I love Christmas movies - love them. However I had never seen A Christmas Story as I don't live in the US and it is rarely shown in my country - so I was happy to see it this year. I did not enjoy it at all. I don't think it holds up so I can only guess that the affection for it is driven by personal nostalgia. It's not the worst Christmas film I've ever seen - it's maybe that I've come to it as an adult and it is very much a children's film - except one in which today's kids wouldn't really recognise themselves in. It shows aspects of life that - far from being a nostalgic look at the good old days - make me glad I wasn't alive when this film was set. It's overriding message appears to be to acquire a new dangerous toy - where's the Christmas spirit? It's a no from me.
Reviews
7 Reviews
Underrated Do you
26 July 2022
We've had insights into all the main characters lives away from the ground except Beard - until this episode. Seeing his sadness, doubts and regrets come out through MOTD and the journey he goes through has everything- funny, sad, metaphors, farce, pathos - you make it. It's review score is undeserved.
Aurora Teagarden Mysteries: An Inheritance to Die For
(2019 TV Movie)
Very bad
30 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This one is disappointing to me - it should have been good - but really how has she not just been arrested now? In the earlier films she did solve mysteries and saw what others didn't - now though the character is hell bent on interfering with ongoing investigations - and in this case all she managed to do was get herself and mother in danger - the police solved the crime without her input and would have done sooner if she had shared what she knew instead of trying to solve a crime.
There are plenty other series where the amateur sleuth solves mysteries - from Miss Marple, Agatha Raisin, through to others in the HMM series like Garage Sale - none of them have someone with a pathological need to be the one to solve the mystery and deliberately withhold information - and potentially cause a mistrial - the way Aurora Teagarden does in these film series.
There are plenty other series where the amateur sleuth solves mysteries - from Miss Marple, Agatha Raisin, through to others in the HMM series like Garage Sale - none of them have someone with a pathological need to be the one to solve the mystery and deliberately withhold information - and potentially cause a mistrial - the way Aurora Teagarden does in these film series.
Father Christmas Is Back
(2021)
Is it a joke?
19 December 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I cannot believe I'm supposed to consider this to be a real film and not a parody.
I can suspend disbelief for most things, and Caroline Quentin being Liz Hurley's mother when there's a five year age gap I could almost overlook- but Liz Hurley being pregnant took it too far. As good as she looks 56 is a little old to be playing roles where the single woman finds out she's having her first baby.
Aside from that it's overacted and the script a waste of otherwise reasonable acting talent.
I can suspend disbelief for most things, and Caroline Quentin being Liz Hurley's mother when there's a five year age gap I could almost overlook- but Liz Hurley being pregnant took it too far. As good as she looks 56 is a little old to be playing roles where the single woman finds out she's having her first baby.
Aside from that it's overacted and the script a waste of otherwise reasonable acting talent.
The Christmas Ball
(2020 TV Movie)
Not sure why it's set in "England"
29 November 2021
It's the usual Christmas fee and the characters are as likeable as can be. It's not a great performance by any of the actors and if you watched hoping for a bit of a British flavour to these films then you'll be very disappointed - from the stock cottage of London bearing no resemblance to current London, the house at the heart of the plot clearly being American - and new and not pre-Georgian and all references to the "preservation committee" instead of asking it to be listed by English Heritage makes it about as English as 4th July.
A wasted opportunity
31 December 2020
If you haven't read the book I'm sure this is a perfectly good episode of Poirot - however The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is considered to be one of the best detective stories ever written and - without giving anything away - everything that makes it great was removed from this episode. It makes it fairly run of the mill when it should have been the jewel in the crown of the entire genre. Shame.
12 Men of Christmas
(2009 TV Movie)
Pride and prejudice and mountains
13 December 2020
Not sure how nobody else has mentioned this but the plot is predictable because it almost a straight map from pride and prejudice.
That doesn't make it bad - quite the opposite - just predictable. Basing it on this classic isn't unique amongst Christmas films - let's be honest, we don't watch films like this for originality anyway.
Kristin Chenoweth is her usual, bubbly self, the men are handsome and the scenery is beautiful. It has a decent secondary cast so of its type it's really not that bad.
If you like the rom-com Christmas films then you'll like this. My main gripe is it's really not a Christmas film only a very small proportion of the film is set at Christmas and it plays no part in the plot.
That doesn't make it bad - quite the opposite - just predictable. Basing it on this classic isn't unique amongst Christmas films - let's be honest, we don't watch films like this for originality anyway.
Kristin Chenoweth is her usual, bubbly self, the men are handsome and the scenery is beautiful. It has a decent secondary cast so of its type it's really not that bad.
If you like the rom-com Christmas films then you'll like this. My main gripe is it's really not a Christmas film only a very small proportion of the film is set at Christmas and it plays no part in the plot.
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