Ordeal By Hallmark (Part Three) Our Italian Christmas Memories , The Royal Nanny, Reindeer Games Homecoming , A Gingerbread Christmas, Holly and the Hot Chocolate...

You know how upset people got with Netflix when they felt that the Dahmer miniseries had been mistagged? That's sorta how I feel when people call these Hallmark-style products Christmas movies.

This installment of my masochistic foray into assembly line holiday fare is a bit late because after subjecting myself to watching these flicks I couldn't face revisiting their memory to write up this post - until now.

Our Italian Christmas Memories 

Yeah. I've experienced a fair few Italian Christmases over the years, and none of them were this dull, soulless, and phony.

Not a genuine or likable character in sight.

Unrewatchable 

The Royal Nanny

Meh spy comedy, meh romance, meh Christmas. 

Nice to see Greta Scaachi, but that's about it. Still, not badly made, just not particularly well written. Letting a more skillful screenwriter give the script a thorough polishing would have fixed a lot. Alas...

Meh (as previously indicated)

A Magical Christmas Village 

I generally like Allison Sweeney in this kind of stuff, and it's nice seeing Marlo Thomas out and about but other than that, nada.

Unrewatchable

Let's try something from Lifetime 

Reindeer Games Homecoming 

Maybe it's because I was bummed that this wasn't a sequel to the underrated Ben Afleck action flick, but I actually, for the first time this season, dozed off during one of these. I don't think I missed much but what I saw seemed like a fairly good film school audition tape. Not scholarship material but with a few years of training, who knows, they might produce something that feels like a real movie. That would be cool.

Meh

Changing channels again to Great American Family...

A Merry Christmas Wish

You had me at Jill Wagner, and Cameron Mathison is a pro but the script...oof. I feel like I've already seen this 20 times before, and often to better effect.

Meh

A Royal Christmas on Ice

What does it say about the genre when terrible filmmaker extraordinaire Fred Olen Ray makes one of the better Christmas romances, I've seen so far this year. It's not good, obviously, but it is a professionally produced TV movie, so it automatically rises toward the top of the list. 

Watchable 

Good lord, this has been a slog, and I'm not convinced that switching to a pair of Up releases will brighten my mood. 

A Tiny Home Christmas 

Another real estate soap, this time it's a failing contractor trying to save the family business with some seasonal virtue signaling. Dreck.

Unrewatchable 

The Christmas Retreat

Home shopping Channel host levels of acting ability pair beautifully with home shopping channel levels of production design to make this forgettable flop.

Unrewatchable 

One last Hallmark joint

Love at the Christmas Contest 

Even less original than a Merry Christmas Wish. It could have been a parody but made by people with no sense of humor.

Unrewatchable 

Now it's Food Network's time at the tinsel trough...

 

A Gingerbread Christmas 

Can you get salmonella poisoning through a monitor?

Once again proving that not only has Food Network stopped making watchable food shows, but they're picking up Hallmark's sloppy seconds and producing crappy Christmas movies.

Unrewatchable 

Last, but at least not least is..

Holly and the Hot Chocolate

What's more ludicrous than food networks  Christmas movies and yet totally on brand for these times? QVC making Christmas movies. And yet it sucks less than most of what I've suffered through in this ordeal. The script has some snap to it and a few of the performances are actual performances.

Considering QVC already has higher production values than most basic cable movies so maybe it shouldn't be a surprise. 

Ordeal by Hallmark (Part 2) My Grown Up Christmas List, A Maple Valley Christmas, Well Suited for Christmas, All Saints Christmas and more...

 

I feel slightly guilty that I'm not including my recent viewing of the Lindsey Lohan rom-com Falling For Christmas here. Not because it was a Netflix Original, Netflix is more than capable of turning out junky Christmas flicks, but because it was a pretty good movie. And, I mean :movie" as opposed to Hallmarkesque inspired holiday product consume repeat consume repeat. So, if you want to accuse me of putting my thumb on the scale by omitting a much better than average film from my ordeal - fair enough.

My Grown Up Christmas List

Inoffensive but dull trifle that a few years ago would have been considered a weak effort but nowadays it’s solidly middle of the road. It tries to do something a bit more interesting with time jumps but I've already forgotten most of what happens in the film.

A Maple Valley Christmas 

Epic drama set in the rough and tumble world of a family Montana Maple Syrup Barons, it's basically Yellowstone with pancakes. Well, not really, I wish it was though. Instead we get a pedestrian real estate McGuffin driven romcomdram.

Though Hallmark are the ne plus ultra of these types of festive fodder they're clearly not the only ones peddling quickie Christmas pix this time of year so, let's move on with a couple of offerings from Lifetime - Television for Women...

Well Suited for Christmas 

My first Lifetime flick of the season combines my favorite time of year with the world of high fashion, something I literally care nothing about. Despite my antipathy towards the films McGuffin, a bachelor tuxedo design contest, the film wasn’t terrible. It was certainly a step up from My Grown Up Christmas List, if only a small step, though it felt as if the Christmas aspect was merely an afterthought.

Merry Swissmas

Another Lifetime movie, this one starring Jodie Sweetin as an architect whose Mom owns a Swiss inn , in the Swiss quarter of British Columbia apparently, and nothing interesting or charming happens. It’s too bad because it had a promising premise. This one was a definite step down even from MGUCL. In last place so far.

Back to Hallmark 

All Saints Christmas

Not a holiday musical starring 90's girl group All Saints (which is probably a good thing ?), but it is set in some fictional music industry where huge stars can browse Christmas markets on their own and their albums go "double gold".

Pretty good New Orleans set rom-com, definitely above average thanks to a snappy script and some solid performances from the leads. I sort of enjoyed it.

Christmas on Mistletoe Lake

While All Saints Christmas buffeted my sails a bit but Christmas on Mistletoe Lake was like hitting a dead calm.

Meh but not terrible holiday filler. I've already forgotten it, which is becoming a bit of a theme here. FWIW, I can still recall loads of scenes, snippets of dialogue and major plot points and superior performances from a bunch of Christmas movies from the last few years that I've only seen once and yet the vast majority of these films slide of my brain like it's been coated in Teflon .

In Merry Measure 

In which a group of seemingly sentient mannequins act out a dull and predictable story about a a high school singing competition. The “actors” are surprisingly lifelike, with little of the uncanny valley effect you usually see with this technology, though the supporting characters are still stock royalty free NPCs . Sadly the AI scriptwriting app has produced a weaker than usual story and In Merry Measure doesn’t measure up to much at all in the end.

 

Before we get to the current standings I want to stress that, while I have a general disdain for these films, it's absolutely not the actors or the crews that I dislike, it's the cynical assembly line corporate product churn that grinds my gears. Just as I think the fans of these films are lovely people who just want to settle into some cozy comfort viewing, I'm sure the bulk of the people on the screen and behind the scenes are doing the best they can with what they've been given and what little seems to be expected of them.

I don't hate the players, only the way the game is being played.

So, this time most of the films fell into the "Meh" category with only one Watchable, meaning if I had to rewatch it I could, if I had to. The good news is only one fell to the newly renamed Unrewatchable ranking. I've switched to a softer definition of "I would walk out of the room, and maybe the building, if the alternative was having to watch t again". 

I've also added a new ranking, the Worth Rewatching. So far only Netflix's Falling For Christmas would have qualified, but since I reviewed it in my Yule Blogged series instead I'm not sure I should include it.

 

The Watchables

• All Saints Christmas
• Ghost of Christmas Always
• A Kismet Christmas

The Mehs

• Christmas on Mistletoe Lake
• Jolly Good Christmas
• Merry Swissmas
• My Grown Up Christmas List
• Well suited for Christmas 

The Unrewatchables

• Catering Christmas
• Christmas Bedtime Stories
• Destined at Christmas
• In Merry Measure 
• Noel Next Door
• We Wish You a Married Christmas

Ordeal by Hallmark Channel (Part One)

 It seems as if every couple of weeks Hallmark, or one of its growing list of imitators, is rolling out a new holiday premiere. Normally I ignore the absurdly pre-seasonal stuff (I’m not a big Christmas in July kind of guy), but now that Halloween is winding down and the “Countdown to Christmas” is officially upon us I figured I’d dive in at the deep end, and see how many Christmas TV movies I can watch before finding a really good one or tapping out exhausted and disgusted by humanity.

Faithful readers will be all too familiar with my mostly-hate/hate relationship with Hallmark-style Christmas movies and the Yuletide-industrial complex that has grown out of their popularity. I cherish Christmas, the sacred and the secular, and to see such shoddy filmmaking and cynical marketing meet with overwhelming success just leaves me shaking my head. 

Even though I hate the game I don’t hate the players. I love that there are a hundred-plus new holiday flicks every season, and I’m thrilled for the fans who love them. I just don’t get it, but, as this post attests, I’m still trying to jump on that bandwagon and see and feel what all the Hallmarkies out there are raving about. There are lots of lovely people making entertainment for lots more lovely people, and I really want to be one of the latter, but I’m not optimistic. 

Here we go…

(all films in this post should be 2022)

Noel Next Door

From the director of... Deadly House Call, Ice Road Killer, and Beware of the Midwife (and also 2019’s atrocious “Rock and Roll Christmas” )

Starring… No one I recognize, though the female lead Natalie Hall has done a few other “Christmas” movies.

I generally stay away from these cheap plastic knock-offs of real rom-coms  / Christmas flicks (Filmed in Canada has become the Made in China of TV movies), but I’m ever the optimist, so I gave the first of the “Countdown to Christmas” season a shot.

It’s not good, but not good in a different, yet just as off-putting, way as the ones I used to watch and generally hate. Nothing interesting happens, none of the characters are likable (and having a visible disability isn’t a personality) or believable, and the romance is an afterthought. 

The script couldn’t have gone through a second draft, and when I looked up the film’s writer, their only other credit is another holiday film featuring a character with a disability - assuming you consider color blindness a disability. (Yep that’s going to be a Christmas movie.) So I guess I can’t expect too much from a neophyte screenwriter but still…poor writing is poor writing.

Rating - Bah Humbug

We Wish You a Married Christmas

We Wish You a Married Christmas was somehow even worse than Noel Next Door. “How could it be worse? “ I asked myself Then I checked the director’s credits and the writers' credits and then I knew how.

There is no quality control, just product, an unceasing stream of product greedy consumed by it’s fans. I don’t get it. Is it like listening to The Grateful Dead or Techno music? Do you have to be high to really appreciate it? Are Moscato and Moscow Mules the shrooms and X of the Hallmark generation? 

I’m two films in and I’m ready to tap out. Maybe it’s time for Hallmark to keep Christmas out it’s gosh darn mouth. Well, I have a bunch more to watch. Maybe the next one will be able to talk me off the ledge…

Rating: Bah frickin’ Humbug

A Kismet Christmas

Magic love cookies…at Christmas

So, was the third time the charm? Sort of. A Kismet Christmas was just about watchable. The cast was serviceable, the production design wasn’t awful, and the script, though cliché and a little cringe, shines in comparison to the previous pair. Most importantly it feels like a movie, not a great movie, and certainly not a great Christmas movie but it’s given me that tiny sliver of hope I need to carry on.

Highlights include lead Sarah Ramos, Marilu Henner, and an out-of-left-field Midnight Cowboy reference.

Rating: Not a magical love match but at least an effort was made.

A Cozy Christmas Inn

There’s literally nothing cozy about this dull plop of a product. And, what is the obsession these films have with real estate? 

Criminally underuses Brian Doyle-Murray

Rating: Rancid peppermint.

Jolly Good Christmas

McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime under the opening credits? Whoa, this one must have had an actual budget, as opposed to the under-the-couch cushion change most seem to run on. 

We have a new frontrunner. It’s not great, but it’s pretty OK, grading on a Christmas curve. There’s more real estate - Architecture division - but I won’t hold that against it. The leads are reasonably engaging and the patter's above average, I would have preferred the male lead not to have had to put on an obviously fake American accent though.

I hope this falls down the list quickly because if this is as good as it’s going to get I'm going to need a lot of very spiked egg nog just to make it through November.

Rating: A Christmas cracker, without the snap.

And now a brief detour to Great American Christmas…

Catering Christmas

As meh as meh can be. Not horrible but not watchable either. 

I've actually ru a catering business in my deep dark past and you could probably make a decent comedy, an affecting drama, even a horror movie out of the things I've seen and heard on the job but instead GAC offers us this empty chafing dish of sadness.

Rating: How do you rate something that makes absolutely no impression on you?

Destined at Christmas

The core idea has promise but Destined at Christmas does nothing with it. After a Black Friday meet cute (great idea, abysmal execution) a pair of would-be lovers have to figure out how to find each other again after getting separated during a blackout. With more time and money this might have been a fun rom-com, but instead, we get a typical holiday rush job that might as well have been written by an AI. The leads are inoffensive, though I truly hope many of the supporting players got their roles through a random draw at the local Tim Horton’s parking lot because that would, at least, explain some of the line reads.

Rating: More like meht cute amirite?

Now back to Hallmark…

Christmas Bedtime Stories

Everyone seems to have been over their head with this one. A sentimental tale with no heart, a romance with no spark, a drama with no depth and an unearned, shallow, empty ending. 

Military wife / single mom keeps the memory of her MIA husband alive through “Christmas Bedtime Stories” told to her daughter. An unexpected proposal leads to emotional complications.

Clearly there are far too many cheap Christmas movies being made each year and a shortage of qualified, experienced, talented people willing to work on them. This is what happens when you have to hire newbies and third stringers to make your movie and you don’t care because you’ll still probably make some money on it.

Bonus fact - Christmas Bedtime Stories is produced by Nancy Grace! Usually she’s investigating crime but this time she committed one against watchability.

Rating: Stolen holiday valour.

Ghost of Christmas Always

So I’m closing out my first run of these things with the best of the bunch.

Ghost of Christmas Always bureaucratizes A Christmas Carol’s ghost of Christmas past/present/future system in what instantly feels like the beginning of a holiday franchise. Not a particularly original idea but its not terrible. It definitely seems as if they gave this one a lot more time and effort than usual and it shows.

A "Ghost of Christmas Present" gets romantically entwined with her latest “Scrooging” target - complications ensue and then more complications ensue. It’s not great, the plot hits  many cliched beats with the exception of one significant twist that comes a little bit too early to be a total surprise but is the film’s saving grace none the less, The performances are much better than average though they don’t necessarily elevate the material. But, grading on the Christmas movie curve this is as close to a winner as we might get these days. 

Rating: Not bad at all, I might even watch the inevitable sequel.

So here’s the chart so far…

(if you're a fan of something I've panned, that's fine, I get it, we all have different taste and varying requirements of our entertainment. I won't judge you if you don't judge me.)

The Watchables

• Ghost of Christmas Always
• A Kismet Christmas

The Mehs

• Jolly Good Christmas

The Unwatchables

• Noel Next Door
• Catering Christmas
• We Wish You a Married Christmas
• Destined at Christmas
• Christmas Bedtime Stories

Yule Logged: Home Sweet Home Alone, Love Hard, A Mrs. Miracle Christmas, Next Stop Christmas, The Christmas Dance and more...

Home Sweet Home Alone (2021) Disney+

I don’t have any kind of nostalgic emotional investment in the original Home Alone series, so I went into it with an open mind. After watching Home Sweet Home Alone I learned (or had my belief re-enforced) some very important lessons:

• There are far worse things out there than Hallmark Christmas movies.
• Disney is creatively bankrupt. (And judging from the "Holiday Classics Were Meant to be Broken" tagline - arrogant as well.)
• Many modern screenwriters cannot write compelling stories. While technology and training have seen nearly every aspect of filmmaking hit all-time highs of quality,  screenwriting has regressed noticeably (and the newer generations of actors aren't exactly killing it either).

There’s not a single likable or truly sympathetic character in the entire film. The dialogue is often cringeworthy, the plot choices inconceivable, the whole thing is a misbegotten mess. Plus, it rips off more than just the previous Home Alone films. Creatively bankrupt. 

I did like one thing they did, the excuse for why, in the age of cell phones and instant worldwide communication, the kid manages to stay unattended for so long. The conceit wasn’t brilliant but it was the cleverest thing in the film.

Hallmark movies, and their ilk, are often crummy because they’re made fast and cheap and to a formula. I can’t help but think your average Hallmark production team could have made a better film with the budget and resources frittered away on this junk.

Rating: As a film One and a Half Baby James Cordons. As a Christmas movie One and Three Quarters exploited intellectual properties.

Love Hard (2021) Netflix

I didn’t have high hopes for this one going in. When Netflix first entered the Christmas Movies sweepstakes I thought, maybe, with more money would come better movies. Hasn’t always worked out that way, especially with the rom-coms. So, low expectations going in.

Expectations subverted, partially.. It was a pretty well-made film. If only the characters, including the lead weren’t such crappy humans. It’s basically an old-school mistaken identity / fake identity holiday comedy with the smarm turned way up. I wanted to like it a lot more than I did. Once again, the script lets it down.

Lovehard is the best new holiday film I’ve seen so far this year. I pray it’ll be in the lower depths of the chart a month for no, otherwise it’s going to be an exceptionally long Christmas season.

Rating: As a film Two and a Half Catfish, as a Christmas film Two unlikable leads.

Now a Hallmark Channel speedround...

Debbie Macomber’s A Mrs. Miracle Christmas (2021)

A reboot of sorts, based on the best-selling book series. The source material is fairly good, for what it is, and while the film touches n some deeper topics it treats them with the same Prozac fueled superficiality as virtually all their films. 

