The Cast & Cameos of Tick, Tick...Boom! and Why You Know Them (or Should)by Randi / November 23, 2021It’s so strange to think that Stephen Sondheim is no longer on this earth when the earth has so often felt like simply a platform for his work to exist. Everything that happens and everywhere I go and every word that every person says reminds me of some truth he shared with the world that we were lucky enough to hear and understand and connect with emotionally. No one was more honest about the complexities of human emotion and the depths of human frailty, and applying that honesty to musical theatre elevated it as an art form and reinforced that it’s deserving of respect. Look at what musical theatre can achieve, he said. Look at how we need musical theatre to truly express our humanity. That’s why we love him so much.
I’m not foolish enough to think that I can eulogize him better than others have (except the Guardian of course) or discuss the brilliance of his works in detail like theatre historians. I just wanted to take a few minutes to think about how important his creations are to me personally. Unfortunately I’m not able to do what everyone loves doing (and you can’t really fault them for doing it), which is to share a photo of me and the deceased, because I never had the opportunity to meet him. While part of me is of course sorry that that will never happen, part of me is glad because I can go on imagining him as more than an ordinary man. For me and for most of us who love theatre, he was this sort of holy figure, whose genius necessitated that he must be more than human, despite understanding and expressing humanity on such unparalleled levels.
This past weekend, I was without power and cell service for a few days due to the storm, and while that experience was one of the worst, it let me have a few extra days of believing I actually shared a planet with him, this great figure. That we existed in the same era and in the same universe is a miracle to me, and not just because it’s Chanukah and he was Jewish and I’m primed to be thinking all miracley anyway. He would be the last person to think of himself in such laudatory terms as we all do, as he was just a man (a NJB really), but his genius made him seem superhuman, despite that very genius being grounded in humanity.
On a personal level, his works form important touchstones for so many parts of my life. One of my earliest memories is watching the PBS airing of ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ over and over with my mom. She had taped it (VHS baby) so she would put it on frequently for years after. I remember it was even on when she was drying her hair one morning, and I was just staring at the small screen. Mandy Patinkin quickly became my mom’s favorite non-family (maybe even including family who knows) person in the world, and I loved everything about it, this woman in the dress with the poofy butt (who know one day I would work with her) and the colors and all these characters and above all the sound of this perfect music that I was too young to understand but knew was beautiful and important. As a teenager, I was obsessed with the dark twists of ‘Into the Woods’ and the lessons it taught about consequences and the ramifications of wishes, especially as someone raised on Disney princesses. But, I was also raised on ‘West Side Story’ and with it my dad’s favorite story of his single line: ‘COPS!’ And I’m not saying I married a man because he appreciates and loves how insanely ingenious ‘Assassins’ is but it’s not not why. I can’t imagine what life looks like without his shows helping us understand it.
It doesn’t matter that he was 91 or that we’ve been fearing this moment since his big 80th celebration. Genius of that sort is rare and now we are without his. But we have his work, his brilliant creations, each of them special and so many of them continually surprising in their truth and beauty. We are so lucky that his works keep getting produced and we can keep experiencing them, and in new ways, even if we will never get that fabled next show from him.
His genius was in peeling away layers to reveal raw human truths that seem so simple and clear but are so complicated, and doing that to incredible music. He seemed to so often be drawn to extremely niche situations for his settings — not e.g. a basic family drama that everyone could relate to but instead a group of aging former performers confronting their pasts in a closing dilapidated theatre, or a beloved painting brought to life through the backstory of its creator and muse, or a group of historical assassins detailing their exploits and commenting on the current state of politics (current at any time, another aspect of his brilliance). Even the situations that don’t seem too rare or extreme, like the single man deliberating his singledom, were novel and innovative at the time. Instead of writing characters as every day people we would immediately relate to, he made it so we related to people we didn’t automatically see ourselves in. We weren’t always reflected outwardly but we would soon feel emotionally connected and reflected due to the honesty and depth of his words and how the music enhanced their meaning. He found emotional truths in this nuance and showed them so clearly that the shadows seemed like daybreak. His legacy for me is how he let audiences easily see themselves in characters that aren’t clearly similar to them, or see truth in situations that don’t look like their normal lives, which more easily lets people connect with those different from them in real life. I believe he did this, and since being able to connect in those ways increases empathy, with his art he thus made the world a better place.
When loved ones die, Jewish people say may their memory be a blessing. To remember Stephen Sondheim is to remember his genius and how that genius manifested in the creation of these lasting works of emotional truth and humanity. His memory is a blessing, and will always be a blessing, as his life was, as his art was.
Related Posts
Christmas Romcoms: Sorting the trash from the stinkier, wet trash
It is impossible — not just nearly impossible, but full-on impossible — to sort through and keep straight the overabundance of Christian Christmas roms, coms, and romcoms available across streaming services nowadays. Netflix spits 10 more out every few hours, and I think all the recent ones are former Hallmark prime viewing, so, real bottom of the barrel shit. And while I haven’t gotten to all of them (I am only human with 24 hours in a day), I’ve watched more than is safe for one’s health and sanity. The acting ability ranges from passable to horrendous, dialogue from cringey to painful, storylines from predictable to…predictable. There’s a formula these movies must adhere to, otherwise blonde white ladies with chunky scarves and their own small businesses come with pitchforks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you don’t even notice the story and how insane it is because the acting is so atrocious, and not always in that lovably, wonderfully, amazingly atrocious way. Here I go trying to sort through the heavily ha-white, heavily Republican (for real, it’s blatant), heavily Christian (like evangelizing movies, not in the whole Christmas is Christian obviousness) lot that keeps growing and growing.
First, let’s review the rules of these movies:
1. Small town charm. Usually, these movies cannot take place in cities because they are heavily Christian, which means republican, which means they need to show love to red states because the main audience lives in red states, or at least in the middle of nowhere. We also can’t have big cities because these teams don’t know from big cities, because no big city people are working on these, that’s why the people are so random looking and the scripts are shit.
2. As white as Ross’s teeth. All white people, all the time. The leads can have friends who are people of color, but those friends exist just to prove that they aren’t racist (it’s like…blatant) and to serve the main storyline, the white storyline. But they love their friends! These people aren’t racist!!
