Tag Archives: Hallmark

One Christmas Eve shows the good in a bad day on Hallmark Channel!

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One Christmas Eve Hallmark

The kid got monstrous mind powers for Christmas!


[adrotate banner=”7″]Besides the massive amount of Christmas movies in their Countdown to Christmas celebration, Hallmark Channel has found a way to squeeze in some extra Christmas movies! One Christmas Eve caught my eye not because it is a Christmas-themed Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day with a dog thrown in, but because the love interest is an Asian guy! I can count the amount of films with an Asian guy and white lady without having to take off my socks, so kudos to Hallmark Channel for this unexpected surprise!

In fact, the film features a very multi-ethnic cast, as newly divorced mom Nell has a series of adventures that nets her a bunch of extra people as a surrogate family just in time for the holidays. And also a Beagle dog, because we can’t have a Christmas movie on Hallmark without either an angel or a dog.

Nell’s a newly‐single mom who wants this Christmas to be extra‐special for her two kids (played by Once Upon a Time’s Ali Skovbye and Contagion’s Griffin Kane). It turns out to be special – but not the way Nell had in mind! This Christmas Eve, everything that can go wrong does go wrong. The mayhem starts when Cesar (The Glade’s Carlos Gomez) attempts to leave an abandoned beagle on Nell’s front porch. Cesar trips and falls. Nell has to take him to the hospital, where Kevin Daniels (Sirens) is a security guard and Brian Tee (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) a dreamy doc.

In no particular order, their car is towed, Nell’s son and the beagle disappear down a hole in a construction zone, a nasty nurse harasses them all. Later – to add insult to injury – they’re car‐jacked. And they’re all in a police station when it goes up in flames.

“Everything goes wrong, really wrong,” says Anne Heche, interviewed on the set of One Christmas Eve. “[But] Nell discovers a great deal of strength within herself, strength she didn’t know she possessed. And the family bond is cemented, and the family itself really grows, thanks in a funny way to all the mayhem.”

As there are so many divorces in this country, there is a ready-made audience, and this looks like it could be a fun time.

One Christmas Eve is directed by Jay Russell (My Dog Skip) and written by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Heidi 4 Paws and The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course!) It stars Anne Heche as Nell, Kevin Daniels as Reggie, Carlos Gomez as Cesar, Brian Tee as Dr. Chen, Ali Skovbye as Emma, and Griffin Kane as Alden.

One Christmas Eve premieres Sunday, November 30th on Hallmark Channel!

Photo via Hallmark Channel Press/Erik Heinila

Debbie Macomber’s Mr. Miracle comes to Earth to make you love on Hallmark Channel!

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Mr Miracle Debbie Macomber Hallmark

The entire movie is Michelle Harrison acting out a play using Christmas ornaments!


[adrotate banner=”7″]Once again, angels are mucking around on Christmas for love. Are things really that calm that angels can waste time playing matchmaker when wars and crap are going on? Can I get a little angel love for having me win the lottery? It’s not like you guys are doing anything right now, it’s only November, too early for Christmas matchmaking.

Debbie Macomber’s Mr. Miracle is the latest angel meddling, and Debbie Macomber is a Hallmark Channel regular. Her book series Cedar Cove is one of their tv series, and she’s had three other books made into Hallmark films: Mrs. Miracle, Miracle in Manhattan (based on Call Me Mrs. Miracle), and Trading Christmas (based on When Christmas Comes) Two of those books look to be part of the same loose Miracle series as Debbie Macomber’s Mr. Miracle, but I really don’t know how connected they are, nor how connected they are to this film, especially since it starts a first-time guardian angel.

When guardian angel Harry Mills (Morrow) arrives on Earth for the first time, he’s got a lot to learn about life as a human. But this miracle worker-in-training ignores the advice of his seasoned heavenly mentor, Celeste (Harrison), to eagerly take on his first assignment — helping a young woman named Addie (Irvin) find the confidence to change her life. Addie has always struggled in school and is currently feeling overwhelmed and indecisive trying to live up to her father’s expectations to become a doctor. Now, after her father’s sudden passing, Addie is living with her mom Sharon (Redmond), filled with regret and uncertainty while attempting to finish her degree all while avoiding her childhood nemesis and neighbor, Erich (Francis). Enter Harry, posing as her fumbling, well-meaning new English teacher who takes on the task of guiding her to see the wonderful things she can’t see in herself. With a deadline of Christmas day to change Addie’s perspective, or else say goodbye to his own Earthly existence, Harry is clueless but endearing in his effort to make Addie open up to a life full of promise — and even love — while learning a few life lessons of his own along the way.

Debbie Macomber’s Mr. Miracle is directed by Carl Bessai (that Embrace of the Vampire remake) and written by Heather Maidat (the Mad tv series). It stars Rob Morrow (Numb3rs) as Harry Mills, Michelle Harrison (Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal) as Celeste, Britt Irvin (Bratz Babyz Save Christmas) as Addie Folsom, Sarah-Jane Redmond (Sorority Murder) as Sharon Folsom, Andrew Francis (Slugterra: Return of the Elementals) as Erich Simmons, and Vanesa Tomasino (Chupacabra vs. the Alamo) as Elaina.

Hey, if you are into angel stuff, and you aren’t totally burnt out on Christmas angel stuff, then you will be very excited, so be sure to check it out!

Debbie Macomber’s Mr. Miracle premieres December 6th on Hallmark Channel! It’s one of The 12 New Movies of Christmas as part of their Countdown to Christmas celebration.

Photo via Hallmark Press/Katie Yu/Britt Irvin

Christmas At Cartwright’s breaks out the Lady Santa for Hallmark Channel!

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Christmas at Cartwright's Hallmark Channle

There were no photos of her actually dressed up as Santa, so have a photo of Wallace Shawn!


[adrotate banner=”7″]Hallmark delivers a bootleg Miracle on 34th Street, where instead of Macy’s being home to Santa Claus, there’s a woman playing Santa at a random department store! The shock, the shock of this not being a big deal at all except in the realm of Christmas At Cartwright’s! Seriously, why is this a big deal? Also, according to what happens in the plot synopsis, Cartwright’s opens themselves up to a seven figure lawsuit that I fully support being filed, because, seriously! But we can’t have lawyers be saving Christmas, so of course there is a real live angel running around. Angels meddle all the time during Christmas, it’s like the end of the year and they realize they haven’t finished things up so are rushing to look good before their yearly performance reviews. Or something like that. Heck, half these Hallmark movie have angels, the other half have dogs.

In another fun aside, the angel, played by Wallace Shawn, is named Harry Osbourne, who we all know is the Green Goblin. Why the Green Goblin is now an angel helping a woman play Santa is anyone’s guess, but the Lord works in mysterious ways.

With the holiday season at hand, single mom Nicky Talbot (Witt) is unemployed and struggling to afford a nice Christmas with her 8-year-old daughter. Hearing that Cartwright’s Department Store is hiring temporary holiday help, Nicky rushes in to apply, but is rejected by Senior VP Fiona Aldrich (Gabrielle Miller, “Debbie Macomber’s Trading Christmas”), who considers Nicky a threat to the relationship she hopes to have with Bill (Hogan), a charming and handsome store manager. In a whimsical turn of events, Harry Osbourne (Shawn), claiming to
be a consultant from corporate headquarters, encourages Nicky to dress up and begin working as Cartwright’s store Santa Claus. With the magical help of Harry, who turns out to be a real-life angel, Nicky keeps the job and despite Fiona’s attempts at sabotage, becomes the most popular store Santa Claus in Cartwright’s history; however, nobody knows Cartwright’s Santa Claus is a woman and Nicky fears she will lose her job if her secret gets out.

Before long, feelings develop between Nicky and Bill, who keeps crossing paths with Nicky when she’s not in her Santa costume. With Christmas a few days off and Harry called away on another “assignment,” Santa’s true identity is revealed and everyone at Cartwright’s is shocked to learn that Nicky is the department store Santa. Fiona fires Nicky on the spot and Bill, feeling deceived, questions whether or not he wants to continue their relationship. With her life falling apart again, Nicky is going to need a Christmas miracle to save the holiday season

Christmas At Cartwright’s is directed by Graeme Campbell (Midnight Masquerade), and written by Margaret Oberman, who way back in the day wrote Troop Beverly Hills, a dumb film I loved as a kid. It stars Alicia Witt (Wiener Dog Nationals) as Nicky, Gabriel Hogan (Heartland) as Bill, Wallace Shawn (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) as Harry, T.J. McGibbon as Becky, Linda Kash (Are We Done Yet?) as Peg, and Gabrielle Miller as Fiona.

Christmas At Cartwright’s premieres December 7th on Hallmark Channel! It’s a part of The 12 New Movies of Christmas in their Countdown to Christmas celebration.

Photo via Hallmark Channel Press/Christos Kalohoridis

The Christmas Secret will be revealed on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries!

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The Christmas Secret Hallmark Movies Mysteries

Can you guess my secret? It’s that I’m not wearing any pants!


