will end up with who in the happy ending then you are dense as a brick.

And what it is with the royalty obsession?  Does Hallmark think every American woman secretly wants to be a princess?  And why does every prince of some obscure kingdom (complete with evil queen mother) have a British accent?

Geez, get some new writers already.

[EyewatchTV211]

5 minutes ago, Kohola3 said:

And they are all the same movie, over and over.  If you don't know who will end up with who in the happy ending then you are dense as a brick.

And what it is with the royalty obsession?  Does Hallmark think every American woman secretly wants to be a princess?  And why does every prince of some obscure kingdom (complete with evil queen mother) have a British accent?

Geez, get some new writers already.

The prince in Love, Romance, & Chocolate did not have a British accent. But he also wasn't the love interest, just a background character, lol.

[Guest]

Andrew Walker was on the Deck the Hallmark podcast talking about his new movie and it sounds interesting. According to him they were able to make changes to the script while filming and that it has more comedy than is normally in a Hallmark movie. 

[rainsmom]

41 minutes ago, Kohola3 said:

If you don't know who will end up with who in the happy ending then you are dense as a brick.

To be fair, Romance-with-a-capital-R isn't about WHO the main character will end up with. That's always a given. It's about what they overcome to get together.

[Pickles]

A Brush With Love on tonight. The one guy has a  wig on. Very noticeable. Not the gardener guy, the other guy. Lol. The gardener guy also has interesting hair. 

[JAYJAY1979]

The channel.needs to diversify their movies to be less romance..and more other subjects like family, friendship, personal fulfillment...be a more family friendly version of the old school 5v network TV movies.

For being in the 'dark ages', tv movies in the 70s and 80s were better made and more forward thinking than what's offered 9n Hallmark/lifetime..etc

[AnnaRose]

48 minutes ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

The channel.needs to diversify their movies to be less romance..and more other subjects like family, friendship, personal fulfillment...be a more family friendly version of the old school 5v network TV movies.

For being in the 'dark ages', tv movies in the 70s and 80s were better made and more forward thinking than what's offered 9n Hallmark/lifetime..etc

That sounds great to me!

I couldn't get through A Brush With Love.  It was such a let down after the last two new Hallmark movies.  The first 30 minutes felt like 3 hours to me.  I didn't particularly like the actor who played Max or the character who seemed kind of stalkerish and unable to take a hint.  

I stuck it out until the lady in charge of 'curating' the art fair (or whatever it was) disliked Jamie's paintings but then was gushing over her half-finished vision board painting.  I just couldn't, anymore.

In addition to the far superior recent Hallmark movies Love to the Rescue and Flip That Romance, I had just watched Royal Matchmaker from last year, starring Bethany Joy Lenz and Will Kemp.  That movie was very enjoyable and just flew by, in stark opposition to A Brush With Love. 

To me, Nick Bateman seemed like the generic male-model type that Hallmark often casts as the love interest, but who lack the charm of actors like Michael Rady, Tyler Hynes,  Will Kemp or Kristoffer Polaha. 

I don't know his name, but I even liked the character with the accent better than the lead... or at least I did until I bailed.  We didn't see much of the him at that point, but I had been hoping he would be 'the one' instead of the landscape architect.  I FFed through the rest of the movie, hoping it might actually take a more interesting turn and not be the same old trope of the woman realizing the man she hates is her one true love... but nope... nothing surprising in this movie.

[Dr.OO7]

2 hours ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

For being in the 'dark ages', tv movies in the 70s and 80s were better made and more forward thinking than what's offered 9n Hallmark/lifetime..etc

TV in general. Can you imagine a sitcom today tackling the abortion issue the way "Maude" did?

[Guest]

Nothing about A Brush with Love worked for me. Nick Bateman was so low energy that all of his scenes dragged. There was no flow between the scenes which made the movie feel choppy. Everything just felt half assed. I gave up when I realized I was spending most of my time trying to figure out if Arielle Kebble’s face looked different. I usually like her movies but she not strong enough to save a bad movie. 

[Irlandesa]

Love to the Rescue is the kind of movie I watched hundreds of Brush With Loves for.  Because yeesh, that was kind of weirdly not great.  I did think Bateman was pretty to look at, even through fast forward.  What I can't quite get is that this movie seemed clearly to have a smaller budget than some other movies this year.  And even though the movie probably wouldn't have worked anyway, it seems like it would have been slightly more enjoyable with more polish.

[Kohola3]

10 hours ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

The channel.needs to diversify their movies to be less romance..and more other subjects like family, friendship, personal fulfillment...be a more family friendly version of the old school 5v network TV movies.

Hallmark Hall of Fame movies used to be an event as I was growing up.  We'd look forward to something of great quality and substance and it would be a big family evening to watch together.  Now these are all formulaic, bland, boring movies with the same recurring theme over and over. 

