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A Keller Christmas Vacation | Blogmas Day 5

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  It's Blogmas Day 5! Three siblings, each dealing with issues in their personal or work lives, reluctantly join their parents on a Christmas cruise. I liked that the premise of this one was quite vague - I didn't know if this was going to be a love story, a story about family connections or something different entirely, and that really worked in its favour. I really liked this film - it was definitely the best of the 5 Blogmas movies so far. For a start, I love that it was based on siblings rather than one character, particularly because all three siblings were equal characters with their own stories. You can get invested in each one and the film never felt crowded. All the stories worked well together. Plus, it was helpful that all the siblings were likeable - you want to be involved in their stories because you genuinely like them. And along with that, the actors were great. They really nailed their sibling chemistry and you believe in the authenticity of their relationships...
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A Merry Little Ex-Mas | Blogmas Day 4

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  It's Blogmas day 4! After finalising their divorce, Kate (Alicia Silverstone) and Everett (Oliver Hudson) want one last family Christmas, but new relationships and old feelings threaten to complicate everything. This is the first of many Netflix Christmas movies this year, and the selection is really varied and interesting so I'm looking forward to them! I liked this film. It wasn't amazing, but there were definitely things that it got right. For a start, I loved the place it started from. It's really original to begin a love story when the characters have just got happily divorced. I took an instant liking to almost all the characters, and this remained the entire way through. I really liked this group of people, which made it easier to connect with them. Our main characters work well together, have a believable relationship, and enough chemistry that you find yourself rooting for them. There were times when the film tried to go into some really deep issues, but did ...
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Baking Spirits Bright | Blogmas Day 3

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  It's Blogmas Day 3! Mira (Rekha Sharma) is determined to make a success of her family's fruitcake business, even if that means working with marketing executive Brady Phillips (Dion Johnstone). I was looking forward to this one - I have a few movies about baking on the list this year and I'm looking forward to them all! This one was okay - it had some good moments and some not-so good, so it's a mixed bag. The story itself isn't particularly gripping. The audience don't have the emotional history with this fruitcake that Mira has, so there's no way we can be as invested as she is, and because so much of the story is about the fruitcake that we don't care about, it makes it hard to connect. The main characters don't have the best romantic chemistry. You believe they're friends, and even that they're in the beginning stages of liking each other, but anything more than that just doesn't work. And it got worse when every character around Mir...
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Joy to the World | Blogmas Day 2

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It's Blogmas day 2! When lifestyle writer Joy (Emmanuelle Chriqui) needs to keep up the image of the family she's been faking for years, she asks those around her to help - including asking her best friend (Chad Michael Murray) to pretend to be her husband. This was a late addition to Blogmas, and one of the only Blogmas films that I've watched the trailer for before putting it on the list. I loved the trailer, so I had to add it, and wanted to put it in as early as possible! This would have been a good pick for day 1, it was fun, Christmassy and sweet. As mentioned, I saw the trailer, so I already knew I liked the story. Its bare bones aren't the most original, but the way it's told definitely gives it a fresh feeling. The characters are great, and the actors play them so well. They all work really well together - particularly our main two who have great believable chemistry. It's definitely Christmassy, but it could have been more festive. We could have had mo...
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Christmas on Duty | Blogmas Day 1

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It's Blogmas day 1 - officially (finally) December! After a snowstorm threatens to ruin Christmas, rival Marines Blair (Janel Parrish) and Josh (Parker Young) must team up to deliver Christmas presents. This one was fine - though I do wish I had started Blogmas with something else! It's always fun having an 'enemies to lovers' story, but this only works if the enemies part is really developed, so the audience actually believes that these two hate each other, and that wasn't true here. The story doesn't really get interesting until we see the respective characters with their families, where we see them truly open up and we can get to know them. As important as it is to see them together, I think more of them with other people would have been a huge benefit. The story itself is interesting, but it does take a while to get going.  It pushes the military theme a lot more heavily than Christmas. Yes that gives it an air of originality, but no one is watching this mov...
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Blogmas 2025!

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  It's almost time for Blogmas! I really do look forward to this time of year more and more, and a part of that is definitely due to the routine I've created watching and reviewing these Christmas movies. As usual, I'll be reviewing Christmas movies for the 24 days leading up to Christmas, starting from the first of December. They're from a variety of platforms and all made in or after 2020 so hopefully there should be some good ones in there. I'm about to watch day 5 as I write this earlier than usual, and so far the movies haven't been great so I'm really hoping they start to pick up! As always I'll be ignoring my usual ratings in favour of my Christmas rating system: Title (How original? How creative? How fun?) Originality (self-explanatory) Christmas Spirit (Is Christmas integral to the plot, or could the film's events have happened at any time of year?) Christmas Music (again, self-explanatory) And that's it - only a couple days to go! M...
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The Conjuring: Last Rites | Film Review

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  In 1986, Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) take a case that ends up being their last, as they face losing everything that matters. I'm always looking forward to the next Conjuring universe film, and because this is the last one of this branch, I was looking forward to it more than usual. Even though I didn't love the last Conjuring movie, I loved the first two so much that I really wanted to see how they would wrap things up. I really liked this movie! The opening was great, it takes us right back to the beginning and roots us firmly into Ed and Lorraine's world once again. There was something about this one that felt so much like the first, and I loved that. It's reminding us why we love these people and their stories so much, and it's smart to do that by making us reminisce about past movies we've loved. Thankfully, the story itself was really interesting. Movies like this run the risk of having the scares be the most important thing, bu...
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