Category Archives: Movie Reviews

Our reviews and thoughts on the latest releases, classics, and nostalgic favourites. Things we loved, things we hated, and worst of all, things we were ambivalent about.

Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special

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[Note: not so much a review as a full-on recap and discussion…I’d say *spoilers ahead* except you already know she’s going to sing…right? So let’s get into what she wore and to whom she was bitchy.]

Some might say that a “premise” isn’t really necessary for a Mariah Carey Christmas Special. She’s practically Christmas royalty – hand her a microphone and we’re set. But nobody ever accused Mariah of not being extra, and so we have this:

Tiffany Haddish opens up a book and begins reading a Christmas tale about the year 2020 and how it was very difficult for people, resulting in a general lack of Christmas cheer. We check in with Billy the Elf (Billy Eisner) at the North Pole, who confirms the numbers are dangerously low. He greets Millie Bobby Brown, Bette Midler, and Heidi Klum, who concur (a random consortium, but I’ll take it). Billy surmises that there’s really only one thing to be done:

Cut to: Mariah Carey in a body-con holiday onesie the envy of ski bunnies everywhere, trimming the tree with her beautiful twins, Monroe and Moroccan, and a third child who’s basically just there to do the acting on their behalf. Unfortunately, no such stand-in is available for Mariah, who gives the most wooden Mariah Carey performance of her life (in fairness, she is probably physically incapable of moving her face). Mariah’s secret Santa phone is ringing, and she is summoned to the North Pole to save Christmas the way only Mariah Carey can. To the Batcave! Or the secret Christmas cave behind the fireplace anyway, where a self-propelled sleigh is awaiting to to whisk her away to the North Pole.

Anyway, she arrives to the North Pole like she is its Queen, and she kind of basically is. As “Santa’s Great Friend,” her arrival merits a parade thrown in her honour, rolled out so quickly they must keep it on standby and rehearse it periodically, like funerals for all the members of the royal family.

Or, I suppose I should say the “North Pole” – we’ve really taken increasing artistic license with the North Pole over the years. The geographic North Pole is found in the Arctic Ocean, on constantly shifting pieces of sea ice. It’s mostly just the sea ice, icebergs, and glaciers up there (no, those aren’t synonyms), with plant life mostly limited to grasses, mosses and lichens, not the oodles of evergreens Christmas Special set decorators are prone to overuse.

Mariah consents, from the bottom of her generous bosom heart to give a concert that will bring cheer to all who hear it. In her first costume change (out of 6.5), she appears in a glittering gold gown and stands beside a red lacquered piano to belt out the first of many Christmas carols.

In a third outfit, a short red and black dress with an impressively unnecessary train, she greets Snoop Dogg and Jermaine Dupri for a song, Snoop Dogg looking like he’s blissed out on some sort of special elf blend in a big red Santa suit he’s not remotely self-conscious about. And then Ariana Grande and Jennifer Hudson join her on stage, and by join her I mean quite visibly play back up singer to Mariah Carey’s lead singer. Wearing green dresses (Ariana in a cute velvet number and Jennifer looking like an absolute vision in sequins) and standing slightly behind and to the sides of Ms. Diva Carey, flanking her like they’re definitely not the stars of this special. When Mariah hits those high whistle notes of hers with a finger in her ear (an affectation when you’re lip-syncing, sure, but Mariah Carey is like 117% affectation), you might almost believe she’s doing it to block out Ms. Grande who’s joining her up in that upper register, but no, Mariah Carey has marked her territory and no one could mistake this as anything but her show. Not even Misty Copeland, ballerina extraordinaire, who’s up next.

Then there’s the silver dress which Mariah wears standing out in the “forest.” Let’s take a moment to shout out the formidable wardrobe department who help Mariah’s considerable assets defy gravity with a minimum of straps or structural support. This, above all, is the magic in Mariah Carey’s Magical Christmas Special. Her wig department is no less overworked but a little less technically proficient. The silver dress segment has her sporting a windblown look that stays windblown even without her dedicated wind machines, of which there are many.

