CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Angela's Christmas (2017)

Okay, here we go: Time to ruin the holidays for everyone with a bah-humbug moment; we all knew it was coming anyway, so might as well just put it out there to get it over with: I hate the ideology that perpetuates the notion that kids, especially really little ones, don't have to do anything to be cute. There, I said it. I think it's lazy, and furthermore, I don't subscribe to that idea. Yes, I think my child is adorable, even when he does things that annoy me (which, let's be honest, is quite frequently). The vast majority of parents think the same thing about theirs. That's just healthy and normal. But I don't expect other people to think the same way about my child as I do, and I sure as hell don't think other peoples' children are cute, just by default.

This translates to media, where one of my biggest pet peeves are movies that center themselves around small children, but don't give them anything meaningful to do; they rely solely on the fact it's a child to carry it across the finish line, and people gobble it up the same way they do animal videos. Angela's Christmas is that kind of movie, where we're supposed to find it so adorable that a child steals a Jesus statue from a church nativity scene “just to keep it warm” that we're just automatically involved and invested emotionally for thirty whole minutes, no matter how void of substance the rest of it is.

I get the feeling the only reason movies like this exist is to allow the writer to run on auto-pilot; they can basically phone in a sappy story with a child at the center, exert little effort, and rake in the cash. Our inherent ability to immediately identify children as the picture of innocence means the average viewer will automatically love any positive child character, without the need for any unnecessary literary obstacles, such as character development. So in this case, the entire movie is narrated by the little girl's future son, as an example of how perfect and angelic and pure she was, and presumably still is. How this story, which would be just a cute anecdote within the annals of most families, is somehow the one that most completely sums her up as a person, sixty years later, really just speaks to how boring the rest of her life must have been.

Of course her family, which consists of single mother (cue another lazy emotional checkpoint!) and three brothers, eventually find out she stole it, and the mother makes her take it back to the church. This leads to the only unpredictable sequence in the whole affair, in which the priest, so maddened by this child's theft, actually expects her to be arrested and taken to jail. A small child. On Christmas Eve. Granted, it takes place a long time ago, so maybe children weren't automatically revered for every little thing they did back then; either way, the thought that a man of the cloth could react with such vilification toward a little child who is voluntarily returning a doll she stole under cute pretenses is rather bewildering, and completely nonsensical. But of course it functions as yet another cheap emotional payoff; we are relieved that the officer decides not to arrest the little girl, thus returning her to her family for Christmas, and more heartstrings are plucked! I'm surprised they didn't give Angela a disability just to exploit another emotional loophole in human nature while they were at it!

At least even the worst Hallmark-style romance movies know they're bad from the outset, and the audience knows exactly what to expect going in. But the most offensive kind of movies, are trite movies that somehow think they are making some kind of profound, poignant statement, even though they offer nothing of substantial value. I know, I know, families want formulaic movies for the holidays; I get that. They want positive movies that can make them feel good about Christmas traditions, and nothing is better than a poor family (did I not mention the family of four with the single mother is poor?) showing that materialistic wants are trumped by the good inside all of us. And it will no doubt succeed, given that it checks off all those requirements, and is being peddled by Netflix. It also may very well may fit the bill for families with young children (our two year old loves it), who are too young to understand its meaning, yet are taken by its animation style.

But aside from the music, which is simple and effective and features a lullaby-style vocal track that hits all the notes the movie fails to hit, for me, the most positively life-affirming thing about Angela's Christmas, is that it's only thirty minutes long.

RATING: 2.5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: How Sarah Got Her Wings (2015)

The biggest problem with How Sarah Got Her Wings, besides the thrown-together and half-realized premise, is that it tries to do way too many things within a short amount of time. Here we have a movie about a goody two shoes who is killed trying to rescue a homeless man's dog, but finds that she isn't on the list to get into heaven. So she is sent back to Earth, as a ghost, to make things right with Jordan, a man whose heart she broke one Christmas Eve. And, of course, she has a limited amount of time before she is forced to spend her eternity in the middle ground between Heaven and Hell—a waiting room.

This one at least perfectly captures the lighthearted mood of a good holiday romance, though calling it a “romance” film feels surprisingly wrong. It almost functions as an anti-thesis to the typical Hallmark-style love story; those that enjoy watching these movies to see the two leads finally get together after spending the whole movie oblivious to each others feelings may be disappointed—as it turns out (SPOILER ALERT) her job isn't to get back together with her ex, but rather to make sure he stays with the woman that he fell in love with after the break-up: Amanda, a charming black woman with an equally-charming English accent and a ten-year-old son.

