Holidaze Watch: The Finnish Line (2024)

Watched:  12/6/2024   

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dustin Rikert

Hey!  Looks like The Finnish Line (2024) was directed by the same fellow who did The Christmas Quest.  I guess he spent his year in very cold countries.

As I've tried to communicate, Hallmark has really been trying to branch out for a while.  One way that materializes is in their Let's Go Europe movies where our hero goes overseas and explores the Christmas traditions of Norway, Germany, Ireland, etc...  very European.  I would love for them to do Central and South America.  But if their take on Texas is any indication...

Anyway, this one takes place in Finland.  My mom's parents were from Finland, which has always left me with something of a relationship with the country as happens when one's grandma is serving pickled herring with lunch and your grandpa sounds like the Swedish Chef when he talks (as my friends would tell me).  As an adult I had opportunity to visit Helsinki for work, and... I loved it.  Finland is rad.  More tall people with long torsos who also look awkward in unexpected conversations!  My people!

But aside from my grandparents passing down a deep need for coffee, which I guess is cultural and congenital, most of what I know about Finland is from my visit and what I've seen online.*

This movie is about a young woman born in the US to a Finnish father and American mother.  The father had been a champion dog-sled racer, but had lost his last big race to a bit of a bully, retired from the sport and gone to live in the US.  Now, his daughter has taken up the sport, and is in Finland to take part in the race, and, inevitably, win it, beating her dad's rival.

But, it's also a romantic comedy, sort of, and a movie teaching you a bit about Finnish Christmas traditions and the weird things Finns do as a culture.  Like "Pantsdrunk", which is a publicly acknowledged habit of drinking by yourself in your underwear.  (Keep in mind, Finland is also one of the happiest and best educated countries on Earth).  

Along the way, our racer finds family, love and saunas.  And there's a nice little twist at the end that humanizes our villain in an astounding way.  I was impressed.

The cast is made up of locals and a few American or Canadian actors.  Our lead is Kim Matula (of Texas), and her pal is played by Nichole Sakura, and I knew from The Treasure of Foggy Mountain.  And they're, like, actually funny.  I don't know what happened here, but it's like they were allowed to tell jokes or make stuff up.  And that is *not* the Hallmark way.  

I'm not saying it's a yuk-fest, but I actually lol'd, which does not happen.

They also, by virtue of a 3-day dog sled race, have an element of adventure which these movies simply do not usually have - except for Rikert's other movie this year, I guess.  And they have a lot of sled dogs, extras, etc...  This movie cost someone some money.  Maybe the nation of Finland.  Who can say?

My one thing was seeing - hey, if they'd had the budget, this could have had more dog racing.  I like dogs and races.

*my mom was a late addition to their family, arriving when my Grandpas was 48 or 49, and my grandmother about 38.  Pair this with me showing up in 1975, and my grandparents were both elderly and had Americanized pretty well in the near 50 years they'd already been here and were far more representative of the citizens of Michigan's Upper Peninsula in the 20th Century than anything to do with modern Finland.

Also, Sakura is a smoke-show

Festive Watch: Single All The Way (2021)

Watched:  12/05/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  Second

Director:  Michael Mayer

Two things:  

1)  I watched this originally during the holidays of 2021, and like a lot of things that happened during Deep COVID - I remembered I had watched this movie, but who was in it?  Couldn't tell you.  Any details other than the basic plot?  Nope.

2)  I also failed to write it up somehow, which is likely *part* of how it was not committed to memory.  So, add another movie to my depressingly large number of movies watched in 2021.

I was looking, and this movie got lukewarm reviews when it came out.  Which is understandable in some ways.  It has a weird Metacritic score of 49 - but based on just six reviews.  And a user score of 6.2, with most people feeling "it's fine", a few not liking it, and twice as many liking it.  

But, especially this year, here's what I'm saying to you people:  The past few years have been marked by people having a rough idea of what a Hallmark movie is, but not really watching them for more than a couple of minutes.  But they don't actually know what they're talking about - and mostly still discussing the movies from eight years ago.  And somehow, if something *resembles* one of those movies in form, it's sport to knock it down a few pegs.  And - fair enough!  Do that.