Next we have the great big white dress that takes up nearly the entire stage. If you saw a woman wearing it down the aisle you’d wonder who the hell she think she is (Celine Dion?). She could be hiding several Billy Eichners under there. But then, for the next song, it seems the voluminous skirt is removed to reveal a fitted mermaid dress underneath, with sheer cutouts, no sleeves, and plenty of cleave. This is the portion of our evening in which Mariah will now heal the world, and she does it with two things: candle light, and extensive humming. If you’re thinking about watching this special, BYOC (bring your own candle). Millie, Heidi, and Bette all seem to have been cured. Billy Eichner confirms up: cheer is alive and well! Mariah has indeed saved the day, as we all knew she would.

Tiffany Haddish closes the book on Mariah’s Christmas miracle, but have no fear, we’re all heading back to the North Pole for one last number, and Mariah will be joined onstage by her children, who are pretty enthusiastic little dancers. Her encore deserves one last costume change, into a military/nutcracker inspired red sequined number that is worthy of the song that inspired the special, All I Want For Christmas Is You. Mariah Carey could be cryogenically frozen the other 11 months of the year and just rolled out for Christmas, and to add another billion to her bank account for a song she co-wrote and co-produced with Walter Afanasieff. That song gains in popularity every damn year, it’s a modern Christmas classic and it keeps her busy all December long, belting it out at every tree lighting ceremony across the country. It even broke the record for the longest trip to the number one position, reaching the spot 25 years after the song’s original release. It’s her bread and butter and has the coveted last spot in her Christmas Special (though it’s teased earlier). It’s exactly the kind of special you need around the holidays, and it couldn’t contain any more Mariah per square inch without exploding.

Merry and Bright

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Cate (Jodie Sweetin) took over as CEO of the Merry & Bright candy cane company from her grandmother, and she’s struggling to make it her own. She knows she needs to make some changes to stay competitive but she doesn’t want to disrupt her grandmother’s vision or traditions. Meanwhile, Cate’s mother is more concerned with getting her coupled up, and has set her up with a whole bunch of unpromising dates. Gabe (Andrew Walker) doesn’t seem all that different at first, not any more promising, when she meets him a week before Christmas, but he is, mostly because he’s actually not there to date her, he’s been sent by corporate recovery to assess her company and make recommendations. Oops, that’s awkward. He is single, though…

Predictably, these two will fall in love as they make plans to expand her business and diversify her candy line. But is it really love if it’s based on business? And is it good for business if it veers away from candy canes? And why is her mother (Sharon Lawrence) always carrying around that duffel bag, anyway?

Each year about 1.76 billion candy canes are made and 90% of candy canes are sold between Thanksgiving and Christmas, though National Candy Cane day is actually on December 26, so be sure to save some for then. Are you a candy cane consumer? Do you hang them on your tree? Are you a traditionalist as far as flavour or would you be up for some of Cate’s new flavours? Cinnamon, key lime pie, gingerbread, eggnog, pumpkin spice perhaps? The strangest I’ve seen (and sent) is bacon, but according to the internet, you can get clam canes with a pretty silver stripe, mac and cheese candy canes with a potent after taste, pickle ones, and even ketchup. Kind of makes peppermint seem quaint, doesn’t it?

Anyway, Merry & Bright is a standard Hallmark offering with a better than average dog actor, whose acting is so good that he had my Walt barking right back, and you know I’ll always have a soft spot for a cute and scruffy pup.

Force of Nature

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Officer Cardillo (Emile Hirsch) started the day off clothed in a bathtub, unable to commit suicide because his PTSD was a little too disturbing. He’s not exactly excited to spend his day evacuating people who don’t want to be evacuated ahead of hurricane in Puerto Rico, and he’s sure as heck not thrilled to be stuck doing it with rookie cop Jess (Stephanie Cayo). Little did he know, his day was about to get a whole lot worse.

