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Winter Wonderlanes (Hallmark Channel 2026) · Girls Gone Hallmark | Hallmark Movie Reviews

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Girls Gone Hallmark, a Hallmark Review podcast. I'm Megan,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and I'm a longtime Hallmark fan. I'm Wendy. I'm a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: former Hallmark hater. On today's episode, we are discussing Winter Wonderlanes,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: which originally premiered on the Hallmark channel on Saturday, October 23rd,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and is now available to stream on Hallmark +. We
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: have an update. We do. From our review of Mr.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and Mrs. Christmas that came out last week. I had
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: said in that review. I'm certain. I'm certain. I'm certain.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: That's Peter Benson's voice introducing Clover. Man, I can't believe
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I remember that artist's name right now. And so I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: DM Peter Benson like an absolute Looney Tune. And I said,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: it's Mr. and Mrs. Christmas, and I'm going to need
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: you to confirm that was your voice introducing Clover. And
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: he said, okay, that was 10 out of 10. Impressive.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: I bet my mom won't even notice. Hope you enjoyed it.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So I am patting myself on the back. Good job.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I was right. Good job.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Except, okay, I like that his voice was featured in it,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: but I've, again, come to expect to see him in
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the movies he directs, and he was not in it. Sure.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So, Peter Benson, what are you doing here? It needs
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to be, Peter Benson, where the heck are you? Yeah, exactly. Sure.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Do you think he was a little afraid when he
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: saw your deal? I mean, like, how.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: How did she recognize my voice?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, after I sent it, I was like, man, that's embarrassing. No,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: it's not embarrassing. It's not embarrassing. A little bit.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: I'm just making a joke. Like, stalker Megan, you know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: my good friend Chris. Like, you know what I mean?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I got it. So... All it says is that we
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: take our job seriously. That's right. Right? That is absolutely right.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Here we are. Why don't we jump right in with
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a synopsis of Winter Wonderlands? Okay, it's kind of long. Okay.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: When globe-trotting pop-up restaurateur Audrey returns home to learn that
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: her late grandfather's beloved bowling alley.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Is being sold.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: and decides to revive its annual Christmas bowling tournament for
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: one last holiday season. To help promote the event, she
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: reluctantly teams up with her high school sweetheart, now a
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: local news reporter, and finds herself reconsidering both her future
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: and the feelings she thought she'd left behind.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Is that your first impression? Maxwell Maguire directed, he's a
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Hallmark veteran who directed Noel Next Door and two of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the Unwrapping Christmas movies from 2024. He's also directing Eight
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Nights for Love for the 2026 Hallmark holiday lineup.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Alan Donahue is credited with the original story while Barbara
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: Kamlicka wrote the teleplay. She is a prolific Hallmark screenwriter
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: whose credits include A Very Merry Mix-Up and The Love
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Club Movies. She's been writing for Hallmark for well over
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: a decade.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Ashley Newbrow stars as Audrey Bell. Her previous movies include
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Love in Glacier National, a National Park romance. She also
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: starred in the Hearts Around the Table series from 2025.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Franco Lopresti stars as Jason Miller. He's appeared in television
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: series including Hudson and Rex, and he did Rivalry.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: That was a shock to me. Totally. This isn't the
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: first role opposite Ashley Newbrow. Am I saying that right?
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's Newbrow.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Newbrow. They co-starred in a 2025 movie called A Christmas Cookbook,
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: which aired on Lifetime and The W Network. You know,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: back to Franco Lopresti in Heated Rivalry for a second.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Although I do, I can kind of see him as
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: a hockey player, right?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Or is he? I didn't watch that show. He's
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: got to be too old to be, maybe he's a coach?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't watch it either. I don't know. Should we?
