A Very Short Engagement

Holiday Engagement

Director: Jim Fall

Cast: Bonnie Somerville, Shelley Long, Haylie Duff

Aired: November 28, 2011

I can't help myself; I'm addicted to these TV Christmas movies that can be found on Netflix. I've actually watched more movies than I will be reviewing. Some are just okay in that they aren't even that great (or that bad!) to deserve a review. They're just middle of the road holiday movies. There have been a couple I've started then stopped watching after ten minutes because I didn't want to waste the time on them.

Holiday Engagement is entertaining and it's also kind of bad at the same time which makes it a perfect movie to review! It's also the first one I've watched that takes places during Thanksgiving rather than Christmas as you may have noticed by the air date. Although there are several mentions of Christmas. This TV movie aired on the Hallmark Channel, but wasn't as schmaltzy as one may think. 

Hilary (Bonnie Somerville) is going to her parents' home for Thanksgiving. She is suppose to be bringing her fiance, Jason, who her family hasn't met yet. They've been dating seven months and got engaged a month ago. (Okay, if you get engaged within less than a year of dating, I feel like that's a warning sign!) Hilary lives in L.A. and I'm not sure where her folks live, but it can't be too far away since she drove there. Hilary's fiance is a lawyer and therefore a workaholic and he's not sure if he can make it and she tells him he has to because she needs to prove to her family that he's real! Apparently her mother, Meredith (Shelley Long) thinks that Bonnie has made him up! 

A few days before they are to arrive at her parents', Jason breaks up with Hilary, telling her that she's been a "mistake." Ouch! He tells her they are not compatible and he has plans to move across the country for his work and she has reservations about leaving California. She tells her friend that she cannot face her family without bringing her fiancé and her friend gives her the idea of getting a guy through Mate.com (I think that's what it was called) and bribe him with the two tickets she won to Mexico on a radio show she gave the right answer to to a trivia question. Naturally, Hilary is appalled by this idea and does not want to bring a potential murderer home to her family but when her mom leaves her a message for her, telling her how she hopes she's not disappointed "this time", Hilary posts an ad for a fake fiance.

Now earlier in the movie there had been some foreshadowing as Hilary, a writer, and her friend (the same one who came up with the idea for the ad), a photographer, are interviewing people about their jobs...or something, I really don't remember. They interview a guy who's dressed as a cell phone trying to get people to come to the store that sells them. He told them he was an actor. Well, it doesn't take an idiot to figure out he's going to come back into play here and will be the one to answer the ad. Especially when the audience sees how attractive he is once he takes off his headpiece. He is David and David is the one to answer the ad and Hilary hires him since she already met him and he's the most normal out of all the weirdos that applied for the job.

They manage to con her family although there are awkward moments when Hilary's dad is asking "Jason" for some legal advice and David is not too familiar with that aspect of his new identity. I think there was something shady going on with her dad cause he be asking some shady questions! 

Hilary's mom, who is pushing for all her daughters to be married (one is and the other two are engaged) asks her if she and Jason have set a date and feeling the pressure, Hilary tells her they are getting married on December 21st and this makes her mother over the moon happy. Obviously she panicked, but WTF? Why not tell her that they have set the date for Christmas of NEXT year so you don't have to worry about getting fake married in less than three weeks? What an idiot! Also, if I were David, I would be very afraid that some strange woman wants to fake marry me. 

Hilary's mom is the worst. She's one of those people who think women need to get married and not only that, marry a guy who has a good job so that he can support her daughters. She set up her youngest daughter with a foot doctor even though she was in love with a waiter, but I guess she broke up her daughter and the waiter and got her to start dating the doctor who she says is a nice guy, but she's not in love with him. Of course, Meredith is happy that Hilary is getting married to a lawyer. But when it looks like Jason has bailed on her, Meredith gets angry with Hilary and tells her that she has nothing to show for herself. Sheesh, what a bitch! But Jason comes back...I forget why he left in the first place, obviously this movie didn't stay with me that long! 

If you think that Hilary and David fall in love over the course of this Thanksgiving weekend, you would be...correct! (Gee, who didn't see that coming?) And then the REAL Jason comes to apologize to Hilary (I had totally called that one), but Hilary dumps him to be with David. She also patches things up with her mom who apologizes for the way she acted. And the kicker is that she and David actually get married on the December 21st date they set up. Really? Like, you couldn't date for a year, then getting married...like normal people? 

