Cane Cain Kane

I went out antiquing last weekend and, in the midst of the idyllic town square, saw a sight that stopped my damn heart:

Not (just) because those elves are goddamn terrifying. They are the EXACT elves that were featured in ... oh lord, don’t make me remember the name. Some awful, awful movie I watched and rated last year.

Which can only mean one thing: The Hallmark movies are crawling out of the screen, like the girl in The Ring, to grab my ankle and drag me behind them into a twinkly, tinsel-laden hell. And who am I to say no?

Description (from IMDb): It's Christmas and once again, Dale Landis places a tree on his roof and ends up in court. No one in the small town knows why he continues the practice, but idealistic attorney, Sarah Wright is determined to give Mr. Landis his Christmas wish and keep him out of jail. Judge Conner has different ideas when he puts Sarah and and aggressive prosecutor John Keaton together to figure out the mystery behind the rooftop Christmas tree. The two must come together to find a solution and in the end find out more not only about Mr. Landis, but about each other. This heartwarming holiday movie is inspired by a true story and will restore your faith in miracles. The movie "The Rooftop Christmas Tree" stars Michelle Morgan, Tim Reid and Stephen Huszar.”

RATING: 

Candy Canes: 1 out of 5 

Ugh, I’ve gotten spoiled by watching a bunch of relatively good Netflix movies, and I forgot that 98% of Hallmark movies have no B-plot. This movie barely even had an A-plot. You can reliably tell how boring a movie is by whether or not it--at bare minimum--takes the quarter-assed effort to perfunctorily pair off side characters. This movie ... might not have even had side characters? To quote the greatest Christmas movie of the ‘90s: Buzz, your girlfriend ... WOOF.

Dean Cains: 1.5 out of 5

If you make a sandwich with moldy bread, rancid mayo, rotting meat, is the sandwich bad unto itself? Or is it possible that the sandwich itself is good -- like, the sandwiching was done well -- separate from the bad ingredients? I guess what I’m getting at here is: this movie is a shit sandwich. And the actors keep chewing it.

Citizen Kanes: 0.5 out of 5

While there’s nothing okay about this movie, I will always shed a tear for a young deployed soldier on Christmas leave, surprising their family. That’s the law. I blame an early attachment to that one Folger’s commercial -- which was twice as compelling as this movie. But real laugh or tears = Kane.

TOTAL: 3 out of 15

It’s honestly not even hilariously bad. Just bad-bad. I’ve seen like seven Christmas movies between watching this one and writing this recap, and I kept being surprised at all the awful moments. In my memory, they were distributed evenly between all the other movies -- my brain autocorrected because it couldn’t conceive of such a stupid move.

WTF Moments:

*Celebrity Lookalike Portmanteaus: The side characters just looked like watered-down versions of real actors -- the mom looks like a slightly tough Katie Couric, and the judge looks like a knock-off John Lithgow. And don’t be fooled by his Mark-Paul Gosselaar vibes on the poster -- Stephen Huszar (whom I was way feeling in Christmas Wedding Planner) is just low-calorie Jason Sudeikis. And the lead actress doesn’t even look like anyone -- she’s like a counterfeit version of a mom from a sinus medication commercial. Should have paid the extra $$$$ for Candace Cameron (or at least the extra $$ for Candace Shameron).

*Maybe Stephen Huszar just didn’t look as good because his character was a huge fucking asshole? This is our introduction to him -- the meet-cute. Some writer thought this was fucking cute.

Okay, so of all the things that are heinously wrong with this dude, perhaps the most offensive: why does he choose to cut in front of each person in line INDIVIDUALLY?!? Like, just commit, you piece of shit. 

You know, though, I should have given it an extra half-Kane for verisimilitude, because a dude who puts his hands all over four strangers within ten minutes? Of course he has zero concept of what she means by “guys like [him].” That’s the most that fucking guy possible reaction from the that fuckingest conceivable guy.

*Oh, but don’t worry -- once she explains that it’s rude to jog around screaming into a Bluetooth earpiece (and unprofessional/unethical for a lawful, to boot), he realizes the error of ways and swears off the noise pollution, right?

jk. He replaces it with actual pollution and impresses her by throwing his electronics into a fucking river.

*Ughhhhhhhh, but the writers couldn’t even commit to that. I cannot stress enough: we are supposed to find this endearing.

