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Over the past two weekends, Hallmark has shown original
movies that have very similar plots. In fact there are a couple more on this
year’s schedule that also fall into the same box, so I am declaring that there
is now a new Christmas movie genre called “The
Grinch that Plagiarized Christmas.” These movies always involve a cold hearted
capitalist who doesn’t have time for Christmas, or love, or joy and only has
time for work.
CHARMING CHRISTMAS
In Charming Christmas we have Julie Benz (Darla from Buffy the Vampire Slayer) playing Meredith Rossman, the heir apparent to the Rossman Department Store. She is a cold hearted business woman who is more about money then about the good old American values that made Rossman’s great – taking care of your workers, community over profit, and above all Christmas Joy.
As the Holiday Season rolls around Meredith is put in charge
of the possibility of franchising Rossman’s and allowing her parents to retire.
At the same time, Meredith’ hires a new store Santa who is well known for
bringing the Holiday Spirit to departments stores (Is there some darkweb network
of departments store Santa’s that I don’t know about?). By the way, this guy
may or may not really be Santa.
Meredith is also made to wear the Mrs. Clause suit that is a
Rossman’s tradition, and this starts to thaw her heart and bring her around to
Rossman’s as a member of the community, not a cash cow for her and her 1%
parents.
There is also a cute portmanteau of sub plots involving Christmas
love and family that make this worth watching. I really liked this movie, but it needed a little more magic at the end. Hallmark should have given us 5 more minutes to wrap up the love story.
One note: I am very tired of this joke in these types of movies: “While
other kids were playing with dolls and lego I was playing Monopoly”. It was
tired when Alex P. Keaton made the joke on Family Ties, it is tired now.
Crytime – 34 minutes
CHARMING CHRISTMAS:
I’M NOT READY FOR CHRISTMAS
Ok I have to say out of the gate that one of my least favorite Hallmark movies was “Christmas at Cartwrights” with Alicia Witt and she is in this one so I may have been a little biased going in. This movie, as stated above, is a “The Grinch that Plagiarized Christmas” movie, with a little plot theft from Jim Carey’s “Liar Liar” thrown in. (Seriously I am surprised there was not a cease and desist order from Imagine and Universal Films)Alicia Witt plays Holly Nolan, an advertising executive who from the first scene is a liar. She lies about everything to everyone around her. (The odd part is that she is a horrible liar). She has a pre-teen niece who, tired of her Aunt Holly’s bullshit excuses for missing her events, askes a street corner Santa to make it so her Aunt Holly can’t lie any more. This of course happens and hilarity (not really) ensues.
Holly finds that having to be honest to the people in her life makes her life more difficult but ultimately more rewarding. This is an interesting question to ponder, but too in-depth for both my blog and this movie
There are a couple of interesting points to make about this movie. 1) Max Caulfeild plays the antagonist in this film. You will remember Maxwell Caulfeild as Michael Carrington from Grease 2. 2) The male models from the last scene look strangely fascist during their runway walk 3) There is an odd continuity error in the scene where Holly is talking to her boss (in his ugly sweater). Watch for the extra walking back and forth in the hallway behind them. I think she may be a Time Lord from the way she appears and disappears. 4) Alicia Witt did record a somewhat catchy Christmas tune for this movie and yes I bought it on Itunes.
Crytime – sniffles only at the very end
I'M NOT READY FOR CHRISTMAS:
