Toast & Kent's XMas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 4 - Tinsel Town

2025, Chris Foggin (Bank of Dave) -- Amazon

This movie will not follow the Hallmarkie format, as it is "just" an Xmas movie.

Pantomime plays, or panto, are a distinctly British thing. Blah blah, ancient Rome, blah blah ancient Greece. We are not talking history here folks, we are talking about a weird, opaque British traditional mashup of faery tales, musical theatre, pratfall comedy, old theatre cross dressing and audience participation. Its one of those things most people (focus on most readers) won't get, and not even all people in the UK embrace them. But they are ubiquitous, and apparently saying,  "Oh no they didn't !" will cause most people to erupt in laughter filled cries of, "Oh yes they did!" They also often employ celebrity leads.

Shrug. I don't care if they are actually performed here in Toronto at the Elgin theatre, since the 80s, I am not all that familiar with them.

Oh, and the are most often performed during Xmas.

Brad Mack (Kiefer Sutherland, 24) is an aging action star more akin to Scott Adkins than Jason Statham. He's finishing his latest movie when he learns its his last movie, the eighth in a popular franchise. You see, Brad Mack is a primo dick -- his costars dislike him, he's abusive to film crews and even his agent (Katherine Ryan, The Duchess) hates him. Which is why she cons him into going to the UK to "do theatre" when in fact, she has set him up with an iron clad contract to do panto in some a PST in England. He is to play "Buttons" in a Cinderella Panto.

Again, that is supposed to be something we would understand innately -- this is a very British movie.

Oh, amusing bit about the PST of "Stonebridge" in that during an establishing shot showing a rather grand old stone bridge crossing a river, I recognized it as the famous Knaresborough Viaduct from an episode of one of Marmy's British shows called "Landscape Artist of the Year".

At first, like instantly, he tries to get out of it. But he learns that he would have to cover the profits of the entire run of the panto, and that could amount in millions, "And that's in POUNDS Bradley, not dollars." His own extravagant lifestyle has him Hollywood Broke (only owns five homes), so he cannot afford to cover this.

This is a standard fare British Feelgood Movie, but beyond the charming cast of the panto, its often so saccharine, I wondered if it was being a mockery of Feelgood Movies. Its also supposed to be an Xmas romcom but the awkward casting of Kiefer Sutherland and Rebel Wilson (as Kim the choreographer) must have been so apparent, they pared it down in the editing room and reshoots and they work out better as Just Friends. You'll just have to forgive me, but Rebel Wilson (Isn't It Romantic) not playing cringe-awkward comedy is almost more cringe worthy than her usual roles. But the rest of the cast are British Comedy staples (Jason Manford, Danny Dyer, Mawaan Rizwan, Asim Chaudry, etc.) and the background characters seemed to be having more fun than the main castings. 

Its a weird little British Xmas Movie with some heart but a lot of awkwardness and (unintentional?) kitsch that I kept on feeling like someone was taking the piss with me. But maybe, like with pantos, I just didn't get it.

Oh yes you did !!  

T&K's Xmas (2025) Advent Caledar - Day 3: Christmas at the Catnip Cafe

2025, d. Lucie Guest - Hallmark/W

The Draw: Kitties!

HERstory: After an opening montage of cats playing and being assholes, knocking shit over, we jump back 30 years in time to see young  Olivia spending Christmas with her Aunt Esther as her parents jet off to London. There's a cat in a tree which she hears. The scene is maybe 30 seconds long and tells us...nothing.

Smash cut to present day and Olivia (Erin Cahill) is looking at a new condo. She seems to like it but can't quite afford it. Smash cut to her at her old condo, where she's having a business meeting, which is interrupted when she gets a message about a meeting regarding her Great Aunt Esther's estate. Olivia is inheriting half of her aunts cat cafe business... the other half is owned by Dr. Ben King and she wonders if he's interested in buying her out. Turns out she missed the funeral even. She seems like she was so connected to her dead aunt.

Smash cut to Kane Vet Clinic, where Dr. Ben King works with his sister, and apparently, despite the packed waiting room, money is tight? He's the type of vet that goes an extra mile (sometimes literally) for his clients. 

She goes to her aunt's PST, Felicity, NY(?!?), to stay and check out the cat cafe until it's sold. She spies  Dr. Ben King in the window of his clinic and is instantly smitten. She then walks into a Christmas tree. She goes to the Catnip Cafe and, hey, cats! And they're all up for adoption. But apparently they're not very particular about their beans.

Olivia wants to sell the business, as she has a developer on the line, but Dr. Ben King loves the cafe and its impact on the community, so he has no interest in selling. She asks Ben to buy her out but all his money is tied up in the clinic, so they're at an impasse, and their early flirtation has turned to dagger eyes.

Flashback! Olivia replaces bulbs in a string of lights. Wow!

Olivia consults her lawyer. Dr. Ben King bitches to his sister about Olivia. She asks him if he's bringing anyone to dinner, as he's not had a relationship in 7 years. That's called foreshadowing.

Olivia is staying at her aunt's house preparing it for the bank sale. Dr. Ben King has a key to the house, because he and Esther were better friends than Olivia and her auntie. He wanted to grab the book which is all the plan for some big cat to-do, an annual battery of events they hold that he can't do on his own. Olivia offers to help so long as he doesn't get in the way of selling the business. Already Dr. Ben King is scheming that three weeks of helping at the cafe may just change her mind.

First event, cat sock puppets. Olivia didn't read the script and she's a nervous performer. And there's like 4 kids in attendance and one old lady. By the end only the old lady is left. And it only was only 3 minutes long. Olivia thinks she can market the event better and get bigger crowds (if not a better performance).  And then Marilee (Kimberly Sustad) from Nine Lives of Christmas/The Nine Kittens of Christmas shows up and...flirts with Ben pretty heavily despite implying she's still with Sam. 

Montage. Olivia markets the hell out of the puppet show.

Olivia walks past a tree. Flashback. Lil' Olivia finds a kitten in a tree. Olivia's Christmas tree has been delivered to her aunt's doorstep so she goes and asks Dr. Ben King if he would help her decorate. They decorate and have the usual Hallmark getting-to-know you falling-in-like chit-chat. They get over their animosity, and get reluctantly flirty.

The next day, the attendance for the new event is popping, although, there's it's not a puppet show, but instead the attendees each grab a cat and a Christmas kid's book and read to the cats, and then draw pictures or something. You know, a real social community event.

Flashback to lil' Olivia reading to the kitty she rescued.

Olivia sets up a cat adoption booth at the Mistletoe Market where mistletoe is strewn from the lights everywhere and if you're caught under the mistletoe you either have to kiss someone or sing a carol. Olivia and Dr. Ben King run into the developer Olivia has been talking to, putting a bit of damper on the evening. Olivia gets invited to Dr. Ben King's sister's family for dinner. Dr. Ben King invites Olivia over to cook her dish for dinner and they can head over together. 

After dinner they learn Dr. Ben King's sister's pregnant again. Dr. Ben King is stunned because he doesn't have the forward momentum in his life that he wants. After the dinner party Dr. Ben King and Olivia talk about whether they want kids (good thing there's been a lot of talk about adoption in this film).

Flashback. Lil' Olivia is told by her nomadic parents that the kitty she found can't come with them, it wouldn't be fair. But aunt Esther agrees to keep the cat, delighting lil' Olivia.

Next event, kitty pyjama party and movie night. It's a big success. Afterwards, Dr. Ben King and Olivia talk about failed relationships while cleaning up and how lonely Dr. Ben King is. They kiss but are interrupted by the grumpy old cat who has not yet got adopted. It seems to like Olivia like it's liked no one else.

Aww, smushface!!!

Olivia and Dr. Ben King decorate for the Christmas Party, and Olivia has recruited the community to come help out. She seems to have really found her place, whether she knows it yet or not. She receives and express post letter from her aunt's estate lawyer, and it's a picture of lil' Olivia with the kitty she found. Dr. Ben King tells her it was the inspiration for Esther to start the cat cafe. It's a touching moment where Olivia's defences are down, and Dr. Ben King makes a play to try keeping Olivia in town, to walk away from her life in California for upstate New York (Buffalo again) where winter has barely any snow an it's like 15 degrees Celsius outside all the time. But Olivia isn't ready to give up her life, as much as the town and its people and Dr. Ben King have been endeared to her, and she on them. And Dr. Ben King says maybe she shouldn't attend the party, so Olivia tries to leave town, but if a snow storm doesn't turn her around, running into a mechanic who has a rescue cat from the cafe will. 

