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The Love Heist · Girls Gone Hallmark | Hallmark Movie Reviews

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Girls Gone Hallmark, a Hallmark review podcast. I'm
0:13
Speaker 1: Megan and I'm a longtime Hallmark fan. I'm Wendy. I'm
0:16
Speaker 1: a former Hallmark hater. On today's episode, we're discussing The
0:19
Speaker 1: Love Heist, which originally premiered on the Hallmark Channel on Saturday,
0:22
Speaker 1: June twentieth, and is now streaming on Hallmark Plus. I
0:26
Speaker 1: have a headline if you will. I'd love to hear
0:30
Speaker 1: it while watching this movie, The Love Heist, because I
0:34
Speaker 1: watched it live. Yes, I saw the commercial for the
0:39
Speaker 1: forthcoming Paris is always a good idea, which is a
0:42
Speaker 1: Hallmark Plus limited series exclusive. Yes, it drops on Thursday,
0:48
Speaker 1: July thirtieth, and I believe it's at the first two episodes. Okay,
0:52
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly because while watching the movie, I
0:56
Speaker 1: have subtitles too, so like the subtitles, everything's all over it. Yeah,
1:00
Speaker 1: I couldn't exactly see, but I believe it said the
1:03
Speaker 1: first two episodes are dropping. Here's the headline news. Did
1:06
Speaker 1: you know Barbara Nevin was attached to this object? I
1:09
Speaker 1: saw her in like a split second. I have to
1:12
Speaker 1: assume she plays because we've read the book and we
1:16
Speaker 1: did a Girl's Gone Hallmark book Club. Yes, I have
1:19
Speaker 1: to assume Barbara Nevin plays Lacey's character's dad's girlfriend fiance. Yeah,
1:26
Speaker 1: that would make the most sense unless in the movie
1:30
Speaker 1: they've given the ghost of her mother a bigger role
1:33
Speaker 1: like flashbacks. What do you think? I don't know. Pull
1:39
Speaker 1: up IMDb right now and see. That's a good idea
1:41
Speaker 1: if it has because as you know from the book,
1:45
Speaker 1: Lacey's character has a bit of a contentious relationship with
1:48
Speaker 1: her father's girlfriend, right which I kind of would like
1:52
Speaker 1: to see Barbara Nevin play. It does not have her
1:55
Speaker 1: character name on here. Got it? Well, stay tuned. We
1:57
Speaker 1: will be discussing pair. This is always a good idea.
2:01
Speaker 1: And if you want to read the book, it's a
2:02
Speaker 1: good read, and you have plenty of time to get
2:04
Speaker 1: it read before the movie comes out. If you are
2:07
Speaker 1: a book to adaptation purist. Let's talk about what's just
2:12
Speaker 1: a brief housekeeping on Girls Gone Hallmark. What's coming up
2:15
Speaker 1: for us before we jump into this movie. Okay, we
2:19
Speaker 1: are wrapping up June. July is forthcoming, of course Christmas
2:24
Speaker 1: in July for Hallmark, but we also want to put
2:27
Speaker 1: our own spin on it. We are going to do
2:29
Speaker 1: We're going to cover the Christmas in July movies, but
2:31
Speaker 1: we are also going to cover a few Hallmark Hall
2:35
Speaker 1: of Fame Christmas movies. That's right behind the scenes. We
2:39
Speaker 1: just chose those four movies we did just now. So
2:42
Speaker 1: someone asked a couple weeks ago if they could have
2:44
Speaker 1: the schedule, and I said, you can as soon as
2:46
Speaker 1: we have it. Yeah, things have been real busy here.
2:50
Speaker 1: Should we share those movies or should we invite people
2:52
Speaker 1: to come over to our Facebook group or follow us
2:55
Speaker 1: on Instagram if they want to see what those movies are?
2:58
Speaker 1: Not to keep it a secret, but I do think
3:00
Speaker 1: the better option is to find us. We will put
3:03
Speaker 1: them in the show notes of this episode. I don't
3:05
Speaker 1: think anybody's going to remember those four movies if we
3:07
Speaker 1: can share them now, So head on over to Instagram
3:09
Speaker 1: for the schedule. It'll also be in the Facebook group
3:12
Speaker 1: where Girls Gone Hallmark Everywhere and give that a look.
3:18
Speaker 1: Those episodes will come out on Thursdays throughout the month
3:21
Speaker 1: of July, and our new Hallmark Christmas in July movie
3:25
Speaker 1: reviews will come out on Tuesdays. If you want additional
3:28
Speaker 1: episodes from us, you know on Mondays we drop our
3:30
Speaker 1: Patreon episodes, Patreon dot com slash meganioity. That's bonus lifestyle
3:36
Speaker 1: content in the ultimate crossover a needle point shop. I
3:40
Speaker 1: follow that I'm like collaborating with on a project now
3:44
Speaker 1: follows us on Patreon. Oh wow, which made me super nervous.
