Christmas On Candy Cane Lane | 2022 Christmas Movies

Candace Cameron Bure’s Full House/Fuller House co-star, Andrea Barber, has joined her on Great American Family. It’s not particularly surprising since Bure is an executive producer on Christmas On Candy Cane Lane. I wonder how many people Bure is trying to convert to GAF….

Ivy (Andrea Barber) is the daughter of the Christmas maven, Muriel. After Muriel’s death, Ivy struggles to keep up with her mother’s standards.

Why does Great American Family love having movies that do nothing? It wanted to be a comedy. After all, it kept sticking Barber in slapstick situations. But then they wouldn’t let the joke land. They would just whirl off into another moment to try to make it romantic. At the same time, it wanted to be a mystery. Someone is messing with the candy cane decorations across the street. But we can’t focus on that too much because it takes away from the main characters. What we end up with is a movie that has a good premise but is trying to hard to be too many things. It’s almost like the writers had “Yes and” syndrome and didn’t know where to stop.

No, don’t watch this one. Even if you’re going for the “I love Kimmy Gibbler” route, Kimmy got way more jokes than this movie is willing to give. Christmas On Candy Cane Lane isn’t even worth turning on while you do chores. I think this is the first movie from Bure’s production company and it shows. You guys have been in entertainment forever. Do better. Also, I would love to credit more of the cast but they aren’t listed on the IMDb. What is up with that?

A Fabled Holiday | 2022 Christmas Movies

I don’t think I have liked a single movie starring Brooke D'Orsay. Ryan Paevey movies aren’t much better. At least A Fabled Holiday has a Lindsey Stirling cameo. That gives me something to look forward to.

Talia (Brooke D’Orsay) grew up wanting to be an author. She turned out to own a bookstore instead. Her childhood friend, Anderson (Ryan Paevey), became a doctor. As adults, the two have become disillusioned with life. During this Christmas season, they end up at the same inn in the town of Wunderbrook. A familiar town from their childhood with magical properties to heal the woes of anyone staying there.

Surprisingly, I found myself actually enjoying A Fabled Holiday. Sure, it follows the same Christmas tropes but it actually leans into those tropes. I’m not sure how much I can talk about this without giving too much of the plot away. I do want to say that I loved how the townspeople fit into the story. It was a perfect twist on the classic Christmas movie.

While I don’t think everyone would enjoy this one, I think it’s worth giving it a watch. If you’ve ever read a book and wondered what it would be like to live inside that world, A Fabled Holiday is for you. It might be enough to make believers out of all of us.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

I’m betting this was intentional but Cloudy With A Chance of Christmas makes me think of the children’s book (which was made into a movie), Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. While there was a lot of food in Christmas, there were no meatballs. What a shame.

Bridget Torres (Valery M. Ortiz) is a weather forecaster for the evening news. This year she has been invited to host the channel’s annual Snow-cast in Leavenworth, WA. Unbeknownst to her, the morning show hosts, Drake (Brandon Quinn) and Tatum (Sarah Jane Morris), are actually hosting the special. Drama unfolds as Drake and Bridget get closer and the truth comes out about who was Drake’s first choice for morning show co-host.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Christmas was actually a cute movie. The little shops around the Leavenworth all had a story behind them and Drake was more than willing to share the stories of his hometown with Bridget. Instead of making their outings (not dates!) about the romance, it turned them into a history lesson which was cool and interesting. Bridget got to learn about Drake and the town at the same time.

What was more interesting was the big conflict. Instead of it being something stupid, it was something that actually effected Bridget’s career. And since Bridget didn’t get picked to be the morning show co-host, Tatum feels like she was the second choice. No one likes that feeling. It created an interesting dynamic between the two women that wasn’t about being romantic rivals but actual career rivals.

I do think Cloudy With A Chance Of Christmas is worth watching. Grab a few snacks, maybe a hot toddy, and curl up to wait for the snowfall. It is coming but no one knows when! But that is why we have fake snow, right?

Christmas On The Slopes | 2022 Christmas Movies

So this movie is called Christmas On The Slopes but it’s about chefs. Sure, they are cooking at a ski resort but that has little to do the with actual movie. My mind is boggled.

Sophia (Soma Chhaya) is a celebrity chef. When her latest restaurant in Savannah, GA fails on opening night, Sophia decides to take a Christmas vacation at a luxury ski resort. As she sneaks into the kitchen for a snack, the head chef, Ansel (Olivier Renaud), mistakes her for his new sous chef. Sophia doesn’t correct him and ends up helping him cater a wedding for a famous fashion designer.

Once again, a movie that could have been completely avoided if the lead characters simply had a conversation. It’s difficult to believe that Sophia owns any restaurants, much less three. At no point does she assert herself. Instead, she allows Ansel to walk all over her. How in the world could she run two successful restaurants without being at least a little assertive? Even if you want to say that was all her business partner, she would have had to be a little assertive at some point to become as famous as she did.

In addition to the conflict being dumb, at no point did I believe that Sophia and Ansel were falling in love. Even at the end during the Big Declaration Of Love, I didn’t believe it. Sure, they were spending time together outside of the kitchen but none of it felt romantic.

When Christmas On The Slopes ended, I didn’t have a particularly strong feeling about it. Now that I am rethinking the movie, I think I hate it. There definitely isn’t anything appealing about it. And Sophia is a terrible character. I’m saying not to watch this one…unless you really badly need ideas for recipes. Even then, you won’t get the whole recipe, you’ll just get general ideas like “add cranberries to bread” or “put sage in stuffing.” Useless information, really.

A Big Fat Family Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

As I’ve said before, I don’t do any research when I’m making the annual list of Christmas movies to watch. So when I saw one titled A Big Fat Family Christmas, it sounded offensive. The question was - how was it going to be offensive?

Liv Rose Chan (Shannon Chan-Kent) is a photo-journalist in San Francisco. Every year, her family throws a huge holiday party for the community. But Liv doesn’t wants to keep her professional life separate from her personal life. When the new journalist, Henry (Shannon Kook), is assigned to cover the holiday party with help from Liv, her life gets turned upside down.

I don’t understand why they titled this movie A Big Fat Family Christmas. If this is an Asian reference, I would love if someone from the Asian community could leave a comment or email me to let me know. I would greatly appreciate it.

The movie itself isn’t too bad. It’s mostly filled with Liv trying to keep Henry away from her family, even though Henry seems to know somehow. But the big conflict comes when Liv and Henry lose a bunch of money the community donated for charity. Liv has to come to terms with her family and being a part of the community. These are issues that are super important but the movie doesn’t want to get too deep about it. Everything is kept on the surface, which is a little sad. But I guess I can’t expect too much from a Hallmark Christmas movie.

While I didn’t find this particular movie very compelling, I do want as many people to watch it as possible. Hallmark (and other channels) need to know that we, the people, want to see more than just lily white characters in our romance movies. Christmas At The Golden Dragon is the better Asian-American Christmas movie of the season but, honestly, we need more than just two movies a year. Maybe if a bunch of people watch both movies, we can get more diversity in our leading characters.

A Hollywood Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

HBO has taken the Christmas movie trope and turned it into it’s very own Christmas movie - A Hollywood Christmas. I’m not sure about making a movie about a movie trope is any good though…

Jessica (Jessika Van) is a successful movie director who specializes in Christmas movies. When the network decides to get rid of their Christmas movie department altogether, they bring in Christopher (Josh Swickard) to look over the finances of the movie Jessica is currently filming. Jessica’s assistant, Reena (Anissa Borrego), relies on good old Christmas movie tropes to help Jessica get through these troubling times.

There isn’t a lot for me to say about A Hollywood Christmas. While the acting is decent, the rest of the movie is…well, expected. We all know what the Christmas movie tropes are. There is no need for us to be walked through them. Yet that is exactly what this movie does. Reena literally explains each and every trope either right before or right after it happens, which kinda ruins the humor of a Christmas movie having Christmas movie tropes during filming. This movie should be funny. It’s not.

To be honest, A Hollywood Christmas isn’t worth sitting through. I kept waiting for something new to happen or for something funny to happen. Then the movie ended. You might as well watch any Christmas movie and get the same result. Except that there are some good Christmas movies out there! Though it’s getting more and more difficult to find them.

Christmas In The Wilds | 2022 Christmas Movies

What happens when you are in the wilderness and everything goes wrong? Nothing. Nothing happens.

Buck (Victor Zinck Jr) works for the Rescue Services for Wayne Forest. His girlfriend, Jessica (Kaitlyn Leeb), is spending Thanksgiving with his family when he gets called away to help rescue some stranded skiers in Avalon County. Instead of returning home, Buck chooses to spend a few weeks helping his old work partner, Meg (Jennifer Mote), clear some snow from the mountains to avoid avalanches. When he can’t get back home on Christmas Eve due to an impending storm, Jessica decides to go to him.

For a movie called Christmas In The Wilds, it was surprisingly boring. Every time the movie tried to make a new conflict interesting, it failed hard. Buck can't fly his plane out of Avalon County because he’s low on fuel and the fuel truck can’t get in due to snow. When Jessica decides to drive her Jeep to him, they decide to meet halfway at a family cabin. Buck and Meg take snowmobiles while Jessica drives. Jessica crashes her Jeep and changes to a sled pulled by dogs. Buck crashes his snowmobile so has to share with Meg. When the three finally meet up in the middle of nowhere, Meg decides to take one of the dogs to get a drink at the river and lets the dog step into a fox trap. Meg takes the injured dog back while Buck and Jessica continue to the cabin. But then the couple has to cross a raging river and Buck falls in and…..do you see where I’m going with this?

