Sincerely, Truly Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

Well, the plot of Sincerely, Truly Christmas is not what I expected. And it’s pretty dumb. Sigh.

Christina (Paula Brancati) is an event planner for a large music streaming platform. Just before Christmas, she gets fired for insulting an up-and-coming singer that the company wanted to use for their Christmas song charity release. In order to get her job back, Christina must get Dan Copen (Howard Hoover), a Christmas one-hit-wonder who has become reclusive, to re-record his song for the charity release. It seems that the only way she can contact him is through Robert (Jake Epstein), a realtor who is having problems with his son. In addition, Christina made a badly worded wish that now forces people around her to tell her what they really want for Christmas.

I don’t really want to talk about this movie. I hate Christina. She wants to lives in some sort of la-la land where people always say exactly what they say or feel with zero consequences. She literally barges into her boss’ meeting without stopping to see if they were on a conference call or even what the meeting was about to openly say a singer is bad at singing. Please remember that she works for a music streaming service. Then she’s surprised and annoyed that she got fired. I swear Christina is a child.

The movie doesn’t get any better. It’s almost entirely Christina doing something stupid then feeling bad for herself when there are consequences. Let’s pretend this never happened.

Rating: I want this movie to be removed from my brain for Christmas.

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!

Candy Cane Candidate | 2021 Christmas Movies

Jacky Lai from 2020’s A Sugar & Spice Holiday faces off with Christmas powerhouse Jake Epstein. Seriously, how does that guy have the time to film so many Christmas movies? Anyway, Candy Cane Candidate had a bit of genre change up going on. Get this…

Julia (Jacky Lai) lost her recent political campaign. To regain her emotional footing, she decides to go home for the holidays. She finds out that her old high school arch nemesis, Parker (Jake Epstein), is running for town mayor. UNOPPOSED! Julia thinks the town should have a choice so she decides to run against him. Will Julia win this time or will she lose again to Parker like she lost the class president election?

Surprisingly, there wasn’t a ton of romance in Candy Cane Candidate. Julia was pretty dead set on running her campaign and Parker wanted to make sure the town’s holiday traditions weren’t trampled all over. Sure, there were a few glances and some flirty moments but they didn’t make up the bulk of the movie. It felt like a bit of fresh air after all of the overt wooing in other movies.

If we want to talk about down sides, which don’t really need to do, I wish that Jacky would have done more about the ecological changes she wanted to make instead of just talking about them. The only thing she “did” was arrange a toy drive claiming that it was recycling plastic toys. It would have been nice to see her maybe making some phone calls to see what would be needed to fix the wonky lights at the high school. Even if she lost the election to Parker, she could have passed that information onto him to try to make it happen.

I do recommend watching Candy Cane Candidate. Even if you only watch it to see the Lai and Epstein Christmas Spectacular, you won’t regret it. They are both charismatic actors that I can’t wait to see more of in the future.

Eight Gifts of Hanukkah | 2021 Christmas Movies

I think next year I might reclassify the “Christmas movie” reviews as “Holiday movie” reviews. There’s usually only one Hanukkah movie per year shoved in the middle of the pile of Christmas movies but I would love to branch out into movies about other holidays. If those movies exist, anyway. Give me some recommendations about not-Christmas movies!

Sara (Inbar Lavi) is an optometrist who is looking for love. Her long-term relationship ended four months ago and she’s about ready to get back into the dating pool. She has met two men that she is considering dating but on the first night of Hanukkah, an anonymous suitor leaves a present on her doorstep with promises of seven more gifts to come. Is the mysterious man her ex, one of the two men courting her, or someone she has overlooked since childhood?

Eight Gifts of Hanukkah was a sweet movie. Granted, I spent way too much time wondering where I knew Inbar Lavi from but that is my problem, not the movie’s. (The answer is Lucifer. She played Eve.) I found her to be a great leading lady. She has this ability to pull off wide-eyed innocence yet not make the character look childish. She is also very good at bringing that feeling of nostalgia when you look at a sentimental item. I’m not sure how she does is but she made me miss her grandmother and we only know the character from an old picture!

This movie isn’t for someone wanting to learn more about Hanukkah. Head over to the 2019 movie Mistletoe & Menorahs, also starring Jake Epstein (I swear he’s everywhere), for that. There also isn’t a ton of mystery in this movie. The audience can tell pretty quickly who the anonymous gift-giver is. However, the movie does have a certain sweetness to it, which I’m crediting entirely to Lavi.

To those people looking for something a little different from your typical Hallmark Christmas movie, Eight Gifts of Hanukkah is a nice breath of fresh air. I’m not sure this will make my favorite list this year but it is worth watching. Even if you only watch it to shake things up a little.

A Christmas Village Romance | 2021 Christmas Movies

Of course, after I trash Lifetime movies, they actually release something cute. Let’s talk about A Christmas Village Romance.

