I'm Dreaming of a Netflix Christmas

It's time for another review of original Netflix Christmas movies!

Our first review will be The Holiday Calendar which stars Kat Graham aka Bonnie (aka the witch) from The Vampire Diaries as Abby, a photographer who dreams of one day owning her own studio where she can work on selling her own photos instead of just taking photos for people's passports and Christmas cards which she only does "to pay the bills." Well, that job not only helps her pay those bills, but it helps her afford a super nice apartment! Seriously, for a girl who's moaning about not having enough money to pay the rent for an open space she wants for her own studio, she sure has a beautiful and spacious apartment with some super nice furniture. Though her dad is a lawyer, so I'm sure he's helping her with some funds. Her parents don't approve of her photography passion and want her to find a "real" job. Her dad wants her to work at the law firm like her older sister does. 

In the first minute of the movie we are introduced to Josh. At first I thought he was her brother, but he is introduced as her "oldest friend." They have a very sister/brother relationship, you know, goofing off with each other, but there will be a romantic relationship between them later on which I just don't see because he is always so goofy around her and they act more like siblings than a romantic pair. In fact, I didn't have any reason to suspect that they liked each other that way until Abby starts dating someone and we see Josh get jealous. I guess that's our cue we're supposed to be rooting for those two to end up together at the end. (Spoiler alert: they do.) Josh is a successful travel writer and has been all over the world living this wonderful and fabulous life, making some major bank as we will find out later. 

Abby's gramps (played by Ron Cephas Jones aka Randall's biological father on This Is Us) gives her an antique advent calendar (in the shape of a house) that belonged to her (now deceased) grandmother and Gramps tells her Grandma wanted her to have it. I remember having advent calendars when I was little. It was fun to see the little surprise behind the door when you opened it; I remember one year there were little pieces of chocolates behind each door. (I'm pretty sure my mom got my brother and me each our own that year so we wouldn't fight over who got the chocolate piece that day!) When Abby takes it back to her (beautiful and spacious) apartment, she tries to open a few of the doors, but they won't budge, so she just assumes her gramps gave her a piece of junk. That night (which is the first of December), the clock strikes midnight and the calendar glows and the first door pops open to show a small wooden pair of black boots. The rest of the figurines will be more related to Christmas/winter such as a Christmas tree, candy cane, nutcracker, ice skate, snow flake, etc. Though I guess you could argue that black boots are what Santa wears. 

So the point of this calendar is that it is possibly a magic calendar. Each item of the day correlates with something that happened to Abby that day. For instance, the first day with the boots, Abby also receives black leather boots Josh bought for her in Italy. Even though this is before she starts dating the other guy, this is probably the first clue that Josh is into her. A guy does not buy a girl Italian leather boots (which you know cost a couple hundred bucks!) if he is not into her. This is the only instance of the calendar where there seems to be an eerie connection, but honestly, everything else just seems to be pure coincidence. I mean, everything is generic Christmas stuff, so of course you are going to encounter a Christmas tree or candy cane or a snow flake. There is nothing magical or supernatural about this calendar at all as Abby seems to think. (Hmm, I think she spent a little too much time in Mystic Falls!)

The second day the calendar reveals a Christmas tree and that's how she meets Ty (played by Ethan Peck aka Gregory Peck's grandson) who she will eventually start dating. They have a meet cute when she knocks the tree off of his car, then the next day when her advent calendar reveals a nutcracker, she finds out that his second grade daughter is a nutcracker in the school Christmas pageant. This has to be the smallest town ever because when Abby and Ty (Tabby!) go on their first date, who should walk up and see them when they share their first kiss? That's right, Josh. What are the odds of that? We see a montage of Tabby going on all these wonderful and magical dates and of course each one correlates with what little trinket the calendar reveals. When it reveals carolers, they are serenaded by carolers at a restaurant; when it reveals a wreath, Ty gifts Abby with one; and when it reveals a reindeer they go on a horse-drawn carriage ride. Eh, close enough.

Everything seems to be going great until Abby has a date with Ty on the same day that she promised Josh and another friend that she would go see A Christmas Story with them. Now what she should have done is canceled the date with Ty since she made the plans with her friends way in advance. But she assures her friends she'll be able to make the movie since it starts at 3 and the date is in the early afternoon. Ty doesn't tell Abby where they're going and he takes her to a soup kitchen, which seems a little weird for a date, especially a surprise one. While Abby is talking to some of the regulars, she learns from two guys that Ty often brings the women he's dating to show them what an altruistic person he is. Abby is late getting to the movie theater and it's sold out and Ty reassures her that her friends will understand because she was doing something much more important. Abby tells Ty about the calendar and when he mocks her about it, she breaks up with him.

