Scouting For Christmas | 2024 Christmas Movies

When I saw Scouting For Christmas on Hallmark’s schedule, I wondered if it was a movie about Girl Scouts. A Girl Scout-adjacent youth organization involved but I wouldn’t say the movie is about them. It actually makes me hate the title a bit.

Angela (Tamera Mowry-Housley) is a single mom working as a realtor. Her daughter, Brooklyn (Audrey Wise Alvarez), is in a scout troop that is having a posh holiday ball fundraiser. Brooklyn suggests they get her favorite bakery, owned by William (Carlo Marks), to cater the event…and also get William to escort her mom to the ball. Little do they know that Dakota (James Paladino), Angela’s ex and Brooklyn’s father, will randomly show up to throw a wrench in everything.

Ugh, for a movie that is titled for scouting, it was so boring. There was no actual scouting done in the movie. There wasn’t even any real estate agenting done! Come to think of it, I don’t think we saw any baking either! All of these people have jobs or hobbies that we don’t see them do, we’re just told they do them. And that makes for a very boring movie. No one wants to see people standing or sitting around talking in various locations. We want to see them doing things. Having fun. Being actual human people. The more I think about it, the more I dislike this movie. I’m glad it’s so early in the season.

Rating: Can we have a movie with actual scouting in it?

Inventing The Christmas Prince | 2022 Christmas Movies

Did Hallmark actually combine all of the things I love to see in a Christmas movie with Inventing The Christmas Prince? We have a main cast that is mostly people of color and a plot where the main couple’s romance isn’t the star attraction. We should be careful, right?

Shelby (Tamera Mowry-Housley) is a single parent working as a rocket engineer. Her boss, Evan (Ronnie Rowe Jr), isn’t exactly a “people person” and now his job is in jeopardy due to his employees quitting. When Shelby’s daughter, Grace (Isabel Birch), sees Evan, she thinks that he is the Christmas Prince, the main character in a story passed down through Shelby’s family. Can Shelby convince Evan to play the part and grant Grace her twelve wishes?

For the past couple of years, Mowry-Housley has been starring in some terrible Christmas movies. So, at best. I was fairly sure this was another movie heading into the “Meh” pile. Was I surprised when I found myself actually enjoying this one! Sure, they could have left the whole rocket engineer job out of the movie and only focused on Grace’s wishes but I think it gave Evan a little more reason to start acting like a real human being instead of a robot.

If I was to give Inventing The Christmas Prince any criticism, it would be with the conflicts. I know, I know. Most of the conflicts in these movies are dumb. However, the conflicts in this movie barely exist. We have Sherman (Brady Droulis), who is basically a kindergarten bully. And the issue of Grace’s wishes, though that is honestly resolved in like a dozen lines of dialog. Not really a conflict. It would have been nicer to see Shelby and Evan working together a bit more to get the wishes granted and maybe running into a few more snags. I think it would have given the movie a little more realism. But, as it stands, those are minor quibbles.

Yes, Inventing The Christmas Prince is worth watching. It probably won’t be your favorite movie of the season but it is a sweet family movie.

The Santa Stakeout | 2021 Christmas Movies

Before I even start talking about The Santa Stakeout, can we address how dirty someone did Tamera Mowry-Housley in this pic? Her face does not look like that. She is a very pretty woman. She does not need to be photoshopped like this.

Tanya (Mowry-Housley) is a police detective that recently moved to Denver. After a string of thefts from high-profile holiday parties, she goes undercover with her new partner, Ryan (Paul Campbell), to catch the crook.

I don’t think that I have seen a police-themed Christmas movie recently. I can understand why it isn’t done more often. There isn’t a lot of police work going on here. As a matter of fact, when the partners go to set up their stakeout house, Tanya begins decorating it for Christmas the minute she sets foot in the door. It makes sense when they are forced to play the parts of a newlywed couple but before that? They were supposed to be hidden. Christmas decorations aren’t exactly what you use when you want to hide.

Stakeout isn’t a particularly interesting movie, to be honest. It felt like Campbell wanted to portray his character like a discount Joel McHale but the snark that is in every McHale character just wasn’t there with Ryan. It just made him look like a jerk.

Eh, this is another one of those movies that is fine. Just fine. It’s not boring per se but I found myself playing games on my phone a lot. Everything felt very forced. Even the big romance at the end. There wasn’t anything in the rest of the movie that showed me these two were about to fall in love. There wasn’t a lot that showed me they even liked each other! Sure, they came to an understanding but that isn’t the same as enjoying someone’s company. Give it a watch if you are a fan of Tamera. Otherwise, it’s probably best as background noise as you do chores.

Christmas Comes Twice | 2020 Christmas Movies

Ugh, another time travel Christmas movie. When will writers realize that these stories are terrible?

Cheryl (Tamera Mowry-Housley) is an astrophysicist with a job reviewing grant proposals for the National Science Foundation. She isn’t particularly happy with her life as her job requires long hours and little science. When she comes home for the holidays, she rides a magical carousel at the Christmas Carnival that sends her back in time five years. Would she be happier if she made different life decisions?

I don’t understand why this movie was greenlit. When Cheryl goes back in time, it seems like she didn’t make bad decisions originally. She just didn’t want to say no to anyone. That job she dislikes? She knew what the job was. She agreed to it. Even when she had a second chance to turn down the job, she doesn’t tell the boss no. She tries to make herself sound like a terrible candidate so he won’t hire her. It’s perfectly fine to say no. Especially when it’s a job that you didn’t actually apply for.

The rest of the movie was Cheryl pushing her opinions onto everyone else. Her sister, Trish (Zarrin Darnell-Martin), wants to open a restaurant. Cheryl thinks it’s too risky and does everything in her power to talk her sister out of it. She has zero concern about what her sister actually wants.

Big surprise, she also doesn’t treat George (Michael Xavier), the romantic lead of the movie, very well either. She claims she’s competing with him but she isn’t doing it in a friendly manner. She spends a lot of time belittling him. And we’re supposed to believe that she loves this guy.

Christmas Comes Twice isn’t worth your time. This is another movie that I fell asleep watching. That is probably the best way to watch it. Turn it on for background noise and take a nap. You won’t miss anything.