Reviews

7.6 stars.

A woman owns a restaurant in America and has run out of good ideas. Now her restaurant is in jeopardy of closing and her investor is about to cut his losses and run. She has little time left to become inspired and to improve everything about her business. She flies off to Europe to a quaint town in Italy for a short vacation and to spark her creativity.

The rest of the film is predictable. If you had to guess, what sort of man do you think she meets there? You guessed it, he's a man who works in a cafe. Check. Question number two: Is he an Italian man with a thick accent who has all the great ideas she needs to help her to innovate her restaurant? Check. Do all the people in this little town love her and she loves them and she considers staying? Check. Does she do a little matchmaking of two secondary cast members? Check. Is the leading man missing a parent? Check. Does the leading man have a slightly tense relationship with his father? Check. Is she missing a parent or two? Unknown. Is there a "book within a book" aspect of the theme. Check.

I was pleasantly surprised when the romance happened, because a few parts of that sequence were a bit unorthodox for Hallmark. Not very different, but just enough to get me interested in a sequel. I hope they do one, but I doubt they will. I'm still waiting for sequels to a dozen other greats from this past year.

7.5 stars.

I feel like there were some enjoyable moments. Take this from a guy who has seen hundreds of Hallmark films, this one doesn't stand out, but it's still above average. At this point you'd think I would lack objectivity, what with seeing dozens of "royal" romances, featuring a commoner and a prince etc. And yet, I like this movie just the same. If it was three years ago and this was my first Hallmark movie, I'd probably rate it somewhere around 8.0 stars, not realizing how repetitive this trope has become, nevertheless, it's still a good movie. There is a clear chemistry between the leads. Either that or a total lack of chemistry, and I misinterpreted it.

The story has been done, but the only difference is the setting is on a cruise ship on the Danube. There is a recurring role of an older woman who takes this cruise year-round and was in the first installment of "Love on the Danube..." and it's obvious she is there for continuity of the series. I wonder if they plan on doing a third one. If so, that would be fine. I don't imagine they will crank out six of them like the wedding veil series, because it's not quite as grand.

Hallmark can do more wedding veil episodes if they wish. I think people would welcome it back. On the other hand, these Danube episodes are a bit lackluster in comparison, because there is no mystery or legend involved, just generic romance. But, for the last time, I must point out that this is a good love story. I highly recommend it. The acting, romance, and cinematography are on-par.

7.4 stars.

'The Immigrant' starts off really good. They captured the 1920's a genuinely as any film I've seen. What I didn't quite understand were the characters. They are all acted superbly, yet something is amiss with a few of the secondary females and also Renner's character. Can't quite put a finger on it, but whatever it was, it didn't completely eliminate my enjoyment.

As usual, Joaquin Phoenix shines as the shady and miserable, self-loathing individual. We become somewhat sympathetic of him as time passes, just a little, but there are ups and downs. He is quite an intriguing and disgusting fellow, but he has one or two decent qualities (you'll see). Renner's character is a very likable man, yet something is strange with him, and you can see glimpses of his quirks. Miss Cotillard also performs with great intensity and I feel like her portrayal was a mixture of driven and wooden. Frankly, I feel that she was being very realistic in her portrayal of a woman experiencing such severe abuse. The downside is that her strong accent is a bit difficult to understand, and the sound was not the best. I was tempted to put on the subtitles, which is very rare for me.

This film was a bit too uneven for my tastes. There was so much potential, but something was out of place. Frankly, I think the whole Renner side plot was mishandled. However, I can't shake the gut instinct that it was unbalanced. Even with this caliber of actors, it wasn't quite enough to round up to 8.0, and that's too bad.

7.3 stars.

This is about a guy named Chris who is just released from serving a 20 year sentence. That is how the movie begins. As the story continues, we can see that he's literally the nicest person around. We are introduced to his brother and some friends and a woman (Falco) who advocated for him to get him released from prison. He loves her for what she has done, literally. She is married, much older than he, and has a daughter. It's a tense situation. She is unhappily married, though, and her daughter is not happy either.

