Film Critics United

Catch a Christmas Star (2013) - Hallmark ...And we have come to the end of the road with arguably the best one of these wacky Christmas movies we've seen to date.  Or is it?  Give a man dying of thirst a glass of water, and surely that water will taste as if it is sweat from the brow of Jesus.  Point being that after 30 straight days, this movie could be 'A Plan 9 from Outer Space Christmas' and it would still seem almost magical.  And I'm sure the mudslides I was chasing didn't hurt either. Chris (Stever Byers) is a widowed father of two adorable kids.  His wife died in a car accident a few years back, and I've noticed in this journey that car accidents seem to be the method of choice for getting rid of significant others, when I think a long terminal illness, like cancer, works better dramatically.  It allows for this dying S.O to give some theatrical last dying words for their mate, which just can't happen in a head on collision. Anyway, it's ...

Dear Secret Santa (2013) - Lifetime Jennifer (Tatyana Ali) is a busy career woman, no time for love, no time for Christmas... bla bla bla, we know the routine.  Jen has gotten word from her bestie Abby (Jordin Sparks) that her old man Ted (Bill Cobbs) has taken a nasty spill, and Jen has to jet up the I-5 from L.A. to Berkeley to check on the old angry dude. When Jen gets there, other than being ridiculously old, because he's being played by Bill Cobb, the old guy is okay.  Still, Jen decides to stick around to keep an eye on him, maybe sell the family house out from under him and stick him in a nursing home or something.  It's for his own good.  Jen and her dad aren't too terribly close, Jen being more of mama's girl, but the thing her father is still a little bent about is that she missed Jack's funeral three years ago.  Jack (Lamorne Morris) was Jen's next door neighbor and best friend growing up and when tragically he died in a car accident she inex...

Baby's First Christmas (2012) - Hallmark I feel... empowered.  I feel as if there is nothing that I can't do when I set my mind to it, and I can thank these Christmas movies for giving me this confidence.  True, there's been tears and pain and I believe a 30% loss of vision, but whatever man... I can't be stopped now. Alrighty then... Jenna (Rachel Wilson) is a Kanye listening, green loving, proletariat supporting lib-tard.  Kyle (Caspar Van Dien) is a country music digging, boot straps pulling, proletariat oppressing republi-turd.  They're both lawyers, they hate each other on many levels, but alas they are always thrust together because Jenna's brother Jim and Kyle's sister Trisha are married to each other. Such as this Christmas for instance where Jenna and Kyle are forced to rent a car together to go to NYC to witness the birth of their nephew, to go along with their adorable seven year old niece Karen (Ella Ballentine).  Now there are issues the...

A Husband for Christmas (2016) - Ion TV This one was rough people and we love Vivica Fox.  I thought 'A Boyfriend for Christmas' was tough sledding with it's insidious message, but it had nothing on 'A Husband for Christmas'.  Which I guess makes sense since a husband is of a higher stature than a boyfriend.  I guess. Brooke (Vivca Fox) is a graphic designer for some company that is about to go through a merger and she's fearing for her job.  Her fears only heighten when she meets Roger the Charming (Ricco Ross), the British graphic designer for the other firm.   But surprise, surprise, not only does Brooke's boss (Eric Roberts) let her keep her job, but he also gives her a huge promotion as head of the department.  Here's the thing though... Bossman wants Roger to stay in the country to work for him and instead of going through the normal, regularly accepted avenues of immigration, he wants Brooke to marry Roger, which is like super illegal and...

The Night They Saved Christmas (1984) - ABC Let's travel back to a simpler time before Hallmark hijacked the TV Christmas movie, where oil companies were the devil and a woman's long flowing locks never moved out of place, no matter hard the wind was blowing. Michael (Paul Le Mat) is a hard working geologist detonating dynamite in the arctic looking for oil for his dickish boss Mr. Murdock (Mason Adams).  Unfortunately there's no oil to be found, Michael is sad and Murdock is super angry.  Worst still, Michael is at odds with super beautiful wife Claudia (Jaclyn Smith) who has grown weary of dragging their three kids around the globe in the search of the black gold, and the youngest one, C.B., is seriously unstable.  I mean this kid punched another kid for saying there's no Santa Claus.  Who does that?  Later in the evening C.B. will stomp out the the room and wish his mother dead for even hinting that Santa might not be a real person.  C.B. is the w...

The  Nine Lives of Christmas (2014) - The Hallmark Channel Okay, if this is a Christmas movie, then so are Die Hard, Good Fellas and Gremlins.  You know what?  I might very well watch those in the next three days and just arbitrarily stick the word 'Christmas' at the end of the title, since apparently that's all that's needed to qualify. Zachary (Brandon Routh) is a mad hunky fireman who poses for fireman calendars, dates super models and doesn't believe in long term love because his parents are divorced. Marilee (Kimberly Sustad) is an abnormally tall veterinarian student who totally believes in true love but being as busy as she is, trying to get out of school, time just doesn't allow for such tomfoolery. Then one day Zachary rescues the cat Ambrose, and this cat has attached itself to the commit-a-phobe, but as it turns out Ambrose isn't so bad.  Would you believe that Marilee is paying her way through school by working at a pet store?  Now cir...

A Boyfriend for Christmas (2004) - The Hallmark Channel My son tells me 'Why do 30 days?  25 days makes more sense'.  And he's right, especially since I'm on Day 24 and tomorrow would be end of this treacherous journey, but that's not what I did, so we tirelessly soldier on.  If did do 25 instead of 30 days, I probably would've been a little more selective and chances are 'A Boyfriend for Christmas' wouldn't have made the short list, but here we are. Young Holly is walking in the mall, and her girlfriends are dominating the conversation about the boyfriends they are about to get, but Holly let's them know she don't need no gatdamn man!  Holly was totally lying about that because when Santa (Charles Durning) asked her what she wanted under the tree, with little hesitation, she told him a boyfriend.  Now the only reason 12 year old Holly was talking to Santa was because she was helping this cute boy who couldn't get his little sister ...

