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And no. That shrieking harridan does not say when it’s Christmas.
Anyways a thread for all those many, many Christmas, Xmas, Yuletide and so on movies. Maybe you’ve watched a classic? Maybe a new Hallmark. Perhaps a hidden gem or “forgotten for a reason” fare, which was about as welcome as second helping of sprouts. Or indeed, a first helping of sprouts in my case.
I’ll kick us off.
Deck The Halls
Matthew Broderick and Danny De Vito star in this gentle, family friendly comedy about competitive neighbours and their approach to celebrating the season.
Now, if I’m honest? This should’ve been a Tom Hanks or Dan Aykroyd and Danny De Vito vehicle. Broderick is fine, but it very much feels like an 80’s throwback. All small town America, weird petty insecurities and people not really disliking each other all that much.
Very family friendly with knockabout laughs and no bad language. Not a classic, but perfectly enjoyable and suitable for an afternoon’s viewing.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/12/10 13:48:28
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Take a Hallmark movie format, add in some English accents, and away you go! Nothing really unexpected to see here.
Sure, they are cliche but they do a few things right. First, they know their formula and deliver on it every time. Two, they are very professionally done and workman-like. Three, they have workman-like, solid, writing.
Six-Degrees of Christmas
What is interesting about this movie is that the woman does not leave the big city to go to the country. She stays in the big city the whole time!
The main idea of the movie is that you buy a gift, and then keep passing it around after a few days to the next person. This is the foundation of the Rom-Com set-up.
Red One Have you seen any Action-Comedies starring the Rock? You have? This is pretty much a Action-Comedy starring the Rock that is Christmas themed. It also has Chris Evans, Lucy Lui, and JK Simmons.
Honestly, it is by the numbers but cute. All the characters have actual character arcs and story beats. There is a deep dive into Christmas lore and leaning into Polar cliches. Here I need to point out that Penguins are not native to the North Pole.
It was entertaining enough, but no need to see it in theatres. This is NOT an instant classic.
Christmas in the Spotlight
Is this even a Christmas movie, or just a cheap ripped from the headlines movie about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey? Hint: It is the later. The Christmas part is simply marketing hype as nothing in this film requires Christmas to make it work.
That said, it is fun to see them avoid copyright law without paying the rights, try to cheaply make you feel like you are watching the NFL, and on a shoestring budget make someone look like a superstar mega-billionaire with legions of fans. For being so wealthy, everyone sure seems to be living the usual White Collar upper-middle class dream! No extravagant displays of wealth here!
I think this one is from Lifetime, but was not 100% sure. It did not have the same successful, derivative Christmas formula of something from Hallmark.
The Christmas Intern
A retired VP of marketing, who goes to visit her daughter who is running a Christmas themed- start-up company. They are struggling and she steps in to help as an intern.
Starring Jacee Carter, Vivica Fox, and Michael Pare. I pretty stacked cast for what this is, but there are a lot of younger performers as well.
Honestly, these things are craft. No dialogue is wasted and every scene relentlessly moves the story along. Hollywood blockbusters should be this full of craft, but they aren't. Just to be clear, everyone is mailing it in just enough to get paid.
Speaking of actors still getting work.....
A Nutty Christmas
Starring Sabrina, The Teenage Witch only she isn't much of a teenager anymore. The idea is that she owns a cookie shop and a magical Nutcracker comes to life and steals her heart! This one is low budget even by made-for-cable Christmas movies. However, I still found a few things to like.....
1. The kitchen in the Cookie shop was on point. It reminded me a bit of my old Bakery. However, no way you can keep that kind of inventory on hand at the shop.
2. The small-town community actually felt like a small town community. The events and the scale of things was on point. Unlike many Christmas movies where the Community Events are far to extravagant and well-attended for an actual small town event.
3. The girlfriend has a bunch of kids and lives in a less than middle class house.
4. They slip in a reference to Sabrina: The Teenage Witch 5. The main actress looks like a real person with a real person body
Cheap, but overall enjoyable and whimsical little flick from 2018 or so.
Christmas at the Chalet
Oh, Terri Hatcher? I am interested.
This is exactly what you would expect from a Christmas movie with the premise that a divorced, minor celebrity has to work as a "chalet girl" over the Holidays to spend time with her son. You get exactly what you would expect out of this.
I think my favorite part of the ridiculousness is that the Chalet Girl's room is a fething suite+. I have seen the accommodations that hotels and resorts put temp workers in..... they are nothing like what we see in this film. That maybe the understatement of understatements.
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A modern take on A Christmas Carol, where the titular Karen is our Scrooge. An Amazon original.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much. In fact I was expecting a lazy, overexcited moan about Karens.
But it’s translated pretty well, with our lead being equally reprehensible and pitiable, as the Ghosts show us not only the error of her ways, but shows she is, to some extent, a product of her environment. I wouldn’t say she comes out sympathetic overall, but I am feeling some empathy.
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American woman somehow gets stuck in a Yorkshire village over Christmas, and ends up lodging with the widower Handsome Single Father, Because Of Course She Does.
Filmed in and around Knaresborough, but somehow is yet to feature a single Yorkshireman.
Not Flatcaps, no Whippets, no Ferrets. There is some Black Pudding though, yet no Parkin. And I’d very surprised if there’s an outbreak of Ecky Thump, despite the ominous presence of Black Pudding. And given our lead is American (the actress isn’t), she’s having a disappointingly easy time of understanding t’words of t’simple Yorkshire folk.
