Christmas movie review: On Strike for Christmas

On Strike for Christmas debuted this year starring Daphne Zuniga and David Sutcliffe. I give it props for a unique story, for sure. Daphne is a mom of two teenage boys who finds herself doing all Christmas preparations by herself. Her husband shows up like a week before Christmas and announces his department Christmas party will be at their house this year... and offers zero assistance in putting the party on. She's had enough and, inspired by local picketers, decides to go on strike. She refuses to do any of the Christmas preparation until she gets help from her men. Other women like her idea and follow her cause. Meanwhile, the men try to bake cookies and do other holiday tasks and have a gigantic failure. Of course, eventually the men figure out what's what and manage to pull stuff together and the mom kind of realizes that Christmas doesn't have to be perfect. And they have a happy Christmas. It wasn't a bad story and, like I said, it was original. But some of it was so over-the-top stupid. And, honestly, I can't really blame her for being fed up but maybe she shouldn't have let the men get away with doing ABSOLUTELY nothing for 18 years.

Rating: B

Christmas movie review: James Patterson's Sundays at Tiffanys

James Patterson's Sundays at Tiffanys, starring Alyssa Milano, was new this year and was based on the book by James Patterson (obviously). I recorded this movie and then was looking through my books for something to read and saw that I actually owned the book so I both read it and watched it in the last couple of weeks.

The plot of both is that a young girl is basically ignored by her workaholic mother so she has an imaginary friend, or at least she does until she's 10 when the imaginary friend must leave. Apparently, that's just one of many rules of the imaginary friend. Twenty years later, they happen to meet up again in New York, where she is shocked to find that he's not so imaginary. Yes, there's a level of fantasy involved in the plot but I love the idea. Neither can figure out why he has shown up in her life again. She's engaged to someone else but remembers the times she shared with the imaginary friend so they slowly reconnect and then it turns into a love triangle. It's only incidentally a Christmas movie as it's one of those that just happens to take place during the holiday season. Ironically, the book doesn't take place at the same time of year - so it was an interesting choice by the filmmakers. However, considering the magic involved in the story, it was a wise choice.

Overall, I liked this movie. It was sweet and magical and well-acted. I didn't agree with some of the changes from the book, though, mostly involving the imaginary friend character. In the book, the friend is like a 35-year-old man and when he shows up 20 years later, he is still a 35-year-old man. In the movie, he's her age as an imaginary friend and then grows up at a regular pace and is her age when he shows up again. I get that it's kind of odd to have a young girl hanging out with a 35-year-old, but the change meant that she didn't recognize him and that he basically turned into a stalker. Plus, in the book, it's like the character gets these various imaginary friend assignments and does them but lives a life between assignments. In the movie, it was like the imaginary friend had no idea what life was, like he was a naive young baby. I thought the dynamic in the book was much better. But, overall, the movie worked and I enjoyed it.

Rating: A-

Christmas movie review: Christmas Cupid

Christmas Cupid debuted on ABC Family this year and is this year's version of A Christmas Carol, where an awful person is visited by ghosts of the past, present & future and comes to realize that they need to change pronto. In this case, Christina Milian plays a celebrity PR person who blows off her family and friends in order to make partner at the firm. She's also dating the son of the owner, presumably because she thinks it will get her the promotion. Her biggest client, a young Hollywood starlet who likes to party, dies and gives us our Jacob Marley. The starlet proceeds to show up to Christina's character throughout the movie to both help and warn her. Mixed in with all the work drama is an old flame - a nice guy - that resurfaces who she uses to make her current guy jealous. In fact, a lot of the past/present/future visits involve her love life. Obviously, you can't lose with A Christmas Carol story but some of these have been done better than others and I would put this on the lower end. It seems manic, unorganized, boring, and, quite honestly, I think it suffers from bad acting by Christina Milian. I've liked her in other things but not this.

Rating: B-

Christmas movie review: Unanswered Prayers

Based on the lyrics of a Garth Brooks song, Unanswered Prayers is a pretty good movie but, to be honest, it doesn't really qualify as a holiday film. Maybe a Thanksgiving film (it ends with Thanksgiving dinner) but definitely not Christmas. But, Lifetime did debut it at this time of the year so I'll go with it. It does have the feel of a holiday film. It's about a man who is married with a high school aged son who seems to still be hung up on his high school girlfriend. Actually, I think he's still hung up on high school as he is reliving his high school football career through his son. When the high school girlfriend shows up back in town for her mother's funeral, the guy finds himself spending more and more time with her, to the detriment of his marriage. It's one of those where you think you the grass is always greener... but maybe it isn't. Overall, it's good because I'm sure it's something we can all relate to plus it's well-acted and poignant. Christmas movie or not, I'd recommend it.