So, like, let me get this straight:

1) Woman tells you to stop shouting into your earpiece 2) Pretend to throw it in a river to impress her 3) Immediately show her that you didn’t actually throw it, just in case she was actually impressed...can’t risk her staying that way. (Unless you’re working under the assumption she’s hot 4 pantomime???) 4) Try to Svengali her into believing that your bizarre action is in any way a response to, like, anything she’s ever said, done or been? 5) Seriously, how did this guy pass the bar? He’s too dumb to unwrap a candy bar. Definitely not hot enough to be this much of a fucknut.

*The lead character, Who-cares-abel, reasonably calls this dickbag out on his bag-of-dickishness -- and we’re supposed to laugh at her hilarious comeuppance when he points out:

Because he’s the Pantomime King of Christmasville, he makes a big show of looking around the whole coffee shop to indicate there are no available tables. Despite having walked past like six of them half a scene before.

Never too early to start gaslighting your victim, right? (What. I can’t be the only one getting serious Men’s Rights Activist vibes off of this tampon.)

*...no, you know? I’ve tried so hard to defend Who-cars-abel but, maybe they deserve each other.

I assumed, when I first watched this scene, that the writers just didn’t know the meaning of the word banter. But the more I think about it, the clearer it becomes that, no, they know what it means ... this is just what passes for banter between this lump of scrotal meat and this hollow living ghost of a woman.

*I should say, there is a whole other plot going on in this movie, about a law case and a strange, sad neighbor, etc., etc., but it’s not even bad enough to be funny. Just, like, when any given plot point is introduced -- whatever you assume is going to happen? Make it half as interesting and you’ve got it.

*Back to Pantomime King grooming his victim: these Christmas romances are all about wish fulfillment and I have to believe, after careful analysis, that this scene is supposed to fall into that category? Like, we, the viewers, are supposed to want to be this woman, not to be, like, her college roommate having an entirely different adventure in an entirely different movie.

While she’s busy doing Generic Lawyer Stuff (in the courthouse, where apparently all lawyers work in this universe? and the judge is their boss? because whatever?) he busts in with yet another Dramatic Gesture:

Ha, bitches, right?! If you don’t feed ‘em, they get cranky -- and when you do feed ‘em, they get fat. 

In a rare moment of self-awareness she calls him out on the creepiness of his spying on her -- and instead of giving any kind of answer about how he knew she hadn’t eaten dinner, he twists the situation around so much that she’s apologizing to him for being cranky while he straight-up stalks her. That’s some Cullen-ass shit.

*He brought her a tuna sandwich, btw, and she gazes at him sexily and offers him half, then breathily reminds him not to forget his half of the pickle. I like her thought process: “What could make this leering creep more attractive? I know! Let’s slap some pickle stank on him!”

*They also enjoy a little more of their famous banter while they share the sandwich: “Sometimes they don’t toast the bread enough,” she confides. “It depends who’s making the sandwiches that day.” Whew. Crank up the AC. I can’t handle all the sparks.

*Okay, I lied, there’s one part of the terrible legal storyline that’s actually so bad it’s good. I’m happy to report that the legal system in Christmasville works exactly how you thought it would:

Netflix Description: “To inherit her father's company, socialite Ellen must first visit his small hometown, where she learns the value of hard work and helping others.Starring: Eliza Taylor, Jake Lacy, Andie MacDowell”

But even Netflix understood that they went too far with their disproportionate level of attractiveness between the lead actress and her trouble-chinned love interest. He’s not even “the guy viewers think they can land” -- he’s the guy viewers get set up with because their self-esteem is too low to understand their own worth. And Netflix knows it, so they released an alternate cover, featuring the protagonist’s (much hotter) evil-soon-to-be-ex.

Okay, now that I’ve rated the dudes, I guess I could stand to pass judgment on the rest of the film: 

RATING:

Candy Canes: 4 out of 5

Yeah, this is what I come to a TV Christmas movie for. Small down! Sweet, idealistic heroine! Everyone learns some lessons! Extremely photogenic homeless people! jk on that last one. Movie only loses a Cane for moralizing so hamfisted the movie technically violates kosher dietary law.

Dean Cains: 3 out of 5

Ellie is a little better than average (and cute as a damn gumdrop button). Her love interest (Ben? Andrew? Carlyle? Gregson? It’s been two days and I honestly don’t remember. Let’s go with Gregson. He looks like a Gregson.) is a little worse than average. Andie MacDowell’s accent is as syrupy as ever and her curls as bouncy. You’d have to be a monster not to love her. She drags the movie just over the median line. 

