So This Is Christmas Leftovers (2025) - part 2

A Carpenter Christmas Romance - 2024, d. Jake Helgrin - Crave
Bach et Bottine (aka Bach and Broccoli) - 1986, d. André Melançon - Crave
Jingle Bell Heist - 2025, d. Michael Fimognari - Netflix

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A Light Toast to HallmarKent: A Carpenter Christmas Romance

The Draw: It was on.

HERstory: Andrea Metcalf is a famous romantacy writer who returns to her perfect small town (which is no longer perfect because it burned down after a lightning strike five years ago sparked a rampant blaze) to work on the latest in her successful novel series. Shortly after arriving she runs into Seth, her old high school crush who she has complicated feelings about. Does he run the local hotel with his dad, maybe? I dunno, I missed the first 45 minutes. 

She used to tutor him and when she became his place of solace when his mother was dying of cancer, they started going out, but he would only take her out in public in neighbouring towns. He was the popular funny sports guy and she...was not...and he had a reputation he felt he needed to uphold.

Him and Andie have a lovely afternoon together one day, and his neighbours kids show up at the diner and start jumping up and down on him, and then his pretty neighbour turns up and says to them to leave Seth and Andie alone, as it looks like they're on a date. He downplays it and says they're just old friend and Andie goes cold on him. Old patterns are returning, and she was hoping to have outgrown those insecure feelings.

Their romance rekindles when Seth accidentally electrocutes himself in his garage. Andie comes running when she hears his scream and then sees that he works with electricity to do wood burning. He's working on burning a tree into a door to honour his mom, among other projects for the city.

They have a walk, connect again. They make out, and they do it (off screen). Afterwards they do the talking-under-the-covers thing, and Seth tells Andie he like-likes her.

In the years since Seth joined the military, served his duty, and returned home to do carpentry work. He's been a central figure in the community, giving free room and board to neighbours struggling after the fire and feeding the town and doing free repair work.

When Seth's attractive tenant calls and then comes knocking at 2am (bootie call), Andie is upset again, and storms out. He chases after her and explains that he served with her husband in the military and that he was KIA. He's been helping them out since the fire and things got...complicated.

But the big reveal is it turns out the fire that took out the city started because of an old generator with faulty wiring that maybe blew up when the lighting strike hit? I dunno. He's feeling guilty, and not the town hero that Andrea accuses him of being.

But everyone knows it wasn't Seth's fault and Andie and attractive tenant decide to host the town in a celebration of lights that doubles as a celebration of Seth and his efforts as the community's backbone. Andrea says she's going to stay, at least for a while...she can write anywhere, and she gives him the final page to her new book where the male protagonist of her series no longer dies.

The Formulae:Most of the formulaic beats of a holiday romance are around Christmas-themed things. I guess because the town burned down, it's not very Christmassy? Andie is regularly outside without a coat on so I'm guessing they're in like SoCal somewhere? I dunno.

Unformulae: Well, they do it, like two hot adults should. It's not just a chaste kiss, these hotties are gettin' it on.

True Calling? Not a single Carpenters song, never mind a Christmas one, is played.

The Rewind: Post-sex one night, Andie and Seth are each eating out of their own pint of ice cream. I mean, shouldn't they be sharing a pint, sexily feeding each other?

The Regulars: Hot brunette Sarah Pieterse (Pretty Little Liars) stars in her first Hallmarkie, as does hot hunk Mitchell Slaggert...and also Kaley McCormack who plays Andie's sister...as well as attractive neighbour actor Asia King. It's an all-new-to-holiday-romance ensemble... except that it was written by Sarah Drew, star of Hallmark's Mistletoe Murders.

How does it Hallmark? It's sexier than 98% of most Hallmarkies (this one's a Lifetime production...I didn't look into Lifetime's slate at all this year, but this one's from last year anyway, so whatevs) because the leads are soooo hot and you just want to see hot people do what hot people should do. But outside of that it's not very festive and kind of dull and the melodrama is revealed in big clunky ways. The big "festival of Seth" I really wanted to roll my eyes at, but it did get me a little bit in the feels (the actual tree burned into door, though, was not as impressive as I'd hoped).

How does it movie? Lord, no.

How Does It Snow? Not a flake.

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The third of producer Rock Demers' "Tales for All" series is a real stunner, mainly because Bach etc Bottine  (aka Bach and Broccoli in the Anglo world) doesn't seem at all like the kind of kids movie a kid would want to watch. Where La guerre des toques/The Dog Who Stopped the War was like a kids version of  a war movie, and The Peanut Butter Solution was the young viewer's version of a horror movie, Bach et Bottine is just a dramatic film, and a pretty melancholy one at that.

The film opens with a dream sequence. Fannie is in the desolate tundra, wind howling, snow blowing furiously. Along the way comes, I believe, her parents on horseback in pristine white snowsuits. The horse drops to its knees and falls over, and just when you think Fannie's mom's going to pull out a lightsabre and cut it open to put Fannie inside to keep her warm, she lifts up the saddle and there's a keyboard in the side of the horse. She starts playing and Fannie's father starts dancing and spinning her around. In voiceover, Fannie tells us her parents died in a car crash a few years earlier.  Fannie wakes up. She does not seem all that bothered by this very strange dream, and she finds comfort in her pet hamster.

Fannie's been living with her Grandmother, but Grandma is now sick and needs to go in a home, so she needs Fannie's uncle Jean-Claude (Jonathan in the subtitles and dub) to take care of her. It's coming on Christmastime and Jean-Claude has just started a year's sabbatical from work and he's focused on practising his organ playing for a big audition he has coming up. If he is selected he could go on tour in Europe for six months. Taking care of a 12-year-old is not part of his plan. So immediately upon Fannie's arrival he tells her it's only temporary and he consults with a fostering system.

Jean-Claude is a loner. He doesn't talk much to his neighbours and the cute woman at work who is clearly sweet on him doesn't get much out of him in return besides awkward smiles. Fannie both helps to bring him out of his shell and tests his patience, especially with her penchant for rescuing strays. Fannie and the neighbour boy set up a hostel for the plentiful strays in the storage shed outside Jean-Claude's apartment.

Fannie wants nothing more than to be loved by Jean-Claude, to be his family, but Jean-Claude is too self-involved to see past his own narrow band of interest, and he keeps putting up walls between himself and this traumatized child. It's quite painful viewing. It's clear Jean-Claude has the desire to love and be loved, but he has no ability to make it happen. 

The ending of this film is a real mind fuck. Much like the previous two "Tales for All", Bach et Broccoli is borderline traumatizing. Fannie leaves for a school trip, leaving Jean-Claude home alone, where he learns he dearly misses the poor girl. When she returns from the trip, though, they learn she has been placed with a new family and has one week left with Jean-Claude. Feckless as he is, he doesn't intervene. Fannie runs away from his audition performance, gives all her strays away to neighbourhood kids, and runs to her new foster family days earlier. Jean-Claude turns up at their door. He doesn't know what to say to the girl. In English he tells her he loves her. In French he says "Bonne chance" which is not the same thing.

There's an abrupt cut to the next scene which Fannie narrates, which finds Jean-Claude, his crush from work, and Fannie altogether in his apartment, redecorating, painting the walls stark white, making it a home. But the allusions to the opening, the narration, the blanket of white, does this tell us that it's only a dream? That there's no happy ending for Jean-Claude and Fannie?  I have to wonder if the subtitles/dub try to change the melancholy ending for the English market to a happy one... because even with these edits, it's evident that this is not the happy ending we're hoping for. The credits roll over Fannie holding her pet skunk Bottine/Broccoli and smiling for the camera. I'm trying to recall a film that I saw in the past few years that ends with the credits rolling over a character trying to hold a smile, and how unsettling that is (was it Pearl?).

Bach et Bottine is a complex emotional drama that happens to feature a child as one of the lead roles, but it doesn't make it a children's film. I can't imagine being a 10-year-old in the 1980's and finding this that interesting (not compared to the previous two films in the series), yet as an adult I found this guttingly emotional. The film has exceptional compassion for Fannie, and her yearning for Jean-Claude's acceptance, and it does an exceptional job of exemplifying Jean-Claude's fecklessness while still giving us enough understanding of him to root for him to come around (we don't ever dislike Jean-Claude so much as we are constantly frustrated by the slow pace of his evolution).

It's a slow burn film that will punch you in the gut. 

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Before even seeing the movie I had read the Toastypost as well as listened to the Deck the Hallmark podcast break down the film, so I already knew all the beats of the movie before I went into it. This is a film that twists and twists, recontextualizing the characters and their motivations as the film progresses, and if you know all the twists in advance, well... it's still kind of a cute, fun movie. Kind of.

Former Disney teen star Olivia Holt is Sophia, a shopgirl in a British department store called Sterlings, like it's 1954 all over again (see also The Crowded Day). She has her mind set on stealing some stuff, but so too does Nick (Connor Swindells) who apparently robbed the place once before after being hired by Sterling (Peter Serafinowicz) to set up security in the place, and he still has eyes into the store. He spies Sophia getting into the basement storeroom and stealing a bit of cash, and tries to blackmail her into helping him rob the storeroom of its most valuable jewels, but she pickpockets his wallet and turns things around on him.

Partners they agree. Sophia learns that Nick is a dad, divorced, and struggling after his incarceration. Nick learns Sophia moved to America with her mom when she was small after her biological father told them to piss off. Now they're back for the free health care, only her mom is so sick and needs to fast track her stem cell injections, which can only happen in the private sector. Sophia needs money.

They plan their heist and make it into the vault only to discover the jewels are missing. Plan B, steal the 500K Sterling keeps in his vault in his office, which is a lot more work, including an embarrassing attempt by Nick to seduce Sterling's bitter wife (Lucy Punch).

Directed by Mike Flanagan's DP, it actually looks pretty good, and moves along without really any lulls. It has its luminous moments, particularly around the seduction gambit and I enjoyed how the story effectively told us time and again that these two were never really ever going to pull this off successfully with their limited experience and skill set. The only reason they succeed is because they get help from more than one place (primarily because Sterling is such a douche, everyone's happy to take him down a peg). 

Even knowing all the beats I still had fun, but I imagine it was more fun not knowing. But the romantic angle was probably the least successful part of the film. Sophia and Seth seem more like buddies than lovers throughout the runtime. As much as this isn't a Hallmarkie, their "romance" feels very by the book Hallmarkie. Perfunctory. It's not that the leads don't have chemistry, there's just not a lot of romantic chemistry there, and much of it has to do with Swindells being too low key and reserved in that very British fashion. This needed much more spice to liven it up, especially if it wanted any rewatch factor.

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So This Is Christmas Leftovers (2025) - part 1?

 

AD/BC: A Rock Opera - 2004, d Richard Ayoade - Tubi
La guerre des toques (aka The Dog Who Won The War) - 1984, d. André Melançon - Crave
Cup of Cheer - 2020, d. Jake Horowitz - Tubi
A Make or Break Christmas - 2025, d . Martin Wood  - Hallmark/W

Preamble:
Between Hallmark, Lifetime, Netflix, UpTV, GAF, and all the Canadian (and non-Canadian) independent production company's, I would conservatively estimate there have been over 500 original Hallmarkies produced and released in the past decade. Together Toasty and I cover, conservatively, 25 of them in any given season on this here blog and we only started in earnest in 2019. So we're at about 25% coverage rate at best, which means...well, we have a mental illness. 

To be fair (tooooo BEEEE faaaIIIIIRRRRrrr!) we're not even trying to cover them all, it was never the objective. We would have to devote pretty much all of our watching and TV viewing time for the next two or three years to catch up. Even the Deck the Hallmark crew who do year-round Hallmarkie viewing and reviewing multiple times a week are still probably only at about 70-80% completion rate.

The point I think I'm trying to make here is, there's a lot of damn Christmas movies, and more every year. Even outside of Hallmarkies there are upwards of a dozen actual non-romance-based non-TV Christmas movies released every year in all different genres. It's impossible to watch them all, and if you find some favourites, it's hard to rewatch them when you're writing a blog and dedicating yourself to watching at least a dozen new ones every year.

Each holiday season I see new movies that I would like to rewatch in subsequent year and rarely do (Holidate excluded). But the same goes for regular movie watching where I find films I absolutely love and would like to rewatch but rarely do because there's so much new stuff to consume.

I always start into Christmas movie season in November, and by December Christmas movies are pretty much all I want to watch. I'm glad Toasty and I switch off days on the Advent Calendar because while I could probably write up 24 days on my own, where would I find the energy? (I'm not sure how Toasty does 31 horror movies in October every year). And so... here's some more Xmassy things:

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Under the pretense of being a forgotten televisual special (tele-viss-you-Al spess-eee-Al) from 1978, the cleverly titled AD/BC: A Rock Opera tells the story of the nativity, but from the innkeeper's perspective...you know the one guy whose sole part is "There's no room at the inn!"

In this funk and psychedelia infused parody of hippie rock operas like Godspell and Hair, Matt Berry plays the writer and star of the rock opera (op-ear-aaahhh) Tim Wynde who introduces the special, as well as performs the lead role of "Inkeeper" (no first name).

Inkeeper is in competition with big hotel across the street run by Tony (Julian Barratt) but is also leasing the property for his in from Tony. Innkeeper is paid a visit from God (Matt Lucas) who tells him that he should expect a divine occurrence, a divine guest at his meagre in. So he cancels all reservations and kicks all the guests out (his mother-in-law included) in anticipation. His wife, Ruth (Julia Davis) is upset and decides to leave him but he throws her out an she turns to Tony for solace, which Tony is all in for.

Eventually Joseph (Richard Ayoade) turns up with (unseen, unnamed) pregnant wife, and Inkeeper tells him that he's expecting a special guest but offers up his meagre stables. A child is born, a bright star shines upon all, and they all feel the joy and rapture of the event. Tony encourages Inkeeper and Ruth to rekindle their love, offers his hand in friendship to Inkeeper, and the pair declare they will offer reasonable rates and exceptional service, not as competitors but as collaborators.

AD/BC is tremendously silly, and is completely keyed into the style of British comedy that Berry and Ayoade (co-writers of the piece) were really into at the time, which heavily, heavily relied upon pastiche and lampooning without going full parody (pair-oh-daaayy).

It is indeed a singing-and-dancing rock opera throughout, most of the dialogue is sung. Berry, whose comedic performance  I've been a fan of for a long time, always likes to infuse music into his projects (see also Snuff Box and Toast of London for example) and in his non-acting time he's a prolific (pro-liff-yick) songsmith. The only problem is I've never really attuned to his style of music, and I find it can get exceptionally same-y (he will often have the same or similar chord progressions or keep returning to specific sequences of notes) and his vocal range is quite limited. Here he once again taps into familiar tones of his own use, but also dipping into 70's era music like a little Creedence Clearwater Revival or... others (memory already failing).

But in a comedy special like this, it's less about whether I'm humming tunes afterwards than if I was laughing or chuckling throughout, and it's a sold half hour of gleefully silly, anachronistic comedy.

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Kids sometimes become obsessed or enamoured with the things that scare them or traumatize them (emphasis on the "sometimes", don't go seeking to scare or traumatize your kids) and one such scary thing for me as a youth in the 1980s was a Canadian oddity called The Peanut Butter Solution.  It's the story of a young boy who gets so scared upon entering an abandoned house that all his hair falls out. He finds the solution in a gross mixture of peanut butter, eggs and, I want to say frogs? This solution then causes his hair to grow rapidly and he's kidnapped by a weird artist who harvests his hair to make unique fine art brushes.  It's gonzo, and I've always loved it (I acquired it on blu-ray in 2017 and only wrote about it briefly in the year-end post).

What I didn't know until recently was that The Peanut Butter Solution was a part of a series of films produced by legendary Quebec producer Rock Demers under the banner "Tales for All". The series lasted some 30 years (up to 2014 before being acquired by another company which has since continued the series) Some of the titles in this are familiar to me in name only but were in as frequent rotation on the CBC as The Peanut Butter Solution, but none of them have had the same staying power... for me.

But arguably the most famous of all of these "Tales for All" is La guerre des toques (in English "The War of Toques" but popularly know as The Dog Who Stopped the War), the story of a gang of pre-teen friends and neighbours who decide on their winter break from school to pick sides and wage a snow war against one another.

On one side is take-it-too-far Luc, who calls himself the General because he has his grandfather's bugle. On the other side is the much meeker Marc (actually it's Pierre, but for some reason they changed it to Marc in the dub and even the English subtitles). Only three lads choose Marc/Pierre's side, and so they are greatly outnumbered. Luc gives his enemies a day to build their snow fort, and it turns into a thing of glory. But they are so outmanned they have no choice but to accept the assistance of the new girl in town, Sophie, and her younger sister Lucie.  

Turns out Sophie is tough as nails and also a bit of a tactical genius (well, for a 12-year-old). Luc sets his sights on her, and, she, in turn, sets her sights on him. It's clear they dig each other in that very confused pre-teen, don't know what to do kind of way. And they're so French about it.

La guerre des toques is an incredibly low-key film. We're reminded frequently that these kids are supposed to be friends and that there are rules they have to follow, but that sometimes kids can't help but get carried away in their actions. Things can get pretty rough, like when one kid drops an ice block on another kid's head, or Luc sets his troop on kidnapping Sophie in the dark, a clear violation of the rules. She runs like her life depends on it, and it's a pretty intense sequence for what is just supposed to be child's play.

If you haven't seen the film before, there's a big honking ***SPOILER*** I'm about to drop, so skip on down to the next post if you don't want to know....

There are about a dozen or so kids participating in the war (and little brothers or sisters who want in but aren't allowed) so there's a lot of little white French kids to keep track of, mainly distinguished by their unique winter garb).  But one of the major secondary characters, and sub plots, is around Marc/Pierre's dog, Cleo, a big loveable old Saint Bernard.

Cleo has been feeling depressed ever since Marc/Pierre's younger sibling came along. Cleo keeps getting scuttled outside and is lonely being away from her family so much. Eventually, because of shenanigans during the war, Cleo is forced to stay outside. Marc/Pierre builds her a dog house, but she stops eating and is just so sad. Marc/Pierre also stops taking her out with him to his wartime events.

So on the last day of winter break, the kids plan a big final battle at the castle, and Cleo breaks free of her restraints and finds her way into the mix of the battle... the tower to the castle collapses in the heat of war and ...well, it crushes Cleo, like, to death! Seriously, the kids playtime killed the dog. And then they do the admirable thing and bury it in their secret storage spot in the abandoned shed they play in. Like, what are Marc/Pierre's parents going to say (well, Marc/Pierre's dad, always off screen, probably doesn't care that much, he's the one who wanted it out of the house).

But yeah, brutal and even as an almost 50-year-old man, traumatic!  I noticed Crave had a newer version of "The Dog Who Stopped The War", a modern 2015 animated remake that uses the style of massive heads on wee bodies that seems to dominate cartoons these days. It's a decent overall production, but I didn't watch the whole thing, I scrubbed through to the end just to see if they would chicken out or not...and to my surprise they did not. It's clear they changed the nature of Luc's character in this remake, losing some of the subtler touches of the original, but still pretty brave.

