Sisterhood Inc | 2025 Valentine's Day Movies

Strangely, the final movie of Hallmark Channel’s Loveuary releases, Sisterhood Inc., is not about romance. Depending who you talk to, it isn’t really about love at all. A weird choice to end your month of love.

Megan (Rachel Leigh Cook) is a successful corporate executive who just got fired from the company she founded. Her sister, Izzy (Daniella Monet), is a bit of a mess. When Izzy begs Megan to help her get her life together, Megan decides to run Izzy’s life like a business. She forms a board of directors with successful people from Izzy’s life to make all of Izzy’s important decisions for her. Since the board needs an impartial third party, psychology professor Dominic (Leonidas Gulaptis) steps up to the plate. The board can make Izzy successful but can they make her happy?

As I said before, this movie isn’t about romance. It’s about the broken relationship between Megan, Izzy, and their mother Lois (Judy Kain). Megan seems to have the perfect life, except that she pushes everyone who cares about her away. Izzy has a chaotic irresponsible life but she makes Lois happy by giving her someone to care for. Lois is a helicopter mother to Izzy, who is about to turn 30 and really shouldn’t need a parent hovering over her. While turning Izzy’s life into a business wasn’t the best idea, it did serve it’s purpose. After the Big Conflict, the women are able to begin to repair their broken relationship. Oh, and Dominic exists as a sort of love interest for Megan, even though he really isn’t necessary.

I found Sisterhood Inc. rather sweet and endearing but that is mostly because Monet is perfect at playing a woman living in chaos and Cook is a good offset to that. Sure, there should have been a little more meat to the story - the Dominic and Megan relationship appears out of nowhere and is never really built on, we don’t get to spend a lot of time with any of the board members teaching their specialty to Izzy, and Megan spends a lot of time trying to sell an app that would never really be successful. But it is still cute and it’s a decent break from cheesy romance movies. And I could always use more Daniella Monet in my life.

Rating: 3 out of 5 hearts

Spirit Halloween The Movie | Halloween 2022

We all rolled our eyes when Spirit Halloween The Movie was announced, right? I mean, it’s a movie based on a retail store. What could it possibly be about? Let me tell you.

A long time ago, Alec Windsor (Christopher Lloyd) was an evil man trying to steal the land from an orphanage. However, the woman running the orphanage is a witch who kills Windsor with a curse. Years later, three teenagers - Jake (Donovan Colan), Bo (Jaiden J Smith), and Carson (Dylan Martin Frankel) - are trying to figure out what to do for Halloween. They decide to spend the night in the Spirit Halloween store that just opened in the abandoned strip mall. Little did they know that Windsor’s spirit haunts that plot of land every year on the anniversary of his death.

Despite having acting heavyweights Christopher Lloyd, Marla Gibbs, and Rachael Leigh Cook on the roster, the three adults get very little screen time. Instead, we are focused on the three boys and Carson’s older sister, Kate (Marissa Reyes), none of whom have more than ten acting credits to their names. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t require A-list acting. Most of it is spent with Lloyd’s character, Windsor, possessing various animatronics around the store and chasing the kids. Nothing particularly scary, to be honest. I’m not really sure why the movie earned a PG-13 rating over PG. Maybe the idea of ghosts scared the rating board.

Spirit Halloween The Movie would be an ideal Halloween movie for the younger crowd. Probably in the pre-teen to early-teen age range. Unless they are already terrified by the animatronics in the store, they aren’t likely to be scared by much in here. But, if you aren’t sure your kids should watch it, it is only 80 minutes long. You can easily give it a quick watch before showing it to the younger kids.

Tis The Season To Be Merry | 2021 Christmas Movies

I think my least favorite Christmas movie titles are ones using the main character’s name. Once in awhile there is a witty title with a character’s name in it, ‘Tis The Season To Be Merry is not one of them.

Merry (Rachael Leigh Cook) writes books giving romantic advice. In her recent book, she lies and says she is engaged. When her publisher, Sonia (Karen Malina White), gushes about how authentic Merry’s relationship is, Merry freaks out and runs away to her co-worker/friend Darlene’s (Amy Groening) family’s house in Vermont. Little did Merry know that Darlene’s brother, Adam (Travis Van Winkle), has returned from a 2-year trip to Guatemala. Can Merry figure out how to fix both her love life and her professional life?

There were pieces of Tis The Season that I thought were really cute. At the big Christmas tree auction, when Adam had Merry co-host with him and he would keep handing her cards when she had no idea to say. If there is one thing Cook is good at, it’s playing an awkward women who trips over her words. I’m glad Hallmark played into that strength.

In addition to the main Adam/Merry couple, there are two other couples introduced. I would have liked to have seen a little more of their interactions. We do see Sonia’s budding relationship with Joe (Paul Essimbre) but we really only see them when Merry happens to see them around town. It would have been nice to jump over to them to see how they were doing. There’s also a late romance between Joe’s son, James (Adam Hurtig), and Darlene. Even though they were childhood friends, we don’t see a lot of interaction between them until James confesses his feelings about Darlene to Merry. I would have liked to have seen more of James pining after Darlene instead of it appearing that James has a thing for Merry.

Tis The Season isn’t a terrible movie. It’s not boring, which is a step up from most movies, but it wasn’t particularly interesting either. If you watch it, watch it for the acting not for the story. Maybe one day Cook will get put into one of the really good Christmas movies. Until then, this will scratch the itch to see her on screen.

Cross Country Christmas | 2020 Christmas Movies

What would happen if you took the comedy classic Planes, Trains and Automobiles and made it a Christmas romance movie? Yep, you get Cross Country Christmas.

Lina (Rachael Leigh Cook) and Max (Greyston Holt) are both heading from from New York to Colorado for the holidays. Due to inclement weather, their flight is forced to land in Ohio. The pair do everything they can to make it back to Colorado in time for Christmas.

Of course there is a lot going on with this movie. It’s pretty much built into the premise. All of Lina’s plans go wrong and Max is awfully stand-offish throughout the beginning of the movie. Max’s personality does soften as they travel but Lina never does get her plans to work. Which is interesting since she’s supposed to be a professional problem solver or something. If that’s true, she must be terrible at her job.

While this premise does make a great buddy comedy, I don’t know that it makes a good romantic comedy. It doesn’t work as a Hallmark romantic comedy. There should be more “accidentally bumping into each other” or “forced to stand way too close to each other” type of tropes to show us that this couple is falling in love. As it stands, it seems like Lina only loves Max because his dad died recently. That isn’t a reason for a romantic relationship.

As much as I want to tell you to watch this, I can’t. I love Rachael Leigh Cook as an actress but the movie just doesn’t work. And, even though it isn’t Christmas themed, go watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles instead. It is so funny. You can’t go wrong with Steve Martin and John Candy. Just pretend that it’s Christmas, even though it’s a Thanksgiving movie.