My Sweet Austrian Holiday | 2024 Christmas Movies

I don’t think I understand how Hallmark chooses which movies are going on the main channel and which are going on the Mystery channel, which was rebranded from Movies & Mysteries. My Sweet Austrian Holiday is on the Mystery channel but there are no mysteries to be found.

Charlotte (Brittany Bristow) runs her family’s chocolate shop in Vienna. Unfortunately, the shop is in danger of closing because a real estate developer wants to buy the location. Little does Charlotte know that her new friend and love interest, Henry (Will Kemp), recently took over that same real estate company. Will Charlotte have to shut down her shop and return to the United States?

Ugh, this was such a terrible movie. Charlotte is a newbie chocolatier. Yet she never makes a single bad chocolate. Everyone raves about every piece that she makes. There are multiple times that she tries out a new recipe and not once does that recipe fail. I hate it.

On top of that, there is nothing interesting between Charlotte and Henry. She only complains and he doesn’t have anything to add at all. I think they may be the most boring couple I have ever seen. Well, until the end when the both magically know how to do a super choreographed waltz. Yeah, this movie is ridiculous. It isn’t worth your time.

Rating: 2020’s Christmas In Vienna is better

Paging Mr. Darcy (2024)

The first movie in Hallmark Channel’s Jane Austen series is titled Paging Mr. Darcy. Yes, most of these movies are “Pride and Prejudice” themed. Hopefully this won’t be too bad.

Eloise Cavendish (Mallory Jansen) is a literary professor who specializes in Jane Austen. She is the keynote speaker at this year’s Jane Austen League of America conference. While at the conference, she plans on visiting her sister, Mia (Lillian Doucet-Roche), and meet Dr. Victoria Jennings (Carolyn Scott), a member of the hiring committee at Princeton. After her plane lands, she meets Sam (Will Kemp) dressed as Mr. Darcy. Much to Eloise’s dismay, he is to be her guest liaison for the entire conference. She would rather not partake in the romanticism of Austen’s works. But she does need to impress Dr. Jennings…

I will admit that I’m not a big Jane Austen fan. It’s possible that most of these movies will go right over my head. With that noted, Paging Mr. Darcy is rather boring. Eloise is against all of the costumes and the ball and the general party vibe of the conference. But from what I saw, all of that barely took place. Sure, Sam was dressed as Mr. Darcy most of the time but that was his job. And even then, he took some pictures with some attendees in the beginning then he was busy crafting bonnets with Dr. Jennings, who happens to be his aunt, or hanging out with Eloise - teaching her how to dance, making desserts for the ball, or just randomly chatting. If I was an attendee, I might think this was the worst conference ever. Especially with a keynote speaker that didn’t even want to be there!

Since this is the first movie in the Loveuary series, I’m really hoping the other movies will be better. Hallmark has this weird tendency to put the worst movies in the beginning of the season and the really good ones either smack dab in the middle or at the very end. Cross your fingers the rest of these are better.

Rating: C-

A Not So Royal Christmas | 2023 Christmas Movies

I…don’t really have an introduction for this one. Onto the review for A Not So Royal Christmas!

Charlotte (Brooke D’Orsay) currently works for a royal gossip website. In an attempt to get herself a raise, she plans to get an interview with the reclusive Count. To ward her off, the royal family convinces one of their groundskeepers, Adam (Will Kemp), pretend to be the Count.

There were things I liked about this movie and things I hated about it. Kemp was charming and delightful. Meanwhile, D’Orsay has this tendency to play annoying characters and this one isn’t any different. I liked the idea of a gossip tabloid chasing the royal but A Christmas Prince did it better. And why is everyone mad at the other person lying to them when they also lied?

This isn’t the worst movie I’ve watched. It’s not even the worst Brooke D’Orsay movie I’ve watched. But I guess if you like royal movies, you might like it.

Rating: So anyone can be Count?

Jolly Good Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

For the first time this season, Hallmark is sending us overseas. Jolly Good Christmas takes place in London, though we don’t see a ton of the London sights. It’s mostly just stores.

David (Will Kemp) is trying to find the perfect Christmas present for his girlfriend, Charlotte (Sophie Hopkins). While browsing her favorite store, he bumps into Anji (Reshma Shetty), a personal shopper. Anji prides herself on finding the perfect gift for her clients. Maybe Anji can help David with his problem.

While both Shetty and Kemp are both good actors, Jolly Good Christmas doesn’t really give them good material to work with. A majority of the time they are walking around a store or Anji is quizzing him about Charlotte’s tastes. Both of the characters are about as interesting as cardboard. And not even like good looking cardboard cutout cardboard. A plain old empty cardboard box. That is what David and Anji are. I’m not even sure why they like themselves much less each other.

Jolly Good Christmas feels like a movie where the writer kept adding things to the characters instead of making them fully fleshed out human beings to begin with. Anji is a personal shopper but she’s not really all that good at it but she’s good enough to be writing a book about it but she lied about the first time she bought someone “the perfect gift.” David is an architect but he misses the one and only time his client has time to meet with him so he has to sneak into a party to try to meet him but his boss is at the party and, oh yeah, his boss is the father of his girlfriend so now she’s mad at him for some dumb reason. It’s almost like the writer took an improv course before writing this thing.

Don’t bother wasting your time here. This is probably one of the most boring Christmas movies I have watched in a long time.

Christmas Waltz | 2020 Christmas Movies

At least this movie about dancing has actual dancers in it! This may be a Christmas movie first!

Avery (Lacey Chabert) is planning a Christmas wedding with her fiancé, David (Jeremy Guilbaut). After choosing the cake and scheduling ballroom dancing lessons, the couple cancels her wedding. Dance instructor Roman (Will Kemp) convinces Avery to keep the dancing lessons for herself.

Usually in Hallmark movies, they cast actors who can’t actually do the thing the character excels at. This time around, the cast dancers in the dancing roles. (Avery isn’t supposed to be able to dance well, which is why Chabert gets a pass here.) Kemp trained at the Royal Ballet School. JT Church (AKA John Talan Church), who plays the son of Roman’s head dance teacher, was the professional dancer paired with skateboarder Sky Brown in Dancing with the Stars: Juniors. (Spoiler: JT and Skye won!) As a dancer and a dance mom, it’s nice to see professional dancers cast as professional dancers. It’s annoying when you can’t see the people actually dance.

Another “new” thing in Christmas Waltz is that Lacey Chabert isn’t all that annoying! Her Christmas characters are usually whiny or annoying. Sure, her character spends a bit of time being sad but she also broke off an engagement 24 days before the wedding. She’s allowed to be sad about that. I hope that she’ll continue to get good roles in the future.

With all that said, if you don’t like dancing, don’t watch this movie. There is very little going on beyond the dance lessons. There’s talk about Roman opening a second dance studio but we don’t get to see that happen. I don’t think Avery and Roman even kiss, despite the fact that they are definitely set up as the romantic couple. They perform the Big Dance then roll credits. While I find that acceptable, people looking for the typical Hallmark romantic Christmas story might not like that. However, if you enjoy watching people dance, you might like this. They aren’t amazing dance moves but some of them are pretty. (To be honest, Church is the breakout performer here. He needs a lead role in something.)