I liked this movie tremendously, and I'm going to be diving heavily into "Tales For All" in 2026.

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I'm not sure what the first holiday romance parody was (probably a Saturday Night Live sketch or something) but by 2018, the year after I really started watching Hallmarkies in earnest, the "ironic watch" and drinking games had already started to crop up. It wouldn't be long after that actual movies were being made making fun of the formulae and tropes of Hallmarkies.

I've seen many of these, including A Christmas Movie Christmas, A Clüsterfünke Christmas, The Bitch Who Stole Christmas, A Hollywood Christmas, and Christmas With The Campbells (I watched the first half hour of The Christmas Classic starring Malin Akerman, Ryan Hansen and Amy Smart - three very recognizable faces from TV and movies - thinking it would be a gentle parody like Christmas with the Campbells, and it's not...it's just a very bad Hallmarkie probably directed by a guy whose dad had money to burn...but I digress). I had not even heard of Cup of Cheer.

It popped up in Tubi's list of recommended viewing after watching AD/BC (see above), and the preview that started autoplaying showed a scene where the film's heroine arrives in her childhood perfect small town, to be greeted by a friendly santa-like hobo who offers her cookies from his pocket, only for her to run into her future love interest who is carrying what can only be described as a vat of hot chocolate which he then spills on her.

It's not really that funny a sequence, but I'm always curious about Hallmarkie spoofs and parodies.  This one coming from 2020 was an early adopter, a beautiful animated "Indiecan Entertainment Inc." title card declares this is very much a Canadian production which usually would make me say "uh oh" but the sheer quality of the title card had me feeling ...pride? Weird.

Cup of Cheer is a parody and a spoof, leaning hard into the maximum jokes per minute (jpm) with very little in the way of ground rules. Unlike Clüsterfünke or Christmas Movie Christmas which still tried to retain the chaste and puritanical nature of olde style Hallmarkies, this falls somewhere in between the great Zucker-Abrams-Zucker style of parody and the horrible "Not Another X Movie" non-series.  The jokes are a mix of leaning hard into Hallmarkie tropes and pushing them even further, some dexterous wordplay, some real bawdy humour, surprise cursing, and even a (*ahem*) splash of gross-out humour. 

The jpm is so high in this thing, and, frankly, the hit rate is at best 40%, which is not necessarily a passing grade, but when you're still getting a good laugh or chuckle 40% of the time, that's not actually too bad. When it comes to comedy, so much of it has to do with performance, and the relatively novice cast here are all surprisingly adept. The average Canadian Hallmarkie often only has one strong lead (occasionally two) the the supporting players a steep step down and the bit players even further down the quality slope. Here, I really couldn't find fault with any of the players throughout. 

Storm Steenson plays Mary, the big city girl who gets assigned to cover a big cover story for the big city magazine from the big city, but her assignment is in the perfect small town of Snowy Heights(ville Fallstown) which just happens to be the perfect small town she grew up in and left for the big city. Oh and she has to file the story by Christmas Eve. There she meets cute with Chris Mass (Alexander Oliver) in the aforementioned hot chocolate collision. Turns out he runs a failing hot chocolate shoppe with his brother Keith (Liam Marshall) which was bequeathed to him from his Grandmother. It's failing primarily because Chris doesn't feel right about charging his customers.  And then the big citiot with sever gastrointestinal troubles and a toxic personality, Mai Ex (Shawn Vincent), who happens to be Mary's ex, arrives and announces that he's opening a big hot chocolate chain cafe in the very spot Chris' hot chocolate shop is in... on Christmas, unless Chris can raise enough money to save the shop... but he's not willing to take charity or even work for it.

The movie is so joke dense and so joke focussed that the story and the characters get lost. I never felt too invested in the characters or their journeys and their relationships with one another were really hard to really grasp hold of. I think Chris being such a negative Nancy and such an utterly terrible businessman deserving to fail was probably a bad choice. Oliver performs him well enough that he's still somewhat likeable, but it's hard to see what Mary might be falling for (the fact that the falling in love is sort of perfunctory is probably just another joke, it's just a barrier to liking these characters though).

Brother Keith works part-time at the mall as an elf, it's set up and reiterated a couple of times before the big payoff is finding out that Keith is actually a stripper, which is news to Chris who needs his brother's advice while he's working. This results in some hilarious wordplay and really entertaining physical comedy from Marshall and Oliver as one brother is forced to lap dance the other brother in order to have their conversation. If you're looking for a gentle spoof in the same tone as an actual Hallmarkie, this isn't it, but it leans much more towards playful than mean spirited.

It's a cartoon world so the film's best running joke, about Chris and Keith's niece who gets kidnapped and nobody notices, comes across as toothless fun rather than dangerous or dark.

I had a good time with Cup of Cheer, and I didn't even mention the side-plot of Authuh (Jacob Hogan) the time-traveling prince from centuries past who very much takes a romantic shining to Chris but is primarily focused on trying to find a way back to his own time. As noted, it's definitely not perfect and it's throwing so much at the wall to see what sticks, it could prove as exhausting (or off-putting) to some as it is entertaining to others.

Also, so much actual Canadian snow for the win!

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A Light Toast to HallmarKent: A Make or Break Holiday

The Draw: I find Hunter King sooo cute, but she's been almost only in terrible Hallmarkies and after last year's godawful football/KC Chiefs-themed Holiday Touchdown I was ready to swear off her for good. But then I found out that this season's Finding Mr. Christmas winner Craig was going to have a part in A Make or Break Holiday that made it mandatory follow-up viewing, for better or worse.

HERstory: Liv (King) and Daniel (Evan Roderick) meet at a Christmas Party held by a mutual friend (never to be seen again). They start talking about cookies and never stop talking about cookies (too much cookie talk to the point of annoyance). 

Montage for the next year showing photos of their first date and other events (who took those photos!?!). By the next Christmas they have bought a house together (seriously how the ffff* did they afford *that* house...their professions are never indicated). But all is not as perfect as the perfectly made up house of Christmas. To put it bluntly Liv has OCD and the need to appease while Daniel has ADHD and can't seem to get started on some tasks or finish other tasks (I wish this were a more literal OCD meets ADHD-coded relationship...the analogy is such Hallmarkie accidental). Daniel hasn't even gotten rid of his apartment in the city yet and they've had the house for 3 months (red flag, Liv, red flag!)  They get into a fight and the Ross-and-Rachael idea of "a break" comes up, and they're both too escalated to be rational, and they both agree to "the break" (of course Daniel still has that apartment so he's already ready for "a break" I'm sure). 

They try to call off their Christmas festivities with their respective families but Liv's afraid of disappointing her type-A parents and Daniel is guilt-tripped by his mom before he can even say anything. So they agree to put up a charade for the holidays. The whole family comes, their hotels are overbooked, so they're all staying in the house, including Daniel's grandma and sister, Kim, and Liv's parents and brother, Reid (Craig Mr. Christmas).  

Immediately Kim sniffs out that there's trouble in paradise, while Liv confesses to Reid who wants to hear none of it because he's bad at secrets. And then it's all shenanigans as the family all needles and annoy one another while Kim and Reid conspire, poorly to reunite the lovers who have clearly just made a mistake.

Oh and Daniel keeps trying to hide a gift box that is so obviously a box-within-a-box-within-a-box engagement ring. It's a literal Chechov's Box-Within-A-Box-Within-A-Box Engagement Ring...it's only a matter of when, not if it will go off. And when it does, well, that's the third-act complication I guess (even though this film starts with the complication).

The Formulae: The film opens with a Christmas baking montage as Liv makes a Nutella roll (we only see "Nutella" prominently displayed, like, a million times in that first 120 seconds. There are ugly Christmas sweaters. The house is decorated to the nines with no less than 3 Christmas trees, one of which is the catalyst to Liv and Daniel's arguement. There's a hot chocolate toast, and festive games leading to conflict (there's a bullshit Christmas obstacle course that no family ever has set up every year). Grams watches a Christmas baking show (intently). There's no less than three trips to the Christmas market. There's an outdoor christmas dinner(!?) which is interrupted by everyone getting up to dance (!?) before getting kicked out because they start taking the microphone and making speeches and Reid grabs the snow-maker-blower thing and cranks it to 10. Oh yeah, and so much goddamn cookie talk.

Unformulae: What no Christmas/Eve deadline? No caroling? No ice skating? No perfect small town? I mean they hit so many other tropes, can't fault them for the ones they missed. Oh and no red dress, just fetching silk blouses.

True Calling? "Make or break" is defined as "be the factor which decides whether (something) will succeed or fail" so yes, I guess this is a true calling. This Christmas will be the deciding factor in whether Liv and Daniel succeed or fail.

The Rewind: When Liv and Daniel split off to call their parents and tell them Christmas is off, the edit goes into a series of split screens cutting between the couple and their families in a surprisingly complicated fashion. It gets recalled later in the film as well. It's a surprising DiPalma-esque touch I really, really wasn't expecting and it's very well executed.

The Regulars: Hunter King is part of Hallmark's next wave of superstars, while Evan Roderick seems to be a desperate "we need a new, younger Andrew Walker-type". He acquits himself just fine (he's also been in a fair share of Hallmark stuff...as well as an Arrow veteran). Craig (Geoghan apparently is his last name) was obviously on Finding Mr. Christmas, and I have to say this role of the sort of put-upon younger brother who is a grown-up but still a bit immature was pretty much the perfect starter role for him. He was surprisingly enjoyable. I still can't imagine him as leading man, but he can work his way up to it I think (now). Sister Kim is played by Brittney Wilson was pretty great in this role as the pushy sister character (I was worried they were going to try and pair Maya off with Reid, but thankfully that didn't happen) and used to be in a lot more of these pre-pandemic. Daniel's flighty mom Maya is played by Jennifer Juniper-Angeli who has been in XMas Hallmarkies the past two seasons. Liv's dad is played by Days of Our Lives legend Roark Critchlow (see also this year's The Christmas Cup)...he seems to have been more of a Lifetime murder movie staple than holiday romance guy. Liv's mom, played by Marlee Walchuk is a regular on Hallmark's Chicken Sisters but otherwise doesn't have much history in Hallmarkies. And Grams, played by Linda Darlow has a few under her belt, like Hanukkah on Rye from 2022.

Oh and Jonathan Bennett makes a cameo as the restaurateur angry at Reid for grabbing the snow-maker-blower thing. He says "how'd you get that" to which Reid says "I won a contest". Zing!

How does it Hallmark? It's enjoyable enough and certainly watchable. The complication of Daniel and Liv being broken up seems almost completely unnecessary when the plot simply could have been trying to navigate dealing with each other's parents...or it could have been more poignant had they leaned into each character's neuro-atypical nature. A sharper comedic mind could have really made this just a full on "Meet The Parents"-style comedy but instead it just sits as a pretty average Hallmark movie.

How does it movie? Nope.

How Does It Snow? Rolls upon rolls of cotton batting topped off with shaved ice or soap flakes.

Toast & Kent's Xmas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 24 - Gingerbread Miracle

2021, Michael M Scott (It's Christmas, Carol) -- download

Why do so many of these movies take place in locations where snow covered mountains can be seen in the background?

And that's all she wrote folks. I might have to admit defeat this year. Beyond Ted Cooper's entry, I didn't find much in the way of Xmas Spirit this year. I will persevere and finish off a few in my hopper, as well as Netflix, as Xmas Leftovers, but... overall, a big meh year.

I think I killed that desire to even watch the few left in my hopper. Need a violent full of guns movie as a chaser.

The Draw: I needed at least one gingerbread / baking related movie, so this was it. 

HERstory: We begin with some montage-y gingerbread cookie dough massaging - flour everything, roll them out thin, gently cut them out -- baking with love. We also begin with some pretty impressive stock footage of blowing snow, wind-swept winter streets and winter at its best/worst. Then we follow it up with HER jogging past mounds of fake snow & cotton batting towards our requisite large family house on probably what is a July day.

Interestingly enough she states its Dec 3, as if someone writing the script pointed out to the writing room that Hallmarkies never give enough time for people plan & execute their Xmas Event plans and/or growing affections.

She is Maya (Merritt Patterson, Chateau Christmas), an LA lawyer returned home to her parents garage (but seriously, its a converted detached apartment) after a divorce and work collapse. In the kitchen, we get some family recap: Mom has started an event planning business and one of her early events will be the Gingerbread Challenge, which no is not a Gingerbread House Baking Contest but basically an obstacle course involving already baked gingerbread houses and is raising money for something or other. This year's sponsor is Casillas Panadería, local Mexican bakery and home of the famous gingerbread cookies that grant wishes. Luis (Jorge Montesi, Chupacabra vs the Alamo), the owner, is selling the place because his wife recently passed and his heart isn't in it any longer. Luis doesn't have any children to hand the long running family business down to, so sale it is. Maya runs her freelance law work out of his office; basically sits at a laptop in a crowded storeroom, but really, she could do that anywhere.

His nephew Alejandro (Jon-Michael Ecker, Fearless Heart), or Alex, is a Big City Lawyer in NYC who doesn't really like his job and has bad luck keeping girlfriends because he's never available. Luis and his wife raised Alex after some unmentioned Dead Parents situation. We also get introduced to his love of cooking when he dumps the bland takeout his ex gives him and makes, from scratch, shrimp tacos instead. His latest work assignment is being ignored by the Boss, so he might as well go home for Xmas.

Of note, everyone pronounces the Mexican names with strong proper enunciation, including the white folks of this very Rockies adjacent, near Denver PST. I doubt this movie would get greenlit in current American society, as it definitely highlights its Mexican immigrants in a positive light. Inclusivity is a naughty word these days down south.

Baiting the border guards with social media content that could get you banned?

First up, getting the Xmas Tree, where the two bump into each other  - literally. Its a cheerful bump involving chasing the family dog. Hers not his. His old high school feelings are still strong and he wants in on helping sell the bakery, a little peeved at himself that he wasn't asked.

Next up, Decorating the Tree. Luis and Alex talk about Maya and Aunt Julia. And that's when its decided that Alejandro will take over baking at the panadería for the holiday season, since he is home and so Luis can focus on the sale and the Xmas Event he is sponsoring. You'd think Luis would want to actually do the baking for his event.

Are we sure they are related? The only thing said is that Luis and Julia, "Took Alex in...."

I am realizing a lot of Hallmarkies are based on expositional scenes, instead of story telling. From the tree trimming we go to Maya and her bestie and her sister talking about how she screwed up Alex & her getting together when they were kids. She faked a French Boyfriend and he thought she wasn't interested. That is followed by Alex and the kid working for Luis talking about being poor and wanting a hockey scholarship with the foreshadowing of Alex Baked a Magic (Hockey) Cookie. You see, the tradition is that the cookies must represent something important to the people they are given too. And the we stick in a side-story so Maya's BFF can have someone to crush on too. Except it feels tacked on, like pretty much all the side-elements of the movie do.

Montage Scene. Sis is taking photos of the bakery for the sales website. To be honest, the bakery really looks good, well decorated and the set designers obviously had some fav bakeries they based it on. It just looks authentic and cozy. That is followed by another Montage Scene where Alex nixes every single potential buyer. And it happens over a week! Not just a day! Dec 4th starting date is moving along quite well. Buuuut the potential buyer shows up -- Jacque Hubert (IMDB calls him Jake, Patch May, Home and Away), a well known baker from Denver where he has a patisserie. He's handsome and has ideas and Alex doesn't like him. And cuz Maya thinks he's pretty. Jacque flirts with Maya.

Fuck; if they say Jacques properly, why do they pronounce Hubert as "H-Yoo Bert" instead of "Hoo-bear" ?

Ugh; losing steam on recapping this as its just a long long series of barely connected expositional pieces. The coming Holiday Games, Bestie and her Potential BF, Alex is better at cooking & baking than lawyer-ing. Add in some complication / jealousy as Maya smiles brightly at Hyu-Bert and he legitimately flirts and asks her out, while Alex just pouts in the background, and I was just bored.

They have the Reindeer Holiday Games but never quite explained how this was raising money for charity considering there were THREE contestants and they were our main characters plus Hyu-Bert -- its not like their "entry fees" would have contributed much. Besides, its just running an obstacle course while holding a pre-baked gingerbread house one-handed; given the high chance of EVERYONE dropping theirs, not sure of the "laugh oh well all fell down" fun to be had.

Eventually Alex has a sour encounter with his boss so he decides to stay and run the bakery, which should have been the primary plot focus but was done in a sort of background off-camera manner. And Maya realizes her potential new job is going to be worse than the LA job she quit, so decides to stay and work out a house she will buy. And at the last second, when we think Hyu-Bert will be an issue because he wants the bakery, his heart grows three sizes and he drops the need for a new bakery. Everyone is making a good choice for everyone else! Alex and Maya realize they are both staying in the PST and getting the jobs they wanted all along and also realize that despite a decade of miscommunication (and failed marriages) they still like each other. Kiss kiss.

Yeah, I was bored, and late in publishing. Fully lost steam.

The Formulae: There was a PST and a Main Coming Home from the Big City. There was Crush History and Dead Parents (we don't even get the story behind Alex's lack of parents) and a Holiday Event. Of course, there was Holiday Baking. There was a very minor complication which was resolved far too amicably for Hallmarkies. There was a Side-story Romance and lots of Xmas Traditions.

Unformulae: So, nobody has to dash their dreams in order to stay in the PST to find love; everyone decided to stay on their own to all follow their own dreams. There were no Dick BF/Ex's. Both of the mains are of the Big City Type Job, neither doing something low-key or hokey... even the bakery is well-established and doing well. That said, there is no Last Minute Desperation to Save the Bakery. There was not any Emotional Turmoil at all in this movie, which is why it may have been so... boring.

True Calling? A key plot point are the Magic Gingerbread Cookies and they go very far to explain how Alex had the magic as well: Maya's red briefcase cookie is connected to Alex, the hockey cookie gets the kid his needed scholarship. So, yes.

The Rewind: Nuttin, but I did re-watch the opening stock footage to see if it was real or CGI.

The Regulars: Merritt Patterson is really the only Hallmarkie staple.

How does it Hallmark? For the ideals of family traditions and supporting the community, it worked well. The magic between the two was basically nil; Maya smiled more brightly at Jacques than ever at Alex.

How does it movie? Yawn.

How Does It Snow? Lots of digital snow imposed on shots of structures that had a bit of cotton battling, and other than that opening stock footage, no snow... at all. Not even a mention of it.

Toast & Kent's Xmas (2025) Advent Calendar - Day 23: Window Wonderland

The Draw: Vintage Hallmark. DC Arrowverse star as lead. Paul Campbell. And because I had to get one more Hallmarkie in for Toasty.

HERstory: 

The head window dresser for the big New York department store, McGuire's, has left to a competitor, so they're without decorator. Sloan has been working at the store for 2 years, while Jake, glib Jake, snarky Jake, aggravating Jake has been with the company two months. The open position could be one of theirs if they impress Finch -- their stressed-out, tiny mustachioed boss -- with their pitches, which he's betting they will not. They have 95 years of tradition to live up to.