Olivia gets to the party only to find that Dr. Ben King has already signed the papers, but the contractor has befriended a cat who he wants to adopt so he's fine with not proceeding with he deal and rips up the contract. Olivia has found home with the cafe, the town, and Dr. Ben King... and the smush-faced grumpy cat who's taken a liking to Olivia.

The Formulae:Big city girl with a big city job winds up in a perfect small town where she finds love and community and a future unlike what she had imagined for herself. Rescuing a struggling small town business with her big-city wiles. Decorating a house way too late in the season. A Christmas Eve deadline.

Unformulae: Espresso, instead of hot chocolate? (At one point Olivia says to Ben "I never thought I'd meet someone who shared my appreciation for espresso") And sometimes wine. And Jazz music. And an opening song by a name brand artist (Brad Paisley). 

True Calling? No, because it's *almost* Christmas at the Catnip Cafe. The film ends on Christmas Eve.

The Rewind: The opening flashback I had to rewatch three times just to make sure I wasn't missing any important information. I wasn't. Olivia isn't even called by name in this sequence nor is Aunt Esther...which was the very least it could do.

But really, the opening credits, with cats fancy prancing and playing about, worth rewatching over and over. You can put it on mute if Brad Paisley isn't your thing.

The Regulars: Erin Cahill and Paul Campbell... two Hallmark legends, this can't be their first mix-and-match. Ian Collins who plays Frank, the Catnip Cafe's only(?) employee and doesn't know from coffee beans, has been in many, many Hallmarkies, Hallmark included. Meganne Young, who plays Ben's sister is a Hallmarkie newbie. Jess Brown who plays Olivia's best friend/real estate agent has been in a couple recent Hallmarks, and one way back in 2017. Frances Flanagan who plays Aunt Esther is all over Hallmarkies for the past six years.

How does it Hallmark? This feels like vintage middle-of-the-road average Hallmark, perfect for your Hallmark bingo card. 

Except it has cats. 

Lots of cats. 

So many more cats than I thought it would have. 

And even a few dogs.

How does it movie? Bad!

How Does It Snow? Cotton batting piled around all the edges.

Toast & Kent's XMas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 2 - My Norwegian Holiday

2023, David Mackay (Appetite for Love) -- download

This one comes from a previous year's downloads folder, where my hunt led me down a "Hallmarkie/Christmas in ______" rabbit hole. See here for a previous example. In preparation for this year, I started poking at my leftovers (previously downloaded, or in My List[s]) for anything to get to immediately. And because Kent started early, I was inspired to watch one before the official start date.

i.e. cheated

Of note, as this is my first of the season, I was not at all annoyed by this one departing from tropes as much as I have been in previous seasons. I have decided to soften on my mental demands and maybe give them a shot at just fulfilling the generalized Hallmark idea of fun, light, romantic movies, without the need for the trope adherence. 

I mean, yes that was primarily the "fun" in watching these movies to begin with (combined with some atrocious examples of "movie" making) but if they decide to change, I should allow that to happen. Also, I am not sure how many of this year's list will be current (as in, 2025 releases) so I might be watching as many "vintage" examples which do adhere. As previously mentioned in another post, I don't do much in the way of research, just go with the ease in availability flow.

The Draw: As I already said, it was included in a list of "Xmas in ______" movies, because I wanted to explore that. Every movie cannot be about baking. As to why did I add it to the list in the first place? Well, the number of movies in that list is in short supply, but really, should I need to explain the idea of exploring Xmas in Norway? Those Scandinavian countries must embrace Xmas like no others, right?

HERstory: We begin in a coffee shop in ... oh, some American city (Minneapolis, dude)... where a man is arguing with his GF while JJ waits to get her coffee. The call comes, "coffee for JJ" and the man grabs JJ's coffee, but his GF spits it out, "Can't you even get this right???" Turns out there were two JJ's in the coffee shop, and hah hah, one wanted black coffee and the other wanted a candy cane latte. "SCREW YOU !" yells Dick GF JJ and she breaks up with the man. Our JJ (Rhiannon Fish, A Royal in Paradise), or Jessica Johnson, excuses herself but the man, Henrik (David Elsendoor, Ted Lasso), chases after with a replacement latte. Except he stumbles and her papers going flying everywhere! Complication! Annoyance! Meet cute!

He collects her papers for her but after she is gone, he finds a last one. JJ is working as a substitute teacher at a local high school while getting her Phd and processing the grief over her recently passed on grandmother, the woman who raised her. Henrik, through some basic logic, tracks her down, giving a bit of stalker vibes, which JJ forgives, as Henrik has the whole kicked-puppy thing going on. On JJ's desk is a badly carved troll statue, which belonged to her grandmother, and which Henrik recognizes is from his home town of Bergen. That inspires him to offer her a free trip to Norway! Technically its because he already has a ticket in her name (well, actually the other JJ's name) and it Must Be Destiny! She declines, because... stranger danger!

P.S. There is that confusing toss-away line where Henrik explains, much later in the movie, that Other JJ was never his girlfriend at all -- she was his personal assistant. It rings as late stage retooling without thought, as there was no way that angry interaction ("you never remember my coffee orders!!") would be between a Boss and an Employee. They were canoodling; otherwise, why would he bring his assistant to Norway with him for his sister's wedding?

Later she has a chat with her doctoral consultant and he denies her another extension. While he is sympathetic to her grandmother's passing, he also knows JJ is dragging her ass on completing it and needs a boot in the bum. And then he hears about the troll doll and Bergen and offers her a lifeline -- take a trip to Europe with a complete stranger, go to the University of Bergen, which is renowned for its Weather Research (JJ's dissertation topic) and finish her paper while taking some time away, and exploring some of her grandmother's past. Dr. Paul (Paul Tylak, Harry Wild) is definitely her proxy-father. She reluctantly agrees, but gives Henrik some ground rules -- no chatting on the flight, then separate at the airport. He agrees. Its a weird request, especially given he sleeps the entire flight and she ... does not.

As soon as they land she starts getting her education into Bergen and Norway. The movie is rather charming in the way it plays against expectation where everyone caters to the American tourist. Henrik cautions her about talking to strangers, convinces her that the hotel sucks, offers a place in his grandmother's and tells her any hint of paying will offend her. 

The next morning Grandma Astrid (Deirdre Monaghan, A Merry Scottish Christmas), or bestemor, is just lovely, kind and introduces JJ to a weird Norwegian not-cheese called Brunost which is, and we get our running gag, "An acquired taste." Thankfully, later on, when that terrible fish dish (lutefisk) comes up, they just skip right over it; taste not acquired. 

Now, JJ is in town to find out more about her grandmother's past, so she has an agenda -- carry that strange carven doll around. Henrik's in town, after a long absence, for his sister's wedding. He has a past with the Norwegian ski team, an injury & ever present limp, and apparently the bitterness of the entire country -- there was a reason he was in the US for so long. Much of the movie is them alternating between approaching troll carvers/sellers and the preparations for the sister's wedding, on or near Xmas day. And, of course, Henrik being a gracious host to JJ, despite all the commentary about cold, emotionless Norwegians, everyone treating JJ with absolute tenderness, basically inviting her into their family, something she never had.

Eventually, the converging stories come to a head -- one carver finds a small AAA on the troll doll which is identified by Bestemor Astrid and she brings JJ to meet him -- its Henrik's Team Norway Coach Anders (Conor Mullen, Christmas in Notting Hill), whom Henrik has been avoiding, fearing the man's wrath. This fateful meeting explains when JJ's grandmother was in Norway and what happened -- let's just say there is a counting of months from when she suddenly left Norway and JJ's mother being born. The realization is actually quite moving, as JJ runs off into the wooded path down the hillside (not taking the funicular, as Astrid suggested) and the hobbling Henrik chasing up the hill to find her, to comfort her, no words needed between the two. As for Henrik, he comes to realize he has been in his head all these years, and no one in Norway is upset with him, just disappointed he never came home.

So yeah, Anders is JJ's grandfather, or bestefar. JJ has a new family. And a new love.