Diana (Jeni Ross) writes historical romance books. For Christmas, she visits the pioneer village of Maple Creek, which is also the setting for her stories. When she arrives, she finds out that tourism is down. Without the revenue, the village may have to close. Diana rallies her fans to help save the village, though the new local blacksmith, Carter (Jake Epstein), isn’t sure her plan will work.

While I think this movie is adorable, the plot is like molasses. It takes forever for anything to happen. I actually fell asleep for a short bit and had to rewind to see what I missed. Amazingly, I didn’t miss much. I could have easily kept the movie running and I still would have understood what was going on.

On the plus side, Ross and Epstein have an interesting on-screen chemistry. Their characters spend a lot of time arguing but they never seem like they are actually fighting. They always seem like they are sort of play-fighting, which is a change of pace for Lifetime romance characters.

Sadly, there isn’t a lot for me to say about A Christmas Village Romance. It is cute so it’s not a complete waste of time to watch but, at the same time, it is so slow. I’m not sure who would be the target audience for it. Maybe people that read romance books? But there isn’t a lot of romance happening. I’d say turn it on. If it doesn’t satisfy you after a half hour, go find something else to do.

Mistletoe & Menorahs | 2019 Advent Day 10

If you will recall, I banned the Marvista (or Mar Vista or MarVista) production company from last year’s Christmas movie list. Because they make terrible movies that have multiple names. When I turned on Mistletoe & Menorahs, I was greeted with the dreaded Marvista logo. I actually shuddered. But I made it through the movie…..let’s talk about it.

Christy (Kelley Jakle) is a toy company executive trying to land a new client. When she gets invited to the client’s holiday party, she is excited because she is all about Christmas. Her co-worker, Samantha (Cory Lee), quickly tells her that the client is Jewish! Samantha sets Christy up with her son’s history teacher, Jonathan (Jake Epstein), who will teach her all about Hanukkah. Meanwhile, Jonathan needs to learn about Christmas in order to impress his girlfriend’s father.

As Marvista movies go, this one was not terrible. It does have an alternate name, of course. A Merry Holiday. Mistletoe & Menorahs is a better title.

Also, this is the second time this season we have seen Jake Epstein as the male lead. He also was the writer/nanny in A Storybook Christmas. While it’s weird to see actors appear in more than one Christmas movie per season, I don’t mind it. Jake is a very charming leading man. (I bet that Marvista filmed this movie years ago and only released it now. That tends to be the way they work.)

The movie itself is pretty good, for the most part. My main problem is that Jonathan teaches Christy all about the history of Hanukkah while Christy only teaches him about the surface of Christmas. She teaches him about decorating trees and wrapping presents but nothing about the story behind Christmas. Maybe that is how the writers kept the story from getting too preachy. It just seemed a little odd.

Well, should you watch this? Yes. This isn’t a great movie. There are definitely some flaws. But it was entertaining and I think I might try to find other movies starring Jake Epstein. He is quite charming.

A Storybook Christmas | 2019 Advent Day 8

I’m not exactly sure why this movie it called A Storybook Christmas. The book aspect of it has very little to do with the actual plot. Let me show you what I’m talking about.

Celeste (Ali Liebert), a party planner, has a job with a difficult client, who keeps changing her mind about the theme for her holiday party. Finally, the client settles on Storybook Christmas. The plan is to invite some children’s book writers and have them sign autographs during the party. Except there is one writer the client demands to have, but he is a bit of a recluse. Meanwhile, Celeste is having trouble keeping up with her work duties and giving the perfect Christmas to her niece. So she hires a live-in nanny. The only one available at this time of year is a man. Celeste hires him, hoping it will all work out.

Oh, this movie. it’s not bad as much as it is more difficult than necessary. There are meaningless characters, like Celeste’s fiance, Brandon (Bradley Hamilton). He is a total drip who doesn’t care about anything except himself. And Celeste is OK with this up until the end of the movie. So many of these movies have terrible boyfriends that the women need to break up with. I would rather have every single leading lady be single at first then have them in awful relationships that they can’t let go of.

Then there is this client. I believe it is a publishing company but I’m not entirely sure about that. Anyway, the woman in charge (I’m not completely sure of her name…maybe Hanna?) literally changes her mind about her party’s theme at the last minute. Instead of telling her it’s not possible to redo the entire party theme, Celeste lets the woman walk all over her….again, until the end of the movie. I get that business owners have to make their clients happy. But they also have to set realistic expectations so they aren’t taking advantage of their niceness.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn’t a terrible movie. Taylor (Jake Epstein), the nanny, is a perfectly nice man and he is amazing to Celeste’s niece, Finley (Habree Larratt). I fully expected the big twist halfway through the movie but that is OK. It’s a Christmas movie, not rocket science. I just wish it had a little more to push it over into ‘good movie’ territory.

Should you watch A Storybook Christmas? If you want to. There are worst ways to spend your time.