Ed's Review Dot Com

Hallmark Movies & Mysteries,

Maggie Lawson, Brennan Elliott, Art Hindle, Tracey Hoyt, Mercedes de la Zerda, Mika Amonsen, Sherry Miller, Sabryn Rock, David Tompa, Erin Agostino, Bea Santos, Joy Tanner, Murray Furrow, Marie Dame, Mélanie St-Pierre

Charlotte Lacy (Maggie Lawson) is a struggling actress. She scores a part in the the local theater groups performance of “A Christmas Carol” and is really enjoying it. As she builds a close relationship with the director, Julian Walker (Brennan Elliott) things look like things are going to be great, when they learn that the theater is about to lose it’s lease and the theater is going to have to close. This spawns the ideas of how they can save the theater. What they need is a Christmas Miracle.

This is a very average Holiday film. Nothing is particularly earth shattering, but it’s a nice little movie. Maggie Lawson is very well equipped to pull off this film and is very lovely and quite talented. The chemistry between the two is memorable. On a holiday cheer scale, it’s pretty well up there. When the announcement is made that “The Christmas Carol” will be their last performance, the movie gets serious as they band together to try to save the old theater. This is just what a Christmas movie is supposed to be like, so if you aren’t burned out with Holiday cheer, this is a good middle ground Christmas movie. It’s not overly sappy and sentimental, nor does it try to twist and turn you head around to figure out what’s up. It’s just a straight forward holiday film that you can just relax and enjoy.

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The Hallmark Channel,

Bonnie Somerville, Brennan Elliott, Madison Brydges, Precious Chong, Richard Waugh, Graham Scott Fleming, Sadie LeBlanc, Andre Richards, Miku Graham, Derek Scott

Maddie Duncan (Bonnie Somerville) is a high powered east coast executive who is afraid to fly. She is invited to her biggest client’s wedding in Colorado, but fortunately is able to get her brother’s classic car to make the drive to Colorado in time. But unfortunately the car breaks down in the little mid-west town of Christmas Valley which is the most Christmas loving town of the century, much to Maddie’s chagrin. But as the problems pile up, she meets a really kind family who work hard to change her disdain for the Holidays.

This is another Hallmark Christmas movie for 2017. This one appeared during their Christmas in July celebration last summer. This is a very derivative, but exceeding sweet Christmas story that has it all. The town is called Christmas Valley as the founder’s last name was Christmas, but the citizens of this little town really embrace the season. This has the semi-gruff marketing executive who doesn’t belive in Christmas with the broken down car, stranded in a town full of Christmas Spirit. It has the Christmas loving Boarding House lady and the eclectic boarders. Most of all there’s the lovely family with a single Dad, Kevin (Brennan Elliott) and his extremely cute daughter who pushes her Dad into finding her a new Mom. Yes, this is the most common Christmas story of all, but it’s very well done with really fabulous acting, and so it’s a nearly perfect holiday film. They are all true to the genre, and it moves along like frosted egg nog and a slice or two of pumpkin pie in front of a crackling fire. Fortunately for us, cars never break down in a dirty smoky city with people who hate the holidays. Of course I guess this would be a horrible movie. Anyway, there’s nothing new here, but it’s still perfectly delightful, so who cares?

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Hallmark Channel,

Bonnie Somerville, Brennan Elliott, Madison Brydges, Precious Chong, Richard Waugh, Graham Scott Fleming, Sadie LeBlanc, Andre Richards

Maddie Duncan (Bonnie Somerville) is a high powered marketing executive that is afraid of flying. She has to go to Denver for a client wedding, and decides to drive. She’s doing good when her car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Her car is towed to a little garage in the town of Christmas Valley. The car looks like it may take a while to repair, and there is no hotel, so Maddie ends up in a boarding house. While there, she learns to like the other residents living there, and especially one particular guy
Kevin Tyler (Bennan Elliott) who seems intent to teaching her the important advantages of a small town that really, really loves Christmas.

Another Hallmark 2016 premier Christmas movie. This one is not all that outstanding. The rich guy/girl who gets stranded in a small town and learns to love Christmas has been done over and over again. There is nothing really here that makes this one stand out. It’s entertaining enough, and easy enough to watch, but there’s not much to stand out against all the other ones. The cast in the Boarding House is rather interesting and they are fun to get to know. Bonnie Somerville is a pretty good actress and plays her role pretty well. I guess the premise is a little weak, and there’s not enough momentum in the script to pull it off. Okay to watch if you find it’s on, but don’t go way out of the way to seek it out. It’s just a average attempt.

Here is the web page for this Hallmark Christmas Movie.

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Universal 1440 Entertainment,

Danielle Bisutti, Jennifer Tilly, Brad Dourif, Fiona Dourif, A Martinez, Maitland McConnell, Brennan Elliott

Nica (Fiona Dourif) has been in a wheelchair her whole life, but she has to rally the family together after her mother dies. But she has received a weird package containing a doll, Chucky (Brad Dourif) who is back for more mayhem and murder. Chucky is back, containing the soul of serial killer Charles Ray, in this continuation of the Child’s Play franchise.

This film goes back to the way Chucky used to be. The Child’s Play series suffered from the same malady that the James Bond franchise did. In the original Bond films, Sean Connery as Bond has some spy gadgets that were pretty cool, but what he did was pretty much escape using his brains and outwit the bad guys with his cunning cleverness. Roger Moore came in and James Bond became dependent on extremely high tech and unlikely gadgets, but turned into a smug one-liner chucking comedian, and was more of a smart ass than a clever gent. It took a while for Bond to come back as the clever distinguished gentleman that we loved, and not so much of a wise guy. Chucky suffered from the same thing. As the movies went along, they got sillier and sillier, and it went way more for comedy and much less for horror. If you go back to the original Child’s Play, Chucky was horrifying. He became more of a clown. It was as if the Scream series had morphed into Scary Movie. Well, this one is much slower, with much less comedy. No doubt about it that Chucky is still a wise ass, but he’s not going for comedy this time, and though it’s a lot slower developing, that helps to build the suspense, and when Chucky gets going, he’s his old self again. This was a good film that needed to get back to roots of what Child’s Play was about before it went to slapstick comedy. I think they accomplished that.

Now there are gangs of Chucky fans who have been with it through the whole long series. I have seen every one. But this was refreshing to go back so much closer to the original. They tied up a few loose ends here too, tying it back to the original. Mrs Chucky is even here too, in a cameo appearance. Suspenseful and dark without getting too deep and losing the fact that this is a doll after all, Curse of Chuck was what was needed for us to get back to our roots and remember why this doll gave us nightmares in the first place!

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