There's a few more mishaps and misunderstandings between Abby and Josh (because they can't get together just yet since we still have half an hour left), but eventually they get together AND Josh pays for the studio she's always wanted since he's done so well as a travel-blogger or whatever he does. Abby also displays her photos and they get lots of attention and her parents tell her they were wrong about not backing her dream. We see Abby and Josh in their new studio one year later hosting a Christmas party (with some terrible hip hop "Christmas" music) and when they tell their guests they have an announcement to make, I'm thinking they're going to announce they're engaged, but nope, all they say is, "Merry Christmas!" Seriously, you're hosting a Christmas party and your big announcement is "Merry Christmas!"? Lame.

Before they end up together, there is some Inception-style flashback Abby has of the calendar and all the little trinkets and everything that had corresponded with it and realizes the fate of the calendar was pointing her in the direction of Josh this entire time. Remember when she thought the Christmas tree she knocked off Ty's car? It was actually her own Christmas tree she was hanging out by with Josh that same day! Or something like that.

So here's a fun little Easter egg (Christmas cookie?): there's one scene where Abby is about to watch something on Netflix (again, shameless promotion) and these are the movies/shows that are on her list: Christmas Inheritance (what a coincidence as you will soon see!); The Kissing Booth (SO terrible!); Set it Up (haven't seen); Glow (still need to see the second season); and Stranger Things (always a good choice). What, no A Christmas Prince of The Princess Switch?

Speaking of Christmas Inheritance, that is exactly what my next review is. It came out last year and it's about a spoiled party girl named Ellen Langford who's the heiress to her dad's gift business. Yes, that's right, a gift business called Home & Hearth. What does a gift company sell? Little trinkets? Kitchen gadgets and appliances? Jewelry? Bath and body supplies? Clothes? All of the above? I mean, literally anything you buy and give to anyone is a gift.

To teach her a lesson about where she came from, her father sends her to the small town of Snow Falls where he's from (she lives and works in NYC) to deliver a box of letters for Santa to his former business partner. She only has $100 with her for a 24 hour trip and can't tell anyone who she is, so she uses the alias Ellie London. Apparently the folks in the small town would know her name, but they wouldn't recognize her. Which is kinda weird if you think about it because you think they would know what the daughter (who appears on social media all the time) of one of the citizens who went on to have great success would look like. As soon as she gets there she doesn't have any cell phone reception, yet there is an Apple store in this really tiny town.

Ellen thought she would only spend a night at the Inn and give the letter to Zeke, her dad's former business partner, but he isn't there and there's a huge snowstorm that keeps her trapped there for a few days so she has to work as a housekeeper to pay for her room. Ellen already has a rich and handsome fiance back home who's a douche, but you know that's not going to last because she meets Jake, the owner of the inn and when they don't get along at first, you know they're going to end up together at the end. (Spoiler alert: they do.) Jake has this (unintentionally) hilarious backstory where whenever he hears "Silent Night" it makes him angry. This is because his ex (who's from NYC so when he finds out Ellie is also from there, he immediately  dislikes her) broke up with him at a restaurant while that song was playing. He must really hate the holidays because you can't escape that song. Can you imagine if Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas" was playing? Now that's a Christmas song you can't escape around the holidays!

So Jake thinks Ellie is just a spoiled rich city girl and blah, blah, blah, but he has a change of heart when she shows her compassionate side: letting the homeless man in during a bad winter storm, making Christmas cookies with Andie McDowell who runs the local bakery, and gathering nice items for the silent auction. This is how I know the small town has an Apple store because she persuades the guy to donate a computer. In the end she proves to herself she can handle the business (which she will inherent) and find the true meaning of Christmas. She breaks up with her douchy finance and ends up with Jake. There's even a cheesy line where he says, "Is this the part where we're supposed to kiss?"

Oh, and Andie MacDowell sings "Silent Night" at the end and it doesn't send Jake into a rage because he's in love now! Thank God for that! 

