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Keywords
Disney, Follow Yonder Star, Hallmark, movie review, Christmas, character analysis, themes, storytelling
Summary
In this conversation, the hosts review the Hallmark movie 'Follow Yonder Star,' discussing its themes, character dynamics, and the overall experience of watching it. They explore the film's Christian undertones, the protagonist's journey, and the typical Hallmark tropes, while also sharing their personal insights and reactions to the film's plot and characters. The discussion is light-hearted and filled with humor, making it an engaging review for fans of holiday movies.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:00.396)
We're recording.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (00:05.026)
Hello! Hey! So we are on our... on a drive over to Disney's... Disney Springs. Hollywood Studios. then Hollywood Studios. Trying to get our last Disney visits in before the blackout dates hit. Because we're poor and we only get the pirate pass. I didn't mean we poor, I'm so sorry. We're poor. Right, but we're still going to Disney. We're... we're... we're ding poor. That...
Just kidding. That's why you should like and subscribe so that maybe YouTube gives us money. So we are headed to Vermont, theoretically, to follow Yonderstar. Let's watch that trailer.
Alright Leslie, how'd you feel about following Yonder Star? I think you should see it. Yeah? It was cute. top 10. Could be 12. Like for me, I thought it was delightful. I was enjoying it in general and then it got crazy Christian on me. so that was my only thing is that it did- If there was a Christianometer for these movies, this would be a 10.
gag in a few scenes, but I'm like, you know, I'll, I'll look through this and you know, just he, it disturbed me a bit. And I'm like, I look at people differently. So this movie follows Abby, who is a beautiful hair, by the way. I enjoyed this actress. Yes, I did. She laid it on thick, but it's Hallmark. She did it the right way. She has very great cry face.
And we get three of those in this film. Yeah, she knows how to water those eyes. Hopefully she wasn't using that cry stick. So Abby is an actress who has known for playing a character named Gabrielle on some type of Hallmark-esque series for like 14 years. Appears to be Christian-y. Yeah, I feel like it's a Dr. Quinn medicine woman scenario. I was thinking, not Seventh Heaven. What was the... Angel something? Yeah, Angel. Touched by an angel. was thinking more of a touched by an angel situation. And
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (02:16.578)
So the show gets canceled and in beginning she's at a store buying an ornament. I guess it was not a Hallmark store. Not a Hallmark Trying to buy an engraved ornament for her ex-husband because she has this ritual tradition where they go to the ex-husband's aunt's house and they exchange an ornament. Apparently his family loves her and they enjoy each other's company.
But they got a divorce because he didn't want kids and she wanted kids. And so she is annoyed at this place that everyone keeps thinking she is Gabrielle, the character she plays. It's not necessarily the place. It's in general, people saying she's Gabrielle. But this place really emphasized it for Yeah. And the guy who works there is like, my God, my mom loves you, Gabrielle. Gabrielle, can you help me with this issue? And she's like, my name's Abby.
I am an actress, Gabrielle is not real. And he's like, sure, Gabrielle, whatever. So she's like, look, I just want to get this ornament engraved. Can I do this? Blah, blah, blah, blah, signed A. He's like, you mean G? And she's like, no, A. And then she's like, and he's putting on the tablet. And she's like, one moment, I'm getting a phone call. She gets a phone call. No payment has been made. All right, no payment has been made. This is important. She gets a phone call.
