Christmas Movie Reviews # 4

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER - CHRISTMAS MIRACLE (2012)

In the small town of Summit View there is a snowstorm blowing through on Christmas Eve.
It’s so severe the roads are almost deserted apart from a group of vehicles that become stranded on a remote road on the outskirts of town.
The occupants of the stranded cars take refuge in a nearby abandoned church.
James Mason (Aaron Pearl), is an ex-priest, who following the death of his wife and child is running away from his life and his vocation.
Darryl (George Canyon), is a Dyslexic EMT who dreams of becoming a doctor but believes that dream will never materialize.
Drake (David Nykl) and Madeleine (Lori Triolo) are a wealthy married couple whose marriage and its problems all revolve around money.
Nick (Randal Edwards) and Christy (Siobhan Williams) are newlyweds who have only been married for three days and have done nothing but argue
Joe Wells (Dan Payne) is the only local and is separated from his wife Mary (Allison Hossack), largely because of their differing views on how to manage their autistic son, Matt (Valin Shinyei) who runs away from his babysitter and walks through the storm to the church under his own steam.
Together the group must learn how to manage through the various dilemmas they face by working together.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER - THE NIGHT BEFORE THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

The Night Before The Night Before Christmas is a crazy Christmas fantasy for all the family, brimming with festive spirit.
Santa (R.D. Reid) sets off on his Christmas duties a day early, but ends up crashing into the Fox family's house where he not only loses his memory but also his magic sack of presents.
If ever Santa needed help it was now but the modern and broken Fox family are scarcely up to the task.
The parents Angela (Jennifer Beals) and Wayne (Rick Roberts) are preoccupied with work and the kids Toby (Gage Munroe) and Hannah (Rebecca Williams) aren't particularly festive.
But the clock is ticking so it's up to them to help Santa find his magical bag of toys and or Christmas will be ruined so they are forced to set their own petty problems aside and work together and rediscover how much they enjoy being together and realise that maybe they need to reprioritise their lives.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – LUCKY CHRISTMAS

Holly Caroni (Elizabeth Berkley) is a terminally unlucky single mother and wonders if her luck will ever change but as Christmas approaches she buys a lottery ticket.
And her luck does appear to change when she wins a million dollars but she is soon brought down to earth when she realises her winning lottery ticket is in the glove compartment of her recently stolen car.
Harmless construction workers Joe (Mike Bell) and Mike (Jason Gray-Stanford) are behind the theft of the Holly’s car at the end of a drunken evening.
So Mike comes up with a master plan to befriend Holly so he can return the ticket discreetly but he unexpectedly falls in love with Holly and learns there are more important things in life than quick money in time for the holidays.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – DECK THE HALLS (2006)

Optometrist Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick) loves the all the Christmas family traditions he has developed over the years in the town of Cloverdale, Massachusetts.
In fact he is a bit obsessive about it and has a schedule of activities for his wife Kelly (Kristin Davis) and children Madison (Alia Shawkat) and Carter (Dylan Blue) starting on December 1st.
Steve is proud to be the go to guy for anything Christmas related in the town at Christmas.
Then the Halls move in to the house across the street and they are cut from very different cloth.
Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito) is a salesman who can sell anything and soon becomes the new go to guy in town for all things Christmas.
His wife Tia (Kristin Chenoweth) and twin daughters Ashley and Emily (Kelly and Sabrina Aldridge) quickly become friends with their counterparts in the Finch household but Steve and Buddy are soon butting heads.
Which only gets worse when Buddy becomes obsessed with decorating his house with so many lights that it will be visible from space.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – JINGLE ALL THE WAY

Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a salesman for a mattress company and is very busy with his job and constantly lets down his son, so with Christmas coming he is determined to get him the must have toy for Christmas which is an action figure of his son's television hero, Turbo Man.
Unfortunately for Howard, he leaves it until Christmas Eve and every store is sold out of Turbo Man figures so Howard has to schlepp all over town and compete with every other tardy father including a mail man named Myron Larabee (Sinbad) to find a Turbo Man action figure.
A great slapstick free for all ensues and climaxes at the Wintertainment parade which will feature Turbo Man himself.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – MR MIRACLE

On his first time in human form a trainee Guardian Angel Harry Mills (Rob Morrow) has to pose as an English teacher to help a young woman, Addie Folsom (Britt Irvin) to find the confidence to change her life before Christmas.
If he fails Harry can say goodbye forever to his own Earthly existence.
Along the way he’s got a lot to learn about life as a human with the help of his seasoned heavenly mentor, Celeste (Michelle Harrison).
After her father’s sudden passing, Addie is living with her mom Sharon (Sarah-Jane Redmond), while attempting to finish her degree.
The important story revolves around her childhood nemesis and neighbour, Erich (Andrew Francis).
As Harry bumbles his way along as her teacher he constantly comes up against the principle Mr. Conceito (Malcolm Stewart) with amusing results.
And while helping Addie to see the wonderful things she can’t see in herself while learning a few life lessons of his own along the way.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT

I would have to admit that this is not a conventional Christmas tale but it is a rather good one nonetheless.
Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) is mother to 8 year old daughter Caitlin (Yvonne Zima) living in Honesdale, PA.
Samantha has a job teaching school and a boyfriend and is singularly unremarkable but for the fact that she had no memory of her life before she awoke from a coma eight years earlier.
But when she received a bump on her head in a car accident she begins to remember small parts of her previous life.
Along with a bargain basement private investigator, Mitch (Samuel L. Jackson) she digs deeper.
As a result she remembers more and more of her previous life until finally she finds out she is really Charly Baltimore a deadly assassin.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – DEFENDING SANTA

Sheriff Scott Hanson (Dean Cain) is responding to the report of a broken down vehicle on Christmas Eve and stumbles upon a sleeping Santa in the snowy woods.
Kris Kringle (Bill Lewis) then spends nearly a year in a coma and when he awakes he is put on trial to defend his identity before he can find his sleigh and get back to the North Pole.
With Christmas in doubt the small ski resort town has to learn to "believe" and Sheriff Hanson, a dad and widower, begins to fall for Santa's court-appointed defence attorney, Sarah (Jud Tylor).

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – ARTHUR CHRISTMAS

Arthur Christmas is the animated tale about Santa's clumsy son Arthur.
Contrary to Popular belief it turns out that Santa’s North Pole operation isn’t just a handful of artisan elf’s and a fat guy in a red suit making toys its actually an exhilarating ultra-high-tech operation hidden beneath the North Pole and run by the Christmas family.
And it’s a family business although it’s a family in a constant state of comic dysfunction and clumsy Arthur turns out to be an unlikely hero who gets put on an urgent mission with his father that must be completed before Christmas morning dawns and that mission is to give out a present they misplaced to a young girl in less than 2 hours.
Arthur is voiced by James McAvoy, with Jim Broadbent and Imelda Staunton as his parents, Hugh Laurie as his brother Steve and Bill Nighy as Grand Santa although my favourite was Bryony and the vocal talents of Ashley Jensen.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – CRAZY FOR CHRISTMAS

On Christmas Eve, Shannon McManus-Johnson (Andrea Roth) a chauffeur and single mother, has to leave her son Trevor (Jason Spevack) with a babysitter as she is stuck driving around a wealthy and eccentric client Fred Nickells (Howard Hesseman) who is giving away large sums of money, literally throwing dollars in the air wherever he goes.
The rich man’s actions obviously attract the attentions of the media and as the story proceeds, conflict ensues after a reporter Peter Archer (Yannick Bisson) interviews Fred and we learn a secret he has been keeping for a long time.