CHRISTMAS LIST (2016) – One of our favorite Hallmark Christmas movies!

Posted on December 16, 2024 by Bradley Crain

My wife Sierra loves Hallmark Christmas movies. She has Hallmark Christmas movie sweatshirts and coffee mugs. The TV at our house is filled with recordings of her very favorites. So many days when I get home from work, she’ll be watching one of them. They just make her feel better, and I understand that. I would go so far as to say that their shared love of Hallmark movies was a major bonding agent for my wife and mom. It’s fun when they get together and discuss them. Oftentimes they can’t remember the movies’ names, but one will start describing the plot, and the other will immediately say “I love that one!!” It’s amazing. In the spirit of Christmas, and a feeling of kinship with my wife, we watched the 2016 Hallmark movie CHRISTMAS LIST.

CHRISTMAS LIST opens with a redheaded girl and her puppy making a list of the things she wants to do for Christmas. It’s simple stuff like decorating a real Christmas tree, making a gingerbread house, caroling, and taking a picture with Santa. Her mom walks in and tells her that real Christmas trees and gingerbread houses are way too messy, and she just cleaned the house. Cut to 25 years later and there’s mom straightening up the home of Isobel Gray (Alicia Witt), who’s now a successful fashion designer in San Diego, and whose boyfriend, Brett Bishop, is the owner of the company where she’s employed. Her mom surprises her by bringing her childhood “treasure box” that she had found while cleaning out the attic. Isobel sees her old Christmas list and decides right then and there that she wants to make this the year she fulfills her idea of a perfect Christmas.

Isobel searches the internet and finds Fall River, Oregon, which advertises itself as “the perfect Christmas town.” She books a couple of flights and a cabin in Fall River for her and Brett to spend their Christmas holiday. He’d rather go to the beach and drink margaritas, but he does reluctantly agree. The day before the trip, a problem arises in the South American portion of the business operation, so Brett tells Isobel that he will fly down there for a few days and then meet her in Fall River before Christmas. She’s disappointed but heads out anyway. The first night she’s in Fall River, Isobel heads out to buy a real Christmas tree. She grabs the perfect tree at the exact same time as Jamie Houghton (Gabriel Hogan), a local guy who’s helping his sister and nephew find a tree. Through a variety of circumstances, Jamie ends up taking Isobel and the tree back to the cabin and even helping her put up the tree. The next day she’s trying to make a gingerbread house for a local contest and ends up smoking up the cabin. The fire department shows up and Jamie is a volunteer fireman. With Brett still in South America taking care of business, Jamie takes it upon himself to show Isobel more of the town. Will Brett ever make it to Fall River? Will Isobel and Jamie continue to spend time with each other? Will Brett ever put Isobel over himself and his work? Will Jamie and Isobel fall in love? If you’ve seen a few Hallmark Christmas movies, you already know the answers.

In full disclosure, after many years of watching Hallmark movies with my wife, I’ve developed some favorites of my own. They usually involve Alicia Witt, but not always. We chose CHRISTMAS LIST because it is one we both like. I enjoy the traditional Hallmark formula at work here. Isobel is heavily involved with her work, but she longs for something more simple. Her boyfriend cares about her, but he cares more about himself and his career. She meets a man who is kind, thoughtful, hardworking and very content with his simple life. This is all set in a beautiful Christmas town where the hot chocolate is warm, the diner serves huge portions of good looking food, the carolers are in the town square, and the snow is gorgeous. One of the reasons that Hallmark movies work on me is that I too long for simpler times. As I’ve gotten older, my life has gotten more and more complicated, and I’m often too “busy” to really focus on the things that bring me the most joy. The Christmas season is a time when I really try to focus on my family and our blessings. It helps when we leave behind our stresses and our troubles and meet up at our family cabin (pictured below) for a couple of days. My favorite Hallmark movies are always about the main character getting his or her priorities in order. It may be oversimplified, but it’s something I have to work on constantly. The fact that the main character will also fall in love with someone who shares those values is secondary for me. That’s just the real whipping cream on the hot chocolate!

