Inhumans99

I think this was Jodie Sweetin's first foray into the Hallmark film universe, but I am sure we will definitely see more of her on the Hallmark channel as the years go by. I guess we should thank D.J. Tann...I mean Candace Cameron Bure for bringing her into the Hallmark family.

davidh777

I just watched A Very Merry Mix-Up from the four-pack and liked it--my first Witt film too. The mix-up moment was my favorite part. And it was totally worth paying Vudu $3 to not have to see the Hallmark bug taking up a quarter of my screen.

PhantomStranger

Alicia Witt has probably done more Christmas movies than any of Hallmark's regulars. She knocks out one or two each year.

TheBigDave

Here's two interesting articles on the Hallmark Christmas movies:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/...vies-explained

https://hellogiggles.com/reviews-cov...istmas-movies/

mphtrilogy

Enjoyed Christmas in Evergreen Hallmark..

Caught The Christmas Prince on Netflix, good fun, very similar to a hallmark, slightly higher production values, worth a watch...

TheBigDave

I really enjoyed Christmas Next Door which premiered last night. For some reason, it felt different from the typical Hallmark Christmas movie. Usually, the female is the main character. But in this one, Jesse Metcalfe was the lead, and he did a great job.

http://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas-next-door

Bluelitespecial

Well he is the bigger named actor that might have something to do with it. But you are right it’s different.

PhantomStranger

I found The Christmas Cottage somewhat lackluster despite liking both the male and female leads. It's a very safe, predictable story that feels empty.

Inhumans99

I know this is the Hallmark thread, but Snowed Inn Christmas on Lifetime was actually pretty good. I have seen her in other films, but I think I have a TV crush for Bethany Joy Lenz (aha, Google says she was also on the USA show Colony but I gave up on that show before I finished season 1).

Also, almost done with Romance At Reindeer Lodge on Hallmark and while not much happens for some reason I really enjoyed this film. I guess it helps that I felt that the two leads had a bit of chemistry and the film had less of that hollow feeling as described above that a lot of Christmas films from Hallmark/ION/Lifetime/UP tend to have.

ETA: Lifetime is airing Director's Cut versions of their Christmas films, and I am in the process of watching the DC of Snowed Inn Christmas which contains 11 minutes(!) of added material...loving it.

Other than Snowed Inn I am going to record/watch the DC of My Christmas Prince which I believe is airing on Christmas Eve. I lied...maybe the Melissa Joan Hart Toy Store film, which is part of the batch of DC films.

TheBigDave

Bethany Joy Lenz was really good in The Christmas Secret. It came out a few years ago, and it's become one of my annual movies.

http://www.hallmarkmoviesandmysterie...ristmas-secret

TheBigDave

Amazon has most of the older Lifetime Christmas movies on sale for $0.99 each (HD). Here's a partial list:

Holly's Holiday
Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever
Last Chance For Christmas
Kristin's Christmas Past
Holiday Switch
An En Vogue Christmas
The Christmas Gift
A Gift Wrapped Christmas
The March Sisters at Christmas
Christmas on the Bayou
Christmas on Chestnut Street
His & Her Christmas
The Flight Before Christmas
A Country Christmas Story
A Dad For Christmas
A Christmas Wedding
Twelve Trees of Christmas
The Santa Con
Becoming Santa
Holiday Spin
The Family Holiday

mphtrilogy

I couldnt get through it

PhantomStranger

Where The Christmas Cottage fails is the female lead shows virtually no romantic interest in the male lead, her former boyfriend. The plot deus ex machina's her interest in him during the final ten minutes with zero build-up.

Someone really should write a "Love Lessons Learned From Hallmark Christmas Movies" article. It could be hilarious.

davidh777

Watched two of the new ones: Christmas in Angel Falls and Christmas in Evergreen, both good. I'll watch any Rachel Boston movie, but it was odd to see Victoria from HIMYM in Evergreen.

Paff

Reading your spoiler, I remember a scene from the criminally underrated sitcom "Two Guys and a Girl", where Richard Ruccalo's date was describing the romantic comedy they were about to see: "Two people hate each other for 80 minutes, but then they end up DOING IT."

mphtrilogy

Caught A Christmas to Remember from 2016, with Mira Sorvino... cute, enjoyed it, worth a watch

PhantomStranger

My thoughts on a few Christmas movies I've seen the past week.

Sharing Christmas - This is a new 2017 Hallmark production and it has a cute, sentimental story about a woman inheriting her parent's Christmas shop. One of the more enjoyable new ones from this year, there's even a slight twist near the end I didn't see coming. It also incorporates a couple of musical moments left out of other Hallmark movies. I have no idea why it's called Sharing Christmas, I don't see how they got that title from this plot. There would have been several other catchier and more appropriate names.

Magical Christmas Ornaments - I didn't like this 2017 movie very much and I almost quit watching in the second hour. A frequent star of these Christmas movies, Jessica Lowndes(sp?) stars as a career woman afraid of falling in love again after a bad break-up. She's radically transformed her look from even last year's Christmas movie, slimming down a great deal. This has one of the stupider romance plots, as her character makes some decisions only to advance the plot in a certain direction.

The Spruces and the Pines - This actually aired on ION's Christmas line-up. It's the most heartwarming Christmas film I've seen this year among the new movies. Two rival Christmas farms are engaged in a petty feud when a forbidden romance occurs between two of their adult children. Worth catching, it's more down-to-earth and genuine than most of Hallmark's glossier movies.

DJariya

I just saw this one too and quite liked it.

I'm not really a fan of Jesse Metcalfe, but he was quite likable in this movie. He had really good chemistry with his female co-star/neighbor (Fiona Gubelman) She was really charming.

Noticed that it was only a 90 minute movie and the ending did feel a little rushed though. But, it made me smile. Not your typical estrogen-filled Christmas romance drama.

PhantomStranger

I think I just saw my favorite of this 2017 Christmas season. I didn't like the lead characters at first as both start out somewhat unlikable as journalistic rivals. They definitely grow over the course of the movie, so it starts slowly. But Snowed Inn Christmas (aired on Lifetime but stars familiar Hallmark regulars) has a really sweet romance mixed with a perfect amount of Christmas magic in its plot.

The set decoration they had for this Christmas-themed inn was incredible. It's a bed-and-breakfast I would visit if it really existed. The real coup were the two older actors they cast for the elderly couple nudging things along with the younger couple. They were dead ringers for Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus.

TheBigDave

On Christmas Eve/Day, I think they had limited commercials. Because all the movies were 90 minutes. Normally, that's a 2 hour movie (with commercials).

TheBigDave

Seems like everyone loved this movie. So I picked it up at Vudu for $4.99. I'm looking forward to watching it. Although after 2 months of watching Hallmark Christmas movies 24/7, I'm getting a little burned out.

PhantomStranger

Hallmark cuts out most commercials on the bigger holidays. So a movie that normally runs in a 2-hour slot runs 90 minutes on Christmas and Thanksgiving.

skatefan20

Caught two of the Danica McKellar titles and they were decent (despite one really bad instance of green screen/CG background on the older movie).

This cut for time SNL skit kinda hits the formula for the movies:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MSzytvDsPfo" frameborder="0" gesture="media" allow="encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

"It's quantity over quality..."

PhantomStranger

Many of these Christmas movies made for TV are disposable but it's worth a purchase. Years ago these seasonal movies would disappear down a black hole, now it's fairly easy getting a digital copy all year long.

I also caught A Very Country Christmas, though I think it ran on UP. Decent premise about a country music star escaping the big city, if a bit sappy and unbelievable when the local woman turns down his romantic advances at first. It does come together nicely at the end, though I've noticed more and more of these movies having the couple fall in love over the course of three or four days.

Inhumans99

Yeah...LOVE most of the Hallmark/ION/UP/Lifetime holiday themed films but even I am starting to take issue with how quickly folks fall in love in these films. It would be refreshing if sometimes they ended with the main characters being crazy good friends at the end, and it turns out the main characters usually cute and a woman best friend is the character who ends up falling in love and getting married in those "one year later" moments at the end of a lot of these films.

At least the Hallmark film's All Of My Heart and AOMH: Inn Love involve the characters falling hard for each other in the first film and then the sequel is about their engagement. There are other Hallmark films that only have the characters engaged at the end so you can end up with another film in what is usually a trilogy of films, but yeah...the fall in love at first glance scenario in a lot of Hallmark type films can have you laughing at how cookie cutter a lot of these films are.

That being said, I caught the premiere airings this past weekend of Hallmark's Christmas Getaway with Bridget Regan which was pretty decent and UP Networks A Winter Wedding which was just okay. They are both not faves of mine, but I have seen much worse. I am a fan a Bridget Regan and Andrea Bowen (star of A Winder Wedding) so that helped elevate my enjoyment of both films a bit. Also, IMDB shows the UP film as Wedding Wonderland, odd that UP changed the title.

It is no longer Christmas time but Hallmark will soon be airing a series of "Winterfest" originals...it is great that we have gotten to the point where there are very few gaps between weekends without a Hallmark or Hallmark Movies & Mystery's original to enjoy.