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Susan Hammond plays Mom Hope. She's appeared in The Way
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Home as Evelyn Goodwin and previously worked with director Max
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: McGuire on Christmas by Design.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Nicole Amber Ferugia appears as Hadley. She's a Hallmark newbie
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: with a handful of acting credits.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Savannah Meslin plays Natalie. She has 10 acting credits, and
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: this is her first time on Hallmark.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Finally, Carlisle J. Williams plays Becca. He last appeared on
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Hallmark in the 2020 four-movie Shifting Gears. Hey, Wendy, what
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: is your first impression of Winter Wonderlands? I don't know
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: what was more unbelievable, the love story, the business plan,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: or Jason's hair.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Poor Franco. Was that a wig? No. No, stop. Why
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: would he wear a wig? It could be like a
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: topper of some sort. Why? I don't know. I don't know.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: My first impression is people haven't hand-oiled lanes in literal decades.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Megan knows a lot about bowling here, so I have
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: a feeling you might have, like, a lot of things
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to say.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Well, we are going to start with our likes. I
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: liked the bowling alley as a setting. Me, too. Now,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I know, okay, these.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Hallmark movies, we get 900 struggling bakeries, tree farms, hotels, whatever, right?
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: Bowling alley feels different. I was looking forward to this.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I like a unique setting. Now, as somebody, I know
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: you have a lot of bowling experience.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: It's not a flex.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Let me just say, when I was very, very young,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: like very young, probably preschool age, my mom was a
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: stay-at-home mom and she was on a bowling league. And
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: we went to the local bowling alley where she bowled
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: during the day. And the kids there, we just ran around.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: And what I remember, I have such fond memories that
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: this bowling alley was had a ice cream counter.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Where you could get like hot fudge sundaes and all this.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: It was amazing.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: So when I see this bowling alley setting and they're
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: talking about it being family owned for all these years
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: and it's embedded in their DNA, those are the memories
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: that come up for me.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, this is going to be amazing.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: So I was a little disappointed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: agree that I thought it was a unique premise. Like
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: you said, the bowling alley setting, it's going to give
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: us some new things to look at, some new things
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: to do. Obviously, we're still playing in our same homework
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: universe here, you know, coming home to the family business.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And like Wendy said, like, you know, it's kind of
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: a joke, but my son bowled competitively for years. I
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time in bowling alleys. It's fun
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to see stuff you know about. I mean, we are
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: recording our reviews a little bit out of order, but
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: just before recording this one, we talked about a Bears
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: love story and how people who are from Chicago or
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: love that team Going into that movie, it's exciting for
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: them to see a world that they know reflected back
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: to them. Oh, just wait till you hear my review
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of A Danish Christmas. Oh, yes. I cannot wait.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: So, was there a world reflected back to you in
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: this movie that you liked?
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Not really. I thought that they didn't really do anything wrong.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, of course, I'm going to have a few
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: wishes in that regard. The bowling was like... A pretty
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: weak element of the story. Yeah, I agree. I thought.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And so, unfortunately, there wasn't enough of that for me
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to go all in. For me, the best part of
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: this movie is Pops, her grandfather. Why? Why? Because I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: think it's the heart of the movie and particularly the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: card that he had left behind for her. Okay. That
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: her grandmother gives to her. And the card says things like,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I don't want my love for this place to be
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a burden on you. But I want you to know
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: that you've always felt the most yourself here. And this
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: is the place where I've seen you shine. And the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: reason I loved this was that the relationship we got
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: to develop because I worked here, because we got to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: spend time together. Right. That is so heavy on somebody.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I think so, too. But I think in this case,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: she was already leaning that way. Fair.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: But also, like, how long had Pop been gone? Like,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: he didn't see her go off and be this, like, successful... Restaurateur.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Which I think is so bizarre, but... She's not a restaurateur.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: She's a numbers lady. Yeah.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: She even.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Hold on. Hold on.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Okay. But I just think it's unfair. That's like me
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: writing a letter to my daughter who is in college
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: and saying like, I think you would be great working
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: at Trader Joe's for the rest of your life because
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: I see how.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: You shine there. And not knowing what she's done with
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the rest of her life. You know what I mean? Yes.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Fair enough.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: That's too much pressure to put on.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: A young person. That is all fair. I thought that
