Christmas Capsules: A California Christmas (2020)

Director: Shaun Piccinino
Writer: Lauren Swickard
Starring: Lauren Swickard, Josh Swickard, Ali Afshar, and David Del Rio

This one is yet another tired entry into the “save the family farm” trope, but this one takes things to such ridiculous extremes that it can be difficult to watch at times. However, it’s (partially) saved by the two leads (spouses in real life), who deliver tour-de-force performances…at least, as far as cheesy holiday romances are concerned.

Josh Swickard is Joseph, a very attractive man who clearly has no trouble with the ladies. He works for his overbearing mother (surprise!), buying up land from people to---one can only presume—turn them into casinos, or resorts, or some other lofty venture. His latest task is to secure the land owned by Callie and her family, in exchange for some cold, hard cash. Now, in reality, this would probably be a very mutually beneficial situation: Callie’s family farm is wracked with debt, her fiancé and father died in the same car crash, and her mother is (voluntarily) dying of cancer—I’d say that would be the perfect time to just say “fuck it” and move on from the family business.

But good ol’ Callie (Lauren Swickard) is an “all-American” girl, and she’d rather join everyone else around her in death before she gives in to the greed of some land developer looking to make a few bucks at her expense, no matter how desperately she could actually use it.

Through a weird series of events, Callie confuses the all-white Joseph for Manny, a ranch hand who is supposed to start working on their farm. Joseph clearly has never worked manual labor a single day in his life, but Callie doesn’t really seem to notice, as she informs him that some “suit” is supposed to visit her to make her family an offer on the farm. Sensing her hostility, Joseph decides it’s best to just continue to pretend he’s someone he’s not, in order to eventually get what he thinks he wants (to get her to sell the land), but then realizes that it isn’t at all what he wants.

This trope-a-thon throws every sad cliché it possibly can toward the viewer, and it makes for a rather frustrating experience. While Callie is clearly made to look like the “tough family leader”, there just comes a point where you have to throw in the towel for her and tell her to move on. I get that she has “pride” in the farm, but when even your own (dying, may we remind you) mother is on-board with selling it, maybe it’s time to just take a little hint. Sure, it was once the family business, but times change—certainly your dead family members would realize that, and want you to be happy above living in poverty just to continue the family tradition.

Beyond the palpable yearning of the leads, the movie also finds some footing in the relationship between Joseph’s assistant, and the real Manny (who of course the assistant happens to stumble on, because the towns in these movies are so small that only the cast can fit in them). At first, it becomes merely a business proposition: the assistant pays Manny $3,000 to keep his mouth shut, and to not report to work, something he has little problem with. But despite making us believe the story is going to go one way (that Manny will continue to blackmail them to keep getting what he wants), it settles down; the assistant, who basically lives with him for the week, and the Americanized Mexican man become good friends. Their relationship is pretty familiar, thanks to lazy writing, but the cast helps elevate it into another bright point for a movie that sorely needs them.

In the end, this is a promising movie that is undone by the “throw everything and hope it sticks” method that was apparently undertaken by the filmmakers. However, some of it does manage to stick, and that - along with the outstanding lead performances (especially Lauren Swickard, as Callie) - are what elevate this above some similar fare. However slightly.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• Beyond the tropes listed above, there’s also a kid involved, my least favorite of all tropes. Her character isn’t all that annoying, but she still feels pointless by default, the way kids usually are.
• Of course Callie’s dead fiance’s best friend—who wants desperately to court her now that his friend is out of the picture—is the one who pieces everything together, leading to the obligatory, completely misguided, fight.
• This one might set a record for “most interrupted attempts to tell a person the truth”, as Joseph tries three times to reveal his true identity to Callie, only to get cold feet each time.
• They bang! It’s amazing to me how many Christmas movies just want to be so “wholesome” that they neglect the inclusion of the most romantic, passionate act two lovers can engage in. (Although the fact they're married in real life also probably helped.)
• The strongest part of the movie is also its weakest link: Lauren Swickard (who, for the third time, plays Callie) also wrote the shitty script! Come on, Lauren! Next time write a story that matches your performance!

RATING: 5/10

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Christmas Capsules: A Beauty and the Beast Christmas (2019)

Director: Dylan Vox
Writer: Scotty Mullen
Starring: Leah Pipes, Donna Mills, Ryan Kelley, and Rob Raco

The Asylum is a production company that’s generally the horror equivalent to MarVista—actually, they may be even worse. While most MarVista movies are bland retreads of popular plotlines, they’re at least more or less ripping off their own stale formula; The Asylum tends to take their ripping off to a whole ‘nother level, frequently making movies with titles and box art that are very similar to popular blockbusters, at least partly in the hopes that unknowing people may stumble on their version instead of the real one and—settle for it, for some reason? I don’t know, doesn’t seem to be a very sound business model, but it’s suiting them well, so what do I know? (Supposedly they’ve never lost as much as a dime on a release) (As an example: Fast and Fierce, a movie featuring fast sports cars, is a current release, as is Battle Star Wars a film that has nothing to do with the wildly popular sci-fi franchise).

Well now they jump on another trend: the Christmas movie. I guess that’s actually kind of a good idea, because Christmas movies already suck, and “sucking” seems to be their entire mantra. They’ve made an entire company out of churning out uninspired, Z-grade schlock; since that describes many movies churned out during the holidays, then maybe it’s a better fit than it would initially seem to be on paper?

Well it isn’t…and it is; this is one of those movies that will remind you why you fell in love (ironically, of course) with holiday romance flicks to begin with. Actually, it probably won’t: if you actually watch these because you enjoy the love stories in them, chances are this one is sorely going to disappoint. The leads lack chemistry together, the writing and direction are wooden, the storyline is awful (and only weakly alludes to the title), and Leah Pipes’ sole method for dealing with every issue that arises seems to be to pout like a spoiled 7-year-old-brat. It’s pure, unadulterated crap from virtually every angle.

But—and perhaps it’s merely the spirit of Christmas infecting me—there’s just something inherently…enjoyable about it all. The jokes are frequently off-color and actually funny, the actors themselves seem to be having a good time (and deliver mostly good performances), and the atmosphere is imbued with a sense of freewheeling fun. It does go off the rail at times, and not all of the jokes land, but we found ourselves genuinely laughing out loud on several occasions.

I don’t want to bore you with the details, but I probably should: Pipes is Ginger Holiday, a social media influencer (that’s become the new go-to job in these movies, replacing “ad exec”) who lives and breathes Christmas every single day of the year. When her follower count starts plummeting as a direct result of a facial rash that won’t go away, Ginger finds that her endorsement stature with a popular global cosmetics brand is in immediate danger. To salvage her career, her grimy agent needs to act fast—and figures the best way to right the ship is to have the holiday queen “fall for someone who’s the complete opposite.

And that opposite is Beau Bradley, an aging skateboarding influencer who also is in need of a career boost. Can the two of them successfully use each other to get what they want, without true love getting in the way? Of course not.

The intro is over-the-top, but Pipes hits all the right notes (pun intended), perfectly encapsulating the ridiculousness of the idea to begin with; the results are surprisingly funny, and set a positive mood for the remainder to come. This is literally a woman whose entire being is indebted to a titular holiday; refreshingly, even though she’s a popular star because of her Christmas-themed videos, her actual love of the holiday is genuine.

Also perfect: Rob Raco as Derek, her shady agent. Really, he’s just a stereotypical sleazeball but, for the most part, seems to mean well (at least until a rather idiotic twist near the end). He strikes that tough balance between being a complete douchebag, and being a likeable guy, consistently landing somewhere in between. He also has good comedic timing and consistency, making him far funnier and more engaging than he probably should be.

I mean, really, this is an awful movie: the two leads fluctuate wildly between liking and hating each other; there is no chemistry between them; the writing is abysmal; the entire plot is godawful and bears little resemblance to the source material; and Ryan Kelley is pretty wooden as Beau. Yet, despite all those knocks, there's something that's just...entertaining about all of it. Sure, most of these cheesy holiday romps are "entertaining", the way watching old people fall down, or get hit by cars, is entertaining. But this one somehow manages to be entertaining in all the right ways: the atmosphere is upbeat and positive, the characters are likable (at least, in their own ways), and there are some genuine laughs to be had. 

You also get the feeling that the creators are in on their own joke; nothing feels like it should be taken seriously at all.  That at least helps cancel out some of the downfalls (the terrible plot idea, for one), though the writing is still abysmally bad no matter how you cut it.

If you're one of those old-fashioned people looking for a cutesy holiday romance to get you into the Christmas spirit, this one ain't for you. But if you're a millennial looking for a trash holiday movie that's funny, entertaining, and terrible, then your search ends here.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• I have very limited experience in the matter, but this may be one of The Asylum's best movies.
• Ginger's black friend is funny. Black friends are always funny.
• The two leads' lack of chemistry is almost endearing on its own.
• Of course Ginger's mom is a supermodel still stuck in her former glory. She's funny, but also a little too stereotypical.

RATING: 6/10

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(only available on Facebook, for some reason.)

CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Operation Christmas Drop (2020)

Director: Martin Wood
Writers: Gregg Rossen and Brian Sawyer
Starring: Kat Graham, Alexander Ludwig, Trezzo Mahoro, and Bethany Brown

Part U.S. military propaganda, part (well, mostly) cheesy holiday romance, Operation Christmas Drop tells the (true) story of the Department of Defense’s “longest running humanitarian mission, in which military personnel and civilians come together to gather supplies for people on isolated islands, and drop off large wooden crates full of food and other necessities. It provides a rather curious backdrop for a gag-inducing holiday romance in which Kat Graham (one of the most naturally beautiful actresses in Hollywood…or anywhere for that matter) plays Erica, a career-focused (!) woman trying to work her way up in Washington D.C.

She is sent on a mission from her superior, with the potential for promotion should her mission be successful: go to a beachside Air Force base, and—though it’s not really directly “spoken”—find enough reasons to justify shutting it down. Of course, this is over the Christmas holiday, which means she won’t be able to spend Christmas with her family; in a rare twist, she doesn’t really care, as she’s not too fond of her father’s new wife (of course, since parents can never just get divorced or separate in these movies—because that wouldn’t be Christian enough—her mother died three years ago).

Confident and hellbent on achieving her mission, she is caught off guard when her “escort” around the base is Andrew, an equally-confident, Christmas-obsessed Air Force captain who helps to oversee the annual Christmas Drop. As per usual, the two trade barbs at first, that quickly turn into sparks of romance; but will she choose to fight for what’s right, or phone in a report just to stay on the track to promotion?

Actually, fans of this type of cinematic endeavor might be a little disappointed, as the romance takes a backseat to Erica’s frantic attempts to save the campaign. Of course, the two do end up falling for each other, despite their initial misgivings, but chemistry-wise, they feel more like good friends rather than lovers destined to be together. And Erica’s sudden change from seeing the Christmas Drop as a waste of government resources, to being the main champion of the cause, is laughably abrupt, even for this kind of movie.

If there’s one thing we can count on from Netflix-produced romances, it’s that the acting will at least be above-average; Operation Christmas Drop doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The leads are charming and, even though I would say Alexander Ludwig (as Andrew) is not a very conventionally-attractive looking guy, he wins the viewer over with his laid-back personality. As I said, I don’t think they really explode chemistry, but they’re likeable and flow well together, even if it’s not in a lover kind of way.

Can I come back to the sustainability of Netflix as a whole? They’re dropping billions of dollars worth of money on content every year, but pulling in around $500 million in subscriber fees. There are no advertisements…how is this a sustainable business model? Just this movie alone cost $24 million to make—outside of the salaries for the cast and crew, I don’t see much more than $2 million on the screen.

At any rate, this is a rather ho-hum exercise in genre clichés that mostly manages to be cute, but does feature some anger-inducing clichés that would have been best left out. If this is your type of movie, you’ll probably find enough here to like. But thanks to its focus on an actual story rather than the relationship between its two main stars, this certainly won’t win over any Scrooge-types, and might not even win over most of its targeted demographic.

OVERALL RATING: 5.5/10

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

• The random computer-generated gecko is probably the worst example of CGI since the early 2000s; clearly not enough was spent in areas where it was most needed.
• The “miracle” that occurs to save the day feels more like a quickly written cop-out, rather than an actual miracle.

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f

CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Hometown Holiday (2018)

Director: Justin G. Dyck
Writer: Amanda McNeice, based on the novel by Caro Carson
Starring: Sarah Troyer, Bradley Hamilton, Kevin McGarry, and Samantha Gracie

It happens every year: I forget a movie almost immediately after watching it. Most of the time, it’s because it’s instantly forgettable; sometimes, it’s just because I’m either tired, or have a lot on my mind. Hometown Holiday is such a movie, and it’s because it’s instantly forgettable.

The set-up of the movie is pretty weird, as it features a well-known country singer character, who is not the main love interest. Instead, it’s the agent trying to sign him to a lucrative deal (for both parties), who has traveled all the way from L.A. to a remote village in the hopes of getting him to sign his life away. That, along with the female side of the equation—one of two sisters who slowly falls head over heels with the talent agent, instead of the sister who knew the country singer back in high school—makes for a rather bizarre story.

At any rate, the first half of this schmaltzy crapfest is actually okay, with the unique story angle a nice change of pace. I actually felt like it was somewhat unpredictable—like we were watching the side stories of the characters in the millions of other “Country Christmas” movies where the “small town” country star is the one who falls for some beautiful woman that he used to know way back in the day, but whom he fell out of touch with (usually for a reason that’s his fault), and whom he must win back by writing an emotional song for, which he then performs in front of a large group of people to confess his love for said woman. Refreshingly, all that is kept to a minimum.

Unfortunately, the second half is just a rage-inducing mess that really is just frustrating beyond all measure. It’s like the characters are slipped a “retard” pill and completely act out of character just to fancy the whims of the poorly-written script. Because, of course, there has to be some drama, and this one has two instances of rather far-reaching drama: she gets upset because she finds out that he lied to her about being a rancher (no one knows he’s an agent from L.A. at first). But then—later on—we discover she wants to return to musical theater, a fact she keeps from him…that makes it seem like she’s just every other fame-hungry whore he’s ever dated. Come on peeps! Some communication would go a long way to eliminating these bad mix-ups!

And don’t even get me on the painful side story involving the agent and his girlfriend (who midway through becomes “ex” girlfriend), a fame-obsessed woman who constantly berates him for not sending in headshots like he promised, and leaves him for an older Asian man just because he will. Her scenes, I think, are meant to be over-the-top in a comedic way, but they’re actually “over-the-top” in a “I want to jump into the TV set and punch her in the face before jumping back out, breaking my TV with a hammer, and then throwing it out of a third story window” kind of way. I mean, it’s not like this movie really builds up much momentum to ruin it, but these scenes certainly deflate what little it does manage to save.

In one bright spot, thankfully, the main cast is good: Sarah Troyer (as Krista) has a natural beauty that creeps up on you—either that, or maybe the makeup artists did a better job understanding her face as the movie went on. Either way, I have to shallowly admit I was very disappointed in her casting choice in the beginning (“Ugh, couldn’t they have gotten someone hot if I have to stare at them for 90 minutes?!”) but by the end, she completely won me over in the looks department (her "too angelic for words" character, on the other hand, is another story altogether). Bradley Hamilton, as agent Ryan Rourke, meanwhile, has an understated “coolness” that works well for the part. He reminds me of a younger Josh Hartnett; not in looks, but in the cool, nonchalant way he delivers his lines. I suppose many may find his performance a little too one-note, or “bored”; I thought it was a unique interpretation of a popular L.A. agent, without resorting to the over-the-top antics that most of the characters in these movies would force on you (“Look at me, I’m popular and a douchebag and wearing sunglasses, and that’s how you know I’m supposed to be from L.A.!”)

Unfortunately, while separately they deliver solid performances, there really isn’t much chemistry between them; I think I’d believe them more as brother and sister than as two lovers meant to be together.

In the end, despite the star's best efforts, this one’s ultimately another dud; I don’t think it’s on par with some of the worst holiday shtick we’ve ever seen, but it’s got more in common with those than anything that I’d consider “good”.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• Wait, didn't Krista inherit a family farm? How does she have time for, like, three different jobs and 10 different hobbies?
• In one scene so confusing that it almost comes off as brilliant, Ryan calls Krista after a disagreement, and then 30 seconds later claims he’s busy and that he has to go, as if she interrupted him.
•  The side story involving his headshot-obsessed girlfriend is as cringeworthy as they come.
•  So Krista was so popular in New York that fame “swallowed her up”, yet no one knows who she is, she doesn't feel the need to mention it until way later on, and she's so nervous in the teeny town of Buttfuck, New Jersey (or wherever this thing takes place) that she initially fails miserably?
• Note during the “party” scene, where the country star takes a kid’s drink away from him in order to put him to bed, and places it right next to four pre-filled cups of fruit punch that are untouched and available for people to take.
• Speaking of rage-inducing: That’s so fucking hilarious that the pregnant woman has such bad food cravings that she gets sidetracked in mid-thought; the "pussywhipped husband who supports his pregnant wife for fear of her sudden emotional outbursts" is also carried to vomit-inducing extremes here. 
• Have the writers ever actually seen a countryside, or met someone who owned a horse, in person before?
• Kids in these movies are almost always annoying. The one here is a little less so than most, but they're always the worst actors and usually impossibly ugly, yet people pretend like they're just the greatest little shits ever.

OVERALL RATING: 4.5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Midnight at the Magnolia (2018)

Director: Max McGuire
Writers: Carley Smale
Starring: Natalie Hall, Evan Williams, Alison Brooks, and Steve Cumyn 

Midnight at the Magnolia is one of many variations on the standard “two people must pretend they’re together to accomplish something and then actually fall in love” theme that’s so prevalent during the holidays. Why are so many lame plotlines recycled over and over again almost verbatim? I get that studios want to churn them out as quickly as possible, but don’t these people get bored writing and directing and starring in the same movie over and over and over again? (Then again, I guess it’s all based on what audiences want, and apparently they never get sick of watching the same things over and over and over again.)

In this variation, Maggie and Jack are two radio DJ’s—and lifelong friends—who give dating advice on a wildly popular local radio show; so popular, in fact, that a satellite radio company is planning to pick them up and run them in syndication!

Long story short, the head of the satellite radio station wants to air a special show in which Maggie and Jack introduce their significant others to their parents (who both have also been lifelong friends and run a bar together called “Magnolia”), thinking that the potential drama could pull in massive ratings. But things quickly go south when both of their beau’s, a little put-off by being discussed so openly on radio, decide to call things off, leaving Maggie and Jack without anyone to introduce their parents to.

They initially suggest hiring actors, but figure that would get too messy. You know what won’t get too messy, though? Breaking the hearts of everyone around you, including your own parents (and even a dead mother!), when they find out that the only thing they’ve ever wanted turns out to be a fake event simply to boost ratings! Yeah, no way that could get out of hand, so let’s definitely pass on the more sustainable “paid actor” plan…

This is one of those movies that pushed and pulled me constantly in both directions, mainly because it’s just so stupid. Normally with these movies, I feel like that’s just par for the course and everyone gets what they deserve. But in this case, I actually kind of feel bad saying that, because the leads are adorable, especially Natalie Hall as Maggie (who has apparently already been pigeonholed as a romantic lead in cheesy holiday movies, and will thus never have a successful career outside of them). The two leads have good chemistry together, and actually feel like they’ve known each other for a long time.

Which also leads to the crux of my problems: for being so in tune with one another, they’re both apparently pretty stupid when it comes to picking up on signals. [Minor spoilers ahead] For example, one thing that haunts Maggie even to the present day was when Jack decided to take another girl to high school prom at the last second all those years ago. Why couldn’t she just tell him if they’re so comfortable with one another, and spend virtually every waking moment together? Or, even better yet, wouldn’t it be pretty obvious to even a complete idiot? [end minor spoilers]

Although working against that theory is Jack: like the movie’s script, he’s exceedingly dumb. This is a guy who needs everything spelled out for him in order to understand things—and even then he’s prone to obliviously missing the point. [More minor spoilers] Take, for instance, the aforementioned sequence where he dumped Maggie for another girl. His own parents told him how obvious it was that she was into him, and he never acted on it or took it seriously. Or the scene later when he stumbles on the girl he dumped Maggie for back in high school, and takes her up on an offer to have drinks together. Thankfully, she doesn't try to steal Jake away (surprisingly), but in fact, she's the one that has to explain to him just how heartbroken Maggie was, and how much she means to her. I mean, this girl knew that over a decade ago, but this moron couldn't figure it out for himself? [end more minor spoilers]

At any rate, the entire cast of characters are likeable, and they help to keep things tolerable at its worst, and entertaining at its peak. It's not a particularly good holiday movie, but if you just want an attractive cast and some background noise, this should set the appropriate mood.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• Are the leftovers that Maggie offers Jack from the fridge early on really just lettuce and mashed potatoes, like it appears?
• Something I just realized: Do we ever even see Jack's girlfriend? We see her boyfriend/ex, but I don't think we ever even see the woman he was dating. (I could be wrong because it's been about 6 days since I've seen it, which is the equivalent of six years in normal movie years.)
• There really is some cute chemistry between the two leads; it's actually pretty believable they grew up together, for the most part.

