Laughing All The Way | 2023 Christmas Movies

Hey! It’s Jake Epstein! He’s the most overused and underrated Christmas actor. I think he also has multiple movies this year. Laughing All The Way is the first.

Aubri (Paniz Zade) is the comedy writer and personal assistant for comedy legend Bella Deldomino (Mary Walsh). Bella owns a comedy club that used to host a Christmas variety show but that ended years ago. In order to drum up business for the club, Aubri decides to bring it back. She runs into Mike Baxter (Jake Epstein), a comedian-turned-actor whose career is in a bit of a slump. Mike agrees to be the headliner for the show, in the hopes that it will revive his career as well as the club’s.

In my experience, Epstein’s films are either really good or really bad. Thankfully, this is one of the good ones. He has some amazing comedy timing and he was paired perfectly with Zade. I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a Jewish angle as those are usually my favorite movies starring him. But I am easily appeased by good comedy songs and he brings them here.

Epstein doesn’t deserve all of the praise though. Zade does a great job at being both anxious and amazing at the same time. Ish Morris plays Aubri’s cousin Ian and he is the perfect “best friend” character for Aubri. And, of course, there’s Walsh. She pulls off the awful boss that you can’t help but love. The perfect foil for our couple. This may be the most perfect casting of a Christmas movie that I have seen in a long time. I’m almost sad it ended.

Rating: I want to see more people drink the awful green soda!

Christmas In Wolf Creek | 2022 Christmas Movies

Christmas In Wolf Creek is the last of the Hallmark/Lifetime/UPtv/Great American Family Christmas movies. And I’m not going to lie. I didn’t finish it. Let me tell you why.

Samantha (Nola Martin) and Austin (Tim Rozon) are trying to figure out how they can still be together. Samantha lives in Wolf Creek, where she rescues animals, while Austin is a rancher. He doesn’t want to move into town and she doesn’t want to live on the ranch. Can they come to an agreement?

As I said, I didn’t finish this one. This is a direct sequel from Love In Wolf Creek, which came out in either October or November 2022. Since I didn’t watch that one, I didn’t understand a lot of the references they made in the Christmas one. People kept talking about how Samantha and Austin fell in love rescuing a wolf and rescuing animals in the wild in what they do. Yet they argued through the entire first half of this movie, which is where I stopped watching.

If you watched Love In Wolf Creek, you might like Christmas In Wolf Creek. But if, like me, you didn’t watch the first one, you might not enjoy the second one either. Starting with a sequel instead of the original isn’t bad, unless the second movie makes so many references to the first that you get lost. It sucks.

Christmas Lucky Charm | 2022 Christmas Movies

I’m pretty sure that the woman who write Christmas Lucky Charm hates women. Or, at the very least, has a very low opinion of women.

Jessica (Sugenja Sri) runs her own bakery. For the past three years, she has been baking Christmas wedding cakes for her ex-boyfriends. Apparently, the new brides have been calling her a Christmas lucky charm. After she breaks up with a man, he will meet the love of his life before Christmas that year. With the help of gallery owner, Mitch (Adrian Spencer), Jessica hopes to break the tradition.

Ugh. This movie. In all of these ex-boyfriend scenarios, Jessica is the one that has ended the relationship. Why would it be so surprising that men who are looking for a commitment would find a new lasting relationship? Jessica wasn’t upset with the situation until she was told that the brides called her a good luck charm. Which makes it sound like men are going to want to date her solely so she can break up with them. Which, ew. This whole premise is stupid.

In addition to that, both the characters themselves and the acting in Christmas Lucky Charm are terrible. The actors say their lines as if they have never spoken to anyone before. Everything sounds extremely unnatural. And the characters? I’m positive they are all made out of cardboard. The most boring kind of cardboard there is.

Seriously, don’t watch Christmas Lucky Charm. UPtv seems to have a strange taste in movies. Most of them aren’t completely terrible but then you have things like this. Can we raise the bar just a little on Christmas romance movies? Please? Just having a person of color in a lead role isn’t nearly enough. The movies themselves need to be better.

UnPerfect Christmas Wish | 2022 Christmas Movies

Another channel brand new to this year’s Christmas movie review list is UPtv. UPtv was formerly the Gospel Music Channel, which rebranded in 2013 to focus on family friendly entertainment. You’ll find shows like Gilmore Girls, Highway To Heaven, and Reba there. We’re focusing on the Christmas movies. First up, UnPerfect Christmas Wish.

