Part 2 2024 Holiday Movie Marathon: Snow and Inns and Planes, Oh My!

Photo by Clement Lepetit

Back for more of my 2024 Holiday Movie Marathon?! Thanks for reading on. If you're just tuning in, you might want to go to the first post to learn about the theme, tropes and rating system.

Dashing Home for Christmas (2020) 🎄🎄🎄
“Hopefully this is the last little hiccup in our trip. I think we’ve hit the misfortune limit.“
A career-focused woman is determined to spend Christmas with her family although everything that could possibly go wrong actually does. Along the way she runs into a fellow traveler who seems like her opposite, but it turns out they make a good team when they bring their skills together.
This is supposed to be a meet-awkward, road trip, holiday romance. The female lead is supposed to be a work-focused, cold-hearted and particular, but she doesn’t quite come off that bad. The male lead is supposed to be sloppy and a real nice guy. The actor pulls it off.
The production value was B-level and the acting was okay. The story wasn’t that original sticking to standard tropes, but something about the story made it endearing. I had other movies with similar storylines on my watch list that I avoided because I didn’t want a repeat.

• Tropes: Opposites attract • Shared goal: Get to the final destination, a place where we can spend Christmas with people we love • On the road • Stranded
• How’d you watch it? UPtv via Amazon Prime
• Fit the theme? Yep.

Snowed-Inn Christmas (2017) 🎄🎄🎄
Two magazines staff writers are sent on assignment to write the article that will save one of their jobs. One of them is a precise planner that plays it safe, the other, a sloppy, last minute adventurer. On the way, they find themselves stranded and snowed in a small town, Santa Claus, Indiana. They decide to try to save the B&B where they’re staying. Sub-plot: The older couple who run Winter’s Inn very closely resemble Santa and Mrs. Claus: Are they the real ones?
Real snow! No romantic chemistry between the two leads. The story is entertaining, but very trope-y. The male lead is played by frequent cheesy romance player, Andrew W. Walker, who I watched in Dashing Through the Snow (2018 marathon) and most likely in other cheesy romances.

• Tropes: Stranded together • Enemies to lovers • Opposites attract • Shared goal: save the inn
• How’d you watch it? Amazon Prime
• Fits the theme? For sure. They’re travel writers who get stranded while traveling.

A Merry Scottish Christmas (2023) 🎄🎄🎄
An American son and daughter visit their mom in Scotland only to learn that she’s inherited a title and estate. She wants them to take over. Will they leave their lives in the US to become the Duke and/or Duchess of the estate?
There are quite a few holes in the plot, but otherwise this was a nice gentle family drama with a cheesy, quick fall-in-romance story. I was a bit disturbed by how hard the male romantic lead was selling the female lead on staying in Scotland.

The son-brother is played by Scott Wolf best known for Party of Five and the daughter-female-romantic-lead is played by Lacey Chabert, a HolRom queen who you might have seen in Hot Frosty (I haven't seen it, yet). 

• Tropes: Shared goal: save the estate • Destination movie • Location gap • Career vs. Love 
• How’d you watch it? Hallmark via Netflix
• Fits the theme… sure. Yeah. Barely. The brother and sister fly to Scotland and the original intention was that they were tourists, but then they inherit.

2024 Holiday Movie Marathon: Snow and Inns and Planes, Oh My!

The theme of the 2024 holiday movie marathon was travel, which includes a person or group of people visiting another place for business or pleasure, movement via planes, trains and automobiles, and/or stays in hotels, inns and B&Bs. I didn’t know at the time I picked the theme, but hindsight tells me I really wanted to get away during the 2024 holiday season. I was miserable. I didn’t want to see people. I didn’t put as much effort into my movie marathon as I had in the past. I even postponed my personal Christmas a few days because I didn’t feel Christmasy on the 25th. Despite my bah-humbug attitude, I watched some pretty good movies. Now, that “the most wonderful time of the year” is over, I’m happy to share them with you.

Tropes that are prevalent in this theme include:

• Opposites attract: Perfectionist and/or difficult person (often a woman) vs carefree and/or sloppy person (often a man)
• Shared goal: Usually, save the inn or business.
• Stranded: stuck in the same place together
• Location gap: Oh no! We like each other, but we both don’t live in the same place. Who’s going to sacrifice?
• Career vs. love  

I thought I didn’t like the cheesy whimsical music that is often part of romance productions. Upon further thought and watching, it’s not that the music is bad, it’s more that when poorly placed, the cheesy whimsical music stands out and takes over the scene instead of blending into the production. When music is good in a movie, you either don’t notice it or it defines the scene in a good way. Bad music supervision is a sign of a lower level production. After watching tons and tons of cheesy romances, as soon as I recognize bad music supervision, I am put off.
It’s also really nice when the productions are filmed in real snow. It makes the movie more beautiful to look at and heartwarming. Most of the movies I watched in this marathon had real snow, which I am assuming it’s a sign of more productions being filmed in Canada. Thank you, Canada.

