Christmas Movie Reviews # 8

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – SMALL TOWN SANTA

On the eve of Christmas, Rockford County Sheriff Rick Langston (Dean Cain) has lost his holiday spirit.
That isn’t helped when he catches a local man who had stolen the baby Jesus from a Nativity scene in order end up in a warm jail cell.
Later he finds a man at his home and Rick naturally assumes he has broken in even though he looks and acts a lot like Santa Claus.
But he arrests the jolly old man in the red suit anyway and places him in jail with the Nativity thief and then both he and Santa open the sheriff’s eyes to a few things.
Unexpectedly Sheriff Langston then meets a woman who has just moved to Rockford named Lucy Hart (Christine Lakin) and after meeting her and her daughter Alana (Sophie Bolen) he comes to realise that even when you feel that all is lost, love is all around you and that his life promises more than he could have hoped for and he had a renewed belief in the possibility of miracles.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – A FAIRYTALE CHRISTMAS

Appraiser/real estate saleswoman Isabella Everhart (Haylie Duff) is in partnership with her father Rex Everhart (C. Thomas Howell) but he’s not pulling his weight and not for the first time he drops a bombshell in her lap at the last minute, a large estate sale.
So still angry at her father she leave her California hometown in the rear-view mirror, Belle heads north on business to facilitate the estate sale of a mansion and she also put some distance between herself and her old school friend and persistent suitor Tony (Mark Famiglietti).
Despite her displeasure at being let down by her father the job is a dream, the client, Hunter Lowell (Nicholas Gonzalez), however is not, but, as the two spend more time together, his icy demeanour begins to melt.
Although their relationship is budding, Belle's long-time suitor, Tony, arrives, sending mixed signals to Hunter while adding chaos to the holiday season in a Yuletide romantic triangle.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – THE SANTA SUIT

Drake Hunter (Kevin Sorbo) is CEO of Hunter Toys, turned the company he inherited from his father, from a cosy quality manufacturer into a ruthless, uncaring, profit hungry business.
He employed all the production line staff on 39 hour weeks therefore avoiding the need to provide full benefits and he was no better during the holidays he showed his staff no festive generosity, no bonuses or time off.
However he gets the scrooge treatment when he meets who he presumes is one of the store Santa’s, Kris Krandall (Derry Robinson), who magically transforms Drake into a likeness of himself and as no one recognizes him as CEO he is forced to live in a shelter run by Nancy Baxter (Jodie Dowdall) and work as a Santa for Norm Dobson (Jason Blicker) in his toy store, with weird would be-actor Sebastian (Darrell Faria) as his Elf.
While working at the store he meets a quiet young girl called Gemma (Brianna Daguanno) and between his interaction with her and the kind and gentle influence of Nancy at the shelter he reassesses his values and priorities in life.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – THE SANTA INCIDENT

Santa (James Cosmo) has his sleigh shot down while flying through restricted military airspace and he is found unconscious on the railway tracks by two children Daniel (Scott Graham) and Sophia (Ali Lyons),
While lying in hospital in a coma one of the nurses looking after him is the children’s mother Joanna (Ione Skye), but the earthbound Santa is sought for questioning by a pair of overzealous Homeland Security agents.
As a result the fate of Christmas is in the hands of the disbelieving by-the-book duo of Agents, unless their faith in Santa can be restored by two children, their mother, the local sheriff (Jonathan Kerrigan) and a trio of elves who have arrived from the North to help out a friend in need.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – DECK THE HALLS (2011)

Based on the novel by Mary and Cathy Higgins Clark this breezy Christmas mystery thriller in which a female Detective Regan Reilly (Scottie Thompson) hooks up with a lottery winner-cleaning woman-turned amateur sleuth Alvirah Meehan (Kathy Najimy) to investigate the kidnapping of Regan's father Luke Reilly (David Selby) and a young female driver Rosita Alvarado (Luciana Carro) by a man in a Santa suit just before the holidays.
So in this fast moving seasonal thriller, the race is on to rescue the unfortunate pair from the out of character “Santa” kidnapper and get them home in time for Christmas.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – A SNOW GLOBE CHRISTMAS

