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A Biltmore Christmas (2023)
A Forgetting the Plot Christmas
Ugh! This thing is so close to being a super cool worthwhile Hallmark Christmas movie! But alas, it gets 9 stars out of 10...
...mostly for creating a problem to solve - 'what is the original/alternate ending of His Merry Wife?!?' and then throwing away opportunity after opportunity to answer it. The main character Lucy/Sandra Bullock even sits at the bar with the director while he is in the middle of script rewrites! Yet she doesn't even bother to find a way to learn the existing/original/alternate ending? Multiple other opportunities are missed and the problem is forgotten by the film until the southern His Merry Wife crazed fan asked about it at the very end - and Lucy's on screen response seemed quite real 'Oh! I forgot all about that!'
Lucy's goal of introducing a real-life modern ending is also forgotten, along with her entire character arch related to it. This is neither acknowledged nor resolved in the end but is the whole setup that kicks off the movie. Another dropped plotline revolves around the fact that the hour glass is found to be already be broken at the start of the movie indicating this whole thing already happened before (and is supported by the ending where Jack arrives in the future explaining his mysterious disappearance in 1948). The ending however, does not actually confirm this outright, which would have added much needed dimension to the finale. Also, Jack just shows up in 2023 and has no concerns about the brick wall he is about to slam into in regards to transitioning to modern life.
A pointless sub-plot revolving around removing the female lead in His Merry Wife doesn't play well either and wastes a significant amount of screen time in the second third of the film.
Points for a unique plot for once, even if so much opportunity is wasted and left on the table. The movie starts strong but then slowly fizzles and becomes a bit scatter brained, forgetting what is trying to do or where it is going. They should definitely do something like this again, but do it right.
The Royal Nanny (2022)
The Royal Real Movie
This.is.a.real.movie. Let me say that again: this is a REAL movie! Made by Hallmark!?! Like with an actual plot! Villains!?! Interesting Villains! Suspense!?! Kidnapping!!??!! Instead of being Hallmark Royal nonsense what we have here is more like a masterpiece theater episode from the mid-90's. There is suspense to the end with the film doing a good job of keeping us off balance and guessing who is behind it all (every time we think we know who it is the plot takes a left turn towards the real culprit). With well executed (and interesting!) side characters, solid acting, a thoughtful plot, and above average dialog the Royal Nanny is a gem of Hallmark movie and is almost too good to be considered something Hallmark.
We follow MI agent Claire (a stellar Rachel Skarsten) go undercover to protect the royal family from a credible threat, whatever that is, we don't really care. She meets super mom Millennial Princess Rose (a genuine Kate Sheridan) and her two kids, along with their uncle Prince Colin (Dan Jeannotte). As you can image Colin and Claire connect, but that sub-plot is thankfully an afterthought to protecting the family.
The film has more interesting things to do, like trying to predict supercool bad girl Amanda's next attempt at executing the 'threat' while figuring out who exactly gave her the inside info on the palace to do such a thing.
Shot is Brussels with multiple useful and interesting (for once!) establishing shots, the realistic feel of this movie is atypical for Hallmark. I do wish however they showed more of Claire's personal life instead of just tell us about it.
The weakest part of it all is actually Claire's physical abilities at being a secret agent. She may be an intelligent and sophisticated detective, but when it comes to chasing down Amanda her frumpy running will make you laugh. During the climax she clumsily runs around some boxes while cheesily taking out four villains with an umbrella despite all her MI training.
All in all it was so refreshing to watch the female lead save the captured male lead from some legit baddies. Finally a woman with some agency that can do more than run around questioning her life and all her success. Claire never questions her life or her success, she is a woman that knows what she wants and what she has, she focuses on the task at hand and moving forward. That makes this entire movie worth watching.
The Most Colorful Time of the Year (2022)
The Most Colorful Dud of the Year
The Most Colorful Time of the Year is a well-executed event with solid direction, polished delivery, cinematography, and editing but unfortunately is a total strike out. Whoever made this movie knew what they were doing, whoever wrote the script did not. The leads have zero chemistry, cringe lines, and no explanation for their motivations. The story sounded interesting, until it wasn't.
Michelle (an out of place Katrina Bowden) is an optometrist that quickly leaves the zone of appropriate patient/doctor relationship and commits what would be considered felonies in the EU to fix the male lead Ryan's color blindness (a disinterested Christopher Russel). Impatient and aggressive, Michelle is willing to sacrifice legal and ethical boundaries to achieve her objective, all the while Ryan repeated tells her to stop. Note that if the genders of our leads were reversed here Hallmark would never hear the end of it.
The film fails on other points too. In general it is just plain boring to watch a movie that revolves around a guy's eye care. Beyond helping Ryan see in color there is no other reason for Michelle to pursue him like she does, yes he is a stud muffin, but he is such a turd towards her and makes it clear he wants nothing to do with her for so long it really doesn't make sense why she continues to go after him, or why he would EVER want a relationship with her. I mean on top of all the eye stuff, she repeatedly pesters him about not having Christmas decorations in his classroom and bullys him in front of his class into keeping a distracting blinking Christmas tree on his desk. All Michelle has going for her is that she is abnormally attractive for a mom otherwise she is red flag city and Ryan knows it.
Unfortunately for viewers, all it takes to get over these insurmountable issues is Michelle giving Ryan a pair of brand new super advanced glasses that magically allow him to see in full color. When he puts them on he smiles, is considerate, and is very much interested in Michelle. Within five minutes he is smitten with her (his words!). It's like she put a Disney love curse on those glasses because without them he wants nothing to do with her.
As for Ryan, he is so uninteresting and all he wants is to be left alone to be a hermit. It is confusing why people are so fascinated by him - Michelle, his wierdo friend, even the hot girls basketball coach. What do they see in this guy? The conversation between Ryan and his guy friend is so, so odd. Guys don't talk like that - it's like their entire conversation was written by a woman guessing at what she thinks guys say to each other when they hang out. Or maybe it's what women wish guys talked like when they hang out. Who knows.
When Ryan can finally see in color Michelle takes him to a church, I assumed to show him the beautiful stained glass, but nope, she shows him a wimpy Christmas tree and makes him wrap presents...? Other issues I observed: Michelle's daughter has horribly scripted/delivered lines, they all live in very modern apartment buildings but have red barns out past the front balcony, there is time for a lengthy and boring history speech by the mayor, three different cities are used as establishing shots, they have the largest florist shop ever, and the ex-boyfriend has more character than pretty much anyone else.
All in all you can skip this one, I wish I did.
A Tale of Two Christmases (2022)
A Tale of Two Dum Dums
A tale of Two Christmases sounds interesting until it's not. We follow scatter brained female lead Emma (Katherine Barrell defaulting to girl-next-door but trying her best to be corporate) as she encounters two different, parallel, and perplexing Christmas timelines that converge on a significant plot hole that will leave you even more baffled and confused. None of it makes any sense and it's like the director didn't even watch the completed film, had they done so they would realize they need to fire the editor. This mess was completely avoidable had they run the alternate Christmas experiences in linear order, completing one before moving on to the next, and then fixing the ending to eliminate the plot hole.
Emma doesn't know what she wants - the classic Hallmark Christmas in a quaint Vermont town with the sweet Drew who is BFF's with her parents and never left home (an overacting Chander Massey) or the edgy 'big city' Chicago experience with the classy well-funded workaholic Max (a wooden Evan Roderick). Usually these are separate movies for Hallmark, but this time they tried to put them both into a single film - a novel idea that I really like. The execution however is a horrendous, epic fail. If you've ever seen Back to the Future you know that time travel and alternate realities create plot holes that must be nominally addressed or it all quickly devolves into nonsense. Well, they didn't address anything here. It's head scratching how the timelines diverge at the beginning and we are dazed and confused from then on. The movie keeps switching from timeline to timeline but doesn't do a good enough job juxtaposing them against each other so you think you are watching one timeline when you are actually watching the other. You the viewer spend more time trying to sort this all out than paying attention to what is going on with the characters.
