2021 Holiday Movie Marathon Part II: Good to Fave

What I noticed about this year's new HolRom movies: Ion channel featured a few crime-themed movies this year. There are more movies are featuring characters that are in their 30s on up. I like that. Representin' the 30+ crowd! 

These are the Good to Fave movies I discovered this year: 

A Christmas Witness (2021) 🎄 🎄 🎄

A man with connections to the mafia gets placed in the witness protection program until he’s scheduled to testify at a trial the day after Christmas. A single, childless with a strained family dynamic (free for the holidays!) deputy US Marshal is assigned to protect him. The man turns out to be uncharacteristically Christmassy and the usually very focused deputy marshal starts to melt. This movie gets points for a storyline that strays away from the regular tropes. I haven’t seen a mafia-themed HolRom before this one. I knew it! I recognized this actress from somewhere and YES! She played one of Dwayne Johnson’s character’s love interests on Ballers. 

• Production: Authentic. Filmed in Chicago.
• Tropes: Enemies to Lovers · Workplace Based Romance · Scars of the Past • Criminal-Law Enforcer
• Diversity: One supporting POC
• Production Co: Thriller Films • Chicago Media Angels 
• How'd you watch it: Ion Holiday Romance Marathon

A Castle for Christmas (2021) 🎄 🎄 🎄

The premise is similar to a book by one of my favorite authors (Breathing Room by Susan Elizabeth Phillips). An American bestselling author has a fall-from-grace moment and decides to lick her wounds and find inspiration in the countryside of Scotland. When visiting a castle that her father told her about, she runs into a curmudgeonly aristocrat who is trying not to sell his ancestral estate, but failing. The author offers to buy, then ensues the push-an-pull of falling for each other while deciding the fate of the estate. This movie features Brook Shields and the guy from Princess Bride, Cary Elwes, and is another rom flick featuring mid-to-older adult characters. Albeit to long (The snow-playing scene should have been cut shorter and the post-fight-to-make-up events should have been tighter), this movie was still entertaining and fun. 

• Production: Ample budget. Filmed on location in Scotland at Tantallon Castle. 
• Tropes: Enemies to Lovers • Royalty/Nobility •  Save the  Business • Family History
• Diversity: POC!
• Production Co: MPCA • Netflix 
• How'd you watch it: Netflix

2021 Holiday Movie Marathon Part I: Alright & Not Good

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.

Movie: Calling for Love (2020) **

A music-themed podcast host’s show is on the line due to low followers. Cut to a mechanic helping a young woman with her car, getting her number, then losing his phone. Cut to the podcast host having to guest host the love connections podcast when the mechanic calls in looking for his lost customer. Then the podcaster starts a relationship with her co-worker. Then the production company pressures the podcaster to take missed-connection-mechanic story to the next level. Then the mechanic and podcaster start to fall for each other. Then they find the missed-connections customer. You might be able to guess the end, but it doesn’t matter. I didn’t like this one bit. Story was all over the place. Dialogue stunk.

Boss: How do you expect people to continue to listen to Music Thread if you keep talking about obscure instruments and the details in the liner notes. People don’t need to think about music. They need to feel it.
Podcaster: I like to think about music. I know everything there is to know about music.
Boss: And I know everything there is to know about Microsoft Excel, but that doesn’t mean it makes a good podcast. You can’t be afraid to let your guard down. Maybe that’s why you won’t consider my suggestion. You’ve been here three years. That’s three years of Nacho Ordinary Thursday and not once have you brought a date. 

Podcaster: How am I going to find the love of my life on a blind date?
Boss: It could spark something!
Podcaster: Sparks burn houses down, Greta.

Two stars. I watched, but, nah. **

• Production: low-budget cheesy movie with an almost homemade banner as the lobby sign for the podcast company.
• Suspension of belief: High
• Tropes/sub-genres: Belated Love Epiphany, Woman experiencing career pressure
• Diversity: Colorful. 
• Production Co: Film Rise
• How'd you watch it: DVD checked out from my local library

TV: Married At First Sight Seasons 1-12 (2014-2021)

I’m going to write about this as a bunch instead of each season.  

Let me start with the fact that I’m fascinated with arranged marriages. I’m open to the idea. Please send me biodata of eligible bachelors or the info of a professional-auntie who’d love to pair me. I haven’t blogged about it yet, but during the pandemic, I binged Indian Matchmaker, The Big Day, Indian and Orthodox Jewish wedding highlights video on YouTube and watched the films Arranged, Unorthodox, and of course, Monsoon Wedding (one of my favorite movies). I’m into it, y’all.  

Anyway, I don’t remember where in my arranged marriage craze I began to watch Married at First Sight, but I think I found it on Hoopla first. I started with season 9. Hooked. Loved the concept, the couples (the good ones) and was somewhat into the trash and trainwrecks. I think I found season 10 on Pluto (Ugh, commercials!). Then after Hulu was introduced into my world, I binged seasons 1-8 and 11. Finally, last month, March 2022, season 12 was released on Hulu and I ate it up.   

From what I hear, seasons 13 and beyond are just too trashy-trainwrecky and that’s not what I like about MAFS. I like to see the couples work and work issues out. I also really enjoy the reunion and Couples Cam episodes.  

Over 12 seasons, I got good at knowing when to fast forward and what to fast forward through. After season 2, I realized I could fast forward until I saw the stick figures hold hands, which is usually about three minutes of recap and a preview.  After watching five seasons, I started skipping the matchmaking episodes: I only want to get to know who actually got matched. I skipped a couple of the wedding prep episodes because they were uninteresting, but I started watching those again in seasons 11 and 12. Season 12 had the best wedding dress: Hayley’s gown was gorgeous.  I usually did housework during the honeymoon episodes because its so drawn out, especially season 12. I was disturbed by the production decision to continue following the couples who had clearly broken up way before the season ended. Leave them alone! I fast forwarded through any of their segments, or the segments of couples I don’t like.  

Three Stars ***

TV: Dexter New Blood Mini Series (2021)

 This started out wrong but ended well. Everything that made Dexter (the regular series) difficult for me to watch happened in the first few episodes. He was still getting away with it. Will no one be able to catch this man, already?! Thank goodness that changed.  

Dexter is living under an assumed identity in a small town in upstate New York. At the point of entry for us viewers, things seem to be going well for him, until his past comes back. Harrison (his son with Rita) shows up out of nowhere and his dark passenger decides to briefly take the wheel. His girlfriend, who is also the town’s sheriff starts putting the pieces together. Why would you date the sheriff, you supposedly retired serial killer you? Teenagers will almost always be annoying, and teenage Harrison does that job well. Then we discover there’s another serial killer in this town. What?!  

I’m happy I watched it through to the end, and although I wanted the storyline with Harrison to go differently, I was pleased by the final ending.  

Highlight: The creepy song from the Dexter series end credits, was the regular theme song for Dexter New Blood.

Three Stars***