Everyone really likes Chris, and it's a shame he was in there for the most crucial years of his life. Throughout the narrative we experience his loneliness. It's quite sad. He has a lot of catching up to do.

It's wonderful to see all the people in his life now that he's on the outside, and how they all like him and try to treat him with kindness. They don't hold it against him, and of course, there is a reason he probably shouldn't have been in prison in the first place.

A wonderful and heartfelt film, this is as basic a drama as they come. There is no violence, no nudity, no tension, no nothing. But there is a very solemn feeling of warmth and sympathy for a charismatic guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

7.3 stars.

This is the story about a guy named Ted. Ted was a very charismatic individual who had two faces. The end.

Efron encompassed what I pictured Bundy to be like. He was so cool and interesting and that's what made him an insidious monster of a human, if we can even all him human.

Someone so intelligent, witty, funny, and likeable, should not be permitted by the universe to be such a horrific murdering psychopath. Funny thing (funny?) Ted Bundy wasn't particularly a generic psychopath. I think he must have been split into pieces at one point in his life. I have no idea how this happens, but take an extraordinarily gifted person and put them through the fire and maybe out pops a Bundy. I can't imagine any other way to produce this sort of creature. How can someone be so overly sociopathic and murderous and able to fool so many? And yet, his girlfriend/wife suspected he had a dark side, but still loved him. Imagine that. Strange world we live in where a person can be so evil and those who know him can't even see it.

6.4 stars.

The story could have been excellent, but it's lacking real drama. This is simply a feel good story about a gal and her mom traveling in Europe, and they meet a guy and his dad on a river cruise on the Danube. The foursome get along and there are intermittent sparks, but so much is missing.

In the category of romance it comes up very shy. The parents have almost zero chemistry and the leads have only a scant more. If the leads had more affinity for each other, it might be more entertaining. But if you take all the romance (lack thereof) and dialogue away from the film, what remains is a feeble storyline and a drab script. Seeing a movie that turns out like this only proves that real filmmaking requires heart. No heart was put into this one. They dotted the i's and crossed the t's with a nice setting, lighting and music, but there is no passion.

Because the acting and cinematography are stellar, I will rate it at 6.4, but not 6.5, because that would round up to 7.

8.9 stars.

I'm speeding through this show way too fast. I think it's been less than a week and I'm already on the third season. We are talking 20+ episodes per season, not the usual 8-12 episodes that we get nowadays.

I'm thinking the people that don't like this show are the ones that feel Ephram is too much of an acquired taste. I also think there is a large subset of fans that feel Dr. Andy Brown is the other acquired taste, the taste they never fully acquired. And then, maybe there is a microcosm of people who think Amy is too much. I'm not sure, maybe she seems a bit standoffish? I don't really know, I'm just spitballing it. If you've seen Van Camp in Revenge or The Resident, you must realize she is so full of talent. She can carry a show with her skills and charisma. She is that good.

I LOVE THIS SHOW!.

I remember when this was airing way back 20 years ago, but I was watching 8 other shows at the time, and this one just didn't fit into my schedule. I was in the middle of Sopranos and Smallville, American Idol, NCIS, The Office, Prison Break, Supernatural, Invasion, Surface, Jericho (lots of shows listed here that were just a season or two and then ended abruptly, shows that far surpassed anything these days).

My wife at the time loved Days of Our Lives and Seventh Heaven, so we watched those instead of this and there was only room for one show of that genre. We simply didn't have the time for Everwood.

I'm glad I waited. I've had this on my radar along with Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill for two decades. Here I am, probably too old to be enamored with these shows now, but all the stars in them are only a few years younger than me, so there is a lot of nostalgia involved.

