Instant Queue Review- A Golden Christmas 1 & 2

Instant Queue Review- A Golden Christmas 1 & 2

That’s right! For the third Instant Queue Review you get two for the price of one, which easily makes up for how big of a rip off both Golden Christmas films are. Let’s just get this out of the way because there’s lots of other stuff to say about these films: neither one is about Golden Retriever puppies.

7 puppies on the cover... none inside.

So here are the stars:

Actual Rating: 2 stars. The acting is bad, even though the mom from Wonder Years is in it, and so is the comedic relief from the Buffy the Vampire show. The film quality is bad. The only redeeming quality from a filmmaking perspective is that this film has a beginning, a middle, and most importantly an end (thank Jesus!)

Enjoyment Rating: 0 stars. No puppies. Everything about this movie screams “it’s about puppies at Christmas time!”… It’s not. It’s about lies. Watching this actually made me doubt whether or not Santa Paws or Santa Buddies were about puppies! No man should live with such doubt.

Kate’s Cryometer: 0 tears. We didn’t finish either movie because neither was about puppies and so I can’t say whether or not Kate would have cried. I cried because I was greatly deceived. Never lie to me about puppies.

Blasphemy Rating: 5 stars. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. This film was a do not enter sign, deception, and death… and by that I mean it lied about being about puppies. When people ask you WWJD? You’re first answer should likely be “not make a film that suggests it will be about puppies and then be like ‘psyche, it’s about random people being in love and stupid or something’” that’s W J W D!

"that is exactly what I would do" - Jesus

Overall: 0 stars, and one sad, little golden retriever puppy, crying softly in the corner.

So my biggest complaint is obviously the marketing of the film, which in all fairness is not quite a critique on the film itself. I got into it a little in the actual rating and I kind of fibbed because I actually have no idea if either of these films had endings.

See Kate and I sit down to watch these cheesy Christmas movies from time to time and here is usually what I expect (I went over this a little bit in the first IQR):

1. Sappy love story- every cheesy Christmas movie throws in a love story no matter how forced it is. It’s like they want the Christmas cheer to last all the way through Valentine’s Day and this is their way of ensuring that.

2. Something adorable- usually puppies. If you look at The Christmas Story it ends up being cute little kids “saying the darndest things”, Charlie Brown has Linus giving his explanation of Christmas which is so adorable, but when it comes to cheesy movies they usually just throw in something cute like a kitten that saves the day or, as I mentioned before, a puppy that simply exists. Puppies are so cute that just cutting to a shot of one fulfills the adorable quotient for any film.

3. Bad acting- if there aren’t moments in the movie where you expect the characters to just laugh at their stupid dialogue then it can’t really count as a cheesy Christmas movie. It can be a good Christmas movie, but not a good cheesy Christmas movie.

Lastly. Holiday Miracles- Something has to happen that goes beyond all logic and reminds you that Christmas cheer is something so much bigger than all of the crazy scripted drama that you just witnessed. Usually the miracle makes you cry but the bad acting can sometimes get in the way of that.

From what I could tell the Golden Christmas films had way too much of number 1 and 3 and not enough of 2.

Now if I’m really going to dissect my frustration with the puppy deception (there is now something that can be known as “the puppy deception” that’s pretty cool) I have to admit that there are shots of puppies in this movie but the movie is not about puppies! The first one ends up being about this prudish lawyer trying to screw over the guy she loved when she was a kid, the second one starts off with this girl who is clearly not over her ex, and by clearly I mean they really beat you over the head with it. Then, cut to, the ex is also not over her but is way better at hiding it. Oooh, romantic tension, but the movie isn’t called “Romantic Tensions” it’s called “Golden Christmas” and notice how nothing I’ve said so far has to do with Golden Retrievers or Christmas (There are Golden Retriever puppies on the cover of both)!

In all fairness, this was the original cover-art.

See there are puppies in these movies but they’re used as tools to propel the romantic storyline, I think it should be the other way around. For every line of ridiculous dialogue there should be one gratuitously cute puppy shot. But no. Line after line goes on and only the occasional puppy shot.

I will say if I had to judge the two side by side the sequel seems to have learned from some of the first mistakes, but it also comes up with whole new ones. For no reason there this little blonde girl that is introduced out of nowhere, I think in an attempt to make the puppy shots even more adorable. There is literally a 10 minute chunk of awkward dialogue that ends with a little blonde girl* holding two puppies. The shot is so ridiculous that the lead actress even says “what are you doing?” as if to signify to the audience “look at this ridiculous stunt”.

this is marketing lingo for "buy this DVD"

If something is called Golden Christmas it should be 50% adorable puppies and 50% Christmas. When a movie takes place on the beach (as is the case in the second one) and no one talks about Christmas at all, or the movie takes place around Christmas and there are no shots of actual puppies, a couple of a full grown dog but it has nothing to do with the movie. It’s like if you put the two together you get one good movie and one black hole of suck.

So if you get a chance and have some time on your hands just cut back and forth between the two on instant stream watching only the Christmas-y scenes of the first and only the puppy scenes of the second it will be exactly what you always wanted it to be!

*Kate note: the cute little blonde girl is name Laney, just like her little sister. Hilarious!