T&K's XMas (2022) Advent Calendar Day 14 - A Christmas to Remember

2016, David Weaver (Lights, Camera, Christmas!) -- Amazon

The Draw: Mira Sorvino, and I wanted to harken back to a time before I believe the irony-watching was happening, before the streaming services were trying to cash in on the ironic-not-ironic watching, before the Hallmark Bingo games, etc. When Hallmarkies were sincerely, as in I mean unironically, lacking? In other words, without going too deeply into the analysis (I am just not ready to fully sink into thinking about that), when Hallmarkies were just what they were: cheaply done, schmaltzy, trope-laden, generally badly acted and directed, and yet, were entirely fine with that. None of this elevated, trying to be real movies of late.

HERstory: In first presentation, Jennifer Wade (Mira Sorvino, The Replacement Killer) is the Marilyn Dennis of her network, a rather overwrought lifestyle TV show host freaking out about the colour of her shirt, the styling of the tree and the perfect presentation for her Xmas special. While I was also aghast at someone tripping and dropping the Xmas turkey, that roast beast was by no means a perfect presentation turkey, so it didn't dawn on me that she was supposed to be a "TV chef" ala Martha Stewart, but... whatever.

Anywayz, her show has a chance at "going national" (aren't they always) but the stress is getting to her so she needs to get away for Xmas. No New Yorky typical party to party Xmas, just some time away for herself. Her manager/friend Paula (Brenda Crichlow, Christmas at the Chateau) offers her a chalet in ... Aspen (I don't recall, but somewhere ... rural wintry) with a spa nearby. Jennifer makes the mistake of saying no to the 4x4 rental and her sporty little car veers off the road in a blizzard. She crawls back up to the road, and is almost hit by vet John (Cameron Mathison, General Hospital), who was returning from a nearby stable visit, where he proved how kind he was by accepting a pie, instead of money. Jennifer climbs into the cab of John's truck, and sits on the pie.

No one thinks that she crashed. No one makes note of where they found her, nor looks for the disturbed snow off the side of the road. No one checks out the car, to collect her belongings, or maybe ID and a coat? Nope, John just sits on a pie and drives her home to his... well, his fucking mansion in the mountains. I forgot how opulence was such a part of a certain era of Hallmarkies. Everyone is so fucking rich! His house, with a driveway he seems to refuse to plow, is massive and that kitchen!!! 

Anywayz, the blizzard is coming down hard, and they barely get home before everything is snowed in. John the Vet patches her boo boo up and she sleeps off the head injury, because everyone knows that is what you are supposed to do. The next morning Jennifer reveals she has no idea who she is, where she was going, and how she got to standing in the middle of the road, before being seated on a pie. John will have the single doctor come over, along with her husband the Sheriff, once the storm calms down. Of note, Jennifer, who they name Maggie (don't recall why), opens the door seeking escape from the opulence, and the snow is piled shoulder height. Its supposed to be comical, but it is not a snow drift, but boulders of snow piled up high, as if someone had blockaded his door with dead snowmen. Dude, clear your walk -- the doctor is coming!

So, her head injury is not bad, but her memory may take some time to come back. So Maggie will now just spend some time hanging out with John and his three kids, while the Sheriff posts up "do you know this lady" posters, cuz that's how Sheriff identify people with amnesia, and NOBODY has any idea where her car might be because John doesn't tell anyone that he was coming back from a certain stable on a certain road, at a certain bend in the road. 

Back in New Yorky, Paula is calling Jennifer but getting no answers.

Oh, I should mention, John had a disastrous date in an obvious high end resto (might be a homey PST, but all the restos are super high end looking) with an old high school friend, and she tries to feed him tofu. All good men from mountainous PSTs eat red meat and burgers and dagwood style sandwiches! But we have a rival for Maggie's potential affections!

John's kids love Maggie, not just because she can cook (John only makes Beef Stroganoff) but because everything has been lacking since the Dead Mom situation. So, with Maggie around, and her Martha Stewart / Marilyn Dennis lifestyle vibe, she and the kids decorate the house providing all the Xmas Spirit a family of five could need !

Paula is still calling.

Despite the should high snow balls, despite the road blocking blizzard, despite the Sherriff and wife arriving on snowmobile, by pretty much the second day, John and Maggie are in town, seeing the terrible, un-useful "do you know this woman?" posters, aggravating the potential rival and learning about each other. Maggie has a "I like mittens" scene which made me snort in memory of Parts: The Clonus Story. Google it.

John still hasn't plowed his driveway, because manly men with manly 4x4s don't need to.