Deja Vu

Groundhog Day

Director: Harold Ramis

Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Stephen Tobolowsky, Chris Elliot

Released: February 12, 1993

Before I get into my review, I just had to mention that I saw Edge of Tomorrow about a month ago, which is like a sci-fi Groundhog Day where Tom Cruise lives the same day over and over again to figure out how to win the war against aliens. His co-star, Emily Blunt, plays a character named Rita, which is Andie MacDowell's character's name in Groundhog Day. Now it had been awhile since I last saw Groundhog Day, so I didn't remember her name in the movie, but I was listening to a podcast movie review of Edge of Tomorrow and one of the hosts mentioned that Blunt's character was named Rita as a shoutout to Groundhog Day which I thought was really cool. It's just too bad I couldn't appreciate that while I was watching the movie! And if you want to go deeper, Tom Cruise's character's name is William, which can be shortened to Bill, which rhymes with Phil, which is Bill Murray's character's name....except that Cruise goes by Cage, his character's last name.

Edge of Tomorrow is just one of many narratives where the same day is repeated over and over. I'm sure Groundhog Day wasn't the first to do that plot line, but I'm willing to bet it's the most famous. And whenever someone mentions Groundhog Day, you think of the movie, not the actual holiday which is probably the stupidest holiday ever. (Sorry Groundhog Day fans!) I can never remember if it's six more weeks of winter if the groundhog sees his shadow or not...and let's be honest...there's ALWAYS at least six more weeks (if not more!) of winter when it's only February 2nd...duh! 

So we all know the basic plot: Pittsburgh weatherman Phil Connors is sent to Punxsutawney, PA, home of Groundhog Day and the actual groundhog (also named Phil) who does the predicting. He goes with his producer, Rita, and cameraman, Larry (Chris Elliot). Phil thinks the job is beneath him and just wants to get it over with and go home. Only he can't because they get stranded there when a blizzard hits. The next morning, he wakes up to the same song playing from the previous morning ("I Got You, Babe", the Sonny and Cher classic) and thinks the radio station accidentally put on the broadcast from yesterday, but when he looks out the window, there is no snow and he has the same interactions with the same people from yesterday. There's a funny scene when he asks a woman where everyone is going and she says, "The Groundhog Day festival" and he says, "Is Groundhog Day everyday now?" He then repeats the same day over and over for who knows how long. Another funny exchange is when he asks the woman who works at the inn he's staying at if she ever has deja vu and she tells him she'll check with the kitchen.

At first, understandably, he is annoyed and confused, but then he just learns to accept it because there's nothing he can do about it. He learns small details to watch out for. The first few days, he keeps stepping into a deep puddle when he's crossing the street, then remembers it's there and jumps over it. 

He goes through different phases of how he reacts to his time loop. He feels invincible because whatever he does, will be erased when he starts anew the next "day". He recklessly drives a car and ends up in jail, only to wake up in his B&B room; he steals money and goes shopping; he eats a bunch of fattening food and desserts just because he can. (Hey, why not!) He asks an attractive woman where she went to school and what her English teacher's name was and the next day pretends to be an old classmate and sleeps with her and doesn't have to worry about her calling him the next "day" because she won't remember him.

Then he starts being interested in Rita and takes her out to a fancy dinner. She tells him she studied French poetry in college and he comments how useless that was, then the next "day", he takes her out again and this time when she tells him what she studied, he fluently says something in French, impressing her very much. They have a near perfect evening until the end when she suspects that he's only interested in sleeping with her and storms off. He tries to repeat this perfect day over and over, but to no avail and ends up getting slapped by her many times in a montage. 

This makes him depressed and he's tired of being in his constant time loop, so he decides to kill himself...many times. He runs his car off a cliff, he jumps from a building, he electrocutes himself...only to find himself waking up in the same bed again each morning. 

He then goes into an almost existential phase when he gives a homeless man money who's been there since day one and he's always ignored. He later finds the man passed out on the sidewalk and takes him to the hospital where the nurse tells him he's passed away. The next few times, he tries to help the man by giving him lots to eat, but whatever he does, the man still dies because that was his time and Phil no longer feels like he's in control of everything. 

One of the most memorable characters and sequence of events is when he meets an old classmate, Ned Ryerson (Stephen Tobolowsky), who is an annoying insurance salesman. They filmed the five or six scenes one right after the other so they would have the same cars in the background. It's fun and interesting to see how Phil reacts to Ned each time. The very first time, before the time loop begins, he's annoyed and wants to get away from him. The first few times after the time loop, he's still annoyed and tries to avoid him, but whatever he does, Ned still finds him. He punches him one time, he becomes the annoying one and scares Ned off, then towards the end, he befriends Ned and gives him a hug and buys insurance from him. 

