Back on Day 3 I covered the first five episodes of Finding Mr. Christmas, Hallmark's "reality" competition show where they pit ten objectively handsome men against one another to perform embarrassing "Festive Faceoff" challenges before giving them an actual challenge that will show off the goods for what they need to bring to a Hallmark movie.
I didn't know at the time how long the series was going to be. I was expecting ten episodes. Thank the merciful Hallmark deities (we worship at the altar of commerce) it was only eight.
The "Star Quality Challenge" of episode six found the hunks acting against Rachel Boston in an emotional "break-up" scene (it's a Hallmark movie-style scene so it's the kind of scene that follows "the complication" where the woman thinks she can't see the guy anymore and tells him she can't and they have to act all emotional). Hayden brings some real emotions to the scene by having Rachel stick his (not-dead-but-taken-by-his-ex) dog's squeaker in her pocket, while Ezra thinks about his dead sister, and acts decently. Blake's is just rough stuff all around, and Jonathan stumbles for a good 20 seconds forgetting his line before getting back into it and doing a fine job. Elijah is pretty good but not great. Jonathan's stumble sends him home (as in competition there's no "retakes" apparently. Sigh) even though Blake was by far the worst.
Episode seven finds the four remaining mens having to do a dance with the dance instructor (Witney Carson) from Dancing with the Stars. They also surprise the boys with their sisters being in attendance for some reason (except Elijah, whose pregnant girlfriend shows up). The dance starts off with a waltz then leads to an uptempo choreographed dance. Blake pulls a Jonathan and messes up almost immediately, but they reset and he does just fine. Hayden does surprisingly well. Ezra is a lumbering, awkward giant and is by far the worst dancer of the night. Elijah, who you may have heard, SPENT 5 YEARS PERFORMING IN HAMILTON, nails that dance to the fucking floor. It's a no brainer, Elijah is our winner...except he's not. Blake's stumble sends him home, and ... Ezra wins...? Ohh nooo....
Going into episode 8, and it's down to Elijah, the most experienced actor of them all, Hayden who has acted before and was a children's entertainer, and Ezra, who looks good in a tight shirt and tighter shorts, but has no charisma on camera at all and the sloping, lifeless eyes of a serial killer. Ezra should have been eliminated at least three times by now but keeps sticking around. The conspiracy theory that this whole show is a farce, that they had already chosen their leading man, but, I guess for channel filler, built a competition show around "selecting" him only to realize that, oops, there are far more talented guys than him that they need to try and convincingly eliminate...well, it's seemingly bearing fruit.
This final episode had no bullshit "Festive Faceoff" it was just the men competing in a three-scene challenge. Scene 1 was with Jonathan Bennett, Scene 2 with Melissa Peterman (LEGEND!) , and Scene 3 with Nikki f'n DeLoach, ending with the big climactic kiss. Bennett was hamming it up in his scene, Melissa was supposed to improv and if she did we didn't see it, and Nikki is a freaking pro and nailed her scene every time. Elijah got caught squinting in the sunlight in scene 1, his timing was off in scene 2 and did a weird Breakfast Club end-scene fist raise while kissing Nikki, which was a bad choice. Ezra was palpably awful in each of his scenes, but did a little better with each second take, so, as "director" Ali Liebert said, he took direction well (to go from "awful" to just "really bad"). Hayden was good in all his scenes, and if we were basing the winner on this challenge alone, Hayden would have been the winner....
But they weren't basing it on the challenge alone, but the whole competition would come into play in the decision. But if that was the case, Elijah should be the shoe-in and sweet, simple Ezra being ousted. But, appallingly, Elijah is eliminated first. Is it because he's black, or short. Which prejudice got him eliminated? Down to just Hayden and Ezra, still seemed like a no-brainer that Hayden should win (especially with the outside-the-show knowledge that the winner's movie was called Happy Howlidays, and co-starred dogs). But no, Ezra is announced the winner and suddenly Happy Howlidays went from being a thing I was very curious to see to something I dreaded watching.
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The Draw: The winner of Finding Mr. Christmas + doggos.
HERstory: Mia (Jessica Lowndes, 90210) is the webmaster of Seattle's tourism board (despite clearly living in Vancouver, do they know she's remote working from another country?) and she's too busy to fly home to Florida for Christmas, she says (but really she just don't wanna). She's a "hot mess" because she wakes up next to a spilled bag of Lays in bed. Guess she got Layd, oh ho ho! One day, walking home in the rain, sans umbrella, because she lives in Seattle without an umbrella, she finds a dog trapped in a fence. She frees the dog, he follows her home, and she lets him stay the night. She doesn't know how to care at all for a dog, she barely knows how to care for herself! She steps in dog piss first thing in the morning, and also finds her feather pillow cushions have exploded.
She takes the dog to a dog rescue center run by Max (Ezra Moreland, Finding Mr. Christmas) and the two are like fire and water... well, more like tar and toilet paper. They are the bitterest of enemies for no apparent reason, and Max refuses to take in the dog, or something. Max's dog, though, hit's it right off with Mia's stray. Mia takes the dog to a dog park, and her stray runs off (we suspected she was just going to let the dog go and leave it there, alas) and finds Max's dog and the two are just so pleased with each other. Mia takes a video, before Max interrupts with a curt "don't take pictures of my dog without permission". They bicker some more. Mia posts the supremely uninteresting video of two dogs playing at a dog park to the Tourism Board social media and it goes viral (like herpes). Everyone loves this dog pair, so now her boss wants a campaign around it. So Mia's stuck with the dog for a while. She names it Russell, even though it's a curly haired herding dog of some type and not a Jack Russell. Whatever, movie.
