Mainlining Christmas

Spirited is one of the best movies based on A Christmas Carol ever made. I want to get that out of the way upfront, before we even get to what it is or what it's about. This is a fantastic musical adventure/comedy you should absolutely watch, and there's no reason to temper the experience with spoilers. So, if you're subscribed to Apple TV+, now's the time to stop reading and start watching. And if you're not subscribed, now's the time to remember they offer free one-week trials you can cancel before paying a cent. Okay, I'm assuming anyone still reading has already watched Spirited, so let's move on to the spoiler portion, beginning with something that's not really a spoiler at all. This isn't an adaptation of A Christmas Carol - it's a sequel. Also, weirdly, it starts with a virtually identical premise to a Hallmark movie released this year, Ghosts of Christmas Always . Both films are primarily centered on the ghosts, with Christmas Present

While it stops short of greatness, this Hallmark Christmas Carol/romantic comedy comes significantly closer than you'd expect. Frankly, only a weak ending keeps this from securing a full recommendation, and even then it's a close call. And coupled with the fact this thing offers quite a few surprise turns, if you generally enjoy these sorts of TV movies, you might want to stop reading and start watching before getting spoiled. First, I need to clarify that even compared to other border cases this isn't really an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Instead, it attempts to build on movies like "Scrooged" and "It's Christmas, Carol" to further build out the sub-sub-genre of quasi-sequels set in a world where A Christmas Carol is based on a true story. I'm actually not the one choosing those examples, by the way: Ghosts of Christmas Always alludes to those movies when a character calls them out as his favorite versions of the story. I'm guessing &qu

I'll start by saying upfront that anyone who loves the original is probably going to love this. It does an admirable job of recreating the look, sound, and feel of the 1983 film, which takes skill, time, and care. This is a movie created with love for fans. And I am most certainly not one of them. I have no nostalgic connection to the original, and I don't find the experience of sitting through it at all enjoyable. So it should come as no surprise that I didn't much like this one either. That's not the same as the movie being bad. In a real sense, this is a good movie. It set out to do something that couldn't have been easy, and it succeeded in its goal. Taking a step back, I respect what they achieved, even if I didn't enjoy it. At all. Seriously, I found this a chore to sit through, and - in case anyone needs to be reminded - I'm the guy enthusiastically watching dozens of adaptations of A Christmas Carol this year. Because not enough people are angry with

As a fan of the Guardians movies and (as you may have noticed) of Christmas media, I've been waiting for this. And, at risk of spoiling the end of the review, I was not disappointed. There are a few details I have issues with, but on the whole, I absolutely love this thing. The special opens with an animated bit establishing that Peter Quill's childhood Christmases with the Ravagers were traumatic (or at least that's Kraglin's impression). Mantis, who we learn is secretly Peter's half-sister, wants to give him a proper Christmas, so she and Drax head to Earth to get him the perfect present: legendary Earth hero, Kevin Bacon. They arrive in Hollywood and, after some of the standard shenanigans you'd expect, the two Guardians are given a map to the stars, which they use to track down Bacon. They break into his house, chase him down the street, fight off police, then Mantis uses her powers to manipulate Bacon's mood so he's eager to follow them anywhere. Th

Depending on how you're approaching it, Christmas at the Golden Dragon could alternatively be described as a departure for Hallmark Christmas movies or a fairly by-the-numbers installment. It is, ultimately, a paradox in that respect: it looks and feels like a generic TV movie, but differs from others I've seen both structurally and in several details. I should pause here to acknowledge I'm not exactly a connoisseur when it comes to these films. While I've seen a somewhat absurd number of theatrically released Christmas movies and more than my fair share of assorted television movies, I'm actually trying to catch up on Hallmark specifically. So take that last paragraph with a grain of salt. The main way this differs from the usual Hallmark fare is it lacks any kind of central lead or core story. Christmas at the Golden Dragon feels roughly modeled after ensemble films like Love Actually. If anything, this might push the concept a little further, in that Love Actuall

Credit where it's due: Netflix has mastered the art of producing low-to-mid budget TV Christmas romcoms capable of garnering far more attention than they deserve. This time, they managed to lure Lindsay Lohan into taking the lead role, presumably by offering her an ungodly amount of cash. The investment seems to have paid off, at least from a marketing perspective. The movie apparently attracted a great deal of interest and - assuming Netflix's numbers mean anything - quite a few views. As for the movie itself... well... you probably have a fairly good idea what I'm going to say. As a rule, I don't like these things. Falling for Christmas, like so many pseudo-fairytale G-rated holiday romances before it, seems to flaunt the fact the script isn't trying. It adheres to its formula and fills in the blanks with some of the worst dialogue I've heard in... well... honestly, I watched a Hallmark Christmas movie two days earlier, so the worst dialogue I heard in about 4

There's a lot to discuss about Hallmark's relatively big Christmas comedy, Three Wise Men and a Baby (including the fact it's surprisingly decent), and I'll try and get to as much as possible. But the first thing that jumps out at me is admittedly a silly thing, albeit one I can't stop thinking about. Like a lot of Hallmark's annual offerings, this is obviously a spin on an existing franchise, namely the "Three Men and a Baby" series, itself a remake of the French comedy, "Trois Hommes et un Couffin." Before you ask, I haven't seen the French movie, though I'll admit I'm now weirdly curious. As for the 1987 American film, I believe I watched it once, likely sometime in the late '80s or early '90s. As to whether it was a VHS copy rented from Nicely's Video or a version edited for television... well, I'm afraid those details are lost to time. I barely remember the movie, aside from the fact I'm fairly certain one