story_by_corey

Ladies of the 80s: A Divas Christmas is Lifetime Network's attempt to turn 80s era night-time soap characters into a Christmas movie. For this movie, they brought Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild, Nicolette Sheridan (Knots Landing), and Linda Gray (Dallas) characters back to life in the mythical soap, "The Great Lakes." They have also included Loni Anderson (best known for WRKP in Cincinnati) who was an 80s diva though not in a soap. The story revolves around The Great Lakes cast being forced to share an architecturally interesting house to film a live finale episode. As the cast gathers in the house, we learn the Divas real lives are as complicated as the characters they portray in the soap. The drama creates headaches for the show's writer-producer Alex (played by Travis Burns who is best known for the Australian soap Neighbours) and director Nell (Taylor Ann Thompson). Nell and Alex also serve as the romantic element of the movie. They were college friends who intermittently work together. Nell had long desired this friendship to be something more. Alex was always too busy with his career to notice Nell's interest and the Divas decide to band together and help Nell get her man.

It was a great premise for a holiday movie and an ambitious attempt to not only reunite these 80s soap stars but take nostalgia to the next level by weaving their past characters into an entirely new storyline. Everything was in place for a potentially great Lifetime Christmas movie with a unique twist. I thought Lifetime would pull it off, but the movie never reached its full potential. Nell and Alex's characters felt very forced, and their romantic storyline was going nowhere. I wondered why it was even included in the movie. The Divas needed less focus on their soap caricatures and more development of their character's backstories to facilitate the reconciliation storylines that were critical to the movie's ending. Even Christmas itself was just a background and not really part of the story.

Was it all too much to expect from a Lifetime Christmas movie? Perhaps, but I did enjoy seeing all the Divas in one movie and watching them resurrect their most infamous characters. It was just enough of a draw to hold my interest to the end. If you are not a fan of 80s soaps or they were before your time, it's probably best to skip this one for another Christmas movie. If you are a fan of those shows or the Divas, then it's worth your time just for the pleasant trip down nostalgia lane.

I'll give any movie a try if it has corgis in it, and this one had wall-to-wall corgis being cute and doing cute things. As for the storyline, well its about a misbehaving royal corgi that photo bombs a royal event. The corgi becomes a national sensation which leads to all kinds of good things for the community and the royal family's reputation. Meanwhile, the female lead falls in love with the dog trainer who is also the male lead. There is not much else to this movie other than fundraising/social events that give the corgis excuses to be in the movie. Its formula Hallmark and there is barely enough storyline in it to keep your interest. I came for the movie, but only stayed to the end for the corgis.

At its roots, Haul out the Holly is a formula Hallmark Christmas movie. However, the formula has been tweaked enough to make me feel like I was not watching one. Emily (played by Lacey Chabert) must spend Christmas alone at her parent's house. They live in an HOA that requires all the residents to decorate their house for the holidays. Emily's parents decide to spend Christmas in Florida and she reluctantly stuck decorating the house all by herself. Jared (played by Wes Brown) is responsible for enforcing HOA rules and also happens to be interested in Emily and forces her to put up the decorations.

In other hands, this storyline would likely have been ruined by bad acting and forced characters, and predictable scene endings. But in this case, Mclain Nelson directed it in a manner that broke the mold off the Hallmark formula. I was just blown away by how many new layers of things that ran throughout this movie. It was really funny because all the actors had space to play their quirky characters off each other with over the top, improv acting. There were subtle gags running in the scene background. Parodies of overzealous HOAs and just about every neighborhood Christmas party and neighbor obsessions with their decorations and food goodies ran throughout the story. Easter eggs were also hidden throughout the movie that connected to Lacey's previous Hallmark appearances. Finally, Lacey's narrations about the behind-the-scenes filming of the movie made me rewind and watch some scenes over.

In the last 10 minutes of the movie, the characters settle into the usual Hallmark formula, and it brings it all back home to remind us we are in fact still in a formula Hallmark movie. But I didn't care. This movie was so fun to watch, and I so enjoyed the characters, parodies, and hidden trivia that I never actually noticed a formula storyline was unfolding before me. Hallmark has set a new bar for their movies, and I think this could be my favorite one of theirs with Lacey Chabert in it.