Memories of Christmas
Memories of Christmas (2018) - The Hallmark Channel
We were meekly complaining that last weeks movie, Kristen's Christmas Past, didn't have hardly any of the Hallmarky Christmas stuff in it, which we passed off to the movie simply not being aware, at the time it was made, that Hallmarky Christmas stuff was even a thing. Not a problem with this one baby! Man, in Memories of Christmas, they knocked out most of that stuff before the ten minute mark even passed. The movie opens at a Christmas Party with a character named Noelle (Christina Millian) for goodness sakes, who of course is a super successful business woman who is Christmas Averse for some reason. Circumstance forces her to travel home to Snowy Michigan to close her dead mom's estate where we meet Blandsome Canadian Actor 1 (Mark Taylor) hanging up Christmas lights, followed by her old wise neighbors coming in for hot cocoa, where they setup all the other stuff... such as caroling, baking, ice skating and snowball fights which are soon to happen. Gotta love that they made us real Hallmark Comfortable so early in the movie. Plus there's a Christmas Ball coming which will announce a scholarship for Orphan Kids! Okay, so the kids don't necessarily have to be orphans to qualify, but I think they have better chance if they are orphans.
By the way this movie is bought to you by Balsam Hill Fake Christmas Trees...
When you can't get a real tree, and these movies only do real trees, get a Balsam Hill tree. I didn't know that was a real brand until I was clubbed over the head with that product placement right there.
Anyway, Noelle isn't crazy about Christmas, reasons being aren't made too terribly clear outside of the fact that her late mother LOVED Christmas. Maybe she loved Christmas more than she loved Noelle? We will never know. As mentioned, Noelle is in town to pack up and sell off the childhood home, but alas her movers are stuck in the snow somewhere so she's trapped in small town Michigan. She's still keeping in touch Blandsome Canadian Actor 2 (Jamie Callica) back at the home office in San Fran, who's she kind of sweet on, but while she's there she might as well hang out with Blandsome Canadian Actor 1. This dude, who we will call Dave, is a pretty decent guy. They have a snowball fight, they eat some kind of fried donut or something which isn't a Michigan thing, Dave teaches Noelle how to ice skate, which Dave is really good at to the point he was NHL bound until, of course, he blew out his knee. There's no such thing as reconstructive knee surgery in teevee land.
This skating scene actually brings us to this movies unforgivable fatal flaw. So Dave is showing Noelle how to skate, while his young nephew is shining a spotlight on them in the rafters. Both Dave and his Nephew are wearing... stay with me here... they are wearing Pittsburgh Penguin Jerseys! In Freaking Detroit! Man, I don't care if you are actually from Pittsburgh, or whatever city, don't be wearing those enemy colors up in the D. If you are from Pittsburgh and just driving through Detroit to get to Wisconsin or somewhere, might I suggest you take off that Jersey and put on a proper Red Wings Jersey to insure safe passage, lest you get pulled out your car. You don't want that and we don't want that for you.
Back to this now B.S. movie. After a near miss kiss between Noelle and Dave on the ice, Dave overhears the news that Noelle's firm is brokering the deal to sell off the pavilion where they have the Christmas festival every year, even though Noelle did not know this, and now Dave gets super pissy. I'm talking teenage girl somebody is wearing your same outfit at the prom pissy. It's not becoming of a grown man. Unfortunately for Noelle she's now feeling Dave, even though he's pretty much revealed himself to be a moody psycho, and she sets about trying to make things right. Blandsome Canadian Actor 2 even makes a special trip to Michigan to help Noelle out a bit and tell her how he really feels about her, but that brother already missed his chance. Besides, he crapped on the fake Christmas tree, which you can't do in a movie bought to you by Balsam Hill Fake Christmas Tree's... When you can't get real one. Anyway, Noelle and the Psycho figure it out and make out. On Christmas. Roll credits.
This Christmas movie was directed by my main man Tibor Takacs, who I know better as the director of instant classics such as Mansquito and Ice Spiders. I think I kind of wish he'd stick to that genre. Now don't get me wrong as everything we expect in these movies is definitely here. You can't turn your head without bumping into a Christmas decoration, there's snow everywhere which leads to a snowball fight, each character should have sugar shock since they drank so much cocoa, we had cookie baking, caroling, plenty of dead parents, wise old people, borderline orphan kids, tree decorating... you name it, it was there.
The movie itself however was kind of scattershot. It's like the filmmakers had a list of things they had to get in, like cookie baking and wearing enemy colors, which we do appreciate, but did all of this at the expense of a semi-coherent narrative, and we all know these movies don't need much to keep it's loose story together. Even though all these movies are pretty basic, you still have to flesh a few things out beyond the Christmas Averse career woman. To have been in nearly every scene, Noelle was still poorly defined as a character, with Ms. Millian's world class beauty only carrying us so far. And our two male leads aren't developed much better with one we know having a bum knee and the other hating on fake Christmas trees. Or more accurately he hates people who like fake Christmas trees I think. Who knows? The actual narrative is really erratic and lacks focus, which quite honestly is difficult to do in these types of movies, and the secondary characters obviously didn't fare any better than the primary characters. All of the characters are good looking and charming, but then this is a staple of every modern TV Christmas movie ever made.
But it does check mostly all the vomit boxes. We have to give it that.
We were meekly complaining that last weeks movie, Kristen's Christmas Past, didn't have hardly any of the Hallmarky Christmas stuff in it, which we passed off to the movie simply not being aware, at the time it was made, that Hallmarky Christmas stuff was even a thing. Not a problem with this one baby! Man, in Memories of Christmas, they knocked out most of that stuff before the ten minute mark even passed. The movie opens at a Christmas Party with a character named Noelle (Christina Millian) for goodness sakes, who of course is a super successful business woman who is Christmas Averse for some reason. Circumstance forces her to travel home to Snowy Michigan to close her dead mom's estate where we meet Blandsome Canadian Actor 1 (Mark Taylor) hanging up Christmas lights, followed by her old wise neighbors coming in for hot cocoa, where they setup all the other stuff... such as caroling, baking, ice skating and snowball fights which are soon to happen. Gotta love that they made us real Hallmark Comfortable so early in the movie. Plus there's a Christmas Ball coming which will announce a scholarship for Orphan Kids! Okay, so the kids don't necessarily have to be orphans to qualify, but I think they have better chance if they are orphans.
By the way this movie is bought to you by Balsam Hill Fake Christmas Trees...
Anyway, Noelle isn't crazy about Christmas, reasons being aren't made too terribly clear outside of the fact that her late mother LOVED Christmas. Maybe she loved Christmas more than she loved Noelle? We will never know. As mentioned, Noelle is in town to pack up and sell off the childhood home, but alas her movers are stuck in the snow somewhere so she's trapped in small town Michigan. She's still keeping in touch Blandsome Canadian Actor 2 (Jamie Callica) back at the home office in San Fran, who's she kind of sweet on, but while she's there she might as well hang out with Blandsome Canadian Actor 1. This dude, who we will call Dave, is a pretty decent guy. They have a snowball fight, they eat some kind of fried donut or something which isn't a Michigan thing, Dave teaches Noelle how to ice skate, which Dave is really good at to the point he was NHL bound until, of course, he blew out his knee. There's no such thing as reconstructive knee surgery in teevee land.
This skating scene actually brings us to this movies unforgivable fatal flaw. So Dave is showing Noelle how to skate, while his young nephew is shining a spotlight on them in the rafters. Both Dave and his Nephew are wearing... stay with me here... they are wearing Pittsburgh Penguin Jerseys! In Freaking Detroit! Man, I don't care if you are actually from Pittsburgh, or whatever city, don't be wearing those enemy colors up in the D. If you are from Pittsburgh and just driving through Detroit to get to Wisconsin or somewhere, might I suggest you take off that Jersey and put on a proper Red Wings Jersey to insure safe passage, lest you get pulled out your car. You don't want that and we don't want that for you.
Back to this now B.S. movie. After a near miss kiss between Noelle and Dave on the ice, Dave overhears the news that Noelle's firm is brokering the deal to sell off the pavilion where they have the Christmas festival every year, even though Noelle did not know this, and now Dave gets super pissy. I'm talking teenage girl somebody is wearing your same outfit at the prom pissy. It's not becoming of a grown man. Unfortunately for Noelle she's now feeling Dave, even though he's pretty much revealed himself to be a moody psycho, and she sets about trying to make things right. Blandsome Canadian Actor 2 even makes a special trip to Michigan to help Noelle out a bit and tell her how he really feels about her, but that brother already missed his chance. Besides, he crapped on the fake Christmas tree, which you can't do in a movie bought to you by Balsam Hill Fake Christmas Tree's... When you can't get real one. Anyway, Noelle and the Psycho figure it out and make out. On Christmas. Roll credits.
This Christmas movie was directed by my main man Tibor Takacs, who I know better as the director of instant classics such as Mansquito and Ice Spiders. I think I kind of wish he'd stick to that genre. Now don't get me wrong as everything we expect in these movies is definitely here. You can't turn your head without bumping into a Christmas decoration, there's snow everywhere which leads to a snowball fight, each character should have sugar shock since they drank so much cocoa, we had cookie baking, caroling, plenty of dead parents, wise old people, borderline orphan kids, tree decorating... you name it, it was there.
The movie itself however was kind of scattershot. It's like the filmmakers had a list of things they had to get in, like cookie baking and wearing enemy colors, which we do appreciate, but did all of this at the expense of a semi-coherent narrative, and we all know these movies don't need much to keep it's loose story together. Even though all these movies are pretty basic, you still have to flesh a few things out beyond the Christmas Averse career woman. To have been in nearly every scene, Noelle was still poorly defined as a character, with Ms. Millian's world class beauty only carrying us so far. And our two male leads aren't developed much better with one we know having a bum knee and the other hating on fake Christmas trees. Or more accurately he hates people who like fake Christmas trees I think. Who knows? The actual narrative is really erratic and lacks focus, which quite honestly is difficult to do in these types of movies, and the secondary characters obviously didn't fare any better than the primary characters. All of the characters are good looking and charming, but then this is a staple of every modern TV Christmas movie ever made.
But it does check mostly all the vomit boxes. We have to give it that.
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