One thing I have to give it, is that it's actually unpredictable, at least as far as these movies are concerned. While the ending is alluded to in the beginning, it never makes sense until the rushed, unearned finale, and the “terms” of her time on Earth keep changing (at first, only her ex can see her; the second time, only the woman can see her; the third time...let's just say it gets even more ridiculous). It loses some points by constantly giving Sarah loopholes and time extensions that, even for its already-extreme premise, feel like complete copouts (“Oh, you failed and time has passed...well, we don't normally do this, but here, have some extra time to figure this out”), while the bonding sequences between Jordan and Amanda's son are pitch-perfectly awful and awkward.

This could have been an anger-inducing, unwatchable mess, but credit must be given to the actors, who bring the material up to a grade higher than it deserves to be. The cast is all-around good looking, with Sarah nailing the “innocent and cute, but not too cute” requirement, while her ex also hits the requirement of being “too good-looking for the innocent girl” (seriously, why are the guys so much better looking in these?), though in this case, it's forgiven as technically they are not the ones getting together.

If you can take—or better yet, are desperately looking—for a movie that breaks with the tired and true holiday romance formula, How Sarah Got Her Wings at least provides enough charm to keep your mind off the convoluted plot and logical inconsistencies (when she's a ghost that no one can see, how come no one notices the things she's carrying floating around in mid-air?) to see you through to the finish line. And, let's be honest here, sometimes just making it to the end is the highest honor you can bestow this type of movie.

RATING: 6/10

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NON-CHRISTMAS CAPSULE: Christian Mingle (2014)

Oh, Christ...

I'm cheating a little bit, because this isn't even a Christmas movie, but for some reason I equated it with one the first time I saw it and so I'm just going to pretend it is (though, in my defense, a character does oddly have a Christmas tree in the background during an early scene...). But there's no way I just sat through this, for a second time, with no possible course of action to warn the general public against watching this movie, under any circumstances.

This is that movie for people that saw the awful ChristianMingle.com ads and thought, “Wow, I wish they would drag this out to feature length”—and only for those zero people. I won't get into my whole viewpoints on religion, but it doesn't matter: no matter how you affiliate with Christianity, whether you're the world's biggest atheist or a preacher yourself, chances are great you'll be cringing your way through most of these 90 minutes. Even beyond its agonizing preachiness and judgmental tone, it only seems to want to show that in order to be a good Christian, you have to be a boring, terrible person.

Gwyneth (Lacey Chabert, of course) is a female marketing executive (of course!) desperate for love who sees all of her friends getting engaged, and so she decides the best possible course of action is to sign up for ChristianMingle.com, after seeing an ad for it on TV. Yeah, because even Christians think that's a logical step toward finding true love. Whatever. Anyway, there's only one problem: She is not technically a Christian. She's not against the idea, mind you, she just doesn't practice Christianity by reading a bible or going to church every Sunday and, by the guidelines of the people involved in making this movie, that apparently means she's a piece of shit and going directly to hell. Oh, and we already know from an introductory voiceover that she finds both true love, and Him, telling us everything we need to know and honestly preventing us from even needing to watch it to know how it plays out.

Of course, through the service, she meets Paul, a practicing Christian who hosts weekly bible studies with his equally boring married friends, and who enjoys talking about Christ as much as possible. Paul is a smug little prick, the kind of person you want to punch in the face the first time you see him; by the end, you'll desperately want Gwyneth to fall in love with literally anyone else, preferrably a non-Christian that she can have engaging conversations, and loads of premarital sex, with.

Anyway, to speed this up, Paul goes in a missionary trip to Mexico without even telling Gwyneth (because that's a pretty Christian thing to do) and then invites her to come down with him, only once he's there, and on a complete whim. She drops what she is doing, and buys a fucking plane ticket to Mexico, only to have her “true intentions” outed by a copy of Christianity for Dummies (seriously, true story), because, apparently, no one is allowed to want to learn more about religion, and because traveling to Mexico in no way signals her love for him. After all, he's King Christian, and doesn't have to do any extra reading on the topic because he already knows every single shred of possible knowledge about the subject.

But no, that smug little prick sends her back home, appalled that the woman he fell for was just "pretending the whole time". So, of course Gwyneth spends her free time back in the States dedicating her life to Christ—and it's still not enough, when a few months (or weeks, or years, I don't even care) later, she has another run in with Paul, in which she calls out that the ex-girlfriend he is back together with, isn't even right for him. The smug little prick tells her she's out of line and that he will “pray for her”, but beyond that there is nothing he can do, and that they should never see each other again. Somehow, instead of slitting his throat right then and there, she takes that information to heart, quits her cushy marketing job and goes back to Mexico alone, to fulfill her dreams of being a teacher there. Paul comes for her, informs her he broke up with his ex, and then proposes. The End.

