Series Review - Signed Sealed Delivered

Signed Sealed Delivered

2014

One Season Of Ten Episodes Before Becoming Regular TV Movies.

Moon Water Productions / Muse Entertainment Production / Special Delivery TeleProductions : The Hallmark Channel / Muse Distribution International

9.25 / 10

This program is one of my guilty pleasures.  It's a fantastically schmaltzy good-natured and light-humoured tale of four postal workers who's everyday job weaves them into the lives, troubles and tribulations of people and their relevant happy-ending outcomes.

Oliver O'Toole is the die-hard postal worker who loves his job and carries it out to his own regimen; Eric Mabius does a brilliant job bringing a loving and caring personality to him, who is so staid you can only tell his emotions by his demeanour or his loss for words.  This is a beautiful character, who has a subtle deepness to him, very well crafted by writer and creator Martha Williamson.

Kristin Booth portrays Shane McInerney or as Oliver always calls her Miss McInerney.  Shane is the technical advisor who has been newly appointed to the department, she is self-assured and often butts heads with Oliver, usually concerning his routine and dislike of technology.  Though the chemistry between them is palpable right from their first meeting.

Norman Xavier Dorman is the brilliant but slow-on-the-emotional-uptake colleague, who is in charge of tracking down addresses based on the minimal of clues.  Geoff Gustafson is exemplary in this role as he can wear a plethora of bemused and confused faces; he's also given the character a set of hand gestures for when he's nervous or thinking.  Martha Williamson has created a great personality in Norman Dorman.

Last, but not least is Rita Haywith, who is a shy and retiring person always eager to help... and hopelessly in love with Norman, which she portrays and says in her own way, though Norman never really catches on.  Crystal Lowe is great as the gawky assistant with a good heart and will.

These four work in the Dead Letter Office.  The place where wrongly addressed, unreadable, or damaged mail lands.  It's then up to Oliver and his team to get those pieces of mail to their relevant addresses.  If this cannot be deduced by the front or rear of the envelope then they are allowed to open it and read the contents, but only to the point where a delivery address can be confirmed.

It's on Shanes arrival that a new rule is implemented and the team go the extra distance by getting personally involved and going the extra mile to get the mail to its intended target.  This includes helping a Grandmother find her Grandson before a killer can; find an Afghanistan veteran who believes he doesn't deserve his life; help two soul-mates to rekindle their love; Help a father find his Son and Granddaughter; Help a Mother to bring her estranged Daughters together; Help a Father to understand his daughter better; Revive a musician's life, memory, and love; Give a Father a means to save his Daughter and better understand his dead wife; Reunite a child with his twin Brother and Mother...  It is also on Shane's arrival that the dynamic between the team begins to evolve and grow.  Both Norman and Rita start to come out of their shells and their relationship starts to slowly... ever so slowly... bloom.  Oliver starts to realise he has to start coping with his emotions and feelings over his estranged wife.

Though not all the stories have completely happy endings - tissues will be needed - the overall feeling at the finale of each episode is one of hope, warmth, and surety that everything will work out okay.  In this day and age, this is a hard thing to do without making it feel silly and unrealistic.  However, Williamson and the writing team on the series, do a brilliant job of giving the audience a more than satisfactory ending, each time, and leaving them with a warm feeling in their hearts.

There's nothing too fantastic about the direction of the episodes, no fancy shots or camera angles or coloured filters (the closest you get is a close-up of Oliver in the pouring rain, at night, soaking wet, pondering if he should post a letter or not).  This is a good thing though as what makes this series such a wonder is the stories and the characters.

I would recommend curling up with a loved one on a cold night with a hot cup of chocolate and just let yourself be carried away on the joyfulness for forty-five minutes...  Maybe this can be one of your guilty pleasures too.

Movie Review - Secrets Of The Summer House

Secrets Of The Summer House

(2008)

Incendo Productions : Incendo Media / Lifetime Movie Network

5 / 10

Since this is a television movie the subject matter has been toned down.  This would have made a good average budget DVD release movie and could have handled the matter a little more accordingly.

That said, the director, Jean-Claude Lord (who directed Visiting Hours (1982) and Second Chances (2010) - reviewed in my blogs), does an amiable job with the story by John Benjamin Martin and Donald David Martin.

This is a ghost story, but due to lack of horror elements and the amount of time it takes to get to the ghostly action, it is more of a drama.  This has so much of a TV movie feel to it.  The characters are stereotypical; you can see the twists coming; and the characters relationships are pretty standard and have been done a thousand times before.  Nevertheless, the actors and the director do make the film watchable... and at times, enjoyable.

Lindsey Price who plays the lead role of Nikki Wickersham gives a passable rendition of a troubled woman who loses her husband, though it's not played as a tear-jerker.  Nikki's friend, Margie Mancuso (played by Sadie LeBlanc) and her handyman boyfriend (Niall Matter) are pretty realistic and believable, to a point - this is a TV Movie, after all.

It's the lack of direction the story takes which is a stalling point for the film.  It sits uncomfortably between, drama, thriller, mystery, and horror.  This makes it a bland affair, had the writers or the director chosen just one path to take this could have been better.  It needed to be spookier with more tension.  The mysterious elements could have been heightened and extended upon.  Because the cause of the haunting is hateful, terrible, and unpleasant it was required to be much darker than portrayed here.

If there's nothing on the telly and hell has frozen over, then you could do worse than watch this film.

Movie Review - Stonehearst Asylum

Stonehearst Asylum

(2014)

Icon Productions / Sobini Films : Lionsgate / Millennium Entertainment

7.5 / 10

From a master of mystery & suspense, comes a journey into the dark depths of the mind...

...well not exactly.

This is based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, "The System Of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether."  The term here is "based".  Because they've tagged on Poe's name they've made it into the horror genre without making a horror film.  In fact. there's not much mystery or suspense in this movie either.

Don't get me wrong this is a solid story with a great cast of British actors, including good performances from Kate Beckinsale as Eliza Graves, Ben Kingsley as Silas Lamb, David Thewlis as Mickey Finn, Jason Flemyng as Swanwick, and Jim Sturgess as Edward Newgate.  Brad Anderson also does a good job of bringing out the performances of the cast and setting a decent atmosphere within the confines of the asylum, not as unsettling and mysterious as it should have been, though.

There was plenty of settings and scenes where Anderson could have created tension and suspense, which could have added an oppressive atmosphere to the asylum, making the film stronger and a little darker.  For me, this film was too light and required more sense of mystery, given the synopsis of the story - there could have been twist on twist. 

However, the main storyline was the blossoming love story.  This annoyed me as the stronger elements were pushed to the side and even ignored - with all that is lacking in this film, I believe it's more drama than anything else.

That said, the story was okay but it was the good acting, direction, and location, which kept my attention and my finger from hitting the stop button.

A good film but could have been so much more.

Worth a watch while cuddled up with your loved one on the sofa.  A watch once movie.