DAY 2:

Photoshop brings folks together for the holidays.

The marathon continues.

Selection of the day, Trading Christmas. Full title is actually 'Debbie Macomber's Trading Christmas', but I don't know who the hell that is. Guessing she's the author of the book the movie was based on but I mean really, that seems kinda pretentious. Not like she's John Grisham or Stephen King or anything.

Oh, how cool would a Stephen King Christmas movie be? Probably all about family and joy and laughter and cheer… then a deranged mall Santa breaks in and shoves coal down everyone's throats in the middle of the night. Toss in a demonic elf and a rabid reindeer and it's Stephen King's 'When You're Sleeping'. Yeah, I'd watch the hell outta that movie!

I'm sorry, what was I supposed to be doing again? Oh yeah, second film, Trading Christmas. This is probably going to come as a bit of a surprise, (sure shocked the shit outta me) but I kinda liked this one. It was hokey to be sure, predictable as all get out, so much so that in more than a few places I was even able to quote dialogue before the actors did. But the acting itself is what made the film enjoyable.

Quick synopsis, Faith Ford plays a widow from Washington State, who (for reasons too complicated to get into) swaps homes for the holiday with a writing professor from Boston played by Tom Cavanagh. While in Beantown, Ford hooks up with Cavanagh's single brother, while out in the Pac-West, Cavanagh puts his man-stink all over Ford's best friend. There's a subplot having to do with Ford's daughter, a college freshman on a trip to Phoenix to spend some quality time in her boyfriend's lap, but that really drags the story down. Until they show the daughter sitting poolside in a bikini, then it gets interesting for some reason. Can't really understand why. It's like a mystery or something.

I know some of you… most of you… probably all of you were expecting me to hate on this one and rant about it. Probably thought I'd be calling Faith Ford a wishy-washy old stick, talking about Gil Bellows (the brother) and his creepy facial hair, maybe questioning Tom Cavanagh's manhood for waiting until the damn movie was almost over before he finally plowed through the best friend when she'd been hot for it since way the hell back in the second act. Yeah, I could go that route (and I think I just did) but all in all, this one wasn't bad, pretty good way to get through Day 2. If they could all be like this one I might actually make it through to Christmas without the use of controlled substances. But looking at the upcoming schedule I'm seeing a couple of flicks starring Billy Ray Cyrus, Vivica A. Fox and one with — God help me — Ted McGinley. So stick around because a line-up like that is just bound to produce a few big buckets of suck. No way any kind words are coming out of my mouth about Billy Ray Cyrus. Well there's also one with Meredith Baxter coming up. Looking forward to that one though because… come on, who doesn't love Meredith Baxter with her late-life lesbian self?

Oh, Late-Life Lesbians… I'd watch the hell outta that movie too!