We can blame this whole mess on Santa. He shows up and gives the magical eye wink but doesn't deliver the goods in terms of explaining what he actually did. Were the alternate timelines dreams as implied by the ending? Or does Emma have to permanently live with her actions during those two alternate realities as implied by the plot hole? It's not clear to us and I don't think it was clear to the script writer either.
Essentially Drew was one way and Max the other. Drew was a dream, Max was real, except, plot hole. The only viable solution to this that I can think of is that Max was confused and showed up at the airport a day early for his ski trip, totally forgetting he was supposed to be in the office on Christmas Eve and throwing a party at his apartment that night while Emma somehow knows about his ski trip from some unseen conversation between the two. On the other hand Max seems to fully accept Emma dumping him at the airport meaning he remembers the night before when she threw a tantrum after dropping a yule log and insisted on leaving the party early. Otherwise her entire speech to him at the airport would utterly confound him because he barely knows her since the Christmas Eve they spent together never happened... In the end I have to say it is quite possible her phone just had a glitch and showed December 24 instead of the correct December 25, and then, well, all is well.
Outside of the parallel universe stuff, we have standard Hallmark fare here. There is a meandering dull plot, really bad dubbing, the last five minutes are the most interesting of it all, a 'don't wear high heels' cliche, an unnecessary co-worker who doubles as a personal friend, a stereotypical 30 something Millennial meltdown that requires parental emotional support, and of course "Vermont" looks like Colorado.
The film does deviate from Hallmark standard in a few ways beside the parallel plot lines though, like Emma is refreshingly normal looking with a normal body shape, she doesn't look like the overdressed barbie dolls we see in way too many other Hallmark movies. Maybe it's just me but Emma's mom kinda looks like she had some plastic surgery done which is at odds with usual Hallmark parents. Then we have the total lack of any kind of weirdo out of place side character, I guess the co-worker is supposed to fill this role but her lines are totally irrelevant to the plot and she is mostly an afterthought.
All in all A Tale of Two Christmases is filled with a messy plot, actors who appear to be acting for the first time, and some odd choices in content. Had they watched the awful editing in Flags of Our Fathers and realized parallel timelines are always a bad idea and made everything linear here, they might have had a home run instead of a total strike out.
Holidate (2020)
Holi-Dud
Holidate is a Hallmark style rom-com that is engaging when you watch it but the next day when you think about it you realize the film is not as cool as you thought it was. Basically the strategy here is a Hallmark holiday cliche plot with edginess added for shock effect. There is an obnoxious 'rebel' female lead Sloan who smokes and drops f-bombs (Emma Roberts), a dull discount Australian hunk male lead Jackson (a dis-interested Luke Bracey), an overbearing mom (Frances Fisher reprising her Titanic role), an unnecessary 50 year old Aunt that acts like a sorority girl, an unnecessary aunt with uninteresting martial problems, and a laundry list of other minor characters that are underwhelming and distracting.
Unique as it is to have a Hallmark style holiday movie filled with f-bombs, smoking, binge drinking, drug abuse, sex talk, etc., it really doesn't work. All that covers up the fact that there is not much of an actual story here. The holidate idea is cool but not well explored. Multiple holidates end up with head scratching plot lines like finger dismemberment, a 'did we or didn't we' morning that goes against the established rules up that point, and an unlikely St. Patrick's day reveal that should be a big deal but is quickly ignored. A sub-plot involving a young middle eastern doctor falling in love with the crazy 50 year old aunt does not play well either and is clearly inspired by early 2000's gross out films and completely out of place here.
Ultimately Holidate sets up an inspiring story and then completely falls flat. I really like the idea of an edgy Hallmark movie but this whole thing is lazy. Just because someone drops an f-bomb in public in front of children does not make a film edgy. It makes it stupid. Also, why do we get to learn about Sloan's job, family and background and literally nothing about Jackson? Jackson has like one friend who gives him bad advice and Jackson follows it because the plot says he has too. Ugh. Anyway, this film had so much potential but the execution was nothing short of abysmal.
My Christmas Family Tree (2021)
My Christmas Family Plot Hole
My Christmas Family Tree is well acted, edited, and written. The trouble arises in the myriad of plot holes that keep compiling on top of one another until the entire film implodes under its own implausibility.
We start off meeting Vanessa (Aimee Teegarden playing the girl next door) living in a luxury New York City apartment on a social worker's salary. The only important person in her life is her best friend DeeDee who does not come across as a believable friend for our female lead. With her mom dead and her BFF spending the holidays elsewhere, Vanessa has nothing to do but watch TV with her yippy dog Mickey.
Before the Netflix binge, Vanessa is egged on by DeeDee to view her Ancestry DNA results. She is surprised to learn that she has a paternal match in the database to the father she never met. I was more surprised to learn that her results showed her being 1.5% West African? Even though this is completely forced and out of place, I think we would all rather watch Vanessa discover her maternal African roots than reconnect with her white American dad.
Vanessa contacts her DNA match dad Richard (a dorky James Tupper), and it turns out he too was notified of the match by the DNA company. Richard thus goes all in and invites Vanessa to his perfect family Christmas with his perfect wife and perfect kids and perfect extended family in his perfect upper middle class house doing perfect Christmas traditions perfectly. Oh and I forgot, he also conveniently has Kris, a perfect single young man loafing around with nothing to do but ogle Vanessa (Andrew Walker in his best high school jock impersonation).
The drama sets in when ONLY Vanessa is notified by the DNA match company that there was a mix-up in her results and to call them back to discuss. Since the DNA company failed to notify Richard of this rather serious error Vanessa holds all the cards. She actually never calls them back and makes massive life altering decisions based on assumptions from the voicemail left by the DNA company. I was thinking that maybe they mixed up her heritage (she's not African after all?) while the paternal match to Richard was still valid. We never get to find out because she never calls them back.
In multiple discussions between Richard and Vanessa inconsistencies are pointed out to make us think she is not his real daughter - mothers name is wrong, mother lived in the wrong town, mother made no attempt to contact him about the birth of his child, etc. It builds up enough where we see Richard briefly second guess everything but then Kris talks him into believing the DNA results without verifying them. You'd think a simple paternity test at a clinic would solve the entire mystery here for all time...
When Vanessa does finally find out about the mix-up she freaks and calls DeeDee who gives her absolutely the worst advice possible of 'pretend you don't know and tell them after Christmas.' The rest of the movie is a collection of scenes where Vanessa tries to lie but feels bad so she attempts to blurt out the truth only to be interrupted with Richard distracted. Social workers tend to be very open and honest people so it's befuddling to see Vanessa keeping the ruse going. Finally she tells everyone...all at once at the wrong moment and then bails on them. Richard is dazed and confused.
Had Richard and his family asked Vanessa to stay and welcome her into their home despite not being related, like they did for Kris, the ending of the film would have been fabulous and meaningful. Instead we see Richard finally dig out an old photo of Vanessa's supposed mom and golly gee Vanessa is a spitting image of her and the name discrepancy is resolved - so poof - Vanessa is back to being Richard's daughter again. This creates even more head scratching plot holes...if Vanessa looks like her mom how did Richard not see this before, he seriously forgot what his special girlfriend (Vanessa's mom) looked like? And if Vanessa is indeed his daughter that means the DNA match company truly did not mix anything up which seems preposterous if they went through all the trouble to contact Vanessa about the error - this is never resolved or explained. This all doesn't make any sense and ruins the ending. It also undermines the love Richard and his family have for Vanessa because now they HAVE to love her since she is kin, instead of the more meaningful ending where they welcome her into their family because she is a wonderful nice person, even if she is not a blood relative.
