An Eclectic Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

An Eclectic Christmas isn’t just difficult to spell, it’s also difficult to enjoy. There are still two more UPtv Christmas movies to watch. I can’t wait until they are over.

Kim (Hannah Galway) is a fitness instructor living in Los Angeles. When her beloved Aunt Freida (Jill Frappier) passes away, Kim returns to her hometown to sell Freida’s antique shop. However, Freida has left instructions in her will that some of the shop’s items be distributed to certain townsfolk. With the help of her ex-boyfriend, Scott (Jeremy Walmsley), Kim must solve Freida’s riddles to complete her job.

There are a lot of problems with this movie. The big one is why Scott and Kim broke up. She wanted to move to Los Angeles and, even though they were engaged, he stayed in their small town because he didn’t want to hold her back? That just isn’t a reasonable excuse. If it was a sick relative or maybe a family business or something like that, it would make sense. But because he didn’t want to hold her back? Why would you even get engaged if that was how you felt?

Next up are Aunt Freida’s riddles. Most of them make zero sense and we don’t get a good explanation for the solution. And they are the bulk of the movie. We watch Kim and Scott randomly travel from place to place to deliver items and hear the recipient talk about their history with Freida. Also, they make it sound like Kim grew up in this town. After all, she was engaged to Scott. But then she seems to know little to nothing about the town’s traditions. Traditions that her aunt seemed to be very involved in. The plot holes are so big you could drive a truck through them.

I wouldn’t recommend watching An Eclectic Christmas. Galway and Walmsley aren’t terrible actors but they aren’t given anything good to work with. I would like to see them in a better written movie. This one just isn’t it.

Scentsational Christmas | 2022 Christmas Movies

Lifetime’s Scentsational Christmas sounded stupid when I wrote it on the calendar months ago. Little did I know what I was in for.

Ellie (Nazneen Contractor) develops scents for perfumes. This year she decides to go home for Christmas to help her father with the family’s candle-making business. When she arrives home, she finds that her father has rented the cottage to Logan (Mykee Selkin), a writer who is looking for inspiration. Together, they try to find the secret to the famous Christmas scent of the holiday candle.

Not only was this a staggeringly boring movie, this was also just dumb. The big conflict comes when Ellie submits a “Christmas scent” to her boss for a famous client. Then the famous client finds out that Ellie’s family uses this “Christmas scent” in their holiday candles because Logan wrote about it on social media. While I can understand not wanting to steal a scent from another company, it’s still Ellie’s scent! They could have easily marketed this as some sort of collab between the client and the candle company. Or just use the scent for the perfume anyway. There was no reason to throw a fit over it. Guess what…there are only so many scents out there and it’s not like the client was making candles. They are completely different products.

No, don’t watch this one. The plot is dumb, the main couple has zero chemistry, and there really isn’t anything redeeming here. Throw this one out with grandma’s perfume.

Christmas Movie Magic | 2021 Christmas Movies

The most annoying thing about these Christmas movies isn’t that they are terrible. It’s that most of them are so middle-of-the-road boring that I don’t know what to say about them. I can rip apart the bad movies or rave about the good ones. What do I say about all the ones in between? “Yep, that was a movie.”

Allie (Holly Deveaux) is an entertainment writer longing to win a Pulitzer Prize writing hit news stories. In order to get moved to the news department, her editor sends her to a small town to cover the anniversary of a classic Christmas movie. Once there, she meets Brad (Drew Seeley), a local who runs the movie theater. Together, they try to uncover the mysterious love story behind the song written for the movie.

Christmas Movie Magic is another movie that had a great plot that was squandered by lackluster acting and directing. Deveaux and Seeley have zero chemistry together. It was almost painful to see the two of them on the screen. I’m not sure why they were cast together. It’s almost like the casting agents didn’t even audition them together.

As for the directing, there are these weird close up shots that make no sense. Well, no. I understand that they are attempting to mirror the style of an old 1950s movie. They are just doing a terrible job at it. These close ups occur in places where they aren’t needed. It makes the scene very jarring.

However, the elephant in the room is the big Christmas song at the end. It is performed by Seeley and Deveaux but Deveaux doesn’t have the chops to sing with Seeley. He has performed on Broadway and sang for a variety of Disney projects. (He was the singing voice for Troy Bolton in the first High School Musical movie.) What should be a lovely duet between two people who love each other becomes a cringe-worthy tune when her voice comes in. Again, I think the casting agent made a big mistake.

Should you watch this? I mean, if you want to. Christmas Movie Magic isn’t terrible. It’s also not worth all of your attention. So maybe watch it while you play games on your phone or something. That way you can pop in and out of the interesting parts. There aren’t many of them anyway.

Match Made In Mistletoe | 2021 Christmas Movies

When movies change their titles, it makes it very difficult for me to look up the names of the actors in the cast. For example, Lifetime’s Match Made In Mistletoe was originally titled Christmas In Washington. I understand why the producers or whoever may want to change the title of a movie. It just makes my work a little more difficult.

Emily (Natalie Lisinska) is an interior designer tasked with decorating the Belmarian embassy for their annual Christmas charity ball. However, Magnus (Damon Runyan), the new ambassador, doesn’t want the embassy to be overly Christmassy. Will Emily’s holiday cheer melt Magnus’s frozen heart?

I have always given Hallmark movies a hard time. In reality, I think it’s Lifetime that has the awful Christmas movies. Hallmark has emotional cheese but Lifetime is just bad. I’m pretty sure it’s the Lifetime movies that break my brain.

Anyway, let’s talk about Match Made In Mistletoe. The acting is awful. Everyone in the embassy talks like stereotypical “rich people” or “high class” people. It’s annoying. Emily’s mom, Amanda (Kathleen Laskey), talks like a stereotypical mom. She’s either chastising everyone or it’s like she’s talking to a child who is up past their bedtime. And Emily? She has so little confidence in herself that you can feel it in everything she says or does. It’s difficult to listen to any of them talk.

On top of that, everyone makes a BIG GIANT deal out of everything. Did someone take a picture of Magnus and Emily together? Well, he’s definitely going to get fired for even talking to her. Don’t want the embassy to be overly decorated? Sorry, you can’t have one poinsettia plant in your office. And I still don’t know what Big Dan (John Cleland), the “bad guy,” has against Emily. He just hates her with his entire being for seemingly no reason.

Ugh. Whatever. Don’t watch Match Made In Mistletoe. I’m starting to think that maybe no one should watch any Lifetime movies ever.