The Christmas Doctor | 2020 Christmas Movies

Hallmark couldn’t possibly be happy with only one channel showing Christmas movies way too early. They had to have their second channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, get in the game. Everyone else probably already knew this but, man, how many movies can Hallmark really put out in one year? Well, the first movie of the year that I have watched from Hallmark Movies & Mysteries is The Christmas Doctor. Why can’t anyone give these movies good titles?

The Christmas Doctor focuses on Dr. Zoey Garner (Holly Robinson Peete), a traveling doctor who doesn’t stay in the same place long. She gets an assignment for Willow Brook, NY. The local doctor is having shoulder surgery and will be out for two weeks. But Dr. Zoey isn’t used to sticking around for that long.

Sadly, I don’t have a lot to say about The Christmas Doctor. It was a little boring but otherwise perfectly fine. There was this weird little backstory about Dr. Zoey being a former military doctor that didn’t really have a lot to do with the plot besides being the reason Dr. Ray chose her to substitute for him.

I think maybe the movie was so boring because there wasn’t any conflict. Zoey’s sister, Debra (Nicole Anthony) is upset that Zoey never spends Christmas with her. Luke (Adrian Holmes), the love interest, is upset when Zoey tells Dr. Ray (Fred Henderson) that she is leaving town when her gig is up. All of the conflicts are literally things that people knew about beforehand. Debra knows that her sister is a traveling doctor who fills in at various hospitals when needed. How can you really be upset about a doctor having to work on Christmas? And Luke? He knew that Zoey was only in town for 14 days. Why is he upset that she’s not ditching her career to stay in a tiny little town with someone she barely knows? All of this gets resolved, of course. That doesn’t make the fact that they are stupid conflicts any better.

So, I guess watch it if you have nothing else to do? Turn it on for some background noise? I’m not saying don’t watch it but I’m sure you have a better way to spend two hours.

Holidate | 2020 Christmas Movies

Judging by these two movies that Netflix released for the Christmas season, Netflix’s stance for 2020 is “Christmas movies that don’t actually have anything to do with Christmas.” I wouldn’t be particularly surprised if Holidate was inspired by that song by The Waitresses. That’s how important Christmas here. Weird for a Christmas movie. Anyway…

Sloan (Emma Roberts) is a young woman who is basically tortured by her family every holiday due to her frequently single status. Jackson (Luke Bracey) is tired of spending holidays with women he feels the need to impress. The two of them come up with a scheme to be each other’s dates for every holiday. Her family can stop trying to set her up with men and he can be himself. It’s a perfect arrangement!

Before I start picking this apart, I want to say that I didn’t hate the movie. Emma Roberts is kinda cute as Sloan. Jessica Capshaw plays Sloan’s sister, Abby, and she is also a bit of a delight. While it would have been nice to sit with the characters for a bit longer than one day every few months, the core idea of two people promising to always be each other’s date isn’t terrible. It’s like a backup plan. “Hey, if I don’t have a date for Memorial Day, go to this picnic with me.”

With that said, there are some holes here. We literally only see these two interact on or slightly before each holiday. And I mean every holiday. If there is a party associated with a holiday, they are celebrating it. We see them at New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day (though they hadn’t made their promise yet), St.Patrick’s Day, Easter, Cinco De Mayo, Fourth of July, Labor Day (which doubles as Sloan’s brother’s wedding and they actually bring separate dates), Halloween, Thanksgiving, and…well, almost Christmas. It’s difficult to imagine them really forming a good relationship when they are only talking like 10 times a year. Especially when they spend a good portion of those holidays fairly drunk.

I also don’t understand why Sloan’s family is so interested in her love life. According to the story Sloan tells Patrick at New Year’s, she had recently broken up with her boyfriend that had cheated on her. At the beginning of the movie, it’s Christmas and her mom is harassing her about being single. WTF Lady. Give her some space.

There’s also a lot of gender stereotypes going on. Sloan will say something like “Men are emotionally distant”; Jackson will reply with “Well, women are clingy!” and they will have that conversation multiple times with different stereotypes. Neither of them are that stupid.

Oh, I almost forgot about Kristin Chenoweth’s role. She plays Sloan’s Aunt Susan. She is the one that gives Sloan the idea of the “holidate” as she always brings a different man to each holiday gathering. However, instead of just being a man she can hang out with, she brings a guy she can drape herself all over. I’m tired of seeing “slut” characters in movies. Susan could have easily brought a different man to every holiday and behaved herself like an adult instead of literally twerking in the lap of someone half her age. I don’t know who thought her character was a good idea.

Finally, the movie is kinda raunchy. That’s fine and it has its place, I’m not sure that this is the place though. As I said, Aunt Susan is literally sleeping with every man she brings to the gatherings and she’s not quiet about it. She straight up tells Sloan gritty details about her sexual encounters. If you are averse to cursing, let me warn you that Sloan curses like a sailor. (I have no problem with it but some people might.) To the point that she eventually stops herself from dropping the F-bomb because children are near. There’s a lot of drinking and a little bit of pot smoking too. I don’t think it’s anything super terrible but it might turn some people off.

As a whole, I enjoyed Holidate. I didn’t cringe away from anything. None of the characters were unbearably annoying. But it also wasn’t a great movie. I think I might have liked it better if we saw Sloan and Jackson talking a bit more in between the holidays or even a few days before some of the holidays to see them figuring out their plans. As it is, there is actually a moment where Jackson FaceTimes Sloan and she says “This isn’t a holiday, Why are you calling me?” If I was giving this a rating, it would probably be like a 3 out of 5. Watchable but not memorable.

Jingle Jangle | 2020 Christmas Movies

When I was trying to decide where to start my Christmas movie festival, I remembered the hype around one of Netflix’s new movies - Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey. Granted, all of the hype I heard was about the color of the cast’s skins rather than the content of the show. So, knowing little more than this was “a Christmas movie with black people!” (Ugh, I hated typing that line….), I clicked on my Netflix and got to watching.

Jingle Jangle is the story of Jeronicus Jangle, an amazing inventor. Everyone loves his toys and creations. Jeronicus’ greatest invention is a sentient doll named Don Juan Diego. When Don Juan finds out that he is about to become a mass produced toy, he convinces Jeronicus’ apprentice, Gustafson, to steal Jeronicus’ Book of Ideas to become a master inventor himself. Gustafson quickly becomes a top toymaker whole Jeronicus’ life falls apart. After losing most of his business, Jeronicus’ wife dies. His heartbreak causes him to turn on his beloved daughter, Jessica, and he sends her away. Jessica grows up and has a daughter of her own, Journey. Journey, a brilliant inventor of her own, tricks her mother into sending her to spend time with her grandfather. But can Journey get through to an inverted heartbroken old man?

I’m not really sure where to start the review. Do I talk about the gorgeous steampunk visuals? Or do I talk about the awesome musical numbers? Or do I just jump into how freaking talented the cast is? OK. OK. Breathe.

The whole movie is set in this sort of 1930s-ish steampunk world. Everyone wears brightly colored suits and dresses and they all seem very happy with gadgets and gizmos a-plenty. The visuals are seriously gorgeous. Since the movie is framed as a book that a grandmother is reading to her grandchildren, when the story needs to move a little faster, we get steampunk doll versions of the characters acting out the scene. I love it so much.

Then we have the musical numbers. Thanks to songs from John Legend and Philip Lawrence (his songwriting team has written for Bruno Mars, CeeLo Green, Adele….the list goes on) and the musical talents of the cast, the score is just as beautiful as the visuals. The songs have a little more soul to them than most Christmas songs, which is a lovely change to the usually bland stuff we hear these days. And I seriously didn’t know that Forest Whitaker (old Jeronicus) and Keegan-Michael Key (adult Gustafson) could sing. They were very impressive. (Though not nearly as impressive as Lisa Davina Phillip as Ms. Johnston. I think I could listen to that woman sing for hours.)

And now the cast….I think maybe the casting directors found the most talented people in the entire world. (OK, maybe that is exaggerating a little…) A lot of the characters have two actors - a younger version and an older version. Justin Cornwell plays Jeronicus as a young man and Forest Whitaker plays him as an old man. So this might get a bit convoluted but stick with me.

