10 for 10(ish): So This Is Christmas Leftovers

[10 for 10... that's 10 movie-like things which we try to give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about.  Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie or TV show we watch.  How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?   ]

In this edition: Christmas things watched in December

1. Saying Yes to Christmas - 2021, d. Graeme Campbell - CityTV/Lifetime
2. Christmas By Chance - 2020, d. Andrew Cymek - Superchannel Heart & Home/Lifetime
3. Loving Christmas - 2021, d. Michelle Ouellet - Superchannel Heart & Home
4. A Very Murray Christmas - 2015, d. Sophia Coppola - Netflix
5. A Muppet Family Christmas - 1987, d. Peter Harris -  Youtube
6. Last Chance For Christmas - 2015, d. Gary Yates - Superchannel Heart & Home
7. Enchanted Christmas Cake - 2021, d. Robert Vaughn - Crave/Lifetime
8. The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls - 2021, d. Rich Newey - W/Hallmark
9. Under the Christmas Tree - 2021, d. Lisa Rose Snow - CTV Drama/Lifetime
10. 'Tis the Season to be Merry - 2021, d. Gary Yates - W/Hallmark 

Are you ready?
Good, 'cause I'm goin'

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[Preamble]

It's December 22 as I (start) writing this. I've watched 32 Christmas movies or specials in full, and countless false starts and final 10 minutes of others.  I listened to every episode of Deck The Hallmark so far this season (over 40 episodes, including their coverage of every Hallmark to date and just over a half-dozen each of Lifetime and Netflix movies).  I even helped program GAK's (not to be confused with GAC) Christmas episode of Exploding Head Movies (go listen) by sifting through nearly a thousand songs he sent my way.  I also read all of the "I'll Be Home For Christmas Movies" book by the Deck The Hallmark guys (co-written with my favourite movie reviewer in recent years Alonso Duralde) which covers nearly three years of their viewing of Hallmark movies from Christmases 2017 through 2019 (Toasty, I got a copy to stuff in your stocking this year too... ;P ) I'm exhausted by it all.  

I'm so ready for Christmas, and then ready for it to be over, and to start watching some good quality cinema again (thankfully we had Hawkeye, Ted Lasso, season 2 of Saved by the Bell, and rewatching Parks and Recreation to counterbalance all the questionable Christmas content).  Plans to get a Criterion Channel subscription for Christmas.

What I noticed this year -- well, since Toasty pointed it out -- was that by December I seemed to be all but avoiding Hallmark movies for the Advent Calendar unless it was something I was keenly looking forward to, like (the disappointing) Nine X of Christmas sequel, or the (pretty fun) Christmas House sequel. With the glut of watching in November, the podcast and the book, I really wanted to step back from Hallmark a little bit.  

This year's Hallmark crop seemed to be taking definite steps to get away from being too formulaic, too quick and careless.  But as I pointed out in previous years, the comfort of Hallmark is the formulae, and if they're going to abandon it, I'm not sure if it's as fun, particularly when it doesn't fit as well into our "A Toast to HallmarKent" formulae.  Sure, they might be better scripted, better acted, better directed movies, but cranking 40 of them out a year on a shoestring budget means they're just never going to be real quality movies. 

 As such there's kind of this middle-land that Hallmark is residing in now.  Hallmark is now free to do more, say more, try more.  But they also won't let go of the formulae completely.  They're casting multiculturally and sexually diverse, and presenting the holidays as a reflection of such.  They're letting the Great American Country (GAC) channel taking the puritan route, with the lily-white, chaste, sober, straight casting, and are definitely better for leaving that tired, dry-kissing whiteness behind for a niche channel to deliver.  But it was the ironic side of Hallmark that kind of made them worth watching, those sad efforts at inclusiveness, or the thrill of a kiss that wasn't just a pressing and holding of lips.  The lack of budget means there's still plenty of wtf things to point out, but the balancing of Christian middle-America "values" and the pressures of the sudden uptick of ironic viewers-turned-fans (like Toasty and myself) means they seem a little aimless in their content.   

When I watch Hallmark now, what I see is a network trying to make good movies, not making formulaic content.  In trying to make good movies on a scant budget, there's more and more bad movies, which are, like, hard-to-watch bad, not fun-to-watch bad.  But at the same time, I recognize that some of the movies released this year are actually good.  Even if they're still not cinema-quality, they can be very enjoyable, and at times impressive.  I think some of the crop this year are the best Hallmark has ever made.  I've also seen some good movies get dragged down by having to be beholden to the Hallmark formulae rather than exist on their own terms.  A couple of films really teeter on the romcom line, which Hallmark in the past never truly approached, but the comedy seems to have its edges sanded off by having to adhere to their established holiday romance tropes.

They need to figure out what it is they want to do.  Netflix takes formulaic stories, but gives them a bigger budget for better production values, and more time to shoot.  Lifetime seems to be doing the same thing they've always done, just more of it: their "big-star vehicles" that are so very much steeped in the Lifetime formulae (which is basically the Hallmark formulae only cheaper looking and kind of trashier somehow) as well as their acquisition of the off-brand made-in-Canada content.  

And there is so much made-in-Canada content.  CBC Gem has a bit of it, as does CityTV, CTV and AmazonPrime, but there's a whole new subchannel, Superchannel Heart and Home, which is loaded with these Canadian-produced pictures from over the years which vary wildly from bad to unwatchable with the occasional "that would have been ok if it had a Hallmark budget".

If you count all the players in this Holiday Romance genre, you're looking at about 100 new movies this season, which, when put against the past 5 years of these things being churned out, is a lot of repetitive content, much of it unwatchable.  These movies start to become noise and very little of it stands out in any meaningful way (the generic titles don't help at all), to the point that I have a half dozen to review here and I don't even remember what happened in some of them.  Of all the cheap holiday romances, the only one I want to watch every year is Nine Lives of Christmas, and maybe Crashing Through The Snow has joined it on the rewatch list.

I predict a recession in these within the next 2-3 years.  The polish is going to come off, the ironic joy will wane, and people like me who started watching for the wrong reason will realise that watching these all the freaking time for two months is kind of a waste of time.  If the many various players involved in these films want there to be any longevity to it, they need to seriously cut back, at least by half, next year.  Invest more per film, make less of them.  Try harder to be better.  

That said, let's tear into these:
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There were many ways that Saying Yes to Christmas could have been a standout, especially given the premise, but it only really succeeds in two: cultural representation and aesthetics.

The magical element forcing June to say "yes" to every Xmas event was more annoying than cute, and then abandoned halfway through only to become a running topic of discussion as if it wasn't anything at all...it took me out of the movie each time. It would have been much more intriguing for Rose to have lost the bet and force herself to say "yes" to things. Christmas magic rarely works for me in film unless absolutely steeped in it, or it's so subtle you almost forget it's even there. This is sort of middle-of-the-road, non-committal Xmas magic I just find stupid.

The food and drinks in this movie really looked amazing (and there was a lot of food and drinks). I loved the Japanese-American (/Japanese-Canadian) touches, not just in the food but throughout. Easily the best part, just wish these moments were in a better movie surrounding them.

Representation does matter, I wholeheartedly agree, but as a message for this film it was used like a bludgeon, not a scalpel. June is a associate editor at a big publisher who would like to publish more representative children's books but her boss always pushes back. June is constantly social media posting "representation matters" and it's pretty heavyhanded.

The main plot for June is she's coaxed by her boss to befriend newly freelance bestselling children's book author who just happens to be visiting her parents very Christmassy PST. Meanwhile she runs into her childhood best friend/crush who is having trouble convincing his dad he's capable of taking over the family brewery.  The "love story" and the magical "forced to say yes" stories are strangely secondary to these other two arcs.

The set decoration, the art for the books, the wardrobes, all looked really, really nice. The production values here generally looked above the usual Lifetime or Hallmark standard.  But, the story itself was thoroughly predictable, and kind of tedious, both of which made it hard to sit through save for a few bright spots.

The leads were not lacking charm individually but they had no romantic chemistry together. Their intimacy felt very unnatural and forced. 

There was one bright moment where Romaine Waite pops a bottle open and it makes a much louder and mistier pop than he was expecting and he breaks from his character for a second and does this absolutely fabulous ad lib, a very sultry "ooo-ooh" that I must have rewound a half dozen times just to delight in it. Some beer company needs to hire him for big bucks just to crack beers on camera and give that very same "ooo-ooh". But in that moment Waite showed such immense charisma that he didn't quite bring to just the words that came from the script. I bet he's probably a better performer when allowed to bring more of himself to a role.

 

Maybe say "no" to "Saying Yes To Christmas"

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Christmas by Chance is a stupid movie shouldn't work, like, at all, and yet I found myself completely invested even though I knew practically every beat it was going to strike before it made it. 

Lead actor Winnie Clarke plays Chance with what I call "perky aunt energy" in this movie and it's kind of amazing to watch her just turn it on.

The deal here is "famous entrepreneur", local celebrity, and "most eligible bachelor" William (Jacob Blair) is getting ready to propose to his model girlfriend, but he wants it to be just perfect.  But William's bundle of nerves assistant Ryan (Sharjil Rapool, being a lot, most of the time, but also pretty funny...I think the bow tie was just too much though) isn't up to the task, so he outsources the job to Chance who owns a suspiciously still-in-business antiques/curio shoppe.  It's a real small time shoppe, that Chance took over after her father passed away and is struggling to keep it afloat, so she leaps at the opportunity to make some money doing this side gig of arranging a wedding proposal.  In the multi-day process of doing so, Chance's positivity positively infects William, as he starts to realize he and Chance are much more on the same wavelength than he and his snooty model girlfriend.

It's not good, but it's strangely charming, and Clarke really does have infectious energy.  It should be annoying but it's not.   I liked that William, despite his riches, fame and success, is a real down-to-earth character.  I like that this film turned an actor with a cleft palate  like Blair and made him the straight up, handsome, desireable leading man, from the beginning, never once giving him any averse character traits. 

Chance's employee/best friend Becky (Celie Tsai) winds up having a nerdy B-plot romance with Ryan which is really quite adorable.  I think this would have been really great movie had their romance been the A-plot and having their bosses romance and weird proposal arrangement be the B-plot. 

Model girlfriend Leyla (Celeste Desjardins) is the typical piece-of-work, self-centered stereotype that models get portrayed as in these movies. One of these days one of these Christmas romances will have a model character as their lead who is a genuine human being and not a soulless monster.

Maybe take a chance on Christmas by Chance?

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Of all the Hallmark and Hallmark-like holiday romances I've seen this season, I can honestly say Loving Christmas is the first one I'm legitimately embarrassed at admitting I watched. It has a leaden script, acted without any enthusiasm, lacks any sense of charm, and, yes, it is direly boring. It's not even fun bad, despite this major department store having, like, four rooms, and two of them are offices, or their being hot cocoas that can be swung around like Poi Spinners without spilling a drop.

Being so obviously Canadian, it actually has real snow and visible breath and a horse drawn sleigh (not a carriage), but that's kind of the only thing it has going for it.

The plot here finds department store employee Ashley, the so called "Christmas Queen", running into the boss' estranged son Ben who has a few Christmas tricks up his own sleeve.  Ashley is up for CEO position of the department store, but with big-time business guy Ben in town, that's called into question.  But the two hit it off like gangbusters since they both love Christmas so much.  But they love Christmas differently, so they have things to learn from each other, I guess. And then Ashley overhears that Ben is getting the CEO position, but only hears part of the conversation, not understanding that it'll be a co-CEO position.  Dry kisses and Christmas for everyone.

I'm not loving Loving Christmas, like, at all.

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I've had A Very Murray Christmas in my watchlist on Netflix since it debuted in 2015.  Every year I think "I should watch that this year" and, obviously, this was the year.  

As might be expected from something starring Bill Murray, it's a simultaneously sardonic and earnest Xmas special that's pretty hep for both 1978 and 2015.  For 2021 it seems already to be of a certain vintage.  I think it 2015 it might have felt a bit underwhelming and 2016 through 2019 it may seem a bit passe.  Now it just seems like it's kind of a corny, classic special, like back in the silver age of 3-channel television when any multi-disciplined performer could host a one-off variety show.

Of course, none of those ever had someone like Sophia Coppola at the helm, and it looks like a beautiful Sophia Coppola movie, with its heavy shadows, and amber palette. 

There's a very silly framework to this that it barely even tries to hang off of, which is Bill Murray (as himself) with his live-in piano accompanist (Thunder Bay's own) Paul Schaffer hosting a live Christmas special at a downtown Manhattan hotel, only for the crowd to be snowed out and the power cut.  Honestly, it's all just pretence for songs to sung.  And songs do get sung.

What I realized in watching this is I really like watching celebrities sing, whether it's Chris Rock really emphasizing that he can't sing, Maya Rudolph belting one out (god I love Maya Rudolph), Jason Schwartzman and Rashida Jones sharing a duet, or George Clooney just popping out of some fake bushes like he's in a Muppets sketch, it's harmless fun. Actually this whole thing feels like it could just be a Muppets special.  There's also real musicians like Jenny Lewis, Miley Cyrus, David Johansen and the band Phoenix in the mix.

There's a real shaggy (shag carpet?) energy to all this (which is Murray's stock-in-trade) and it tickled me. It's not an instant classic, but I could see revisiting this every few years.  

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I've been a Muppets fan since childhood.  I don't recall if I knew about Sesame Street first or The Muppet Show or if I kind of discovered them in tandem, but I loved them both.  My love for the Muppets as a child included a Rolph puppet I adored, the "John Denver and the Muppets" Christmas album which was played every year, the Muppet Babies cartoon was a favourite Saturday morning watch (despite animated Muppets just kind of missing the point), and while I'm not sure I ever truly understood Fraggle Rock, I did watch it religiously.  I've never really left the Muppets behind, even in their waning years before Disney acquired them.  Muppets From Space is still probably my favourite Muppet movie, thought the original Muppet Movie and 2011's The Muppets are admittedly better films.

But, honestly, A Muppet Family Christmas is perfection, the best Muppets there has ever been, and it only gets better for me with each rewatch, an annual tradition for me, and me alone in my household.  It's just not Christmas yet until I give it a view.

It's not just the blending of the Muppets, the Sesame Street gang, Fraggles, and even the Muppet Babies, although that's a big part of it.  It's both a festive party and family gathering.  There are carols, starting with a big group chorus of We Need A Little Christmas (which I only just now learned is not a Muppets original but from the Broadway Show Mame, book by Jerry Herman... a recent Sufjan Stevens version, however, seems to be completely a cover of the Muppets version), and some pretty solid jokes, like the running gag of the icy patch in front of the door, or the Swedish Chef chasing the turkey around the house, only to be seriously distracted when Big Bird arrives.  

Every beat, every moment of this special is just so earnest and heartfelt and lovely and joyful and entertaining.  It's the Muppets firing on every conceivable cylinder, every character completely acting in character, even as the worlds blend as they do.  Despite Sesame Street being for younger kids and Muppets being for older kids (and Fraggles being for stoner hippies, I guess) they all fit together beautifully, the Henson team taking great effort to make sure that the sensibilities of each of their realities isn't lost in doing so.  

The finale has a brief cameo from Jim Henson himself, admiring his creations, then moving on to clean up after them.  It makes me tear up every time.  Just that beautiful man who has brought so much joy into my life and so many others... A Muppet Family Christmas, if it does anything (and it does a lot) acts as a beautiful tribute to him.

Of course, the rights to Muppets, Sesame Street and Fraggles are divided across the media landscape, so A Muppet Family Christmas only exists now on old videocassettes and on the kindly souls keeping it alive, facing copyright strikes, on youtube.   It's 48 minutes of sheer delight, my all-time favourite piece of Christmas pop culture.

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The magic of Santa and his flying reindeer is mixed with the early stages of formulaic holiday romances (and the meagre budget to match). I won't lie, Last Chance for Christmas is a weird one, and not totally unlikable.  It looks like it was shot in the early 2000s, not the mid-twenty-teens and as such feels more like those ABC Family made-for-TV movies, and not at all like a glossy Hallmark.

The story finds Santa's reindeer wrangler, John (Gabriel Hogan), discovering one of the reindeer's hooves has a fracture and therefore he needs to secure another reindeer for Christmas Eve, or else Christmas might be cancelled.  He goes to an Alaskan reindeer preserve run by Annie and her young daughter, but she assumes he's either a debt collector from the bank or working for the Scroogey Reginald Buckley who is trying to buy up her farm and transform the whole town into a big ol' resort.  Sounds kind of nice actually.

But the reindeer preserve is a sentimental family business, and, you know, sentiment trumps progress.  I mean, yeah Buckley would be doing some environmental damage and a proper environmental assessment would reveal that, but his big resort does seem like a nice thing for the community.  Anyway, Annie's not interested in whatever John is there for until her daughter takes a shining to him and she just trusts that his weirdness (like, really, you actually think you work for THE Santa) won't harm them in anyway.  Which it ultimately does, when Mrs. Clause sends her elf goons to kidnap one of Annie's reindeer.  John steals Dasher, Dancer and the crew and Santa's sleigh, on Christmas eve, to proves to Annie Santa's magic exists only for Buckley's goons to kidnap all of Santa's reindeer.  In the end everything of course works out, because Buckley's heart grows three sizes.  So everyone wins, except the town, which loses out on this great resort and all the jobs and tourism it would bring.

This really needed a bigger budget for more magic, better special effects, prettier sets and shinier props (there's no reason Santa, Mrs. Clause and all their workers should be using standard cel-phones and Dell laptops and not something far more fanciful). 

I really like Hillarie Burton's performance here.  Her exhaustion, being a single mom and struggling to make ends meet, is palpable.  That Annie kind of gives into entertaining, then falling into like with this weirdo pretending to be Santa's reindeer wrangler happens far too easily (but that's a script issue, not a performer issue).

I don't know why the title doesn't have anything to do with reindeer, as the whole movie centers around them. "Last Chance for Christmas" doesn't really ring true, especially when there seem to be three our four last chances.  Something like "One Reindeer Short of a Sleigh" or something?  You could even have Buckley saying "you're one reindeer short of a sleigh, aren't you?" to someone.

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Durance's hair never looks like this

I thought former Lois Lane Erica Durance was pretty good in the B-plot for Hallmark's Open By Christmas (the A-plot was a dog's dinner though, woof), so I was looking forward to her starring role in the off-brand-by-way-of-Lifetime The Encanted Christmas Cake, despite it's less than enticing title.  I should have taken it as a warning.

The story finds frizzy, dry-haired Gwen (Durance) having taken over her beloved Grandmother's bake shoppe in the year following her passing. One of Meemaw's signatures was a Christmas cake that wound up being featured in Oprah's O Magazine.  It was Meemaw's closely guarded secret, and the only copy of the recipe has a tear in the bottom corner missing the final, secret ingredient, only with the letters "ma" left.  It's a mystery!

Meanwhile, nice guy, frosted-tips Gavin (Robin Dunne) is a producer of a cooking show with famous, raging, egotistical Chef Dante in a very bad wig (nicely foreshadowed).  They are in town to host Gwen's grandma who they hope will reveal this Oprah-famous cake recipe on the air... only, they didn't get the message that Meemaw's dead, and Gwen's not interested.  Gavin just starts tagging along with Gwen's daily business and they start to get close (it's among the worst pretenses for getting close I've seen and its progression is not natural at all).  

Eventually Gavin and Gwen stumble on the secret ingredient (it's marzipan...you're a fucking baker and for months you've been trying to figure out an ingredient that starts with "ma" and you haven't tried marzipan yet?  Shame.  Shame!).  Then Gwen's sister-mom shows up and causes trouble, and there's a thing with the tv show, and a late stage diversion to someone Meemaw sent the recipe to that seems inserted to fill out the 90 minutes and Gavin quits his job while Chef Dante doffs his wig and goes to Boca Raton with Gwen's mom.   It's all nonsense this one.  

Tonally it's all over the place with some decent bits of comedy which should be funnier but they're shot like they're not meant to be funny.  The romantic relationship progresses unbelievably fast and never really catches fire.  The hair, makeup and lighting department all seem to have given up on really trying, I'm not sure why people look as awful as they do.  I thought maybe it was so when they give Durance her dressed-up beauty moment she comes out looking knockout gorgeous, but no, it's all a disaster. Acting-wise, everyone is fine, Durance is an likeable enough lead.  It's got little moments of charm, and humour (Paulino Nunes as Chef Dante, seems to be doing a Michael Showalter thing, if Michael Showalter can be said to have a thing), but that can't save it from being kinda boring or inane most of the time.

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One of the big surprises during last year's XMas Advent Calendar was Hallmark's The Christmas House (Toasty thought so too).  While it wasn't necessarily all that different from formulaic Hallmark, it stood out with actual comedic sensibilities, winning performances all around, and it's very flirtatious nature (sexy even), plus a little nod to LGBTQ++ representation.  So, when it comes to wading through the slog of new holiday movies, where the titles and descriptions and cast don't ever indicate quality, I knew that a sequel to The Christmas House was going to be one to watch.

Lead actor Robert Buckley is also very invested in these movies, serving as co-writer.  As such the sequel carries much the same sense of humour as last year's.  If anything it even doubles down on it.  With the romance plot out of the way, which is what these films are always supposed to be about, what's next for our "Handsome Justice" star and his family?  Well, how about Mike getting roped into a house decorating contest reality show, competing against...his brother Brandon (Johnathan Bennett)!?  

The reality show itself makes no sense, so don't think too much about the logistics of it, but it's a good set up to highlight the brothers' competitive natures and the sibling rivalry that's lived on long past them living together.  Both Mike's subplot of wanting to marry Andi (plus her ex showing up wanting to finally be a dad to Noah is handled very maturely by the script), and Brandon's sub-plot about not feeling certain about where he belongs, are both really good, meaty material for the supporting cast to dig into.  We get a lot more of Brandon and Jake's relationship (though Jake seems to have no real internal life of his own, he seems to just be there to fully support Brandon in everything) which is perhaps the most LGBTQ++ representation we've ever gotten in a mainline Hallmark.  It's a step forward for sure.

Sharon Lawrence and Treat Williams are back as Mom and Dad and they get to be a lot more playful (last year's storyline had them bordering on breaking up) and have a lot more fun.  They're very lively and give this a big shove over the line into holiday comedy territory (if only we got to see more of their decidedly odd two-person local theatre show).  You can't really even call this a holiday romcom, it's really just a straight up holiday comedy, which I think is a first for Hallmark.  They even sell it with Modern Family-style couch confessionals which play with that formula in a nicely meta way (thought it's not so explicit, we're to gather it's part of the reality show filming).

