#really glad my partner (despite being an actual ms major) was so bored with the lab that he didn't want to keep our sample at all :))))))

[sorrellegiance]

does anyone want to see my brass microstructure pictures from mat sci lab 🥺🥺

[canecainkane]

Christmas Wedding Planner (2017): first 80 minutes

Okay so listen, I truly cannot cover this whole movie in one review, so I divided it up according to ridiculousness: the first 80 minutes versus the last 5 minutes, which made me shout at my TV more than any other three movies so far this holiday season.

Netflix Description: “A wedding planner's world is turned upside down when a handsome private investigator is hired to disrupt one of her biggest jobs.”

This description? Chock full o’ lies. Let me rewrite this for honesty:

“An apparently unemployed woman who wants to become a wedding planner's world is turned upside down when a ridiculously handsome private investigator is hired to investigate someone, which may disrupt one of her biggest jobs literally the only job she’s ever had as a wedding planner (which she’s doing pretty badly).” 

RATING: 

Candy Canes: w/out last five minutes: 4 out of 5; with last five minutes: 2

Confession: Despite the slew of online reviews calling this the worst Christmas movie ever made, the first 80 minutes almost fooled me. Was it silly, contrived, emotionally manipulative and predictable? Um, that’s what we mean when we say Christmas movie. But until the last five minutes clonked me over the head with a cast iron skillet of stupidity, I didn’t notice how much worse than average it was. I’m a simple woman and I was distracted by the bright, shiny production values, the weird/wonderful costumes and how goddamn glossy everyone’s perfect, perfect hair was.

Dean Cains: with hottie goggles on: 4 out of 5; goggles removed: 2

Let the record show -- I’ve been watching these movies for 25 years, and this is the first one I’ve ever seen with a male lead whom I find even remotely attractive. Slash actually kind of straight-up bangable? Is he an average or better actor? I really can’t even be objective. And triple that for Jacqueline Hudon: I’ve got a weakness for big-eyed coltish redheads. It’s like a chemical reaction. But objectively, the acting was pretty embarrassing ... especially Jocelyn Hudon who moves as compulsively as a hummingbird--twitching, simpering, fidgeting, so awkward and self-affected she’s always, like, a quarter-second away from staring directly at the camera. Whatever. I’ll still watch every Christmas movie she ever makes.

Citizen Kanes: 0 out of 5

The movie is called Christmas Wedding Planner. It was based on a Harlequin novel, and produced, mysteriously, by a company called “Brain Power Productions.” The prosecution rests, your honor.

TOTAL: 8! As long as you fall asleep five minutes before the end, and you happen to perfectly share my passion for Emma Stone-ish women & dudes who look like sexy, stubbly non-custodial parents.

Otherwise, 4. But at least it’s not a boring 4 -- it earns that 4 by being truly, magnificently terrible.

WTF Moments:

*A two-fer with these screenshots: they tell you everything you need to know about the plot AND about Jocelyn Hudon’s aggressive facial mugging. 

Actually, a three-fer: yes, that’s just a straight-up gift-wrapping ribbon tied around her neck for some reason, and no, that’s not the only ... ruffled tea saucer (??????) that’s perched precariously on Kelly Rutherford’s head throughout this movie.

*Seriously, look at this bullshit they stapled to her gloriously glossy mane:

Sorry, babe, but until you evict that garbage crab from your scalp, you don’t get to judge other people’s decisions. (I mean, goddamn, costume department.That is Ms. Lily van der Woodson whose head you are besmirching. How DARE you?)

*My husband and I were trying to solve the mystery of Hallmark’s Charisma-Defying Troupe of Chinless Wonders and my husband put forth the theory: the men aren’t meant to be aspirational. They’re supposed to be exactly handsome enough that the potato-chip chomping, yoga-pants clad Christmas movie binge-ing viewer (self included, obvs) would say: “Yeah, y’know, realistically? I could get with that guy.”

He’s an insightful man. No idea how Stephen Huszan managed to slip through the rigorous hot-but-not-too-hot inspection, but I’m not complaining.

