The Christmas Lodge

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 Survival

Christmas Break-In

Christmas in the Heartland

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Two teenagers board a plane on route to visit grandparents at the holidays. The two girls are strangers but quickly find lots of common ground – including that neither of them are keen to spend Christmas with grandparents they’ve never met before. Their only major difference is that Kara (Sierra McCormick) is from an affluent background and Jessie (Brighton Sharbino) is not. Anybody thinking what I’m thinking? What THEY, in fact, are thinking? That’s right: time to play a good old fashioned switcheroo. Their grandparents won’t know the difference, and maybe inhabiting someone else’s life will make this whole forced bonding thing just a little more tolerable.

Grandma Judy (Shelley Long) picks “Jessie” up at the airport none the wiser and a limo deposits “Kara” in front of Grandmother Elsa’s (Bo Derek) mansion without so much as a shred of doubt. “Kara” is immediately dazzled by all the gifts waiting for her but a little put off by Grandmother Elsa who calls her a Yank and criticizes her manners before she’s even in the door. “Jessie” meanwhile is in for a big surprise: she gets to meet the dad she’s never seen before. Possibly an important day in a young woman’s life, if only she hadn’t traded places with someone else.

So they both go on having each other’s very important life-changing moments. Their grandparents are competitive and the whole thing is weird. And yet oddly entertaining in a “cousin-brother” southern kind of way. Though I’m not exactly going to endorse this clap-trap, I will admit to being embarrassingly charmed. It’s about 3 Christmas tree branches above the other boughs in the genre (though dozens of garlands beneath even Home Alone). Taking place in Oklahoma there’s no snow but there are carols galore, horsies, cooking decorating, and a generous holiday light bulb budget. The acting is above par (for the genre) and even the two teenage girls are well-cast and believe me, that’s a rarity in these things. I’ve watched a LOT. Hated most. But will live to watch again.

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.

Christmas Everlasting

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Lucy (Tatyana Ali), like 80% of Hallmark holiday movie characters, is a big city lawyer working long hours on the junior partner track. But all that comes to a screeching halt when a phone call from her uncle Barney (Dennis Haysbert) reveals that her big sister Alice has unexpected passed away.

Lucy and Alice were quite close as kids but guilt over an accident that derailed Alice’s golden life and left her with special needs has kept Lucy away. Returning home to Wisconsin, however, dispels the myth that Alice has led a small life. The whole town seems to be grieving along with Lucy, everyone eager to share some special way that Alice touched their lives. Moving back into their childhood home, Lucy is reminded that she no longer knew her sister as she once did. Alice led a full if slightly eccentric life, leaving behind excellent of proof of such when her will stipulates that for Lucy to inherit the house, she must first live there for 4 weeks – which just happen to be over the holidays.

In a coincidence only Hallmark would have the balls to suggest, Lucy’s high school sweetheart Peter (Dondré Whitfield) is acting as Alice’s attorney, but as a small town lawyer, he’s an excellent example of working to live, not living to work.

Will Lucy risk her career to inherit a house she doesn’t even want? Will she ever make friends with Alice’s snobby cat? And what the heck is up with the piles of quilts for the mysterious Maeve all over the house? Check out Christmas Everlasting, starring the Fresh Prince’s little sister, Mr. Allstate insurance, and honest to god Ms. Patti Labelle if you’d like to find out – and honestly, how can you resist?

Christmas in Evergreen, Letters to Santa

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Are you a fan the Hallmark Evergreen universe? Officially, there was just Christmas in Evergreen, but I guess the Hallmark crew couldn’t wait to go back (it’s actually Vancouver) so they threw some fake snow on the ground and came up with a “spin-off” (very loosely) set in the same quaint town you fell in love with in the first film (although, don’t worry if you never saw it, it literally has nothing to do with this one).

In this one, Lisa (Jill Wagner) finally makes good on her bucket list and takes a Christmas time trip to her hometown, Evergreen! Things have changed since she was last there. The general store has closed, and…well that’s the main thing. It inspires Lisa to put her vague skills to use restoring the to its former charm so that someone may buy it. Good thing she keeps running into hunky jack of all trades Kevin (Mark Deklin) who, despite only being in town for a week, has for some reason found various employments and accepts yet another, as Lisa’s contractor. Anyway, they find the “Mailbox to Santa” in the dusty shop; it used to be beloved for granting Christmas wishes. They convince the bakery across the street, Kringle Kitchen, to babysit it alongside their own wish-granting snow globe while the store’s under renovation. But huzzah! They find a 25 year old undelivered letter in the box and now the whole town of Evergreen rallies around it to grant one last wish.

Also there’s a subplot about a key.

Is it a super great movie? Of course not. But you love Evergreen, I love Evergreen, there’s an old Chevy truck that’s pretty great, and the star of the first film, Hallmark legend Ashley Williams, who starred in the first, and apparently her character is still there, still living her happily ever after, so why can’t Lisa and Kevin?

Goofs in The Grudge

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Does spotting goofs help you get through a scary movie? By popular demand, here’s a short list of what you can watch for in The Grudge to help you cope with a very scary movie:

The message Susan leaves on the answering machine is a little bit different when Karen first hears it than when the detectives hear it again later in the movie, and when we actually see Susan leaving it. Listen carefully – it’s never quite the same!
When Karen is in the shower, after the hand comes out of her head, she spins around in the shower real quick and you can see that she’s not naked, she’s weirdly showering in a black tube top.
When Karen’s searching the net, the fake-Google she’s using is rife with spelling errors. Some poor intern set that up a little too quickly!
When Karen first goes to Emma’s home, she opens the door, then the camera pans over wrappers and crap on the floor. Then it cuts to an overhead shot, and all the garbage has moved around magically!
When Susan leaves her apartment when Matthew rings the bell, the door slams shut behind her. When she turns around to go back in, the door is open. This happens all the time in movies. The sets are so flimsy, you see someone slam the door behind them, but instead of clicking into place it actually bounces back. They’ll stick in a convincing door-slam noise, but they have to cut away quickly or you’d see it swing way open.
In the first scene with Yoko, you can clearly see a crew member in the background. You get a glimpse of them again as a reflection in the banister when Susan enters the stairwell.
At the end, before Karen enters the morgue, she has a lot of blood and bruises in her face. Seconds later, inside the room, she appears with less blood than before, especially on the right side of her face. They must have called a lunch break in between shots, or else Karen’s got some mystical healing powers she didn’t tell us about.