Hallmark Channel movies

[Sea Ray]

Never fear Hallmark Channel Radio will begin tomorrow on XM radio. So if you can't watch it you will be able to listen to it. At least for the Christmas season anyway.

http://blog.siriusxm.com/hallmark-ch...liday-channel/

That's just music. I can handle that...

[Kingspoint]

traderumor brought them up in a baseball thread, but I feel they're worth a topic on their own. Hallmark churns out formulaic treacle based on every season and holiday, often starring actors who've slipped to the D list. Lacey Chabert never may have made fetch happen, but she's box office gold for Hallmark. Watching one of these films can get you to wear out IMDB, trying to figure where else you've seen members of the cast.

Would it be nice if they tweaked the formula or invested a little effort in character and dialog? Sure, but Hallmark's niche is comfort TV. People go in with high demand for their low expectations to be met. The result is both soothing and maddening. It can also be unintentionally hilarious. As I mentioned in the other thread, Hallmark films are perfect MST3K fodder. They are built to be goofed upon. I also maintain every Hallmark film is easily adaptable to porn - the flimsy plots, the barely believable cosplay of how things function in the real world, the stilted dialog. You could totally film three version of each offering: one for Hallmark, one somewhat naughty version for late night cable and one full-on porn version. Maybe Danica McKellar and Dylan Neal would balk at that, though I bet it would pay pretty well.

Anyway, I'm curious to see who considers Hallmark a guilty (or even not guilty) pleasure, who spite-watches it, etc.

Why mess with the Jacqueline Susann formula? They have a hooked audience with an exact target audience for advertisers that is a true goldmine for advertisers.

(Personally, I can't pause for even 10 seconds, as I know what it's going to be. There is no surprise waiting.)

[Kingspoint]

It may date me but for me it doesn't count as a true Hallmark movie unless it has Meredith Baxter-Birney in it.

When Hallmark first started doing them (long before Meredith Baxter became Birney) they were the best cinema on television. Hal Holbrook did a few of the early ones, if I recall.

[M2]

So, other Hallmark observations:

- Apparently smaller town America runs on a bakery- and festival-based economy.

- Most of these movies are filmed in Canada, which means there's a heavy dose of Canadian actors in them. It creates a massive overlap with Syfy shows and Supernatural, also filmed in the great, white north. Teryl Rothery, ex-Stargate and currently everyone's mom in the Hallmark universe, is a prime example. Canada has cornered two really weird markets of the television industry. Makes for a fascinating overlap.

[Redsfaithful]

Apparently smaller town America runs on a bakery- and festival-based economy.

They might be trying to tell us something.

[Kingspoint]

So, other Hallmark observations:

- Apparently smaller town America runs on a bakery- and festival-based economy.

- Most of these movies are filmed in Canada, which means there's a heavy dose of Canadian actors in them. It creates a massive overlap with Syfy shows and Supernatural, also filmed in the great, white north. Teryl Rothery, ex-Stargate and currently everyone's mom in the Hallmark universe, is a prime example. Canada has cornered two really weird markets of the television industry. Makes for a fascinating overlap.

Not just Canada, but specifically Vancouver Island, where the entire island is too cheap to build a sewer plant and choose instead to continue dumping all of their sewage and runoff into the Pacific Ocean. I wouldn't kayak around that island.

[M2]

They might be trying to tell us something.

I chalk it up to them having a short list of "jobs women can do and still be happy." There's also the general infantilization of life and work in that universe.

In defense of bakeries, they are a keystone business. And festivals are fun. Would be nice to see the local hydrologist find love too.

[Roy Tucker]

We saw 13 of the 22 Hallmark Christmas movies. Marital harmony.

No matter what the jobs they have or how much (or little) money they make, the characters all live in very nice homes, seem to have a lot of spare time, and have a lot of festivals.

We watched one a couple nights ago that was supposed to be in Ohio but it was filmed in British Columbia.

[chicoruiz]

My wife watches them all, and makes a game of spotting the locations that are used in multiple movies, like the gazebo in the middle of the small town. Also, there appears to be only one big city office building, used for every opening scene. This building is apparently populated entirely by successful, attractive, yet unfulfilled young women and their gay or minority best friends.

As for me, maybe I’m shallow, but I impose on myself what I call the Lacey Chabert rule: if the female lead is at least as attractive as Lacey Chabert I will sit and watch for a while...

[Slyder]

Core of every Hallmark Movie:
1 Hometown Boy/Girl Central Figure
2 If they moved to the big city they fall in love and move "home"
3 Moral: Life rocks in the little city.

[Kingspoint]

I'll shoot myself in the head before I'll ever watch 30 minutes of a Hallmark Movie.

[GAC]

I'll shoot myself in the head before I'll ever watch 30 minutes of a Hallmark Movie.

The only reason most men watch them is because the wife has the remote control to the TV (and something else).

Women love them because it brings those Barbie and Ken dolls they use to play (fantasize) with to life. And then there were these ....



I've never watched one because my wife was never into them (thank God). Her TV "addiction" is the ID Channel and those "Investigative Report" type of shows. So if they do start having more decapitations and have a Hallmark Investigative Report series on the strange disappearance of Hollywood D actors, we'll probably watch it (LOL).

[M2]

Highly recommended reading for anyone caught in the Hallmark frenzy of holiday treacle - https://www.theringer.com/movies/202...fetime-netflix. The writer is bingeing, and simultaneously setting fire to, 25 holiday rom-coms. One of the categories is "how many Vanessa Hudgenses are in this movie?"

[ShyGuy]

To each their own: Madonna's one of my favorite artists and I belong to a fansite of hers, female pop in general is one of my favorite genres of music, I have some pink shirts, and still keep some stuffed animals.


But watching Hallmark movies? No.

[Roy Tucker]

The deal today with my wife was I watch the Bengals game, then she watches the Hallmark movie. An investment in a happy marriage.

BTW, the movie tonight is “Undercover Holiday”. A newly-arrived pop star has a bodyguard but she insists he acts like a boyfriend over a family Christmas week. This one has a Hispanic flavor.