Guilty as Charged Part 7

2016: Hallmark ratcheted it up to 20 Christmas movies, and unlike past years, there were really no standouts.  Most of them were "pretty good" (using my Hallmark scale, which is set a notch or 10 lower than my expectations for other forms of entertainment). In any event, let's forge ahead. Here are my past reviews (2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2009).

Common plot point: Marketing Exec/News Anchor/Actress Goes to Small Christmas Town 

Gosh, let's see if I can capture them all, because this plot point figured into no less than FIVE movies this year. 

In A Wish for Christmas, Lacey Chabert goes on a trip with her hot boss to a tiny town to do a big marketing pitch.  She's a timid doormat who has a chance encounter with Santa Claus, who gives her a gift: she'll now be able to stand up for herself.  But only for 48 hours (darn you, Santa!!).  Will her gift last her long enough to a) win the pitch b) solve her boss' daddy issues and c) nab the man for herself? 

In Christmas Cookies (not to be confused with 2014's A Cookie Cutter Christmas) a high-powered food executive (Jill Wagner from Wipeout, obviously) comes to a Christmas-themed town to shut down their beloved cookie plant. The plant also happens to be owned by a young bachelor who might make her forget she has a boring boyfriend at home.  

In Love You Like Christmas, a high-powered marketing executive's car breaks down in a small Christmas town (something that happens every other day in Hallmark world).  She then ends up falling for a single dad who owns his own struggling Christmas tree farm. But wait! She's a marketing executive!  But not a rocket scientist - it takes her 3/4 of whole movie to figure out that she can help him and until the very end to realize she loves him.

In Christmas in Homestead, a plot that owes Notting Hill's screenwriters big time, a famous actress and her costar (and ex-boyfriend) come to film a Christmas movie in a small town.  The town's innkeeper mayor (who happens to be a cute single dad as all innkeeper mayors are) isn't happy that they're taking over the town. 

In Every Christmas Has a Story, a news anchor blurts over the air that she doesn't like Christmas!  Horrors!  Now she has to go to a small Christmas town to renovate her image.  And her producer happens to be an ex-boyfriend. Lots of time to talk about old issues in a small Christmas town!

Who wore it best?  

Love You Like Christmas and Christmas in Homestead are the best of this batch.  

Common plot point: time travel and other mysticism

In Journey Back to Christmas, Candace Cameron Bure (Hallmark's newest Star of Christmas) is a nurse who travels forward in time...I don't remember why.  In any event, she 

In A Dream of Christmas, another marketing executive has trouble balancing her career with her marriage.  She ends up wishing she never got married.  After falling from a ladder, her wish is granted!  But she can't stop hanging around her husband trying to woo him all over again!

Who wore it best?  

A Dream of Christmas.  Candace Cameron Bure is starting to bug, plus her movie did not star hot Andrew Walker (above). 

The "Looking a Little Worse for Wear" Award: 

Is it Sascha Radetsky from a Nutcracker Christmas who first graced us in Center Stage??

Is it Dean Cain, in Broadcasting Christmas, who was Superman, for crying out loud? (not to mention Brenda's Parisian boyfriend Rick (aka "Reek") in Beverly Hills, 90210)

Doughy.

Hubba.

The "winner:"

Dean Cain. 

The "Wake Up and See What's Right in Front of You" Award:

Is it the Mistletoe Promise, where two executives meet cute in a food court and realize that a business arrangement to be each others' plus-ones could help them move ahead. Can Jaime King and her distracting eyebrows stop being stubborn and turn her fake relationship into a real one?  

Or is it My Christmas Love, which squanders Meredith Hagner's talent by making her into a dumb-as-rocks children's book author who keeps pursuing relationships with old acquaintances instead of her steady, adorable illustrator.

Not him, you idiot!!

Him!

Winner: Mistletoe Promise.

Who had the hottest male leads?

My Christmas Love - he's adorbs. 

Him!

And the Mistletoe Promise - he's a new addition to the Hallmark crew and spends most of his time in a suit and overcoat. Yes. 

It was the last straw for....

Alicia Witt and Danica McKeller.  I just can't with their movies anymore. 

On very thin ice...

Candace Cameron Bure and Lacey Chabert.  

Well, that's it!  And we didn't even cover Candace Cameron Bure's annoying intros to all the other Hallmark movies, hot Gregory Harrison (he's old!) in My Christmas Love, and Donna Mill's timeless face. Another time.