Category Archives: Jay

Christmas Jars

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Hope is adopted by the waitress who finds her abandoned in a diner as a baby. She’s working as an intern at a newspaper/aspiring reporter when her mother dies and suddenly Hope, now just 22, is alone in the world. And her apartment is broken into! It’s a crappy time, and right before Christmas, but a stranger brightens her day when she finds a Christmas Jar filled with cash left anonymously on her doorstep. It’s not just a ray of light during a difficult time, but a foot in the door of her budding career in journalism. A little digging uncovers a holiday phenomenon of giving.

The movie (which filmed right here in Ottawa during a cold snap last winter) was inspired by the novel of the same, by Jason F. Wright. The book, which came out in 2005, has since spawned actual Christmas jars being left anonymously across the country. Families fill jars with spare change over the year and leave it to a family in need during the Christmas season. The average jar may contain only $200 or so but it’s a gesture filled with kindness and always appreciated.

As the movie makes clear, a jar filled with not just cash but hope and goodwill, is proof that perhaps Christmas magic exists after all. A good Samaritan? A Christmas angel? A good-hearted neighbour? No matter: kindness is contagious, and whether it started with one person, it seems to have inspired a web of altruism.

Anyway, Hope (Jeni Ross) follows the trail of jars and traces their origins back to the Maxwells, a big-hearted family who basically take her in when she shows up on their doorstop pretending to write an article about their business. Of course then she stabs them in the back by publishing the jar story and breaking their anonymity, dousing them with a cold jar of betrayal. Will Hope offer another jarful of apologies? And will they counter with a jar of forgiveness? You’ll have to watch to find out if this movie ever recovers its Christmas spirit, but if you know the first thing about holiday movies, I think you can be fairly confident.

Christmas In Paris

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Robin’s boss/godmother Kate has helped her put her “modeling days behind her” – I can already tell I’m going to love this movie. They’re working on an ad campaign for a new fragrance, and asthmatic millionaire playboy French businessman Lucas is flying into town to oversee the shoot.

Who can blame him for falling in love with Robin who “reluctantly” agrees to stand in for a missing model. I mean, she’s beautiful, and it’s a good thing because she otherwise has no personality whatsoever. She loves Christmas and ponies and flowers and that’s it. Meanwhile, he’s a misunderstood wine connoisseur mama’s boy who also loves Christmas and has the means to make all a girl’s Christmas dreams come true. Cue the whirlwind Parisian romance! It’s what her dead mother would have wanted. What could possibly go wrong? Oh don’t worry, there’s something: let’s call it a Christmas surprise, and not the good kind!

This movie is stilted and stiff and not an enjoyable or entertaining watch. We already have holiday obligations that are awkward and unfun, we don’t need another one, not one we can so easily cancel – and guilt-free too. If you click on our ‘holiday movies’ tag below, you’ll find lots of other options. Lots are crummy but several are worthy, and just waiting for a couple of appreciative eyeballs like yours!

Christmas With a Prince: Becoming Royal

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Last time on Christmas With a Prince: dedicated pediatric doctor Tasha Miller (Kaitlyn Leeb) reunites with her high school crush who just happens to be Prince Alexander Cavalieri of St. Savarre (Nick Hounslow) who has just broken his leg on a nearby ski slope. He convalesces in hiding on her pediatric ward, which infuriates her, and yet his charm makes her think that she could save him from himself by loving him enough and injecting him with good old fashioned Christmas spirit.

Cut to the sequel, where we join Dr. Tasha on her way to see her prince. He’s busy with some treaty-signing with royals from Vandelien, including princess Miranda, who imagined that she might be the one by his side, so she’s jealously throwing royal wrenches into their happiness, especially after the prince proposes a certain question to Tasha and she starts her journey to “become royal” (ie, plan a wedding, do some neck-strengthening exercises to prepare herself for That Crown). Although, inexplicably her arch-nemesis Miranda will not only be staying for the holidays, but will be helping with the wedding planning too. And if that’s already pushing the bounds of your skepticism, you’re really not going to like what’s coming next. Let’s just say that Miranda is ruthless. But at least her black heart is a kind of motivation we understand; when the other characters baffle us with their choices, there is little to explain it away.

