If the television show Glee and the movie Mean Girls had an illegitimate love child around Christmas, I think it would look something like Holiday High School Reunion.  Rachel Boston plays Georgia, an assistant (or maybe an assistant of an assistant) for a fashion designer.  Georgia is home for the holidays at the same time her 10 year high school reunion is being held.  While Georgia has a great smile and bubbly personality, it isn’t long before we realize that she’s also a bit of a liar, self-absorbed, insecure, aloof and not very perceptive.  So yeah, exactly the kind of girl everyone roots for.  Georgia is part of a special social group of 4 girls called the Plastics . . . errrr . . . Glee Club.  Glee Club, despite being out of school for a decade, still consider themselves an active club because they hold votes, hang out together, do routines at reunions, etc.

Joining Georgia on this holiday adventure is her high school buddy Ben, played by Jonathan Bennett.  These holiday movies usually involve a romance but it took me a while to realize Ben was the other part of this romantic duo.  And I say 'holiday movie' in the widest sense of the term because the only thing remotely Christmas related in this film are the decorations found in the high school where the reunion takes place.  This is 99% reunion movie with some Christmas decorations and Christmas songs thrown in.   You could have done this same script with Arbor Day as the holiday theme and it wouldn’t change anything.  The issue I had with the character of Ben is that for the first third or half of the movie I thought he was gay.  I thought it was Georgia’s gay bestie, Ben.  Anyways, Ben and Georgia were soooo close in school they were virtually inseparable.  Then after graduation they become VERY separable as Ben runs to Europe and isn’t seen again by Georgia for 10 years????  Mmmm-kay . . . interesting.

This movie had a lot of WTF moments.  Someone could probably write a thesis dissertation just on the plot-holes this movie had.  By the way, are there any High School reunions actually held around Christmas?  Isn’t that kind of a busy time of year for everyone?  And why are there school faculty at the Reunion, isn’t that event run by the student officers of that graduating class?  Do they really need teacher chaperones at this age?   This must have been some kind of Leper school for the beautiful people because I swear to God I don’t think a single person brought a date or spouse yet there wasn’t an unattractive ex-student in the crowd.  It’s basically just a bunch of ex-students getting drunk and hooking up.  Hell, Georgia’s Glee club group looked like a gang of supermodels.  Rachel Boston is cute but she isn’t the most attractive actress in Hollywood so surrounding her with super hot cast members makes dialog like “You were the most beautiful girl in school.” seem utterly ridiculous or, at least, insincere.  It makes viewers want to jump up and shout at the screen, "Seriously, are you freaking blind?!?!"  Even a nominally attractive girl transferring into this school would be as out of place as a midget joining the LA Lakers!

So let’s get to the good stuff from the movie.  There . . . we’re done.  So now lets talk about the plot.  Halfway through the movie I couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be a musical or just a movie with a lot of unnecessary musical and dance acts interspersed within the main plot.  The Glee Club girls turn out to be a bunch of backstabbing, attention seeking, petty ex-cheerleaders (way to switch up that stereotype).  A running gag seems to be that Georgia’s dress continuously gets stained throughout the events of the evening.  Georgia is also regularly having high school flashbacks of her teen boyfriend and ex-jock Craig (Jon Prescott).  Her constant pining for him is supposed to be a result of her dissatisfaction with her current life. Her embarrassment of having a non-existent career despite being voted “most likely to succeed” in school is what drives her to lie to everyone around her.  And once we realize that Ben is NOT actually gay (maybe it was just me) it turns out he’s been deeply in love with his bestie Georgia for . . . I don’t know . . . most of his life I guess.  It turns out that fleeing his hometown and going to Europe after graduation was because his unrequited love for her drove him insane . . . turned him gay . . . was too much to bear.

Now we take this little love triangle, throw in some singing and dancing, and we have ourselves a good movie, right?  Ehhh . . . . not so fast.  Georgia’s demeanor goes from cute and charming to obliviously hurtful (mainly to Ben) to completely erratic.  At times I thought I must have missed a scene where she was downing shots of alcohol or taking drugs that would explain her more eccentric behavior.  It turns out Ben is only at the reunion to tell Georgia how he feels (After only 10+ years of keeping it a secret?  Wow Ben, you’re a real man of action.).  He tries to relay this to her numerous times throughout the movie only to be continuously thwarted by ex-jock, ex-boyfriend, ex-quarterback Craig who possesses a kind of superhuman cock-blocking ability that allows him to show up at just the right place in just the nick of time to stop the conversation and steal Georgia away.