No surprises, nothing different.  The actors all look alike,  The hairstyles all look alike.  Even the Christmas movies are all alike.  And now Hallmark actually has a pay channel where they want $5 a month for this D grade crap!  Pass.

[sum]

18 hours ago, VMepicgrl said:

The prince in Love, Romance, & Chocolate did not have a British accent. But he also wasn't the love interest, just a background character, lol.

A bit of trivia, the actor who played the prince is a son of Kristin Scott Thomas, Joseph Olivennes.

[LegalParrot81]

Brush With Love.....bad on all levels.  Zero chemistry between the leads.  Thank goodness for fast forward. 

[catrice2]

11 hours ago, Camille said:

TV in general. Can you imagine a sitcom today tackling the abortion issue the way "Maude" did?

Let's not get into Soap and some of the afterschool specials.   Even in the comedy of All in the Family, Jeffersons, and others racisim was at least mentioned. Now we have shows like Riverdale, the Flash, etc. where no one mentions interracial dating, what people think , etc.  On one hand wouldn't it be wonderful if those things didn't matter and we didn't have to talk about them, on the other hand it is not a reflection of real life.  I know that tv is supposed to be fantasy and fiction, but that is generally drawn on real life.  I don't know how to find a happy balance. 

[kirinan]

14 hours ago, AnnaRose said:

I couldn't get through A Brush With Love.  It was such a let down after the last two new Hallmark movies.  The first 30 minutes felt like 3 hours to me.  I didn't particularly like the actor who played Max or the character who seemed kind of stalkerish and unable to take a hint.  

I stuck it out until the lady in charge of 'curating' the art fair (or whatever it was) disliked Jamie's paintings but then was gushing over her half-finished vision board painting.  I just couldn't, anymore.

Yeah, I was disappointed, too. I watched the whole thing, but disengaged around the same time you did, AnnaRose. That vision board painting reminded me of something a person without artistic talent (aka me) would do at one of those wine-and-painting evenings. And the later paintings, of the two leads, looked like Photoshop-filtered photographs. They must have blown the budget on the last couple of movies and had to make do on this one. I did think some of the sets were pretty, but that was about it.

I don't have a ton of expectations for next week's movie with Sara Rue (she's hit and miss for me) and Jordan Bridges (I don't know him) or the final spring movie with Brendan Penny (don't care for him) and Fiona Gubelmann (she's never made an impression on me). But I AM saving up all my hopes for Bottled with Love, the Andrew Walker/Bethany Joy Lenz movie in two weeks. If it's as good as Flip That Romance and Love to the Rescue, I'll count Spring Fever a success this year, since I don't think it's possible for Hallmark to bat a thousand on my personal scale.

Edited March 31, 2019 by kirinan

[Kohola3]

30 minutes ago, catrice2 said:

I know that tv is supposed to be fantasy and fiction, but that is generally drawn on real life.  I don't know how to find a happy balance. 

I would never expect Hallmark to address anything that might be controversial, they wouldn't know how. 

But I do want it to reflect real life and give us more than cast that is 99.9% Caucasian.  Walk down any street in a big city and that's not the least bit realistic.  And it's discriminatory and insulting.

[ehall1052]

I’m looking forward to seeing the Sara Rue movie, True Loves Blooms, next week. It was shot near me in Safety Harbor, FL. Jordan Bridges, her costar, is the son of Beau Bridges. It was hot news around here while the filming was done. The local news stations covered it quite a bit.

[Dr.OO7]

44 minutes ago, Kohola3 said:

But I do want it to reflect real life and give us more than cast that is 99.9% Caucasian.  Walk down any street in a big city and that's not the least bit realistic.  And it's discriminatory and insulting.

Monochrome Casting. One of the most loathsome tropes. Especially since it always seems to occur in insanely diverse places like New York, LA, London, etc.

A few years ago, Slate did an article about the Christmas movies and among their many criticisms was that there's almost never a POC in sight.

[LexieLily]

If anyone likes the McBride mysteries HMM is airing two of them tomorrow (Monday 4/1) and two more next week (Tuesday 4/9)!

[DanaMB]

Catching up on some movies and enjoyed Flip That House. I also loved that the cliche interrupted kiss didn't turn out to be interrupted and the female lead even thanked the male lead for the follow-through despite the phone call. Meta, but cute.

[Koalagirl]

6 hours ago, LegalParrot81 said:

Brush With Love.....bad on all levels.  Zero chemistry between the leads.  Thank goodness for fast forward. 

I was going to post this very thing so thank you for saving me the trouble!!

[Suzysite]

16 hours ago, Dani said:

I realized I was spending most of my time trying to figure out if Arielle Kebble’s face looked different.