The Formulae: OK, despite this being an Xmas movie and them actually taking the time to show us Norwegian Xmas Traditions, it never actually feels like an Xmas movie. The tropes are there more in a background, passing manner. We get an Xmas fair, something the pair wanders through to ask about Troll Dolls. We get hot drinks. We get breakfast made. We get decorating of a tree. We walk through the tree lot, with a bit of chatting about best tree types. We get a Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy) Day event but that's more religion, than Xmas. We do get a dance, but that's for the sister's wedding, and JJ wears a flower pattern green dress. But we do get the interrupted kiss, which provides the greatest nod to the tropes as JJ halts some interrupting teenagers in their tracks, stating loudly that she is about to have a most spectacular kiss!

Unformulae: While yes, there is a PST (Bergen, where the movie is actually filmed, is breathtaking) and there is someone returning home and there is work work (JJ's dissertation) none of it plays out like they usually do. This is not about the challenge of JJ going home, nor is her work work every really an issue, just, again, background noise, beats in the movie to fill the spaces. What I am saying is that it makes use of the tropes but never really faithfully adheres to any of them, which only slightly annoyed me, especially the lacking of Xmas, giving over more to JJ's troll hunt.

True Calling? Well, it takes place in Norway and it was her unexpected holiday, so yes.

The Rewind: More of a pause and a, "Yeah, that isn't Minneapolis, that looks like... <googles> yeah, that's Ireland."

The Regulars: Fish herself has been in quite a lot of these, maybe third or fourth tear Hallmarkie royalty. I was hoping to click and see Elsendoorn was a regular in the Scandinavian versions of Hallmarkies, but no, really just Ted Lasso from our viewpoint. And he's Dutch, no Norwegian. The rest are more staples in British and European TV shows than Hallmarkie.

How does it Hallmark? I thought it did pretty good, in making me like the mains and letting the attraction build between the two more naturally than in most. I really liked how they never truly made goo-goo eyes at each other, the glossy "I just met but I love you" stares, but was more a realization of a growing admiration for each other --- they actually seemed to like each other, and like warmed into love.

How does it movie? It has a slightly better rhythm to it than most, and the humour and delivery of lines is a bit more effortless. I did my usual, after a few actual chuckles and smiles, "Yeah, I guess I am liking this one..." But to be true to this question, for me, its whether I would consider rewatching it -- no, liked but not loved.

How Does It Snow? OK this is where the movie falls down on its face. This is Norway! In December! In actual Bergen! And its about a ski-team captain! But never once, not even cotton batting, is there any fucking snow!!! The trek up a big hill should have banks of snow, and it should be cold cold COLD as the pair ogles the Aurora Borealis, but, it was likely late September. Boo. Angry boo!

Toast & Kent's XMas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 1 - Melt My Heart This Christmas

A Toast to Hallmarkent
2025, d. Amy Force - Hallmark/W

The Draw: Toasty and I have been blogging about the genre of budget holiday romances we call Hallmarkies for 6 years now, and we've watched them go from adorably, atrociously, wtf awful, to risk-taking, genre-breaking, underfunded Pinnoccio's that just want to be a real boy. Back when Hallmark was churning out three to four dozen of these generic tv movies each season with their competitors (Lifetime, UpTV, Netflix, all the Canadian production houses) doubling the Hallmarkies output, the unicorns really stood out. But now, Hallmark seems to want them all to be unicorns, which means that they're throwing the cliches aside, intentionally avoiding formulas and attempting (and usually failing) to be more. I know Toasty has flinched a bit at this changing of the tides, while my threshold for the formulaic Hallmarkies peaked about 2022, when I started avoiding the obviously trope-laden for the more defiant ones. 

This year, Hallmark has cut their output in half, only 24 films, and so have their competitors (I think with the commander-in-cheeze's tariffs impacting productions made in Canada, there was a lot less budget to go around... along with Hallmark's investment in competition shows and weekly series' this year), which means a lot less room for the "traditional" bad holiday romance. 

Still, you could tell from the preview for Melt My Heart This Christmas, it was going to be oh.so.awful. I had to watch.

HERstory: [I missed the first 8 minutes of this so we join this story in progress] Holly is a glassblower who is displaying her wares under the pseudonym "Verre" [French for "glass" but I thought they were saying "Vert" for the longest time, meaning "Green"] at Jack's family Christmas market and is hoping to garner enough attention to get a glass-blowing fellowship at a prestigious institute. Jack's feature artist is Bianca Bonhomme [French for Goodman] a veteran glassblower who has her head so far up her own ass she can count her teeth from the inside. Bianca's staff quits on her because she's a total B [and I don't mean "B"anca "B"onhomme] and she threatens to pull out of the the market. Jack is in line to take over the family business and so he needs everything to go right, so he pairs Holly up with Bianca. Not only is Holly a huge fan, but Bianca is her glass-blowing idol. Never meet your heroes, folks.

Bianca has switched out her traditional colourful style this year for a clear aesthetic because she knows roving the market is Walter Gregson...a media personality? Tastemaker? Bon vivant? ... a guy of some importance who has a camera crew following him around who, 3 decades earlier, tore her work apart and, despite her success, the sting has never left her. Jack tells her Walter Gregson wants an interview, and she turns total Diva and says she cannot because she's not wearing the right attire. She give Holly the keys to her studio to retrieve her "blue jacket" (of which she has a dozen) and there are some weak shenanigans. She dodges the interview.

Bianca's new style, while technically remarkable (according to Holly) bears none of her signature style, and the reaction from the masses is not just apathy but stone cold avoidance. Bianca is having a bad time. Meanwhile, "Verre" is selling out every day, and becoming the talk of the market. "Who is Verre", they ask? Bianca gets jealous at someone out-buzzing her.

Holly and Jack accidentally break one of Bianca's vases, and Holly and Jack go to Bianca's studio that night and Holly manages to perfectly replicate the piece. I mean, if I bought a genuine Bianca Bonhomme piece direct from Bianca Bonhomme only to learn that it was a forgery, I would be pissed...that's assuming that blown glass has that big a collector's market. Was the glass blowing sequence all hot and steamy? Did Holly and Jack get closer through the power of montage? Not in the slightest. It kind of skipped past both the "how it is made" and "romance" angles of the montage.

Jack's dad tells him that it's a precarious time in the seasonal crafters market game, and that "the board" are pressuring him to sell the business if this year doesn't go well. A lot of weight is put on keeping Walter Gregson happy. Bianca and Holly have a bit of a heart to heart discussing Bianca's trauma at Walter Gregson's terrible review 30 years ago, and Holly boosts her into presenting the personal work she's been reticent to put on display.

Bianca figures out that Verre is Holly at the same time Walter Gregson figures out that Verre is Bianca's assistant at the same time Jack learns that Holly is Verre [since I missed the first 8 minutes, I didn't realize that part of the set-up was that Holly had been rejected from the market previously so she submitted under a pseudonym].  Bianca, Jack, and Walter Gregson all collide to confront Holly, with Bianca feeling that her new assistant was just undermining her the whole time, and Bianca swears to keep her out of that fellowship Holly wants since she's on the board. Jack is hurt that this girl he's been flirting with lied to him, and then his dad finds out that Jack riskily admitted an anonymous vendor, and now he's absolutely going to sell the company. Walter Gregson has a shit eating grin having captured the whole blow up on video. They're all ruined.

Holly goes to Bianca to have another heart-to-heart, and Bianca finally poops out her own head and becomes a real person. She understands the hustle Holly has been going through, and Holly has ideas on how to not just win the day for herself, but for Bianca as well. It involves using social media. Bianca takes Holly under her wing and shows her some new tricks.

The next day, Holly and Bianca go on social media and show support for each other, instead of tearing each other down. Walter Gregson happens upon the scene and decides to get in on it, heaping praise on them both and awarding the market his pick of the season [for whatever that's worth...I really don't understand Walter Gregson's whole deal]. Jack's dad sees the reception on social media and tells Jack he's not selling anymore and that Jack's now in charge because he's the best. Jack and Holly reunited and have a kiss or something.

The Formulae:The most subtle Hallmarkie trope is that these treat their middle-aged protagonists like they're still 25 years old fresh out of college with no real experience in life or in really dealing honestly with people. So that's here.
Christmas market...check. 
Family business at stake..check check.
There's also the late stage complication between the romantic leads, in this case that Holly managed to sneak one past Jack in getting admitted to the fair. It's very contrived (but aren't they all?).
Also, generic romcom trope of Holly being clumsy (especially in heels)... it's endearing!...right?

