Here it is! Better late than never! Another holiday season has come and gone and I managed to watch a few movies of the Holiday Romance (HolRom) variety. There's a mix of sincere, cheesy, and down-right awful in these three posts. This year, I'm using the 1-4 trees as my rating scale.
- 🎄🎄🎄🎄 Fave.
- 🎄🎄🎄 Good.
- 🎄🎄 Alright.
- 🎄👎Not good.
Let's start off with the alright and not good movies.
The Nine Lives of Christmas (2014) 🎄👎
A firefighter adopts a stray cat and of course, keeps on running into an overwhelmed veterinary student. Too predictable and uninteresting story. Actors didn’t own their roles. Bad music. Stopped 30 minutes in.
- How'd you watch it: DVD checked out from the library.
New Lease on Christmas (2021) 🎄 🎄
A real estate agent who is having a tough time finding work gets a commission to sell the building where her favorite coffee shop is located and the shop is owned by the guy she has a crush on.
This movie is alright. I stopped paying full attention about halfway through and finished it only because I multitasked while it played. At a certain point the main character, played by Claire Coffee who also played Adalind on Grimm, breaks the fourth wall and I don’t know why that was necessary.
- How'd you watch it: Ion Holiday Romance Marathon
Miss Christmas (2017) 🎄 🎄
Christmas event planner has to convince a semi-Grinch to donate a beloved family tree to be a city’s Christmas plaza centerpiece. Of course, her job is on the line to get this event planned, but there is a lot family rooted into that tree. Can she convince him? Will the branch be extended?!
- Production: Ample budget. Authentic.
- Tropes: Enemies to Lovers · Workplace Based Romance · Scars of the Past
- Diversity: One supporting POC
- Production Co: Hallmark Channel · Crown Media Productions
- How'd you watch it: DVD checked out from the library.
Christmas In Homestead (2016) 🎄 🎄
Major celebrity and actress finds herself in a small town for the production of a Christmas romance movie. The town’s mayor-inn-owner and the celeb spark a romance, despite him being against the film production in his town.
- Production: Ample budget. Authentic.
- Tropes: Enemies to Lovers · Workplace Based Romance · Scars of the Past
- Diversity: One supporting POC
- Production Co: Hallmark Channel · Crown Media Productions · Curmudgeon Films
- How'd you watch it: DVD checked out from the library.
A Christmas Mystery (2014, aka A Secret Past) 🎄 🎄
A reporter gets suspended and finds out her mom passed away. As she’s cleaning out her mom’s house, she finds mysterious Christmas cards and decided to hire a private investigator to investigate. Terrible action sequences and car chase. Gets points for a story that strays away from the standard tropes.
- Production: Authentic.
- Tropes: Victim-Hero • Woman in Peril
- Diversity: Nope.
- Production Co: Hybrid • Production Media Group
- How'd you watch it: Ion Holiday Romance Marathon
Christmas Cupid (2010) 🎄 🎄
An overly-confident PR agent who has gone morally astray and is sleeping with the boss’ son finds herself haunted by a recently-deceased client who comes back to try and show her the light.
- Production: Authentic.
- Tropes: Classic Retold • Reunion with an Ex • Redemption
- Diversity: Two POC!
- Production Co: ABC Family
- How'd you watch it: Netflix
A Lot Like Christmas (2019) 🎄👎
This movie was trying to be an Eddie-Murphy-like family comedy, but it fell far, far, far short. There was not one likeable character, and everything that was meant to be funny ended up just being awkward and clunky. This was all around terrible. The story was loose and all over the place. The audio was disconnected from the video. The camera was in and out of focus.
- Production Co: Maverick Entertainment
- How'd you watch it: Hoopla
Christmas On My Block (2021) 🎄👎
A man is trying to get outta the game and into the music business. This movie started off bad, then randomly segued into a music video. This was all around terrible with loads amateurish camera, audio and editing work. I fast forwarded through to catch the highlights, but they were just low.
- Production Co: Maverick Entertainment
- How'd you watch it: Hoopla
Reindeer Games (2020) 🎄👎
The storyline was so unclear, but from what I could tell, a man is rejected by his girlfriend, so his friends encourage him to date again. He finds out one of his best friends was sleeping with the girlfriend, so he paid another woman to pretend to like and date him. This is another disappointing Maverick Entertainment production. The audio was so bad that the closed captioning kept saying “indistinct” and there was, of course, Maverick’s signature non sequitur montage. I had to fast forward to get through.
- Production Co: Maverick Entertainment
- How'd you watch it: Hoopla
Jingle Hell (2000) 🎄 👎
A family gets together for Christmas at their parents’ house. Everyone tows along their own drama and issues and air everything out because that’s what Christmas is all about? The quality of this movie makes it look like its out of the late 1980s, but no. The production left much to be desired, but more than anything, this movie is boring. I’m not sure why it was made.
- Production Co: Jingle Ltd. (a one-movie production company)
- How'd you watch it: Kanopy
Snowbound for Christmas (2019) 🎄 🎄
The owner of an architectural renovation firm, his associate (also his ex) and a new hire (love interest) get snowbound at a mountain hotel resort. While the associate gets snowed in at a nearby cabin with one of the hotel’s staff, the boss and the new-hire enjoy the amenities of the hotel and quickly find much to like about each other. When all are reuinited again, the associate/ex pulls the okie-doke and tells the new hire that she’s still with the boss. The new falls for it.
The bad communication/miscommunication trope is my least favorite. All the new hire had to do was ask her boss “Are you seeing your ex?” and that would have cleared up everything. What a waste of time and energy.
- Production Co: HQ 15 (possibly a one-movie production company)
- How'd you watch it: DVD checked out from the library.
Grumpy Christmas (2021, aka Una Navidad no tan padre) 🎄 🎄
This was a Mexican movie production and in Spanish. A family goes to spend Christmas with an in-law relative who has a lovely beach-front property. It was supposed to be a dramedy, but the humor didn’t hit me at all. It almost seems like the writers jotted down a concept and tried to stick to it, but threw in a lot of incomplete story vectors to try to make it funny, moving and dramatic. However, so much of the story goes unresolved. Actor Hector Bonilla, who plays the grumpy father-grandfather, had a strange face that seemed to never move. He never appeared to be grumpy, happy or sad. The best thing about this movie was I learned this quote: “El peor de la muerte es el miedo de morir y peor de el miedo de morir el el miedo de vivir.” Rough translation: Worse than death is the fear of dying. Worse than the fear of dying is the fear of living.
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