On Strike for Christmas (Dir Robert Iscove), Review by Case Wright

Posted on December 12, 2025 by casewright

On Strike for Christmas was fun because I got to live tweet it with Lisa and that’s always a blast. The story is straight forward- Joy (Daphne Zuniga), a SAHM, is fed up with being unappreciated for her hard work in prepping for Christmas; so, she goes full-commie and strikes/organizes the other moms to fall into the perils of communism by unionizing the moms to stop all Christmas prep! Honestly, I could’ve reviewed this film for Horrorthon based upon the Marxist plot line!

I want to stay as positive as I can because it’s Christmastime but the film took a WEIRD left turn! First, the grandmother, the mom, the dad, AND the two sons were really close in age; so, you had serious teen mom vibe. Second, it was obvious that ALL of the actors had the hots for each other! It was like infamous Folgers ad (see below ).

If you are unfamiliar with the Folgers ad above, the plot is that a brother returns from Africa and the actors couldn’t help but show their attraction for one another. The same distracting event happened in this film too and not just once or twice – no no no – the sexual tension in this film was like Madmen season 1 levels and in nearly every scene.

There was one scene where the mom dressed up and the son gushed on how hot she was and it was very uncomfortable. I swear, find someone who looks at you like these actors looked at each other!!!

There were some funny parts to the film; such as, the obligatory trope that the boys and dad tried to make cookies and it’s a disaster. However, it really felt like the family had a lot of problems before this because the mom proceeded to not only go on strike, but to talk to journalists about all of her family were just POSs. I mean really if you’re already at the point where you feel comfortable going to the press about what garbage people your husband is and your son’s, the marriage is already over. And in her case, it certainly was awkward at Valentine’s Day when her dad and sons/boyfriends gave her chocolate all at the same time!!! I can only imagine what the hallmark card would look like!!!

Lisa noticed that the mom wasn’t just going on strike herself, but she proceeded to break up every family in the town. Joy needs to be stopped! I mean, it’s bad enough that she’s led all these poor people down the path of socialism and communism, which is just painful for me, but she’s also splitting up all these families!

Maybe that’s what happened in Russia? It was all just a big kerfuffle over cookies and icing and the next thing you know – nukes are pointed right at the good old US of A!!!

It should be noted that eventually the strike does end and the families try to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. I think that was very insensitive of Joy because she always had her son/boyfriend’s number to fall back on during those cold winter nights!!!

Hallmark Review: The Wish List (2010, dir. Kevin Connor)

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Yes, the title of this post should strike fear into the hearts of Hallmark movie watchers. But I can make it worse. Not only was this made by the director of Strawberry Summer, but it was written by the same guy, Gary Goldstein. And you can tell because this movie also has some characters sing When The Saints Go Marching In. On the other hand, he also wrote My Boyfriends’ Dogs, and that wasn’t bad. And you can tell that too because this movie features a scene where the boyfriend dumps his dog on the female lead. Take that scene, repeat it across multiple boyfriends, and make the right guy work at the pet store. That’s My Boyfriends’ Dogs. I’ve seen too many Hallmark movies.

The Wish List opens with a little girl in her room talking about prince charming and drawing in a coloring book that has a prince and princess. Then we see a todo list on a blackboard. Can you smell a movie about a woman who makes a list of qualities that a man must meet for him to be marriage material? No? Good, that means you’re not as jaded as I am. Sadly, that is exactly what the movie is about.

Fortunately for us. This guy is the very first one we meet and he is exactly what she is looking for so the movie ends right there. This truly is the shortest Hallmark movie I know about.

Actually, it turns out he was hiding a lot of qualities that she can’t stand such as smoking and being a kleptomaniac. That is her Americana Xpress card that fell into her soup after he pulled it out to pay for the meal. Of course, Major League (1989) came to mind.

Portrait Of Love had Corbin Bernsen in it as well, which was produced by Larry Levinson and Randy Pope who also produced this movie. Just a coincidence, but a humorous one.

Of course we now get a little montage of obviously wrong guys for her. The guy with piercings and the guy with dreadlocks. This means it’s time for Sarah Fischer (Jennifer Esposito) to break out the whiteboard and write down exactly what she demands in the man she’ll marry: NO exceptions!

My favorite is nice feet, but the best part is something that isn’t on the board. They later show a histogram showing what the probability is that she will eat a whole tub of ice cream.

Ah, I love when I can watch something where I can easily take screenshots.

With her firmly set on a path to meeting the wrong guy, she runs into the right guy named Fred Jones (David Sutcliffe) at a coffee shop.

