Christmas At Plumhill Manor | 2024 Christmas Movies

Oh, Lifetime, why do you do this to me? Christmas At Plumhill Manor is their first Christmas movie of the year. And it stars Maria Menounos. I think I have to give in and admit that she’s not a good actress. She’s fine as a gossip show host or in minor roles but she should not be a leading lady.

Margot Stone (Menounos) is a New York City architect who, unexpectedly, receives Plumhill Manor as an inheritance from a recently deceased great-aunt. However, the will states that Margot must live in the manor for seven days before she can decide whether to keep or sell the property.

I don’t even want to talk about the movie. It’s boring. Nothing interesting happens. There’s a scavenger hunt and even that is boring.

With that out of the way, what I do want to talk about is the way this movie handles color. See, a lot of Christmas movies are filmed in the summer. That is how we get Christmas goodness in October. Of course, this means that the movie people have to think of creative ways to make the summer look like winter. Hallmark usually coats everything in fake snow. Lifetime, however, really likes to play with color…or lack of color. Whenever Margot is outside, everything is filmed in black and white with people and buildings re-colored in post-production. This leads to three amazing things: One - we get grey trees complete with leaves. These trees should not have leaves in December yet here they are, grey as can be. Two - the re-colored portions have such fake color that it makes me laugh. A red brick building doesn’t have deep red richness. No, it is red-ish with a sort of pink undertone making it look wrong. Three - they don’t un-color the trees we see in windows. So when Margot is walking around the manor and she walks past a window, we see a fully leaved green tree in the window. This is my favorite part of the color problem.

I don’t know why they chose to go with the color fix. I would think that it would be a lot cheaper to cover everything in fake snow. And I’m sure there could have been some creative shots to get around fully leaved trees. Thankfully, the colors did distract me from the terribleness that is Christmas At Plumhill Manor. It’s probably the only thing it has going for it.

Rating: Not even the pink brick manor can save it from a monotone world

The Holiday Dating Guide | 2022 Christmas Movies

When someone claims to be an expert on dating, run away. Especially if they are single themselves. Ugh, let’s look at The Holiday Dating Guide anyway.

Abigale (Maria Menounos) is a dating coach who is trying to get her new book, The Holiday Dating Guide, published. In order to make it happen, her publisher wants her to find a date to bring to their big Christmas Eve party in twelve days. She happens to meet Michael (Brent Bailey) at a coffee shop and sets her eyes on him. Will she be able to pull it off while following her own rules?

This was such a terrible movie. The plot is that Abigale made all of these stupid rules for dating then, when she actually attempted to date someone, realized how stupid the rules were and broke every single one of them. Meanwhile, she was actually coaching someone to follow her stupid rules. Rules like - don’t see someone two days in a row. Seriously.

No, do not watch The Holiday Dating Guide. There is nothing redeeming in this movie except for maybe the dog that is only in the first 15 minutes. You can turn it off after that.

The Holiday Fix Up | 2021 Christmas Movies

What? Women can do home renovations too? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

Sam (Jana Kramer) is a designer on a home renovation show. When she doesn’t nab the coveted Christmas special spot on the network, she goes back home to renovate an inn that was damaged in a recent storm. Jack (Steve Vinovich), the owner of the inn, pairs her up with her ex-boyfriend, Coop (Ryan McPartlin), to get the work done before the Christmas Eve Harborfest.

The Holiday Fix Up is yet another movie that is perfectly fine. Neither of the lead actors are amazing. They aren’t terrible though Kramer is dull and McPartlin is a bit wooden. I wish that there was some sort of magic that happened between them…but there isn’t. They aren’t quite the most unlikely couple in this year’s Christmas haul. But they are close.

Unfortunately, there isn’t anything in the movie that saves. it. There is a weird slow-motion snowball fight that maybe somebody somewhere likes. Personally, I don’t understand it. They could have just let the actors go and filmed that. It might have made it more interesting.

Should you watch it? Probably not. But you aren’t going to be mad if you do. You might wonder what exactly happened in the 90 minutes it took to watch (assuming you don’t count commercials) but I doubt you’ll get mad about the lost time. It’s a good procrastination movie. You know - “Oh, I should do the dishes but this movie is on….”