3:50
Speaker 1: Why oh, I can't wait to talk more about that.
3:53
Speaker 1: And on Fridays, if you're a Bravo watcher, we drop
3:58
Speaker 1: our recaps of in the City, so we're all over
4:02
Speaker 1: the place right now. We have plenty of new episodes
4:04
Speaker 1: for you. So that's that's what's happening in July. Awesome.
4:08
Speaker 1: Are you ready to get into The Love Heist? I
4:11
Speaker 1: am with the synopsis TA get away. Celebrity stylist Kaylee
4:14
Speaker 1: must team up with hotel security chief Mills's his name,
4:18
Speaker 1: Chief Milk? No, why do they call him that? Mills?
4:22
Speaker 1: This is his last name? Yeah, the hotel security chief.
4:26
Speaker 1: I guess he's like head right, all right, to track
4:29
Speaker 1: down an iconic piece of fashion history after it goes
4:32
Speaker 1: missing on her watch before this Chicago costume Gala. The
4:38
Speaker 1: Love Heist was written by Holly Gent. This is Holly's
4:41
Speaker 1: fourth writing credit and first Tallmark project. Interestingly, she wrote
4:45
Speaker 1: the screenplay for the twenty nineteen movie Where'd You Go
4:48
Speaker 1: We're Anadette? Did you watch that movie, Wendy. I read
4:50
Speaker 1: that book and watch that movie. I don't remember if
4:52
Speaker 1: I saw the movie. I know I read the book.
4:54
Speaker 1: I saw this. I went to look it up because spoiler.
4:57
Speaker 1: I thought the writing was quite snappy. So I looked
4:59
Speaker 1: up the writer I was watching, and I saw that
5:02
Speaker 1: writing credit and thought, maybe I need to go give
5:04
Speaker 1: that a watch. I remember the book more than the movie.
5:08
Speaker 1: That's how it always go. Yeah. This movie was directed
5:11
Speaker 1: by Kevin Fair. He's best known for his work on
5:13
Speaker 1: many of the Signed, Sealed Delivered movies. His last project
5:17
Speaker 1: for Hallwark was Caught by Love with Rachel Lee Cook
5:19
Speaker 1: and Luke McFarlane, which kind of a similar movie. Di'd
5:24
Speaker 1: you Think Little Heisty? Yeah. Lindsay Vonzaka plays Kaylee. This
5:28
Speaker 1: is her fifty sixth acting credit and we last saw
5:30
Speaker 1: her in Single on the twenty fifth last Christmas. Peter
5:34
Speaker 1: Port plays Liam Mills. This is his fifty second acting credit.
5:39
Speaker 1: We last saw him on Hallmark in Notes of Autumn
5:41
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. He has been appearing as Dimitri
5:44
Speaker 1: on Days of Our lives. Yes. As I turned this on,
5:47
Speaker 1: my husband said, oh, look there's Dmitri. Yeah, you have
5:51
Speaker 1: like a personal connection. Today's I do. A college friend
5:56
Speaker 1: of mine actually directed, like, got full direct credit of
6:00
Speaker 1: his first episode exciting. But he's been working there since
6:05
Speaker 1: we graduated, which was twenty five years ago, our year,
6:09
Speaker 1: ten years ago. Our twenty fifth reunion was last month.
6:14
Speaker 1: I did not go, but it did happen. I just
6:18
Speaker 1: find that so hard to believe that it's been twenty
6:19
Speaker 1: five years since I was in college. Wow, I'm sorry.
6:22
Speaker 1: There's a fly in my house. It keeps buzzing by here.
6:25
Speaker 1: Have you seen it? Yes, I have seen it, but
6:28
Speaker 1: it's we get flies. It's a summer flies come in
6:31
Speaker 1: the house. We have dogs over the door. Do you
6:33
Speaker 1: have a fly trap in your like one of those
6:36
Speaker 1: blue light traps? I do, but it's unplugged right now.
6:40
Speaker 1: I need a new sticky back to it. Those things
6:43
Speaker 1: are disgusting and fabulous all at the same time, agree,
6:47
Speaker 1: although they don't really work during the day. All right,
6:50
Speaker 1: let's hear your first impression of the love Heist. I've
6:54
Speaker 1: watched seven hundred Hallmark movies. I mean, that's an exaggeration,
6:59
Speaker 1: but somehow a candy necklace remains one of the most
7:02
Speaker 1: believable romantic gestures I've seen. Wow, we have very similar
7:06
Speaker 1: first impression, really because mine is I promise I won't
7:09
Speaker 1: use your vulnerable moments against you as the most romantic
7:12
Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard. Yeah, alternate first impression. Well, it
7:16
Speaker 1: certainly is pink and poofy. That dress. I wanted to
7:22
Speaker 1: cut the train off of it, like a like a
7:25
Speaker 1: rat tail on an unwashed man. Okay, where did we
7:31
Speaker 1: talk about? What episode did we talk about? First impression? Okay,
7:35
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, the fashion looks good. And then
7:37
Speaker 1: I pulled up that picture she's wearing that pink dress.
7:40
Speaker 1: I like the dress. Exever the train, No, no, no,
7:45
Speaker 1: let me just say before we get into it. I
7:48
Speaker 1: thought the fashion was great in this movie. I did too, actually,
7:51
Speaker 1: with the exception of that pink dress. The pink dress
7:54
Speaker 1: was dreadful, dreadful. The train just was like I really
7:59
Speaker 1: was like, just someone take craft scissors to the bend.
8:01
Speaker 1: Just it was so bad. It was so bad. But
8:05
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about fashion because I have a
8:08
Speaker 1: feeling we might compare this to like other fashion movies
8:14
Speaker 1: we've seen. Oh, on Hallmark on Hallmark. Sure, sure, positively, Yes,
8:19
Speaker 1: let's talk what we liked. Go ahead, right at the top.
8:22
Speaker 1: I loved the old Hollywood music font and look of
8:25
Speaker 1: the intro. Oh, I don't even think I coocked it.
8:29
Speaker 1: It's real quick, but the font, it's just it's it
8:33
Speaker 1: gives like old Hollywood celebrity. I thought it was great,
8:37
Speaker 1: just these little details, but bigger than that, I already
8:42
Speaker 1: mentioned it. I loved the writing in this script. I
8:48
Speaker 1: mean it's it's done so well that you almost don't
8:51
Speaker 1: even notice it. You're just enjoying watching it. But agree,
8:55
Speaker 1: there's so many fun lines, like when she's quoting movies
8:58
Speaker 1: back and forth, She's like, have you and ever even
9:00
Speaker 1: seen a movie so great? It's just so great. And
9:03
Speaker 1: then there's some really heartfelt moments, you know. I like
9:06
Speaker 1: that the callback too, I promised not to use your
9:08
Speaker 1: most fulneral moments against you. I think that's a great
9:11
Speaker 1: line and great insight into relationships. And then I loved
9:16
Speaker 1: when she realizes the truth about her in quotation marks
9:21
Speaker 1: career mistake. He kind of is like, isn't it weird
9:25
Speaker 1: that the thing you considered to be like career ruining
9:30
Speaker 1: didn't actually happen at all, right, Like he's like reflecting
9:33
Speaker 1: her life back to her. I just feel like they
9:35
Speaker 1: have this incredible dialogue and way of communicating with each other.
9:41
Speaker 1: It was really fun. I agree with either writing was
9:43
Speaker 1: really great. I sometimes get worried when we have a
9:47
Speaker 1: writer that hasn't written for Hallmark before. Sure, and I've
9:52
Speaker 1: said this recently too, is like sometimes like I feel
9:55
Speaker 1: like they follow like, oh, this is what a Hallmark
9:57
Speaker 1: movie is supposed to be like, but this I felt
10:00
Speaker 1: very outside of that fresh, very fresh, but also sort
10:06
Speaker 1: of in a stereotypical Hallmark framework. Yeah. Well, you can't
10:13
Speaker 1: go too far, right, Like, you still want to give
10:15
Speaker 1: the viewers what they expect and what they want. You
10:17
Speaker 1: don't want to completely rewrite the genre, right, and there
10:21
Speaker 1: are things people expect, but you can't write. You can't
10:24
Speaker 1: rewrite what the audience is going to expect. There are things,
10:26
Speaker 1: and so I like when we're working within that framework
10:29
Speaker 1: in a both fresh and familiar way, it doesn't feel stale,
10:34
Speaker 1: but it doesn't feel like what's this doing on Hallmark? Yeah? Exactly, exactly. Yeah,
10:38
Speaker 1: my biggest take not my biggest takeaway, but I did
10:41
Speaker 1: find that like, at its core, It was a classic
10:43
Speaker 1: Hallmark movie where you know, something goes wrong and their
10:47
Speaker 1: jobs are on the line. Sure, they spend a lot
10:50
Speaker 1: of time together trying to solve this problem, and at
10:54
Speaker 1: the same time, the stakes are so low. They're so
10:58
Speaker 1: low you're never actually worried about these people. Kaylee's boss
11:02
Speaker 1: was not even worried. That's what I kind of loved
11:04
Speaker 1: that her boss is like whatever, I got insurance man, Like, Yeah,
11:08
Speaker 1: I really loved her boss because she had the opportunity
11:11
Speaker 1: to be like the boss in that Kentucky Roses movie. Yes,
11:16
Speaker 1: you know, just such a pain in the ass the
11:18
Speaker 1: entire time, and she was like, you got this stuff happens,
11:22
Speaker 1: we roll with the punches, right, like this is the
11:25
Speaker 1: reality of the world. I loved her, especially as someone
11:29
Speaker 1: who's like so afraid of conflict and so afraid of
11:31
Speaker 1: getting in trouble that if I had a boss like that,
11:33
Speaker 1: but that was like, all right, we'll figure it out.
