As you can probably glean from the title, this movie takes place in Memphis, Tennessee and much of it revolves around the estate of the former “king of rock and roll”, Elvis Presley.  Kellie Pickler plays a Chicago financial executive, Laurel, who returns to her hometown for a week to negotiate a merger with a local bank.  Kellie displays her melodic voice and musical acumen on several occasions during the film.  Unfortunately, despite being a fine singer, she’s not much of an actress which negates any benefit of her singing talent.  Laurel is joined by her daughter, Emma (Claire Green) on her trip.  The beginning of the movie basically sets up that she is overworked and unable to spend as much time with her daughter as she would like.

When in Memphis she, literally, bumps into her old flame Clay (Wes Brown) in front of the Graceland Mansion.  Apparently, she and Clay used to be a musical act during their college years before breaking up.  Clay is now a concert promoter working out of Memphis.  They reconnect during her trip and both are (shockingly) single.  The other characters of note are Sally (Tamara Austin), Laurel’s old college friend, and Mr. Franklin (Tommie Cresswell), the bank owner that Laurel has been sent to negotiate with.

This movie is as full of Christmas and TV cliches as you can imagine.

• You have the greedy, work obsessed northern banker consumed with money and profit versus the kind hearted, country banker who cares more about reputation and his employees than financial reward.  
• The former loving couple in Clay and Laurel who, despite being separated for years, quickly reconnect and rekindle their old flame upon a chance meeting.  
• Two people traveling around a city of over half a million people who seem to constantly run into each other at various locations.  
• The successful but unhappy lead who leaves her hometown to pursue her career but upon returning starts to realize that her true place is back where she grew up.
• The former relationship of the leads ended when the parent of one of the characters dies.

Sally is Laurel’s black college friend, who also serves to watch Emma while Laurel is in town working.  Sally has a daughter of her own around the same age as Emma (and of course the two become best buddies in their week together).  In what has become common in these movies over the past few years, there seems to be a conscious decision to show diversity by casting minorities as best friends or secondary characters.  For this movie, Tamara seems to be the character of choice.  Alas, Sally’s screen time is limited and she is mostly relegated to lines stating how great it is to see someone, how they will miss someone or pointing out the obvious.  Still, Tamara was one of the more appealing characters in the movie and it’s too bad she couldn’t have been the lead and let Pickler fill the less demanding best friend role (Laurel could have been in town encouraging best friend Sally-Pickler to get on stage and perform for the Graceland concert).

Now there were things that really irked me in this movie (Warning: rant follows).  I’m familiar with Memphis and with Tennessee so when I saw the movie had snow on the ground everywhere I was pretty much . . . . “WTF?  Where is this movie supposed to be again?”.  First off, I can tell you with high confidence that it hardly ever snows in Memphis in December.  The odds of it snowing in December in Memphis are about the same as having an Asian cast as a lead character in one of these Christmas movies (i.e. It’s pretty rare).  Secondly, when it does snow it is not very much and it doesn’t stay on the ground long.  For there to be snow on the ground for a week as portrayed in this movie would mean freezing temperatures day and night for almost a week or more.  Even those occasional artic blasts that push into the southern states don’t just last forever.  The landscape of this movie is more like “The Day After Tomorrow” scenario where drastic weather change signifies the end of the world.  And I’m guessing that in a case like that, the Christmas concert would be cancelled in the evacuation.  Thirdly, since it doesn’t snow in Tennessee, the State DOT doesn’t invest in plows and other snow clearing equipment.  This means if it DID snow the city would essentially shut down to keep people off the roads.  People in the South don’t know how to drive in the ice and snow unless they are transplants from the North.  So from that aspect, this whole movie is total bullsh*t.  Once you get beyond these curious weather anomalies and the fact that Clay and Laurel have complete, unlimited and unaccompanied access to the Graceland Mansion to include entering the restricted areas and playing Elvis’s piano after hours . . . . it seems entirely believable.

I’m guessing that the Graceland Estate and the Guest House at Graceland hotel were sponsors for this movie because much of it seemed like a commercial for where to book lodging on your next trip to Memphis.  Let us talk about Laurel and Emma’s hotel room . . . . WOW.  It was either the Guest House equivalent of the Presidential Suite or this hotel is strictly for oil barons, hollywood celebrities, professional athletes and, of course, Chicago banking executives.  It’s unlikely any average traveler could afford to stay here if this is a typical room.  No wonder Chicago needs to layoff so many Memphis employees and slash benefits . . . . how else can they afford the local accommodations for business travel?  And if you stay at the Guest House you get your own personal concierge who will give you gifts and bring you cookies at any time of day and night!!!!  Plus, if you want to put up your own Christmas tree in your room (that you had hauled into your hotel from the tree lot) . . . .  NO PROBLEM!!!

