The Holiday Sitter

Great movie - not just a great Hallmark movie - not just a great Christmas movie - great movie, period. I'm a straight guy who likes Hallmark movies, and I thought this one was terrific. Well-acted and directed, funny, uplifting, and a Christmas story to boot. Happy for the representation it gave to our fellow humans. I liked the multiple storylines also, very well done. Hallmark has done a great job this year of making really good movies that differ from their standard tropes or themes - especially this year's Christmas movies. Criticism of this movie based on hate or ignorance is not Christian, and not WJWD.

I really liked the Holiday Sitter. The 2 leads are great together. I love Jonathan Bennet and all that he is in. The other lead was new to me. It's sort of your typical set up on most Hallmark movies. We've seen this done before but this was a different twist on 2 leading men being gay. The comedic antics of Jonathan's character could be a little over the top an times but it didn't rub me the wrong way. He's your typical commitment phobic man while the other one is having hard time finding anyone. He wants a family so he is starting to adopt. The script was well written. I would definitely recommend.

This was Hallmark's first Christmas movie featuring two gay characters in leading roles The Christmas House also featured Jonathan Bennett as a gay character, which was. Nice, but he and his husband played more as secondary characters.

This one was about a love story. The plot was fine. The performances were pretty good. But.... I love Jonathan Bennett. He's great looking, and I've seen him give some really good performances. I have noticed that when he does comedy, he tends to go over the top. Lots of mugging and big eyes. He doesn't need it. I think a toned down performance would play better, even in a comedy. Bennett's final scenes show how good he can be.

Hallmark seems to be diversifying. Not only in types of characters, but in plots as well. I've seen a couple of new movies this year that don't feature a love story as the main plot line. It's a welcome development.

Gay Sam (Jonathan Bennett) agrees to babysit his niece and nephew around Christmas while his sister and her husband go to pick up a baby they adopted. He has a little trouble with the kids so he asks for help from the next door neighbor Jason (George Krissa). Turns out Jason is gay also and, as he helps Sam, they become attracted to each other. However Jason wants kids and Sam doesn't.

Utterly predictable but sweet movie. It's VERY G rated but it's colorful and has a good cast. Bennett and Krissa play off each other very well although Bennett has a tendency to overact at times. Still I applaud that we finally have a gay rom-com! Also there are two nice kisses between the guys at the end :) No great shakes but sweet.

This movie had such wit and a minimal amount of the usual "Hallmarky" tropes, I almost had to check and see if I fell by accident into Netflix!

Jonathan Bennett is charming as all-get-out. As Executive Producer, I am assuming he got the script he wanted, which is well above the average for the Hallmark Machine. And he is clearly very invested in what he is doing. Of course, the usual things happen--a near-kiss at the one-hour mark and a misunderstanding at the one hour forty-five minutes mark, etc. But, this one has a distinct lack of cheese and the usual overstuffed silliness.

The Gay angle really works here, as opposed to some other films they make when they try to shoehorn Gay characters into one of their usual plots (listen to a podcast by the brilliant Bobby Leiber for more on this topic) and expect it to work. But, as this film is set in the NYC Metro it is very plausible that their romance could bloom in a friendly, accepting environment. Honestly, I was watching this with the intention of having an amusing "Hate Watch," but was pleasantly surprised. HALLMARK: Keep on breaking that cookie cutter with which you make WAY too many movies. Doing something different might engage more viewers!