Ed's Review Dot Com

JoBro Productions & Film Finance, Myriad Pictures,

Bailee Madison, French Stewart, Kolton Stewart, Luke Bilyk, Scott Thompson, Naomi Snieckus, Sara Waisglass, Jennifer Robertson, Arnold Pinnock, Darrin Baker, Sabryn Rock, Sandy Jobin-Bevans, Natalie Ganzhorn, Ethan Pugiotto, Darren Eisnor

Holiday Joy is the story of a young lady named Joy (Bailee Madison), who is frustrated with life. She has two brothers and is being cared for by her single Dad who is very timid and not a very good father. Joy is very shy, but really nuts over the cute boy in class, and talks endlessly to her best friend who lives next door and has tons of money and great parents. Joy is really jealous of that life. But when she is injured in an accident, she magically wakes up to find that she’s now lives next door and is a volleyball legend in high school and very popular. The boy she had a crush on is madly in love with her and can’t let her out of his sight. Everything looks perfect, but as Joy is soon to find, the new life has its cost too, and things are not exactly how she dreamed it would be.

Bailee Madison has grown up a bit and is quite the young lady. You may remember her as the young Snow White in the TV show Once Upon a Time, or from many other projects that’s she’s done. She is a really good actress, and has been for years, but this is the first time I’ve seen her in a more grown up role. She’s able to handle the coming of age drama pretty well. This is kind of a “Freaky Friday” movie, and that makes sense as it’s a FreeForm TV movie. FreeForm is the weird new name that ABC Family (formerly Fox Family) is using these days, and is a Disney station. They do the 25 Days of Christmas thing every year in December, and though it’s mostly known for reruns of the classic TV Christmas shows and movies that Disney owns or has rights to, but this is an original movie. It was different in that Joy didn’t change places with someone else, she just changed it up and became a daughter in a new family with a new home address. The film is really mostly for teens and near teens, and is well suited to them with some of the more childish stuff that goes on. Some of the jokes and gags are pretty juvenile for adults and older teens, but it is a Christmas movie and was entertaining just the same. Not sure how many times it will be replayed, but it’s worth watching as it’s a clever story that teaches the lesson of appreciating what you have.

If you have Cable or Dish service, you can use this link to watch on-line at freeform.go.com.

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UPTV Network, Johnson Production Group,

Leah Cudmore, Niall Matter, Lochlyn Munro, Lisa Whelchel, Michael Tiegen, Gracyn Shinyei

Claire (Leah Cudmore) is a professional figure skater who finished Second last season due to an injury, but has her heart set on first place in the golds. But her Achilles tendon is causing her a lot of pain, so her coach sends her to a rehabilitation clinic where she can recover quickly. While she’s there, she keeps running into the local storekeeper, handyman, and former professional hockey play (Niall Matter) and the two hit it off very well. He has a little girl who is a big fan of Claire and as her Mother (Lisa Welchel) and her coach show up to help her, Claire’s Mom tries to slow her down, and the coach is intense on getting her back on the ice and into training. As time passes Claire starts to look closely at her life, and her dream of the gold, and has to determine what is most important to her in the long run.

This is a new 2016 Premier Christmas movie from UP TV. UP has a reputation for bringing uplifting films and this is one of those. Claire is a bit spoiled, but part of it is her intense desire to please her Father. The little girl is the key to opening Claire up to a better way of life. There is a lot of good stuff going on here. The small town in the mountain setting is very nice. The Christmas setting if really beautiful, and there’s a bit of really good figure skating here too. Not a total skating movie, but there’s enough of it to keep it interesting. I enjoyed this movie and thought it was very well done.

Click here for the UPTV web page for this movie.

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Hybrid LLC,

Abigail Hawk, Chevy Chase, David O’Donnell, Howard Hesseman, Zack Ward, Gerald Webb, Ben Giroux, Meredith Thomas, Mary-Kate O’Connell

Riley Thomas (Abigail Hawk) is an up-and-comer at her retail conglomerate, but her boss, Preston Bullock (Chevy Chase) sends her to Vermont to close down one of their subsidiaries OutWear, just a few days before Christmas. But things change as she begins to get to know the employees, especially the manager Wyatt Davis (David O’Donnell) who is very handsome and good looking, and Nick Harper (Howard Hesseman) who is the former owner of the company. As she learns the importance of the small company to the life of the town, and gets closely involved with Wyatt, it’s becoming harder and harder to do the task she was sent up there to perform.

