Watched: 12/19/2024
Format: Hallmark Streaming
Viewing: First
Director: Terry Ingram
So.... we were maybe 35 minutes into this movie before I realized it wasn't a Christmas movie. It was a "winter" movie. I guess this is what Hallmark puts on between Christmas and springtime? I don't know.
This movie was essentially a misguided travel brochure for Vail, Colorado, which - as I understand it - is a high end resort town and place for rich people to live and play. I've been to Colorado once for 3 days for a conference. It was nice.
The basic gist is that Lacey Chabert is a go-getter at an events planning company. She's by-passed for a much deserved promotion the same time she inherits a whole "chalet" in Vail, and says "@#$% it, I'm quitting and heading for Vail."
She meets a nice handy-man/ failed architect, gets to see very select parts of Vail and Canada doubling for Vail, and - this is where things get dicey - gets involved with the "old town" portion of Vail that the movie purports to be a sort of hokey German styled tourist trap, where people wear lederhosen and sell German food.* I assume this is a real thing in Vail.
But by 2020, Vail was also where one went for high end cuisine and fancy nouveau riche nonsense like drinking hot chocolate with gold in it, and I guess the folks who go to Vail in this world abandoned the kitschier part of town. I have to think calling out people for not sticking to schnitzel and their roots and side-eyeing tourists for wanting sushi is probably a fair point? Maybe? But it seems like poking the town you're filming in in the eye for being what it is, is maybe an iffy proposition. Although this columnist was pretty sure a lot of this wasn't even Vail, and the idea of this house in Vail was even wackier and wasn't so sure they all eat German food non-stop in Vail.
Using her event planning super powers, Chabert cooks up "StrudelFest" to attract people back to German-land. It works, blah blah blah.
Anyway, the most fun part of this whole movie is that they simply cannot stop saying StrudelFest. Once the word is introduced, it's repeated every 30 seconds until the end of the film.
I think Jamie and I have decided that "StrudelFest" is our go-to codeword for "things are getting out of control" - perfect for the holidays.
There's something about the need for StrudelFest at all in the movie and the slobs vs snobs posturing that winds up getting squished in favor of including the high-end chefs as judges for Strudelfest's Strudel Contest that just feels like it's both giving us the necessary party, and throwing fuel on the unnecessary fire. It's a real StrudelFest.
Never before in a narrative has strudel played such a vital part.
StrudelFest.
There's a lot more to this, but no one cares, and all I want to do is talk StrudelFest.
*Central Texas has a heritage of Czech and German settlers. So I'm actually pretty familiar with the odd Oktoberfest-style celebrations and whatnot
2 comments:
In a code review
What kind of strudelfest is this?
accurate usage! You've got it
Post a Comment