Of course when Phil realizes what's important in life (and wins Rita's heart), he is freed from his repeating day. I'm sure everyone, after seeing this film, has pondered what would they do if they were in a situation like Phil's. It would drive me crazy if I was repeating the same day over and over again, but on the other hand, it would be a great way to read more books and watch more movies and just do and learn more things. (Phil learns French, how to play the piano, and reads some classic books.) It would be nice to have more time to do things and not have to worry about a deadline. And if you screwed up on something, it would disappear the next day when you would get a clean slate. On the other hand, any relationships you might make would not last as the person(s) would not remember you the next day. I would definitely not want to be stuck in a small town with no way to escape like Phil was because, for one thing, I would miss my cat!, and I would rather just be home where I have everything I need and can go forever repeating the same day! Well, maybe not forever! 

I started this by bringing up Edge of Tomorrow, so I'll end with another thought concerning it. Groundhog Day will always be the go-to repeating-the-same-day movie and I like it better than Tomorrow, although that was a good movie, but there is something I loved about Tomorrow that didn't happen in Groundhog Day and made the movie a little different: there were several times where the audience would be in a new scene with Cruise and Blunt and you figured this was their first time there too, but then you learned that they had already been in that situation several times before. I thought that was nicely done and always kept me wondering. Just add Run, Lola, Run (although her repetition only lasts a mere three times!) and you have the perfect trifecta of time loop movies.

Seeing Triple

Multiplicity
Director: Harold Ramis
Cast: Michael Keaton, Andie MacDonnell, Eugene Levy, Ann Cusack
Released: July 17, 1996

When it comes to movies about cloning, there are only two roads you can go down (besides the sci-fi road, of course). You can take the horror route or you can take the comedy route, which this movie does. I would advise you NOT to see this movie if you need things to make sense and are a very scientific person because this movie totally blows over the whole cloning process. I know nothing about science and even I know that cloning is not possible the way they do it in this movie!

This movie starts off with some of the worst opening credits I have ever seen in my life. If I ever see opening credits worse than this, I will be sure to report it, but I don't think anything could be worse than the credits (in a non-exciting font, mind you) placed randomly on the screen (seriously, people, it's not even centered!!) with stock footage of busy Los Angeles traffic. Supposedly Doug, our main character is driving home from work, but we don't even see him (probably because Michael Keaton wasn't actually there - haven't these filmmakers ever heard of editing?) It is just so awful!

Doug has just been promoted at the construction company he works for and now he has even more responsibility. So much that he misses his daughter's dance recitals and son's baseball games and he doesn't have time to work on the house that his wife (Andie MacDonnell) has been asking him to do for awhile now. At a construction job, he runs into a scientists who can see how frustrated he is and asks Doug if he wants to make things easier. Doug agrees when he finds out that he can be cloned. He'll have the clone work at his job so he can spend more time with his family.

The cloning process in this movie is a relatively easy process. Almost too easy. Scarily easy. If cloning were as easy as it is in this movie, we should all be very afraid. The scientists takes a sample of Doug's DNA, then Doug is asked to count backwards from 100 and falls asleep for the operation...couldn't he just pull out a hair or have his blood drawn to give DNA? Oh, well. When he wakes up, the audience is to believe that is the original Doug, but it was actually his clone who has all of Doug's memories. He has a mark on him to distinguish he is a clone. He takes over Doug's job and Doug is able to spend time with his kids and attend their events. However, Doug starts having a little TOO much free time on his hands and begs his clone to take over the home stuff so he can go back to work, but #2, as he is called, refuses, saying he was hired to oversee his job.

Doug decides to make another clone who can help out with his domestic life. #3 is very proper and a bit effeminate and is the most responsible of the clones. He lives with #2 in a separate segment of the house. One day Doug comes home to find out that there is a #4 who is a bit on the special side because he is a clone of a clone and therefore a little malfunctioned.

