T&K's XMas (2024) Advent Calendar - Day 20: Holidazed episodes 2-5

2024, created by Claudia Grazioso - Hallmark/W Network

Episode 2 - The Hill Family: So the most erroneous part on the subtitle is that this is really the story of Josh (Ian Harding) and the rest of his family (Mom and Dad) barely play a part in it.

This episode is the cliche Hallmarkie but in gender reversal. As we'd seen in the premier Josh is the arrogant big-city guy who returns to his Perfect Small Town (which may or may not be Seattle...perhaps a suburb...or maybe Portland area...it's not specific but we'll get to why that's my assumption) without his emotionless, unaffectionate, task-oriented girlfriend (the "Dick GF"?) to clean up things at home before they leave together for the ultimate next step in life and career in Australia. 

But Josh got into a bunch of trouble with his parents car and the local sheriff(?), single mom Nora (Erin Cahill), whom he knew in high school. Yes, all the cliches. He's set up for community service act a local fundraiser but annoys the women there so much that when Nora's son Theo asks if he wants to help him with his ornament for a competition, that then becomes his community service. They start bonding as they try to figure out what "the Life Star" looks like (Theo's idea for an ornament is "the opposite of the Death Star"...not bad actually).

Josh starts to catch Nora's attention and they're having fun day in and day out...until the Dick GF shows up and looks askance at Josh's current choices. An awkward sit-down with Josh's parent reveal Josh and Dick GF had bought them a new unit in a retirement village so Josh could just put them away and forget about them once he's gone to Oz. That goes over well.  In the midst of a big "talking about life and future" conversation with Dick GF and Josh goes a-running over to Nora's house, and says he can't stop thinking about Theo. Weird. Josh has solved the Life Star.  They win the competition to Dick GF's befuddlement. Theo gives Josh a hug, and Josh and Nora look longingly at each other. Dick GF notices, and later, as it's storming outside, give him an all tomato. Then the power goes out. Weird ending.

Ian Harding is an enjoyable actor to watch, and Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez who plays Theo may be the best child actor in any Hallmarkie ever. But this is just too cliche and predictable to be exciting, and the Hallmarkie cliche I hate the most is when the big city person falls in love with being a parental figure to a child, and, then, I guess, finds some sort of romantic connection maybe with the kid's parent. It's icky and weird and not something built to last. And this episode barely tries to even establish Nora and Josh as an item. As I said, weird.

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Episode 3 - The Lin Family: When we last left off Grandma Lin (aka Nai Nai, Lucille Soong) was staying for Christmas, and she believes that Ted's (Osric Chou) fiancee Marcus (Shawn Ahmed) is actually his sister Ella's (Jasmine Chen) fiancee. Nai Nai recently had a heart attack so everyone is crawling all over eggshells not to upset her, including by outing Ted.

Nai Nai wants to plan all of the wedding details which leads to hilarious (not) hijinks as everyone needs to bend over backwards to not reveal their dirty secret. There's lots of family conversations in the closet (the irony is not lost on Marcus. There's photo shoots which wind up in the local paper (which everyone still reads in this PST...weird! And it's not online. Double weird!), there's checking out the venue and dancing (where Theo has to "show" Marcus how to dance after bungling it so badly with Ella) and Ella trying on a wedding dress, even though her whole online influencer persona is anti-traditional gender roles and coupling behaviour... so she's got a rep to protect.

Ted's ready to out himself, but Nai Nai says she's ready to promote him to CEO of the family business. What's the family business? Nobody knows, and Nai Nai seems to have a lot of time on her hands if she's the active CEO, so it can't be exceptionally prosperous. Nai Nai talks about her heart problems as Ted's still trying to come out to her, and so Marcus, feeling guilty now (bullshit) steps in and continues the ruse. Marcus, an out-and-proud therapist up to this point has been a reluctant and dissatisfied participant, so I really could not buy into his stepping in to prevent Ted's confession (you would think he would help facilitate it somehow, right?).

Nai Nai talks throughout the whole episode about how progressive she is and it was her late husband who was the traditionalist. This is all so cliche and painfully predictable, I hated watching it. It was attempting a lighthearted in-the-closet farce, but so damn much of it seemed so antiquated, like it was a script written in 1997. I know in some cultures that coming out can have serious repercussions from other members of the family, and that's never funny. It's a pretty serious thing to explore, and it's clear this episode had zero interest in exploring it. 

This episode made me very unhappy, except for the end when the storm hits, and the lights black out, Ted and Marcus get caught in the rain and start making out, only for Nai Nai to catch them through the window. I wish this happened minute 10, not minute 45.

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Episode 4 - The Woods Family: After two exhaustingly cliche episodes it was nice to spend time with the Woods family that takes pains to set up the cliches only to buck them.  It's still not a great piece of television, but it's a far cry less frustrating and eye-rolling than the two episodes that came before it.

When we left off, we saw Lucy (Lindy Booth) coming home to see her worldly younger sister Sylvie (Rachelle Lefevre) chatting with the handyman, Cole (Steven Allerick), Lucy invited over for a sort of date.  I had expected a cliched sibling rivalry but was plenty surprised when the show completely side-steps any misunderstanding and Sylvie instead wants to help fix all of Lucy's troubles, including getting the guy.

Emergency renos are required at Lucy's gluten-free, organic cafe after a health inspection reveals that a hallway is too narrow to carry a stretcher down. This means more time together as Cole's assistant.  Sylvie, a silent investor in the cafe, starts brainstorming ideas to help raise more money faster as well as starts helping out niece Annie with her boy troubles.  

Sylvie and Annie find Nora's "Joy Box" stashed away, which had Lady Kent and I howling. Turns out Sylvie and Nora's mother's name was Joy. Nora has issues with their deceased mom, but Sylvie starts hauling out all the old Nora favourites, including the special super-sweet Christmas bars she used to make, and giving Annie some of Nora's vintage disco clothes to attract neighbour boy Max's attention.

At first it seems everything Sylvie is doing is helpful... she's getting Nora dolled up for her date with Cole, she's given Annie advice on flirting with boys, and she's making up big batches of the Christmas bars to save the Cafe. But it all blows up in her face. Nora winds up having an allergic reaction to the lip gloss Sylvie gave her. Max freaked out when Annie pecked him on the cheek while taking a selfie. And the bars turn off the Cafe's existing customers (who hate sugar) and fail to attract new ones. And also, Sylvie had given her worldly quasi-boyfriend a "next step" all tomato, and he went off and found himself a hot new Starbucks barista while they were on their break.

And Nora and Sylvie fight over everything, including differences in opinion on their mother, and Sylvie decides to leave, only for Nora to find out about Sylvie's "break-up" after the fact. The storm has hit, the power goes out, and Nora needs to find her sister and bring her home.

I liked the subversion of the expected, but there were still far too many set-ups for the expected to happen... far too many. And the teen drama was pretty cringey.

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Episode 5 - The Lewin Family: Let's just get it out of the way that, to me, it's very, very weird for one's divorced mother and father to both be staying in their kid's home for the holidays. One of them needs to be in a hotel or something. Distance and space are needed. Especially when mom Linda (Loretta Devine) turned up with her new boyfriend Evan (Ser'Darious Blain), who it turns out is even younger than their daughter.

The main focus of the episode is not bittern infighting between exes, or absurd competitiveness between ex-husband and new boyfriend... but that is where it starts. In the opening moments Robert (Dennis Haysbert) is getting up in the morning, working his aching knees, when he hears Linda hooting and howling and giggling down the hall. The insinuation is that Linda and Evan are gettin' it on...but they're just having a pillow fight (the Hallmark stand-in for gettin' it on, lol). Just as Robert goes to head to the bathroom, so to does Evan and they have a most delightfully awkward stare down then non-conversation before Evan retreats.

The two men are assigned with helping grandson Max put together his stand for the complimentary gift wrapping service he does with neighbour Annie. It doesn't go well and the booth collapses. Blame is passed around as the men puff their chests at each other. Later, there's the annual neighbourhood "broomball" competition and Evan joins the Lewins, but Robert's alpha drive takes over and he knocks Evan to the street (even though they're on the same team). Forced to apologize by Linda... Robert and Evan start to learn they have things in common... a lot of things... and they hit it off and become fast buds much to Linda's dismay, and dislike. 

The new friends head out for a nightcap after dinner, and Evan helps encourage Robert to talk to a lady down the bar who is flirting with him. The next morning the two pals have the stand in best-ever shape, and Jennifer (Robinne Fanfair) jokes that her mom found the perfect match... for her dad.  Mike (Jeff Joseph) then quips that, no, she just found a younger version of Robert.

There's more funny little twists to this very unexpected bromance between Robert and Evan, and I was here for most of it, especially the shopping montage where Evan takes Robert out for a style makeover for his first date with the lady from the bar.  

What I was most worried about with this starts to happen, Linda gets jealous and starts interfering with Robert's progress, as well as getting in the way of her own.  She just sees in this revitalized Robert, the man she originally fell in love with. I hope in the big finale it comes to pass that this is pointed out, that it's actually a pattern of behaviour and maybe they both recognize that they can love each other but not be together as being together doesn't make them both happy.  

Meanwhile, there's a whole side plot about how Jennifer's new promotion to partner at the law firm, and Mike's shift to a stay at home dad (Max is like, 13...? I don't get it... though it is a big house to take care of) is echoing the unhappiness that started in Robert and Linda's relationship.  As a side plot, it's not covered deeply enough, but it's still pretty good.

This episode was so unlike usual Hallmarks, not just in being tremendously funny and surprising, but in really getting to the meat of the conceit (even if that conceit is bonkers). 

When the storm hits and the power goes out, Linda and Jennifer are returning from the store, with Linda seemingly resolved to make some advances towards reconciling with Robert, only to find that Robert has invited lady from the bar over.  Please keep surprising me with this story.

T&K's XMas (2024) Advent Calendar: Day 19 - A Christmas Less Travelled

2024, Heather Hawthorne Doyle (Confessions of a Christmas Letter) -- download

I once commented on doing nothing but Off-Brand Hallmarkies. I know, I already started a post with that line, but once again I come along with an off-brand that solidifies I should probably stick to the few well-known producers. Migawd, I should have realized as soon as I saw the title card "a Great American Family production", I should have turned the movie off. I mean, all that title card needs is a MAGA cap, and I did confirm this company was a "soft-faith" company, which translates from American as you could probably have a drinking game for the number of times they bring up God, Faith or Forgiveness as themes, and get quite sloshed. I will be avoiding them from now on. 

The Draw: It has a red truck !! It was the red truck that suckered me in.

HERstory: Desi (totally not an Indian name, for that would mean she's foreign; Candace Cameron Bure, Full House) owns and runs a cafe in a PST. But obviously runs it badly, cuz the bills are stacking up and a family appears to pick up a take-away order and then hints with eyebrows that they don't have any money. Why the fuck are you ordering take-away if you cannot afford take-away??!? I mean, if Desi had some pre-arranged situation where certain families could order free food, then she would know that before they showed for pickup. But anyway, if Desi wants to save the cafe, she she better get some cash, like right away, and maybe considering selling her dad's vintage red Ford truck, cuz lots of people would like it. Buuut its the last tie to the memory of her Dead Dad so it hurts to even consider selling it, even though she hasn't touched the thing since he died.

Meanwhile a Guy (Eric Johnson, Flash Gordon: a Modern Space Opera) from the Big City is stalking her, while talking on his phone about how he has to choose just the right moment. Sneaking onto her property with its motion activated singing snowmen was probably not they best way. But it gets her into the garage where she pulls a tarp revealing her dad's truck, complete with a cassette in the tape player marked "Desi #1". Also, before she was drawn outside by Stalker Guy, she was posting the sale to a .. I don't know, Facebook Marketplace (?) for $15K.

So, the tape tells her a sob story (OK, be fair, its moving) of how in his last days her Dead Dad wish they had pulled together more after his wife died, but they spent so many years just avoiding each other, not dealing well with grief (never realized exactly how prevalent badly processed grief was a part of Hallmarkies) and that was why she was away at "culinary school" when he was diagnosed with a deadly unspecified condition, and he died only a week after she returned home. But the tape gives her a Quest, a drive to a place they used to go when she was a kid called Treasure Cove Bluff (wrong movie) where her mom used to release "Red Balloons for God" or something... basically the idea of burning prayers or wishes or regrets but sending them via helium to Heaven. And along the way, on the Quest, she has a few pit stops.

Meanwhile Stalker Guy is arguing with his phone over approaching her before its too late. Too late for what? He does not make friends at her diner, nor does he make friends with her as he spills coffee on one of her customer's scratchers. And he parked on the wrong side of the motel parking lot, so his car has barely iced over and is undriveable. Apparently everyone in Snow Covered PSTs knows where not to park overnight, but people from Miami (his Big City) do not. OK then, but he says he is going to the same place she's going "for business", which is weird, because the movie reveals its not a town or place, just a stop on the road, and she would know this, so what kind of "business" could he have there (?) and offers her lots of money if she can let him tag along. She doesn't like this Big City Slicker (Stalker) but needs the money so, "Go buy your own snacks." He buys a green goo drink and avoids candy canes, cuz sugar.

The first pit stop is an sweet country Inn run by a sweet country couple. They instantly recognize her, which is kind of weird, because she has no idea who they are and only knows the place as where her parents went on their honeymoon. There is a snow storm blowing in, and Stalker Guy is annoyed they have to say. Given he has no idea where this Treasure Bluff is, I guess he has no idea its a multi-day trip. Also, he has lost his luggage because he didn't close the tail gate properly AND he spilled green goo drink all over himself. Technically she did driving erratically but its all his fault for being startled. Anywayz, the nice couple invite them in (its a business so they probably invite everyone in) and they stay the night in a single room (that sofa ain't made for sleeping if you are over 4') wearing borrowed onesies. Admittedly the onesies are cute, and he is not as annoyed as a Miami Big City Slicker should be considering he is stuck in the backwoods in the cold without a change of clothes or a toothbrush. But apparently he has a gooey centre as he players the guitar and helps the Old Guy cut down an Xmas Tree, which they all decorate together. He also shares some personal details about being raised by a single mom who became a lawyer, and then rich.

Back on the road, the next pit stop is a Country Bazaar, which I guess is a roadside Xmas Fair, but the place they pit stopping for is a pet adoption VW van, which offers free pet grooming. But apparently knowledge or skill at said offering is not required because owner Big Mike immediately sticks Desi and ... OK, let's give Stalker Guy a name, Greyson, on the duty. Cue cute dog montage but really the dogs don't look any different after the grooming. And, of course, Big Mike has another tape for Desi. Big Mike's assistant confesses to Greyson that this is the last year they will run this pet adoption agency as they are out of funds. Their pit stop ends at a local drive in, where they watched a faith-based Xmas movie, and apparently sleep in the truck overnight without the cops hassling them. 

Next pit stop is at a church, because of course it is. They meet the lady rehearsing the kids for the Nativity Play, and while Greyson entertains the kids, she has a heart 2 heart, learning that her father and Random Church Lady had a relationship, but never committed to it (i.e. never got married) because of guilt and grief and other stuff. And another tape.

Back on the road, he is about to confess whatever he's been up to, when Polly From the Diner calls with the real story, so we can have a proper complication before he makes all nice nice. Apparently Greyson's mother and Desi's father got to know each other (Dead Dad really got around) and apparently his devotion and faith and ... sigh... other propaganda... convinced Greyson's mom to "find her faither" which also apparently led to becoming a very wealthy lawyer, so after she died, she left half her estate to Desi. And that's why Stalker Guy (he gets re-dubbed this now) was stalking her, because he and his brother want to contest the will. Buuuut because of the Getting to Know Her, he has had a change of heart, but that doesn't matter, so she kicks him out of the truck and heads on her last leg of the journey to the Treasure Bluff.

Insert a product placement for The Salvation Army.

Desi does make it to the Bluff, and finds the red balloons Greyson hid there for her, so she could continue her old family tradition. Also, as he finds his way back to the diner, where I assume his car has thawed out, he makes a couple of "money makes everything right" pit stops. Back in the diner, after she has released the balloons and speed run home (it doesn't take three days this time) she hears that Greyson has called into the dripping-with-sentimentality radio show and poured out his heart, and Desi forgives him because he will no longer contest the will, and he has paid off all her friends, and he has bought the truck, cuz money makes everything right in the world. And they kiss.

To be honest, I really do believe money gives opportunity to Do Good when you can let go of all the other burdens of life.

The Formulae: A wee bit, in that someone comes from a Big City (Miami) to a PST (we don't actually see much of it, but it has a Beloved Diner...) which is In Financial Trouble. Desi has a Dead Dad, and Greyson has a Dead Mom. There was an Xmas Fair, with puppies. They also have not found long lasting love in life, but can you call that a trope, cuz you wouldn't have much of a romance if they weren't single. Maybe "faith based" Hallmarkies cannot have someone fall for someone else while still in a relationship with someone else, even if that Someone Else is a stinker? Of course, there is a complication. And then there is the RED TRUCK, which was really nice, if not a 40s truck like most are.

Unformulae: No real Xmas Event, no red dresses which is always a loss to me. No ex-partner complication, but see previous paragraph for that. 

True Calling? I guess? I guess cuz she hasn't done that particular road trip in a long time, and also not thought about all those memories in a long time, it is less travelled?

The Rewind: Nothing really worth remembering.

The Regulars: Candace Cameron Bure started doing these way back in 2008, but eventually she must have thought Hallmark was being too "open minded" and moved over to off-brand, more Xian based productions. Eric Johnson has done quite a few.

How does it Hallmark? It doesn't. I mean, yeah sure, it has the most basic of the elements but wow, was I soured by the Xian-based drinking game portions of the movie. I have no problem with characters having Faith (capital F) but this movie comes as part of an agenda based production company. And reading a bit about how Cameron Bure helped start the company, and had been quoted how Hallmark is a, "completely different network than when I started" shows she wasn't happy with the idea they were becoming more progressiver. So, fuck her and fuck her company. 

How does it movie? Nope.

How Does It Snow?  Not bad actually. There is real snow in a LOT of scenes and that was real ice covering Greyson's car.

T&K's XMas (2024) Advent Calendar - Day 18: The Santa Class

 2024, d. Lucie Guest (Jingle Bell Run) - Hallmark/W Network

The Draw: I told myself I wasn't going to watch any movies for which I had already listened to the Deck The Hallmark podcast review. Instead I made Toasty do it.

But when the DTH boys came out fairly positive about a new movie starring Kimberly Sustad (from an all-time favourite Hallmarkie, The Nine Lives of Christmas), with a particularly meta supporting player in Paul Campbell, and highlighting that it was an actual Hallmark comedy that was funny... I couldn't resist... even though the premise is soooo stoooopid.

HERstory: For basically her entire life, Kate North (Sustad) has been trying to escape the burden of the North Star Santa School her father founded. And now with her father retiring she finds herself the sole owner of the flagging training center. The competition from rival The Saint Nicholas School started by an ex-employee of North Star has put a huge dent in their business, and her father leaving has seen enrolment drop even more rapidly.  Kate, and her just-graduated younger sister Bailey (Lindsay Winch) are all that's left to keep the school running... except when Dan turns up looking for work.

Dan (Benjamin Ayres, Saving Hope) and Kate went on one date a few years ago and Dan has been quite sweet on her since. Kate can't stand him. Dan has been working for The Saint Nicholas School, earning the moniker of "the best Santa trainer in America" all this time, and in helping TSNS grow, it's been punishing for North Star.  Plus, North Star has lost the Christmas Cup -- a "friendly" competition between the schools Kate's father started -- every year.

Dan convinces Kate to give him one semester, and she agrees. Dan also lost his company car in the "conscious uncoupling" from his previous employer, so he also needs to carpool with Kate, much to her chagrin. On the first day, on the way to work, Kate nearly runs into a man dressed in a Santa costume stammering on the road (there's simultaneously whole gag around a mug of hot chocolate that's... pretty dand funny). As Kate and Dan help him they see, unbelievably, reindeer and a sleigh fly away. They've just found the real Santa, and he has amnesia!

They take Santa to the school, rather than the police, hoping that, well, firstly, he'll fit right in and secondly, maybe "Santa training" will jog his memory.  They call Santa "Nick", as they meet the other students: a European folklore nerd, a senior spiting his grandchildren, a Jewish neo-hippie, a shy man who communicates through his hand puppet, an aggro feminist out to prove anyone can be Santa, and... actor Paul Campbell, researching a role.

As Kate and Dan and train up this rag-tag class of students, Kate is able to see past "Dan, the enemy" and turns out he's pretty fun and charming, and good at what he does. Dan encourages team building and they head out for a night of drinking and trivia. It's a good time.

North Star has a tight relationship with a shopping mall magnate, Ned, and they're given the opportunity to trial run the new recruits, as well as do some secret Santa shopping. It's pretty disastrous (hilariously so) for all involved, except Nick, who seems to have the perfect touch...and a bit of magic that starts to raise some eyebrows of the other students. Nick also has been having flashes every time he makes contact with someone, kinda like The Dead Zone, but festive. He saw that Ned wants to buy North Star (for the land, not the business...wise choice).

That evening, they hand out secret Santa gifts, after which Dan asks Kate out...again. She agrees. Somewhere along the way they figure out that the key to Santas isn't rigorous uniformity but personalization, and they get their students to embrace who they are in the role of Santa.

They go out on a proper date at the Christmas market, and then crash a nearby private party. They manage to evade security for a few minutes, scam some drinks, take some photos, dance a little, before they get caught. When Kate drops him off they make out pretty hard. And when she picks him up in the morning, they do it again.

At North Star, Kate and Dan accidentally blab about Nick being the real Santa, and Bailey gives Kate an idea on how to help him jog his memory. Magic.  But Dan finds out about the offer Kate received and reacts selfishly. It's no real complication though, as they both come to an understanding before the Christmas Cup. And so too is Nick's memory restored...when his wife shows up.  But he stays to help out the school in the competition.

The Christmas Cup, heralded as the saviour of everything, is won by North Star, but the reality is it's only the promise of maybe brighter things. Kate has no illusions about the uphill climb before her, but a Christmas gift from Santa (two tickets to Paris in the spring) at least gives here something to look forward to... and Ned's offer isn't completely off the table. The end? 

The Formulae: there's hot chocolate, and Christmas Magic... I think Christmas trivia at a bar is now part of the Formulae. Christmas markets of course are a staple. And Christmas-themed competitions are also a Hallmark standard.

Unformulae: I don't recall a lot of Secret Santa gifts exchanges in Hallmarkies past, and the amount of meta-Hallmark inside jokes that come out of Paul Campbell are tremendous fun (at trivia, when trying to name the three wise men he shouts "Me, Paul Campbell. I was the third wise man." There's a lot more drinking drinking in modern Hallmarkies in recent years, but I've never seen two Hallmark leads crash a Christmas party before. That was fun. 

True Calling? I'm not sure why not just "The Santa School" or "School for Santas" (I like that one), but yeah, it's fine.

The Rewind: Pretty much any Paul Campbell scene is worth rewinding, and the whole training sequence at the mall is so well done. They turn those children into frothing at the mouth monsters.

The Regulars: Sustad and Ayres and Campbell, obviously. They're all over Hallmark. Lindsay Winch has been a rock-solid supporting cast member in many a Hallmark as well.  Trevor Learner who plays Santa/Nick has been in a bunch, ditto for Mrs. Clause Sheila Tyson. Tom Pickett who plays senior Patrick has been in so many of these things.  Carmel Amit who played Megan and Graeme McComb who played nerdy Timothy and Ryan Beil who played neo-hippi Isaac have all starred with Sustad and/or Campbell before (now that I think of it, most of this crew has. Does Paul just keep getting his Vancouver acting buddies gigs?)  

How does it Hallmark? I keep saying this but modern Hallmark has really changed. I think the transition years were a bit rougher, but a lot of the films this year, while suffering a little under constrained budgets, have a lot more ambition and reach for more than just tropes and familiarity.  This one is one of the more ludicrous premises we've come across (competing Santa training schools, and...real Santa is a student?!?) and somehow it works. With a cast that is charming, playful, and allowed to be funny (could, as I suspect, these performers all know each other mean there's a lot more chemistry here than most random Hallmarkies? Probably... if I'm right) it makes the durrrrmmm premise really quite entertaining.  Both Sustad and Ayres are very talented performers who know how to deliver expertly timed patter, and equally expertly timed reactions. And the way the relationship between Kate and Dan plays out, it feels very easy and natural, not forced or expected. Again, the premise requires such suspension of disbelief, and yet within that premise, the characters feel so grounded and aware.  I was charmed.

How does it movie? Still not even close to a real movie. It's a budget thing. It's a scale thing. In a real movie there would be more prominent arcs for each of the students (yes, Paul Campbell included), and they would need another 10-15 minutes for that which they don't give here.

I also figure a real movie would have been more focused on, you know, the real Santa of it all and not...winning a competition.

How Does It Snow? There's a lot of trickery involved here, including cotton batting and digital manipulation.  The scene where Kate and Dan come across Santa it's snowing real hard... but it's digital snow. And as good as it is, there's an uncanny valley to the snow falling and how it's not interacting with its environment at all. It's kind of upsetting to see two characters walking through a snowfall and gather no snow at all on their person.

T&K's XMas (2024) Advent Calendar: Day 17 - Jingle Bell Run

2024, Lucie Guest (Christmas at the Chalet) -- download

OK, I watched this one without my notebook cuz sometimes you just have to skip right past the distracted-by-note-taking and just watch the @#!%-ing movie. 

The Draw: Had to watch at least one Ashley Williams movie this season. Do I have my fav Hallmarkie mains? I must, right?

HERstory: OK, this is one of the "elevated concepts" that Kent mentions, as in its not trying to do a Hallmarkie formula, but play with a whole "original" idea. Its not actually original at all, but for Hallmark, it might be? Anywayz, basically this movie is an "The Amazing Race" rip-off but focused on Xmas and set in the US. Also, the poster and the opening credits are basically a nod to Catch Me if You Can" which makes no sense, cuz this is not a caper movie.

Anywayz, Avery is an elementary school teacher who really wants to start up an after-school reading program. Wes is a retired hockey player who was a lead slap-shot score-er (?) with the Chicago <name that is not Blackhawks> and is looking for his Next Big Thing but is always being upstaged by another, more popular, retired hockey player. Avery's sister signs her up for "The Great Holiday Dash", the aforementioned rip-off of "The Amazing Race", and so does Wes's agent, as an opportunity to get his face out there again. 

Avery is really really  not athletic, but she is good at puzzles, but she goes to her sister's gym to begin working out in the .. I dunno, couple of days before the competition starts, cuz that is how exercising works. No matter, it serves to introduce the couple as they irritate each other over exercise equipment.

Next day, guess who bumps into each other? Aaaaand to top it off, they are assigned, randomly, to team up together. The host Keegan claims this is new for the show, but... aren't they all team based? Anywayz, lots of other cool couples get highlighted so we have other characters to root for, and they all get to wear bright red, embroidered bomber jackets ("Team Slay Whaaat!") I don't know why, but I really want one of those jackets. 

Anywayz, the idea of the show is that they crack open clue notes, which then presents to them a riddle which when answers leads them to the next city, and the next clue. First up, its off to Chicago's Germantown, cuz I guess Chicago has some German roots? In an over-the-top festhall they have to crack walnuts. Wes's other hockey player rival can crack nuts with his hands; Wes and Avery need a tool and come out of the gate last. A note about the game is that when a team comes last, they are eliminated, which allows us to ignore most of the teams as the movie goes along, cuz they go bye-bye.

Next, jump on a plane. Like the actual reality show, it dances right past how they book and pay for the flights, but they all get jammed on a plane bound for .... y'know what, I don't remember each city they went to, nor each competition. Maybe notes would have helped. Either way, as the games progress, Avery's book smarts help them out in pretty much every competition, but for a few times when it requires physical acumen, and Wes overcomes his ego and helps out. The rival hockey player doesn't take long to be eliminated cuz he's saddled with a puck bunny, and city after city the two warm up to each other, and soon it is down to just three couples: our two mains, a mother & proxy daughter team, and two gay guys who hate their wage slave jobs and want to open a resto and who are soon making googley eyes at each other.

To add to the "fun" the producers start to notice Wes and Avery are making their own googley eyes, and ask Wes to play it up for ratings. He feels icky about it, but complies, eventually his real feelings overcoming what he is doing for the show. That is, until Avery catches the producer and Wes talking about it, and she stalks off before he tells the producer to bugger off. Complication!!

But no matter, Mr Producer eventually comes along and sets things straight with Avery just in time for the two to win the competition. At the winning ceremonies, the two offer up portions of their winnings to the other finalist competitor teams, helping The Gays open a resto, Proxy Daughter pay off her student loans, and Proxy Mom get a scholarship in her late daughter's name. And the two kiss.

The Formulae: A dearth of them, but we start with Grumpy with Each Other, which hasn't been around for a while, and of course, we end up with a complication which takes about five seconds to clear up. But beyond that, nothing much memorable.

Unformulae: This is more a romantic pseudo-reality show than a proper Hallmarkie, but that's alright, maybe I need to open myself to more tropes to label.

True Calling? Sure, I guess its an Xmas based reality show but why not just call the actual competition "Jingle Bell Run" ?

The Rewind: The shot of the Boston-based ski resort which has giant snow-capped mountains in the background. Massachusetts might have a few small ski hills, but nothing "resort in the mountains" level. It was just ... weird. I mean, don't they know Americans are watching?

The Regulars: Ashley Williams and Andrew Walker are Hallmarkie Royalty. Recognizable Canadian Face, James David Lewis, who played the show's weird host, has done a few Xmas Hallmarkies, but even more of the Hallmarkie-style murder mystery shows. I may love me some milquetoast murder-of-the-week crime shows but even I cannot fathom watching a Hallmarkie style one. One of The Gays, Brad Harder, has been in a handull, including The Christmas House.

How does it Hallmark? Its outside of concept but its mostly a fun movie? But Wes and Avery seem like they could be better friends, but maybe its just the two veterans of Hallmarkie Land being fatigued over making googley eyes (yes, some day I will have to start including screenshots with actual googley eyes) to each other, but the chemistry is not exactly there. Sure, the two leads are really charming and always sweet AF, but I didn't buy them falling for each other.

How does it movie? It tries, it really does, but it doesn't even come across as being a basic Xmas-themed comedy movie.

How Does It Snow? Nothing, but it does have an excuse that it spends most of its time in areas not expecting snow. I mean, it tries in west Texas when it uses a "snow storm" as an excuse to cancel flights, but.... ?

T&K's XMas (2024) Advent Calendar - Day 16: Holidazed, episode 1.

 2024, created by Claudia Grazioso - Hallmark/W Network

A little something outside the Hallmark seasonal norm, and showing the channel's commitment to not sitting still and resting on formulae alone, Holidazed is an 8-episode TV series that is, effectively, 6 intersecting Hallmark Holiday Movie stories, but not movies.

This is perhaps the evolution of the ensemble movie Hallmark has been trying more and more each year (think Haul out the Holly  or The Christmas House).  It's also maybe in direct competition with the Cherry Lane series of movies to see which format performs better: a series of movies or a weekly limited series?

Holidazed is set on a cul-de-sac and follows the six families that live in the neighborhood. Their lives naturally cross paths but each has their own specific story.  The first episode introduces all the families, their dynamics with each other, and their neighbours, and the complications that will need to be overcome.  Each family will have a dedicated episode, and I presume the finale will tie it all together somehow.

I recently wrote about the Netflix series Midnight Mass and what a masterclass it is in establishing its large cast, their relationships to one another, its setting, the series' ominous tone and hinting at what's to come. Holidazed isn't quite as deftly handled, but it does a decent job of weaving through the myriad of characters and how they relate to one another while setting up the complications that will drive their individual narratives.  What holds it back is it's almost too ambitious, with too many characters intermingling to keep every connection perfectly straightforward. As well, almost every premise is pretty cliche, so from the set-up it's like we know where it's going to go, based on Hallmarks of the past.

They are:
The Hill Family. Son Josh (Ian Harding) has returned home for the holidays, where his big city pretentiousness presents itself quite frequently. He's not an asshole about it, he's just a bit of an ass.  He apparently kept buying his parents new household gadgets for fitness or healthy eating and they were just too technical and non-traditional for them, but he kind of doesn't get it. He only sees his way. While heading out to pick up some healthy bowls for dinner in his parents car, he gets pulled over for talking on the phone not hands-free (he was talking to his fiancee who, to put it bluntly, is pretty emotionally cold and didn't care at all about joining him for Christmas). The cop is an old high-school acquaintance, Nora, who he says was always very "by the book" and she says he always though the rules didn't apply to him. He thinks he's charming and Nora is not charmed. Later Josh forgets to put the car in park and it crashes into a fire hydrant. He convinces Nora to get his penance immediately reduced to community service because he's supposed to be moving to Australia with the ice queen after Christmas. He also learns from his parents that Nora is a single mom after her husband died. So, big city big shot returns home to meet single parent he knew from his younger years and they clash at first. We know how this story will go, like every beat of it (especially since we see Josh connect with Nora's son over Legos briefly).

The Lin Family. Ted (Osric Chou) has brought his fiancee Marcus (Shawn Ahmed) home for the holidays. His mom (Sharon Crandall) is ecstatic to spend the time together and plan their wedding. Sister Ella (Jasmine Chen) brings up the topic of Nai Nai comes up and Dad (Stanley Jung) says he booked her on a trip to Palm Springs. Ted is relieved because he hasn't come out to Grandma yet, which Marcus is not thrilled with. Of course, the trip has issues and Nai Nai (Lucille Soong) is home for the holidays and eager to spend time with Marcus whom she believes is Ella's fiancee. Uh oh. Hijinks are bound to ensue before the truth has to come out (literally). Lucille Soong is a legendary character actor, and she's going to kill it in this hopefully not-too-contrived story.

The Woods Family. Lucy (Lindy Booth) runs an restaurant and has the total hots for contractor/handyman Cole (Steven Allerick). It seems mutual. But Lucy's estranged hard-travelling sister Sylvie (Rachelle Lefevre) is home for Hanukkah and she's already starting to dig her charming, worldly claws into Cole.  Lucy's daughter Annie has been best friends with neighbour Max Lewin forever, but now that they're teens things are changing. When popular girls Stephanie drops in, Max is all over her, which makes gives Annie new feelings. Two juvenile relationships, one which makes sense because teens are involved, the other is of the eye rolling middle-agers-shouldn't-act-like-teenagers variety. Hopefully it's more about the sibling drama than misunderstood romance cues.

The Lewin Family. It's going to be a tense Christmas at the Lewin household. Jennifer (Robinne Fanfair) has both her mother and father coming for dinner, but they divorced earlier in the year. Jennifer has just made partner at work and is tired of being put in the middle... and yet, mom Linda (Loretta Devine) manages to skirt having to tell Jennifer's dad, Robert (Dennis Haysbert) that she's bringing her new boyfriend.  Before the episode is over, the truth comes out (and that's before Linda arrives) and Robert seems more than happy that Linda has some other man to torture in his old age...except... when Linda arrives, her boyfriend is a strapping, handsome younger man (and not the Uber driver). This one is far fetched but seems like a great comedic set-up with both Devine and Haysbert... that's high wattage acting talent that should raise even mediocre material.

The Camarena Family. Manny (Tim Perez) has been in a long term feud with neighbour  Chuck Manetti-Hanahan (John C. McGinley) over the volume of Chuck's Christmas decorating. But the two are attempting (not really) to bury the hatchet as Manny's son Kevin has been dating Chuck's daughter Katie (Holland Roden). Chef Gaby (Noemi Gonzalez) returns home for the holidays with big news about her career, which is undercut by Kevin's love life which Gaby didn't know about. Turns out Katie was her high school bully, a fact that not even Katie seems aware of (as she is constantly hugging Gaby and trying to recall "old times" they shared). And then Gaby finds an engagement ring.... The trauma is deep here and I hope the episode featuring this family gets into it, and doesn't just cop out with Katie expressing what she was going through and playing on Gaby's sympathy. Own the damage you caused, Katie! This has so much potential, but I don't believe enough in Hallmark to deliver it. 

The Manetti-Hanahan Family. Chuck, as we've seen, thinks he owns the world, and is oblivious to how he impacts others. Connie (Virginia Madsen) is trying to organize the holidays and keep the peace at home and with the neighbours, and finds it exhausting. Clark (Giles Panton) returns home with his family in tow and from the second they exit the car they are mocked and berated for their trendy lifestyle choices (they're vegan now, but Rebecca [Lucie Guest] has brought all the food so she's no burden but it doesn't matter).  The Manetti-Hanahan household is an utter shit show and Katie is branded a traitor by her father and, like all the kids, finds being at home very difficult. She storms out and winds up staying at the Camarena's for the night (kicking Gaby out of her bed, because Kevin's parents are not letting them sleep in the same bed under their roof).  They're a lot. This is the only story that I don't know exactly where it's going. If we get Chuck having some sort of change of heart and self awareness I'm going to call bullshit, because he's not that kind of guy, I can tell already. Madsen is killing it in what I've seen so far from her, and McGinley is always fun to watch.

Will report back when all is said and done on how each story fared.

Watching: Hysteria!

2024, download

Taking a brain-break from all the watching of Hallmarkies and the writing about Hallmarkies and posting something that didn't make it out of the Drafts. I think I am back on a "write about TV" hiatus, as we finished a number of shows, and I just haven't bothered to post a stub. I could blame this on the season (which despite my enthusiasm for the aforementioned Hallmarkies) I find quite ... mentally draining. Add to that my flu bug which came with major brain fog, and I just wanted to Watch, not Write.

Matthew Scott Kane turns up out of the blue as a showrunner for a series that doesn't need a season two as it does everything it requires in one. I was a shade disappointed that a show about "Satanic Panic" didn't even mention D&D but I understood that it had to focus on one thing (heavy metal music & culture) that the pop culture audience would understand.

What 100. Its 1989 in small town America. Two teens are kidnapped by strange, masked men. One turns up dead, the other finds her way home. Meanwhile a trio of high school friends are trying to figure out how to put their heavy metal garage band on the map, when the Pretty Popular Girl suggests they are part of a Satanic Cult. They decide to run with it and it... well, increases their popularity. Meanwhile the rest of the town spirals out of control over the death of the teen, and the idea that a Satanic Cult has come to their safe little place.

1 Great. Surprisingly, it was the deeper than usual characterization. In a show about heavy metal and 80s Satanism, I was expecting nothing but broad trope strokes for all the characters. Sure, it had more than its fair share of exaggerated characters but it needed them to play their parts. BUT for each of them it went just a bit further. Jordyn Stanwyck, or Jordy, is the goth girl in the band who at the beginning appears to have an unrequited love for main character Dylan. But a the show progresses and Dylan shows himself to be shallow and easily manipulated, her romantic attraction wanes while her friendship & loyalty increases. Dylan's father Gene starts as the usual kind of slow, unflappable father, unwavering faith in his son and family, but as his wife goes further and further down the Panic rabbit hole, you see him unravelling in small but increasing ways. Police Chief Dandridge starts as your typical small town cop, suspicious and authoritarian but as the Satanism comes to Happy Hollow he wants to curb the panic, but also cannot ignore what is happening (or is not happening) right in front of his eyes.

2 Good. That this was a show where I honestly did not know where it was going to go. I mean, technically it went exactly how I thought it would go, but every episode it had be doubting myself. Was it actually supernatural or just hysteria? Is it a double-bluff? The show skillfully left you questioning every scene. Were people actually seeing demons, or were they just suffering from mass-hysteria? What about the unexplained quake? It reminds unexplained. Why do they all see the same demon? I mean, that means there has to be a real demon, right? Why are normally stable, even keeled people going off the deep end? Are they playing at being a cult, or are they somehow actually mixed up in real Satanism? Is the deprogrammer / exorcist actually pulling demons out of people, or is he just a normal evil man torturing children? So many times, I thought it was going to take a turn right, and it screeched the tires and pulled left. Metaphorical directions, not political affiliations.

3 Bad. If anything fell, its that the show was all over the place. Yes, this was intentional, but often it felt like there wasn't really as much focus on the main characters (the metal kids pretending to be a cult) as there should be, and in doing so, it sacrificed more exploration of them as people. I wanted to know them more, sympathize with them more.

T&K's XMas (2024) Advent Calendar: Day 15 - Believe in Christmas

2024, Christie Will Wolf (A Cookie Cutter Christmas) -- download

OK, I truly loved this one. It was what I needed.

The Draw: Cuz Kent asked me to watch it? I suspect, for two reasons: because its about a trope-laden PST, much like Evergreen, or because its shot in Nova Scotia, Mahone Bay in particular, which is truly one of those lovely PSTs that I adore, even when its not Xmas.

Note: The linked post looks wonky because The Peanut Gallery deleted her Twitter account after it became the stinkiest of all stinky social media sites, Muskland.

HERstory: Beatrice (Megahn Ory, Hudson & Rex) and Emilia (Lindura, Christmas Time Capsule) are roomies. Bea is an orphan who is not very fond of Xmas because she never really got the whole experience having spent her childhood in foster homes. Buuut Emilia has a special treat in mind for the two of them for the holidays -- a trip to Christmasland !! Its like Christmas Island but without the 'I'. But seriously, its a town in New Hampshire that goes all-in for the Holiday Movie Experience, and Emilia loves the idea. Bea does not. Over burned cookies we start a "No, I will not go to Christmasland with you!" montage, but in the end Bea gives in as it could be a good story -- she is a journalist who does puff pieces and this is the puffiest.

Meanwhile Ethan Crane (John Reardon, Hudson & Rex) is coming home to Christmasland from Boston. His mom Carol (Cathy Jones, The Grand Secuction) runs the Inn and he is expected to pitch in and help her out, starting with a list of chores the length of his arm. There is a slight hint with these scenes that its how Emilia is describing Christmasland and maybe not quite real.

The girls are soon on the long wintry road to Christmasland, and if I didn't know better, the overhead shot of them driving the lonely road would tell me they are about to head into a horror movie. And they even break down with a flat, and no spare. Emilia is right there with it, commenting how this ALWAYS happens in the Holiday Romance Movies (she is right) and it shouldn't be long until the handsome man arrives in his (red) truck. She is right, as Evan appears with a puppy in his back seat and an offer to drive them into town. Emilia is delighted. Christmas Magic has begun!

When they arrive at the Inn, they meet Carol and settle in for the night. The next morning they also meet another guest, Porter Bryant (Kevin Hanchard, Hudson & Rex), and Emilia is immediately smitten. She is going to do pre-arranged Xmas Stuff (egg nog tasting; Bea is lactose intolerant) so Beatrice is going to just have a wander around the lovely PST. Carol sends Ethan to play tour guide.

At this point they should just include the entire main cast of "Hudson & Rex" and be done with it, including Diesel vom Burgimwald who plays Rex the police dog.

Migawd the setup of the PST is absolutely lovely, but it was shot in Mahone Bay and that place is lovely year round, even if not all fake-decorated for fake-Xmas. Ethan is sweet enough to know Bea needs real coffee, not a candy cane confection, and they grab one BUT also make a run by the famous local bakery for a famous cupcake, where Beatrice is coaxed into The Baking Competition, even though she cannot bake. They also do some maple syrup over snow tasting but Ethan implies its more local flavour, as opposed to Christmasland Experience Flavour. Liar.

Later that evening the ladies dress up to the nines for dinner at the rustic country Inn, which is weird, and not a red dress event at all, but sure. Ethan stays in plaid. They learn that Porter is here "on business" and is rather evasive. Emilia is beginning to suspect he is an actor in on the whole "experience" but is also kind of falling for him. 

Later? Next day? One of the troubles I have with these movies is the timing. Events have to jump from set-up to set-up, often only showing us a briefest moment to fill up the entire day. But both "couples" and they are definitely acting all paired-up by now, even with the assumptions of "experience" end up on horse drawn carriage rides (not enough snow for sleighs) with Ethan and Bea ending up at his grandfather's little quaint place. He claims its a small break and he has to do some search for his mom's missing crystal angel ornament (very sweet story how her husband got it for her, and after he died, it inspired her to get out of a depressive funk) but he also mixes in some really romantic-times by playing a slow-dance on the gramophone and getting all close close with Bea.

Next morning! The girls are creeping around discussing how Porter is trying out lines in a mirror so he must be an actor, and Ethan catches them being weird. To claim not-weird, they claim they are trying to find the creakiest door -- totally not weird. Its an actual chuckle moment, "Oh... cool... alright." But now we have to do the baking montage, as Ethan will help Bea out with his Gramma's recipe and they even throw flour at each other during the montage. Again, Christmasland experience or Xmas Magic happening? We are meant to be unsure. Not even the mayor being named Kris makes me think actual Xmas Magic is intended here. And Emilia is tickled pink at how all the tropes are falling into line, even the almost-kiss. Even later, Bea wins the baking competition and Shelley the baker who usually always wins is grumpy. It might all be a setup but Bea is truly falling for Ethan.

Also love the line the Mayor delivers that one of the bakers is "...from Mahone Bay" though the movie is very clear this is in New Hampshire.

And the complication comes around. Ethan's gorgeous Big City Ex shows up trying to rekindle things. Bea catches them mid-hug and now even she is seeing the tropes happening, and thinks she's being conned all along. She's hurt and upset and runs off, where she bumps into Shelley the Baker (Kirstin Howell, Haven) who does admit the whole Bake-off was a setup ("Did you even try your own cookies?") but she also sees that Ethan has been acting "off script" the entire week. Still, Bea is not sure she can trust anything and wants to leave, until she finds the Crystal Angel Ornament and it feels like maybe a little Xmas Magic is happening all on its own. Ethan explains that while he was originally a setup, to "handle the Grinch" (she is the requisite not-invested guest who has to be distracted so the other guests can have the experience) but he truly started to fall for her. They make up and finally kiss and ... will live happily ever after? Who knows, she still has a city job.

The Formulae: Emilia is constantly pointing them out for me, but that the movie starts with them being picked up on the roadside by a handsome hunk in a red truck (alas, not vintage) kicked it off for me. And the rest of the PST is Xmas Overload, which is absolutely delightful. But we got plenty of heart 2 heart moments, plenty of Xmas confection drinks, a carriage ride, a baking contest, a baking montage, an Xmas tree decorating scene (Bea has never decorated a tree before, which is weird, cuz why doesn't Emilia have a tree in their flat?) and a couple of interrupted kiss moments. The fun in the movie is wondering where the line between Christmasland setup blends into actual Holiday Romance Movie magic actually happening. Oh, and there is an actual Business Work Work Work thing going on, but its Porter who is a token Rich Guy here not to buy out something PST related but actually invest in expanding the whole idea of Christmasland. Good thing the experience worked perfectly on him. Ph, and as always, there are plenty of Dead Parents.

Unformulae: There's no job complication, and her job (puff pieces) barely even plays into the movie. They don't get trapped in Christmasland, as there is no flights-cancelling-and-roads-closing snow storm. In fact there is barely any snow in play. 

True Calling? I am not quite convinced it does fit the title, as there is very little discussion of the idea of Xmas Magic beyond the meta-textual discussion of Holiday Romance Movie tropes at play. And believing in Christmas is not required to fall foe the tropes.

I also hear the guy at Yonge & Dundas ("BELIEVE !!") every time I read the title.

The Rewind: The Mahone Bay-isms. If you looked closely in the background, you could keep on catching them forgetting to hide a few signs here and there, which claimed very clearly they were in Mahone Bay. Also, in the Inn there is a large painting of Halifax in the lobby.

The Regulars: The director, though this is my first exposure to her, is a mega-Hallmarkie director. Does that count? Meghan Ory has done only a couple, but I love that she also did an episode of Hudson & Rex. Reardon has also only done a few. Meanwhile mononym-ed Lindura, who played roomie Emilia, has done a TON. I don't know why, but I am disappointed that this is Cathy Jones first.

How does it Hallmark? It both provided some fun meta Hallmarkie playing with the tropes but also follow one of my favourite of the patterns, the absolutely lovely PST that dives deep into Xmas. As a romance, the budding affection between Ethan and Beatrice was very believable and the googley eyes surpassed expectations. I think this has hit the mark for me, a best of the season so far. Thanks Kent!

How does it movie? Meh. When I say "I loved this one" its not like I recognize it as a Good Movie, as it isn't. But it is what it is, and while I have admitted in the past to actually MORE enjoying the ones that are so bad, they need to be mocked, I do enjoy the ones where everyone is invested and its actually sweet and it dives DEEP into Xmas.

How Does It Snow? LOL not at all. You can often see melting "ice rink shavings" in the background but for the most part they don't even try, but for one scene outside Ethan's grandfather's place where you can almost see the crew standing on a crane with a wind machine, dumping soap flakes so we can see a blustery day.

KsMIRT: ...into November (part 2... or.. better late than November)

 K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (eh..?) Kent steps through the TV series he completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  The last post was getting pretty long, so I broke it into 2 parts (why haven't I thought to do that before?).

Also This Month:
The Haunting of Hill House (2018, Netflix, 10/10 episodes) Creator: Mike Flanagan
The Franchise (2024, HBO max, 8/8 episodes) Creator: Jon Brown
Interior Chinatown (2024, Disney+, 10/10 episodes) Creator: Charles Yu
A Man on the Inside (2024, Neftlix, 8/8 episodes) Creator: Michael Schur

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The Haunting of Hill House 

Created by Mike Flanagan

The What 100: The Crain family moved into Hill House for a few months in the early '90's with the intent of renovating it and flipping it for a wild profit. What they didn't know but would soon enough learn, is the house was not only haunted, but some kind of place of holding for the afterlife. In the present day, the surviving members of the Crain family are still processing what they went through in their younger life, some in denial, some willfully ignoring, and some trying to forget. But Hill House isn't done with them yet.

(1 Great): Unlike Midnight Mass, which came out of the gate with one of the best first episodes since Lost, The Haunting of Hill House was a much slower burn. It took about three episodes before I settled into the rhythm of the series as each of the first five episodes dedicated its focus to one of the five Crain children.  The absolute best of these was episode five, which follows the youngest sibling Nell through her childhood traumas, and simultaneously explains her mindest as she got older. Her family never really understood her, and the previous four episodes painted a very different picture of Nell than what we get here. It's a devastating, beautiful, clever, and horrifying episode that builds so well off of what we were shown before.

(1 Good): The way in which the series jumps back and forth in time is largely a subject of point of view, and as such the truth of what is happening both in the past and in the present unfolds as a result of the shifting points of view. The result is a series that keeps peeling layers off episode after episode, and although it takes a couple episodes to really get going, it does fully sink you into those layers.  As usual, Flanagan takes his conceits of ghosts and psychic connections and builds a very human world around it, zeroing in on characters and their relationships to one another, and that becomes as much, if not more what's worth sinking into that the questions of what happened (both past and present).  The sixth episode, taking place at Shirley's funeral home, brings the family together with their estranged father for the first time in a very long time, and it's a doozy of an emotional roller coaster from airing of grievances, but also has plenty of enticingly creepy moments. It's like the first four episodes culminate in Episode 5, the events of which gives way for Episode 6 which acts as the slingshot that propels the series forward over the next four episodes.

(1 Bad): I could harp on Flanagan's penchant for monologues, but it's just something he clearly likes to do and his audience either needs to get over it or just move on from his work. I'm really not ready to do either. But I think for me the least enjoyable part of the series was the Dudleys (Annabeth Gish and Robert Longstreet), whose family were the longtime caretakers of Hill House. They were such background characters whose presence never much made sense to me. I guess I just am not familiar with such a concept of estate caretakers.  I felt like they either should have been incorporated more, or excised completely. A lot of their presence in the show did seem extraneous and when we finally get their story, also quite tragic, it felt very deus ex machina.

META: Were I to hazard a guess, just looking at the timing, Flanagan was working on The Haunting of Hill House at the same time as he was working on the adaptation of Stephen King's Doctor Sleep, and the influence of Doctor Sleep really shows.  In many ways you could easily tie Hill House into the same universe that Doctor Sleep inhabits. Theo has a psychic ability (as did her mother) which could just be the Shining. The way that Flanagan employs ghosts is very similar to how they are employed in Doctor Sleep, and Hill House has a very similar vibe to the Overlook Hotel, and the way that Flanagan explains the Overlook in Doctor Sleep as almost a living entity is so similar here. Flanagan does tweak the concepts enough to not make the connection fully work, but it seems very much like Flanagan was enamoured with the ideas within Doctor Sleep and just wanted to play with them in a totally different context. Fair enough.

Flanagan's stable of performers are present, but it was the younger cast that impressed me, and shocked me with how many familiar young faces there were. Julian Hilliard who played young Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen played older Luke) was Tommy in Wandavision. Violet McGraw played young Nell (played by Victoria Pedretti in her older form) was also young Yelena in Black Widow and was in M3GAN and Doctor Sleep. And of course McKenna Grace playing young Theo (played in her older self by Kate Siegel) is one of the standout performers of the entire Hill House series and is also the star of the modern Ghostbusters franchise.  The young-old casting was uniformly great, and I especially liked how patriarch Hugh Crain was played so consistently by Henry Thomas and Timothy Hutton...it was a real performance in tandem.

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The Franchise 
Created by Jon Brown

The What 100:  A satirical look behind the scenes on a big-budget superhero movie that is the latest in a Marvel- or DC-like franchise that is past its glory years and  trying to maintain relevance. The center of the series is Himesh Patel's first assistant director Daniel Kumar who seems to be the only one who legitimately cares about the property being filmed and is trying his damnedest to keep the machine functioning amidst the great many inflated egos, the war between the director and the studio heads, and trying to keep the energy up on an overtaxed crew. And then the studio sends his ex-girlfriend in as his new producer/boss.

(1 Great): You can't go wrong, I think ever, with Richard E. Grant, who plays an egocentric thespian who is too good for the material he's working with (but not too good for the money he's getting paid). He's largely background colour, but he pops every time he's on screen, as he is wont to do.

(1 Good): There are a few other great secondary character that are just joke machines, including Lolly Adefope as Dag, Daniel's Second A.D. (she really doesn't give a shit about any of it, but is ready to work her way up the ladder), Billy Magnussen as the heroic lead of Tecto:Eye of the Storm, Adam Randolph (whose ego is the thinnest sheet of glass, standing precariously on its edge), and Darren Goldstein's studio exec Pat Shannon (just swinging big dick energy everywhere, and teeters so close to reprehensible but comes out as one of the series' brightest spots).  But the series doesn't work at all without Patel shouldering the whole thing, and, let's face it, the guy is a star, and he does carry the whole thing on his back. He's likeable, vulnerable, but also flawed, and Patel has to do so much hiding of the character's true self putting on a different face for each of the other characters, with only spare moments to let his guard down and reveal the sensitive family man and old-school comic book nerd with ambitions and desires of his own.

(1 Bad): I enjoyed a lot of The Franchise but as a whole it just didn't fully click with me. I wondered, as a fan of the MCU (still) whether I was just being a sensitive fanboy at the jokes it was clearly making at its expense. But no, I'm not that sensitive a fanboy, and I liked a lot of those jokes. Largely I think this series --in exposing franchise filmmaking as a rather callous cold-hearted, profit-centric machine -- is missing exactly what it needs, which is heart. The people in this production largely don't care about what they're doing, and they don't care about each other, and that makes it hard as an audience member to care about it all as well.

META:  I can honestly say that any of the satire and lampooning of franchise filmmaking here is probably pretty accurate, if exaggerated, but this series isn't made with love, it is full on a barbed critique. It's a series that clearly dislikes the whole franchise filmmaking venture, and thinks of it as an entirely miserable experience for all, from start to finish. There's next to no room here for affection, with only the slightest glimmer of it in Patel's character, but its not put in front of the audience enough to care. 

It's also really hard to give us a 200 million dollar movie in a show whose operating budget is a small fraction of that. Tecto looks like an off-brand superhero movie from the '90's and doesn't ever feel like something that could even remotely be a successful movie. 

---

Interior Chinatown
Created by Charles Yu

The What 100: Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang, Love Hard) is a busboy at his uncle's Chinese restaurant who dreams of something bigger in life, but seems resigned to his constrained fate...until he witnesses the kidnapping of a nail salon worker. The kidnapping brings the bright, shiny, quippy, dynamic police detectives of Black and White to Chinatown, where Willis can't seem to get noticed beyond a few cursory questions. But then a hot new detective (Chloe Bennett, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) joins the scene as a Chinatown expert, and she not only takes notice but puts Willis to work as his man on the inside. There's strange dealings going on in Chinatown, and at the precinct, and it all connects back to the disappearance of Willis' older brother.

(1 Great): This show is a trip. A legit trip. The premise, if not clear above, is that Willis is a background characters in a Law & Order-style TV series set in the late 1990s. The show blurs the line between its interior reality and the reality of a TV show as to be somewhat indistinguishable except that there are very blurry dividing lines between the two. There are times where the characters in a scene transition seemlessly into the background (and sometimes the foreground) of a commercial break, promoting a hard seltzer or stylish watch then resuming conversations. The visuals will often cut to a television set which then shows characters from the reality of Interior Chinatown as characters within Black & White or a  commercial or something else.  It is the wildest series I've watched since Mrs. Davis, another show which obfuscates its reality quite adeptly.  

(1 Good): I particularly loved how it flipped the dynamic of the background characters being the foreground protagonist and pushing the two detective characters into flimsy archetypes. But the reality of these characters, and other characters, whether lead or background, all start to shift as Willis starts infiltrating spaces he's not otherwise meant to be.  There are "awakenings" in a way, where the extras, or single-line supporting players start to find a voice within their reality, and my favourite exploration of this was with the Black & White leads, Detectives Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones, a complete unknown to me but comes alive in the series second half) and Sarah Green (Lisa Gilroy, who I know only from the Comedy Bang Bang podcast but really breaks out here). Turner starts to question everything about his surroundings, and eventually just breaks free of them, while Green wants nothing more than to embrace everything about her trappings, to succeed, but she can't stand the cost of doing so.

(1 Bad): There wasn't really anything bad about this show. I was invested from moment one, and continued to be absolutely glued to every moment of the show as it played out. But if there was a critique, it would be that the main characters, Willis, his best friend Fatty (the always sarcastic and enjoyable Ronny Chieng, Shang-Chi), his mother Lily (a soulful performance from Diana Lin) and even Bennett's Detective Lana Lee all spend so much time apart from one another in their own story lines. Willis' distance from these other characters all has narrative context, and metanarrative context, and it's employed quite well. The disparate threads do all come together in the final episodes quite successfully, so I can't complain too much, except that I liked Yang and Chieng's dynamic together (with Chau Long's sweet doofus Carl as an interloping third in the duo).

META: It's all very, very meta. The narrative is clearly the lack of representation of Chinese Americans in American television and cinema. There's a total lack of respect, and a total disinterest in the mainstream to telling their stories, and letting them tell their stories. The narrative drive here is Willis taking ownership of his story, of exposing the systemic racism that has been holding him down, and along the way commenting on how, even outside of the entertainment industry the immigrant populaces are either ignored or targeted for displacement via gentrification, their culture subverted by the whims of capitalism.  It's a damn enjoyable series for its unique weirdness, but it's so much the better for having the underpinning of cultural criticism.

I freaking loved this show. One of my favourites of the year.

---
A Man on the Inside 
Created by Michael Schur (Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Good Place)

The What 100: Charles (Ted Danson, Becker) is a widower and former professor who seems to be floating through life. He's got his routine, but it's unfulfilling, and he's emotionally distant from his only daughter (Mary Elisabeth Ellis, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and her family. Julie (Lilah Richcreek Estrada, Chicago Med) is a private investigator tasked with finding out who stole her client's mother's necklace - a family heirloom - in her nursing home. Julie needs a senior to be her man on the inside, and puts out an ad in the paper, the only place she can be sure to find her target audience. Charles, a big fan of John Le Carre, jumps at the chance to do spy work, and for lack of other viable options Julie is stuck with him. 

(1 Great): Fucking Ted Danson, man. The guy has been at it on television for almost 50 years and in the past five or so years he's just hit his peak. The Good Place gave him the best role of his career, but with A Man on the Inside he's at his most soulful and vulnerable.  

Danson plays Charles as a man carrying deep pain but incapable of addressing it. His wife had dementia and died suddenly from complications, and the experience was traumatic for him, but he didn't know how to process it. So he floats, navigating his daily routine that offers little surprise but little possibility for hurt either. In taking the job with Julie and coming to Pacific View, he doesn't just find work and purpose, though, instead he finds a community of contemporaries, and connections to people and passions and memories and experiences that awaken him from his fugue state. The work forces him out of his protective shell and in inquiring into other people's lives it opens him up to sharing his life back, and finding the pain he experienced is not unique. Danson sells the stoic nature of Charles, the giddiness of playing spy, the tenderness he has with a Pacific View patient with early signs of dementia, and ultimately opening up and connecting with his daughter Emily (in an episode where Charles visits Emily and her family following a loss at the retirement home, it finds Charles playing video games with his three grandsons and breaks down in that moment...it's both beautiful and devastating, and one of Danson's best-ever performances that makes me cry just thinking about it).

(1 Good): Brooklyn Nine-Nine veteran Stephanie Beatrix plays Didi, the manager of Pacific View. The first few episodes Didi is a very peripheral character, which seemed odd given Beatrix's core cast role in Schur's previous series. At first Didi seems suspicious of Charles' behaviour, and it seems like its setting something up, but by the end of the third episode Didi has locked her suspicions away, like Schur was pivoting on what his initial intent for the series was (from this odd detective comedy series, to longer form sitcom in a retirement home), But Didi gets a spotlight episode just past midway through the run which demands a lot from Beatrix, and she delivers so powerfully as a woman who cares for people, even within a corporate structure that really only cares about money. It's leadership, and forming a team of people who follow that leadership, it's not just a job.  And when Charles is eventually outed, the hurt from the deceit is experienced by many, but it is Didi who is the most devastated by it, and Beatrix makes you feel that so deeply, even though you are sympathetic to Charles. His intent was never to hurt anyone, but it happened despite the best intentions.

(1 Bad): No bad here. A little wonkiness in the episode-to-episode consistency. I don't know if it was the series who had unsteady legs, or if it was just me as a view and the expectations of what I thought the plan for the series was.  It's not a conventional narrative, and Schur uses Netflix and its lack of ad breaks to play around with TV sitcom structure in a way that doesn't always work fully, but never actually fails to deliver the showrunner's intent. I think the most awkward part of the series was the cutaways to Emily and her family, which seemed so outside the narrative of the rest of the show. And yet, Lady Kent and I felt so seen by modern parenting, and the way kids behave so distinctly from the way we behaved, it's hard to say it shouldn't belong (even if it could maybe be a whole other series). These moments with Emily and family are especially important though for when we get to that powerful scene of Charles with his grandsons. I don't think it would have worked half as powerfully if we hadn't gotten to know these kids before hand.

META: Strangely Michael Schur's first, and probably biggest success was The Office, a show I cannot tolerate to watch. I've tried, twice, and I find it unpalatable. Parks & Recreation on the other hand, after it ditched its Office clone vibes, became one of my all-time favourite comedy series. And everything Schur has done since then has been right up my alley. There are few other comedy creators that I trust as much as him, because his track record has proven himself (Bill Lawrence, maybe? Tina Fey and Robert Carlock possibly). And A Man on the Inside makes good on that trust, and shows how Schur continues to evolve as a creator. His interests are of a deep and curious nature as to different facets of human existence. In this case he's looking at people in the final years of their life who are in an establishment that, perhaps, people see as a place where they go so they can be ignored and forgotten about. A Man on the Inside shows there's still vitality there, a need for connection as much, if not more than a need for care. In some cases these are places where people where "put", but the point here is that for some it's a chosen place, a home and community where there's new shared experiences and connections. It's really quite beautiful. 

Another of my favourites this year.

T&K's XMas (2024) Advent Calendar - Day 14: Sugarplummed

 2024, d. Ryan Landels - Hallmark/W Network

The Draw: High concept Hallmarkie? Let's go!
(Liveblogging my watch because of time constraints today)

HERstory: The movie opens with flipping through channels before the bumper tells us "You're watching the Harmony Home Network, the channel with the most original holiday movies" and this week is a "Sugarplum" movie marathon of the channel's most popular franchise. But wait! There's a contest to find the most Christmassy house where "Sugarplum" would feel right at home.

Cut to the "real world" where we meet Evelyn who we can tell from her pencil skirt and wine-coloured blouse that she's a busy business woman, plus she's on the phone talking about something important. She has fruitcakes going in the oven and yells for Ben (husband) and Max (son) to get ready. Teen Nina is focusing on her music instead of cleaning her room, and wants to go to the Berklee School of Music instead of the plan mom has set out for her. (Nina is a deadpan, sarcastic redhead of the deadpan, sarcastic redhead variety. See also: Natasha Lyonne, Lauren Ambrose, Sarah Snook, etc).

Ben is working on a miniature model for his boss at the architecture firm. He complains about being micromanaged...by his boss, but it's clear he's getting it at home too. (Ben clearly gravitates towards a certain type a' person...). Teen Max is making dance videos but never posts them. He's not fitting in at school. 

Family meeting. The Holiday Checklist: 5 thinks Evelyn mom used to do to make Christmas perfect. She's so "type A" (like this is 2016 all over again), Mom needs everything perfect and plans things out the wazoo, but the family all has their own lives and can't stick to the plan. She wonders "when did this family give up on Christmas".

But just for comparison, we meet neighbour Debra who is even more type A and particular about *everything* and complains to Evelyn (who is tossing out her burned fruitcakes in the garbage can) about "strong smells" like mulled cider and... burned fruitcakes. 

At work, Evelyn's assistant is watching Sugarplum movies at her desk, and while mildly annoyed, Evelyn seems to be elated to have someone to talk Sugarplum movies about, and they start discussing the rules of the movies like: every house has to be perfectly decorated, whenever there's a perfect gift for a loved one they always manage to get it, and at the end of the story it's always tied up with a perfect kiss on Christmas Eve. Evelyn's so "type A" she's even too hyperfocussed on discussing Sugarplum movies to the point of annoying her assistant (and probably putting her off of watching Sugarplum movies ever again). What does Evelyn do at this busy office? Not established. What does she ask her assistant to do? Pull her Christmas decoration bins out of storage. You know, work shit.

Evelyn returns home, lamenting about how she wants everything perfect and nothing is ever perfect. Even her assistant basically told her to relax her expectations and give up on the Holiday Checklist. (This is clearly a "lesson movie" where our protagonist has to learn to let go of her standards and just accept (and love) her life for what it is.) Her house, by the way, is open concept and spacious, not cozy and cluttered with Christmas like most Hallmarkies. And the decoration bins were accidentally sent to the office instead of her house. (I guess her beloved assistant isn't great at her job?)  So Evelyn, with "a perfectly decorated house" #1 on on her checklist, goes back to the office to pick up the "bins" which turns out to be a large box with no tape on top, or on bottom as it seems (how did it even make it to the office?) and everything spills out. It's a real random assortment of ornamental crap that doesn't seem at all what one would need to make the "perfectly decorated home". She picks up a gold star tree topper which has writing on it that says something about granting a worthy wish.

Suddenly, her assistant's monitor pops up, and it's a "Sugarplum" movie playing. Jess looks at Sugarplum and decides to wish for a more connected family, a magical Christmas like in the movie, one where she checks of every item on her list, and she wishes for a Sugarplum Christmas. The music swells. Nothing happens immediately. She deflates. Then the star starts glowing, the lights in the office start going crazy, the monitor starts flickering, and suddenly Sugarplum pops out of the TV.

Sugarplum is surprised but somewhat unphased by her new surroundings. She asks Evelyn to point her back to her perfect small town of Perfection. Evelyn tells her she's come out of the movie, and Sugarplum says "we're outside the movie? That's not supposed to happen." (Ugh, this movie may have just lost me here...Sugarplum, the character from the holiday TV movies is already aware that she's a TV movie character...that just doesn't work for me conceptually...let's see how it plays out). But learning that Evelyn made a wish on a Christmas star perks her right up... "It's Christmas Magic!" Suddenly she's into it and wants to help Evelyn with the perfect Christmas. "Does the town bakery need saving?"

Evelyn thinks she's having a breakdown. The janitor shows up and can see someone is with Evelyn, but part of the magic is only Evelyn can see she's Sugarplum (you know, from the movies). "Why isn't everything covered in Christmassy snow?" "Because it mostly rains here, like, a lot". (It's Seattle, so, fair).  Sugarplum poo-poos the list... but because Sugarplum has a book... a book called "The Rules" ("Rule 142: Flannel is a natural aphrodisiac").  

"Rule 61: Whenever a holiday traveler is stranded in a faraway place, they'll be invited to find a harmonious home with new friends." What Sugarplum knows is following the rules leads to a happy ending. So Sugarplum is back at Evelyn's home, under the guise of an old college friend passing through for the holiday Sue Garplum (but sleeping on the couch? I can't believe this is to Sugarplum's satisfaction). 

First thing in the morning, Sugarplum has a whole crew decorating the house to the nines like a holiday movie, and the bill, handed to Evelyn is $5300. Sugarplum is shocked that these people aren't just doing it out of the kindness of the holiday spirit. She also doesn't understand sarcasm. Nina is suspicious, but Max likes her (I like you too!). Sugarplum has a plan to cover the cost of the decoration, by pawning a tiara she was given by the Prince of Armstrongia. She has whole bag full of flawless jewellery from all the various princes she met.  

Sugarplum is shocked to learn that Evelyn is a big city girl who didn't turn her back on her career to find love in her hometown, and insists on seeing her at work, because she's just never seen the like before. Evelyn, I guess, is a lawyer? And her client is trying to keep her family ski lodge/Christmas tree farm out of the hands of a ruthless developer. And the client (Hallmark regular Fiona Gubelmann) and the developer (Hallmark regular Victor Webster) can't stand each other. Oh, of course this sounds right up Sugarplum's alley. She knows all the rules for this scenario. The fact that she so easily fixes the scenario with the perfect Hallmarkie solution shocks Evelyn, but it also frees her up for the holidays to spend more time with the family. Checklist item #2 done.

Item #3, Christmas shopping, and Sugarplum is into it. But Nina wants limited edition headphones sold out everywhere, and Sugarplum doesn't understand. But they learn there's a competition to win prizes at the store. The competition is all Christmas related like gift wrapping, snowflake making, knitting, gingerbread house decorating, and of course Sugarplum is excessively amazing at all of these and wins the headphones.

Oh and it turns out that the home decorating service entered her home into the Harmony Home Networks' most Christmassy home competition. (Rule 51: When a festive competition is introduced into the story, a fun and winning new perspective on the holidays is guaranteed for all... you know what, I want a copy of this book. Is it at Hallmark stores?).

It's career day at school, and Evelyn was supposed to go to Max's school, but she needs to work on the deal, so Sugarplum subs in. But telling her movie stories starts embarrassing Max in front of the class (especially the girl he likes). But she gets him to shake the magical snow globe Santa gave her and it snows inside the school. The kids have a snowball fight indoors, and suddenly the girl he likes is impressed with him. 

[Omigard, fast forwarding as this is only the halfway point]

Nina wants to talk about her Berklee scholarship application, but Evelyn pushes her off to talk about getting selected as a finalist for the most Christmassy home. All the perfect things Sugarplum start going awry just as Evelyn is starting to embrace the rules ...like Sugarplum gets arrested for "vandalizing" the school in "a snow-related incident". And it's all because Evelyn is paying attention to "the perfect Christmas" instead of her family's needs.

Evelyn turns up as Sugarplum's lawyer and despite being a contract lawyer it seems she keeps up on the criminal code and other laws. She has Sugarplum released into her custody (her fingerprints are snowflakes). Ben has his project due date updated to Christmas Eve, Max is suspended from school, and Nina is not happy with mom, feeling ignored.

"The Rules" are backfiring. The Christmas magic is fading. Sugarplum is in huge, huge trouble...and not the legal kind. This is a Frosty is melting kind of scenario. 

But maybe reinvigorating the magic is finishing the Holiday Checklist, and #5 is making a memory as a family. Evelyn thinks this needs to winning the TV competition...but Sugarplum is unsure that this is the right approach. Max wants Christmas Eve traditional eggnog, and Nina is anxious about her performance which is happening right after the broadcast and Ben is stressed about work...and all Evelyn is focusing on is the competition. Everyone turns on Evelyn's plan for "a perfect Christmas" and maybe it's finally clear to her that she's, quite literally, lost the plot.

Evelyn has kind of gotten everything she wished for, but it was all for her, and not for her family. Sugarplum advises letting this Christmas be "perfectly imperfect". Evelyn sends the TV crew home and races to Nina's pageant, where Nina's freaking out because the Berklee admissions officer is in the audience? It's up to Mom to finally encourage her daughter instead of holding her back.  Evelyn also tells Ben that she's going to live in the moment and needs Ben to live in the moment too. Just then his boss shows up (yes at the school), but Ben gives him a stern talking to and threatens to quit if he doesn't get more time with his family. Nina's performance is a peppy poppy and upbeat tune (if a little generic) and she gets a standing ovation.

Ben's boss turns up at the house and has had a change of heart, and all the storylines have come together with a happy ending. Sugarplum has to return to Perfection, but with lessons learned from being with Evelyn and family, that maybe it's the imperfections that make the perfect Christmas. 

Evelyn and Ben have a "mistletoe moment" that Christmas Eve kiss, and the family sit down to watch a Sugarplum movie...only for Ben to ask... "Is it just me, or does Sugarplum look...a little familiar...?"

The Formulae: It's constantly talking about "The Rules" and showing "The Rules" in action (even if it only covers a fraction of a book which contains hundreds of rules).

Unformulae: Well, "The Rules" start falling apart, but they need to fall apart in order to come together.

True Calling? "Sugarplummed" feels like Hallmark trying to force a phrase into the lexicon. It means nothing until you watch the movie, but once you know what Sugarplum is, it does make sense, even if Sugarplum is a horrible name even for a Hallmarkie-within-a-Hallmarkie character (the preciousness gets more intense the more Meta things get).

The Rewind: Every time they cut to "The Rules", the character always reads one page, but there's a second page on screen they don't read, so the rewind is to see some of the other Rules not employed in the film.

The Regulars: 
Maggie Lawson (Psych) is Evelyn, and is a Hallmark regular including a veteran of the Christmas In Evergreen series.
Janel Parrish (To All The Boys...) is Sugarplum, and is also a Hallmark regular, including Never Been Chris'd.
Brendon Zub is Ben, and he's been all over the holiday romances (Hallmark and Lifetime) and not just the Christmas ones.
Plus the aforementioned cameos by Hallmark superstars Fiona Gubelmann and Victor Webster having their own intoned cliche holiday romance in the very far backdrop of this film.
This is writer-director Landels' second Hallmark, after Santa Tell Me. I think this guy has the juice for making vaguely meta-but-not-too-meta Xmas fantasy movies. Hope to see more. 

How does it Hallmark? This honestly doesn't feel like a Hallmark movie at all. Hallmark has deviated so far from the formulaic "holiday romance" over the past few years that now they're just kind of making legit "Christmas magic" movies that play in their own space without needing to adhere to "holiday romance" tropes.  For a meta holiday movie, this one swings away from the romance and instead focuses on, as predicted, teaching a lesson to the main character.

How does it movie? Honestly, this felt like an old-fashioned, pre-Hallmarkie Christmas movie. It's not theatrical grade, but it stands up with the more enjoyable fantasy TV Christmas movies pretty well. It's charming, well-acted and it turns out I flat out loved "The Rules" as a storytelling device. There's a total Mary Poppins vibe to Sugarplum and even though her movies-within-the-movie character is of the "holiday romance" persuasion, she adapts quickly to the scenario at hand and is ready to help. She's even got a bag of holding within which contains multiple wardrobes, countless precious jewels and more.  I could see this being a franchise movie where Sugarplum is called out to help in all different sorts of Christmas movie scenarios. I figure the third film would focus on Sugarplum herself with things going wrong within her own world.

As noted, I was worried the meta-ness of the story would wear on me. The last movie I recapped, A Hollywood Christmas, was a more-of-the-same meta-holiday romance, and to be frank I'm kind of tired of that subgenre. But this type of meta-as-Christmas-magic really works for me and it stands out from the pack. It's not transcending anything, really, but it was quite enjoyable. I do wish it were funnier, but Hallmark, generally, has a hard time with comedy.

How Does It Snow? It's Seattle, so it rains (I'm guessing it was shot in the springtime, given the sunnier scenes are real sunny). But the magical snow globe makes it snow indoors, twice.