Probably because, as said, there are no Yorkshire folk.
Oh. Wait. There’s one now. Only he’s keen on everyone selling his land and everyone else’s land. Because Reasons.
As you might be able to tell, I’m not enjoying this one.
Maybe it’ll brighten up later, and turn out to be a horror where Postman Pat goes on a rampage.
A man is allowed to hope.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2024/12/10 17:24:46
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I have to say I bloody HATED this film. Protagonists Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis are empty-nesters who can't be bothered with the hassle of celebrating Christmas and decide to go off on a cruise instead. They seemingly live in some Christmas-fixated commune where this positively scandalises their neighbours to the point that they run a hate-campaign of harrassment against the protagonists. THEN their daughter announces last minute that actually she's going to come home for Christmas with her new wonderful boyfriend, the protagonists have to ditch their plans for their cruise and enlist the help of their now smug-as-FrenchConnectionUK neighbours to pull off the perfect Christmas for their little girl. Moral of the story, don't you bloody dare try to be different in suburban America - karma will gak you right up for it. Screw everyone involved in making this crap.
Wee Jimmy Krankie, an 8 year old boy played by Jeanette Krankie, a grown woman, and Ian Krankie, Jimmy’s Dad played by Ian, husband of Jeanette Krankie,
A staple of Scottish kids’ TV in the 80’s. And the rest of the UK I think.
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Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Wee Jimmy Krankie, an 8 year old boy played by Jeanette Krankie, a grown woman, and Ian Krankie, Jimmy’s Dad played by Ian, husband of Jeanette Krankie,
.
I don’t want to kink shame that couple, but yikes.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Wee Jimmy Krankie, an 8 year old boy played by Jeanette Krankie, a grown woman, and Ian Krankie, Jimmy’s Dad played by Ian, husband of Jeanette Krankie,
.
I don’t want to kink shame that couple, but yikes.
Flinty wrote: Next you’ll be saying that Glen Michael’s Cavalcade wasn’t a worldwide media sensation.
Am I going to have to track every British Pop Culture Reference? I'll have to update my signature every day.
Just retaliate with Gen X and early Millennial references no one will get. That’s how you Wow Wow Wibble Woggle Wazzie Woodle Woo.
Sometimes trying to figure out these British references are like trying to find the meaning of life in a 'Fernwood 2 Night' episode.
In other news, let's bring up a holiday classic that features Bill Murray. Scrooged about a TV executive that is producing A Christmas Carol for television, and gets visited by three spirits. Meta enough for ya?
BorderCountess wrote: Just because you're doing something right doesn't necessarily mean you know what you're doing...
Christmas Vacation
The Griswolds (including Chevy Chase) celebrate christmas. Overall just a funny, family friendly, enjoyable film. Entertaining for all our folks ranging from 4 to 70 years old and therefore a staple of Christmas for us.
Clark Griswold wants to celebrate a big old "family Christmas" in his house, including his family of four, his parents, parents in law and some older uncle and aunt... Chaos ensues and gets even worse when his cousin Ed with his family arrive unexpectedly.
Noelle (from 2019, starring Anna Kendrick)
Also a very funny take on a Christmas movie. Noelle is the younger daughter of Santa Clause, who recently died, so it is upon her older brother to take up the red suite and become the new Santa. But he is seriously stressed out about it and after Noelle tried to calm him down and recommends him to relax a little, he disappears and she follows him to Phoenix, Arizona to try and set things right.
Sympathetic characters, family friendly fun and a quite unconventionel location for a christmas movie.
Drei Haselnüsse für Aschenbrödel (english: Three Wishes for Cinderella, but it might be easier to find under the german title or the Czech one: Tři oříšky pro Popelku).
An old and much beloved fairytale from Eastern Germany/Czechia which is an extremely popular christmas movie around here. The story is kind of similar to Cindarella, but differs enough to stand on its own. After her fathers dead Aschenbrödel has to work as a maid for her stepmother and daughter. Her friend, the servant Vinzek promises her to bring her some little gift when he comes back from town and on his way three hazelnuts fall into his lap, which he gifts her. As it turns out, each nut equals one wish. I think you can guess the rest overall. Aschenbrödel does come across a lot more active, self-confident and brave than the usual cinderellas though.
Also some really nice historical costumes and a beautiful soundtrack.
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol (1988) A bit of a special one I liked to watch with my sister when we still lived with our parents. Admitedly it is most enjoyable if you watched the Blackadder series (starring Rowan Atkinson). It's basically a "reverse Christmas Carol", with Ebenezer Blackadder being a kind and caring man at first, whom everybody tramples upon and takes advantage of, transforming into a much more selfish version of himself upon the visit of the ghosts.
Very british humor and as mentioned better if you liked the historical-satirical series but if so it's great.
~7510 build and painted
1312 build and painted
1200
A classic among classics. Often imitated, never bettered (though Home Alone 2 is very neatly just as good. The less said about the other three, the better. Especially Home Sweet Home Alone, which is just bloody awful).
Kind rad to know I was the same age as Kevin when it came out, and right now? I’m the same age as his Dad when it came out. Did I say rad? I meant “a wee bit depressing” 🤣
Terrific cast, original at the time plot, and just an absolute joy to behold, even 34 years later.
Also, Frank and Buzz can get in the bin. The jerks.
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I'm starting to keep track of these references now.
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
1312 build and painted
1200 
