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.