christmasmoviereviews

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w i n t e r mood

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By mitchellmessana

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By offtomontreal

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Source: @hannasanglar

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Coziest of days.

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It’s that time of year again ❄️ Like or reblog if you save, sweetheart x

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Christmas Crime Story

Title: Christmas Crime Story. Year of Release: 2017. Available On: Amazon as of 06/2018. Rating: 2 out of 5 Jingle Bells.

A botched Christmas Eve robbery leads down a destructive path for a police officer reconnecting with his estranged mother, a coming-apart-at-the-seams amateur photographer, his vindictive and murderous fiancee, her secret lover and a strung-out mall Santa...as they all converge in one explosive and deadly night.

I’ll be honest - at first blush this is not your typical Christmas movie. The film opens with a murder scene and the main character is a cop. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a fan of the police. So while I watch a lot of crime shows, I am usually screaming at the characters not to tell the cops anything, to call their lawyers immediately, etc. Time in this movie is out of whack, shifting around somewhat without warning and it can be a tad difficult to follow. There are some strange cinematography decisions made, too, but I actually rather enjoyed those quirks. The video quality and costuming is good.

The best part, to me, is Adrian Paul a.k.a. Duncan Macleod. Ooooh, he has aged but is still a complete babe. He’s a dang cutie! Even if he does play the murderous type. Did I mention that none of the characters in this movie are nice people?

This is NOT a family movie. I repeat, NOT a family movie.

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Rachel Gillig  ✨ Instagram

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Christmas In the Heartland

Title: Christmas In the Heartland. Year of Release: 2017. Available On: Amazon Prime as of 06/2018. Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Jingle Bells.

Shelley Long? Bo Derek? I’m in. This 2017 masterpiece opens with a great original song and it doesn’t disappoint from there. Both main young actresses play singers - and y’all know I love Christmas movies with original scores!

Kara and Jessie are two teenager girls from very different worlds, but with a little Christmas magic, they find they have much more in common than they ever imagined.

Basic plot: Parent Trap with two girls who are strangers but have never met their grandparents for various reasons, mayhem ensues. Happy ending, of course. But it’s so enjoyable, heart-warming, and pretty to look at in the meanwhile. Christian Kane does not disappoint. JoeDon Rooney pleasantly surprises with his I-been-on-the-road-but-now-I’m-settling-down country star estranged dad character. Honestly, the whole thing is cheesy as all hell but it’ll worm into your heart. There’s also a plot twist that you might not immediately guess, keeping it interesting through the last few minutes.

I don’t say this enough with this blog - go watch this one!

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Just Friends

Title: Just Friends. Year of Release: 2005. Available On: Netflix as of 6/2018. Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Jingle Bells.

Perhaps you don’t consider this a Christmas movie - but you’d be wrong. Why would it be on this blog if it wasn’t a Christmas movie? This movie takes place during Christmas and that is all of the criteria that I require. 

Let’s just start with my primary complaint. First and foremost, I despise the fat-shaming premise of the movie. I hate that fat people are “undate-able” in movies. I also hate that handsome actors and actresses wear fat suits to make themselves “ugly�� as though the worst thing on the planet is to be fat. Plot lines reinforce that when they get skinny, they get happy. Which is bullshit.

Not to mention...

transphobic jokes

racist Asian jokes

homophobic jokes (calling people “f****t” and “homo,” saying “this is so gay” as a disparagement)

friend zone bullshit, it’s basically a pillar of the plot

generally immature and stupid humor

Basic plot: good ol’ boy ends up in his hometown for the Christmas holiday by accident and shows off his supposed happiness as well as his thinness, but life is more complex than that. Will he ever find true love and true happiness? Will it be with his HS best friend and former love, Jamie? Will he let his shit go long enough to have a real relationship or connection? But it turns out that Chris is a goddamn asshole and I don’t give a shit whether he ends up happy or not. Everyone in this movie sucks. Chris Klein is cute to look at, that’s the only positive I have been able to find in this cesspool of mid-aughts horrible humor. This is a bad, bad, bad movie. A juvenile, stupid, unfunny movie. The ending only barely redeems it even a smidgen, but honestly just skip this one.

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Home Alone (1990)

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The Christmas Ornament

Title: The Christmas Ornament. Year of Release: 2013. Available On: DVD via Amazon. Rating: 4 out of 5 Jingle Bells.

So so many of these movies involve financial distress that could only be with xyz solution but it involves giving up a business / house / dream that is tied to someone who died that the main character loves very much. Get those continued bonds, Hallmark. You get them. Model that healthy, ongoing grief that is decidedly not related to stages nor “acceptance.” 

Again, I will lazily copy-paste from Wikipedia, the best website on the internet:

A young widow, Kathy (Kellie Martin), is not putting up a Christmas tree this year. For years, she and her recently deceased husband gave each other Christmas ornaments as gifts that represented their love for each other. Now she keeps those ornaments locked away in order to avoid memories of her tragic loss. The only holiday tradition she observes now is baking Christmas cookies for her friends, which she's been doing since childhood.

Welcome to another episode of Person Wonders If Their Grief Will Ever Subside Enough for Them to Love Again. P.S. the answer in real life and the movies is yes, if that’s what you want. 

Goddess bless Kellie Martin. I have been watching her since 1989 when Troop Beverly Hills was an immediate forever favorite. And this movie has a deep thread of grief and loss which is totally, utterly my jam. Ohhhh, I love this stuff. So far, they do a pretty good job, too: the holidays are hard for people who are grieving. Harder than normal days, even when your spouse wasn’t a diehard Christmas fan. And hard enough when all of your friends aren’t trying to get up in your grill and force you to “move on” because your pain is difficult for them - like Jenna (Jewel Staite), Kathy’s best friend, and Sarah (Nicole Oliver), Tim’s sister, are doing. Unlike most of these movies, the dialogue - at least around grief - is not totally the worst! 

And Tim (Cameron Mathison) seems like a nice, normal human man for the most part, which is more than I can say for many of these dudes. Mathison was also in Holidaze, and is just generally benign but watchable and likeable.

Tim: The tree is still living, even though it’s been cut down. Kathy: I can relate to that.

Pretty smart with grief stuff! Imagine that.

All told, this movie is - dare I say it? - legitimately... not bad. It’s watchable. I would consider watching it a second time.