And it is the ex saying, just wanted to let you know, at this Christmas party this year, I'm gonna be bringing my new fiance and we're having a baby. A baby. And so she has a flip out and... You know, it wasn't even a flip out. Well, she, her eyes start watering on the phone call. Yes, but she did a great adult thing that a healthy person should do that cares about themselves, even though the ex, who is also clearly still in love with her on the phone,
You know, it's like, no, I still want you to come. And she's like, no, that's not right. We need to not do that. And then same thing with like, I'll send your ornament by mail. And she's like, no, that also needs to stop. Like we're officially like no longer communicating, which is like the healthiest thing you can do for yourself. And so kudos to the writer on that. Good job. Teach their own, but I, it is.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (04:38.606)
interesting to really stay in that much touch with an ex-husband on that level. It's interesting, yeah. I'm not saying you have to move. Everyone deals with it differently, but like, we gotta grow. Anyway, so then she, after the phone call, she tells the attendant at the store, sorry, I'm gonna need to cancel that order. And he's like, but once you put in an engraving order, it has to be paid in full.
She's like, but it hasn't been engraved yet and I also haven't given you money yet. She never brought up the money part. No, I know. It's us. She's but he haven't engraved it He's like, it's in the computer so it counts. It's in the computer. And so she starts getting frustrated that this guy won't work with her to cancel the order. And Leslie and I are like, why doesn't she just leave the store? And she's also, you know, he's continuing to say, Gabby, you can't do this. Or Gabrielle, you can't do this. He's like, what, Gabrielle, you think you're better than us that you've got all this money?
or whatever. Taking advantage of a local shop owner. Yeah. And she's like, that is it. So she raises her voice and everybody in the store films her and she's like, my God, my career is ruined. I don't think she realized that yet until she gets home and her agent calls her. the agent's there on the driveway. that's right. Yeah. So her solution is to rent a cabin in Vermont.
for the holidays to just get away from it all. Which a cabin is a five star resort with a spa. Yeah. And so she goes to this place and turns out she accidentally scheduled it for following year. they send her to this. At the same time, I mean, she has money. I would have been upset, but like she took it very nicely. Very nicely. I reserve this for next year. But she was also.
caught up in everything because they had also just announced her ex-husband's marriage or proposal, fiance thing. And so she was just like in a tizzy of what was going on. So of course you accidentally booked the wrong year. she was, yeah, she took it very nicely and understandable. She's like, yeah, that was my mistake. Any suggestions of what? And then that's when the, the front desk attendant mentioned the, the inn down the road. The Maguire Inn.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (06:54.765)
McGuire in so it is at the McGuire in that she meets Nick who is I wrote mature he said something incredibly mature gosh, okay. Was it when you were the sisters being sister-in-law is being rude No, we had not met the sister-in-law at this moment yet What it was is that Abby was sitting and having dinner. my hair is falling down the old lady. Yes, and the old lady that was very annoying. She did great job
being annoying. She plays like the most annoying president at this inn. Yeah, at this inn. And so she like busted in like, haven't you seen that Abby did all Abby Fatone or whatever her name is, you know, did all these mean things and, and like, let me show you the video. And he's like, I don't need to see that. We all she's like, she had a big meltdown. That's a very common thing, us having a
meltdowns, right? It's human. We're all human. Like he said it in such a nice, lovely, understanding, mature way. Like it got, I'm like, that's good. And also the delivery of it all was great. He did a great job of redirecting this elderly woman's energy. Yeah. Like we all have this. You're having it now. Yeah. So I like that he is also a part-time science teacher.
So he explains, so one of the reasons why the town is super busy is because everyone's in town for stargazing, for this specific astronomical phenomenon that's gonna happen, which is a superstar or whatever they call it, where like two planets align. Was it Jupiter and Mars? I almost said Venus, so I'm sure. Two planets align, becoming super bright in the sky, and they talk about how that was the star of Bethlehem, and the fact that it happened on Christmas means like Jesus is...
They didn't use the word Jesus, which I think was interesting that they talked about praying and we also see scenes of them praying. And they mentioned God. Well, I guess they do mention Jesus during the whole play. anyway, true. Yeah. So then there's also like a like a bunch of kids doing a play. And so as soon as this guy's introduced running the inn, I'm like, OK, we're going to find out he's got a dead wife and a daughter under 10. And.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (09:12.973)
perfectly called it. Well you didn't say dead wife, you said single dad with the daughter. okay. Single dad with a daughter under 10. I'm sure you were thinking dead wife and it just didn't fully come out. That usually implies dead wife. Well it could have been a rough divorce and she's off living abroad. I don't know. That happened, like the men leave in Hallmark movies, the women don't. Because mom is the ultimate goal a woman can have my gosh I'm like running through my...
