A few weeks ago, I promised that in my next post I would have something special for you, Dear Imaginary Readers, and as you may or may not have realized, there was no new blog post last week. And no, that wasn't the special surprise. Don't be a smart-ass. The simple truth is that my local internet service provider just rolled over and died for about a week, leaving me unable to update this lovely little blog you all enjoy so much. Luckily, things are back on track here in the sweltering heartland, and I've returned at long last to punish all of you with more of whatever it is that I do here.
Everything still sucks, but I'm sure you already knew that. Things certainly haven't gotten any better in the interim since our last meeting. This pandemic is still raging out of control in America because too many people are too selfish and stupid to take this situation seriously. Grown men and women are throwing fits in grocery stores, stabbing people and pissing on the floor like dumb animals because they don't want to be inconvenienced by wearing a fucking mask to save lives.
President Tangerine Gargamel is just straight-up deploying an anonymous paramilitary force into major cities to quell protests triggered by rampant police brutality, which just feels an awful lot like fascism to me. But it could never happen here, right? Our system of checks and balances would never allow outright fascism to gain a foothold in the United States of America! I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but the ghouls currently in charge of our federal government are wiping their asses with those checks and balances, and this march into oblivion continues unabated. It's happening right now, in plain view, and I think some members of congress are drafting strongly-worded condemnations of these heinous actions, and surely once those missives have been promptly dispatched, everything will turn around and order will finally be restored.
And if you believe that, I'm sure you also believe that it's perfectly safe to send your children back into that crowded petri dish you call a school in a few weeks, as well. A little COVID-19 won't hurt little Billy. Probably. Maybe. I guess. But what about Billy's parents, or his grandparents, or his older siblings? How's little Billy going to deal with the very distinct possibility that the deadly disease he brings home from school in the autumn might kill his dear mommy and daddy? Not very fucking well, I would reckon.
This drooling buffoon with a festering butthole for a mouth is on TV bragging about how he "aced" a test designed to gauge the cognitive function of elderly people in mental decline, despite the questions being very, very difficult, and we're supposed to reward him for this? He defends the rights of statues portraying bigoted traitors who took up arms against this country to remain standing in cities all across the American South to remind African Americans that they may no longer be slaves, but that their federal government still doesn't give a damn about them. Every single time the opportunity to do the right thing, the humane thing, the just thing comes around, these rotten, cruel, sociopathic creatures choose to do the opposite thing. They choose to make things worse. They choose to continue to hurt people, to force people into situations with no good outcome, to keep their boot firmly on the collective throat of the oppressed for no other reason than it pleases them to do so.
What better time than now for a little Schlock-Mas In July, everybody?
That's right, friends. The surprise was a brand-new made-for-television holiday movie review all along! Since Hallmark Channel insists on continuing their wretched "Christmas In July" tradition, I figured I might as well watch one of their movies and talk about it a little right here, since I currently have nothing better to do with my precious time.
Did you know that Hallmark Channel is somehow still making movies during this pandemic? It's true. Their ongoing schedule of weekly movie premieres has continued all year-long thus far with only a few gaps here and there. And come Christmastime, there will still be an abundance of all-new holiday premieres for your viewing enjoyment, because they're still cranking these damned things out, come hell or high water. There are multiple holiday movies in production as we speak, most filming in Canada, but several are actually being made in America, as well. It seems not even a deadly pandemic will stop the onslaught of the dreaded Countdown To Christmas, which I believe will begin on October 23rd of this year. Nothing else is getting made, but we'll always have new Hallmark Channel original movies to look forward to.
Hooray.
MERRY & BRIGHT
Cate and Gabe work together to make a candy cane company profitable and find love during the holidays.
Cate Merriwether (Jodie Sweetin) is the new CEO of Merry & Bright Candy Cane Co., which was founded by her late grandmother over fifty years ago in her hometown of Britewell, Ohio, known as the candy cane capital of the world. Cate took over as CEO after granny bit the big one a year prior, and she's been struggling with her new position ever since, worried about the future of the family business since it has proven to be, let's say less than financially viable as of late. In short, the company is hemorrhaging money because nobody wants to buy candy canes for at least six months out of any given year. Quite frankly, I have no idea how this business has remained afloat for so long, and apparently Cate doesn't know either, since she spends most of her time at work performing tours of the small factory for dwindling groups of disinterested children.
Enter Gabe Carter, a corporate recovery consultant from New York City who has recently been hired to help Cate turn her business around before it inevitably goes under. Gabe's spent most of his adult life living out of a suitcase as he's constantly traveling for work, often spending his Christmas holidays in airports as he waits for his next flight. He doesn't really want to go to Britewell with only a few weeks until Christmas, because small towns aren't really his thing, but his mommy who founded the company he works for insists, claiming this little field trip will do him some good, getting out into small town America and away from the big city he's known his whole life. Gabe needs to breathe some fresh air and get in touch with the slower pace of a town like Britewell, since he's so tightly wound and just needs to fucking relax for a little while.
Hijinks ensue when Cate mistakes Gabe for the latest guy her meddling mother (Sharon Lawrence) has set her up with when he arrives at the Britewell Inn while she's picking up her to-go dinner from the establishment's owner, some oblivious dink named Pete. I'm gonna be honest here and admit I have no idea why Cate keeps coming back to the Britewell Inn. She doesn't live there, but she keeps showing up at this place throughout the movie. At least she has an excuse the first time, picking up her dinner, but that just raises further questions. Why is she picking up dinner from an inn? Surely there are other establishments in Britewell that serve food. We actually see one at the beginning of the movie, during a scene where Cate is on a blind date with some conceited prick who won't stop talking about himself that her mother set her up with, so it's not like the Britewell Inn is the only game in town when it comes to serving up prepared meals.
There's got to be a Taco Bell in town, at the very least. Have some chalupas for a change, Cate! They may not be any good, but at least they're cheap!
Much to my relief and surprise, this confusion as to whether or not Gabe is the latest in a series of misguided attempts on her mother's part to get Cate laid doesn't even last the length of this scene, as Gabe clears up matters rather quickly. I cringe at the idea of a movie where this subplot is played out for a half-hour or longer. Maybe Cate thinks Gabe's making a move when he asks to see her briefs, and she throws a glass of water (not wine, because these people don't drink anything stronger than hot chocolate) and storms out of the restaurant in a huff. Hilarity! Thankfully, Merry & Bright chose not to take that particular comedic path, and for that I am thankful.
The pair's first tour through Merry & Bright's facility doesn't go very well when Gabe informs Cate that she may have to lay off some of her staff in order to keep her business solvent, and she can't imagine ever doing such a thing to the people who work for her, because as far as Cate's concerned these folks are like family. Never mind the fact that we never actually meet anybody else who works at Merry & Bright aside from her assistant, Sophie, who is madly in love with that goon Pete and is wondering why this simpleton hasn't proposed marriage at any point in the three years they've been dating. Sophie is constantly reminding her boss in every scene they share that Pete hasn't popped the question yet, pointing to her lonely ring finger and lamenting her sad state of affairs.
I'm not joking. This is Sophie's one and only character trait in the entire movie. She loves Pete and she wants to be married to Pete and she's tired of waiting for Pete to make this happen. It's the twenty-first century, Sophie. You can propose to Pete. Women can do a lot of kooky things in this modern age. They can even vote! And Pete wants to ask Sophie to marry him, but because he's an idiot he thinks she'll turn him down. Even though she's dropping not-too-subtle hints to this MENSA member every time they're together. Pete's thinking of buying Sophie a new mountain bike for Christmas this year.
After Gabe takes his leave of Cate, he immediately calls his mother to complain about how bad things are going so far in Britewell, and Cate overhears this grown man's very loud, very public pissing and moaning in the lobby of her own business. He's freaking out because Cate took his suggestion of firing almost half her employees at Christmastime poorly, like he's never had any push-back from any of his previous clients when he makes similar proposals. Apparently this is the very first time anybody has challenged the great and powerful Gabe Carter regarding his sound business advice. Gee, I wonder why Cate didn't take too kindly to this suggestion? It's a real mystery, Gabe.
But he and Cate patch things up the next morning when he brings his client hot chocolate (of course) and they bond over their mutual love of stirring their warm beverages with candy canes for that added peppermint zing. Gabe then suggests to Cate that another option she has is to diversify her business, since nothing but candy canes year-round isn't exactly paying the bills anymore. Luckily, Cate's been thinking of dipping her toes into the chocolatier business, having recently begun making specialty chocolates at home as gifts to her employees. Gabe makes some calls to a couple hot shot investors in the Big Apple and sets his client up with a meeting, and this is a pretty big deal for poor Cate. Life-changing, even. If she manages to thrill this corporate suit with her decadent chocolates, he could invest in her company and transform Merry & Bright into a major player in the international confections game.
But before they jet off to the big city, Cate and Gabe must attend Britewell's annual Christmas Tree lighting ceremony. Cate's been invited to light the tree for the second consecutive year, but at the last moment she decides to pass the honor to Gabe, because I guess she thought the dope could use a little infusion of the old Christmas Spirit. She invites him onstage before the gathered crowd like she's introducing a visiting dignitary. She acts as though everybody's just supposed to know who this perfect stranger is when she shouts his name into a microphone like she's Rod Roddy on The Price Is Right. So Gabe presses the big red button, the stupid tree lights up, and the crowd goes wild. Next!
The following day, Cate and Gabe head to New York to land the big fish, and after their meeting the pair attend Gabe's mother's annual Christmas party. Cate feels underdressed and out of place at this fancy shindig at first, but then Gabe pulls her aside to a quiet corner and they bond over a very special painting hanging on the wall. This painting, composed by Gabe's father many years ago, depicts a magical rural Christmas, a picturesque scene with a big red barn and a massive fir tree dominating the landscape, alive with colored lights before a blazing orange late afternoon sky. This painting hung on a wall in Gabe's bedroom throughout his youth, and the young boy would find himself staring at this inviting scene for hours at a time, imagining the kind of place that would inspire such a warm and beguiling place.
Then Cate and Gabe lock eyes and a tender kiss is shared before Gabe's mother unwittingly breaks the spell when she pops in and asks her son if he's tried the salmon dip, but of course Gabe hasn't tried the salmon dip because he's been too busy talking to Cate about this damned painting and this woman just doesn't know how to read the room. Cock-blocked at Christmas. That's a bummer.
All joking aside, this is easily the best scene in the entire movie, up until Gabe's mommy breaks up the fun. As Gabe tells his story while gazing at this perfectly lovely painting, Cate's just watching his face, and as a viewer you can actually watch her fall in love during this scene. Jodie Sweetin plays the scene flawlessly, and I completely bought the performance. To be completely honest, I've been very impressed with Sweetin's work in these movies so far. Granted, I've only seen two (she's starred in three Christmas movies for Hallmark thus far), but Sweetin brings a natural charm and likability to her performances in these movies that I can't help but enjoy.
Sweetin's so much better at this stuff than so many of her contemporaries who've been churning these products out for a decade or more, including (I'm going there) her Full House compatriot Candace Cameron-Bure. There's always something slightly contrived about even the best of Cameron's performances, a layer of artificiality that prevents me from ever completely enjoying her work. In other words, Candy Cams always comes off as a bit phony to me, and I've always found that a little off-putting. Jodie Sweetin doesn't seem to have that problem as an actor, committing to her performances with an easy-going manner that her "big sister" lacks on her best day. I'm saying that I wish Jodie Sweetin had started down the Hallmark path years earlier than 2017, because I feel like I've been deprived of at least a decade's worth of delightful performances in a series of otherwise mediocre made-for-television holiday movies.
The next day, this Wall St. fat cat calls Cate back in Britewell and tells her that he's ready to sign a big fucking check and get the newly-re-branded Merry & Bright Chocolate Company up and running in the new year, and for some reason this news does not thrill dear Cate. Apparently at some point between their initial meeting and the phone call, Cate has decided that she doesn't want to expand her business after all, believing that jumping into chocolate production with both feet would somehow destroy the company her grandmother founded, despite the company her grandmother founded already teetering on the precipice of bankruptcy because candy canes just aren't selling as well as they used to. She also doesn't like the idea of publicly re-branding Merry & Bright from "candy canes" to "chocolate" because of the company's trusted and well-known name in the industry, even though, as I just stated, the damned candy canes aren't selling well enough to keep the lights on at the company for much longer, brand recognition be damned.
Cate just arbitrarily changed her mind off-camera and wants to keep making candy canes, I guess, hoping that business will simply turn around at some ill-defined point in the future, despite all evidence to the contrary plainly illustrating that this is not going to be the case. I truly do not understand what is going on with this plot. It baffles me. Cate knows her current business model is failing. She wants to make changes at the company to turn things around. She knows she can make delicious chocolates based on tried and true family recipes that people go gaga over, and now has the means at her disposal to manufacture these chocolates en masse and introduce these delicious confections to a potentially international audience of candy-loving fiends. And instead of doing this... she chooses to do nothing.
The movie never makes a clear case for Cate's decision, and as such it makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. It's not like the terms of her agreement with this investor prohibit her from manufacturing candy canes. She can still make as many candy canes as she wants without consequence. The deal is focused solely on expanding her company's operation in order to diversify her confectionery portfolio. Is it the name change? Because if that's it, I'm sure Cate would still be allowed to manufacture candy canes with the "Merry & Bright Candy Cane Co." logo on their boxes in perpetuity, because the brand recognition certainly does mean something. But this is never even brought up. So Cate rejects the generous offer and when Gabe appears flabbergasted by her sudden turnaround, she claims that he never really knew her after all, and their blooming romance withers on the vine, so Gabe retreats back to New York with a broken heart and a bruised ego.