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that was the most well-developed relationship in this movie. We
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: see through flashbacks, them spending time together. One of the
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: bowling things they got right is he tells her to
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: look at the arrows, not the pins. Youth bowlers have
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: like a mark that they're looking for, that they're trying
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to get their ball to hit at a certain point
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: on the lane. You know, you're not just aiming straight
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: down the middle. I thought somebody... tangentially knew what they
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: were talking about in that moment. They've talked about it
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: several times. I mean, that really there, I have some
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: small lengths, the pink glow on their house with the lights.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I thought it was, I don't know if you ever noticed,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: but they flash on the exterior of their house and
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the lights give it kind of a pink glow, which
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't notice. completely irrelevant except that i thought it
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: was nice to look at you know they went all
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: in on the bowling ornaments on the tree we do
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: not own that many bowling ornaments if we even own
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: a single one the only other like and it's a
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: small one i do think beckett handles audrey leaving the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: business pretty well yeah that's it too he's like all
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: right cool very easy going our relationship is more important
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: than you being my bookkeeper, basically. This is where a
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: little bit confusing and like it gets sold as like
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: she's like the money or the business side of his
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: restaurants or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's a weird setup, I think.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I have two more little likes.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There was one scene between Audrey and Jason, the
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: characters of Audrey and Jason, that I really liked when
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: they're sitting down at the alley and they're pushing the
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: balls down the lane. I thought this was like a
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: little bit of glimpse and chemistry and playfulness that this
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: movie desperately needed for me.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Uh-huh.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: I thought it was relaxed and natural. Like, there was, like,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: one point, like, they were laughing because you're not going
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: to know exactly what's going to happen when you push
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: the ball down. And they both got gutter balls. And, like,
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: you could see them kind of, like, laugh at each
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: other that I thought was probably, like.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Real?
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Real.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Exactly. And I was like, oh, this is what.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: That was a cute scene. I wanted the whole movie
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to be like that, though.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: And my final like is I don't think the actors
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: were the problem in this movie. Ashley and Franco, like,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: fine actors. I like Ashley Newbrow. I really like her.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: I liked her a lot in those Hearts Around.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: The Tables movies. Yeah. I didn't hate those movies at all. No.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: I agree that they are not the problem here.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: They're working with a story that gave them very little
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: room to make these characters interesting.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's 100% of my wishes.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So I don't want anybody to think that I thought
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: this was a poorly acted movie at all. Just the
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: material for me, I know this is not a like,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: but it was just not compelling enough.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Well, since we're already there, let's take a quick break
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: and come back with our wishes. My first wish is
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: the reason for Audrey leaving her business with Beckett makes
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: no sense when she then sells it to Natalie. Let
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: me explain. Go ahead. Audrey says, I'm tired of being
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: the numbers person. I want to build something of my own.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I want restaurant businesses, really Beckett. And she's just making
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: stuff happen behind the scenes. And she wanted something that
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: was hers, which was the case with the bowling alley.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: But then when it becomes clear that perhaps real estate
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: agent Natalie is going to go work with Beckett, Audrey
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: says to her, you've always wanted to build something of
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: your own. Excuse me. You just said. You said. All
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: you were was the numbers person. You weren't building anything
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: of your own, which is why you're leaving the business.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Make this make sense because you just are putting Natalie
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in the same position that you said you didn't want
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: to be in. Right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: Okay?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Right. If building something is what Audrey needs, then Natalie
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: taking the same deal Audrey just walked away from undercuts
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the entire thing. Pick a lane. Pun intended. Pick a lane.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: While we're talking about jobs, I want to talk about
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Jason's promotion. Turning it down costs him nothing. And that
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: makes that moment have absolutely no weight for me. He
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: gets the promotion that he's been working towards. Which, by
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the way, there's no reality in the man covering a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: story about a bowling alley and that being like the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: career-breaking moment. Okay? It just isn't. I'm sorry. He turns
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: it down instantly because of his high school sweetheart. It
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't even seem like... It cost him anything. It should
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: have been a bigger moment. Like, I'm not going to
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: leave because you're here now. You've been working towards this
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: your whole life and now you're just going to stick around?
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: You're never going to take a promotion now? I know.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Because she owns the bowling alley? Yeah. Make it make sense.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Go back to Holiday Touchdown. I don't care where you live.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: We'll make it work. I'm not going to take that
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: promotion because you're here. I'm not going to continue to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: pursue my own dreams because... Yeah, how long is that
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: going to last before you hate her?
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Before I go on, tell me some of your wishes.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: Let's stop confusing nostalgia with a good reason to make
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: a life-altering decision.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, say it louder.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: You know, we are told that Audrey has, her professional
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: life is exciting.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Globetrotting, in fact. Globetrotting, pop-up restaurants galore. Never stays in
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the same place long enough. Yeah.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: I understand being sentimental about your childhood. I just told
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: you about a time that I spent in a bowling alley.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: But that doesn't ever mean that I'm going to own
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: a bowling alley now because I had some good memories there.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: She has no business plan also. No, she's just going
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: to run holiday event after holiday event after holiday. Nobody
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: needs that many Christmas events at a bowling alley.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: In addition, I was.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: annoyed at her family because at the end she's like
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna stay and then they celebrate this like she's
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: staying the dad was like woo woo woo like he
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: wasn't woo woo in it but he was like so
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: excited that he she was gonna stay and run this
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: bowling alley and I need to talk about the actual
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: business of running a bowling alley. They show the place.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: It's deserted half the time.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I think it's hard to... Bowling alleys don't
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: do that great, do they? Look, I love bowling. I'm
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: not a hater. I love bowling. I like going there.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: I like the whole sport of it. I think it's
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: so much fun. It's like a fun outing.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So if you want to get into the weeds, there
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: are two ways that bowling alleys make money. And it
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: is not mostly through people coming in and bowling. It
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: is through... hosting tournaments or it is being a party center.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: That is how they make their money.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: You got to have a plan for that.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't need like a financial forecast from Hallmark,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: like how she's going to like.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but we've seen plenty of business plans in these movies.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: We could have seen her at least think about it.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And this is what's.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: So stupid to me. She's at first, she's like, oh,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: my grandma's going to sell the business. I have such
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: an attachment to it. I'm going to help like gussy
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: it up. to sell it right and then we lead
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: to then the local news is covering it which does
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: not make any sense to me it's super ridiculous why
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: does the local news have continuing coverage of this bowling
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: alley in hopes that they're gonna find a seller who's
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: watching the local news and then goes I'm going to
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: go buy that.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go buy that bowling alley. Absolutely. It
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. This is one of those things
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: that you might see on your local news where they're like, oh,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: we're reporting live from the local jingle bowl and the
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: forecast is a high of 72 degrees and partly cloudy. Right?
