The Jingle Bell Jubilee | 2023 Christmas Movies

I don’t think I have extremely high standards for Christmas movies. The titles should, at minimum, have something to do with the plot of the movie. The Jingle Bell Jubilee just barely fits. I’ll talk more about that in a bit.

Nate (Marshall Williams) is the new city manager of his childhood hometown. He gets thrown into planning the town’s Christmas festival at the last minute. When there isn’t a charity donation set up, he turns to teacher Hope (Erin Agostino), who runs an annual Regiftmas at her school, for help.

So, yes, the movie is a little bit about Nate planning this Jingle Bell Jubilee thing. However, it’s really not. It’s really about Hope and her grandmother and “the true meaning of Christmas” and regifting things you don’t want to those less fortunate. Hope literally tells the story of her grandmother and her cedar trunk three separate times. (Thankfully, Great American Family has commercials so we don’t have to sit through the story.) Once that is set up in the plot, everything else revolves around Regiftmas. Which, by the way, should really have a better name.

Also, this is the second Christmas movie this season with Agostino. I’m really not fond of her acting. She seems to rely on her giant eyes to do most of the emoting. I think she has another movie in 2023. I’m not looking forward to it.

Rating: The hockey player deserved better

Christmas On Windmill Way | 2023 Christmas Movies

A lot of people joke about Hallmark Christmas movie tropes. Great American Family’s Christmas On Windmill Way had to have been written by someone who had a trope checklist and wanted to jam as many as possible into one movie.

The windmill on Windmill Way has been owned by Mia’s (Christa Taylor Brown) family for generations. Due to financial difficulties, her grandmother, Ann (Marcia Bennett), has sold the property to a developer. Mia’s high school boyfriend, Brady (Chad Michael Murray), has been sent by the developer to prepare the property for development.

This is, quite seriously, one of the worst movies I have ever watched. Brown reads her lines like she’s reading greeting cards. Is she capable of putting any emotion behind her words? She’s a new actress on the scene but she really needs to up her game if she plans on being around for very long. Meanwhile, Murray’s job is just to stand there and keep saying the same things over and over again. If we cut out all of the repetitive lines he has, this movie could have probably been a half hour long. It’s movies like this that make me sorry I decided to keep Great American Family on the lineup this year.

Rating: Tear it all down

A Recipe For Joy | 2022 Christmas Movies

I love when we get these mash-up movies where they want the romantic couple to be more…different. A Recipe For Joy is not just about cooking. Oh no, it’s also about producing a television show. But it does neither well.

Carly (Erin Agostino) is a food correspondent. When she is offered her own television show, she is sent to her hometown of Angel Heights to cover the reopening of the town’s diner, now run by Chicago chef Grant (Dillon Casey). The two butt heads about how the diner should operate. He wants things to be new and fancy, she wants to celebrate the history of the diner.

This movie was so boring. It didn’t get interesting until that big third act conflict when Grant saw a cut of Carly’s episode but it wasn’t her cut. And even that is such a typical conflict for a movie about a television show production. “My bosses wanted this to go in a different direction!” Everything else about A Recipe For Joy was just bland.

No, don’t watch this one. Unless you need something to help you fall asleep. It might be good for that.

A Christmas Masquerade | 2022 Christmas Movies

There is a sudden influx of “A” Christmas movies. I know there are usually a bunch of them but this seems excessive. A Christmas Masquerade also falls into the “dumb name that doesn’t really apply to the movie” category as well. It’s like the people that write the titles grab on the smallest detail and name the movie after it.

Julianne (Erin Agostino) is a personal assistant to a Laura (Cory Lee), an HR professional. Peter (David Lafontaine), a potential client, mistakes Julianne for Laura at a masquerade ball. When Julianne lands the deal, she is forced to continue to pretend to be Laura in order to keep his business.

So there is only one masquerade ball in A Christmas Masquerade. The rest of the time it’s just Julianne not correcting anyone when they call her Laura. Easy fix. There is zero reason that Julianne couldn’t have said at the party “I’m sorry, I’m Laura’s assistant. She couldn’t make it tonight so I came in her place to meet you.” Instead, they decide to drag out the lie for as long as possible. Even when Peter catches her using her real name, it gets written off. Mistaken identity is an interesting premise for a movie but it used badly here.

Also, Peter is trying to become the next ambassador for his country. (I already forget his country’s name. That is how forgettable this movie is.) His father, the current ambassador, is retiring. For some reason, the council just keeps hiring the same family as if it was royalty? But since Peter is the black sheep, he has to fix his public image or the council won’t elect him. And they work on this for FIVE WHOLE DAYS. I’m sorry but any council that looks at someone with a terrible track record that suddenly has a good track record for less than a week and still hires them is stupid. This movie is stupid.

Seriously, don’t watch A Christmas Masquerade. Either of the two movies I previously reviewed from UPtv were better than this one. This one is just dumb and a waste of time.