A grocery store fight over the hording of meat has Cardillo and Jess following Griffin (William Catlett) back to his apartment, where it turns out he’s not the only hold out. Dr. Troy (Kate Bosworth) is there trying to evacuate her father (Mel Gibson, a surly ex-cop who relies on dialysis to live, and yet doesn’t appreciate the a storm power outage might mean. There’s another old man in the building, Bergkamp (Jorge Luis Ramos) who’s also refusing to leave, but evacuation becomes moot when a bunch of thieves led by John (David Zayas) take advantage of the storm to raid the building, making it all but impossible for anyone to escape with their lives.

Force of Nature has the bones of an 80s action movie but those old bones are not aging well, practically disintegrating into dust as we watch. This movie is a mess, so bad that I can only ask: is this intentional? It seems inconceivable that this many things can go wrong and it not be deliberate. I mean, first we have the exploitation of a Puerto Rican hurricane, which, okay, it’s a cheap ploy, but it’s also in poor taste considering the deadly Hurricane Maria, not only a terrible natural disaster, but a sickening political blunder as well. Then we have the white-saviour thing pushing a bad movie into downright ugly territory. Both Hirsch and Gibson play white cops in Puerto Rico taking on the no good very bad Puerto Rican criminal element (officially they’re art thieves, but the script is so eager to paint John with extra villainy that it has him murdering his own men needlessly). Now let’s add a layer that is almost inexplicable in its double badness: both Hirsch and Gibson hurt women. Emile Hirsch put a woman in a chokehold, and dragged her across a table with his hands around her throat to body slam her to the ground. And yet Gibson makes him look like a puppy. Mel Gibson is a flagrant anti-Semite. And homophone. And misogynist. Yes, he’s beaten the mother of his own child. Yes he’s used the n-word while threatening rape. And that’s just what’s been caught on tape. He’s 10 000% a bad dude and if Michael Polish wants to work with him, I don’t think Polish gets a pass either. When you cast not one but two Hollywood delinquents in white saviour roles, you’re taking deliberate swings at the bee’s nest and you deserve to get stung. You might even think that this is a bit of stunt casting to make up for the film being pretty terrible to start with, but that just begs the question: why make it at all?

Think of all the female film makers, and the people of colour, shopping promising projects around Hollywood without having a single door opened to them, but this shit is getting green-lit? In 2020, it’s a slap in the face. And yet it’s pathetic choice of cast is not what sinks this movie – it does that all on its own merits.

Stage Mother

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Maybelline Metcalf (Jacki Weaver) is pretty much what you imagine when you hear the name – conservative, christian, Texan. She’s the church choir director, a good friend, dutiful wife, and what the hell, a little catty. She’s also shocked and heart broken to learn that her only child is dead – a gay son who’s been estranged and battling addictions since he left for San Francisco years ago.

Though husband Jeb is determined to continue on as if they never had a son at all, Maybelline’s grief and regret lead her to San Francisco where she finds Rickey’s funeral is not quite to her taste. Her son’s drag family is performing their tribute to him and it’s all a little much for this mother who has never before claimed her son in public. Her clear disdain makes a bad first impression with her son’s grieving and offended boyfriend, Nathan (Adrian Grenier), who is suspicious of her sudden appearance. He suspects she’s come sniffing around for an inheritance, and indeed there is one since Nathan and Rickey were never married – the drag bar where everyone performs. The bar isn’t doing well with Rickey gone, so instead of going home, Maybelline inexplicably stays and not only whips the bar into shape, but nurtures the acts of Rickey’s drag family.

There is a heart ache to this film as Maybelline is clearly transferring the love and acceptance she was never able to show her son unto the surrogates she finds at the bar. And what a tragic comment on society that so many at the bar are indeed in need of mothering, even if it’s from someone else’s mother.

Director Thom Fitzgerald chooses not to have Maybelline wallow in self-recrimination; instead, she rolls up her sleeves and gets to work. Perhaps being useful and creating ties to her son’s chosen family is the only way she can cope. But overall, the film doesn’t carry a dark or heavy tone, it capitalizes on drag’s new mainstream status and concentrates on making things pretty and tuneful. The other drag performers are not much more than caricatures, but this is not about the resilient queer community of San Francisco, it’s about a traditional wife rejecting her husband’s bigotry and learning to judge based on the values in her own heart instead. Stage Mother is a bit old-fashioned, perhaps a bit dated in tone, but the movie’s upbeat feel combined with a terrific performance from Weaver makes Stage Mother a worthy watch.