Sloan is super keen to get the job, but her boyfriend, high powered  Wall Street banking douche (is there any other kind?) Kenneth (Kenny) is pouting because Sloan will not be able to go to Aspen over the holidays if she gets the new job.  But he sees that she wants it, so he tells her he'll talk to old man Maguire's kid at the club and the job is hers. She declines and wants it on her own merit.

Jake poses as a sleepy artists model in the evening so he can paint in the studio after. The next morning, they're to present Tiny Mustache with their pitches for a window display. Sloan gets the south window with her pitch, and Jake gets the North window with his sketch that he just cranked out on a napkin 7 minutes before the pitch was due. They're told that each one getting window is now the competition and the one to bring in the most customers between now and Christmas(!?!? How on earth is that measurable? Are the cashiers taking a survey? What's going on here).Sloan complains that she worked all night on her pitch and Jake just cranked his out, to which Tiny Mustache says he would have got both windows if his second napkin design wasn't all smeared with frosting.

Rita (Naomi Judd) is the bitchy bathroom attendant just keepin' it real with Sloan, but of course she gets along great with smarmy Jake. Turns out she's Sloan's mom. Both Sloan and Jake get along with Mac, the window cleaner who they both chat up in the mornings. 

Sloan's window is a NY skyline with a gold cutout of the Statue of Liberty with a Santa hat on it standing in cotton batting. Jake's is Mr. and Mrs. Claus watching TV in a very green room with some pithy signage. Nobody really likes Sloan, and she's told to work on hers or lose her window to Jake. After work Sloan winds up at the art studio where Jake is once again modelling. Apparently Tiny Mustache told her to go and attend.  As she sketches his eyes, she starts to smile (in small part because Jake keeps mugging at her). After session, he shows her the painting he's been working on, but notes he can't finish it. He also notes his real desire is to be an artist, but he's struggling in NY and everyone back in his Maine small town is taking bets on when he's coming back, tail between his legs.

At dinner with her mom and Uncle Jimmy? Bea talks up how nice, funny and handsome Jake is... not like that ugly Kenny.
Their next window displays are Yoga Santa on a surfboard against a red background, while Jake's is a wood panelled "Santa's Man Cave". Their displays are somehow getting a great write-up in the local paper (you know, the local New York City paper) and sales are indeed up, so good work you two. Tiny Moustache says someone is definitely getting the promotion.

And then we learn that Jake actually living in the store. Bea tells Sloan she should invite Kenneth to their family "Christmas Eve Eve" event,but he's busy, and she then suggests Jake. Next morning Jake and Sloan chat up Mac and Jake starts suggesting Mac might want to meet a nice lady... like Bea... to which Sloan immediately tries to downplay and says to Mac, just leave it to me... without telling them Bea is her mom. The next window displays are Surfing Santa and eco-conscious Santa...both, so, so, so basic and not at all impressive.  

After leaving the building for the evening, Jake does his usual sneak-back-in routine to live at the store for another night, and Sloan follows him in. The jig is up. But Sloan promises not to tell Tiny Moustache (even though it's grounds for termination and possibly illegal), but because of the alarm settings they're trapped inside until morning, meaning that Sloan is missing Kenny's office Christmas party, but Jake says he'll show her a fun time in a closed apartment store. And it's bonding time, leading to a brutal honesty exchange. Sloan confesses she is a facade, she is a window display and confesses Bea is her mom, and she's embarrassed that she's embarrassed of her mom, while Jake feels shame that he's broke and his family doesn't believe in him. They both boost each other and inspire each other to a new level of store displaying. Sloan invites him to their Christmas Eve Eve event. Then they dance for some reason and he almost kisses her, but then security comes by (wait, now there's security? Where've they been this whole time? And there's no alarm on the rooftop door) and they hide behind the cosmetics counter until morning.

The Times comes by and takes pictures of them...absolutely terrible pictures. At dinner with Kenny, Sloan apologizes for missing the party, but Kenny said he feels sorry that she had to be trapped in the store with "that guy" and she lets slip that he's been slipping there. Kenny immediately wants to call his dad and tell old man Maguire, to get Jake fired and Sloan the job. The next day Mac lets slip that Jake has the security alarm codes and they didn't spend the night together by force, it was Jake's choice. Complication! She thinks he's trying to sabotage her, and oblivious that he just likes her. That's Kenny thinking, Sloan.

They toil through the night, and the next morning, Jake and Rita and Sloan are all chatting outside the back of the store. Kenneth rolls up in his limo and offers to take Sloan to Aspen one last time, but she declines. Then Kenny calls Rita over and drops some change in her mug of hot coffee. Sloan admonishes him, and then admits that Rita is her mom. Kenneth doesn't understand her confession, and it's hard to tell if Kenny is just being shallow and doesn't like that his girlfiend's mom is a bathroom attendant, or that she was lying to him. Probably the former.  

Jake shows Sloan his final pitch, and she thinks he's deliberately throwing the competition. He admits that he is, that it just means more to Sloan than him. At Christmas Eve Eve, Jake has showed up, surprising Sloan, and even more of a surprise, Jake has brought Mac as his plus one. And Mac and Rita admit they've been sweet on each other for quite a while. It's tur-dunkin' time (a turkey friend in Dunkin Donuts batter) and bun tossin' time. Sloan sees Jake having fun, and it's evident she realizes that Kenneth would never, ever, ever fit in this scene.

The Christmas Eve window unveiling ... Jake's display is just cookies and milk and a Santa hat. Minimalism. "Jake," Tiny Moustache says incredulously, "we're a department store, excess is what we do". Sloan's is a live display, a Christmas dinner scene with actors, that turns into a family food fight, but not the fun and playful display from her family gathering the night before. It gets uncomfortably brutal. People are repulsed. And Tiny Mustache fires them both! Oops. Now not only is Jake jobless, but homeless as well.

Sloan finds Jake at the art studio, apologizes to him, explains that she lost herself somewhere along the way, and asks him if they want to break back into the store and fix the mess. Along the way Kenny pulls up in his limo, with flowers (because Colorado is snowed in) and they have it out. Kenny, "I'm willing to overlook those people," and Sloan sniffs out that Kenny was on a date with the perfume counter girl. Yeah, this bullshit isn't going to work. Yeah, fuck that guy.

They get the display set up, but also set off the alarm trying to leave and they get arrested. But then a limo pulls up, and they think Kenny, first, but then the cuffs are taken off. Turns out, it's Old Man McGuire... Mac! Their friend the window washer is rich, and owns the department store, and loves these crazy kids and digs Sloan's mom. Their new window displays is a "classy" dinner table setup, and a living room display with Sloan and Jake as live models and Jake's painting and they make out.

The Formulae:Well, Sloan's got a dick boyfriend, that's classic holiday romance stuff. There's a sort of Christmas deadline/promotion angle the characters' journey as well. And of course there's the starting off as rivals only to fall for each other. And so many establishing shots of New York City. Honestly, I was expecting for a vintage Hallmark movie that there would be more tropes.

Unformulae: No Christmas tree shopping, no cookie baking, no snowball fights, no skating, no cotton batting as snow, no dead parents/spouse, no child and/or precocious niece/nephew, no hot chocolate or cider, no Christmas market, no perfect small town, no big city girl needing to get back to her roots.... close to nada formulae.

True Calling? All the window displays were fucking atrocious. Have the filmmakers and set decorators never, like, ever seen a Christmas window displays before? These are all...how do you say... tacky as fuck. They're like 2000s era hipster ironic, meaning in 2013 they were out of date already.  They're embarrassing. Sloan should be embarrassed, Jake should be embarrassed, the set designer and director and everyone involved should be embarrassed. There's not a single display they show us that is even on the cusp of being "good".

The Rewind: There were quite a few funny lines, a lot of wee chuckles here (upon receiving a window display, Jake starts into an acceptance speech ending with "...and of course I wouldn't be sitting here today without...this chair"). Paul Campbell's Jake is 100% styled after Jeff Winger on Community, in look and attitude. That's not the only Community riff, composer James Jandrisch (whom we had to rewind to find out right back to the beginning because he's not credited in the end credits) seems to be riffing on Ludwig Goransson's Community soundtrack work with its whistles and keyboard instrumentals.

The Regulars: Paul Campbell is a Hallmark hunk and one of the best of them. One of the three wisest one might even say. Always enjoy him and he's so... youthful here. Chyler Leigh, who played Kara's sister Alex in the Supergirl TV series (and across the Arrow verse), I was certain I had seen in a Hallmarkie before, but could not find anything in her IMDB profile, so this is it. Cameron Matheson was a Hallmark hunk until he jumped ship for Great American Family, the right wing a-hole alternative to Hallmark (I liked him in the Christmas Club fwiw) but he does too good a job being the dick BF here, and I don't like him at all. Naomi Judd isn't really the well known Judd in the acting realm, but she's got this, 1999's "A Christmas Romance" and 2014's "An Evergreen Christmas" (Before you get excited, Toasty, it's unrelated to the Christmas in Evergreen series and, in fact, the main character's name is "Evergreen"...let that sink in). Christie Liang plays the perfume counter girl who flirts with Kenny... she's been a bunch of these, but most before 2020 (she's also an Arrowverse veteran, having played Diggle's sister(?) in Arrow).

How does it Hallmark? Hey, I was kinda charmed. I thought Campbell was fun, Leigh didn't do that whisper talking thing she's prone to doing when she wants to be dramatic much (only once, I think), and the film felt situationally unique. Like I noted, not a lot of tropes in this one. It's not a top tier, but it's certainly upper middle.