In a Hallmark movies, women are only fulfilled by being mothers. So that's why the men can leave and become deadbeat ex-husbands. Right. The women can. So we had a lovely montage of her. I wouldn't call it a montage, but you know, her showing that she's a motherly figure. Yeah. So she meets this little girl, Nick's daughter. Nick's daughter falls in love with her. But again, she also loved the show and the character and she would watch it with her mother. So she feels like here's someone that my mother could approve of.
I didn't really care for the actor who plays neck. He had some good moments. I liked him but overall he was I don't know I like he didn't feel like a normal human to me He wasn't he wasn't Exacerbated in regards. He had good facial expressions. He I think did on cue the good Like quality hallmark acting. Yeah, so I thought he was good. I liked him I wouldn't mind seeing him in something else. Is he the best of?
the ones I, I don't want to say the best, the ones I enjoy to watch more, no, but he's up there. And it was like, towards the end of the movie, as we were like getting the three quarter mark, I'm like, we haven't had our, our misunderstanding yet. Correct. we tried to predict what the misunderstanding would be. which, yeah, yeah, we were trying to predict and I thought it was a good job with what they did for me. Yeah, it did I thought it'd be like, you're going to sell the inn kind of a situation, but no, it was-
A bunch of paparazzi shows up who had been secretly called by her agent. But the paparazzi says to Nick, no, the actors always call us and pretend that they didn't expect us to see them. already had a conversation with her agent stating, hey, this isn't meant for me anymore. Like, I'm going to pass. Like, I found something that- that they were talking about. Yeah, the role that they were talking about that was a little different, but still similar to Gabby.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (11:39.283)
Abby, I'm sorry, Abby's role playing Gabrielle or her name is anyway. So she's like, yeah, this role is not meant for me. I'm going to find a different path. But yet hadn't been able to tell Nick about it. And so that's where the miscommunication happened to her. Yeah. To where the agent is ordering all the paparazzi to come in the paparazzi who I guess the the agent like lied saying that
Abby? Yeah. To get the paparazzi to say like, where I'm gonna be? I don't see why the agent would have done that. I feel like the paparazzi just was working under assumptions and just said it to Nick. But then it also brings up some other things. Even if that was the case, why would Nick be so mad that there's now press covering his daughter's school play? Correct, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Hallmark movies, whenever there's the misunderstanding, someone has to overreact. We hit it hard. That's why we love it. Yeah, overreacting. And then of course that all gets resolved within a couple minutes. Snip, snap, right in the bud, done. So I was enjoying Follow Yonder Star in the beginning when it was like a famous actress trying to escape negative publicity. I thought that was fun. But then it got way too Christian for me and I was do-nosed. Yeah, and it was fun though with the...
the other character who tried to, who is also like smitten by Nick, but she was sabotaging Yeah, by like spreading rumors that she had overreact at the bakery coffee shop to which Nick's sister-in-law owned. Right. Or widowed. Yeah. And so when, when she does, when Abby confronts this other woman,
The music swells as if she's giving like this really impassioned speech about how you shouldn't be a bully and you should rise above. It was not the best writing. I was like, I'm not really convinced. The music is doing a lot of heavy lifting here and it's falling short. Right, yeah. So, well, everyone had-
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (13:49.643)
Cute clothes, cute aprons. Yes, hair was nice. was a sweater that she wears at one point that I was looking up online. yes, good sweater. Why don't you go back to search history? See if I can find it. That's right. But also the decor, the set, Balsam Hill, gorgeous. Everything was beautifully decorated. Props were a little interesting when it came to like when he would clumsily run into stuff. It was like, wow, that looked like styrofoam. It's been really light.
but we got good weighted cups in some scenes. Yeah. There's also some like, they go on this horse carriage sleigh ride to this like beautiful little area in the forest where there's gorgeous. And I'm like, that's totally a soundstage that they're pretending is outside in the woods. But all the trees that were beautifully decorated by Balsam. And Leslie's like, do they just have this randomly spotted around for Okay, so that's, I don't want to mean like randomly, but.