Cleaning Out The DVR: Give Me My Baby (dir by Danny J. Boyle)

Posted on October 5, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is not only watching horror films this month! She is also busy trying to clean out her DVR. She has got over 170 movies recorded and waiting to be watched. Can she view all of them by January 1st? Keep checking here to find out! Lisa recorded Give Me My Baby off of the Lifetime Movie Network on May 13th!)

“Layla, are you okay? Where is Dad going?”

“To Hell.”

That right there is the type of melodramatic and over the top dialogue that runs through every minute of Give Me My Baby, which is quite possibly one of the funniest films that I’ve ever seen on the Lifetime Movie Network.

Give Me My Baby tells the story of Layla (Kelly Sullivan), who spends her days creating new scents for perfume and who has a lot to deal with. For instance, she’s just entered into a partnership with a self-centered reality TV star named Shannon (Brooke Hogan). Shannon wants to sell a perfume called Scorched but Layla talks her into calling it Sizzle instead. Her second husband, Nate (Gabriel Hogan), is a former pro golfer who blew out his knee when he fell out of a golf cart and who still occasionally struggles to maintain his sobriety. Her stepdaughter, Allison (Laura Hand), has just dropped out of college and has moved back into her old room. However, the majority of Layla’s stress has to do with her desire to have a baby, despite the fact that, as Allison puts it, “You guys are old.”

Fortunately, Layla and Nate are clients of one of the best fertility doctors around. Dr. Hartlin (Sofia Milos) may not be cheap (and the film’s script makes a very specific point of saying that her treatment is not covered by insurance) but she seems to sincerely care about her patients. In fact, she might care too much. When Layla goes shopping, she just happens to run into Dr. Hartlin. When Nate is giving golf lessons, Dr. Hartlin just happens to show up. When Layla wonders why she’s so emotional and temperamental when she isn’t even pregnant yet, Dr. Hartlin tells her that it’s nothing to worry about. But one day, Nate arrives home and Layla not only smells the scent of booze on his breath. She also smells the scent of Dr. Hartlin on all of Nate’s clothes…

It turns out that, long ago, Dr. Hartlin used to know Nate. In fact, she and Nate even had a date or two. Nate is shocked to discover that Dr. Hartlin is the same girl that he used to know as “Cee Cee.” Dr. Hartlin explains she had a good deal of plastic surgery after a car accident, the same accident that caused her to have a miscarriage many years ago…

“I’m not going to hurt you. I just want my baby.”

“It’s my baby.”

“No, it’s my baby.”

“BACK OFF OR THERE WON’T BE ANY BABY!”

*Layla points a knife at her own stomach*

That’s just another example of the dialogue in Give Me My Baby. Seriously, this is one of the most batshit insane films that I’ve ever seen on Lifetime. I wouldn’t necessarily call it good but it’s so crazy that you’ll never forget it. Sofia Milos goes so over the top as Dr. Hartlin that there’s a chance she might never return to Earth.

That said, my favorite character was Allison. As played by Laura Hand, Allison had a sarcastic attitude about everything. Even when she was being helpful and trying to protect her stepmother, she still came across like she was annoyed about having to make the effort. I totally saw myself in Allison. Someone needs to give Allison a show of her own.

Hallmark Review: Murder, She Baked: A Peach Cobbler Mystery (2016, dir. Kristoffer Tabori)

Posted on January 13, 2016 by Valerie Troutman

I know he probably didn’t, but seeing as Ron Oliver and David S. Cass Sr. have seen some of my reviews of their Hallmark films, I am going to just assume director Kristoffer Tabori read my reviews of Love On The Air and Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery. I say this because he fixed the problems with the way he shot those two films, but still kept some of the style he seems to be going for with his recent Hallmark movies. He still has a fondness for mirrors.

Still doing some framing.

The obstructionist stuff in front of the camera is drastically reduced. I’d say it’s only there when it actually does add something to the shot like these parts.

Thankfully, there was no repeat of the blinded by the light shot from Love On The Air and Murder, She Baked: A Plum Pudding Mystery. The good framing and composition in depth are used sparingly. It’s not something that seems to have been just thrown into every shot like it was before. That alone makes this way better than the previous Murder, She Baked film. I honestly don’t know why Tabori chose to do it this way this time, but I want to thank him for it.

The movie starts off with Hannah (Alison Sweeney) discovering a body in a kitchen after a little film noir voiceover from her. I liked that it chose to open up that way. Then it cuts to a title card telling us: “Two Days Earlier”. This is when the movie reintroduces us to Hannah, the bakery, and the town of Eden Lake. Do I even have to say it anymore? Yes? Okay. And by Eden Lake, they mean Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. I know this because of this shot.

However, kudos to the production crew for knowing this shot of her cellphone would be onscreen for an extended period of time so they simply removed the SIM card.

Of course, the rest of the time it’s just Minnesota license plates where the film is supposed to take place.

A competing bakery has opened up across the street and is run by Melanie and her sister Vanessa both played by actress Michelle Harrison.

Vanessa

Melanie

I thought the two sisters looked awfully similar to each other while watching it, but I wasn’t sure they were supposed to be twins. I don’t think the film ever says they are twins. I think they had the same actress play both sisters for the convenience of the murder mystery plot. Can’t give away too much, but having the same actress play both sisters makes it easier to swallow the resolution of the mystery. However, it is a little confusing and provides a red herring that I’m not sure they were going for. Melanie is the one who is murdered. Since both sisters are played by the same actress it’s perfectly reasonable for the viewer to think that the one sister killed the other and swapped places with her. Especially since they don’t seem to like each other. Not sure if that was something the filmmakers intended or not. Something tells me they did though because the reason Melanie has her hair up in that shot above like her sister is because Hannah puts it up that way under the guise of protecting it while she bakes.

For reasons that don’t matter, Melanie and Hannah end up in a cook off to see who can bake the best Peach Cobbler. It doesn’t even matter who wins either. All that matters is that Hannah discovers Melanie doesn’t know how to bake because she bought her Peach Cobbler at a store. This is how the film gets Hannah to know Melanie as Hannah tries to teach her how to bake and introduces us to Melanie’s mean sister Vanessa. She’s nasty. Then Melanie dies.

Now here’s something I didn’t notice in the previous film, but it sure was an issue for me this time around. Both this and the previous film have Mike played by Cameron Mathison and Norman played by Gabriel Hogan in them. The problem is that both actors bare a strong resemblance to each other in this movie. I kept confusing the two of them. It really doesn’t affect the movie, but it was part of my experience watching it, so I am passing it on.

Gabriel Hogan

Cameron Mathison

With Melanie dead, Hannah, her mom, and her sister, AKA The Blonde Brigade, begin to work towards solving the mystery. Or better put, Hannah works towards solving the mystery while the other two blondes are around playing their roles in the story. One of the episodes of Murder, She Wrote that I remember the most is when Jessica Fletcher was really suspected as the murderer. That happens here to Hannah. Something else that I know everyone who has watched Murder, She Wrote thinks is that if Jessica comes to town, then RUN!!!! When Hannah discovers the body it’s:

And this isn’t all there is. Hallmark is well aware that people know they film a lot of this stuff in Canada. I mean it’s spelled out all over the credits for crying out loud. However, it wasn’t until this film that I actually saw them make a joke about it.

In that scene, she tries to tell Hannah to make a run for it by going to Canada. Of course the in-joke is that they are already in Canada.

There are also some well done computer screens and Tabori reuses the technique of overlaying some of the computer stuff onto the shot like he did in Love On The Air.