Justin Cornwell does a lot of heavy lifting with the first song of the movie, “This Day.” It sets the entire tone of the movie and it does it well. My husband was so impressed that he actually came over to watch the movie with me. (He never watches these Christmas movies with me.) I already mentioned Forest Whitaker and Keegan-Michael Key. We also have Anika Noni Rose (better known as Tiana in Disney’s The Princess and The Frog) as adult Jessica, Ricky Martin as Don Juan Diego, and newcomer Madalen Mills as Journey. Mills absolutely blows everyone away as Journey. She has this amazing song “Square Root of Possible” that I was a little hesitant about at first…..but she nailed it.

To be honest, the only parts of the movie that I didn’t like were minor. Don Juan Diego was annoying. I understand the role the character plays in the movie…I just didn’t like him. But I suppose you aren’t supposed to like the villian. And I would have liked for them to do a little more with Edison, Journey’s friend and Jeronicus’s assistant. It was like he was around when the plot needed to move forward but then his mom would call him home when things actually started happening. I would have liked him to have spent a little more time becoming part of Journey’s family rather than an outsider who occasionally shows up.

Jingle Jangle is a great movie. While I know that Netflix will take it off the service after the holiday season, I wish they would leave it up so I can watch it again and again throughout the year. I mean, the Christmas part of the movie is so small that it doesn’t really matter. This movie is about the characters and their story…not Christmas. What are you waiting for? Go watch this NOW!

It's That Time Of Year Again!

I know this blog is sorely neglected. Usually I’m way too busy with life to find time to write about things. After all, 2020 was the year my daughter graduated high school, competed in her last dance competition, performed in her last dance recital, and went off to college. Well, they would have been things she would have done if the world wasn’t ravaged by a pandemic. (Thankfully, she was able to live on-campus at college for awhile. The school did shut down in-person classes early though.) So instead of work and hobbies and life and everything, it was depression that got me. I was very sad thinking of all of the things that everyone lost this year - both lives lost and milestones missed. 2020 has been awful.

So that brings me to this year’s Christmas movies. I usually review one movie per day from December 1 through December 25. An advent calendar, if you will. Well, this year, I’m going to challenge myself to tackle all 71 new Christmas movies brought to us by Hallmark, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (why do they need 2 channels?!), Lifetime, Netflix, and Hulu. Yes, Hulu has joined the fray this year.

What does this mean for you? It means that the movie reviews will extend past Christmas Day this year and some days will have multiple reviews. If I start tomorrow, I will have 43 days to watch 71 movies. That will end this challenge on New Year’s Eve. If, for some reason, I can’t get all of the reviews in by New Year’s Eve, they’ll just have to start out 2021. I am absolutely determined to watch all 71 of these movies. No matter how terrible they are.

Please join me on this Jolly Journey of Christmas Joy - Pandemic Edition. Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised and some of these will actually be good this year.

Mistletoe & Menorahs | 2019 Advent Day 10

If you will recall, I banned the Marvista (or Mar Vista or MarVista) production company from last year’s Christmas movie list. Because they make terrible movies that have multiple names. When I turned on Mistletoe & Menorahs, I was greeted with the dreaded Marvista logo. I actually shuddered. But I made it through the movie…..let’s talk about it.

Christy (Kelley Jakle) is a toy company executive trying to land a new client. When she gets invited to the client’s holiday party, she is excited because she is all about Christmas. Her co-worker, Samantha (Cory Lee), quickly tells her that the client is Jewish! Samantha sets Christy up with her son’s history teacher, Jonathan (Jake Epstein), who will teach her all about Hanukkah. Meanwhile, Jonathan needs to learn about Christmas in order to impress his girlfriend’s father.

As Marvista movies go, this one was not terrible. It does have an alternate name, of course. A Merry Holiday. Mistletoe & Menorahs is a better title.

Also, this is the second time this season we have seen Jake Epstein as the male lead. He also was the writer/nanny in A Storybook Christmas. While it’s weird to see actors appear in more than one Christmas movie per season, I don’t mind it. Jake is a very charming leading man. (I bet that Marvista filmed this movie years ago and only released it now. That tends to be the way they work.)

