#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead (2024)

#AMFAD: All My Friends Are Dead appeared on my radar because it claimed to star JoJo Siwa. I’m not sure that I would say she stars in it. It’s really more like a feature. Well, let’s go…

A friends group, mostly made up of internet influencers, is heading to a music festival. On the way, their van breaks down. Police officer Shaw (Michaella Russell) happens past and recommends the group find someplace to stay because their van won’t be fixed until the next day. Sarah (Jade Pettyjohn), the only one in the group with no social media presence, finds them a house nearby. Shaw drives them to the house, promising to contact them when the van is fixed. One by one, each of the friends is murdered…apparent retaliation for the suicide of Collette (Siwa), a former friend of the group.

This is one of those movies that has a terrible plot, a lot of blood, and a fair amount of gore. It’s also one of those difficult to rate movies. All of the characters are terrible. But they are supposed to be terrible. That is why the entire plot happens. So…I don’t know. I can’t say that I enjoyed the movie but it’s not nearly as bad as some of the other horror movies I’ve watched. I guess if you are looking for a movie where a bunch of vapid college students get killed in weird ways…maybe you’ll enjoy it? At the very least, I don’t think you would regret watching it.

Rating: C

The Gift Of Peace | 2022 Christmas Movies

Hallmark is kinda considered the gold standard of Christmas movies. As such, they generally try to market their movies to a wide variety of people. We don’t usually see heavily religious tones in their movies. That all changed with The Gift Of Peace.

Traci (Nikki Deloach) lost her husband to a brain tumor. She also lost her faith. As she prepares for her first solo Christmas art exhibit, she finds herself having a tough time emotionally. She joins a church grief group to try to find both comfort and inspiration for her artwork. Not only does she find both, she also finds a community of friends.

I don’t usually do well with super religious movies. I don’t like to be preached at. Maybe it’s because this movie was almost completely about grief and how to get through it but it didn’t feel preachy, even though it is a VERY Catholic movie. Or maybe it’s because they didn’t try to solve their issues through religion. Yes, they prayed a lot. Yes, they talk about God a lot. But not in a “God has a plan” sort of way. More like a “Let’s go look at this gorgeous sunrise because it makes me feel closer to God.” To me, those are two very distinct statements. “God has a plan” means you have no agency in your life. “Sunrises make me feel closer to God” means your spirituality is heightened. Maybe it’s not God but the feeling that your departed loved one is close.

Surprisingly, I’m going to put this in the Watch column. I’m not saying it’s Must See TV or anything but it does have a nice calm feeling to it. Nothing is rushed, no one is forcing relationships, everyone is allowed to do what they want on their own terms. While I would personally prefer to take out the religious aspect, I can understand how important it is to other people. The Gift Of Peace is a bit of a nice in-between movie. Religious without beating you over the head with it.

Christmas For Keeps | 2021 Christmas Movies

Now I remember why I stopped watching last year’s Christmas movies at the end of December. All of the channels start dredging the bottom of the barrel for their Christmas fare at the end of the season. They put on all of the good shows either Thanksgiving week or the beginning of December. The stuff that airs Christmas week is awful. Christmas For Keeps is no exception.

I’m not really sure why this is a Christmas movie. Here is the plot: A group of friends from high school get together after 10 years apart to celebrate their drama teacher that recently passed.

And that is it. The whole movie revolves around the stupid arguments they have and their attempts at figuring out what they want to do with their lives. Considering these people haven’t seen each other for ten years, they really should have gotten over most of this stuff. The only “argument” that is worth anything is Noah (Cardi Wong) vaguely arguing with his wife, Sarah (Ashley Newbrough), over her busy schedule as a medical resident and his want to start a cookie business instead of being a stay at home dad. And they don’t really argue about it! He is perfectly fine staying home with the kids. It isn’t until their friend, Mia (Marielle Scott), pushes Noah to sell his cookies that it becomes an issue. And, seriously, script writers - medical residents are busy people. Get off their asses for not having time to go to parties or socialize like other people.

Again, there is nothing interesting going on here. Go watch Seinfeld or Friends instead.

A Sugar & Spice Holiday | 2020 Christmas Movies

As I’ve said before, 2020 is the year of diverse Christmas movies. We have had gay couples, black couples, and Jewish couples. Now Lifetime has given us an Asian-led movie.

Suzy (Jacky Lai) is an architect trying to win a promotion at work. When she comes home for the holiday, she finds herself participating in a Gingerlicious Baking Competition with a classmate from high school, Billy (Tony Giroux). Can she overcome her feelings of inadequacies to accomplish her dreams?

I love that there are so many diverse movies this year. Everyone deserves to see themselves in a cheesy Christmas movie. They may not be great movies but representation is never a bad thing.

With that said, A Sugar & Spice Holiday is another movie that tries to put too much into it. The whole movie is named and themed after Suzy baking with her grandmother. Then they try to force in this work promotion with a looming deadline that keeps getting pushed up. If they had only focused on the baking, this could have been a pretty good movie. The work stuff felt completely irrelevant.

Beyond that, the movie isn’t too terrible. The acting is decent. (With the exception of the baking competition judges.) If you can ignore the work-related stuff, the plot isn’t particularly bad. Is it worth watching? Yeah, give it a try. But don’t eat the stinky tofu!