As for Kris, his time with Vanessa is a meandering slow burn that never materializes. He's an afterthought here but at least he is a good middle man between Vanessa and Richard even if that is all there is for him to do, that, and ogle Vanessa of course.
Christmas Class Reunion (2022)
Christmas Class Confusion
Christmas Class Reunion is one of those Hallmark holiday films that has all the right ingredients but the movie is just not fully baked. This makes for an annoying adventure in Hartford Connecticut.
This time around we follow Elle (a mousey Aimee Teegarden) who apparently is one of the most successful corporate millennials in the nation even though she portrays almost zero corporate wherewithal and has a personal brand that more aligns with a county tax accountant. Elle is successful, confident, and knows what she wants, at least for the first 80% of the film until she has the obligatory meltdown around being 'forced to achieve' and 'expectations.' Except (for this movie at least) debating her purpose and drive in life is totally out of place because she did such a good job selling us her confidence and comfort with her life decisions the first hour and 40 minutes. Cringe x1000.
Tanner Novlan plays the love interest Devin who seems to be enjoying his time on set. This white jock like character with class clown tendencies is paired with the obligatory biracial STEM focused daughter Skylar (a fabulous Yasmeen Kelders) who enjoys coding databases of all things (In IT databases are not exciting - they are complicated, confusing, and require data to function, nobody codes them for fun). This setup is totally forced a la 2022 however these two really work well when on screen together. My favorite scenes in the whole thing included this spunky daughter and her Dad. I really loved how Yasmeen works with and breaks out of her limited stock character role.
The same can't be said for the leads. Elle often looks unsure and confused while making very poor assumptions regarding her career future that conflict with her 35 under 35 fame. At least they kill off her corporate job so she can avoid giving it up for a man she just met like all other Hallmark movies. Devin is introduced as a goof off who doesn't bother to attend planning meetings for the high school dance yet he grows up to run an event catering business?? That requires like all the skills we are told he doesn't have. Sigh.
I should also mention Samantha and her gay stylist James. I liked James, he is unapologetically gay, gives good advice, and adds a breath of fresh air creating much needed depth to the cast. Despite being total cliche, his unplanned love interest subplot was well done. Sam (a why-am-I-here Stephanie Bennett) doesn't get this kind of attention in the script and becomes the forgotten one. She is a background friend to begin with, and ends staying a background friend. Yes she lands a new job but her personal journey and arch are much discussed but left with no payoff...she just accepts the reality she doesn't like as if there is no fixing it.
I am going to avoid the love bird couple - zero chemistry which made me convinced they were heading for divorce court then for no apparent reason they go totally goo-goo-ga-ga over each other. The wife actually delivered a solid performance of a confused, estranged, annoyed wife who wants to move on but is just not sure how to eliminate the guy from her life. The guy does a pretty good job of the standard 'husband just doesn't get it' schtick, but I think this was real, like he as an actor didn't know how to deal with the actress playing his wife oozing contempt at him.
All in all Christmas Class Reunion could have, and should have, been so much more. It gets six stars for not being terrible but not really working, either.
Open by Christmas (2021)
Open by Blah
Open by Christmas is a well-acted sitcom/soap opera type Hallmark movie with an annoyingly banal plot. Five stars for above average acting but not a single star more since the screenplay is so non-existent. Need I say more?
Ok well I will. Alison Sweeny stars as Nicky, a high power NYC consultant who is excellent at giving corporate presentations and winning business but can't find a boyfriend if her life depended on it, who knew? She goes back to her hometown somewhere in Ohio and weirdly only has one friend left back home, Simone (a very All My Children-ish Erica Durance). Sweeny lays too heavily into the Days of Our Lives method acting which drags down Durance's performance and consequently the entire film since the movie is not really about Nicky finding love - it actually is about Simone marrying her boyfriend Jeremy (Michael Karl Richards) and establishing him in the family with her son. This is so much less interesting than the marketed plot of the film - Nicky finding a 20 year old Christmas card written by a secret romantic admirer and she tries to figure out who it is.
As we watch Nicky half-heartedly try to find her anonymous high school lover Simone struggles...yawn...with incorporating Jeremy into her life. We don't really care about Simone's Lifetime Channel style drama as we didn't sign up it. At least Simone's son Anthony is superbly acted by Glen Gordon. Again, good acting, but we are still stuck with a sleepy dull meandering screenplay with a focus on the wrong storyline.
Since the film has dual female leads, we get dual male leads. Opposite Nicky is none other than GRAHAM! Idiotic Graham! In truth it is Brennan Elliot playing a character named Derrick but all you think about while watching his every scene is Quinn screaming GRAHAM! Brennan's Derrick is uber professional when he has to be but then quickly switches into a quasi creepy "Lazy salesman I'm gonna hit on you hard because I think you're hot" mode that Nicky should just brush away but for some reason is entranced by it. In every other situation Nicky sees through thinly veiled attempts at manipulation yet when it comes to Derrick...she just....eats it up? This totally undermines her character. The one time Nicky allows herself to be vulnerable by telling Derrick a humiliating story of how she sang horribly at her high school graduation, Graham, I mean Derrick, never lets her forget it with multiple singing jokes henceforth that Nicky doesn't seem to appreciate...yet she still...likes...him?
Surprise! Derrick wrote the Christmas card yet it is never explained how he was able to develop such strong feelings for Nicky in high school when she clearly has no clue who he is or has any shared history with him. He secretly gave her a very personal romantic Christmas card out of the blue without signing his name or following up on it, what was he trying to accomplish here? This makes no sense. It comes across more like he was a stalker type who had the hots for some girl he never talked to, and to inform her of this without being held accountable he gives her an unsigned romantic Christmas card. It should freak her out as much as flatter her little heart.
Anyway, Open by Christmas is worth watching once for the better than usual soap opera type acting but it won't become your favorite holiday film due to a plot even the characters are disinterested in.
Boyfriends of Christmas Past (2021)
Boyfriends of Christmas Disaster
Boyfriends of Christmas Past has a lot of problems so expect a mess here - wooden acting by the female lead, a wasted performance by the male lead, irrelevant past boyfriends, and many scenes focusing on marketing work while chatting with office friends that have nothing to do with the actual plot.
Catherine Haena Kim plays Lauren, a pretty but confused and oblivious corporate office worker with unexplained mommy issues. She is utterly mis-cast here and bombs in the role. She seems to be a perfect fit for a grimy crime drama yet here we find her in a romantic Hallmark Christmas movie? Makes no sense. Opposite her is Raymond Ablack, Lauren's lifelong (and platonic) BFF Nate. Except Nate has a super crush on Lauren for some strange reason - we only see her as a bad friend - ignoring Nate, choosing to work instead of go to his Christmas event, and generally being oblivious to all of his subtle advances, even mocking him for wanting to take her to a fancy romantic restaurant.
The thing is, Ablack does such a fantastic job as Nate and what the writers give him that he single-handedly saves this movie from being another gutter 1 star bomb. His fabulous performance alone is worth two additional stars. Sadly he is mostly wasted in this entire film, being constantly rebuffed and taken for granted by Lauren. Midway through he finally meets a spunky young woman who is excited about him and we start to feel like he finally can have a worthy girlfriend, but alas, the predetermined plot kicks in and we get stuck with Lauren. Booooooo. Ablack needs to star in his own Hallmark Christmas movie - with his charisma and on screen presence he could easily deliver a 10 out of 10 stars with the right female lead and script.