11:36
Speaker 1: It's a not a big deal. It was great. I
11:40
Speaker 1: did like that this story was wrapped around like fashion
11:44
Speaker 1: history and this Chicago gala, which to me was like
11:49
Speaker 1: the met right, Oh sure, yeah, like in that terms
11:53
Speaker 1: of like exposure Osmo, Yeah, I liked all that, especially
11:58
Speaker 1: like someone who. It was giving vibes of like a
12:03
Speaker 1: touch of the Devil Wears product, but more of like
12:05
Speaker 1: the Choppaholic movie. Oh do you know? Yeah, I know, right,
12:09
Speaker 1: Like it felt like that sort of genre huh, where
12:13
Speaker 1: I was like, well, this could be like a theater movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:17
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, and I was worried. I was. Let's
12:21
Speaker 1: talk about the fashion because I was worried. Yeah, absolutely,
12:25
Speaker 1: it would be awful, and I did not think it
12:28
Speaker 1: was at all. First of all, I want to talk
12:30
Speaker 1: about whoever did the costume for Lindsay's character was great. Yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: she looks great the entire time, even in her casual
12:39
Speaker 1: as any glow. The casual wear was my favorite. And
12:42
Speaker 1: those genes, I'm like, oh, finally, not a skinny gene gene.
12:45
Speaker 1: I wrote that too, not a skinny gene finally, Yeah,
12:48
Speaker 1: because right now the trend is to wear a little looser,
12:51
Speaker 1: a little baggy or jeane, and I can imagine that
12:53
Speaker 1: probably doesn't always translate on he flattering, yeah, but it
12:58
Speaker 1: certainly was so on trend. Like her gene, I was like,
13:00
Speaker 1: I want those genes like they were the perfect fit
13:03
Speaker 1: that's the fit everyone's looking for, right. I got her
13:05
Speaker 1: wardrobe was great and by the way, it was wearing
13:07
Speaker 1: a crossbody bag in the first scene and I am
13:09
Speaker 1: team crossbody bag. Look, if you don't know, the gen
13:12
Speaker 1: zs are coming for the gen X crossbody and I
13:15
Speaker 1: will die with a cross body bag on my person.
13:18
Speaker 1: Gotta leave your hands free, man, ankle sock and a
13:22
Speaker 1: crossbody till the day I die. Totally. But some of
13:28
Speaker 1: the high end fashion, and this is not a wish,
13:30
Speaker 1: some of the high in fashion wasn't truly high end
13:35
Speaker 1: looking enough for me, like some of those dresses, but like,
13:39
Speaker 1: what can you do? What can you do? And I
13:42
Speaker 1: think they worked around it. When they show those first
13:45
Speaker 1: round of gowns for the woman that she's styling, they
13:49
Speaker 1: talk about how the theme was princess and royalty, and
13:53
Speaker 1: that works right when you have those classic style gowns,
13:56
Speaker 1: they do have princess e air to them, and I
14:00
Speaker 1: I'm glad that they kind of worked away from I mean,
14:03
Speaker 1: there were those were perfectly fine dresses, but they weren't
14:05
Speaker 1: high fashion. They weren't the kind of thing you're going
14:07
Speaker 1: to see on a red carpet these days. And I
14:10
Speaker 1: actually when she puts her in that blue plaid cropped outfit,
14:14
Speaker 1: loved it. No, I could never pull it off, but
14:17
Speaker 1: she looked fantastic at it. I was like, Oh, this
14:20
Speaker 1: is one of the best things I've seen in a
14:22
Speaker 1: Hallmark fashion movie. Loved it. Yeah. I wanted to say
14:27
Speaker 1: that I can totally relate to this feeling of imposter
14:31
Speaker 1: syndrome that Kaylie is experiencing, and I love the idea
14:36
Speaker 1: of her not wanting to be the one to make
14:39
Speaker 1: the final decision. She's like, I trust myself to get
14:42
Speaker 1: the work done, but I don't want any of the
14:44
Speaker 1: weight of the results of my choices to come back
14:48
Speaker 1: on me. Okay, I want somebody else to make the call. Yeah,
14:54
Speaker 1: what is that phase? But that's not how you and
14:57
Speaker 1: I operate together. Though, when I operate because I'm not
14:59
Speaker 1: really worried about like the steaks are so low, But
15:05
Speaker 1: that is kind of how I operate in life, Like
15:06
Speaker 1: I don't want to pick the restaurant because what if
15:08
Speaker 1: it's bad. I don't you know. I just think I
15:13
Speaker 1: think that's relatable in business. I'm going to circle back
15:18
Speaker 1: to this spot in my wishes. Okay, my final likes. Look,
15:24
Speaker 1: I thought Lindsay and Peter were a delicious casting choice together. Yes,
15:31
Speaker 1: I thought, first adorable chemistry, adorable chemistry. They looked good together.
15:37
Speaker 1: They had such an incredible banter about them. I was like, hello,
15:45
Speaker 1: I had forgotten, like, how well Lindsay. Like, Lindsay's such
15:52
Speaker 1: a great actress. Yes, she's with whatever material she's going
15:55
Speaker 1: to have, Like, she's so good, And I had forgotten
16:01
Speaker 1: how much I like her, Like The Magic of a
16:03
Speaker 1: Lemon Drops is one of my favorite movies. Yeah, and
16:09
Speaker 1: I just have to you know, it's not like when
16:12
Speaker 1: I saw her in this movie. I think the premise alone,
16:15
Speaker 1: I was like, but she and Peter like really pulled
16:20
Speaker 1: it off. I thought it was so much better than
16:23
Speaker 1: I expected it to be. Yeah, I thought this was
16:25
Speaker 1: so fun to watch. And if you compare it to
16:27
Speaker 1: last week's Texas two Step, the chemistry they had was
16:30
Speaker 1: like fiery and steamy, And I feel like the chemistry
16:32
Speaker 1: that Lindsay and Peter had was cute and fun and
16:35
Speaker 1: playful and match the tone of the movie. Yeah, for sure.
16:39
Speaker 1: The things that I really like about Lindsay one of
16:41
Speaker 1: the things because she's so fun to watch, but her physicality,
16:45
Speaker 1: like the way she reacts and moves her body and
16:48
Speaker 1: little like like, there's just a lot of the way
16:51
Speaker 1: that you can't put that on the script, that's not
16:55
Speaker 1: on the page. She just infuses this character with a
16:57
Speaker 1: lot of fun and if I may speak about the
17:00
Speaker 1: Lindsay and Peter of it all, my favorite moment of
17:04
Speaker 1: this movie is their first kiss. Oh my gosh, you guys.
17:08
Speaker 1: Megan texted me, She's like, have you gotten to the
17:10
Speaker 1: kiss yet? They get interrupted and then he says to her,
17:15
Speaker 1: if you think an interruption like that is going to
17:17
Speaker 1: stop me? And then pol like grab like he grabs
17:20
Speaker 1: her and like spins her around and kisses her. I'm like,
17:23
Speaker 1: this is top five Halmar kisses of all time. Yeah,
17:25
Speaker 1: it's so great, so good, thank you for not letting
17:29
Speaker 1: that interruption happen. I have one more like I'm so sorry.
17:33
Speaker 1: Oh ahead. The resolution to this movie. Now you talked
17:38
Speaker 1: about having a new Hallmark writer and worrying about them
17:40
Speaker 1: falling into tropes. I think they did a really nice
17:43
Speaker 1: job of pushing back against those tropes because as I'm
17:48
Speaker 1: watching this, I'm hearing Captain Mills say, you know, I
17:52
Speaker 1: really can't be tied down in one place for too long,
17:55
Speaker 1: and she has career aspirations and he has career aspirations.
17:58
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, how are we going to do? You this?
18:00
Speaker 1: Who's going to give up for the other? Did you
18:03
Speaker 1: like the ending? Well? It works. I literally smiled When
18:09
Speaker 1: he's like, I'm going on towards you, I was like, yes,
18:12
Speaker 1: I was so excited. What they want like that? It's
18:16
Speaker 1: so improbable. I don't care. Like he gets to go
18:20
Speaker 1: be the head of security and he gets to move around,
18:22
Speaker 1: and she gets to go style this person, and they're
18:25
Speaker 1: going to have their own individual identities, but they get
18:27
Speaker 1: to orbit in the same space. I was like, thank you.
18:30
Speaker 1: This is nobody's having to give up their dreay and
18:34
Speaker 1: make up some unbelievable justification about why. Oh actually I
18:38
Speaker 1: just go over and I really did want to settle
18:39
Speaker 1: down with you. Yeah. No, it was great when when
18:43
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and come back to talk
18:45
Speaker 1: about our wishes, all right, Wendy, what did you wish for? Well,
18:56
Speaker 1: my biggest wish and you kind of already mentioned it,
18:58
Speaker 1: but it was a fresh I have not with the
19:02
Speaker 1: mystery of like finding the dresses and all that stuff,
19:05
Speaker 1: but it is Kayleie who is constantly doubting herself, Like
19:10
Speaker 1: early on she tells us she's not good under pressure
19:13
Speaker 1: and she's overwhelmed, and she's a second you know, she
19:15
Speaker 1: second guesses herself, and we get kind of a large
19:19
Speaker 1: chunk of the movie with Mills kind of reassuring her.
19:22
Speaker 1: And this is like, my beef, Like I need her
19:25
Speaker 1: to lean into knowing that she's good at her job.
