Let It Snow.
At a glance,
Let It Snow (2019) looks like one of those thousands of annoying, syrupy Christmas romance movies, but it’s actually surprisingly heartfelt and sweet. It tells several intertwining stories of troubled, yet hopeful teens as they try to figure out life. Julie (Isabela Moner) has been accepted at Columbia University but is reluctant to leave her sick mother. She meets pop star Stuart Bale (Shameik Moore) and makes a connection with him while eating at a run-down restaurant called “Waffle Town” (the “W” has fallen off the sign; say it out loud). Waffle Town employee Dorrie (Liv Hewson) is having girl trouble, as well as best-friend trouble. Tobin (Mitchell Hope) is secretly in love with his best friend “Duke” (Kiernan Shipka). And aspiring DJ Keon (Jacob Batalon) hopes to throw a huge party in Waffle Town as a snowstorm approaches. Joan Cusack co-stars as a strange woman who drives around wearing tin foil, and who helps out brokenhearted Addie (
Dianna Babincova as Young Jessica, Justin Cornwell as Young Jeronicus and Sharon Rose as Joanne in Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix)
There are so many new productions in release that it is impossible to see them all, let alone review them. Here are four Christmas films for your holiday viewing! Be well!
It s Christmas in the small Victorian village of Cobbleton. Jeronicus Jangle (Forest Whitaker) is a toymaker whose magical inventions delight young and old. When his young apprentice Gustafson (Miles Barrow, then Keegan-Michael Key) steals his latest invention, a talking toy named Don Juan Diego (voice of Ricky Martin), Jeronicus falls on hard times. He withdraws from his toy-making and the toy store becomes a pawn shop. Then his daughter, Jessica, (Anika Noni Rose) leaves home. But years later when his very bright and inventive granddaughter Journey (Madalen Mills) comes to visit, the magic returns and broken lives become whole again.
Alexis Burling December 10, 2020Updated: December 18, 2020, 7:14 am
“Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” plays Dec. 18 at the Castro. Photo: Embassy Pictures 1964
It’s been no sleigh ride, 2020.
But if you’re looking forward to beating the holiday blues by spending December on the couch and plowing through Christmas-themed content, we have your back. There are nearly 100 offerings to choose from.
For the musically inclined, there’s the Debbie Allen-directed “Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square” on Netflix, and “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey,” also on Netflix. It stars Forest Whitaker as a curmudgeonly toy maker whose granddaughter renews his faith in the holidays after his thieving apprentice ruins his business.