Aside from this, Ben’s main mission at the reunion is to break into and toilet paper the principal’s office.  Oh, what clever high jinks . . . classic Ben!!!  Say, if I get caught defacing school property I’d still be charged as a juvenile right . . . right???  Let’s gloss over the fact that Ben apparently has no qualms about just walking into the girl’s bathroom (cause he’s gay right?) to talk to Georgia.  He is also being followed around by hot, young intern Brook (Eileen Boylan) who found some reunion tickets on his desk at work and immediately assumed it meant the two of them were supposed to attend the event together (Duhhhhhhh!!!).  Despite Brook throwing herself at him, Ben only has eyes for Georgia (or he’s gay . . . let’s not completely dismiss this possibility).

After realizing her Glee group is onto her lies and have turned on her, Georgia decides to do a one woman cheer exhibition on-stage to show everyone how ‘awesome’ she still is (Sure, that should work.  I can’t imagine this turning bad.).  Unfortunately, this only serves to completely embarrass her to the point where Ben has to jump up on stage and join her cheers to try and deflect some of the humiliation.  This was such an uncomfortable scene even I wanted to leave the auditorium (The scene of Georgia chasing several vicodins with a shot of Jack Daniels prior to this display of school spirit must have ended up on the editing room floor.).  On a side note, where did Georgia get her cheerleading top (And it still fits?) and pom-poms?  Soooooo, she went home to get her old cheerleading gear but keeps on a dirty party dress.  A dress that has been so stained over the course of the evening that some might reasonably believe she arrived at this event after completing an Army obstacle course?  But I digress.

Much of the movie involves Georgia and Ben stealing away by themselves and recalling their high school memories.  Georgia must be the only person in the town who can’t see how completely head over heels Ben is with her (So yeah, she seems like a keeper).  Mingled in with these moments are numerous musical routines and high school flashbacks.  At the end of the night, Georgia gives a heartfelt speech to her class about how hard life is and performs an impressive solo of 'Oh Holy Night'.  The Christmas Magic of this song seems to make her a class hero again and all is right with the world except for one last cock-block by Craig.  Apparently, the magic of Christmas also helps her recover from her heretofore unknown memory loss as, while dancing with Craig, she realizes that she broke up with him because he cheated on her during Prom (Ohhhhhh, that’s right.  Silly me, how could I be expected to remember such a trivial event after 10 loooooong years.).  This leads to the inevitable reconciliation with Ben which leads to them dancing and kissing.  So, Ben finally gets the love of his life and we’ll try to ignore the fact that if she hadn’t remembered Prom then I guess she bones Craig and Ben is just sh*t outta luck for the rest of his life?  You’re truly a lucky guy Ben (but you might want to get her into rehab ASAP).

A couple of notes to the production staff.  Putting pigtails on a 30 year old woman does not make her look 17 in flashbacks.  Also the constant seduction attempts of the High School Principal by an obviously obsessed and hot former student is a bit unsettling even if, as she literally states in the movie, she’s completely legal now.  I give this a 1.5 out of 5.

There are Christmas movies involving ghosts and Christmas movies involving angels.  This is sort of a combination of the two concepts (though leaning more toward the Angel side).  Sarah (Lindsey Gort) stars as a realtor who, while helping retrieve some homeless guy's perfectly manicured Pomeranian, gets horrifically mashed by a city bus.  Sure, it’s a little dark for a Christmas movie but, on the bright side, Sarah goes to heaven . . . or sort of.  While at the Gates of Heaven (Hell is not discussed because that’s not very Christmassy) Sarah finds out she’s not on the list to enter the pearly gates.  Because of that she is going to be sent to Purgatory for . . . ohh, I don’t know . . . eternity?  I thought that purgatory was a temporary destination to cleanse people of their sins but, apparently not.  Purgatory is not as exciting as it sounds either, it’s more like a really, really dark waiting area with just one bench.  And to top it off, in the entire history of mankind, only 3 other people have been sent there.  Wow Sarah . . . that sucks for you.

Luckily, Sarah is offered the opportunity to earn her way into heaven by resolving something back on earth.  Unfortunately, she isn’t told exactly what she is supposed to accomplish, she has to figure that out herself.  So back to Earth Sarah goes (with Angel like powers even though she’s NOT officially and angel) where she ends up in the home of ex-boyfriend and 'Chris Pratt' look-alike Jordan (Derek Theler).  Upon seeing his dead girlfriend in his apartment Jordan reacts as expected, he refuses to help her get into heaven.   Still Sarah is persistent, even if she is a bit annoying, and Jordan relents.  Sarah comes to realize (through her social media comments because everything important these days is done on the internet) that she isn’t remembered for anything but her work (Hey, wasn’t she helping out at a homeless shelter when she was run-over while trying to recover a runaway dog??).

We also find out that Sarah dumped Jordan the year before on Christmas Eve (classy!!!) and even though he says everything is great we start to learn that it left him emotionally crushed and tormented.  Thankfully, he has a new girlfriend now and, although she has a kid, she is just as hot as Sarah!!!  Sarah decides her task is to help Jordan buy a new property to open up his dream bar.  Using her Angelic powers of summoning the dead she is able to tap into the owner’s memories of his deceased wife (I assume).  Thus the owner who originally had no intention of selling to Jordan because he reminded him of Zach Galifianakis (Solid reasoning because who doesn’t hate Zach Galifianakis) is not at all freaked out about Jordan relaying words from the man’s deceased wife.  In fact, he is so moved by this that he decides to retire and sell the property to Jordan.  Just in time too, as later in the movie it’s shown that the owner literally has a heart attack that night.  While it’s never confirmed that his recent death was, at least in part, caused by him being so creeped out by a strange guy coming into his place and start communing with his dead wife . . . I think it’s safe to assume this played a significant factor.

So Jordan gets his bar, life is good.  Now he forgets about his new girlfriend Amanda (Melanie Liburd) and her son by completely ditching them at Christmas Eve Mass despite promising little Mason (Amanda’s son) that he’d be there.  To compound things, he expresses his undying love for Sarah and kisses her.  At that point she returns to heaven to find out she failed her mission.  Luckily for her, heaven is forgiving (or at least the Angel at the front desk is) and she gets another chance.  She is sent to Earth once again to repair someone’s life.

In this iteration of Angel Sarah’s supernatural travels, she arrives at Jordan’s now fully operational bar.  Since only Jordan could see her in her previous appearance, she assumes he can see her now only to later find out that it is Amanda who can see her and who she’s been sent to help.  It turns out that a year has passed since her last trip and she quickly convinces Amanda that she’s an Angel thanks to her super angel powers over the weather.  She decides that her mission is to get Amanda and Jordan back together . . . because Amanda broke up with him after he stiffed her and Mason the previous Christmas.  In a bit of troubling news we come to learn that Amanda is about the most inattentive mother ever (her son is being bullied by another kid right in front of her but she’s too busy to notice because she’s on her phone) and that Jordan and Mason have been hanging out together in Arcades and Bowling Alleys for the past year after the couple had broken up.  Questionable choices aside, Jordan and Mason have a strong bond even though it seems like Jordan is pretty adamant that Mason puts in a good word for him with his mom.  So Jordan, are you actually trying to help Mason out of a general sense of kindness and goodwill or just because you are still hot for his mama?

Sarah’s plan seems to work with Jordan and Amanda going on a successful date until it takes a turn after Jordan explains that he ditched her because of issues with his dead ex-girlfriend - who Amanda suddenly realizes is Angel Sarah.  I’m not entirely sure of her angry reaction.  Maybe she was jealous of Sarah or maybe she's just a giant b*tch by nature but she calls the whole thing off and casts Jordan aside again.  With time running out and Amanda now totally embittered against her “guardian angel” because . . . yeah, well honestly I’m not sure why.  Amanda comes off as kind of an uptight b*tch during most of the movie so let’s just go with that as the primary reason.  Anyway . . . Heaven ticket counter Angel Daphne comes down to retrieve Sarah but Sarah convinces her for a short time extension (past Christmas Eve which is apparently some special deadline for any angelic mission occurring around Christmas.  Maybe heaven is closed on Christmas Day.).  She then shows Amanda the special power of angelic possession because that’s not disturbing at all right!?!?!