[adrotate banner=”7″]Despite Hallmark Channel dropping 12 new Christmas movies, they haven’t forgotten about their newly renamed spinoff channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries (formerly Hallmark Movie Channel), and have gifted them two additional premieres. The second is The Christmas Secret, based on the book by Donna Vanliere. The mystery is the secret, because secrets are mysterious. Though it doesn’t look like this is a murder mystery, just a drama mystery.

With Christmas approaching in the charming, small town of Wilsonville, struggling waitress Christine Eisley’s (Lenz) life is coming undone. She’s been fired from her job, evicted from her home and her ex-husband is taking her to court for custody of their children (Miller and Ainscough). To make matters worse, she’s misplaced a very special family heirloom, a star-shaped locket handed down from her father, who disappeared from her life when she was a young girl. But things seem to be looking a little brighter for Christine when she lands a new job working with a gregarious bakery owner (Cavendish) and a holiday romance begins to blossom, with Jason (Reardon), the handsome grandson of a sweet couple (Hogan and Hogan) who own a popular local store. As she uncovers a long-standing family secret, Christine’s luck might be starting to turn, bringing her good fortune and true love just in time for Christmas.

Wilsonville? Is this set in some dystopian version of a world where someone who was going to kill himself was shown this vision where he didn’t exist and some guy named Wilson now owns this town? Well, dystopian people need Christmas miracles too, and they come in the form of waitresses getting jobs at a bakery. Take that, George Bailey!

The Christmas Secret stars Bethany Joy Lenz, John Reardon, Susan Hogan, Michael Hogan, Venus Terzo, Nicola Cavendish, Karin Konoval, Jaeda Lily Miller, William Ainscough, and Greyston Holt. It’s directed by Norma Bailey (An Officer and a Murderer) The Christmas Secret is written by Judd Parkin (Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life) and Wesley Bishop (The Road to Christmas), based on the novel by Donna Vanliere.

The Christmas Secret premieres December 7th on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries!

via Hallmark
Photo via Hallmark Press/Bettina Strauss

It’s a Santa conspiracy on Hallmark Channel’s Christmas Under Wraps!

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Christmas Under Wraps Hallmark

Ha-HA! I have crushed my true love beneath this tree, in celebration of the true meaning of Christmas!


[adrotate banner=”7″]Christmas is the time for conspiracies, because you never know which eccentric old man is actually Santa Claus! Especially when you are trapped in a gender-reversed Northern Exposure Christmas romance Hallmark Channel movie! Actually, it’s sort of obvious which eccentric old man is secretly Santa Claus in this film, because the synopsis spells it out for you. But is he really Santa? Also, will Candace Cameron-Bure decide Alaska is the bee’s knees? And how come with the huge gender gap in Alaska is she only getting one guy hitting on her? Christmas Under Wraps will answer all these questions, specially my questions about why there is a dog featured in many of the publicity photos yet not mentioned at all in the plot synopsis. Is the dog really Santa, and Brian Doyle-Murray is just pretending? Probably not, but you never know. Not until you watch Christmas Under Wraps on Hallmark Channel!

Christmas Under Wraps is part of Hallmark’s The 12 New Movies of Christmas in their Countdown to Christmas celebration.

Dr. Lauren Brunell (Bure) has her whole life planned out. As a third year surgery resident, she is counting on being accepted into a prestigious hospital fellowship to follow in the footsteps of her supportive father, Henry (Pine). But when those plans quickly fall apart, and Lauren is put on the wait list, she must take the only other opening available: a head doctor position in the small, remote town of Garland, Alaska. Convincing herself it is only temporary, Lauren moves to Garland where she is immediately charmed by Andy (O’Donnell), a handsome local who soon starts to show her the importance of living in the moment and enjoying her unexpected adventure. As Lauren excels as Garland’s trusted doctor, she warms up to the friendly town, and even starts falling for Andy. But Andy’s father, Frank (Doyle-Murray), is hiding something from her in his top-secret shipping warehouse. From his busy holiday workload, to his reindeer barn, to his weakness for cookies, it seems Frank’s family business has a lot in common with the North Pole. Just as Lauren decides to get to the bottom of her suspicions, she receives news that will force her to make a choice between the life she’s always planned and the love she never expected to find, while knowing for certain that the Christmas season will never be the same.

