It’s Christmas in Louisiana!
The 2019 film, A Christmas Wish, takes place in a small Louisiana town where people leave their Christmas wishes in a wooden box. Faith (Hilarie Burton) is encouraged by her sister, Maddy (Megan Park), to wish for true love. Myself, I wished for a Christmas movie featuring not only several actors from One Tree Hill but also Pam Grier! And, with this film, my wish came true.
There’s a very clever scene at the beginning of The Christmas Contract.
Jack Friedman (Robert Buckley) is a writer who can’t get any of the big publishing houses to even take a look at his new book. However, Jack’s agent informs him that they might change his mind if he does some ghostwriting. One can see from Jack’s reaction that this is not the first time that he’s been asked to be a ghostwriter and it’s not something that he particularly enjoys. Still, because one does have to eat, Jack agrees.
His agent tells him that he’ll be ghostwriting the latest installment in a very popular but critically dismissed series of romance novels. He’s told to go read the previous book in the series and then to basically rewrite it, just changing a few details so that it can be advertised as a totally new book. He’s given a list of plot points that the publishers want to be included in the book. Again, it’s not particularly important how the plot points are integrated into the story. Instead, they just have to be there.
Moonlight dance? Yep.
Kisses under the stars? Yep.
Oh, and the book needs to take place in Louisiana.
Now, you don’t have to be a part of the industry to realize that, in this scene, Jack is serving as a stand-in for every writer who has ever been assigned to write a Hallmark (or, let’s just be honest here, Lifetime) Christmas movie. Don’t try to reinvent the season, just make sure that the basics are there. Pick a new location and you’re ready to go!
With that scene, the makers of The Christmas Contract are acknowledging that, “yes, this is another Lifetime holiday movie.” And yes, it’s going to remind you of a lot of other Lifetime holiday movies. But, that still doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it. After all, the appeal of a movie like this is to be found in its familiarity. In an often chaotic world, there’s something to be said for the comfort of a good, if predictable, romance novel. The same can be said of a Lifetime Christmas movie.
Anyway, it’s a good thing that the publishers want the book to be set in Louisiana because that’s where Jack spends his holiday. He’s actually accompanying a recently single woman named Jodie (Hilarie Burton) back to her home for Christmas. Because Jodie’s ex-boyfriend is going to be visiting with his new girlfriend, Jodie doesn’t want her family to know that she’s single. So, Jack pretends to be her boyfriend. They even sign a contract ahead of time. And, yes, you can guess exactly what ends up happening but, again, that’s kind of the point with a movie like this.
The cast, which includes several veterans of One Tree Hill, does a good job with the material but the true star of this film is the state of Louisiana. This film makes full use of the beautiful Louisiana landscape and the celebratory nature of the state’s culture. It may have been predictable but it was still enjoyable. Spending the holidays with Jodie, Jack, and the family looked like a lot of fun.
You all have got twitter to blame for this review. I vaguely remember Coach Carter playing in theaters back in 2005 but I didn’t see it. To be honest, the only thing that bores me more than high school football is high school basketball. I have to admit that I really can’t stand to watch basketball, largely because I hate the way the player’s shoes are always squeaking on the court. It just hurts my ears.
But, I’ve noticed that whenever Coach Carter shows up on television, everyone on my twitter timeline seems to get excited about it. Coach Carter is one of those films that is obviously popular with a lot of people so, when I saw that it was going to be playing on Showtime last week, I figured why not?
And you know what?
Coach Carter is actually a pretty good movie. If I don’t seem overly enthusiastic about it, that’s because I’m just not into sports. But I do love movies and Coach Carter is an effective film. That it’s predictable isn’t really that much of a surprise. Predictability is actually probably one of the main appeals of the sports genre. But Coach Carter is distinguished by a strong cast and it has a pretty good message to boot.
Plus, it’s based on a true story! How true I don’t know but I’d like to think that the movie stuck pretty close to the facts if just because the story is so appealing.
Anyway, the Coach Carter of the title is played by Samuel L. Jackson. At the start of the film, Carter takes over as basketball coach at the same inner city high school that he graduated from. When he first starts, his team is rude, disrespectful, and undisciplined. The majority of them have little direction in their lives and have basically pinned whatever hope they have for the future on eventually playing professional basketball.
(I will admit right now that I was really excited to discover that Channing Tatum played one of the players. The only thing that would have made me happier would have been for James Franco to suddenly show up.)
Carter informs his team that, in order to play for him, they have to be willing sign a contract that states that they will treat everyone respectfully, that they will wear a tie on game days, and that they will all maintain a C+ average. Some of the players refuse to sign (and are promptly kicked off the team) but those who do quickly discover that Carter expects them to honor the terms of the contract.
And, under Carter’s leadership, the team goes on to have a great season. They’ve got an undefeated record and appear to be heading for the play-offs when Carter discovers that several members of the team have failed to keep up their grades. To the shock of both the faculty and the community, Carter benches his entire team and announces that none of them will play until all of them have at least a 2.3 GPA.
Needless to say, it all leads to one of those emotional school board meetings that always seems to show up in films like this.
As I stated above, it’s all fairly predictable but the movie itself is well-made. And if anyone was born to play an outspoken basketball coach who isn’t going to let anyone tell him how to run his team, it’s Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson is one of those actors who is so good and so powerful that I think we sometimes tend to take him for granted. Perhaps the best thing about Coach Carter is that it gives Jackson a chance to show what he’s truly capable of doing as an actor.
Again, I really don’t know that much about basketball and I’m not a fan of the game. But, with all that in mind, I was still entertained by Coach Carter. If nothing else, it proved that a lot of the people on my twitter timeline aren’t crazy.
Through the Shattered Lens 