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Christmas Tree Lane (2020)
"Look, I know you made a deal to sell your seasonal store at a premium, but wait till you hear what I negotiated..."
Look, I'll be honest - I missed the first hour. But, as a veteran of more than my share of these nightly Hallmark miracles, I'm pretty confident i can pick it up. This may devolve into the equivalent of a seventh grade book report on a book I never read.
It's undeniable: Christmas Tree Lane isn't just a street. It's so much more. And that much more is this: it's also the title of this movie. I know this because the lead characters are constantly reminding us that it's the name of this street.
Alicia Witt runs a book store (or a music store, or whatever - something else equally boring is the point), loves Christmas, is an ugly crier, and hates commercialism. Budget Chris Evans works for his dad's construction company and loves wearing vests. Dad wants to buy up all the stores on Christmas Tree Parkway and build some new... I don't know, offices? Stores?
After Alicia Witt gives a woman-on-the-street interview with the local news about the significance of Christmas Avenue that boils down to: "Everything now is awful, and Christmas used to be better." Excerpts from this interview can be found online, including gripes about things costing more than they used to, music being too loud nowadays, and the general lack of handwritten letters these days. People go crazy for it, businesses start booming.
There's also a Christmas concert, complete with the regulation-mandated late addition singer and royalty-free music. Alicia takes some time to give a speech about how much Christmas Wreath Street means to her, and thankfully reminds us that she has a dead parent, allowing us half-viewers to officially mark this one down as a true Hallmark movie. She plays a song or something, people are happy because they're not tearing anything down, whatever.
Scoreboard:
- dead parent (1x, I think that's all)
- Christmas concert (1x)
- Everything used to be better attitude (more of a general malaise)
Total: 3/10.
A Gift to Remember (2017)
My memory... it's so foggy... I feel like I've been here before
There's no beating around the bush here - this movie is straight up stalker garbage. Darcy is a young woman who gives some poor mope brain damage, and then gaslights him to fall in love with her. "Let me take your dog home. Are these your keys? Is this your mail? I'll just have a quick look around."
It's said that Keith Richards wrote the opening bars to "Satisfaction" when he woke up in a moment of clarity during a bender. We can imagine a similar story involving the writers at Hallmark, pitchers of eggnog, and a 2am viewing of "While You Were Sleeping."
Score card:
- dead parents: at least three!
- number of characters saying something along the line of, "look, you don't even know his name, he was unconscious for a long time, and he's had a legitimate brain injury. You should step back a bit.": zero
- lost brain cells: too many to count
Total: 4/10
Nostalgic Christmas (2019)
A carousel of Christmas cheer...
...if that carousel were powered by a 747 and adderall.
"Nostalgic Christmas" is a lot. Like, A LOT. Every Hallmark movie trope you love? It's here: woman leaves her fast-paced job in the city to move back home to the country? Check. Town gathering for a Christmas tree lighting? Check. Christmas pageant? Check. Dead spouse or parent? Check, check, and check. This movie comes on like a freight train from the first minute and just. does. not. let. up. Just an assault on the senses. Simultaneously a drinking game and a Christmas fever dream to end all fever dreams.
Two minutes in and we learn that Anne Garrison has a career in the city, her dad lives in a tiny town, her mom is dead, dad wants to close his toy store, sell the house... I can't even with this - did I say two minutes? The first minute of this movie is just the credits. ALL ABOARD!
Anne works as a toy purchaser for one of those corporate, stuffy, toy store chains which are apparently still things in this Amazon-less universe, and she's pitching her newest product suggestion to the board - a bluetooth and wifi-enabled stuffed horse. Christmas is in like two weeks! How are you going to get these on the shelves? Please make this end. NEXT STOP, SMALLTOWN!
Anne arrives home, and she needs to help her dad sell his toy store - he's getting on in years, he'd like to move closer to his kids in the city. Dad has already gone through the stages of grief over this store and is at "acceptance", but luckily Anne is here to both force him to go through everything all over again ("But the memories!"), and to meet an old high-school boyfriend that'll list the store for sale. While Anne is sending those mixed signals, GET ON BOARD! CHOO-CHOO!
