Bria Lou Reviews

  It's Blogmas Day 19! While babysitting his niece and nephew over the holidays, Sam (Jonathan Bennett) enlists the help of neighbour Jason (George Krissa). This is the second Blogmas movie this year starring Jonathan Bennett, and he must be the secret ingredient of Blogmas because both movies have been great.  This one may actually be the best of Blogmas - I loved it so much! These kind of stories, two opposites thrown together, always tend to be quite fun, so I was looking forward to seeing it. I liked it almost instantly because the introductions to all the characters were really good. I felt like I got to know them really quickly and became invested in their lives before the story even got going. And this made me really excited for the characters to meet! Thankfully it was worth the wait because the actors worked really well together and had great chemistry - definitely some of the best chemistry I've seen this Blogmas! The filmmakers made an effort to instil Christmas int...

  It's Blogmas Day 18! When Annie's (Ava Jarque) wish makes a princess ice sculpture come to life, she must keep the truth about Jade (Emily Sweet) a secret from her father (Brando White). I had this film on the Blogmas list last year and swapped it out for something else, so I definitely had to include it this year. I liked this one a lot more than I thought I was going to. For a start, it was really nice to have a single-parent story with an older child. Jarque played her part so well and essentially carried the story. But what made this work so well, and by extension what made the film good, was the relationship between father and daughter. Jarque and White worked so well and had such believable parent-and-child chemistry. Even without the ice princess angle, these two were so interesting to watch by themselves. Yes this is essentially another 'snowman coming to life' movie, but something about it feels really original. Whether it's because it was a woman coming ...

  It's Blogmas Day 17! Culinary school teacher Alicia (Tia Mowry) decides to compete in an annual Christmas cooking competition with the help of mentor Logan (Luke Humphrey). Did I pick this movie just because the title reminded me of The Bear? Maybe, but it was also a food one that focused on cooking rather than baking, so that was another fun thing. I liked this movie. Yes there are a good few movies this year based on baking or cooking, but this is the only one that's based on a competition, which makes things interesting. The main couple are really sweet together. Their chemistry isn't as strong as it could be by any means, but there's definitely something budding there, and it's really nice to watch. That being said, it was definitely pushing the enemies-to-lovers- trope a bit too hard, given that the characters mildly disliking each other for maybe 15 minutes doesn't really make them enemies. I liked that the characters, particularly Alicia, had a life out...

It's Blogmas Day 16! Two strangers (Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells) team up to rob a London department store on Christmas Eve. This was one of the ones I was most looking forward to this year. Not only does Netflix have an interesting slate of new movies, but this one had a really unique premise, so I wanted to see how everything played out. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as I wanted it to be. But as I've said, I was impressed that the premise was so unique, and the film itself is definitely one of the most original movies of Blogmas. The actors are great and they have good chemistry, but their chemistry didn't work for what they were. They were supposed to be strangers, but they didn't seem unfamiliar at all. It felt like they'd known each other for years, so I never quite believed that these were strangers who were forced to work together. Speaking of which, the romance doesn't really develop as the film progresses, it just appears after a while, almos...

  It's Blogmas Day 15! A newscaster's (B. J. Britt) life changes when he meets a single mother (Tamera Mowry-Housley) and her son ( Elijah-Justus Lewis) . I didn't know much about this one before picking it, but the little I got from the description interested me enough to add it to the list. I really liked this film. For a start, it finally gave me a single-parent story where the kid is not only the best part of the film, but a really good actor. He made the film as original and entertaining as it was. But I liked all the characters. They were fun, well-written and the actors worked well together. It took a while for the chemistry to develop between the love interests, but because I was already invested in the story from early on, I didn't mind having to wait before I could really buy these two as a couple. That being said, this allowed the chemistry to build slowly, which really made you believe that these two were falling in love. It was worth the wait to make things...

  It's Blogmas Day 14!  A ranch owner (Melissa Joan Hart) feels a connection with a single father (Duane Henry) and his children when they come to stay at her ranch for Christmas. This was a late addition to Blogmas, and I didn't know before watching this that I've now included two Melissa Joan Hart movies this Blogmas, so that's interesting! Unfortunately this wasn't one of the best ones. I knew instantly, pretty much as soon as I put the movie on, that I just wouldn't connect to these characters and I was right. There was just a disconnect, and it didn't change the whole way through. It's obvious that the filmmakers were trying to be original, and I appreciate that, but this setting just didn't work for a Christmas film. Maybe it's because no one made an effort to actually make it feel like Christmas. This could have taken place over the course of a week in July and it wouldn't have made a difference. There was never any chemistry between t...