I have to say that Everwood aged very well. I think it's one of the best shows I've ever seen, and here I am 20 years later saying this. In my opinion, the last good TV show in existence was GoT. Maybe Bosch is okay, a bit different, an LA Confidential sort, meets The Wire, maybe. But maybe that's the last decent thing. Stuff like Jack Ryan and Reacher, Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, Kingstown, Yellowstone (maybe it was good enough, but a bit violent), just don't cut it. They don't have the same quality as these older shows. And all the Disney/Marvel shows, they've flooded the market with waste.

It's been pretty dry the past 7 years or so. They haven't been able to come up with anything even close to the quality and maybe they never will. If a show like Everwood came out today, would it be more popular? I think it would be a momentous show for a network like Hallmark. You may have seen The Way Home. That's a great show too. You can see the Hallmark fingerprint all over Everwood. Half the actors were/are regulars in Hallmark productions. And look at all the big names that appear: Chris Pratt, James Earl Jones, Heche, Beghe, Beau Bridges, J. K. Simmons, Erick Avari, Kristen Bell, Kate Mara, Betty White, Philip Baker Hall, Dylan Walsh, Paul Wesley, Scott Wolf...are you kidding me?

7.0 stars.

I would consider this a PG version of all the 'Reacher' films and TV series. 'Rebel Ridge' is about a man who happens to get caught in the middle of some small town corruption. He is a humble, Reacher type of hardcore ex-marine. He's on his way to help out a cousin who got put in jail. The local police are dirty and they mess with him for no reason. They have messed with the wrong guy. The rest is history.

This has all the makings of a great action film, but there is no killing, even with the gross amount of violence throughout. I think it's great that they have no death, but with the amount of action and people getting shot, and car chases, it's not very realistic. It's like watching those 70's and 80's action TV shows with all the car chases and flipping vehicles and rifles firing left and right, but nobody gets shot and everyone survives. It's different than the usual violence we are used to these days. Again, I think I prefer no death, because gratuitous violence, gore, and death is overrated. However, it doesn't feel realistic either, so maybe if they could focus more on the martial arts aspect and leave out the guns, it would be more fulfilling. The two best scenes are when he uses his hand to hand skills on these backwoods cops. Anyways, I've seen a lot better action flicks. The story is shoddily written and the secondary characters are flimsy. Also, some of the characters' are conflicted and it doesn't translate. It is confusing. By the end, we aren't sure who all the good guys are.

7.6 stars.

A young woman in her early twenties becomes a teacher. To her surprise, she is placed in a homeless shelter classroom of sorts. This is a place where homeless people hang out and sleep in their cars and some small trailers on the property of an old train depot. That part isn't totally clear, but it's obvious this is a place where the homeless are trying to improve their lives, but it's a slow process. The parents are trying to find work and their children live with them in this small automobile and trailer camp. There are some social workers assigned to manage the temporary shelter as well. This young woman is assigned to teach grades 1-6 and it's a challenge. The story goes on to show us how she cares so deeply for this community of homeless and they all grow to love her very much and everyone is profoundly blessed.

I was touched, shed tears about 5 times and that's a lot.

9.4 stars.

This is my second favorite apocalypse film behind 'The Day After Tomorrow', which seems like an odd choice for first place. It's not at all similar to Z, but it's how I feel.

This movie is quite the epic. It's about a man who is very good at what he does. Not exactly sure what he does, but he fixes things and helps people out of difficult situations. He works for the U. N. doing something special. Anyways, he quit his job, he wanted to spend time with his family. And the story is just starting, literally a few minutes into the film and the fun begins.

We are introduced to zombies that will obviously take over the world. They are super zombies and they are fast and they are like ants. They know how to do things, they have insane instincts for spreading a virus and multiplying their numbers, just like any other zombie show, all it takes is a bite. Mother nature has struck back.

It's one of the best zombie flicks ever made.

7.7 stars.

4.9 stars, really? Come on now.

I've seen this twice. I think it was executed very well. You can't blame the characters for being dumb, because they are all unable to sleep, so they will get dumb. So the majority opinion that 'Awake' is ridiculous because people-be-dumb, does not apply.

