Change Your Image
stampmyart
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Betty's Bad Luck in Love (2024)
Fear of a curse or fear of commitment
Acting was decent, but the story-line needs some revamping.
This starts off cute enough, I mean what 6th-8th grader wouldn't want to think they had enough power over someone to completely change their behavior. Even more so that the person actually believes it was true for long into adulthood, ha, that's funny! But, really 20 years later and this ditz is still believing in this stuff!? Ugh, life happens. We grow up. We learn that not everything has a reason, sometimes stuff just is...but to keep dumping boyfriend after boyfriend for no reason other than this mysterious curse and claim it's because she doesn't want the person to get hurt?! Seriously, that's just an EXCUSE to "fear commitment"! The fact this new person keeps putting up with her ridiculous constant breaking up with him is baffling. I get it, he's in love with her, but why? Nothing showed any substance of why he should be so head-over-heals in love with this woman that he would put up with this BS. He's more than good looking, so it's not that unless he's that super insecure, but his character doesn't give off that vibe. This would have been better as a fantasy romance and change it to she didn't believe until all these things started happening to her and the schoolmate really was a witch and they had to undo the curse. As it stands the reaction is a normal reaction by an adult years later forgetting the way they treated the other person and having no idea what the blazes was going on... Curse ad nauseam much! Ugh! By the end I was glad my curse of choosing to watch this was over.
Overall, the acting was decent, but the story was lacking, the characters reasons for staying together is weak considering her previous abandonment, I mean if it's from love and not commitment issues, why would this one be any different????
Christmas at the Holly Hotel (2022)
Wow, It's kinda painful to watch this bad acting!
The description sounded good, but....
The actors/actresses are performing like they're in their 2nd year of High School, moderate talent, but no skills yet, and during some sections it even feels like they're reading prompt cards. Yikes! The writing is dated and poorly crafted. There's not an emotional connection, because it feels so stilted. Even a kindergarten teacher reading to her students has more emotion than these actors.
The entry music and visuals were dry and boring to watch which just goes by super slow. Then, when the camera finally comes to focus in on the MFC and her friend in a conversation you wince at the dialog and the acting. So, so bad!
It doesn't get better. MFC is stopped on her way into town for being in excess of the speed limit by a substantial amount, and proceeds first to flirt with the officer and then argue with him about being stopped (who argues with a cop? Privilege people I guess). Then, she tells him how to write the ticket discounting the actual speed which when she later is complaining to her friend about getting a ticket, glosses over the fact that he basically gave her exactly what she suggested, talk about "entitled"!
Progressing further into the story she's flat out rude, and the accusation she makes towards the same officer later about being a stalker makes light of the actual effects of a REAL stalker. That term should not be thrown around so lightly when there are real repercussions to having an actual stalker and being the victim of one. No wonder no one believes when people are 'truly stalked' and blame the victim rather than the culprit, things like this that exaggerate and blow things out of proportion creating this atmosphere of doubt when it really does happen.
As for the filming and editing, the background noise often drowns out the central dialog. That stuff should either have been eliminated in post or preempted by ensuring the mics only picked up dialog and that all background noise was silenced. This background noise is distracting at times (kitchen noises, off screen conversations, wind...), and other times it downright drowns out the actual conversation in the story.
Grandma blasting grandson without knowing the details first, and then brushing the actual problem to the side just because "she's so pretty", and if it were a guy? It would be okay to give the ticket then? Why do women act like they should get special privileges above the law just because they are pretty?! What is the movie teaching people?! What an insult to those who actually follow the laws! And if we all decide that we just want to drive as fast as we feel like it, what then when we hit a pet or a child? This is NOT acceptable on any level. Grandma trying to hook up MFC and MMC makes sense, but it is terribly done. The writing is really poor, the dialog is weak and it's very difficult to stay with the story as it's falling flat left and right and never seems to actually get on track!
Long music interlude feels like a commercial for coffee and not part of the story at all; if you didn't recognize the characters you'd be tempted to do other things like leave and get popcorn or if it's recorded, fast forward, this section was not well done.
I can find no redeeming qualities about this film sadly. I don't want to compare it to Hallmark because that's not why I thought to watch it. It would be nice to see a low-budget movie hit the mark, but this just missed it by massive proportions. While it's not the worst movie I've ever seen, it's down in the bottom of the barrel and I'll just keep that lid on it so I forget about the time I wasted watching it.
Christmas on Cherry Lane (2023)
A heartwarming Christmas Story that requires focus
This is another great movie and Hallmark is really hitting home with some of their recent releases.
The only thing is you really have to be paying attention or re-watch the movie.
There are three families across three different time periods (the 70's the late 90's and current time 2023). The time periods and families are not shown sequentially (since their connection is more than sequential).