Now that he has his job and domestic life covered, Doug goes sailing with some friends for a couple days to collect his thoughts after he and his wife had a big fight. There's been a lot of miscommunication (gee, you think?) because of the multiple Dougs. Now I saw this movie when it first came out and I swore there was a scene where she finds out about the clones. She never does, but I must have been thinking of the scene where she encounters all three of them (separately, of course) in one night. While Doug is gone, he puts #3 in charge of domestic duty which means sleeping in the same bed as his wife. His first rule for the clones is that nobody sleeps with his wife and tells #3 to pretend he is sick if she's in the mood, which she is and #3 sleeps with her despite doing his best to act like he is horribly sick. She goes downstairs to get a midnight snack where #2  is trying to sneak away from the kitchen which he has snuck into to grab some food. She sees him and thinks he has come down to join her and they end up going at it on the kitchen counter. Even #4 gets some action. I can understand her not knowing about the first two clones, but she's gotta be a little suspicious about how....stupid #4 is. This scene is played for laughs with all the clones trying not to let her see them if she is with another clone, but if you think about it, it's rather quite creepy. She has sex with three different men who look like her husband, but aren't her husband.

This movie came out seven years after Back to the Future II where Michael J. Fox played multiple characters of his future family and three years after Dave where Kevin Kline plays two different characters, so having one actor play different characters in one scene was something the film studios seemed to be having fun with. (And I believe The Nutty Professor was the same year and The Parent Trap remake came out two years later). This technique has gotten better with time, but you could definitely tell when they were using trick cameras because the screen would look a bit unnatural during the scenes where Michael Keaton was doubled (or tripled or quadrupled).

I could not remember what happened to the clones at the end of the movie when Doug realizes he doesn't need them anymore. I knew in this comedy they wouldn't be set back to the lab and "destroyed". They move down to Florida and start a pizza business. I guess this movie didn't make enough money to garner a sequel.

Loose Feet

Footloose (1984)
Director: Herbert Ross
Cast: Kevin Bacon, Lori Singer, John Lithgow, Chris Penn, Sarah Jessica Parker
Released: February 17, 1984

Oscar nominations:
Best Song - "Footloose"
Best Song - "Let's Hear it For the Boy" (lost to "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from The Woman in Red)

Footloose (2011)
Director: Craig Brewer
Cast: Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDonnell
Released: October 14, 2011

The last time I reviewed two movies where one was a remake of another was The Karate Kid. Now the remake of that movie wasn't a total clone of the original; it just had a similar story. The characters didn't have the same names, the remake took place in another country, there were a few changes to update it, etc. Now with the update of Footloose, while they have made it more current (characters listen to iPods instead of tape decks; the clothes aren't badly dated, etc.), the movie is pretty much an exact clone of the original. Same names, same scenes, same lines. It's almost an exact clone...almost. There are a few differences. One of the biggest is that they don't have Ariel (Singer and Hough) in the remake doing that stunt where she has one foot in her friend's car and another in her boyfriend's car while both cars are driving next to each other. They probably didn't have that scene because kids are dumb and would have probably tried to emulate it. Instead, in the 2011 movie, they showed Ariel as a badass when she rides in her boyfriend's race car. Ooh, you're a rebel, Ariel!

That said, even though they're both playing the same character, I found 2011 Ariel to be a lot more tolerable than 1984 Ariel. She is rebellious in both movies because her father (Lithgow and Quaid) is a preacher, so she doesn't want to seem like a goody two-shoes, and also, her brother died in a car accident, which is one of the reasons there's no dancing in her hometown of Beaumont. In the remake, we're immediately introduced to her brother when he and three friends are driving home from a party. They're singing "Footloose" (and really, what teen in 2011 would even know that song?) and aren't paying attention when an oncoming truck crashes into them. In the original, we don't hear about his accident until the middle of the movie and for awhile I was wondering if it was something new they had added to the remake. (I saw the remake before the original, but I had seen the original about twelve years ago).

Even though Ariel is a pain in the ass, Hough plays her much more likable while Singer is just irritating. She befriends the new kid in town, Ren (Bacon and Wormald) who is shocked to find out that dancing is outlawed in this town. The only difference between the character in the two movies is that 1984 Ren listens to a Walkman and 2011 Ren listens to an iPod. Oh, and it's established that 2011 Ren is a gymnast whereas 1984 Ren just can randomly do flips. The "anger vent dance" he does in both movies is one of the stupidest scenes I have ever seen in my entire life. Besides, everyone knows the best dance scene in a movie is from Center Stage where they ride motorcycles on the stage and dance to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel!"

"Footloose" is not a great movie to begin with, but if you had to watch it, I would recommend skipping the original and watching the remake because the original makes the remake look like an Oscar winner.