Apparently it’s time to watch through the movies that pop up when I search “Christmas” on Netflix and find out which ones are only mediocre and which ones are extremely mediocre.
So far, “A Christmas Prince” is EXACTLY what the title suggests. (I enjoyed it.) “Christmas Belle” is terrible. And “How Sarah Got Her Wings” is kind of amusing.
The Christmas Bunny was pretty good.
The Spirit of Christmas wasn’t bad… but kind of drearily serious.
A Golden Christmas had some promising elements but totally fell apart before the end; even the limited presence of golden retrievers couldn’t save it.
Christmas Crush was total fluff.
Christmas in the City suffered from one of the worst cases of bad movie logic I’ve ever seen, but it was cheerful.
Dear Santa is more likable than it has any right to be, due almost entirely to Amy Acker.
Merry Kissmass falls squarely in the mediocre category.
Aside from some general clunkiness and mild toxicity about how “if he’s mean he probably likes you”, 12 Dog Days Till Christmas fell on the upper end of mediocrity, plus it gets definite bonus points for many dogs.
A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale was okay — weak movie logic but dogs.
Noel is not your standard formulaic mediocre Christmas movie; so it’s got that going for it. I’m not sure it actually quite holds together, but it was a nice change of pace with some good performances (including an especially heart-wrenching one from Robin Williams).
Back to Christmas (a.k.a. Correcting Christmas) was definitely an above average mediocre Christmas movie. Maybe I’m just a sucker for movies with time-loopy things and a quirky paranormal angel guide.
Marry Me For Christmas and My Santa we’re both perfectly fine, enjoyable additions to my mediocre Christmas movie marathon.
Holiday Baggage is my least favorite mediocre Christmas movie thus far as I have zero sympathy for the main character — a self-centered, self-important, old white guy who abandoned his family and then intruded back upon them only to get the infinite second chances that old white guys get. Ugh.
[SPOILER WARNING… you know, to the extent that one of these movies can be spoiled, given that they’re NEVER surprising.] I think it was supposed to be a happy ending that the abandoned family got him back… But… why in the hell would they WANT him back?
Oh by the way, A Christmas Kiss is fine, and Holiday Breakup is mildly above average for both quirky enjoyability and relationship toxicity, so a bit of a toss-up there.
A Christmas Kiss II was okay… but I have trouble with the basic premise of all these movies, which I guess is why they can consistently surprise me even though the formula is painfully obvious.
Christmas Inheritance has an amusing Trading Places/Brewster’s Millions quality but ends up being kinda cringe-worthy in terms of totally failing to comment negatively on runaway capitalism. Rich people play games w/poor people, & poor people exist only to teach lessons.