The plot details are unimportant since the leads are so bland and there is no chemistry between them.  Wes Brown is the superior of the two leads since . . . well . . . he can act.  The story is just a vehicle to get them together and the crisis is caused by the common cliché of where the employee is called back early (before Christmas).  I guess employers constantly do this in Christmas movies because they discover the incredibly low last-minute fares for flying right before Christmas???  Laurel turns around and arrives at the Graceland Christmas concert (that she had backed out of at the last minute) and performs with Clay.  Even though it has to be below freezing (snow on the ground remember?), she performs in a low cut, sleeveless, red dress for the show.  Modern concert lighting must be lot hotter than I ever imagined.

Following the concert Mr. Franklin offers Laurel a job so she and Clay can now renew their bland, boring, unromantic relationship (YEEAAAYYY!!!).  This job offer is not due to her professional behavior, instead it is based on hearing her sing that Mr. Franklin becomes convinced she was a true Memphisite . . . Memphisonian . . . . Memphiser . . . ummmm . . . . southern girl.  I guess the innate knowledge of local barbecue and thick southern accent wasn’t enough to give it away.  Speaking of which, I understand that Laurel has a strong southern accent (despite living in the north for years) but what I don’t understand is why it is so noticeable in Memphis.  Shouldn’t the Memphis locals have the same accent she acquired growing up in Memphis?  (Answer: She’s probably the only actual southerner in the entire cast.  The rest are misappropriating southern culture!!!).

Save your time and money (even though it’s free).  There are better holiday movies around than this one.  I give it a 1 out of 5.

This movie stars Tia Mowry-Hardrict as Jen Taylor, a workaholic Ad Executive living in San Francisco.  Jen is desperately competing for a creative director position with another coworker.  She’s recently been avoiding calls from the attorney handling her great aunt’s estate.  She goes to meet her friend at a bar after previously rescheduling 4 times (Yeah, she sounds like a great friend right?) where we learn that she is single due to her obsession with work and obtaining a new promotion.  You might recognize Tia from the mid-90s teen comedy ‘Sister, Sister’ where she starred with her real life twin sister, Tamara.  I know what you are thinking, most child stars never continue their success as they get older because when they lose their 'cuteness' it turns out they can’t act well enough to purse the career as adults.  And while there are some exceptions to this rule who turn out to be truly gifted at acting, based on this movie, Tia isn’t one of them.

Jen finds out that she has inherited her Great Aunt’s Inn in Chestnut Hill, Alaska.  At the airport she meets attorney Brian Anderson, played by Rob Mayes, who looks like a younger version of Jerry O’Connell.  Brian is rude and condescending to Jen the entire drive from the airport (So I guess they based his character’s personality on real life Jerry O’Connell!) because she might sell the Inn which is an important piece of the town or maybe it's because she never returned his calls . . . who really cares.  The point is that Brian is pretty much a dick.  He’s also a part time attorney and part time sleigh builder (Hey, you gotta diversify these days.  The economy in Alaska is NOT what it used to be.).

After dropping Jen off at the Inn, Brian goes to his mom’s nearby Café where they get a call that the Inn is on fire (Because for goodness sake, whenever there is an fire emergency make sure you call the local restaurant so they will know to make more coffee.).  Brian rushes back to the Inn where he finds out that Jen had tried to use the fireplace without opening the chimney flume causing smoke to fill the building.   While Brian is again being a dick towards Jen because she didn’t know how to use the fireplace properly, she accuses him of being at fault for not warning her the place had been winterized.  To be honest, she kind of has a point.  I’m not sure why Brian wouldn’t pass along this information other than to be a jerk (Classic Brian!!!).  He tells her to go to the local Café to warm up while he takes care of the place.  Come to think of it . . . there never were any fire trucks that arrived . . . . so apparently, when there IS a fire in town they don’t actually call emergency services, they just call the Café and order take out (Smores anyone?).  Either that or the Fire Department only operates in the summer.  Or maybe they are waiting on Brian to deliver some of his hand carved sleighs as transportation and the shipment has been delayed because of all these damned estate issues.

