The Dream Motel, Season 1 (Series Review)

Plot Summary

Jesse and Matteo are angels who have been assigned to do various tasks on earth, one of which is to fix up an old motel in rural Georgia so that they can win the spiritual war of owning buildings around the world. If the angels can own enough buildings, they can apparently lead more people to salvation, but if the demons in disguise keep taking over God’s properties, they’ll somehow be able to bring more darkness to the earth. Can Jesse and Matteo stop them one motel guest at a time?

Production Quality (1 point)

Although the video quality and camera work are mostly fine in The Dream Motel, save for a few shaky action shots, there aren’t many other positives to point out here. Audio quality is too inconsistent, including annoying background sounds, and there’s basically no soundtrack at all. Also, outdoor lighting is fairly poor, and the sets, locations, and props are often cheap to the point of not even representing what they’re supposed to represent. Further, there’s no real editing or transitions throughout the season, and there some awkward fadeout moments. To top things off, there are bad special effects throughout, which rounds out a mediocre effort.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

Besides the fact that The Dream Motel is a boring stock plot based on robotic dialogue and wooden characters, the world constructed in the premier and finale episodes makes no sense at all for a number of reasons. For one, it’s unclear from Scripture whether or not angels have emotions or free will to wrestle with various philosophical issues like these characters do. For another, why would God need magical locations around the world to do His bidding, and how could demons steal them without His allowance? How are atheism and secularism powerful enough to halt Christ’s will? Why would demons even have an interest in stealing magic buildings rather than actual people? These premise problems aside, the villain is stupidly obvious, some of the characters seem unnecessarily outraged at logical things, the narrative incorrectly portrays realistic circumstances involving HIPAA protection, and it’s downright creepy to have smiling angels tell humans private things about the people. It feels like this storyline exists outside of reality even though scenes drag on as lines are painfully dragged out of the characters, who talk in circles to fill the runtime, and although boring activities of daily living, expository dialogue, and off-screen content make The Dream Motel seem like most poorly crafted Christian entertainment. With basically no personality or motive for the characters and far too many coincidences to hold up the plot, this series is just a collection of disasters.

Acting Quality (0 points)

Having very stilted and overly practiced acting is almost a given when it comes to Rossetti Productions, and The Dream Motel doesn’t disappoint. Using the patented Rossetti style of basically reading lines for a church play, the cast members exhibit forced wooden emotions that make the viewers think that the actors and actresses don’t actually care about what they’re doing. Some cast members seem unnatural or even uncomfortable in their roles, and a portion of the theatrical annunciation is off-kilter. Many scenes feel like one-takes as some actors and actresses appear to forget their lines in some instances and awkwardly grasp for something to share that can fill the blank silence. Essentially, there’s nothing positive to note in this section.

Continuity Quality (1 point)

Following a predictably typical series model, The Dream Motel offers premier and finale episodes that depart from the norm while all the between episodes are standard recurring dramas that introduce characters only to discard them before the credits roll. Concepts explored in the pilot aren’t returned to until the last episode, which concludes with a cheesy cliffhanger ending. While this section isn’t all bad due to some recurring subplots among the main characters, it’s still a run-of-the-mill offering with missed opportunities for continuity.

Conclusion

There are just so many things wrong with The Dream Motel from the get-go. Basically a redux of The Encounter, only with angels, this Rossetti series is based on illogical and questionable concepts yet still commits errors beyond this. Even the best ideas can be easily derailed by poor storytelling, low production quality, and abysmal acting. With so much experience under their belt and a trailed of wasted opportunities, it’s hard to know where the Rossetti Productions team is headed at this point, but this series is definitely not worth your time.

Final Rating: 2 out of 14 points

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April 11, 2020 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Series ReviewsTags: 2019, Allen Hogan, Bella Martin, Brittany Goodwin, Caleb Martin, Carey Jones, Chip Rossetti, Christian St. John, Christian Weissmann, Christopher Hensel, Cole Cadman, Dakota Bruton, David Ditmore, David Ross, Dominick Wilkins, Donna Botts, Doris Collier, Doug Stroup, Drama, Francine Locke, Inspirational, Jeff Armstrong, Jeff Rose, Jessica Rossetti, John Cameron Bishop, John Schlitt, John Wells, Jonathan Plowman, Kaity Martin, Kamber Cain, Katie Stewart, Leah White, Margaret Tant, Mark E. Holmes, Peggy Goodman, Preston Douglas, Questar Entertainment, Reen Vogel, Robert Shepherd, Rossetti Productions, Shane A. Doyle, T. Graham Brown, TJ Cates, Todd Halliburton Leave a comment

The 3 [2019] (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

After his daughter’s tragic death in a school shooting, Jimmy Collins retreats to his cabin in the woods to sulk and drink alcohol. He wants to be left alone in his misery, but he keeps being visited by mysterious characters, some of which he’s all too familiar with from the past. Nonetheless, each visitor keeps trying to steer him away from self-destruction and to the love of God that he’s forsaken. Will Jimmy turn around before it’s too late??

