Lifetime & Hallmark TV Movies

[Uncle Stevie]

Being the romantic that I am I am overwhelmed by the Christmas love stories shown this year on Lifetime and Hallmark Channels. I am thrilled to see happy endings with little violence and crime. I need peace in my life and have been switching back and forth from one of the four channels to another.

Two of my favorites are "The Road To Christmas" which stars Jennifer Grey and Clark Greg who is not a really Hollywood style actor but I learned he is Jennifer Grey's real life husband. They fit well together and the daughter played by Megan Park is one of the cutest super teen actress in a long time. The storyline is crisp and trite at the same time. I really enjoyed this movie.

My second favorite is "Trading Christmas" which feature Faith Ford, Tom Cavanaugh, Gil Bellows, and Gabrielle Miller. This is a well done take off of the well received "The Holiday" (Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Jack Black) I loved "The Holiday" very much. Trading Christmas is a toned down version of that but very enjoyable for me. There were a couple of miscast people but I thought the chemistry between Tom Cavanaugh and Gabrielle Miller was excellent.

Most of the other movies involved widows or widowers, most with some kids, who found true love by Christmas Eve. Most of them warmed me and I was satisfied staring at the TV hour after hour. My wife who is not a fan of this genre watched her crime stories or medical shows. The few times we spoke was when I made dinner for us.

That is how I spent my holiday time and am still doing it. How did you spend your alone time? By the way we did host a family Hanukah gathering and there were 14 of us. All shared in the cooking. Many of the Grandchildren got gift cards to purchase the electronics of their choice. The world has sure changed.

[mrsl]

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Last Saturday night I spent watching first an abduction story of a girl abducted as an infant and finding her real mother in her late teens. It was a pretty good movie and didn't delve too deeply into making the audience sniffle to badly. But THEN, I watched the remake of an all black version of Steel Magnolias. Now this was truly a remake. I was able to quote the dialog along with the actresses through most of it. They cut the hospital scenes quite a bit, and although they left Sally Field's funeral goodbye scene to her daughter for Queen Latifah to say, Queen did a great job, but nothing can ever compare to Sally's heartfelt, seemingly real broken mother. This film, like The Women is one that should never have been messed with. The ladies of the original Steel Magnolias made those roles their own. Anytime I hear about Shirley Mac Laine, I still see her flopping down in the chair in her funny straw hat and spouting how she dresses like the world expects rich southern lady to dress. Also, hearing Dolly, the beautician, talk about how long it takes every day to look the way she does is priceless. I cannot imagine why anyone thought it would be a good idea to remake Steel Magnolias, especially turning it into a black cast is beyond me. Now before you get your hackles up, believe me, I have nothing against the cast, they were all fine, just, even though some of them are great actors, they just didn't fit those roles like the originals did.

Any comments from anyone?

[sandykaypax]

I was excited to watch the tv remake of Steel Magnolias, but it just didn't quite measure up to the original for me. I thought that the only actress that really GOT her character was Phylicia Rashad as Clairee. I was so disappointed in Jill Scott as Truvy--she seemed somewhat lacking in humor, which is at the core of that character. I think that Queen Latifah is a fine actress, and she did well in the role, but the film as whole seemed to miss the mark. I was bored.

Sandy K