Dr. Zoey (Holly Robinson Peete) was a military doctor for 15 years, but when it was time to move on, a decision perhaps made in part with the loss of a favoured patient in mind, she chooses to keep up with her nomadic lifestyle and becomes a travelling locum doctor, which means she gets assigned to different cities to temporarily fill in for other doctors, either at their hospital or medical practice, typically for a few weeks to a few months at a time. Zoey seems to enjoy it, but she hasn’t spent Christmas with her sister in many years and this one’s not going to be any different. After finishing up a big city job in a big hospital, she’s going to the small town of Willowbrook in upstate New York where she’ll be replacing the town’s only doctor. Dr. Ray (Fred Henderson) is beloved by the community but needs surgery. Zoey is a competent replacement, but the townsfolk need time to warm up to her – and she needs time to adjust to small town doctoring, which means doing a little of everything, including knowing which patients are just lonely, and which ones need a patented Dr. Ray home visit.
While in town, Zoey meets Luke (Adrian Holmes), and repeatedly causes him to bump his noggin on things. She’s not trying to drum up business – it’s just kind of their thing, the thing that precedes their falling in love. Falling in love while learning to make recipes with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup. Something tells me there MIGHT be a touch of the product placement in this movie. Anyway, the locum goes smoothly, the falling in love goes smoothly, but Zoey will be moving on once again – pretty much right on Christmas day. How can a new love survive such a schedule? Can a rootless doctor develop a sense of home? Have a little faith, guys. Love finds a way, and I will confess that by this movie’s end, even this cynic had tears in her eyes.
Jack Radcliff (David Oyelowo) is a detective who’s about to stumble upon the biggest case of his career and you’re not going to believe how he solves it.
A simple visit to his brother’s home reveals 3 corpses – those of his brutally murdered brother, his brother’s wife, and his brother’s daughter. The house is soaked with blood and reeks of violence, but what happened here, and how did things get this bad without Jack noticing? He’s racked with grief and guilt, utterly devastated to have failed the only family he had, and feeling acutely alone in the world when he gets a call from his niece, Ashley (Storm Reid). His dead niece Ashley, the one who was just murdered along with her parents. Ashley and uncle Jack have always been close, but this is ridiculous. Is it a ghost, a rip in time…or is Jack just losing his mind? You’ll have your theories, and the cops at Jack’s station will have theirs as well. What to do with a detective who won’t let go of his own brother’s case, who’s working something with a conflict of interest so big and so bold that no one knows how to tell him to stop? Crazy or not, Jack’s determined to work with the evidence he has, even if it’s coming from a dead girl – but is he trying to solve a crime, or stop it from happening in the first place?
Obviously you’re going to have to deal with a certain paranormal aspect to this film that doesn’t make much straight-up sense. Before you stream, ask yourself this: can I let go? Can you deal with something non-linear and non-logical? If not, there’s no shame in just walking away. There are other movies for you. But if you think you might be interested in a detective with a ghost sidekick and a magic smart phone that receives calls from the dead, then the good news is, Don’t Let Go‘s on Netflix, where you can give it a try, risk-free. If you can let go, this movie is not half bad. It’s not great, it’s a bit uneven and writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes doesn’t have the technical prowess to shoot it in a more interesting way, but the cast, including Brian Tyree Henry, Alfred Molina, and Mykelti Williamson, is talented, and they sell the mystery, the urgency, and the thrill. The big, philosophical questions remain unanswered – this is a murder mystery at its heart, not science fiction, but it does manage to combine different genres into an enjoyable and compelling watch.
Matt Larson (Michael Rady) is both the owner of a cozy little inn and the mayor of a cozy little town called Homestead. Since you’re watching a Hallmark Christmas romance, you might guess that the town of Homestead goes all out at Christmas – it’s their thing. But this year, their festivities will be disrupted by a movie shoot that’s come to town to capitalize on their unrivaled small-town Christmassiness.
Jessica McEllis (Taylor Cole) is the movie’s producer, as well as its star. She’s kind of a big deal, actually, a movie star that even Matt’s young daughter Sophie admires, and has a poster of her on her bedroom wall. Jessica’s costar Vince (Jeff Branson) is also her ex-boyfriend, though he’s eager to turn that around and be her current boyfriend once again. The paparazzi that have followed them to this small town seem hopeful on this count as well. But Jessica’s heart is pointing her more toward Matt, who is stable and humble, and everything her Hollywood lifestyle is not. So how would that even work, logistically? It wouldn’t, and when a photo of a kiss between the two is published, leading to increased invasion of privacy, that’s pretty much the final nail in the coffin.
Basically, Jessica just wants to get this movie in the can, and walks a fine line as a producer who has to prioritize the work, and as a decent person who wants to allow the townspeople to get back to enjoying their Christmas – and especially not upset a certain handsome mayor.
Will Vince scheme his way back into Jessica’s heart? How many paparazzi will inevitably fall out of trees? Is it weird that Matt’s dead wife was a Jessica fan? And how many cupcakes can one film crew eat? Hallmark has the answers to all of life’s most pressing questions, and if you hurry, you can view to your heart’s content right now, and until Christmas. Enjoy.
According to critics, I really shouldn’t like this movie. They make some pretty valid arguments, yet I’m going to stray from the path and mow one of my own, over the green, green hills of Ireland, which provide such lusty landscape porn over the opening credits alone that I need very little further convincing.
