Movie Reviews

My Santa (2013)

My Santa (2013)

Director:

Sam Irvin

Starring:

Samaire Armstrong

Matthew Lawrence

Julie Brown

Plot:

Single mom Jen Robbins, who is a writer of human interest stories for the newspaper in the small town where she has lived all her life, lost the Christmas spirit ever since her ex-husband split.

Review:

So what do we have here, a Christmas movie where the male lead is super young looking. It’s actually kind of weird cause he looks young twenties and the female lead looks early thirties. However, I looked it up and he’s 33 and she is too. Life is really not fair, he should not look that young.

Love triangle, check.

Scrooge, mommy is not in on the Christmas spirit, check.

Jim O’Heir (Jerry from Parks and Rec), I feel like he should be added to the check list because he’s been in a couple so far, check.

Bad acting, check.

Super-fast romance, check.

It was alright, could have done with a bit more. The whole Santa’s kid thing was cool, but the main focus wasn’t that, it was the mom regaining the joy of Christmas, they did a good job with that though.

3/5

Holiday Inn (1942)

Holiday Inn (1942)

Director:

Mark Sandrich

Starring:

Bing Crosby

Fred Astaire

Marjorie Reynolds

Plot:

At an inn which is only open on holidays, a crooner and a hoofer vie for the affections of a beautiful up-and-coming performer.

Review:

In the movie Bing Crosby’s character decides that he’s done being a performer, he wants to be a farmer because it’s so much easier. Clearly he knows nothing about farming and quickly realizes it and decides that the best thing for him to do is turn his farm into an Inn where it’s only open on holidays.

Interesting the hotel chain took their name from this movie.

Alright, so the movie hasn’t aged very well. The music is great, but at one point they dress up in black face and they don’t treat Marjorie Reynolds very well, and they’ve got a servant that’s the usual stereotype for the era. Honestly, I sadly forget these things and seem to only remember the music and how much I like it.

I love Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, and I end up watching this movie most Christmases, but I wish it was better.

4/5

Naughty and Nice (2014)

Naughty and Nice (2014)

Director:

Sam Irvin

Starring:

Haylie Duff

Tilky Jones

Maureen McCormick

Plot:

A cynical radio host is banished to Colorado, where he has an on-air spat with a hopeless romantic. Soon, their antagonistic relationship sparks the interest of the whole town.

Review:

Now this is more like it. After the stinker yesterday I’m glad I was able to find one more in line with what I wanted. Meaning there was actually a story and talking and it wasn’t just music playing while they did stuff. This also proves that Haylie Duff was not the issue with the last movie.

Alright, so what did we have?

A “bad boy” that just needed a good woman to turn him around, check.

A recently deceased parent, check.

A love triangle, kind of check. There was another dude in the picture, but he was so clearly a fall back that even he knew it and didn’t seem that upset not to get the girl. I kind of want him to have a spin off movie because he was nice.

So Pepper, Tilky Jones, did this things twice where he would scoot close to Haylie Duff and I don’t know why but it was so sweet and romantic. He was close to her, but not touching her, I don’t know why I noticed it but it stood out. Maybe because I didn’t feel like their relationship, the first time he did it, was at that point, but I don’t know I thought it was kind of romantic. His complete focus was on her but he wasn’t forcing himself on her.

Anyway, cute movie, it washed the taste of the last one out of my brain.

4/5

Christmas Belle (2013)

Christmas Belle (2013)

Director:

Alex Wright

Starring:

Haylie Duff

Nicholas Gonzalez

Mark Famiglietti

Plot:

With her California hometown in the rear-view mirror, Belle heads north on business to facilitate the estate sale of a mansion.

Review:

I was only able to get through two thirds of this movie before I had to bail. It was not good. Most of it was just shots of them doing things with instrumental music playing in the background. We watched the male lead run without his shirt on a lot and the female lead pretend to type on her laptop. It was so bad. There was almost no dialog and what was there was bad too. Do not recommend.

1/5

The Spirit of Christmas (2015)

The Spirit of Christmas (2015)

Director:

David Jackson

Starring:

Thomas Beaudoin

Kati Salowsky

Jen Lilley

Plot:

Kate, a workaholic lawyer, has three weeks to get a haunted bed and breakfast appraised and sold. The uncooperative manager claims a spirit who lives there will not approve.

Review:

So this movie is about a hipster ghost. I actually really liked it, oddly enough. I love all the supernatural stuff in Christmas movies and this one really embraced it. There was very little time spent on proving he was what he said he was and they jumped right into trying to get him to move on.

The romance was sweet, though, a bit weird, because he was a ghost. He also was in love with a woman before he died and part of why he was still around was because of her. I realize that was a few decades ago but he pointed out a few times it was still fresh for him.

The ending left me with some questions, but overall I really liked it and I hope to find more like this one.

4/5