The Twenty-Second of December
Look, Charlie, let's face it. We all know that Christmas is a big commercial racket. It's run by a big eastern syndicate, you know
Today’s Quote:
“Christmas - that magic blanket that wraps itself about us, that something so intangible that it is like a fragrance. It may weave a spell of nostalgia. Christmas may be a day of feasting, or of prayer, but always it will be a day of remembrance - a day in which we think of everything we have ever loved.”
Augusta E. Rundel
Reviews:
Candy Review: Today’s candy is Heavenly Sours, a gummy that is sour. I don’t know why this is, but it feels like all the sour candies are chewier than just like a regular gummy bear? Take Sour Patch Kids for example, those are pretty chewy, but why do they have to be? Can anyone answer this riddle?
Movie Review: The Christmas Classic (Paramount+, 2023) Why Malin, why?
A truly terrible Hallmark Christmas Movie, the very worst kind, is usually older (late aughts), and identified by the feeling of cheapness, unknown acting, but also just really weak plotting. No Hallmark movie is ever going to be mis-identified as the next Oppenheimer, but some of them have plots that at least KIND of work. This movie, this one I have just recently seen, called The Christmas Classic, is an example of the very worst kind.
I was suckered into watching this movie because it has a pretty stacked cast! Malin Ackerman! That one guy who was on Veronica Mars! That woman who was in that Just Friends movie with Ryan Reynolds! With a cast like that I ignorantly assumed it might be more of a top-tier type. I was wrong. This movie is an AFFRONT to a regular Hallmark movie because of its horribly weak plotting, but also the frankly offensive misuse of a solid cast. When you have actors who have DONE things before (Malin was in BILLIONS) you need to write to that! Up the game a little bit. The Christmas Classic does none of those things, and I felt severe second-hand embarrassment as a result.
This movie centers around Malin’s character, who is rich and engaged to a big-time real-estate guy in San Francisco. She flies to NEW MEXICO to buy a SKI RESORT that she and her family visit regularly, and comes to find out that the owner (the guy from Veronica Mars) doesn’t want to sell it. When that meeting goes poorly, Malin makes a bet with the man that if she wins the “Christmas Classic”, then he’ll sell, which he agrees to - likely it has been in the family for, and I quote, “a generation”. We do not ever once learn what this Classic competition entails, lest you worry you will have too much information.
Malin decides to stay with her parents who happen to live next-door to her sister, who is married to a guy who was definitely in One Tree Hill, and who is also inane. Having a crazy sister character is fine - but a lot of the plot centered around how miserably awful the sister was, and how Malin was going to beat her at the “Classic” that again, was never discussed in detail. This is a weak plot, mostly because at no point did I understand why they were doing a Classic, what went into the Classic, how many people competed at the Classic, nothing.
Malin and her sister fight a bit, she bonds with her family, her fiance comes to visit (he has a ponytail…dicey), and she competes in the CLASSIC - which apparently involves a FOOT RACE. I am still so confused about the rules of the competition. The ending is dumb, but I was more mad to see people who have been actually funny in Movies before work with the worst writing I’ve witnessed since a man named Rocky Flintstone became an author. I would avoid this movie if at all possible, because we should not support cheapening the careers of funny people. Keep Hallmark trash for the UNKNOWNS!
Musings:
