"12 Men of Christmas"

I spent the entire day in fat-kid pants and a hoodie, sitting in a recliner, watching TV. It was excellent. A few notes-- 1) I still don't understand the national hysteria surrounding college football. I can't get there. I've had it explained to me by several different people, and I'm always left with the feeling of "Yeah, but what is the big effing deal?" BCS, blah-blah-blah. 2) A Cuban quesadilla from Sweet Lorraine's is JUST as delicious as leftovers as it is the first time around. They make chorizo in-house, and it really is in the house. Dans le maison, for sure. 3) I watched two different airings of a Lifetime Christmas movie with Kristin Chenoweth and I wasn't compelled to vomit said quesadilla-- sooooo, good job, Lifetime!

Chenoweth, whom I love despite her elflike characteristics and dodgy political stance, was really charming as the lead, a dissed-and-dismissed PR expert. She goes to a small town in Montana for a year-long contract with their tourism board...and chaos ensues. Here are my bulletpoints:

• The location scout for this movie is one lucky sumbitch. OMG. I need to go to Montana YESTERDAY-- it looks gorgeous. I've yet to do the requisite IMDb.com research on where it was filmed, but wherever it was, I would love to go visit. It may be the place to turn me into an outdoor girl. Shudder.
• Anna Chlumsky, of My Girl and My Girl 2 fame, plays a supporting role and I'm pleased to report that she was good. After she had a one-episode fling on 30 Rock, I looked her up and saw that she's a city girl, taking film and stage jobs-- so it was nice to see that she could play a rough-and-tumble small-town girl without making it look ridiculous. She and the rest of the supporting cast were totally fine-- there weren't any scenes where I yelled at the screen, "TAKE A FUCKING ACTING CLASS!", and that is saying a lot. (I watched The Holiday earlier today, and definitely yelled that at Cameron Diaz, and also at Alexis Bledel during an episode of Gilmore Girls. Yeah, that's right, bitches. Your sparkly blue eyes and improbable bodies will only take you so far. Howzabout you pay attention to your co-stars? Kate Winslet and Lauren Graham certainly know a thing or two about line delivery and believability. Take some goddamned notes.)
• Josh Hopkins plays the hunk-with-a-heart-and-some-mystery. He, too, was inoffensive. He had an arc on a show from the late 90's that I loveloveloved called Jack & Jill, and it's safe to say that his work on it was not the reason it got cancelled. However, Hopkins is a fairly large guy while Chenoweth isn't even 5 feet tall and would have a hard time hitting three digits on the scale. Their scenes together are good but it's totally distracting-- it's like when Andre the Giant catches Robin Wright at the end of The Princess Bride.
• Lastly, this movie has been marketed as a Christmas movie-- it's part of "Fa-la-la-la-Lifetime" to be sure!-- but there wasn't much holiday happening. There's a little, sort of at the bookends of the story, but I'm not sure it was enough to bear the genre. It's a little like The Apartment in that yes, the holidays are mentioned, but the story could easily be told any other time of year with very little imagination. AND THAT IS THE LAST TIME I WILL COMPARE A LIFETIME MOVIE WITH THE APARTMENT.

I still haven't had my necessary viewing of Love Actually or any of the Miracle on 34th Street versions. That will be remedied soon. Good night!