OVERALL RATING: 5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: A Christmas Movie Christmas (2019)

Director: Brian Herzlinger
Writers: Brant Daugherty and Kimberly Daugherty
Starring: Brant Daugherty, Lana McKissack, Kimberly Daugherty, and Ryan Merriman

Here’s a movie with a promising plotline: A single woman obsessed with campy Christmas romance movies—and her grumpy sister—are magically transported to a town similar to the one in her favorite holiday picture, and then must join forces with the townsfolk to save Christmas when it’s threatened by…shit, I honestly don’t even remember. But it doesn’t really matter: all you need to know is that Christmas is being threatened.

First things first – and I’m sure part of this issue stems from the fact I’m just coming off of watching a Netflix holiday movie – but are the production values in these movies always so generic? I guess I’d never really noticed before, but it looks like it was shot for $20 using the director’s closest friends and family.

The biggest problem with A Christmas Movie Christmas is that it seems to completely forget its own premise; rather than being a “spoof”, or even a “homage” to cheesy holiday fare, it literally just becomes another one. There’s the occasional self-awareness, but those moments are few and far between and aren’t nearly exploited as often as they should be. What’s the point of having this setting when even the main characters forget what it is?

That’s why, despite the promising setup, this one is a sobering reminder of just how fucking godawful these movies can be. Exhibit A: The main character. I hate her. She goes from squealing with delight at the sight of everything in the village, to suddenly forgetting it’s all a movie, and then looking sad about everything when she pushes away her man and thinks she ruined the town’s annual Christmas festival. Honestly, her biggest problem is that she has a very punchable face, a fact only exacerbated by her overuse of it.

The sister is annoying in her own way, too, but she’s much easier to look at, and doesn’t overuse her facial muscles to the point of annoyance.

Not helping matters are the “love” interests are two of the worst I may have ever seen in a romance movie. The main character’s, Dustin, looks like a middle-aged father of three who’s constantly out cheating on his wife, or running up a tab at a local bar. To say that there is no chemistry between them is a vast understatement—this is definitely one of those movies where you couldn’t care whether or not the two leads get together at all.

The sister’s love interest is a ridiculously over-the-top guy who my wife referred to as a “puppy man”: he starts by leaving her dozens of notes throughout the town, which she initially finds to be creepy. So he changes that up by stalking her until she realizes she isn’t going to get anything else, and just accepts his advances. But he’s so…childish that I literally think he would qualify as being clinically retarded. Of course, the movie is probably trying to exaggerate his “sense of wonder” (and I have to admit that it's absurdly entertaining), but especially to be paired up with a character who has none of the same feelings about Christmas, it’s a rather forced (mis)match.

The ending is cobbled together, and makes even less sense than most of these movies—it’s a threadbare, completely illogical excuse to have a happy ending that’s more or less literally formed out of nowhere. It’s like the writers couldn’t be bothered to think of anything that fit, so they just winged it during filming; “unsatisfactory” doesn’t even begin to describe it on the most basic of all levels.

I suppose it was only a matter of time, but after getting off to a strong start, our holiday movie season has run into its first snag.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• What was the point of having the grumpy boss character? He was just completely pointless.
• Being a movie-within-a-movie doesn't help here: This is just a bad movie within a terrible one.
• I thought this might be a clever subversion of the subgenre; instead, it's just shit.
• Apparently, these characters think self-loathing is a very attractive quality.
• You know you've done something wrong when the grandma character is by far the best one in the entire movie.
• Why does the dumb kid always sound like she has a cold?
• How come in almost every scene where there's a "famous musician" on stage in these movies, they're almost always alone on the stage with an acoustic guitar, yet the music that comes out features a full band? Where's the drummer and bassist hiding?
• For being obsessed with these kinds of movies, Eve is pretty clueless as to how they work.
• That explains some things: the writers of this mess are also two of the main stars.

TRAILER

OVERALL RATING: 3/10

Black Christmas (1974)

Director: Bob Clark
Writer(s): Roy Moore
Starring: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon

The first time I saw Bob Clark's Black Christmas was a few year's back, when I was going through one of my “blood and gore” movie phases. Even though I'm not a huge fan of slashers in general, my friend loves them, and this is one of this favorite movies of all time, so I wanted to see what it was all about. While our tastes in movies differ quite frequently, I figured it couldn't be that bad; considering the movie's almost complete lack of blood and gore, I walked away from the viewing with the bad taste of severe disappointment in my mouth. It also ruined our friendship, as we refused to speak to each other over the incident for several months (okay, this part didn't really happen, but it could have).

Flash forward to 2019: I was in the mood for both a Christmas movie, as well as a horror one, and after browsing for far too long, eventually settled on a re-viewing of this one. This time, I would be accompanied by my lovely wife, who had never seen it before; I was also accompanied by an open mind, eager to give the film a second chance that everyone deserves...and boy am I glad I did.

The plot is actually a near-masterpiece in simplicity, with most of the action taking place entirely in one location: as the all-female residents of the Pi Kappa Sigma sorority house party down with one another for the holidays, an unseen killer hides in the shadows of the attic, coming down only to spy on—and eventually kill—the unsuspecting women, and ratcheting up the tension by placing obscene calls after each kill.

I can definitely see where the younger me was disappointed, because even by slasher standards, the gore is very weak, confined mainly to post-murder shots; considering a big part of the attention it receives, even today, is as an early example of the popular subgenre, it really heightens the expectations of gruesome and gory set-pieces. Instead, the kills in Black Christmas play second fiddle to the atmosphere, which is brilliantly ratcheted up between the intentionally-muted murders, thanks to some genuinely creepy stalking scenes (watch for the killer's shadow in the background of some shots); an excellent, atonal score from frequent Bob Clark collaborator Carl Zittrer; vulgar phone calls that pull no punches; and a gutsy ending that intentionally leaves a plethora of questions unanswered.

It's only during the times the story is forced to wander outside the house that it loses some of its momentum, and a large part of its claustrophobic atmosphere, something that's required with more frequency as the body count grows and the number of survivors starts to dwindle. One gets the feeling that the scenes outside of the house are there strictly for padding, an idea at least partially given some credit by director Bob Clark himself, who admitted that the drama between Jess and her boyfriend over what to do with an unborn child was only inserted to give the characters something to do between kills. With that kind of admittance, it's not hard to believe that virtually every other scene and character not affiliated with the sorority itself was given the same lack of attention.

Fans of traditional slasher movies and/or blood and gore will be no doubt disappointed, as I was on my first viewing, but those willing to go into the movie with Mr. Clark's own mindset—that this is a tale of psychological horror rather than a “body count” movie—will find a deliciously evil treat for the holidays.

RATING: 7.5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Holiday Heist (2019)

Director: Roger M. Bobb

Writer(s): Angela Burt-Murray
Starring: Chaley Rose, Tobias Truvillion, Phillip Edward Van Lear, and Lucien Cambric

It’s that time of the year again: time for a black Christmas movie! We were sorely let down by our last couple White Christmases, so we figured it was time to settle in and see what the “other race” had to offer.