Christmas Under Wraps stars Candace Cameron-Bure (Full House) as Lauren Brunell, David O’Donnell (12 Wishes of Christmas) as Andy Holliday, Kendra Mylnechuk (Winter in the Blood) as Billie, Brian Doyle-Murray (Caddyshack) as Frank Holliday, Robert Pine (CHiPS) as Henry, Joyce Cohen (Pirates of the Great Salt Lake) as Maggie, and Page Petrucka (A Christmas Wish) as Hattie. It’s directed by Peter Sullivan (High School Possession, Christmas Twister) and written by Jennifer Notas (Stolen from the Womb, Perfect on Paper)

Seems like it could be okay, but I’d be more interested in Santa conspiracies than the love story. Still, your mileage may very. Catch Christmas Under Wraps as it premieres on November 29th on Hallmark Channel!

Photos via Hallmark Press/Fred Hayes

Christmas Under Wraps Hallmark

If would be cool if there suddenly there is a 20 minute sequence of a dog wandering around in the movie, for no reason at all!

Hallmark Channel goes full wedding Christmas fantasy with A Royal Christmas!

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A Royal Christmas Hallmark

Welcome to this vaguely Disney country, expect our kid to be cursed by a witch before she can even walk!


[adrotate banner=”7″]I’m beginning to run out of ways to talk about Christmas and romance thanks to the onslaught of films Hallmark is pumping out this year. A Royal Christmas is no exception, featuring more Christmas love, and secret prince action as well. There is also a royal conspiracy as the blue-collar Emily must prove she is worthy to be a princess to the snobby Queen. It’s almost class warfare, except watered down for the Hallmark crowd. A Royal Christmas appears to build on the often-used scenario in romance fiction, while utilizing the fictitious country setting to make things vaguely like a fairy tale. Throw in an ex-girlfriend and this promises to have the potential to be a bit wacky.

A Royal Christmas is part of The 12 New Movies of Christmas in the Countdown to Christmas celebration on Hallmark Channel. Here is hoping the film jumps out from the pack to deliver royal entertainment. Did you catch that joke there? Royal entertainment? Because they are royals? Aw, forget it, bring on the synopsis:

As the only daughter of an expert tailor in Philadelphia, Emily Corrigan (Chabert) is a kindhearted young woman proud of her blue-collar background. She is a devoted seamstress at the family business and madly in love with her doting European boyfriend, Leo (Stephen Hagan). But as their first Christmas together approaches, Leo drops a bombshell on his unsuspecting girlfriend: he is actually Prince Leopold, heir to the throne of Cordinia, a small sovereign country. Emily is in shock, but her love for Leo trumps her hesitation about his double life and they quickly fly to Cordinia to announce their engagement and spend the holidays with Leo’s disapproving mother, Queen Isadora (Seymour).

Less than enthusiastic about her son’s relationship with a commoner, Isadora makes Emily feel anything but welcome at their grand castle, leaving Emily to feel more at home among Isadora’s staff of butlers and housemaids. As Emily struggles to adapt to her new royal surroundings, the situation is made more difficult when a scheming Isadora invites Duchess Natasha (Flynn), Leo’s ex-girlfriend, to join them for Christmas. Emily sees that Natasha is a perfect match for Leo and worries she’ll never measure up to Isadora’s standards. Attempting to stay true to herself in a world where she clearly doesn’t belong, Emily wonders if love is enough to keep her newly royal relationship from falling apart before Christmas morning

A Royal Christmas stars Lacey Chabert (Mean Girls) as Emily, Stephen Hagan (Best: His Mother’s Son) as Leo, Jane Seymour (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) as Isadora, and Katherine Flynn (The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell) as Natasha.

A Royal Christmas is directed by Alex Zamm – the guy who directed Chairman of the Board, The Pooch and the Pauper, Inspector Gadget 2, Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, Tooth Fairy 2, The Little Rascals Save the Day, and Jingle All the Way 2. I will go on record in saying that despite the awesome Norm MacDonald clip (which I watched as it aired back in the day!), Chairman of the Board isn’t that terrible. A bigger warning sign is four writers, though they appear to be two different husband and wife teams: Janeen and Michael Damian (Marley & Me: The Puppy Years, A Princess for Christmas) and Tippi and Neal H. Dobrofsky (Smart Cookies, Operation Cupcake) Not only is that much more DTV experience, A Princess for Christmas has an almost identical plot, including the Christmas theme! Basically, this crew knows how to deliver a product for the target audience that will leave them satisfied. So if you love this Hallmark Christmas Romance movies, this is probably your can’t miss film of The 12 New Movies of Christmas.

A Royal Christmas premieres November 22 on Hallmark Channel!

Photo via Hallmark Press/Gabriel Hennessey