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[palmtreepalmtree]

Alright my friends - the twinkly lights are up, the house smells like pine, you've got every manner of red-green-and-gold wrapping paper shoved in a corner - without a doubt it's that time of year: Christmas. As you know, I've been disappointed to see so few entries into the Christmas rom-com genre this year from Netflix, so I've started to explore further afield to find something ripe for your enjoyment.

And now, I'm pleased to present...

The Worst Movies on HBO/MAX/Discovery+/HGTV??? (idefk), Right Now!

As it turns out sometime last year Discovery+ teamed up with MarVista to produce some Christmas romance content with random tie-ins to their FoodNetwork/HGTV network stars. This has created some really... oh, let's just call it interesting content.

I mean... you gotta know from the outset that there's no way these will be good. NO fucking WAY.

FIRST, as a whole, I don't think these movies know what their purpose is. Are they supposed to promote the reality shows of their cameo stars? Are they supposed to give their reality stars an opportunity to flex some acting muscle!? Are they supposed to be *GASP* good stories? NOBODY KNOWS!

SECOND, it's possible that the point of these movies is just to promote the reality show format as like... a concept. But the thing is -- NOT TO FORESHADOW OR ANYTHING -- that comes with some very weird baggage. LIKE SUPER WEIRD.

Let's break these down in round-up style.

The first movie that apparently created the mold* was Candy Coated Christmas (2021) - *pun intended. This vehicle cameos Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, who gets about two minutes of screen time which apparently warrants her this kind of promotional one-sheet placement:

...like okay.

A shocking number of these stories involve people who are in financial peril. In this one, a hotel heiress finds herself on the brink of bankruptcy, and, on daddy's orders, she heads to a small town to evict the peppermint farmer tenants at her family's property who are, you guessed it, on the brink of bankruptcy.

In this movie, the spirit of Christmas (or spearmint gum in this case), is a plan to rescue these two financial catastrophes, oh, and they fall in love. Sure. Why not.

This movie is an empty candy-coated shell of a romance that I can best describe as serviceable. But apparently it was enough of a hit that the rest of the movies followed. So we can blame this candy cane for the Christmas rogering that followed in 2022.

Continuing from worst to most egregious...

A Gingerbread Christmas (2022) - This one cameos that Ace of Cakes dude (no idea his name and not interested in looking it up) who is judging a gingerbread competition that the main character desperately needs to win to save her dead mom's foundering bakery - YES another fucking business in peril.

Her love interest is the general contractor/baker/single dad who has taken up daily residence in the bakery where he is apparently simultaneously working on fixing the place up and also doing all of the baking........?

Yeah, it makes little sense, and yet somehow this is not the worst of the four entries this year.

Both of these actors are people you'll recognize and will have you thinking heyyyyy where is she/he from? (Let me help you out: The Good Place/Reacher). They're fine.

This is fine.

It's just... not going to leave you feeling much of anything. And that's the exact opposite of what these movies are supposed to do. You're not killing me, you're just boring me. There's nothing spicy in this gingerbread, baby! ZING! Nailed 'em.

There's a kind of nice subplot about a new immigrant entering the contest as well, but maybe I have a soft spot in my heart for that. This definitely does not seem like it's going for the same audience as some of the Hallmark movies, but it's also only gesturing at substantive things rather than really delivering anything of substance. Hey guys, did you know that immigrant Muslims can celebrate Christmas too!?

MOVING ON.....

One Delicious Christmas (2022) - Alright... where do I even start here??? Continuing on our theme of struggling businesses, this one slightly breaks the pattern by telling us a story of the owner of a boutique inn who needs to find a new chef for her family business so that she can bring on a financial partner to help ease the strain of her sole ownership.

The cameo in this one is Bobby Flay who comes in as a restaurant critic to comment on the food. Sigh. I know. Look I'm just reporting here, don't harm the messenger.

Alright there are three things here that just drove me completely batty: First, and I hate calling this shit out, but I gotta say the lead actress here has some partial vocal fry thing going on with her voice that is just impossible to watch for an hour and a half. I just wanted to shake her and be like BREATHE THROUGH YOUR CHEST. Fucking hell. It's a trial being me sometimes.

Second, obviously the theme here is cooking, but the whole story is based around the fact that the chef is doing new and risky recipes that the inn owner is nervous her people won't like... but like... the recipes are super basic? Like scalloped potatoes instead of mashed? Lobster bisque!? None of the new menu items read as dangerous or cutting edge -- especially if you watch the Food Network -- SO WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT1?!? Argh, okay.

