Another Diet Of Christmas Films

Last year's Christmas Day post was made up of small reviews from a number of Christmas movies I had watched in the days leading up to Christmas.

I've decided to do it again this year. I started watching these films then commenting on them on Monday 7th December so, by the time this is posted, I will hopefully have a few for you to read.

Deck The Halls (2005)

I started off last year's film watching by seeing a totally different film but with the same title. This version was a made-for-TV movie and was about a widowed mother who starts working for her father's toy business and meets one of the temporary employees, Nick.
Nick hits it off with her son because the child thinks that Nick is Santa Claus. The son, Ben, tries setting them up by emailing each of them as secret admirers and it sort of fails to work.
The film ends in a unique way as Nick leaves (after turning into Santa Clause in view of Holly and Ben) and then the family vet arrives with Ben's dog that had been run over and needed a miracle to survive.
I thought the vet would have ended up with Holly's friend, Melody, but the final scene is of Holly and the vet getting married. I guess Santa (Nick) lucked out there.
The theme was about believing in love and miracles. I guess it's hard to believe in either when the script makes you want to see Nick and Holly get together and doesn't deliver.

Chasing Christmas (2005)

I liked this one.
This film was a twenty-first Century retelling of A Christmas Carol. It was more like a parody or comedic take on it, if you will.
It's about a businessman who hates Christmas as his wife left him on Christmas Eve after he found her having an affair with his dentist. His bitterness towards the season prompts him to be visited by the ghosts of Christmas past and present. It doesn't turn out perfectly as one of these spirits has enough of being a ghost and has a breakdown of sorts and this is where the film picks up.
There's always a hidden message in Christmas movies. This one was about accepting the past and embracing the present. I guess you'll have to see it to see what I mean, though.
It's a fun film and is currently the best one I have seen this year.

A Carol Christmas (2003)

Not another Christmas Carol retelling!
This movie had the most actors that I actually knew as Tori Spelling, William Shatner and Gary Coleman were in it.
In this one the Scrooge-type character is played by Spelling. She is a daytime television host who is a bit of a prima donna. Yes, the formula is the same, she gets visited by four spirits and ends up changing her ways by the end.
I went onto IMDB.com to find out the year the film was made like I always do when titling them and I noticed there was a thread on the message board saying how poor Tori Spelling's acting was in this. I didn't notice it, to be honest.
As for the film - I liked it. I didn't like it as much as the one I watched yesterday but it was still a nice Christmas movie that the family would like.
Christmas movies aren't made to be masterpieces.
Are they?

His And Her Christmas (2005)

I wasn't so keen on this one.
This film was about a female writer for a local paper that is being bought out by a major newspaper. The bigger paper has a political writer and his dream is to get his own show by any means necessary. The staff at the Marin County Voice, knowing that their paper is on the verge of being closed, change the agony aunt column to a feminist Christmas viewpoint one and it becomes a popular read amongst its readership. In retaliation, the San Francisco Sun gets the political writer to change his column to represent a male opinion of the season.
By the end of the movie, the two opposing writers fall in love.
And the small paper is saved. Yay!
It said the film was a 'romantic comedy'. I must have missed the cue where I was meant to laugh.

Home For The Holidays (2005)

In this film, Sean Young plays an aunt who has to takes guardianship of her sister's three children after a fatal car accident.
The story centres on how the aunt struggles to secure a home for the children as she cannot get clearance to let them live at her small house and she is threatened with having to foster them out if a new home isn't found within five days.
The end of the movie sees the community physically moving the children's house from the land that the family no longer legally owned.
It was sad at times and it took me a while to figure out where the story was heading but it turned out to be a warm tale.

The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year (2008)

I loved this one.
The story was of a young man who befriends a retired policeman at the airport who is on his way to spend Christmas at his niece's house. The man ends up being unable to travel to Denver so spends Christmas at the house of his new friend. The niece is in a relationship with an untrustworthy businessman and the uncle (played by Henry Winkler) does his best to get his niece and his new friend together.
As I said in the first sentence, I loved this. It will be hard to beat this one as the best Christmas film I've seen this year.

Eve's Christmas (2004)

This film was about a prominent advertising agent who works for a major company based in New York who wishes upon a star on Christmas night. Her wish is to be returned to a time when she was not as popular but in love and about to marry the man who she left at the alter in order to pursue her career aspirations. The wish is granted and she wakes up back in 1996 - a week before the big day.
It was an average film. Not amazing but definitely not terrible.

Twelve Days Of Christmas Eve (2004)

Another film about a successful person who needs to learn about Christmas.
This one takes on a Groundhog Day type story where the CEO of a bargain superstore chain has twelve chances to relive the Christmas Eve after he suffers an accident and the nurse called Ang (angel, get it?) sends him back to try and repeat the day and make it the best Christmas Eve.
Would I be spoiling it by saying he gets it right in the end? I bet you don't know how many attempts it took for him to do it in either...
Actually, I know you do!
After he went back for a third time, I started feeling a bit restless and thought I wouldn't be able to continue watching for another nine returns to Christmas Eve but things got better and I did end up liking the film.

A Christmas Carol : The Musical (2004)

I found a lot of Christmas Carol reworkings this year so it's only right that I end with the proper story.
This was okay, I suppose. It wasn't the best film I saw this year.
If you like Americans with Cockney accents this is for you.

Final Thoughts

It has just gone seven o'clock on Christmas Eve and I've finished my marathon. I think I watched a few more films last year. The difficulty I found this time around was that most of the movies I viewed in 2008 were on again and I needed to select ones I hadn't seen before.
The 2009 winner goes to The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Who will win in 2010?