Joy for Christmas

I'm still catching up from last year, and I just got around to Joy for Christmas.

This was actually pretty good.

The story involves a charity that has been ripped off, who's administrator is desperately trying to find a way to obtain toy donations by Christmas. She devises a plan to utilize the celebrity of a ballplayer, who's foundation has been similarly duped.

Sam Page plays the ballplayer, and he does a nice job. I'm kind of hit or miss with Sam. However, in this instance, he has excellent chemistry with his co-lead Cindy Busby. I have never been much of a fan of hers.

It might be just me, but it seemed to me there were a lot of shots of her...posterior regions. I've never noticed that before. I might like her a little better now.

Her sister is played by Erin Boyes, who has always been one of my favorites ever since she played Zoey in The Mistletoe Promise. Do yourself a favor and watch that.

All in all, worth a watch, if only once.

The bones of this story are very much like many other movies where the romantic leads are thrown together to save a family institution. But in this case, it's a charity they are trying to save and the reason for the problem is not the usual slow business but because the family was scammed out of the collected donations. And instead of working on a pageant or a festival or a ball, Holly is trying to inspire Jack's Christmas spirit. The dynamics are different than the usual.

What impressed me in this movie was how natural Cindy Busby and Sam Page were together. Their conversations sounded natural. They really enjoyed their time together.

The climax creating the conflict is interesting and kind of ticked me off. For one thing it didn't make sense why a third party did what he did. And then there is a bit of a twist even if it leads to the expected.

Wesley MacInnes (Wes Mack) plays and sings a few Christmas songs and he sounds great.

Yes I found it weird with step mom and step brother. But they were so focused on helping community children that when they opened their home to these kids, I saw o ly about maybe one and a half dozen kids and not more. Where were all these kids they were so fixated on getting gifts for.

Sam Page is such a good actor, but even he couldn't save this movie. I'm not sure why they paired such a serious actor, who is so good at heartfelt roles, with an actress who is so different from his style. I try to like her, but her reactions in scenes are always so overacted. She comes across as a bratty kid in and adult body. If she would bring it down a few notches, she would be more believable in her roles. This was a nice story idea, but the script was poorly written. The only good thing about the movie was Sam Page. Too bad they wasted his talent on this movie. He works better with more serious actors like Lacey Chabert.

Five stars for Sam Page. Minus for Cindy Busby. Can't for the life of me figure out why she keeps being cast in these movies - in Hallmark, GAC, and Lifetime. She is a terrible actor ... always plays the same character in EVERY movie. No different in this one. Thankfully she left Heartland ... she ruined it too.

Pair Sam Page with an actor of the same quality. He's awesome.