The movie itself is pretty good, for the most part. My main problem is that Jonathan teaches Christy all about the history of Hanukkah while Christy only teaches him about the surface of Christmas. She teaches him about decorating trees and wrapping presents but nothing about the story behind Christmas. Maybe that is how the writers kept the story from getting too preachy. It just seemed a little odd.

Well, should you watch this? Yes. This isn’t a great movie. There are definitely some flaws. But it was entertaining and I think I might try to find other movies starring Jake Epstein. He is quite charming.

A Christmas Love Story | 2019 Advent Day 9

I thought it would happen earlier in the month but, alas, my work schedule has finally gotten the best of me. The 2019 Christmas movie advent calendar will continue. However, some of the reviews will be late. I apologize for the inconsistency. Let’s just jump into the next movie.

Broadway darling Kristin Chenoweth stars as Katherine, a former Broadway star turned youth choir director. While preparing for their annual Christmas concert, a teenaged boy, Danny (Kevin Quinn), with a beautiful voice joins the choir, unbeknownst to his father, Greg (Scott Wolf). In addition to convincing Greg to letting Danny join the choir, Katherine also has to write the big original song that will be the finale of the show.

A Christmas Love Story was fun, for the most part. I loved the singing. Though I’m pretty positive the children’s choir was not voiced by a children’s choir. They sounded very….adult. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie was just kinda there. There was an adoption story shoved into the plot, which was supposed to be the big twist, I guess? Maybe someone should tell them that you can, in fact, have a Christmas movie without some big twist ending. Because I actually enjoyed the movie up until that part.

Sadly, I don’t have much else to say about it. So, should you watch this? If you’re a fan of Kristin Chenoweth, sure. She does have a very nice singing voice. But don’t be too upset if you come out of it disappointed.

A Storybook Christmas | 2019 Advent Day 8

I’m not exactly sure why this movie it called A Storybook Christmas. The book aspect of it has very little to do with the actual plot. Let me show you what I’m talking about.

Celeste (Ali Liebert), a party planner, has a job with a difficult client, who keeps changing her mind about the theme for her holiday party. Finally, the client settles on Storybook Christmas. The plan is to invite some children’s book writers and have them sign autographs during the party. Except there is one writer the client demands to have, but he is a bit of a recluse. Meanwhile, Celeste is having trouble keeping up with her work duties and giving the perfect Christmas to her niece. So she hires a live-in nanny. The only one available at this time of year is a man. Celeste hires him, hoping it will all work out.

Oh, this movie. it’s not bad as much as it is more difficult than necessary. There are meaningless characters, like Celeste’s fiance, Brandon (Bradley Hamilton). He is a total drip who doesn’t care about anything except himself. And Celeste is OK with this up until the end of the movie. So many of these movies have terrible boyfriends that the women need to break up with. I would rather have every single leading lady be single at first then have them in awful relationships that they can’t let go of.

Then there is this client. I believe it is a publishing company but I’m not entirely sure about that. Anyway, the woman in charge (I’m not completely sure of her name…maybe Hanna?) literally changes her mind about her party’s theme at the last minute. Instead of telling her it’s not possible to redo the entire party theme, Celeste lets the woman walk all over her….again, until the end of the movie. I get that business owners have to make their clients happy. But they also have to set realistic expectations so they aren’t taking advantage of their niceness.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a terrible movie. Taylor (Jake Epstein), the nanny, is a perfectly nice man and he is amazing to Celeste’s niece, Finley (Habree Larratt). I fully expected the big twist halfway through the movie but that is OK. It’s a Christmas movie, not rocket science. I just wish it had a little more to push it over into ‘good movie’ territory.

Should you watch A Storybook Christmas? If you want to. There are worst ways to spend your time.

You Light Up My Christmas | 2019 Advent Day 7

It’s only the seventh day of this Christmas movie advent challenge and we have actually found a network movie that is not only decent but is actually charming! What?!

Real estate agent Emma (Kim Fields) comes back to her hometown to sell her childhood home. The town, which happens to be built around her family’s Christmas light factory, seems to have lost its Christmas spirit. Emma decides to bring the old holiday traditions back, resulting in her falling in love with the town all over again.

I think the main reason I found You Light Up My Christmas charming is that it didn’t center around a romantic relationship. It almost completely focused on Emma revisiting places she used to hang out as a child/teenager and realizing how much the town needed her family. Since the town was built around her family’s factory and she is the last living member of that family, it’s up to her to bring celebrations back. Sure, she reconnects with her ex-boyfriend, Ben (Adrian Holmes), but that relationship is really an afterthought in the plot.

On a nostalgic note, this movie also gathered together a bunch of the actresses from the 80s television show, The Facts of Life. Besides Kim Fields, we got to see Lisa Welchel and Mindy Cohn in minor roles. Oh, and a very small cameo from Nancy McKeon. It was a cute nod to the generation that currently watches these cheesy movies.

Should you watch it? Absolutely. I hope that Lifetime adds this to their annual Christmas movie lineup. I would definitely watch this every year.

Christmas Town | 2019 Advent Day 6

Every year, there is a Candace Cameron Bure Christmas movie on the Hallmark Channel. This year’s gift is Christmas Town.

Hallmark’s favorite actress plays Lauren Gabriel, a teacher from Boston who gets a permanent position in Springfield. Before heading out on the train, she breaks up with her boyfriend because he wants to focus on his career instead of starting a family. On the way to Springfield, the train gets stopped at Grandon Falls due to a problem with the tracks. The passengers are forced to spend the evening in the small town. This stop proves to be a fateful stop for Lauren.

Usually, movies with Bure in them are very heavily Christian themed. Surprisingly, Christmas Town doesn’t try to shove God down your throat. Yes, there are some religious references but it’s all contained as people praying to God for something or saying it’s God’s plan type of things.

Instead of focusing on the religion, the movie focuses on foster children and charity. Travis (Tim Rozon), the romantic interest, has a foster child, Dylan (Jesse Filkow), who spends most of the movie giving his things away to the kids from a nearby town that basically burned down. Lauren, a former foster child herself, gets a donation drive started (in conjunction with The Salvation Army, of course) to help Dylan stop giving away everything he owns. (The adults don’t get mad at Dylan for giving away his coat every day. You would think someone would point out that coats are expensive and maybe he shouldn’t do that every single day.)

For the most part, Christmas Town isn’t terrible. I think my main problem is how quickly the plot goes. This would have been better as a miniseries instead of one movie. Within a few days, Lauren falls in love with the town, gets a new teaching job in Grandon Falls, decides to adopt Dylan, and falls in love with Travis. While Lauren, at one point, Lauren had said she was planning on staying a few weeks, everything seems to take place within a week. This should have taken place over a few months, especially with the adoption angle.

But should you watch it? Yes. Christmas Town is one of Bure’s better Christmas movies. It has some flaws but nothing that makes it unwatchable. On the contrary, it’s actually kinda sweet. Almost the perfect Christmas movie…for the Hallmark Channel, anyway.

Merry Liddle Christmas | 2019 Advent Day 5

Before I even start this review, I want to say how much I hate that this is the promotional picture for Merry Liddle Christmas. This has very little to do with the actual story of the movie. Let’s just get into this.

Jacquie (Kelly Rowland) is a successful tech entrepreneur, who is selling her business. In order to nab a new position that she wants, she invites her entire family to celebrate Christmas at her house so that a film crew can make a video of their happy celebrations. Hilarity ensues.

This whole movie barely makes sense. It would have been perfectly fine as a sort of National Lampoon-ish type of thing. Instead of trying to make it funny, almost all of the characters are selfish and unbearable. Jacquie gets mad when anyone messes up her house or her to-the-minute plans. There’s her younger sister’s untrained dog, neither of the kids are particularly well behaved (well, the infant is well behaved!) and no one steps in to correct their behavior, the family matriarch is unwilling to change any of their past traditions to accommodate new ones….pretty much everything that can go wrong does. It’s kind of annoying, to be honest.

Oh, and the romance! That gets jammed in because Jacquie’s niece asks where her “real family” is. Yes, the child actually says that she needs a husband and kids to have a real family. And the kid’s dad, who is sitting right next to her when these words leave her mouth, does nothing to tell her that Jacquie doesn’t need a husband or kids. She has a family. An ungrateful one that destroys her house.

Should you watch this? No. Absolutely not. Go watch Christmas Vacation instead.