For the sake of research (and my Hallmark addiction, let’s be 100% honest and transparent), I recently re-watched one of my favorite movies from this past 2018 Christmas season. I wanted to see how conflict was handled during the movie, how deep that conflict went, as well as how quickly it was resolved. That’s one issue I had the other night when I wrote out my extended chapter outline for the Hallmark novel I’m writing, so I wanted to watch a couple of my favorite movies and take notes on Hallmark’s version of conflict and resolution.
Y’all. I may have to revisit my rankings for the 2018 movies. The one that I watched was in my Top 10 but watching it back again, I’m shocked that it made my top ten. It was not that good. At all. About halfway through I thought, “Did I really have this in my Top 10?”
In fact, when it was over I ran it through my ranker spreadsheet that I’m using for the 2019 movies, and it scored a LOT lower than many of the Winterfest movies from last month. It barely beat out “A Winter Princess.” I have decided I’m going to revisit some of the older Hallmark holiday movies (and even the not so much older movies) and include them in my ranking for 2019. I have several of 2018’s Christmas movies still recorded (Christmas at Grand Valley, Small Town Christmas, Northern Lights of Christmas, plus others), but I also have some non-holiday movies saved as well (All of my Heart, Pearl in Paradise, Yes I Do, Surprised by Love, Dater’s Handbook, Love on the Air – just to name a few).
I think I’ll watch/review those and mix them in with the new movies, too. Why not? It would be fun to revisit some of the older ones anyway and see how they measure up in comparison to the newer movies.
I should also add that I don’t think I’ll be able to rate/review any of the mystery movies because they don’t follow the traditional tropes of a Hallmark movie. They are dramas, not fluffy romances which give “all the feels.” As an example, I really liked “Mystery 101” starring Jill Wagner and Kris Polaha, but when I ran it through my spreadsheet, it scored low because it didn’t have many typical Hallmark tropes, and didn’t give that sense of “I feel happy” at the end (like the Xmas movies do). Did I like it, though? Absolutely – I liked it so much I watched it twice AND really hope they bring them back for “Mystery 102: Second Semester.” But I can’t add it to my rankings because I just can’t compare a dramatic mystery with a romance/comedy. I would need a couple separate set of categories by which to rank them. Hmmm…maybe I can do that. I’ll see if I can come up with some other categories that rank those on a similar scale so they can be included.