19:28
Speaker 1: We don't need this dude to tell her to reassure
19:31
Speaker 1: her that she is. And that's kind of my biggest beef.
19:36
Speaker 1: Got it, didn't. I didn't hate it because he was
19:38
Speaker 1: so likable if he was like a jerk, you know
19:41
Speaker 1: what I mean. She had a boss who was already
19:44
Speaker 1: telling her the same things, but when it came from
19:46
Speaker 1: this dude, like I thought, like she heard it. Yeah, yes,
19:52
Speaker 1: I just kind of wish we had a version of
19:55
Speaker 1: this character who knew her worth and was calm done today. Sure, yeah,
20:01
Speaker 1: I hear that. You know, you said like her character
20:03
Speaker 1: felt relatable to you, and I agree. I'm in that
20:06
Speaker 1: lane as well. But I think it's also nice if
20:09
Speaker 1: we had a character who is like super confident but
20:11
Speaker 1: then wasn't portrayed as like the bitch. Sure, reflected back
20:14
Speaker 1: to us. Yeah, yes, yes, I would rather relate to
20:17
Speaker 1: somebody who's killing it. Yeah yeah, yeah, my wish. Let's
20:22
Speaker 1: talk about hair and makeup. Dude, Perry. Oh okay. I
20:28
Speaker 1: think Perry is a bit of a caricature of a
20:31
Speaker 1: person who doesn't get to be his own person. He
20:36
Speaker 1: simply gets to be sassy bestie Perry. You go, girl, Perry,
20:42
Speaker 1: and to dig a little bit deeper. We got an
20:46
Speaker 1: email after we had recorded you know what I'm talking
20:49
Speaker 1: I do. Thank you for bringing it up. Yes, we
20:51
Speaker 1: got an email after we had recorded our review of
20:53
Speaker 1: Texas two Step from listener Kia, who I love when
20:57
Speaker 1: she emails us because first of all, well she's so
21:00
Speaker 1: nice to us, but she always has something really insightful
21:03
Speaker 1: to say, and she loved Texas two Step. But I'm
21:06
Speaker 1: going to read little excerpts of this email, she says,
21:09
Speaker 1: In addition to loving it, I also realized how much
21:12
Speaker 1: the lack of diversity in Hallmark movies is really starting
21:14
Speaker 1: to wear on me, Like it hit me over the
21:16
Speaker 1: head and really annoyed me last night. While simultaneously trying
21:19
Speaker 1: to stay calm during Livy and Luke's hot dance scene
21:23
Speaker 1: for your reference. I was so mad about it, I
21:25
Speaker 1: wrote Hallmark Channel's viewers' email and I never do stuff
21:29
Speaker 1: like this, so I'm not going to read the whole email,
21:32
Speaker 1: but she says, let me start by saying, I truly
21:35
Speaker 1: love Hallmark movies. They are a light in the mental
21:37
Speaker 1: health storm, and I appreciate them so much. However, as
21:40
Speaker 1: a black viewer, I find the lack of talent of
21:42
Speaker 1: color really frustrating and unrealistic. Take Texas two Step for instance,
21:47
Speaker 1: you have a black bar owner, but no black bar patrons.
21:50
Speaker 1: This is completely unrealistic. Aside from the one guy in
21:54
Speaker 1: the band and one Asian girl, I didn't see any
21:56
Speaker 1: patrons of color. Also, are there no other black actors?
22:00
Speaker 1: Are actresses that your casting agents, showrunners and programming team
22:04
Speaker 1: like test Well or feel are palatable. Why couldn't Heather
22:08
Speaker 1: Hemmen's character have a black bestie? I'm pretty sure I
22:11
Speaker 1: know the answer to this. It would likely turn off
22:14
Speaker 1: your majority older white woman viewership. White women are not
22:19
Speaker 1: the only ones drawn to your movies. It would be
22:21
Speaker 1: really nice and I feel much more welcomed into and
22:24
Speaker 1: seen by the Hallmark universe if we could see a
22:27
Speaker 1: little more representation in your movies that reflected the American population.
22:33
Speaker 1: Give some actors and actresses of color an opportunity to
22:35
Speaker 1: become household names, just like Heather Hemen's, Nikki Deloch, Andrew Walker, etc.
22:41
Speaker 1: Pair some actors and actresses of color and not in
22:44
Speaker 1: stereotypical roles with the popular and deeply loved stars, so
22:47
Speaker 1: viewers can begin to love them and want to see
22:50
Speaker 1: them as leads. Having read that email and then watching this,
22:55
Speaker 1: I felt like this was a little bit of a miss.
22:59
Speaker 1: This was almost like token casting, and they're like, look,
23:02
Speaker 1: we have an Asian man who's probably gay mm hmm,
23:06
Speaker 1: but has absolutely no discernible qualities or uniqueness to his personality.
