Christmas On Windmill Way | 2023 Christmas Movies

A lot of people joke about Hallmark Christmas movie tropes. Great American Family’s Christmas On Windmill Way had to have been written by someone who had a trope checklist and wanted to jam as many as possible into one movie.

The windmill on Windmill Way has been owned by Mia’s (Christa Taylor Brown) family for generations. Due to financial difficulties, her grandmother, Ann (Marcia Bennett), has sold the property to a developer. Mia’s high school boyfriend, Brady (Chad Michael Murray), has been sent by the developer to prepare the property for development.

This is, quite seriously, one of the worst movies I have ever watched. Brown reads her lines like she’s reading greeting cards. Is she capable of putting any emotion behind her words? She’s a new actress on the scene but she really needs to up her game if she plans on being around for very long. Meanwhile, Murray’s job is just to stand there and keep saying the same things over and over again. If we cut out all of the repetitive lines he has, this movie could have probably been a half hour long. It’s movies like this that make me sorry I decided to keep Great American Family on the lineup this year.

Rating: Tear it all down

A Recipe For Joy | 2022 Christmas Movies

I love when we get these mash-up movies where they want the romantic couple to be more…different. A Recipe For Joy is not just about cooking. Oh no, it’s also about producing a television show. But it does neither well.

Carly (Erin Agostino) is a food correspondent. When she is offered her own television show, she is sent to her hometown of Angel Heights to cover the reopening of the town’s diner, now run by Chicago chef Grant (Dillon Casey). The two butt heads about how the diner should operate. He wants things to be new and fancy, she wants to celebrate the history of the diner.

This movie was so boring. It didn’t get interesting until that big third act conflict when Grant saw a cut of Carly’s episode but it wasn’t her cut. And even that is such a typical conflict for a movie about a television show production. “My bosses wanted this to go in a different direction!” Everything else about A Recipe For Joy was just bland.

No, don’t watch this one. Unless you need something to help you fall asleep. It might be good for that.

A Christmas Masquerade | 2022 Christmas Movies

There is a sudden influx of “A” Christmas movies. I know there are usually a bunch of them but this seems excessive. A Christmas Masquerade also falls into the “dumb name that doesn’t really apply to the movie” category as well. It’s like the people that write the titles grab on the smallest detail and name the movie after it.

Julianne (Erin Agostino) is a personal assistant to a Laura (Cory Lee), an HR professional. Peter (David Lafontaine), a potential client, mistakes Julianne for Laura at a masquerade ball. When Julianne lands the deal, she is forced to continue to pretend to be Laura in order to keep his business.

So there is only one masquerade ball in A Christmas Masquerade. The rest of the time it’s just Julianne not correcting anyone when they call her Laura. Easy fix. There is zero reason that Julianne couldn’t have said at the party “I’m sorry, I’m Laura’s assistant. She couldn’t make it tonight so I came in her place to meet you.” Instead, they decide to drag out the lie for as long as possible. Even when Peter catches her using her real name, it gets written off. Mistaken identity is an interesting premise for a movie but it used badly here.

Also, Peter is trying to become the next ambassador for his country. (I already forget his country’s name. That is how forgettable this movie is.) His father, the current ambassador, is retiring. For some reason, the council just keeps hiring the same family as if it was royalty? But since Peter is the black sheep, he has to fix his public image or the council won’t elect him. And they work on this for FIVE WHOLE DAYS. I’m sorry but any council that looks at someone with a terrible track record that suddenly has a good track record for less than a week and still hires them is stupid. This movie is stupid.

Seriously, don’t watch A Christmas Masquerade. Either of the two movies I previously reviewed from UPtv were better than this one. This one is just dumb and a waste of time.

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.