As with any low-budget Christmas movie, we weren’t expecting much--expectations that somehow dwindled even further down once we saw that familiar MarVista logo (which I think has been updated!) invading our television screen. They stayed somewhere around “zero” when we first met our heroine: a stuck-up looking worker at a family-owned jewelry store who looked every bit as dry as she did boring. Here comes another personality-less drone of a character, in probably yet another personality-less drone of a movie, I thought to myself.

My, what a wonderful surprise this one turned out to be! It still fulfills the requirements of all holiday movies: namely, that almost everything about it has to be awful: and that starts with the plot, which finds an ex-con freshly released from jail, Devin, being forced against his will to continue with his previous, shady lifestyle by Poncho (what intimidating person names themselves after a lightweight rain jacket?!), a drug kingpin who feels our leading man still owes him some favors. Poncho assigns Devin to infiltrate and rob a local jewelry shop, because that seems like the type of target underworld gangs tend to focus on.

Of course, our pal Devin falls for the “stuck-up looking lady” from the original scene, aptly named Jade (and played by Chaley Rose, who you may recognize from “Nashville”), and whose family owns the jewelry shop (of course) that he's being forced to infiltrate. And infiltrate he does, by getting a job there, allowing him to get in good with the rest of Jade's family. Whoa, can't see where this is headed! Could he possibly be torn between his love for Jade, and the shady job he's pretty much being forced to do? (Which he can’t just come clean and explain to her in advance, because, you know...logic.) Once his shady past comes out, as we all know it has to do, will she forgive him? Or let a case of miscommunication deter her from the man that could very well be the love of her life? And what about her current boyfriend, who happens to be a cop, and who starts trying to dig up dirt on Devin? 

As expected, this one can’t (or doesn’t want to) avoid all the clichés of the dozens and dozens of Christmas tales before it, so of course there has to be a lack of communication leading to a blow-up fight, and the aforementioned cop boyfriend who suddenly turns evil, just so we can cheer for him to get kicked to the curb. Aside from one of Jade's friends, who is occasionally funny as the “loud black woman” stereotype, much of the story is also played straight, which treads dangerous waters for these types of movies, considering you can never take them too seriously.

But the cast is likable enough, and the two leads have enough chemistry, to carry the tired, poorly-written story over the finish line. It's nowhere near a “classic” in any sense of the term, but it's above-average enough to be a valid time-waster for those looking for a bit of uplifting holiday schmaltz.

RATING: 6/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: 2nd Chance for Christmas (2019)

Director: Christopher Ray

Writer(s): Danny Max and Scott Thomas Reynolds

Starring: Brittany Underwood, Vivica A. Fox, Jonathan Lipnicki, and Tara Reid (ugh)

Well, it’s official: we’ve hit that part of the year where all of these holiday movies are starting to blend together, and it’s getting harder and harder to differentiate one blob of mush from another—even within 24 hours. I think this is one of the signs of Sappy Movie Overdose (SMO) and it’s only going to get worse and worse the closer to the holidays we get.

Anyway, as the title implies, this is yet another example of a character getting a second chance at life, only this one is slightly more forgivable than many others, because it’s actually marketing itself as a take on “A Christmas Carol”. In it, seasoned Lifetime vet Brittany Underwood plays Chance Love (wow, subtle), a popular singer (again with the music theme!) who also happens to be a huge cunt. I’m talking, she’s probably one of the least likable characters in the history of Lifetime movies, using her status as a social symbol as an excuse to shit on everyone around her to an insane degree, without so much as a shred of remorse.

She’s managed by her longtime friend, who clearly is in love with her, and who has stuck by her side through thick and thin for several years. But she doesn't treat him any differently - in fact, he may get it even worse, such as the time she refuses to allow him time off to visit his dying mother. Yeah, this is the level of cunt we're dealing with here, and somehow we're supposed to cheer not for this man to drive an ice pick through her skull, but for them to actually get together? At the very least, it’s common sense that she will have to learn the errors of her ways, so she is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, in the hopes that it will scare her into becoming a better person.

Really, this is a case of the writers going overboard with the material, and taking things way too far: Chance is such a super-bitch, that she’s virtually beyond redemption; by the time she finally sees the error of her ways (she’s still making excuses and standing up for herself as late as the Ghost of Christmas Future) you’re no longer wanting her to change, you want her mangled body to turn up in a ditch somewhere. 

Alas, she has a completely unconvincing about-face and does the required 180-degree spin from cold, heartless bitch to loving, warm companion all within a span of about five onscreen minutes, but by that time, the damage has been done. That’s quite unfortunate, because there are some things to like: Aside from his inexplicable loyalty to a woman bereft and unworthy of any human sympathy, Kristos Andrews is good as Chance’s manager/punching bag, and the ghosts are uniformly the most likable, humorous characters in the whole affair (even Vivica A. Fox seems to be relishing her role as “Death”, and looks legit creepy at times in the role, thanks to some rather heavy visual effects.)

But watching this, I was constantly reminded of a quote from the great Dennis Reynolds, a character from the classic American sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”: “This isn’t ‘will they or won’t they’…this is ‘I know they won’t, and I don’t want them to!’” Only, in this case, against the wishes of everyone watching, you know they will.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• Not only do these movies borrow plots from each other almost verbatim, but they also steal titles: hence the reasoning for the bizarre "2nd" format in the title, probably as a means to differentiate itself from last year's unrelated Second Chance Christmas.
• Why does Tara Reid have to show up everywhere in these movies? She's probably the single biggest buzzkill for everything, and delivers her lines with the same disinterested monotone delivery whether she's supposed to be shocked, or excited. Her career should actually be below holiday movies at this point.

OVERALL: 4/10

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3615 Code Pére Noël (aka Game Over; Dial Code: Santa Claus; Deadly Games; Hide and Freak) (1989)

Director: René Manzor
Writer(s): Manzor
Starring: Brigitte Fossey, Louis Decreux, Patrick Floersheim, and Alain Lalanne (as Alain Musy)

The perfect movie for the Scrooge in your life.

3615 Pere Noel first came to my attention late last year (2018), when some publications mentioned it was a darker version of Home Alone…made one year before that holiday classic. Even though it seemed to garner attention in the media, I still couldn’t find a way to watch it…until this year, when those darlings at Shudder finally made it available for all to see.

But let’s just get one thing out of the way, for those of you who go into a viewing of the movie with the same mindset my wife and I did, expecting a mostly-lighthearted holiday romp: this movie is unrelentingly grim. It’s not very violent, per se, but it almost seems to revel in breaking the spirit of its characters, whether it be an adult, an elderly man, or even a child—the end result is a film that’s every bit as heartbreaking as it is intense.

Alain Musy is Thomas, a particularly smart 9-year-old who is left at home on Christmas Eve with his ailing grandfather, while his mother goes off to work as manager of a department store. The family is apparently atrociously rich, as they live in a ridiculous castle-style mansion, complete with caretakers who live on the premises. She is only supposed to be gone for a few hours, but that’s as long as it takes for Thomas to get into trouble thanks to their Minitel system, France’s early version of the internet: he enters an early version of a chat room, attempts to make contact with Santa Claus, and instead gets the attention of a ne’er-do-well, who attempts to get the kid’s address before the connection is dropped.

What he does learn, however, is that the kid’s mother works for Printemps, a popular French department store; the vagabond wanders his way over there to apply for a job as Santa Claus, gets it, and then is promptly fired by Thomas’s mother after smacking a kid in the face (in his defense, the child did kind of deserve it). He goes to the personnel department to finalize the termination, when he overhears the worker—who conveniently has his back turned to the door—mention details about Thomas being home alone while is mother is at work. He hops in the back of a Printemps van, and hitches a ride to the unwitting child’s home, at which point he kills the delivery driver, in a scene that removes all doubts about his intentions.

Thomas isn’t just some normal kid, however: he’s a huge fan of action movies, and spends his free time playing “war” with his lovable dog, J.R., and keeping his diabetic, nearly-blind grandfather entertained by using him as target practice. He’s going to need all of his smarts and cunning to outwit a madman who seems hellbent only on terrorizing and murdering anyone he can…

It's a fairly thin setup, which all-too-conveniently feeds the madman all the information he needs to know—from several unrelated sources—and without anyone so much as even noticing he's around, but hey, it's a horror movie, so I suppose it's par for the course.

The movie definitely earns its comparisons to Home Alone in parts—mainly the beginning and end—but the frequent use of the term “fun” to describe this movie by many critics and cinemagoers alike make me wonder if we saw the same movie. Sure, there are some stand up and cheer moments when Thomas gains the upper hand on the intruder, but that sense of fun is destroyed in the many sequences where he displays genuine fear…an almost fourth-wall breaking taboo that really brings the film closer to reality than I was expecting (and, in some ways, hoping for). Ditto that for Thomas’ childlike sense of wonder, which remains intact, despite his unusually high IQ, leading to some rather sad scenes of anguish when his world—and everything he believes in--starts crumbling around him, including the murder of his own dog right in front of him as he hides under a table waiting for Saint Nick to arrive…this clearly isn’t a movie with “fun” on its mind.

Assuming you can shift gears, though, or that you're actually prepared for what you're in for, this is an occasionally brilliant horror tale that definitely deserves the attention it’s been garnering lately. POV scenes of legally-blind grandpops struggling to make out shapes and figures lend some credibility, and intensity, to the proceedings, while the motives of the evil Santa Claus are just as depressing as everything else in this bleak, anti-Christmas thriller.

Supposedly, the director, Rene Manzor, sued the producers of Home Alone for “ripping off” his idea. Whether that was more of a marketing stunt than an actual defense of his own material is debatable, but it's certainly unfortunate that this little gem of a movie has fallen into relative obscurity while little Kevin McCallister, and much of the cast and crew, have probably pulled in enough royalties to comfortably retire.  

RATING: 7.5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Santa Girl (2009)

Director: Blayne Weaver
Writer(s): Patricia Harrington
Starring: Jennifer Stone, Devon Werkheiser, Barry Bostwick, and McKayla Witt

There are retarded plots, and then there's the plot of Santa Girl, which threatens to usurp them all. Blending Amish and other religious customs, with Christmas (?), it tells the story of a girl, who is allowed to leave her home to go to college. That doesn't sound too bizarre, does it? Well, as the title implies, that girl is Santa's daughter, and the heir to his sleigh when he retires...which is pretty overboard, but also just the tip of the iceberg.

Complicating matters is the fact that our girl, Cassie Claus, is being forced to marry Jack Frost's son, the cleverly named Jack Frost, Jr., as a way to strengthen the image of both families, despite her clear reluctance to do so. This reluctance becomes even stronger when she meets Sam, a fellow classmate who takes an immediate liking to her. Oh, and she also meets JR, another good-looking classmate who also seems to be very interested...and so the “love” triangle begins. But is everyone who they say they are...?

Honestly, we both went into this expecting to hate every minute of it, but it's really not half bad, thanks to some inspired touches (like making Santa Claus a complete dick to everyone around him), and some likable performances from Jennifer Stone, as Cassie (who basically just gets to be as over-the-top as she was on “Wizards of Waverly Place”), and Devon Werkheiser, as Sam, who comes off as the more grounded character. There are even some genuine moments of humor, Jack Frost is legitimately creepy, and the chemistry between the two leads is charming.

It just wouldn't be a holiday movie if there weren't some annoying downsides, and as usual, the obligatory “fight between the two love interests” is one of them, where a minor situation that could easily be explained blows up into ridiculous proportions, unnecessarily separating our two lovers simply for the sake of drama (and at the expense of logic, though I suppose if you're watching a movie about Santa Claus's daughter going to college for a dose of reality before taking over the family business, then logic really needn't apply). Joshua Cody as Jack Frost, Jr. is terribly miscast, delivering his lines with the same conviction as a piece of lumber, and sharing no chemistry with Ms. Stone whatsoever; it's clear he was hired based solely on looks (or as a favor for a friend).

At any rate, this turned out to be an unexpectedly enjoyable romp through the holiday season, and while its overbearing stupidity won't win over any non-fans of this kind of Christmas fluff, it's a worthwhile watch for the millions of fans who eagerly suck in this type of holiday junk.

RATING: 6/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Same Time, Next Christmas (2019)

Director: Stephen Herek
Writer(s): Karen Bloch Morse
Starring: Lea Michele, Charles Michael Davis, Nia Vardalos, and George Newbern

It's pretty well-known that the plots in these holiday movies are always awful; it almost seems as if the writers are trying to intentionally sabotage the material, attempting to come up with the most far-fetched ideas that can still follow the tried and true formulas required of these saccharine gagfests. (Why doesn't someone just go as far out as possible and make A Sharknado Christmas, or some shit? That's about where we're headed at this rate.) It's just an accepted piece of Christmas flicks: the plot will be horrible, and so will everything else...but you know it will end up happy. And I guess just that last part is all that's needed to ensure the crowds will flock to watch the dozens of holiday movies released every year.

Even despite this knowledge, there is the occasional movie that's actually done in by its stupid plot, and Same Time, Next Christmas is one of them. And that's a shame, because it actually offers up a great cast of characters, above par acting (even Lea Michelle, who I can't really stand, turns in a serviceable performance), and several moments of intended comedy. That's right, completely intentional! In other words, it's almost the perfect Christmas comedy, only held up by a plot that fails even under the lightest scrutiny.

Olivia Anderson has been going to the beach every year for Christmas with her family for as long as she can remember. Through these vacations, they become good friends with the Williams', another family that happens to do the same thing. Olivia hits it off with Jeff, the Williams' lone son, and the two look forward to seeing each other during their annual treks. But the annual visit after they share their first kiss, the Williams family is nowhere to be seen, and Olivia doesn't hear a word from the man she fell in love with. (Turns out he was dealing with some personal family issues, which completely excuses him ignoring her calls and texts for several months...right?)

Flash forward some odd years: Olivia is now grown up, and still doing the vacation routine with her family. And wouldn't you know it, after not seeing or hearing from him for years, he shows up with his family at that same vacation spot once again. But of course things have to be complicated: he is married, which kind of throws a wrench in their plans.

We fast forward to the next year, where another issue prevents them from getting together, and then another year, and then another year...there's at least the span of six years here, and with all of it taking place on the island, it strongly insinuates these people don't keep in contact at all outside of their annual trips. Maybe in the '70s this plot could have worked in a “shut your brain down and don't think about it” kinda way, but in this day and age when you can contact anyone you want with the press of a button, and considering just how "close" these people seem to be on vacations, it's just beyond the limits of acceptability (with Olivia's mom even pushing her to date Jeff; so they never ever talked about it at home?).