3. The women, if they aren’t heiresses, own small businesses (repubs love entrepreneurs! bootstraps!) or are so outstanding in their field despite being on the younger side that it’s like Rory Gilmore walking through town, everyone just fawns.
4. The men have daughters and are widowers. If they don’t have children, the woman is childless but is a widow, after her devoted husband tragically dies.
5. The woman works with her best friend (bonus points for a token person of color) so they can spend the whole workday talking about love and men (don’t tell Alison Bechdel).
6. The couple we are meant to root for will almost kiss about halfway through the movie, but it just isn’t the right time yet. (It’s so funny how true this is, like every single movie does this.)
7. There will be a child actor, and she will be terrible.
8. No one can have two parents. Disney cartoon rules. If the lead woman does (rare), then there is other family drama but no one else around can have two parents.
And away we go! Let’s start off with the absolute stankers and go from worst to best. Lol ‘best’. Please remember this is an exercise in comparisons – when I say something on this list is good, I don’t mean GOOD good, I mean like it’s good compared to a pile of shit, but that doesn’t make it not brown.
ANGEL FALLS CHRISTMAS
When I saw that Tristan Dugrey…no that’s not his real name…Chad Michael Murray! (I watched Gilmore, not One Tree Hill) was in this one, I was all in like Luke in Season 5. Meaning, excited at first but in actuality lying about it to myself.
Our set-up: young white doctor woman who is young but is exceptional at doctoring like so exceptional that everyone in the hospital talks nonstop about how great she is at doctor and how kind she is too, is obsessed with her job as doctor. A little too obsessed, according to Bad Boyfriend, who threatens to dump her instead of proposing to her, if she doesn’t chill out a little about being such a ‘career woman’ and instead get some gottam Christmas spirit. Can you even believe this shit ass? His girlfriend is an ER DOCTOR and he’s like ‘take more time offff put up a treeee you’re the worrrrst’. I hate this jamoke. He’s not even hot in the Hallmark movie D-level way. So I was glad that he did dump her and she immediately met Chad MM. Huge improvement, girlfriend.
This girl (who although she’s great at doctoring is not great at actoring) and Chad start spending lots of meaningful time together and it’s really nice. I am rooting for this matchup and hoping that she forgets completely about her idiot ex.
But something felt immediately off about Tristan. Every time he spoke, he had this weird tic of widening his eyes like he’s a dog begging for food. Like on every single line, his eyes would go weirdly wide, conspicuously so. AND THEN. AND THEN. AND GENTLEMEN, AND THEN…we find out that Chad is a FUCKING ANGEL. No not like that. like an ANGEL FROM HEAVEN. Okay still not like how you might be reading it, not like he was this great rare specimen of a man, no I mean like he wasn’t a man at all but a supernatural f-ing ANGEL FROM THE SKY. like LITERALLY. He was sent to bring fucking Christmas spirit or some bullshit to this workaholic’s life, not expecting that he would fall for her and I THOUGHT she was falling for him too and they were gonna go City of Angels with him giving up his angelhood so they could be together (but not going full City of Angels with him dying immediately) (sorry spoilers for that movie from 1998) (banger of an Alanis song though) but noooooooooooo instead he decided to do the so-called ‘right thing’ and give her Christmas spirit so she could RECONCILE WITH THE SHIT ASS EX BOYFRIEND WHO IS A TOTAL PIECE OF A NOTHING. UGHHHH worst ending EVER. hates it!
I still cannot believe Tristan’s whole angel characterization was ‘let me keep widening my eyes when I talk’. I guess they don’t cover how to be an angel in acting class.
I BELIEVE IN SANTA
This is going to sound mean but my first thought was ‘man, this male romantic lead is A NERD,’ and not in the cute way like we want in these movies. They need to be hotter or what’s the point. He was super familiar so I googled him — I think I recognize him from Will & Grace — and learned the disgusting information that he and the female lead are MARRIED IN REAL LIFE. That’s GROSS! Who wants to watch two marrieds do one of these! Ugh I was so embarrassed for them both. I can’t explain it it’s just icky.
The cringe on this one was off the charts, as was the clear-cut signaling to Republican voters that this Bud’s for you. Evidence: In the first 3 minutes of the movie, Lisa, our leading lady, is at work (at a publication that at least has an online presence, unclear if they have a paper output anymore) writing an article about the Fourth of July, which is when our story begins. I DID enjoy that it doesn’t drop us right into Christmas and instead it built up a story over time and actually gave us the background we needed. Her article – for her boss Glenn Gulia, bt dubs – says how J4 is the best holiday, much better than Christmas. She ends it by saying “God bless America, and God bless freedom in all its forms.” YEESH. Just in case we didn’t know who these are geared to. Anyway, cut to Tom reading that article, while drinking out of a Santa mug, and scoffing. This mfer is gonna LOVE Christmas, I bet!
While he does love Christmas, I didn’t think hard enough about the title. Yes, it turns out this grown ass adult (the actor is in his 50s I think) who works by day as a lawyer, and ‘one of the rare good ones’, gag, believes in Santa the Claus. By the time Christmas rolls around and we learn that, he and Lisa have had their meet cute (he finds her lost daughter at a J4 carnival, which was actually decently done, although can’t say the same about the kid’s acting) and have been a happy couple ever since. And Lisa, it turns out, is not so much a fan of Christmas at all!
I do appreciate the uniqueness of this movie giving us actual tension in an already existing happy relationship. That’s a pretty good setup. But the guy’s overbearing obsession with Christmas (his apartment, man alive!) and need to change Lisa’s mind about it would have been enough drama. To have him actually believe in Santa is unnecessary; it just makes him seem out of his gd mind.