So Mia needs Max's dog to keep her job or something so they spend time together even though they really dislike each other, but it's good for the dogs I guess. I dunno, this movie is bad, and boring. Turns out Max used to have two dogs, but his ex took one of them when she left for L.A. And now Max and his dog are both sad (not that you could ever tell Max was sad with Ezra's dead eyes and the childlike smile that comes out of nowhere all the time for no reason). Ezra "helps" Mia "dogproof" her home (she wound up stepping in piss each morning a bunch more times and Russell continues to wreck the place until Ezra spruced it up for Christmas and then Mia let Russell sleep in her bed) and I guess they start to like each other, or at least the movie wants us to believe that something is happening. They get caught in the rain, and at Mia's place she gives Max a dry shirt to wear, but not before catching a peek at his marines/model body and gets reeeeal thirsty. Then mom and dad show up.
Turns out Mia used to be a doctor but she's disillusioned with the US medical system after a woman died in the waiting room because they didn't insurance. It's a big, bold, dark topic to bring up, and do absolutely nothing with. Mom and Dad are both doctors as well and want to retire and hand their practice over to Mia, but she's not into it. Instead, she wants to use her social media spike to help save Max's failing dog rescue. Oh and Max's ex shows up, with Max's old dog, and I guess Mia gets jealous? It would be "the complication" if a) it weren't so predictable and b) either of these actors could sell it as a complication. There's no investment and no stakes in these performances. The big charity fundraiser barely raises enough momney (with a major donation from Mia's Mom and Dad), and Mia decides she wants to be a veterinarian (speaking of not being able to afford health care) and Max resolves the whole thing with his ex and they kiss in Vancouver. The End.
The Formulae: There's no freaking Christmas in this at all, and if there was I was too busy wincing to notice. The biggest formulae was the arrival/complication of The Ex returning.
Unformulae: Hallmark movies never insinuate sex. They've gotten steamy a few times, but Hallmark leading characters do not get horny. Mia quite clearly gets the horn for Max's hot bod when she sees him with his shirt off (there's more expression in his nipples than his eyes, that's for sure).
True Calling? You expect with a film with a pun title that it will be fun. This was not fun. There was no funny. This was the absence of fun and funny. There was no romance either. There was no investment in these characters, and even the dogs weren't really that cute (though clearly the best performers in the film). So yeah, there's dogs, but no, the title doesn't work at all for this heaping pile of doggie doodoo.
The Rewind: The scene where Max's sister is tallying up the money. It's not a lot of money but she's going back to the calculator for each bill she puts down. Like, not sorting the bills into piles or anything, just...lay a 20 down, add 20, lay a 5 down, add 5. Just...no wonder the rescue is going under. These kids don't know how to manage finances at all.
The Regulars: Lowndes is a Hallmark and off-Hallmark seasonal romance movie regular, but can't say I've ever seen her before. Mom Alison Araya is a Hallmark semi-regular, and Dad Christopher Shyer was just in Three Wiser Men and a Little Boy among a few others. (At one point the three of them were sitting around a table and it was Hallmark's Meghan Fox sitting with Hallmark's Julianne Moore and Hallmark's Peter Gallagher). Also Jonathan Bennett puts in a little cameo and brings the only bit of life into this dull-as-dog piss movie for about 85 seconds.
Ezra we met in Finding Mr. Christmas, and while we knew already that he was a terrible actor, we weren't quite prepared for how truly godawful his performance would be. He seemed to be thinking about every movement he had to make and was plenty awkward in doing so. He barely had a scene where he had to say more than one line at a time and it was quite noticeable. I've mentioned a half dozen times how lifeless his eyes are, for as otherwise good looking as he is, this is a real vitality killer on screen. He seems like a sweet kinda simple person in the reality show, but he's no performer.
How does it Hallmark? Real bad. Even by bad Hallmark movie standards, this is real bad. If not the bottom of the list, then real, real close. This was about as enjoyable as waking up and stepping in dog piss with socks on.
This was an abysmal failure and shame on Hallmark for putting Ezra through this, and subjecting its audience to it. I don't know if Hayden's green card was last-minute rejected, but this film seemed tailor made for him. Max's story is his bloody backstory. His ex took off with his dog, for fucksake! (Unless Hayden's backstory on FMC was *gasp* made up!?!)
And maybe the filming of the movie would have clashed with Elijah's baby's due date, or if he got cast in something else? There had to be some reason they didn't go with either of these handsome, charming actors and instead went with the tall, generically handsome lug. Ezra would be the perfect Dick BF in one of these movies for the two scenes they would need him for, but he should never have been put in the lead.
How does it movie? pfft.
How Does It Snow? It rains pretty good.
This movie was such a travesty.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds spectacularly terrible. Sometimes I want to watch the terrible ones more than the sincere ones, but I most often just end up watching the boring ones. This is probably more boring but your hate-recap makes it sound fun :D
ReplyDeleteI feel like I must have seen a Lowndes Hallmarkie but none are in the list, nor do any in her IMDB look familiar, but I clearly remember Googling her. Not sure why.
Definitely nothing fun about it...but I'm glad I made it a fun read
DeleteIt had a spark of fun for maybe the first 4 minutes but it devolved quickly.