A Nashville Christmas Carol

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Vivienne (Jessy Schram) is a busy television producer in the middle of putting on this year’s Christmas show. The opening act just happens to be a client of old friend, Gavin (Wes Brown), which may be a source of friction since they parted with hurt feelings on either side, each feeling rebuffed. But they’re adults, right? And professionals. They can do this.

Except just when Vivienne thinks she’s doing a good job, her boss shows up to tell her she’s not. Not her actual boss, who tells her she’s up for a promotion, but her dead boss (Wynonna Judd), who tells her her life is on a surprisingly dark path. Vivienne’s about to be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Kix Brooks) and the Ghost of Christmas Present (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) to show her what happens when you put ambition ahead of friendship. And maybe romance?

Sara Evans and Raelynn perform to give A Nashville Christmas Carol an authentic country flavour. The Dickens aspect is obviously a bit played out, but what the heck, it’s Nashville, and we’ve never seen the popular Christmas Carol story with these accents before. Probably.

Is it a great movie? No it is not. But you will not see a more gorgeous gown on the Hallmark channel this season than the one that Williams-Paisley wears in her ghostly apparition. And not only is it a nice message to put friendship first, it’s also an excellent reminder that the best relationships started out with solid friendship foundations.

A California Christmas

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Joseph (Josh Swickard) has a lot to prove working for his mother’s company, and he’s determined once and for all that he’s worthy of the job. He’s sent out to a ranch down on its luck to convince the family to sell before Christmas. Joseph is convinced this will be an in and out job, but boy was he wrong.

For some reason, he ends up posing as ranch hand “Manny” and believes that working alongside owner Callie (Lauren Swickard) and getting to know her will provide invaluable insider knowledge so he’ll know exactly what buttons to push to get her to agree (when he eventually reveals himself, one supposes). This actually requires a man with soft hands to work on a dairy farm for some time, which isn’t exactly Joseph’s forte. Luckily he’s got his driver Leo (Ali Afshar) stashed nearby, and Leo’s rooming with the real Manny (David Del Rio), who can be coaxed with cash to provide insight into the job and even he wardrobe.

Laura Swickard wrote A California Christmas, and stars in it with her real-life husband. She wrote a thirst trap for her own husband (who starts removing his shirt well before the ranch work commences). Do they have chemistry? Sure. Nothing crazy, but they’re watchable together. Less watchable: Gunnar Anderson, who is mis-cast as the film’s antagonist. It’s hard to take a man with curly hair seriously as a cattle hand, let alone as a villain – no matter how oversized the tires on his truck are, and believe me, he’s compensating for something MAJOR with the size of those babies.

Callie’s got a sick mother, a dead father, and a tragic backstory; Swickard has really written herself a juicy part, but while she thinks it’s a beautiful piece of tenderloin, it’s actually a hamburger steak, and there’s not enough gravy in the world to convince me otherwise.

This movie is trying to disguise itself as a romantic Christmas movie, and while it does okay in the romance department, it’s a complete failure holiday-wise. However, once the setting was established as Petaluma, I knew that the movie was really neither – it was really part of the Petaluma conspiracy that seems to be even vaster than I’d imagined. A lot of films coming out of Petaluma these days are very thinly veiled ranching propaganda.

Altogether, this is a pretty forgettable movie, and if you’re in the mood for something sweet and Christmassy, you’re better off over at Hallmark.

The Christmas Bow

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Kate (Lucia Micarelli), a talented violinist, has injured her hand and gone home to stay with her parents while it heals. It turns out her physical therapist is Patrick (Michael Rady), a childhood friend she hasn’t seen in years. I bet you can already tell what fate’s in store these two, though there are some challenges so as not to make it TOO easy for these two lovebugs to reconnect. Kate, of course, will be off touring the world again if her fingers heal correctly, and Patrick’s likely to be lending his services somewhere in Africa if he lands his dream job.

But for now, let’s just concentrate on fulfilling Patrick’s little cousin’s Christmas wish list, filled with such unintentionally therapeutic activities like wreath making and gingerbread building. Then there’s the problem of Grandpa Joe (James Saito) who hasn’t enjoyed the family music store since his wife died. Getting him involved again just might lead to the reinstatement of their once-famous family Christmas parties.

This is sounding a bit like a lackluster movie I realize, when in actually, it was kind of charming. Lucia Micarelli, in particular, is a joy to watch, herself an actual accomplished violin and piano player. She has a nice, easy chemistry with Rady, and they make it easy to root for them. Plus the script has a couple of actual funny moments, and a more grown up, less idealized version of romance that feels like a mature and quite palatable Hallmark holiday treat.

Songbird

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It’s 2024 and the pandemic has continued to rage, ravage, and mutate around the world. We’re on COVID-23 now, and everyone is living under martial law. Only the immune identified by a bright yellow bracelet can leave their homes; the bracelets are highly coveted but maybe not so great to get, because if you choose to live on the outside (probably for work), you have to live completely alone, isolated, in designated areas. It’s much worse to be sick, though, or to have lived with someone who became infected – those people are taken forcibly to the “Q-zone” which sounds pretty terrible. And while that would certainly be an interesting movie, this movie is focusing on just a handful of people as they try to avoid it.

Nico (KJ Apa) is a courier, one of those essential services we learned were pretty priceless while we locked down last winter. In 2024, couriers like him are basically the ones keeping the world turning. He’s deeply in love with Sara (Sofia Carson), who is not immune, hence the fact that they’ve never been in the same room. Their relationship is conducted through closed doors and over video chat, with no end in sight. She lives with her grandmother, and every day their phone beeps, giving them five minutes to complete mandatory virus checks.

William (Bradley Whitford) and Piper (Demi Moore) try to conduct their business from home while protecting their immuno-suppressed daughter from outside threats. Plus, you know, if a non-immune person tries to leave their home, they’ll be shot on sight. There’s also that. William has a yellow bracelet (though not necessarily the immunity that goes with it), and risks the outside to visit sex worker May (Alexandra Daddario) who struts in her stuff in lingerie and bedazzled face shield.

Lester (Craig Robinson) sits in he safety of his lair, conducting Nico and other couriers around the city as Dozer (Paul Walter Hauser) provides support via drone.

And Emmett Harland (Peter Stormare) is the dirt bag Department of Sanitation head who seems to enjoy hunting people down for government-sanctioned murder. An unlikely appointee, Emmett got to his position by watching everyone above him die of the virus, and now he’s enjoying every privilege his immunity can steal for him.

These are the people meeting their destinies in Songbird, which as you can imagine, was conceived, written, and filmed during our own (ongoing – stay home, be safe) pandemic.

I understand the temptation to be among the first to be telling stories about our global crisis, but you can kind of tell this movie was thrown together quickly, and worse still, that it doesn’t have much to say about it, or know what the take-away should be. If you remove the COVID gimmick, it’s a pretty half-baked movie. It relies on dangerous, ugly fear-mongering, pushing conspiracy theorists’ buttons and fueling the fire of anxiety in an already uneasy time.

Christmas Under The Stars

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Clem Marshwell (Clarke Peters) is celebrating his 30th year at the Startop Christmas tree lot – and sadly, also his last. He’s finding it physically challenging as he gets older, and it’s not the same since his beloved wife died, but the truth is, he still loves it and is loathe to give it up, but developers are swooping in to take over the lot, and the decision’s been made for him. For now, though, he’s practically a Chicago celebrity, longtime clients returning year after year, and Clem remembers them all. Julie (Autumn Reeser) and young son Matt (Anthony Bolognese) are chief among them. Longtime friends, Christmas is a special time for them to reconnect and it’s been an especially hard year for them as Julie’s father passed after a long illness, devastating Matt, and leaving Julie with an illegitimate medical debt she can’t get rid of.