It's full of suspense and lots of action and it's apocalyptic and entertaining. What's not to like. I've always had a crush on the lead female, she's one of my favorites in Hollywood. Don't ask me why, just is what it is. Anyways, this is a very fast paced thriller in which people are going insane due to no sleep and they need to find someone who can sleep, because anyone who can sleep will be the only ones able to think clearly enough to figure out how to save the world. But they are becoming increasingly unable to help themselves, because they are getting more dumb. And so they rely on a smart person to save them, but this person is unlikely to succeed. You'll see why after a while. And so it's a catch-22.

The totally obvious thing for me was the puzzle of the person who can sleep and why. It was obvious immediately, so there was no mystery about finding the cure. But again, these people are rushed and frantic and not sleeping, so they wouldn't solve the equation anyway. It's brilliant if you ask me. There are no spoilers here, you will understand all I've shared within the first five minutes.

6.8 stars.

It took me a while to get through this, but I think it was helpful. The fact is, people don't change unless they are willing to do the hard work. Once you are willing to do the hard work, you need motivation. It takes good friends and family members to help a person maintain motivation (unless you hire a coach). Bottom line, there is a bottom line.

It's not easy to become more sophisticated and have good manners if your parents never taught you. I'd say my parents were probably a 5/10 for teaching manners and etiquette to us. That aside, this show is helpful simply for some of the tips she gives. It's interesting to know this stuff. You can watch this show and then look around and see the people out there who practice these skills and those who don't. You will quickly notice that most people don't. I work in a large building with thousands of people and I'd say one out of five men and probably three out of five women are practicing very basic etiquette. But on the level of what is shown in this show, probably 5% of people are actually doing this. I think this is mainly for women, because men's world doesn't necessarily respect or expect good mannerisms. We are men. We are sloppy, rude, and loud. That's what normal men do. In upper class and Hollywood, men are still like that, however when they are out and about and rubbing shoulders with the other celebs, they will utilize these skills. But let's be real, in normal life, in the blue-collar world of middle America, men are not practicing this stuff and only half the girls. In China and other Asian countries, probably men are to a higher degree practicing good etiquette and the reason is because it's expected in that society. If you don't do this in China, you will be frowned upon and become a pariah. But in America It's just not as widely accepted to be sophisticated (for men), which could be a shame, but it's how it is.

6.7 stars.

I don't rate documentaries above a 7 usually, because the overall experience must be taken into account with all my ratings. A documentary is very informative, but it's not something I will watch more than once, at least not 99% of them. There are very few I'd re-watch. Anyways, enough of that. The point is any great documentary will only provide a limited amount of entertainment for me, and even with all the great information, I must still be entertained. I watch TV for that reason primarily. And so, is this a good documentary compared to most? I suppose it would be if it was something fresh, but we already knew all this stuff, it was just a matter of time. And so this documentary is average at best, but not too bad.

Ghislaine was probably the real monster behind it all. She coordinated all of this for him, sure he was a very bad man, but he was not necessarily the mastermind. Or, maybe he was the mastermind, but she was the person who made his wishes come to fruition. He needed a charming woman to put his ideas into motion.

We can see from a very young age that she was this sort of an organizer. Her friends talk about her being so charismatic and the life of the party and she knew how to throw parties and get people together for a purpose. When she had an agenda, she knew how to make it happen and how to put things together and she did it for Jeff, because she wanted his approval maybe, but that's no excuse.

7.6 stars.

Just because the ending doesn't answer our questions and there are some odd twists of fate, doesn't mean the whole movie gets trashed, like the throwing out the baby with the bathwater. This is a great film. The acting is excellent, the action is superb, the apocalyptic strange behavior cliche that we all love, with the people becoming backstabbing with survival-of-the-fittest mentalities, that whole theme...yeah it's been overdone, it's the whole walking dead trope where seemingly good people turn bad in a moment and we see their "true colors" coming into play. But I don't think it would be like this in real life. I think most people would go out of their way to help other people. That all aside, the movie is very good.