Unformulae: The ways the current era of Hallmark movies break out of formulae are numerous (is a single hot drink of the cider or cocoa variety drank in this movie?) but the biggest unformulae is that the "romance" part of this holiday romance is pretty much an afterthought. Rather than being the centerpiece, the core of this film is the shades-of-The-Devil-Wears-Prada type relationship between Holly and Bianca, and the whole Holly-and-Jack think is so much of an afterthought, especially their reconciliation at the film's end where it's like "oh, Jack, you're here too? Well I guess we have to kiss then."
There's also so, so very little Christmas in this film. If not for the trees in the background and the market as a reminder, there's nothing relating to the holiday at all as impetus in the characters' lives... but that mercifully also means no "Christmas deadline" like these films so often have. If I had to guess, this story takes place the first weekend of December, which is unusual.

True Calling? Gods, no. I mean the poster of Holly and Jack, but, again, the romance is DOA on this one and not the center of the film. The better title would be a play on The Devil Wears Prada...like The Scrooge Wears Prada or something (but even that would be inaccurate, because Bianca isn't a scrooge, just a B... Don't Trust the B in Christmas Market Stall 23.

The Rewind: At one point a couple walks past the glass doors into the studio where Bianca's works are on display, and Holly in a very bright red sweater is standing right there, the couple press their face up to the glass and look in and promptly decide not to enter. It the sort of awkwardness I feel every time I walk down artists alley at comic con and I accidentally look a lonely vendor at their unattended booth in the face. It's a potent reminder that creating art is, like, 90% rejection.

The Regulars: Laura Vandervoort will always be foremost in my mind as Supergirl on Smallville but she's been a Hallmark regular for some time and was an early adopter in the Xmas romance genre. If Stephen Huszar acts in anything other than Hallmark productions, I wouldn't know it. He's a tried-and-true Hallmark hunk. Jennifer Wigmore seems like she should be a regular playing mom roles in Hallmark films, because she's a good actor, but her past credits include only three non-Hallmark Hallmarkies. Madeline Leon, who plays Holly's best friend Collette, has starred in many of the low-budg off-brand Canadian Hallmarkies. She has the look and plucky demeanour of off-brand holiday romance lead for sure. And finally Walter Gregson portrayer Darrin Baker has been in and out of Hallmarkies for years.

How does it Hallmark? It's bad!
Where it could have improved, and dared for something different: It seems like Holly and her best friend Collette live together. It would have been far more interesting if Holly and Colette were actually a couple, but in an open relationship. So Holly, let's make her bisexual, meets Jack and just wants casual fling times, which Collette is perfectly okay with. And then Holly has this love-hate relationship with her idol/mentor Bianca (at the point in the film where Holly reconciles with Bianca, it has that moment where it damn well looks like they're about to kiss... and they should have!). It would be hilarious to explore the messy complexity of open relationships in a Hallmark fashion, and it would be even more interesting to explore the uncomfortable power dynamics if Bianca and Holly did hook up... who's zooming who?!? 

How does it movie? It's real bad! 
Not even fun bad, just kind of a confusing bummer of a movie bad.
It would be delicious to take my above proposal and turn it into a Splitsville-esque farce. If only I still had any creative energy left in me at all.

How Does It Snow? There was actual goddamn snow! And it was cold, you could see people's breath. And they actually were wearing functional winter gear functionally. It's really the standout part of this movie (which tells you about the quality of the film).

KWIF: A House of Dynamite (+2)

 KWIF=Kent's Week in Film. Usually when I take a week of work just to have time off I spend much of that time consuming and writing about movies. We'll stupid mice in the house have had me checking and repositioning and rebaiting traps, cleaning up messes and hunting for nests while only getting 5-6 hours of sleep at night because they're stressing me out. In the other times, I've been boardgaming or rearranging the house for new shelving so I haven't had much time at all for movies. Poo. 

This Week: 
A House of Dynamite (2025, d. Kathryn Bigelow - netflix)
Final Destination 5 (2011, d. Steven Quale - rental)
Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025, d. Adam B. Stein, Zach Lipovsky - crave)

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A House of Dynamite is a political procedural taking the audience through a "what if" scenario from as many vantage points as it can in its just shy of two hour runtime. That scenario asks what would happen if a rogue missile was launched from an unknown source. What would we actually know? What could we actually do? And by "we" I mean the United States government officials and military personnel who are in charge of monitoring and responding to such things. [I'm not really part of that "we" statement].

Because of the nightmare landscape that America (and much of the world) is in now, politically and socially speaking, A House of Dynamite already feels out of date. It's a film that presents an intense and terrifying scenario that assumes competency at the helm of all these levels of decision making, which we're all (mostly) keenly aware isn't the case anymore. Hell, there's a character played by Moses Ingram that is a FEMA agent... does FEMA even exist anymore?

The commander-in-chief here is played by Idris Elba (with a real wonky American accent...didn't he have a better one nearly 20 years ago in The Wire), he loves podcasts and basketball, so he's very Obama-coded. Honestly, somehow I feel more comforted by an Obama-like presidency where there may be a nuclear strike on American soil than I do about anything the cheeto-in-charge is doing these days.

The film takes place in three segments, each focusing on a few central players. In the first it's Anthony Ramos at a military monitoring station, Rebecca Ferguson at the White House Situation Room ("the Whizzer") and Moses Ingram's FEMA agent as she gets evacuated to the safety bunker in the Appalachians. The subsequent two segments loop back to the other sides of conversations being had from different perspectives, be it Tracey Lett's STRATCOM Commander, Gabriel Basso's deputy national security advisor, Greta Lee's foreign military expert, or Elba's president, among others.

I get the impulse to really drill down deep into the procedural aspect and try to show this situation from as many different points of analysis and decision making as possible, but it only leads to diminishing returns as we keep looping back. There are far too many characters to really care about any of them, so all we have to really care about is the situation, and, somehow, it's not strong enough to sustain itself satisfactorily.

There's no doubt that Bigelow is a great filmmaker, and this is constructed so well, with a commitment to detail and nuance, and it is an incredible feat of editing, but it presents its conundrum, repeatedly, and it doesn't have an answer. America is about to lose a major city to a nuclear strike that may or may not have been intentional. Does America retaliate against an unknown enemy with a show of strength, and if so, against whom? Will the nuke actually hit the city, or the nearby major body of water? And will the nuke actually go off?

There's a lot of positing that this film teases and tease and never resolves. It's going for "clever" but it's just edging the audience with no relief, and it makes the journey a frustrating one.

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James Wong and David R. Ellis see-sawed on the Final Destination franchise for four years, each with a slightly different take on what the spectre of death should look like, and how the films' protagonists would deal with death's designs for them. It would have been more fun if each of the directors' second efforts weren't so bad.

With fresh blood in the form of unremarkable director Steven Quale from a screenplay by soon to be accomplished screenwriter Eric Heisserer (Arrival, Bird Box) they present the Final Destination equivalent of a workplace sitcom.

The scenario the protagonists here face is a ludicrous but thoroughly entertaining bridge collapse. It's a pretty epic spectacle that is the series' second best disaster to date (though about to be trumped by the next film). It's shot decently enough, the special effects aren't as atrocious as the previous two films, and the script has all but gotten rid of the cast of characters you just immediately want all dead.

Here wanna-be chef Sam (Nicholas D'Agosto) is on a bus on a work retreat when he has a vision of the bridge collapsing. Stuck in traffic on the bridge, he manages to rile up a few other passengers who follow him off the bus and to safety as the bridge collapses. This includes his best friend/manager Peter (Miles Fisher), his girlfriend Molly (Emma Bell) who literally just dumped him, intern Candice (Ellen Wroe) and a few others who will all die horribly later.

This is a series that's all about the deaths, and the fake-outs leading to the deaths. It's about teasing the audience with possibilities before executing Death's design. Final Destination 2 did this the absolute best, and while this doesn't fully live up to that, nor does it really recapture the magic of discovery of the first one, it's pretty decently entertaining throughout, with some particularly squicky kills (one involving a laser eye surgery laser that had me flinching)

There are two big diversions here. The first is the inclusion of Courtney B. Vance's FBI agent who is investigating Sam's vision, wondering if Sam committed an act of domestic terrorism, only to come to understand that as connected as the dead are, there's no corporeal perpetrator. I really would have liked the whole movie to be from his perspective, as he comes across the scenes and he and his team need to try and unpack what happened, Will Graham from Hannibal-style ("this is my design"). The second is a new explanation as to how to end the cycle from Tony Todd, "Mr. Final Destination" himself. In this case, it's killing someone else and taking their remaining time for one's self. It's an interesting premise on its own that, while constituting the focus of the third act, doesn't get explored much outside of its needs for a horror film.

If you pay close enough attention throughout the film, the coda shouldn't be a surprise, but it's still a delight and probably the best ending of the series.

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14 years later and Final Destination is back, and bigger than ever. Enough time has passed with the series laying dormant to build up a nostalgic reverence, plus the current state of Hollywood is all about exploiting intellectual property so a new Final Destination was inevitable.

What wasn't inevitable was the love and care that seemingly went into this franchise re-launch. It's not that the film is straying very far out of its lane, but rather it just navigates the series and its concepts in a manner that seems to indicate the writers (Guy Busick and Lori Evans Taylor) and directors Stein and Lipovski are all real fans of the series and have been thinking about how to freshen it up for some time.

The centerpiece of the film is its opening prologue, an epic 20-minute sequence set in the late 1960's where a young couple (Max Lloyd-Jones and Stargirl's Brec Bassinger) are out for a special evening at the newly opened Sky View restaurant, a posh space-age joint at the top of a Space Needle-esque building. They encounter some class-based prejudice that threaten to ruin their evening, but it turns out all it would take is a little 10-year-old shit chucking pennies from the lookout to destroy the whole facility. It's a spectacular disaster, at least the rival if not the better of the highway disaster from Final Destination 2.

The whole sequence is so vibrant and colourful with that gauzy 60's feels to it, and the polite menace beneath chipper smiles that I really wanted the whole movie to be a period-set Final Destination. Alas, it was not to be, as we smash cut from the collapsing building to a modern day lecture hall where Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) has just awaken, screaming, from the nightmare. It's a recurring vision she's had, and she thinks the woman in it is her grandmother.

It turns out it is her grandmother, Iris, in Stefani's vision. Iris has been estranged from the family for decades. She was an intense mother, overprotective to a fault, hounding the family about safety once grandkids were born. Nobody will talk about her, so with the only clue she has, Stefani goes to meet her grandma for the first time as an adult, at a remote cabin in a clearing in the woods surrounded by all manner of defences to ward off death. Iris is a kook, but we watchers of the franchise know that despite how nutty she appears, Iris is right.

Turns out Iris had that same vision and saved everyone from the Sky View disaster. But the ripple effects have been a constant in the 55 years since. Death is still cleaning up this mess, and it's only now catching up to Iris's family. [In this explanation, but no hard connective threads, it assumes that the events of the previous movies are all connected to this one event]. Stefani thinks Iris is crazy until Iris says "seeing is believing" and she intentionally lets up her guard for one second, affording Death the opportunity to claim her right in front of Stefani. Stefani tries to convince her dad, uncle, cousins and brother of the danger that's coming for them but it takes two freak accidents before they start seeing things her way.

As much as I wanted the fully-period-set Final Destination, Bloodlines offers a thoroughly entertaining and trope-twisting entry into the series. While I seem to like the hamminess of FD2 more there's a playfulness to Bloodlines that's hard not to be amused by. I mean the sequence where Stefani's cousin jogs off into the background only to get hit in the head by a soccer ball, sending her off balance and into a big garbage bin which is then promptly picked up with the side arm and dumped into the back... maybe the best single moment in the franchise for sheer delight in execution.

The deaths aren't as Rube Goldberg-ian as I would have liked them to be but they are plenty gross, with more than a few that had me squirming in my seat while also giggling in delight.

This also is probably the most accessible cast in the entire series. There are no annoying characters or performers here, for probably the first time since the first movie, we're actually not rooting for these characters to die.

This also marks Tony Todd's final on screen appearance, shockingly gaunt, but still full of gravitas and an absolute legend.

[poster talk, briefly - the Final Destination series has had a skeleton-based focus for most of its poster life, with the first two films being the very late-90's-styled muddy blue and black, shadow-heavy group head shot which got real boring real fast. But Bloodlines' main poster, selling the whole "space needle" thing is vibrant reds and oranges popping off, real solid seller. My favourite though is the series of four posters selling the backyard barbecue and the dangers lurking there...just a real deviation from the norm of the series while also maintaining the skull motif]

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I've really enjoyed my time watching Death work its designs out on screen. Regardless of how bad some of the acting or directing or scripting could be, there was always entertainment value to be had. It's super obvious that the third and fourth entries are the worst of the bunch, which means the rest are all great fun... four out of six is pretty good! Plus, Final Destination: Omen is apparently in production, this time a cruise ship disaster. Keep em coming I say.

Ranking Final Destination:

1. Final Destination 2
2. Final Destination
3. Final Destination:Bloodlines
4. Final Destination 5
5. Final Destination 3
6. The Final Destination

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): John Candy: I Like Me

2025, Colin Hanks (All Things Must Pass) -- Amazon 

Full disclosure: 1) I was never the biggest John Candy fan, but I have seen a lot of his movies and 2) I am not a great viewer of documentaries, but Marmy is a fan of Candy, so we watched together.

It was fine, but perhaps I am not the best judge.

For those not in the loop, John Candy was a beloved (and even I, not the biggest fan, knew that) comedic actor from Toronto who passed away too early due to weight & stress related health issues, at the age of 43. The documentary covers his youth, the start of his career, its rise, and with the rise, the rise of the demands on him. It is obviously a movie made by people who loved him and his legacy, but it does not shy away from the dark aspects of his life & choices. That said, given the darkness emanating from the US at the moment, Candy was angel by compare.

Documentaries follow formats, always dodging between stock footage and interviews with people. Nobody interviewed didn't love John Candy and the expected SCTV and Saturday Night Live crew are there, along with Hanks' dad Tom - I was not aware of their connection beyond the single movie they did together. but Tom seemed to adore John.

The problem I have with documentaries, which is the same I always had with journalistic media, and even more so with everything we read on the Internet now, is that its all about the creator's agenda. We are being manipulated by the techniques of film making into taking everything we see on the screen, edited entirely for the script of what needs to be said, as bold fact. For me, successful documentaries unfold facts and then let you make decisions, but this is not that -- this is about idolizing a man, but admittedly, not assuming he was perfect.

If there was one aspect of the purposeful editing in the movie that entirely sucked me in, it was the number of times the movie chose a shot of Candy being vulnerable. He's seen as a big laughable bear, keyword "big" and that focus hurt him. The script says it, but you also see it in his face and hear it in his voice from interview snippets and it was almost as if the entire documentary was built around a need to remind us of this aspect his personality. His feelings could be easily hurt, and because he was big and he was a comedian, people felt it was alright to poke at him for it. They wanted to deflate the jolly. And that was wrong.

But, he stood up for himself, as his character in Planes, Trains & Automobiles did, giving the documentary its title. I think I would like him as well.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Site

2025, Jason Eric Perlman (Threshold) -- download

I would have plugged this into the most recent "31 Days of Halloween" but, a) its been too long hence to insert posts into a chronological stream that is so deep in the past, and b) it wasn't very horror, more scifi thriller. It had horrific elements but its an example of how just tone and intent can change a plot from one genre to another. The poster wanted to imply horror, the creator did not.

On that note, I am listening to audiobook of Joe Hill's "King Sorrow" about college students who accidentally summon a malevolent dragon spirit and thought, "This is a horror book but you could do a fun contemporary fantasy adventure novel about an ancient dragon slayer who gets resurrected every time a dragon reappears in the world." How about it, Joe?

Family drama. Do plots exist without them? Are they the rote framework that people write dramatic fiction on? Would a scifi thriller exist if the main character had a happy home life, liked his job and had a good social life absent of toxic people? Or would people just see that as farcical, for who doesn't have something going on? I know a lot of people who have utterly bland mundane lives sans any drama.

Anywayz, so we have recently separated Neil Bardo (Jake McLaughlin, Will Trent), cuz of a drunk driving accident that he won't accept full accountability for. He works as a site surveyor for recently divorced Garrison Vey (Theo Rossi, The Penguin) who plays at understanding accountability but really, blames everything on everyone else. Garrison has a lucrative potential job turning an abandoned government facility into a new school -- basically loot the thing for anything worth selling, plow it all under and build a school. That is, if there aren't any pollutants that could quash the deal. So, Neil and Bardo survey the massive site on their own, poking around in the offices, and find an unmapped sub-basement with a classic scifi particle accelerator at one end of a long tunnel.

Like most of these movies, the physical setting depicted vs the plot-based setting don't usually match up. The structure appears from the outside as a massive warehouse compound, which the pair could not have quickly surveyed on their own and which they also seem to bypass entirely. The two end up focusing on abandoned office buildings, and the strange lab beneath. So, what was the above used for? Just an empty cover so the weird science being done below could be ignored? Also, if an illicit scientific experiment, that had unforeseen dark consequences, had happened in the building, I doubt the government would allow it to end up on the market. But I guess they needed a reason to have grown adults blunder into it, outside of the usual "curious teens jump the fence on a dare" idea.

Anywayz, Bardo turned on the power so he could see what he was surveying and that activates the weird science thing. Almost instantly he is given visions of the past, of a Chinese internment camp during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria in the late 30s. He also loses time. Garrison is pissed.

The visions / hallucinations continue. Things degrade. The sale is in jeopardy, during one of his hallucinations, his kid is injured so badly, the boy might lose his eyes if surgery doesn't happen immediately and they are in no place to afford it - the tension between Bardo and his wife Elena (Arielle Kebbel, Midnight, Texas) is increased exponentially. But its not just Bardo having them, but also Garrison, though he won't admit it to anyone. And when Bardo's college friends show up, friends with baggage pertaining to Bardo's behaviour in college, Bardo's ex Naomi (Miki Ishikawa, The Terror) starts experiencing the hallucinations as well, as he exposes her to show others he is not insane. It just makes things worse for all, baggage opened again, drama between all being enhanced.

This all boils down to those exposed to the device, flashing back into the histories of those in the internment camp. The experiment was one with the pseudo-science catch phrase of "entanglement" which in this case implies particles which make up people are tied together, forward and backwards in  time. The visions can reflect the kind of people they are, or can be. Bardo is not the hero of the situation, but the "evil" camp director, and the "two" are influencing each other through time. Bardo makes a decision in our time, which changes history in their time, allowing the focal point family to escape, changing historical fact of "nobody escaped Unit 731" to "a single family did". Bardo had to accept that he has perpetually made terrible decisions, and in that understanding, make a choice that is not about him, but for the benefit of his family. In turn, it influences the chief scientist in the original experiment, in the 70s, to change his own choice, creating a paradox -- if the experiment was never completed, how did Bardo change his mind? All of it never happens in the first place; well except for Unit 731 in Manchuria, which was still a horrible event in actual real world history.

I do like pseudo-science quantum / entanglement scifi stories and this was a decent example, marred by, in my opinion of course, heavy handed family drama. I do understand that human emotional conflict is core to story telling but I do tire of the constant people-making-bad-decisions of American story telling.

KWIF: lazy Sunday

 KWIF=Kent's Week In Film. This week's film watchings was interrupted by the return of AppleTV to the household, and by the awareness of a mouse in the house and the rampant messes that it made beneath our own cluttered masses. After a five day hunt the mouse was finally defeated, and I am exhausted. But prior to both of these events, I had a lazy Sunday of movies and Hallmarkies.

This Week:
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995, d. Carl Franklin - Hollywoodsuite)
S.O.S.: Save Our Skins (2014, d. Kent Sobey - Hollywoodsuite)
Three Wisest Men (2025, d. Terry Ingram - Hallmark/W)
A Keller Christmas Vacation (2025, d. Maclain Nelson - Hallmark/W)

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When you think of detective noir genre, you're thinking 1930s or '40's, black and white, lots of sultry horns on the soundtrack, cigarette smoking and stylish hats, dames in dresses and so much sexism, twisty plots and downer endings.

I never really embraced the detective noire genre. It seemed so...outdated when I was younger, and couldn't get over how much of it seemed like...affectation. It didn't help that the genre was riddled with cliches which comedies had mined to death. So at 19 years old when Devil In A Blue Dress came out as Denzel's sixth movie in the two years following Malcom X, well, I wasn't interested in this olde timey claptrap. Give me Virtuosity and Crimson Tide, all day everyday.

But, I've been in a detective/noir mood of late, inspired largely by rewatching the films of the Coen Bros., and it struck me, pretty hard, that I should give Devil in a Blue Dress a shot. I mean, if detective noires demand a strong lead, you don't get much stronger than Denzel J. Washington, Esq.

Devil in a Blue Dress is an adaptation of Walter Mosely's 1990 neo-noir novel of the same name, and introduced the world to Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins (Washinton) [just try to tell me that Easy Rawlins is not the best noir detective name ever], a veteran of WWII who gets laid off but is desperate for work to pay his mortgage. He gets sent his way a smarmy, suspicious looking character, Albright (it's Tom Seizmore, so you know he's bad news) who wants Rawlins' help in looking for a woman. Easy sees the money, and even though he already senses something is off about the request, can't help but take the work.

Even though Easy is not a detective and has no past with law enforcement, he has a way with people, a confidence most others lack, and a physicality which is very intimidating even if you're twice his size. Soon after taking the case, an acquaintance who knows the woman he's looking for winds up dead, and suddenly things are getting real. Albright we quickly learn is a thug, and has misrepresented what exactly he's after. There's also an L.A. mayoral race at play and somehow both candidates are involved in whatever this big mess is.  At a certain point, Easy needs help, and calls in his army buddy Mouse (Don Cheadle) but Mouse's more...trigger-happy tendencies may be more of a hindrance than a help.  

Beneath it all, Easy still has PTSD from the war, and whatever the active version of traumatic stress disorder is from just being a Black man in America. The cops harass him, the white men play him, and he knows a white woman need say but a word and a mob will come after him.

Devil in a Blue Dress is an incredible noir story, featuring incredible characters, from the most major to the most minor (there's a mentally challenged man on Easy's street who keeps trying to cut down people's trees, and Easy is constantly chasing him off...while still acknowledging him as part of the community), and there's nothing quite like watching a character get chucked into the deep end and having to learn how to swim, only to discover they're an olympic caliber swimmer.

Devil in a Blue Dress did not do great at the box office, and it's a damn shame. Mosely has written 14 novels since 1990 starring Easy Rawlins (the latest came out this year), and we should have gotten a new Washington-starring Easy Rawlings adaptation every three years. With AppleTV killing it with their novel series adaptations, I think we need an Easy Rawlings relaunch as a series, maybe with John David Washington in the lead?

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In the before times, one would surf channels until they found something the caught their attention and just watch, usually all the way through, no matter how bad it was, because options were limited. We have nothing but options now, and it causes "analysis paralysis" where you just scroll and scroll and scroll through your various streaming services, often watching nothing more than a 60 second auto play snippet before moving on to the next thing. So much of the pain (and sometimes fun) of sifting through streaming is cutting past the cheaply produced, licensed-in-bulk amateurish garbage, only to occasionally find one starring a whole bunch of name-brand actors from TV series you used to watch 15 years ago, or it features a conceit that you just can't pass up watching.

S.O.S.: Save Our Skins is very much from the cheaply-produced, licensed-in-bulk pile, a British/Canadian co-production starring nobody I'm familiar with, but tantalized me on concept alone.

Two British nerds, Ben and Steven, have travelled to New York City for a comic book convention, only to wake up and find that the TV is off and their mobile service is down. Oh, and when they hit the streets the city is empty.

Right off, it's incredibly impressive for this exceptionally modest production to have managed to capture scenes on absolutely vacant NYC streets. This was shot 6 or 7 years before the idea of lockdown was in anyone's mind.

The nerds do what nerds do, which is annoy one another, look for junk food, go shopping, and panic only a little... er, well, a lot when they encounter a blue monster (which looks like if a pro wrestler from the 1950's joined the Blue Man Group). While foraging at a bodega, they encounter another man who invites them around to their place, and, yeah, he's a creep. The internet still works (I really have to wonder how much of our infrastructure can truly run on autopilot and for how long without human intervention) and they send out a message, which in turn they get a response from two Canadian nerds who beckon them to Toronto.

Along they way they encounter a mentally deranged woman who tries to assault them. Ben takes a liking to her and calls her "Killey". It's not a very flattering portrayal of the mentally ill, and also the fact that Ben, a lonely nerd, effectively grooms this woman who doesn't seem completely in her faculties is all kinds of ick.

At the centre of the entire story is a series of random images that flashes on screens, subliminal messaging from a strange figure who plays into the final act, where we learn about what's actually happening and why.

S.O.S. is meant as a comedy, but is rarely ever funny. The character portrayals are incredibly thin, with Ben being kind of oblivious and id-drive while Steven is the worrier who just wants to get in touch with his mum. 

The film does manage to effectivley capture, at least visually, the sense of emptiness with nobody else around, but emotionally you never truly feel it. I can only imagine what this would look like as a Pegg-Frost-Wright joint, which this is clearly a pale shadow of.

The ideas are definitely there, and it's decently well acted, but the characters, the adventure, the humour are all very much lacking.

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A  Light Toast to HallmarKent: Three Wisest Men

The Draw: Three Wise Men and A Baby was a goddamn delight. The casting of Hallmark superstars Andrew Walker, Paul Campbell and Tyler Hynes as brothers in a legit comedy was inspired. The sequel was diminishing returns, but still the leads made it more than worth the while. A third entry was going to be the "must watch" of the season, because even if it was lesser-than what came before, there was no doubt it would still be a joy to watch these three men perform together.

HERstory: Mom (Margaret Collins) is selling the house! Taylor (Hynes) has been given a job offer...in San Francisco... and his ex Fiona (Ali Liebert) is there too. Mom selling the house means he has to move anyway, but he's having commitment issues with current girlfriend Caroline (Erin Karpluck). Stephan's (Campbell) indecisiveness is getting in the way of marriage preparations with Susie (Fiona Vroom), and their house springs a leak just as Fiona's dad (Lochlyn Munro) comes to visit. Luke (Walker) is expecting twins (well actually it's Sophie [Nicole Major] expecting twins but Sophie's always been such a non-entity in these movies) and Thomas is getting jealous and acting out. Um, they're all staying at Mom's for one last Christmas in the home and it gets tense. Hijinks ensue.

The Formulae: Oh cripes...there's really none? Even the "getting a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve" trope is brought up but skipped over. There's no snowball fights, no cookie baking montage, and no overt propaganda for Big Hot Chocolate.

Unformulae: At one point the three boys, each in the midst of their own personal dilemmas, sit down to have a drink...and they're drinking beers, not hots cider or cocoa. This, unlike other Hallmarkies (not even the Evergreen movies), is very invested in its franchise and brings characters back from previous movies. Unlike the first sequel, it avoids callback-as-comedy which is great. This also steals a sub-plot from other movies like Jingle All The Way where Thomas wants a popular toy for Christmas but it's hard to get, so the boys go to extremes to get it. Where that could have been a whole movie, it's just a 10-minute aside.

True Calling? Who cares at this point, it fits the series, and it's more eloquent than the clumsy Three Wiser Men and a Boy.

The Rewind: There's an early sequence in the film where Luke and Sophie are at Lamaze class for parents expecting twins (or more) and the instructor is in the midst of a meltdown, providing no reassurance for the attendees as to what life will be like with multiple babies. As she starts bemoaning her husband's own mental breakdown, there's a brilliant smash-cut to "Tom" on his knees with three babies strapped to him like a baby bandolier.  

The Regulars: They're all regulars at this point, if not of Hallmark, then at least of the series.

How does it Hallmark? Because it's the third in a series, it's kind of way outside the usual parameters of a Hallmarkie. Where the first was still infused with holiday romance, because each of the brothers was single and they meet someone, and at least the second one hat Tayler meet cute-ing the awesome Caroline, this one has no romance at all. There's the hint of complication with Fiona (Taylor's love interest from the first) but the film doesn't play it out. So with that, and not leaning into any of the usual holiday tropes, it's not very Hallmarkie.

How does it movie? It remains a joy to see these three leads together. But this should have been a six- or eight-episode half hour sitcom. There's too much going on and not enough time for the movie to explore it all, and the shenanigans they get themselves into together feel disconnected from their individual story arcs.

The Taylor love triangle never pans out. Luke's anxiety over becoming a dad of twins isn't adequately explored. Stephan's Meet The Parents anxiety is the most underwhelming sub-plot, but make this a sitcom, give these stories room to breathe for both emotion and comedy and I think it would have been solid gold, rather than tarnished silver in need of a good buffing.

How Does It Snow? There's less than 60 seconds of outdoors in this movie, and what little outdoors we see are establishing shots of real winter scenes, or backgrounds where they've tufted some batting to make it look like snow around the edges. 

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A Light Toast to HallmarKent: A Keller Christmas Vacation

The Draw: Brandon Routh makes his triumphant return to Hallmark movies in a non-cat-centric movie this time. I'm here for it.

HERstory: The Keller kids are joining their parents on an Austrian riverboat cruise visiting the best Christmas markets in the world. College football team manager Cal (Routh) just lost out on what he thought was the love of his life. Construction executive Dylan (Jonathan Bennett) needs a break from his boyfriend (William) after his proposal is met with a "this is not the right time". Data analyst Emory (Eden Sher) has just been laid off. So they each are coming to the trip with baggage. But when a kindly grampa introduces Cal to his comely granddaughter Felicity (Jill Winternitz), and the ship's events coordinator takes a shine to plucky Emory, and William decides to join the family trip anyway. Mom and dad have a secret they need to share. It's all, well, it's a trip full of family bonding and romance. 

The Formulae: There is a scene where Emory and her bestie talk while decorating a Christmas tree. There's a gingerbread house making contest on the boat.

Unformulae: The film's opening credits play over a photo album that features the main family cast in different locales at different ages which is, I'm sure, all AI generated. The photos are too clean to be Hallmark's usual sloppy photoshopping. Strauss' "Waltz on the Beautiful Blue Danube" plays overhead, a touch of class over the AI tarnish.

Hallmark rarely springs for location shooting, and here they have a riverboat as a main set, they have beautiful Austrian cities and markets as backdrops, there's a rustic converted barn that's an ale house and lodge, and the kids have to take "Hansi" (a motorbike with a side car) through the hillsides to catch their boat after missing it the previous night.  Actual production values and wild, non-Canadian locations are so exciting and rare in Hallmarkies.

True Calling? They are Kellers, and they have a Christmas vacation.

The Rewind: So, Felicity is introduced to Cal by her grandfather and these two very attractive people take one look at each other and say "huh...not right now". Felicity is recently divorced, and Cal has some thinking to do. But they keep talking to one another, not flirting, just being friendly. But then in the Vienna market, Cal starts getting hit on by a pretty Austrian lady who is entranced by this American and Fiona, even though she has said she's *not interested* totally cock blocks him. "I love being rescued from an adorable Austrian who is totally flirting with me, especially when it's by a super-cute American whom I'm not allowed to flirt with." But in the scene right after that, the leering glare of the Austrian in the background...oh, the daggers her eyes are throwing.

The Regulars: Bennett is Hallmark royalty, Routh has a few of these under his belt, but this is Sher's first, but probably not last (she's got serious Lacey Chabert vibes, so it seems like they're seeding her). Winternitz's only prior is "Christmas in Scotlan", while handsome and charming Anand Desai-Barochia is a first timer as Bennett's boyfriend, but he's so sultry on screen without even trying (their kiss is great). Mom and Dad (Laurel Lefkow and Nigel Whitmey) are new to the genre, which is surprising given how the parent roles are usually where you find the most veteran of Hallmarkie actors. Beyond our leads, I think most of the performers here are regional hires.

How does it Hallmark? It's a top notch Hallmarkie, not defying the standards of a Hallmarkie too much while still offering something heartfelt and Christmassy. It's charming and funny with some sweet moments and a few pretty decent romantic moments.

How does it movie? As a Hallmarkie it's on a much grander scale than most, but even at that scale it's still shot like a Hallmarkie, and as well as it's acted, I don't think anyone could confuse this cast for a movie-movie. I mean Jonathan Bennett's hammy physical comedy and over-the-top snoring immediately take it out of contention for actual movie movie.

How Does It Snow? REAL SNOW! And LOTS OF IT!......

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Ranking the Coen Bros.

2018, d. Joel and Ethan Coen - Netflix
[Reposted from my letterboxd, typos and all, originally written Nov 16, 2018]

Anthologies are always a challenge for me. Movies, books, comics... I'm never left satisfied. There's too many stories, usually of different length, sometimes connected by theme or genre, sometimes only tenuously connected, often not really connected at all. They usually vary in length and tone, often by different creatives, and invariably you have to compare one story against the rest, and even in the best cases there's always a dud, or one that overshadows all the others. It's never a satisfying experience.