Citizen Kanes: 1.5 out of 5

There wasn’t much to this beyond classic holiday movie fluff, but I have to give it snaps for the fact that it actually interrogated Ellie’s political ideology: she’s an oblivious 1%-er and at one point, when Gregson gives money to a homeless man, she avoids eye contact like a bonafide Manhattan-ite. When he calls her out on it, she spouts the classic conservative line: when we give money to homeless people, we’re not really helping them; the only way to help them is by getting them to earn their own money. And she’s not cruel and she’s not stupid...she genuinely believes this, and Gregson acknowledges it’s a genuinely nice theory, but it doesn’t pan out that way. I thought this moment was humanizing and smart, and award it a full Kane. And another half because it made me genuinely LOL once!

TOTAL: 8.5 

Perfectly pleasant. 

Moments of note: 

*The movie took an “underwear first, face ... whenever” approach to introducing us to the heroine. Here’s the very first time we see her in the movie:

*Her nickname in the tabloids is “Party Heiress.” And people take this really seriously. The coverage of her Christmas party gymnastics exploits decries that she’s engaged in the types of exploits that “earned her the Party Heiress name.” I have to assume all the regular tabloid writers were out with mono the day her nickname was coined and someone from accounting got a battlefield promotion to Celebrity Nicknamer.

*CELEBRITY LOOKALIKE PORTMANTEAUX! She is like 90% young Reese Witherspoon and 20% young Kirsten Dunst. The dude she ends up with, on the other hand -- 60% Ed Helms, 40% Adam Scott. Whyyyyyyyyyyy?!

Okay, I took some editorial liberties with the way I arranged those photos, but the caption tells the story of my response to realizing, oh my god, this isn’t some random extra with too many lines -- this is the actual love interest for this movie.

*Andie MacDowell is a dream, as ever. One thing that rating these movies has taught me: if you’re an actress in your mid-50s or older, playing roles other than mom or grandma, I pretty much automatically like you. Plus, growing up, I almost never saw actresses with hair like mine. It was her and Sarah Jessica Parker, basically.

*Moment that made me literally LOL: it’s super silly and obvious, but Ellie ran out of $$$$$ so she had to work as a maid and -- har de har -- didn’t know how to use a vacuum cleaner because rich people! aren’t! like! normal! people! The vacuum cleaner vibrates, she cowers in fear, then:

I’m a sucker for a visual pun on snowfall. I will not apologize.

*Netflix product placement is always amazing & non-sensical, but this movie's was particularly strange. Among the products pitched: Sugar in the Raw and Odo-Ban disinfectant. K. 

*Seriously, I wasn’t kidding about how hamfisted the moralizing was in this movie:

My cringe-dar fired up with the “no vacancies,” and when she repeated “out in the cold,” squinting into the distance like she was on the verge of reconciling string theory, I throw a macadamia nut at my TV. Her character is genuinely smart! Why does the movie forget that and treat her like an idiot, just because she’s adorable? She should take a cue from her lookalike and watch Legally Blonde for live inspo. 

*A huge part of the plot hinged on a silent auction, and I feel like the writers were only 80% sure what a silent auction is.

TOO LITERAL, guys. Reel it in a smidge.

*Classic “fast-talking, silver-tongued city slicker bamboozles simple country folk” maneuver! Daaaaaaamn, that’s some Daniel Webster shit right there! 

jk. Clearly another case of “all the writers got mono and someone from accounting had to send this to print.” Stop smooching each other so much, writers.

*The whole plot hinges on two business partners traveling between New York and “Snow Falls” (I love town names that are declarative sentences, truly) every year to deliver hand-written Christmas cards that are “sort of newsletters” summarizing their year. But, like, here is a sample of a FULL LETTER that an actual earth human traveled hundreds of miles by bus in the snow to deliver: “Jim, you were right about starting our first retail store in Middlebury, but you got to admit, I was the one who picked Bill Parcells to be head coach. Go Giants!” How did these fools end up with a multi-million dollar company?

*Worth delivering? Some pretty amazing photos. These are my two favorites. The first, for obvious reasons. The second because the character is supposed to be like eight years old in that photo. 