The world ending catastrophe is left to the imagination. I already know what it is without looking it up. This is a solar phenomenon, probably the sun is having some problems, sending massive flares hurling toward the earth and it's burning up the planet. I've seen other films that depict this very thing. You see the telltale northern lights in places they don't belong and the ash and strange lightning storms, all signs of the sun going haywire.

Anyway, the end leaves us wondering what happens? Not really, Watch carefully, you'll see, we know what happens. This film is well done, another great apocalypse caused by mother nature. Don't have silly expectations of closure and a happy ending, and you will be entertained. Nobody should judge a whole movie just for the last 2 minutes. That's absurd.

5.6 stars.

This would be a 5.0, but because of the actors, I raised it a bit.

Take 200 minutes off this and you might have a fairly good movie (maybe a 6.0). But the problem is that the script is too basic and the plot is not even clever. This is like an old Nancy Drew mystery from like 60 years ago, the plot twists are predictable, enough so that a 12 year old could probably guess some of the reveals. And so I skipped around to see if anything would jump out at me even close to riveting or at least redeemable enough to be entertained, and not just wasting my time. But it's just a dead end thriller with zero impactful twists. You know, those amazing twists that some directors are able to pull off? There are none of those, absolutely none. This is at best a 90's LIfetime movie and at worst a 7 episode Netflix thriller wannabe that should be a 2 hour movie. Maybe the writer could have brainstormed for a few minutes to come up with an unexpected twist. A better idea would have been identical triplets, which actually does happen. But the third sister was unknown to the public, because she supposedly died at a young age, but she actually didn't, and so you can build a plot on that. We don't know of the third sister until a twist at the end. Way better twist in my opinion. And even if it was cliche, it would still surpass this 'Echoes'.

6.6 stars.

I waited a bit over a year to watch this, because I really wanted to see it, but not until after the hype wore off. So I finally bit the bullet, and these are my unbiased opinions.

First of all, there was too much hype surrounding this film and I have no idea why. The story is splintered into three or four different themes and unfortunately none of them are impactful. Let me explain. The first aspect is multiverse. Ok, well, if you want to combine a multiverse with Christianity, you really need to sell it much better. Instead, they offer us a gimmick in the form of a borderline low-budget atmosphere. Now, don't get me wrong, you can tell this is not low-budget, but the script and pace make it seem that way, which is unfortunate. What we have are a crew of filmmakers who know sci-fi, but they don't have a grasp on high quality scriptwriting and flow (probably the director's fault). It's obvious that amateurs who specialize in decent sci-fi, decided to add a Christian twist, or maybe it's the other way around. The special effects were good, but for some reason the religious parts were lost in the mix. You can't have a man running around in an alternate universe accomplishing nothing for a full hour and expect us to come away satisfied, or fulfilled. His good works were not very convincing and seemed lost in the setting. We weren't getting the message.

The devil aspect is acted well and seems ominous enough, however it's cliche, cheesy at times, and doesn't make sense. Benefactor gets angry at a stubborn man, and supposedly this stubborn man isn't supposed to be so disagreeable, he's supposed to be one of the "good guys". It's a fragment that we never see the solution to.

And what's the point of the blinking back and forth between universes? You will see there is absolutely no point to it. What's gained, what's lost? What agenda does Satan have with it? It is for display only with no endgame. And the part where the main character can view different things in a movie theater (don't want to spoil it, so I'll be vague with this). There is no point to that part of the plot.

The best part is when he makes a couple of good decisions, and that's when you see a bit of good vs evil that makes sense.

The music sold the experience, but it's the only redeeming aspect of the whole film.

And to touch on the good vs evil stuff a bit more, it would be nice if life really was like that. And the sprinkling of little miracles here and there was a good addition, but it also gets lost in the utter nonsense of their attempt to allegorize the book of Job from the Bible. Honestly, I don't think it's anything like the book of Job and I'm pretty certain the writers didn't intend it to be. And also, Job from the Bible did not lose his wife.

