{"id":4227,"date":"2013-09-06T11:45:38","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T15:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/faithmediaandculture\/?p=4227"},"modified":"2013-09-06T11:45:38","modified_gmt":"2013-09-06T15:45:38","slug":"review-dear-dumb-diary-is-a-smart-family-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2013\/09\/review-dear-dumb-diary-is-a-smart-family-comedy.html","title":{"rendered":"Review: &#8220;Dear Dumb Diary&#8221; is a smart family comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture.<\/p>\n<iframe title=\"&quot;Dear Dumb Diary&quot; - Trailer\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qq3FhWNoTeM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p><strong>Family TV staging a comeback on Hallmark Channel.<\/strong> The cable network launches a second season of <strong>Walden Family Theater<\/strong> with <strong><em>Dear Dumb Diary<\/em><\/strong> airing tonight (Friday 9\/6) at 8:00 PM ET.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:\u00a0<\/strong>The film, adapted from the popular book series by<strong> Jim Benton<\/strong>, features<strong> Emily<\/strong> <strong>Alyn Lind<\/strong> (<strong>ABC&#8217;s <em>Revenge<\/em><\/strong>) as Jamie, a bit of a proverbial square peg who keeps a diary focused chiefly on life at Mackerel Middle School and her secret quest to win the heart of Hudson Rivers (<strong>David Mazouz<\/strong>) &#8212; who just happens to be ranked as &#8220;the eighth-cutest boy in school.&#8221; Despite the ranking, he&#8217;s tops with Emily &#8212; as she explains in one of the films catchy tunes sprinkled throughout the movie. Her main nemesis at Mackerel is the annoyingly-pretty (least to Emily) Angeline (<strong>Sterling Griffith<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>As the story progresses, Emily who sees herself as an advocate for so-called average-looking people everywhere, decides to battle planned cuts to the school&#8217;s art program through her participation in the districts first-ever Jump-A-Thon fundraiser. Her motives aren&#8217;t entirely altruistic though. She also sees the event as means to garner the attention of Hudson and show up Angeline.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Review:<\/strong>\u00a0<em> Dear Diary,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I apologize for the relatively late 11:30 AM ET post. I intended this post to be up earlier and to be a bit longer but, as I write this, I am fighting a stomach bug that literally makes it difficult to sit upright.\u00a0 I attempted to post earlier but was interrupted by a bodily function I&#8217;ll spare you the details of. I&#8217;d like to blame the food at Mackerel Middle School but I&#8217;m afraid the cause is something closer to home.\u00a0 BTW, when you view the film tonight (and you should) that joke will make perfect sense to you.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Quickly, executive produced by <strong>Jerry Zucker<\/strong> (of <strong>Airplane!<\/strong> fame) and his wife<strong> Janet<\/strong>, as well as Jim Benton, the movie certainly recalls the visual and verbal wit of that comedy classic &#8212; while keeping things just a tad more real and putting forth a genuine message that, wrapped in comedy, goes down easy. I&#8217;d tell you what the message but that might qualify as a spoiler and, right now, I find it difficult to even type the word &#8220;spoil.&#8221;\u00a0 In short the film has both laughs and wit to spare. Plus the soundtrack is really good. And, of course, as is every edition of this weekly franchise, it&#8217;s suitable for the entire family.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Finally, I can certainly see the concept being rolled out as a weekly half-hour comedy tha<\/em><em>t would, no doubt, Hallmark&#8217;s demographic to include kids. Dare I say, they might even start to think of the channel as cool. <strong>Dear Dumb Diary is highly recommended. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I&#8217;ve really, really got to go now.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Encourage one another and build each other up \u2013 <\/em><b>1 Thessalonians 5:11<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. Family TV staging a comeback on Hallmark Channel. The cable network launches a second season of Walden Family Theater with Dear Dumb Diary airing tonight (Friday 9\/6) at 8:00 PM ET. Synopsis:\u00a0The film, adapted from the popular book series by Jim Benton, features Emily&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,13,24,31,1],"tags":[4008,35,5487,5484,4816,5483,1445,5486,5458,5485],"class_list":["post-4227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-family-matters","category-movies","category-television","category-uncategorized","tag-walden-family-theater","tag-1-thessalonians-511","tag-airplane","tag-david-mazouz","tag-dear-dumb-diary","tag-emily-alyn-lind-abcs-revenge","tag-hallmark-channel","tag-jerry-zucker","tag-jim-benton","tag-sterling-griffith"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Review: &quot;Dear Dumb Diary&quot; is a smart family comedy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2013\/09\/review-dear-dumb-diary-is-a-smart-family-comedy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: &quot;Dear Dumb Diary&quot; is a smart family comedy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here\u2019s today\u2019s dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. Family TV staging a comeback on Hallmark Channel. The cable network launches a second season of Walden Family Theater with Dear Dumb Diary airing tonight (Friday 9\/6) at 8:00 PM ET. Synopsis:\u00a0The film, adapted from the popular book series by Jim Benton, features Emily&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2013\/09\/review-dear-dumb-diary-is-a-smart-family-comedy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-09-06T15:45:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. 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Synopsis:\u00a0The film, adapted from the popular book series by Jim Benton, features Emily&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/2013\/09\/review-dear-dumb-diary-is-a-smart-family-comedy.html","og_site_name":"Faith, Media &amp; Culture","article_published_time":"2013-09-06T15:45:38+00:00","author":"John W. 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Kennedy","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4227"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4229,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4227\/revisions\/4229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/faithmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}