net critic

This movie was so much fun! It looked great -- the production values were first rate. The cast had wonderful chemistry and the writing was witty. I think the cast and crew hit it out of the park with this one. It's the best Hallmark film I've seen in a while!

This could be a film school lesson in how not to make a documentary. The sound is so poorly done and distracting, some audience members had their hands over their ears. It is lacking basics such as a sound mix and a proper edit. Many shots were repeated, some several times, as were lines of interview dialogue. The worst offense is the decision to use songs as a constant, grating score in an unsuccessful attempt to cover clunky microphone noise.

Perhaps the poor technical quality could be overlooked if the material was focused. But it's meandering, rarely showing what would be interesting, instead stalling on personal minutiae. With excessive emphasis on the writer/director/interviewer/narrator, who does none of these tasks well, it comes off as a vanity project. This "documentary" does not meet minimal standards to be shown in a public movie theater and raises the question of how it ever got on one theater's schedule.

Someone should do a watchable documentary on Glendale's history. Sadly, this isn't it.