But it's not all doom and gloom, kids! Cate's got another idea brewing in her big melon, and this one's a real doozy! It seems that her beloved grandmother's recipe book also included a number of alternate candy cane recipes instead of the tried and true peppermint, flavors such as sugar plum, gingerbread, eggnog, etc. And Cate's decided to take some of these flavors and put them into production immediately, even sending some of these prototypes to the walking money bag in New York who had previously offered to bankroll her aborted expansion into chocolate production. And wouldn't you know it, but this douche bag just loves these candy canes and wants to use his money and influence to help get Cate's exotic new flavors out there for the world to taste, post haste. And hey, maybe these flavors will help break the Christmas barrier for candy canes, keeping them on store shelves year-round. Cinnamon for Valentine's Day. Key Lime for St. Patrick's Day. Gunpowder for Independence Day. Pumpkin Spice for Thanksgiving. A brave new world of candy canes has just been introduced, and Cate's going to be at the forefront of this delicious revolution.
So Merry & Bright apparently takes place in a bland fantasy world, since these flavors all already exist, and you can already buy many different flavors of candy canes year-round in specialty shops basically everywhere. The brilliant new idea in this film is something that's already existed for quite a long time, so I'm not terribly impressed with the screenplay, folks.
Then Gabe just shows up again and he and Cate get together at the town's big annual Christmas party. I guess he missed her and wanted to try and work things out. And they do work things out. Then Cate's mom shows up at the party to deliver her daughter's gift, which I am just now realizing I neglected to mention earlier. Yes, near the beginning of the film, Cate laments in a conversation with her mother that an adorable little mutt that looks disconcertingly like Dee Wallace Stone after she transforms into an adorable werewolf on live television at the climax of The Howling down at the local animal shelter has already been adopted before she had the chance to snag this pooch herself, but mommy was actually the one who adopted the dog, keeping this furry little muppet at her house until the Christmas party when she will surprise her beloved daughter with this living present.
But in the meantime, Cate's mom falls in love with her four-legged house guest, and when she presents her daughter with this gift at the party, Cate can immediately see how deeply the older woman and this dog have bonded, and she just hands the dog back to her mother and wishes her a Merry Christmas. It's a cute little moment.
One year later, the candy cane business is fucking booming, Cate and Gabe are still together, that dumb prick Pete has finally proposed marriage to Sophie, Cate's mom and her new dog apparently died off-screen because they're never seen again, and everybody else lived happily ever after.
That's Merry & Bright, and it's fine.
The story is decent until it needlessly over-complicates things with Cate's wishy-washy attitude regarding expanding her business, and then the movie just makes up another way for Cate to expand the business while maintaining the candy cane theme, which wasn't really necessary. And why did all of these alternative candy cane recipes exist for presumably years if not decades, and Cate's grandmother never even attempted to produce any of them before her untimely death? And Cate already knew these recipes existed, because they were written down in the middle of the same damned recipe book as every other candy cane and chocolate recipe she consulted throughout her life, so where's the excuse? The fucking pages certainly weren't stuck together. But I guess it all works out in the end, so who the hell even cares?
Jodie Sweetin was great in her role, and she had good romantic chemistry with Andrew Walker. Sharon Lawrence was decent, if underutilized. The dog was cute. There's a lot of inviting, festive imagery on display. All in all, I'd say it's about sixty percent of a good movie. Which is a shame, because that's still a failing grade. But I don't regret watching Merry & Bright, despite my complaints, because it actually managed to capture a sliver of that Christmas Spirit, and I could feel it radiating through the oppressive heat of a withering July afternoon. So thanks for that, Merry & Bright.
And now for the other big surprise! That's right, I've got two surprises in this blog post! Holy shit! And it's a brand-new episode of Trappo's Chap House! But not just any old episode, you silly goose! No, this episode, entitled Christmas In July, is all about... well, Christmas. Christmas music, to be more precise. To be even more precise, I got very drunk and rambled to Ky about some of my very favorite Christmas music for a little while, and Ky could not give less of a damn about anything I had to say. So pretty much par for the course regarding our conversations in general. Then Ky tells me a story all about how the music of Sarah McLachlan saved the life of legendary rapper Darryl "DMC" McDaniels. So get ready for a little holiday magic.
That's it for now, friends. I'm tired, and I just want to crawl into bed and hibernate for a decade or so. Merry Christmas In July, or whatever. Just try to stay alive until next time. Don't let the bastards win.
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