Pumpkin Pie Wars [That’s A Christmas- Cole Reviews Festive Hallmark Movies]

This series of posts is named after MBMBAM‘s segement That’s A Christmas To Me, which is a delight if you love dreadful festive movies.

I am a strong believer that ‘guilty pleasures’ is a dreadful phrase, and that you shouldn’t be ashamed of liking cheesy things. I write romance novels, so maybe I’m biased about this, I don’t know.

Hallmark festive movies are weirdly compelling to me. They’re not without their flaws- god knows they’re pretty much all white, cisgender, heteronormative nonsense. They all have basically the same plot and possess possibly the lowest stakes possible for a film to still claim it has a plot. That said, they’re like catnip to me, especially as we enter this cooler, Christmassy time of the year. I inevitably watch about a dozen each year, so I have decided to review them, because I can.

Pumpkin Pie Wars is a new one for me this year. The ‘plot’ basically involves the adult children of rival bakeries entering the pumpkin pie competition that their mothers first forged their intense hatred of each other in a decade ago. The issue is that Casey cannot cook, as she is a business graduate (top of her class, apparently, although for some reason works at her mum’s bakery) and Sam wants to be a proper chef, not a mere baker. They forge a plan to help each other in secret, and, well, it’s a Hallmark film, so there’s some PG-rated smooching and they fall in love.

This is a very short film, coming in at fewer than 90 minutes, and I am sort of loath to say this about a Hallmark movie, but it could have done with being longer. The ‘misunderstanding’ that one expects in a romance film came 15 minutes from the end, and then there was another key plot point thrown into the mix about five minutes later. Carnage, obviously, for the last ten minutes.

The main characters were about as bland and politely charming as you’d expect in this, but their mothers were amazing and vicious to each other. The whole thing plays like Romeo & Juliet but without all the stabbing.

It’s trash, and the pacing is off, but the delicious animosity between their mothers is delightful, so I’d say this is a good medium-bad Hallmark movie.

Review: The Mandalorian

This review could basically read it’s amazing and you need to watch it and honestly that would be sufficient.

If you’ve been living under a rock (because let’s face it, I am late to this party) The Mandalorian is a series on Disney+. Set in between trilogies, it follows the adventures of, well, the Mandalorian- a masked bounty hunter with the voice of Pedro Pascal and not much of his face.

Of course, nobody really cares about that (although it must be said that he does an incredible acting job given that his face is covered for the vast, vast majority of this show). People are obsessed with the Child- aka, Baby Yoda.

Look at this lad though

Although he’s not Yoda, he’s a tiny green Force-sensitive cutie and is by far the best thing about this show. I have never felt such intense anxiety about the fate of something so physically similar to a snot before.

This show is heavy on the Western vibes, even down to the music choices, and it works really well. It’s aesthetically gorgeous and well-paced.

Other reasons why it kicks ass: Taika Waititi is a robot, Werner Herzog is a bad guy, and Gina Carano is amazing.