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Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

Lefty Specialist Dec 20 2018 06:06 AM

I have a wife who's an addict. These movies are fit pretty much into a formula: 1) Main protagonist is almost always a woman. 2) She goes home to a small town from the big city for the holidays. 3) She meets someone there (old childhood flame, ruggedly handsome widower) 4) Lots of cute, precocious kids. 5) A crisis! (Oh no, the old general store is losing money and may have to close!) 6) Woman is drawn into crisis and has more and more interaction with flame/widower. 7) Snow. Even if it's southern Texas. 8) Crisis resolved, kids hug woman, she discovers true meaning of Christmas, whatever that is. 9) They all live happily ever after. No curse words, no violence, minimal angst. And they're like crack to her. She made me sit through one last year and I wanted to gouge my eyes out. But they're her comfort food and they're running 24/7 right now. She's dreading the end of the holidays when they go back to Woman in Danger movies. Anyone experiencing anything similar?

41Forever Dec 20 2018 06:11 AM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

My wife and mother-in-law love them. "A Bride for Christmas" is my favorite, and anything with Danica McKellar. She's like bacon -- makes anything better!

Edgy MD Dec 20 2018 06:39 AM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

It's the lighting. We call them Texas Godlight Movies. Everybody's hair is perfect, and it's kissed from above by Texas Godlight. Even if the film is set in New York. If it helps her in the non-Holiday season, and helps you not gouge your eyes out, there are non-Holiday Texas Godlight romances out there. And they usually involve baseball (a former hotshot who has been set back by injury and entitlement problems who wants to get out this idyllic backwater, but first he needs to meet a good woman and learn the TRUE MEANING OF BASEBALL) or a dog (lonely woman adopts friend lab from shelter, but it turns out that Owen Brendt, the rugged widower [and possibly arrogant baseball player] across town lost that dog and has been looking desperately!).

MFS62 Dec 20 2018 08:02 AM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

I've realized that if it weren't for trying to save a kid or a dog, no good guy would ever get killed in an action (especially Western) movie. One of my cable stations plays an NCIS LA marathon every Sunday (my respite from sports). But that has been replaced by the holiday movies. GRRRR. But I do like the made for tv movies on the Hallmark Mystery Channel. They're the same scripts that Lefty Specialist described, but with a murder, solved by the town's (usually a woman) florist, baker or retired lawyer. Later

Lefty Specialist Dec 20 2018 08:11 AM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

Well, once baseball season starts she's on the couch next to me so no worries. There's another subset of these movies, the Big-City American/small-town farm girl who discovers she's actually a (gasp)- PRINCESS! And there's always a cartoonishly evil relative who wants to debunk her/expose her past so that they can have the Kingdom of Hallmarkany for themselves. Sub in 'Ruggedly handsome prince from another royal family' for 'Ruggedly handsome widower' and you've got it. Precocious royal kids, too, one of whom is in a wheelchair for plotline purposes and is unnaturally spunky nonetheless. Happily Ever After, yada, yada, yada.

Mets Willets Point Dec 21 2018 08:18 AM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

I've seen some Nickelodeon/Disney Channel Christmas movies that have their own formula 1. cute kids too clever for their own good. 2. extraordinarily large houses and prosperity enjoyed by few real people 3. pratfalls 4. fart jokes 5. has-been actor(s) in lead adult role 6. culturally stereotyped character as foil 7. Santa is real and needs help! 8. kids save Christmas

Edgy MD Dec 21 2018 08:42 AM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

Such formulae are so contrived and rightfully elicit eyerolls, but like McDonald's hamburgers, there's a reason they sell. Part of the comfort of comfort food is getting exactly what you expected going in. I remember when I was a kid and realized that there were exactly two slow-motion car wrecks per CHiPs episode, and they came at almost the exact same place in the hour, possibly to the second. Similarly, David Banner became the Hulk twice per episode, at the exact same time.

Fman99 Dec 21 2018 12:35 PM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

All the books in the history of the world, just out there waiting to be read, and you guys are pissing your lives away watching this dreck. How lamentable.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Dec 21 2018 12:50 PM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

CHiPs was based on the Emergency! blueprint where you could set your watch to the catastrophic warehouse fire that would break out at exactly 8:47 pm

Benjamin Grimm Dec 21 2018 12:50 PM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

Fman99 wrote: All the books in the history of the world, just out there waiting to be read, and you guys are pissing your lives away watching this dreck. How lamentable. Maybe they've already read all of the books in the history of the world.

41Forever Dec 21 2018 02:25 PM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

All the books in the history of the world, just out there waiting to be read, and you guys are pissing your lives away watching this dreck. How lamentable. I'd rather watch Bride for Christmas than read this book:

Edgy MD Dec 21 2018 02:46 PM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

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MFS62 Dec 21 2018 07:06 PM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

CHiPs was based on the Emergency! blueprint where you could set your watch to the catastrophic warehouse fire that would break out at exactly 8:47 pm And let's not forget the weekly exploding control panel on the submarine on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Later

MFS62 Dec 22 2018 06:42 PM Re: Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies

Somebody took the time to rank the Hallmark-type movies: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/hallmar ... 00562.html Later