A Christmas Crap

A Christmas Kiss

Director: John Stimpson

Cast: Elisabeth Rohm and the rest are people you don't know

Aired: December 11, 2011

This movie wasn't as good or as charming as the other two I reviewed and I think I know why. Unlike the other two, which were from ABC Family, this TV Christmas movie was from the ION channel which I had never heard of. It wasn't very good, so I don't recommend this one. In this one, some unknown brunette actress plays Wendy who is the assistant to the Bitch Boss from Hell, Priscilla (Elisabeth Rohm) who runs an interior designing company. 

We first meet Wendy as she is getting ready to go out on the town with her two friends. One is an aspiring actress and the other is an aspiring makeup artist. The makeup artist is putting makeup on Wendy and good God, has she ever heard the motto, "Less is more?" No, because she puts on GOBS of silver eyeshadow and glitter on Wendy. She looks completely ridiculous. Wendy's boss calls her and wants her to run to her apartment and turn on the heat and the lights so it will be ready when Priscilla gets back from her vacation. After she does that, she's on the elevator when a handsome stranger enters and they share a romantic kiss that later Wendy will describe to her friends "as the most memorable kiss she's ever have in her entire life!!!" Ugh. Apparently, the elevator broke and they both thought they were going to die so they shared a passionate kiss, I don't know. It was really forced if you ask me. 

But wouldn't you know it, the next day Wendy is called to Priscilla's apartment to help her again with something and Priscilla says she needs to get out before her boyfriend arrives, only her boyfriend has arrived early...and it's the guy Wendy kissed in the elevator!! But the guy, Andrew, doesn't even recognize her because she's wearing glasses! :::GASP::: What is it with people being completely transformed when they're wearing glasses (or not wearing them)? But to be fair, she also wasn't wearing the GOBS and HEAPS and MOUNDS of glittery eye shadow. You would think Wendy would be concerned that this man randomly kissed her in the elevator when he's dating another woman, but no! She thinks this is true love and she and Andrew are destined to be together and she tells her friends who also agree. The only thing is, Andrew is planning to propose to Priscilla! Oh, no!!  

Andrew has asked Priscilla to help decorate his home in Boston for a Christmas event he's putting on where he's invited all the Boston theater production people to help raise money for underprivileged children....or something. I'm not totally sure. To be honest, I wasn't always paying attention to this movie as I was also folding my laundry and wrapping Christmas presents. Priscilla tells Wendy that this is their number one priority and they're not even going to worry about their other clients because a lot of  important people from Boston will be from this party. She has found an engagement ring in Andrew's coat pocket and also knows that he is going to propose to her at this event.

Priscilla is such a huge bitch that it's almost comical what a big bitch she is. Take this great example: Wendy comes over to show Priscilla these drawings she's done for the Christmas designs which she think Andrew will like. He's a fan of A Christmas Carol, so she has this idea to have three Christmas trees: one representing Christmas past, one for Christmas present, and one for Christmas future. And the children from the homeless youth foundation can make the ornaments for the future tree because children are our future. Oh, how precious. Who does she thinks she is, Whitney Houston? So Bitch Boss is like, "OMG, those are the most terrible and horrific drawings I've ever seen! Andrew will hate them! You are such an imbecile! I hate children! Ugh!" Then Andrew comes in and Priscilla shows him her drawings which he says are great, but he was thinking of something more tradtional, so what does she do??? You guessed it: she hands him Wendy's drawings with WENDY SITTING RIGHT THERE and tells him that she had a second choice for him "just in case" and of course he loves them. She even tells him that the children can make the ornaments for the future tree. Oh, no, she did not! Oh, snap!  Rightly, Wendy is furious about this and blows up at Bitch Boss when Andrew leaves but Priscilla tells her that since Wendy works for her, then they are HER designs as well. What a beey-otch.

Wendy gets to spend more time with Andrew when Priscilla has to leave on an impromptu trip to NYC to see her plastic surgeon after she was smacked in the face by a decorative lamp post when Wendy and her makeup artist friend are helping Priscilla decorate Andrew's house. During this time alone, she goes on a carriage ride with Andrew, goes ice skating with Andrew, learns they share the same interest in literature and theater, and watches Christmas movies with Andrew where they fall asleep on his house only to have Priscilla find them the next day snuggled up with each other on the couch. Ooh, scandal! 

Can I just say that Elisabeth Rohm is a horrible actress? I call her Robotic Kate Hudson because she resembles Kate Hudson a bit, but she talks in this monotone voice. Haha, I used to listen to this podcast for the TV show, Angel, called Redemption Cast and she had a recurring role as "Kate" a police officer and love interest for the "vampire with a soul". Everyone on the podcast hated her and it was so hilarious. They asked the one guy who had seen the show before, at the end of the season, if she comes back and he said no and they're all like, "Oh thank God!" 

Anyway, back to the crappy movie. Andrew eventually finds out what a bitch Prisilla is and doesn't propose to her and she throws a hissy fit and fires Wendy, but Wendy ends up okay as Andrew starts dating her and they eventually get married. Gag! Skip this one! 

They're singing Deck the Halls, but it's not like Christmas at all

The Mistle-Tones!

Director: Paul Hoen

Cast: Tia Mowry, Tori Spelling, Reginald VelJohnson

Aired: December 9, 2012

This is another ABC Family and Cinematic Sara presents. I couldn't resist; I had to watch and review another ABC Family TV Christmas movie! This time it was a movie that took advantage of the popularity of Pitch Perfect which was released earlier in 2012. All I knew about it was that Tia Mowry's character is a singer who forms a group and challenges her rival for the chance to sing at the mall on Christmas Eve. My first thought was, Her rival is going to be played by Tamara Mowry and she's going to find out she has a long lost twin!!! Just like in Sister, Sister! Remember that show from the '90s? Was that part of the TGIF lineup? Was it even on ABC? I don't even remember. Didn't the more laid-back, don't give a crap attitude twin live with the strict, uptight adoptive father (Tim Reid) and the more studious, organized, and rational twin live with the ditzy, unorganized, and fly by the seat of her pants adoptive mother? (Played by national treasure, Jackee (Jac-kay!)) But like I said, I haven't seen that show in years! But alas, Tia's sister (sister!) isn't in this movie.

So Tia plays Holly (oh, movie, you did not give our main character a very Christmas-themed name!) who is looking forward to trying out for a group called the Snow Belles who sing at the mall's annual Deck the Mall show every Christmas Eve. This means a lot to Holly because her mom was a Snow Belle and she has since passed. I can't even remember if they addressed how or why her mom died. She barely makes it to the audition on time and the head Snow Belle, Marcy (played by Tori Spelling...you should have heard me squeal when I saw her name in the credits...I am always overjoyed to see any of my BH 90210 alums in anything! It also made me laugh because I have a longstanding joke with my brother about her because he cannot stand her!) doesn't want her to audition even though she still has ten minutes left and belts out "O Holy Night" anyway. I am very impressed with Tia Mowry's voice unless they dubbed in someone else's, but I assume it's her. I mean, she's no Adele (but who is?), but it's obvious she should easily make it into the group. 

However, Marcy calls her the next day to tell her she did not make it in and they decided to go with another girl. This is because Marcy wants to be the best singer in the group and letting in Holly would change that fact! Holly goes to the mall and asks the manager (who is also doing double duty as the mall Santa...they must be really short of help!) and gives him the idea of instead of having the Snow Belles sing, they should have a competition where different groups can sing the week before Christmas Eve and the one who wins will get the honor to perform at the real show. Holly realizes she needs to get a group, so she quickly gets some people from her work: her goofball friend and cool dude AJ; the chubby Asian, Larry who everyone thinks is gay but is surprised to learn he's married to a woman...a tall, thin, and beautiful woman, no less!;  and Bernie, the nerdy redhead in HR who has the "voice of an angel". 

Marcy, who has a spy and knows that Holly has talked to the manager about letting different groups try out for Deck the Mall, goes to him when he's once again playing Santa and threatens him when he has a little girl on his lap. It is hilarious because we see through the POV of the young girl as "Santa" covers her ears and we hear a long muffled string of expletives come from Marcy. 

We see a montage of the Snow Belles and Holly's new group singing and dancing to "The 12 Days of Christmas" and I did not like the way it was arranged! They just totally butchered the way it is usually sung and why mess with something that doesn't need to be fixed? My favorite version of that song is sung by Ray Conniff and random females singers. It's a very festive song. Their voices are decent (but it was hard to tell since I hated the arrangement so much!), but their choreography is way off and they can never stay in sync.

One evening Holly crashes her car into a snowdrift and goes into a bar where they're having karaoke that night ("Yule love it!" proclaims the sign) while she waits for help to arrive. An announcer tells everyone it's time for the "King of Karaoke" and we hear a guy with a great voice start singing "Burnin' Love" and we don't see him until Holly looks up. Right away I KNEW it was her boss, Nick. He's a young and attractive guy, but he's a hard-ass with no sense of fun. He's dressed in jeans and a leather jacket and going around the bar singing to all the women. Holly's "Oh. My. God!" reaction is hilarious. Seeing him in this kind of environment is completely foreign to her. She confronts him afterwards and he is totally embarrassed and she blackmails him into helping her group because she has taken a video of the whole performance and threatens to publish it on the Internet and since he doesn't want anyone to see this fun side of him, he grudgingly agrees. He tells the group they need a name and after a few lame names like "Sled Leppin", "The Backstreet Joys", and "Snow Time" (it's like Show Time, but it's Snow Time!), Holly comes up with the Mistle-Tones, which wasn't a huge reveal since it's the name of the movie! 

A romance blossoms between Holly and Nick (and who didn't see that one coming? I wasn't born yesterday, ABC Family!) as they start to spend more time with each other. She eventually deletes the karaoke video (I at least hoped she saved it onto her computer!). Holly goes to sign up for the Christmas Duel at the mall and there are already five pages with about twenty groups on each page. Good thing we only see snippets of each group because that would take forever! (We actually only see three groups before The Mistle-Tones and The Snow Belles perform.) I was hoping for a Battle of the Groups sing-off ala Pitch Perfect where each group has to come up with a Christmas song on the whim and perform it in a certain style. That would have been amazing! But that might have been a little difficult if there were 100 groups trying out! Well, the mall manager says there's only 20 groups trying out, but judging from those five pages, it looked like a lot more! We see the Chest Notes, a group with five buff guys who are shirtless and only wearing jeans and Santa Hats and bowties swaying their butts and flexing their pecs..it's like they walked out of Magic Mike and into an ABC Family movie! Then we see a white skinny guy who calls himself Ludi-Chris Kringle and he raps "Away in a Manger" and it's like, no. Then we see some tweens perform an awful rendition of "O Christmas Tree." 

The Mistle-Tones are up next and are waiting for Nick, but he isn't there. Why? Because last night he was offered a job to oversee the overseas department in Asia...or something, I don't know, but the workaholic chose the job over Holly and staying in...whatever town they live in. But still the show must go on and they sing "Winter Wonderland" which was also the song Holly sang with Nick last night at the Office Christmas Party. AJ had brought in a karaoke machine and Nick decided it was time to share his special talent with the people he works with. 

However, even though they did a fine job, they weren't good enough to beat The Snow Belles singing "All I Want For Christmas Is You." How much residual money do you think Mariah Carey has gotten from that one song alone? Obviously the most famous example it's used in is Love, Actually but there are so many Christmas TV movies out there and I'm sure this isn't the only movie that uses that song. She probably has a summer home in the Bahamas that she bought just with "All I Want For Christmas is You" money alone. 

Speaking of people with money, the Snow Belles must have a lot of it because they wear these beautiful red intricate gowns at the duel, but then at the actual Deck the Mall performance, they are all wearing green beaded dresses! Feeling low that she's not able to sing (she really wanted to sing the closing song her mom would always end with: "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". But as she's walking through the streets with her family and co-workers, a float comes by and it's Nick singing...you guessed it, "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." He's singing the U2 version. I like that song just fine, but honestly, I like the Mariah Carey version better. I love "All I Want For Christmas is You" as much as the next person, but it drives me crazy that she has so many other great Christmas songs that are never played and this one is a great example. Nick has decided to come back to this town he lives in because he realized he didn't want the job after all and he wants to stay here and be with Holly so Holly joins him and sings with him and everyone is gathered around their float and even the SnowBelles (minus Marcy cuz she's a huge bitch!) come out to watch the fun and festivities. 

ABC Family and Cinematic Sara Presents

12 Dates of Christmas
Director: James Hayman
Cast: Amy Smart, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, and all the rest are people you wouldn't know.
Aired: December 11, 2011

Even though this is a Christmas movie, this is not going to be my obligatory Christmas movie review because those are always saved for theatrical releases. And the movie I have in mind of reviewing should be arriving from Netflix any time. I did look to see if it was on Netflix Instant, but alas, it wasn't. However, they did have an array of other holiday movies and made for TV holiday movies to choose from, so I decided, why not, let's watch one of them. I've never watched any of those fluffy holiday movies that are usually on Lifetime, but this one was on ABC Family and premiered back in 2011.

Just looking at the title and not knowing anything else, I tried to guess what the movie would be about and the first thing that came to my mind was that it was about a woman who was trying to find true love for Christmas and went on a string of really bad dates until she found Mr. Right at #12. However, I was wrong and kind of glad because the movie is actually more interesting than what I thought even though it totally rips off Groundhog Day, only Kate's (Amy Smart) Groundhog Day is changed to Christmas Eve. I was totally expecting her to say a line like, "I'm just like Bill Murry in Groundhog Day, but only it's Christmas Eve!" but no such line is ever uttered. I thought the writers missed a good opportunity with that.

But perhaps I should back up a bit and set everything up. Kate wants go get back with her ex-boyfriend and has a very good feeling it's going to happen because he wants to meet her to talk about something so she's expecting a call from him. However, she's also been set up on a blind date with her stepmom's friend's son? I think? IDK...I forgot how Miles (MPG) knows Kate's stepmom, so Kate has agreed even though she has no interest in this guy she's never met.

They're suppose to meet at a bar and I was assuming Kate had at least seen a photo of him, but when she goes up to a sad-looking nerdy guy and asks him if he's Miles, he says no (and she looks very relieved! Ha!). That has got to be such an awkward situation...to go up to the wrong blind date! She sees Miles and is relieved that he is good looking. He's also very charming, but Kate has no time for that. When her phone rings, it's her ex and she says she'll meet him in 15 minutes and of course this makes Miles really angry that she's canceling the date to go meet up with her ex but she says she's just rearranging it and they'll see each other at the party her stepmom is throwing. So it turns out that her ex wants to see her because he brought over his dog that he wants her to watch while he and and his new girlfriend go up to his cabin. Ouch! Burn! Didn't see that one coming!

Oh! I forgot to mention a very pivotal moment of the movie: before Kate goes on her date, she was at the mall and gets spritzed in the face by a saleswoman holding a perfume bottle. For some reason, this makes Kate faint and pass out.

When Kate goes to bed that night, the clock strikes midnight and suddenly it rewinds time and we find we are back in the department store and Kate is getting up from having fainted. She is very confused and doesn't understand why this has happened to her again. Everyone around her is also confused and a shopper asks if this kind of thing happens to her all the time and she says it happened to her yesterday on Christmas Eve, and now today, on Christmas! But it's not Christmas! It's Christmas Eve! But how can that be when Christmas Eve was yesterday? Kate goes on her date again with Miles and asks if they've ever met and he says no.

And such the formula goes on and on. At first she is stuck on trying to get her ex back, but realizes he has moved on and is planning to propose to his new girlfriend (who was a high school sweetheart) and she realizes that Miles would be good for her and she really likes him. She also learns to be a better person and more patient. One of my favorite scenes involves her getting to know her neighbor, Margine, an elderly woman who loves to bake. For several of these "days" we see Margine bringing a fruitcake to Kate and wanting to talk, but Kate is either rude to her or just thanks her quickly and goes inside. Finally, on one "day" she takes the time to thank Margine and ask her for the recipe and Margine brings her into her HUGE apartment which is gorgeous and takes her into her kitchen where she learns how to bake. Remember in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray learned French and how to play the piano over the course of his days? Well, in this movie she learns to bake intricate cakes and cookies (and ends up with a gingerbread house).

Through her 12 days of Christmas Eve, she makes friends with a woman who is helping her boyfriend string up lights and learns she wants him to propose to her, so she tells the boyfriend to make lights that will spell out "Marry Me." She also sets up her neighbor with Jim, one of the shoppers who is always there to help her up from the floor every time a new "day" starts and she is back in the department store. And then there was a weird storyline I don't get: she thinks Toby, the guy she almost thought was her blind date knows what's happening to her but I don't know if he did or not. She befriends him too and gives him a makeover and takes off his glasses (supposedly it works on guys too if you take off their glasses and they're much better looking!  :::rollseyes:::: Personally, I didn't think it was his glasses, it was his stupid haircut!). She sets him up with her friend who can't keep a guy. Kate also bonds with her stepmom.

One thing that irked me about this movie was that Kate was so desperate not to be alone on Christmas and for the rest of her life that she needed to get back with her ex. In fact, we learned her ex broke up with her after her mom died (ouch!) because he said that she was more in love with being with someone than with him and she was so set on not being like her father who was going to be alone (even though he did eventually remarry). I just hate these movies when the woman has to have a man in her life. Jesus, grow a pair!