Madison (Alys Crocker) and Cooper (David Pinard) have been best friends for over 20 years. Cooper has always been in love with Madison but she is very unaware of it. Currently, she is dating Luke (Ish Morris), who is rich and handsome and perfect…and travels a lot. Madison wants someone who will prioritize her in their life. If only she would realize that Cooper does that plus so much more.

This movie was so utterly frustrating. Every time we see Cooper, he is doing everything he can for Madison. Even we when see them as kids, he jumps on stage to help alleviate her stage fright during a Christmas concert. When they are adults, he literally takes on a second job with her company to be a Christmas elf with her. Madison, on the other hand, is so self-centered that she does nothing for Cooper. As a matter of fact, she actually screws him over a number of times. For example, he told her that he really wanted to go to his brother’s party. He ended up missing it because Madison was sad that Luke didn’t take her out for a super special exclusive date with just the two of them. Luke was in town so he took all of his friends out to dinner. He never said anything to Madison about just the two of them going out. So Madison ruined Cooper’s night because she made stupid assumptions. (As a side note, Madison has been dating Luke for like six months and most of those were long distance. This isn’t a close, long term relationship we’re talking about.) Cooper deserves so much better than Madison.

There are also some weird things I don’t understand. Jackie (Bukola Ayoka) is another of Madison’s best friends. She is never referred to as a roommate. However, Jackie acts like she lives with Madison…except for one scene where she makes Cooper use a hidden spare key to let her in the house. But Jackie makes a lot of coffee and bakes cookies and brings all sorts of pets there. Very confusing. Then there is this other scene where Luke rents out the studio where Madison takes yoga classes to give her the date she wanted the night before. It seems like he rented it at the last minute but no one else shows up to take the now-cancelled yoga class? Madison shows up with her yoga mat and in workout clothes so I don’t think an email blast was sent out to the whole class. Did the teacher call everyone individually? Even then, there is always one or two people that don’t get the message in time and show up anyway. This scene was dumb.

UnPerfect Christmas Wish is in this weird in-between place. It wasn’t a terrible movie. It wasn’t even all that boring. There’s some cute songs to offset any boredom that starts to set in. However, all of the characters are kinda terrible people. Cooper is probably the best and he lets Madison walk all over him. I would probably recommend skipping this one but you won’t hate yourself if you end up watching it anyway.

Boyfriends of Christmas Past | 2021 Christmas Movies

Last year, Hallmark gave us the very terrible A Nashville Christmas Carol. This year they gave us another twist with Boyfriends of Christmas Past. I hope this one is better than last year’s.

Lauren (Catherine Haena Kim) and Nate (Raymond Ablack) have been best friends since college. No matter what Lauren has gone through, Nate has been by her side. Unfortunately, Lauren is afraid of long-term commitment. As Nate gets ready to reveal his true feelings to her, Lauren is visited by the memories of three past boyfriends who show her how she pushes away anyone that wants to be close to her. Can she overcome her fears before it is too late?

While Boyfriends does share some similarities with Nashville, this year’s foray into A Christmas Carol does it better. Both movies let go of the ghosts of Christmas Present and Christmas Future to focus on Christmas Past. However, that is entirely the point of Boyfriends. Lauren is blind to the fact that every time a boyfriend wants to move their relationship to the next level, she bails. The boyfriend spirits/memories even keep pointing out how she runs to Nate every time she breaks up with someone and Nate is always there to help her pick up the pieces.

To be honest, my only real gripe about the movie is how Nate has been basically throwing himself at Lauren the entire time they have known each other and he hasn’t given up yet. The movie doesn’t tell us how many years have passed since college. There’s only vague references like “so many years ago” or “after all these years.” I’m pretty sure they have known each other for at least eight years. There were three boyfriends - the first she dated during her junior year of college for at least a year, we do get that much information; the second was after college and asked her to move in with him, so that had to be a couple of years at least; and the third was asking her to marry him, so that had to be another couple of years. Why wouldn’t Nate try to confess his feelings earlier? Why would he stick around for so long pining after her? It’s pretty obvious that he isn’t happy with the current status of their relationship.

Since this is a Hallmark movie, that one issue is pretty small. The characters are fleshed out a little more than most Hallmark movies so it’s easy to overlook. It’s a safe bet that this will be one of the better Hallmark Christmas movies this year. Give it a watch. At the very least, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee is always entertaining.