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: It's like a mildly interesting backdrop on location. It is
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: not a repeated week-long human interest story. Nobody cares.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: If it doesn't bleed, it doesn't lead, right? Like, isn't
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: that what the saying is on the local news? Turn
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: on your local news. It's all terrible stuff.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: The worst. There might be one small, like, nice human
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: interest story that is buried somewhere, but it's not going
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: to be, like you said, a continuing coverage.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. So silly. It was along the lines of,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: we're going to go viral, but for, like, people who
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: watch the local news at 5 o'clock. Right. Yeah.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Then we have this romance built around a 15-year-old ghosting incident.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: We get down to it of like why, what's his name, Jason?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: You know, he was going through his own stuff during
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: that time and why he ghosts Audrey. But you're telling
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: me like, These are grown adults. They have lived entire
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: lives since high school. 15 years is generous. They've been
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: out of high school.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: They're at least 33, right? Mm-hmm. Ish, ish. You got
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: these ancient grievances. She's like, I can't see him. I
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: don't want to see him because he ghosted you. I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: couldn't even name you a boy I liked in high school.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: No.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: To this day. I'm starting to not carry that grudge
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: around with me. Not carrying the grudge around. If you
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: run into them on the street, you'd be like, oh, hi,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: if you even recognize each other. I'm not going to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, I hate you. Shooting daggers at you. Yes.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I just stopped making movies like this. My last major
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: wish is, like I just said, stop making movies like this.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I wish Hallmark would stop treating familiar formulas as a
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: substitute for actual storytelling. Mm-hmm. Sometimes in these movies, like,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: we have to have 40 movies, so we're going to
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: lean hard onto, like, this. I'm okay with a formulaic
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: story sometimes. But make it at least engaging with good dialogue.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Something. Something. Can we talk about dialogue? Yeah. A lot
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of the dialogue in this movie does my least favorite thing,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and that's delivering information. Yes. Rather than building relationships. Mm-hmm.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: At one point, Natalie has to walk in and basically,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: through dialogue, explain the backstory. Oh no, you ran into
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Jason who ghosted you in high school after the jingle bowl, right?
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I don't like it. And it's not the fault of
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: these actors, like we said. There's only so much you
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: can do with lines like that. And the other thing
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I noticed is this movie has a little bit of
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: a cliche density problem. We hear lines like, hard memories
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: don't mean you can't make new ones. And Loose hands
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: have a way of tying themselves into knots if you
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: leave them too long. And these are true statements. And
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: they might have carried a little bit of weight if
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: they weren't trying to put all of the emotion into
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: these cliche, memeable statements. Yeah. I want a dialogue that
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: sounds like people. Totally. Look, I actually like... that line
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: about the hard moments. I did too. I did too.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: But I thought, why is it that these two moments
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: feel like the strongest beats in the move?
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Totally.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Are you ready for Did You See That? I am.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: It's back up to my first impression. What is going
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: on with Franco Lopresti's hair? There was a lot of
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the movie where I was trying to figure out what
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: was happening. Like I said, is it a hairpiece?
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: You don't think so? I don't know. I don't know
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: what's happening there. I just think that's his hair. It
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: was like a weird. Look, I got weird hair. Everybody's
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: got weird hair. It has a lot of body to it. Look,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: maybe it's not his hair. Maybe it was the way
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: it was styled. I don't know. Let me look up
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: a different picture of this guy. This is Franco Lopresti. Yeah,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: looks good there. Yeah. That's a nice full head of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: hair I like to run my fingers through. Look at this.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Looks great. Given Christian Grey in that moment. I don't
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: know what was happening in this. Oh, but look at
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: this one. He has a nice full head of hair.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I hear you. He's got good hair. He's got great hair. So,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: an incredibly thick head of hair. I mean, don't show
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: this to my husband because he will... Be so mad
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: at this man for his good head of hair. Yeah,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on. They didn't have the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: budget for a stylist for poor Franco. All right, I
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: got a long list. Are you ready? Or do you
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: have more? I have a few more. I'll talk about
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the bowling specific ones first. Okay. They have some B-roll
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: of at the jingle ball people pulling their balls out
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of their bowling bags. They're all pulling house balls out
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: of personal bowling bags. I don't know what that means.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: It's the... Oh, like the ones that are available at
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: the bowling alley for anybody to use. Okay. Yeah, because
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: you know, like, Bowling balls are expensive, right? When you
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: own it.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking a minimum of 100, but they
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: go up from there. Of course, they're not going to
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: have a deep stable of personal bowling balls. And nobody cares,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: except me. Nobody. But I was like, why bother having
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: them pulling out of bowling bags? Maybe nobody cares. And
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: they all had like single ball bags like they're 83
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: years old.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: No. No.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: If you own the bag, you own the ball and
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: you also own money. As in my first impression, they
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: have a competition where the loser has to oil the lanes.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Nobody has oiled a commercial lane by hand in decades.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: This is a multiple lane bowling alley. There's a machine.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: There's been a machine for a long, long time. A
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: machine does it? It's like a Roomba. It's like an
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: oiling Roomba. And for anybody, lanes have oil patterns. Like
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: there's not just like one way to oil a lane.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: most like house lanes, like when you just go first,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: like have a very specific, like basic. But when you
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: go to tournaments, the whole question is like, what's the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: oil pattern going to be like? What's the oil pattern?
