Noël à la télévision

There has never been any bias for or against Hallmark Christmas films. Actually think there are a mix of good, bad (and worse in some cases) and somewhere between mediocre and decent, so it's a variable output really. One just needs to know what to expect and not to expect too much. Have always appreciated romantic dramas with touches of comedy, so yeah 'Broadcasting Christmas' was hardly one of those doomed from the start sort of films.

'Broadcasting Christmas' lived up to and exceeded mixed expectations, as it could have gone either way of being charming and cute or being sickly sweet and cheesy. And it manages on the most part to be the former while still having some degree of substance. 2016 was inconsistent in quality for Hallmark and 'Broadcasting Christmas' is one of the better efforts in my personal opinion. Anybody that loves Christmas and wants a pleasant inoffensive distraction on a dull afternoon may find it likeable enough and while not great it's nice enough.

Did find that the story can be slow and too thin, as well as contrived, in spots, and the supporting characters are sketchy in development. This tends to be a common Hallmark problem so that was not unexpected.

Likewise with the music tending to be too intrusive. Have found more than once with Hallmark that their soundtracks are on the too intrusive and too constant side. Still find that the case here, though there have been worse cases before and since.

However, a lot is good. Melissa Joan Hart and Dean Cain are always watchable and they certainly are here, both in fact being very appealing. Hart particularly in a role that plays to her strengths as an actress very well indeed, with a quirky warmth. Cain does the boy next door type of character with easy going charm. The chemistry between them is sweet and natural, not looking creepy. The supporting cast also fare more than decently, especially Jackee Harry who breathes life into her material.

Visually, 'Broadcasting Christmas' is good looking. It's beautifully photographed and the scenery is quite captivating. The dialogue flows better and more naturally than the dialogue in most Hallmark films and doesn't fall as much into cheese and soap. The story is very light-hearted and really warms the heart, despite its predictability, and the characters never bored or irritated despite being Hallmark cliches pretty much.

Concluding, pleasant enough film. 7/10.

There's a few things that a festive romance movie really loves above all else. A baking montage where flirtatiously tossing flour and sugar around matters more than ever seeing the end product. A passionate kiss in front of twinkling Christmas lights and falling snow as the camera spins around the couple. Cheap cover versions of public domain holiday songs. Above any of those trends, though, one thing sits like a star atop the TV movie Christmas tree: faded 1990s TV icons who never quite made it in real movies. And in Broadcasting Christmas our tree is adorned with not one but two such festive stars as 90s Superman Dean Cain romances 90s Sabrina Melissa Joan Hart.

Neither actor has incredible dramatic range and, two decades after the height of their fame, their late-twentieth-century pin-up good looks are a little woolly around the edges. But what both bring (aside from audience affection from the roles that made them famous) is a kind of polished professional charm and facility with mild light comedy shenanigans that makes them perfectly paired with both this sort of material and each other.

Both Cain and Hart's biggest theatrical box office success in recent times has been courtesy of the dreadful God's Not Dead franchise (a series so hamfistedly awful that it's genuinely hard to say whether it's more offensive to the atheists it mocks or the Christians it claims to represent). Fortunately there are no big theological issues that the movie is ill equipped to tackle here. In fact, what we have is a setup that plays far more to the leads' strengths in slick presentation of lightweight fluff. That's because it's a story all about two old flames competing for a job presenting a breakfast TV magazine show. Slick festive fluff about making slick festive fluff, in other words.

As is practically the law for such movies, one of the potential couple is from a small town, the other the big city. In this case, Hart is a reporter for a local TV station back in Connecticut, having lost out on a New York news anchor job to her then-boyfriend (Cain) years earlier. Fortunately, a "mad as hell and not going to take it any more", Network-style, on-air rant somehow puts her in the running for the coveted morning show gig when it blows up on social media. (This movie is obsessed with mentioning "social media" in generic terms every five minutes, as if desperate to remind everyone that this is happening in the present day, despite its evergreen concept).