Discount Channing Tatum ("Keith") is standing at the kitchen counter speaking with his daughter Jessie, and because we don't meet mom right away, and because there's nothing Hallmark loves more than kids being a heartbeat away from the orphanage, it's a safe bet that mom won't be joining us for Christmas. Drink! Jessie needs to pick a song to sing at the town Christmas pageant. WOO WOO! PAGEANT TRYOUTS, ALL ABOARD!
Dad and Jessie start the walk to school when Jessie realizes she forgot to buy a toy for the Christmas pageant, when as kismet would have it, they're standing in front of Garrison's Toys. Keith takes no time at all to let us know that they don't make toys like this anymore, and that Anne has wasted her life with toys he has no time for. Wi-fi?! I don't need toys to send me emails! Where's my axe? CHRISTMAS SPIRIT! DRINK!
By-the-by: between the four of Anne, her dad, Jessie, and Keith, Keith is the only one we don't see doing any woodworking in this movie) BACK ON THE TRAIN!
I don't even think there's been a commercial break yet, and we still have to get to the mystery of the missing 40' Christmas tree (spoilers: it goes unsolved), a Christmas tree decorating montage, another dead spouse, the town Christmas tree lighting, Anne re-discovering her passion for woodworking, Mrs. Wentzell closing the old mill and threatening the town economy, and the lines "I need nature. I was born to be a lumberjack."
I don't even know how to finish here - this movie just left me in such a state of bewilderment. Six stars. Would have been higher, but we were robbed of the phone call to the police where the stolen Christmas tree was reported. "Yes officer... yes, forty feet. Shaped like a Christmas tree. That's right... well, let me know if you develop any leads."
And I didn't even mention the hundreds of miniature Santa carvings...
Score card:
- big city girl moving back home to the country - 1x
- tree lighting - 30x (not a typo)
- singing while decorating the tree - 1x
- Christmas pageant - 1x
- Christmas cookies - 1x
- "Christmas miracle" said out loud - 1x
- dead spouse/parent - 3x(!), a Hallmark first
Northern Lights of Christmas (2018)
Reindeer wishes and barn dance dreams...
After it learns to fly, the albatross will spend the next six to ten years without touching land. Sailing over the ocean, riding wind currents without flapping its wings for days at a time, the albatross is only truly home when among the clouds. Zoey is our albatross.
Zoey has landed in Aurora, Alaska, the home of her Uncle Gus, a titan we unfortunately never get to meet. Gus has sadly passed away, and left a nest for our bird in Aurora. Of course, Zoey's dreams are in the sky, so it only makes sense that she finds a more appropriate caretaker before she lifts off again. Before she leaves, however, it's time for one last Christmas barn dance in honor of Gus.
But who is currently responsible for the ranch? Alec - a man with a face like a shovel and the personality of a shovel. Alec is a man of unexpected surprises - he rides a motorcycle in the snow in Alaska, hates flying, loves photography, and has never decorated a Christmas tree.
Over the course of the next few weeks, Zoey and Alec make preparations for the Christmas barn dance, and quietly fall in love. Zoey brings Alec up into the air to see the Northern Lights, Alec captures Zoey on film back on earth. But they're still too afraid to mention their feelings to each other. When Zoey learns of an offer being prepared for the ranch, Alec panics, and Zoey can't figure out how to respond. The scene gives us the most heartfelt exchange of the movie (summarized):
"Uh, so I guess you're selling the place."
"Uh, yeah, it was good working with you."
Shakespeare.
Alec is conflicted, and makes plans to leave, but beforehand he looks at the two reindeer that he reunited - second thoughts? Zoey, on the otherhand, is rethinking her plans on selling the ranch. Maybe this could work... maybe, maybe, maybe... Ha, no, Alec has bounced, and has left a note for Zoey (summarized):
"Gotta go. You were cool. Later."
More Shakespeare.
