Christmas with a View

Okay, I've just read most of the other reviews of this movie and I completely agree with a couple of them who said the first few minutes were so bad they just turned it off. I felt that way too at about the 15 minute mark, but I just left it on because I was just chillin' at home with nothing else in particular to do. Those two ditzy chicks were awful. I was sorry to see the bad plastic surgery on Jess Walton-she used to be so attractive. And I just couldn't buy Vivica Fox as the Mom. I was ready to hate the character of Shane, but before long he had won me over. And Kaitlyn Leeb as Clara was really quite engaging. I won't give away the ending, but trust me that it really does make enduring the first half of the movie worth the pain it takes to watch it. I give it 6 stars: 1 for the beginning, 4 for the plot development later in the movie, and 10 for the finale, making an average (in my mind) of 6.

Love Vivica A Fox! I thought this was a sweet Christmas romance movie. Not Oscar material, but fun and light. I've watched a couple of times while baking to keep the Christmas cheer going.

Watched this with my wife and we both were entertained. The setting was beautiful and the lead actress and actor were good. As a guy would I watch this by myself? No... but it was a nice chill movie with my wife, a drink (maybe 2) and a piece of apple pie :). Give it a shot!

Making a reaction between potassium chlorate and candy would be more interesting than watching the chemistry between Clara and that handsome-but-plain cook. And Clara, oh well, I'm sorry for your poor acting. I got bored to the moon and back.

Its a cheesy hallmark movie and I loved every second of it. The main character was captivating and I thought he had great chemistry with the lead actress. Don't expect crazy cinematic quality but it was definitely fun to watch.

At first when it started, I thought, "Oh NO, this is terrible". The acting was so stilted I was shocked. But as I kept watching while doing other Christmas things like wrapping presents, I started to really enjoy it. Yes, it seemed the acting was flat, but it grew on me. The characters were not over the top, they seemed like true, nice people. (Except for the two women named Janice I think - they were a stink bomb - no one behaves like that, or if they do, I certainly wouldn't want to meet them). Yesterday I decided to watch several Christmas Romantic movies: Christmas Inheritance, A Christmas Prince and The Princess Switch. This well out weighed them in the genuineness of love. There was none of that stupid shlock about "making this the season" to suddenly be nice to others (shouldn't people behave that way always?). There were no stupid jokes or people falling all over the place, or being dunderheads. What I experienced was a nice love story, subdued in its way, but warm and very intentional. I really enjoyed Scott Cavalheiro in his role as the "famous" chef Shane. He was always so kind even when those dips the Janice's crowded into his space at a coffee shop. He could have been rude, but he wasn't. I don't believe Scott was actually acting...I am bound to think this is his true persona and that makes me want to see other movies he has been in. Kaitlyn Leeb, as Clara, was also very understated in her acting. I thought initially she was a terrible actress, but again, I found her sincere and not over the top character like Hollywood likes to make people. Some people complained that Clara's mother was black and they made Kaitlyn look white. I prefer to think that the movie showed incredible diversity. I gather that Clara's father was white; and I appreciated the fact that Clara's brother was married to a woman who was white or possibly Asian. Because in the end, we are all people, and we should all be able to sit down at the same table no matter how we look and appreciate one another. Patrick Duffy and his wife Jess Walton (Frank and Jackie) added a nice treat of comfort and the feeling of being with just darn nice people. They do exist and these two made me wish to be married the length of time they had been and so in love and appreciative of each other. A great model for us all. The evil bad guy was also realistic. He wasn't some stupid monster, he was working like most true nefarious people do. We all knew there was something skeptical about him, and it came out, but not so overblown obvious, again, like Hollywood likes to make evil characters. Because in real life, we don't always see them, they act like the rest of us, only they lie. But, to top it all, I loved the location shots. I have tried to find out where this was filmed but to no avail. I grew up in a mountain ski town so it really hit home as far as the beauty of the snow and the mountains.

... and by interesting I mean bad. Seriously, did they even have a script? Have they even heard of color grading? Very weird cuts, too. Just feels like an unpolished project of an undergrad film student. I give it two stars because it was involuntarily funny - we had to laugh out loud a couple of times, and nearly had a good time watching it.