Beware the Schlock!
Holiday movies
(Hallmark Channel)
Admittedly, I’m a sucker for bad movies and, it turns out, bad TV. Case in point: On Thanksgiving, as I settled back to digest the bird, I watched what turned out to be the most boring TV ever: a five-hour film showing miles of desolate scenery, captured by a camera mounted on top of an Alaskan train. Not exactly gripping entertainment, but somehow I survived (for three out of the five hours).
I was definitely in the mood for some holiday fare.
Three days later, while waiting in the autograph line at the recent Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert, I was enthralled by a kiosk advertising the latest Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. “17 New Movies for the Holidays,” it proclaimed. No idle boast that. The stream of quick trailers that followed, however, gave the unmistakable impression that Hallmark had produced one movie and then replicated it a nauseating 16 times. Could anyone tell the difference between A Christmas Detour and Christmas Incorporated? Between Ice Sculpture Christmas or I’m Not Ready for Christmas?
Hmmm, where to begin? Let’s see … here’s Just in Time for Christmas, highlighted by a clip of William Shatner with a hokey elf beard. I’m sold! When I get home, I dig in: Small-town girl Lindsay (Eloise Mumford) lives the perfect life. Everybody in her circle of friends is so sugar-plum sweet it would even make Norman Rockwell heave. But then on the same day that her boyfriend, Jason (Michael Stahl-David), the local coffee shop owner, proposes she gets a once-in-a-lifetime job offer from an Ivy League college thousands of miles away. What to do? At this point a mysterious coachman appears in a horse and buggy (Yes! It’s Captain Kirk!) and offers her a ride. She accepts and is unwittingly transported three years into the future (this plot may sound familiar). She is now a successful author and professor, but has no memory of the past three years and it turns out her former beau has moved on. Worst. Christmas. Ever.
This movie moves slower than a snorkler through figgy pudding. Christopher Lloyd pops up as Lindsay’s grandfather and delivers the film’s only good line. When she asks how it could be that she doesn’t remember three years of her life, Lloyd says, “Time travel” with a (heh heh) wink. However, Back to the Future this ain’t.
Hefty Shatner returns, and suddenly Lindsay is back where she started. She accepts Jason’s proposal “just in time for Christmas.” A bell tinkles as Shatner gets his wings (OK, that doesn’t happen).
A glutton for punishment, I went on to watch Northpole: Open for Christmas, starring Lori Loughlin (Becky of Full House fame) as Mackenzie, an older woman who must choose between a job offer or staying with her craggy handyman boyfriend (is there a pattern developing here?) and then considered watching A Christmas Melody starring Mariah Carey. At this point, I had to put my elf foot down to save myself from falling into a Hallmark coma. Get me back on that Alaskan train to nowhere so I can wake up and get some sleep. Happy holidays!•
Majkowski writes a monthly column, “Blaise’s Bad Movie
Review,” for Hampshire Life. Check it out at gazettenet.com.
