Before we get into it, let’s review that aforementioned formula:

• 1 cup white girl, blonde if possible (best if she’s the good ‘worked her way up from nothing and has no family’ kind you get at the organic store, not Dutch-processed)
• 2 tablespoons owns her own small business
• 3 ounces of a small town that somehow has enormous business opportunites and enormously wealthy and powerful people
• 1/2 cup white man who is meant to be super attractive but I do not find him thus (budget issues prob) Preferred flavor: he’s rich af
• 1 teaspoon spunky gal pal, preferably who works in the main lady’s small business and is a woman of color
• As many small children who have been through trauma yet still embody the ‘spirit of Christmas’ as you can carry. Bonus points if the guy is their father
• Optional but recommended: a Santa or other holiday-scented older person who has some sort of ‘Christmas magic’ orchestrating fate
• Mix well and fold in a side romance of an older couple who has known each other for years and finally tell each other how much they wanna bang without breaking a hip
• Make sure to mention that a character with one line is a veteran and have the main man thank him for his service
• Also make sure the two main characters ALMOST kiss about 2/3 through the movie
• Pour everything into a big event that brings the whole town together where the two main characters can finally profess their love and have the world’s chastest kiss (this is Christian mom tv after all)
• Ice it with a title that can be slapped onto anything; the more generic the better

The most incredible, insane detail that I never realized but then kept seeing proved over and over? All of these movies run 1 hour and 26 minutes.

Okay so I know last year’s roundup referenced in the title how all of this is ‘hot hot garbage’ but honestly most of these…were…excellent. Maybe I just needed it and had no energy for cynicism! Or maybe they algorithmed me only the best of the bunch! But something is different this year, and these are ace…I think? Let’s review!

CATERING CHRISTMAS

Catering Christmas was the first piece of trash I watched this season, so it has that bit of specialness in its favor and I’ll always be grateful to Netflix for knowing when I was ready and what I should start with. I honestly loved it even though I did not find the lead guy sufficiently attractive (as is standard). Our heroine, Molly, is a caterer trying to make her independent business boom in her small town. She gets the chance to audition to cater the Harrison Foundation’s annual enormous Christmas Gala — what an opportunity! At the audition at Emily Gilmore’s house, a man walks into the kitchen and she mistakes him for her new sous chef, who a chef would totally realistically meet for the first time AT a very important job. She orders him around, saying ‘wash your hands!’ and ‘who taught you how to hold a knife!’ and never says ‘what’s your name!’ or ‘are you my sous chef?’ Turns out he’s the nephew of Old Lady Emily Gilmore Harrison, a trust fund baby (of I’d say 40 years of age). What a meet cute! No I’m serious, I kind of love this premise. Molly gets the job and the nephew is ordered to be more involved in the foundation so he oversees her and the Gala. This Gala, by the way, the most important annual event of this philanthropic foundation that’s known internationally, is held in Emily’s small living room, littered with a hoarder’s knickknacks, as about 20 people looking like they shopped the sale rack at Blouse Barn simply stand around. It’s perfect.

The two clearly like each other and the only conflict is that he travels a lot and she’s like ‘absolutely not, I’m not getting involved with someone who LEAVES TOWN’, so, as always, something that could have been solved with a conversation much earlier. Although I didn’t buy the guy being ‘so charming’ (or funny) and Molly smiled way too big way too often (especially in the final scene like who asked to see your gum line, tone it down before you scare him off you’re not a wolf and he’s not Belle), they did have decent chemistry that sold the story to me completely. Round it out with the rich old lady and her long-serving butler finally professing their love for each other and deciding to get married (lol like Emily Gilmore would ever keep a servant around long enough to remember their name let alone marry them) and you have one of my new favorite little sewer rats.

I’M GLAD IT’S CHRISTMAS

Please let me first congratulate this one on possibly the best, most obviously ‘we are running out of things to call these movies’ titles of all time. OF ALL TIME. This one stars perennial favorite Jessica Lowndes (the Stephen Huszar of Hallmark movies (that means they are repeat offenders and I am always happy to see them)) (okay him) as an aspiring Broadway performer, waiting for her big break while working in a New Jersey gift shop and going to the occasional audition for, it seems, only Christmas-themed Broadway shows. Her backstory means that she is singing the entire time, so we see how talented she is, and because this is Low Budget, it means she sings public domain Christmas songs the whole time, like while she’s wrapping presents in the shop as the customers watch IN MF AWE. It’s SO CRINGE. I LOVE IT. One of those customers is…Gladys Knight, no like THE ACTUAL Gladys Knight is in this movie. Gladys thinks Jessica is so talented that she asks her to come to her office along with a Hot Santa she met on the street who writes jingles. Man I love that someone writes this stuff. (It really is Gladys Knight btw I cannot stress this enough.)

The dialogue in this one made me audibly groan throughout, with gems like: Jessica saying “this is my fifth Christmas here and it never gets old” (is five years supposed to be a lot), Hot Santa saying, “…yeahhhh.” Classics.

So Gladys Knight wants to make a little commercial neighborhood of this small random NJ town a ‘Christmas destination’ like it was in the days of yore, and she thinks Christmas Ariana Grande and Jingle-writing Santa are the solution: to work on the Holiday Lane Christmas Show. Make it a big extravaganza like it used to be, boys! Jason (Hot Santa is named Jason) will write the songs, and Chloe (Jessica is Chloe) will sing like ‘an angel’ with her ‘spectacular voice’ (I’m not saying she’s not talented but stop telling us, Gladys). Chloe is nervous about committing to the Show because she has a lot of auditions lined up in the next few weeks, because Broadway famously has lots of auditions around Christmas (maybe true, I don’t really know and it is lots of Jews, right, we built this city). My favorite part is that at every BROADWAY AUDITION, she sings Christmas songs. Gd it I love public domain obviousness.

What I like about this one is that instead of having the couple wait till the last minute to be like ‘I like you’ ‘me tooo’ ‘awww’ they tell each other after meeting once for five minutes, like so early in the movie that Alias wouldn’t even have dropped the credit sequence yet. Complete opposite! Ballsy! Does it pay off? No! If they know they want to be together from the start, then the dramatic arc is simply ‘is this girl gonna land a big role on Broadway’ and the answer is ‘are you serious’.

I wholeheartedly recommend this one SOLELY for the way Gladys answers, “…really?” when Chloe’s boss at the gift shop says she took tap lessons. It’s pure gold-plated cringe. The worst part as always is the guy’s daughter who might be the most over the top child actor I’ve ever seen. So annoying.

The Christmas villain in this one is the hair and makeup department. Jessica is probably younger than me but they gave her old lady hair the whole movie and I don’t understand why! I bet it’s the same stylist who did Santino’s in Tootsie.

What about this movie will make you almost throw up if you are trying to stay positive and not be a Grinchy cynic? ALL OF IT. Jason writes Chloe a song called “Christmas Feels Like Falling in Love” and that’s the big showstopper of the Xmas concert. It’s actually pretty catchy but oh my god the sentiment. To quote the back of p.18 of Rachel’s famous 18-page letter (front and back), DOES IT? DOES IT? Even better, at one point Jason the jingle writer says “jingles pay the bills” (but as you know, SINGING. DOES NOTUH. PAYUH. THE BILLS) and Chloe responds BY SINGING JINGLE BELLS. Just walking down the street responding to a conversation with a christmas carol as one does.

Netflix had this on my Recommended list after I watched it and I said to husbo as we were finding something to watch ‘oh what’s that I’m Glad It’s Christmas did I watch that?’ And he scrolled over and it said ‘watch again’ and we died laughing. These titles have absolutely nothing to do with anything! Christmas Movie A.

A BRUSH WITH CHRISTMAS

Points for having a sort-of specific title! That ‘brush’ is a reference to paint brushes! It’s clever! It’s cute! This movie is the latter and not the former! We get a head chef at a restaurant, Charlotte, who really in her heart of hearts wants to be a painter. She’s very talented, but she has no time to follow her dreams, because she’s a good girl who promised her mother that she’d keep her late father’s restaurant going. They have a very talented staff, especially the sous chef, but SHUSH your face, Charlotte must be head chef there’s no time to discuss it even though the trained Ayo is trained and great and ready and Charlotte doesn’t want it I SAID NO. This small town has an annual Christmas painting contest (me explaining this one to husbo: “so there’s a Christmas painting contest–” Z interrupting angrily: “THAT’S NOT A GENRE!”) and Charlotte starts to paint a beautiful entry but then throws it out because painting will not put food on the paying customers’ tables. Painting. Does Notuh. Pay. The Billsuh. She throws her giant canvas just like out in a dumpster in an alley it’s so dramatic. A handsome man finds it and enters it into the contest! It was half finished so he scribbles in the rest sloppily (it’s super arty) and enters as Anonymous (he’s not taking credit for it, just thinks it should be seen. What a mensch). Charlotte confronts him and is like ‘wtf rando, this is my painting and who said you could do this’ and he’s like ‘omg this is yours? It’s really good, and by the way I’m the famous artist Wyatt Something’ and Charlotte is like ‘You’re Wyatt Something? Holy shit I have your coffee table book’ which is such a small world. So they start spending time together because he’s in town staying with his best friend, who seems like a very pleasant guy but is 100% the guy on Friends who tells Rachel “my mom calls it Bloomies.” He teaches Charlotte to follow her dreams and she teaches him how to paint, because he’s a pencil artist, and I guess that doesn’t translate, which is not very believable, like did he not go to art school? don’t they have like prerequisites?

The two leads acted decently and were very attractive by Hallmark’s standards so I liked them a lot, but they just didn’t have chemistry together. Charlotte just kind of smiled big a lot, and Wyatt just kind of skated by on his looks. Besides Wyatt, my favorite part of this movie was that Charlotte and her talented sous kept talking about how revelatory and exciting the idea of a butternut squash risotto special for the Christmas menu was, as if butternut squash risotto was not one of the most overdone dishes in white people history. They kept saying butternut squash risotto wow oh my and I kept saying stop trying to make butternut squash risotto happen.

B&B MERRY

I watched this one just to rag on it for having the stupidest title I ever heard. And then I forking loved it. I think this damn movie might be my new fave. Serves me right.

B&B Merry is about a travel blogger named Tracy Wise who not only manages to make a living from her travel website, but is actually quite famous for it, and all this after having worked very briefly as a lawyer, so I definitely didn’t feel immediately called out or jealous, no sirree, I mean I don’t even have ads on here (you’re welcome). So up in small town Vermont let’s say, an attractive man named Graham sees her travel videos (‘oh let me guess…on the internet?’) and invites her to review his family’s struggling B&B over Christmas. It’s been in his fam bam for years, but it’s been struggling ever since the big swanky Park View hotel opened in town. Nevermind that if a town is too small for two hotels to have enough business, it’s probably too small for a big swanky hotel to begin with.

Tracy agrees to visit, not because it makes sense for an internationally known travel blogger to spend her big-money Christmas review time in a tiny B&B in small-town Vermont, but because a big-time luxury travel magazine is sending her on an audition job to review the Park View hotel! Oh my gosh Santa, what a coincidence. She thinks oh I can kill two birds with one Vermont visit, boys! But she’s a confusion bucket, and when she runs into Graham in the town’s diner, she can’t find the words to say ‘oh I didn’t show up days early just to fux with you, I’m actually reviewing the Park View first, see you later alligator’. Instead she just lets him assume she arrived early WITHOUT WARNING like a fucking INTERNET SAVAGE and goes to meet his mom and aunt, who run the b&b (merry). They are beside themselves trying to give her whatever she might want so she is happy and raves about them, like tea and baked goods and a lack of personal space. As soon as Tracy goes to enter the b&b, her boyfriend, who is supposed to be joining her on this romantic Christmas stay (Christmas is sooo romantic), calls and breaks up with her. And then instead of telling the hosts that their other guest is not coming, she’s just like ‘oh he’s running late.’ BE MORE HONEST. JESUS WOULD WANT THAT.

In the meantime, Tracy and Graham spend time together and fall in Hallmark love, of course, and I ship them so hard. They are higher than average attractive for these movies, and they are very likeable. The cringey dialogue and awkward pauses seemed fewer throughout. And the Conflict causing their eventual fight was stupid but believable: why didn’t she tell him that she was reviewing the Park View? It wouldn’t have been so weird; it’s her job! Also the Park View was so basic, it made me laugh to see that put that forward as the fancy upscale place, it was like a Holiday Inn room. Which are clean and comfy yes but nothing special. It was the public domain music of sets.

They finally make up because Tracy pans the Park View and raves about Graham’s little B&B, so the meaning of Christmas is apparently the loss of ethics in journalism but we’ve all been dealing with that for years anyway. So funny that everything was okay once she proved that she would use her blog to help his business and then let him follow her around the world taking pictures.

The bond between Tracy and the whole family was believable and made this trash seem not trashy at all. I liked Graham a lot considering these leading men are usually such disappointments. 3/3 Weissmans.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS WISH

This insane random generic irrelevant title is my favorite like how could you have any clue which one this is?! I’ll tell you. This is the one with I think the same lady as A Christmas Miracle for Daisy from last year’s roundup which yes is a godawful title but at least we get the specific detail of a character name. Anyway she’s a big-time corporate executive in NYC (tick those boxes!) named Janie (I can’t believe I remembered that!) whose great uncle leaves her a big farm upstate or up in Vermont (are all these films in Vermont?). I can’t even name a great uncle. So she goes to visit it and meets the man who has been running the farm for her great uncle and is just kind of keeping things moving until Janie decides what to do with it. Everyone’s pretty sure she’ll sell it, including Janie, but she has to look around and see what life on a farm is like. Even though it’s absolutely nothing like what they show in this movie, because they didn’t talk about the smell of slurry even once.

So guess who the Romantic Leading Man running the farm is? Cameron Mathison, the soap star who was on my flight to LA last summer. He sat behind me! I LOVE THIS MOVIE! We waited for our bags together! I can’t believe it, if I knew about this movie before I could have talked to him about it. le sigh!

So Janie and Cameron decide to put on one last Winter Wonderland for the town, which Great Uncle Vanya used to do every year. They get to know each other blah blah they obviously love each other right away. But then her boyfriend back in NYC finds a buyer for the farm and she can’t say no, what is she, a farmer? So she sells and Cameron is like ‘what the fork lady, now I’m out of a job?!’ he doesn’t say that but I did. Back in NYC, Janie and her boyfriend break up because he’s like super annoying and kisses her on the forehead only, and it was the longest breakup in the history of the world, it dragged forever. Seriously they spent like 10 mins on her slow boring break up with the guy we don’t care about. And then the ending kept going and going as she took forever and a day to go back to Cameron, tell him her whole plan for the future yada yada yada before they even kiss!! We’re sitting here like what the actual f, we don’t care what your business plans are, lady, just kiss so he can get paid and buy that flight to LA.

CHRISTMAS AT THE DRIVE-IN

Danica McKellar Hallmark! I’m gonna do this one live tweet style, RIP twitter.

The exposition barfed up in the first 20 seconds is gold: Danica broke off her engagement a year ago and is single and her best friend reminds her that when she practiced law, she was really good at it and worked at legal aid and stuff. BASIL EXPOSITION, as we shout when we get told information in unartful ways. In the small town where she grew up and has now moved back home, there’s a snowy drive-in movie theatre that is gonna sell to an Amazon type distribution center because no one goes to the movies anymore and that has coincided with the downfall of society, actually (my add). So the owner by inheritance, Holden, was Danica’s first love (I’m just gonna keeping calling her Danica) and first kiss and that is some Christian wet dream style backstory for an eventual OTP, I’m surprised they don’t use that more often in these. My fave part was when the Amazon lady was like ‘I could keep you busy if you have more property to sell!’ and Holden was like ‘I like busy’ all sultry like? and then everyone laughed I’m sorry what was funny about that? Holden better not be the romantic interest because he’s no bueno.

Holden is the romantic interest.

Danica is apparently a law professor now. I thought the worst line would be when she tries to tell her students that property law saved Christmas because of a MADE UP HYPO SHE FED THEM ABOUT ELVES AND SNOWMEN SUING EACH OTHER, but then she said at a city council meeting, that the drive-in is like christmas and thus can’t be torn down. Because you can’t tear down Christmas.

What bothered me most about this movie was a) they were OLD but I think they were supposed to be my age, because they say it’s been x years since he graduated high school and that’s my same x ew and oh no, but anyway at some point she says that back then when they graduated high school he left without answering her calls OR TEXTS, but we didn’t have texting then! I didn’t text until AFTER COLLEGE. Fact checkers at Hallmark sleeping on the job.

After Danica’s impassioned speech about saving the drive-in, the city council gives her until THAT NIGHT to get the drive-in up and running to show whether it’s profitable and important to the town or not. Remember that Holden, the owner, WANTS TO SELL IT. But they are listening to some random lawyer who has no real connection to it. And best of all, the council forces Holden to put in a ‘good faith effort’ to help Danica get the drive-in going. It’s the best small town nonsense I’ve ever heard. When the two go over what they need to get started, like coffee and hot chocolate and the projectors working, NEITHER OF THEM TALK ABOUT THE FILM. WHAT FILM ARE YOU GOING TO SHOW? WHO IS GOING TO BOOK IT? WHAT ARE YOUR CHOICES IF YOU ARE GOING WITH PUBLIC DOMAIN? I NEED TO KNOW. obviously it’s Christmas movies I bet they cut that line to make sure they hit the 1 hour 26 mark and were like, eh everyone will assume they’re showing Christmas movies. Ugh alright.

As they work on the drive-in together, obvs the old sparks come back and they love each other again and honestly…I take back what I said about Holden. He’s a good enough actor that he’s growing on me but more importantly these two actually have chemistry and are good together onscreen. What a revelation.

My favorite part is that the mayor’s big exclusive fancy Gossip-Girl-style event that everyone important has to show up to is like a school dance. I think it really is in the school gym. Sad budgets man.

That’s all for Netflix. Amazon Prime has a Hallmark channel extra subscription! And they give a 7-day free trial! Me: “When should I start my trial!!” Husbo: “when I’m in a coma”.

Here’s what I watched!

ONE ROYAL HOLIDAY

I cannot adequately express how much I screamed when the very first film Hallmark recommended to me to start my free trial was this movie starring LAURA OSNES, AARON TVEIT, AND VICTORIA CLARK. Broadway veterans (Tony winning ones! (okay or just nominated in Laura’s case but still!) that I absolute love (or used to love in Laura’s case but still!)!

Laura plays a nurse in Boston who is soooo sweeeeet she’s like the sweetest nurse anyone has everrr metttt (even though she doesn’t believe in science, like who let the antivaxer into a hospital). Once her last shift of the holidays is over, she sets out on her drive to her dad’s inn in Connecticut. Laura stops at a faux Dunkin Donuts for a coffee and a Christmas cruller, which happen to be buy one get one free! She’s sooo sweeeet that she offers the free donut to the man behind her, and reader, that man is Aaron Tveit, and he is the prince of a little fake European country! She doesn’t recognize the prince so he presses him ‘come on take the donut’ and he is like ‘no I am from x fake country and we eat glorious cakes made of the same exact ingredients but more expensive’. Aaron and his bodyman went into Dunkin to get a tea for his mother – the Queen – who is waiting in the car, which they are all stopped and just sitting in as they decide what to do because their plane home was cancelled and their regional driver can’t take them too far because he has to get home for the holidays and everyone else in their entourage ‘went on ahead’ and made the earlier flight I MEAN ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE ANY OF THIS IS HAPPENING TO THE ROYAL FAMILY? People’s heads would be had. Laura, still with no idea that she’s with the world-famous royals, overhears their chat and offers a stay in her dad’s inn until the weather improves. Aaron and the Man are like ‘absolutely not this cannot be safe for…regular folks like us’ and Queen Victoria is like ‘oh yes that sounds absolutely PERFECT!’ So they GET IN LAURA’S CAR and she drives them to her dad’s house. SECURITY! When they arrive, Laura’s best friend is there, and said best friend is played by Krystal Joy Brown (another Bway) and IS THE MAYOR OF THIS TOWN. Mayor Krystal and BodyMan look at each other and IMMEDIATELY fall in love, and then the family introduces themselves properly to Laura’s dad and he’s like okay cool Queenie come on in, and Laura still doesn’t know for a few minutes and you think they’re going to say ‘don’t tell her’ or something but then they tell her like literally 30 seconds later, it’s such a let down.

So the mfing Queen and King-to-Be (his father the King recently died and I guess they’re pretending it’s not a matter of immediate succession? maybe they didn’t know that’s how it works here) set up camp in this nice little Christmas inn and every morning they’re like ‘did the snow melt?’ and someone is like ‘no it’s still bad out’ and then eventually they don’t want to leave because they are having so much fun being normal and quiet and so they are like ‘oh the ice melted but it might still be dangerous so let’s not leave today to go back to our responsibilities of running a country.’ Husbo walks in at one point, watches for ten seconds, and then says ‘oh I’m gonna hang myself.’

As they spend time together going to Christmas events in the town (with the mayor!) and planning this movie’s Big Christmas Dance, Aaron slowly warms up and he and Laura Like Each Other. (Husbo at this part: “Oh she can get it…and by it I mean Covid 19”). Meanwhile, Mayor Krystal and the Body Man are already like IN it, and Krystal tells her friend ‘don’t worry that he lives in another country, just see what happens and you’ll figure it out, like we are’ yeah they are already a couple it’s pretty funny. But Aaron is gonna be KING! Laura can’t be with the king! What if she gets denied entry to your country because she’s not vaccinated?!

While Aaron and Laura get closer and the Mayor gets her man, you kind of get the sick impression that they are going to make Laura’s father – played by the bad journalist (every journalist nowadays) from The Birdcage – and the Queen happen but that would be WEIRD. He can’t become king! Also the real King just recently died so let the woman mourn. Instead, the Old Person Coupling is the father with his long-time cook. It’s cute. OMG that means we get THREE COUPLES in this movies. Definitely a record.

Oh I bet you are wondering why the Queen and Crown Prince of small European country were IN BOSTON to begin with. They hosted a gala for a big hospital in Boston that once upon a time treated the king and took great care of him (he didn’t die that time). Yes you guessed it – it was Laura’s hospital, and they find out that she was his nurse. He used an assumed name and she remembered the nice old man who told her that it’s too bad she couldn’t meet his son because he would have treated her like a princess. Oh my lanta it’s so corny I love it.

The Hallmark wardrobe and hair person for this movie – is it the same for all of them – HATED Aaron. The Moulin Rouge flopsy style is just not working for him in this; it’s extra flopsy now. He needs a younger man’s haircut to look good. Laura’s gold dress at the end was phenomenal though, it actually seemed like a nice option and not the nicest option at JCPenny like every other ‘beautiful gown’ in these movies. The way too obvious Cinderella references were a bit much since anyone who would understand them already knew what was what, but it is cute that she and Vicky (her fairy godmother on Broadway) were reuniting. Not sure if she and Aaron ever acted together? Except in other timelines where her Sandy in Grease (after her reality show win in “You’re the One that I Want!”) matched up with his Danny in Grease (NBC Live). Oh I almost forgot to mention – WHAT IS THE MFING POINT OF CASTING THESE PEOPLE IF THIS ISN’T A MUSICAL?? They don’t even really have them sing. They sing one line of a Christmas carol each at the town tree lighting and THAT’S IT! Unions?

CHATEAU CHRISTMAS

This is another one I really wanted to rag on because of the title but then I loved it, possibly because Luke McFarlane is legit. Such a solid leading man and not just in Bros. The leading lady is the same as in Catering Christmas and even though she’s smiling a little too big again, I bought into the story. Trading in her knives for a piano, she’s now a world-famous pianist whose big Christmas concert (on Christmas day…sure Jan) was cancelled because the theatre started falling apart during rehearsal. Unions! With no big concert in the city holding her back, she visits her family at this well-known chateau where they’re staying for Christmas. At lunch there, they pressure her to play the restaurant’s piano for the crowd. The whole place is like wowww is that Famous Pianist that Joe Shmo even knows? The place is shook. I can’t name one famous pianist. Her ex-boyfriend Luke McFarlane, who is also a musician but now is a music professor, happens to be there too, because his friend roped him into directing the local Christmas Concert – which also is on CHRISTMAS DAY – and he needs to find some good acts. Lo and behold Margot (that’s her name) plays the restaurant piano and Luke’s friend is all oh we have a showww!

Despite their history, Margot agrees to play in the concert when her family is like yeah that would be cool also we always liked Luke why did you break up? It’s because Margot had the chance to go be super successful, and even though they still loved each other she didn’t ask him to go with her or didn’t think that was an option or he didn’t really want to or some such miscommunication that almost ruined lives. They realize early on that they clearly still love each other but are scared to say it and get hurt again.

During all the Getting Closer and Planning the Show segments, they find an older broken up classical quartet to reunite, although their cellist died so for daaays everyone is like oh no what can we do and then finally someone remembers that Luke is a professional cellist. It takes people FOREVER to reach natural conclusions in these movies. Two of the three originals of the quartet broke up like 90 years ago when one went off to be famous, just like Margot and Luke, but this concert brings them back together and they fall in love again, which is so sweet and takes care of our Old People Coupling rule. Margot and Luke learn their lesson from the oldsters and at the literal last second of the movie have the world’s chastest kiss and then Luke becomes a gay icon.

ROYAL NEW YEARS EVE

Guys I was so upset that all of this supposed garbage I had set out to watch and laugh at how bad it was I was actually enjoying without irony, so when I saw this option I said HELL YEAH GIVE ME SOME REAL HOT HOT GARB. I loved this one too. FUCK.

This edition of the Royal series (I’m assuming) sees alternate universe Andy from Devil Wears Prada, Caitlyn, working super hard as the assistant to horrible Miranda Priestley wannabe except meaner?? Abigail, who runs the fashion world. Caitlyn wants to be a designer, but Abigail will not give her aspirations a chance. Instead, Abigail puts all up-and-coming designer efforts into making her daughter’s design dreams happen. When the Royal Prince (from unnamed ‘small European country’) and his probable fiancee-to-be arrive for their big New Years Eve Gala that Abigail and the magazine are throwing/planning (which seems like a plot point to mock but it’s not when you remember Anna Wintour puts on the Met Gala), he runs into Caitlyn when he stops by Hearst Tower or whatever to bring his galpal her event notebook. Caitlyn mistakes him for a simple courier and is like ‘listen you can’t go up there just because you’re what, a model and you want Abigail to put you in the magazine? no sorry friend’ and he’s like ‘you think I’m a model?’ and it’s a cute meet cute and they are flirty and then she’s like alright peace I gotta go and he’s like ‘okay but listen, next time we meet, promise me you won’t be embarrassed about this’ and she’s just like ‘ok?? no followup questions!’ Of course they meet again soon since Caitlyn is helping her boss plan this gala with the prince and Lady Whatsername, and she’s like ‘jfc you’re THE PRINCE? of UNNAMED COUNTRY?’ and he’s like ‘I told you not to be embarrassed!’ and she’s like ‘I’m not embarrassed I’m kind of mad!’ well she didn’t say that but I did.

Meanwhile, she wears one of her own creations to an early event and Lady Whats is like, wow, this is gorgeous (it is off the rack JCPenny Prom 2008), I want you to design my New Years Eve gown and Abigail is like WHAT! NO! MY DAUGHTER MUST! but instead of doing literally anything in her endless powers in the fashion world to help her daughter find another chance to show her designs, Abigail instead sets out to sabotage Caitlyn’s creation of Lady What’s gown. For instance, she makes Caitlyn do all the work planning the Gala so she is time crunched. What Abigail didn’t realize is that by forcing Caitlyn to spend all her time with the Prince all a-planning and what not, they were going to fall in love. BUT OF COURSE! We saw that coming! So did Lady W, who calls…THE KING to come and set the young kids straight. The king SHOWS UP AT CAITLYN’S SHITTY APARTMENT, the KING, do you hear me? and has a little chat with her about duty and honor and royal life and how happiness comes second to responsibility to the kingdom or whatever, even though she loves his son.

Meanwhile x2, Abigail finagles her way into Caitlyn’s apartment to take a picture of the gown, she has the art department photoshop the dress into an old photo of some socialite or something, and she shows Lady W and they’re all like OH MY GOD YOU STOLE THE DESIGN CAITLYN? YOU ARE FIRED FROM DESIGNING MY GALA GOWN (Lady) AND FROM YOUR JOB (Abigail). This even though Abigail’s reasonable daughter told her mother not to do this. But evil’s gonna evil. Jeffrey is like, I know she didn’t do this. But Caitlyn decides to listen to the king and heal what she can of her broken heart by staying away. That is until Jeffrey’s manservant Barnaby comes to see her and talk to her about happiness and love and stuff, the other angle of the King’s talk. So she goes to the Gala after all, wearing, of course, THE GOWN. The entire crowd in the…small town mayor’s foyer by the looks of it…turns to look at her and mfing GASPS. I mean she does look beautiful and it’s a much nicer JCPenny dress but still, a ‘hall’ ‘gala’ ostensibly full of super powerful people and royals is overwhelmed with her magnificent dress? Okay that’s nice! She and Jeff dance and they get about 20 seconds to enjoy being together before their requisit End of Movie Very Chaste Christian Approved Kiss. Oh this right after she says ‘so you’re not proposing to someone tonight even though it’s NYE’ and hes like ‘there’s always next year’ sealing the deal that next year he’ll propose to her and she’ll become what, A QUEEN? she doesn’t have it sorry.

TIS THE SEASON TO BE MERRY

First of all I can’t with this unbelievably generic title!

I watched this one because it stars Rachael Leigh Cook opposite Rip Van Winkle’s son, and I was eager to see what her acting was like since her seminal interpretation of the line “am I a bet? am I a F***ING BET?” It’s about the same.

Rachael plays a famous social media (and I think also some sort of legit publication) dating advice guru, but sadly she can’t find love herself. How ironic and novel an idea! Speaking of novel, she has a book about to be published about her successful engagement based on her rules for dating, but she and her editor haven’t told the big boss that it’s actually a work of fiction. She’s not engaged! She’s not even dating! So much bothered me about this and we’re about 4 minutes in: no way that the big boss would have waited till this late in the process to have her underlings do a fact check, no way that they pitched this imaginary romance as an actual true story, and no way that rebranding it as Merry’s imaginary romance would be that big a deal.

Side bar: Normally I would call Rachael’s character simply ‘Rachael’ since as you’ve seen in my other reviews, I can’t remember any characters’ names, and also she’s IRL famous, but I need to share that her character’s name is MERRY and I thought that everyone was saying ‘Mary’ just in the weird way people from other parts of the country say it. That is, until they showed her book cover at the very end. MERRY. Like Christmas. And I am just now realizing the title in that regard. F-ing hell that’s cringey! I am fully sure that they thought of the title first and then named the character for a cutesy little game among the ‘writing staff’ (I’m pretty sure this is all AI).

Back to the plot: It’s Christmastime and Merry goes with her editor Darleen, who is also her long-time best friend so that’s pretty nice and/or the way a dating advice instagrammer got a book deal, to spend the festive period with Darleen’s family on their (checks the next box to be ticked) Christmas tree farm. Darleen puts Merry in a guest room so Merry can take a much needed nap, and she’s curled up on the bed with eye mask and ear plugs when Darleen’s hot travel-junkie peace-corps-style brother comes out of the shower and lies down on the bed WITHOUT LOOKING AT IT. Merry jumps, he jumps, it’s all very Proposal “why are you wet!” scene.

As Merry hangers-on during the family holiday festivities, she and the brother build up a rapport, enjoying each other’s company for the first time as grown ass adults, it seems, since they grew up together (seriously no one at the publisher asked questions about Darleen pushing this social media dating book? nepo baby!). Through all the Christmas events, like the town tree lighting, the house lighting, the drinking of cider, the eating of various cakes and pastries in homegrown mom-and-pop cafes and diners, the dressing as elves to help Santa give out gifts…there’s a lot of small town events going on jfc…anyway through it all they enjoy each other’s company, which means true love.

Speaking of small town events, the Christmas tree live auction was INSANE. They start the bidding at like $100 and they keep going up and up and up, who are these people with this kind of money in this small town!!

Anyway it all works out and Merry and Brother love each other and her book at the end is called No Rules for Love, and there’s an extended closeup of the cover. SO WHY ISN’T THAT THE NAME OF THE MOVIE.

ROAD TO CHRISTMAS

I clicked on this one because it stars Jessy Schram, the spritely blonde who was just winning over a gottam prince on New Year’s Eve, alongside mf-ing TRISTAN DUGREY, aka Chad Michael Murray. Now you may recall from last year’s roundup that Chad Michael Murray starred in my most reviled one of these flicks of maybe all time, the one where he made the brunette who loves to sing and smile WIDE fall in love with him but then turned out to be an actual mf-ing angel like from heaven and made her marry her shitass ex boyfriend. Man I just got so angry and high blood pressured remembering that plot. Compared to that POS, Road to Christmas is pleasant excellence.

Jessy plays a TV producer responsible for the top cooking show, for like a Martha Stewart 20 years ago maybe, that’s the best I can come up with. Or Nigella 20 years ago. What happened to all the big cooking show stars? This Martha has decided, well Jessy decided and Martha is tentatively going along with it, that her big annual Christmas special will air live this year. How exciting, and how absolutely shitty to do to the crew!! Not only that, but for some reason they decide to film it not in LA, where everyone lives and works and has their families, but from Martha’s other home in Vermont. These people all deserve coal in their stocking and then for the stocking to be shoved up their asses. NBD to force all these low-paid underlings and hard-working crew members to leave their homes and families for Christmas and go across the country for work! Great idea, Jessy! This is why you unionize, people.

Because Martha is nervous about it, she decides to call in her former lead producer so that he and Jessy can work together and make sure everything goes perfectly. As you guessed, Tristan is that former producer, but as you did not guess, he’s also Martha’s son. NEPO BABY.

Tristan is kind of a dick in that perfect Tristan way where he’s still kind of charming, and Jessy clearly is like ooh la la, Mr. Dugrey. While the rest of the crew flies to Vermont and sets up early, Jessy and Tristan drive across the country to film prerecorded segments to be aired during the live show to give Martha a little reprieve and to up the Christmassiness. The segments are fun heartwarming Christmas things, like a big family-owned tree farm with a sweet old couple talking about their history, and a look at fun games to play with your family (which happens to be filmed at Jessy’s family’s house). Jessy’s big idea, because filming a live show and nailing it (and I guess eventually nailing Tristan, heyooo) isn’t enough, is to secretly gather Martha’s other two sons together so that she’ll be with them all on Christmas so she will win the brownnoser prize. Because she does the big Christmas show every Christmas, for years she was able to spend the holidays with Tristan, but she’s never been with her other two boys as well. But now I’m confused because it’s never been live before, so there’s no reason for the family to have been separated unless it was by choice. I should have paid better attention…although that’s assuming it’s my fault and not a plot point pissary.

On one of their early stops at a hotel doing a snowman-building race, Tristan realizes Jessy’s plan because the hotel’s manager is….Brother #1! He refuses to join the road trip and succumb to Jessy’s little mom plan unless they enter the snowman contest, so they do and they all share a cute little Hallmarky scene of flirting and bonding. Tristan and Brother #1 go to shake hands and Brother #1 says “Brothers don’t shake hands!! Brothers HUG!!!!” Just kidding that’s actually my favorite quote from ‘Tommy Boy’. Next stop, Brother #2! Actually, no, next stop is a surprise visit to Jessy’s family’s house in Nebraska. Surprise because while she was asleep in the car, two bros decided to surprise their new best friend by taking her home. She simply mentioned her hometown once and the boys somehow found her parents’ house and brought her there without her knowing. (Christmas magic.) And what luck! Even though it’s days before Christmas, it happens to be the day their family decides to throw their big party. The aforementioned ‘fun family friendly Christmas games’ that they thought was worth putting in an enormously popular nationwide live Christmas special? That’s Jessy’s family’s White Elephant, where you pick a present and someone can steal it etc. Except in their ludichristmas version, there was actually a White Elephant in the gift mix, like someone that they ostensibly love gets stuck with a literal white elephant toy – and just until next year! They don’t get to keep it! Who on this writing staff inserted their own insane family tradition in this movie’s depiction of the game? Someone got an Apple watch. Imagine paying for an Apple watch to give to a relative and ending up with a toy that gets passed around every year.

Aside from playing the meanest game ever, the family gives Jessy their approval re Tristan, because they’re clearly making eyes at each other. Jessy’s like ‘no we are just colleagues!’ and family’s like ‘okay sure Jan’ and Brother #1 is like ‘they are tooootally making eyes at each other!’ and Jessy’s sister is like ‘oh little sister! you were always such a hard worker and successful person’ you know how the dialogue is terrible?

Now it’s time to find Brother #2! He runs an animal rescue with his boyfriend. Excuse me why aren’t we getting a movie about them?! He’s cute too! REFUND. B2 declines the road trip and we learn how difficult it was for the other brothers when Tristan and Mom were always working on the special, and the others were left out. It is sad and also understandable!

Eventually they make it to Vermont for the show, and Martha sees that something is clearly going on between her son and her producer and she’s wary as one would be, especially when they kiss during the live show when Martha is trying to improvise LIVE ON CAMERA and they are in her eye line so like eesh so unprofessional but then both of the other brothers show up (Brother #1 fell off the trip at some point; he gave his train ticket to someone in need because Jesus) so Martha is so happy and is like okay Jessy I’ll let you make out with my son. Tristan never seems super into her?? I want him to reshoot his scenes and be more energetic about it. He seemed more like ‘yeah okay I’ll agree to this whynot’. Even so it was all okay and cute, but then they didn’t know how to end it. So they had Jessy lead everyone in a Christmas song and it was supes awks. Hallmark needs to stop trying to make their leading ladies’ singing careers happen. It’s not going to happen. I mean they literally had Laura Osnes and Vicky Clark and they DIDN’T sing but these small town jamokes you give entire songs to? make it stop.

CHRISTMAS AT THE PLAZA

I had two fairly big realizations in a 5 minute span, just before and after starting this movie. First, I realized that despite what seemed like nonstop Hallmark movie viewing in the month of December, none of them were actually the hot hot garbage I expected. But that’s the most fun stuff usually, so I had to find some garbage before December ended (I’m only allowed to watch these in December). I scrolled through the titles and thought, ‘Christmas at the Plaza? Okay that sounds awful, it’s perfect!’ A few minutes in I had realization #2: I WATCHED THIS ALREADY. I had watched this just a few weeks before but forgot to write it up. If that doesn’t say garbage, I don’t know what does! We did it Janet!!

In Chrimbo Plaz, a pretty young woman is hired by the world-famous Plaza Hotel in NYC as their Christmas historian. Hold on, there’s laughing in my head. I have no idea what the girl’s name is after watching this TWICE so I’m going to go look it up. Okay it’s Jessica. Literally not even in my top 100 guesses for this character’s name. Jessica’s project is to go through the Plaza’s Christmas artifacts and chronicle their 100 years+ of Christmas ornaments and design styles and eventually find a story for them to publicize. I know I don’t know everything but I’m pretty sure hiring a historian anthropologist to go through your history of Christmas decorations for posterity’s sake is not a thing hotel’s do. On arrival she meets the guy whose name is…googling…Nick. Nick is the Plaza’s Christmas decorator. Like he’s decorating the tree and the lobby for Christmas, yet he also is being paid to come in every single day. The Plaza’s manager has to be Maeby from Arrested Development, a child who has no idea what necessary jobs and payroll are and is faking her way through.

When Jessica and Nick meet, her introduction for some reason includes her education history, and she shares that she has three degrees, in like genetic anthropology and social anthropology and history or three other combinations of those or similar words. In response to this bonkers decision to share your schooling info when you simply were asked for your name, Nick says a line I will never forget in my life: “Wow, you better be careful, one more degree and you’ll have a fever.” I screamed.

Even though Nick is super cute and clearly instantly likes Jessica, who is very pretty but the blandest person I’ve ever seen on a screen, there are two obstacles: 1) Jessica’s boyfriend Dennis, who has been a giant jackwagon to her for nearly two years of dating, yet she anxiously awaits his proposal, which is definitely coming right? it has to be coming! Best friend, why isn’t he proposing? (Jessica, why do you want him to!! ew and oh no) and 2) Jessica almost quits after just a day or two, because she can’t find ‘the story’ that the Plaza wants from their history of Christmas ornaments.S She has received literally the least direction for a job anyone ever has. But luckily she finds her hook – in more than 100 years of Christmas trees at the Plaza, there was only one year where there was no finial d’arbe, which means Christmas tree topper, and no I didn’t have to just google that, that one is seared into my brain after Jessica says it about 813 times. Jessica finds some answers thanks to the film’s magical nice old man, the Plaza’s doorman who likes to work for his minimum wage so much that he often stays after hours until every guest is asleep (or ‘tucked in’, as he says, woof) to make sure everyone is safe. Which sounds nice but not when you realize they should probably nix the whole ‘Christmas historian’ and ‘full-time lobby decorator’ jawns and give that money to the hardworking doorman. Or just pay everyone more; they can. The doorman is played by Bruce Davison, who you’d recognize probably from Seinfeld or from X-Men, or from Penn State if you’re old. The Plaza manager, who keeps telling Jessica how vital her work is for their big Christmas…vibe? is Julia Duffy from Newhart and Designing Women. So this one got some names, comparatively.

As they spend time Christmassing and learning about past Christmases, Jessica and Nick liiiike each other and finally Jessica and her dopey boyfriend break up, but the fact that she was with him for two years and thought that he was worthwhile and/or that she deserved him makes me sad and also makes me question whether she is good enough for Nick! Clearly she’s a dope too! And she has one mood! Anyway at the end everything works out, because at some point Nick decorates Jessica’s entire house with Christmas decor without her noticing so she’s like oh is this love? So again, is this garbage? Or is it art?

That’s it for this year! Can’t wait for next December!

The post Christmas Romcoms Take 2: Back & “Better” Than Ever! appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

I’m so excited to write about the show we have been referring to simply as ‘Ow My Bones!’ for literally months. I am not excited to admit that that was because we weren’t familiar with the title because we didn’t know it was a book, but apparently it was and made a splash that I missed. And I love water! Not only was I unfamiliar with the source mats, but I also didn’t realize that Ow My Bones was pretty much a drama about animal justice. HERE. FOR THIS. SHIT.

Also, it’s coming from Simon McBurney and Complicite, who are always complicite in providing challenging and unique theatre. Sometimes they’re a little dark for me but the troupe is always doing something interesting. Like here: it’s dark af but it’s about like vigilante justice for animal abuse so again, I could not BE any more here for it.

In Ow My Bones, a lady named Janina (an incredibly captivating when I saw the show in previews (so long ago sorry) Kathryn Hunter) living in a remote Polish mountain town of 14 people learns that her asshole neighbor has died. It seems he choked on bones (ow!) but Janina has a gut feeling that the deer she made eye contact with outside had something to do with it. It was honestly hard not to start fist pumping when assholes who were cruel to animals starting dying. As more bad men (members of the hunting club) show up dead, we learn more about their history of being absolute dickheads to animals, women, pretty much everyone who counts (i.e. not hunters), and we hear Janina’s theories of how the animals are behind it all, somehow taking revenge. Everyone thinks she’s crazy, because I guess ON PAPER it SOUNDS crazy, but I was like, ‘this chick gets it.’

One of the reasons it took me so long to write this is because Kathryn Hunter got sick before opening night, so they delayed it, (and then I forgot), and then it opened with another actress, which is a shame, because I’m sure she’s amazing too as everyone in Complicite is, but with Kathryn Hunter it felt like her blood flowed to be on that stage playing that character. Even when she flubbed some lines (understandable she’s reciting like hours of text up there and it was previews) she was still supes powerful. Considering that hers was the only performance I remember disliking in Andor, this b really is a talented chameleon.

Ow My Bones is a little long, and about 3/5 through the first act it dragged a bit, but otherwise it was incredibly engrossing and powerful which is impressive considering it’s mostly one tiny woman talking at us for hours; that’s really hard to make captivating! Kathryn reminded me in sound and physicality of Linda….the little one who I first saw in that movie with the teenager who becomes like a secret agent or something but all I really remember is a woman being bitten by a scorpion in a pinkish bedroom???? HUNT. ooh ironic. (Anyone know what movie I am thinking of?) And while she’s the main act, the ensemble and supporting players are all stellar. I particularly loved the physicality (wow I’ve literally never said this word so much) of the ensemble, when they did little precise movements that contained a whole universe of creativity.

Anyway I was the teensiest bit disappointed in the ending (not how it’s staged, just as written) because I wanted Janina to be right; I wanted the animals to be doing these murders all on their own so I could have hope that they would fight back against all the shits ruining their existence in our world too but I guess that is a lofty lofty dream. Man the first act as a standalone would have been pure fire. But even so, I really enjoyed this which is shocking for me given the aforementioned darkness, violence, length (about three hours), and big time use of astrology (but honestly this character was the closest anyone has ever come to making me give it the time of day). Man, honestly though, a whole play (and book) about the possibility of animals getting revenge on hunters and poachers and the people who let them get away with it?? did *I* win a contest??

INFORMATION (NOT THAT YOU CARE SINCE IT’S OVER BUT MAYBE IT’LL HAVE ANOTHER RUN SOMEDAY SOMEWHERE SOMEHOW)

Start: about 7:52

Act I ends: 9:15

Act II begins: 9:37

Act II ends: 10:41

Barbican is the one theatre where no matter what we are always going upstairs. The stalls are my nightmare — incredibly long rows with no aisle breaks except at the ends so you could get trapped and have to get past like 30 people if you have to pee, it’s just horrendous to even think about. Upstairs in the upper circle you can have your own entrance door and no one behind you and it’s cheaper too.

The bathroom situation at Barbican continues to be the worst though, you either run down to a small one house left below the stalls or you go all the way out the theatre to like the movie theatre area. Woof.

The show uses big flashes a bunch, flashes that are blinding and upsetting. They are not upsetting in a theatrical ooh this is working for me way; they are upsetting because they are blinding. CAN. THEATRES. PLEASE. STOP. DOING. THIS.

Restaurant recommendation for pre-theatre: Korean BBQ & Vegan has moved from East London to here! Like around the corner! And they’re so fast and great. Two enthusiastic thumbs up.

The post Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: Real Title!! appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

I am realizing that I’m as close to a groupie as one can be for a relatively new Scottish musical theatre composer. Cool! After falling truly madly deeply in love with Finn Anderson’s Islander a few years ago, we had to go to Stirling to see the premiere of this New Folk Musical, A Mother’s Song. A Mother’s Song has promise and could be great. It’s a fully fleshed out full-length musical with some real moments of gloriousness that gave me chills. Anderson has collaborated with director Tania Azevedo to create this show about motherhood throughout many, many generations of one family line, from long-ago Scotland to present day Brooklyn via West Virginia (for once the American accents were Southern for a reason!). They tell the generation-weaving story with music that blends traditional folk songs with modern takes on them, plus some plain old modern songs.

Anderson has his own sound, that folksy sea-shanty-loving if-you-close-your-eyes-you-can-see-the-Highland-coos-in-the-foggy-fields sound with its tight, sometimes spellbinding multi-part harmonies. This score had several moments where I was like ‘yes! this is it! the Finn sound!’, and if he finds and adds some more of that, this would be a score you could compare more to Islander. That show’s amazing use of overlapping percussion to aid in storytelling is largely missing here, and would really serve this show well (also it’s just an awesome element to his sound that I missed). The great moments happen mainly in the first act, especially when the use of traditional Scottish folk songs blend seamlessly with his new songs. When our oldest ancestor Cait (Kirsty Findlay, also in Islander) sings the traditional The Four Marys and it goes right into An Unwelcome Visitor (the visitor in question being a bebe, damn), WHEW but that was pure fire! It helps that Findlay is one of the strongest performers I’ve seen in years, so keyed into nuance and able to harness the power of her voice in precise little acrobatics that serve as a masterclass in how to act through singing (none of that ‘I’m going to speak a few words for emphasis even though that’s never really effective’ stuff from her). She was so incredible in Islander and here she proves again she’s in a class of her own.

Cait’s storyline, of a minister’s wife who is unwillingly pregnant, weaves with her descendant Jean’s storyline, of a 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant, is not really fussed about it!, and runs away to have the bebe in the new world. Blythe Jandoo’s Jean is as likeable as her real name is baller, with maybe the most enjoyable story of the bunch since at least (compared to Cait’s) you know you aren’t going to have to think about the precursor to wire hangers. These two stories (and these two performers) rise above the more modern ones and are moving, powerful, compelling.

As for the modern story, we have Bethany Tennick (the performer and one of the writers of Land, from last year’s Fringe, and one of the two Islanders) as Sarah, a PhD candidate but also a professor (once again I am begging British playwrights to let me just have a once-over on an scripts that take place in America just to find inconsistencies like this) living in Brooklyn in an apartment she just bought with her newly qualified lawyer girlfriend (I repeat what I just parenthesized) (in the USA no one is described as newly qualified or fully qualified like in the UK, you’ve either passed the Bar or not yet) (also no way this new lawyer is a human rights lawyer in a firm, no). She is holding onto a box from her deceased Aunt Betty from West Virginia, full of cassette tapes of Betty’s research into the folk songs that shape their history. Which is a nice framing device, but in practice Betty’s scenes work kind of like a lecture and weren’t as enjoyable as the historical scenes. I did find the info she shares interesting, but I like school (we were in a university after all, I’ll give you that).

One thing I truly loved though was the use of Scots language! LOVES IT. I went home and immediately read some Rabbie Burns. Okay no I didn’t but I meant to. It was so well done, and yes there were two screens with captions (very helpful and only blocked my view a handful of times!) but I think it was clear what was being said without relying on reading. Kirsty in particular did such a good job expressing the musicality of the language I was like fully ready to add another language to my Duolingo to forget about in a week.

So as the stories weave and build, the show is intriguing and can be moving, but there are a few spots that need work. Specifically, the cut from one of the greatest songs, Cait singing about the rage inside of her, that goes right to the modern song about the modern couple’s karaoke nights?? It was a harsh juxtaposition, and it felt completely incongruous, able to be lifted right out of the show (and maybe should be). It also showed how much more compelling the historical stories are than the modern one.

Generally, I think the second act needs work. The show goes from 3-4 stories woven fairly nicely together in the first act, to being almost just one straightforward regular one-plot play in the second. Mainly, it’s a bit tedious, weaker than the first because it’s entirely about the modern storyline, and how their relationship ends because the aunt’s tapes made Sarah realize she wants kids? It’s all a little ‘wait what? listening to some tapes made you change your mind about a huge life decision?’ (It’s also peculiar that it’s been two years since aunt’s death. Maybe if it just happened (maybe even suddenly) then Bethany’s huge change of heart would be in part explained due to grief and guilt.)) But even if that was all substantiated, it’s just that no one cares as much about the modern storyline or this relationship as we do about the other two storylines. So having so little from the other two and instead having the whole act about this decoupling that we kind of are like ‘okay, whatever, you do you’ about, is a let down. And we lost the Finn sound. Needs more of those supertight multipart harmonies!

Also, the hardships compound so much that it feels a little like disaster porn, like everything that can go wrong or can be terrible will. At one point, the mood veers in a way that lets you see that a beloved character is deffo gonna die, and I said to myself, no, that’s too predictable, too overdone, too dire. And then of course she died like a second after I thought that. I understand the desire to show hardship – no one wants to see a story that pretends women had autonomy or all happy endings – but we’re getting a lotttt of sadness in this show. A spree of melancholy starts to feel a bit banal. You need to break up the tragedy with at least a drop of lightness.

However, I’m just sharing all these negative things because this show was overall really good and could be EXCELLENT with some of these changes, and obvs I want it to be EXCELLENT. You know I don’t go hoarse for a player with no potential! There’s a lot of brilliance already in it and sooo much more waiting to be revealed with just a little bit of digging.

Other thoughts: The old-timey costumes were well done. They seemed so elaborate and on point for such a short run. However, the modern clothes were wee headscratchers, namely the denim jumpsuit. I get how on paper that sounds right for a PhD candidate in Brooklyn but just take my word that Bethany deserves a cooler costume!

Lights: I remain convinced that lighting designers who enjoy adding in series of bright flashes of lights for ‘art’s sake’ have never sat in a seat to see how it actually plays. Luckily these artistic flashes were mainly at the start and finish, so it wasn’t too hard to cover my eyes, but it still was a rough go. I hope that this trend stops! Being temporarily blinded did not make me appreciate the dramaz any better!

INFORMATION

The show had a short run as its premiere last week, but given the people involved I’m sure we’ll be seeing future runs (hence why I’m writing all this).

Macrobert Arts Centre is REALLY HARD TO FIND AND TO FIND PARKING AT! It’s deep into the university campus and there are teeny little signs for finding it by walking and it was all very confusing and made me hearken back to trying to find an 8am lecture at college and not realizing it was a 70 minute walk to the top of campus! anxietyyyy!

The show ran about 2 1/2 hours with intermission (Act I ran 14:36 (at least that’s the last phone screen I saw) to 15:49, Act II ended at 17:06). The website said it ran 150 minutes so like, freaking bravo on that accuracy. The first act flewwww by, I guess because I loved it.

As I said there were two big screens on each side of the stage with captions, which are mostly helpful, although they kept saying its’ which is not a word. This was apparently one of only two special captioned performances, but if they shifted them a little so the screens don’t block the action for the first few rows, I don’t see why they can’t have these all the time (and like…for most shows! If someone needs them and they don’t hurt then…? yes I’ve started watching TV with subtitles what about it).

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George Takei’s very personal show about the Japanese internment camps that the United States thought were cool cool cool during WWII has come to London. I say ‘his show’ even though he didn’t write it because everyone calls it that, because it’s inspired by his life story. Our beloved Georgie was taken to the camps in California when he was mfing 5 YEARS OLD. It’s hard enough to watch adults playacting at living through this horror onstage; can you even fathom what it was like for this beloved man as a tiny boy? You cannot. So everything he brings to it — the harrowing story, the heart, the lovable performance, the magic of seeing this public persona live onstage — is wonderful, and the show is moving in large part because of all his gifts, gifts of performance and connection and the biggest one, of giving his story to the theatre.

The show begins with an elderly Japanese man named Sam (IT’S GEORGE!) dressing in his WWII uniform to mark the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, as he does every year. A woman comes to his door with the news that his sister Kei has died, and George kinda freaks out like STOP IT, PAST, LEAVE ME ALONE, I HADN’T TALKED TO KEI IN 50 YEARS! which is, wow, REALLY sad, like that’s a really long time, that’s much longer than I’ve been alive, wtf, how could you not talk to your sister for that long, what the crap happened? Luckily the show goes awooawoowoo and turns back time to show us the story of what happened. Sam becomes mfing lovable Telly Leung all the way from the great white wayyy yes Tellayyyyy! to play Sam as the young man, forced at the prime of his life to enter the internment camps with his sister Kei, his father who he THINKS is always disappointed in him but is he really or is he just strict and not great with English?, and his grandfather (played by George now). We see the trials and tribulations, yet also the hope and light they forge in the camps with their fellow prisoners, and the love they find – including TellySam with a hawhite nurse, Hannah. STUFF GOES DOWN!

Real talk, it’s not a great show because it still needs some editing of the story to make it as strong as it should be, but you are either lying or dead inside if you aren’t moved at least a few times. Removed from my first viewing on Broadway 7 years ago (jeeez), I can see how great this show could be with the help of a dramaturg. I’m a big believer that every show should hire a dramaturg for at the very least a once-over, like a final edit to make sure it’s in tip-toppiest. But even so, Allegiance has so many good qualities and strong parts, some great songs, some real potential in its characters and storylines. The parts don’t add up to as good or as strong a whole as they should, as it deserves. All that goodness is still there, but it needs some refining, and it’s a shame it didn’t get it.

BUT it’s all still there to be enjoyed and to be moved by! Allegiance is enjoyable and manages to tug at the heartstrings (I know I pick on the big miss at the Guardian because she’s terrible but like, objectively, how could you NOT. FEEL. ANYTHING. at the end? with the magazine? come on). Aynrand (real name…we are still both shocked and in awe of this…I just…her parents…wouldn’t you change…what’s…how’s…what’s…oh it’s just so amazing…and also no) Ferrer as Kei sounds very much like Lea Salonga, there’s a very similar tone to her voice, which is quite possibly the highest compliment that can be given on this planet, so her songs were a treat to listen to, including importantly my favorite song in the show, ‘Higher’. Its simple clear lyrics paint such an effective portrait of her childhood and her sacrifices, and so efficiently, it makes me teary every time. LOVES IT. Kei and Frankie, her love, didn’t have like, great chemistry (sorry Frankie) but I totally dug what Telly and Nurse Hannah created with their few songs (including the bop ‘I Oughta Go’, which was staged well).

Most of all, it’s a gift to see George Takei acting live onstage, giving his everything so we can feel and understand the importance of what he’s trying to convey. SO LISTEN TO HIM. HE’S BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH. HE’S 85 YEARS OLD. LISTEN TO HIMMMM. GO SEE IT AND BOW DOWN TO HIM. CRY YOU BASTARDS! WE LOVE YOU GEORGE!

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Guys I had literally no idea what Watch on the Rhine was, so much so that every time I saw it in my calendar I thought that my husband was reminding us to watch something called “On the Rhine”. For like MONTHS. Very embarrassing for me, since it was a 1941 Lillian Hellman play (and 1943 movie) and I love Lillian Hellman but I guess that love was based on a very small too small sample size of her work. Regardless we stan a Jewish commie lady! This play came as you can see smack dabbadoo in the middle of World War II; Lillz was really like “gird your loins, world!” with this one.

We meet a rich family in D.C. whose grown daughter is coming back to her mother and old maid brother for the first time in 20 years after going to Europe and marrying a man named Kurt (OR IS HE) and having three amazing kids. They fled Germany probably because he’s prob Jewish and they might be (the names are! it’s unsaid! come on!) and really, it turns out, because he’s a professional anti-fascist and one of the top faces posted on Wanted signs around the Nazi offices. How it comes out is so good, with the old rich gramma being like ‘well we are all anti-fascist OBVIOUSLY’ (the obviously in the tone made me look around the audience to see who shifted uncomfortably) and the daughter was like ‘yeah well Kurt WORKS at it.’ So he’s on lists and shit and they had to flee and shit gets IN. TENSE. because there’s a Friend of Nazis named Teck (jfc) staying at the house who wants to cash in on what he knows.

Once I figured out whyyyy the leading lady, our Sara the returning daughter, was so familiar (it was because of It’s Complicated) (it’s a fantastic movie btw) (I really recommend it) (I love famous old people romcoms so much) I was fully taken into the drama and invested in the story. Sara and Kurt’s relationship was SO INTERESTING. They were madly in love with each other still but that was clearly predicated on having respect for each other as strong warriors for justice, so they were never gonna settle down and enjoy peace for a moment unforch no not ever. Teck (jfc) probably just sped up the process with the wrench he throws into their plans. This guy really does some excellent Nazi-friend acting, Naziing so hard in so many ways to play the bad guy but wow did he do it. The climactic scene where he explains calmly that he’s going to blackmail Kurt was SO tense and simmering so much that I think I actually gasped out loud when Kurt (finally) lunges for him and attacks him. (Actually…I think I said YES or LET’S GO so yeah I was REALLY INTO IT sorry (not sorry)). I love when Nazis get hurt! Here’s a great infographic that fits well here!

The cast was uniformly excellent (okay minus one but I’m not gonna name names), but what really struck me was how good the children were. Child actors are rarely tolerable, and no offense but what I’ve seen in this country is even worse than in the USA (I think it’s because of the West End’s child labor laws — there are too many protections, too many kids for each role, there’s no fear or suffering and you gotta have the fear for a good child actor.) (I am JOKING.) No but seriously these kids, especially the two boys, holy WOW. Some of the most believable, real, raw, honest acting I’ve seen in this CITY let alone from BABIES. In total awe. Poor little Bodo who was so smart and so funny and cute but still a baby, as they say, and poor little Joshua who acts so brave and so grown up because he has had to grow up too fast but he is still just a kid too. Ugh I’m gonna cry again give them all the awards it’s just not right that Back to the Future won an Olivier but not these kids. Also give them a hug.

Anyway considering how full-no-idea I was going in, I’m like full evangelical now about how strong this production of this super intense and smart and moving play is. If I gave star ratings I’d be giving five yellow ones.

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This adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s beloved novel feels like the creatives were trying to erase the magic that theatre could have so ingeniously enhanced. Theatre’s unique potential to show the wonder and intrigue and joy of this story — of a young man in Elizabethan times who falls asleep for 100 years and then becomes an ambassador to Constantinople but then falls asleep again and wakes up a woman and then lives for centuries more but doesn’t really age and has a gay old time dressing as both men and women and having all kinds of lovers and then getting married for like a day and so on — felt kind of squandered in an attempt to pare the story down to bare bones. But this story doesn’t really have bones — its magical flowery surrealism is its essence! So paring it down — and at 90 minutes or less, it really is unnecessarily pared down — feels like the wrong move.

It felt like they were trying to ground (or really, ground down) the surrealist aspect of the story (and isn’t it all surreal??!!) instead of letting it fly and having the magic of theatre smooth the rough edges and augment the ambiguity in a great way. Instead, all the rough edges seemed to be highlighted. Like the fact that Orlando keeps falling asleep and waking up in new centuries even though his nursemaid is alive and the same age feels forking weird, instead of being another lovely thing to let color the mood and shape of the piece. Sure the nurse is the funniest part of the show but even that feels like a random insertion when compared to the rest of the cast and happenings.

