Ed's Review Dot Com

Monogram Pictures,

Ashley Scott, Patrick Muldoon, Kip Pardue, George Hamilton, Shelley Long, Mo Gaffney, Essence Atkins, Jerry Lacy, Susan Olsen, Wink Martindale

Pat (Patrick Muldoon) and Maya (Ashley Scott) both work for a large pet supplier. They are completely opposite. Maya has recently broken up with her long time boyfriend, and Pat is the owner’s son. The two of them are sent out on a cross country journey with Scoots the dog mascot of the company and a major celebrity himself. Company owner Max (George Harrison) may have ulterior motives for sending them out together, but little does Maya know, but her ex is chasing them as fast as he can to try to win her back.

This is one of those road trip movies where everything that can go wrong, does. Pat and Maya are like oil and water and are at each others throats the whole time. So naturally we know that sparks are going to fly one way or the other. This is not a really specific Christmas movie, theme-wise, but it does have lots and lots of snow and bad weather, and it does take place over the holidays. Scoots is a prop, and though he’s a really cute little Jack Russell Terrier, he doesn’t have much to do here other than act as a key to getting into all the places where dogs are not allowed. This is a pretty funny film. Patrick Muldoon is pretty funny in a Steve Gutenberg sort of way. Ashley Scott, on the other hand, is the uptight, always do right way, so they really irritate each other. The movie is light and funny and no problem to watch, but it’s not anything groundbreaking here. It’s very familiar. But it is out on DVD and is a different Christmas movie that you probably haven’t seen before. It’s worth watching, but it’s not really necessary to go searching for this one. Just a mildly humorous story of a long trip across the country by two people who both love and hate each other.

[Here is the ION television page for this movie]

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Nitelite Entertainment, Muse Entertainment Enterprises,

Jennie Garth, Cameron Mathison, Mary Kay Place

Melody (Jennie Garth) is a high powered retail developer who is sent to her little hometown to make plans to build a department store. While visiting the home they are buying on the lot where they are building the store, she sees her ex whom she left when she went to the city. While checking out the location, some building materials fall and hit her on the head and puts her in the hospital. But when she wakes up, she is in an alternate life where she stayed and married the guy. She still remembers her old life, and now takes the side of the townsfolk against the people planning to tear down this old house.

Jennie Garth is pretty good in this role that many have played before in one story or another. The “wake up in an alternate reality” has been done over and over again. This one isn’t any better, but darn it, it’s just as good as the others too. It’s now done with new people in a new location, with new twists and turns, so I really enjoyed watching this film. Granted, this is not my favorite of this genre. [Click here to see my review of Comfort and Joy which is my favorite!] This is a new ABC Family produced movie for 2013. The story is rather predictable, although the way they handle the reality jumps is rather unique and makes it rather interesting. There is a great deal of humor that adds a lot to the story, and the things she remembers from her “other” life adds a lot of ammo against the evil corporation. All in all it’s a cute Christmas themed romantic comedy which is well worth catching on ABC Family if you can. This movie will be replayed on ABC Family on Wednesday 12/18/2013 – 7:00am on ABC Family. It’s one of the more enjoyable of the new 2013 films I’ve seen so far, and if you have a chance to watch it or set the DVR, this is a decent holiday film. I recommend it.

[There is not a home page per se, but here is a site with a lot of info about this film.]

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Chesler/Perlmutter Productions,

Lindy Booth, Melanie Brown, Robin Dunne, Casper Van Dien, Matt Baram, Naomi Snieckus

Cherie Jameson (Lindy Booth) is a Librarian in a small town where a corporation wants to close down the library, tear it down, and develop the project. Cherie wants to save the library at all costs, but cannot convince the son of the wealthy developer to save the library, so she decides to hold a contest where people decorate a tree according to a theme that they choose, and they will be displayed at the library until Christmas when a winner will be chosen by the developer’s grandmother, in an attempt to change his mind and save the library in this Lifetime Christmas movie/romance.

This is a delightfully different Christmas movie from Lifetime. It was unexpectedly charming. One of the minor roles is played by Melanie Brown aka. Mel B, who is very devilish and full of dirty tricks to try to rig the contest. The town is very charming, and the characters are very likable. Each of the themes for the tree is really special, as there was a lot of dedication spent in writing the back stories for each of the decorators and why they chose the things they chose to represent what is important to them. Meanwhile, the story is strong and the leads are really good. All in all this was a refreshing story, quite original in many ways (although there is only so much you can do with a Christmas movie after all) and it was pleasure to watch this. It will be repeated throughout the season and is also available on-line from Lifetime and from Amazon via streaming. There’s no excuse to see this one!

[Click here for the home page at Lifetime for this film]

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Animation,

Charles Nelson Reilly, Lacey Chabert, Joseph Ashton, Raphael Sbarge, Cathy Cavadini, Christopher Plummer, Susan Silo, Bronson Pinchot, James Belushi, Lindsay Schnebly

It’s only two days till Christmas and the largest order for toys ever has arrived in Toyland where the factory to build the toys for Santa exists. Mean old Barnaby (Christopher Plummer) is a scrooge like old man who hates Christmas and has plans to shut it down for good. The characters from Mother Goose live in Toyland, and with the help of Jack and Jill (Joseph Ashton and Lacey Chabert) and Humpty Dumpty (Charles Nelson Reilly) they set out to defeat Barnaby and keep the toy factory open.

This MGM animation release was intended for a theatrical run, but due to the failure of All Dogs Go to Heaven, it was determined instead to send this straight to video. Unfortunately Disney did a live action version of this story that flopped rather historically. Perhaps the worst flop in Walt’s history, this didn’t do too well. I tried watching the Disney version several times, and found it truly difficult to watch. Fortunately, this animated telling of the story is really well done. Much more interesting than the Disney one, the animation is really good, and the story is much more interesting. I felt that this was really well done, and I get the story a lot better than I ever did from the other version. This story is clear and concise, and I see what they were going for. Barnaby is a great villain is who just hates toys. Very well drawn and concisely told, this is a good version to watch if you’d really like to watch a story of Mother Goose’s characters come to life.

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Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios,

Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Jaimie Alexander, Zachary Levi, Ray Stevenson, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgård, Rene Russo, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

In a flashback we learn that thousands of years ago a race called the Dark Elves were defeated by the forces of Asgard when they tried to turn the Nine Realms dark using a weapon called Aether. Because Aether cannot be destroyed, they hid it far from the Dark Elves who were banished, but they’ve found it again and plan to use it at the line of the line up of all nine realms and turn the realms dark this time. Odin (Anthony Hopkins) and the forces of Asgard do not have the power to defeat them this time, so Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) must try to work together to try to turn the Dark Elves away and save all the realms. Meanwhile, Jane (Natalie Portman) has found an anomaly much like the one that originally brought Thor to Earth, and while investigating it, she disappears.

I really felt this was a great film. I thoroughly enjoyed the first Thor film, and I think I enjoyed this one just as much if not a bit more. We know the characters better this time, and we’ve seen Thor, Odin, and Loki in other films as well. So now that we know them, we find out about how the Nine Realms were saved originally, and we receive a very suspenseful battle between the Dark Elves and the forces for good. The cinematography is fantastic, and the sets are remarkable. But the action is intense, and it has great battle scenes that are very intense. I really enjoyed this second Thor film and I’m glad I got my lazy butt out to the theater to see this one on the big screen. The acting is good, and it was really a suspenseful roller-coaster ride all the way thorough. Obviously the action is intense in the last half, but the first half gives us so much background on what is happening without giving us all the secrets that it’s very intense and interesting to try to figure out what’s going on with the strange things that are happening. As many of you know, I’m typically not a big fan of comic book/superhero type movies, but this series really impressed me. I enjoyed it very much, and highly recommend it for action/adventure fans all over.

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