Day three of trying Hallmark-style movies again and my enthusiasm has already taken a precipitous drop. Be forewarned - there are mini-rants ahead.
Cranberry Christmas (2021)
Not terribly made but I couldn’t connect with any of the performances and the story, despite a workable premise, was dull. Cranberry Christmas could have been the product of deep fake software and random Christmas romance algorithms and it wouldn’t surprise me.
Rating: 1 and a half Cranberry bogs as a movie, Two Sea Breezes as a Christmas movie
*******
Meet Me at Christmas (2020)
So, this one has Hallmark regular Catherine Bell, so I suppose it’s meant to be more of a prestige effort, but everyone just sleepwalks, hitting their marks, saying their lines but obviously just going through the motions. The audience that loves these films needs to take off the evergreen tinted glasses and raise their standards, so it doesn’t have to relentlessly cheerlead for such disposable cynical corporate laziness. So long as fans continue to squee over and consume the shallowest of efforts the networks have little incentive to try harder.
Rating: One gingerbread wedding cake as a movie, two mistletoe bouquets as a Christmas flick.
*******
Coyote Creek Christmas (2021)
Well, this was more watchable than the previous two, so there’s that. That’s all I’ve got, it made zero lasting impression on me.
Rating: One seasonal thing as a regular movie, two and one-eighth seasonal things as a Christmas movie.
*******
The Christmas Promise (2021)
Another highly original title. They don’t try, they don’t care.
Comedy, tragedy, whimsy, melancholy. No pesky tonal shifts required. Just make it as bland as possible. The vanilla pudding of Christmas films, but leave out the vanilla just in case. The lack of effort is impressive.
What's it about? Does it even matter? Patrick Duffy's in it.... so that's nice.
Rating: One Dead Husband as a real movie, One and a Half Lazy Screenwriters as a Christmas movie.
*******
Maybe next year, instead of making, say, 40 new insta-films, Hallmark makes 38 and uses the extra funds to double the budget and production time allotted to just one film. That’s all I ask, one above-average film a year that would be worth watching again another season. Hallmark used to do quality TV movies on the regular, award-winning films that went on to be considered some of the finest television available at the time. There’s no reason they couldn’t do it again, they only need to see the least bit of audience demand.
So, I’m almost done with this experiment. Nothing much has improved, in some ways, things seem worse than they were last time I subjected myself to this masochistic experience. I’m genuinely happy for anyone who truly enjoys these movies, I can’t imagine what that might feel like and I think I’m a bit envious of them. I love Christmas and it would mean so much to have literally dozens of chances a season to experience the joy of a good holiday movie but, I just can’t get into these.
I have a few more I’m going to check out, mostly based on cast members I like, but after that, I think I may give up on the Hallmark / Lifetime (and so on) genre for another year. The season’s too short to waste time watching stuff that I’ll just end up kvetching about.