Another in a slew of Christmas movies based on the little company supports the whole town and they have a long history in a sweet town that is full of the holiday spirit, but when the evil parent company sends the boy/girl to shut them down, the person falls in love with the little town and tries to find a way to fix it. Yeah I admit there are decades full of these stories. But this one has a couple extras that make it unique. First is Chevy Chase who plays the evil company boss who wants to shut them down and turn a profit on selling the scraps. Chevy is a special kind of actor who is able to spit out the one liners without any effort and with no reaction which is hysterical. He also has sarcastic wit that resonates with me quite a bit. Chevy has a small role, but has some really funny moments. Then there’s another guy who’s much the same in the kind of humor he has, and that’s Howard Hesseman. You’ll remember him from WKRP in Cincinnati, and he is also a pleasure to watch. His performance in “Crazy for Christmas” has been shown year after year after year on TV. In this film, he is the guy who started the little company years ago and who pops back in to try to save his original vision. He also adds a lot of fun to the movie. All in all it is very entertaining and much better that I ever expected it to be. The leads in the cast are pretty good, and hold the film together and keep it moving. It’s a nice little film and well worth adding to your watch list.

Here is the ION Television web page for this film.

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Cantinas Entertainment,

Christian Kane, Marley Shelton, Mallory James Mahoney, Ernie Hudson and Ryan McPartlin

Billy (Christian Kane) and Maire (Marley Shelton) Taylor are a couple that have been married for a half dozen years or so. They are having troubles and two very different prayers are sent to heaven. Maire prays that Billy will accept the divorce favorably and Billy prays that somehow Maire will hang on. A little angel Taylor (Mallory James Mahoney) goes AWOL from heaven to answer their prayers but the task is much more difficult that her little mind can fathom as though at first it seems things are going well, old problem resurface and Taylor is called back home before she can complete her self-assigned mission.

This heart-warming movie is very, very sweet, so be forewarned if you’re not a fan of sugar and honey. The copule is not in good shape, and the littlest angel who comes down to experience life as a family is a real charmer. This little girl did suh an excellent job in her role, and is quite an amazing actor. Billy is an artist, and perhaps the creativeness in him causes him to be overly optimistic. As for what Maire wants, I’m not really sure. Perhaps she just wants someone with a little more ambition. They have serious differences and are really not quite ready to make nice just yet. The morals of this story are really simple. Families are forever. Lifetime seems to have given up trying to match Hallmark in the Christmas movie role, and this is the first of the Lifetime movies this year. There seem to be only a couple, and tghough Hallmark has two channels running Christmas movies day and night, the Lifetime Christmas films this year seem few and far between. But this particular one is a really good one, and I give them credit for the quality. Catch this one if you want a real feel good holiday film. The ending is a bit of a shock, and the last 15-20 minutes is really awesome.

Here is the mylifetime.com page for this film.

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Johnson Production Group,

Michelle Morgan, Tim Reid, Stephen Huszar, Roger Dunn, Alison Brooks, Peter Michael Dillon, Krista Morin

Sarah Wright (Michelle Morgan) is a big city attorney who moves back to her childhood home after quitting her job just as she was about to become partner because of some moral value differences with the partners. Her plan is to open her own law office back home. Her neighbor, Dale Landis (Tim Reid) has put up a Christmas Tree on the peak of his roof every year since Sarah was a little girl, and it’s again a town ordinance, so every year Dale spends in Christmas as he refuses to remove it. This year is no exception, but a brand new prosecutor John Keaton (Stephen Huszar) is set on proving Dale is crazy and having him locked up. Judge Conner (Roger Dunn) can’t figure out what to do, so he sets Sarah and John to working together to figure out a solution to the problem when Dale once again refuses to remove the tree, but no one knows why.

This UPTV 2016 Premier is a heartfelt story of an unfriendly and very lonely guy just doing what he does without talking to anyone. No one in town knows why, but he just does his thing. This story has strong family values and good moral lessons and is a rather unique and different type of story. It’s very entertaining and the characters are very good. The story is unraveled slowly and wraps up nicely in the end. We are given little bits and pieces of the story until we’re finally able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. This was a really good film from UP TV and one that I recommend to watch when you can. Very enjoyable.

Here is the UPTV web page for this 2016 premier film.

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