I mean, what’s going on here? Is that the actress’s face photoshopped on a child’s body? Or is she really that skinny and it’s a photo of her now? Or a photo of the actress as a kid? Somehow all three yet none of the above? The longer I look at it, the less I understand it.

*You know how sometimes on a TV show, there is one character who is so much funnier than all the others it seems like they have their own separate writer? Obviously no one in any of these movies is that funny, but a moment of appreciation for Ellie’s fiancé who, despite being an idiot who mysteriously thought vacay in Maui > inheriting a multi-million dollar company, genuinely made me chuckle:

The end of this movie the real so hard I had to write about it separately. Here is my recap of the first 80 minutes.

Oh worst five-minute wrap-up in Christmas movie history...how do I mock thee? Let me count the ways:

So, Bride (did she even have a name?!) and Connor lived together ten years ago and one day she woke up and he’d straight up ghosted. Next time she saw him was 10 years later, at her engagement party. The time after that, at another party for her wedding, where he hooked up with her cousin/best friend. The most recent time? Three minutes before, when he busted into her wedding just before “I do”s with the groom’s pregnant mistress...info that Kelsey helped him find.

So obviously Bride is having an extremely difficult day, and when she storms outside after the wedding, she’s going need a lot of time to process the—

1) Oh wait, two seconds about her drama then she’s back to asking Kelsey to hook back up with said wedding-ruining ex? Cool. Cool cool cool. Cool.

2) I cropped out her other two life goals: “I was going to get married. I was going to have kids. I was even going to name one of them Kelsey.” She is the second-biggest female character in the movie and these three things are the only things we know about her. Well, that and her penchant for headbands.

3) Girl. When someone ruins your wedding and you storm out back to cry, you under no circumstances have to give up your “storm out“ spot so your ex can hook up with your cousin. That is the law of sisterhood.

4) I love how Bride tells Connor to give Kelsey a great gift, to make up for ruining this professional opportunity for her. I’ll assume he bought Bride a controlling share of fucking Amazon to make up for the damage he inflicted?

5) It turns out he ordered his “best Christmas present ever” from the catalogue all Christmas movie men order from:

6) LISTEN TO YOURSELF, KELSEY. Get your mouth off that absurdly handsome man and use it to keep mocking him to his perfectly symmetrical face.

7) Oh god, Ye Olde Heads Stacked Up In The Doorway pose. I know when I have to leave my cheating scumbag fiancé at the altar, the next thing I want do is eavesdrop behind a doorway with my mother, crouched down in a DuckTales-ass pose.

8) Seriously How is EVERY choice they made so wrong??

9) Yes, Kelsey, your disappointment at the wedding falling apart...that’s the heaviest emotional burden of the day. Not only should the bride offer to cancel her own wedding, but can she grab you a chalice of that communion wine on the way back, to take the edge off?

10) Okay but actually everyone’s reactions when he launches into the most senseless proposal since that time Britney got married for 12 hours? Perfection.

11) They have known each other for EIGHT DAYS. I regularly wear the same bra for longer than these two humans have even been aware of each other’s existence.

12)Don’t judge me. Reserve your judgment for these chumps.

13) Thankfully, he does realize that there’s a big problem — he doesn’t have a ring!

I mean, sure, auntie’s beloved husband has been dead for almost a year! I’m sure she’s been dying to unload that worthless heirloom ring! And if she can lose it in the snow by tossing it 10 feet, all the better!

14) And hey, let’s not let $150 of set design go to waste. Who doesn’t dream of getting married in front of their: cousin’s/ex’s friends and family, and the loved ones of their cousin’s/ex’s scumbag former fiancé?! Who needs a father daughter dance when you can boogie with your cousin’s sorority sister and her most recent ex’s uncle’s stepwife’s sister?

15) If only you could find a way to thank your cousin for letting you hijack her wedding to marry her ex ten minutes after she was humiliated and her relationship fell apart at the same altar!

16) Oh wait, just throw her own bridal bouquet in her face like a fucking grenade! Haha, maybe you’ll be next, cuz! But don’t take too long...Kelsey needs you to whip through your first marriage fast, so she can hijack your first divorce by stealing all your alimony.

Can’t wait for that sequel! Christmas Divorce Attorney.

Okay so listen, I truly cannot cover this whole movie in one review, so I divided it up according to ridiculousness: the first 80 minutes versus the last 5 minutes, which made me shout at my TV more than any other three movies so far this holiday season.

