Farewell Mr. Kringle

October 27, 2021December 3, 2023 / Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

A Lovely Surprise

When I saw the rating and read some of the reviews, I almost deleted this one from my DVR without watching it. You see, I am on a Christmas movie binge this year. And there just is not enough time to watch every Christmas movie I have recorded. As it gets closer and closer to Christmas and for every Christmas movie I watch and delete, I record two or more, I see the handwriting on the wall. I am having to become pickier and pickier over the ones I watch all the way through before moving on to the next one.

The romance is sweet and there are some parts and dialogue that border on almost edgy. It doesn’t fall back on lazy fantasy to finally give us the answer to the mystery of Kris, wonderfully played by William Morgan Shepard.

Since I know that movies on Up TV are under-rated compared to the ones on Hallmark, I gave this a chance and I’m glad I did. Recently widowed Anna is a journalist who has been given the assignment of investigating a small-town Santa Claus who has been Santa for 50 years. “Kris” has had a beneficial impact on the small town in which he lives and is beloved. It is a charmer with humor and heart-tugging moments. The acting of the entire cast is great, especially Christine Taylor. She plays a cynical big-city Christmas avoider, but who still manages to be respectful and kind to the small-town people to their faces. The one time she loses her temper, it is funny rather than cringe-worthy. She brings depth and humor to a role that could have been very stereotypical.

December 12, 2020

Christmas in Paris

October 26, 2021June 30, 2024 / Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

An Old Fashioned Harlequin Romance Come to Life

This is a straight-up Harlequin Romance Movie and as such it’s pretty OK. And I don’t mean the Hallmark movies based Harlequin novels. This is right out of the playbook that produced about 11 or so novel-based TV movie romances in the 1990s and early 2000s that Hallmark had nothing to do with. Have they started doing these again out of nowhere? Since I saw this on ION television it really does have that different and old-fashioned approach to a romance. The hero was very attractive and a stereotypical early prototype romance hero: A Rich, Powerful, Mysterious Playboy who is a Genius at business. He falls for a normal (ish) girl: beautiful, good, and spunky. It was well-cast and fun. I liked the side story of our hero hating and then reconciling with his biological father (who really looked the part as well) and the asthma angle. For anyone who liked this movie, I urge you to look up these old Harlequin movies some of which are available on YouTube.

November 8, 2020

Too Close for Christmas

October 24, 2021November 28, 2024 / Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Jessica Improves with Every Movie

I have never been a fan of Jessica Lowndes with her Valleygirl/Kardashian inflection and her eyeliner. But she has really really improved. So much so that she is the main attraction in this very watchable movie. Her acting is very good and I can’t always say that this has been the case. Her beauty has been indisputable but kind of unapproachable. She has scaled down the make up which has allowed her natural beauty to shine through. Well Done! Now to work on that unfortunate Southern California accent. I hope she doesn’t regress.

Hayley is forced to spend Christmas vacation with her sister’s brother-in-law, whom she blames for her break-up with her ex. Her chemistry with the messily coifed Chad Michael Murray was palpable. I just wish they had tamed those locks a bit at least for the gala.

This was pretty darn good with most of the Hallmark/Lifetime set pieces avoided or toned down. Not a stand out, but I liked most of it and it had very few if any cringe-y moments.

December 5, 2020

Christmas Love Letter

October 23, 2021 / Rebekahrox / 7 Comments

On Board for the Cuckoo Train?

Although the basic plot of this offering is pretty standard stuff, the peculiar choices made in some of the plot points push this into bizarro territory fast and doesn’t let up. First, our heroine breaks up with her long-term boyfriend, after his slap-worthy proposal (seriously dude!). She goes back to the office where she finds an anonymous love letter from a guy she apparently spent a memorable Christmas with except she can’t remember it. She pivots at lightening speed into pursuing love with this mystery man by going back to her tiny small town to solve the mystery.

Her first step is to go to a local woodsy park to uncover a huge treasure chest she apparently stores there containing her personal photos and diary so she can refresh her memory. Seriously, she brushes the snow off the chest, which is seemingly unmolested by curious passersby or the elements, and digs right in. This is a major step onto planet weird. But not the last.