*Also, I just realized why I was immune to the sheer obnoxiousness of Jocelyn Hudon’s acting: I was inoculated from watching Karen Gillan’s almost identical performance in “Selfie.” I simultaneously love that show and die cringe death from the grating over-stylization.

*Of course, no movie would be completely without a cast of intriguing and pivotal side characters! Look at these five quirky characters who are in multiple scenes each! Each bridesmaid has her own distinct personality trait! The hilariously anal-retentive baker! A struggling restaurateur!

Okay now FORGET ABOUT THEM FUCKING IMMEDIATELY, because that’s what the movie does. Seriously, not one of these people has a storyline that comes back. Not even the restaurateur, who is the PI’s best friend / business partner and the caterer of the title wedding. NONE of the characters (including the bride!) has a storyline that goes beyond aiding & abetting the main characters’ love story. The closest we get to a B plot is persnickety baker using Eureka lemons in his cake (the fool!).

These characters have such meager internal lives that even the bride -- the person who gets the third-most screen time -- wanders around in a luded haze, totally ignoring her own (terribly unplanned) wedding so she can chummily grill her bff/cousin/wedding planner about her hot hook-up with said bride’s ex. Which, like, I barely even liked most of my exes while I was dating them, but if a friend of mine hooked up with one of my exes at my engagement party, I would 100% give their full contact information to every Republican candidate newsletter I could dig up.

*But forget the hottie ex-snatching -- bride should be scratching Kelsey’s eyes out for how badly she’s fucking up this wedding. If four days before my wedding, the wedding planner was STARTING to make her “vision board,” I’d be on Kayak booking tickets to Vegas. Drive-thru Elvis > $$$$$ wedding planned by a woman who apparently hasn’t even heard of Pinterest.

The timeline on the planning for this -- I cannot stress enough -- super elegant high society wedding:

8 days before: Throw an engagement party for the bride and groom; talk New York Times writer into covering the wedding and sell them photo rights without a contract

7 days before: Choose the wedding dress; caterer cancels but don’t book a new one -- it’ll probably work itself out; discover the bachelorette party has to be fully re-planned

6 days before: Teach the bride to bake so she can sweatshop up gingerbread wedding favors for 200+ guests; book a new caterer who has never done a wedding before but reassures you that: “yeah,” he “can probably do that”

5 days before: The groom’s parents throw a ... pre-wedding party for all the same guests who were at the engagement party and who will be at the wedding? (Sssshh, don’t think too hard about it.) Show up late and make out with the bride’s ex.

4 days before: Create a vision board for the wedding decor.

3 days before: Eh, the wedding’s pretty much in shape. Spend the day in a white van with binoculars, spying on the groom.

2 days before: Mope on your couch.

1 day before: Whatever.

Day of: Wear your non-matching bridesmaid dress, run a few errands while everyone is already at the church, then drop a truth-bomb that nukes the wedding! Wooooo!

Career self-sabotage, thy name is Kelsey Whatever.

*Though I have to give snaps -- the day-long stakeout was ridiculous, but I was glad that Kelsey and the PI (Hunter? Duncan? Vin? Honestly, he may be hot, but he still tumbled out of the same Cosmic Gumball Machine of Interchangeable Men as the rest of these Xmas hunks) actually spent time together. So often, these couples spill coffee on each other, then meet again in a tree lot, then talk about their dead parents during a snowball fight and it’s LOVE FOREVER after forty non-consecutive minutes together. So I appreciated that they spent a full day together and we could actually see them vibing.

“A Christmas movie couple that actually spends time together!” I thought. “A couple who gets to know each other instead of just ninja-kicking into an ill-conceived relationship!”

Haaaaaaaa. 

*I grabbed this picture of random street musicians because I thought, in my first-80-minutes innocence that this was going to be the most ridiculously extra moment all movie.

But, you know, cheesy Christmas movies are like the days we live: Each one is kind of special but, let’s be honest, mostly similar to what came before. We won’t remember the vast majority of them. They’re filled with mediocre men and cool women. And you never know, going into one, whether it might unexpectedly prove to be the best or worst of your year, or even of your life.