EXmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

I recently found out that Amazon has a free streaming service called Freevee. The first 2023 Christmas movie I found on it is EXmas. Do we think this will be better than the stuff on cable?

Ali (Leighton Meester) broke up with Graham (Robbie Amell). However, she did not break up with his family. Thinking that he is not coming home for Christmas, Graham’s parents invite Ali to celebrate with them. But they were wrong. Can Ali and Graham live under the same roof without killing each other?

There were parts of the movie that I enjoyed. Unfortunately, a lot of the fun scenes were ruined by the ruthlessness between Ali and Graham. They aren’t just mean to each other. They are downright evil. I don’t understand how they were able to forgive each other so easily in order to give us the Happy Ever After. In short, this is a movie you could enjoy if you like watching people tear each other apart. Otherwise, you can skip it.

Rating: Tiny food truck or loving relationship - you can only choose one

A Paris Christmas Waltz | 2023 Christmas Movies

It’s going to be difficult for me to get through A Paris Christmas Waltz. I really don’t like Matthew Morrison as an actor. He plays all of his characters with this brash egotistical slant. I’m hoping this is different.

Professional ballroom dancer Leo (Matthew Morrison) is looking for a new dance partner for an upcoming competition. He chooses Emma (Jen Lilley), an accountant that recently left her job. As the pair trains in Paris, they find a romance blooming between them.

Yeah, I didn’t like this movie all that much. Morrison is his usual annoying cardboardy self in this. Lilley, who I usually don’t mind, gets completely lost trying to act against him. The dancing is mediocre at best and there is an awful song sung by the pair tossed in. There are a lot of dance-related Christmas movies out there. Skip this one entirely.

Rating: A complete misstep

Dashing Through The Snow | 2023 Christmas Movies

Taking a bit of a break from Hallmark and Great American Family and Lifetime, I’m going to check out one of Disney’s new movies this year - Dashing Through The Snow. We will have more titles from Disney coming up but let’s see how they are starting off this season.

Eddie Garrick (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges) doesn’t particularly like Christmas, thanks to some childhood trauma. However, he does want to make the holiday special for his daughter, Charlotte (Madison Skye Validum). When the two happen to meet someone calling themselves Nick Claus (Lil Rel Howery), the trio spends the evening running around town trying to avoid a corrupt politician and his lackeys.

I had to admit that it was the participation of Ludacris that made me want to watch this movie. And I am so glad that I did! Dashing Through The Snow has a great balance between the realism of life and plain old Santa Magic. There are some updates to the Santa we know and love. But not in a bad way. I found myself smiling a lot while watching this. It’s fun and well acted and I loved it. I might add this one to the Annual Movie list.

Rating: It’s on the Nice List, of course!

Holiday Hotline | 2023 Christmas Movies

When I’m going through my list of Christmas movies, I try really hard to not learn a lot about the movies before I watch them. All I knew about Holiday Hotline was only what was shown in the commercials. I didn’t even know who the male lead was until I saw the opening credits. I’m glad I was able to keep this surprise for myself.

Abby (Emily Tennant) is a chef in London. When her chef-boyfriend takes the credit for her work, Abby quits her job and her relationship and goes to Chicago for a break. She falls into a job in Chicago answering phone calls from people needing help cooking their turkeys properly. Using an American accent and the name Peggy, she connects with single father John (Niall Matter). Soon the two become more than friends.

I was surprised to find that Holiday Hotline is a really good movie. Tennant and Matter work so well together. This may be the first couple of the season that actually shows some chemistry. Not only that, the story was interesting! I don’t think we’ve ever had a hotline worker as a career trope. For once, we were able to see Abby/Peggy and the other workers actually doing their jobs. We almost never see anyone actually working! And I really loved the way they showed the calls. This is a movie I wouldn’t mind watching again. A very pleasant surprise from Hallmark.

