A Chance for Christmas
And so our 2021 Romantic Holiday Movie watching season comes to end. I think this year we watched about thirty of these, which means there over 110 movies that we didn't get to watch, which is absolutely bonkers. Who has the time to watch over 140 Holiday movies in a two month span? More importantly, who has the time to make over a 140 Holiday movies? And, uh, if you guys are looking to take that number up to over 170 in 2022, hit me up... I have a few ideas.
One of the things we got in 2021 was a bunch of new players tossing their hats in the Holiday Movie ring, including the distributor of today's film, Tubi. The good thing about Tubi getting in the game is that you can watch this movie RIGHT NOW. Don't need to pay for a subscription, don't need to wait for it come back around on whatever channel if you missed it, just need a semblance of an internet connection and you are in. And dare I say for your zero-dollar investment you will be getting one of the better Romantic Holiday Romance movies this year. At least of the ones I've seen. As mentioned there are well over a hundred we haven't seen, so with a grain of salt please.
Christina Chance (Tori Anderson) is a hard working wife and mother with a popular Internet homestyle TV show that has caught the attention of this realities version of Kitchen Aid, Love Handles Inc. Love Handles CEO Ms. Nicole (Michelle Shaughnessy) has decided to make Christina and her beautiful family the new ambassador for their lengthy line of products, ONLY if she can achieve two million views on the Christmas Eve livestream of her show. We saw the numbers of her last show, which like 600K, so I personally don't see that happening, but that's the deal. And while Ms. Nicole is somewhat mean, she can be the boss of me anytime she wants.
Here's the thing. Christina has been selling Love Handles a Bill of Goods. She's actually divorced and her fake husband Steve (Bradley Husband) is actually a family friend, who happens to be dating her mom (Lisa Langlois), who is also on the show. As well as her father (Tim Progosh), who obviously isn't married to her mom anymore. At least the two kids are actually hers, even though her daughter blames her Internet cooking show for driving her father away. Seems like a strange reason to leave you wife. I mean it was a cooking show for goodness sakes, not OnlyFans. Which some dude told me about. This all comes to a head when the guy that stepped up for Christina getting the sponsorship, her account manager who she's never met, Devon (Mykee Selkin), decides to drop in on the live stream to make sure everything goes right. Unfortunately for Devon, what he sees when he gets there is Christina's real life, which is a hot mess of epic proportions, which sends the poor man into hyperventilating convulsions. But once he gets over the shock of the deception, he knows that they have a live stream produce and his job is on the line if it doesn't go off smooth.
There were a few hiccups, but the stream goes great! But it didn't hit the numbers it needed to, nowhere close, so no sponsorship for Christina, and Devon gets fired. Did I mention Santa? Yeah, Christina hired a Santa to close out the show and this guy was on point. Best hired Santa ever. Only he was the real Santa yo. So when Christina started whining that 'she wished she could do the day over again', Real Santa was like, 'Sometimes Christmas Wishes come true' and then vanished like the creepy dude he is. The next day Christina wakes up thinking it's Christmas, only to be shocked to learn it's Christmas Eve. Again. Devon shows up, thinking he dreamed yesterday, but no, he too is caught in the time loop with Christina. Santa shows up, tells them some stuff, then turns into vapor again, but now Christina and Devon know that they have a redo to hit that two million number.
So it's Groundhog Day time, with Christina and Devon having many, many days to figure out some things, learning some things about each other, never hitting that number, killing fake husband Steve on occasion, learning things about her kids that she probably should already know, and slowly but surely, maybe falling in love? Maybe?
Finally they come up with a plan to hit the number, which they do, but it happens in way where Christina pretty much freezes out the whole family and now they all hate her. But it's okay, because at least the day can end. Because obviously Mystical Santa hit them with his voodoo magic so they could get better Internet numbers.
OF COURSE HE DIDN'T! The day resets again and now Christina and Devon a resigned that reliving this day is their fate. They decide, instead of trying to shoot a show, let's just enjoy a day with the people they love. Devon even shows up. Why? Because he's been with the person he's been falling in love with. He's an orphan kid by the way. Christina sets about just having fun with her family, making cookies with her daughter, building a gingerbread castle with her son, laughing with her parents, letting Steve hang lights and all kinds of family stuff. Devon decides to film all these events on his cellphone. I'm thinking she's not gonna like that Devon. Sure enough, when homeboy shows her the videos he recorded, Christina goes OFF. I mean she says some really mean things to Devon, with some of these things pertaining to the fact he has no family of his own. Because he's an orphan. Personally, I don't think there's any recovery from some of the things she said to this dude. Devon tried to explain himself, but she's not hearing it, and love is derailed.
The family, which has taken quite a liking to Devon, sees Christina all sad and stuff and they watch the cellphone videos he shot. Her dad tells her that she should probably watch the videos, which she does and she realizes that Devon was just trying to show the world the real her, the way he sees her. Seeing the error of her ways, she uploads the videos to her channel, apologizes to her audience for misleading them and sends out a heartfelt love apology to Devon, who is packing to go home to wherever the heck he's from. Until his mean boss tells him to watch the videos. He watches the video, rushes back to Christina's house and now these two are making out on the snowy lawn. Love is saved. At Christmas. BUT NOT SO FAST! We still need to make it to tomorrow. And they do. Still in love. And Creepy Santa shows up, says words and then turns into vapor again. At Christmas.
Want me to watch your Holiday Romantic movie? Just put somebody from Blindspot in it. That's all. Like Tori Anderson, who played Roman's love interest Blake in season three, only to murder Roman at the end of the season and then get murked herself in the beginning of season four. Those are spoilers by the way. Anyway, can Tubi do Hallmarky? Sure they can, because all they have to do is buy the movie from somebody, and in this case they bought it from MarVista Entertainment who has produced hundreds upon hundreds of these things, so they know what they're doing.
Yes, the Groundhog Day concept has been beat to death, especially by Hallmarky Christmas movies, but at least this one did acknowledge that they were being Groundhog dayed. Plus the movie was funny, actually made me laugh a couple of times which doesn't happen too terribly often watching these movies. Tori Anderson and Mykee Selkin made for a very likable and amiable duo and the movie had a meta message, in that behind the scenes, no matter how clean it may seem, our lives are a mess and it's how you deal with that messiness that will determine how well you get through this life. I'm guessing that was the message. I could be completely off base here.
The movie also didn't leave behind it's Hallmarky vomit worthy cred either. We had more cookie baking than you can shake a stick at, and this cookie baking was plot relevant, we had plenty of gingerbread house making, Christmas tree decorating, cocoa drinking, a magic Santa, plenty of background Christmassy type music and lots of ornamentation in the background as well. Of course we had a near miss kiss and not one but two snowball fights. The odd thing, and this shouldn't be odd, but it was odd to see characters walk outside and have frost come out their mouths in one of these movies since they usually shoot them in spring and summer. So did they actually shoot this movie in the winter? Or can you do a trick, like put an ice cube in your mouth to simulate frost breath? Inquiring minds want to know. The only thing keeping this movie from getting that coveted fifth vomit is that there was no caroling. Wouldn't have been hard to squeeze it in somewhere, but they chose to do without.
Thanks Free Tubi, I think we're closing out the season on a relatively high note. Four vomits!
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