Cain, whose years as Clark Kent provide him at the very least with a grounding in playing "guy whose love interest is a better journalist than him", has the more interesting arc of the two. And in fact that is kind of related to how the movie makes it clear that Hart's character is better at what they do. You see, Cain's reporter is the son of a bigshot news anchor and has a few issues over living up to daddy's legacy. It also turns out that his father pulled some strings to land him the New York job all those years ago, even though Hart's character was the first choice candidate.

Given Cain's notoriously unpleasant politics in real life, it's kind of interesting to see him playing a character realising that he hasn't got where he is on merit but through nepotism. Whatever Cain believes in reality, his performance as a man coming to terms with living in a world where privilege trumps being the best candidate for a job is pretty good. He convinces that he genuinely wants to make amends for his unconscious benefitting from an accident of birth. There's also something potentially interesting in how the character rejects the world of serious news reporting by realising his skill set is better suited for the more "feminine", "frivolous" world of morning show segments. That's also a nice contrast to the real Cain's insistence on rigid gender roles in the actual world.

I was slightly disappointed, though, that, having condemned his father for meddling in his career, the dad didn't really have any comeuppance or learn anything at the end.

Anyway, the rest of the story plays out with comforting predictability. Our two leads' other rivals for the job are underdeveloped and disappear from proceedings pretty quickly, but the magazine show format does allow a legitimate reason to pile on the festive montages. Carol singing, seasonal baking, hanging up Christmas decorations, it's all covered here, up to and including a decades-old Christmas cake that's apparently the real headline grabber.

There's nothing in particular here that you wouldn't find in Sabrina and Supes's other holiday offerings, then, but Broadcasting Christmas is nevertheless a pretty solid demonstration of why these actors fit this particular niche.

I always think after two long runs on 'Sabrina' and 'Melissa and Joey' Melissa Joan Hart deserves more recognition than she gets, so it's nice to see her pop up in this Hallmark Christmas film alongside Dean Cain (a man who also knows a lot about being a 90's teen icon).

I thought this was good, with some lovely sweet moments along the way. The two leads have nice chemistry and the story holds up - two main ingredients/must have's for me in this sort of film.

Well worth a watch.

"Broadcasting Christmas" tells the story of small town reporter Emily (Melissa Joan Hart), who's been stuck in the same small Connecticut town for years, covering simple local stories, while her ex- boyfriend Charlie (Dean Cain) has moved on to bigger and better things in Manhattan. When the co-host of a big morning show suddenly quits, Emily tries to apply for the job, but her longtime friend, producer Patrice (Cynthia Gibb) says they're only considering "names." This sends Emily into a jealous tirade, live on air, in which she begs for a shot. The clip goes viral and now the network has no choice but to offer her a chance to compete for the position along with some other, more-qualified contenders, including... you guessed it... her ex-boyfriend Charlie. As the Christmas Day telethon approaches, where the winner is going to be announced, the competition grows more and more fierce... all while our lead couple start to rekindle their feelings for one another. Who will get the job? Who will get the guy?

What makes this movie stand out is that it's not a traditional small town Christmas story. It's set in the big city and it takes place in the cutthroat world of broadcasting journalism. The movie moves at a faster-than-expected pace, features a healthy dose of witty, snappy dialogue, and has two terrific performances by the leads. Melissa comes across as a scrappy fighter and you love her for it, while Dean is the more sympathetic one who discovers a unpleasant secret about his own success. They have a fun chemistry that straddles the line between straight romance and workplace rivalry... again, making it feel different.

"Broadcasting Christmas" is one of the better Hallmark movies in recent memory and definitely worth a close look this holiday season.

Very disappointing, if you want to represent winter with snow, that means 30-40 degrees F. How in earth, can you walk outside with high heel shoes on snowie wallway. Then, there is no fog coming out of mouth when they speak. Story is cheesy