Love at the Christmas Contest

The locations were ok, but not many of them. I assume this was a small budget movie and they couldn't afford a better known lead actress and actor. The pair have no chemistry and that makes this production look like an amateur stage play, directed by someone with no directing experience. The best actors were the supporting ones, stand outs Triana Browne and Colleen Elizabeth Miller.

The script - plot and dialog are bad, snooze material starting with the tree decorating contest which was boring. If the script and direction were better it could have helped this movie and the actors. I wasn't looking for an award winning production, just something that doesn't look like a B/C level movie.

Watchable and family-friendly, but boring.

Except for the funny friend, and all the strange scenes that were off and made us laugh.

Who would try to wrap a present like that??!! You would have to see that scene to believe it. 😂

There was no town shown, only indoor scenes and front of the house scenes.

If you look closely at the picture of the nursery in one scene, there are skyscrapers behind it.

That pot of stew was massive and would have fed a dozen people!😂

After watching 100 of these stories, it's still annoying when the misunderstanding you know is coming actually does. No one says anything. No one communicates. It just has to be like that. Sigh.

The acting was okay, the male lead is a good-looking guy.

There is a different feeling to GAC movies than the new Hallmark ones. So it's tame.

I laughed when I noticed that there's no drinking wine at dinner, because we watched A Magical Christmas Village last week and there were at least 4 or 5 episodes where everyone had their glasses - Hallmark was trying subliminal messages to get us to buy their wine. So that's funny.

The kisses are different. A very friendly quick pucker up and peck. 😂 Done.

We had fun with this one, and all the little things mentioned were entertaining. We laughed a lot.

I give it a 5 out of 10 for the get upset/non-communication trope.

Completely meh. It is frustrating to watch a movie that seems to insult the audience.

The female lead is wearing a wedding ring through the entire movie.

The Christmas trees for the decorating contest were all horribly obviously fake. The sunflowers and roses from a florist were all obviously fake...

The storyline was overdone and predictable.

The cast seemed bored to death with their roles.

At least politics and agendas weren't thrown in our faces constantly like the releases from Hallmark.

Casting was at least not the same old faces, but the same old faces are definitely more entertaining.

Sigh.... Next.

One of my favorites in this type of genre. The writing and story is thoughtful and clever about a drama based around a Christmas tree decorating contest for the town. I wish my town had something like that as it is such a cool idea. A perfect family and love story for the holidays. The acting from the leads was great and the directing and production all first rate. Really impressed with this flick overall and I highly recommend! The colors really pop on the screen, and just beautiful sets and backdrops of Christmas decor and cozy homes. I found the story to be very touching on how new beginnings can occur despite going through great losses of losing loved ones, especially your mother as what is the case in the story. I have seen other Mar Vista movies, and ones written by John Burd and I was very impressed. This is the first film I have seen that he directed as well and I look forward to seeing more from him like this! It's nice to see Hollywood put out good-natured films again like this.

Love At The Christmas Contest (2022) -

What a lovely bum Ross Jirgl had and what a pleasure to find a new hotty in the seasonal films that I love. The right leading man could make or break a made for TV Christmas film, so it was nice to find that besides his yummy buns, Ross, as David, could also deliver a decent performance too.

I wasn't as sold on Samantha Cope playing his opposite, Angie, but she was adequate.

I did have a couple of queries as to how a flower arranger wouldn't know how to decorate a Christmas tree or how an expert tree decorator couldn't wrap Christmas presents? There were a few little things like that which jarred with the story, but it didn't effect it too much.

What was annoying though, was the "Argument", which was a bit lame. They just seemed to fall out over nothing and make a big drama for no reason. I've seen that plot device delivered in a better way many times before.

I did like the festive feel of the tree decorating contest and other bits and bobs throughout. The romance in general was sweet enough, but nothing even bordering on a PG connection.

David's daughter wasn't as grating as some of the kids can be, which helped too. I also liked James Healy Jr. As Angie's Dad, he added a certain presence to the film.

Not exactly a big winner, but certainly easy enough to watch and not so badly made that I would ever feel the need to turn it off, mostly for that lovely bottom. There aren't enough topless scenes in these films!

5/10.