Hallmark Channel Christmas Movies

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Vinny123, Dec 18, 2018.

  1. Vinny123

    Vinny123 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    Holy Cow! How can I describe these white bread, vanilla, unbelievably sick-sweet movies? There are dozens of them being shown. They’re all the same movie! The titles are insane. The fictional small townspeople are so into all things Christmas that they’re obsessed! Save the Christmas parade/pageant/concert/displays. I swear, these films are a genre unto themselves. I guess these films do give actors and crews work, but my goodness....they are awfully strange.
     
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  2. SRC

    SRC That sums up Squatter for me

    Location:
    New York, NY
    I've heard about these, others have mentioned them to me, I even know one couple that watches a ton of them every year, like it's a thing. Sounds fascinating. I wish had enough time for bad TV as I did years ago!
     
  3. mmars982

    mmars982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Some people love them. My daughter (who is now grown up) would keep that station on all through the months of November and December. The formula and similarity is part of the appeal.

    I am not a fan myself, but I did watch Once Upon a Christmas Miracle which is new this year. Pretty good, but it definitely has the "Hallmark touch".
     
  4. Paper Wizard

    Paper Wizard Forum Resident

    Location:
    U.S.A.
    My teenage daughters love them. I have watched a few of them and they are enjoyable. Definitely puts you in the holiday movie.
    You can always tune out if you don't like them.
     
  5. johnnyyen

    johnnyyen Senior Member

    Location:
    Scotland
    Absolutely ghastly. It’s a hellish life on Hallmark this time of year.
     
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  6. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    yea
    yea, feel good wholesome goodness is sick these days...LOL.
     
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  7. dewey02

    dewey02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The mid-South.
    Apparently you have started a thread to bash Hallmark Christmas movies. Sorry, but I can't agree with you. If you want to play Scrooge and say Bah, Humbug, then have at it. As for me and several others on this forum, we'll spend most of our time actually watching and enjoying the fun, sweetness, and goodness of these movies and the Christmas season, and we'll be mostly posting on this already existing thread: Christmas Movies 2018 Edition!
     
  8. Trace

    Trace Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington State
    Yeah, I guess sweet & wholesome just don't cut it these days!

    Me, I like this sappy stuff around the holidays.
     
  9. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    The closest analogy I can think of at the moment is that Hallmark Christmas movies are the adult version of what "Saved by the Bell" was to kids in the 80s/90s. Completely unrealistic situations and characters, with cookie-cutter plots and personalities, with form-fit and often stereotypical characters.

    Hallmark has a stable of actors they pull from each year, and each one gets a new movie each year. They often snag former sitcom personalities (or from other past TV shows); the female lead is often someone you *kinda* remember from an old TV show, or remember from something.

    In a rare flip of typical gender roles/norms perpetuated on TV, in these Hallmark movies it is almost always the *guy* who is the more bland, less-well-known actor, who can often be mistaken for five other actors in the Hallmark stable.

    Most movies involve the woman being engaged to some objectively-less-chiseled-looking guy who is too devoted to his job/money. It's often the woman going back home to visit parents/family, and meeting either a new guy or an old flame, and by the end of the movie she dumps the fiancee (who is always weirdly okay with it) for the guy from the small town.

    She usually gets to have her cake and eat it too, choosing neither to give up her generic high-paying "big city" job nor moving back home and working at an antique shop. Instead, she usually manages to stay in the home town but retain a still-high-paying, often executive-level position, often taking over her father's business.

    The female lead almost always has a super generic friend/confidante, who has few lines and is there to sip coffee at the local indie shop and listen to the lead blather on. The generic friend is almost always of a different race/ethnicity than the lead.

    When they're not using this exact same template, Hallmark is usually ripping off some *other* movie, like the one I saw a few years ago where a kid wishes to Santa that her too-busy, neglectful aunt could stop lying. That's right, a direct rip off of "Liar Liar" to the point I'm surprised Universal didn't sue.

    I could go on and on.

    Even the "cover art" on these are all the same. These are all *real* Hallmark movies:

    [​IMG]
     
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  10. MikaelaArsenault

    MikaelaArsenault Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Lifetime does that with their movies as well I believe.
     