I was so distracted by her face that I don't think I heard a word she said.   Was it botox, lip injections, both?  Something was weird.  At 34 she's really too young to be messing with botox, but it looks like she did.

[catrice2]

1 hour ago, Suzysite said:

I was so distracted by her face that I don't think I heard a word she said.   Was it botox, lip injections, both?  Something was weird.  At 34 she's really too young to be messing with botox, but it looks like she did.

Sad that teens and girls in their early 20's are also using it... I ask myself WHY?

[Happywatcher]

Just watched Brush. The lead and her best friend were fine. No heat between the lead and the other guy, and the intended love interest/best friend's brother came off as a stalker.

The 'vision board is better than your real art' was silly to the point of pain to watch.

To address other comments here, I think Arielle had botox. It looks like she just has control over her lips and eye lids and brows. She is young, but acting is a tough business.

[JAYJAY1979]

The Brush with Love movie spent the first 90 minutes showcasing a movie where the lead became confident.. and the best friend's suggestion to paint a vision board was a great way for the lead to realize what she was wanting and what she needed. 

When the love interest admitted he always had feeling for her, I would have liked if the lead had spent time soul searching if she had feelings for him instead of instantly deciding she was into him. And I thought it was realistic that he said he didn't think things would work between them and her being hurt and realizing her first instinct was correct to not fall for him.  I hated the last second 180 with the best friend admitting she advised him to do what was best for the lead.. and the lead not being insulted that someone was deciding what was best for her when it was her decision to make it.

I guess that I thought the point of the movie was the lead character deciding what was best for her, and not letting anyone else decide that for her (i.e her best friend, the handsome guy, the love interest, or her dad).  It seemed OOC that she would think him lying about having feelings for her was a good thing... she would have been livid.

I did finally see the Nikki Deroach/Michael Rady movie.. and it was a great movie.  My two fav scenes was where the lead female character exclaimed to the lead male character that their kids expected them to walk down the aisle and they  hadn't even had a first date yet.. and thought they were moving fast... and the other scene was a conversation between the lead female character and her ex husband about young love vs adult love.  So unlike a Hallmark channel movie :)

I think why people seem to like movies with Julie Gonalo/Arielle K/Nikki Deorach is because all three actresses aren't the typical Hallmark Channel barbie dolls... all three have an edge/quirkiness that isn't the usual Hallmark Channel tv movie mold.   

[Was-MArsenault]

On 3/31/2019 at 2:26 PM, LexieLily said:

If anyone likes the McBride mysteries HMM is airing two of them tomorrow (Monday 4/1) and two more next week (Tuesday 4/9)!

Really nice to see these on the lineup!

[LexieLily]

2 minutes ago, MikaelaArsenault said:

Really nice to see these on the lineup!

I'm sure they had to use something to cover up the holes left by Garage Sale Mysteries.

[Was-MArsenault]

11 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

I'm sure they had to use something to cover up the holes left by Garage Sale Mysteries.

Because they definitely won’t be bringing back Garage Sale Mysteries ever again.

[LexieLily]

4 minutes ago, MikaelaArsenault said:

Because they definitely won’t be bringing back Garage Sale Mysteries ever again.

Which is a shame. GSM was one of my favorites of the mystery series' and not solely because of Aunt Becky.

I think I saw those old Jane Doe movies in the lineup this weekend or next.

[LegalParrot81]

1 hour ago, MikaelaArsenault said:

Because they definitely won’t be bringing back Garage Sale Mysteries ever again.

I think they could continue.  I think Julie Gonzolo or Nikki DeLoach (who I think would be perfect in that role) could slip in there without really skipping a beat.  I mean really, how many different actors have played the son and daughter.  LOL  

[Was-MArsenault]

56 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

Which is a shame. GSM was one of my favorites of the mystery series' and not solely because of Aunt Becky.

I think I saw those old Jane Doe movies in the lineup this weekend or next.

It is a shame, but if she didn’t do what she did, all of this would not have happened.

[MerBearHou]

1 hour ago, LexieLily said:

Which is a shame. GSM was one of my favorites of the mystery series' and not solely because of Aunt Becky.

I think I saw those old Jane Doe movies in the lineup this weekend or next.

I loved GSM too.  How about selling Rags to Riches to a niece or cousin who unexpectedly has the same nose for sleuthing -- Dani and the detective and some of the peripheral folks stay on and we keep it going.  We'd lose the husband and kids but that's ok.

[formerlyfreedom]

Jussie Smollett is off topic for this thread. Move on.

[In2You]

On 3/30/2019 at 9:37 PM, JAYJAY1979 said:

The channel.needs to diversify their movies to be less romance..and more other subjects like family, friendship, personal fulfillment...be a more family friendly version of the old school 5v network TV movies.

