Christmas movie review: 2011 wrap-up

It's time to wrap up another season of holiday movie reviews. Besides totaling 100 reviews, this year I watched 21, a record for my six years of reviewing. I think you can thank a really bad cold I got the weekend before Christmas that kept me on the couch for three days straight. I probably watched half of the movies that weekend. I actually have about 15 more still saved on my DVR but I guess they'll have to wait until next year. Or maybe this summer I can do a Christmas in July special edition. I also think I should get started earlier next year and I can probably fit more in. Anyway, as you can see, it's quite the mix of ratings for this year's crop; there were quite a number of good ones.


A
Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas
12 Dates of Christmas
Debbie Macomber's Call Me Mrs. Miracle
A Christmas Kiss
Christmas Magic

A-
12 Wishes of Christmas
Annie Claus is Coming to Town
A Holiday Engagement

B+
Desperately Seeking Santa
Lucky Christmas
The Christmas Pageant

B
Three Wise Women
The Case for Christmas
A Christmas Wish
A Nanny for Christmas

B-
The Heart of Christmas
Battle of the Bulbs

C
A Christmas Wedding Tail
Christmas Mail

C-
Christmas with a Capital C

D
The Perfect Gift

Christmas movie review: Christmas Magic

My final Christmas movie of the year was Christmas Magic. I actually was going to stop with the last one since it's been about ten days since Christmas and, as much as I like Christmas movies, once Christmas is over I'm not usually in the mood to watch them. Regardless, I counted up all the Christmas movie reviews I've done since 2006 and realized I was on number 99. Well, I couldn't leave it at that so welcome to Christmas movie review 100! I cannot believe I've reviewed so many (or that there are even that many to review).

Anyway, I have about 15 still on DVR so I wanted to end the season on a high note and I sure did. Christmas Magic was really good, one of the best I watched this year. Again, not an original story because this tells the story of workaholic Carrie, who gets in a car accident in the beginning of the movie, and then finds herself an angel assigned to help someone still on Earth before she can get into heaven. She has a couple weeks to help a guy, Scott, who runs a small, struggling restaurant in New York City. Not only does she easily help him update his menu and promote his business, but she helps him with babysitting (he's a widower with an 8-year-old girl) and getting over his hatred of Christmas. She knows she's headed to heaven on Christmas Eve so she tries to not get too attached, but of course she starts to fall for him. Meanwhile, she has an angel guide who gives her advice whenever she needs it. I don't necessarily want to spoil it because I definitely recommend watching this but everything works out happily ever after of course, since after all the title of the film is "Christmas Magic." I have no idea who the actors are (Lindy Booth plays Carrie but I've never heard of her before) but they did a good job and took a possibly predictable story of an angel trying to get her wings and made it very watchable and enjoyable.

Rating: A

Christmas movie review: The Christmas Pageant

The Christmas Pageant debuted on Hallmark Channel this year, although I noticed on its Web site, it does not say it's a Hallmark Channel Original Movie so I guess someone else made it. Interesting. This one stars Melissa Gilbert as a bitchy, demanding Broadway theater director who gets fired again... but before she's unemployed for too long, her agent gets her a job directing a Christmas pageant in some small upstate town. Because she needs the money and no one from Broadway is going to come running in the immediate future, she takes the job and experiences culture shock. Not only does she have to adjust to small town living, but she has to adjust to a Christmas pageant that has been put on in exactly the same manner for decades. The actors do not want her to change anything. Only one little girl is particularly welcoming to her and it turns out that the little girl is the daughter of an ex-boyfriend who now lives in this small town and actually recommended her for the pageant job. Melissa's character and this ex-boyfriend reconnect; she becomes a much nicer person; the townfolk open up to her unique way of doing things; and everyone has a great Christmas. It's one of those stories about a stingy, cranky person who becomes a better person and finds love thanks to the Christmas spirit. It was pretty cute.

Rating: B+

Christmas movie review: A Holiday Engagement

Hallmark Channel Original Movie A Holiday Engagement stars Bonnie Summerville, who I've liked since she was on Friends, so I was kind of excited to watch this. The plot isn't entirely original - woman hires actor to play fiance when she has to go home for the holidays - but it's a great plot for a romantic comedy and this was well-done and enjoyable. In this film, our main character has an overbearing and judgmental mother and when she originally plans to bring her fiance home for the holidays, she really does have a fiance but then he breaks up with her days before she's ready to leave so instead of telling this to her mom (who already thinks she's making up the fiance), she decides to find a new, fake fiance. Over the next several days, naturally, the fiance-for-hire and Bonnie start to get to know each other and start to develop some feelings. Of course. And everyone in her family seems to really like fake fiance. I'm sure it will come as no surprise that there is a happy ending. I'm rating this as an A- basically because the titular holiday is actually Thanksgiving, not Christmas, and because I was a little skeptical about how quickly the romance happened. I mean, it's one thing when someone falls in love quickly but she really should have still been really hung up on the fiance who dumped her. No one gets over someone AND finds someone new so quickly. Still enjoyable, though.

Rating: A-