Rating: Let’s Talk Turkey

Planes, Trains and Christmas Trees | 2023 Christmas Movies

Planes, Trains and Christmas Trees is the second movie of the season for Lifetime. I spent a lot of the movie thinking about how much the lead actor, Olivier Renaud, looks like Zac Efron. Like, I have watched other movies featuring this dude. I don’t know why this particular movie makes him look like that. Anyway….

Kayley (Kathryn Davis) is an event planner flying home to New York City. Brett (Olivier Renaud) is a sports agent also flying home to New York City. Thanks to a terrible snowstorm, all flights are cancelled. The pair team up to try to get home but end up stranded in Brett’s hometown of Redwood, Ohio. Since they are unable to leave, Kayley and Brett help his uncle plan a local Christmas festival.

Sigh. So. A lot of the movies I watch are just boring. The acting is fine, the plot is fine. It’s just fine. I want to say this movie is fine but….is there something more boring than boring? Like, nothing happens in this movie. Nothing. Kayley is ignoring her boyfriend’s phone calls but we never really find out why they are not getting along. (I can’t even say they are fighting! They don’t talk!) Cardboard man Brett doesn’t want to talk about anything. There are parts where Kayley acts weirdly around Brett’s family for no reason at all because then she’s all buddy-buddy with them. I really don’t understand this movie. I think they wanted to do a thing where Kayley has traumatic Christmas memories so she doesn’t like being around Brett’s family at Christmas but that never appears. And the awful thing is the acting and the story aren’t awful. There was so much potential here that was just wasted.

Rating: Can I live in the candy castle…by myself…no, seriously. Get out of my candy castle.

A Merry Scottish Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

This year Hallmark is giving us two Lacey Chabert movies. The first one is A Merry Scottish Christmas, where she rejoins her old Party of Five co-star, Scott Wolf, as siblings.

Lindsay Morgan (Chabert), her brother Brad (Wolf), and his wife Sarah (Kellie Blaise) have come to Scotland at their mother’s request to celebrate Christmas. Little did they know that their mother, Josephine (Fiona Bell), was supposed to be a duchess before she ran away with her American boyfriend. Now that the duke, Jo’s brother, has passed, what will happen to the castle and the town that depends on it?

We all know I’m a sucker for a Christmas movie that doesn’t revolve around romance. This movie revolves around a broken family trying to find their ways back to each other. It has sweet moments where they remember fond childhood memories and moments where they are all absolutely crappy to each other. Things that make an unrealistic movie like this seem more real. While I’m not particularly fond of Chabert’s or Wolf’s acting skills, I think their history together works well for them. It’s almost hard to believe they aren’t brother and sister.

Rating: Can I learn how to do the Highland Fling too?

Christmas Plus One | 2023 Christmas Movies

Lifetime has finally joined the Christmas movie fray with Christmas Plus One. And, of course, it’s another Corey Sevier movie. I just can’t get rid of him, can I?

Sisters Cara (Emily Alatalo) and Amy (Vanessa Smythe) make a Christmas wish every year. This year they both wished to meet their soulmates. One year later, Cara is on her way back to New York City to get ready for Cara’s Christmas wedding. She catches a ride with Chase (Andrew Bushell), who she clicks with immediately. However, the two can’t seem to reconnect when they reach the city. As she searches for Chase, Cara helps writer Michael (Corey Sevier) with his Christmas article.

Usually, I get annoyed at the major plotline of these movies. Instead, it’s the wedding B plot that annoys me. Amy has met her soulmate, dated, got engaged, and planned a wedding all within one year. She barely knows the man! Either the movie should have had the engagement happen at Christmas or just meeting the family. I know these movies are unrealistic but it is extremely unrealistic to have a full relationship and wedding within one year. I hate it.

As for the actual plot, it’s fine. It’s the usual conflict of main characters not having an actual conversation and Cara not doing anything besides wandering around New York City to find Chase. When she finally does something (leaving a random picture of her and Michael on a Christmas tree at a sales lot), it is stupid. She doesn’t ever ask anyone if they have seen Chase and she keeps following random men wearing red scarves even though she knows that Chase no longer has his red scarf. I think I might hate this whole movie.

