The Snowball Effect | 2022 Christmas Movies

Once again, we have a movie about weather forecasters. This time it’s UPtv’s The Snowball Effect. Let’s check it out.

Tara (Anjali Khurana) and Sam (Landon Moss) are both weather forecasters at competing networks. When a position opens up at a larger network, both of them apply for it. However, as they are traveling to their interviews, they get stuck in the town of Mistletoe thanks to an incoming snowstorm. In order to continue their interview, they each must submit a weather report to the network. While researching more about the town, they find out that the town no longer celebrates Christmas. They decide to find a way to bring the Christmas spirit back to Mistletoe.

So much of this movie is based on two people doing things, mostly without permission, to try to get the mayor to say yes to Christmas. For example, Tara arranges a group of carolers to sing outside the mayor’s house for what seems like hours while Sam plans a Christmas party without any actual venue or food or anything. Somehow Sam’s plan comes together and, while Tara’s plan seems like a failure at first, it also works out. The magic of movies.

While this wasn’t a completely awful movie, I don’t think it was good enough to recommend. Cloudy With A Chance Of Christmas was a much better movie. Go watch that instead.

The Holiday Stocking | 2022 Christmas Movies

This year, Hallmark announced a new content initiative called Mahogany. Mahogany will be the Hallmark movies we have all come to know (and love?) “through the unique lens of Black culture.” Their first Christmas movie, The Holiday Stocking, aired on December 3.

Robert Holiday died recently but he is unwilling to move on until he can convince his sisters, Dani (Nadine Ellis) and Marlow (Tamala Jones), to reconcile. He comes back to Earth as RJ (B.J. Britt), a colleague of Robert’s, to send the women on a Christmas stocking scavenger hunt. It’s a tradition they did as kids and he’s hoping that it will bring them back together.

I loved this movie so much. Robert felt so much guilt for not bringing his family back together while he was still alive. It’s a real issue that a lot of families have. While it would have been awesome to see the three siblings solving the riddles together, it was even better to see an older brother doing something like this for his younger siblings. It warmed my heart.

The Holiday Stocking is a movie that everyone should go watch. There is a little romantic love but, much like Frozen, it’s more about familial love. Oh, and charity! There are so many ideas in this movie for charitable things people can do around the holidays. Watch this movie then go volunteer!

Spirited | 2022 Christmas Movies

I have been really looking forward to the Ryan Reynolds/Will Ferrell movie Spirited ever since it was announced. When I heard it was a musical, it made me want to watch it even more. It was finally released on AppleTV and select theaters on November 18. Let’s go!

Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds) runs a company that specializes in running marketing campaigns based on hate and misinformation. When the Christmas spirits try to pick this year’s person for redemption, the Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) wants to save Clint. However, Clint is considered unredeemable. Present manages to convince the others to try to save him in order to make the world a better place. Or did Present have a different, selfish reason to save Clint?

It is going to be so difficult to talk about Spirited because I don’t want to spoil anything. Yes, it is the plot of A Christmas Carol but there is a twist that makes it so much better. So instead of talking about the plot or the characters or the acting because they are all good, I’m going to talk about my favorite part - the music and dancing.

I’m not sure if I’ve said it before on the blog but I was a dancer when I was younger (and a bit as an adult but now I’m having difficulty finding good adult classes in my area) and my daughter was a competitive dancer in high school (and she still dances in college). So I can get a bit judgy when movies heavily feature dance. The dancing in Spirited is stunning. Emmy nominated Chloe Arnold, an absolutely amazing professional tap dancer, choreographed the dances and her sister, Maud, was one of the dancers. All of the dance scenes are just breath-taking. And they don’t even end when the movie does! There is an entirely extra performance that runs during the credits. While I understand why that song was cut (there was a better way to get the point across), the performance from both Will Ferrell and all of the dancers is spectacular. I want both a behind the scenes of the making of all of the routines and a downloadable video of every song’s performance in the movie. They are all…chef’s kiss.

Yes, definitely, go watch this movie. I hope that it is going to be released outside of AppleTV because I’m sure there are a lot of people that don’t subscribe to it. But, seriously, go sign up for the free trial just to watch Spirited. It is absolutely worth it.