Netflix Description: “A wedding planner's world is turned upside down when a handsome private investigator is hired to disrupt one of her biggest jobs.”

This description? Chock full o’ lies. Let me rewrite this for honesty:

“An apparently unemployed woman who wants to become a wedding planner's world is turned upside down when a ridiculously handsome private investigator is hired to investigate someone, which may disrupt one of her biggest jobs literally the only job she’s ever had as a wedding planner (which she’s doing pretty badly).” 

RATING: 

Candy Canes: w/out last five minutes: 4 out of 5; with last five minutes: 2

Confession: Despite the slew of online reviews calling this the worst Christmas movie ever made, the first 80 minutes almost fooled me. Was it silly, contrived, emotionally manipulative and predictable? Um, that’s what we mean when we say Christmas movie. But until the last five minutes clonked me over the head with a cast iron skillet of stupidity, I didn’t notice how much worse than average it was. I’m a simple woman and I was distracted by the bright, shiny production values, the weird/wonderful costumes and how goddamn glossy everyone’s perfect, perfect hair was.

Dean Cains: with hottie goggles on: 4 out of 5; goggles removed: 2

Let the record show -- I’ve been watching these movies for 25 years, and this is the first one I’ve ever seen with a male lead whom I find even remotely attractive. Slash actually kind of straight-up bangable? Is he an average or better actor? I really can’t even be objective. And triple that for Jacqueline Hudon: I’ve got a weakness for big-eyed coltish redheads. It’s like a chemical reaction. But objectively, the acting was pretty embarrassing ... especially Jocelyn Hudon who moves as compulsively as a hummingbird--twitching, simpering, fidgeting, so awkward and self-affected she’s always, like, a quarter-second away from staring directly at the camera. Whatever. I’ll still watch every Christmas movie she ever makes.

Citizen Kanes: 0 out of 5

The movie is called Christmas Wedding Planner. It was based on a Harlequin novel, and produced, mysteriously, by a company called “Brain Power Productions.” The prosecution rests, your honor.

TOTAL: 8! As long as you fall asleep five minutes before the end, and you happen to perfectly share my passion for Emma Stone-ish women & dudes who look like sexy, stubbly non-custodial parents.

Otherwise, 4. But at least it’s not a boring 4 -- it earns that 4 by being truly, magnificently terrible.

WTF Moments:

*A two-fer with these screenshots: they tell you everything you need to know about the plot AND about Jocelyn Hudon’s aggressive facial mugging. 

Actually, a three-fer: yes, that’s just a straight-up gift-wrapping ribbon tied around her neck for some reason, and no, that’s not the only ... ruffled tea saucer (??????) that’s perched precariously on Kelly Rutherford’s head throughout this movie.

*Seriously, look at this bullshit they stapled to her gloriously glossy mane:

Sorry, babe, but until you evict that garbage crab from your scalp, you don’t get to judge other people’s decisions. (I mean, goddamn, costume department.That is Ms. Lily van der Woodson whose head you are besmirching. How DARE you?)

*My husband and I were trying to solve the mystery of Hallmark’s Charisma-Defying Troupe of Chinless Wonders and my husband put forth the theory: the men aren’t meant to be aspirational. They’re supposed to be exactly handsome enough that the potato-chip chomping, yoga-pants clad Christmas movie binge-ing viewer (self included, obvs) would say: “Yeah, y’know, realistically? I could get with that guy.”

He’s an insightful man. No idea how Stephen Huszan managed to slip through the rigorous hot-but-not-too-hot inspection, but I’m not complaining.

*Also, I just realized why I was immune to the sheer obnoxiousness of Jocelyn Hudon’s acting: I was inoculated from watching Karen Gillan’s almost identical performance in “Selfie.” I simultaneously love that show and die cringe death from the grating over-stylization.

*Of course, no movie would be completely without a cast of intriguing and pivotal side characters! Look at these five quirky characters who are in multiple scenes each! Each bridesmaid has her own distinct personality trait! The hilariously anal-retentive baker! A struggling restaurateur!

Okay now FORGET ABOUT THEM FUCKING IMMEDIATELY, because that’s what the movie does. Seriously, not one of these people has a storyline that comes back. Not even the restaurateur, who is the PI’s best friend / business partner and the caterer of the title wedding. NONE of the characters (including the bride!) has a storyline that goes beyond aiding & abetting the main characters’ love story. The closest we get to a B plot is persnickety baker using Eureka lemons in his cake (the fool!).