For being in the 'dark ages', tv movies in the 70s and 80s were better made and more forward thinking than what's offered 9n Hallmark/lifetime..etc

I often see Hallmark labelled as a family channel but I disagree. I have alot of children in my family and to me a family movie is a movie we of all ages can sit down and watch together. Do people sit down and watch these with their kids? Because the kids in my family would be bored.  Hallmark did have some family movies when they did that partnership with Walmart years ago that were more appealing to the younger set and had different plots from these bland romances.

[GaT]

10 hours ago, LexieLily said:

I think I saw those old Jane Doe movies in the lineup this weekend or next.

Thank You!!!! I have never seen any of these movies because I keep missing them. I finally have some set to record, I hope they're worth the wait.

[Jenniferbug]

10 hours ago, In2You said:

I often see Hallmark labelled as a family channel but I disagree. I have alot of children in my family and to me a family movie is a movie we of all ages can sit down and watch together. Do people sit down and watch these with their kids? Because the kids in my family would be bored.  Hallmark did have some family movies when they did that partnership with Walmart years ago that were more appealing to the younger set and had different plots from these bland romances.

I consider it "family friendly", in that I can have the channel on in the background and not worry about my young kids seeing a lot of sex or violence. But I agree that I wouldn't call them family movies as most of them don't hold my kids' attention. They do love Nine Lives of Christmas because of the cat, but that's the one exception in our house.

[ShelleySue]

On March 30, 2019 at 10:54 PM, AnnaRose said:

I stuck it out until the lady in charge of 'curating' the art fair (or whatever it was) disliked Jamie's paintings but then was gushing over her half-finished vision board painting.  I just couldn't, anymore.

And what the heck was her final painting that was so wonderful?  Was it a fuzzy self-portrait?  When she was painting it it looked like a lot of bright colors, but the final was just washed out. My first thought was that the director (or who ever makes those decisions) didn't like it and sort of hid it.

Call me old fashioned, but I just don't get hair colors these days.  Arielle's hair looked like it had been foiled in chunks and then then grew out.  It was especially noticeable at the end when she had part pulled back.  Is that how it was supposed to look?

[LuvMyShows]

On 3/31/2019 at 2:26 PM, LexieLily said:

If anyone likes the McBride mysteries HMM is airing two of them tomorrow (Monday 4/1) and two more next week (Tuesday 4/9)!

I had never heard of McBride before, so I found the first episode on YouTube, and it is very un-Hallmark....sort of dark and somber, and he is not a chipper white female!

[JAYJAY1979]

1 hour ago, LuvMyShows said:

I had never heard of McBride before, so I found the first episode on YouTube, and it is very un-Hallmark....sort of dark and somber, and he is not a chipper white female!

Jane doe, mystery woman, and McBride were the first mystery series movies... all of them were a llittle darker and less perky.

[rainsmom]

6 minutes ago, JAYJAY1979 said:

Jane doe, mystery woman, and McBride were the first mystery series movies... all of them were a little darker and less perky.

Sigh. I miss that.

[Kitty Redstone]

So do I.  The Dick and Barry Van Dyke ones (Murder 101) were pretty good, too, but McBride was my favorite of the four series.  John Larroquette and the rest of the ensemble were always enjoyable and the plots kept my attention.  Jane Doe had the most unique premise and Lea Thompson was great at playing the suburban mom/kickass secret agent.  The Mystery Woman ones always had a weird tension to them and I never knew whether that was intentional or not.  The Hailey Dean mysteries have it, too, so maybe it's Kelli Martin.

[JAYJAY1979]

I also recall that Hallmark was testing a Jane Seymour mystery movie series where she played a Martha Stewart like celebrity that stumbled onto a murder.. and she had a funny british assistant that helped her get into comedic situations as they did some field work.  For some reason Hallmark abandoned the mystery movie series for several years.. so only one of hers got made.

[LexieLily]

40 minutes ago, Kitty Redstone said:

So do I.  The Dick and Barry Van Dyke ones (Murder 101) were pretty good, too, but McBride was my favorite of the four series.  John Larroquette and the rest of the ensemble were always enjoyable and the plots kept my attention.  Jane Doe had the most unique premise and Lea Thompson was great at playing the suburban mom/kickass secret agent.  The Mystery Woman ones always had a weird tension to them and I never knew whether that was intentional or not.  The Hailey Dean mysteries have it, too, so maybe it's Kelli Martin.

Murder 101, I liked those. I think there were only four in total. I think another one of the Van Dykes was in it, too. Shane? Barry's son that was also in Diagnosis Murder in the later seasons. LOL

[Kitty Redstone]

Yes, there weren't very many Murder 101 episodes.  It's too bad because the Van Dykes are fun to watch.

jayjay1979, I remember liking that movie.  Her love interest played the chief in a police procedural (LO:CI?) and her younger guy sidekick was cute.