The connections to the other families and time periods is more than just the home, it's in the people themselves and their connection to each other, but that's not the focus of the story. Even though these people's lives have some connection or overlap, they each independently have life changing events occurring and the struggles that go with dealing with these events. As they overcome or accept these life changes they find strength in the people around them and the viewer sees connections that are hinted at but slowly revealed as the story progresses.
I wish the changes between the time/families had been a little more clear, but do like the way it was showing the families and the overlapping storyline.
Round and Round (2023)
A Fun play on being stuck in a time-loop
Hallmark is putting out some better quality movies lately and this is one of them.
Rachel is in for a fun exasperating adventure trying to figure out what will break the loop she finds herself in without repeating the stress of the 7th night of Hanukkah, and in the process she also find her "one true love". What starts out as an accidental meetup set in motion by a collision that later turns out to be an "oh, no not you" re-meet spins the tale of what happens when you keep waking up to the 7th day... it's a fresh take on "Groundhogs Day" and is well done. During her journey to learn how to break the loop, she of course has a personal breakthrough of self-discovery as well as the journey helping her to meet a number of people who will help her "break" the loop. And another fun change is that later she will learn that it's not so unique to her.
The acting was well-done, and the story while not unique, had a fresh take and a fun ending.
The Maltese Holiday (2021)
If you enjoy Bad Acting and poor script then you'll love this, otherwise, not worth the effort
Is this an entry to a film festival or something? Perhaps a student study to get into film school, a final project? It's terrible.
The acting overall is, ummm well, it's obvious acting, and at times you feel like they are "reading" their scripts. You are not immersed or invested in the story because of the bad acting. There is the 32 minutes of monotony before they even conversed cordially with each other, and then more boring downtime. Then, there's the 8 minutes of non-dialog music video telling the story before going back to BAD acting! In the beginning it feels like this really for the Tic toc crowd, but then it also seems too boring at times to keep their attention span. The beginning credits start like a Beat Saber or Guitar Hero though so you expect it to stay active, ha! NOT!
Overall it's HORRIBLE and a chore to finish! Well, maybe if you're the 15 year-old-crowd and watch every "influencer" maybe then you'll love it. But OMG! How do these people think everything they do is sooooo important they have to be rude to other humans and record every stupid little thing in their life? Oh, look now I'm in the bathroom, now I'm drinking, I'm sitting on a plane, now I'm still on the plane... How can you think you're the center of the world that your every breath needs to be published for the world to watch? And he's so miserable and crotchety in general, and to another person all because he miserable about his life circumstances and his opinion of the woman who he feels put him in this position of being alone at the holiday. He should never have gone in the first place. If he really had all those issues, he shouldn't have been so easily talked into going. This would have been better if he wanted to go, he could still be standoffish for her stupid influencer junk and it would still have succeeded in the same outcome. The whole thing is annoying and not fun watch at all! I watch movies to escape reality not be beat over the head with it multiple times! Bleh!
I mean she was Miss bubbly personality, but equally as clueless about proper conduct. He's Mr. Life sucks take it out on anyone in his path. This should make for a fun meet up when you break through all that, right! Ummm... nope, it takes too long to get there, and it's not worth the effort to do so, not to mention it's magically from hate to love in an instant. I wouldn't want miss yappy sitting next to me on the plane while I was trying to sleep. And I would think Mr. Grumpy about everything didn't need me to keep trying to "cheer him up". Beyond the whole ridiculous tic toc or Instagram posts it was also "B" boring with capitol B, slow, predictable, and just generally a waste of time to watch. There are so many other cute meet-up stories this one just doesn't do anything for me...yeah, most are predictable, but less annoying than this!!! Her stupidity gets worse, way to kill yourself with ignorance of only worrying about a picture. Stop being in front of camera and start paying attention to the world around you. The dialog is terrible. Can I use enough adjectives to describe the terribleness of this movie, LOL! As annoying as my review is, the movie is worse!
I have no idea why Amazon recommended this to me, but to give a fair review I watched the whole terrible thing. Yeah, next time, I'm hitting fast forward for a Amazon recommendation that starts off this bad, because you know what, it doesn't get better no matter how many minutes more you watch! I wish it was like YouTube and you could speed it up and hear it in fast mode! LOL!
To All A Good Night (2023)
Reminds me of long ago Hallmark movies
This has to be one of the best Hallmark movies they have presented in a long time.
The story line is original and fun with moments that touch the heart in the ways that Hallmark did long ago.
Sadly, over the years it seems like Hallmark has tried to put out too many movies during the holidays and they've become to formulaic and boring. Despite this year being another year of too many movies, this one actually has a beautiful story. The connections within the community and how one individual could touch so many lives even after he is gone is beautifully done.