The biggest issue in the film is that the titular "boyfriends" show up as mere cameos and don't really do anything for the plot. All of them are instantly forgettable and sort of blend in together except for the high school skate boarding dude - I'm not exactly sure how he was Lauren's boyfriend at one point but hey, at least he is fun to watch. The other three look the same, act the same (dull, disinterested, & glum) and actually take the story away from far more interesting characters in the film like Nate and Lauren's plucky dad Leo (well played by Paul Sun-Hung Lee).
The constant and useless office scenes add little and should be removed to spend more time with Lauren and Nate. At least we get a little diversity with the chatty office friend of the female lead being white while Lauren is Korean. Standard Hallmark Christmas movies have a white female lead and the office friend is always black, so it's nice to see this setup reversed for once. Leo does a great job balancing out Lauren's nonsense, but the focus on him wanting to eat "rice cakes" all the time does not play well (for a variety of reasons I won't get into here).
In the end Boyfriends of Christmas Past has a lot of potential that is squandered and little to show for itself when the credits role. At least we get Nate and Leo to keep us engaged but they are not enough to save this ship.
A Timeless Christmas (2020)
A Timeless Christmas that Involves a Clock
Pink Power Ranger Erin Cahill stars as Megan, an employee of a historic mansion once owed by milling tycoon Charles Whitley (a methodical Ryan Peavy). Charles mysteriously disappears at Christmas in 1903 after spending quality time with some sherry and a Christmas clock he bought at an auction. Through some science fiction nonsense and an impossible middle of the month Christmas (aka blue) moon we learn that Charles didn't die, he teleported from 1903 to 2020.
If you ignore the bogus blue moon plot device and incorrect historical clothing, hairstyles, behavior, and vocabulary this movie plays extremely well and is worth watching, mostly because it has a unique plot for a Hallmark Christmas movie. Even though time travel is a commonly used trope, here we have a new spin on it where a historical figure wakes up 120 years later and must basically play themself in their own home as part of a historical reenactment troupe. This setup plays well and gives Charles something to do.
Megan's job at the mansion is to play Rosie, Charles's 1903 unusually attractive 40-something head maid with motherly yet romantic undertones. Once Megan discerns 2020 Charles is the real 1903 Charles she is astonished and spends the rest of the movie infatuated with him with big doe eyes, ogling him like a big hunky buck. Peavy delivers a solid Hugh Grant impersonation despite his character being an American.
If you simply go with the flow here the film is pleasant and enchanting. Time travel Hallmark Christmas movies always have and blatantly ignore catastrophic plot holes, but this time they are carefully sidestepped. Megan has a "PhD" on Charles Whitley of all things and despite this she constantly asks him questions she already knows the answer to. Thankfully Charles has a boilerplate response of "you know my life more than anyone" reminding the plot that it has a time travel setup and to stop ignoring this fact. As for Charles, he is very lucky his 1903 Christmas knockout was in his home office. Since his home was preserved he could wake up there in 2020, unlike his mill which was demolished long ago...good heavens what would happen to him if he wound the Christmas clock at the mill?
The ending is the weakest point and could easily be so much better (standard procedure for Hallmark Christmas movies), but it is still satisfying despite the long setup and limited payoff. Multiple wasted scenes - Christmas tree lighting/Christmas tree topping/awkward party at Megan's parent's house/ weird unnecessary scene at the police station - if eliminated would provide time for what everyone agrees is a superior ending to resolve all the plot holes and loose ends: Charles goes back to 1903, makes amends and breakups with his fiancé, buries the hatchet with his rival, and addresses his finances so his 2020 future is secured with some sort of trust fund that also owns his house. Then he winds the clock at the next Christmas moon to go back to 2020 surprising Megan with this significant demonstration of true love. This of course does not happen and it also assumes the clock allows you to go back in time, which is assumed by the characters and plot but never actually verified. Instead Charles stays in 2020 to be with a woman he met five days prior to play himself for a pittance in a house he doesn't own anymore. He will soon find out what life is like in 2020 when you are flat broke and don't legally exist or have a social security card...he may find himself winding up that Christmas clock after all.
Love at the Christmas Table (2012)
Uncertain Love at the Christmas Table
Love at the Christmas Table is one of the best Hallmark style Christmas movies of the past decade, at least the first 75% of it. It has the infrastructure to become a holiday cult classic. Subtle, dialog focused, and rather serious it brings to light the experience of a longtime potential love that is never fully realized despite the desires of both sides. If you ever fell in love with someone but circumstances, life events, or other things got in the way you will fully relate to this movie. If not, you may struggle to understand the emotional message here. Regardless, the film is a thoughtful and unique take on long term relationships.
Danica McKellar aka Winnie Cooper stars as "Kat" a down to earth blue-collar tomboy-ish townie type that has a thing for "Sam" an arrogant college educated narcissist Millennial that she only sees once a year for a few hours on Christmas. These two develop a connection as kids which gets progressively more complicated and serious as the years pass, but they never seem to seal the deal. Kat is too intelligent to allow Sam to take her for granted and Sam doesn't really know what he wants other than he thinks his job is important and seems to enjoy being around Kat on Christmas.
Parents on both sides apparently want them to fall in love and see it as a foregone conclusion yet make no effort to confront either of them about their views until it is way, way too late. The interesting but unnecessary character is Elissa, a flaky older woman stuck in the 70's played brilliantly by Lea Thompson. Elissa's only purpose is to provide the outsider perspective on the whole Kat/Sam thing, but to her credit Elissa does get a little arch.
A big unexplained plot hole is why does Sam only see Kat on Christmas? Sam's parents live in the small town, does he literally never visit except on Christmas? Or if he does, why would he NOT stop by to see Kat as well? Makes no sense and if the movie tried to address this gap it would undermine the entire premise.
Even though it is engaging and different (in a good way), Love at the Christmas Table does have some issues, primarily with the last half hour, which gives us a confusing emotional climax and forced ending. The first 3/4 of the film is a bunch of excellent and enchanting dialog focused segments that build on one another. Then everything goes weirdly sideways and we are left feeling cheated and bewildered. At one Christmas in his late 20's it is implied that for no apparent reason Sam intends to propose to Kat. They get in an argument which ends with Sam saying some really nasty, personal stuff to Kat that is not consistent with his character, much less a romantic Christmas chick-flick like this. Note to self: The night you plan to propose do not attack your girlfriend with a condescending verbal assault about her challenges to emotionally deal with the trauma of losing her mother at a young age and then rub it in by going on a rant about how your girlfriend's only goal in life is to end up in the cemetery next to her mom.
Since this horrid exchange is so bad Sam avoids going to Christmas with Kat for five years. I guess his parents don't care because this means he bails on them too. Sam apparently tried to apologize through a series of Christmas cards but this is only half-heartedly explored. Anyway, Sam shows up five years later and has a brief conversation with Kat to patch things up that ends with her brushing him off and refusing to truly resolve the conflict. He again intends to propose out of nowhere. Five years is a LONG time to not see someone, yet Kat and Sam act like they haven't see each other in a year or so. This is another case where writers pick an arbitrary timeframe that conflicts with the dialog and plot that could easily be changed and thus resolve a whole bunch of plot holes, but I digress.
Saying really terrible stuff to your almost girlfriend then deep sixing her for five years is not a good way to setup a marriage proposal, but that is what we see here. Annoyingly after five years Kat has not found someone better than Sam and despite his previous treatment of her she is enthralled at the attention she now gets from him. Cue the predictable ending that leaves the audience with much to be desired. It would be so much better if this was a film of potential love left unrealized. In the end Love at the Christmas Table pulls at some emotional strings then cuts them without warning, leaving you feeling perplexed and wishing for a sequel to see how they sort it all out.
An Accidental Christmas (2007)
An Accidental Mess
An Accidental Christmas is an accidental mess. It's so confounding it has the infrastructure to be a holiday cult classic. This is the really bad Christmas movie you can't help but watch.
Cynthia Gibb stars as Vicky, a confused soccer mom who often blatantly declares what she wants in life but then acts in a contradictory fashion or second guesses herself after hard core gaslighting from her family. This strange tale of a marriage on the rocks meanders in all directions before doing a final unsatisfying bait and switch. Vicky's husband Jason (an odd performance by David Millbern) doesn't help things, a workaholic lawyer who delegates family duties to Vicky without any appreciation or base respect. Vicky is fed up with this situation and is separated from Jason, creating the core conflict in the film. The trouble is Vicky, despite constantly declaring what she wants from her life, doesn't seem to know what she wants to do with her marriage, which keeps her husband, their two kids, and the audience in a gut wrenching limbo. I mean she kinda really knows the marriage is over but for unexplained reasons kinda really won't just come out and say it, so we all get to wait around for her to decide what to do.
This limbo creates tension starting with the first scene of the movie, a unique departure from nearly all holiday movies that have to set the stage first then manufacture some sort of problem out of nothing. The end to end tension gives the film an edgy feeling, but it also gets tiresome as the kids, Jason, and audience all wait around for Vicky to decide what to do next. Since Vicky and Jason are separated, not divorced, Jason constantly feels he has the wigglewroom and 'one more chance' to win Vicky back. Ditto for the kids, they execute a beach style parent trap in an attempt to keep Vicky in the marriage. The daughter Melissa (Alison Woods) steals every scene she is in and was either born 5 years before they got married or is in the 99% percentile in terms of puberty for a 14 year old. Why not just say they were married for 20 years instead of 15 to avoid this issue - avoidable sloppy writing, but I digress.
Sean Connery's son plays one dimensional Myles, Vicky's slimeball boss who obviously is infatuated with her and takes advantage of his power over her, but this powerplay is not explored. It's only viewed as a jealousy event for Jason. Then Jason's overly attractive 20 something assistant Kristine shows up in a bikini, this movie sure does love its cleavage for no apparent reason. Unlike Vicky, Kristine actually has the guts to chew Jason out for his ineptitude and lousy behavior towards others, finally triggering his realization that he needs to change.
After the sassy daughter my favorite character is beach house cleaner Rico, played elegantly by Minnesota native James Hong. He is the wise old man stock character, but at least he has some uniqueness about him as a person. His cheesy advice may not be accurate, but its delivery is refreshing since we usually hear this from a Santa Clause type old geezer.
Since Vicky cannot make up her mind with what she wants to do with the marriage, even though her words clearly show she is done, moved on, and excited about a new future, the plot drags during the middle section as she makes statements about liking change then gets manipulated by Jason or the kids to stick with them. Vicky has clearly moved on emotionally and accepted the marriage being over, so it is very confusing why they are in this separated state instead of flat out divorced. In real life Vicky would have divorced Jason long ago. They sell the marriage being over very well, quite realistically in fact. They do such a good job at this that it becomes clear Vicky cannot be convinced to stay with Jason nor emotionally accept that outcome. But then...the ending, ugh.
The ending is....annoying...to say the least. After all that she put us through, Vicky finally comes to the same conclusion that the audience did 10 minutes in, she needs to divorce Jason. Relief at last. Time to game plan next steps like they did in that Adam Driver divorce movie from 2019. You go girl. Except....leave it to Rico to convince Vicky in a single speech to do what Jason and the kids tried to do for two hours...make her decide to stay with Jason. Puke. Vicky's sudden change of heart completely and utterly undermines everything she said up until that point, heck just 12 hours prior she finally declared they are going to get divorced. It's like the writers really wanted Vicky to be a woman with her own agency and convictions, but the payoff for that setup never comes and Vicky is forced to do what the plot says, even if it completely contradicts her character. At the 11th hour we are given something totally contradictory to Vicky's narrative, and this is a disservice to her and frankly any woman who is stuck in a marriage she knows she needs to end but is struggling with pulling the trigger. It would be so much more interesting to watch Vicky truly call it quits with Jason and then navigate from there to the next phase of her life, independence and architecture...maybe that will be the sequel? Based on how much she fought with Jason in this movie, I would bet on it.
USS Christmas (2020)
USS Hallmark
Secure the riggin' sailor you are to set sail with USS Christmas! A present day United States Nimitz class aircraft carrier that is old enough to be a Kitty Hawk class carrier but looks an awful lot like a decommissioned WWII Essex class carrier, and sometimes even a Midway class carrier decks out for the annual "Christmas Tiger Cruise," which actually has nothing to do with Tigers. This is not just the annual holiday dinner that is well known in the U. S. Navy, oh no, on this ship the entire flight deck gets Christmas lights, deck crew wear Santa hats, and the Quartermaster gets to have a Christmas tree at his work station. Buffy fans will love Sarah Michelle Gellar's sister's look-a-like playing the main female lead Maddie (Jen Lilley), a hot attractive single newswoman who reluctantly goes on a free and likely illegal ride on the carrier at the personal request of the old grandpa captain...a creepy potential subplot ignored by the movie that leaves you wondering about the captain's motivations.
Maddie's more professional and naval looking sister Amelia (Stefanie Butler) is an F-18 Superhornet pilot who wants Maddie to watch her conduct flight operations on the carrier. Amelia is sadly underdeveloped and confused as she claims to be in the Navy but flies a fighter plane that says Marines on it. Technically the Marines are part of the Navy organization structure, so maybe she is not confused after all, but I digress. Carrier operations are extremely dangerous, as in a carrier flight deck is the most dangerous place to work in the world, but for some reason the USN has no problem with the Tiger Cruise and a multitude of tourists loafing about the carrier's tower and walkways as they are launching and recovering "$65 million" jets.
Begrudgingly along for the ride is buff stud muffin Lt. Billy Jenkins (Trevor Donovan) who looks like the son of Burt Lancaster and has about as much chemistry with Maddie as a trash can. He has all the hallmarks of a hallmark hunk - dull, disinterested in what is going on around him, and not even 1 dimensional, more like half dimensional. He does whatever the plot tells him to even though he disagrees with it the entire time, making us question why Maddie is so enchanted by him. Plot: Go to the Christmas archives. Billy: I dont like Christmas or archives. Plot: That's an order! Billy: Ok I will go to the Christmas archives. Rinse and repeat this sequence over, and over, and over...
With music, cinematography, and editing that switches between All My Children, Desperate Housewives, and a PBS Special, we're not quite sure what to think of what we're watching here. At least the stock grandpa character who gets lots of closeups drinking coffee knowingly is better than usual. The movie is an A+ when it comes to location and setting but execution and delivery are an annoying D+. The script is bland, the characters dull, and there are all kinds of pointless scenes about an hour in (a la model train museum), but at hey at least they are on an aircraft carrier! Most disappointing is the resolution of the main mystery - surprise nothing really interesting here and she doesn't even give Sam his diary back, probably because she doesn't want him to know she read it without his consent, and that anyone else can read it too since it is in the ship's archives room.
Worth watching once and one extra star for the jet flyover at the end.
Grade: B+, 8 out of 10 stars.
An Ice Wine Christmas (2021)
Ice Whiny Christmas
Ice Wine Christmas is, how do we say it, irritating to watch and totally skippable. We follow wine connoisseur Camila (Roslyn Sanchez) go back to her home town of Evergreen and get all worked up over ice wine production after the magical old grandpa who owns the winery decides to - gasp - retire and go to Florida for the winter. He hires Declan (Lyriq Bent), an intelligent down to earth scientist to take over but Camila doesn't like him from the get go even though Declan is the only normal person in the entire movie. Camilia talks down to Declan, makes him wear a ridiculous bright yellow coat, and undermines his scientific credibility - this all comes across quite naturally for Camila so it is a grating adjustment when the plot requires these two to be in love. It just...doesn't...work. The two leads have about as much chemistry as a trash can and an old tire.
I'm honestly not sure why the director thought basing an entire movie on an ice wine harvest prediction was a good idea. The jerky nervous anxious editing doesn't help. Camila is not very likable and has unexplained motivations to be annoying, skeptical, and negative. What Declan sees in her, I have no idea. Manufactured drama over automating ice wine production is only so exciting. Camila isn't even an employee of the winery yet she is furious over the business decisions of the owner who by all accounts is doing everything he can to keep everything going per usual after he retires. Camila's Anna Kendrick look-a-like sister seems confused and lost. Nobody seems to bother to look at the weather forecast, weather is predicted by chickadee feathers and dirt in this universe. Camila's overly embellished Miami style accent is out of place and obnoxious. They all want the ice wine frost to come on Christmas but that means they have to do hard manual labor picking grapes all night, in the cold, on Christmas. This makes absolutely no sense.
I won't sugarcoat it, this movie is a dumpster fire. It's not cheesy bad, it's just bad. Declan always acts like he wishes he is somewhere else. I don't blame him.
Rating: F, 1 out of 10 stars.
Next Stop, Christmas (2021)
Great Scott! This is a Good Movie!
Great Scott! This is a good movie! Hallmark delivers on a rare gem that has a plot, motivation for characters, an excellent script, and agency for the female lead. We follow Angie Reynolds (a superbly feisty Lyndsy Fonseca) a modern day neuro surgeon as she gets sent back in time by a mysterious train conductor (Christopher Llyod) to reengage her family, beaus, and life ten years prior. Angie's mom (Lea Thompson) unexpectedly engages the story directly. Thompson flawlessly executes her classic approachable Minnesota Midwestern mom vibes which bring her character to life (Thompson grew up in Minnesota). Obvious (and pleasant) parallels to the Back to the Future series are here with time travel, Llyod, and Thompson, but happily this is all played subtly so Next Stop, Christmas can be its own thing.
Angie starts out clueless and confused why her BFF for life Ben (Chandler Massy) didn't call her for six months and not remembering why she didn't accept a marriage proposal from an internationally famous sports caster she dated ten years ago. The train conductor realizes this baffling mess and sends Angie back in time 10 years to 2011 to fix things. Groundhog day occurs until she gets everything right, she gets sent back to 2021 and ends up with the "proper" future. I won't spoil the entire plot and events here, but generally it is fun and engaging to watch with a witty script.
The film does have some issues, albeit minor. Numeral Uno is that Angie totally and completely friend zones Ben, so effectively in fact that the chemistry between the two comes across as if these two actors have a long-term brother/sister platonic relationship in real life. Deep into the film Ben is squarely in the friend zone, so much so in fact that despite all efforts by the plot, script, and time travel, the ending is underwhelming and fizzles. That's because in real life when a guy gets friend zoned this hard his chances of getting out of the zone are practically zero. Everyone knows this. Angie sure does and seems to enjoy throwing Ben back into the zone every time he attempts to break out of it...until the plot and circumstances tell her otherwise, and we're not totally convinced she is convinced she is romantically interested in Ben. Fonseca and Massy have a superpower brother/sister chemistry, and a very absent romantic one.
The film also has obvious plot holes created by the time travel. Where is the Angie from 2011? Does she come back once the 2021 Angie leaves 2011 after Christmas? Assuming she does, is the 2011 Angie the "changed" Angie or the same Angie as before? If she is the same Angie, then all events from 2011 to 2021 would play out per the original timeline, meaning the final ending is not possible. If she is in fact the changed Angie, then why would it take 10 years finally marry Ben? This doesn't make any sense and the movie doesn't want you to think too hard about it, even though the entire film rests on the time travel mechanism.
Other nitpicks are that the sportscasting boyfriend Tyler (Eric Freeman doing a spot-on impersonation of Steve Patterson from Twin Cities Live) doesn't get much to do or script to work with and is mostly wasted. The Chole character doesn't seem to have a purpose other than as a convenient one-time plot device that is left unexplored. Aunt Myrt (Erika Slezak) does add to the character depth chart, but she too has little to do other than continuously plan for a party.
These annoyances aside, Next Stop, Christmas is a fundamentally excellent movie by Hallmark standards. It reminds me of the TV Christmas movies shown on network TV back in the 90's, not quite good enough for a theater but certainly a cut above the modern half-baked Hallmark films of the 21st century.
Next Stop, Christmas gets a grade: A, 10 out of 10 stars.
Christmas by Starlight (2020)
Christmas in Starlight Boredom
Christmas in Starlight is another Hallmark mis-fire. It suffers from a messy plot, bad writing, banal lines, and lack of chemistry between the leads. The movie doesn't even spend much time in the titular cafe, and when it does it's talked about more as an idea than anything.
Kimberley Sustad stars as Annie, a motivated, fussy, thirty-something attorney who is single and it's kinda easy to see why. She does have agency but outside of the motivation around saving the Starlight she has no real purpose in the plot.
Opposite Annie is William Holt, a dull one dimensional wooden board played by Paul Campbell. William is supposed to "inherit the company" but lacks desire, experience, leadership, empathy - pretty much everything required to take over a massive real estate firm. Sustad can hold her own in a scene, but Campbell just falls flat time and time again.
After watching the two leads bickering with each other for over an hour they then mysteriously start to like each other, but nothing we are shown is convincing in that regard. It all just feels forced, and stupid. Sustad is screaming for better lines but has to settle for the garbage that is given to her. Campbell is so disinteresting that the his bad lines sort of just blend in with his character.
The obvious ending and kiss eventually arrive, but none of it feels earned just sort of mandated by the script. I was glad when it finally ended. You will be too.
Double Holiday (2019)
Double Holiday Special
Double Holiday is one of those rare gem Hallmark movies that leaves the cheese behind and successfully operates as a real movie. Not only is it well thought out, pleasant, and worth watching, it actually feels like a properly executed soap opera, and I mean that in a good way. Let me explain.
Carly Pope stars as Rebecca who not only is believable in role, but more critically expresses agency, a rare trait among Hallmark women. Opposite her is Kristoffer Polaha as her co-worker Chris who obviously is enjoying himself in every scene. Maybe that's because he gets to chase Pope who is absolutely gorgeous, but not in a 'distracting out of place in relation to her surroundings' kind of way like most Hallmark leading women. She does wear too much makeup in most scenes though, and those eyebrows...
Chris and Rebecca are "Sr. Project Managers." They dress, act, and talk more like someone at the director level, which makes far more sense if their next step is VP. Regardless, they play corporate employees rather believably, another unique element to this film. Even their boss and potential client are realistically portrayed as corporate leadership.
The overall plot is standard banal Hallmark fare, but it's what this movie decides to do with it that is special. Basically, Rebecca and Chris share an extended cube and don't get along, much less tolerate each other, and are vying for a promotion to VP. Then they get teamed up to throw an office holiday party and you know the rest. Except this time watching it play out was a pleasing experience.
At first Chris is both condescending and patronizing towards Rebecca (Polaha does this well to maximum effect in a subtle yet effective way). This, combined with Rebecca's stuck-up bickering in return gives the leads zero on-screen chemistry - so believable in fact I was worried that the inevitable later romantic scenes would feel forced, which is par for the course in normal Hallmark movies. THANKFULLY this movie takes its time developing the relationship between Chris and Rebecca and stays focused on it throughout, no magical uncle, bakery shops, hot chocolate contests, or other useless dopey subplots here.
The only substantial subplot is about a well-dressed good looking professional Rebecca sees daily in the elevator and has the hots for. "Fancy Suit Guy" initially is a real alternative to Chris, which provides actual drama to the movie until FSG unapologetically says he prefers to work on holidays which of course immediately disqualifies him from being a love interest, ugh. The FSG subplot gets all built up then discarded in the most arbitrary/mundane way, one of the few goofs in the movie.
