Holiday Cheese 2018 Marathon Part II: Not Good Cheese

Cheesy movies have a low production value, usually subpar acting and the storylines have a ton of holes and therefore require viewers to suspend some of their realistic expectations. I like cheesy, b-level romance and this is my 2nd cheesy holiday romance movie marathon. The bar is set low, but the cheese level is high. On my scale, Good Cheese falls onto the So Good It’s Bad side of the scale and is obviously fun for me. Bad Cheese is not fun. Click here to read about 2018 Good Cheese.

Didn’t Finish

Homeless For the Holidays-This was a c-level production, crappy writing, terrible acting (Amazon)

A Christmas in New York- Stopped it 29 minutes in because it still felt they were setting up the stories of six couples in a NYC hotel. Good luck! (Amazon)

Home for Christmas- Stopped it 22 minutes in. Felt like they were trying too hard to be Girls-Judd-Appatow-like. And then there were very annoying close-up dialogue scenes. I don’t think this was intending to be cheesy. (Amazon)

Christmas Next Door- I gave this about 20 mins, but it just didn’t hook me. Granted, I watched this after Christmas, and by then I had had my fill of holiday romance. Even so, this just sucked.

And finally.... Bad Cheese!

Christmas Wedding Planner- For her first job, A wedding planner is working on her cousin’s Christmas wedding. She finds herself teaming up with her cousin’s ex to find dirt on the fiancée. Of course, they fall in love. Production value wasn’t bad, but the music supervisor should never be allowed to work again. The music was silly, obtrusive and often didn’t match the visual tone. There’s a lot of realism-suspension involved in watching B romance movies, but the ending of this movie called for too much. (Netflix)

Christmas with a View- Vivica Fox, Patrick Duffy, and Kaitlyn Leeb, who plays Cassandra on my favorite Canadian TV show, Heartland, star in this movie about a failed-restaurant-owner-turned- restaurant-manager who falls in love with a visiting celebrity chef looking to settle down. The potential for a successful b-holiday romance movie was there: good cast, good locations, good styling and costuming, but the writing was awful. So many incomplete scenes and conversations that went... Click here for a trailer. (Netflix)

Shadow Island Mysteries: The Last Christmas- I was a little perturbed that I actually finished this because I fell asleep the first time so I finished it a second night. So much time wasted. The fist thing that bugged me was that they used horror or edge-of-your-seat thriller music that was completely inappropriate. There was some bad editing. And overall it was cheesy in a bad way. (Amazon)

I’ll Be Homeless for Christmas- I’m actually hoarse from laughing so hard at this movie. It was the worst movie I have ever seen. The sound and editing and everything was so exceptionally bad that at less than five minutes in, I paused the movie and called my best friend to laugh with me. We ended up watching the whole 54 minutes together. Who in the hell would plan a heist to rob a homeless shelter?! Why are all the characters and extras suffering from lack of peripheral vision. Everyone’s clothes were ill-fitting. This was a hot, but entertaining-because-it was-awful mess. (Amazon)

Christmas With a Prince- Kaitlyn Leeb stars in anther sub-par holiday romance. A pediatrician is thrown off her game when she agrees to host an injured prince in her hospital ward. So many story lines were thrown in and quickly resolved it was like a 21 episode sitcom cobbled together into a 90 minute movie. Everything was a bit off: The editing, the acting, the writing, the production and costuming. Also, it was too long. There were at least two endings and the first one would have been just fine. This is produced by the same company (Brain Power Studio) that did Christmas With a View, which was also poopy.

A Firehouse Christmas- This one wasn’t all bad, but it turned into bad comedy toward the end and now it lives in Bad Cheese land. 

Holiday Cheese 2018 Marathon Part I: Good Cheese

Cheesy movies have a low production value, usually subpar acting and the storylines have a ton of holes and therefore require viewers to suspend some of their realistic expectations. I like cheesy, b-level romance and this is my 2nd cheesy holiday romance movie marathon. The bar is set low, but the cheese level is high. On my scale, Good Cheese falls onto the So Good It’s Bad side of the scale and is obviously fun for me. Bad Cheese is not fun. To read about 2018 bad cheese, click here. 

