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

TRAILER 
(only available on Facebook, for some reason.)

LAUGHABLE LIFETIME: Mommy Group Murder (2018)

Director: Nick Everhart
Writer(s): Everhart, from a story by Samantha Shear, Michael Shear, and Dave Hickey
Starring: Helena Mattsson, Leah Pipes, Nichole Galicia, and Ryan Carnes

Wow…in ten years, will we look back on 2019 as the “breakout” year for Lifetime movies? Sure, they’ve been around for a couple of decades now, and been “popular” for much of that time, but I would imagine (and hope) that most of their appeal has been from people who love to laugh at the straight-faced absurdity of their increasingly-bizarre plots, and idiotic titles (exhibit A: this one).

Lately, though, there seems to be a rather alarming trend threatening to muck all of that up: actual talent has been seeping in to more and more of these projects. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me and we’ve been blessed with enough good luck to pick all of the good ones out of 2019’s releases. But when even a movie called Mommy Group Murder can actually be pretty good, I would say there’s a good chance the talent is rolling through all of them.

Leah Pipes (a career in porn is never too far away with a name like that) plays Natalie, a woman who suffers from postpartum depression after giving birth to her baby. Her hunky husband, Ryan, seems to be too busy with his new career to handle a crying child, and so she is left to her own devices, struggling to maintain the façade of happiness while balancing the needs of her child, and mounting feelings of loneliness.

All that changes when, through a rather horrifying (read: actually hilarious) accident involving a runaway stroller headed for a body of water, she meets Grace, a blonde woman who eventually invites her to join her “mommy group”, which is just her and two other mothers, in various stages of unhappiness, who lean on each other for support. There’s Roz, the token black woman whose husband is curiously never seen, and Maria, a nurse who suspects her husband, Tony, is cheating on her.

Despite following the Lifetime formula for the most part, this one actually seems to have enough self-awareness to throw in some red herrings: by the midway point, we really had no idea where it was headed. Sure, in hindsight it’s still the same ol’ linear Lifetime murder mystery, but there are enough twists and turns and unexpected surprises that it’s worth a watch…for about three-quarters of it, anyway.

Unfortunately, once the typically overprotective Natalie gets so obsessed with finding answers that she leaves her baby at home—with the back door left ajar (because apparently she doesn’t have an extra set of keys and can’t wait for her husband to get home)—that’s when it reverts back to the expected collection of groan-inducing clichés. It really feels like the final twenty minutes were written and filmed by someone else entirely; gone is the enticing unpredictability, in favor of a by-the-numbers psycho-stalker finish that, by the time you get there, delivers exactly what you know it’s going to, and nothing else. It’s a shame it has to end on its weakest note, especially considering it had quite a bit going for it before it hit the wall.

In what seems to be the new par for the course, the cast is uniformly strong, but special kudos must be granted to Leah Pipes, who carries much of the early picture on her shoulders. Considering the whole first ten or so minutes consists of her going through her daily routine, looking sad and crying a bunch, it could have easily been a laughingstock from the start, but she gives it her all, lending some surprising credence to her character. (The intense cheesiness of the slow-motion “runaway stroller” scene notwithstanding, but that’s not entirely on her.)  Ditto for Kate Mansi as Megan, who has a couple scenes requiring her to break down, and does so believably.

While the guys don’t have the same level of acting chops, nor the same level of emotional requirements, they manage to be an attractive bunch, giving those Lifetime-obsessed women something to marvel at as the story develops. As is usually the case, it’s the uniformly solid cast that carries the story from point A to point B and, for the most part, prevents it from devolving into (easy) self-parody.

Again, if it weren’t for a below mediocre ending, this would have been a solid contender as one of the best Lifetime movies we’ve seen; as it stands, it will just have to settle as an above-average entry that is worth a watch if you’re bored.

RATING: 6/10

STRAY OBSERVATIONS

• We saw this about two weeks ago, and I didn't take my usual set of notes; it's amazing just how little I remember of this entire experience.
• The runaway stroller scene has to be seen to be believed--it's peak Lifetime.
• When viewed in hindsight, the story is too obvious, but credit to the cast and crew for doing their best to sell it.
• The titular murder scene is surprisingly bloody for this kind of fare.
• The marketing for these movies is very inconsistent: some seem to get full-length trailers and talk show appearances, while others (like this one) are confined to :30 trailers on Lifetime's Facebook page.

TRAILER

This is the only one I could find.