I guess ready or not (I am so NOT) the Holidays are coming. I wrote about the first Holiday album this year for me yesterday, and now comes the Holiday movies.

The trailer for Paul Feig’s ‘Last Christmas’ seemed to be everywhere this fall. It felt like it was loaded with every movie I saw and there came a point I was so sick of it I didn’t want to see the movie. But who the hell am I kidding, you knew that I would be first in line to see this – it’s my kind of movie – rom com, holiday themed, George Michael. I mean, no wonder it followed me everywhere I went. And I wasn’t expecting this to be good – something about it felt cheesy to me. It’s part romantic comedy, part mystery, part jukebox musical, and while it’s not the most delightful thing in the world, I left the theater humming the song, and with a slight smile on my face.

And not because of Emilia Clarke. I had never seen Game of Thrones so I do not know who she is, but to me, she was the weak link of the film. Her character Kate is not the most sympathetic thing in the world, but Clarke has no charm to pull it off. I hated Kate from the beginning, and even towards the end when I shouldn’t, i still did. Thank God Kate was surrounded by some of the greats: Henry Golding has charms to the wazoo so the romance comes close to believable, and Emma Thompson is wonderful as her overbearing mother – so good, in fact that even if her character is meant to be disliked you root for her.

Now about the ‘twist.’ It wasn’t as surprising if you know the lyrics of the song, and of course, I didn’t think it would be that literal. And the last part of the film is solid feel good enough that I suspect most won’t mind. As far as London-themed Christmas movies go, this isn’t as good as ‘Love Actually,’ but come Christmas time, this would be a nice escape from whatever Yuletide hell you will be going through.

I guess, while I am here, I should also write about the Netflix film ‘Let It Snow,’ which is not exclusively a Holiday movie but more of a winter one. A lot of people have described the film as the ‘Love Actually’ for teens. While I wouldn’t necessarily totally agree with that statement, I found the film charming enough, as far as Netflix teen movies go. I liked Mitchell Hope’s puppy dog eyes and Matthew Noszka’s cute screen presence, but aside from that, this felt by-the-numbers. That’s fine, as I wasn’t expecting anything earth shattering anyway, and one could probably do worse watching something else if you are stuck in a snowstorm with just your television and Netflix subscription.