What do we learn? Well, for starters, put your religion above love, and settle for a fellow Christian, even if you do not want to be with them; if you're reading a purchased copy of Christianity for Dummies, you are just a poser and not at all interested in learning about religion; leaving your job just to visit a man in Mexico in no way proves loyalty or dedication to them; women should allow men to control and degrade them for "not being Christian enough"; ChristianMingle.com is a wonderful service, when used the way God intended.

RATING: 1/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Snowmance (2017)

If you want a surprising example of "perfect" holiday romance for me, this is it.

A woman, Sarah, and her best male friend, Nick, make a snowman (called a “snow beau”, and named Cole) every year, that captures all of the qualities she is looking for in her ideal boyfriend, with the idea that one day she will find him in real life. Well, twenty years on and she still hasn't found that man of her dreams...until a weird but handsome man, also ironically named Cole, shows up on her front door out of nowhere. Immediately, she knows he is the one, and he promises her the life of adventure that she has always dreamed of. But is he too good to be true? Or will she realize that the man of her dreams is actually the one that's been right under her nose the entire time?

This one can't help but be a stinker, right? Actually, it's quite the opposite, with a charming cast all-around, good acting, and more genuinely funny moments than we've ever seen in a Hallmark-style romance movie. Sure, it's predictable as all hell, but it also benefits from slightly eschewing the normal earmarks of such movies: namely, there are no unbelievable fights between the main love interests that spring out of nowhere just to fulfill genre expectations, and—at the risk of slight spoilers—no evil bad guy that suddenly shows his true colors. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of other “required” scenes that get checked off, but they're not annoyingly done, and all fit within the theme of the story.

At the risk of sounding shallow, the cast (save for Cole) isn't traditionally attractive, but they add depth and personality to their characters that are otherwise missing from other such movies, and the chemistry is there. (Hey, in my defense, the attractiveness of cast is generally the only satisfaction one can fall back on if things go south with the story, which is a common occurrence in flicks of this type.)

Honestly, this is one that we had no expectations for, and, while saying it “blew us away” might be quite an exaggeration, it was not only enjoyable for what it was, but honest-to-goodness just enjoyable as a lighthearted piece of fluff. One of the rare wins for MarVista Entertainment, which has to be one of the worst production companies of all time (yet is clearly successful enough to be able to make dozens upon dozens of these movies every minute).

RATING: 8/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Christmas With a View (2018)

Clara is the manager of a restaurant in a small town who dreams one day of owning her own. Shane is a “celebrity” chef whose claim to fame is winning a popular cooking show. Of course, instead of moving to LA and taking advantage of his newfound fame, he instead settles down in Clara's small town to try to answer a question that has puzzled him his whole life. Surely sparks must fly, right?

Complicating matters is Clara's sleazy boss, who makes plans of buying a property and making Clara the owner if she helps him to seal the deal. But, of course, Shane's prying only seems like jealousy to Clara (although why a celebrity chef would be jealous of someone else's success doesn't really add up), who pushes him away in order to pursue her dreams. Will she find out the truth about her sleazy boss? Or will she end up giving love away for her own selfish pursuits?

The story weaves its way through increasingly ridiculous twists and turns, mainly thanks to Clara's naivety, and there are more than enough sequences that will make all but the most dire Christmas romance aficianados reach for the “stop” button. But it does benefit from above-average acting (for this type of movie), and very good-looking leads that at least help to take the edge off the annoying story.

Even with the lowered expectations that come along with this type of film, it's not very good, but there's enough there that you should at least be able to finish it; at the very least, would make good background noise for a Christmas party, or other holiday festivities where paying close attention wouldn't be required.

On a side note: Have I been lied to about what a Harlequin novel is? I'm noticing a lot of Christmas movies based off of them lately--this one proudly touts it on the poster--but those novels have the reputation of being sex-filled romps. Are there separate kinds of Harlequin novels, or are these movie cash grabs watering down the source material for family-friendly holiday fun? I'm too lazy to research this, so please feel free to answer in the comments.

RATING: 5/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: Miss Me This Christmas (2017)

We don't watch a lot of black Christmas movies. No, not because we're racist, but for two reasons: 1.) There just aren't that many to begin with, and 2.) We don't really think about it. The two go hand-in-hand, as scrolling through the holiday offerings on any number of streaming sites reveals countless thumbnail images of white families grinning like idiots against Christmas tree backdrops, while minorities seem to be confined to starring in the “crime” subgenres.

So when my wife caught not one, but two holiday movies on Netflix that featured non-whites, they made her list immediately. Miss Me This Christmas is the first one we chose to watch...and I don't know if the fact that it's every bit as bad as most Caucasian-made holiday tales is a small victory, or a huge disappointment. And that's a shame, because it boasts a really good-looking cast (Eva Marcille as the best friend is an absolute stunner), and above-average acting, but it all gets lost in a story that never really seems to understand where it wants to go, much less how to go about getting there.

