Jul 12, 2019
We're horsing around for eternity with VALENTINE EVER AFTER (2016) and doing unpaid labor on: A dude ranch ... THEME ... Knee calipers ... Going in optimistic ... Eric Johnson Appreciation Station ... Cast rundown ... The Expositional Challenge ... Plot mop-up: Rock-mount failure; dude ranch; hospital raffle ... Alana Smithee, or Alana Smithee? ... Heavy tropery and peak overdeterminism ... BREAK ... Journalismism: One perfect catastrophe of news layout; Hyphen Stanheight; Hello, mako; Rahm Emanuel ... Fleeing Chad ... Spot the Angel: Probably angel-free vs. a very Twin Peaks judge ... Funding MRAPs through the recession ... Lindsay Anderson's "Mission to Christmas" ... Nigel Bennett's IMDB ... Casual slave labor ... Razzing a Hallmark cop ... Fogel, Engerman and Hallmark cliometrics ... BREAK ... Eat Your Heart Out: Beef stew, Cowboy Bar and Cadillac Restaurant; carb-dating Hallmark movies ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: Please remind us to bring back old bits; Chicago, The Radcliffe Center and your donor base; build the Hallmark wiki; Kitten's billion-dollar fund; James Brolin's ranch ... Paul Auster's New York Trilogy ... Jerry Lewis's Clown Holocaust ... BREAK ... Overdetermined: Dad's immediate, relentless info-dump; the character-development efficiencies of early exposition vs. PEAK info-dump, plot recap and foreshadowing vs. Incredibly overdetermined Colbie Caillat ... Rapping end-credit plot summaries ... Puff Daddy, KRS-One and Bobby Brown ... iZombie whips ... BREAK ... Crossover: Gavin Learning about himself in David Mamet's The Edge vs. "Ben Thomas has come unstuck in The Horse Whisperer" ... The Hallmark Bechdel Test: Easily succeeds but maybe totally doesn't ... Partner Chat: Kate face-pulling; carb-free biscuits ... Rating: 4 ... Structurally bad but nimbly leaning into it ... "Metropolitan" ladies ... Outstanding leads ... Mom Lily as shrewd, tough, wise and worthy of embodying a compliment ... Gavin Stanheight's legitimate anger/heartache ... Awful, last-minute quit ... Organic trauma-swap ... BREAK ... The Leftovers: The Girlfriend Experience ... Population density of Wyoming ... Hallmark's The Terror ... Cemetery Man callback ... Edgar Allan Poe-ass statue ... City Girl can sometimes ride ... Don McBrearty: "Gay or Straight, Is There A Choice?" ... Look how cute this horse is ... Turning off my ringer ... First-ever Hallmark c*ckblock ... Police escort for landowners ... Child interruption ... Merry Christmas ... • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Generique Assault," by KRS-One • "On Our Own," by Bobby Brown • • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane