Ed's Review Dot Com

Golden Ring Productions,

Ed Quinn, Magda Apanowicz, Holly Elissa, Ryan Grantham

This may be the last post on EdsReview. The end of the world is today, December 21, 2012 according to the Mayan prophecy. Ok, probably not, but this film is about the prophecy and the end of the world. Joseph (Ed Quinn) and his wife Mary (Holly Elissa) are raising the children Jaycee (Magda Apanowicz) and Peter (Ryan Grantham) in the little town of Calvary. {I’m serious, J.C., I mean Jaycee, is the chosen one who can save the town} Seriously, horrible pestilence starts pummeling the town due to the ancient Mayan prediction of the end of the world. Grandma gives Jaycee a ring, and then promptly is killed by a falling ice shard from the sky. The disaster after disaster hits and will keep hitting, unless Jaycee and her parents find other rings that have been buried in the area to prevent the destruction of the world.

This film is the largest premier film on the SyFi cable channel in it’s history. With all the syrupy sweet Christmas movies of people falling in love, turning their hearts to celebrate Christmas, and visiting other alternate time lines, this is a rip roaring disaster movie full of excitement and suspense for the end of the world as we know it. Mixing the supposed Mayan prophecy of the end of time with the Christmas song “12 Days of Christmas” we end up with a fun disaster film. Now, this is certainly cheesy. It’s certainly very far fetched, and it’s a great distraction from the typical Christmas stuff. So lets go out and find the 5 golden rings before it’s too late. It seems when Cortez attacked the Mayans, they were afraid this important prophecy would be lost, so they started a song to make sure the legend continued. Yep, “A partridge in a pear tree” has distinctive meanings to the end of the world! Tee-hee. Hey, don’t take this stuff too seriously. This is supposed to be fun!

Here is the home page for this 2012 end of the world Christmas adventure.

ARO Entertainment, Synthetic Filmwerx,

Marla Sokoloff, Chris Carmack, Catherine Hicks, David DeLuise, George Wendt, Chelan Simmons

Rebecca (Marla Sokoloff), just lost her job in the city, so she heads home to visit her estranged mother (Catherine Hicks) and to attend her best friends wedding who she also hasn’t seen for 10 years. While attending the wedding, she meets her ex-boyfriend who she left when she went to the big city, and he went to Paris to learn to cook. When they meet sparks fly and it seems they might not be completely over each other. The wise taxi driver (George Wendt) gives her some good advice and makes her keep at it until she gets it right.

Uh oh, another “relive the same day over and over” thing. First of all there was Groundhog Day, but we can rule that out as it wasn’t Christmas, but then we got “Christmas Every Day”, Christmas Do-Over” and now “A Christmas Wedding Date”. But this is a very nice movie. Marla Sokoloff is wonderful in this role, and really nails it. She is able to play all the range of emotions from surprise and wonder to anger and to redemption in under 2 hours and she pulls it off perfectly. The story is really sweet, and I enjoyed this movie a great deal, although I must confess that I also enjoyed all the previous “relive the day” movies as well, so maybe I’m just a sucker for these types of stories, but I felt it was very well done. I recommend this new film for 2012 as one of the better of all the new films.

Here is the home page for this ION TV 2012 Christmas Movie.

A Halmark Channel Original Film,

Summer Glau, Eva La Rue, Izabela Vidovic, Mason Cook, Dan Gauthier, John Brotherton

Christine (Summer Glau) is a Christmas elf at the North Pole, but she begins to wonder if there is more to life than making toys. Santa receives an emergency wish from a little boy in Los Angeles so he decides that Christine needs to learn a little bit about Christmas spirit herself. He sends her out on a special assignment sending her to L.A. The VanCamp family, Sara (Eva La Rue) the mom, Scott (Dan Gauthier) the dad, and the two kids Ally (Izabela Vidovic) and Will (Mason Cook) need some Christmas spirit, and fast, as they’ve forgotten how much family means. It’s pretty bleak at the VanCamp household, and this is a test for Christine to see if she’s able to function in the world, or needs to go back to the North Pole for good.

This is a charming new Christmas film, and one that should not be missed. This is such a sweet film, but interesting. The family is definitely in trouble, and the hope and wishes of a little boy is able to make real change. Summer Glau is such a charming elf, and the pointy ears are so cute. This movie has tons of great values, one of the best Santa performances ever, and a great deal of Christmas spirit. If you have a chance to catch this film on Hallmark, or anywhere, don’t let it pass by. It’s one of the best Christmas stories I’ve seen in a while!

Here is the Home page for this Hallmark Original Christmas Movie.

Marvista Entertainment,

Shantel VanSanten, Rob Mayes, Nikki Deloach, Orson Bean

In this third outing of the “Golden Christmas” series, Bobby returns from 2 years in the Navy ready to settle down in Belmont Shores. Heather’s dream is to be a director on Broadway…but for now a community theater production of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, must be enough. She’s direction the wonderful Orson Bean as a crotchety Ebenezer Scrooge with a warm heart. He’d like to get Heather and Bobby together, as do lots of other friends, but it’s with the help of 3 golden retrievers that do the lion’s share of getting the two together in this Christmas romance.

I don’t think this is nearly as good as the first two films. First, for the dog lovers, they dogs play a much smaller role in this film. There’s a lot more fighting, misunderstanding, and making up than there are scenes stolen by the dogs. This is a simple little romantic comedy, and it delivers on that level, but the acting is not outstanding, the characters and not that great, and it’s easy to get distracted while attempting to watch this. A typical Christmas romance that fades into the background of all the other Christmas romances. There’s nothing very memorable which is why I just give this film a mediocre rating. Not awful, but not able to make me really care about these characters.

The home page for this ION TV Christmas film for 2012 is here.

Production Media Group,

Casper Van Dien, Victoria Pratt, Richard Burgi

It’s just before Christmas, and Mom and Dad are having some troubles. They have a son who seems to be a model citizen and an older teen daughter who is a good kid, but doesn’t know it. She’s off on a ditch day at school, hanging at the mall in Texas, when a weird series of circumstances spawns some of the largest tornadoes known to man! Now mom is a TV reporter, and Dad is some kind of meteorologist, scientific guy who’s an expert on storms but can’t seem to convince anyone that the storms are coming. This is, of course, caused by global warming bringing the giant storms in just in time for Christmas instead of in March or April when they’re supposed to arrive. A giant twister is headed for Fort Worth, and Dad is out trying to find the kids, while Mom is trying to convince the station manager to warn people of these possible storms.

This is a suspenseful movie. It’s playing this month on the ION TV network, and is surprisingly grabbing like most of the disaster films. This is a Christmas disaster, but obviously except for the decorations at the mall, this could be any time of the year, really. But it’s a Christmas movie at that. The action is pretty good, as are the tornado sequences, and therefore, as I said, it does catch your interest, and it’s bound to keep you watching. It’s not really a classic, but it’s good enough for what it sets out to be. I found it entertaining, and something different for this time of year. I’m getting weary of all the Christmas romance movies and this was a refreshing change of pace!

Here is the link to the home page for this film from ION TV.