These characters have such meager internal lives that even the bride -- the person who gets the third-most screen time -- wanders around in a luded haze, totally ignoring her own (terribly unplanned) wedding so she can chummily grill her bff/cousin/wedding planner about her hot hook-up with said bride’s ex. Which, like, I barely even liked most of my exes while I was dating them, but if a friend of mine hooked up with one of my exes at my engagement party, I would 100% give their full contact information to every Republican candidate newsletter I could dig up.

*But forget the hottie ex-snatching -- bride should be scratching Kelsey’s eyes out for how badly she’s fucking up this wedding. If four days before my wedding, the wedding planner was STARTING to make her “vision board,” I’d be on Kayak booking tickets to Vegas. Drive-thru Elvis > $$$$$ wedding planned by a woman who apparently hasn’t even heard of Pinterest.

The timeline on the planning for this -- I cannot stress enough -- super elegant high society wedding:

8 days before: Throw an engagement party for the bride and groom; talk New York Times writer into covering the wedding and sell them photo rights without a contract

7 days before: Choose the wedding dress; caterer cancels but don’t book a new one -- it’ll probably work itself out; discover the bachelorette party has to be fully re-planned

6 days before: Teach the bride to bake so she can sweatshop up gingerbread wedding favors for 200+ guests; book a new caterer who has never done a wedding before but reassures you that: “yeah,” he “can probably do that”

5 days before: The groom’s parents throw a ... pre-wedding party for all the same guests who were at the engagement party and who will be at the wedding? (Sssshh, don’t think too hard about it.) Show up late and make out with the bride’s ex.

4 days before: Create a vision board for the wedding decor.

3 days before: Eh, the wedding’s pretty much in shape. Spend the day in a white van with binoculars, spying on the groom.

2 days before: Mope on your couch.

1 day before: Whatever.

Day of: Wear your non-matching bridesmaid dress, run a few errands while everyone is already at the church, then drop a truth-bomb that nukes the wedding! Wooooo!

Career self-sabotage, thy name is Kelsey Whatever.

*Though I have to give snaps -- the day-long stakeout was ridiculous, but I was glad that Kelsey and the PI (Hunter? Duncan? Vin? Honestly, he may be hot, but he still tumbled out of the same Cosmic Gumball Machine of Interchangeable Men as the rest of these Xmas hunks) actually spent time together. So often, these couples spill coffee on each other, then meet again in a tree lot, then talk about their dead parents during a snowball fight and it’s LOVE FOREVER after forty non-consecutive minutes together. So I appreciated that they spent a full day together and we could actually see them vibing.

“A Christmas movie couple that actually spends time together!” I thought. “A couple who gets to know each other instead of just ninja-kicking into an ill-conceived relationship!”

Haaaaaaaa. 

*I grabbed this picture of random street musicians because I thought, in my first-80-minutes innocence that this was going to be the most ridiculously extra moment all movie.

Description: “With her California hometown in the rearview mirror, Belle heads north on business to facilitate the estate sale of a mansion. While the job is a dream, the client, Hunter Lowell, is not. But, as the two spend more time together, his icy demeanor begins to melt. Although their relationship is budding, Belle’s long-time suitor, Tony, arrives, sending mixed signals to Hunter while adding chaos to the holiday season.“

This movie originally aired on Lifetime under the title Christmas Belle. Which makes sense. If I directed this movie, I’d want to change the title too, so no one on IMDb would know I was affiliated with this gangrenous mouth sore of a film.

Five-Minute Prediction: So, when a made-for-TV Christmas movie is new to me, I like to guess in the first 5-10 minutes what will happen, because instantaneously plotting Hallmark movies is my only marketable skill. (jk, none of my skills are marketable.) But this one was so dumb it didn’t even need predicting. A brief recap of my thought process in the first three minutes:

*Awwww, Haylie Duff. Good for her, doing all these Christmas movies. I hope her career is doing great.

*Okay, why is everyone calling her by name? And why Belle? Like a silver bells Christmas type thing?

*Ugh, whenever someone randomly calls a character the prettiest or most handsome person they know, I assume someone wrote it into the script out of pity or malice.

*Huh, she’s so into roses. Are Christmas roses a thing?

*Is she seriously walking around with cash stuffed into the ridiculous decorative pocket of that blouse?! She must get mugged, like, hourly.