Oh, there is a winter dance event fair something coming up, and Maggie needs a dress! Dead Mom's parents provide her with the perfect green dress. Attentive people will remember Jennifer Wade hates green, but Maggie seems fine with it. At the dance, Paula and Jennifer's BF (BF !?!?! I thought he was just background network exec guy; Steve Bacic, Andromeda) show up, because Romantic Rival has finally recognized Jennifer/Maggie and called them, but hasn't told anyone, because of some intricately detailed plan to ... reveal during the dance and win John's affections? Who knows, Romantic Rival seems nice and all, but  a tofu eating woman's (shudder) gotta do what a tofu eating woman's gotta do! Deputy Whoever has also finally found Jennifer's car, and her ID, proving that Paul and Network Exec/BF are not nefarious kidnappers, and Jennifer really is who they say she is, which is confirmed by instant memory return, so not sure of point of his reveal. Maggie is confirmed as Jennifer and whisked off to the chalet/spa she was supposed to be at all along. 

But she doesn't want to be there, dumps Network Exec/BF and runs back to kiss John and hug her instant family.

The Formulae: Dead Mom ! John's wife passed away not so long ago leaving John with his three kids, and a little lost amidst his massive fortune. PST ! The town of ... oh, I just didn't pay attention, but it was probably in Colorado or Oregon which are the typical states for wintry mountains. Oh, and the Big City was New York(y) with an incredible stock footage opening scene! There is an Xmas Dance of sorts, where everything comes to a climax. There is baking, as Maggie uses muscle memory to show everyone how good she is. And despite being a career driven Big City Gal, once presented with her instant family, Jennifer choses to move back to PST, Colorado and shoot her show from there. But this is weird, as despite being Classic Hallmarkie, I am struggling to remember the tropes that stood out to me.

Unformulae: Meanwhile, the green dress is still ticking me off. 

True Calling? Christmas to REMEMBER; a pun! Get it? Snort. No not really, more like a weak groan.

The Rewind: Yeah, that second turkey after The Great Turkey Disaster that starts the movie, is not done. So much for being TV Chef.

The Regulars: Sorvino no, but male lead Mathison was in a ton of Hallmarkies before and AFTER this one. He did seem to be doing it rather effortlessly but I blame the lack of chemistry between the two on Sorvino; she just acts out of place in the movie, and not from the plot. Crichlow is also in quite a few.  Kevin McNulty, who played incidental character Dan (didn't really see the point of the character, other than to have John have another male to talk to about Maggie) is one of those stable Canadian faces I mentioned in other posts, always just a bit more solid than the stable of Hallmarkie standard actors. Speaking of incidental characters + Canadian face, during a dance scene, I saw an older actor dancing with Maggie in the background of the dance segment, and he is just one of those Canadian faces that you see everywhere, but cannot name, so much in this instance he is not in the credits. I need to create an IMDB List of such Canadian actors.

How does it Hallmark? What grading system can we use for this, as we inundate ourselves more and more with the Hallmarkies? Sometimes a movie just has so many tropes piled one atop another, its obvious, but that's not always the case. Maybe Low Effort? Derisively, you might say "low effort" is the (cough) hallmark of these movies, and if so, this is a shining example. Most of the characters are phoned home, especially Sorvino's. McNulty, while solid, seemed to be there only for the stroganoff, which he can be seen eating leftovers even after the plot of the movie has left this dish behind. The romance needs to be solid, and the chemistry on fire; it's not. At one point, I wondered if the only reason John began to have feelings for Maggie is because there was a woman in his house. So, I guess I am coming to a roundabout way of saying, "No." Despite being an early example from what I envision The Prime Years of Hallmark, this is one is not a success.

How does it movie? Gawds no, which might become my standard response.

How Does It Snow? This one is weird. There is obviously large amounts of snow used for scenes, as they couldn't get away when depicting a mountain town just after a blizzard. But, even so, everything was pretty much magically cleared by the time we were doing key "walk around" scenes. I am thinking that likely most of the realistic snow shots are stock footage, while any rest, they shipped some in from a local skating rink?

3 Short Paragraphs: Cold Pursuit

2019, Hans Petter Moland (In Order of Disappearance) -- Amazon

I swore the original was also called Cold Pursuit, but apparently not. Hans Petter Moland returns to (re)direct the American version of his own movie from Norway. Based on the trailer, I can see that he pretty much just re-did his original movie (with Stellan Skarsgård), shot for shot, transplanting it to Kehoe, a ski resort town in Colorado, while retaining the otherworldly snowbound look of the original. I will have to go back to Amazon and find the original, as I know it's there somewhere.

Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson, Love Actually) is a snowplow driver and Kehoe, Citizen of the Year award winner. He and his wife Grace (Laura Dern, Jurassic Park) live in an absolutely lovely little cabin high on a mountain, all alone. Soon after, their son is murdered by drug dealers, but local police just blame a heroin addiction & overdose. Grace leaves Nels, as he won't acknowledge that the two didn't "know" their son. Nels knows his son didn't do drugs, and tracks down the drug dealers who killed him, to take revenge.