Rating: Hide and Seek Loser

Santa, Maybe | 2023 Christmas Movies

It’s rare that I get mad at a Christmas romance movie. Santa, Maybe has pushed me over that edge.

Lila (Aubrey Reynolds) manages the local theater. The board of directors has hired a new marketing coordinator, Glenn (Samuel Whitten), who happens to be Lila’s high school bully. Glenn pulls Lila’s name for the company Secret Santa. Can Glenn make up for his past and can Lila pull off the perfect Christmas ballet without forsaking her personal life?

I’m pretty sure that things that bother me, a theater person, would not bother a normal person. But they are things that shouldn’t have been in the movie. For example, no one recasts a major role in the Nutcracker at the last minute. This is a ballet that takes months to perfect and no one would approve a major cast change with less than a month preparation. No matter what the new marketing guy says. Also along those lines, no one would let the marketing guy cast any role. That’s not his job. He could bring it up to the director or the artistic director or the choreographer but he would not be the one making that decision. Also also - why bother having an understudy if you aren’t going to use them? THAT IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF HAVING AN UNDERSTUDY. Someone who knows the role and can step in when the actor/dancer cannot perform. You don’t recast a role because the dancer is injured when you already have an understudy. What the hell.

On top of all of that, the Secret Santa thing they run is stupid. They are supposed to give each other one gift per week for six weeks. We’re talking about theater people! They are stereotypically broke! Who thinks they could afford to buy six separate gifts for someone? This is the stupidest Secret Santa ever.

I really hate when movies set themselves in a theater then completely ignore the rules of how a performance works. You would think that someone somewhere along the line would know that none of this is even close to reality and try to get it fixed. Then again, maybe they don’t know how scripts work either.

Rating: A sugar plum dud

Navigating Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

I know I complain about these movie titles a lot. Navigating Christmas sounds like something that should be about travel. But it’s not. I think this was supposed to about emotional navigation but that is really pushing it. Hold on, let me go into more detail.

This is the first Christmas that Melanie (Chelsea Hobbs) and her teenage son Jason (Everett Andres) are spending together since Melanie’s divorce. After Jason gets ditched by his father, Melanie takes them on a vacation to spend Christmas at a lighthouse. When they get there, they find out that they have also signed up to do chores, like preparing the lighthouse for the Christmas festival. Has Melanie ruined Christmas for her son?

OK. So. Navigating Christmas is supposed to be a reference to Melanie helping her son emotionally navigate the holidays without his father. However, she doesn’t really do that. She keeps his father’s “big secret” from him instead of straight up telling him. She doesn’t have a deep conversation about why the divorce happened. Instead, she lets him believe that her “working too much” was the cause. And she does nothing but avoid every emotional hurdle that comes her way. A World Record Christmas did a much better job showing a loving mother helping her child navigate his emotions. This one would have been better titled Avoiding The Rocks or something.

Rating: At least the lighthouse is pretty?

Best. Christmas. Ever! | 2023 Christmas Movies

The first of this season’s Christmas movies from Netflix is Best. Christmas. Ever! It has some big names attached to it - Brandy Norwood, Heather Graham, and Jason Biggs. Will it live up to the star power?

Every year, Jackie Jennings (Norwood) sends out a holiday newsletter detailing the lives of her family members. Jackie’s life seems to be picture perfect, unlike the life of her old friend Charlotte (Graham). When Charlotte, her husband Rob (Biggs), and their kids wind up at Jackie’s house a few days before Christmas, Charlotte tries to prove that Jackie’s newsletters are nothing but lies.

The bulk of this movie lays at Graham’s feet. There is a sub-plot of the kids trying to figure out if Santa is real but a majority of the movie revolves around Charlotte’s hijinks trying to snoop around Jackie’s house. Of course, that means that there isn’t anything too surprising going on plot-wise. However, both Graham and Biggs are comedy standards. Both of them are perfectly matched with Norwood’s perfect persona. I actually found myself enjoying this quite a bit. I’m glad Netflix usually pulls through for me.

Rating: Get in the solar powered hot air balloon