Neighbouring farms belonging to the Muldoons and the Reillys have supplied friction as well as friendship over the years, and if this was anywhere else this might have made them enemies, but these two generational farming families are wise enough to know not to completely estrange the very people who will be counted upon in a pinch should the need arise, and the need is always arising. Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Blunt) and Anthony Reilly (Jamie Dornan) have known each other their entire lives, and since there’s not exactly an excess of options, it’s been assumed by locals that they would someday marry. Now their elderly parents are dying off, but the relationship hasn’t deepened much beyond “Good morning to ya'” because Anthony is terminally awkward and believes too strongly in a family curse. And he’s always at odds with his father (Christopher Walken), who decides to pass over bachelor Anthony in favour of keeping the family name and the farm’s inheritance alive and well. Enter Anthony’s American cousin Adam (Jon Hamm), a Yank in every sense of the word. Arrogant, showy, with no real concept of farming, Adam’s worst crime is of course this his eye is immediately caught by the girl next door, Rosemary, who is understandably growing antsy waiting for “shy,” “slow” Anthony to come around.
Writer-director John Patrick Shanley adapts his own play for the screen and gives us a unique love story specific to a corner of Ireland just outside Mullingar. Rosemary and Anthony remain separated by a gate and a silly family feud, but they’re emotionally separated as well, never really able to connect. Since we spend privileged time with both, we’re privy to them each burning up from wanting the other, which makes their failure to connect all the more frustrating.
You’ll need three things to even have a hope of enjoying Wild Mountain Thyme: 1. patience; she’s a slow burn, folks 2. a willingness to overlook some pretty dodgy accents, and 3. a willingness to let go of convention and embrace its offbeat charm. Wild Mountain Thyme isn’t just set in Ireland, but set in its own time and place, a place that looks Irish and a time that seems like the 21st century, and yet is so rural and insular not only have modern conveniences barely touched them, our grown-ass protagonists also seem almost child-like in their (lack of) lived experience. They’re naïve. The film has its own rules and internal logic but doesn’t feel compelled to share them with us, things just are how they are and you can either love it or leave it, and honestly I won’t blame you either way. Like all truly quirky movies, this one is not meant for everyone. For those of us whose souls thirst for the truly eccentric, it is a puzzle not to be solved but to be admired for its opacity. When things come out of left field, we should merely note what a lovely field it is, and remember to admire the right one as well, while we’re at it. I know first hand what it is to spend a movie yelling “WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING” at the screen and checking wild-eyed with our co-watchers to see if they, too, are experiencing the brain melt. But this one simmered just above that level for me, an enjoyable stew of lyricism, unconventionality, and idiosyncratic story-telling that exists well outside the normal realm of romance I couldn’t help but admire its bold posture.
The last time John Patrick Shanley adapted his own work for us, we got Doubt, a small film with big impact. This is not Doubt. It is very much its own thing, without comparison or peers. Emily Blunt, of course, could make me watch almost anything; every performance seems to find some new undiscovered corner of her essence as she stretches to reach corners of the human spirit she hasn’t shown us before. She’s the best thing in this, and reason to watch all on her own, as long as you’re up for some uncommon trappings.
Wild Mountain Thyme is in select theatres now, and will be available on digital and on-demand Dec 22.
Melody (Janel Parrish) has just moved in next door to a single mom with two adorable daughters, the eponymous Holly and Ivy. Melody and mom Nina (Marisol Nichols) are fast friends, and the girls love Melody too, particularly because her car is an unofficial book mobile and the girls are avid readers. Soon (very soon), these two households are inseparable; Melody pitches in with watching the kids, and the kids are eager to help Melody settle in – although, to be fair, Melody has just bought a ‘fixer upper’ that feels more like a crack den than a home at the moment.
Sadly, Nina has just learned that her lymphoma is back, and even though it’s a really big ask, she has no one else, and Melody, friend of just a few intense days, is asked to be the guardian of dear sweet Holly and Ivy should mom Nina pass. In order to be approved for adoption, Melody is going to jump through some hoops, and fast – getting a job, for example, is probably item #1, and proving much harder than she’d anticipated. But getting the house up to code is also pretty crucial. Luckily, she meets a handsome young construction worker who’s surprisingly eager to lend a hand. I say surprisingly only because Melody and Adam (Jeremy Jordan) are younger than our typical Hallmark protagonists. Since Hallmark’s love stories typically emphasize love, commitment, and family over hot sex and passion, their love interests are always firmly in their 30s and ready to settle – at the youngest. Often they’re already widowed or looking for a second chance at love. Melody and Adam are in their 20s – can they possibly be ready for an instant family when they only just met days ago?
Well, in the same Hallmark universe where a young woman impulsively agrees to adopt a virtual stranger’s children, yes. But the first rule about parenting is that Adam and Melody will have to come to grips with some sacrifices, both professionally, and, gulp, romantically. Are they ready to face such tests? Is anybody?
Holly & Ivy is a bit of a surprise. It’s more about Melody’s relationship with the kids, and her promise to Nina, than any budding romance. Luckily by the movie’s end she’ll learn to embrace offers of help and support because hooo boy is she going to need it. Does this sound like the kind of holiday movie you can groove to? Then boogie on over to the Hallmark channel and enjoy the show.
[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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 