*No, seriously, why the greetings? This feels weirdly familiar.

*Wait. Wait. Wait. They aren’t--

*Yup. It’s Beauty and the freaking Beast. Three minutes and one second in, I am calling it, this move is going to be unwatchable.

But was it? (Yes. It was.)

RATING:

Candy Canes: 2 out of 5

But that’s a 2 that relies almost entirely on irony. At first the movie seemed too awful to be funny. Then the Gutenberg Bible moment happens, and the movie got hilarious. Then it rolled back to just bad-bad for an hour -- but apparently all the writers quit before they wrote the last ten minutes, and the Beast character was galloping around the set with sunstroke or a mild concussion? So, y’know, extra half cane for hilarity.

Dean Cains: 1 out of 5

Poor Haylie Duff. Honestly, I’m rooting for her. You can tell she’s kind of trying to go for it in a few scenes--then gets embarrassed and stops committing. By turns she’s both wooden and as limp as a grocery-store eclair. But she does act the damn shirt off of the Beast dude. (Not hard. He’s so allergic to shirts that she brings it up TWICE.)

Citizen Kanes: 0 out of 5

I don’t understand why I didn’t establish provisions for negative Kanes. My egregious b on that one.

TOTAL: 3 out of 15.

Pale waltzing lord was this movie bad. You could bill it as a Christmas sequel to The Room and nobody would bat an eye.

WTF Moments:

*This song that plays in an early scene! The melody perfectly fits the lyrics--and yeah, no subtitle errors involved: those are the actual lyrics. I made my husband read them and his response? “Was this translated from Serbian?”

I think he should apologize to Serbia.

*I can be cavalier when I bandy about phrases like, “The actual dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” and I wish I had saved that phrase for this -- the actual actual dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

She is supposed to be a rare book appraiser. That is her literal career. Like, okay, maybe the writers didn’t know that there are fewer than 50 Gutenberg Bibles in the world and their value is in the millions -- but do they think people actually wander around thinking, “Hmmmmm, I’ve got 50k in my bank account. Should I buy a BMW? Or a GUTENBERG FUCKING BIBLE?”

*On the script level, it’s hard to convey exactly how wrong this movie was about every little choice so just to choose one brief interaction at random:

1) If everything at the diner is homemade, why would you feel the need to specifically point out that that includes the pies? Like, who was going to doubt pies in particular? Fresh pie is a selling point of 80% of small-town diners.

2) Lemon lime cream pie is not a thing and I will fucking throw down about that. Google claims there are 16,100 results, but after you click through three pages, it gives the ol’ redundant results omitted warning. And at least a few of the results are porn, obvs. 

3) Of course the Lumiere stand-in character was named Burny because, whatever, we have created the world we deserve.

*Several scenes in the movie were edited with interstitials like this one -- blurry twinkling lights and disembodied hands swirling Christmas decorations with what’s supposed to be, idk, achingly erotic slowness?

*The moment this movie went truly, deeply, irrevocably off the rails: Belle and the Beast wandered out to the middle of a bridge on a sunny afternoon to dance like middle schoolers to the sweet strain of no music and whisper stuff like, “I was dead inside. You saved me.” / “Thank you.” Because whatever. Then Belle sees the story’s Gaston -- a dude from her hometown who: 1) keeps asking her out; 2) she has never been on a date with; 3) she has repeatedly told she’s not interested; 4) gets Belle’s dad drunk and pressures him to okay an arranged married; 5) drove to the Beast’s estate totally uninvited and stalks Belle telling her that he deserves her full attention because he drove up here (uninvited).

If you’re Belle, what do you do? Keep dancing with the love of your life or -- oh, oh, okay.

Again, they have never so much as been on a date. I mean, I guess points for staying true to the original source material. This dude didn’t even need to kidnap her for the Stockholm Syndrome to set in. 

*After a few minutes of needless melodrama (Gaston forces Belle to kiss him! Beast sees and misinterprets! Gaston tells Beast that Belle never loved him! Beast sends Belle away!), the Mrs. Potts stand-in runs onto the porch and shouts what we’ve all been thinking for the past 80 minutes:

Sing it, sister. 

Description: “Kate, a workaholic lawyer, has three weeks to get a haunted bed and breakfast appraised and sold. The uncooperative manager claims a spirit who lives there will not approve. With Kate's possible promotion resting on accomplishing this task, she checks in and haggles with the aforesaid Christmas spirit, who suspiciously seems awfully solid for a ghost.”