Rating: As a normal movie One and a Half Gingerbread Cookies , as a Christmas movie Two and a Quarter,,, Whatevers.

A Christmas Treasure (2021)

Lots of little stories treated in the dullest most superficial way possible, creating an unsatisfying whole.

Rating: As a film One Time Capsule, as a Christmas film Two Gingerbread Houses.

Next Stop, Christmas (2021)

A better than usual cast, a cute time travel story, I mean this is, sadly, just about as good as it gets.I’ll take it.

Rating: As a regular old movie  Two DeLorean's, As a Christmas movie Thee and One Eights Christmas Trains.

Now on to Amazon Prime…

Christmas Princess (2017)

How is it that, what is essentially a recruitment film for the Tournament of Roses Parade, can pack more emotional punch and far greater character development than a season’s worth of HallmarkLifetime’s usual Styrofoam dramas. 

That said, this is still a super low-budget soap opera about a teen from a broken home who aspires to the Royal Court of the Rose Parade, so it’s not really my thing. Yet, it held my attention the whole time, something no other tv film has done so far this year. The low budget and less known actors give it, not a documentary feel, but a certain veneer of realism. 

So, not a masterpiece, and the Christmassy bit doesn’t really hit until towards the end, but a surprisingly compelling and true story.

Rating: As a film Two and Half Parade Floats, as a Christmas film, even though it wasn’t super christmassy, Three Roses.

The Christmas Dance (2021)  

Not great but better than most of the other romantic dramedies I’ve seen so far. How is it the lowest budget films I’ve watched so far have the best acting, not great acting mind you, but most natural. Richard Karn (Home Improvement) is the obligatory former sitcom star / supporting actor, though this being a faith based film, that’s a bit of a surprise.

Rating: As a plain old movie One and Seven Eighths Christmas Sweaters, as a Christmas film Two and Three eighths Christmas pageant angels.

Yule Logged: Cranberry Christmas / Meet Me at Christmas / Coyote Creek Christmas / The Christmas Promise

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.

Yule Logged: The Santa Stakeout, Much Ado About Christmas, Christmas in My Heart, Christmas Carousel, Sue Thomas F.B.Eye, One Ham's Family

 

The Santa Stakeout (2021)

Oh, what could have been… I love the genre blend adding a light mystery to the usual holiday mix, but the script lets it down, as usual. All the screenwriters had to do was binge watch a season or two of Castle and Psych and a couple of episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and just absorb the vibes through osmosis. But nooooo…

Everyone involved puts in just enough effort to keep things bouncing along innocuously and it does have Joey Pants, so there’s that.

Rating: Two and a quarter tasers as a real movie, two and two-third gingerbread handcuffs as a Christmas movie.

Christmas in my Heart (2021)

So, the first movie of the season that I thought was pretty good turns out to be, not a comedy, or a romantic comedy, or a fantasy - genres I have an affinity for - but a soapy drama, which I'm generally not a fan of. But, Christmas in my Heart, despite it's generic, low effort title, is an above average entry and a nice surprise. 

While I doubt I'll feel the urge to view it again in the future, I really appreciated the above-average performances from most of the cast, the thoughtful script, and tasteful production. I want to take this as a sign that the genre has taken a step-up quality-wise. So, fingers crossed my next few watches turn out this well.

Rating: Two and seven eighths rosin bags as a regular old movie, three and a half Stradivari as a TV Christmas flick

A Christmas Carousel (2020)

Rachel Boston keeps this one spinning on pure charm alone. There’s nothing much else beyond the usual Royal romance nonsense and that’s been done better, elsewhere and often.

Rating: Two tiaras as a film,  two and a half royal weddings as a Christmas film.

Much Ado About Christmas (2021)

The first GAC Christmas offering is a familiar, though above average, holiday romance. The scripts a little bit sharper than usual and there are some decent performances. Nothing groundbreaking but I didn’t feel like drowning myself in nog to escape it.

Rating: Two and a third bespoke Christmas scarves as a film, two and seven eighths festive baubles as a Crimble romp.

Sue Thomas F.B. Eye S1 E8 Silent night (2002)

First Viewing.

Set in The District of British Columbia, judging from the odd D.C / Canadian mash-up and awkward attempts at “American” dialogue, Sue Thomas F.B. Eye follows the adventures of a deaf F.B.I agent and her co-workers.

It’s always tricky when a series’ Christmas episode serves as an introduction to the show, but this was not bad at all, for a turn of the century Canadian show, and Silent Night has more than enough Christmas in it to be a worthwhile holiday viewing even for those new to the series so long as you go in with modest expectations.

One Ham’s Family (1943)

In this yule set sequel to The Three Little Pigs, and possible inspiration for Home Alone, The Big Bad Wolf seeks revenge on one of the Pigs (and his family!) by impersonating Santa. and gets more than he bargained for from the youngest member of the family. 

A fun and surprising anarchic treat I hadn’t seen in years.

Soundtrack

While writing these reviews I was listening to the new holiday release from soft rock legends Orleans and it’s pretty good. (I’ll have a, slightly, more in-depth review coming up in my next New Christmas Release post.)...

…. And the 2012 seasonal album Decembersanger from Swedish artist Martin Stenmark

Yule Logged: You, Me & the Christmas Trees (2021), Five Star Christmas (2020), Sammy Kaye "Christmas Serenade" (1951)

 You, Me & the Christmas Trees (2021)

After taking a year off from attempting to watch Hallmark Christmas flicks, I decided to bite the bullet and pre-game the new season with You, Me & the Christmas Trees, a reasonably inoffensive Danica McKellar vehicle about a cute arborist rescuing a hunky tree farmer’s Christmas tree business. If this is the worst holiday TV movie I see this year it’ll be a good year, but I don’t have high hopes.

You, Me & the Christmas Trees is what happens when an efficient, capable production dealing with a low budget and tight time constraints sleepwalks a movie into existence. It’s not as incompetent as many such efforts,  but it’s aggressively uninspired. I’ve never been a fan of soap operas or the influence they’ve had on modern serialized drama, and I suppose that’s where I get lost. Each movie is just another episode in a long-running seasonal soap opera. Does no one expect sharp writing, interesting characters, or compelling stories? Nope, so long as there’s aspiration interior design populated by pretty people with serious but also surprisingly easily solvable problems underscored with generic holiday tunes and hardly any sincere spiritual message, it’s all good - now pour me another glass of wine while I tweet out some emojis.

Rating: As a Movie Two Conifers (out of five), as a Christmas movie Two and a half Douglas Firs. Since I’m, obviously, not the target demo for this sort of thing actual fans can probably tack on at least one additional star to my rating to make up for my Scrooge-iness.

Five Star Christmas (2020)

A family rally together to make a go of their father’s conversion of their family home into a Bed and Breakfast. A fairly solid ensemble cast work well together in this romantic dramedy though, as usual, the writing could have been a lot sharper and less trope-ish.

Probably a better film than You, Me & the Christmas Trees, and yet my attention kept wandering. I shouldn’t have tried a double feature right out of the gate. All in all not a bad film.

Rating: As a film Two and a Quarter Stars. As a Christmas film Three Stars.

While writing these reviews I was listening to Sammy Kaye - "Christmas Serenade" (1951) - a solid effort very much of it’s time.

Yule Logged: The Christmas Cottage, Holiday Hearts, Christmas at Grand Valley, The Christmas Club, Christmas in Evergreen: Tidings of Joy

The Christmas Cottage (2017)

Dull and predictable.

Holiday Hearts (2019)

Dull, predictable and the lead actress looks as if they’re holding her puppy at gubpint just off camera.

Christmas at Grand Valley (2018)

Dull and predictable despite Danica. And the fact that  Danica McKellar is the highlight of any movie, lovely and bright as she is, tells you how low the standards at Hallmark are.

The Christmas Club (2019)

Less dull, still predictable but with likable, professional, leads.

Christmas in Evergreen: Tidings of Joy (2019)

Inexplicable third chapter in the series opens with a conversation on a train shot in such an awkward manner that I couldn’t believe this wasn’t a student film, a high school student film. The rest is fine, workman like but fine, but that opening is so indicative of the lack of respect for the audience, and Christmas, that these films truly embody. No point trying to get a better shot, money’s tight, though profits are high, time is tight and our audience doesnt care, probbly wont even notice.

And they’re right. And I’m done with these holiday romnces. I’m burned out by the mediocrity, the cynisism behind the sentimentality. I hear Hallmark is moving to make thier films more diverse next year. That’s terific, unless it just means more crappy movies only with more politically correct casting. Bad movies are bad movies no matter who is kissing who under the mistletoe.

If the movies get better I’ll give them another shot, Maybe woke Hallmark will bring an infusion of new, better writers and directors which is what they really need, I don’t have high hopes though.