Jen goes to the Cafe and unwittingly complains about Brian to Brian's mother, Molly (Erin Gray).  Since he never mentions that his family actually owns the Café (Again, classic Brian) it's not something she can be blamed for.  Later, back at the Inn, Jen finds some old photos of great aunt Helen and finds her journal.  The next day at Molly’s Café, Jen gets volunteered to participate in the Chestnut Hill Annual Christmas Festival (All small towns have these, it’s Christmas Law!!!).  Jen admits she doesn’t celebrate Christmas nor know how to decorate (What?  How hard is it to hang a wreath or some lights?) and is assigned to run the Gingerbread booth (no decorating required I hope).  She then goes to Brian’s Law Office and Sleigh Emporium where Brian admits there isn’t much money in the sleigh construction business (no kidding).  The paperwork is completed and the Inn is officially signed over to Jen.  She gets a call from her friend who suggests that decorating the Inn might help it sell faster (Sure, if you are trying to sell it to Santa Clause) and Jen agrees.

The next morning some guests show up at her door to stay at the Inn, not realizing that Helen has passed.  Jerry O’Connell Jr shows up, throws some of his usual insults at Jen so she decides to let the couple stay.  Then Jen goes to the Christmas festival where we discover pastry decorating is included in her overall lack of decorating skills (yet she is a sketch artist and Ad executive . . . hmmm).  I can’t recall all the specific details but now Jen and Brian start admiring one another (because of course, since he’s a complete and total A-hole and she looks like she’s 8 months pregnant . . .  why wouldn’t romance ultimately bloom?).  I’ll be honest, at this point in the movie I became so bored that I found myself playing a game on a tablet.  I can unequivocally state that this is not a good sign. 

They make a bet in a local candy cane ring-tossing contest that the loser has to either help decorate the Inn or help build a sleigh respectively.  Amazingly, they tie so they both have to help each other (Even though in the truest sense, a tie would mean no winner and no loser but this method moves the plot along better.).  At this point I just gave up.  I was almost halfway through but couldn’t do it.  The acting wasn’t terrible (It wasn’t good either) but I cared so little about the leads that it didn’t matter to me what happened the rest of the way.  It’s true that this type of movie has a tried and true formula.  When executed properly it works.  When saddled with bad casting decisions and a weak plot it can fail miserably (Case in Point – My Christmas Inn).

This movie even had Erin Gray and I loved Erin Gray ever since 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century'.  While she is fine, it’s a side role and mainly inconsequential.  This movie is just bland and uninteresting.  Anyone who is watching this movie because they are a big Tia Mowry fan needs to find something else she’s done or go back and watch some 'Sister, Sister' reruns.  Don’t waste your time.  I give it a 1 out of 5.

Nothing feeds into the fantasy of romantic salvation than a rehash of the Cinderella storyline.  Movies that find common women marrying a prince is such an important subset for romance movies that it could probably have its own channel.  So it’s no surprise that these movies have regained new life in the Holiday movie genre.  Following in the footsteps of such classic holiday royalty films as 'A Christmas Prince', 'Crown for Christmas', 'A Prince for Christmas', 'Once Upon a Holiday', 'My Christmas Prince', 'Royal Christmas Ball', 'A Royal Winter', 'A Princess for Christmas', 'Royal Christmas', Law and Order Special Victims Unit (Okay, maybe not the last one) comes a new vision of royal romance with a unique title: 'Christmas with a Prince'.  Christmas with a Prince (not to be confused with A Christmas Prince, A Prince for Christmas or Prince’s Purple Rain) stars Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, in her biggest role yet, as . . . wait, my bad . . . the movie stars Kaitlyn Leeb as Dr. Tasha Miller and Nick Hounslow as Prince Alexander.  Our story begins with hunky Prince Alex falling down a ski slope in the states and badly injuring his leg.

Meanwhile in the Hall of Justice . . . . I mean . . . . in the Pediatric Wing of some secluded hospital Dr. Miller (heretofore called Tasha) is struggling to find funds for her pediatric care unit from the Evil Hospital Administrator Dr. Gonzales (Lanette Ware).  Tasha’s brother, who just HAPPENS to be a nurse in the same wing of the same hospital (nepotism???), lets Dr. Gonzales know that all is well because they are going to have a special royal patient arrive who is going to give the hospital a big donation to cover the expenses.  It just so happens that Tasha’s brother, Nurse Jeff (Josh Dean), is BFFs with Prince Alex.  He, Tasha and Alex all went to boarding school together (making nurse Jeff, BY FAR, the least successful and accomplished of the trio).  All the Prince needs is a little TLC and privacy and the hospital will soon be flush with donation money.