He is the local lovable Barista prick. Seriously, I can’t think of a better way to describe him. While Esposito plays our protagonist in this and is humorous in how she keeps coming back to the coffee shop he works at even though he grates on her nerves. If you are going to watch this movie, then you’re doing so in order to see David Sutcliffe and the wrong guy Dr. Erik Cavallieri played by Mark Deklin.

They are the reason to see this movie. Come to think of it, one of this movie’s problems is that we actually like the two of them so much, we wish she could marry both of them. This is no more evident then when they all go to a night club and it goes all Saturday Night Fever (1977) with the two of them dancing.

They actually have to reach a bit near the end to try and make us really favor the one over the other. And the rest as they say, is Hallmark.

There’s only two more things I want to mention. First, this movie is split screen happy. I blame Pillow Talk (1959) for this stuff. While it works well with the dancing scene, the phone calls and the Barista contest at the end are a bit much. There’s a scene where they are talking on the phone and the center dividing bar shifts at least three times just a little to the left, then back right, then left again. Also, there are times when you’d think it’s just leaving black space on the side because it was 2010 so it was composed for a smaller screen. But then you get a shot like this.

Just know that they go a little overboard with this whole split screen thing.

The other thing is a computer screen goof to look for. It first shows a properly done screen, cuts to one that is a mess, then back to a proper one. Here’s the good one.

And here’s what it cuts to.

Not even remotely close to the awful ones from Strawberry Summer, but I would like to know who this rrowen@mac.com is. It’s a shame that they went through the trouble of reskining Google to this JetSearch.com, but they didn’t change the URL in this shot or the title on the browser tab. One final thing, it’s a little fuzzy, but I’m pretty sure one of those bookmarks is to Hallmark’s website.

As long as you know it’s one of those The Rules type movies and that you are watching it for David Sutcliffe and Mark Deklin, then this one is fine.

Val’s Movie Roundup #23: Hallmark Edition

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Just Desserts (2004) – It’s not every day that I get four decent Hallmark movies. This one I actually enjoyed quite a bit. It’s about a baker whose family bakery is falling on hard financial times. There is a cooking contest going on and he decides to enter. Apparently, his family has some baking secrets. Our main character Marco Poloni (Costas Mandylor) knows his stuff and even some of the bigwigs in the industry, but got slighted along the way and decided to kind of remain in obscurity. However, with the bakery in trouble and a contest that could help draw crowds, he decides to step out of the shadows. Problem is he needs a partner. That’s not an issue though. During a conversation at a fancy restaurant where he is having a discussion on the bakery being bought out, he tries a dessert and it’s almost right according to him. He has a partner! It’s pretty funny, because he comes back to the restaurant and just barges right into her kitchen to ask her to help him with the contest.

The rest is exactly what you expect. What makes it work is largely Costas Mandylor’s performance. Lauren Holly does a good job too. Amazingly, this movie was directed by Kevin Connor who brought us the epic disaster Strawberry Summer. The only problem I can think of here is that I was disappointed that they didn’t have Poloni make a reference Nicolas Cage’s character in Moonstruck (1987). Seriously, you see him walk in front of ovens in a white undershirt and you want him to yell, “I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride!”

I definitely recommend this one.

Before You Say ‘I Do’ (2009) – This one you really have to judge in two separate parts. This movie is about a guy (David Sutcliffe) who proposes to a girl (Jennifer Westfeldt), only to have her change her mind because she was burned by a bad marriage 10 years prior. So while going through a yellow light, he makes a wish that something could be done about what happened to her 10 years before. He is then hit by a car and now he’s in 1999.

The first part of this movie works. The two actors and Lauren Holly do a good job. He immediately goes to where she was working in 1999 believing that they will fall in love at first sight, but it doesn’t happen. So, he warms up to her friend played by Lauren Holly and works to make his way into her life while also trying to talk her out of the upcoming disastrous marriage. This stuff works well enough to enjoy the film. I liked David Sutcliffe and Lauren Holly. Jennifer Westfeldt is good enough. Kind of looks like Phoebe from Friends though. This part really is okay.

But there’s the second part. That’s the time travel. It’s not broken per se, but it’s like they didn’t even try. Really, the only honest attempt I saw to make it look like 1999 was that they had all the computer screens be CRTs. Jennifer Westfeldt looks exactly the same as she did in 2009. They didn’t even bother to change her hair. They also leave it up to you to figure out that he hasn’t gone back in time Back To The Future style, but Quantum Leap style. That is, instead of physically traveling there and thus, there being two of him, he has become unstuck in time and slipped back into his 1999 self. Also, if you went back in time to 1999, we all know it would come up at least once. But nope, he never mentions 9/11. They could have fixed that issue completely by just having him go back 7 years instead. It’s a stupid mistake that is just one more thing that should have been fixed if they were going to put in any effort to the time travel part of the story.

Still, throwing aside that the time travel stuff is a bit of a mess, the romantic comedy works well enough. Not a seek out, but you’ll be okay if this happens to be on.

Taking A Chance On Love (2009) – It’s weird, but unintentionally I am working backwards through The Note trilogy. This one is definitely better than the third one. It’s still forgettable, but better. This time Peyton McGruder (Genie Francis), the advice columnist, has a woman come up to her and say I love your column, but your advice on taking a chance on love is idiotic. Then she just walks away. It’s rather humorous.

In this one McGruder is not married to Kingston Danville (Ted McGinley). Also, we get to meet the girl that McGruder gave up for adoption many years prior. I think near the end of the film we find out McGruder tried to kill herself while she was pregnant with her. Since that didn’t pan out, she gave birth and put her up for adoption. It seems the girl’s parents went out of the picture and McGruder came back into her life. I’m sure all this information is in the first film. Unfortunately, this movie kind of leaves you in the dark for about 30 minutes. You will think that it’s impossible to watch this one without having seen that one. But that’s not true. You reach 30 minutes and there’s enough exposition that you can follow the movie. Till then it’s a little rough.

Basically, there are four things going on here. The lady who came up to McGruder and insults her needs help resolving a very old incident involving two guys and baby that happened many years ago. McGruder needs to get over her hesitancy and just marry King. McGruder’s daughter needs to stop drinking and not feel she’s in any danger if McGruder gets married. Finally, King and his son need to both get on the same page about the son wanting to be a photographer. That’s it. Just like Signed, Sealed, Delivered, it’s very character driven, not plot driven. It’s not as good as Signed, Sealed, Delivered though.

For those of you who remember when I reviewed the third one, yes, McGinley does have an assholery moment that happens for a minute without really any lead up or anything to follow it. I really want to see the first one just to see if that one has a similar scene. I’m not sure why that’s a thing with these movies, but it seems to be true.

Also, because this is Hallmark, it should be no surprise that two actors from Degrassi: TNG make an appearance. John Bregar who played Dylan is King’s son and Raymond Ablack makes a brief appearance.

Married With Children meets Degrassi: TNG

Oh, and unless I missed something or the plot summary on IMDb is wrong, that’s not a California license plate.

This one is fine, but I get the feeling that The Note trilogy is like the first five Friday the 13th movies. Individually, there not so good, but taken together, then you have something. I’ll find out eventually. Just as all streams lead to the toilet in computer science, it seems that all Hallmark movies eventually come to me. I swear that’s a saying I read in a computer science textbook many years ago.

Growing The Big One (2010) – Nope, you’d think there was, but according to IMDb there’s only a serious of porn films called Chasing The Big Ones. Not sure how Hallmark lucked out on this title, but good for them.

Now let’s talk about the movie. This is probably my favorite of the four films here. I like Shannen Doherty. She’s never going to win any major awards for acting, but I always seem to enjoy her performances. Kavan Smith is good too. I enjoyed him on Eureka. He is actually pretty interesting because of the way he looks. He can easily come across as a really kind and nice man, but all he has to do is make the most subtle adjustment to his facial expression, and it’s oh my God, he’s a psychopath. For some reason I really like that about him.

Doherty plays a radio show host from Seattle whose grandfather dies so she goes to the country to see this pumpkin farm she has inherited. Suddenly, her job back home disappears when she hears someone else on the radio in her slot. Well, not disappear, she’s reassigned. They want her on this plant show because everyone is going green these days. It’s stupid and Doherty calls them on it, but once her boss hears she now has a farm in the country, her fate is sealed. Thus, Doherty now lives in the country where she broadcasts and livestreams via webcams about a subject she is totally ignorant about.

Enter Kavan Smith! If he was in the film before this, I don’t care, nor do I remember because I want to believe this was the first time we see him. In the middle of the night he tries to break into her house and Doherty nearly maces him. He claims he was fixing the lock because he was friends with her grandfather, but we know he was there to steal the pumpkin seeds. Her grandfather was well known for growing the biggest pumpkins because of his secret method and special seeds. Is there a contest for growing the biggest pumpkin that will make the show a hit, carry the rest of the film, and bring Smith and Doherty together? Of course there is!

This is a movie that works because the two actors are just so enjoyable to watch. I didn’t really think they had any chemistry together, but I didn’t care. I enjoyed it.

One other thing to mention. There is a guy in town who sells manure. His mascot is a superhero character. He even dresses as this superhero at one point. They never say it, but that means his mascot is Shitman.