Production Quality (.5 point)

It’s unclear why Chip Rossetti and his team continually put out very low quality productions even in the new era of Christian entertainment. The 3 exhibits poor audio quality via annoying sound effects that punctuate actions, a stock soundtrack, background echoes, and obvious overdubs. While the video quality is passable, this is really the only acceptable production element. Sets, locations, and props are also quite cheap and limited, and there’s virtually no editing throughout the film. In the end, this level of production problems is simply unacceptable in our current market.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

Essentially, The 3 is just a collection of very boring and brooding sequences that consistent either drawn-out scenes that lack dialogue or drab and meandering conversations that lack purpose or direction. Although the story explores some interesting psychological concepts centering around confronting family patterns, they are poorly executed and encased in horribly wooden and improperly constructed bouts of dialogue. When a narrative like this is so heavily character-based, conversations are all-important in crafting deep characters with strong motivations, but The 3 greatly drops the ball in this category. While there are some flashbacks throughout, they are improperly applied, and some darker issues, like suicide, are given too much screentime without being balanced by lighter concepts. As the storyline progresses, however, the psychological world that’s created by the plot becomes more and more confusion and ends up getting lost in its own head, much like that of Turbulent. Therefore, this is an effort that lacks any potential or purpose.

Acting Quality (.5 point)

Throughout The 3, the cast members exhibit extremely forced emotions and pushy line delivery that overall come off as very robotic and stilted. Other acting is simply bland and vanilla although some of the supporting cast members are slightly better than the principle cast members. However, it’s simply not enough to register any life for this basically unnecessary film.

Conclusion

The era of Christian entertainment that once tolerated sub-par efforts like this movie is long over. Standards are higher now, so spitting out more low quality films that crowd the Christian market is unacceptable. Christian movie makers are being held to higher standards and can no longer simply make things just for the sake of making Christian creations. It’s high time for us to offer better things for all audiences.

Final Rating: 1 out of 10 points

February 7, 2020 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Movie Reviews, PsychologicalTags: 1 point, 2019, Chip Rossetti, Cylk Cozart, Darryl Worley, Drama, Inspirational, Jeff Armstrong, Jefferson Moore, Jessica Bell, Jonathan Plowman, Kate Kilcoyne, Lisa M. Lewis, Matthew Ulm, Psychological, PureFlix, Rossetti Productions, Tina Wesson Leave a comment

Turbulent [2018] (Movie Review)

Oooohh scary

Plot Summary

When a man and his wife have a sudden plane accident in the middle of nowhere, they have to do whatever they can do to fight for survival. However, the strained relationship between them becomes a detriment to their quest as she believes in God while he resists her faith because of the tragedies they’ve endured in their marriage. Will they be able to overcome both the elements and the distance between them in order to survive another day?

Production Quality (-1 point)

With a production this bad in 2018, we don’t even know where to begin. It’s literally terrible in every way you can conceive: weird outdoor lighting, horrible audio quality with loud background sounds, and basically no soundtrack on top of this. Sets, locations, and props are extremely cheap and don’t line up with what they’re supposed to portray. There are also weird special effects and oddly chosen sound effects that contribute to the annoyingly bad quality of this production. Since you almost have to try to make a production this bad, it warrants a negative point. It goes without saying that the editing is very choppy, but that’s just white noise in the bigger picture because there are so many problems here.

Plot and Storyline Quality (-1 point)

In this storyline, there are no breaks in negativity or balanced scenes as everything is dour and dramatic in infantile ways. It has a very juvenile outlook on life as characters do things that have no grounding in reality and as the plot contains unrealistic survival elements. The majority of the film is painfully long and drawn out scenes that are like pulling teeth to watch. It’s obvious that the main agenda of the film is to scare the viewers into being saved (as if any non-believers would ever think about watching this garbage), yet there are a lot of fantastically weird magical concepts that don’t seem to line up with typical fundamentalist ideologies. These elements are connected to a really bizarre twist at the end of the movie that comes off in a very strange and off-putting way. In the end, there’s so much wrong here with so little to deal with, which is why this is a rare feat deserving of negative points.

Acting Quality (-1 point)

With such a small cast, everything stands out, and the acting therein is annoyingly horrible. Emotions are excruciating to watch as if the cast members are being tortured to say them…it’s like fingernails in the chalkboard to watch it unfold. Every little drama is extremely forced to the point of straining, and because of these issues, there’s no way to properly connect with the character struggles. It’s not like the cast members had good lines to work with in the first place, but they make matters worse with their agonizing delivery. Thus, in summary, if you’re looking for the exact opposite of how to make a Christian film, watch Turbulent.

Conclusion

Negative films are absolutely unacceptable in the modern era of Christian entertainment, and survival plots as a whole are worn out and should be used sparingly unless somebody actually has a good idea to share. Basically, from Turbulent, we can learn the same old lessons we’ve seen before: if you don’t have the money for your film, don’t even think about making it because the higher production standards in the field today demand better delivery. Also, even if you have the money for a decent production, please make sure you actually have a worthwhile plot to share and can properly coach your cast to be believable. The time for poor quality Christian films to go away is long overdue.

Final Rating: -3 out of 10 points

June 4, 2019June 4, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Movie Reviews, Psychological, SuspenseTags: 2018, Allen Hogan, Brandon Porter, Chip Rossetti, Donna Botts, Drama, Faith Murphy, Isaac Hernandez, Jeff Rose, Jonathan Plowman, Mark Potts, Nathaniel Sizemore, negative points, Psychological, Rossetti Productions, Suspense, Zachary Leffew 2 Comments