Last, and this is just a weird thing that probably only I noticed, but like all these movies seemed to go out of their way to do mixed racial castings, which is a good thing, but then they also seem to have not made any adjustments for that in terms of story.

In this one, the love interest/chef is played by a Canadian actor of Filipino ancestry -- but his character name is Preston Weaver. Preston. PRESTON. PRESTON. There are also repeated references in the story to cooking for and with his grandmother, but no mention, not even one, that maybe her cooking wasn't American-style food? I mean, it is perfectly possible for a person to have their family immigrant story have happened so long ago, that even their grandparent doesn't make traditional foods from their country of ethnic origin, but it also seems WEIRD. Like some sort of weird white washing??? idk. Jury is still out on this I guess. I just don't think it would have killed them to reference one Filipino recipe or technique, especially since that's a pretty rich food culture. You know, as compared with making a main plot point that the fucking LOBSTER BISQUE keeps selling out.

(Is there a whiter word than bisque? I don't fucking think so).

I HAVE GONE ON TOO LONG. THE NEXT ONE.

Designing Christmas (2022) - Alright, I'm running out of steam and so I'm gonna make this one quick. This one cameos that dark haired lady from Love it or List it not sure her name not looking it up (Hilary???). This one is about a couple who work as a designer/contractor pair on a reality show and in order to save their failing show they decide their last show of the season will be a restoration of her family's old home that she just purchased and SURPRISE TO NO ONE WHO WATCHES THESE SHOWS there's a crack in the foundation blahblahblah WHO CARES!?

NO ONE.

This one really suffers from the fact that the male lead is just boring.

Honestly, that's a theme throughout these movies. The male leads are super weak and boring. Tepid. Just absolutely forgettable characters played by actors who are deciding whether the fuck to fire their agents.

What's weird about this one is the way that the production really styles it after a reality show -- even including those restoration classic before and after reveals. But that is nothing on the last one......

A Christmas Open House (2022) -- Alright the cameos in this one are that Hometown Whatever couple who have been "restoring" houses in their hometown in someplace in the south and by restoring, I mean flipping but under the guise of home restoration.

ANYHOW - the plot is that this big city house stager teams up with a realtor to sell her family home to make sure her mom gets the best purchase price on the sale. It's just like those old Christmas classics that really capture the Christmas spirit - A Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, It's a Wonderful Life. You know. Really in that anti-capitalist vein.

Deeeeeeeep sigh.

So... I don't even know how to say this. But this movie involves a Christmas miracle.

See, it turns out the house stager accidentally gave the furniture company the wrong credit card number, so the day before the showing ON CHRISTMAS the furniture people came and took back all of the perfectly staged furniture and GASP knocked down the (fake) Christmas tree! WHAT ARE THEY GONNA DO1?!? HOW ARE THEY EVER GONNA SELL THE HOUSE ON CHRISTMAS NOW!?$!

BUT IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

The whole town shows up to bring them furniture that they can use to stage the house before the potential buyers arrive. Like... they show up with their odds and ends so that the house can be staged. SO THAT THE HOUSE CAN BE STAGED FOR SALE. Are... are you guys with me here? The miracle that the whole town rallied behind was bringing FURNITURE to STAGE A HOUSE. FOR SALE.

I just... I am walking away.

We are so fucking far from Dickens here we might as well be in a new fucking holiday.

And we are.

Because that's the whole point of all of these movies.

It's not Christmas.

It's American Christmas.

For all the shit that the nostalgic, small-town worshipping Christmas movies get this time of year, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say these movies are more insidious. Instead of blatantly trying to valorize the small town spirit, the support of family and friends, and getting back to your roots, these movies are like the Scooby Doo villain of Christmas movies. Rip off the mask at the end for the big reveal:

IT WAS CAPITALISM ALL ALONG!?!?

Anyhow, I don't know who was supposed to read these scripts before they became movies, but everyone involved will probably be laughing all the way to the bank.

Don't watch these. They're not funny enough to be worth the soul-gutting feeling of realizing what these movies are for.

Nothing.

Empty.

Spiritless.

Candy-coated capitalism.

#ptpt reviews #long post #not sorry #ptpt has opinions #i have actually watched some good ones #but this ain't it