The Twelve Reviews of Christmas...Day Five: "A Holiday For Love"

You can go home again...

The Story:

Jacob (Tim Matheson) is sent by his company to his hometown of Athens, Nebraska, to determine who to lay off and who to keep at the local tractor factory.  He arrives in the town pretending to need to make a larger order of tractors, and runs into Emma (Melissa Gilbert) and her daughter, Noelle (Michelle Trachtenberg) who take him in.  Emma just so happens to work at the factory, and is dating the local sheriff (Travis Tritt).  Naturally the two become interested in one another, but when Emma learns why Jacob is really there, will their budding romance survive... and will the small town that relies on the factory?

From 1996, I'm not sure if this was a Hallmark movie or a Lifetime movie, but I caught it sometime between one of those channels.

And I liked it.  A lot.

There is romance.  There is drama.  Plus a touch of humor throughout the film to keep things light.

It's also the struggle for a man to return to his hometown where he lost a lot of his childhood, including his father who walked out on the family when Jacob was very young.

However, Christmas is a season of miracles, and maybe...

Just maybe...

With the help of the townspeople...

Jacob is going to come up with a plan that works for the company AND the town.

He'll save the day.  Get the girl.  Live happily ever after.

I'm good with that!

It is available on the ABC Family website: http://abcfamily.go.com/movies
If you don't already own it or haven't seen it in some time.

Final Grade: B+

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor:  Every year around the holidays, and yes, I enjoyed it so much I did track down a DVD of it and it's mine, all mine!

Was it Over When the Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor? "National Lampoon's Animal House"

Toga! Toga! Toga!

The Story:

The Fraternity that everyone wanted to be a part of, Delta House.  The students, and I use that term loosely, are bent on having a good time.  As they initiate their newest pledges, Larry (Tom Hulce) and Kent (Stephen Furst) the Deltas, led by Boone, Eric and Bluto  (Peter Riegert, Tim Matheson and John Belushi) are going to show them everything not to do in college, in comparison to the uptight fraternity nearby, including the likes of Neidermeyer (Mark Metcalf) and Greg (James Daughton).  Little do the Deltas know they are on double-secret probation from Dean Wormer (John Vernon) and he is out to expel the whole lot of them.

The results ensure that people will attend college for generations, just in the hopes that any part of this movie is real.

: )

So where do you begin?  Harold Ramis' first movie that he wrote.  Check.

John Belushi's first big screen role? Check.

John Landis' first big-budget feature film? Check.

First or early appearances for most of the cast? Check.

The name National Lampoon actually meant something? Check.

Welcome to lightning in a bottle.  It doesn't happen with every movie, but when it does, it's often magical.

Don't believe me?

Consider that this movie is now...drumroll.... 35 years old.

And it's still as awesome as when it first came out.

Perhaps it's that perfect synergy of all those new people working  and not knowing what they could and couldn't do, so they threw it all out there and hoped it would find an audience.

It did.

And it continues to find a new audience with every passing generation.

It's crude. It's crass.

It's a classic.

Final Grade: A

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I do own a copy, and it doesn't see much replay in the house because much of it is not intended for the demographic in my household. ; )  I'll probably have to show it to the older kids someday to warn them how NOT to do college.  : )