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.

Rose Island

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In 1968, there were dreamers, and Giorgio Rosa wasn’t the only one, but he’s the man we’re going follow today, all the way to Rose Island.

Actually, in 1968 there was no Rose Island as Giorgio (Elio Germano) hadn’t built it yet. But he’s about to. He’s an engineer, a creator, and a thinker. And one day he gets to thinking: wouldn’t it be nice to build an island out in international waters? All to his own?

Rose Island tells the “incredible true story!” of how Rosa solved the problem of how to build an island, but more importantly, how it captured people’s imaginations, drew crowds, and was eventually declared its own nation. Built off Italy’s Rimini coast, it looked a lot like a party barge but also embodied ideals of independence, anarchy, challenging the status quo, and living life off grid, and without rules. Rosa and his acolytes believed their island could change the world, and the first step was establishing it as its own sovereign nation. Of course, that’s also what attracts the attention of the Italian government, who declares Rosa and his island an enemy. Founding your own island nation is fun and games until someone aims their cannons at you.

Rose Island is a fun movie for dreamers and disruptors but the truth is, not a lot actually happens. Between construction and war, there’s just a lot of sitting around and drinking sangria, with the occasional cut to Italian government officials wondering what they should do, who they should tell, pushing around bits of paper, and probably wishing they could jet out to the island themselves for some anonymous debauchery.

I admit that the story definitely deserves to be told and there’s definitely a vitality to rebellion and revolution. I didn’t love the movie, its on-again, off-again momentum was a bit frustrating, but I was glad to hear this little bit of history that I’d never known before.

Lucky Christmas

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You may or may not be a fan of Hallmark movies and that’s absolutely okay either way. I’ve come to think of them as comfort food in movie form – warm and predictable in a way that makes you feel happy and safe. Not to mention the guaranteed happy ending: when life is hectic and challenging, it can be nice to know that the characters you’re investing in are definitely going to wind up happily ever after.

However, fan of the genre or not, one Hallmark movie was always going to have the distinction of Worst Hallmark Movie, and I humbly nominate Lucky Christmas.

Holly (Elizabeth Berkley) is a single mom who pays for rent in cooking because she never has the cash (thank goodness for obliging grandparent-types). She works three jobs so I’m not sure where that money’s going, but let’s concentrate on the sympathetic figure she cuts and not think too deeply on details – there are bigger problems ahead.

Holly’s about to have good luck and bad luck. Bad luck: someone steals her car clunker from the bar one night. Good luck: those obliging, grandparenty landlords of hers have an unused vintage Camaro she can drive instead. Good luck: she wins the Christmas lottery, worth a million dollars. Bad luck: the winning ticket was in her car. The stolen one.

Across town are two idiot criminal buddies who call to mind Marv and Harry of the Wet Bandits. Mike (Jason Gray-Stanford) and Joe (Mike Bell) are bumbling fools who’ve accidentally set fire to an entire job site, and then accidentally stolen a car and then deliberately held ransom a lottery ticket for a piece of the pie since they know they can’t cash it themselves. If you’re wondering at this point, like I was, when Holly’s going to get her love interest in this damn holiday romance, the bad news is: she already has, and you missed it. You assumed, because of the many, many Hallmark movies like it, that Holly would get a decent guy. Instead, she’s getting Mike, one of the criminals. I resisted this insinuation for so long that I had mentally prepared for Holly to live happily alone forever after, but no, Mike was pretending to like Holly in order to suggest she post a reward (a large percentage of the winnings) for the return of the ticket, but then she unwisely lets him get close to her kid, and she’s apparently got such low self-esteem that a dirty rotten scoundrel is as good as she thinks she can get.

Now I know that Elizabeth Berkley fell pretty far between her stint as Jessie Spano on Saved By The Bell to her turn as Nomi in Showgirls, but this? This is cruel. This is too much.

[Sidebar: am I the only one who watched the recent Saved By The Bell Reboot, for which Jessie Spano returns as a guidance counsellor and AC Slater as the coach? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…it’s actually pretty good.]

Mike is a loser, and Holly deserves a better fate, for this one can never deliver the happy ending this movie promises. She deserves to discover that not only is she more than enough on her own, it’s actually much preferable to be alone than to be with a partner who will only drag you down. I know Hallmark defines ‘happily ever after’ as coupled, but there’s more to life than romantic love. And what’s romantic about a relationship that starts out as a lie anyway? I realize that watching a Hallmark Christmas movie means just buying into the fantasy and not asking questions, but this, to me, was more of a nightmare.

Break

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Lucie (Sabrina Ouazani) is on a very weird path. First, she’s in a coma. Well, first she’s in an accident, then she’s in a coma, and then she wakes up, pretty much completely fine, other than a memory (vision?) of a mysterious man by her bedside. Could it be her long lost father? Lucie’s mom insists no, but Lucie’s gut is saying yes, so she combines her need to get right back into training for an upcoming dance competition with a desperate search for a father she’s never known.

It leads her to Max’s bar/seedy motel, Max (Hassam Ghancy) being the prime suspect. Turns out Max is a reformed criminal who helps newly released prisoners get back on their feet. Which explains what makes barkeep Vincent (Kevin Mischel) such an irresistible bad boy – that ankle bracelet really does something for the ladies. Also, in an incredible coincidence, Vincent is a dancer who “doesn’t dance anymore” yet is continually caught dancing. Or what the French call dancing, which actually seems a little painful and spastic. A dark secret (besides the one that landed him in jail) is hinted at.

But Lucie already has a partner! A dance partner/boyfriend, one who is quickly losing patience with her quest to find herself through “dancing” with dangerous, handsome men.

Sabrina Ouazani is quite compelling to watch, and the film stumbles upon an occasional spark or two, but mostly it’s uncomfortably corny and left me rolling my eyes way more often than must be good for my health.

Director Marc Fouchard struggles to establish any tension between Lucie and her maybe-daddy, and fails to find chemistry between his two leads, which makes for a pretty lackluster movie that really didn’t hold my interest.

Safety

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Safety plays it pretty safe as far as inspirational sports movies go. Following in the footsteps of Remember The Titans or The Blindside, Safety tells the true story of a freshman college football player who’s got a lot more on his plate than just practice.

Ray (Jay Reeves) is just like any other athlete at Clemson University, until things back home start to fall apart. His mother is an addict, and little brother Fahmarr (Thaddeus J. Mixson) has been alone since her most recent arrest. And things are about to get worse: the good news is, Ray’s mom is going on to a rehab facility to get help. Bad news? That leaves Fahmarr alone, and he’s just a kid. There’s no one else to take him, so it’s either a group home, or…. Or Ray decides to sneak him unto campus where he secretly cares for him for the next month or so, just barely managing between class, football, and childcare, plus the burden of a pretty big secret.

Remember that Ray McElrathbey was a real kid who took on the raising of his younger brother while attending school on a full sports scholarship. He couldn’t really afford to risk his full ride by becoming distracted, nor could he afford to risk his brother’s life. For a while he manages both, but eventually his school and those darn NCAA folks who are sticklers for rules.

Safety skirts around its darker corners, focusing instead on the importance of family and community; if you were feeling cynical you might call it sanitized, but if you were feeling generous of heart you might just find it admirable for its sense of duty, sacrifice, support, and good old fashioned taking care of each other. It’s formulaic and completely unsurprising but it’s also the kind of heart warming stuff that’s hard to resist, especially around the holidays. Director Reginald Hudlin knows he’s got a good story, and tells it in a low-frills, straight forward kind of way, and if it’s a little saccharine, well, we could all use a little extra sweetness this year, couldn’t we?

Christmas In Montana

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Travis’s ranch, like many others in Montana, has just barely survived the drought, and now he’s looking to refinance to keep it afloat. In order to secure a second loan, Travis (Colin Ferguson) will have to prove that he can pay it back, which typically means either cutting back on expenses or finding other revenue streams. Travis can’t squeeze any more revenue out of the ranch, but he’s not willing to cut any of his employees either. Enter Sara (Kellie Martin), the businesswoman who’s going to make it happen.

She’s not entirely thrilled to be sent to Montana so close to Christmas, and as a widow and single parent, she’ll have to drag her teenage daughter Chloe along with her, who isn’t even sure there’s wifi in Montana. Actually it turns out to be a much more pleasant experience than either mother or daughter anticipated. Chloe looks up from her screen periodically, long enough to notice that this is the nicest Christmas she and her mother have shared since her dad died. She doesn’t really want to go home.

Sara, however, is a little more ambivalent. She’s falling for Travis, but it’s clear that his ranch is really important to him and he could never leave it. But her career, and her ability to support her daughter and their life in L.A., has to come first. As the sole provider, she can’t take risks. Sadly but responsibly, they agree they can’t be together.

Show of hands: who thinks Sara will find a way to save the ranch? Who thinks Chloe’s constant selfies will somehow play a part? Who thinks Kay’s famous eggnog has rum in it? Can a city girl learn to gather eggs from chickens? Does anyone look good in a Christmas tree hat? Do all cowboys wear bolo ties? Hallmark has all the answers your little heart desires – and more besides, I’ll bet. Prepare to be charmed by Cowboy Colin.