Yeahhhhh, perfect tagline. Generic af and twice as long as it needs to be. 

RATING:

Candy Canes: 2.5 out of 5

Starts with a break-up (+1) between some dude we don’t care about and a workaholic (-1) estate lawyer (+1 for specificity) who needs to travel to a historical B&B (-1) where she ... falls in love with a ghost with a Macklemore haircut (+WTF). The movie basically breaks exactly even. It’s on the boring side, but at least it’s a plot I haven’t been bored by before instead of a plot that’s been boring me since 1996.

Dean Cains: 1.5 out of 5

Half-Buzz Haunted Hottie just moods & broods the whole time, and he is a convincing brooder, I guess? But kind of a sack of meat for the rest of the movie. At least he has a chin. The lead actress plays her scenes like a grown-up child actor: hits the mark and reads out her lines super loud and super fast, occasionally with so little conviction it sounds like she memorized them phonetically. But the modern scenes pale in comparison to the 1920s scenes, which are totally middle-school drama club. I’m like 99% sure one of the flappers said “forsooth” at some point. 

Citizen Kanes: 0.5 out of 5

Automatic half-Kane because the ghost logistics were so incredibly nonsensical that the greatest pleasure of the movie was shouting at the TV about how little sense everything made. And if that’s not what we watch Hallmark movies for, then I don’t know what is.

TOTAL:4.5 out of 15

I forgot this movie as soon as it was over. Literally. I finished it, then rewound it by a few minutes to capture a GIF -- then my husband asked if I wanted to make lunch and I told him, with no irony, “Give me a few minutes, I’m almost at the end of this boring-ass movie.” It took me three minutes to realize I’d already seen the alleged climax of the film.

WTF Moments:

*Okay, I could get into how bananas all the half-assed ghost logistics were -- by why not let the movie do that for me?

*But who needs a logical plot when you have a hot-ass lead actor? At least that’s the gist of pretty much every review I’ve read of this movie. I’m not into Ye Olde Timey hipsters, especially since his beard looks like long, wet chest hair.

Nonetheless, the movie’s stance is “he’s sexy and we know it.” Like 40% of the movie is just weirdly lit shots of him brooding. All of these shots are taken from a randomly chosen NINETY SECOND section of the movie:

Seriously, like 60 out of the 90 seconds.

*The reviews aren’t as interested in the female lead (Jen Lilley) but I found her way more interesting. My favorite Hallmark Channel movie game is trying to figure out who the actors are store-brand versions of. Usually they’re a portmanteau of two different actors, but I couldn’t really place Jen Lilley. From some angles, she was Rip-off Anna Kendrick, then Generic Jessica Chastain, then Squint & You’ll See Young Debra Messing, then flashes of, weirdly, Tina Fey? I think I ended up settling mostly on JoAnna García, which made me like this movie more, because I’ve always found her super charming + stupid beautiful, and wish she had a better career.

*Got to love a Big Romantic Ending where a couple runs through the snow toward one another -- and the woman runs like Judge fucking Dredd.

*Okay, I lied, a little more about the ghost logistics. Hard to parse this garbage fire, but it seems that in the world of the story -- whenever a ghost dies while they are in love with someone, they get to ... make a dying blessing to protect the person? And also if you are a ghost who hasn’t crossed over yet, then crossing over = kind of dying and you get to make a blessing on someone? And ghosts can cross and un-cross at will, but only when they died or when they leave on an international trip that will end in their death, and sometimes they are solid and living but sometimes they are invisible and just whisper creepily? 

Okay, nope, nope, nope, I really can’t -- except to say that of all the ridiculousness of this plot, the MOST ridiculous part is that apparently if you die, then your ex gets to decide, at their sole discretion, whether or not you come back to life?!

I’ve never before understood why people stay friends with their exes. I mean, I still don’t, but. 

*My favorite character in this movie, by far, is Haunted Hottie’s ex-lover, who only shows up at the very end: in the 1920s, she put her death blessing on Haunted Hottie, causing him to blah blah blah, whatever, but finally at the end, after 95 years of waiting for him to get ready to cross over -- he decides to abandon ex-love to stay with the woman he met 12 days ago?

Ex-Lover Lilly’s face tells the whole story perfectly: