#holiday viewing

[fuckyeahfightlock]

A sweet and funny (if predictable, and in a few places clunky) Christmas rom com was my holiday viewing today!

After a couple of weeks of flirty texting and overnight phone calls, Los Angeles writer Natalie impulsively flies to Lake Placid, NY to surprise Josh, the guy she recently clicked with on a dating app.

Well of course, Josh--whose photos were this guy:

--is actually this guy:

Through a series of silly mix-ups and only-in-a-rom-com scenarios, Natalie stays with Josh and his family (goober parents and sassy grandma, and later got-it-all-together younger brother and his wife) and agrees that if Josh helps her win over Tag (the guy from the photos, his elementary school bestie), she will pretend to be his girlfriend.

His favourite Christmas movie is Love, Actually; hers is Die Hard. She blogs for Soash Media (ha!) about her history of terrible dates; he makes man-candles with scents like Lawnmower in his parent's basement. What a mismatched pair, in a fake relationship, sharing a bedroom (but not a bed--she makes him sleep on the floor in his basement bedroom even though, judging by the first floor, the house probably has five bedrooms.), what on earth will happen?!

Klutzy flirting, pretending to be That Girl on dates, secretly getting stoned, family caroling and tree trimming, food allergies, an actually incredibly cute, updated duet of "Baby, It's Cold Outside," and eventually even a fake marriage proposal. All the best holiday rom-com stuff.

In the end our leads find themselves cornered by their lies, found out, and publicly embarrassed--Tag feels Natalie's done to him exactly what Josh did to her, and Josh's family learns she's only been pretending to be his girl. Natalie bails, leaving behind only the ring and a note.

So, let me ask: What do you think this movie's title is?

Catfished For Christmas

Catfished At Christmas

Catfished On Christmas

Christmas something something Catfish something

Voting ended onDec 13, 2024

Well, I'll tell you.

The title of this movie is, inexplicably, Love Hard. Could there be a worse title for a Christmas movie about a woman who has been catfished? I mean. "Catfished at Christmas" is right. there.! It barely relates to her "Die Hard is the best Christmas movie" spiel (Die Hard, Love Hard. . .I mean. I guess? But it still sucks?)

Except for the terrible title, this is pretty much a perfect Christmas rom-com. Do recommend, might even watch again someday. It's on Netflick.

[poodleman]

We’ll continue this discussion later.

[thoughtfulfilm]

What We Did On Our Holiday (2014)

[fuckyeahfightlock]

Holiday viewing yesterday was a couple more Xmess episodes of Superstore and one of Great British Bake Thing Holiday. Several more of those today (crocheting my fingers to bloody stumps trying to finish a blanket in time to mail it off in time for Xmess!), and my annual rewatch of Lin-Lin's perfect Netflick Christmas rom-com, Falling For Christmas.

As usual, I want to absolutely live from 1 DEC through 6 JAN every year in that every-inch-is-Christmas quaint as fuck North Star Lodge.

Lindsay Lohan looks like a sweet beautiful angel in every single shot.

This was the first time I picked up on the Mean Girls reference (it's not subtle, I'm just not a Mean Girls person).

Still completely confused as to why her rejected fiance Tab? Ted? Tag? Tad (I think he is called all of these by various characters) ends up with her PA, a man with whom he has had exactly one zero-chemistry conversation, instead of Ralph the ice fisherman/outdoorsman who clearly is in love with him from Minute One; that was a bizarre choice.

Anyway, here we are with ten days to go and I think it's time to start pulling out the big guns--Elf, Arthur Christmas, A Christmas Story, Santa Jaws. . .you feel me.

[ladyday93]

The Day and Night before on Day 24 of Christmas Viewing

On Christmas Eve Day, I’ve got a potpourri of holiday viewing going on in the background. Square Pegs – A Child’s Christmas in Weemawee “Square Pegs” was an 80s tv series that came on CBS created by and showrun by Annie Beatts who wrote for Saturday Night Live in the much celebrated 1st Golden Era of the Not Yet Ready for Primetime Players. Terry Hughes, who also wrote for Saturday Night Live,…

[fuckyeahfightlock]

Holiday viewing today was a crude comedy and (I guess?) fake-dating romance on Netflick, Holidate. For the first ten minutes I thought it stars that girl I always think is Emma Roberts, Chloe Fineman

until I realised it actually is Emma Roberts

That's the first line of this movie, btw. "Fucking holidays." So it's trying to be edgy and out-there and crude and like The Hangover or whatever. But it's just unpleasant and not funny.

"You know me well enough to come in my mouth, but not to get me a Christmas present?!" screams a side character at her date (the lead guy, an Australian semi-handsome), while he sits on a sofa literally shoulder to shoulder between HER PARENTS. Cringe.

It was gross and unfunny; I shut it off and watched several (winter!) episodes of Elementary instead. That Sherlock got me feeling some kinda way, I'll tell ya.

[fuckyeahfightlock]

Shared my holiday viewing with my little, today, and tried out this new animated Bri'ish fillum on Netflick called That Christmas.

Despite the fact it explicitly goes out of its way to mock Love, Actually, guess what structure this movie loosely follows? That's right, simultaneous but not fully intertwined stories of many characters in orbit around a central location (a Northern English village called Wellington-on-Sea). A bunch of parents go to a wedding and leave their bunch of kids alone together. The "new kid" in town is lonely because his single mum works like mad and his no-good father disappoints him by repeatedly not showing up. The schoolteacher is a strict battleaxe who's secretly lonely. Twin sisters Sam and Charlie are the "nice one" and the "naughty one"--and Santa knows it. The lighthouse keeper's elderly mum is dying, and a huge blizzard not only cancels the town's parade and sing-along, but also separates kids from parents on Christmas eve.

"Naughty" Charlie is one of these spirited, outgoing, pain-in-the-ass children who's always scheming and pranking and causing her straight-laced twin no end of worry. She reminded me of a child I know quite well, on the one hand, but also got me thinking about a couple of conversations I've had with my friend Toni, who is a social worker over there in England, about the English use of the term "naughty" as it applies to children. While in the US we tend to label bad behaviour as "naughty," English naughtiness describes the actual child. Toni often talks (affectionately) about "my naughty kiddos" when he refers to the children he works with; we would never say that here. I do think labeling behaviour is probably less damaging to peoples' perceptions of children; a child who exhibits occasional naughty behaviour is basically the same as every other child, while a "naughty child" is just inherently bad and slightly rotten. Anyway.

The other thing I was thinking about was: if you write (and I suppose, read) enough fic, eventually every piece of media you consume will in some way remind you of something from a fic. In this case, it was the lonely lighthouse keeper, and the lighthouse itself, which both have a hero moment near the end of the movie when Lighthouse Bill uses the light to help find a lost child in the snowy wilds at the edge of the village. Just in case you're new here, I once wrote a fic about a lonely lighthouse keeper, and later expanded it into an entire novel about a lonely lighthouse keeper and his suicidal boyfriend.

You can buy the book here. I reread it about six months ago; still good.

The movie is cute, tolerable even to me, an adult who generally does not enjoy kids' media. Some of you will care that Rhys Da rby's voice is in it. Can't find any gifs; it's brand new this week, I think.

[fuckyeahfightlock]

Who wants to cry their eyes out this holiday season? Anyone? Do I have any takers for being wracked with sobs? OK then, how about some genuine laughs? Great. Great. Love that for you, but just so you know, you'll also be continuously weeping.

Silent Night (2021) is a Bri'ish black comedy motion picture starring Kiera Knightley as Nell (don't know where time went, but she is no longer an ingenue; news to me) and Andrew Goode as Simon (forever in my heart as serpentynka's headcasting of our dear Lexie-Bertie), parents of three pre-teen sons, hosting a friends' Christmas dinner on the last night of all of their lives.

"Poison gas" is killing the world (the Russians? climate change?), and it's coming for the English on Christmas. Thoughtfully, the government has issued everyone (well, not homeless people or illegal immigrants!) a suicide pill to insure a dignified death rather than hemorrhaging from their eyes and nose while their insides liquify. Thus, we get four couples of lifelong friends and their children together in a country house for the end of the world.

There are some really funny, dark comedic moments in this movie--not surprising when you've got the likes of Lucy Punch, Rufus Jones, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste in the cast with a fantastically sharp-edged script by Camille Griffin (who also directs). But man alive, this is one hella sad horror movie. Roman Griffin Davis (Jojo Rabbit) is superlative as Nell and Simon's eldest son, the only person who seems to grapple realistically with the prospect of mass suicide vs. trying to survive. (Lucy Punch's Bella at one point exclaims, "I've seen The Road; I can't live in post-apocalyptic monochrome!")

I highly recommend this film; I will definitely rewatch it, despite all my weeping. It really was incredibly sad, but also a realistic family horror, and darkly funny. I don't know how this one passed me by.

Also everyone is dressed incredibly well; I want all their outfits.

(Lily-Rose Depp is in this, too)