Memorable, crazy movie

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

A great film for the holidays. It follows a formula but the package works well. Characters develop and become very familiar. Picturesque setting with all the classic elements of a Christmas film. Good guy, bad guy, goal to keep the pace. You want everything to work out. Wholesome and charming. Great family movie.

Holly (Candace Cameron Bure) grew up helping her father Nick (Tom Arnold) run his Santaville Christmas theme park but now she is a successful sales executive without any Christmas spirit. When her dad is hurt, she has to return to Santaville to help out and discovers the bank is about to foreclose on the place. She tries to find a way to save Santaville while dealing with her daddy issues and two potential suitors.Nice little Christmas TV movie. Nothing groundbreaking but sweet, sentimental, and charming. Candace is beautiful and very likable. Tom Arnold's great although he sounds like he has a cold throughout the whole movie. One of Candace's guys is a little too good to be true. He's handsome, kind, and "went to college for like a decade and got several degrees" before going to Santaville to work for free making toys while he waited for Candace to come back because he met her once as a kid. Yeah right. But stuff like that is to be expected from this kind of movie. This is the first Christmas TV movie Candace did. She's done several more since and they're always pleasant and enjoyable.

Is this film ever going to win an Oscar, not on a bet, however, this is a warm, goofy, family movie. The only people who are going to watch it are people who know the names of all the reindeer by heart, have seen Christmas Vacation, with Chevy Chase, about a thousand times, and deep down in their hearts, believe in Santa. This is one of my favorite holiday movies, right after October 31st, I start counting the days until Hallmark channel starts it holiday movies. I love them, and people who love this season, will agree this is one of the perfect holiday movies, people who hate this season, won't be watching Hallmark or Lifetime, and should keep their "bah humbug" opinions to themselves.

I'm afraid I find the performances in this drama about a man who runs a 365-day-a-year Santa Claus Village that is about to go under (Tom Arnold) and his daughter who moved away (Candace Cameron Bure) rather poor. Tom Arnold is clueless and nasal until the plot calls for a bit of warmth and Miss Bure, while very pretty, is shrill.The other actors are good, but their roles seem to be matters of revealing the secrets that made them come to Santaville for some warm fuzzy moments. In fact, that seems to be the entire set-up of this movie: conflict, then warm fuzzy moment, and the performances make it all seem very calculated.Even the camera work supports this: consider, if you will, the scene where Tom Arnold and Candace Cameron Bure finally bond. The are sitting at the dining room table, going over his mementos of his dead wife. Instead of shooting it in an extended two-shot, which would have been more difficult to achieve and hence more expensive, but more effective, it is shot in a series of close-up reaction shots: basically, instead of two people together, it winds up two people apart. Using a yellow light for atmosphere does not make up for missed opportunities in the service of a small budget, alas.