It’s nice, modern, and has the effect of showing both what’s important on the screen and the character’s reaction to it in the same shot. That helps to keep us engaged rather than having things broken with every cut from the screen to the character and back again.

I also appreciated the scene near the end where Hannah, then Norman, try to social engineer some information out of some people. For me it harkens back to movies like Sneakers (1992) and WarGames (1983), but since this is a murder mystery. It also made me think of The Rockford Files. Rockford socially engineered people all the time and in some episodes even carried around a little printing press to make fake business cards. It’s no wonder that even Kevin Mitnick mentioned The Rockford Files in his autobiography. She also does some dumpster diving.

So with all that babble out of the way, you are probably wondering if the mystery is any good. I could reasonably follow it which is a good thing. However, a section of it is quite obvious. The fact that the other part may be obscured from you till the end doesn’t change that you think you have figured it out from the start, and you basically have. Nevertheless, this installment has changed my opinion on this particular Hallmark mystery franchise. I could go for another one. Even Alison Sweeney who I felt didn’t pull off playing the good character in the previous films finally seemed to settle into the role. That may just be me or that I’ve seen her play the same role three times now, but her performance worked for me. I’d say give this one a shot, but for all the other things I mentioned aside from how well crafted the mystery itself is.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Last Chance For Christmas (dir by Gary Yates)

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Lisa Marie Bowman

After I watched The Christmas Gift, I continued to clean out the DVR by watching Last Chance For Christmas. Last Chance for Christmas originally aired on Lifetime on December 6th and it took me a second viewing to realize that, as far as Lifetime holiday movies are concerned, Last Chance For Christmas was actually pretty good.

Annie (Hilarie Burton) lives in a small town in Alaska, along with her daughter Madison (Lola Flanery). Annie owns a reindeer farm, which is her inheritance from her father. The bank is eager to foreclose on her and take the farm away from her. It’s all because Mr. Buckley (who is somewhat inevitably played by Tim Matheson) wants to build a ski resort on her property.

Desperate but still defiant (which is why I liked her), Annie is understandably paranoid when John (Gabriel Hogan) suddenly shows up on her doorstep and says that he needs to borrow one of her reindeer. She assumes that John must be working for either the bank or Mr. Buckley.

Which she doesn’t know is that John’s boss lives up north. For the past 15 years, John has worked for Santa Claus (Derek McGrath). John is in charge of the stables and taking care of Santa’s reindeer. When Prancer cracks a hoof, it’s crisis time at the North Pole. As John explains it, without Prancer, it could take three to four months to deliver all of the presents. John even suggests that they may have to delay Christmas or cancel it altogether…

That’s when Mrs. Claus (Jayne Eastwood) steps forward and announces that, under no circumstances, will Christmas be canceled. As she puts it, the children will get their gifts “by any means necessary.” John is sent into the human world, instructed to track down a replacement reindeer. And he thinks that he’s found one on Annie’s farm.

The problem, of course, is that the reindeer — named Frankie — is Madison’s favorite. As John slowly starts to win Annie’s trust (and as he and Annie fall in love), he realizes that he cannot bring himself to take Frankie away from Madison. However, when he explains this to Mrs. Claus, she tells him that the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few. If John isn’t willing to steal Frankie then maybe Mrs. Claus will have to come do it herself…

And really, the portrayal of Mrs. Claus as being the ruthless head of a crime syndicate was perhaps the best thing about this film. It was so unexpectedly dark and almost cynical. As well, Jayne Eastwood was obviously having a lot of fun playing this very unsentimental version of Mrs. Claus.

Beyond the subversive portrayal of Mrs. Claus, Last Chance For Christmas was a genuinely entertaining film. Hilarie Burton and Gabriel Hogan made for a cute couple, Lola Flanery gave a blessedly non-cutesy performance as Madison, and the snowy scenery was nice to look at. All in all, Last Chance for Christmas is a perfect example of the correct way to do a holiday movie.