But if you judge this movie against actual Hallmark movies and not what you imagine Hallmark movies to be, Single All The Way (2021) is *good*.  It is also not Hallmark, it's Netflix, but does mark a seismic shift that occurred when these movies stopped being exclusively about white, straight women of a certain age and the Christmas Tree farmers they fall for.

Super Watch: Superman and Lois Season 4 - End of Series

It's been a wild ride with two of my favorite fictional people, Superman and Lois Lane, over there on the CW.  

Ever since DC television introduced Tyler Hoechlin as Superman on their Supergirl show, and eventually brought in Elizabeth "Bitsie" Tulloch as Lois, CW kinda/ sorta had to figure out how to make a Superman television program.  And, indeed they did.

As DC wrapped up the "Arrowverse", it was decreed that the coming Superman and Lois show would have nothing to do with that universe, and we'd see a stand-alone Superman.  No Arrow, Supergirl, Black Lightning, Flash, etc...*  For the time being, it would be pure Superman.  And with comics going back to the 1930's, that was plenty, for me.

• Casting Lois News
• The Pilot discussion
• Second Episode discussion
• Post Season 1 Wrap-Up
• Post Season 2 Wrap-Up
• Apparently I didn't write up Season 3?

Ownership of the CW changed mid-production for the show, and I think it did have some impact on DC's willingness to bother with the CW.  I won't go into the politics, but there is no way it didn't have an impact on the show as Nat was portrayed for the first time in media as straight, and the bisexual storyline for another character was never mentioned again.

The clock was ticking on the show once WB put all of DC's motion-media in James Gunn's hands, and *everything*  (minus The Batman and the flop that was Joker 2) would be part of a coherent, single universe.  TV, cartoons, movies, flipbooks...  I can understand WB's desire to give Gunn a clean slate to work with as he brings his vision for Superman to the big screen, and there were always going to be casualties of things I liked.**  

SPOILERS

Holidaze Watch: The Christmas Quest (2024)

I don't think Iceland has fjords...  does it?

Watched:  12/01/2024

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dustin Rikert

Selection:  Jamie

Jamie had (wisely) tapped out early on during the Kansas City Chiefs movie I had rolling whilst doing chores, but she did want to sit down and watch this one.  I feel Jamie has really embraced the concept of Hallmark punching above its weight class with some of its movies, and this sure seemed to be one - so...  yes, we watched it.

Friends, do you like Indiana Jones movies?  Sure, we all do.  And so did whomever put this flick together.  

In particular, they seemed to like Last Crusade, which this movie references so hard it spoils a major twist in the first few minutes.  But if you like Last Crusade, you can at least play Indy bingo, matching up the plot points and characters of The Christmas Quest (2024) to one of the most popular films in human history.  

Look, I tip my hat to Hallmark for trying something different - if different is "take bits of Last Crusade and meld them with one of our 'Let's Go Europe' movies of the past few years".  

Holidaze Watch: Holiday Touchdown - a Chiefs Love Story (2024)

Watched:  12/01/2024

Format:  Hallmark

Viewing:  First

Director:  John Putch

When Hallmark announced its slate of 2024 Christmas movies, it was a bit of an eyebrow raiser that they had this one on the docket.  Holiday Touchdown: A Chief's Love Story (2024) seemed like it was just begging for trouble in some ways.  

Usually, Hallmark avoids discussing real-world things, even naming specific teams, if sports are mentioned at all.  Of course, we figured the movie would echo the Taylor Swift/ Jason Kelce romance - something even I know about, and I don't follow the NFL, the Chiefs or Taylor Swift.*   So, to base an entire movie around the fact the Kansas City Chiefs, one of America's most discussed professional football teams has a player in a famous, tabloidy romance, seemed kind of wacky.  

But, heads up - the movie does not acknowledge, reference or spoof the celebrity couple. In fact, the movie is in no way about either a musician or a player at all, not even an assistant coach.  

Stuart, who is KC based, has informed me that Hallmark is headquartered in Kansas City, which I didn't know - so the pieces for why Hallmark went all in on a movie that would feature Andy Reid in a cameo kind of snapped into place.  Loving your football team is, by far, not the worst reason to make a movie.  (if someone made a movie about the University of Texas Longhorns, of course I'd watch)

The plot is, not surprisingly, whisper thin.  Instead, it exists as one part pro-Chiefs propaganda, one part family comedy about a football loving family, and one part absolute nonsense Christmas Hallmark film.  

The idea is that football is what unites us and gives us common ground and something to discuss, which is true.**  Sports are not inherently bad, no matter how many wedgies you got in high school.

Anyhoo, the movie is a soft sell.  So soft, in fact, that the story is about a missing hat.  Like, someone said "so what is the plot of this movie, now that the Chiefs agreed to it?" and Dumb Dave in the corner said "I like hats" and they made that movie, because it doesn't matter.  You know the guy and girl will fall in love, and Kansas City Chiefs will be omnipresent as a force for good.  Why not make the problem a hat?

Hallmark Watch: Haul Out the Holly (2022)

Watched:  11/28/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Maclain Nelson

Selection:  Sorta Jamie/ Sorta Me

Jamie was working on stuffing and rolls for Thanksgiving dinner, and I was cleaning up and doing some Christmas decorating.  And, THAT, friends, is when you put on a Hallmark movie.  

Last year we accidentally watched the sequel to this one (and I forgot to write it up, natch), so, being a pair of curious cats, Jamie and I landed on the original formula: Haul Out the Holly (2022) - now on Netflix.

Here's what I'll say about Haul Out The Holly:  if someone is going to make you watch a Hallmark movie, this is a bad representative of the old archetype and more a reflection of the trends to stop making the same movie over and over.  Like a few from this period, it's trying to be a real movie.  Maybe not a good or memorable movie, but a real comedy with a wacky premise, zany neighbors, and jokes, which is not Hallmark's strong suit.  They do better with movies that are the equivalent of a Glade Plug-In turned up half-way.   But, this movie is just a sort of lo-fi version of an 00's-era Christmas comedy, but so steeped in the very specific idea of what it is, it can just seems unhinged.  And cheerfully unhinged, is, actually the point.  

Ie:  The folks making this knew exactly what they were doing.  

It's also a chance for Chabert to step out from *sincere* Hallmark movies without going 100% meta, and, instead, engage in a wacky comedy, which I am sure she welcomed after laughs in most Hallmark movies that are really a sort of soft, inward smile at best.  And, well, "wacky" comedy.  I did laugh a few times as intended, especially at the neighbor who takes the cookie contest very seriously, played by Melissa Peterman.*  I'm just not sure the jokes are there in quite the way the movie wishes they were, which might be writing, directing, editing... I don't know and don't care.

But every time you think you're about to turn on the movie, the movie leans into the absurdity, and you know - they're just having fun making this dumb movie that doesn't make any sense.

The plot is:  Chabert breaks up with her dopey boyfriend and goes home for Christmas, only to find out her parents aren't just leaving for Florida, they're going on a condo-hunting trip and plan to move away.  Left at her parents' sprawling Salt Lake City McMansion, somehow she's wrapped up in the Christmas Craziness of her parents' street - a place where people practically poop peppermint and Christmas is about ugly sweaters, cookie contests, yard decorations, and basically the higher-end Christmas decorations for one's yard and home.  It has nothing to do with family gatherings, church, presents or anything else.  It's a weird little Christmas-themed cult they've got going, where the HOA President is authorized to cite house guests for inadequate yard nutcrackers.

Chabert left town in part because of her parents' Christmas obsession, but now that she's back, and because she decides she wants to jump the HOA president, she's into it.

Here's the thing - this movie knows how annoying it's own premise is.  But by knowing how nuts it is, they just lean into it more, like a dare.  "Well, you're still here watching this!"

It's... fine?  For what it is?  Chabert makes a curiously good straight man?  

Anyhoo...  It absolutely finished in less than 90 minutes, and I like that.

*who was apparently one of the two hookers from Fargo if you need a blast from the past

Hallmark Watch: A Holiday Engagement (2011)

Watched:  11/26/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:   Jim Fall

So, I've always wondered why Hallmark used the model they did, of sort of hoarding all of their hundreds of Christmas movies for the their three cable channels.  And, I think. they have an app or streaming service.  But I kinda think signing up for a Hallmark app is for the folks who are a particular breed of cat.  

Now, they've dumped an insane number of these movies on Amazon, YouTube and Netflix.  Jamie was looking for something else and realized this, and as we were doing some Christmas decorating, she randomly picked one, and this is what we got.

The movie is from 2011, so it's an interesting snapshot in time for Hallmark's continual evolution.  They have name-actors, but in supporting roles.  Shelley Long is a major character as the mom who seems like she's entertaining notions about how a a woman plans her future that last got updated in 1961.  It's a thankless role.  Sam McMurray - who you know from everything - is the dad, who is a two note joke, and gets away with cashing a paycheck for just mugging a bit.  Salute.  Haylie Duff appears and you absolutely wonder why she's not the star every time she wanders onto the screen.  A pre-Vice Principals/ Righteous Gemstones Edi Patterson steals the early part of the movie as the star's much more engaging friend.  I wanted to watch her movie, not what we got.  Also - Jan Brady shows up for two shots trying to steal a wedding dress.  

Western Watch: Barricade (1950)

she's so cheery about whatever the hell is happening back there

Watched:  11/26/2024

Format:  TCM

Viewing:  First

Director:  Peter Godfrey

TCM was running a day of Ruth Roman movies.  I am but a simple man, so I recorded a couple of the Ruth Roman films I hadn't yet seen - leading to this viewing of Barricade (1950).  

Based on the Jack London story The Sea Wolf, but transported to a gold mine in the west, there sure seems like this has the makings of something that could have been good - even thought provoking.  But, it is not.  I don't even know why it's called Barricade.  There's kinda some barricades in, like, one scene.  But it's not a plot point, and I don't think there's a metaphor here...  It's just called "Barricade".  And Ruth Roman is not big enough by far to barricade anything.

What's odd is that this movie seems like it has high aspirations, but just feels weird and flat throughout.  Maybe I'm just not a Dane Clark fan, or I don't think Raymond Massey was as compelling as the script was begging him to be.  And I was tricked!  Because the movie starts with a scene in which Roman shows up dressed as a lady, getting off of a wagon, and when you find out she's a wanted prison escapee, she kicks a dude over and steals the 6-horse wagon.  It is the best part of the movie.  I briefly had high hopes.

Anyway, there's an accident and she and the other passenger on the wagon end up stranded in a remote gold mine where the crooked boss runs the place with an odd, intellectual cruelty, crushing everyone around him - as he mostly hires people looking to hide from the law.

While Roman and Dane Clark fall for each other, the travelling companion, Robert Douglas, spars verbally with Raymond Massey, the boss.  

I dunno.  It's... fine.  I think the 6.0/ 10 rating on IMDB sounds right.  It's not horrible, but I won't think about this movie again until I'm looking at old posts or IMDB in the future.  Roman is the only real highlight of the film.  I just don't think Dane Clark is all that exciting as a leading man here or in the other things where I've seen him, and Robert Douglas is... fine.  But feels perfunctory in the part.  

It happens.  Even the wikpedia entry on this movie is basically "yes, this movie exists".  

Noir-adjacent Watch: Hangover Square (1945)

Watched:  11/25/2024

Format:  Kino BluRay

Viewing:  Second?

Director:  John Brahm

We previously watched this movie.

If I were going to program a series of movies and those movies were *about* (at least in part) music, I'd feel compelled to include Hangover Square (1945).  And I think I'd really manage to freak out the squares with this oddball character study/ thriller.  

Apparently the movie had a long road from book to screenplay to how it was finally shot and made.  It was also the final movie of Laird Cregar, one of the most promising actors of the 1940's, who died before this movie was released - a heart-attack brought on from a speed-fueled crash diet, intestinal issues from his attempts to lose weight, and other factors.  He was only 31.

Along the way, the book - which took place in modern London - was changed into a gaslight-era story about a composer, and almost nothing of the source material remained except the title.  Part of me is horrified for the original author, part of me knows this is basic studio mechanics, and part of me quite likes the final result.  So....

It's a bit of an odd movie because I'm not sure it has a "hero".  It has a protagonist you follow, but out of morbid curiosity.  After all, we know he is a killer in the first 30 seconds of the film - it's that no one else knows or wants to believe it.  So what happens when he's left free?  And gets cross-wise with a conniving songbird who is a walking red flag in the shape of Linda Darnell?

The score of the film is phenomenal, culminating in a diegetic performance of the concerto Cregar's character has been working on since before the film's start, The Concerto Macabre.  

The concerto is worked into the film throughout, as is the use of fire, pits, and other signs of Cregar's character's madness.  I really don't know how to talk about Bernard Hermann's work without gushing, or this one in particular.

And Cregar, himself is pretty terrific.  This may be his finest role in a very brief, very impressive slate before his untimely death.  He's sympathetic, even while you're screaming at the other characters to knock it off or stop him.  

I also think Darnell is at the height of her powers here.  Gorgeous, crafty, acting for the benefit of other characters while the audience knows what's up, and not making it cheesy...    And, ultimately, iron willed about what she wants and how to get it...  

oh no.  I've accidentally posted a pic of Linda Darnell.

Anyway - it's a dated portrait of mental illness that treats it a bit like a magical curse, but is pretty good nonetheless.  And manages two of the best scenes I've seen in a movie in recent years, with the Guy Fawkes sequence, and the finale, which I think is how real filmmakers should end a movie (more fire, you cowards).

At a tight 77 minutes, it's a complete story that rides like a roller coaster, ending in a huge twist and turnover at the end.  

I guess my pitch is this:  If the factors in a movie are imagery, sound and performances - they surely line up incredibly well in this movie.  That it stars two actors who died young and tragically, and that this likely got lost a bit in the shuffle as the war wrapped up may be why it's chattered about with a subset of film nerds, but not more in the conversation.  It was also not universally beloved when it came out - so maybe it just hits my sensibilities particularly well.

Holiday Watch: Hot Frosty (2024)

Watched:  11/24/2024

Format:  Netflix

Viewing:  First

Director:  Jerry Ciccoritti

Selection:  Jamie

Every Christmas, we're inundated not just with Hallmark-style Christmas films - we also get a few comedies, many which that involve some straight up magic as the premise.  After all, it is Christmas, and Christmas includes Heat Misers and flying reindeer and Mariah Carey.

But those Christmas comedies are not always winners.  Last year, I nominated two magical Christmas comedies for some of the worst films I'd seen all year.  Those included Genie and my selection for worst of 2023, Candy Cane Lane.  So I am not just easily in the bag for anything that comes along, Christmas-wise.  (I do remember liking parts of Dashing Through the Snow, but that may have just been Teyonah Parris smiling on screen).

Mostly, this movie made me happy for Lacey Chabert, who accidentally fell backward into being the second-most-popular Hallmark star, and then was promoted to full-Hallmark status when Candace Cameron Bure decided Hallmark was now too woke for her.*

Chabert had been kind of pushing the envelope at Hallmark the last few years, finding movies that didn't exactly fit the Hallmark mold as we knew it.  Haul Out the Holly, por ejemplo, was an attempt to just do a plain 'ol family comedy.  It even has Gen X's favorite Ned, Stephen Tobolowsky.  

Hot Frosty (2024) is a leap into a straight, goofy comedy, as evidenced by some of the casting, from Schitt's Creek's Dustin Milligan to Katy Mixon Greer, who I particularly loved in Eastbound and Down.  I also was delighted to see Lauren Holly show up (and she was really funny, as pre-usual).  And, lastly, if you don't know Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truligio, well...  your life is a poor shell of an existence and I pity you.