It was nice to see this film short on Hallmark cliches. Usually I can find up to two dozen but here it's just a handful: New York City, fancy corporate jobs, the base plot, holiday party, cookie making scene, unnecessary Christmas tree picking out scene, and the engaging black co-worker who is a friend of the white female lead (see Matchmaker Santa).
Another unique theme was a rather strong focus on Hanukkah with Rebecca being Jewish. I can't express how refreshing it is to be dealing with a holiday besides Christmas for once! And - spoiler alert - there is a nice little scene AFTER they kiss! And they kiss twice! What a great new way to end a Hallmark movie. I also appreciate that they took the time to find a workable ending that avoids the obvious corporate HR conflict of interest between Rebecca and Chris, a step most Hallmark movies don't bother with.
In the end Double Holiday is a movie you will actually enjoy watching, not just the idea of it.
Matchmaker Santa (2012)
Matchmaker Santa Makes a Match
Matchmaker Santa is a Hallmark movie gem. It works as a movie, has an interesting supporting cast, and delivers the right amount of holiday magic. I was expecting yet another Lacey Chabert Hallmark movie cheese bomb and was pleasantly surprised this movie went in a new direction with an actual plot and motivation for the characters.
Lacey plays Melanie, the mousy not too exciting midwesternish girl she plays in every Hallmark movie, but this time she is surrounded by a cast of fun characters. Santa Claus is around this entire movie and steals every scene he is in. He is a hoot and is involved from the get go instead of the last five minutes like most Hallmark movies.
Then we have Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson as the hotel owner, who is actually overshadowed by her boisterous biker 60-something friend Debbie who has the hots for main love interest Dean. Then throw in John Ratzenberger (Ham from Toy Story) as a bumbling small town car mechanic and there is some actual entertainment here.
The boyfriend Justin is "CEO of his small company" or some ridiculous thing like that and is quite disinteresting, as is his one dimensional mom. But whoa, enter his subtly sexy high school fling Blaire and she becomes another scene stealer. She runs circles around Justin, just like Dean does around Melanie. Dean is OK as a love interest, has a tendency to let his southern accent slip into his speech, and is a wood carver of all things. Personally a movie about Dean and Blaire getting together would be much more interesting than what we got here, but overall Matchmaker Santa delivers the presents. And a bear.
Christmas on Wheels (2020)
Christmas on Wobbly Wheels
This one is nothing but a bunch of cliches and questionable leaps of convenience that are not believable, even for a Hallmark movie:
- Big city Seattle woman goes home to a "small town" that by the looks of the downtown is at least 20,000 people
- The stranger that outbids the female lead (Ashley) in the opening scene at a Seattle auction house just happens to be her Aunt and Uncle's estate lawyer...in a small town "100 miles" from Seattle
- Only in movies like this do people decorate their garage interiors not only with decorations, but with Christmas lights as well
- The prissy female lead with massive eyelash extensions just happens to have mad car repair skills, who knew
- The female lead attends Christmas auctions, professionally...just think about that for a second
- "Mrs. Henderson"
- Uncle Tony yells/declares/announces his banal lines instead of talking like a human
- The "hometown friend" is model pretty and a tall thin blonde to boot
- A goofy tractor repair man/christmas tree farmer gives away a classic car
- The antique bell saved the life of a "sheep herding farmer" on Christmas Eve
- "Let's go get a tailpipe!"
- Let's install the tailpipe in a fancy purple sweater with designer jeans and necklace!
- The best way to start a unstartable car is put a big dude in the front passenger seat
- Driving a vintage convertible with the top off in the winter...brrrrrrrr. I've done this with my jeep - it was NOT fun.
- The female lead once again has to choose between her career in the big city and a man in a small town (this is very grating in 2020)
- Hey my high school friend with the Canadian accent just happens to have a box of early 1960's car headlight bulbs in her minivan!
- Uncle Tony's grandmother got married on Christmas day??
- Driving a convertible around in the winter with the back seat piled high overflowing with christmas presents...
Other thoughts The male lead Duncan is a pretty cool dude and down to earth. He realizes how silly this is and most of what he says is said sarcastically out of sheer boredom. It's a hoot listening to him talk to Ashley as it all goes right over her head.
Sadly everyone around Duncan is utterly one dimensional, especially Ashley. Tiya Sircar plays the female lead as an impersonation of every female lead in every Hallmark Christmas movie. Poor Duncan, he has to pretend is not surrounded by cardboard cutouts.
"Aunt Charlotte" actually looks like an Aunt Charlotte
At least the obligatory montage was of them cleaning up the car with knowing looks instead of decorating a christmas tree.
They don't kiss, not even once!
The car is the best character in the movie
A Welcome Home Christmas (2020)
Like Watching a TV Commercial
Coming across like a never ending Christmas infomercial, "A Welcome Home for Christmas" is a corporate banal mess with TV commercial cinematography. The characters in full professional makeup the entire movie combined with the TV commercial dialog makes this movie utterly dull and disinteresting.
The female lead (Jana Kramer) is way too pretty and refined to be believable in her role, especially with her high heels and all, much less as a combat military veteran. Speaking of the army, the main characters use many military terms throughout the movie like 'operation' and 'mission accomplished' and 'oh six hundred' but in reality nobody in the military actually talks like this when they become discharged civilians. Finally, "the general" aka the sister's "commanding officer" has a haircut and mustache that are utterly out of army regulation.
The non-existent plot is more or less a bunch of somewhat related Christmas scenes. Putting together a toy drive can only be so exciting after two hours (well, I think there was only like 1 hour of actual movie given the frequent and lengthy commercial breaks). Multiple client/teacher ethics violations.
I think I liked the obnoxious mom who owns the coffee shop the best. She gets her cocoa beans directly from Ecuador. Note sure that is legal but it sounds bad#$%.
If you are looking for a way to distract yourself from the post election stress, this is NOT it.
Same Time, Next Christmas (2019)
Really Trying Too Hard - Hallmark is Better
This mess of a movie has one goal and one goal only - to imitate and reproduce the magic of cornball Hallmark movies. It fails miserably. Only Hallmark can succeed at sentimental cheese. This movie swings hard and misses every pitch.
I mean come on, we know from the start that the Cincinnati businessman is the wrong guy for Olivia (Lea Michele) just by the plot. But did they really have to make him (Greg) be utterly bofoonish and not even remotely believable. I mean the triathlon scene was idiotic, but the dude....wrote his own racer number on?
Like who does that? Hallmark would still make him a dope but just not be so obvious about it. This movie forces you to question why even watch him since he clearly will be sent packing - no suspense AT ALL. I kinda started to feel bad for him after all that was done to him until he got dumped by his fiance' Olivia and could only come up with a banal real estate metaphor in reply. His time in this train wreck is OVER.
The two leads (Olivia and Jeff) have no chemistry , zilch, zero. It's as bad as that Anne Heche Christmas movie from a few years ago. They are supposed to fight for true love but can barely communicate. The movie totally and completely blows their first post time skip meeting, like really bad. She...sigh...drops a bag of presents on the floor of the hotel lobby and he happens to be standing right next to her and helps her pick them up. Really - that"s ALL they could think up with in a Hawaii setting?
Hey on your wedding day make out with your childhood boyfriend a day after you dumped your fiance. Your "real" wedding to the childhood boyfriend will be taken VERY SERIOUSLY....
Honestly had Jeff just answered 8th grade Olivia's voicemails and emails then he would have avoided divorce, being a single dad, and having to fight off the dumkuf Cincinnati businessman for Olivia"s heart. He coulda taken it to the end zone on the first play after kickoff instead of 4th and 1 in double overtime.
Noelle (2019)
Strange Mix
Soooo Anna Kendrick runs around aimlessly with little reason for being while a hapless Bill Hader is supposed to be Santa Clause but doesn't want to be. Hmmmm. The rest of the plot is a cheap badly executed eskimo out of the north pole knockoff of Elf. Hader looks as much like he should be Santa Clause as he does Darth Vader.
They go to Phoenix of all places and spend most of the movie there. Glad it was Phoenix this time around and not LA or NYC. The film makers actually do a good job of showing Phoenix off which I liked having lived there. Still, Phoenix in a Christmas movie like this didn't really make sense or work.
The quasi-love interest "private investigator"?!? was a cool dude with a cool car but he was honestly kinda boring. His kid was more interesting but the kid was a plot device.
The mall, CGI baby reindeer, growly old elf lady, and elf supreme court all also did not work.
I liked the IT nerd elf but not the endless product placement. This movie is basically a commercial for amazon prime delivery.
This movie is strange but a reality.
Hope at Christmas (2018)
Hope for Hallmark
My name is CammieTime and I've reviewed over 20 Hallmark Christmas movies on IMDb since 2016!
Hope at Christmas is your above average Hallmark Christmas movie despite 37 year old Scottie Thompson (Sydney) looking at least 42 and Ryan Paevey (Mac) looking much younger. Thus, this was a nice Christmas movie with a bit of single cougar on the prowl elements.
Hopewell is "special." It is your standard over-zealous for Christmas town with ridiculous holiday traditions such as organized caroling, ginger bread house making contests, and a commercial main street competition. Also, the town is apparently a short car drive from New York City AND it's shown to be in North Carolina...Hopewell is VERY special indeed. And the town having a local fancy french restaurant...yeah right.
Sydney works as your cliche ad agency director (yawn - under qualified), while Mac is a 4th grade teacher (yawn - over qualified). Somehow the sophisticated classy ad director from NYC hits it off with a small town 4th grade teacher who moonlights at the Christmas tree farm. The magic of this movie is that this all comes across as quite believable despite the odds of these two actually hitting it off in real life.
There is some manufactured Santa drama toward the end that is neither fully explored nor taken advantage of and we also get to see yet another holiday ginger bread house making contest.
The whole Book Bea concept was clever and was the movie's foundation and strong point. The empty Grandma's house we start with is quickly forgotten and discarded as a plot point in favor of the bookstore, for better or for worse.
Everyone gives up something to stay in the small town. Ray the daughter gives up a trip to Hawaii with her dad, but it's never explained how the custody requirements from the divorce allow for that. Bea gives up the bookstore, and Sydney gives up a dream opportunity at a top New York ad agency to - you guessed it - stay in hopewell and run the bookstore and spend more time with Mr. Mac. Boring on paper but acted well enough to make it all work for the most part.
Doesn't get 10 stars because:
Plot is not fully aligned beginning to end and the Santa subplot felt forced, misused, and underutilized (if you're gonna do that, then do it right!). Also, can't ignore the glaring errors in Geography. I'll give them a pass on the French restaurant :)
Mingle All the Way (2018)
Mingle All the Way to a Mixed-Bag
Mingle All the Way is a mixed-bag of a movie that so desperately wants to be better than it is. Poorly cast except for the main female lead, you'll find this mis-mash delivering quality drama that is constantly interrupted by confoundingly foolish and/or absurdly convenient situations. On multiple occasions the movie smartly builds tension then shoots itself in the foot with such forced developments. The feedback I have for the script writers is 'less is more.'
Jen Lilley plays Molly Hoffman, a smart yet vulnerable go getter who refuses to spend her life as an accountant at her parent's firm. Instead, she designs and launches a networking app that is supposed to be for platonic dates, but of course this is a Hallmark movie so you quickly figure out what actually happens. Brant Daugherty is the male lead here, Jeff, doing a very convincing job of portraying his character as a gay man. Yet Jeff is not supposed to be gay and this makes his forced romantic interest in Molly rather grating to watch.
I was impressed with the refreshingly new plot - a dating/networking app, even though major unanswered questions left me trying to connect the dots the movie chose to ignore. Who actually built the app, since Molly does not come across as a technical software developer? Who provided the funding for the one room sunny office with a door that goes directly to the outside? Does the claimed target market of single, 30-something, successful and attractive professionals actually exist? Wouldn't anyone try to simply mis-use Mingle All the Way as yet another dating/hookup app? How and when did the app actually launch and become available for downloads? Why does Molly need a full time onsite employee (Tyler) when all it seems he does is redesign the logo and post her testimonials to the website? Who funds all those expensive TV commercials? It just seems like it would be a significant amount of effort to get the app designed, funded, built, and deployed to end users, a rather impressive feat by a single woman such as Molly...ah yes a more interesting movie we will never get to see... Anyway, we know that she built the algorithm, but there is much more to launching a new app than the backend functionality.
The other characters are quite boring and detract from the flow. I found the evil co-worker doing a bad Stiffler impersonation to be the most annoying. Kudos for having the mom wear the pants in this one, playing the 'skilled business person,' yet they then left the dad with nothing to do - a role they could have easily deleted. It was amusing that the CEO of Greyson Advertising likes to individually invite his employees to personal private events, even caroling of all things?!? This guy came across as an aloof doofus until the very end when he spoke very intelligently and with more clarity than anyone else ever had. The subplot romance between Tyler and Lisa was a nice change - we get to follow two love stories for the price of one. By the way, the connection between Tyler and the entrepreneurial wizard Lisa was far more realistic and interesting than that of the main leads. Actually, I was rooting for Molly and Tyler to end up together from the get go because he seemed like a far more normal and fitting boyfriend for Molly-I mean come on, they sit 10 feet apart in that little office all day alone together, they're both single, there's gotta be a little side somethin' going on between the two of them, just don't tell Lisa as she seems like a woman whose wrath could be of surprising proportions.
They all hail from small town sounding 'Cedar Falls' yet all establishing shots are of downtown Toronto...sigh.
Overall, Jen Lilley's Molly is the most well rounded and believable female lead I've seen in a Hallmark movie this season. "Jeff" was a disaster. But hey, they finally (and awkwardly) did kiss with three minutes left on the DVR - it's not a Hallmark holiday movie without that!
Once Upon a Christmas Miracle (2018)
Once Upon A Pretty Good Hallmark Christmas Movie
Aimee Teegarden and Brett Dalton bring to life the true story of suburban Chicago couple Chris and Heather. Brett gives Chris a believable and affable nature, albeit a bit off at times. Aimee does an excellent Heather, delivering the drama required for such an emotionally challenging plot.
Overall this movie is well worth watching, the acting is good, the plot is original, and the movie flows well. In fact, because it is a real life plot, it was actually quite difficult to predict what would happen. Many of my predictions turned out to be false - because this is a REAL story, not a made up fake Hallmark story. Real life is not as predictable as a Hallmark movie.
The annoyances were minor, such as Heather's ridiculous over-zealous Christmas obsessed Dad. He came across as a clown. Heather's family was the typical loaded upper middle class family. Chris lacks the mentality found in ex-Marines - he's a bit too sensitive and homespun. The "cabin" is easily reached within a couple of hours, yet it's at least a 4 hour drive to get to any "cabin" from Chicagoland. You literally have to drive to central Wisconsin. East of Chicago is Lake Michigan, south and west is farmland, and so is north, until you get past Madison. There are lake cabins along Lake Michigan in western Michigan, but it's still a long drive and no mention was made of the cabin being on the lake. I also was annoyed with the friend and Chris working at a Christmas tree farm - I know it was called a "Garden Center" but come on. Too cliche.
All in all this is a movie worth watching and has a lovely story. Make sure to find some time to watch it before Christmas.