Tag: Ward Horton

My Bakery in Brooklyn

My Bakery In Brooklyn (Potentially now just called Bakery In Brooklyn), is a small time movie that came out earlier this year. A january film, and you all know what they say about January movies.

But that usually means films released in the theater. There is no stereotype about VOD only films released in January, just the normal VOD stereotypes. But not all films straight to the internet are bad, so this one has a chance.

And technically, I only decided to watch it because I knew one of the main two leads, a girl who was in both Prom and Scream 4 (in the same year) and not a whole lot more. I had to see where she went from there!

Lawyer
She went straight into the hands of a lawyer, good choice!

Vivien (Aimee Teegarden) has a lot going on in her life, and she is about to go to Europe! But she is also dating a cute guy, a lawyer (Ward Horton), who works for a bank. She is close to her cousin, Chloe (Krysta Rodriguez), is a television producer (or something), for a cooking show with a famous chef. It is a hard job, but she has nutrition training and is up to date on all the latest trends.

And then their Aunt dies. It was sudden and unexpected, but she left the bakery she owned forever to Vivien and Chloe. Well, Chloe knows a lot about cooking, and Vivien was about to leave the country, so they basically agree to just let Chloe run it and have it. Until she changes her mind and shows up anyways.

Turns out they have different ideas on how to run the shop. Vivien wants to keep it traditional and honor her aunt. Chloe thinks they need to modernize it all, keep up with the trends, make it more healthy, and that will increase the profits and neighborhood image. They bicker and bicker, and even put a line down the middle of their bakery, in order to decorate and run it as they see fit, and compete to see who gets more business.

But guess what? The tax man cometh, and the bank is going to take their store thanks to unpaid debts. Damn it, Aunt. Now they have to work together to get a lot of money. And the boyfriend lawyer? He works for the banks. Ruh roh!

Also starring Aitor Luna, Anthony Chisholm, Blanca Suárez, Enrique Arce, Ernie Sabella, and Griffin Newman. And most of them have their own subplots too.

Sitcom
You see that? Right there? A goddamn line in the middle.

True story. I probably wrote this review the same day I watched the film. It was really easy to write, it just flowed off my fingers, and I trashed the fuck out of this movie. Which I still plan on doing. But for whatever reason, when it came time to post it two weeks later, it was completely missing outside of pictures and no revision history to speak about. Fuck.

This is not a movie anyone will care about, nor will anyone really want to read I expect given the lack of recognition. So normally in these cases, I would cut my loses, be upset, but not try and rewrite it. But I gave this movie a 0, and it came out in 2017, and if it ends up being one of the worst, then damn it, I need it to exist so it can be on a worse of the year list. So please, check back in 2018 to see if I actually did waste my time with this.

Here are the problems with this movie. First, there are too many side plots. These side characters who are involved seem to go off and do their own things, but don’t add much to the main story. Secondly, the ending is a complete and total cop out. But thirdly, of which I plan on mini-ranting, this is not a movie but a motherfucking sitcom pilot.

Sure, it is longer than a normal show, and this could’t work in the hour long format, so it would have to be a half hour comedy. But to assume that I would get to see a real film has me feeling a bit bamboozled. Being a pilot is the only way to explain why it is so terrible.

All the side plots? Good, it gives them something to work on and expand over the season, since they don’t help the movie at all. The cop out ending? It allows a longer plot where it may eventually backfire and have a goal later. But the acting isn’t great, the problems are minor, AND THEY PUT A LINE DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE BAKERY.

THEY. PUT. A. LINE. DOWN. THE. MIDDLE. OF. THE. BAKERY.

This is like number one on the list of things a bad sitcom eventually does, when two people have to share a space. It always ends badly, it is always stupid to watch, and everyone knows it. Yet it is 2017 and they added that plot point to a movie? I feel like I am just not being respected with this pile of crap in front of me.

My Bakery in Brooklyn? More like, My Shit in Brooklyn. And I will flush it. That is the proper thing to do, no matter where it is.

0 out of 4.

Annabelle

Horror sequels are a hard beast to tackle. Horror spin-offs are another entity altogether. In fact, I literally can’t think of a single one.

After all, having a successful horror franchise is the goal of many horror films. They hope they are scary and unique enough to warrant coming back to. They might even take over completely unrelated projects and just take on the same name in order to live off the hype. But a spin-off? Really.

The Conjuring was a great movie. Most people would agree with that. Eventually we will get a sequel to that, but until then, we get franchise spin-offs based on things we see in The Conjuring. I guess. And honestly, an Annabelle movie talking about her origins before The Conjuring made sense. As long as it isn’t identical to Chucky, and as long as it is entertaining, then bring it on.

Doll
I hope they answer how any one could even want this ugly thing in their house.

Annabelle takes place a year before the events of The Conjuring. It is centered on John (Ward Horton) and Mia (Annabelle Wallis). Yes. The main female character is actually named Annabelle. The couple are expecting their first baby soon, and as a gift, John gave Mia the final piece of her doll collection. It cost a lot of money! And it looked creepy before getting all disfigured.

Unrelated to a doll, two members of a cult come by, murder their neighbors, then attempt to murder Mia and her unborn child! But the police show up and save the day, killing those darn cultists! The lady cultist bleeds on the doll, and apparently that is enough to invoke Satan, demons, and other terrifying things.

Needless to say, the doll starts doing some creepy stuff. But the baby is still born, so don’t worry about that! Just…What does this doll want? Hopefully not cuddles. With a new baby in the mix, I sincerely doubt there is time for cuddles.

Also featuring Alfre Woodard, Tony Amendola and Eric Ladin.

Couple
Let this be a lesson parents: Never get your child hooked on dolls. It only ends with Satan.

I think I am starting to realize why horror spin-offs don’t really happen or work. Based on all of the ones I have seen (all one), they don’t make a lot of sense in the plot department.

The could make a lot of sense, but that requires caring about the plot and the movie they came from. But based on the ending, there doesn’t seem to be a real reason for why Annabelle matters at all after this movie. Based on the mythos they created for the character and then explained in great detail throughout this whole movie, it should be over.

Now we have this movie and The Conjuring that both don’t do a good job of explaining why she still matters at all. And that is dumb.

Speaking of dumb, the ending in general of this movie was done. And the beginning and middle, but for different reasons.

I can’t believe they created a nonsensical and non-unique evil doll character. What a waste of time. I can’t believe we have to associate this with the awesome The Conjuring from now on.

1 out of 4.