How does it movie? It's...no. It's not. Let's not fool ourselves here. For a minute there, Hallmark seemed to flirt with "do we want to try, like...really try" but the reality is, no, they didn't want to try that hard. The only reason this seems like it's got a bigger, better budget is because they got to shoot in a department store in Vancouver at night, and that gave them sets that felt tangible and real.  But then you get to those window displays and, oof ba boof, you can tell there was no budget for anything left and the store didn't let them raid their basement. As well, I really wanted this to be ... sexier. It would have been so much better if it had the danger of sex percolating around it.  Like what if they *had* slept together at the store when they were trapped there, but Jake had lied about them being trapped... oooh, there's a real complication. Even when Kenny is busted for having been with the perfume counter girl, it was "just drinks", but you know it wasn't, but does the movie know that it wasn't?

How Does It Snow?  The only snow is the cotton batting in the window displays. Otherwise it rains, raining that Vancouver, erm, I mean, New York rain.

Toast & Kent's Xmas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 22 - An Alpine Holiday

2025, Lucie Guest (Jingle Bell Run) -- download

Funny, it was original called An Alpine Christmas. I wonder if, after the fact, they decided to tie it to Norwegian Holiday and strip out most of the Xmas stuff... this one is definitely more "a movie that takes place around Xmas" than an Xmas movie.

Hallmarkie Fatigue is settling in and I realize I might just have to (gasp!) actually prepare for this come next year -- as in, actually research and only watch movies that scratch the itch, instead of just downloading / clicking a bunch of random ones that check some boxes. But what am I searching for? Well, either completely bonkers weird, or adherence to a particular sub-sub-genre of the Hallmarkie that checks all the PST Xmas boxes on my Bingo card. I know I said I would relax my demands on the movies and just allow them to be but... as the fatigue is settling in, I am unable.

This was not an Xmas movie. 

The Draw: Partially to give another go at "Hallmarkie in ______", as this one is set and actually shot in the French Alps... well, for the key outdoor shots where a mountain or quite Alp village was required. The rest of the interior stuff was done in Sofia, Bulgaria. But but, that was the draw.

HERstory: This is not primarily an example of the "Main Travels to PST" trope, and the romance is actually the secondary element to the movie. It is more about the reacquainting of two somewhat estranged sisters: Faith (Ashley Williams, How I Met Your Mother) and Kelly (Lacy J Mailey, Supernatural). They are drawn together near Xmas because their grandmother, who raised them, recently passed away. Faith is a free spirit, never settling down, who wants Kelly to join her in Florida for the holiday season, while Kelly is a stayed-at-home type, still in the apartment they were raised in. 

Early in the tense interactions they are interrupted by a call from a lawyer -- they are beckoned to a meeting where they find a request from their grandmother --- travel together to Mont Blanc in the French Alps, to follow the trail grandmother and her fiancé took ages ago. Its all planned and paid for, and a guide will be waiting for them when the plane leaves. They have to do before Xmas Eve.

Initially the differences between the two sisters dominates, as Faith is more than happy to run away to France at the drop of a hat, while Kelly has work work stuff. But, of course, at the last moment she recollects how much her grandmother's wishes meant to her and chases after the Uber.

In France they meet Frédéric (Julien Marlon Samani, Tiny Beautiful Things), the schmoozy self-confident guide who wastes no time hitting on Kelly. I should probably mention that there are some years between the sisters, and Kelly is the young-enough-for-romantic-entanglement sister while Faith has her already established romantic troubles -- she's been proposed to by a longtime boyfriend, but ran away instead of saying Yes. But nobody knows this yet.

Given that Xmas plays very little in this movie, I have no desire to count the beats / tropes. Let's just say the journey is fraught with sister trauma but slowly draws out the attraction between Kelly and Frédéric. The drama between the two sisters takes the front seat in the funicular ride.

Yawn.

I found it very weird to traversing a new romance while reminiscing about one that ended in a proposal. If anything, they should have jumped the shark and have Faith's BF show up on the mountain to pop her the question a second time. But no, it was more just about instilling a sense of adventure in Kelly so she would take a chance on love she just met.

In the end, the two sisters loudly air their dirty laundry prompting Frédéric a number of times, until it comes to a head and the trio makes it to the top of the mountain, to see the spot where their grandmother and grandfather began their married life together. It sets the tone, and once back down in the lovely village of Chamonix, Kelly tells Frédéric she'd love to take a chance, and Faith decides to tell her BF the Yes Word.

One year later, Faith is preggers and ... I guess Frédéric is living in NYC with Kelly? Oh, and its Xmas again, not that it mattered.

The Formulae: Xmas barely took part in this movie. But I guess the tropes exist outside of the Hallmarkie (a label I attached purely to Xmas Time Hallmark [and type] movies) so, there is "We Just Met But I Love You", there is "I Am Not Quite Sure I Want to Commit", there are Dead Parents, Frédéric was not pursuing the life he really wanted to pursue (becoming a musician), there was some Hot Chocolate to be had, but that was more related to being on the side of a ski resort mountain than anything. Are cozy fires in a snowbound shack common enough to be a trope?

Unformulae: Its more about sister re-bonding than about the romance. There is no real PST and it might start in NYC but its not really there.

True Calling? Once they changed the name to "holiday", yes.

The Rewind: No rewind, but a few pauses at the actual shots of the tourist spots sitting on the top of peaks around Mont Blanc -- they are truly incredible and give me butterflies just imagining how they were constructed. Also, a chuckle at the memory from a photographer's review of Hallmark movies, "YOU CAN'T TAKE A SELFIE WITH THAT CAMERA !" as Kelly takes tons of selfies with a high end digital SLR that does not have an appropriate lens. 

The Regulars: I was here for Ashley Williams, who is Royalty. Laci J Mailey is a staple Canadian actor but not in Hallmarkies. Samani hasn't done any, but he was in Holidate. 

How does it Hallmark? I am not sure I can properly judge the movie on being a Hallmark movie, as the sisterly drama may be a staple out there, but it is mos def not a good Hallmarkie as Xmas barely plays out at all.

How does it movie? No.

How Does It Snow? In town, it could be October, but when on the mountain side, it was proper PROPER snow, as in trudging in blowing white out conditions.

Toast & Kent's Xmas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 18 - Next Stop, Christmas

2021, Dustin Rikert (The Finnish Line) -- download

Whoops, this one's late!

I remember Lyndsy Fonseca from her days in the Canadian TV show Nikita, spin-off of the classic movie La Femme Nikita, which was definitely a That Guy movie. But, for me, she will always be the chirpy waitress in Agent Carter. And this movie kicked off her career in Hallmarkies!

The Draw: Fonseca (those eyes; #SWOON) and Time Travel ! I am always up for time travel.

HERstory: Dr. Angie Reynolds (Lyndsy Fonseca, Agent Carter) is a work work work doctor in NY, but really, when aren't doctors thus. But she's getting some well needed time off, as in not working through the holidays like she usually does, but instead of going home to her PST like everyone expects her to do, she just wants to head to Yonkers and hide. Christmas Magic has something else in mind.

The establisher brings up the fact that she was once engaged to Plastic SportsReporter (Eric Freeman, Katy Keene) but turned him down. Her Work BFF says she made a mistake, says he's hot -- I just see a Beardy Weirdy Ken Doll. But Ange and Work BFF bump into Angie's Hometown BFF Ben (Chandler Massey, A '90s Christmas), a guy she lost contact with ages ago. She says it was him, but we aren't convinced. She begs off and the Work BFF heads to the Hometown BFF's party while Angie heads to Penn Stn to catch the train to Yonkers.

A loud teller at Penn beckons her over and instantly we know something magical is going to happen here. Sitting at the kiosk is Doc Brown and, yeah, something is up, especially since he's dressed all old timey. He sells her a "Holiday Special Ticket" which looks like it came from the same design company that made Willy Wonka's gold tickets. She doesn't catch on.

On the train, after she nods off briefly, she awakens to see Plastic SportsReporter sitting across from her, but a younger, less beardy version. And her coat is different, and her hair is different. And its 2011, ten years earlier. And the train is different! Apparently in 2011 you could catch an old timey train to Connecticut.

This old timey steam engine becomes a prominent thing as if the production crew was very very happy they got to use it.

Angie ducks out of her seat to catch her breath and finds Conductor Brown (Christopher Lloyd, Back to the Future) sitting in the dining car, and he only kind of pretends to not know what is going on. She states emphatically that she does not want to go home, does not want to be with Plastic SportsReporter and asks for the train to turn around. He asks for her ticket and she sees half of it faded out, like that is supposed to be the gold standard (pun intended) of how people can demand magic time travelling trains should work. "Fine fine," she says, "I will figure out what you need me to do before Xmas Eve in order to go home to 2021." Angie doesn't seem all that bent out of shape by the idea that Xmas Magic is real. It all strikes her as just a fun challenge.

So, first challenge -- say Yes to Plastic... OK, let's call him by name, Tyler. But first, we have to meet everyone. Dad picks them up at the station, and he is not in Arizona (forgot to mention earlier; her parents are broken up, Dad moved to AZ). Sis and husband have their first child Henrik. Mom (Lea Thompson, Back to the Future; ohhhh it wasn't just the train they snagged), with the artfully placed dab of flour dust on her face, is just happy everyone is home. And we hear about Aunt Myrt, the town rich lady whom everyone considers family. Everyone wants a rich aunt. And Boomer the dog is alive.

First up, TREE HUNTING ! Of course, its the tree lot where BFF Ben works as a Santa with a weird gangster Santa voice. He and Tyler lock eyes -- RIVALRY. You can see, instantly and obviously, that Ben loves Angie and he's been friend-zoned most of his life... let's not use that term, considering its distinct connection to the incel mindset. Ben is mos def in love with Angie, and they are perfect together, the banter being On Point, but no one has taken the next step. Ben seems to be just pining. 

