Ed's Review Dot Com

Muse Entertainment,

Susie Abromeit, Dillon Casey, Erin Gray, Neil Crone, Rebecca Dalton, Siobhan Murphy, Randal Edwards, Rachel Wilson, Patrice Goodman, Romaine Waite, Peter DaCunha, Amariah Faulkner, Caleb Marshall, Chris Gillettm, Chris Farquhar

Newlyweds, Steve (Dillon Casey) and Cynthia Faber (Susie Abromeit) are spending their first Christmas together. Thought Cynthia is responsible for the town Christmas pageant, and Steve is an up and coming attorney, they pair have a definite desire to plan everything. They have a 10 year plan for their lives, and they are even planning to have the family home for A Perfect Christmas as well. But major things happen in their personal lives, just as the family begins to arrive. But once they start showing up, nothing goes as planned and the two are so busy dealing with one crisis after another that neither one tells the other what has happened to turn their lives upside down. As people arrive and things continue to go worng at every turn, it begins to be a huge dark cloud over their heads knowing that they are going to have to tell each other sooner or later.

The story goes that a department store in Australia “invented” the holiday Christmas in July. It was a no brainer there as in the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are opposite of the Northern Hemisphere and July is very cold and snowy and fits the season very well. They do celebrate the holiday on December 25th though, the same as the rest of the globe. It became very popular in the US in 1940 when the movie “Christmas in July” was released. The first time I heard of it was when I was a child, and my Uncle who lived across the country in Arizona came back to Pittsburgh in the middle of July and my Grandmother declared “Christmas in July and put up her tree and all the decorations. I can remember the fun of sitting around the piano and listening to everyone singing Christmas carols when it was 80 degrees outside. The Hallmark Channel every year shows their original Christmas films early every year when July arrives, and this year they rolled out a brand new premier film “A Perfect Christmas”. I am sure this film will be around again this December, so you’ll get a chance to see it if you miss it this summer, but I caught it. Hallmark has another reason for Christmas in July as well. That is the time the release next year’s 2016 Christmas Ornaments to the stores. A Perfect Christmas was a nice enough little Christmas film, and I was impressed with it. The acting was pretty good, and it was a really nice story. It had the fun of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation which is a staple being shown all year round on some channel or another, but also has the romance and love story of a newlywed couple where they are trying to build a life of their own, really want to share with their families, but need some time to work things out. There are problems everywhere, but they still show us how to come together and work things out and make the best of all the bad situations that arrive. It’s warm, cute, and very touching. This is just a little made for TV, but very well done, and worthy of the Hallmark label. Merry Christmas in July everyone, and see you after Halloween with the new Christmas movies for 2016.

Here is the web page for the Hallmark Channel for this film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Lancom Entertainment, Monogram Pictures (II),

Patrick Muldoon, Dina Meyer, Ian Ziering, Bill Cobbs, David Chokachi, Erin Gray, Kirstin Dorn, Devin Lawrence

Joe (Patrick Muldoo) and Jessica (Dina Meyer) Brady are a soon to be divorced couple with two kids. Joe has been offered a position in Los Angeles and decides to take it, tearing the family apart further. The kids decide it’s time to get the family back together again, so when they find out that Mom is going to Palm Springs on a business trip with her boss, and bringing the kids, they make a fake call on their Dad’s behalf to get his meeting moved to Palm Springs as well, setting the two up without their knowledge for a Christmas in Palm Springs.

Well, UP TV brings us another “kids trying to get the parents back together again Christmas film. For some reason swimming pools and cactus don’t get me in the Christmas spirit nearly as much as snow covered cabins in Colorado and fir trees covered in snow. Perhaps that’s why I have a grudge against the hot weather Christmas movies before they even start. Perhaps I’m being too harsh on this movie for that bias, but it is a romantic comedy with kids and Christmas, and I guess that’s what they are shooting for. Christmas in Palm Springs has all the cliche moments that every movie of this genre has, and I guess we know how it’s going to end up. One thing that was rather interesting is that the tricks Walt Disney and Haley Mills used 50 years ago in The Parent Trap like late night secret phone calls and pranks on the unsuspecting fiance of Brian Keith are replaced by very high tech modern tricks, but they still have the same results. We’ve come a long way technology-wise, but human nature is still the same. The problem with this film is that the script is pretty shabby. I hesitate to blame the actors, because they can only work with what they have, and it seemed like they needed a 2 hour time slot for a holiday movie, and they just started shooting. They spent so much time on the hotels and the Palm Springs location, that they forgot to put an ending on the story, so they rushed through it in like 10 minutes. Be careful about taking a bathroom break near the end or you could come back with no idea how it all got resolved. This was one of the most rushed endings I’ve seen. Perhaps the biggest complaint is that it doesn’t seem to feel like it fits in the UP TV network list of “uplifting” programs. In the end, you don’t find it very uplifting and there is very little purpose in all the effort. I really didn’t care whether they got back together or not, as this couple was so unpleasant that the kids might be better off with some fresh blood. I was thinking foster care might be better for them than this family! It’s not a very good “holiday” film I’m afraid.

[Here’s the home page with the info on Christmas in Palm Springs].