I met the author... a guy who wrote the script for one of the pictured movies. He was doing stand-up comedy on a cruise ship. He said yes, they are all terrible, but there's a certain audience for them and they're quite profitable.
He said I want you to think of me when you're forced to watch one of these. I want you to know who is responsible, and that I'm very sorry.
They probably cost next to nothing to produce, so even a small audience will make them profitable.
I wonder, if you could just cycle through the same 5 movies without anyone noticing.
They have two movies that are the same exact movie but told through two different main characters point of view. Same scenes and everything.
It's actually an interesting idea on paper. And Hallmark is probably the perfect way to do something like that.
Hallmark red and hallmark blue. There are certain characters you can only get through trading with someone who watched the other film
It’s actually an interesting idea on paper.
I'm hearing an implied "but not on screen..."
They are definitely lower budget than 'normal' movies. But even as a low budget it still requires all the same production staff, camera, sound, editor, crew park staff, food services, wranglers, casting etc. The cheap part is unknown actors and not a lot of travel. Source: my wife has done background work on many movies and TV shows. As background they get paid to sit until call time. so scene maybe half hour, but all the background people waiting get a full hourly pay and all the food you want while waiting. You will notice on hallmark they zoom in tight so background is barely visible, this helps not having a large set of background people. in one movie at the mall they had my wife shopping and walking back and forth. it works for the scene but if you watched it closely you would notice the same lady in every scene carrying different boxes or bags.
Just once I want a man in a red sweater and a woman in a green dress [sobs].
Damn. Some very white Christmases in Hallmark land.
My mother and sister fucking looooove these movies, despite how low effort cookie cutter they are. My favorite game while they're watching is "count the POC." The last one we saw together, I got to 1.
I love to just have them on, in the background. These movies are self-aware. The Netflix equivalent has its own universe with internal references to each other, which includes fake countries, maps, etc. I'm no joke invested in the Netflix Christmas-verse or whatever the fuck.
Hallmark is a little less fun to watch, but still quality rubbish. Everyone knows it's over the top. The actors, producers, and writers are all in on it. I'm not saying that makes them good. They are still bad. But when you watch them knowing the content is almost intentionally cringe, it's a bit better. With a slight shift in perspective and perhaps a bit of squinting, you can see the Christmas overtures as nothing more than satire. Last year, one movie just threw in a vague reference to Santa. No beard. No glasses. Just a guy who wore a red coat and occasionally would get 1-3 seconds on camera breaking the fourth wall. He had like one line. No gifts. No reindeer. Never interacting with the Christmas Couple. Just essentially an old dude in red. To me, that's the height of humor. It's like they're just wafting a single sprig of holly over the film in the editing room. I crack up every time.
they would never dare disrupt the cash cow with gays or queers, or atheists or 'non christians', or a realistic portrayal of a poor or homeless person, or too many brown persons.
Wealthy socialite Human Woman had it all, ceo of the top you feel bad magazine, house on top of building and even a tiny enslaved bark beast, the only thing Human Woman was missing was a chemical reaction.
Human Woman receives a electrical waveform, Human Woman's Human Grandmother mush box has stopped, Human Woman emigrated in moving iron box to original location, meeting Human Man also from original location, chemical reaction happens and Human Woman And Human man become human Couple
I would watch a satire based on this.
You might enjoy "A Christmas Movie Christmas", where the protagonists wake up and find themselves as the protagonists in a Christmas movie reality. It's a comedy where you basically laugh at the troops while they call themselves out on it.
Here’s a script idea:
Suzy Citygirl has to plan the perfect Christmas pageant or Bernard Bigbiz will fire her from her job at the Joyless Inc. Little does she know when she gets sent to Tinytown, Vermont on business she'll meet Matty McSmall town. He owns the struggling local tinsel factory and needs to sell enough tinsel by Christmas or else his grandma won't be allowed to have the surgery she needs to remove the tumor from her holiday spirt gland. Matty is also single dad that was widowed by a freak tinsel lathing accident and the little girl loves Sally Citygirl from the beginning and secretly helps her dad see past his pain.