But wait,  there is a reason for all this...

After a long day of train rides and tree hunting, Angie nods off on the sofa and BING, she's back on the train. She argues with Conductor Brown about what's going on, he obfuscates and the train arrives again. When Angie steps off, there is a magic bloop and she's at Ben's Santa shop, no explanation of how she went from her mom's sofa to here but for.... Xmas Magic! There's no train anymore, just the tree lot.

Fonseca is having a ball with the physical comedy of playing this confused but enthusiastic young lady. Its incredibly corny and hokey but she's constantly gesturing wildly. I don't know why, but I found it funny and endearing. Probably the eyes.

So, this is where the friendship comes into play. Rather than just blunder through this magical time travel event, she actually tells Ben what is going on, immediately, over breakfast (remember, its the next morning, magically) and he is, of course, confused and worried. But she has plans, plans to show him how she is time travelling and how she has to fix .... something. Cuz that's how time travel magic works. Fix something, and then you can go home.

That evening, Ben comes over for Gingerbread House making, mainly for the benefit of the kid, but also so... Ben can choke on a gumdrop and Ange can go, "SEE ! SEE ! I told you I knew the future, and I still saved your life just like I did when this originally happened!" Tyler is more and more noticing the two's connections, but Ange is just waiting for tonight to come, the night when 10 years prior (or now) Tyler proposed, and she said no.

Exceeeept, this time Tyler is even more work work work than she remembered, mainly because her hanging more with Ben is allowing him to have more time with his phone, and he accepted a job offer. That night is not about proposals but about him being distracted by work. 

Of note, Angie is also noticing the disconnect between her parents. Even ten years ago (or now) they had been drifting, which eventually leads to the break up. She needs to find out why and does lots of poking and prying. Mom's playing dumb. And we are getting a side plot about sis not being able to get pregnant. All of this is meant to hint that Angie from 2011 was so distracted by medical school that she was missing all the things going on in other family member's lives.

For a fluffy Hallmarkie, this one wants more complications than most.

Ben is going to be invited over for decorating, but Ange still needs to get Tyler in the proposing mindset, so she arranges a fake-GF for Ben through Aunt Myrt's granddaughter, a bubbly vacuous nice girl who is more than enthusiastic to play the role, which is kind of weird, and Ben plays along though he is less than enthusiastic about it. 

It kind of works? Tyler does propose, but... back on the train, Angie voices her frustration that she only has half a ticket. Ben is not jazzed by all this. Angie's next attempt is to repair the relationship she had always assumed she had with her sister, but was too distracted to notice she was... too distracted. Angie has a lot of misconceptions about the past for a girl who obviously spent all her time avoiding it. That doesn't work. Then finally, she hits on the real deal -- make sure her parents reignite the spark and don't break up eight years later! She talks to Aunt Myrt, professes a need to recreate the night of their first meeting at Aunt Myrt's first annual Xmas Party. It works, Mom in a hot pink 35 year old dress dazzles Dad and ... fireplace relit. Buuuut Angie is still in 2011, and Conductor Brown is not helping, and reminds her time is running out.

Then sis gives Angie something that she should have had given to her many many years ago, before this repeat 2011 -- a note from Ben that was supposed to be hidden inside a Secret Santa gift from him. A note professing his love and asking to move their friendship to the next level. She never responded, he assumed it was not what she wanted, and just left it at that, while still pining. But reading the note, Angie realizes what is going on and ... with an incredibly thin stretch of emotional development, realizes she has loved Ben all along, all her life. She tosses the ring back in Tyler's face, who is more than happy to catch his flight to Barcelona (a soccer thing) and.... the gold ticket is full. Buuuuut before she can confess everything to Ben face to face, the train is beckoning and Conductor Brown says, "Its now or never...." She does not want to live 10 years of her life over again, so she calls Ben, tells him she loves him and says, "Meet me on Xmas Eve at Fancy Resto and 10pm!" Back in 2021, that will just be later that day.

Exceeeept, Angie is called in and work work works (saving lives) through the deadline. She grabs a fancy green dress from her locker (she has fancy dresses in her work locker?!?!?) and runs to the resto to find --- it closing. Its Xmas Eve lady, can we just go home? But Ben calls from a corner table. But this is a new Ben, a Ben who she confessed love to 10 years ago and is now in a long term relationship with her and .... well, at least they let the last ten years of New History flood back into her brain (does that hurt?) before he proposes himself. Kiss kiss, very happy ending.

Exceeeept, time travel gaff? Why doesn't Ben remember she had time travelled? If she gets to remember it, why doesn't he? He should know that the woman in front of him right now just got back from 2011... oh never mind, its a Hallmarkie.

The Formulae: Despite being a time travel focused movie, it still gets in all the requisite Xmas stuff. There is Ben's tree lot, and decorating of trees, and an Xmas Eve Deadline, and hot chocolate, and decorating of trees and gingerbread houses, and a tree lighting in the town square, and an Xmas dance event (no red dress though, but Mom's hot pink number) and a Dick BF.

Unformulae: Its thoroughly about time travel hijinx and was clearly elevator-pitching, "We snagged two Back to the Future stars, so let's capture the same vibe!"

True Calling? Technically, the stop she was trying to make is "ignore Xmas" and while Xmas is all around them (do they feel it in their fingers, in their toes) the Magic is not about recreating Xmas, but more about the whole tight-knit-family deal. So, not really. 

The Rewind: It wasn't so much as a rewind but a loud chuckle at the, "Go ahead Henrik, you can put the first ornament on the tree..." as he reaches out with a red bulb to place it on a very obviously already decorated tree.

The Regulars: Fonseca went on to make four more of these movies over the next four years --- hope she is in line to become new Hallmarkie Royalty. Might have to give this year's entry a shot. Chandler Massey has done a few including this one. 

How does it Hallmark? Pretty decently. While it was very obvious that Ben was pining for the fjords, the banter between the two really nailed it on "best friends" but her "I love you!" realization was not sold to me.

How does it movie? Made for TV Time Travel Hijinx movie maybe?

How Does It Snow? OMG, where do I start. They went sooooo over budget on the fake snow here. There were soooo many scenes of full snow fall, snow everywhere, and all of it fake. Combinations of soap flakes and cotton batting everywhere!! And the digital snow! Someone must have invented the digital equivalent of a snow blowing machine because every fly over shot of the old timey train had EVERYTHING blanked in a dusting of snow, like the aerosol can stuff my mom blanketed our living room with every year when I was a kid. And Angie's family home with its snow covered roof and decorations and banks of snow, all added in post!

Toast & Kent's Xmas (2025) Advent Calendar - Day 17: The Preacher's Wife

1996, d. Penny Marshall - Disney+

The Preacher's Wife is, at least on paper, the perfect remake. It takes a classic and perhaps even beloved film starring one of the brightest and most charismatic stars of its era, and brings it to a modern setting, adapted wholly to its environment and its characters, and stars one of the brightest and most charismatic stars of its era. If you're ever going to think "who's a good substitute for Cary Grant?", "Denzel Washington" is absolutely the right answer.

The thing about The Preacher's Wife is that the role Washington plays -- the angel Dudley -- may share the same name and vocation as the role played by Grant almost fifty years earlier in The Bishop's Wife, but they are not the same character. Just for starters, Washington's Dudley used to be human, and apparently not that all that long ago (possibly within the 20th century). He's been in the queue for an assignment on Earth for decades apparently and has finally been given a shot, to which he is absolutely elated. Grant's Dudley has been on assignment for millennia, apparently, he's seen it all and has an omnipotence that Washington's character doesn't. 

These (and other) differences aren't trivial, they shape the roles they play quite differently, and there's really no mistaking them for the same character. The same can be said for the rest of the players in the film. The titular Bishop and his wife are Henry and Julia, as are the titular Preacher and his wife, but that's where the similarities end.

The Preacher's Wife doesn't just redo what was done before beat by beat, note by note, it rebuilds the story and characters from the ground up. 

Where Bishop Henry had already moved on from his troubled parish and was having difficulties negotiating the building of a new place of worship, here the Reverend Henry (Courtney B. Vance, Final Destination 5) is still very much in his parish, and a core part of his community. But his troubles are that he cannot do enough to stop the troubles his community is having. The local youth shelter has closed down, the church is in financial straights while still well attended, the local orphanage has closed and Henry's son's best friend is being moved to be housed elsewhere, and a local youth he's helped before has been falsely accused of armed robbery. All these things, as well as just supporting the sick and elderly and destitute in his community, weigh on the Reverend, and these troubles wind up isolating him from Julia (Whitney Houston, The Bodyguard) and his 6-year-old son Jeremiah (Justin Pierre Edmund, in an absolutely adorable but so not saccharine or precocious performance).

Unlike Julia in The Bishop's Wife, here, naturally, the role has been bolstered to put Houston in the spotlight, and, of course, get her to use her greatest talent. There is a lot of Houston singing here, largely gospel, but a sequence of Dudley, as Henry's behest, taking Julia out dancing leads to Julia meeting an old friend (played by Lionel Richie) and goading her into performing a soulful, romantic ballad, which she of course nails, and sends Dudley swooning.  It's their return from this event that both sparks their attraction, but also fuels Henry's jealousy, both in a way that was never quite as present or potent in the original.

Henry here is being tempted away from his parish, his community by real estate mogul Joe Hamilton ("Than man is so oily you can fry chicken on his smile") as played by Gregory Hines (Wolfen). Hamilton wants to gentrify the neighborhood and upscale the church, with Reverend Henry becoming a broadcast-worthy preacher. As other members of the community start to fall under Hamilton's sway, so too does Henry, much to Julia's dismay.

