EyewatchTV211

I don't have anything to add to comments on the episode itself, but regarding whether or not Dex is an alcoholic. It's possible the definition has changed, but I remember back in health class, we learned that being an alcoholic is not related to how much/how often you drink. There was an example we saw of someone who had just one drink every night but the person was incapable of skipping that one drink for one night. It's more about the reliance on it. I think the show is too all over the place to judge how often Dex does without or what her exact routine is with the alcohol. She clearly abuses alcohol in some way, but whether it's alcoholism I don't know.

This was one of the better obstacles, I agree. That's why I added the word obstacle in addition to misunderstanding - it's the misunderstandings that drive me crazy. But it still led to a rushed ending, which was annoying.

I liked the leads in this movie as well, which helped make it enjoyable. I just wish they wouldn't insist on having some sort of misunderstanding or other obstacle with 15 minutes left that requires the ending to be so rushed. Either have the obstacle earlier or none at all.

Yeah, all of that was really bad. I'm just amazed I even got that far since her voice bothered me so much. And I am usually not one to particularly notice voice quirks that bother other people.

I watched Mr. Write, but it was a struggle. The way the female lead talked bothered me so much. It was like she was purposely holding back and trying to speak gently/quietly, and at the same time she sounded very nasal. I also did not think the leads had chemistry, and it was just not a good movie. I did enjoy Late Bloomer.

Good to know. Up is airing it soon.

This is a good point and actually suggests the Giants went about it in a decent way, whether or not people agree on the person and not being able to predict the future. Many believed that they had a "favorite" or a few favorites. Yet apparently Judge came in and wowed them in the interview, and got the good reference from BB. There's different reports on what happened with the supposed favorite, but doubtful anyone can say that Judge was an obvious backup option all along or another favorite pre-interview. So they had enough of an open mind to really put weight on the interviews instead of just going through the motions and picking the person intended all along.

Christmas Unleashed on Lifetime.

The Jews meet and fall in love at a Chinese restaurant but go separate ways when they leave, only to run into each other at the movie theater later that day going to see the same movie!

Not just that she smiles too much. But she does that weird open mouthed smile or otherwise opens her mouth for no reason. I tried it out to see if it was natural or comfortable in any way - nope. Not sure how she developed that habit. Like others, I've decided to just finish out what I've already DVRed on Hallmark and then will stick to the other channels.

This movie is SOOOOOO bad. Down there with the Kellie Pickler movies bad. Even outside of the handling of the Jewish character, which is bad, it's bad on its own. I'm not sure I can make it through the whole thing. Unfortunate since the lead guy is very cute. Guess I'm a bad Jew for not being familiar with any of these Jewish actors before now.

I thought the kid's voice was good when she first heard him, but the final duet wasn't a good fit for his voice at all and she understandably outshone him. I liked the movie, though, and Kristin was great. She gave me some good laughs. Agree with your other comments. Scott Wolf was actually better here than in the few episodes of Nancy Drew that I watched.

I finished watching Mistletoe and Menorahs. It had some issues, but I enjoyed it overall. It was nice getting to see a little bit of my culture/religion in one of these movies. I think this is a good summary of the good and bad in the movie https://jwa.org/blog/review-lifetimes-mistletoes-and-menorahs. Still, I suspect this will be way better than the Hallmark attempts at including Hanukkah, based on what I've read.

I was thinking the exact same thing. I'm watching now on my DVR, but when I saw it was scheduled for 6 PM I was disappointed. No other movie has premiered at that time. So they start making movies referencing Hanukkah but discourage people from watching.

Apologies in advance for going back to this topic, but I started seeing new reviews of the Hallmark movies with Jewish characters, including a review in The Washington Post. I finally went to the link summarizing the interview with Bill Abbott. I hadn't read it last time. Wow - it's even worse than I thought. Particularly this quote: He clearly has the least possible knowledge about Hanukkah beyond that it exists if he thinks Christmas is more secular. Christians go to church for the holiday, which they portray in many of their Christmas movies. Jews do not go to temple specifically for Hanukkah. It is not a religious holiday at all. It's totally about the gift-giving and celebrations with generic reference to the "miracle." Ugh. Sorry for venting again.

The daughter in Rock N Roll Christmas was not the lead in A Gift Wrapped Christmas. She was the lead's sister. That's why she wasn't as charming and charismatic as you remembered - you were thinking of another actress, lol. I similarly did not finish the movie and deleted it from my DVR, which is rare for me.

As a culturally Jewish person who mostly enjoys these movies (while also making fun of them), this is disappointing but not really surprising. When I first read the announcements about the movies, they sounded desperate to insist that they would be including BOTH CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH. So not to worry people - no complete focus on Hanukkah for 2 whole movies. Not like there's any towns in the country with large enough Jewish populations to get away with that 🙄(it would have been okay to see some Christmas decorations in the background while walking around town or whatever since that would still be likely even if all the main characters were Jewish). Then I was further concerned when I saw who was cast in the movies and it seemed that none of the actors were actually Jewish. I think I ultimately saw one, but I actually think it might be for a movie on another channel unless I'm remembering wrong. And I also heard about the supposed delay in having these movies being lack of "good scripts" about Hanukkah. That's also stupid, as any of the less religious Christmas storylines could easily be changed to fit Hanukkah. Hanukkah is about a miracle, too. Easy to relate that to love, etc. And not a very religious holiday, so don't have to worry about too much there. I'll probably watch out of curiosity but I won't get my hopes up.

Guess the bare trees were stock footage, then. I thought it was from the actual shooting. Though I'm trying to remember what last April was like in MA - you never know up there. Oh well. I'm glad it filmed in Massachusetts.

I'm with you on all of this. I started watching the late repeated showing of the movie because of issues with my DVR earlier, and I ended up staying up really late to watch the whole thing (and sadly had to sit through commercials). While the overall storyline matches so many of these typical holiday movies, the feel of it was almost closer to older Hallmark or even a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie (not saying the quality was actually there) than current Lifetime or Hallmark. It handled the storyline more seriously and didn't rush to resolve things. It didn't force a million Christmas activities unnaturally. It wasn't overly colorful and cheesy and fake. And I thought the leads had good chemistry. The male lead was a new one in these. Lookwise, he fits with the rest in terms of maybe being the bland white male, but I still enjoyed the eye candy. And he did actually have the "kind eyes" the characters kept referencing which elevates certain actors for me, like Colin Firth and Michael Rady. It seemed to actually be filmed in winter (trees were bare) but they didn't force fake snow that wasn't there. And surprise! There are farms in the northeast of the country, too. It's not all southern/midwestern cowboys. Agree that the main issue with the movie was the handling of the sister.

I'm going to respond here because this is a general complaint about the Hallmark movies and not holiday-specific. I agree that it's frustrating seeing these characters in huge, beautiful houses all the time. I think I've read that the people behind Hallmark think their viewers want that sort of wish fulfillment. I guess that might be true with some people, but I'd enjoy these movies more if some of the characters had somewhat more relatable lives. The romantic stories are enough wish fulfillment on their own, let these people live in apartments/condos/small homes.

I was thinking the same about all of this. I didn't grow up there, but my family now lives a little northeast of Philly, I went to Penn State and have gone through Harrisburg a few times, and I visited Lehigh University in Bethlehem a couple of times when I almost went there for undergrad and grad school. The geography definitely made no sense. Even taking out the Harrisburg thing, you wouldn't go near Bethlehem if you're driving from Philly to Pittsburgh. I was curious about the founding story, so I did a google search and also saw that Bethlehem was founded in 1741. Like you, I have no idea why they felt the need to make that change. The only thing I could think of is that they wanted the people in the reenactment to wear that particular style of clothing for some reason...

I watched Picture a Perfect Christmas. But, as I've said before, I seem to have different taste than most here and disagree on the movies. So take my opinion with a grain of salt. I actually enjoyed it. I thought the leads had good chemistry that grew as the movie progressed, which is primarily why I liked it. There were some of the usual silly aspects, but I could overlook them. Also no real misunderstanding which was nice.

Has the emerald one been found yet? Those are most expensive if good quality.

Yes, they showed this. When Chidi was enjoying The Good Place too much and not motivated to get better/teach ethics, they realized he needed to be tortured again by having to keep that same secret. So Jason came out to him. Remember the ep where he made his bud hole in Chidi's place and Chidi barely opened the door when Eleanor and Michael came to visit?