Um Casamento de Natal

Marla Solokoff is so good here. The character is pleasant enough most of the time, but eventually she is really nice. But I liked her best when she was having a good time, knowing she would not gain weight or have to pay for huge purchases on her (former) company's credit card, or spend time in jail. Her efforts to improve herself and get her man are really enjoyable.

The cab driver is well played by George Wendt (who has several roles),

Chris Carmack is good enough, and he even sings, but not well enough for me to believe he will be a big country star.

Catherine Hicks does a great job as Rebecca's mom.

There is plenty of good Christmas music, but also a lot of what I consider junk.

This is no masterpiece but it is a pleasant and even funny fantasy for the holidays.

First of all, I enjoyed this movie. I've seen it now three times, and it's not a great movie (are any of these Christmas movies "great?"); it falls far behind "Christmas Kiss" and "A Perfect Christmas List" and about even with "Back to Christmas."

Still, it a nice cast - George Wendt is interesting as the ghostly cab driver, and Marla of course gives her all, which is very much indeed. So for the cast and story, I'd recommend it.

On the other hand, the direction is unimaginative (drab, actually) and the editing draws several scenes out way too long. It's as if they felt they had to hit us over the head with emotional tug, or didn't really have sufficient scenes written to fill in the length.

I do want to say that I have to thank Hallmark for helping to finance and distribute these films, and ION for running them also. It's much better watching than a lot of other junk the TV stations offer.

The good point - George Wendt and Catherine Hiks. Only for presence but the acting is reduced at sketches by script. And, sure , the slice of version of !A Christmas Carol". The bad thing - childish use of Groundhog Day theme. Because it is boring, fake and not so convincing. And vulgar in this case. The reasonable thing - the romance . A sketch itself, bad used, but it is not so not reasonable to say a good word about a film who seems just a two hours improvisation.

I love Marla Sokoloff, and the cast is all nicely chosen here, but the script and the directing just leave something to be desired. The entire affair feels gauzy, which isn't a surprise for a Hallmark movie, but underneath that there should still be some substance. In this case it just feels like they started with a mood they wanted to create and half-heartedly filled in whatever would produce that mood, without working much on details like whether any of it made sense. (Lots of it does, but there are some head-scratchers too.)

Honestly, it felt like a sleepwalk, emotionally. The key revelations which play a central part in the story barely made any emotional impact at all on the people involved. So the chance for some real acting to intrude on our gauze-fest was mostly wasted -- just about entirely wasted, in the case of the revelation about the past history of the main characters. Shame.

Still, it wasn't a bad way to spend a little time, if you like this kind of sappy movie. There are some fun moments, and I never get tired of watching Marla. 5/10 for me.

As cute as this may be all it is, is a twisted version of Groundhog Day. As usual another fake remake of an original. I guess writers have no new ideas these days.