The two leads have a convincing enough chemistry, and are capable enough to anchor a minor Hallmark movie. But some of the other key players are…less so. But when the movie’s not taking itself remotely seriously, not bothering to obey the basic laws of the universe, does bad acting really matter? I mean, it doesn’t matter if you’ve turned it off, which is what you should have done. That’s the appropriate response. Not to worry: there’s be another Christmas movie along in 5-10 minutes. Go raid the fridge for leftovers, find your cozy slippers, and flip the channel for a heart-warming piece of crap you can live with.

This Christmas

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Christmas is hard. Even if you like your family – and I mean each and every one of them, even when they’re drinking – even if you LOVE them, it’s tough to be around them and not eventually revert to our petty childhood selves. Ma’Dere (Loretta Divine) is the matriarch of the Whitfield. A mother of six, there’s nothing this mama loves more than having her kids around the table at Christmas time, and with son Quentin home for holidays for the first time in four years, this year is bound to be one of the best. Right?

Except Quentin (Idris Elba) and Ma’Dere have a slight strain in their relationship because he idolizes his father, who left the family to pursue his love of music. And then so did Quentin. And Quentin’s not fond of Ma’Dere’s new beau Joe (Delroy Lindo) who’s actually lived with her in the family home for years, but when Quentin’s around, they pretend otherwise. Sister Lisa (Regina King) might have something to say about it – she usually does, about everything, she’s the self-declared caretaker and know-it-all of the family – but this year she’s a little preoccupied with her own failing marriage. And guess what? The rest of the kids are struggling too: one keeps switching majors and never graduating, one owes an awful lot of money and is about to be visited by some knee-busting bookies, one is secretly married (to a white lady!)…well, you get the point. Just your typical warm and fuzzy Christmas – and actually, I mean that sincerely. Because everybody’s got something. You, me, and the secret white wife. We’re all dealing with our own shit, and then stepping on each other’s toes trying to deal with each other at Christmas. But the Whitfields are a nice family. They love each other. They cook together and dance in the living room and bicker over how big the tree is.

The cast (minus Chris Brown) goes a long way in making the Whitfield house feel like a home. They’re affectionate and snippy and get in each other’s space and business just like real siblings do when given time and eggnog. Lack of time + surplus of siblings = we only get to know about 4/6 of them as real people. The rest, plus spouses, kids, and hangers-on, just fill in the spaces of the house, making sure the dining room table gets fully extended (anyone else always get stuck lugging in the leaves? and also, why are they called leaves?) and the turkey gets picked to the bone. Ma’Dere’s house is as full as her heart and truthfully, I could have spent even longer at their hearth, chaos and all.

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish

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Sean has called this movie the Coyote Ugly of Christmas movies. Um. Coyote Ugly might be aspirational for this movie. But it’s kind of a funny statement for a film that tells you its biggest influence right in the title. And yet.

Kat (Laura Marano) is in fact both a Cinderella type AND a Violet (that’s Piper Perabo in Coyote Ugly, in case you’re wondering – yes I had to look it up) AND part elf. Kat is an aspiring singer-songwriter who works in Santa’s Village, dreaming big and biding her time until she turns 18. Meanwhile she lives with her step-mother and step-sisters, who are truly awful to her and make her do all the chores. But at work she’s falling for Santa, which is probably as weird a that sounds because at first they only know their costumed selves. But eventually Santa reveals himself to be Nick (Gregg Sulkin), the son of Mr. Winterbottom, the richest man in town. But Kat closely guards her true identity (though let’s be honest: it consists solely of a wig…Nick must be pretty dense), vowing only to reveal it at the charity gala. Of course, if you know the fairy tale, you know Kat’s “steps” aren’t about to let that happen.

The step-mother and step-sisters have excessively, wonderfully gaudy costumes and hair but the characters are so over-the-top there’s just no basis in reality and it’s hard to guess where on the spectrum the filmmakers were aiming for. And that’s if the cheaply-executed music videos and song & dance numbers (auto-tuned within an inch of their lives) sprinkled throughout don’t get you down. And then there’s the ball charity gala, which was clearly and achingly shot with so little budget they were forced use a high school auditorium for the set. And a very hokey elf dance can only mean that for all Mr. Winterbottom’s wealth, the man has no taste.

I can’t imagine any grown human being liking this movie, but Sulkin is cute enough that this movie may fit the bill for tween girls looking for some PG romance.

The Christmas Lodge

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This Christmas rom-com features a threesome: Mary, Jack, and The Lord.

If that sounds like something that doesn’t give you the heebie jeebies, it’s about a woman who visits the dilapidated lodge her family used to host their Christmases at when she was a child. She helps its owner restore it to its former glory, allowing her grieving grandfather one last holiday in a familiar place still haunted by the memory of his wife.

The Christmas Lodge is not good and should not be undertaken unless you like major plot points to come randomly from the bible. It literally asks (and answers): what would Jesus do? And surprisingly, the answer was not: turn the channel.

Chistmas With The Kranks

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There was a time, a very weird time, when Tim Allen was the king of Christmas. He played Santa Claus in two VERY big movies and then he tried to keep the ball rolling with this one, I guess, though it hasn’t exactly captured a coveted ‘Christmas classic’ slot.

Christmas With The Kranks is confusing. Let’s start with that. Luther (Allen) and Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) Krank are opting out of Christmas this year. Their only daughter has gone to South America to join the Peace Corps so they’re unencumbered and just not motivated to go through the whole rigamarole. They’re going on a Caribbean cruise instead. Sound nice? Well you’re an idiot. For some reason, in this film, every single of one of the Kranks’ colleagues, friends, and neighbours shits all over them for daring to make this decision. You might believe that every person has the right to celebrate or not, but you’d be wrong, at least in the Kranks universe.

Here’s where it lost me: the movie itself is disgusted with Luther and Nora for their selfish decision. They’re called the KRANKS – they’re Scrooges and we’re not supposed to approve. And because they’re such Christmas-hating freaks, everyone in the movie feels entitled to bully them. Luther’s secretary shames him for his past gifts. Nora’s pastor judges her bikini body. The town devotes the entire front page of their newspaper to humiliating them (the entire front page! because they’re skipping Christmas!).The neighbours, led by busybody Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd), pretty much make war. They wage a campaign on their house as if Christmas is not a choice. They harass poor Nora, they chase down her car, they do things I am 100% sure are chargeable offenses. Nora in particular is terrorized by them.

Which brings up something truly special: Christmas With The Kranks is a comedy. Jamie Lee Curtis plays it like it’s a Christmas-themed horror movie. Every single thing she does is over the top, manic, panic-stricken, terrified.

Someone rang the doorbell?

You suspect the boy scouts are gossiping about you?

The Christmas ham you prefer isn’t available?

But while Jamie Lee Curtis is delighting me with her wacky and unnecessary performance, her character is majorly bumming me out. Nora Krank is one of those characters who I hope only exists in movies: she lives solely to be a mother. Her whole life is her daughter – when the daughter is gone, Christmas is pointless, but when the daughter suddenly announces she’s coming home for Christmas with no notice whatsoever (rude!), Nora drops all previous plans (remember that once in a lifetime trip worth thousands of dollars?) to throw together a Christmas with no food or decorations or gifts or guests or time to prepare. Which is when their neighbours all band together to help them out and the Kranks eat crow, apologizing for their previous bad behaviour and thanking their neighbours for being so wonderful.

But, like: WHAT???? I’m so steamed that the neighbours not only don’t get their comeuppance but their inexcusable, illegal behaviour is for some reason validated??? I mean honestly, if they had behaved this way to a non-white family it would be a hate crime.

Christmas Break-In

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Izzy’s parents forget to pick her up from school on the last day before Christmas break. A freak blizzard stuns the town and she gets snowed in, totally alone. At first it’s great, all skateboarding down stairs and impromptu rock concerts and eating vats of chocolate pudding. But then she’s less alone: Ray (Danny Glover), the school’s janitor/Izzy’s friend and guitar teacher, returns to keep her company but is simultaneously apprehended by the fugitive burglers who’d just decided to use the school as their pesonal bunker. So if you thought this sounded like a Home Alone rip-off before, Izzy’s about to go full Kevin McAllister on their asses.

Can a 9 year old girl take on a trio of grown-up criminals? When the criminals are the “ice cream truck bandits” yes, she sure can. And probably win too. Oh they talk pretty big, but it’s clear they’re a bunch of dunces. And they hired a bunch of dunces to portray them. Actual observable acting from the movie: one robber talks murder while menacingly biting a cookie toward his intended victim. You can’t make this up.

I don’t know how Danny Glover got mixed up in all of this, but I’m less surprised about Denise Richards, who clearly needs both the money and the attention. And when the screenwriter goes by the name “Spanky,” you can kind of guess how her name came up. The grown-ups are 10 000% the problem with this movie, though I’m not just talking actors. I would personally like to shake my head disappointedly at each and every person responsible for this shit excuse for a movie.

Anyway, this is a very weak photocopy of a nearly 30 (!) year old movie. How is this movie less edgy and less relevant than something that came out in 1990? The good news is, you can go ahead and watch Home Alone 10 times this holiday season, and watch Christmas Break-In 0 times in your entire life. Zero times! That is my gift to you. Ho ho ho.

The Christmas Train

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Hollywood movie director Max Powers (Danny Glover) is taking a four day long train trip toward Los Angeles along with his trusty assistant Eleanor (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), who he’s been encouraging to finally write a script of her own instead of always doctoring someone else’s, and what better inspiration than an old-timey mode of transportation full of characters just begging to be over-written.

Also on the train: Tom (Dermot Mulroney), a former war correspondent turned lifestyle journalist, a young couple looking to marry on the train despite his parents’ disapproval, a lonely older man, a thief, a chess snob, oh, and a zany woman named Agnes (Joan Cusack) who seems to be in everybody else’s business. Oh and lots of people besides of course, and our two writers mine them for all they’re worth, but wait! The writers are actually of interest themselves. Turns out, they’re former flames. Some have said they were each other’s true loves. And maybe things are sliding back in that direction – or they were until Tom’s fiancée boards the train about halfway through. Drama!!!

Of course, the Hallmark gods are smiling down on the train so the romance WILL BE nurtured, even if a snowstorm has to strand the train on the tracks until true love is confessed.

The Christmas Train is perhaps a smidge more tolerable than the usual schmaltz, so I’m thankful for that, and any reason to see Dermot Mulroney’s dimples is a good one.

Hometown Christmas

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Noelle (Beverley Mitchell) is back in Louisiana for good, with a medical degree to practice alongside her father. To honour the occasion, Noelle decides to revive one of her late mother’s most loved traditions, the town’s live nativity. In fact, the log-line of the film calls it the “resurrection of the nativity” which seems like an unfortunate choice of words. I’m picturing a Franken-Jesus, but I guess that’s Easter.

Anyway, things go swimmingly for about ten seconds before Noelle finds out that her dad has her new girlfriend, and the new girlfriend (Melissa Gilbert!) is the mother of Noelle’s old boyfriend – who, incidentally, is also back in town after an injury derailed his baseball career. Noelle’s still smarting from their senior year break up but that was a decade ago and the magic of Christmas (or at least her horny dad) is making sure they spend a lot of time together lately.

Is the angel Gabriel really the MVP of heaven? What exactly is a southern snowman? Do matching pajamas make you smug or just smarmy? Will they be able to turn a barn into a stable in time? How many Little House on the Prairie references does a Hallmark Christmas romance need? Does a living nativity really need a pig AND a camel? And will this small town have enough marshmallows for both sweet potato pies AND hot cocoa????

The answers will surprise you. Make a date with Hallmark to find out.