It also goes so far as to make Olivia a terrible character, as she strings along a man (who aside from being too caught up in work to an annoying degree, actually isn't that bad of a person at all) that she clearly doesn't have strong feelings for, just so she has someone in her life. Of course, given the season and the confines of this movie, it's supposed to be cute, but it doesn't really take much digging to see the darkness of a character who accepts a marriage proposal from a man she has no interest in being with, only so that she can back out of it a day before the wedding and for no other reason than she finally builds up the courage to tell him she would rather be with someone else. And of course, so that we can't tell she's a piece of shit person doing a really shitty thing to a not bad person, he takes it admirably and without so much as a question. Mmmm, okay.

In the end, part of me actually wants to recommend it for the interplay between the characters, which comes off as way more genuine than it should in a movie like this: the cast seems to be having fun, and the chemistry between the many couples is believable. Unfortunately, the thin thread connecting all these characters ruins what could have been a holiday “classic”, and it becomes one of those movies that's more grating than entertaining.

RATING: 5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Christmas in the Heartland (2017)

Director: Harvey Lowry
Writer(s): Dave Matheny
Starring: Sierra McCormick, Brighton Sharbino, Bo Derek, and Shelley Long

Oh my…there’s a lot going on during Christmas in the Heartland’s overblown running time (nearly TWO FULL HOURS!) and none of it is really good. It starts with a flimsy foundation—a stupid story that only gets dumber and dumber the farther it goes along—adds in a few too many “twists” and diversions, and despite a convoluted story, still ends up every bit as dull as it was when it started.

Jessie Wilkins is a broke teenager who is meeting her grandmother for the very first time. Kara Gentry is also meeting her grandparents for the very first time, but she just so happens to belong to a rich family. The two of these opposite-sides-of-the-tracks girls—who just met seconds before, mind you--happen to sit next to each other on the plane, and concoct a harebrained scheme to pretend to be one another, for no other reason than complete and utter boredom.

But these aren't some cunning girls planning some in-depth, complex hijinx: they literally just swap their names, because the idea that no one in either family has seen pictures of their own granddaughter in this age of virtually boundless consumer technology, is pretty logical. Oh, and no one seems to notice the many times each girl answers to the “wrong” name—a pretty dead giveaway that would be a red flag to anyone, except the stupid characters in this movie.

Really, Christmas in the Heartland's biggest flaw—besides sucking—is that it tries to pack too much into a story that doesn't really need it. There's the rich stuck-up mother who uses her husband and will do anything to gain more attention; the stuck-up boyfriend who “loves” Jessie because he believes she's rich; the black housekeeper (why does she have to be black?) with a big heart; the bully kid who's “put in his place” by one of the girls, who acts like “one of the guys” to do it; the father searching for his daughter (and the only one that knows what she looks like, apparently) that threatens to blow apart the facade; the lead singer from Rascall Flats (yes, for real) who is creepy and plays the “poor” girl's father; a poor family who has to raise money to save the family farm, or something...I mean, virtually any overplayed plot point can be found here, pulled off with very little zest or emotion, and some overall terrible acting that does it no favors.

Ironically, as bad as the whole thing is, there are a couple of characters that avoid it from being completely unwatchable (and no, neither of the leads are one of them): Bo Derek's sleazy rich villainess, Elsa, is an unabashed piece of shit, and plays the role with apparent ease; Christoper Rich (Brock from the “Reba” sitcom I'll admit to enjoying in the past) as Bob, Elsa's frustrated husband, lends some empathy and compassion to his character, and gives the movie a good guy that's worth cheering for; and Tisha Bradford manages to shine in a stereotypical role as June, the rich family's black housekeeper.

The rest is just a terminal, bloated bore that takes an already stupid idea, and somehow manages to make it even stupider.

RATING: 3/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Sweet Mountain Christmas (2019)

Director: David Weaver
Writer(s): Brian Sawyer and Gregg Rossen
Starring: Megan Hilty, Marcus Rosner, Teryl Rothery, and Kate Isaac

What’s with the sudden influx of music-themed holiday movies? Or have they always been around, and I’m just starting to notice them all at once?

Laney Blu (a name more befitting of a porn star than a country musician) is a former country star whose last two albums have flopped; as a result, she’s being “rebranded” as a pop star, in a desperate attempt to reconnect with her dwindling audiences. Given the fact she appears to be pushing forty, it’s both sadder and more pathetic than it probably should be. She wants to visit her mother—whom she hasn’t seen for quite some time—for Christmas, but her strict schedule only allows for a single night stay a couple days before the holiday. Oh, and of course, it’s in a very, very small town.

While there, she bumps into an old flame, who now pretty much happens to run the entire village, and learns the hard way that true love never peters out. Conveniently—and despite no actual footage of falling snow to be found anywhere—a massive snowstorm renders an escape from her past impossible…but also threatens to derail her hopes to stay relevant in the music industry. Will she forego all the fame and stardom for another chance at love? Or decide that…eh, I’m not even going to waste the time coming up with another option.

This one doesn’t have the required laughs and charm contained in the “best” examples of these kinds of movies, but the two leads are cute together, and—in an absolute rarity—there aren’t really any characters that are super annoying (save for Janine, who basically despises Laney just for being successful, but is thankfully rarely around). Even the two ones that would have some reason to: Lori, Laney’s former singing partner (and the love interest’s sister), who Laney suddenly left once her own career started taking off; and Danny, Laney’s long-time manager, go against type, and are surprisingly warm-hearted characters who both genuinely seem to care about Laney, albeit in different ways (what, no love triangle?).

The “side” plot where Laney decides to find talent for the local talent show, which not only happens to be taking place while she’s staying there, but also in an apparent snowstorm so bad that she can’t even leave the city, adds an unnecessary layer of absurdity and ridiculousness to a movie that already had plenty of it. In other words, this one is as stupid as the rest of them, at least from a writing perspective. And it seems to take itself way too seriously, which is a dangerous game when it comes to these types of movies, where most people are just going to pick it apart to make fun of it.

But these issues aside—which are typically fatal flaws in the hands of other movies—still take a backseat to the cast, who are competent—and believable--enough to inject the film with a contagious sense of holiday happiness, despite being caricatures caught up in one big, all-too-familiar cliché.

RATING: 6/10

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NOTE: Literally no trailers of this movie exist, so here's a video of the stars attempting to see who can create the cutest holiday wreath.

CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: A Christmas in Vermont (2016)

Director: Fred Olen Ray
Writer(s): Michael Varrati and Fred Olen Ray, based on a story by Jeffrey Schenck and Peter Sullivan
Starring: Abigail Hawk, Chevy Chase, David O'Donnell, and Howard Hesseman

Here we have a movie produced by Fred Olen Ray, who directed softcore porn for two decades before making the sudden switch to Christmas movies (no joke!); he was also responsible for the Lifetime “thriller” Deadly Shores, which was somehow even worse than the average Lifetime movie—and that's saying a lot. It also stars a woman who is not conventionally attractive which—let's be honest here, and as shallow as it is—is sometimes the only thing that gets us through to the end of some of these holiday duds (never underestimate the strength of an attractive cast, a notion that's magnified when everything else around them is terrible). Then, there's the tired plot, in which said woman works for a heartless boss who wants to close down a business in a small Vermont town just days before Christmas. No way she'll have a change of heart and fall in love with the owner, who happens to be an attractive man around her age! Still not sold on its awfulness? Did I mention that the boss is played by Chevy Chase, who looks like a balloon version of himself, is notoriously difficult to work with (in general), and whose best comedic days are behind him? Clearly, this movie sucks...right?

But this is also the season of miracles, and that is the only explanation I can convince myself of as to why A Christmas in Vermont not only isn't groan-inducingly awful, but a genuinely good example of a holiday movie. I mean, sure, technically after watching it, I can tell you why it's not bad: The acting is uniformly above par all around, the characters are more fleshed out than normal, and Chevy Chase is genuinely hilarious in a role that he probably had no interest in doing. Even by the end, the “unattractive” (which, to be fair, I never actually said) female lead, Abigail Hawk (who I just discovered is known for her role as a lead character is the godforsakenly awful "Blue Bloods", a staple as background noise in the homes of those aged 65 and up) is adorable, thanks to the personality she lends her character, and the conviction with which she plays her part. It's not really any of those things that are shocking in and off themselves, but given the “talent” involved, it's baffling to me how all of those things came together on this set, resulting in a movie full of genuine charm that, at least on paper, shouldn't even be watchable.

It's definitely not perfect: Morgan Fairchild (yes, that one!) is completely wasted as the lead dude's mom, a role that there is absolutely no need for. I'm also still waiting for that Christmas movie that has the nerve to avoid some of the more annoying tropes, such as the “overheard quote taken out of context that leads to the sudden argument between the yuletide couple just as things seem to be going perfectly”; unfortunately, we're still treated to that here. But such moments are at least offset by caring characters, such as the “wise old man” (again, usually the most annoying character in every movie, but not so here), who come off less as the caricatures they've become from appearing in so many of these tired tales, and more like genuine people. Who knew it was actually possible to laugh at a Christmas movie when you're supposed to, and that there could be joy derived from means other than making fun of the incompetence in which they were made?

In the end, A Christmas in Vermont succeeds when it shouldn't, by showing what can happen when a mismatched cast and crew can come together to create a cohesive whole; it's mind-boggling, and perhaps an even more inspiring testament to the magic of the holiday season than the story itself.

RATING: 7.5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Christmas Coupon (2019)

Director: Daniel Knudsen
Writer(s): Knudsen
Starring: Courtney Mathews, Aaron Noble, Robert Laenen, Sheena Monnin

I'm just going to come out and say it: Christmas Coupon is the worst fucking Christmas movie ever made. Well, to be more technically accurate, it's the worst one I've ever seen, but the thought that there might be something worse out there is almost enough to make me never watch holiday movies again, lest I actually stumble upon one. It's the first movie I've ever seen that's also lead to physical side effects: my holiday-obsessed wife and I couldn't even get aroused for 12 hours after viewing. And, as she declared in all honesty immediately after we fast-forwarded through the final twenty minutes to get to the end: “This just completely sucked the holiday spirit from me.”

It follows a former world-champion figure skater named Alison Grant, who has now resorted to teaching figure skating lessons on a frozen pond. One day, her ex-boyfriend—a semi-handsome man named Ivan Hall—brings his niece to class, and they hit it off. Well, “hit it off” as in have a bitter argument with each other. Of course, by the end, they will fall for each other—even though I've seen more chemistry in police beatings, and, even though Alison already has a long-term boyfriend. Seriously, the dialogue and interactions are so baseless that it actually creates an unnerving atmosphere, rather than one of holiday happiness—like the two leads are being held at gunpoint off-camera, forced to make their relationship work, or else they will be blown to smithereens. I'm halfway tempted to give them the money to reshoot that version.

The movie careens from one idea to the next with no natural flow—it's as if the writer just wanted to cram in as many holiday tropes as possible, without even contemplating things like “believability” or “narrative”. Take the title, for example, which is one of the most hilariously ridiculous titles in holiday history; the inspiration for the title takes place in one scene, and is never recalled again until the end, where it, of course, plays a role in bringing the two feuding lovers back together. Again, did I mention that Alison already has a boyfriend? Typically in these movies, they make it "okay" for the main character to break up with their significant other, by portraying him as a monster, or a cheater, or someone who's no good. Here, though, they forget to even do that: sure, he's kind of a dick, and he doesn't really believe in her, but he actually comes off as more of the victim here, as Ivan is everywhere Alison is every time the boyfriend comes around. So he has every right to act angry, which he does so with all the conviction of someone to whom "anger" is a foreign concept.

Please, please, please, for the love of God, do not see this, unless you want your soul to be forever ruined. This isn't some “reverse psychology” thing, either: it's an honest-to-God plea. Jesus is probably rolling around in his...heaven. It's the worst holiday anything I've ever seen in my entire life. It's one of those movies that's too amateurish to even work as an unintentional comedy: the editing is poor (dig those jump cuts), the music is bland, and the writing is absolutely abysmal. That it comes from a “faith-based” studio is both the ultimate irony, and completely unsurprising.

RATING: 0/10.

TRIVIA: The incompetent director plays an equally incompetent priest, who gets minor points only for slightly resembling Rickety Cricket, the disgraced priest from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Christmas Wedding Planner (2017)

Okay, it's probably unfair to even rate this, considering we only made it about ten minutes in before we canceled our Netflix subscription, smashed our television set, and gouged out our eyes to prevent ourselves from ever having to witness something so cruel and unusual again; don't consider this a “review” so much as a warning.

This is awful. It's the kind of movie that thinks all it takes to make people laugh are to have two characters run into each other, something that honestly happens three times in the small window of time we were watching. It's the kind of movie that somehow wants to overcome you with holiday cheer, yet throws in characters so despicable that you want to murder them. Of course, I'm sure by the end said characters realize the errors of their ways and make a complete 180, but you shouldn't make your movie feel like an obstacle course to get that far.

It's a shame, too, because lead Jocelyn Hudon is beautiful—one of the cutest girls I've ever seen in a schmaltzy holiday role--but is completely lost amongst the schticky acting and tired story. In this, Hudon is Kelsey, an up-and-coming wedding planner whose first job is also her biggest: Planning her cousin's extravagant wedding. But when she runs into a slightly attractive mega-douche Connor (who even has the douchiest name imaginable!), her world is overturned. Well, not at first, because they hate each other, but something tells me the spirit of Christmas will help change their tune! 

Lots of Disney-grade acting (in the defense of those, they are for pre-pubescent children), coincidences (oh, the man that bought the last scone at the coffeeshop is the cousin's ex-boyfriend?), and totally illogical scenes follow, such as when Kelsey is tasked with removing the mega-douche from a wedding party, even though the guy seems amicably there by all counts. And it's all within the first ten minutes. The idea that this could go on for almost 9 times that length something that most humans cannot fathom. For die-hard, unassuming fans of this kind of movie only.

RATING: 0.5/10 

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