Ed's Review Dot Com

The Hallmark Channel,

Erin Krakow, Pascale Hutton, Jack Wagner, Kavan Smith, Martin Cummins, Carter Ryan Evancic, Aren Buchholz, Eva Bourne, Mary Black, Paul Greene, Loretta Walsh, Daniel Lissing, Lori Loughlin, Hrothgar Mathews, Johannah Newmarch

This Christmas Special (2 hours) is actually the first episode of Season 5 of the Hallmark Channel series When Calls the Heart, about a small coal mining town in western Canada in the 1910’s. The town has hardships, but very good people who are happy to help one another. This year, the town develops a new holiday tradition instead of the town Christmas tree in the square, they have erected a Christmas Wishing Tree where the townspeople can take an ornament and write their deepest wish on the back, and hang it on the tree. If the ornament disappears, that means someone is going to make the wish come true. School Teacher Elizabeth Thatcher (Erin Krakow) has one wish, that her husband, a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman can return home from the cold north region to be with her for Christmas. The new town Mayor, Abigail Stanton (Lori Loughlin) has a plan to bring the disgraced former mayor who is in prison, home for the holidays where he can stay in jail overnight, but do community service in the daytime in order to pay back the town for what he stole. All in all, as Christmas comes closer, more and more people get into the spirit to reach out and help someone else so that they can all enjoy the holiday.

When Calls the Heart is a wonderful series with a lot of heart and the goodness of the times a century ago when people were close and really depended on each other. Some weeks ago I reviewed another wonderful Christmas film as a part of the When Calls the Heart series. It is called When Calls the Heart Christmas Movie. [Here is the review for this film.] That was a wonderful film as well, but this one is a lot different. This one has no big disaster or problem facing the town, no pending major crisis, but just a need for everyone to pitch in and help out each other. But as a quality Christmas film, this one stands up every bit as good as the original one. It is a truly special series and a wonderful holiday treat. Be sure to find them both if you can.

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Hallmark Movies & Mysteries

Rachel Boston, Beau Bridges, Bayley Corman, Paul Greene, Hattie Kragten, Michael James Regan

Gabby Messenger is a guardian angel. She has a bad habit of bending the rules a bit, and has been called down by her boss, Michael de Angeles (Beau Bridges) and given a new assignment. This time she’s guardian angel for the entire town of Angel Falls that has suffered badly and lost it’s Christmas spirit. Things have been hard as many folks have moved away, and those that stayed mostly had to find work out of town, and now spend too much time commuting, and everything has gotten worse and worse. It’s a hard challenge for Gabby to try to help the town, especially without breaking the rules, when the town doesn’t seem to want the help anyway. But Gabby is determined whatever it takes, but little does she know what she is missing in herself that may be the real reason for this assignment.

This is a light romantic comedy that has a lot of characters each with their own stories. There are so many side stories going on that it’s really magic to watch as they try to resolve each individual’s problems one by one. This is a typical Christmas angel story of which there are dozens, mostly pretty well done, and the quality of the acting makes it worthwhile, even though it’s naturally similar to lots of other stories. Still I enjoyed it very much and was able to feel involved with all the stories. I found this movie very worthwhile and very glad I put this one on my watch list. Very enjoyable.

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Sodona Entertainment Inc,

Lacey Chabert, Paul Greene, Andrea Brooks, Colleen Wheeler, Kendall Cross

Sara (Lacey Chabert) is an up and coming web designer for an advertising agency whose boss has been stealing her designs and claiming they are his own. She hates confrontation and lets him get away with it, but now it’s too much. At the company Christmas party, when he takes her latest idea, she can’t take it and leaves the party and plans to quit. But on the way out she bumps into Santa who gives her a special card with a gift, a free wish, which will last for 48 hours. Her wish is to be able to speak what is on her mind, and she returns to the party to call out the sleazeball who stole her idea. Before she knows it, she and her boss are on the way to a ski resort to meet the biggest client in company history, and she has to present the idea to the executive even though he’s a real jerk to her.

This is a new Hallmark Christmas Movie and is on their 2016 schedule of new films. Lacey Chabert is really good at these kind of movies. She has a Sandra Bullock kind of girl next door aura around her, and plays this role to a T. There are additional sub plots going on too. Among them, her boss really hates Christmas and is a real Scrooge. Meanwhile he is estranged from his family and a chance meeting with them brings out the “fixer” mode of Sara, and of course there’s a cute romance. This is a typical Hallmark holiday film, but a pretty good one, and a nice movie to wrap your presents by. See it all season on the Hallmark Channel.

Here is the Hallmark Channel webpage for this movie.

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Front Street Pictures, Side Street Post,

Candace Cameron Bure, Paul Greene, Sarah Strange, Alisson Amigo, Mark Brandon, Kaj-Erik Eriksen,
David Lewis, Mackenzie Mowat, Barbara Niven, Edwin Perez, Marcus Rosner, Ingrid Tesch, Andrea Ware, Nelson Wong

Paige Summerlind (Candace Cameron Bure) is a shaky bride-to-be with the perfect fiance. She has yet to meet his parents, and they’re rich and old fashioned, so they’ve scheduled a meeting with her in New York City. But during the flight, the pilot informs them that the New York airports are closed due to a bad winter storm, and so they are diverted to Buffalo. But as soon as the NYC airports reopen, Buffalo is getting hit by the storm of the century. Meanwhile, her seatmate Dylan (Paul Greene) is driving her crazy with his attitude. Turns out he’s had his heart broken not long ago and is anti-relationship. But the only way Paige has a chance of making it to NYC is to hitch a ride in the last available 4-Wheel Drive jeep in Buffalo with Dylan and a bickering couple really down on marriage who are trying to talk her out of it.

Since Dancing With the Stars, Candace Cameron Bure and Danica McKeller have had a little rivalry going. I’m afraid Danica edged her out this Christmas with “Crown for Christmas”. But this “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” for Christmas was pretty good. Last year, Candace blew her away by a mile. Candace has been doing some really great films each year, and is certainly the one star that I look for each Christmas. This film was good, had a lot of humor, and I did enjoy it very much. But it didn’t have the spark that the others had. Still it’s a clever story, and it suits her style. The situation was humorous, and we figured the two would get together in the end. This is my second favorite of the Hallmark films for 2015, and well worth watching. It will be repeated all through the season.

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