Cloudy With A Chance Of Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

I’m betting this was intentional but Cloudy With A Chance of Christmas makes me think of the children’s book (which was made into a movie), Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. While there was a lot of food in Christmas, there were no meatballs. What a shame.

Bridget Torres (Valery M. Ortiz) is a weather forecaster for the evening news. This year she has been invited to host the channel’s annual Snow-cast in Leavenworth, WA. Unbeknownst to her, the morning show hosts, Drake (Brandon Quinn) and Tatum (Sarah Jane Morris), are actually hosting the special. Drama unfolds as Drake and Bridget get closer and the truth comes out about who was Drake’s first choice for morning show co-host.

Cloudy With A Chance Of Christmas was actually a cute movie. The little shops around the Leavenworth all had a story behind them and Drake was more than willing to share the stories of his hometown with Bridget. Instead of making their outings (not dates!) about the romance, it turned them into a history lesson which was cool and interesting. Bridget got to learn about Drake and the town at the same time.

What was more interesting was the big conflict. Instead of it being something stupid, it was something that actually effected Bridget’s career. And since Bridget didn’t get picked to be the morning show co-host, Tatum feels like she was the second choice. No one likes that feeling. It created an interesting dynamic between the two women that wasn’t about being romantic rivals but actual career rivals.

I do think Cloudy With A Chance Of Christmas is worth watching. Grab a few snacks, maybe a hot toddy, and curl up to wait for the snowfall. It is coming but no one knows when! But that is why we have fake snow, right?

A Country Christmas Harmony | 2022 Christmas Movies

Another Christmas movie about a singer. This really must be the popular career for this year’s movies. This time we’re going country with A Country Christmas Harmony.

Chrissy Kessler (Brooke Elliott) is a country music star. However, her latest single, a Christmas song called Reindeer Slay, didn’t do very well. So her manager, Carole (Nikki Crawford), sends Chrissy and her assistant, Eugene (Danny Pintauro), to Chrissy’s hometown for a big Christmas concert where she will debut a new Christmas song. When they arrive, they run into Chrissy’s ex-boyfriend and ex-songwriter, Luke (Brandon Quinn). Old feelings reemerge as they try to write a new song together.

Sadly, A Country Christmas Harmony was pretty boring. There were no real conflicts in the movie. The only “conflict” was an extremely stupid scene where another country singer, Brad Love (Bradley Dadds), shows up with roses for Chrissy to talk about doing a duet. Luke storms off even though there is zero appearance of any sort of attraction between Chrissy and Brad. And that is the only scene Brad is in. If they had dragged this out, like maybe Brad arrived a few days earlier and was following Chrissy around, I could see how Luke might think they were an item. But I don’t think this scene lasted fifteen minutes. It was dumb.

The only good thing I could say about the movie is that it had a lot of music. It wasn’t great music but it was music. A lot of movies about singers usually have one or two songs and that is it. We heard at least parts of four different songs here.

Honestly, I would skip A Country Christmas Harmony. Unless you need something to help you fall asleep. It might be good for that.

A Welcome Home Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

Recently, I’ve complained about how military life has been shoehorned into a bunch of Christmas movies this year. There always seems to be a “My distant relative is in the military” or a random “I was a military brat” that has no bearing on the actual plot of the movie. A Welcome Home Christmas is different. And I’m happy about that.

Chloe (Jana Kramer) is an Army counselor that helps returning soldiers adapt to civilian life. Michael (Brandon Quinn) is one of her assignments. When she over-commits to volunteering for charities, she puts Michael in charge of Operation Santa Claus - a charity to give military children the best Christmas possible.

On one hand, the characters are actual military members. Chloe was in the Army before she became a counselor, Michael recently left active duty, Chloe’s sister is still in the Army. On the other hand, I’m not sure how realistic the Army is in this. I’m not familiar with Army life but they all seem to be civilians that occasionally wear uniforms. We literally never see Chloe’s sister in uniform but she claims that General O’Toole (Tim Reid) is her commanding officer. We don’t even see her ‘snap to attention’ or anything when he approaches the family. If you’re in a military family, could you please let me know if this is something that happens or is this Lifetime taking liberties?

A Welcome Home Christmas is one of those movies that isn’t good but it isn’t bad either. It isn’t particularly boring, like most of the Christmas fare thrust upon us. There is just something about it that makes it watchable. I’m not sure exactly what that is. Maybe it’s LondonRose Sellars as Savannah. She isn’t the main character but she is a darn good actress. I hope to see good things from her in the future.

Anyway, if you like Christmas movies or movies about the military or movies about charity, you might enjoy this one. It’s at least good enough for one sit-through.