25 Days of Hallmark Movies: Learnings

Here are 3 takeaways we learned from watching 25 straight days of crappy, maudlin, unironic Hallmark Christmas Movies:

1) After about 15 movies, it's pretty hard to find one that doesn't star the same actors or actresses.

When we started in December, we had this arbitrary rule where we couldn't review a movie that starred the same actor or actors. Little did we know that there are a lot of repeat performers in this genre. You'd think with Hollywood teeming with actors and actresses–all with slightly-above soap opera acting skills–this wouldn't be a problem. But I guess Hallmark likes having a stable of go-to talent.

 Here are some movies we couldn't review because of the damn same actors:

2) Doing an EADJ Crappinema write-up shouldn't take as long as it does. I consistently cranked out a pretty lengthy Hallmark movie write-up (similar to the Crappinema entries) daily for 25 days straight. Each movie took about 1.5 hours to watch and 2 hours to make fun of. The last Crappinema entry was posted on August 4, 2015, and before that, September 3, 2014.  I've proven in the last month that it doesn't have to take a fucking year to write these stupid things. So look for more of this shit in the future. I apologize in advance.

3) I'm no screenwriter, but those movies pretty much write themselves. Here are the main elements you need in any of these movies:

• single parent / broken heart
• a small town to come back from the big city to
• bright, precocious kids
• a co-worker BFF who acts as pep talker/cheerleader
• a Christmas festival full of events and decorations
• a misunderstanding in the third act that creates temporary conflict

So make the movie about a [teddy bear maker] whose [factory] closed down in the big city, so they had to come back to their hometown and meet an old classmate who happens to specialize in [toy law]. They team up and start their own [teddy bear factory] and fall in love in the process. "Stuffed For Christmas" starring Lacey Chabert and [handsome dude].

I've considered doing this 25-day thing every December, actually. It's oddly fun for me and there is NO SHORTAGE of these types of movies. We'll see!