This movie has a very Fargo feel to it. It's not comedic per se, more just darkly amusing, as we see how ludicrous the whole revenge plot that spills into a drug gang turf war is. I have a feeling that Skarsgård played a much more reserved man than Neeson, who we are already quite convinced has a particular set of skills that lend to killing drug dealers. But the performances are great, and the visuals are incredible. Just that one scene of Nels riding the snowplow on a main road that is about 12' below the top of the snow, a line of cars slowly following him, was so familiar to snow we had when I was a kid. I just wished that the plot centered more around him, as he felt more like a catalyst to the event, than a main character.

T&K's XMas (2020) Advent Calendar: Day 4 - Let It Snow

OK, I should have pre-ambled in the last post, that not every Xmas movie I watch for this year's Advent Calendar will be part of the Toast to Hallmarkent. Some will just be straight up Xmas Movies. Or even just movies traditionally watched around Xmas time. And some will just be classics that I likely have not written about.

2019, Luke Snellin (Temple) -- Netflix 

Kent was right; this was a pretty good movie, not a Hallmark romcom in the least, but a classic teen romantic comedy, where we wander briefly through the lives of a number of teens, in a small rural town, just before Xmas. This movie was just full to the brim with familiar young faces, including Isabella Moner (Dora and the Lost City of Gold), Shameik Moore (technically, familiar voice, Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse), Liv Hewson (Dramaworld), Odeya Rish (Lady Bird), Jacob Batalon (Spider-Man: Far From Home), and Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) as well as a small host of others. 

In a small town, most teen lives intersect or at least pass by each other. In the smallest, one event might bring them together, such as the party being arranged by Keon (Batalon). Julie (Moner) is heading back to town, from the Big City, when she bumps into teen singing star Stuart (Moore), literally, when the train is halted. They both jump off and end up at _Affle Town, the local divey waffle joint. Keon and Dorrie (Hewson) work there, and Dorrie has just had another row with her best friend Addie (Rush), which has left Addie walking around upset she cannot find her latest boyfriend. Meanwhile Angie "The Duke" (Shipka) and her best bud Tobin end up playing broomball with pretty, and pretty nice, college boy JP. Tobin is obviously in love with Angie, but they are best friends.

All typical teen dramedy stories, but the movie does them with a great amount of charm and sincerity. I don't often find myself chuckling out loud at these kind of movies, as they often just degrade into the lowest common denominator, but this one had heart. Each of the three love stories, as it is primarily a romantic comedy, is given enough focus while letting the other minor stories play out satisfactorily. I just liked these kids and cared about how these stories played out. The only weird bit, was the paranoid Xmas Angel character, tinfoil wearing, tow truck driver Joan Cusack. She was also the opening & closing narrator, but her role was kind of extraneous, if a little fun. 

Now, while this was billed as a holiday movie (in 2019) the Xmas season plays as much a role as it did it Die Hard. BUT being shot in actual winter rural Ontario lent such a great feel of authenticity that few of these holiday movies have. When Julie and Stuart jump off the train into the snow banks, they have to wade through cold blowing snow. When The Duke and Tobin flee the tough broom ball twins, and slamming his stationwagon into a snowbank, I recalled my mom's spinout. They are small things, but I like real snow in snow filled movies.

3 Short Paragraphs: Arctic

2018, Joe Penna (some shorts & TV) -- download

Get up, check the fishing lines, scrape the snow out of the SOS ditches (black dirt beneath stands out), eat some raw fish and climb to the top of a nearby ridge to hand-crank the beeping alert box. This is Overgård's (Mads Mikkelsen, Polar) routine, into which we are tossed. There is no background, no plane crash, no flashbacks to a family life or coworkers that miss him. We just get the snow, the cold and the isolation. It is quiet and morose. That he is still mostly sane is astounding. And then a helicopter appears to rescue him, only to crash themselves. Inside he finds the pilot dead, and the copilot clinging to life. From that moment onward, Overgård's routine is blown away like so much snow.

He has been surviving. Barely. He knows of a life station some distance away but he is afraid to go, afraid to make the trek that he cannot fully believe he will survive. But now the copilot is here. Not only does she provide the human contact he has missed for so long. But she will not survive his routine of waiting. So, he packs them up, makes the best of his stores and sleds he can, and off they go.

This movie is quiet and desperate. Overgård occasionally talks to her, but she barely ever wavers into consciousness. His only real companion is the terrain. They have to get to that station or she will die. But both may die on the way. It doesn't surprise me that Mads pulls off this story; he has always seemed like the actor who could well portray hardship. But the rest of the movie has to be given to the director, as he is the one who coaxes the portrayal out of the landscape and the temperature and the isolation. So, kudos, as I was left freezing and shaken at the end of the journey.