23:13
Speaker 1: It's just something I just every time he came on screen,
23:16
Speaker 1: I was like, please tell me something about you, right.
23:18
Speaker 1: It was just a mirror for Kaylee the entire time. Yeah.
23:23
Speaker 1: I thought about this email while watching this movie too.
23:27
Speaker 1: Reading that email has really stuck with me. Me too,
23:30
Speaker 1: and I actually after I was like, man, I really
23:32
Speaker 1: wish we had made those points in our episode because
23:34
Speaker 1: they're excellent points. I loved the email and she was
23:39
Speaker 1: very kind, saying I appreciate how much you guys speak
23:41
Speaker 1: out and sometimes we do, and sometimes I'm like, man,
23:44
Speaker 1: I wish I had said more about that. Yeah, same,
23:47
Speaker 1: because I agree with everything she said about that movie.
23:50
Speaker 1: So that's really my biggest wish about this movie, and
23:55
Speaker 1: a fair one. Are you ready to talk? Did you
23:57
Speaker 1: see that? Well? I have one more stupid wish now,
24:00
Speaker 1: I love a stupid wate like following no, no, no, no, no,
24:03
Speaker 1: let's lighten it up. The real villain here is that
24:07
Speaker 1: guy that works at the hotel. Yes, no, it's not
24:11
Speaker 1: built up enough, is it. I didn't think so. I
24:14
Speaker 1: was like, who is this? Like? What? What? There were
24:18
Speaker 1: many times you know, this wasn't a mystery, right right.
24:22
Speaker 1: I wasn't watching this movie like trying to figure it out.
24:24
Speaker 1: I was truly just watching the progression of our two
24:29
Speaker 1: lead characters falling in love. But when we the reveal
24:32
Speaker 1: is that it's this other security guy, I was like, huh, yeah,
24:37
Speaker 1: I think we didn't really know enough to care about him,
24:41
Speaker 1: or maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention to that
24:43
Speaker 1: element of the story. Yeah, because like you said, I was,
24:47
Speaker 1: I didn't. I also like when he would talk about
24:49
Speaker 1: his like security job, like and if that was on
24:52
Speaker 1: the line, I just kind of was like, not all
24:54
Speaker 1: that interested in that. I was like, bring Lindsay back, Yeah,
24:57
Speaker 1: flirt with her somewhere. I have also one tiny wish.
25:03
Speaker 1: I hated the movie poster for This Did You? Because
25:07
Speaker 1: it looked AI generated to me. I don't understand why
25:12
Speaker 1: they made it look cartoony, moony, pixel y. I didn't
25:17
Speaker 1: know what was happening and what did that have anything
25:20
Speaker 1: to do with this movie? It didn't. Truly, the movie
25:25
Speaker 1: was so much better than the poster and the premise.
25:29
Speaker 1: The premise, Yeah, yeah, now we can talk. Do you
25:33
Speaker 1: see that? Yeah? I didn't really nail it. I'm gonna
25:35
Speaker 1: be honest on the did you see that? Yeah? I
25:39
Speaker 1: got a few. I mean I I have a few too.
25:41
Speaker 1: I just think I've done better work. That's okay, let
25:44
Speaker 1: me hear where you got. She talks about loving vintage clothing,
25:47
Speaker 1: and the next thing, she's wearing a shirt that says
25:49
Speaker 1: vintage on it. It's a vintage like nineteen seventy six
25:53
Speaker 1: or whatever. Like, yeah, okay, first of all, I've seen
25:56
Speaker 1: that shirt on Amazon. Yeah. No, no, it had very
25:59
Speaker 1: much the look of like the current vintage imaging. Yeah.
26:04
Speaker 1: I couldn't understand, like why would they put her in
26:06
Speaker 1: a shirt that was like nineteen seventy eight? Like, I
26:08
Speaker 1: think I would pick a shirt from the year I
26:12
Speaker 1: was born. Yeah, and she's younger than us. Yeah, Like
26:15
Speaker 1: why that other than they had a shirt and it made
26:18
Speaker 1: her vintage? G I agree? Do you want to continue? Yeah?
26:23
Speaker 1: Two little ones. For some reason, when he's trying on
26:26
Speaker 1: a watch from a street vendor, they zoom in on
26:27
Speaker 1: his hand and like a weird injury on his thumb. Yes,
26:30
Speaker 1: I watched it twice. I'm like, why are we zooming it? Like?
26:32
Speaker 1: Is there something I was supposed to see? All I
26:33
Speaker 1: see is his thumb injury? Thumbnail injury. For a second,
26:37
Speaker 1: I thought, is he the thief? Like? I was like,
26:40
Speaker 1: are you not hurt? Are you telling me something? Yeah?
