Holiday Marathon: A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale (2015)

This holiday marathon is going at an exceptionally snail pace but don’t you worry. I am trying to get my Christmas/winter/holidays stuff up here, even if it isn’t holiday movies. To be honest, I kind of just want to go back to the classics and not linger too much on these other movies. However, A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale looks cute to say the least. I mean, pets are always welcome for festival season or any season at that.

A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale (2015)

Director: Letia Clouston

Cast: Lexi Giovagnolia, Jonathan Bennett, Dina Meyer, Patrick Muldoon, Jennifer Joseph, Timeca M. Seretti, Tim Hess

When spoiled, 21-year old college student Luce Lockhart is forced to take a job over the holidays walking a rich developer’s dog, she is thrilled to discover they are going to build a salon and spa over the quaint local dog park nearby. But when Luce meets Dean, an irritating yet handsome dogwalker actively trying to stop them, Luce is forced to question what the park means to her newfound friends, and whether she can put aside her selfish ways to help save the park before Christmas. – IMDB

 I remember the first time seeing A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale pop up on my Netflix page and wondered what would make a movie like this appealing. Sure, there is the above factors I mentioned. Dogs are always a welcoming addition to any movie. Then the second reason popped up and that is Jonathan Bennett, probably most widely known for his role as the boy in Mean Girls. I love Mean Girls and surprisingly, I have seen a few other movies after Mean Girls of Jonathan Bennett. He’s not my favorite actor but I like his roles and his work. There’s a genuine feeling about him, whether it was in Love Wrecked with Amanda Byne (review) or Christmas Crush with Rachel Boston (review). Adding into a simple story in A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale, it all seems to work out. Actually, regardless of how some parts seem rather contrived at parts, there is still a lot of heartwarming and fun moments.

A lot of the story’s charm goes to Jonathan Bennett playing as Dean and our main character, Luce who we realize has everything and doesn’t quite understand the need of the dog park. As the story continues, we as the experienced viewers already know that she’s going to be the one that will somehow save the dog park, or at least take it upon her to do it and realize the worth of it by the end. However, the merit of this movie that gives it a lot of feel good points is the journey to get there. The interaction and dialogue and chemistry that builds between her and Dean and even her growing love for these furry friends all play into this. Luce is a flawed character but only these characters can grow, regardless of how predictable it is and actually, this movie focuses on how she yearns for “substance” in her personality and we realize that she does have a lot when she doesn’t only care about shopping but puts her traits to good use. Lessons, message, feel-good, heartwarming and a little romance gives this story a nice little boost.

Of course, we can’t leave this movie without Missy, played by Dina Meyer who is the employer of Luce and her and her husband, played by Patrick Muldoon, plan on building the spa in the dog park area. The friction is here and the dilemma for Luce starts here as she eventually becomes torn on finding the balance between pleasing her employer as they have powerful positions in society and possibly her future and doing the right thing. But we’re here to talk about Missy Paxton and Dina Meyer does a fine job at giving a lot of enthusiasm and charisma to this character.

Overall, A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale really does need to be taken apart. Its supposed to be just watched as a heartwarming little movie with the best intentions. There are some fun performances and some nice interactions and a little chemistry and lots of furry little pets. As predictable as this all is, the feel-good heartwarming element that a Christmas movie needs is exactly what I needed and liked about this one.

My 5 Christmas Day Must-Watch! :)

Netflix has been rather slim pickings for a motivating holidays marathon.  I will probably get a few belated reviews up if I get to watch them today.

Christmas Day is a laid back stay at home in my PJs and hang out with my family day.  Cook a good meal, bake a dessert or two, turn on the fireplace and pop in our must-see movies!

AND, thats why I’m here! Most of those movies I’ve already reviewed in 2012 for my super motivated December month. Not so much these last two years.

Still, while I get my thoughts in order during my time off from work (FINALLY!) and get this blog organized and back on my game, I present to you my Christmas Day movie rundown 🙂

As I put this together, we’ve already started Elf.

1) How the Grinch Stole Christmas 

2) Mickey’s Christmas Carol

3) A Charlie Brown Christmas

4) Elf

5) The Holiday

Runner ups that I tend to watch every other year: Love Actually, Polar Express, A Garfield Christmas, While You Were Sleeping, Home Alone, Miracle on 34th Street

I’m keeping short and sweet for this post! I’m going to work a little more on the blog and the next  year and try to get a few things up everyday. I have 5 more books to read and a ton of movies about to expire on Netflix so I’ll be rather occupied.  Along with family and friends and Boxing Day!

What are your favorite Christmas movies?

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! 🙂

Christmas Marathon: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

I finally finished National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!

The last weekend, I watched a part of this before falling asleep halfway through. Its been happening a lot. Work stress tends to do that.  I made time for it last night and wrapped it up.  This is my first time seeing this so I’m not exactly sure what to expect. I have been avoiding it because it really doesn’t look like my sort of movie.  Like I’m sure I’ll appreciate it but I won’t be in love with it or anything.

Lets see if its what I expected!

Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik

Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, Randy Quaid, Doris Roberts, John Randolph

This year, Clark Griswald and his family are hosting the Christmas celebrations for the rest of the family.  Clark has everything planned for the holidays except as the family arrives, things start going off track.  With his mind set on the annual bonus, he tries to keep his spirits high and bring the Christmas spirit to his family.

I’m not exactly sure how to review this one.  What to talk about?

For one, maybe because I watched it in two sittings, I’m wasn’t exactly impressed with anything. It was exactly what I would expect.  Wait, that makes me sound like I didn’t like it.  Its more like I was entertained for the most part but also slightly indifferent.  Maybe its just not my type of humor? It was a little silly and witty.  John Hughes did write the script and I’m a huge fan.  There’s quirky humor that I really like.  It was pretty fun. I guess its kind of crazy to watch how a family can be dysfunctional to that extent. There is A LOT of foreshadowing so by the end, you you guess what disaster is going to happen next and still the reactions are funny.

Christmas movies really don’t get any more Christmas-y than this one.  There’s the whole chopping down the tree to the impressively lit house, eggnog, family dinner, waiting for Santa Claus, Christmas shopping and the likes.  That is pretty great. We’ve exactly had a really out of control Christmas so I’m not exactly sure this happens but I mean, we do watch movies to break out of our normalcy.  Even if I could see what was going to happen in that scene, there is still an irresistible laugh out loud moments.

I’m guessing now is a good time to end this because its really going nowhere.

Point is: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is a very festive Christmas movie and it has some laugh out loud moments. I’m not incredibly impressed by it nor will it go on my absolutely favorite must-watch Christmas movie but it has its own charm and I do have to admit that at various parts between the weird and quirky moments, I did buy  into that charm.

Do you like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation? What are your thoughts? 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

Christmas month starts in about 10 days.  I still haven’t had time to figure out what to do exactly yet and I already have two Christmas movie reviews up.  This is the second movie on the flight back that I saw, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I love Dr. Seuss and for many people reading my past blogs, you would’ve probably already figured that one out.  I’ve watched almost all the movies on Dr. Seuss in the recent years.  This year’s The Lorax was simply fantastic.  You can go and check out my review if you’d like.  I loved Horton Hears a Who!.  In 2000, How The Grinch Stole Christmas was released in human version.  I’m sure it was long awaited.

For those who don’t know, this is based on the Dr. Seuss children’s book about The Grinch that lived on top of the hill of Whoville and hated the noise and the presents that Christmas brought.  He lived with his dog and one day, he comes up with the idea that he will steal Christmas so that it would never have to hear all the joyful noise and music and fuss.  He swoops in and strips the houses of all its decorations and gifts and lights, even all the food.  The story is that he learns that Christmas isn’t about all these materialistic things but rather the spirit can’t die because it means more than that.  The animated version that plays on TV every year is very similar and has Boris Karloff that does the narration, pretty much a reading of the storybook and its quite memorable. It doesn’t escape my Christmas movie marathon every year.  Its tradition to watch it.  I’ll talk more about it when we get into Christmas month in December.

So here we have the revamped version with humans.  Jim Carrey plays the Grinch.  Cindy Lou Who is played by Taylor Momsen and a whole bunch of other actors that I can’t recognize.  It doesn’t matter and I don’t even want to look it up because this movie was pretty bad.  The only factor I thought was worth reclaiming a bit was Taylor Momsen as Cindy Lou.  I actually enjoyed her throughout the whole movie.  Well, maybe using “actually” is not a correct term.  Taylor Momsen is a young actress I do enjoy, even when I was watching Gossip Girl and her role as Jenny Humphrey.  As for Jim Carrey,  he did this role way over exaggerated and the dialogue sometimes was too much, the actions were too much, the additional parts was too much.  They tried to give the movie an extra storyline telling us the reason as to why the Grinch lives on the hilltop and hates the Whos and Christmas, and even went to the extent to give it a bit of romantic spark.  I’m not sure if that was extremely necessary but I guess when you do a full length movie, they had to, or else the source material wouldn’t have been enough to hold up without feeling like it was dragging.  Still, I probably wouldn’t watch this movie ever again.  I spent most of the movie rolling my eyes and thinking when it would end, hoping that maybe it’ll get better.  It didn’t happen.

Other than Taylor Momsen, the other part I’d give to this movie as a positive was the soundtrack.  I owned the soundtrack even before I saw the movie and its a nice one.  There are some fun tunes and nice rendition of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”.  Faith Hill’s version and the movie version of Where are you Christmas is definitely nice to listen to.  There are a few other tracks that I love.

With that said, the movie experience was pretty bad but feel free to go ahead and listen to the soundtrack.   It is a nice fun Christmas music sountrack.  Although, it is sad that I have to list one of Jim Carrey’s movies as bad as this because I really do like him as an actor ever since the beginning.

As usual, I’d love to hear what you think? Did you enjoy it? I want to hear what you liked if you did? Maybe I’ll see it in a different light, who knows, right?