We quickly learn through Tasha’s discussion with . . . well . . . just about everyone she talks to . . . that she bears a grudge against the spoiled royal prince from their time at private school.  And while I say grudge, it’s actually more of a searing, deep resentment towards the Prince (whom she has secretly longed for since school and whom causes her to drool all over herself when she thinks about him at night) over his rejection of her in their youth.  As you can imagine, this is all setting up really well for a redemption romance.  The only other characters of note are Charles Shaughnessy, as one of the most stereotypical caricatures of a monarch ever seen on screen, playing King Edward and Melinda Shankar as the cute but completely out of place, unbelievable and incompetent head of the Prince's security detail, Bella.

It turns out that the Prince is a really spiffy guy with rock hard abs who loves children (which is a good thing since he is recovering in a children’s ward) and is attracted to Tasha.  Tasha and Alex bond over their long strolls through the hospital, their arguments with the King and Dr. Gonzalez over security concerns and when playing with all the sick children (who seem really spry despite the fact they must be in the hospital because they are sick right?).  There’s a scene where she is forced to confront the embarrassing, accidental, butt dialed voicemail she left on Alex’s phone where she describes how devastatingly handsome and charming the Prince is (My, how convenient and . . . what realistic sound quality for an inadvertent call.).  We see nurse Jeff hit on Security Chief Bella following an incident where she physically immobilizes him because he’s wearing a Santa Suit (Oh no, another hitman posing as Santa.  Get him!!!).  Prince Alex also bonds with a lonely little boy who has a big surgery upcoming.

Tasha gets into an argument with Dr. Gonzalez regarding security issues (And then lashes out as Prince Alex as the cause of it – ooooh, tension!!!!) and only intervention by the Royal family saves her job.  Alex brings the sick boy’s mother in so she can be there for the boy’s surgery and arranges for the boy’s favorite pop singer to visit and perform for the children.  At a Christmas gift giving for the sick children, Alex gives Tasha the gift of going to his family’s Royal Christmas Charity Dinner and dance up against the Prince’s chiseled body and rock hard abs (Oh and by the way, sorry for dissing you all those years back when you were jailbait.).  The Dinner is normally held in locations around the world and this year it will be held in locally because of production budget issues . . . . the Prince’s broken leg.  Tasha handles this offer by going all gaga and kissing the prince.  Things then take a sudden turn when she meets Miranda (Anastasia Marinina), who introduces herself as Alex’s fiancé (Uhhh . . . . ohhhh).  Furious, she storms off before Alex manages to fake a leg injury and explains that Miranda is just some crazy, delusional ex-fiance of his brother (recently deceased).

Tasha dresses up for the charity event after her shift at work.  She looks amazing (of course) and meets up with Alex in the lobby who is either wearing a royal uniform or something he stole from an early 20th Century Canadian Mountie.  Miranda takes over the film's role of evil adversary from Dr. Gonzalez (who is pretty much out of the story by this point).  Tasha uses her incredible bionic hearing to overhear two women thirty feet away, in a loud and crowded dance hall, discuss how Prince Alex will dump the loser American doctor because she’s not of royal blood.  Miranda walks up and tells her the same thing.  Tasha, who has constantly been switching personalities between assertive, confidant doctor to pathetic, insecure, rejected schoolgirl switches to the latter and attempts to leave.  Elsewhere, King Edward meets with Alex and tells his son that he’s been a huge, irresponsible, disappointment up until recently.  However, now that he’s been made aware of how good Alex is around sick children, Edward finds him to be a fit and worth heir to the crown and a remarkable young man (Sure, why not?).  King Edward also finds Tasha before she leaves (mainly because he told security to detain her) and gives her an inspirational speech to tough it out with Alex because she loves him and she’s the reason he has become the man he has (So much for that earlier talk praising Alex on the strides he’s made.  Turns out it was all Tasha.).  The King then excuses himself because he needs to hurry over to Wendy’s to try their new Classic Smokey Applewood Bacon Burger while he’s in town – it’s a limited time offer you know!!!

With her newfound sense of self confidence she goes back into the ball, tells Miranda off and that she looks and sounds like Natasha from the Rocky and Bullwinkle show (well she should have because it’s absolutely true.  It is uncanny.).  She AGAIN tells Alex she loves him (Nobody disputes that anymore, it’s like the 9th time you have mentioned as much in this film).  They dance, they kiss and he tells her she will be in charge of his new Children’s charity (Whoopee!!!).  Nurse Jeff even has a music-less dance with Bella back at the hospital.  Whether either of these relationships will last more than a week in the real world is up to your i-m-a-g-i-n-a-t-i-o-n!!!!

Both leads were attractive enough but there less spark between them than you'd find setting off fireworks during a hurricane.  The story was bland and forced.  The characters were shallow and unappealing.  If I had to say anything nice about the film it would be that it ended on time and didn’t run over it’s 120 minute program window.  I give it a 1 out of 5.

This is actually the third part in a three movie series.  And as anyone who has watched movie trilogies before understands, the last movie is always the worst.  The Father Christmas series continues the long time Hollywood Tradition of milking a popular story for every last dime with Marrying Father Christmas.  This movie continues the saga of Miranda (Erin Krakow) and Ian (Niall Matter) as they take that final plunge into matrimony.  Unlike most Christmas movies on Hallmark, there is no romance that evolves over the course of the film since well, they are already engaged and about to get married.  This means the writers had to add some other elements of conflict to create a workable story.

Ian and Miranda have decided to get married on Christmas Day because lord knows there isn’t enough sh*t going on during Christmas Day that adding a wedding to attend doesn’t enhance.  Rather than insert any conflict within their relationship the writers decided to make all the conflict external.  To those ends we have the three main challenges that our characters have to deal with.  Conflict 1: It seems that Miranda’s stepmother Margaret (Wendie Malick) has decided to invite additional acquaintances of Miranda’s late father to the wedding ceremony creating an issue with space and seating (Good Lord, whatever will we do!!!!).  She then wants to move the wedding from Miranda and Ian’s cottage to the main house.  I’ve never understood the desire to have a wedding in your home where strangers can just roan all over your house.  This wealthy family of a famous deceased actor can’t afford a church or other venue?  How many bathrooms does this cottage have?  Will they be bringing in Porta-Johns to handle all the people?  Thankfully, after much avoidance on the subject, Miranda finally tells Margaret they want to have it at the cottage.  Yes, it was as spine tingling of a narrative as it sounds.

Conflict 2: One of the family’s friends, Thomas (Barry Flatman), arrives and Margaret fawns all over him like a lonely sorority girl desperate to find a boyfriend before the upcoming formal.  The two hit it off but then Margaret gets cold feet and decides to end things.  Luckily it all gets resolved when her son tells her how happy she has looked the last few days with Thomas.  The morale of the story is that even really domineering old people need to get laid every once in a while.  I’m glad that all worked out before I fell asleep on account of being so friggin bored.

Conflict 3:  This was the only decent conflict and the main one of the show.  A man shows up in Boston and meets Miranda about work.  She then sees him in . . . whatever the hell town they live in.  There might have been something about him making a donation, I can’t recall.  What’s important is that he says he is Charlie (Bill Dow) the uncle she never knew.  She doesn’t believe him and sends him off.  Later she gets a package with a bunch of photos of his mom from back in high school.  She finds out he did make a donation to her father’s charity.  Now she wants to track him down and in doing so finds out he is a pastor in California.  She leaves a message for him at his church because . . . apparently he doesn’t have a cell phone.  It’s not like a pastor might need to be contacted at any time where he would need something like that right?  Maybe for Christmas Miranda can get him a pager.

Then one day Miranda spots him sitting on a bench in town (Weird huh?).   So he got Miranda’s message and he tells her the story.  Turns out that he was a young pastor when his sister told him about the guy she was seeing.  When Charlie found out that the fellow actor was still married, he cast his sister aside and ignored her for 30+ years.  Charlie only found out he had a niece from a story on the internet.  Even when he mellowed, he never reconnected with his sister because they had lost touch and he didn’t know where she was.   I guess Charlie knows how to use the internet only enough to find out about Miranda but not enough to do a “people search” for his sister.  I mean, hey . . . the guy doesn’t have a cell phone.  Maybe his understanding of the internet at the Church computer is limited to playing online solitaire and searching for online porn.  He just got lucky when he saw the article on Miranda (Sure, let’s just go with that for now.).

He apologizes for being such a douche to his sister (Hell, maybe he can make a sermon out of it) and Miranda forgives and embraces their new relationship.  She invites him over for Christmas but he insists she should spend it with the ones she is close to and he can catch up with her another time (But obviously not by cell phone because those are the devil’s work!).  This did seem a bit odd but hey, I guess the guy has either been hiding out in town after he was told to leave or he’s been flying back and forth from California to Vermont at least twice so far.  I don’t know, maybe he’s one of those fraudulent televangelists who has in own jet plane so it’s really no big deal.  Once this happens the movie climax’s with the ceremony which is really just an excuse to show a montage from the two previous (and far more entertaining) movies.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like both Krakow and Matter (they are the main reason I sat through this dreck) but even Pitt and Jolie couldn’t save this material.  This dead horse has already been beaten enough.  I give it a 1 out of 5.