The best new Christmas movie I saw this year was Christmas Above the Clouds. Erin Krakow plays Ella Neezer, a Scrooge-like heroine whose life is changed by three spirits who appear to her on an airplane. I believe that A Christmas Carol is actually underrated, and the folks who made this movie had fun with the story.
I cannot strongly recommend Holiday Touchdown: A Bills Love Story. It's a bit too generic in almost every way, and the basic difficulty (the guy is too intimidated to tell the girl how he feels) isn't very exciting. But there are a lot of old pros in the cast, including Joe Pantoliano and Tracy Pollan, and everyone tries hard and has fun. The football stuff is pretty good as well, and they make a real effort to give it a Buffalo flavor. On the whole, however, you're better off with last year's Holiday Touchdown: A Chiefs Love Story.
If you haven't seen A Biltmore Christmas, which aired in 2023, you really should look for it. To me, it's the best Christmas movie of the post-COVID era -- a time travel story that combines the Golden Age of Hollywood with unusually good chemistry between the two primary actors. A Biltmore Christmas was so popular that it inspired many imitators. To me, the best one so far is A Grand Ole Opry Christmas. This time travel story only goes back to the 1990's, but it's a great father-daughter story, and Kristoffer Polaha -- who played the male lead in A Biltmore Christmas -- does his usual solid job.
Another time travel story -- A Newport Christmas -- has gotten a lot of favorable attention, and is currently rated at 7.1 on IMDB, very high for this type of film. I thought the actors tried very hard, and there were some really great costumes. On the whole, it's solidly above average for the genre. But at my house, the script wasn't strong enough -- and the actors weren't charismatic enough -- to put this one in the "must-see" category.
She's Making A List, which stars Lacey Chabert as a women who acts as an inspector for the Naughty or Nice Group -- they're the ones who make the list for Santa -- has also gotten a lot of attention. It's an interesting setup, and some of the stuff with Santa -- such as the fact that he operates out of Delaware -- is clever. But it's one of those where you have to really root for the daughter who is trying to help her dad find romance, and that part of the story didn't work for me. If you really want to see Lacey Chabert, I recommend Matchmaker Santa, a 2012 movie from the Golden Age of Hallmark, in which Santa weaves a web of intrigue to bring two couples together.
Finally, let's give credit to Candace Cameron Bure, who continues to do solid work in this genre. This year, I enjoyed A Christmas Present, which unusually features a married couple whose relationship has gone somewhat stale, mainly because they are too busy to spend time together. (You see, she has to learn to be "present" -- thus the title). Ms. Bure also did her own time travel movie -- Timeless Tidings of Joy -- in which she goes back to the 1940's to learn about her grandmother's printing shop. Yes, the plot turns on a big machine where you print cards to carry special messages. It's fine, but not worth going out of your way for.
Good luck and happy viewing!
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