If I had never of this film previously, I'd not hesitate to say it's a fragmented failure, B-rated at best. But I had some expectations (because Polaha is a beloved Hallmark male lead regular), so I'll say it's not a B-rated failure, but more of a religious/sci-fi fusion failure.

7.1 stars.

It's in the middle of the pack for Hallmark. I'd say out of my last 100 Hallmark films watched, this would be like #50 in rank, so like I said, right in the middle. There really isn't much to say about it, because it's a generic romance about a professional skier. He has seen it all and done it all, was the best of the best for a while, now he's older, feels he needs to prove he's still got it. But he's recovering from a career ending knee injury. He has a gal who has been his best friend since they were kids, but they were always in love (we know this, it's established for us this way). She is a skiing instructor and she's the best at it, but she chose to stay close to home all these years.

The comeback aspect is average, the romance is a bit below average, the acting is good, the skiing shots are average. The movie is average across the board. Average for me is about a 7.0. I gave this a 7.1, because I like the actors a lot. I'll tell you why a 5.0 is not average for me, because there are rarely movies that I will watch that are below 5.0, they are out there, I just never see them. This is because you have to really search hard to find a movie that bad, they just don't show them very often on any of the major platforms.

7.9 stars.

I put this waaaaaaaayyyy on the back burner. I saw half of one episode about a year ago and I was not overly impressed. I decided to start with the first episode, see if chronological viewing would fix the problem. It did. Oh boy it did!

What an impressive show that I now have the opportunity to watch from the very beginning. I'll savor the flavor of 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered', because I just got finished with 'Chesapeake Shores' and I'm out of good Hallmark TV these days. I don't like the new show, I think it's called 'Ride'? It's terrible. I love 'The Way Home', but the next season is in about four months. I am on season four of 'When Calls the Heart', however that is somewhat of an acquired taste, because it's hard to match 'Little House...' and they are trying, but there is just barely enough substance to keep me interested. Sure, I'll continue, but it's just a bit too soapy and not enough dirty drama. You know, that gritty western feel you get from a real western/frontier show? It don't have that.

So now I'm on 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered' and taking my sweet time. I think I'll wait a bit before embarking on episode two. Hmmm, how am I going to make this show last four months until 'The Way Home' is back?

7.7 stars.

The story of a young man with Down's Syndrome who wants to be a wrestler. It's a Huckleberry Finn type of adventure.

This movie will make you very emotional as you see three people transformed into heroes. This is the kind of story that has to be told. Whoever wrote this book or screenplay, or both, has hit the nail on the head. I wonder if this movie won a bunch of awards. I'm thinking it should have, and so I'm going to look and see after I've finished this review.

If you feel like your life is headed nowhere, then you'll see in this story that life is all about friends that become your family. Sure, life is also about family, but I've always felt that friends that become family are that much more meaningful. Amazing.

I can't rate this any higher, because even though it's absolutely wonderful, it's not something I will watch every few years. But I will come back to this again in 5 to 10 years for sure.

8.6 stars.

Why 8.6 stars? I've seen 'Aloha' four times, is that enough justification? I just am crazy about this movie. The dialogue is not overly clever, but it has extremely smart moments, especially those few silent moments, and how it's all about body language.

It's about Bradley Cooper's character and how everyone in the world loves this guy, he's "the guy", you know, that guy every girl loves and every guy wants to be (like the Big Lebowski kinda). He's sort of like...Bradley Cooper. He's portraying himself as a jack-of-all-trades Casanova, but he's human and fallible an he broke his legs really bad some years ago, so he has a perma-limp. All the more reason to love his character. He is Bill Murray 40 years ago in his hayday, pulling shenanigans and taking names.

This is one of my favorite romcom guilty pleasure films, because Bradley Cooper, he is gold. Emma Stone is gold, Rachel McAdams is gold, John Krasinski is gold, Danny McBride is gold, Alec Baldwin is gold, Bill Murray is gold. I cannot imagine a more perfect cast of all my favorite actors over the past 40 years, and how they could afford to pay this ensemble cast, nobody knows. But like any movie made up of a cast like this, it's going to be more about the plug and less about the substance.