I think the only place where the anthology can really work is television. We're talking The Twilight Zone, Outer Limits, Black Mirror, but also the idea of season-length anthologies like Fargo, True Detective, or American Horror Story. With the former, the episode by episode format of anthology gives separation, but also structure. Not every episode will be equal but the separation between stories (talking about old school weekly viewing, but also the separation provided by opening title and end credits sequences) provides a buffer to immediate juxtaposition. As individual episodes they're standalone, like short films, not treated as a necessary part of a whole package. The season length anthology is just more fulfilling, a mini-series that lives on it's own each year, all the benefits of regular television but with the satisfaction of both an intended story structure and closure.

Which brings us to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology feature from the Coen Brothers (Ethan Coen no stranger to anthology storytelling, having written more than a few collections of short stories). The early rumour was this exploration of the old West was intended as a tv anthology but it's six tales each run at wildly different lengths (from 10 to 40 minutes) which would make tv serialization impossible. [edit: the "series" rumour has been disproven]

The only real way to tackle reviewing an anthology is story by story, but that type of reviewing also exemplifies the fact that an anthology cannot really be viewed as a whole unit, rather only it's pieces.

The film takes its name from the opening story, following Tim Blake Nelson's singing gunslinger through a breif and violently whimsical journey (it makes me want a Shaolin Cowboy movie adaptation from the Wachowskis). I had incorrectly inferred that Buster Scruggs would be the film's Cryptkeeper, the connecting thread between stories, but no such luck. Just the turning of pages transitions us from one to the next.

James Franco robs a bank in the next story, but gets foiled by the teller played by Stephen Root. It's the shortest of the stories but tonally consistent with the previous, if a little less fantastical.

The third story follows a limbless orator as he travels the countryside with Liam Neeson as his caretaker making a meager living entertaining meager (and thrifty) crowds. Is this a friendship? A business partnership? Or an exploitative relationship? Ultimately, it's overlong, cast in such grey, and lacking the wit and charm of the previous entries, destroying the cohesiveness for the rest of the film.

The next story takes full advantage of Bruno Delbonnel's beautiful cinematography as Tom Waits panhandlers for gold. It's luscious color palette is in stark contrast to the four dankness of the previous story. It's just as deliberate a story as the last, really getting the sense of the time to spare on such endeavours people had way back when.

While the first two stories were rather pithy and energetic, these two slow things right down, peeling away the idealism of the old West, leading into the fifth story, a forty minute romantic tragedy on a wagon train to Oregon. Due to it's length it's easy to invest in the characters, and understanding the painstaking hardship of travel seems to be the point. The early romanticism of old West tropes have washed away, here there's bare practicality and excruciating nothingness, coupled with a gut blow of an ending.

The final story finds five heads in a carriage, talking, a spectre of darkness aptly surrounding them, but the Coen's see fit to return levity via the uncomfortable, forced interaction of strangers who would otherwise not associate with one another. It's an engaging dialogue but quite much to take after three tales of a more photographic quality and already nearly 2 hours deep. If anything, it serves as a reminder of how awesome Tyne Daly is, and she should be in more things.

As a whole, it's a Coen Brothers production so it's worth the time spent, but as a Coen Brothers production it's on the bottom end of their spectrum. I also wished the had better Native American representation than just as attacking war parties.

---

I'm being lazy with Buster Scruggs i, not writing a brand new review because, well, I don't have a lot more to say about it, just as I didn't have much to say about it then. I did find it generally tedious to watch and frequently checked the timestamp to see how much was remaining. The Coens love a tight movie so whenever one goes over two hours, you feel it.

The Blank Check Podcast pointed out that the connecting thread of these stories is death, but it's tough for me to really think of it a theme of each of these stories. 

My ranking of the Buster Scruggs stories:

1. The Gal Who Got Rattled
2. All Gold Canyon
3. Near Algodones
4. The Mortal Remains
5. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
6. Meal Ticket

Now that I have rewatched all 18 of the Coens films together, here are my rankings, subject to change.

1. Fargo
2. The Big Lebowski
3. Hail, Caesar!
4. Inside Llewyn Davis
5. A Serious Man
6. No Country For Old Men
7. The Hudsucker Proxy
8. Blood Simple
9. Burn After Reading
10. Miller's Crossing
11. True Grit
12. Barton Fink
13. The Man Who Wasn't There
14. Intolerable Cruelty
15. Raising Arizona
16. O Brother, Where Art Thou
17. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
18. The Ladykillers

It's a difficult list to make because 60% of these films are flat out masterpieces, and most of the rest are troubled but still generally likeable. I mean, True Grit is an incredible, maybe even perfect film, and I have it out of the top 10, which is absurd.

My top 3 was my top 3 going into this rewatch and they remained relatively untested. LLewyn Davis and A Serious Man were both a lock for the top 5 and jockeyed back and forth, with Llewyn taking the edge because I couldn't stop thinking about it for days. The films in the 6-13 slots could probably be re-arranged any which way and I would still be happy with that ranking.

The only real surprise in making the list is that Raising Arizona jumped 3 spots from the bottom...and maybe that Burn After Reading made it into the top 10. It's probably the only non-masterpiece in the top ten, but it is so much fun. It's very possible that I may be finally warming to Raising Arizona but I just don't have the sentimentality towards it like so many others do. But sentimentality is why Fargo and Lebowski are my 1 and 2.

Of all these films, only the bottom three do I feel hesitant to watch again. In fact, I would probably watch The Ladykillers before O Brother or Buster Scruggs but it's pretty unanimous that The Ladykillers is absolutely their weakest film. For the record, if I were to add in Joel and Ethan's solo works, Honey, Don't would slot in between The Man Who Wasn't There and Intolerable Cruelty while Drive Away Dolls would slot in just after Raising Arizona. I don't even know where to put The Tragedie of Macbeth because it's nothing like the rest of their oeuvre. It sits on its own outside of it all...or it's last, I guess even though it's clearly a better film than The Ladykillers at least.

But what an unbelievable delight it is to have all these films in the world, and to revisit them in succession. It was a real effort to watch them week-to-week and not gorge myself on them. But, next time there will be a gorging.

Chiplog: Brets Cream cheese and herbs

 Pre-chip: This looks to be the sophisticate's version of the classic sour cream and onion potato chip, and I couldn't be more excited, but also, nothing the "chive" flavouring ingredient I'm concerned if it will trigger my onion sensitivity or not. In the past green chives have not really triggered me like onions do, but then, one rarely ever consumes much chive ever. It's certainly not as common an ingredient as onion. Even if my body doesn't instinctively reject it, I wonder if I'll have a psychosomatic response to an onion-y flavour?

Ingredients: Potatoes, sunflower oil, whey powder, salt, fermented milk powder, lactose, creme fraiche powder, sugar, garlic powder, natural chive flavouring with other natural flavourings (milk), parsley, aromatic harbs extracts (parsley, dill, mint)

First smell: Heavenly. The hint of fermented dairy and the subtle aroma of garlic and chive and the other herbs are even subtler, but it's are jiving so well with the potato-and-oil combo. So inviting.

First taste: Oooh, there's a tartness to the dairy ingredients I really like. The garlic is stronger than the chive that's for sure.

Aftertaste: The garlic lingers as garlic does, but it lingers with that dairy flavour, like a smooth soft cheese sticking to the roof of your mouth a little. Very pleasing.

Mass consumption: Oh yes, this is a mow-down bag of chips for sure. As much as the dairy and garlic are the predominant flavours, the dill and the parsley are both coming through, though juuust slightly. As I plug away, enticed as I am to keep triggering those pleasure receptors repeatedly, I occasionally get a hint of the mint extract. It is the one thing I've noted previously about Bret's chips, each chip isn't seasoned equally. That may be a bad thing for some, but for me, it slows eating a little bit as each chip tastes a little different than the other. For full flavour, I grabbed a handful and ...wow pow! That's a good flavour palette. There's strangely a "freshness" to it, like eating a sprig of parsley or mint leaf with your fully loaded jack-et potato.. I think I would like this even more if those herbs had just a slightly bigger punch though.  The chive is a softer flavour in the onion category and works great. The "cream cheese" is the centrepiece here for sure. I could easily finish this in one sitting. But I do want to have a break just to see if I do react to it in any way at all.

Final thoughts: It really does seem like a hoity-toity low-key sour cream and onion flavour, and while, if I had an actual choice I would go for that fully-potent sour dairy/onion flavour most of the time, but if I didn't want my tastebuds absolutely assailed, this would be the perfect alternative to satisfy the craving.  I wonder if stinky breath will result regardless.

Rating: 8.1