The attempts at sincerity, especially at the end trying to show Orlando’s feelings for her new husband, feel incredibly unearned and false since nothing was given the chance to feel earned. Everything felt quick, random, chaotic. The pointed proclamations made about gender and living freely etc thus also feel unearned, even though they were disappointingly weak and bare to begin with. So overall it just felt like a missed opportunity, focusing too much on the meta-story of the 8 or so Virginias Woolf writing the story as it was shown to us (even that felt half-assed) and not enough on letting the story breathe fully in its gloriousness so it could have the strength to say something worthwhile.

INFORMATION

Run time: 90 minutes.

Orlando is playing at the Garrick until February 25. The Garrick is an old for the earth theatre and I keep forgetting that the circle is better than the stalls, but for this short show the stalls weren’t so bad. Just remember that the ladies toilies are upstairs. And old. For the earth.

The pillars that restrict views in the stalls aren’t really that bad, so it’s worth saving a few pounds.

Mask count: two, me and husbo. Everyone else was coughing freely. Humans are gross.

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Liz Kingsman’s one-woman-show-parodying one woman show, called One Woman Show, is by far the funniest event happening in London right now, even funnier than my commentary through the walls to my loud neighbors asking how they smuggled elephants into a no-pets-allowed building. Her post-Fleabag scathing send-up of that type of overdramatic, confessional-style, sexually-bold-just-to-say-it-is show is at least in my opinion (and what else are we doing here) more laugh-out-loud hilarious and more interesting than any of the predecessors she’s sending up. She’s an unfairly funny person, clever with her words as much as she is with audio and visual gags that are still making me laugh.

The lines between truth and fiction are completely blurred, starting when you enter the theatre. There are notices on the bathroom doors, the walls, the stairs, alerting audience members that ‘Tonight’s performance of Wildfowl is being filmed’. I was so stupid I literally almost asked an usher if these signs were from another show, because wtf is Wildfowl? Thank goodness I didn’t, because it’s part of the show. One Woman Show has Liz playing a fictitious/exaggerated character Liz who is working on her one woman show Wildfowl about her insane shenanigans and it’s being filmed that night. Throughout, Liz asks the production manager for cues or to check on aspects of the recording process and it’s hard to know what’s real or not, it’s so well done. The show began at least 15 minutes late, and it seemed to be explained by the whole setup for the filming, but it becomes clear (to different people at different times) that the filming facade is just part of the scripted show, so I have no idea whether the delay is actually part of the show every night?? My brain hurts trying to keep it all straight! Don’t think about it too hard too too hard.

We meet Liz, the character, as she wakes up in a strange apartment after a wild night. Where am I, she wonders. Who is this guy? How do I get to work from here? When she sees a picture of herself on the fridge, she freaks out – how does he have this? I don’t even remember taking this photo in a beer garden where I clearly am having such a good time that I don’t realize anyone is taking my photo! Then she realizes it’s her own house. Writer Liz has analyzed what worked for Fleabag &c, and what has gotten copied ad nauseum, and mirrors those details while simultaneously skewering them. She later gets hit by a bridge, but mostly shakes it off.

From here, I could keep going on about how funny it is, even though the word funny feels incredibly ill-suited to just how funny it is, and this would be supes boring to read, so I’m going to share my favorite parts instead, mostly so I remember them later:

When Liz asks a new, secretive lover when he will be getting back from Africa, he responds: “When does anyone get back from Africa?” Husbo and I immediately made mental notes to say that nonstop for the next few weeks (side note we are going to Africa next week).

When Liz’s Australian boss Dana, who Liz imitates by standing like a flamingo, delivers her super insightful monologues that skewer the whole genre going beyond simple retorts and instead present Liz’s entire theses in unedited, hilarious form, like when she directly states to Liz, “You’re not a mess; you just want to be seen as one.” I MEAN. THAT’S THE WHOLE THING OF THESE SHOWS.

When the lighting changed for a scene and a bit of a Grammarly commercial started playing, like we were in a mfing YouTube video. I think that’s what made me laugh the hardest the entire night.

When the production manager says repeatedly that the next segment in the script has the cue PAUL and you think it’ll be about another man she slept with but instead it’s about the chain of French bakery coffeeshops we have here, PAUL.

The reveal of Phil not being a new coworker but a POTTED PLANT (so stupid) buoyed by the audio recap of everything she had previously said about him (amazing).

When she is responsible for the demise of an entire species of bird, but sees that there are so many more birds out in nature, and says dreamily “maybe I am enough.” It’s too brilliant it hurts.

Sight gags in order of amazingness:

1. The moat reveal for the stalls. (We really had no idea there was a moat.)
2. The water bottles during the ‘break’ as they discuss what’s going on with the filming: the small bottle of water she sips from stage right…then the bigger liter of water she takes from stage left…then the gigantic water cooler replacement she takes from backstage. TOO DYING.
3. Best one: At the end, when she says her performance isn’t as vulnerable and honest as she hopes unless she gets truly naked, so she goes to take off her clothes, her random unflattering big tee shirt and overalls, only to reveal she’s wearing the SAME EXACT OUTFIT underneath. Whatever anyone was expecting her to have underneath, this was funnier.

Lightning round mentions:

• Meeting at The Old Queen’s Leg, RIDICULOUSLY perfect pisstake of British pub names
• Having drinks at Las Iguas/Lassy Guas (Las Iguanas). I was hysterical it’s so stupid.
• “He walked me from Notting Hill to Bank Station.”
• Her friend with the Northern Irish brogue who funnily enough “doesn’t speak in any of my memories”.
• What made this audience laugh hardest: When she has random sex at a club and the guy is behind her and she says “this is my favorite position, because I can still narrate.”

I mean, this isn’t even half of it. I do think that line that her boss gives, the ‘You’re not a mess, you just want to be seen as one’, is sensational in how effectively and efficiently it describes this type of confessional, supposedly honest-to-a-fault genre that was saturating the market for a bit. Its hard-hittingness stands out a bit from the rest of the show’s humor but it’s the part that showed me how well Liz understood her assignment and how far her submission went above and beyond the rest.

INFORMATION

Playing at the Ambassadors Theatre, which might have the worst and oldest toilet situation in the country.

It is meant to run 1 hour 10 minutes but it started at least 15 minutes late as I said so we got out at like 10:45. Oh we went to the 9:15 show, there’s an early and a late show which I’m sure is really hard for the performer but really fun for me.

Jon Snow and ginger wife were there.

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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 post Christmas Romcoms: Sorting the trash from the stinkier, wet trash appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

The Doctor was more frustrating than waiting all night in A&E to get four minutes of face time, because at least at the hospital you know the NHS is doing their best with limited resources and you can blame Tories for that, but who can we blame here? Society? The writer? Tories? Tories it is.

This show was an exercise in trying to remain calm, and seated. I think I’m extra frustrated because it so could have been something powerful…or at least said something coherent and not just spit chaos at a stage. There are lots of issues I’m going to point out with this play about a doctor who follows hospital policy and then gets cancelled by the whole world for it, but there are two main ones I’ll focus all thoughts around.

Number 1: What the fuck.

The plot of The Doctor focuses on Juliet Stevenson’s character (I’m gonna call her Juliet) who is a cold but brilliant doctor. So maybe her bedside manner sucks, but she is always going to make the right call medically, which, I don’t know about you, but is what I want from a doctor. She knows her shit, and some dialogue in the first few minutes makes clear she’s a better doctor than her esteemed colleagues. When a teenage girl is dying on Juliet’s shift, a priest appears and insists on going into her hospital room to give her the last rites. The Doctor says, well, first of all I don’t know who you actually are, stranger off the street; b) I haven’t heard from her parents to give this permission/instruction which I would follow if they said so; and also the girl is very out of it but peaceful and I think it’s best for her to die peacefully and not panicking if she finds out she is dying. (And lo, she was right, because we find out later that some dick-faced intern asks the girl if she wants the last rites while the priest is making his ruckus, and so the girl does panic and does die panicking. you f-ed it, you piece of shit intern.)

So, back to my main issue: what the fuck.

I don’t understand why this isn’t a two minute discussion. She followed hospital policy and chose NOT TO ALLOW A STRANGER INTO A DYING MINOR’S ROOM. A stranger off the street who just shows up and says he is a priest, says that the parents called him and asked him to come – but the parents didn’t call the hospital to tell them to let him in. Is that just a cool thing to do in this country? I know you don’t have as many regulations on things like this as the USA does but really? I can just walk into a dying child’s hospital room even if the staff is like, hey now wait? that’s fine? So you’re saying she SHOULD have let a stranger into a child’s room to upset her when she was dying, without hearing from any guardian and even though her decision was supported by hospital policy.

Given the sense I just made at you, I thought maybe this play was going to be about how society has forgotten what common sense is, and the hubbub caused by this event would be shown for the insane circus that it was. Like, we were supposed to be this angry with how irrational all of this is, that was the intention. I assumed that the conflict would be portrayed as the whole world against Juliet when it was clear that Juliet was right, a case of someone being ‘cancelled’ unfairly (even though that sentiment is overblown since people simply don’t understand what words or consequences are but I digress). However, it seemed the opposite, and people approve of her facing professional consequences for her character unrelated to her job. People that are actually allowed to dress themselves in the morning (slash write the ‘real’ reviews for the Guardian et al) apparently think she was wrong – which okay, you might have made the opposite decision since both were allowed. You might have thought she should have let the stranger into the dying child’s hospital room with no proof that he was who he says he was. But was she wrong enough to get fired? To be publicly shamed, to be threatened, to be the subject of this shitstorm, to have bricks thrown through her window, to be yelled at by irrelevant activists on TV? no no no, bless your heart. But it seems the vast majority of people think this was all warranted.

Another wtf: where on earth were the hospital’s lawyers at all these subsequent board meetings? I worked in medical law for a few years and this is a big old piece of unrealistic nonsense that at no point in the first five seconds of the debacle did the lawyers show up and say “so, she followed hospital policy…that’s all there is to it. That’ll be 3000 pounds please.” It’s kind of laughable that this wasn’t a legal drama, as it would have been in real life. I know you love your chat shows but solving a regulatory question on one is some soft-ass shit.

Speaking of those irrelevant people on the TV panel: if we were supposed to be angry and frustrated as we see these various irrelevant voices losing the plot, then great, that worked. But it honestly seemed like we were supposed to care? what various academics and scholars and action group workers thought about this situation where a doctor followed hospital policy? Are you out of your gottam mind? How is any of this at all relevant or worth considering? How did it become about her character unrelated to being a doctor and — this is the problem– how was that not presented or interpreted as unreasonable?

The worst thing about that panel show, besides everything, was that one of those irrelevant people had the gall to make her apologize for the harm her ancestors have done to other people. I mean. She’s Jewish, by the way, if there were ever doubt about the antisemitism in London theatre that I go on and on about. Again, if the audience was supposed to grasp that this was all awful and insane to be doing to her, then I’m down, but the way it was presented and definitely received was more like ‘yeah this is good she needs to apologize for the way her ancestors have…been persecuted for thousands of years.’ I am so angry that the show put forward these tropes about Jews not to show that they are tropes or subvert them, but to present them as valid. The antisemitism in this show could have been framed to show why she faced unreasonable consequences, but instead it felt like it was a reason supporting the backlash that we were supposed to accept. Is that a problem with the direction, or the writing? Or, did they just want Jewishness to be part of the alleged villainy?

For the people who disagree: how is this not simply a case of “this doctor, who is a good doctor and did not do anything wrong medically or in terms of her hospital’s rules and regs, is not a very warm person and people really don’t like her and even though she didn’t do anything ‘wrong’, she made an unfeeling but permissible call on something completely unrelated to being an actual doctor, which I don’t like, but understand”? You can think that and accept that, but to then force all these insane consequences as a result of not liking a largely sensible choice she made is, well, absolutely insane.

I’m so frustrated because yes, it was about how this simple question, of whether or not the doctor made an appropriate call, became a question of whether or not she was a good person. But instead of saying ‘yeah and isn’t that irrelevant to what’s happening, that that’s what the societal conversation morphed into? isn’t that awful?’ the play seems to be saying that it’s VALID! It is NOT! And it wasn’t framing it as a ‘isn’t this complicated’ question either! It is NOT supposed to be complicated.

Another wtf as a palate cleanser from the bigger issues: the time with her teenager friend didn’t pay off. We learned a little more about her but nothing to explain why we listened to her talk for 15 minutes about having sex in high school. Was this a test.

Issue number 2: The play presents abortion pills as dangerous.

The part that has really stuck with me and made my blood boil is that this show vilifies abortion pills in an ignorant, dangerous way. FYI abortion pills are very safe, and effective the majority of the time. They are able to be ordered online in many countries because this has been proved, as long as you take them as directed. The teenage girl in question died after ordering and taking them in secret — the play repeats this in a way that presents the pills as the killer, full stop, no context. Abortion pills killed her. But if you listen closely, you learn she was way farther along (I think I remember she was 4 months pregnant?) than you can be to take the pills. THAT is why she had a fatal reaction. You can only take the pills if you are under 10 weeks along. With reproductive rights under attack it’s easy to see audiences largely accept from this story that abortion pills are dangerous, and thus susceptible to Tory swaying that they should be outlawed, or less easily available. If there was any line where a character clearly explained that they are usually safe and shouldn’t be vilified, it was drowned out in the onslaught of clear but false messaging that they are dangerous and fatal. This is absolute bullshit, and so much of the dialogue around the pills reminded me of Republican propaganda. I truly cannot believe that anyone who cares about reproductive freedom could sit there and accept what was being fed to mostly older white audiences, the demographic that loves to vote these rights away.

OH I ALMOST FORGOT MY BIGGEST ISSUE: People were all ‘she made such a meanie decision to not let the priest in BECAUSE SHE’S JEWISHHHHH! that’s why! she hates Catholics!!’ (And the play doesn’t really do anything to contradict that unbelievably offensive bs). And aside from all the other good reasons for her decision, she says she didn’t know if the girl was really a devout Catholic, since she wasn’t lucid and her parents weren’t around. The villagers with pitchforks argue “but she had a cross necklace!”, and Juliet says “well a lot of young people wear them it’s trendy” — TRUE. What my biggest issue is: at no point does anyone say the very valid argument that, it’s well within reason for the doctor to have questioned whether the girl was a devout Catholic SINCE SHE HAD HAD AN ABORTION! THAT’S LIKE THEIR ONLY RULE!!!!! jfc.

The post The Doctor on the West End: Has a Show Ever Made Me So Angry? Let’s Find Out! appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

At our dinner, we were expecting the 5-course tasting menu we had been reading about since the hotel opened. But apparently that’s only on the weekends now, and we were there on a Monday, when it is 3 courses. A wee disappointment, the weeest really, and it’s also priced accordingly so it was a lot cheaper than we expected! It was still lovely, maybe not as weird Michelin-y tasting-y menu-y as we hoped, more ‘this is normal food that you’ll actually enjoy and will actually fill you’, which is nothing to sneeze at. Maybe we will one day go back for the fivers and see what weird shit they come up with, we love weird shit.

First of all, it’s important to know that there are hotel dogs around, so build in time to your visit for petting them properly. There’s one doggo who is sooo old and so sweet and just ugh so nice LOVES IT.

Saoirse operates dinnertime with like one seating, so all the 8-10 wee tables eat the same things at the same time, pretty much. Don’t worry, there are no family-style tables or anything (at least not since covid I think?) so you are spaced away from all the people coughing and generally being gross. While you wait for your table to be ready, you pet the dogs and you hang out at the bar, which has a really nice list of cocktails (both bar and bat). We tried a watermelony non-alc that was good, and I wanted to order another but couldn’t get anyone’s attention before we were ready to move into the main dining room.

I do wish that they had left us in the bar longer, because we sat at the tables awaiting the first course for about 30 minutes before it came, which whatever but no one was filling water or taking drink orders so I had to nearly diminish the reserves in my bag. That water was for the drive home! So service could deffo use a brush-up. Luckily they did bring little dinner rolls around. You had a choice of charcoal or beetroot, two simply incredible choices for bread, right? So I was like ‘puh puh puh porque no los dos???’ but luckily they were much more generous with the bread through the night than the water so I got to try both. Fill up on bread! My fave thing to do!

Okay then the real food started! First up was our baby corn salad – how ballsy is that considering how many people hate baby corn! I guess that might be an American thing because British people seem to love it? Correct me if I’m wrong! This salad had microgreens, big-balled caperberries (always think of Bridget Jones when faced with caperberries), and grilled baby corn. Okay grilling the bc is the way to go. It was a very decent starter salad, sharp and refreshing. I was still waiting for water during and after this course thoooo.

Onto the main! Let’s note that this was the summer menu (I’m a few months post), and though the first course felt appropriately refreshing and summery, the second felt very much appropriate for now, cold and dark winter. It was GREAT, actually, don’t get me wrong, but it didn’t feel seasonal. Here we have roast butternut squash (I know, like wintertime staple), with spicy pumpkin seed pesto, pickled celery, and lemon balm. First off, LOVING the pickled celery. Second, the pesto really was spicy! Way to go this country! It was a really nice mix of flavors, with the dark spicy pesto and the sharp pickled celery. The squash came two ways – cubed and on a bed of itself pureed. And best of all, the ‘chickpea’ listed in the description ended up being chickpea panisse, or a socca block, pick your romance language. I forking love socca so I was happy. It was so creamy and so good, much better than when I make it and you need to have a lot of water on hand because it swallows kinda dry. I think I need more oil/any oil. ANYWAY, a delicious wintry dish.

Again I waited for water for a long time, but the people are nice so I didn’t throw anything.

After another long wait, we got our dessert, and boy was it worth it!

Probably the best dish? I mean I am biased because it was dessert and it had the two dessert necessities – ice cream and chocolate. But man alive this was good! They really buried the lede with that printed menu just saying ‘chocolate torte’ and not the best part: the ice cream was BANANAS. No not ‘banana’, it was tonka bean and vanilla. I have never been able to try tonka bean anything despite really wanting to because it’s always in a dairy option so I was sooo excited to finally try it. And this ice cream was amaaazing. Like wish I could have bought a tub of it to bring home even though there’s no room in the freezer. We’d make it work. Amazing. The torte was fantastic too, like the densest richest chocolate torte ever. I could have done without the passionfruit gel on top because I think there are very very few times when chocolate and fruit actually go together so if it’s not banana or strawberry it’s just gonna be weird and incongruous. It was sour which I guess they wanted to counter all the sweet, but who wants to counter sweet? Crazy people!

But speaking of weird and incongruous but in a fun and good way: that last lump on the plate was all those things! Here we have peppercorn chocolate mousse. Like it’s nice chocolate mousse and there are peppercorns in there. Just for fun I guess. I don’t know if I liked it or just appreciated the weirdness but it was cool to try (once?).

We decided not to get the additional cheese plate, though many did. We were pretty full (and it costs more, and it was unclear if its 15 to share or 15 each person…it can’t possibly be 15 each person right? woof), though maybe next time I would try it, but only if I could get it before the actual dessert. Excuse me, but having a cheese plate after you’ve had ice cream and chocolate torte feels insane. Like who ever heard of eating an oat cake after you’ve had ice cream? It is nonsense to me. I know you disagree but man, if I’m having ice cream and chocolate why would I destroy that by eating anything else afterward? So weird.

So all in all it was a great dinner. Service left a bit to be desired, as it was pretty hard to get anyone’s attention for water or more drinks (and since they had interesting non-alcs I actually wanted one for the first time!), but they were nice and it was all nice. For £35 per person instead of the £60 for the 5 courses, we were pretty happy that we ended up there for a 3 course night. But hopefully one day we will be able to try the 5 and hopefully they will be weird and wonderful. This meal was much more normal, like regular food, which you know can be nice!

SAORSA 1875, PITLOCHRY, SCOTLAND, UK, CRUMBLING WORLD
Water speed: This is the one area that really could be improved! Like I said it was hard to get attention to ask for water or even to order drinks that we would pay money for! What a shame.
Service: See above but they were nice people. YOUR MA’S GOOD PEOPLE.
Bathrooms: There are two single-serves through the lobby of the hotel, pretty nice! Hotel bathrooms tend to be!
Food: ​Really good, even though we were expecting weird tasting menu shit, it was nice to eat food recognizable as food!
Bonus: Like I said, fully vegan hotel, dedicated to ethics, dogs around, Saoirse Ronan, what else could you want? They also do lunch, though it is a different vibe (burgers I think?). And one day I’ll be back for that tasting menu!

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