Rating: A-

Christmas movie review: The Christmas Clause

The Christmas Clause sat on my Tivo (well, technically I moved it to my laptop) for a year before I finally got around to watching it. It had some potential; for instance, star Lea Thompson is a top draw for us children of the 80s and its plot is one of the most tried and true Christmas stories - that of the person who makes a wish, gets what they wish for and then realizes things weren't so bad pre-wish. That can be a great, great plotline. Unfortunately, this movie doesn't work at all. It's very disjointed, like they had a bunch of scenes they wanted to film but didn't have an editor. We didn't get a very clear picture of what things were like pre-wish so that we could compare them to post-wish. For example, she wasn't a very loving mother or loving wife pre-wish so do we really buy that she would miss her children or husband? In fact, the entire story post-wish is her trying to get her husband back. Overall, it probably wasn't as bad as the rating indicates but it had such great potential that it was disappointing.

Rating: C+

Christmas movie review: Christmas Crash

Christmas Crash stars Michael Madsen and tells the story of a long married couple who are on the brink of divorce. He is a workaholic; she is fed up. It's Christmastime and they go on their annual trip to their cabin and while there, he takes her up in his private plane in an attempt to rekindle their love. While flying, the plane has trouble and crashes into the lake. He's hurt and she has to help him as they walk to the road to try to find help. In the time (days) it takes to walk to safety, they of course rekindle their love. No shock there. That part of the movie was fine. It wasn't all that interesting but it wasn't all that horrible either. Once the couple gets rescued, however, this whole big conspiracy comes out that the plane crash wasn't just an accident but that the guy's business cohorts were trying to kill him. Crazy. The last part happens over the course of about 5 minutes; in other words, it basically comes out of nowhere. Overall, a very stupid plot point that ruined an okay movie.

Rating: B-

Christmas movie review: Home for the Holidays

Not to be confused with the movie of the same name starring Holly Hunter and Robert Downey Jr., this Home for the Holidays is a made-for-TV holiday film starring Sean Young. And, she is mighty mighty distracting. Whether her hair is a wig or not, how she is such a bad actress, why she is wearing so much eye makeup all the time - these are the questions you can't stop asking yourself while you are watching this movie. And, it's too bad because in general it's not a bad story.

The movie's plot is that three young children lose their parents in a car accident and their aunt (Sean Young) steps up to take care of them. The youngest boy is so traumatized he won't speak. The parents mortgaged their farm to the hilt, leaving their home in jeopardy. The aunt barely makes ends meet on her own with only a part-time job in the local antiques store (more distracting questions arise from that!). Finally, the aunt gets the idea to move the farmhouse off the farm so the kids can keep their childhood home and the whole city pitches in to help them move it. It's a sweet story, honestly. Plus, another saving grace in the film is the social worker, who in a side story, becomes way too involved in this case that she gets yelled at by her supervisor all the time.

Overall, it's getting a higher grade than it probably deserves because the major downfall is the casting of Sean Young.

Rating: B

Christmas movie review: A Dad for Christmas

A Dad for Christmas debuted a few years ago but I hadn't yet seen it. It was average. It's about a college boy who gets his teenage girlfriend pregnant and has delusions of the two of them raising the baby together, but the girlfriend wants to give the baby up for adoption. When the boy is unable to convince her otherwise, he steals the baby and runs away to live with his estranged grandmother. At first there are complications - the grandmother isn't thrilled to have them living there, for instance. Eventually, everyone grows into their roles and the grandmother and the boy decide to sue for custody of the baby. Not a bad story but no better than average. Predictable. Not-so-great acting. Typical happy ending. And, it was only incidentally about Christmas, which drives me insane as a fan of holiday movies. Don't throw in a few scenes of Christmas celebration and call it a holiday movie.

Rating: B-

Christmas movie review: Holiday Baggage

Holiday Baggage is something I don't remember ever having been on the schedule before but it's from 2008. It stars Cheryl Ladd and Barry Bostwick as a long-estranged married couple who find themselves thrown together again at Christmastime when Barry's character finds himself in ill health and has nowhere to go. For reasons that are never really explained, Barry & Cheryl's characters separated long ago but never divorced. Barry's character has found a young woman he wants to marry so he tracks down his wife to get her to sign the papers, which is when he falls ill. He temporarily moves into her house and must deal with the wrath of his daughter, who he basically abandoned when she was young. By having him in the house, he gets to know his daughters again, helps them all bring Christmas into their lives again, and grows into a more understanding person. It's slightly predictable but it's well-acted, touching, and heartwarming. Pretty good.

Rating: A-

Christmas movie review: Christmas on Chestnut Street

Christmas on Chestnut Street airs on Lifetime (and is actually available to watch online for a limited time). It's about a guy, Lou, who lives at home with his dad (who has dementia) and mom and works at a department store with kind of a jerky boss. The boss's daughter has come to work at the store for the holidays and she is a girl with a plan. She has her life all planned out. When an inventory mistake leaves the store with tons of extra lights, the store comes up with a promotion to sell lights by offering one free hour of shopping to whoever has the best light display on their house. So the neighborhoods go crazy with their light displays. The boss's daughter decides to help Lou win the contest so he can donate the time to charity so the store doesn't have to worry about losing money to greedy shoppers. I'm not sure why the contest only boils down to Chestnut Street (are there no other streets in the neighborhood?) but there's lots of insane light displays which is kind of fun. Of course, Lou and the boss's daughter start to fall in love somehow. It's kind of an out-of-nowhere love story but overall, the story isn't bad, the acting is bearable and I enjoyed it more than many of the year's holiday viewings so I may be rating it higher than I would in another year but I definitely would rate it slightly above average.

Rating: B

Christmas movie review: The Ultimate Christmas Present

This is going to be tough because I'm going to try to fit in all these reviews before the month ends and I watched some of these movies weeks ago so who knows what I remember, but here goes.

The Ultimate Christmas Present is a made-for-TV movie from 2000 about two preteen girls who stumble upon and steal a weather machine and make a major blizzard hit Los Angeles right before Christmas. What starts off as a fun snow day or two becomes problematic when the one girl's dad is stranded away from home and the mother's catering clients keep canceling. On top of that, two of Santa's elves are helping Santa track down the stolen weather machine and a jealous meteorologist is also on the trail. It's pretty over the top stupid but it's a movie made for kids so I guess that's to be expected.

Rating: C

Book Review: Unbearable Lightness

In the midst of holiday preparations and Christmas movie watching, I read Portia de Rossi's Unbearable Lightness. Portia is an actress, probably best known for Ally McBeal or Arrested Development. She is also married to Ellen DeGeneres. The book sort of covers her whole life but really focuses on a few years in her twenties when she was first cast on Ally McBeal and had a major eating disorder. She got down to less than 90 pounds and was really resistant to efforts of help. It was fascinating to sort of get in the mind of someone who has an eating disorder, how little she ate, how much she exercised, the delusion. I thought there would be more about her life as an actress or her coming out as a lesbian but it really focused primarily on the eating disorder. It's definitely required reading for anyone who thinks they might know someone who has an eating disorder.

I Want One: Pajamas Warming Pouch

Okay I don't really want one but how awesome would it be to put on your pajamas every night and have them be all warm and toasty thanks to this pajamas warming pouch!! So awesome. (via)

Christmas movie review: How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale

How to Marry a Billionaire: A Christmas Tale apparently is from 2000 but when it was airing on Lifetime this weekend, there was some banner on the screen that it was premiering then so I'm not sure where it aired originally. I certainly had never heard of it before. It stars John Stamos, Shemar Moore and Josh Malina as three guys who decide that they want to marry rich before Christmas. Females do it all the time so why can't guys do it? I think they owe money to a loan shark or something. John Stamos is most successful and he finds a girl who is infinitely annoying but quite wealthy and proposes to her within a few days (at least it seems that way). Meanwhile, he has met an artist on the beach who he kind of likes but assumes is a poor, struggling artist so doesn't give her a shot. Shocker, she isn't. It's a really, really predictable and borderline stupid movie that even John Stamos' good looks and charm cannot save. I guess it's based (loosely, I'm assuming) on the Marilyn Monroe movie, How to Marry a Millionaire. It gets a pretty low grade because of its predictability and it being only incidentally about Christmas.

Rating: C-

Christmas movie review: November Christmas

The description on my Tivo says it all to describe the plot: A community works together to help a couple bring an early Christmas to their sick 8-year-old daughter. John Corbett & Sarah Paulson play the parents of the sick little girl who are worried she won't make it through the rest of the year so they celebrate Halloween in August and then Christmas in November, with the help of a very amazing community who is willing to go along for the ride just to help the little girl. It's a great cast - besides those two, it also stars Sam Elliott and Karen Allen - and a sweet story but somehow it never fully got me involved as a viewer, perhaps because it was quite slow-moving. A library plays a prominent role in the film, too, so you think I would give it higher marks solely for that reason, but I will give it a solid "B".

Rating: B

Movie Review: Black Swan

This isn't a Christmas Movie review, just a regular movie review (although the Christmas movies are piling up on my Tivo)... I got the chance to see Black Swan about a week ago and it's sort of taken me that long to decide whether or not I liked it. I think I did. It's a psychological thriller so it tries to mess with your head and spook you and it certainly did do that. But, wow, it's really stuck with me this last week. I've heard Oscar buzz for Natalie Portman and she really did do an amazing job but I'll be honest that it doesn't really strike me as an Oscar-type movie. The plot is that Natalie's character is a star ballerina who is obsessed with perfection and gets the lead role in Swan Lake. She is asked to be both the perfect white swan character and the evil, manipulative black swan. She really struggles capturing the black swan part of the job because she is so focused on perfection. Meanwhile, she is convinced that another dancer is trying to steal her role. Her mom is a scary stage mom type. And the ballet's director is constantly pushing her. The whole thing is really over-the-top, yet also enjoyable.