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Because you have to change your throw and everything.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. And the kids,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's an equivalent for this in every sport,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: but they'll be like, oh, the lanes are too oily
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: or the lanes are too dry or the oil pattern
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: this or whatever. Their play, if it's not going their way,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: is always the fault of the oil. Oh. Like the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: fault of the ref.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. The storefront of the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: bowling alley is the size of a small coffee shop. Yeah.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: And then it's like the Mary Poppins bag on the inside.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: The inside does not match the outside. Doesn't make any sense.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Just some weird random ones.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: There was sideways snow coming in hard from the left
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: when it was broad daylight out. Like super sunny outdoor scenes.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: And then we got like snow. Somebody over here on
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the left side of the frame like snow blowing. Just
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: bothered me.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Also, I did look up like the diner that they
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: go to is an actual real diner. Oh.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of it right now. I
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: looked it up. Like they shot inside that diner too. Nice. Yeah.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: The other thing is I hated whoever styled Audrey's wardrobe
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: in this. I thought she looked uncomfortable the entire time.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: God, skinny jeans throughout.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Skinny jeans throughout. Sweaters that appear to be too small.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: There was nothing, like, loose and comfortable. Like, you're just in, like,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: a cardigan sweater that is, like, fitted so tightly.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: Like, that is the most uncomfortable. I want to scratch
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: my face off. Like, if I was in a tight cardigan.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: With... Tight jeans. Heeled boots and skinny jeans. I know.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Be comfortable. Relax our leads up a little bit. Do
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: you got more? Yeah, I do. We have an empty
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: coffee cup tray, your favorite. Jason flings it around like
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: it's full of air, which it definitely is. The control
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: room that Avery walks into when she is at the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: news station, it's completely empty during moments before a live newscast. Except, shockingly,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: on the monitors is B-roll of Audrey. Did I say Avery?
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Audrey playing on the monitors. The costume that Jason wears,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the Santa costume, is truly tragic. I think the budget
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: was real low on this one. Natalie, the realtor, says
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: we should list the bowling alley for sale over the
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: holidays because Christmas might boost the sale. Said absolutely no
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: realtor ever. You don't buy a house in the holiday time.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Nobody's moving. Nobody's buying anything except for gifts. Audrey says
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Mary Ho Ho at one point. Nope, don't like that. Hadley.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Our character of Hadley. Have we ever had a caricature
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: of a smart person? Since Steve Urkel, the girl wears
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: glasses and has braids in her hair. She's very Marianne
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: from the Babysitter's Club. She pushes her glasses up her
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: nose about every 30 seconds just so we know she's
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: real smart. Oh, gosh. She's real smart. And finally, striping
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: the pins to look like candy canes. I think that might,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: perhaps somebody who knows what the physics of like bowling pins,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure it's like a big, big no-no. You're
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: not going to add extra material to the pins. That's it.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: What did you rate this one? I gave it two stars. Same.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I thought the idea was good. The setting was new.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I liked the grandfather card. Make me believe the plot
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of this movie and I would be more in on it.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I gave it two stars as well. Hey, thanks for
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: listening to this episode of Girls Gone Hallmark. We'll be
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: back next time with more Hallmark reviews.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Goodbye. Bye.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Bye. Bye. All right, friends, before we go, just a
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: quick heads up. You're about to hear some ads. These
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: little gems help us keep the show running and the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Hallmark love flowing. So do with that info what you will.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Grab a snack, hit the skip button, or maybe, just maybe,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: listen in and discover your new favorite product. Bye.