With minutes to spare in the Christmas pageant/tumor deadline Suzy convinces Mr. Bigbiz to buy enough tinsel to save the Christmas pageant AND remove grandma's tumor! But after throwing the perfect pageant she realizes Mr. Bigbiz is a terrible boss, and moves to Tinytown permanently. She falls in love with Matty, and gets a job at his tinsel factory. With her big business skills the struggling tinsel factory grows three sizes that day.
Mr. Bigbiz is ruined. He realizes the error of his ways and comes to Vermont to apologize. Now he too works at the tinsel factory, and loves life now. But don’t forget, throughout the movie the cast interacts with lovable bearded old man who may or may not be Santa, because wtf, why not?
You missed the best series of nonsense Christmas movies:
Yes these are legit hallmark movies.
So we're still waiting for "Us" and "It" before we crack into the non-binary-centric pronouns, which we obviously won't.
And it's always some woman that lives in the same town her whole life. The man either just moved back or is new to the small town
Or, small town girl moved to the big city, returns to small town and sees that man iN a NeW LigHt
Or man womans woman at man then man man the woman
I can watch that for free on the internet.
Ive got hundreds of these damn movies on my Plex server specifically because my wife LOVES this crap.
I'm convinced we have a Family-Guy-Manatee-Ball-Pit situation going on here. There's less balls to choose from, but damn if I haven't seen "save family business with a last minute impromptu charity event spurred on by the handsome dude from her past who posseses some talent" 100 fucking times.
They aren't usually direct plot copies, they just have identical pieces that get moved around so they can factory farm these bitches out.
You forgot the person the protagonist is currently involved with who is a puppy-kicking narcissist. Source: my wife loves these movies too.
Fun game: see how much of the set is used in other movies. Most of the Hallmark movies are made on the same set in Atlanta so some will share little things like the same staircase or same exterior of a house. Hallmark reuses more than just the plots!
What has 15 actors, 4 settings, 2 writers and 1 plot?
!633 hallmark movies!<
They look a lot like the identikit romance books my mum would read. Even she didn't know which one's she'd read before. Be like three quarters of the way in and then go "oh, I've read this".
Pretty sure ChatGPT could create those things by now, such is the limitless array of imagination on offer within.
They don't need anything nearly as complicated as GPT LLMs . They already generate these scripts with a MS Word macro. It's been like that for years.
Once in a while the source dictionary is updated. They sell the scripts in lots of like 20 and charge for any customized work.
I'm certain those books work the same way.
If you can think of a way that reduces work and increases profits. They are already doing it.
Not trying to be racist but it's almost always a man and a woman who are both White - and probably a Black side character if they are feeling generous.
They have ones with black protagonists, the white ones just have a few token black people, often for comic relief. This is TV for Karens essentially.
The channel viewership is 99.999% overweight to obese older white women. This is functionally their porn.
If they do have an interracial couple it's always a black man with a white woman. Never the other way around.
I love these movies, I think part of it is that holiday movies are some of the only light-hearted movies around that aren't for kids. I don't care that they suck in real terms or are all the same (something about xmas brings enhances my tolerance for terrible music and movies), I do wish they Hallmark knew about POC and LGBTQIA.
My husband absolutely adored these because they were wholesome with no gratuitous sex or violence. He was a conservative Christian and these were some of the few shows he could really enjoy unreservedly. (I doubt he would have been pleased to see a gay story, though. He's not around to ask, unfortunately.)
I find them predictable and banal. But to each his own. He would watch a Hallmark movie in one room and I'd be in the other room watching Criminal Minds or something LOL
That's their trademark, as soon as you see it you know it's a Hallmark romantic, cheesy, family movie.
My grandmother loves these movies. Some channel started playing them since July and she's basically watched and rewatched all of them by now.
Fast and furious XV: The return of Naruto
I live in a small town in Vermont, my girlfriend grew up here but moved away to New York City and has recently returned. She hates Christmas and I love it. Ive been trying to get her into the Christmas spirit. We were picking a Christmas tree when i realized we're literally following the plot of these stupid movies and i now i keep mentioning how i need her big city business skills to help save my Christmas themed bakery
HolidayPorn
When you have that almost perfect Stable Diffusion prompt and you're trying to figure out what you have to change to get it that last little bit.