Here, Julia doesn't want to just be Henry's wife, but his partner. Most of her input is subtle, punching up the choir and helping with distributing alms. But she has ideas, ideas that Henry doesn't even have time to hear in order to dismiss them. He's put her on the back burner, and it's the crux of the whole film... sort of.

And this is what I mean by The Preacher's Wife being the perfect remake on paper. It rebuilds the story, the characters, the world and it feels so rich and alive, and yet it also repeats so many of the problems of the original when it most certainly could have improved upon them. The biggest issue is about focus and perspective. Whose story is this? Dudley's? Julia's? Henry's? Jeremiah is our narrator, so is it his? This lack of focus once again makes it tough for the story to ever really click. Where Henry in the original was very much the third lead of the film, he's pretty much the primary here, but this means Dudley winds up disappearing for stretches, and used inefficiently.

Both films lack a strong central lesson that Dudley is trying to teach Henry... or maybe it's just that Dudley is a terrible teacher. Dudley is just there to help, but he should be helping Henry help himself, and in both films, too much is left to Dudley to directly intervene. Just as in The Bishop's Wife, here the reconciliation between Henry and Julia is kind of just one moment and doesn't feel big enough to hand-wave away the problems they were having. There's not enough grown-ups having conversations saying how they really feel and understanding each other to feel truly satisfying.

Also in both films, the romance, if you can call it that, between Dudley and Julia, is barely a thing. It's more of a thing in The Preacher's Wife (Julia tells her mom she's just window shopping, to which her mom says "Well, don't go shopping with money in your pocket! And you better not be putting anything in the layaway plan, either!" The incomparable Jennifer Lewis, everyone! Amazing in this film. She's also only 6 year older than Whitney, playing her mother...tsk tsk). 

The Preacher's Wife, I think, is a more engaging film than The Bishops Wife, but only by a narrow margin. They're complimentary in their own way, like they're in a shared universe where angels are sent to Earth to help, and these two angels just happen to have similar missions but in two very different communities and with very different people. Where I don't quite click with The Preacher's Wife is its increased focus of faith and devotion and worship. Gospel isn't really my thing, and, quite frankly Whiney's singing never was either. Since both are given such prominence, it's really the detractor for me when comparing the two. One's mileage may vary greatly on that front.

Toast & Kent's XMas (2025) Advent Calendar: Day 16 - Champagne Problems

2025, Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider) -- Netflix

Ghost Rider? Huh.

The Draw: Budget. But also, because, back when we started rearing this beast I started with a Netflix take on the Hallmarkie, Holiday in the Wild followed by The Knight before Christmas. Both were part of Netflix's earlier forays into Hallmarkie territory but with the budgets of Netflix behind them. Eventually that allure faded for the Netflix-ian Purple Suits and they went down the more traditional Xmas romcom path. Remember, even without the trope-laden structure of a Hallmarkie, there have always been Xmas romcoms, but they always feel distinctly different than these. This year, Netflix seemed to add a few back into their roster.

That said, its not like Netflix actually produces these movies, they are just the distributers, but there strikes me as a distinction when the production companies get the go ahead because they know it will end up on Netflix, and construct with that in mind.

HERstory: We actually begin with the story of Dom Perignon, the monk not the expensive champagne, and how he "accidentally" discovered the bubbles. Then we almost immediately switch to the Big City with Sydney Price (Minka Kelly, Titans), a work work work woman from The Roth Group who gives an impressive presentation on how TRG can acquire floundering champagne producer Château Cassell, in France. Sydney impresses her boss so much, he sends her to Paris to meet with the company, who will also be hearing three other proposals.

Sydney is all about work but promises her little sister that she will enjoy at least one night, and thus builds an itinerary for speed-running Paris, all the places marked, with times. Except she has one gap -- a good bookstore to pickup something for her sister. The concierge, who have always been the magical figures in movies centered around hotels, suggests a quaint little place called Les Etoiles which is magic unto itself. Unfortunately, no its not a real Parisian bookstore but the movie is actually shot in Paris, as opposed to Vancouver. And in the bookstore she runs into the handsome helpful Henri (Tom Wozniczka, Slow Horses). He doesn't work at the bookstore.

They banter. They flirt. He's better at it than she is, after all he's Parisian. She has a terrible plan to see all the tourist spots and he offers to show her the real Paris, a better view of Paris (nudge nudge wink wink, say no more). And its Xmas in Paris, so all the wow's. They have Xmas Market crepes and mulled wine and macarons (he pronounces it correctly) and they end up at the Paris Ferris wheel for the more heartfelt all alone with a spectacular view conversation. It ends with, "I had a great life today..." and a proper non-Hallmarkie kiss, no interruptions. And then.... (GASP!) sex.

Next morning, after glow, and he's out getting coffee & croissant and ... she's late!! Off she rushes to the hotel, showers and dresses and has to run to the place where the work work meeting is happening. She comes in to find the other companies doing the presentation -- the prim Brigitte (Astrid Whettnall, Winter Palace), the flamboyantly gay playboy Roberto (Sean Amsing, Love, Guaranteed; I am not sure, but I think he plays the exact same character in this also Netflix also romcom movie) and the grim and proper Otto (Flula Borg, The Rookie; apparently Flula also plays D&D), from Germany. And then, just after Sydney is about to begin her presentation -- in walks the owner's son, Henri from last night.

Awkward. Especially since he seems to know the reputation of TRG better than Sydney does, and its not good.

The owner, Hugo (Thibault de Montalembert, The Tunnel), sees the challenges before him and decides he needs more time to decide on who should take over his legacy, that all the presenters should experience what making champagne is all about, and asks them all to come to the Château Cassell proper, in a quaint French version of the PST.

The idea Hugo has is to present each person with an experience of something involved in the wine making business. Just because its December, it doesn't mean everything shuts down. They snip at vines, they rotate bottles, they get to know each other. Roberto is all about hedonistic experience and spending his daddy's money, Otto is a cliche hoping to impress German precision on Hugo's family business,  and Brigitte is a known factor and someone who has the eye of Hugo, the longtime widower as we learned on the Ferris wheel.

Sydney still wants to impress upon Hugo and Henri that she is about giving smaller businesses a chance to survive, but she doesn't know that her company has been gutting said businesses after she made the acquisitions. How she doesn't know this just says she is so very myopic. But seeing how she interacts with his father, whom she finds real affection for, softens Henri to her all over again. He even finds her cheese farts cute. 

As I have mentioned before, so many of these Hallmarkies are as much about processing grief as they are about finding love. Hugo and Henri have never really reconciled about losing Henri's mother, and are in an angry, hurting, stagnant point of their lives. Sydney herself has never let herself move on to having her own life, since her mother's passing. The three really are what each other needs the most.

In the end, after the complication where Henri overhears Sydney complying with TRG's plans to entirely destroy Château Cassell, but not her quitting the company, and he tells her to go away, and she does, Hugo gives the company to the fop, as champagne is all about celebrating life and that is all Roberto does -- party. But a bond has formed among the quartet, which says each of their strengths will be leveraged in the future of this family company.

But Sydney has run away, back to Paris, back to the bookstore to grab something before she flies home to find a new job, a new adventure when.... Henri arrives. The kind of magic concierge has redirected him there for another kiss, a sealing of a future. We end  the movie on a "one year later" Happily Ever After.

The Formulae: The movie makes use of them but in the more glitzy, glossy way that is Netflix's backing approval. The PST, all snow covered in French countryside December, is a quaint but not tiny village -- when they have the Xmas festival, the architecture is grand and sweeping and its more a rave with hundreds of attendees. We had the deadline, the signing of the deal before Xmas. We had the "smaller" Xmas fair where crepes and mulled wine are had. We had the complication, and we had rivalry, where in cheese is fed to a lactose intolerant girl (cute farts!). The less gratifying trope is where Sydney, who has worked hard to get where she is, dumps her job to stay in France with Henri, but at least it sounds like she finds alternate more gratifying work. Also, Henri doesn't have to take over his father's business, so gets to open his bookstore meets wine bar, his heart's dream. 

Unformulae: Sex! Kissing before the final scene! Not shot in Canada! Did I mentioned SEX ?

True Calling? I guess it did? There was plenty of champagne and there were plenty of problems?

The Rewind: I had to check whether the flyover of the PST was AI generated or just the usual CGI enhanced shot. I am rather sensitive this year to the coming onslaught of AI generated material which will eventually replace what stock & CG footage used to provide. Oh, and I had to stop and rewind the cute puppy chases the bunny wabbit scene, especially when they puppy stumble... but the bunny is sooooo fake looking.

The Regulars: This is off-market Hallmarkie so no, nobody has done many of this kind of movie. But I think Minka could find a life in these movies, as she adapted well to the concept.

How does it Hallmark? In this world of post-Hallmark after-market producers & distributers, but with money, it does a decent job.

How does it movie? No, of course it doesn't. But what surprises me more is that people seemed to expect it to be a proper Xmas romcom. In reading through other reviews and recaps, I was surprised at how many people lambasted it for .... well, all the reasons people watch these kinds of movies. The plots are contrived, the characters 1.1 dimensional and the lines usually incredulous. But that's to be expected. If anything, the extra money behind this did enhance to a greater degree --- the sets were utterly spectacular. And I have to shout out to Flula, who plays his German weirdo act to perfection again. And if I am being honest, I rather adored Minka in this role -- she's a beautiful woman over 40 allowed to play a beautiful woman over 40.

How Does It Snow? There was some actual laid out snow in some chase-the-cute-puppy scenes.