The plot is only lacking because they aren't sure which direction to go...should they focus more on the love triangle, or the military aspects? Should we get more of the accolades and comradery between Cooper's character and everyone orbiting him, or should we focus more on Stone and McAdams? They chose the former to get more of the spotlight. I have to be honest, it's tough to make it a proportional experience for the audience. There is not quite enough of McAdams, yet she really shines and there is almost enough of Stone. Hard to figure it out, because the movie isn't short, it's long enough to tell the whole story.

I really wish they made a sequel, you know, put them back together, she's flying jets, he's on another assignment, their relationship is on the rocks, he wins her back. The usual sequel material.

7.4 stars.

I'm being generous by saying "loosely", it's more like remotely, however it's done very well. There is a reason why Glenn Close stars in this, because she generally doesn't do bad movies. I really liked her portrayal of a troubled grandmother who has succumbed to many worldly vices, but has overcome by proclaiming Jesus, even though she's still pretty messed up.

And are these characters based on real people? Very loosely. But the movie is excellent in all aspects. The directing is good, the sound and lighting are superb, the acting is superb. The naysayers were looking to be entertained by a horror flick, and this is nothing extraordinary for that genre. But I don't see this as a horror flick, I see it as more of a demon flick, and based on real demons most likely. You can see the Christian vibes all over this movie. I think the cynics just don't like being preached at by a "horror" movie, because if you siphon the horror for the sake of horror out of a film and slide it into the religion category, you are crossing sacred boundaries.

5.4 stars.

Oh, the humanity! Sweetin is off and for her that's not unusual, but way off this time. I rarely finish a movie that is under six stars, this is no exception. I made it to 30 minutes or so. There are so many things wrong with the presentation, I wasn't able to focus on the narrative at all. The simplistic and laughable way that the lead female character is portrayed is, well for lack of better words, laughable. The lead male role is as good as can be for what he has to work with. The script is terrible. I was so disappointed in this film, no wonder it's already been released on Hallmark Network and yet the official release date isn't for another 2+ weeks? Does that make sense? No. The only thing that makes sense is that the producers and the Network realize this movie is a flop, and they want to get it out of the way, brush it aside, hope it's soon forgotten....ugh.

7.9 stars.

There will be a bunch of people that say this film sucks. It's the same old, same old with these movie reviews. For some reason there are a lot of haters of mainstream romances that star big time actors like JLo and Owen Wilson. It's as if they have to make some magic happen, like real magic, supernatural performances and out of this world chemistry and this and that, but expectations are always too high. I watch a movie for the entertainment, how it makes me feel. Did the time go by quickly, how did my emotions react, am I totally digging it. Yes, I dig this film. The romance is spectacular, even with the lack of chemistry at times. I feel like JLo strained her romantic moments with him a bit, I wasn't feeling the love, but he is the same character he always is and it works for him. Watch five of his movies, tell me he's not the same guy in every single one, except for maybe 'Meet the Parents', he's a bit of a fiend in that.. And so the low ratings would only be due to his usual schtick and her slight lack of chemistry. But the rest of it is so good, I have to give it a solid 7.9.

7.6 stars.

I liked this because it's a subtle twist on a familiar theme. It's about a woman who is fated (OR NOT) to meet a certain man. In this story she is dreaming about him. Next we are swept into a strange place where people's jobs are to regulate humans' dreams. It's a really weird attempt at a new rendition of angels working overtime to make sure fate and destiny are not knocked out of alignment.

So the rest is about a woman and a man that should never meet, and will they meet? Of course they will, otherwise this movie would be a bust. So there's no spoiler there. And after they meet, what will happen? That would be a spoiler, so I'll let you watch it and find out.

It's not bad. The twists were not too major, the acting is great, the writing is genius, the rest is good. The overall feeling is that this rounds up to 8 stars for me.