  11. dewey02

    dewey02 Forum Resident

    Location:
    The mid-South.
    But they're not all the same. Just look. In some covers, the woman is wearing green, and in others she's in red. :D
     
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  12. Simon A

    Simon A Arrr!

    Lifetime's can be slightly edgier from time to time though. I remember one with a cyber bullying sub-plot that never would have made the Hallmark cut.

    Although I will agree that most of them are a tad too close in plot, generic music and CGI snowflakes, a handfull of them do rise above the others.

    I'm looking forward to the day when a channel will have the guts to offer similar films for African-Americans. Too often, African-American actors are near invisible in these films. I don't wish to turn this thread towards politics, I just thought out loud... :)
     
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  13. robertawillisjr

    robertawillisjr Music Lover

    Location:
    Hampton, VA
    It will be nice when the mystery series of movies return.
     
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  14. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    There's really nothing strange about them. The archives of cinema and TV are littered with thousands of similar disposable productions just made to grab a few holiday bucks. I watched dozens of similar movies ever year as a kid - they weren't rom-coms but they were similar lightweight sterotypical Christmas entertainment. Let's fact it - you know what you're getting into when you turn on one of these, there's no reason to be surprised or puzzled. They're a bag of plain potato chips on the sofa with a ribbon and a bow. Nothing could be more normal. :laugh:
     
  15. Trace

    Trace Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington State
    And sometimes she has dark hair!
     
  16. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    "feel good wholesome goodness" is not the same thing as limited-intellect, simplified storytelling for the gentrified dim. If you don't want your friends or family becoming addicted to pr0n, why would you want them becoming addicted to cliche'd pablum that lowers one's expectations for meaningful and quality plots while wasting time they could otherwise spend on more cerebral pursuits?

    I've gotten more enriching entertainment watching one Christmas episode of St. Elsewhere, than I could get from atrophying brain cells with The Hallmark Channel on for a month, even just in the background. Life is just too short to even give a minute of it over to yet another place to encounter crap like this, plus Wayfair.com commercials.

    Why do you hate your friends and family! :mad:
     
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  17. Trace

    Trace Senior Member

    Location:
    Washington State
    Not sure about anyone else, but with my cable package, I have at least 200 other channels to watch. Not sure what the big deal is...
    That's like complaining there are too many game shows on the game show network. Don't forget, this is the greeting card network we're discussing. What do you expect, adultry & murder for the Holidays? :D
     
  18. 93curr

    93curr Senior Member

    I think you'd have a hard time selling a "small town folks are the only people who matter" propaganda piece to an African-American audience. Seeing as how no one wanted to make an urban 'Stepford Wives' back in the day, it seems unlikely it'd be a more popular idea now. The sole purpose of these movies is to reassure the already entitled that their privilege is justified. The Hallmark audience for that (pretty much women who think that ABC's lineup is already too edgy by half) is comfortably in place; to market to anything outside of that thin demographic would require more effort than the network has been shown they're willing to expend.
     
  19. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    :biglaugh:
     
  20. Vinny123

    Vinny123 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    You nailed it.
     
  21. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    I was howling when one started Sunday. I think she was supposed to a fashion assistant and he was a prince in disguise.
    I said to my wife, I have to watch this a minute, I'm sure the female lead will be dressed like a shlub in a crappy outfit with flat shoes.
    Yep, first shot of her she's the plainest one in the room, outfit almost looks like a Mumu.
     
  22. mmars982

    mmars982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    They had 22 new movies this year! And they started before Halloween.

    [​IMG]
     
  23. Vinny123

    Vinny123 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Florida
    Of course I can change the channel if I don’t like them! For whatever it’s worth,my wife really enjoys them. I find them to be an odd sort of art form, like Thomas Kincaid paintings. I don’t think I’m a snob. I watch Jackass and Impractical Jokers and like fast food. They’re all basically the same movie!
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2018
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  24. johnnyyen

    johnnyyen Senior Member

    Location:
    Scotland
    I haven’t seen any of them, and yet I feel I have seen all of them.
     

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