Meg (Alicia Witt) is a cynical TV exec who thinks the shows she produces mislead people into thinking dreams really can come true.
She is also a terrible Scrooge like boss who uses and abuses her crew, but she meets her match when she encounters Sal (Christina Milian) but that was mainly because she was an Angel.
During a conversation between the two of them Meg tries to smash a snow globe which bounces up and hits her on the head and knocks her out.
When she wakes up she is in the perfect snow-covered town depicted in the snow globe and she has a husband, Ted (Donald Faison) and two children.
Unable to fit into the world that she finds herself in, despite the fact that everyone in town tries to accept her, her negative attitudes eventually impacts on the town folks.
But just as she starts to realize that she likes her snow globe life better than her real one, she returns to reality with another bonk on the head courtesy of Sal, but she is no longer the person she was.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – THE TWELVE TREES OF CHRISTMAS

The Twelve Trees of Christmas strongly echoes the rivalries of "You've Got Mail" or "Two Weeks’ Notice".
Cheri Jamison (Lindy Booth) works at the Shaughnessy Library in Manhattan and she finds out shortly before Christmas that the library is not to reopen after the holiday and is to be demolished to make way for luxury apartments.
She immediately rallies the residents of her beloved Manhattan neighbourhood to fight the closure but finds herself up against an ambitious developer Tony Shaughnessy (Robin Dunne).
Despite her efforts she is thwarted at every turn so decides to get all the patrons of the library to participate in a Christmas tree decorating contest to be judged on Christmas Eve by Rosaleen Shaughnessy (Dawn Greenhalgh).
The process of decorating the trees brings romance to some of the participants including despite their best efforts, Cheri and Tony.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT 2013

Charlotte Hart (Nicollette Sheridan), a distinguished journalist, has moved back to her home town and is living with her brother’s family.
However just before Christmas a real estate developer, Daniel Huntslar (Bart Johnson) approaches the small town with a very lucrative offer.
However Charlotte is sceptical and as she’s a journalist her nose tells her there’s a real scoop, so she drives to see the real estate company boss to question him, however while en route she has a terrible car accident and wakes up in the hospital only to realize that her body is in a coma, but her spirit is very much awake.
She then meets another spirit who just happens to be the greedy developer who was the driver of the other car involved in the crash and he too is in a coma.
In the five days before the big vote on the proposed development Charlotte must try to change the minds of the town’s people as well as her fellow spirit.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – ONCE UPON A HOLIDAY

Katherine (Briana Evigan) is a Royal Princess and is in New York just before Christmas for a series of official engagements.
But she just wants an hour to herself out of her busy schedule to visit an art exhibition.
But when her Aunt Margaret (Jacqueline Samuda), who runs her life, tells her it was not possible and to stop being selfish she escapes her entourage to explore New York anyway and as she is tired of her diamond-studded and privileged life and the royal responsibilities that went along with being a royal princess she decided to take longer than an hour.
But when a pair of street hustlers steal her purse and prised camera, a good Samaritan, a young man called Jack (Paul Campbell) comes to her aid and ends up sweeping her off of her feet when he shows her his side of the city.
And when her true identity is finally revealed it is Jack who arranges for her to view the exhibition unheeded after calling in a favour.
It’s a lovely film in which, Harry (Jay Brazeau) steals the show as Jack’s friend, in this gentle heart-warming Christmas tale.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS MOVIES EVER – A CHRISTMAS PROMISE

Michael Thompson (Patrick Muldoon) is an uptight city accountant who is struggling to raise his teenage daughter Chloe (Mandalynn Carlson) all on his own after his wife’s tragic death.
Being a single parent and having to work long hours Chloe doesn’t see as much of him as she would like which leads to her attention seeking behaviour, so when he gets a call from Cliff Harrison (Rick Herod) to help save their family stables before ruthless bankers shut them down, he wonders if the country life is just what he and Chloe need to start over.
However when Michael arrives to sort out a farm’s financial problems he finds that Cliff's daughter Samantha (Charisma Carpenter) is not as appreciative of his help as rest of the family (Sydney (Dominique Swain), Jackson (Jaren Lewison), and Ben (Billy Tilk)) are for his help.
But as they search for ways to save the family's legacy, Romance develops between the accountant and Samantha while the baddies in the story seem hell bent on acquiring the farms best horse called Holly which is prised by the family as it was Cliff’s deceased wife’s favourite.