A Hollywood Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

HBO has taken the Christmas movie trope and turned it into it’s very own Christmas movie - A Hollywood Christmas. I’m not sure about making a movie about a movie trope is any good though…

Jessica (Jessika Van) is a successful movie director who specializes in Christmas movies. When the network decides to get rid of their Christmas movie department altogether, they bring in Christopher (Josh Swickard) to look over the finances of the movie Jessica is currently filming. Jessica’s assistant, Reena (Anissa Borrego), relies on good old Christmas movie tropes to help Jessica get through these troubling times.

There isn’t a lot for me to say about A Hollywood Christmas. While the acting is decent, the rest of the movie is…well, expected. We all know what the Christmas movie tropes are. There is no need for us to be walked through them. Yet that is exactly what this movie does. Reena literally explains each and every trope either right before or right after it happens, which kinda ruins the humor of a Christmas movie having Christmas movie tropes during filming. This movie should be funny. It’s not.

To be honest, A Hollywood Christmas isn’t worth sitting through. I kept waiting for something new to happen or for something funny to happen. Then the movie ended. You might as well watch any Christmas movie and get the same result. Except that there are some good Christmas movies out there! Though it’s getting more and more difficult to find them.

Christmas In The Wilds | 2022 Christmas Movies

What happens when you are in the wilderness and everything goes wrong? Nothing. Nothing happens.

Buck (Victor Zinck Jr) works for the Rescue Services for Wayne Forest. His girlfriend, Jessica (Kaitlyn Leeb), is spending Thanksgiving with his family when he gets called away to help rescue some stranded skiers in Avalon County. Instead of returning home, Buck chooses to spend a few weeks helping his old work partner, Meg (Jennifer Mote), clear some snow from the mountains to avoid avalanches. When he can’t get back home on Christmas Eve due to an impending storm, Jessica decides to go to him.

For a movie called Christmas In The Wilds, it was surprisingly boring. Every time the movie tried to make a new conflict interesting, it failed hard. Buck can't fly his plane out of Avalon County because he’s low on fuel and the fuel truck can’t get in due to snow. When Jessica decides to drive her Jeep to him, they decide to meet halfway at a family cabin. Buck and Meg take snowmobiles while Jessica drives. Jessica crashes her Jeep and changes to a sled pulled by dogs. Buck crashes his snowmobile so has to share with Meg. When the three finally meet up in the middle of nowhere, Meg decides to take one of the dogs to get a drink at the river and lets the dog step into a fox trap. Meg takes the injured dog back while Buck and Jessica continue to the cabin. But then the couple has to cross a raging river and Buck falls in and…..do you see where I’m going with this?

EVERYTHING goes wrong in this movie. And none of it is interesting because they just leap up from one issue only to run into another problem. The writers should have had someone be injured and stay injured. Like maybe Buck got hurt and Jessica had to pull him on a sled or something. But nope. Buck got injured in the snowmobile crash but we would never know because he’s perfectly fine. Then Buck, who works in RESCUE SERVICES, says it’s fine if they cross this ranging river in the middle of December? Buck is stupid.

Don’t watch Christmas In The Wilds. It’s stupid and annoying and annoyingly stupid.

Serving Up The Holidays | 2022 Christmas Movies

I don’t have an intro for Serving Up The Holidays. Pretend that I wrote something witty about restaurants and menus and Christmas.

Scarlett (Britt Irvin) is the co-owner and chef for an upscale restaurant. When she has to come up with a new holiday menu in order to keep their investor from leaving, her friend and co-owner, Claire (Bethany Brown), signs her up for a Christmas-themed cooking getaway. Only the getaway is hosted by Scarlett’s rival from cooking school, James (Zach Roerig). Will Scarlett be able to get her menu together in time?

This movie was so boring. I mean, it was so boring that I don’t even know what to say about it. It’s a movie where literally nothing happens. The whole thing is supposed to be about cooking but we don’t see any cooking. We see some preparations. Some flour is thrown around. We see a couple of finished plates but nothing is actually made on camera. I hate it.

No. No. No. Don’t watch Serving Up The Holidays. It’s not worth spending any time on. We’re already spending too much time on it with this review. Onto the next movie!

A Holiday Spectacular | 2022 Christmas Movies

It’s a Christmas movie with The Rockettes!! What more can a dancer want from the holidays?

Lucy (Elle Graper) is nervous about her final audition for the role of Clara with The Rockettes. Her grandmother, Margret (Ann-Margret), tells her the story of how she once danced with The Rockettes and how she found love along the way to finding herself.

A Holiday Spectacular had everything I could have wanted from a Hallmark Christmas film. There was drama of a child wanting to do something different from what their parents had originally planned. There was a blossoming love that was also offered a little drama of its own. And there was the beautiful dancing from the famous Rockettes in New York City. It’s almost like this movie was written specifically for me.

I loved that, even though Margret (called Maggie by her friends) had romantic relationships, the main focus of the movie was on the sisterhood in the dance team. We frequently see the women in their boarding house or eating and chatting at a diner or at rehearsals. The men, both John (Derek Klena) and Maxwell (Torsten Johnson), are relegated to relationships outside of her normal life in New York. John’s scenes are mostly outside walking around town. Maxwell’s scenes take place either on the telephone or in a restaurant. They don’t impede on the lives inside the Rockette boarding house. It’s nice that the movie gives us that separation.

While A Holiday Spectacular is spectacular for dancers or fans of dance, I think that this movie would be relatable to anyone. Not wanting to disappoint your parents is a fairly universal emotion. Definitely check this one out. And if you get the chance, go check out The Rockettes in person. If you can’t make the trip, this should help satisfy that itch to see them.

A Christmas Spark | 2022 Christmas Movies

Man, I remember my mother watching Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman back in the 90s. Well, Lifetime brought Jane Seymour and Joe Lando back in A Christmas Spark. Let’s see if they still have their spark almost 30 years later.

Molly (Jane Seymour) is stuck in her traditional ways. This year, her daughter’s family can’t come to her house for Christmas due to work commitments, ruining their traditional Christmas celebration. So she goes to Connecticut to spend the holiday at her daughter’s house. During her stay, she gets talked into directing the local Christmas play. She ends up working closely with Hank (Joe Lando), the town playboy. The two end up closer than either intended.

Seymour and Lando have a history of playing romantic partners. In A Christmas Spark, it’s almost like no time has passed between them. They have just as much chemistry in 2022 as they did in 1993. Having that relationship off-camera makes it so much more believable on-camera. The two seem like they are goofing around as actual friends instead of playing two characters falling in love. It makes the falling in love part seem real. You can see the relationship between the characters go from friendship to love, which we don’t see very often in these types of movies.

There isn’t a ton to talk about in A Christmas Spark but I do think it is worth watching. Whether you want to watch it to see your old Dr Quinn ship get back together or you just want a nice Christmas movie to watch, this one fulfills both of those needs. Seymour is a super talented actress and I’m not sure what she’s doing in a Lifetime Christmas movie but I am very glad she is doing it.

Violent Night | 2022 Christmas Movies

I’m not going to lie. After being tortured by A Christmas…Present, I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch any more Christmas movies this season. I’ve watched 71 movies. That is a pretty respectable place to end, right? But I knew Violent Night was coming out in theaters and it looked like a good time. If this was bad, it would prove to me that it was time to give up.

Santa Claus (David Harbour) has become jaded over the years. Kids nowadays take one look at their Christmas presents and rush off to the next thing. As he is delivering presents to the Lightstone house, a group of mercenaries attacks the extremely wealthy family. Santa goes on the attack to protect little Trudy (Leah Brady), who is firmly on his Good List.

Violent Night is a difficult movie to describe. It’s an action comedy with a lot of blood and gore. Almost like Die Hard mixed with a little Home Alone turned up to 12. But that still feels like it doesn’t do it justice. Harbour does an amazing job as an emotionally exhausted Santa, who has a very dark history but does his best to try to make the good kids smile on Christmas. And the writers did an amazing job giving this version of Santa a mostly-developed backstory, even we don’t get the exact reasoning he became THE Santa Claus.

My favorite parts, however, were the interactions between Santa and Trudy. Despite her family being absolute trash people, Trudy still manages to be a sweet little girl. Don’t get me wrong, she knows the curse words and can build a mean booby trap but she is still sugar underneath. On the other hand, Santa obviously doesn’t want to do his job anymore when we first meet him. Instead of drinking the milk at the houses he visits, he steals the alcohol. But when he starts talking with Trudy, his whole view changes. She is exactly what he needed when he needed her.

But please keep in mind that this isn’t some idyllic girl-meets-Santa movie. The bad guys, led by John Leguizamo, have a very very high kill rate. Come to think of it, so does Santa. And those kills are not off-camera kills. Violent Night has a higher body count than the three most recent Halloween movies combined. It is rated R for a reason.

My husband and I both loved this movie. It may sound weird but it actually reinvigorated my interest in watching more of the (mostly boring) Christmas movies. I guess it was something like a palate cleanser for me and I’ll happily add it to my annual Must See movie list. So, if you are a weirdo like us and enjoy dark comedies, this should be right up your alley. Too bad the Seasons Beatings line didn’t make it into the movie. It’s a great line.

A Christmas...Present | 2022 Christmas Movies

Before I even start this review, I want to note that A Christmas…Present is not a Christmas romance movie. This is a religious propaganda movie. I wasn’t planning on addressing the recent comments made by Candace Cameron Bure but, after watching this, her comments are extremely relevant.

Maggie (Candace Cameron Bure) is a busy real estate agent who feels the need to control her entire family’s schedule during the holiday. She takes her family - husband, Eric (Marc Blucas); daughter, Becca (Claire Capek); and son, Will (Caleb Reese Paul) - to Ohio to spend Christmas with her brother, Paul (Paul Fitzgerald); and niece, Ashley (Keilah Davies).

Recently, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bure said that Great American Family will focus on “traditional marriage.” We all know this means that they will not feature any member of the LGBTQIA+ community. When I first heard about her statement, I thought “Well, that is a terrible thing to do and a terrible opinion but it was to be expected since that is the reason Bill Abbott left Hallmark for Great American Family.” Then I watched A Christmas…Present where they frequently quoted the bible and even had the “yellow light from above shine through a church window” trope. I wish I was kidding.

In this movie, Paul’s wife died. Maggie and the fam come to Ohio to help him and comfort both him and Ashley. But when Maggie said “It’s tough to do things when you are sad,” Paul pointed out that he is not sad. Let me repeat: HE IS NOT SAD THAT HIS WIFE DIED. Why? Bible verse. This entire movie is painted around “If you have faith, you will be a perfect person and nothing will ever bother you.” Maggie and Eric are having marriage troubles because they keep prioritizing other things over each other. The fix? You got it. Church. What the actual fuck.

Now. I don’t have a problem with religion, per se. Believe what you want to believe. It’s when you feel the need to force your religion onto other people and pretend that you are some righteous being for simply believing in your chosen religion. So instead of Paul being like “Hey, have you guys thought about maybe a marriage counselor to help you through this?” when both Maggie and Eric separately talk to him about their troubles, his reply is….BIBLE VERSES. That is not how you solve marital problems.

I could rant about this movie for a long time. But I will stop here. I’m not going to recommend that anyone watch A Christmas…Present. It had a good core plot - a family that is too busy to spend time with each other tries to find a way back to being a family during the holidays - but then it got super preachy and I don’t think anyone should watch that. This movie not only made me annoyed, it made me angry. Maybe I should go see a therapist about that…

Holiday Harmony | 2022 Christmas Movies

With Holiday Harmony, we are now up to six Christmas movies about singers. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, we have had less movies featuring random businesspeople or marketing executives (which are usually the big careers in Christmas movies) than we have had singers. Fa la la la la, I guess.

Gail (Annelise Cepero) is an up-and-coming singer who gets an opportunity to open for the I Heart Radio Christmas Eve concert. As she is driving her trusty VW van across the country, she crashes the van after almost running over an alpaca in rural Oklahoma. Stuck in Harmony Springs for two weeks, she stays with repair shop owner, Van (Brooke Shields), and her son, Jeremy (Jeremy Sumpter). Despite living in the middle of nowhere, the two help Gail figure out where she truly belongs.

I have to admit that Holiday Harmony was a sweet little movie. Sure, some of the accents are a little cringy. And there are a few moments that are a little too schmaltzy. But, as a whole, I thought it was sweet. I think my favorite character out of all them was Rosemary played by Jordyn Curet. Curet was able to give Rosemary the appropriate amount of shyness and uncertainty before belting out that final song. We’ll have to keep an eye out for that kid.

If you are looking for those sugary sweet romance movies that we all expect from channels like Hallmark, this would be a good upgrade for the genre. We don’t get the “Big city woman comes home for Christmas” trope that is way too tired and the romance isn’t shoved down our throats like they have to convince us that these people actually like each other. What we do get is a couple of young people who have emotional baggage and aren’t sure where they fit in the world. And it’s only when everyone comes together that a family is truly created.

A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe | 2022 Christmas Movies

When I’m making my list of Christmas movies I’m going to watch in a season, I do as little research about the titles as possible. I might do a quick search to make sure that it fits “Christmas movie” but that is about it. So titles like A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe can be really confusing. I mean, how catastrophic can a cookie be?

Annie Cooper (Rachel Boston) has taken over her late grandmother’s cookie company. As Christmas creeps closer, Annie starts cutting all of the fiscally irresponsible activities in the company. During the company Christmas party, someone sneaks into the corporate headquarters and steals the recipe for the cookies. At first, Annie blames cookie competitor Sam (Victor Webster). When he is cleared of the wrongdoing, Annie teams up with Sam to try to figure out the recipe on their own before Christmas.

Hallmark movies frequently require a certain suspension of belief. Usually they fall into the “Miracles happen” category. This time around, we’re supposed to believe that Annie would be able to figure out who stole the recipe without going to the police (yes, she states numerous times they aren’t telling the police about the robbery) and that no one else in the company would notice the missing recipe and say something about it to anyone. I don’t think a “Removed For Cleaning” sign works for a recipe. Honestly, this really is the weakest part of the movie. It would have been easier and more believable to have the paper recipe get ripped or messed up or something. Then they wouldn’t have to inform the police of an actual crime. Or at least have them call the police but the police are inept. That is an actual thing!

Looking beyond the weak plot of the movie, the rest of it was pretty cute. Boston and Webster have decent chemistry together and Averie Peters as Sam’s daughter, Bella, was a good addition to the mix. Despite being “the kid” in the movie, she actually contributed to the vibe of the movie. I might have liked her better than the adults, to be honest.

A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe is a fine movie to watch, assuming you can get past the ridiculousness of the plot. As long as you tune in to appreciate the relationships, and Bella’s dancing, you should be fine. There are a lot of cookies involved so you might need to keep a snack nearby.

The 12 Days Of Christmas Eve | 2022 Christmas Movies

Last year, Kelsey Grammer starred my number one worst Christmas movie. I may have visibly cringed when I saw he was doing another one, The 12 Days Of Christmas Eve, this year. Alas, it is my duty to watch all of the movies in order to tell you which ones are the most horriblest. I really hope this isn’t one of them.

Brian Conway (Kelsey Grammer) is a successful businessman, running the company his father started. However, he is not the best father himself. When he dies in a car accident on Christmas Eve, Santa gives him 12 Christmas Eves to rehabilitate his ways. But can someone really redeem themselves in one day?

This movie is pretty much Groundhog Day meets A Christmas Carol. Brian keeps reliving Christmas Eve, trying to repair all of his various relationships in order to figure out the “correct” way to be a good person. Of course, that means it hits all of the tropes - buying people’s love with money, trying to spend as much time with a loved one by going behind their back to make arrangements, doing what you think people want instead of asking what they want, making grand gestures thinking they will solve everything. Thankfully, The 12 Days doesn’t completely rely on this to make it a good movie. A decent amount of humor, mostly in the ways Brian keeps dying, has been sprinkled throughout the movie to keep it lighthearted. After all, no one wants their Christmas movie to be depressing.

Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying The 12 Days more than I thought I would. I’ve never been a fan of Grammer and last year’s bomb was so bad that I didn’t have a lot of hope for this one. But, somehow, the absurd comedy kept me chuckling long enough to actually like the darn thing.

Do I think you should watch it? Sure. Just keep in mind that there is no new material here. You have seen this all before. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t any fun.