My rating: ?????

Klaus is an original film from Netflix that came out for Christmas 2019.  It’s animated, and has a lovely style!

It tells the story of how Santa Claus came to begin.  We have a lazy postman, Jesper, who is sent to a small island, which is the furtherest outpost with a ridiculous number of letters he needs to get before he’s allowed home by his father, the Post Master General!  

Sadly for Jesper, he’s managed to come into the middle of all out war by the people of this island, and they can express themselves very well without letters!

Jesper needs to find a reason for these people to want to send letters, otherwise he’s going to be stuck there forever!

There’s a trigger warning for this film, which is it deals with infertility.  

I found this film to be touching, and sweet, with beautiful animation, a little fantasy, and a lot of Santa! I loved it!

My rating: ???

Nativity 3: Dude, Where’s My Donkey?! is the last film in the Nativity series.  We have Mr Shepard (Martin Clunes) as the person going in to the school, and the introduction makes you feel as though you’ve missed something before, but they just want to get to the meaty stuff of this story, but also have some background.

 Sophie (Catherine Tate) is Mr Shepard’s fiance, and her ex wants to get her back.  He also happens to be amazing at flash mobs, which is the competition in this film!

Let’s just say there’s memory loss, New York, and the usual trouble in this film!

Yes, another family film that is very suitable for children, but not one I’ll be going back to watch!

My rating: ???

A Heavenly Christmas has Kristin Davis (Charlotte from Sex and the City, and Holiday In the Wild), Eric McCormack (Will from Will & Grace) and Shirley MacLaine (from Terms of Endearment, and a lot of other films!).

Kristin Davis plays Eve, who puts her work above her family.  She is always rushing around on her phone, trying to get new clients as she has her eye set on a partnership that is due to be announced.  She trips, and hits her head, and finds herself with Pearl (Shirley MacLaine) in a white place, in white clothes, and is told that she’s died, but she can do some good for those still alive.  She just can’t talk to anyone she knew in life, and she can’t tell her family where she is.

Max (Eric McCormack) looks after his niece after her parents (his sister and singing partner) died in a car accident.  He has a diner, and whilst he wants to do more with his music, since his sister died he really hasn’t been feeling that engaged with it.

Eve needs to help Max to find his passion for music again, and at the same time discover what is important in life.

I thought the film was fine.  It didn’t blow me away, and didn’t do anything unexpected! Unremarkable is probably a good word for it.  I did like that Kristin Davis and Eric McCormack were in it, considering both Sex and the City and Will & Grace started the same year (1998), so that was appealing, otherwise it’s a film you can skip!

My rating: ?????

Call Me Claus has Whoopi Goldberg as Lucy, who is a producer on a home shopping network.  Nigel Hawthorne plays Santa aka Nick, who is looking for his replacement, and Lucy manages to hire him to play Santa on the home shopping network.

Hijinks ensue with Nick saying things like ‘Jumping Jingle Bells’, which I loved as a phrase!  He needs to persuade Lucy that he’s Santa, and that she’s the person who can replace him, as he has been Santa for 200 years, otherwise there’s an Or Else clause, which means the end of days!

I really enjoyed this! The acting was fabulous, the storyline was fun, and Whoopi is always great in films!

It is looking like my favourite films, for the most part, are fantasy films, which involve Santa!

My review: ???

Yes, I went from Nativity! to Nativity 2 which might have been a mistake!

Martin Freeman from the first film has been replaced by David Tennant, and so we have to have a set up for why this new teacher is coming in, and what his problem is.  His problems are he doesn’t get on with his twin, his wife is very pregnant, and his father has come to stay.

The first film was fun and different.  The second film is very much following in the footsteps of the first, and is a family film.  

The first film had who put on the best nativity.  This film is about who can sing the best.  Oh, and the other twin is leading his school in the singing competition, and is tipped to be first place.

I think if you have small children, they will probably love this film. Some of it is sweet, some of it is a bit too whacky for me!  It might also be a film to not watch back to back! with the first!

Nativity! is the second British film on my list, with Last Christmas being the first, and you can read my review here!

My rating: ????

Jingle Belle is the second film with Tatyana Ali that I’ve watched this Christmas! The first one was Christmas Everlasting, and you can read my review here!

Bella is a singer/ songwriter who writes jingles. And now you know why the film is called Jingle Belle!

Belle lives in New York, and with so many of these films, she doesn’t go home for Christmas much.  She gets writers block, and when her boss hears that Belle’s sister wants her help writing a song for the Christmas Eve show in her home town, she gets sent to help out!

Belle used to perform at the Christmas Eve show with her ex-boyfriend, who is now the high school music teacher, and in charge of the Christmas Eve show.

It was a fun film, and I enjoyed the chemistry between the two as they wrote the songs.  It was all Christmasy, and only a little cheesy!

My rating: ??

The Knight before Christmas is a Netflix special, with Vanessa Hudgens.

Sir Cole meets a witch in the woods, and gets transported to the present, where he appears in a Christmas village, and manages to stumble into the road.

Brooke is a high school science teacher, who hits Sir Cole with her car as he appears in the road.  She feels so guilty, she goes to the hospital with him, and when he insists he’s a medieval knight, she takes him home to recover.  This is the beginning of my problems with this film!

There were moments where I was just sitting watching the film, and thinking ‘why?’.  

It was an ok film, but jerked me out of suspension of disbelief too many times, so not a film that I would recommend, unless you need to watch it so you can talk to people about it!