It has to be beautiful during this time of year. A nice blanket of snow. But like, is that something that people do as they create these pretty lounge rustic areas from their tree farms and make nice hot cocoa areas for people to sit at and have a hot cocoa bar? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised Amongst the fire and some s'mores. I wouldn't be surprised if in Vermont...
town squares are always a couple blocks away from the woods. I'm here for it, yeah. I'm just saying. I'm just curious. If from Vermont or the New England area, does that exist? We've got some tree farms, they have some nice, beautifully decorated areas. I don't know. Like from the beginning, I was assuming with a title like Follow Yonder Star, this was gonna be a Christian movie. Yeah, we had our concerns. But it's a weird title and it feels more and more like...
hallmark titles are not assigned by anyone involved in the actual production? Yes, we think that like they just come up with a bank of titles and to make sure that none of them are repeated at least for what maybe 10 years or something like that. Not that any of these are I don't if you can like register trademark titles or anything like that. But anyway, and then the others pulling. I like the idea that someone in the hallmark offices are blindfolded and they're playing pin the title on the script. Yeah.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (16:12.845)
Maybe they're just like, how many times does it say God? Let's use our godly ones. How many times? like it's an algorithm. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like they're just searching. Yeah, it's like chat GPT on a scale of one to ten. Well, I was trying to make sure that real people were involved. I was trying to say chat GPT. Well, no, no, I'm saying any AI base. No, what I'm saying is they still write the script, but then they feed it into chat GPT and ask it to rate it on a scale of one to ten on Christianity. No, I understand. But I'm still stating a real person is hopefully doing.
Yes, okay. So, I'm just eliminating those, the AI, love AI, but I'm just eliminating out of that. Well, title like Follow Yonderstar feels to me like a- I'm trying to have the belief in the humankind. And that Hallmark is hiring a secret dog whistle to Christians, like, hey, here's one for you. Ugh.
yeah, so that was follow yonder star. Yeah, you should watch it Yeah, the next one that's coming up on the countdown to Christmas is a dog related movie a movie and that's gonna be starring the Soon to be announced winner of finding mr. Christmas. that's right. So did you do your writing directing? for is for everything right for acting for directing for yeah, chemistry O meter for yeah, I still like this was
a little bit of a different theme. You know, the bad celebrity, you I don't know all the hallmarks, but this did appear to be a little different to me. I feel like with that as a theme, there should have been more comedy in
Because it felt to me like a a forgetting Sarah Marshall, like a Notting Hill. But see, I felt like it was good writing because I didn't yearn for that comedy. Like it still ran with everything of the the romance and the cute things that they did of a story. Like the storyline kept me going. I didn't need it didn't need to be filled with comedy. Also, they did a wreath making clat or like a wreath making thing in a market. I loved it. It was cute. and the hot cocoa. no, the cider.
Chain Assembly (Nick Ribera) (18:17.293)
was steaming. was real. So good job, props people. Maybe we'll some hot cider somewhere in Disney Springs. yeah. Probably not. That does sound good. It's 82 degrees. Yeah, it's 82. We are gonna be sweating in our long sleeves. In our long sleeves. But come Friday for the light boat parade in St. Pete, it'll be a high of 59, low of 43. So we are excited. This is why we're always sick in Florida. We're not.
Take your zinc. right, well thanks everyone. We will see you in a bit for some more some more movie reviews. Happy Christmas.
