Passions sous la neige

Very cute. A little scattered but very cute. Camryn Manheim was at her best. She made me cry during her short speech. Eric Szmanda and MTM were very funny together. Poppy Montgomery was good again with David Sutcliffe who she starred with in Murder in the Hamptons. Though I wish they expanded their parts a bit. Jennifer Esposito and the young boy were wonderful together and very touching. All in all a very cute seasonal movie. Everyone stories get affected by the snow and somehow it changes the way their life is going. Makes you smile and laugh a little and even cry if you ever see it on cable stay a watch a little it will be worth the time. Merry Christmas.

This horrible movie was on at Christmastime this past year. I thought I was going to shoot myself just watching it. The acting was terrible and Mary Tyler Moore was so clichéd that I was hoping her character had a terminal illness. Poppy Montgomery looked good as always, but the two guys vying for her affection were awesomely annoying. Everything was complete smarm and overly convenient. I have seen episodes of Walker that looked like Hitchcock compared to this drivel. And instead of turning off the lights and enjoying the evening, my wife stayed up to watch the whole thing.

If you've ever felt lower than a Hallmark TV movie, then you have experienced crushing rejection.

You know, I'm a fan of Connie Willis's fiction, which is the only reason I tuned into this dreck-fest of a film. I mean, it's a network made-for-TV movie called "Snow Wonder." The probability for awfulness was high from the get-go. But it was based on a short story by Connie Willis, so...I figured, what the heck, right? What a mistake. There's two hours I'll never get back. The story arc was awful--perhaps the fact that there were so many separate story lines had something to do with that, who knows? I never cared for any of the characters; almost all of them were tiresome to a fault. The cast was not so bad, but most of the actors seemed like they were flailing around without any direction. Camryn Mannheim and David Sutcliffe especially deserve better. I'm not sure what happened to Mary Tyler Moore... maybe it was just that the character she was playing was so stereotyped and tired..."Oooh, I'm so eccentric! Oooh, I wear a lot of scarves and drapey clothes--that shows how artsy I am!" Her storyline in particular was excruciating to watch. And I've never seen so many overused visual and verbal clichés that masquerade as storytelling in my life. If Connie Willis's short story is anything like this, I may have to revise my opinion of her work. Then again, look what happened to Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea when it made it to TV. Oh, the humanity. It's too late for me, but save yourselves and avoid "Snow Wonder" at all costs. I only give it a 2 out of 10 because it's not as bad as "Salsa" (truly the worst film ever made).

'Tis the season for magical Christmas shows where we are whisked away from our dreary lives for a couple of hours of love and joy and hope.

The movie is actually 5 mini-stories woven together by a freak snow storm on Christmas eve - an aspiring writer (Eric Szmanda) looks for encouragement from an off beat aunt (Mary Tyler Moore); a woman's philandering husband (Jason Priestley) is "stranded" away from home; a would-be maid of honor (Poppy Montgomery) watches her friend's wedding self destruct; a divorced mom (Jennifer Esposito) agonizes over her young son going to his father's home for Christmas Day and a widow (Camryn Manheim) tries to block out last Christmas when her husband died. In each story, the snowstorm leads to some interesting changes to the character's lives.

The cast won't have to book time off for award shows but they all played their parts adequately and let us walk away feeling that all is right with the world. Two hours of non-demanding escapism to a happier place, ideal to relax with on a lazy holiday evening.

Billy (Josh Randall) is not a meteorologist, but he reports on weather conditions for the cable channel 24/7 Weather. He says few Americans will see snow this Christmas. Then something amazing happens. He can't understand why clouds are forming so suddenly all over the country. Neither would someone with training. This is a Christmas miracle. Snow starts falling all over the country, and even the world. It snows for the first time ever in Key West. It snows in Italy, Morocco, Malaysia ... Hawaii??? Even Madagascar, where it is supposed to be summer. And with the biggest weather story in years, he loses his teleprompter. So he has to go see pretty Joey (Michelle Krusiec) who writes his material.

Stacey (Julie Ann Emery) is marrying Jim (David Sutcliffe) in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Paula (Poppy Montgomery), is her maid of honor but wishes she could be the bride. The question is which man should she marry? One possibility is the cello player.

Pilar (Jennifer Esposito) lives in Los Angeles with her son, but her ex-husband in San Diego demands that she let the boy spend Christmas with him. He even visits a judge who is supposed to be enjoying a day off to make sure it will happen.

Bev (Camryn Manheim) is from suburban Chicago and she goes to a sugar plantation in the South where it is unlikely to snow. Flashbacks show her happy life with husband Howard.

Luke (Eric Szmanda) wants to be a writer and his family regards him as a failure, except for his weird Aunt Lula (Mary Tyler Moore), who has an interesting romantic history involving celebrities. While waiting on the others to arrive, Luke tries learning to cook and listens to the stories.

Marjean (Caroline McKinley) is missing her husband Warren (Jason Priestley) for the second Christmas in a row. Though he claims to be stuck at the airport in Cincinnati, he is really with his girlfriend in Baltimore.

This miraculous weather event inconveniences the various characters but ends up improving the lives of many of them, while making others (who deserved it) miserable.

I only saw two really outstanding performances among the leading actors. I've never seen Mary Tyler Moore so quirky and ditzy. Eric Szmanda was okay alongside her. A movie about just them and the family might have been quite enjoyable.

And Camryn Manheim showed real anguish and bitterness. While the movie could have been a quality production with only her storyline, it would have been quite depressing. I should single out the three other actors that joined her: they played the driver who brought her to the plantation, the priest at the nearby church she stopped in just because it was pretty (though she didn't seem religious), and the bartender who played the piano.

The other performances and story lines were okay, though the parts with Warren, Marjean and bimbo seemed out of place and not well-acted at all, while still funny. And this story provided most of the bawdy humor that kept this from being a G-rated fantasy. Aunt Lula supplied the rest.

It was, for the most part, a corny fantasy of the type we see so much of at Christmas. I enjoyed it.