EVERYTHING goes wrong in this movie. And none of it is interesting because they just leap up from one issue only to run into another problem. The writers should have had someone be injured and stay injured. Like maybe Buck got hurt and Jessica had to pull him on a sled or something. But nope. Buck got injured in the snowmobile crash but we would never know because he’s perfectly fine. Then Buck, who works in RESCUE SERVICES, says it’s fine if they cross this ranging river in the middle of December? Buck is stupid.

Don’t watch Christmas In The Wilds. It’s stupid and annoying and annoyingly stupid.

Serving Up The Holidays | 2022 Christmas Movies

I don’t have an intro for Serving Up The Holidays. Pretend that I wrote something witty about restaurants and menus and Christmas.

Scarlett (Britt Irvin) is the co-owner and chef for an upscale restaurant. When she has to come up with a new holiday menu in order to keep their investor from leaving, her friend and co-owner, Claire (Bethany Brown), signs her up for a Christmas-themed cooking getaway. Only the getaway is hosted by Scarlett’s rival from cooking school, James (Zach Roerig). Will Scarlett be able to get her menu together in time?

This movie was so boring. I mean, it was so boring that I don’t even know what to say about it. It’s a movie where literally nothing happens. The whole thing is supposed to be about cooking but we don’t see any cooking. We see some preparations. Some flour is thrown around. We see a couple of finished plates but nothing is actually made on camera. I hate it.

No. No. No. Don’t watch Serving Up The Holidays. It’s not worth spending any time on. We’re already spending too much time on it with this review. Onto the next movie!

A Holiday Spectacular | 2022 Christmas Movies

It’s a Christmas movie with The Rockettes!! What more can a dancer want from the holidays?

Lucy (Elle Graper) is nervous about her final audition for the role of Clara with The Rockettes. Her grandmother, Margret (Ann-Margret), tells her the story of how she once danced with The Rockettes and how she found love along the way to finding herself.

A Holiday Spectacular had everything I could have wanted from a Hallmark Christmas film. There was drama of a child wanting to do something different from what their parents had originally planned. There was a blossoming love that was also offered a little drama of its own. And there was the beautiful dancing from the famous Rockettes in New York City. It’s almost like this movie was written specifically for me.

I loved that, even though Margret (called Maggie by her friends) had romantic relationships, the main focus of the movie was on the sisterhood in the dance team. We frequently see the women in their boarding house or eating and chatting at a diner or at rehearsals. The men, both John (Derek Klena) and Maxwell (Torsten Johnson), are relegated to relationships outside of her normal life in New York. John’s scenes are mostly outside walking around town. Maxwell’s scenes take place either on the telephone or in a restaurant. They don’t impede on the lives inside the Rockette boarding house. It’s nice that the movie gives us that separation.

While A Holiday Spectacular is spectacular for dancers or fans of dance, I think that this movie would be relatable to anyone. Not wanting to disappoint your parents is a fairly universal emotion. Definitely check this one out. And if you get the chance, go check out The Rockettes in person. If you can’t make the trip, this should help satisfy that itch to see them.

A Christmas Spark | 2022 Christmas Movies

Man, I remember my mother watching Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman back in the 90s. Well, Lifetime brought Jane Seymour and Joe Lando back in A Christmas Spark. Let’s see if they still have their spark almost 30 years later.

Molly (Jane Seymour) is stuck in her traditional ways. This year, her daughter’s family can’t come to her house for Christmas due to work commitments, ruining their traditional Christmas celebration. So she goes to Connecticut to spend the holiday at her daughter’s house. During her stay, she gets talked into directing the local Christmas play. She ends up working closely with Hank (Joe Lando), the town playboy. The two end up closer than either intended.

Seymour and Lando have a history of playing romantic partners. In A Christmas Spark, it’s almost like no time has passed between them. They have just as much chemistry in 2022 as they did in 1993. Having that relationship off-camera makes it so much more believable on-camera. The two seem like they are goofing around as actual friends instead of playing two characters falling in love. It makes the falling in love part seem real. You can see the relationship between the characters go from friendship to love, which we don’t see very often in these types of movies.

There isn’t a ton to talk about in A Christmas Spark but I do think it is worth watching. Whether you want to watch it to see your old Dr Quinn ship get back together or you just want a nice Christmas movie to watch, this one fulfills both of those needs. Seymour is a super talented actress and I’m not sure what she’s doing in a Lifetime Christmas movie but I am very glad she is doing it.