She has two hilarious encounters with the first two former boyfriends/suspects. With the first one, she interrogates him about the love letter, but she does it in front of his fiancé! It was not pretty, but it was pretty funny. The second guy is a total freak-show who is obsessed with puns about his fish obsession and who laughs like a donkey. This was comic gold. Gold, I tell you! Until you think about it a bit. How could she ever have even spent a minute with this lunatic let alone had a serious romantic relationship with him? Not to mention he is about a foot shorter than she is.

Meanwhile, the true letter-writer, who is a childhood buddy, is following her around. He is a widower and father of possibly the most annoying child in TV Christmas movie history. In order to explain the little girl’s off the wall behavior the writers apparently have inserted the information that she is an eccentric “genius.” Daddy has been devotedly in love with our heroine even throughout his marriage. Fortunately the woman is now dead, unmourned and forgotten by both her husband and her genius child. To make this love interest even more attractive as potential husband material, he has invented a mechanical dog that looks, feels, sounds, and acts like a real dog. It steals the show. Seriously, I couldn’t look away.

I could go on and on. Our heroine has bona fide psychological issues when it comes to her love life, plus an identity crisis. Seriously, a psychologist would have a field day. By the end, she learns nothing, and develops past her challenges in no way. She ends up with the “right” guy for no reason. The happy ending rests on her doubling down on her disturbing neuroses. I will kindly leave her buying almost a hundred cups of hot cocoa in one sitting, her father’s debts, her falling for an evil dirtbag, and the reappearance of her dumber than a bag of hair ex-boyfriend mercifully by the wayside.

There were some genuine laugh out loud moments and a few were intentional. Ashley Newbrough was fine as an actress, and so was Tilkey Jones as the love struck widower/inventor. Chante Bowser was a star as her normal, sane, and smart as a whip best friend. I blame the writers and the director for this jaw-droppingly eccentric Christmas Catastrophe.

December 5, 2020

Once Upon a Main Street

October 21, 2021October 21, 2021 / Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Vanessa is a Shining Star Again

Amelia and Victor are in competition to win a property owner’s contract to buy his storefront. Amelia wants to open a year-round Christmas shop, and Victor wants to open a chocolate shop. Vanessa Lachey is feisty and charming as always and was a good match for Ryan McPartin. They both played pretty irritating characters at the beginning, but once they started to work together this was an amusing and romantic story which was actually quite touching at the end. They did have the traditional big misunderstanding near the end which threatened to blow up all their hard-won progress. But lo and behold, they resolved it immediately with frank communication and a humble confession. Incredible. It was good to see Polly Draper again. She played a scary-crazy potter which added some tension and suspense. I wish she would be in more things. So far the beautiful Vanessa Lachey has proven adept at comedy and I have enjoyed her vehicles. Except one, but that wasn’t her fault. I hope to see her star in more TV movies.

December 1, 2020

Mistletoe Magic

October 19, 2021 / Rebekahrox / 3 Comments

Surprisingly Good!

Boy, was this one cute! Great comedic acting, funny original script, and excellent chemistry between the two leads. Jessica Sipos is cute and appealing as Harper, the cynical Christmas-hating meteorologist whose quest to find her family’s magic mistletoe eventually melts her cynicism and Christmas hatred. I hope we see her again sometime. Her partner in crime is the owner of a Christmas thrift store who used to be a chubby nerdy schoolmate of Harper, one of the popular kids. Huszar is excellent in this one, as is not always the case. He has never been one of my favorites, but his comedy and chemistry with Jessica is really special. The only two downsides are the actors who play Harper’s bad boyfriend and her super annoying best friend. The director really needed to take her in hand. She was awful. Really over the top. As for the actor who played Brad, this is the second time I have seen him play the bad boyfriend of an appealing attractive lead. Maybe it’s just me but I find him very icky. Even though that’s kind of the point, He is miscast as a credible heartbreaker.

Anyway this one was a pleasant surprise and a real treat. And I especially loved the surprising little twist at the end. Well Done!

November 29, 2020

Dear Christmas

October 17, 2021 / Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Nice Pairing, but Nothing Else Going for It

Melissa Joan has starred in some of my favorite Hallmark type movies. This one wasn’t bad, but it is not going down as a favorite. The main appeal of this one was the pairing with Jason Priestly. They made a good match, and his character was appealing. On the negative side, there wasn’t much to the plot. She is driving home for Christmas, when, near her destination, she has a flat tire. She is rescued by “Mr. Christmas” who looks vaguely familiar. She keeps meeting him and they like each other. Like like. He tells her that they were in 8th grade together but she still doesn’t remember him. She finally remembers him when she finds her childhood diary and finds out he was a big crush of hers.

Melissa shines in playing goofy quirky, somewhat hapless characters and the script did not take advantage of her comic talents. But maybe she’s getting a little too “mature” for anything other than stock Hallmark heroines with no personality other than being nice and pleasant. The hook on this story was disappointing. It is unbelievable that the character would not remember an 8th grade crush. Even if he was one in a very lo-o-o-o-o-n-g line. I’ll say no more on that. Something more could have been made of discovering him as being an entry in a diary. Other than he was one of her many crushes and she drew stars around his name. Did not seem to be a firm foundation on which to decide to commit to marriage. Maybe a special memory triggered? But she would have remembered him! Or maybe the got hit on the head trope could have figured in here some where. Oh well. I give up.

November 28, 2020

Dashing Home for Christmas

October 16, 2021August 27, 2023 / Rebekahrox / 5 Comments

Happy Ending? I Hope So…

I loved the romance and humor in this. First of all the two leads were in each other’s company almost non-stop throughout the movie which led to lots of interaction and realistic relationship building. I loved their chemistry. They had two very distinct and quirky personalities which at the same time were polar opposites of each other. So the journey from indifference to friendship and then love was interesting and full of twists and turns.

I have to say the male lead was certainly not the typical leading man type. Dorky, with glasses, but handsome underneath it all.

He overshared with all and sundry and was pretty irritating to his co-star and the viewer as well. But as we and she come to see, it is because of his warm, kind, and generous heart. I generally prefer the non-traditional underdog type hero to the too handsome to be real types anyway. If this is not your jam, you probably will not like this.

The “girl”, on the other hand, was not interested in anything but her own business, and would not get off her phone. She was snotty and entitled, but yet she loved her family and wanted nothing other but to get home to them before her sister had her baby. She was an exotic beauty, as opposed to the hero’s looks.

So it was an interesting matchup and romance. Very much out of the typical box. My only doubt is if they can sustain the relationship past the “honeymoon period,” they were so different. So in the interest of happy endings, it’s probably a good thing it ended when it did.

November 23, 2020

Merry In-Laws

October 10, 2021February 21, 2022 / Rebekahrox / Leave a comment

Enjoyably Screwball

A young mother from a scientific background who abjures anything fantastical gets herself engaged to Santa Claus’s son. And she doesn’t even like Video Games. This was cute, funny, and a nice romance. It was interesting to see Lucas Bryant in a more light-hearted role. Lately he has been playing the sullen, strong, silent types. Shelley Long was way over the top in my opinion, but I couldn’t help laughing. Also there were a few truly badly behaved, even hateful characters (her father) in this one which added some tension to the comedy.

November 20, 2020

A Christmas Kiss

October 9, 2021 / Rebekahrox / 4 Comments

A Bravura performance by Evil Elizabeth

Very good romance with two appealing leads who had a nice chemistry. The supporting cast of friends and mentors contributed greatly. I also like the plot which goes somewhat off the beaten path of the last 2 years. The star of the show, though, was Elizabeth Rohm, as Wendy’s boss, Priscilla Hall. She is so ruthless, so manipulative, and so harsh behind her phony loving face she shows to Adam, who she is trying to trap while he and sweet Wendy are falling in love. She made such an impression with her portrayal, that they made a Christmas Kiss II, featuring her character. When was the last time Hallmark (or whatever) made a sequel to a movie featuring the bad guy rather than the two lovers? Never! It’s been a long time since I saw CKII, but I think she somewhat redeems herself in that one. Just FYI. Sit back and enjoy!