Zoey has accepted her decision, and shares it with her family, but something is missing - Alec. If only Alec could be here... oh, wait, he's here. Alec drove 50 miles and realized his mistake. He also couldn't be bothered to pick up a phone. What if she had sold it and run, Alec? Zoey is an albatross, who belongs with the birds - you're lucky she didn't already take flight, ALEC.
Ugh. Some other stuff happens, probably. Whatever. This one made me mad.
Open questions:
Why does nobody bring a chainsaw to clear the road? How is this a big deal?
Alec 100% gave Zoey a Christmas tree skirt to wear, right?
Score Card:
abandoning life in the city for life in the country - 1x
talking to animals - 2x
main character falling into love interests arms - 1x
animal love - 2x
dead parent - 1x
Total: 5/10
Chateau Christmas (2020)
Cha-two in the Chateau
Halloween 2020 is just days away, but Hallmark is already knocking things out of the park with their Christmas lineup. Today we're watching Hallmark's latest release, "Chateau Christmas," an all-too-familar tale of a successful woman leaving the big city, travelling back home, finding a lost love, saving a winter festival, or a Christmas tree farm, or a concert or whatever. You've seen it before, I've seen it before. Let's see where the journey takes us.
Margo can play a piano - we know this because she's preoccupied with her latest review from her arch-nemesis Evelyn March (yes, THE Evelyn March), wherein Evelyn dropped a load of bricks on Margo. "Lacks musicality!" Margo is also in trouble because her theater is leaking through the roof, and there's a good possibility of electrical fires breaking out, but forget that for minute - for one, Evelyn's review is most important now. And for two, because none of this has any bearing on what will happen in the future. Margo just needs to bounce.
Introducing Jackson - we know he's available because he mentions it twice in the span of three sentences. We get it Jackson, stop being so obvious. Jackson gets voluntold to handle the Christmas concert at his buddy's hotel, which he graciously accepts, but seems a little below the soon-to-be Chair of the music department at the nearby college. On the other hand, Emily Dawson is coming ("Voice of an angel!" "Broadway pedigree!") so it should be a smash.
Psych! Forget everything about Emily Dawson - we never meet her, and she has laryngitis anyway. Voice like a garbage disposal, am I right? Evelyn March sends her worst.
So who's going to fill in for this newly open spot? Enter Margo. Margo needs about six seconds of prompting before she accepts and... wait, what is this?! A piano? Right here in the restaurant? Margo breaks out a completely unrehearsed "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" so moving the entire restaurant puts down their warmed-over Carando ham and quiche and gives her standing ovation. Can we start the concert right now?
No, we can't. Jackson needs to convince his old flame Margo to headline his concert, and for that he needs to break out all the stops. "All the stops" in this case meaning, "here's some chocolate." Look: these two have a history stretching back to the beginning of time - the chocolate is just a metaphor.
We only have nine days to prepare though, and Emily Dawson has left a huge hole in the program. Margo and Jackson work tirelessly, night and day, to put on the finest hotel restaurant Christmas concert ever performed. Margo waffles back and forth on what piece to play as the curtain closer - should I play "Deck the Halls?" Where's Evelyn March? I'll show you my musicality!
"O Holy Night" graces our presence, and Margo takes this one for a *walk*. It's unending. You hear that Evelyn?!? Eat it! Here's my musicality! Also, all of your programs can now be folded up and placed under your uneven table legs, as Margo has rendered them all out-of-date trash. Margo gets a standing ovation once again, but oddly not as big as the ovation she received during brunch. Her sister also oddly remains seated. Jealously? Close friend of Emily Dawson? I smell sequel - "Chateau 2: Electric Boogaloo"
And what of Margo and Jackson? Where will this rekindled love bring us? Who's to say? But in the end, "Chateau Christmas" reminds us all that the true meaning of the chateau is in our hearts.
Editors Note: Do NOT confuse "Chateau Christmas" with the far inferior older sibling "Christmas at the Chateau." There are only so many hours this Christmas season - use them wisely.
Score Card:
Girl going back home - 1x
Dead parent - 1x
Lost love - 2x
Christmas tree lighting - 2x
Family members uncomfortably prodding about relationships - unending
Total: 7/10