This story also has some great actors. The actors and actresses did a fantastic job. The characters are easy to connect with as well as the fun fur friend keeping them on their toes. I also loved the inclusion of the deaf husband and minor bit of ASL, wish there had been a touch more of that, but it's still progress.
Well done!
Christmas by Design (2023)
Pushing too many Christmas Movies is making them terrible
This starts off enjoyable enough. Kind of the standard format of girl leave hometown for the big city to be forced to return to hometown for some reason or another, gets into a series of events and makes a life changing decision story.
Good
1. Cute, even though not completely new, way the MFC and MMC meet up
2. The development of the romance was just the right level of interaction with good dynamics as the characters realized their attraction for the other.
3. Causing the MFC to go out of her comfort zone and be forced to go home and learn that sometimes things aren't as bad as you remember.
4. Helping the MFC see avoiding home doesn't avoid the feelings, they're hiding waiting to get out.
Bad
1. Female is totally self-centered! She's terribly abusive to the step-father for no apparent reason, which is addressed much later in the story, and just makes her that much more of a selfish princess. She later apologizes but the apology comes with STRINGS attached. Help me, my project is ruined and I thought of a replacement, but now I need all you people I abused and threw a tantrum about (was packing all my stuff up to abandon you at Christmas time), but I apologized so now do my bidding and help me win this contest. UGH!
2. Drives all the way to enter the contest and then because they won't do it on her schedule, has another fit demanding the models IMMEDIATELY get the outfit of now, now! Because she's leaving.
3. Yes, family is more important than things, but she made a commitment and then didn't follow through leaving them in a lurch, this after they made allowances to let her enter in the first place because of another lost contender and in a selfish manner took her things and left when she could just as easily have left her items apologized and still be able to go to her family. Which if her family had been that important in the first place she would have left them so this whole segment is lame!
4. Overall? Seriously that's the winning fashion, I wouldn't wear that bulky uncomfortable thing to clean the toilet let alone be seen wearing it, this is supposed to be something the general Joe buys, yeah it's great for working on cars because it covers up the REAL clothing underneath, but to be the clothing, eww.
5. She still wins after stomping out like a 2-year-old taking her ball back and not wanting to play the game. Wow! What about the people who showed dedication to their craft and STAYED??? Were all the other items that bad? Even his reason for choosing her, someone who wants family more than work, yeah, what "for profit" company said that ever? And on top of that she makes demands about the offer.
6. The I love you ending way over the top and so unbelievably lame ending.
I think Hallmark is trying to go overboard with putting out Christmas themed movies and they're getting watered down and too formulaic to actually be all that great anymore. :(
FBI (2018)
Well this is a show that has caused its own slow death
When this series originally aired and the next couple seasons following, it was actually pretty good. It seemed to stay current which was nice, and it was intriguing seeing some of the story-lines parallel life. Over the years however, characters have left and new ones have replace them. These new characters are terrible and the story-lines have gone down hill. The new characters do not add any substance to the programme and they hurt it in some instances. Some of the *problems* are handled poorly and unrealistically which makes it more a chore to watch now than it was before these new characters arrived. I finally give up on this and have just deleted my "one pass" Fall of 2022. I hope this hits the fire pit and never returns! There are better things on now than continuing to subject myself to this mess. I can't believe after how bad last season was that it actually came back to make an even worse season.
Murdoch Mysteries: Sir. Sir? Sir!!! (2018)
Terrible disconnected episode using Braindead plot
This is an excellent historical fiction series, save this episode which is a great disappointment. On the positive side, I did like the modified into music to match with the theme, unfortunately, the lack of a proper ending makes the episode lacking the quality of the series.
Prior episodes used science to disprove or prove certain unexplainable oddities (exception would be some of Murdock's inventions....but that's acceptable fiction filtering into this mystery series). This one however, was disconnected from the rest of the season, which up to this point had been a continuous storyline, always building on the previous adventures (minus the Christmas episodes). This one was way too fantastical for the time period (the early 1900s). Basic plot is completely the plot of Braindead, creatures from outer space taking over humans and changing their personality. Sci-Fi leaking into mystery isn't a problem if there's a reason for it and some type of continuity with the main basis of the series, including a proper even if alluded to conclusion of the episode which is lacking in this episode.
For George Crabtree trying to convince everybody there are aliens taking over Toronto, then ending with George Crabtree also being taken over by said alien life, to the episode ending with the lone man coming in and leaving it up to the audience to surmise where it went from there without giving the audience a suitable ending and then no follow through on the next episode leaves the viewer feeling cheated.
This episode would have been much better if it was took a little bit of liberties from The Wizard of Oz, and have George wake up from a nightmare....with all his friends standing around over him concerned because he had some fever from some sickness, or had been hit over the head during some attempted robbery or nefarious activity. As it is, there is no explanation for this random thing stuck in the middle of a great series.