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kbeck8261
Reviews
Under the Christmas Sky (2023)
The Stars Did Not Align
Generally speaking you can't go wrong with a Hallmark/Ryan Paevey combination on a movie night. This one is the exception. It seemed a vehicle for the actress playing the lead dealing with a medical issue. The romance was there but secondary until very late in the work. I have to believe that the issue with this movie is script and direction that was so inexperienced, uneven and inconsistent that even the actors could not lift this to the stars.
While I can make the stretch that the lead actress is an "esteemed astrophysicist" (and it is a stretch) how does that one character have such extremely long stretches of dialogue on parenting and child psychology?
Ryan Paevey's character of the father who curates the museum began the movie as a confident, consistent father figure who is having some issues with his boss. Far later in the movie than we would expect, he explodes/falls apart when he sees his daughter is upset. It doesn't make sense to bring on that chink in his armor so late or to make the potential astronaut scientist a child psychologist.
Hallmark movies are those that you want to watch over and over again, they were shooting for the stars here and missed. I don't want to watch it again.
Where Are You, Christmas? (2023)
Can you say Pleasantville at Christmas
Basically it was a bit of a rip off of most of the themes and tropes from the movie Pleasantville, not that that's a bad thing. I loved Pleasantville. And this kind of gives it a Christmas / Hallmark flavor.
It did seem like there was something off with the coloring and the lighting because generally speaking even old black and white movies have a lot more brightness and warmth in the image and this didn't have that warmth and felt very flat.
Enjoyed the characters and the acting. I thought there were a couple of lost plot threads. They kind of set the whole black and white thing up as if it could have been a dream and then didn't go with that. They also started out with the main character being an incredible Grinch and then changed her right away.
Inside Man (2022)
Dark Comedy
This might say more about me than the miniseries but I found it to be a hilariously funny dark, comedy of errors. We've got two stories going. The vicar and his family is a comedy of errors, one bad decision piling on top of another with no one thinking rationally. And the few times his wife thinks rationally no one's answering the phone. The second story, the fellow on death row is mildly amusing, mildly confusing. That's where most of the plot questions I have that weren't answered remain. No one's mentioned that you should watch this beyond the credit end there's an extra scene there. I think people should give it a chance. Do you like British murder and British comedy it's a lovely combination of both.
The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014)
Great cast but two hours I will never get back
I just expected more because the cast was so good. So inviting. I did not even realize this was a trilogy because Amazon prime did not identify this as either Him, Her or Them though I assume it was Them because of the descriptions I'm reading in other reviews. Calling it Them would have implied to me that some aspect of their grieving would have taken place together but none really did.
I thought it was cleverly edited to reveal small bits about each of them as we went along. But overall it was just a lot of very sad people moving forward without dealing with the event of their sadness. It's not something I would watch again or even recommend that others watch.
My Bakery in Brooklyn (2016)
Sweet Movie
I really enjoyed this sweet movie of a sweet shop and two cousins who inherit it. Great themes of love and family. The only thing that keeps me from giving it a ten out of ten is the odd subplot with the decorator and the couple with something under their carpet. I think the somewhat clumsy assistant could have been given another way to win the decorator's heart over that would have made more sense.
Still it was light, enjoyable and with a nice ending. (I swear Krista Rodriguez could be Aubrey Plaza's twin - and born only a month and 3,000 miles apart).