Along with all these new-to-me movies, I also rewatched Love Hard (Originally watched in 2021). I didn't take notes, but I still consider it well-produced and rewatchable. It also is on theme, since the female lead travels to meet the male lead. Of course I watched Spirit of Christmas and, yes, it is still my favorite holiday romance that also just so happens to fit the theme: Its about an inn! Yes!  

2024 rating system:
🎄Terrible. DNF.
🎄🎄 Not the greatest. Won’t watch again.
🎄🎄🎄Good to great. I enjoyed it.
🎄🎄🎄🎄 New favorite. I can watch over and over.


The Holiday (2006) 🎄🎄🎄🎄
To escape their romance troubles, A Hollywood-entertainment type and a British journalist decides to swap homes for their Christmas vacations. Of course both find love and or a sense of self and purpose. This is not a B-level cheesy holiday romance like I normally watch. It is an A+ level holiday romance with A-list stars, and a well-known romantic comedy writer-director. And it is so good! The holiday makes it into my favorites.

• Tropes: Fling to love • Love to overcome romantic scars
• How’d you watch it? Amazon Prime
• Fits the theme? Yes. Multiple people visiting another place.

Movie: Iron Claw (2023)

I love sports stories although I’m not a huge sports fan and I am enjoying how feature films, documentaries and other media are exploring sports stories in different ways. 

It’s about the short reign of the Von Erich family and they’re so-called curse. The patriarch, Fritz, put a lot of pressure on his sons to be successful pro-wrestlers, so much so that they either gave up on or delayed their own pursuits of happiness. Surprisingly, within that storyline, Fritz wasn’t depicted negatively as an antagonist. The movie doesn’t cover everything exactly as it happened to this real-life family. For example, some characters were left out or multiple characters were rolled into one. But the film does a great job of artistically interpreting the broad strokes of their story. 

I really liked how emotions of the characters were explored and how their struggles were depicted. I enjoyed the use of super close-up cameras in action scenes so you got to focus on the characters emotionally while the very physical wrestling was happening. I was moved by the acting of Zac Efron. And ever since I started watching Shameless, I’ve enjoyed seeing Jeremy Allen White on the screen. I could definitely watch Iron Claw again.

I followed Iron Claw with Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring, season 1 episode 4, The Last of the Von Erichs, for a dose of the truth. It was helpful and filled in some of the questions that came up for me in the film. I feel like that’s a good double-feature if you’re going to watch Iron Claw.

Character-driven • Emotionally Intense 

I streamed Iron Claw on Max and Dark Side of the Ring on Hulu. 

Theatre: A Noise Within 2023-24 Season

This season I bought flexpass tickets that I could use to attend any show and I used all but one ticket. I like A Noise Within because they go above and beyond with their theatrical design and I really appreciate that most of the house seats offer great views and the productions often use the space of the theatre to expand the stage.

The Bluest Eye

Based on the Toni Morrison book, The Bluest Eye is a sad story made beautiful and worth experiencing through a quality production and acting that was emotionally intense and angst-filled. 

I saw this with the Parental Units and we ran into my boss. 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
I was really excited to finally see this musical play live and on stage and I was not disappointed. Away from Tim Burton's workshop, Sweeney Todd includes much darker and sinister themes. 

In this production the actor who played Mr. Todd played a far more miserable version than Johnny Depp. Easy enough. The actors who played Mrs. Lovett and the sailor had amazing voices. I really loved the set design. The cast had to do some improv, when for some reason the wheeled piano almost fell while they were moving the stage around. Most of the audience didn't catch it, but some, including myself, caught it and it was great to see the actors improv around the situation. I saw this with my best friend. 

Theatre: Jelly’s Last Jam

Funny, I was recently saying to myself how oversaturated pop culture is with passing and colorism, but here we go again! Jelly’s Last Jam is the imagined experience of famed jazz innovator, Jelly Roll Morton, while in a kind of purgatory he examines his life. The play deals with his Creole family that turned its back on him, his musical success and his own issues with color, class, and insecurity. 

Music, dancing, costuming and styling were amazing. The New Orleans marketplace scene was so magical. Much more entertaining and a better production value than a similar scene I saw earlier this year in the stage revival of The Wiz. I enjoyed how they depicted the JRM's experiences in different cities. The actor’s voices were so good! Left me wanting to learn more about Jell Roll Morton and the history of jazz.

I saw this musical play at the Pasadena Playhouse in the 2023-24 season with the Valley Librarian. My parents told me that they took me to see Jelly's Last Jam at the Mark Taper Forum when I was little. I looked it up and apparently, I saw the premiere run in 1991, before it went to Broadway and won four Tonys! Cool!