As fun as it was, there's still flaws, which, like all the good Hallmark movies, directly has to do with budget.  Continuity suffers, the big "accident" that ruin's Brandon's house decorating is basically just some lights torn down, and the TV show really needed to stunt cast its host (not that decorated Hallmark mom Teryl Rothery isn't good, but this needed a bit of goofy celebrity oomf).  There's a little bit of Christmas magic also in this one (which there wasn't really in the last one), which I can't decide if it's too subtle, or just subtle enough.

I like this family as a whole entity and could definitely watch more with them. I could actually see a multi-cam sitcom featuring this cast.  Maybe next year, rather than a 90-minute movie, how about a 6-episode 1/2-hour comedy?  Really dare to do something different Hallmark.

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Before I start my holiday romance viewing each year, I sift through the advance release list to see if anything strikes my fancy, whether it be the story, the cast or something other.  The description for Under the Christmas Tree was eye-rollingly trite:

"Marketing whiz Alma Beltran (Elise Bauman) and Christmas tree whisperer Charlie Freemont (Tattiawana Jones) cross paths when Charlie finds the perfect tree for the Maine Governor’s Holiday Celebration – right in Alma’s back yard. While they initially spar, romantic sparks soon begin to fly between the two women as the enchanting tree and some Christmas fairy dust from the town’s pâtissière extraordinaire (Ricki Lake) bring out the best in them and spark each other to take leaps of faith and fight for love and Christmas magic."

Sounds like a bog-standard holiday romance with some stupid conceit to get the leads together...wait a second, "romantic sparks soon begin to fly between the two women"?  Well now, I thought, this just differentiated itself.  My expectations were bog standard Hallmarkie with two women subbing in for the guy and the lady.  It's mercifully more than that.

I'm not a holiday romance die-hard, but I think at this point I've seen enough of them and written about them enough to consider myself an armchair expert, and I have to say that, after watching Under The Christmas Tree, it just may well be the best ever execution of the bog-standard holiday romance formulae. 

Yes, we have lesbians, and we have the traditional fading celebrity supporting cast member in Ricki Lake to make it stand out, but that's not what makes this movie special. 

A lot of the basic conventions are there, but they're mostly worked in as part of the fabric rather than just stitched on top. The family and best friend supporting cast are amazing.  Ricki Lake is really, really teriffic as the best friend/local patisserie owner who is friend to everyone, Wendy Crewson as the mom is freaking great, and - bury the lede - but Enrico Colantoni is the dad[!] and may just be the best holiday romance dad of all time.  Each of these characters do a lot more than the usual family and best friend b.s. that these movies tend to give them.  They're not just there to support the leads but also to challenge them. 

Even the job storylines for both leads had a grounded throughline that was meaningful to both the characters and in the development of their relationship, rather than just being annoying background noise.   Where the set-up should have caused tension between them, their attraction overruled, and they both were certain an amicable solution could be found.  And there's even a little bit of Christmas magic, in the form of an owl...Ahsoka approved!

The 20-minutes-to-go complication, that ol' chestnut, is no less annoying here than any other film in the genre. I wish the characters handled it better than they do, even though they still handle it somewhat maturely, which is better than most.

Bauman and Jones handily have the best chemistry of any romantic leads I've seen this year (chaste though it is, as the formulae demands), and contenders for best all-time holiday romance leads. Aline's initial meeting of Charlie and her slack-jawed stammering was a bit too much of a cartoon moment, but every subsequent second the attraction is palpable and their dynamic is just fireworks. I immensely enjoyed watching them together as their relationship progresses from jovial to flirty to romantic, but also it was great how they interacted with the other characters in a way that informed their characters. There's no sag in this one. 

The best moment of the film was the first deep, meaningful backstory conversation, and it wasn't between Alma and Charlie, but between Charlie and Alma's father, at the piano. It's such an atypical scene to have a moment between the romantic interest and the lead's parent but it is such a soulful moment, a welcoming to the family very, very early in the film. Colantoni just crushes moments like this.