My Christmas Dream (2016) - The Hallmark Channel Yesterday's movie, 'The Christmas Choir', was all gritty and real and serious, to the point it was almost like a regular movie.  For today's movie I had to get my mind right... realign my priories.  I had see something that truly captured the essence of Christmas, at least the way Hallmark sees Christmas, and boy did the gods of TV Christmas Movies answer the call with this one, 'My Christmas Dream', a veritable prototype of what a Hallmark Christmas Movie should be. Winnie Cooper (Danica McKellar) is the hard working manager of the biggest department store in town and she is ready for the Christmas rush.  Not Christmas... never had time for that... but selling stuff.  Today is a big day for Winnie because the owner of the chain, Ms. Victoria (Diedre Hall) is coming to visit and for some odd reason the CEO of this company has never met the manager of her biggest, most important store.  Moreover, Miss Victor...

The Christmas Choir (2008) - The Hallmark Channel Peter (Jason Gedrick) is an accountant who focuses far too much on work, but on this evening he's meeting with his girl Jill (Cindy Sampson) to set the date.  Sadly Jill dumps Peter at dinner, despite the fact he's all handsome and stuff, because he's an accountant that works too hard. Somewhat distraught Peter wanders the dingy streets of Montreal for a bit before stopping in at the local dive where he makes the acquaintance of Piano Playing Bob (Tyrone Benskin). These two gentlemen share a drink, bond over music as Peter was also a Piano Man in a previous life, and after a few stories of love and love lost, Bob invites Peter back to his home to meet his family. Imagine Peter's surprise to learn that Bob's 'home' is a homeless shelter and his 'family' are homeless dudes.  But eventually, with the help of Bob and the nun Agatha (Rhea Perlman) Peter takes to these people as they have given him...

Holiday in Handcuffs (2007) - ABC Family Remember that movie 'Misery'?  About a crazy person who kidnaps a poor guy and holds him hostage while torturing him in her snowy retreat?   Imagine that movie as a fun family movie, with a dash of 'The Shining', only this time James Caan and Kathy Bates fall in love with each other.  Welcome to 'Holiday in Handcuffs' people. Trudie (Melissa Joan Hart) is a holy mess of a person, but on this day she just has to keep it together long enough to make it to her parents snowy retreat with her boyfriend, for the annual family Christmas celebration.  Sadly her boyfriend bails on her, claiming he was just pretending like he was gonna go until she gave up the cookie... Hey, that's what he said in this family Christmas movie.  Now distraught and in the middle of a breakdown, Trudie sees the deep dimpled David (Mario Lopez) and at that moment Trudie decides to kidnap David at gunpoint and force him to her family outing to...

The Christmas Consultant (2012) - Lifetime  The Hoff.  Really... do we need to continue on?  Do we need to say anything more than those two simple words?  Simply by saying... The Hoff... you know already that we are in for a high quality TV Movie watching experience.  Unless, of course, you do not care for David Hasselhoff... which is almost like not liking baby Jesus... but I know there are some of you out there, despite the fact The Hoff unleashes all of his tools in this one. Maya (Caroline Rhea) and Jack (Barclay Hope) are a couple of super hard working suburbanites struggling mightily to hold down their demanding jobs, raise their three kids, handle their troublesome in-laws, and do all of this with Christmas barely a week away.  Idea!  Let's hire Christmas Consultant Owen (Hasselhoff) who will do all the Christmas planning, decorating, cooking, arranging, shopping and anything else Christmas related you can think of. Maya was a little hes...

Snow (2004) - ABC Family It's a week before Christmas and Nick (Tom Cavanagh) is a little nervous because it's his first year as Santa, but gosh darn, Buddy his reindeer has run off and been captured by the big game hunter Buck (Patrick Fabian).  Now Christmas is in trouble because the sleigh won't fly with only seven reindeer, and the scurrilous Buck has sold this reindeer to a local zoo run by the cute as button zoo keeper Sandy (Ashley Williams). Now the extremely awkward Nick has to travel to this town to bring his wayward reindeer back to the North Pole, and also teach it to fly because this is Buddy's first Christmas as well.  While all kinds of shenanigans and mayhem and chaos are taking place, including Buck's plan to sell off Buddy to be slaughtered by another big game hunter, what Nick didn't plan on was falling in love and finding his Mrs. Claus.  Awww....  look at Nick show Sandy around his North Pole workshop... while Buddy is back wherever th...

A Snow Globe Christmas (2013) - Lifetime Looking back, we could've theoretically done 30 days of Alicia Witt Christmas movies, and the fact that it took eighteen days to finally get to one with her in it is proof positive that there are far too many of these things in existence, but here we are with A Snow Globe Christmas. Meg (Alicia Witt) is a hard driven TV Christmas movie producer who slave drives everyone around her, doesn't stop to smell the roses... bla bla bla.  She also constantly and sensually massages a snowglobe  that she pretty much takes everywhere.  It's strange. Showing up at her TV station is a magical Black Woman (Christina Milian) who KTFO's this poor woman to  magically transport her into the snowglobe she's always rubbing on. Now Meg can see the life that could've been.  In Snowglobe World, she's married to her ex-college boyfriend Ted (Donald Faison), has two beautiful children... and we don't mean that flippantly because...