Of course she comes around because it’s usually the women who have to change in these, and of course they end up happily evering, EVEN THOUGH THIS IS A GROWNUP WHO DEFENDS BELIEVING IN SANTA IN A UNIVERSE WHERE WILL FERRELL IS NOT AN ACTUAL ELF. But that’s not the only reason for my negative score. That’s also due to the Republicanizing and the grossly, offensively evangelical proselytizing vibes I got. Oh wait no, not vibes, actual conversations and quotes in this POS screenplay. Aside from the bit about freedom I already shared (gotta appease the gun nuts), what made my jaw drop way down low do they wobble to and fro was when Tom tells Lisa and their friends* why he believes in Santa. In the convo, Lisa points out that not everyone in the world celebrates Christmas. And Tom says: well, most people do! gasp. *Their friends, by the way, are a black woman and a brown Muslim man, so that we know they Aren’t Racist. So Lisa says to the man, ‘hey you’re a Muslim (she actually says that), tell him what’s what.’ And instead of letting the man speak for himself and maybe shed some nuance on his best friend’s stance, the writers have him say “oh ha ha I’ve learned not to fight Tom on this over the years!” or something equally demurring like that. Tom goes on to say that, while sure there are some people like My Muslim Friend who don’t celebrate Christmas as part of their religion, they still celebrate “Santa’s Christmas”. Yes, he really said those exact words. “They still celebrate Santa’s Christmas…When you sing along to Christmas songs, you’re celebrating Christmas. When you travel to spend time with family, you’re celebrating Christmas.” My god the hawhite American Christian blinders on this guy and the writers. OFFENSE! OFFENSE!
Anyway, I assumed the drama would be that he would be so eager to get her onto his pro-Christmas side and he’d be bending over backwards to show her how fun it is but in a, like, accommodating, sensitive way – but it’s the opposite torture! SHE is willing to try seeing from his perspective, she does all his insane busy xmas schedule of events (every single day and night! making dozens and dozens of cookies into the middle of the night!) and HE doesn’t even appreciate how hard she is trying. When she asks for one night off from the schedule (she doesn’t feel like going on a sleigh ride in the cold, I HEAR YOU GIRL), he’s like WHAT BUT I NEED TO GO! and she’s like ‘look at you you’re exhausted just take a break’ (he doesn’t sleep because of the xmas cookies) and he’s like I’LL BE FINE BITCH I NEED TO GO COME ON WTF and instead of letting her rest at home and just going himself, they break up and honestly, Lisa, you should have dumped him when he told you he actually believed in Santa, or when he questioned your parenting for not telling your kid wholeheartedly that Santa is totes real. Ugh.
Tom says at one point that he loves Christmas because Christmas is about being the best version of yourself. Ex squeeze me, what? That has about as much foundation as Love, Actually saying that Christmas is about telling the truth. To quote Ross, ‘it’s Thanksgiving! Not…not…Truth Day…!’ Meaning, no, none of those are true. Christmas is either about the baby Jesus or about capitalism.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more offensive, The Muslim Friend tells Lisa that we can’t judge Tom for this one tiny thing — being an adult who believes fully in Santa — because, in his experience as a Muslim in Colorado, he never wanted people to judge him for what he believes either. My god. They really went there. They are really comparing the plight of Muslims in red town American and, in his words, ‘people assuming my beliefs put me in a dangerous category’, with this wacko BELIEVING IN SANTA. NOT. THE SAME. When Lisa (inevitably) comes around, she f-ing thanks Tom for reminding her that adults can/should have a sense of childlike wonder too and believe in things bigger than themselves. Jesus. H. Christ. At the end, the big Christmas article that Lisa had to write states that Santa transcends countries and religions. UMM YIIIIKES.
What’s more offensive, that this movie continually argues that Santa, and thus Christmas, and thus Christianity, is indeed the mainstream culture for the entire world bar none, or that they tokenize a Muslim character to show support for this position? They’re like ‘if he’s okay with all a this then we’re good! and if we’re okay with him we can’t be racist!’ NOT TRUE! Did a Westboro Baptist write this? The only thing worse about this movie is that Missi Pyle is in it for 9 seconds as a carol singer. what a timeline we’re in. The only fantastic thing about this movie is after Lisa accepts Tom’s proposal (of course, come on, is that even a spoiler in these) he hugs his friend and shouts “I AM A MAN!” oh my god that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
A KINDHEARTED CHRISTMAS
When I saw that Jennie Garth was in one of these shitshows, barely a second passed before I hit play on that muhfucker. This one had to be good! And if ‘good’ means completely 100% true to the tried-and-treacly formula, then here we f-ing goooo!
First of all, this title, L O L. It hurts, it physically hurts.
Jennie plays a – let’s cross ’em off – small town tour guide ✔ who owned the small but mighty tour company ✔ who was beloved and respected by the whole town ✔ including the mayor ✔ who listened to all her amazing ideas ✔ like that the town needed a Christmas tree outside City Hall ✔ whose husband died ✔ tragically from cancer ✔ and they never got around to having kids ✔ who has a big bright white mansion with lots of Christmas decor ✔ whose assistant at work is her best friend ✔ who meets the TV morning show host she has a crush on by chance ✔ and he immediately is smitten with her even though she cannot act and he comes up with reasons to spend lots of time around her even though she cannot act and it’s quite painful at times but who cares it’s Christmas and even though she hasn’t dated since her husband tragically died she seems to make the transition here rather easily I guess because it’s a celebrity and even though we can’t read her emotions because of the terrible ‘acting’ they fall for each other and live happily ever after.
Happily ever after, that is, AFTER the very hard to believe conflict of this ‘drama’. Jennie has a secret: she is the town’s ‘Secret Santa’ that Cameron Mathison’s (I know) TV personality is tasked with uncovering at his viewers’ rabid request. Jennie is generous and kindhearted (drink) so she secretly buys things for people in town who are struggling, families who need an extra hand &c. She also buys the town’s Christmas tree for City Hall when the mayor is like, mm pass. So she is alll around a super generous person who for very understandable and kindhearted reasons doesn’t want anyone to know it’s her, obvs, good generous people stay anonymous thank you Tahani, So the drama is that, when Cameron finds out that she was the Secret Santa he’s been trying (rudely so) to uncover for his f-ing tv show ratings (which is not a Christmassy reason! not Jesus!), he has the audacity to be ANGRY at her! Unbelievable, what an absolute shit ass. Oh oh no you were too generous and giving and really embodied what Christmas SHOULD be about by buying groceries for that family who has been struggling recently financially, what an ABSOLUTE BITCH YOU ARE! He ends up apologizing but honestly his apology was NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
Aside from that insanity (what kind of Christian movie wants to make this point?? that being generous but anonymous is LY. ING. and EV.IL. a republican one I guess because true Christianity would be all over that!!) I obviously really enjoyed this movie, especially the part that Jennie Garth hundo p thought was going to be cut – when they are dancing at their fancy private dinner and she adjusts her boob, just full out flat out heaving ho, clearly assuming (rightly so!) that this would be edited out, because of course they would catch that and cut it! NOPE. Seriously go find it it’s hilarious. I feel almost bad for Jennie for the movie not having any editors who caught this/any editors at all but she’s had a whole career even though apparently she can’t act, so like, just enjoy your life girl.
I would love to say that Cameron Mathison is good enough of an actor to make up for everything Jennie Garth has lost since 90210, but not even Jesus is that powerful.
CHRISTMAS WEDDING PLANNER
Let’s see if this is as good or as cringey as the J-Lo classic! (Which is also cringe.)
The good start: The cast is attractive! So rare. Oh wait…the male lead…oh my god I recognize him from OTHER MOVIES ON THIS LIST! It’s none other than Stephen Huszar, who might be the MVP of Hallmark Christmas movies. He owns this genre. Hey props to the man for finding his niche, even though, gross. Whereas he was a perfect gent in the Christmas Creek movie (infra), he is a grade A jackass to start off here. Punch him in the face, Kelsey! She doesn’t. Sigh. Okay let’s rewind: Kelsey is our protag, a chirpy and goofy (and if this was a Chanukah movie she’d be klutzy) gal who is planning her first professional wedding as a wedding planner, which happens to be for her best friend, her cousin Emily. Her rich aunt hired her, and though she is a little strict and scary as rich aunts are, she loves her and has always cared for her, so the Scary Aunt Authority Figure stakes here are quite low. FYI, Rich Aunt (who is definitelyyy Trump-voting-even-though-she-finds-him-disgusting-as-do-all-her-friends-but-she-only-cares-about-her-own-money-so-there-she-goes-as-do-all-her-friends) is played by Kelly Rutherford, aka Serena Van Der Woodsen’s mom, aka the typecast Rich Aunt to end all typecasting.
Because the aunt and cousin are Society People, the wedding is being covered by wedding news outlets and like, the whole of society is obsessed. Our girl can’t f this up or her business will be over before it started! The biggest threatened hitch in her giddyup? None other than our Hallmark movie man, Stephen H, who is a private investigator hired to privately investigate Emily’s mysterious (read: terrible at acting) fiance.
By the way the fiance may honestly be the worst actor I’ve ever seen. I assume he was drunk, because he seemed drunk, and also because I couldn’t figure out if he had an English or Jamaican or just New English accent. Along with the fiance, the bridesmaids are such bad actors it actually hurts to watch, like the editors put in extra blank space instead of taking it out.
Wisely, Kelsey decides that she/her business would be safer if she kept tabs on Stephen and his investigatings especially since it might destroy her big wedding job, so she offers to help him. Obvs the story is that they get close and end up falling in love DESPITE ALL ODDS! But at the end it feels like they have spent maybe an hour together (and no I don’t mean the hour of the movie, I mean an hour of real life time, which is not good enough). Their middle-of-movie time getting to know each other is wasted on showing wordless montages of their time on a stakeout, which is extremely ineffective. A few short clips of them actually talking would have gone a lot further towards making it at all believable that they even know each other’s names, let alone have fallen in love.
I almost don’t want to spoil this movie because I still am in shock at the ending. But you aren’t going to watch this shit, right? Actually, maybe hearing how incredible this ending is will make you even more interested to watch, to really see the lack of foundation built up before the writers had the cajones to toss in this bombshell of a twist. Not only did Stephen (oh his name in this is Connor but literally whatever) and Kelsey fall in love despite knowing each other a few days and having 2 minute conversations 3 different times, they decide — oh my god seriously gird your loins — when Stephen’s discoveries finally come to light and ruin the wedding, that instead of letting the wedding go to waste, and send all these guests home unsatisfied, that THEY WILL GET MARRIED! Hey there’s a perfectly good wedding going on here, they say, let’s not waste it even though we just met!!At least they did something different!! (Btw, who would be unsatisfied actually attending a wedding where someone drops a bombshell of a reveal at the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ part??? that’s amazing.) Well, honestly, good for Kelsey; at least she ends with a husband because judging by the look of the chapel she has no clue how to throw a wedding.
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE FOR DAISY
Okay the title of this one made me squeal with anticipatory delight of how horrible and cringey this would be – I assumed it would be top of the heap – but it was better than expected because the leading lady had good natural acting vibes and – my most important thing – the late stage ‘conflict’ that causes the ‘drama’ was short-lived and weak, exactly how I like it.
I watched this after watching the Jennie Garth one, so this actress’s acting ability shone since, as we learned, Jennie Garth was shockingly poor. Unlike poor Kelly Taylor, this light-haired small business owner in a small town was natural and believable, not stilted at all even when she had to meet the main love interest guy’s daughter (see below) and Santa simultaneously. That’s a hard pair to juggle!
Whitney, our LL, is an interior designer whose next big project is this beautiful ranch that was just purchased by…her ex-boyfriend, a high powered Business Man from LA who is suddenly back in her life. Turns out SHE dumped HIM back in the day preemptively, because a) she didn’t want to be held back from her own career and b) she assumed he would always choose his career first. And even though he seems on top of things, he never found anyone else because he has still been thinking of her. TYPICAL. Also, now he is the adoptive father ✔ of his cousin’s young daughter ✔ after his cousin and his wife tragically died ✔. But at the start, we think it’s just his new daughter.
Full disclosure: These movies have made me so incredibly stupid over the past month. I’m going to share a thought I had while watching this that I’m still embarrassed about. I feel like I should contact my alma maters just to let them know they are free to rescind any honors based on the following. I’m sharing it as a PSA, kids, so you know that these movies can poison an otherwise nicely functioning brain. Okay here we go. I actually had the following thought – briefly, but I still had it. After Whitney meets the guy’s daughter and is shocked simply shocked about it, she goes to tell BFF about it. She says, “She looks about 7 or 8 years old. That means as soon as we broke up, he went off and had a kid!” And *I* though, oh my god what if she’s the mother?? Yep. Yep. Took me a minute. I need to go lie down now for at least 45 minutes. NO, an HOUR. A FULL HOUR.
Anyway so obviously the working together on the house (which mainly consists of going to this rando yard sale several different times and just buying furniture from a silent guy, meaning this movie was too cheap to let this guy have a line) Whitney and, I wanna say Carter? fall backsies in love and the little girl, Daisy, is so happy because she wants two parents and why do these movies have to be so so tragic about the kids??? Let’s talk about better things: Carter’s beard looks like that desk toy with the little magnetic metal filings, you know what I’m talking about? He was a little bit magoo but overall everyone was okay.
Daisy, the child and the titular Christmas miracle haver, was child Acting with a capital A but was among the less annoying of her ilk. All the dialogue happened to be written by an alien who was knew to humanity (not even an AI, which would never have let this shit slide).
The B plot couple was the toothiest smilers I’ve ever seen but not in a Julia Roberts way, more of a murderer way.
I liked that the miscommunication causing the big climactic rift in the connection of the main couple was like, the nothingest nothing that ever was (might he want to move back to LA? no he just might go there for a meeting?) and more importantly it lasted 3 minutes. We aren’t watching these for the conflicts, right.
FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS
Lindsay Lohan’s big comeback was one of the nicer movies on this list, thanks to…honestly not sure what magic ingredient helped. Maybe it was Chord Overstreet (real name), our old friend from Glee. I wish I could say it was Lindsay’s naturalism that made her amazing as a kid but that shit was nowhere to be seen; she was now stilted and awkward. But you know what, still lovable! Chord was great, and it was nice to see him. But the best surprise was his daughter (obviously from his deceased wife, tick that bingo box), Little Anthony Ramos as I call her, the little girl who was incred in the In The Heights movie. She is so cute and so great! Love her!
So in this Overboard-esque junk show, Lindsay is an heiress who falls off a cliff when skiing with her abominable boyfriend after he proposes. He gets lost and finds a mountain man who helps him. Lindsay, meanwhile, has amnesia and falls in with the inn crowd at Chord + daughter + mother in law’s ski lodge. She learns how to make beds and hot chocolate and be an all-around decent person, decent enough for Stand Up Widower Single Dad to fall in love with and who would finally make her father proud? I guess? I didn’t really get from him that he cared what kind of person his daughter was (this isn’t Christmas Inheritance) but these movies always surprise you slash forget character continuity.
There were some nice emotional beats in this, like everything with the poor mother in law was heartfelt even though those beats always strike me as exploitative. Even though Lindsay’s twin who stopped acting after The Parent Trap was apparently the one with all the skillz, we still find ourselves rooting for her and hoping that she stiltingly finds her way to Chord’s side in the end. The worst part of this movie was Lindsay’s boyfriend. He was the most annoying character maybe in the history of film. Which sometimes is funny, I guess? But it was not believable that she would ever be with him. Also…he was gay! Right? Or at least bi! I mean more people should be bi, it’s 2019 it’s like get over yourself!
SINGLE ALL THE WAY
Michael Urie’s entry is for sure the only democratic one, not just because gays but because these people actually know pop culture and come from LA.
In this lil treat of a movie, Michael Urie goes back to his cold little town for Christmas and brings his best friend. They’re going to pretend that they are finally a couple so that his family will be happy that he isn’t single and alone, but the family’s like a) we aren’t that stupid b) your mom is setting you up with her gym trainer for a blind date don’t worry he’s hot and c) even though we’re setting you up on a blind date, we all think you and BFF should actually be together finally anyway so just COME ON get OVER YOURSELVES and RISK YOUR FRIENDSHIP because you’re PERFECT TOGETHER!
And it’s true! You know they will finally see what everyone else can see but it’s a bit sloppy to get there. The whole movie is fairly fun, but the end is messy and not in a good way. Like they are both finally getting around to admitting what everyone else can see, but the writing let’s them down. Instead of writing any nice line that might be partly satisfying, there’s this stupid back and forth about how one just bought the other a store? It almost ruined the whole thing for me.
But it didn’t hold a candle to the actual weakest link: Jennifer Coolidge. Look I know we all love her and she is having quite the moment at the moment but she was so ill-used in this movie, as like a wacky aunt directing the kids’ Christmas play at the church or the community center or whatever. We don’t need any of this. Love, Actually gave us all the Christmas play info we ever needed. And all the talk about Jennifer’s work going on tour?? A TOUR OF WHAT? random small town churches?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? this isn’t the regional theatre house network, it’s the 4-minute play in the local church about the birth of Jesus! JE SUIS CONFUSED.
Best line: BFF tells Michael Urie to get dressed quickly and says ‘go don that gay apparel’ which I cannot believe hasn’t been done before. What a classic Christmas + gay line, just absolute king shit.
I know you are going to be like, I cannot believe two Hallmarks are going to land higher on this list than this nearly legit movie, but the writing at the end made me actually that angry that it really dropped it down a few pegs for me. Even though all of it is so much better than the next two. It hurts more when one with actual potential lets you down than when pieces of shit that are MEANT to be pieces of shit don’t hurt you. You think I’d go hoarse for a player with no potential?
A CHRISTMAS INHERITANCE
I don’t think there’s a movie out there that experienced a bigger turn-around in quality mid-movie. After an intro that had me screaming in frustration and laughing at how bad it was, A Christmas Inheritance really came through in the end. Not even in the end, after the first 20 minutes we were good! Is it due to Jake Lacy? Did he learn so much on the set of The Office? Or was it Andie McDowell, giving some necessary heft to the cast list? Or was it just that one of these movies took their formulaic plot and did a decent job with it? All of the above, how about!
In this one, our heroine Ellen Langford is a NYC ‘Party Heiress’ who has tons of money and not an ounce of self-respect or decorum. We see her at a benefit party gymnasticsing into a Christmas tree for the papers to capture for their front pages. This is the part that made me scream, because she was absolutely going to land all her jumps but then this old bitch screamed at her MID FLIP and so OF COURSE she lost her footing and fell into the big tree. It’s the old broad’s fault, not Ellen’s! Maybe Ellen shouldn’t have been doing flips at a benefit but that guy said he would quadruple his donation to charity if she did! SHE WAS DOING IT FOR CHARITY!
Okay so her father the CEO of whatever famous company has a famous heiress that the papes care about, he sends her incognito to the small town he came from and began his business in so she can learn the true value of hard work and good people and Christmas and probably Jesus too and everything. She meets the locals – Andie McD, Jake McL, homeless people that she lets stay in her hotel room – and becomes a better person thanks to their influence (see that last part). She and Jakie also of course fall in the ooh la las, but Ellen is ENGAGED. To a PRICK. Will she leave the prick, take the cannoli? Will Jake still fancy her even when he finds out who she really is? Or will he be so mad that she hid her true identity – basically that she LIED? He HATES LIE GUYS. All of the above, friends!
Even though Ellen wasn’t mmm the best actress or mmm the hottest (I require beautiful people I’m sorry I am as shallow as the content I’m watching), I really bought her and Jake together and was totally invested in their story. Unlike Christmas Wedding Planner, this movie actually showed us, instead of just telling us, that these two were good together and had fun together and had good talks and had the opportunity to get to know each other and like each other. So it was easy and believable to become invested and root for them and for Ellen’s whole “I’m a good person yes it’s true” turnabout. LOVES IT!
The end, when everything comes together plus Santa, was fully satisfying and managed to throw a few nice surprises our way (Uncle Zeke!) without being actually good or elevating the material (why not have a little scene between Aunt Andie McD, who knew who Ellen was the whole time, and her nephew Jake, where she’s like ‘get over yourself!’ or something? Because it’s not supposed to be that good). I found myself really happy for our Santababies and not feeling as disgusted with myself as I usually do when I watch these. Maybe my bar is just so, so low.
The best part of this movie is when Ellen looks at a teddy bear and says ‘what are you so happy about’ and it wasn’t even a teddy bear with a mouth, let alone a smiley one. Ugh I’ll never get over how goodbad all this shit is.
RETURN TO CHRISTMAS CREEK
This guy wins for: Most laughable title. I pushed play so fast when I saw this thing I thought there would be smoke. I was so ready for a POS. But guess what? This one is one of my faves!
You could have knocked me over with a feather if you told me in the first three minutes that I was going to actually like this movie, because it had one of the best lines that nothing in any bad movie ever could ever top. When our heroine, Amelia, is pitching her boss her new app idea ‘Christmas Assist’ (it’s basically existing wishlist/registry tech, is it not?), boss man says “I’m not sure that Christmas Assist encompasses the true spirit of Christmas.” HAHAHAHA. That’s a winner!!!!! As is expected, nay necessary, in these Christiannormative universes, Amelia returns to Christmas Creek to harness the spirit of Christmas so she can do better at work. Honestly I’m not even phased by sentences like that anymore. I was actually more offended by her assistant calling her out for not being very festive in the office. IT’S CALLED BEING PROFESSIONAL.
Amelia goes to Christmas Creek, where she grew up but only in the early years, like till 13? without telling her parents, because when they moved, they had a rift with her brother’s brother who they left behind to run the family business or whatever. I think it’s an inn. Oh of course it’s an inn, it’s one of these movies. So Amelia goes back to the inn and is like Uncle Mike! or whatever his name is, it’s me your niece Amelia! Don’t tell dad I’m here but let’s reconcile! And the uncle is actually Steven Weber from Wings. There’s always someone you recognize in these piles.
Oh the terrible child actor in this one is named Scout, doing a disservice to the og. My god she needs to chill the f. She says to Amelia within 10 seconds of meeting her CHRISTMAS IS THE GREATEST TIME OF YEAR! jfc. Of course, she turns out to be the niece of Amelia’s childhood best friend Mike, and Mike turns out to be none other than our main squeeze Stephen Huszar. He is great in this one because he plays the nicest goodest man you could imagine – he helps his sister and her daughter while the husband is at army mother ✔ (obviously her father is a soldier, SUPPORT THE TROOPS unless that requires you actually vote for people who vote for programs that help them cough cough) anyway so Mike does the local search and rescue ✔ helps Amelia’s uncle for years with toy drives ✔ is generally the town’s man on call ✔ has been in love with his childhood best friend for 20 years even though they haven’t seen each other for almost that long ✔. I love the 13 Going on 30 vibes of that even though it’s so hard to believe, like I barely remember my friends from when I was 13, who on earth believes /thinks like this.
Amelia and Mike spend tons of pre-Christmas time together doing the toy drive etc as is required in these movies and of course they fall (back?) in love and it’s generally wonderful. But then! But then her parents find out she disobeyed (??) them and went back to the Creek, so they come and everyone’s like OH MAN WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN? And the conflict comes when Amelia yells at Mike that it might not be okay. WOW WHAT HIGH DRAMA. And then she apologizes for snapping. oh. And then everything works out okay. Honestly on paper this is a pile of stanker but I loved it. Maybe because everyone was hot.
CHRISTMAS WITH A VIEW
I fully expected this to be cringey garbage but I loved it. It barely had any frustrations borne of unnecessary or unbelievable miscommunication, which all the crappiest entertainment use as a crutch instead of writing things believably. The only actually disappointing thing I can think of is the title, because while there is a view mentioned from the ski resort it takes place in, that’s so so so not important. And it takes place in a restaurant!! There are endless possibilities for cutesy titles based on a restaurant kitchens or staff theme. Weeeak.
But other than that, LOVES. We start at a restaurant watching the staff watch a cooking competition show on TV. They all cheer when the chef they were rooting for, Shane, wins. Fun fact: one of the other contestants, shown for just a second, is the same actor playing the same character – a famous chef named Sharl – as in the movie above with Kelly Rutherford about the terrible wedding planner. I think Sharl as a recurring character is like a Hallmark thing. So do not understand the point but I also kind of love it. So Shane wins, the staff goes back to work serving and running and cooking at this ski resort’s restaurant. That night, our capable and kind and pretty manager Clara and her lovable goofball friend run into Shane, in real life! He’s checking into the resort, what are the odds. And he bumps into Clara, and they make googly eyes at each other. What are the odds even moreeee when the next day at work, the restaurant’s new short-stint get-the-crowds-in celebrity chef for the high season (??? is this a thing at ski resorts, I’ve never skied) is Shane!! Who saw that coming.
Shane and Clara make further googlies at each other but try to stay professional as best they can. No they don’t, they flirt hard for a few days then go out pretty quickly and they make out in a car like children. But Clara makes a crucial mistake mid-makeout: she says “wow I can’t believe I’m making out with a celebrity!” Shane is so disgusted that she said something so stupid that he leaves and they’re in a fight. He actually thinks that she meant it as like a “wow I love courting famous people just for their fame” and not that she means like, it’s weird I was just watching you on TV. What a judgmental bitch boy!
Luckily this frustrating nonsense doesn’t last long because CHRISTMAS COMES so Clara goes to her mom’s — played by mufucking VIVICA A. FOX! She’s so random and awkward and I love it. Clara thinks Shane is in NYC with his family, but instead he is trying to find out family secrets with the help of Clara’s ski-resort-adopted-ish-family (am I doing a great job explaining), one of which is mufucking PATRICK DUFFY! The supporting cast on this one is ace. So fortunately everything gets explained and Clara and Shane admit their love and everything is nice and enjoyable in large part because of the great supporting cast. She has a fun best friend, the Duffy fam is adorable, and the antagonist – the restaurant owner – actually gets an interesting storyline. LOVES IT! And of course, as we’ve learned is important to me, the leads are attractive for the genre.
SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S
Let me admit this right off the bat: This script might have some of the most frustrating, doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test, watch-me-scream-at-the-screen-as-if-they-could-hear-me-and-I-could-fix-things parts out of this whole entire list. I was LIVID at the choices the writers made. Why didn’t Ethan just ASK Zoey about the ring? Why didn’t he show his receipt or ask to see Gary’s (which we already saw so it was weird it didn’t come out again)? Why don’t people do things that MAKE SENSE!
So then why is this so high on my list? Because the cast!! Well! At least the two leads! Were so good! It stars Zoey Deutsch as a Jewish-Italian baker/chef so already I am SO IN, not only for the representation but because I love love Zoey and her romcom ‘Set It Up’, which I will publicly debate is the best romcom of the last decade. Seriously happy to do so. And also, despite the writing, the overall quality of this one is clearly ‘real movie’ more than any of these Hallmark jawns.
So Zoey has a diddadoof boyfriend named Gary who gets himself hit by a car after he buys her earrings at Tiffany’s for Christmas. Hotso single dad Ethan just left the store with his tween after buying an engagement ring for his Pretty Little Liar girlfriend. He gets to Gary first and sees him off to an ambulance — and accidentally grabs Gary’s little blue bag, leaving Gary his engagement ring. Lo and behold, Gary gives his gift to Zoey on Christmas morn and she is SHOCKED SHOCKED I SAY, but says yes, and he’s like HUH?? and she’s like I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU PROPOSED and he’s like WHAAAAA? But he has a wee bit of amnesia, so he’s like, huh I guess I bought her an engagement ring BUT BUT, then he finds his receipt for a $300 purchase. Which is deffo not a Tiffany’s diamond ring. But he…just keeps on letting her believe all this and they are engaged. On the flip side, Ethan’s girlfriend opens the earrings and is like ‘…oh cool…’ because they were deffo expecting to get engaged, and he doesn’t say anything either because the aforementioned super frustrating writing!
Luckily, Ethan and Zoey (forget her character name whatever) had met so they keep in touch and he gathers info about the ring (instead of just talking straight of course) and they have a very believable spark and of course they are gonna fall for each other! I like that they are great characters, and I like that Ethan’s PLL girlfriend is also great. Like they don’t make her a villain or anything, she’s absolutely great. Gary on the other hand is a real low-life so we root for him to get the boot.
Out of our Christmas romcom checklist, the best surprise twist is that our child actress, Ethan’s daughter, was actually great! She was adorable and added real value. Along with our leads, their story was truly enjoyable and fully believable. LOVES THEM.
MIDNIGHT AT THE MAGNOLIA
I didn’t even know this was a Christmas movie given that lackluster title, but luckily Netflix recommended it to me given my (gestures broadly to all of the above) viewing history. And thank goodness, because I think this one is my winner!!! M at the M follows our best friends duo, Blondie and Lad (best I can do), who host a popular Chicago radio show. So right away we know we’re in a special zone of BIG CITY LIVING! Woot! Such a treat!
Another special uniqueness? Christmas is already over in this one! It’s still the season, but now we are leading up to New Years Eve instead. Likes it. We learn that Blondie and Lad have been BFFs since high school, but never dated. Or so we think at first! For their big NYEve party (which is also broadcast live to all those radio show fans that spend the holiday listening to the radio), they are going to introduce their significant others to their families, because that’s something that their fans know will be funny? interesting? Doesn’t matter, because the gf and bf break up with them. Oopsie! So our duo thinks, what can we do that the fans will love and will get the higher-ups’ attention so we can maybe get syndicated? (love the stakes btw.) They decide to pretend to be a couple, finally, knowing that everyoneeee will love it.
Unforch, Blondie really loves it, because she has secretly always loved Lad Boy. But he has been too scared and too stupid to know what to do with his emotions. It’s actually a good, believable story, buoyed by a great supporting cast that had real emotional beats that I fully bought. I loved the characters, I was moved by their sads, I was happy with their happies. WINNER!
LIGHTNING ROUND
These are movies you might be interested in watching this year so I’ll mention them, but I watched them in years past.
A CASTLE FOR CHRISTMAS: Cary Elwes’ and Brook Shields’ talent is in that netherworld with Lindsay Lohan’s and with all those unmatched socks, but even so, we watch and we enjoy this charmless slog of a rom senza com.
A CHRISTMAS PRINCE: This trilogy (if not more) is as cringey as they come but super lovable. Go for it.
THE PRINCESS SWITCH: Vanessa Hudgens in a dual role (the later sequel with her in three parts is a turd) is almost as good as she was in Tick, Tick Boom. I love these dumb movies. Perfection.
THE HOLIDATE: Emma Roberts is great in this sharp comedy that has some scenes that are hilarious to watch with your parents and not at all awkward, don’t worry, anyway overall this is one of the best.
LOVE HARD: I hate this one a lot. We’re supposed to root for the guy who catfished Nina Dobrev just because he has low self-esteem? WHO DOESN’T. WHO FUCKING DOESN’T. Don’t catfish people. Also just learn how to rock climb for Paxton Hall-Yoshida, learn how to do ANYTHING FOR HIM.
THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS: Okay although Vanessa Hudgens is the queen of the better tier of these, this one makes no sense and not just because of the time travel. He’d be like, so confused. And so short.
SPIRITED: Okay well obviously I did watch this one this season because it just came out, but all I have to say about it is, while it was enjoyable (when is Will Ferrell not the best??), it suffers from the Mean Girls Musical HUGE annoying af problem, which is that there are 5 songs too many that all sound the same, and that if they cut an hour, it would actually be great. I HATE when a lack of editing keeps something from being great. It’s one of the most frustrating things. I can hear you saying ISN’T THAT IRONIC since I don’t edit these posts, but these aren’t supposed to be great pieces of art, these are my rants, enjoy.
I can hear my mom going ‘but what about The Holiday!!!!’ but this list is about the shitty made-for-TV genre, not Oscar-worthy classics.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: World Premiere of Exciting New Musical
Full disclosure, before seeing the new musical version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button I assumed it was going to be hilarious. Really, you’re taking the decent-but-not-loved Brad Pitt movie and turning it into a musical? Good luck with that. I assumed it would go the route of recent screen-to-stage West End musical disasters like Made in Dagenham and Bend It Like Beckham. But I could not have been more wrong. No, as the lot of us sitting in the ‘Little’ black box studio of the Southwark Playhouse pathetically blowing our noses and sobbing during Act II can attest, I could not have been more wrong. Rather than lazily taking a known property and shoving in songs here and there as everyone else seems to do and calling it a ‘new musical’ instead of a ‘garbage fire’, the Button team did what so few can do and made something meaningful and worthwhile. They’ve taken the original F. Scott Fitzgerald story and reset it as a Cornish coastal folk tale, with an underpinning of mysticism and with inventive folk music that successfully builds an entire world, and gives poignant, impressive new life to this story.
Having its world premiere at London’s Southwark Playhouse these past few weeks, Button continued this very exciting and very inspiring new trend of original British scores being on the up and up after about a decade of swimming in the shallow end. Although folk music isn’t the kind I’d be listening to at home, this score from Jethro Compton and Darren Clark served the show well and helped convey the necessary mythology and emotion in a way that classic showtunes, for one, couldn’t have. Making Button a Celtic-inspired legend was a smart creative decision, bringing the tale from its jazz-age Americana roots and establishing it instead on the Cornwall coast, with its UK traits of the stiff upper lip, the hardworking fishermen, the omnipresent pubs.
For those of you not up on your F. Scott short stories or who somehow didn’t see the 2008 Brad Pitt – Cate Blanchett – Taraji P. Henson absolute ROMP of a movie (it’s not it’s sad) (but really good) (I know I said above it wasn’t beloved but like it was really solid and honestly thinking about the ending makes me quite emotional like old lady Cate holding the baby version of her former love as it dies???? whaaat??) (Oh ps SPOILERS just there before), Benjamin Button is this cursed child (not related to Harry Potter) born as an old man who then spends his life aging in reverse. I have to admit I’m not up on my Effe Scott Fitzy but in the movie, he’s just a creepy old-man-looking baby-sized 80-year-old or what have you, but in the stage version, he pops out of his OBVIOUSLY DISTRAUGHT mother a full-size, full-talking, full-thinking 70-year-old man. (Which yeah you understand why his mother would jump off the cliffs but I think her song “Davey Jones’ Locker” should be cut or trimmed, like yes you just had a full-grown-gramps instead of a baby and I’m sorry but we don’t feel enough sympathy for you right off the bat to connect fully with your downward spiral.)You’re probably thinking, um how did they do this on stage? And the answer is with puppetry, with puppets made out of, well, garbage, pretty much (wicker baskets and lots of plastic bottles, hooray for reusing (recycling isn’t as good as we were all told, please try to actually reduce your plastic use and as here, reuse! PSA)) and impressive maneuvering by the hard-working five-person ensemble. It was really impressive stuff, and funny when it was plastic-bottle children later on.
Speaking of the hard-working ensemble, these five actors and musicians, all onstage mostly the whole show, weave in and out of various characters and play multiple instruments as they tell this tale in a most impressive manner. Well one actor, James Marlowe, does very little weaving since he plays Benjamin for the majority of his life (they need a few more visual aids to show the passing decades, like maybe losing the mustache when he talks about not needing to shave anymore, adding a few youthful accessories or playing with wigs, things like that). And one weave was my biggest pet peeve of the show since it was completely unnecessary: Benjamin’s love interest is named Elowen, and she’s played winningly in Act I by Philippa Hogg. In Act II, as Elowen grows older and Benjamin grows younger, Rosalind Ford takes over as Elowen. The passing of the character between the two actresses is actually done in quite a lovely way – but it’s not only unnecessary, it takes away from the character development. For one, Philippa created the bond with the audience, especially in the wonderful, moving “The Moon and the Sea”, and so it’s jarring to switch halfway through. For another, more important reason, um, Philippa and Rosalind both look about the same age, so making one play only the old lady version is suuuuuuper weird and it feels wrong. It’s a shame because Rosalind’s big Act II song as Elowen is truly stunningly delivered, but for the good of the overall show, Phillippa should play Elowen the whole time (Rosalind has enough to do otherwise whereas Philippa in Act II felt underused). We’re supposed to be focusing on how Benjamin is changing in odd ways, not having the ‘normal’ people do that.
Aside from that quibble, Compton’s clever direction was a feat, and despite the tiny stage and the tiny black room, you could sense the wind and waves crashing against the shores of Cornwall. Despite a slow start that would be much helped in the next production by trimming one of Benjamin’s parents’ songs (the weakest material is over with right at the start at least), they built this world pretty quickly, drawing the audience in fully and keeping us there, on board for all the twists and heartbreaks of the story. I loved the a cappella Celtic theme song of the show and how well it captured the right mood (although I think it had one too many reprises?). Even all the references to space travel paid off in a lovely, surprising, poignant way. A lesser quality show would have drawn eyerolls at, e.g., the reprise of the super-fun-every-action-is-connected song “A Matter of Time” when it tries to pull that sad as hell shit at the end, but instead we were all gutted along with the characters. It really worked. And then as the heartbreak keeps building in a really beautiful way, the audience, like I said, was sobbing. I can’t believe what this little show managed to pull off, but it was an extraordinary first effort at mounting this new musical.
INFORMATION
I have to give a shout-out to whoever designed the programmes, which for some reason only cost £1. They were the best programmes ever. Actually interesting notes from the creatives? A FULL BREAKDOWN of what it cost to mount this production and how they raised the money?? Show everyone how it’s done, son.
While this initial run is now over, hopefully it will come back in a slightly revised but no less fantastic form soon.
