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chicory111
Reviews
A Christmas Tree Miracle (2013)
Predictable, plodding
Everyone likes a feel-good story: formerly selfish person becomes generous, a family comes to appreciate the simple things in life when their formerly affluent and materialistic lifestyle disappears. This might have been one of those stories, but the script is so trite and predictable, you almost can shout out the lines before the actors say them.
Calling some of the cast "actors" is generous. A few were particularly incapable of exhibiting a range of emotions (overall, they covered the range from A to C; the "Natalie" character never made it to B).
The story makes little sense but even if you suspend disbelief, it's just boring. It's just random scenes of people talking to one another. No action, no tension, no drama whatsoever. Just annoying, unbelievable people talking, interspersed with cute comments from the little girl. Then more talking. Then annoying mannerisms from the tree farm guy. Stop laughing! Stop repeating everything! And some talking.
And why was the same can of peas on the food bank shelf for an entire year, anyway? Perhaps no poor folks in Wheeling like peas (the good ones, that is).
The Pledge (2011)
Much hype, little delivered
By all accounts, this movie is a dad's effort to please his little blonde star-struck daughter's irrational dreams of being a Hollywood star by producing a movie in which she might star - and it looks it. It's the movie version of the vanity press. Sappy story, untalented cast - it has it all. Perhaps in some universe somewhere, a child's first reaction to moving from NYC to a hick town in WV is to vandalize a WWI statue. Thank goodness for the wise judge who "punishes" the lad by sentencing him to visit veterans. Imagine his surprise that such a comely untalented lass as "Jill" is there to entertain the hapless old men. I laughed, I cried, I wished I'd stayed home.