Enter Nick (Jesse Metcalfe), who’s just been fired from his job in finance, in which an alarming amount of his identity was wrapped up. Clem randomly notices him walking by the Christmas tree lot and offers him a job because he’s tall (not: taller than Clem, maybe, but tall? Sean is offended. And Metcalfe is 5’10) even though his blazer doesn’t scream manual labour and his Porsche probably isn’t fit to make tree deliveries. But not only is he “tall” he’s a great love interest for Julie, especially because of his attempts to bond with Matt, who’s been quiet ever since his grandpa died. They each have the ability to transform each other’s lives this tree selling season, at least until the obligatory (and in this case, even more meaningless than most) misunderstanding sets them back.

I seem to have enjoyed Christmas Under The Stars more than your typical Hallmark holiday film, and Peters and Reeser are the two biggest reasons why. It turns out, authentic acting does go a long way no matter how cheesy the material is. And either the material was slightly less cheesy (lactose free cheese?) or the acting was good enough that the cheese went down smooth (like après-ski fondu). Okay, I love cheese, so sue me.

And I rarely do this, but shout out to hair stylist Terry Hanson and makeup artist Charles Porlier who kept your girl Autumn looking flawless every damn minute, which can be difficult to do on a cold “Chicago” (Vancouver) set. Julie is a single mother and school teacher who’s biggest social engagement is her chronic addiction to a Christmas tree lot, not exactly glamourous, but while keeping her natural, she’s giving me major hair envy and Porlier knows the secret to a perfect berry lip (hmu!). I always admire a Hallmark costume designer (in this case, Jaralin Detienne) because they must comb stores year-round to amass those perfect holiday sweaters – the opposite of an ugly sweater, a Hallmark leading lady sweater should be soft, snug, cozy, feminine, conservative but with a memorable detail, like a ruffle at the sleeve, or a bow at the back, or some pearls scattered along the neckline. I kind of want to live in the Hallmark wardrobe department among all these perfect sweaters in their array of wintry colours (you’ll never see hot pink on the Hallmark channel) and all of their perfect red coats, with perfect cashmere accessories that always match, because part of the fantasy of Hallmark is that you never leave your mittens in a cab.

It’s easy to get stuck on the Hallmark formula, but the machine includes so much more than just the predictable story. It means casting girl-next-door leads (pretty, approachable, age 30 and up), finding an army of small towns that can be tarted up for Christmas, scouting inns and lodges (Bret Jolliffe) with authentic details like snow-capped dormer windows, or wood-carved benches by a skating pond, and set decorating (Sheldon Feyter) the hell out of every inch of available surface. It’s a fantasy that works because it’s recognizably real life, but elevated for that extra holiday heart. And with so many dedicated people working so hard to make this movie drip with the Christmas spirit, the least we can do is take a moment to appreciate it.

Meet Me At Christmas

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When your wedding planner quits just days before your Christmas Eve wedding, most couples would freak out, but most couples aren’t Liam and Katie. Liam’s mother Joan (Catherine Bell) is a florist on the verge of making the jump to wedding planner herself. Don’t worry, guys, she’s got this.

Liam (Luke Bilyk) and Katie (Sage Kitchen) are getting married at the Snowfall Lodge, where both of their families enjoyed childhood holidays. In fact, it’s where Joan met her husband, and it’s the perfect place to honour his memory now that he’s gone. The bride’s family hasn’t been able to fly in yet (pesky Christmas weather!), but luckily Katie’s often-absent uncle Beau (Mark Deklin) is there to lend a helping hand – for as long as he and Joan can stand each other, that is. It’s not that they don’t get along, really, it’s that they’ve awkwardly discovered that they knew each other back in the day. As teenagers, Beau and Joan spent a romantic day together but he stood her up at a Christmas tree lighting, and they never saw each other again. In fact, that’s the night Joan met her husband.

Will Joan and Beau reconnect? Was it fate or Christmas magic pushing them together? Will the ghost of Joan’s dead husband haunt the ceremony? Will a terrible tree accident derail the whole thing? Does snowman decorating deteriorate with age? And how many poinsettias is too many poinsettias? Hallmark is the channel with all the answers this Christmas, but a sweet movie like this will remind you that it’s not about the questions, it’s about the cocoa you’re drinking and the sweater you’re wearing when you ask them.