Good Cheese

Dashing Through the Snow- This Hallmark movie was about a professional crafter who misses her flight and decides to share a rental car with a handsome stranger heading in the same direction. There’s a Homeland Security twist to this story. Good production and acting, but the writing could have used some help. (DVD checked out from the library)

Desperately Seeking Santa- Starring Laura Vandervoort (Character actor and cheesy romance star) as an executive seeking to increase holiday sales at the mall she manages and earn herself a promotion. She contrives to hire a sexy Santa as a marketing campaign, but then she falls for him and finds a cause to stand up for. Good production and writing, but on-screen chemistry was at a minimal. I watched this with Amazon Prime.

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding- This Netflix production was spared no expense. It was really well done, top of the line cheese, complete with blooper-lined credits. We return to the story of Amber and King Richard of Aldovia who are getting ready to get married. Royal protocol keeps getting in the way of wedding bliss and to boot, there’s something fishy going on with Aldovia’s economy. Can Amber and Richard make thing s right? Of course! This is s cheesy romance. A happy ending is guaranteed! (Netflix)

Holiday Calendar- This movie was holiday Afrobubblegum: A movie about people of color that is fun and made little to no mention of race or class issues. A photographer stuck in a nowhere job is inspired to go for her dreams by the return of her best friend and the gift of a magical Advent calendar.  A Netflix production that was well done with a charming story that required little suspended belief. The diverse cast did a great job as well. (Netflix)

Dear Santa- This might have been the best cheesy holiday movie I’ve ever seen. A spoiled rich girl finds a dear Santa letter written by a little girl asking for love for her father. The rich girl takes it upon herself to provide. Along the way she finds herself genuinely giving of herself instead of by false pretense. It just seemed like there was relatively little need to suspend reality while watching this. As far as acting goes, everyone did a good job, even the little girl. The production was as good as a network TV movie. This might be my favorite. (Netflix)

Christmas at Holly Lodge- This was a really great holiday cheesy romance from the innovators of cheesy romance at the Hallmark Channel. And it stars Jordan Bridges, son of Beau. A winter lodge owner is in arrears when a real estate developer comes to investigate the property. He falls in love with the property and the owner she finds out his original intentions and plays silly games instead of just confronting him. a classical American romance movie. (DVD checked out from the library)

Switched for Christmas- Another Hallmark hit starring Candace Cameron-Bure as middle-aged adult twin sisters (she plays two roles... remember Full House?) who have fallen out of touch with each other, so they decide to switch lives to see how the other is living. Of course their relationship is rekindled and so is romance for the both of them. This was deliciously easy to swallow cheese! A sweet movie and with Hallmark on the production there are no complaints. (DVD checked out from the library)

A Holiday Engagement- This one also stars Jordan Bridges. A recently fired and dumped reporter hires an actor to play her fiancée to attend her family’s Thanksgiving dinner. The farce continues when she announces the wedding will be a week before Christmas! This was one of those storylines that made me had to suspend my logic, but it was cute and the writing, acting and production weren’t bad. (Netflix)

Princess Switch- So much royalty! So many switch-ups! This was a cute sweet colorful-people having, prince-charming, cake baking cheesy holiday romance. A Chicago-based baker is invited to participate in the Belgravia (fictional country) baking competition. When in Belgravia, she finds that her identical doppelgänger is a duchess betrothed to the prince of Belgravia. The decide to switch lives for a couple of days of course they fall in love with the men in the switched lives. (Netflix)

A Princess for Christmas- Starring Sam Heughan from the awesome Outlander series, this movie wins the prize for cheesiest-but-goodest. An out of work antique expert and aunt to two orphans, gets the opportunity to take her niece and nephew back to their father’s home country where they are royalty. She falls in love with their uncle, the prince, melts the icy heart of their grandfather, the duke, and befriends the staff. It started and I almost gave up because of the bad cheese, but I’m glad I stuck it out because those lumps smoothed out in about 30 mins. My only complaint is that the music sounded too synthesized. (Amazon... and I paid for it! Darn you, Heughan!)

I also watched and enjoyed Southern Christmas aka Heartland Christmas  and Christmas Town.