The main story involves the marriage of Regina and Franklin Young, young lovers who got married on Christmas Day and fell in love with the holiday as a result. But after accusing Franklin of infedelity, Regina decides she wants a divorce...a divorce that won't be finalized until right smack dab on December 25th. Talk about putting a damper on Christmas!

To get some space until the marriage is officially over, Regina moves in with her best friend Trish, a partygirl who lives in a penthouse suite at a fancy hotel, and starts falling in love with an odd, awkward millionaire who lives next door. Every once in a while, Franklin checks in to make sure we still remember that he's a part of the story, but other than that, he seems largely forgotten, as the story weaves along from one poorly-conceived plot point, to the next. This makes the ending—don't think I'm really adding any spoilers here if I mention the former couple decide to stay together after all—seem all the more forced.

Fans of the obligatory sequences where one spouse catches another in a compromising position that isn't at all what it looks like, but walks away in anger before verifying that their fears were actually founded, will find plenty to like here, because that's pretty much all that happens, back and forth, over and over again; it's all a series of half-assed misunderstandings, and incredibly unbelievable actions that sink what could have been at least an above-average holiday romp.

Sadly, the other predominantly-black Christmas movie on Netflix, You Can't Fight Christmas, seems to recycle many of the same characters (though the main stars are different), and looks like it will be just more of the same. C'mon guys, when can washed-up black stars get starring roles in cliched holiday romances like their white brethren?

RATING: 4/10

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: The Holiday Calendar (2018)

Starring in these lighthearted holiday romance movies is about the equivalent of starring in a porn: You never see top talent star in either of those examples, nor has anyone who got their “start” in one of those ever crossed over into mainstream movie roles. They are basically a vessel for the Haylie Duffs and Lacey Chaberts of the world to still earn a paycheck after their primes have escaped them.

That being said, Netflix has immense buying power, and The Holiday Calendar features probably the best looking main star combination of any Hallmark-style romance film ever made, in Kat Graham and Quincy. Often, viewers only have the looks of the cast to fall back on when the story takes a nose dive, or when characters act out of character just to force the “fight scene” seemingly required of all these movies. Yet, they both bring some acting chops, as well as a believable level of chemistry, to their roles, which helps to elevate this one above the norm.

Graham is Abby, a woman who, of course, is looking for love. Quincy is her longtime best friend who, of course, has always been in love with her. When Abby's uncle gifts her an antique advent calendar, she initially thinks nothing of it...until the items inside lead her to Ty, a man who's too good to be true. Quincy's pleas that something isn't right with him fall on deaf ears (there's the fight scene!) as Abby feels she has found the perfect one for her. But the calendar works in mysterious ways, and by the time she reaches the final day, she finds that all the clues were pointing in an unexpected direction. Well, new for her...I mean, we knew where it was headed once the opening credits started.

This one is less annoying than most, though there are still an abundance of “Why are they acting that way?” moments that seem inserted out of sheer obligation to holiday films moreso than anything else. Yet it's watchable, thanks to the believability of the lead pair, and...well, really, that's about it. Everything else is pretty lackluster and too predictable.

RATING: 6/10 (Note: These ratings are weighted and adjusted for Christmas movies and are not at all comparable to ratings of "real", "normal" "films".)

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CHRISTMAS CAPSULES: The Princess Switch (2018)

The only thing worse than one Vanessa Hudgens...

Oh God, stop me if you've heard this one before: Two lookalikes switch places to experience life from the other person's viewpoint for a few days. In this case, it's Vanessa Hudgens, who gets to play both a baker from Chicago, and a Duchess who is sick of spending life as royalty. Along the way, they'll learn a few things about Christmas, love, but above all...themselves.

I know, I know, Christmas movies are supposed to be trite, familiar stories that audiences already know scene-for-scene without even having to watch them. In fact, all American movies are basically required to follow that formula (as the thousands of movie-based-on-popular-comic-book movies released monthly can attest); but the best ones, at least for me, are ones that at least try to breathe some new life into the subgenre. Hell, even if it can omit just one genre cliché, that can be considered a small victory. Such a notion is too advanced for The Princess Switch, which pretty much just relies on the overrated looks of Vanessa Hudgens to carry the movie from beginning to end.

I'll admit, her looks did grow on me a little bit by the end--she does have that perfect kind of innocence in her face that almost makes her destined to star in one of these vehicles--but it's obvious that most, if not all, of the budget went toward appeasing her, leaving nothing else but the standard mix of unimaginative jokes and two equally uninspiring love stories. In short, it's just the sort of thing die-hard fans of these movies will gobble up unequivocally, but that won't win over anyone else.

RATING: 4/10 (Note: These ratings are weighted and adjusted for Christmas movies and are not at all comparable to ratings of "real", "normal" "films".)

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