Using this newfound power to take over anyone’s body and using it as a vehicle, Sarah manages to get Jordan and Amanda back together when Amanda observes him spending Christmas Even helping out a bunch of bums in the back room of the church at the . . . church homeless shelter???  Hey, isn’t this the same Church/homeless shelter that Sarah got killed at?  I guess her and Amanda simply never met and Jordan just happened to date a chick at the same Church that Sarah went to and was memorialized at with a giant sign out front after her death.  But it all works out, Amanda admits that she has a TON of emotional baggage and that’s why she ran away (Soooo . . . you still wanna date this chick J?).  Amanda and Jordan reconcile and then Sarah says a rather emotional goodbye using the body of former ‘Night Court’ star Charles Robinson as a human proxy.

And if that weren’t enough . . . hold on folks.  Upon getting to heaven convinced she was now going straight to purgatory because she missed her deadline, Sarah finds out her name is now listed on the heaven entry list.   Sarah is happy but still sad because she wishes she could go back and live life again, fall in love (Dump more guys in Xmas Eve?) and just accomplish more.  Daphne then tells her, “Sure, why not?  You should have said something in the first place.”  Sarah goes back to the moment her body was probably obliterated by that oncoming bus but this time a handsome stranger pushes her and the pooch out of the way.  She then kisses him (Why thank you kind sir!!!) and it is suggested this is going to be her new love.  Of course, since she also went back in time we have no idea if Jordan still gets his dream bar and whether he and Amanda end up together (and Amanda finally coming to the realization she’s a mean, self-absorbed, emotionally detached beeatch so she can try and change) but . . . hey, Sarah’s good.  I mean, the movies is called “Sarah” gets her wings.  Not “Jordan and Amanda help Sarah get her Wings” so screw them.  Merry Christmas Sarah!!!

Because the story is at least unique (note that unique doesn’t necessarily mean good or logical) I’ll give it a 2.5 out of 5.

I guess someone sat around brainstorming ideas for Christmas movies and at some point the discussion shifted to how few Christmas movies involved the dead coming back to life. But since “A Zombie Christmas” sounded a little harsh they decided just to use a ghost instead.

So the story begins as Daniel (Thomas Beaudoin) is trudging through the snow in the early 1900s. As he gets close to his family hotel he notices his wife getting a little too cozy with his brother. So naturally, someone (off screen) hits him on the back of the head and he dies. Well cool . . . this is different. So jump forward to the present day where Kate (Jen Lilley) has been tasked with getting an appraisal on this same little Inn because the owners are deceased and it is going on the market. Kate heads to the now Bed and Breakfast to find out the place is haunted. Undeterred she decides to stay there alone (always a solid decision when selling a haunted house) only to find that Daniel reanimates into a solid (sort of) person for 12 days around Christmas every year.

 Daniel doesn’t take well to Kate’s being there and they clash. She calls the Sheriff on him only to find out that Daniel really is a ghost and even those he is reanimated he has all kinds of ghostly powers of disappearing and reappearing at will. But this is a Christmas movie and Christmas movies are about love and romance, not battling evil spirits so Kate (and the caretaker who knew about Daniel the whole time) decides to help Daniel figure out why his spirit is shackled to this old Bed and Breakfast before the place is sold. You know . . . just in case the new owners don’t take kindly to having a ghost around for the holidays.

 There really isn’t any dialogue about “Omigod, this means that there really is life after death! The enormity of this discovery is earth shattering!” or questions brought up like “What is it like when you die? Where do you go? Where are you when you aren’t in your solid form?” because those kinds of questions wouldn’t have anything to do with the direction of this movie . . . an otherworldly romance. So as the movie continues, you guessed it, Kate and Daniel develop a fondness for each other and (dare I say it) fall in love.

 It isn’t a bad movie . . . well . . . how about . . . I’ve seen worse?  I love Jen Lilley so I would probably watch any crappy movie she was in just because she’s so adorable. Beaudoin is okay as the good looking 100 year old ghost. I didn’t think the chemistry was there personally but it was tolerable. As long as you don’t spend to much time wondering about the unresolved questions like: So at the end Daniel becomes a fully functional human (with no identity or documentation) again or is he some kind of special solid ghost? Can he leave the property now? After finding out his wife didn’t betray him and seeing her after all this time he just ditches her for Kate? So Christmas wishes now include the power to bring people back from the dead? Awesome, Santa is going to be plenty busy at the graveyard once this information gets out.

Jen Lilley's cuteness bumps this to a Rating 2 out of 5.