26:43
Speaker 1: I know exactly what scene you're talking about. I thought
26:46
Speaker 1: this the same. Still don't have a lot of clarity
26:48
Speaker 1: on it. And finally, when she's unloading her luggage from
26:51
Speaker 1: the cab when she arrives at the hotel, like she
26:53
Speaker 1: puts it on the luggage rack, but then like when
26:54
Speaker 1: it zooms back out, it doesn't appear that there's actually
26:56
Speaker 1: any luggage on the luggage track. Cool. I didn't notice that.
26:59
Speaker 1: That's all I was wondering in that scene. I was like,
27:01
Speaker 1: why is he overseeing? Like that's a bell hop position.
27:08
Speaker 1: I just think he's the right place, right time, okay.
27:11
Speaker 1: And also why did he jump up to get the drone?
27:13
Speaker 1: Like you know, like, oh, I actually kind of I
27:16
Speaker 1: liked the silliness of the drone scene. He like hops
27:20
Speaker 1: on the cart and he's like push me, nope, okay,
27:24
Speaker 1: you know me and hidinks, no, thank you, Okay, here
27:26
Speaker 1: are my Did you see that's one when she goes
27:29
Speaker 1: in to that I think it was called Mildred's. It
27:33
Speaker 1: was the Ventedge shop. Yeah. The gal who was working there,
27:37
Speaker 1: who Red Harry? And I was like, did she steal
27:40
Speaker 1: the dress? But she was wearing a Taylor Swift nineteen
27:46
Speaker 1: eighty nine t shirt underneath her Oh she was Yeah
27:50
Speaker 1: that image of Taylor Swift from that album where she
27:52
Speaker 1: has the sunglasses and it is nineteen eighty nine in
27:54
Speaker 1: the classes, it was that shirt and I was like, oh,
27:57
Speaker 1: that's so. It was like a like not cartoon image,
28:00
Speaker 1: but it was like a drawing. It was like a
28:03
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift shirt. But it was anyway, I thought, oh,
28:06
Speaker 1: that's interesting because I feel like the last year, there's
28:10
Speaker 1: been these little like Taylor Swift references. Yeah, a lot.
28:14
Speaker 1: That same shop owner when her soap opera came on,
28:18
Speaker 1: she's like, my stories are on. It's such an old,
28:20
Speaker 1: tiny grandma thing that my grandma would say, like, my
28:24
Speaker 1: stories are on right now. I just I've laughed out loud. Actually,
28:28
Speaker 1: I thought there was a little bit of name drop
28:30
Speaker 1: bingo happening. We got Elizabeth Taylor. Obviously there was an
28:35
Speaker 1: al capone reference, which made me go, if you listen
28:39
Speaker 1: to her the way Home recaps, but she also mentioned
28:44
Speaker 1: Lee Radziweld's Radziwell, I say that name wrong. Do you
28:48
Speaker 1: know who that is? Wasn't Carol Radswell a housewife? She
28:51
Speaker 1: was a housewife, and there was some connection to the
28:54
Speaker 1: Kennedy that she is a Kennedy of sorts. Oh that's
28:58
Speaker 1: so interesting, Like that felt very very like obscure that
29:02
Speaker 1: would be in this I thought that was interesting. And
29:06
Speaker 1: then the last thing, when Kaylee goes after the guy
29:11
Speaker 1: who has stolen the ring, she like jumps after him.
29:15
Speaker 1: She ends up on the blacktop. Not one mark on
29:19
Speaker 1: that pink dress, not one grease stay, not a scuff, nothing,
29:25
Speaker 1: No old French fry. No like scuffs on her elbows?
29:30
Speaker 1: Uh huh, knees, nothing, nothing, that's all. What did you
29:34
Speaker 1: rate the Love highest? Look? I liked it. I give
29:36
Speaker 1: it four point twenty five stars. That's today exactly exactly,
29:40
Speaker 1: which incidentally is what I rated last week's movie. So
29:44
Speaker 1: you think it's been a good summer so far. I
29:46
Speaker 1: think it's been a good June. I'm worried about July.
29:48
Speaker 1: We will have the first Impressions episode coming out soon.
29:51
Speaker 1: Super worried about July and I and I am looking
29:54
Speaker 1: forward to next week's Do I think this has been
29:56
Speaker 1: a solid month? Yeah, Hey, thanks for listening to this
29:59
Speaker 1: episode of Girl What's Gone Hallmark. If you love this podcast,
30:01
Speaker 1: we love your five star ratings and interviews, drop them
30:04
Speaker 1: right into the Apple Podcast app. We'll be back next time.
30:07
Speaker 1: Goodbye bye. All right, friends, before we go, just a
30:21
Speaker 1: quick heads up, you're about to hear some ads. These
30:23
Speaker 1: little gems help us keep the show running and the
30:25
Speaker 1: Hallmark Love flowing. So do with that info what you will,
30:30
Speaker 1: grab a snack, hit the skip button, or maybe just
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Speaker 1: maybe listen in and discover your new favorite product. Bye.