I loved this.  It's charming and romantic and gay.  

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I was really hoping to end this 10-for-10 - and Christmas movie watching in general - on a high note, with the greatness of Under the Christmas Tree being the surprise, feel good conclusion to it all.  Unfortunately I was one movie short of 10.  

To the rescue comes 'Tis the Season to be Merry, one of Hallmark's final movies for the season, starring former romcom queen turned recently minted holiday romance regular Rachael Leigh Cook.  I saw the commercials advertising this over the past week or two.  It looked not so good. 

Come to find out today, though, it was written by Jen Kirkman, who is one of my favourite stand-up comedians (and Drunk History guests) and a noted unironic lover of Hallmark movies.  She's finally gotten the chance to write one, that's exciting!  Of course, there's another name attached on the writing credits, which, from my mild research implies Hallmark wanted the script to be more like a Hallmark and less like Jen Kirkman's sensibilities.

'Tis the Season... is enjoyable enough, but there are so many sequences and scenes which feel like they're supposed to have comedic overtones, but the edges are all dulled down by their Hallmarki-ness.  There are some good lines in this, and a few moments which are pretty close to being hilarious, but Hallmark doesn't do comedy very well.  Comedy requires the timing to be just perfect, and Hallmark doesn't have the time to get the comedy just perfect.  So we get some physical comedy bits from Cook which (no pun intended) fall a little flat, some line reads which don't have the right accompanying reaction, or are just not hitting the right emphasis for comedy.  

Moreover, I don't know that Hallmark's draw-from-a-hat, mix-and-match style of attributing leads to a script (hey we got a Rachel Leigh Cook and Travis Van Winkle match up this year) was the right way to go about making this one.  There's voice over work required here from Cook, and it's rough stuff.  Van Winkle looks great with his shirt off (a rare slice of beefcake from Hallmark) but his comic timing is for shit.  So much of this falling flat does have to do with budget and shooting schedule, but the leads just aren't the right fit either.  That said, Amy Groening as Cook's best friend/editor was wonderful and is due for a leading lady shot.  I kind of wish she was the lead here with the roles fiipped.  Hallmark staple Canadian dads John B. Lowe and Paul Esseimbre bring some good supporting weight, and I liked Karen Malina White as Cook's not completely hard-ass publisher (clearly there was more to that role in Kirkman's draft).

This movie is just a case in point to what Hallmark is doing.  Either shit or get off the pot Hallmark.  Either invest in doing a variety of different movies, or stick more rigidly to the formulae.  This middle-ground territory only makes the end product unsatisfying.

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I was planning to do a top 5 list or something here (just to make this post even longer) but do I do a top 5 on movies and specials that I watched this year, or a top 5 on just the new releases from this year, or a top 5 of all time?  I don't know know how to shape it so here are a bunch of lists:

Top 5 All-Time Christmas Viewings:

1. A Muppet Family Christmas
2. Community Seasons 1-3 Christmas Episodes
3. Father Ted: A Christmassy Ted
4. Holidate
5. Dash and Lily (new)

Top 5 released in 2021 Viewings:

1. Crashing Through The Snow
2. The Bitch Who Stole Christmas
3. Under The Christmas Tree
4. 8-Bit Christmas
5. The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star

Top 5 new to 2021 Actual Hallmark Viewed:

1. Crashing Through The Snow
2. 8 Gifts of Hanukkah
3. The Christmas House 2: Deck Those Halls
4. Christmas Sail
5. A Kiss Before Christmas

Top 10 fave bizHallmarkies of all time (seen so far):

1. The Nine Lives of Christmas
2. Crashing Through the Snow
3. The Princess Switch trilogy
4. Under the Christmas Tree
5. Dashing in December
6. The Christmas Club
7. On the 12th Date of Christmas
8. The Christmas House duology
9. 8 Gifts of Hanukkah
10. A Christmas Movie Christmas