Ed's Review Dot Com

Sandbar Pictures, Silver Screen Pictures,

Desiree Ross, Megyn Price, Mary Kay Place, Preston Bailey, Brian McNight, Dolly Parton, Ross McCall

Grace (Desiree Ross) is a young half white, half black girl who lives with her Mom (Megyn Price). Her Dad (Brian McNight) is a traveling musician. Grace has a desire to learn music, and is teaching herself to play the guitar when her church choir director convinces her to join Dolly Parton’s contest to find the next new country star. If she is chosen as a contestant, she can travel with her family to Dollywood to perform

This is a rather cute new 2013 Christmas movie. Dolly opens it up and appears at the end, but his is more a story of a young girl’s effort to make sense of why her mom and dad are not together, and how to fix her life. Each member of the family has their own fears and hang-ups and Grace is no exception. With some really good music, and some really decent performances, especially from Desiree who is really good, this is a nice addition to the collection of Christmas Movies on TV. It’s a fast paced movie that keeps you interested throughout and was very enjoyable to watch. I really enjoyed seeing Mary Kay Place again too, playing Grace’s grandmother.

[Click here for the official Lifetime page for this movie]

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Reel FX Creative Studios, Smokewood Entertainment Group

Jordana Beatty, Heather Graham, Parris Mosteller, Preston Bailey, Kristoffer Ryan Winters, Garrett Ryan, Jaleel White, Ashley Boettcher, Taylar Hender, Cameron Boyce, Jenica Bergere, Janet Varney

Based on the Judy Moody books by Megan McDonald, Judy (Jordana Beatty) is making plans for an awesome summer. She’s setup a Summer Adventure chart that add points for awesome things like riding the awesome Scream Monster (bonus points for no hands) and such. But her friends have their own things to do, leaving Judy with her brother Stink who’s spending his summer searching for Bigfoot. So Judy does her best to have an awesome summer, but everything she tries turns out bad for her, and zero points. But when Aunt Opal (Heather Graham) comes to babysit them, she is a no holds bar, free spirit, and always up for fun! With Aunt Opal’s help, the summer may not turn out so awful after all.

This is definitely a kids film. Unlike some others, there’s not a lot for adults here. Generally though, the pre-teen crowd ought to just love this film. I found it mildly entertaining, but rate it highly because I think it is great fun for the intended audience. They really did a good job bringing these characters to life, and like Ramona and Beezus, this film will resonate with the younger kids. IT’s well done, and does have a sense of fun and adventure (and disappointment) that is fun to watch. I highly recommend this for your kids, especially girls, and I know they’ll love it if they haven’t already seen it.

If you don’t have kids to watch this with, then it might not be much fun to try to watch it as a grown up, as I doubt we’ll catch the humor that the kids do. But for the younger viewers, this is a must see.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog