Sweet Navidad

source: Sweet Navidad

Greetings, salutations, and a seasonal welcome to all you movie aficionados. Here are my considerations and recommendation for A Pastry Shop Christmas. Story: 1.25/2 - Direction and Pace: 2.50/4 - Performances: 1.50/2 - Enjoyment: 1.50/2 Total 6.75/10 This Christmas Romance Story surprised me. I enjoyed the hell out of it, though the story is relatively simple, uncluttered, and follows plenty of commonly used plot lines. It was the well-defined and credible characters in the lead roles, which made the story for me. Better still is that the couple possesses a gradual chemistry: The pair don't hit it off straight away, but we watch as they form a friendship, then a working relationship, and finally, as it blossoms into a romance. These steps of attraction add to the realism, which's a pleasant change for a Christmas Love Story where it's usually all eye meeting eye and instant chemistry with lip-locking to follow. The writer gives the audience a plethora of believable characters and situations. Happily, the performers add additional realism with their excellent performances, especially the two leads, Camila Banus and Mark Hapka. A Pastry Shop Christmas - Sweet Navidad is one of the finer-performed tales on offer in this Goodwill Season. And the director adds the perfect pinch of light-heartedness and a sprinkling of heartwarming to the mix. I'd joyfully recommend this for your Christmas viewing pleasure, especially if you're cuddled up with your loved one under a duvet with a mug of hot chocolate. It's a definite snuggle movie. Please check out my HO! HO! HO! Christmas Belles list to see where I ranked the movie. Take Care, Stay Well, And Best Wishes For A Merry Christmas.

Worst movie I've ever watched. I'm usually very tolerant and forgiving watching movies, but this was so bad. The main actress didn't even know how to act nor did she know how to bake. Please take a cooking class. We had to fast forward to get through it. Whoever was coaching her did not a good job. The way she was walking and talking and very insecure in the whole acting. Usually Christmas movies are very convincing and they're all the same and it's not a problem for me to watch it but this I could not watch. Even my sister, who is very tolerant couldn't watch it. Not worth showing on TV let it go straight to DVD.

If you've watched one, you've watched them all- this movie is a snapshot of most 21st century romance movies- written by a woman to validate all the things women don't want to accept are just plain bad behaviours. How on earth I managed to sit through 30 minutes of this, is still a wonder to me. I couldn't even finish it and I'll tamper my ire to explain why. In this movie, the female protagonist, an amateur chef is set up to be this paragon of Christmas and family tradition, who is always right and whose idiosyncrasies (ways of doing things) must be accepted by the male protagonist (an executive chef), who must also adjust himself to them, but cannot, dare not, expect the female protagonist to do the same for him. Sound any familiar? This has become a toxic prevailing theme among women, unfortunately. I know all about this being a woman myself. I will describe the scene that almost made me lose my dinner and finally give up on this farce of a movie. The male and female protagonists are in the kitchen about to start work. She asks if she can play Christmas music as she works, because she is accustomed to doing so. The male protagonist agrees and says he'll adjust. She moves on to ask about his Christmas plans and he explains that he will not be able to travel to join his parents for Christmas this year because of the job they'd just landed and the other responsibilities holding him back. She immediately dismisses him and declares just how important her family traditions are to her and how her family would show up to wherever she was, if she wasn't in attendance of their Christmas party. Are you for real? How much more high-handed could the writer have made this woman sound? She is so impolite, disrespectful and definitely not the kind of character that would be believable for the male protagonist (with his quirks) to fall in love with, seeing as this is a romance film. All around, she was completely unprofessional. This was a detail that annoyed me the most. If you want to be treated equally then you'd best be as professional as your male counterpart. A workplace is not a playground. This movie is unrealistic, nobody likes to be treated dismissively (no one is a masochist) and also irrational (no matter how beautiful you are, love needs respect to thrive). Will the female protagonist's poor character improve in the next 60 minutes of the movie? I didn't stick along to check it out, disrespectful behaviour is a no-no for me. I won't accept it, and I won't be a hypocrite to give it to a man, woman or child.

This is a slight twist on the contest premise in that the contest part is over quickly and it become a kind of gala with Carmen and Jax looking to impress critics to provide future opportunities for their careers. Camila Banus portrays an appealing Carmen with one major flaw. She has none of the discipline which is essential for an executive chef. This gets obscured by the fact that she is only the Pastry Chef, but that's confusing also because she is supposed to be "equal" to Jax, the executive chef. Throw in all the rabbit trails she leads Jax on and the entire thing comes off as an unprofessional enterprise. Since I am detail oriented, this atmosphere bothered me throughout the movie and I was certain of what would be the conflict in the story. I said Carmen is appealing and you can tell Jax is falling under her spell. Banus has good energy and Carmen's tendency to dance while doing other things adds some playful fun to the story. Banus and Mark Hapka have good chemistry. They are given plenty of screen time together to develop their relationship. The acting is good. The dialogue is good but not sparkling. There are no great highs or lows. I often say about these movies that they don't deal well with reality. In this case, it seemed that reality was stretched to the point of fantasy. Carmen had no business being in the situation she was in, and she knew it at least in the beginning. It just occurred to me that perhaps it is like a Little League coach being put in charge of a Major League team for the playoffs. Baseball is baseball, but the two situations are worlds apart and you can't instantly jump from one to the other. For my rating, Carmen's energy and appeal are a wash with the impossibility of her situation. The relationship is nice. We're left with a fairly average Christmas movie.

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source: A Pastry Shop Christmas

source: Sweet Navidad

If you've watched one, you've watched them all- this movie is a snapshot of most 21st century romance movies- written by a woman to validate all the things women don't want to accept are just plain bad behaviours. How on earth I managed to sit through 30 minutes of this, is still a wonder to me. I couldn't even finish it and I'll tamper my ire to explain why. In this movie, the female protagonist, an amateur chef is set up to be this paragon of Christmas and family tradition, who is always right and whose idiosyncrasies (ways of doing things) must be accepted by the male protagonist (an executive chef), who must also adjust himself to them, but cannot, dare not, expect the female protagonist to do the same for him. Sound any familiar? This has become a toxic prevailing theme among women, unfortunately. I know all about this being a woman myself. I will describe the scene that almost made me lose my dinner and finally give up on this farce of a movie. The male and female protagonists are in the kitchen about to start work. She asks if she can play Christmas music as she works, because she is accustomed to doing so. The male protagonist agrees and says he'll adjust. She moves on to ask about his Christmas plans and he explains that he will not be able to travel to join his parents for Christmas this year because of the job they'd just landed and the other responsibilities holding him back. She immediately dismisses him and declares just how important her family traditions are to her and how her family would show up to wherever she was, if she wasn't in attendance of their Christmas party. Are you for real? How much more high-handed could the writer have made this woman sound? She is so impolite, disrespectful and definitely not the kind of character that would be believable for the male protagonist (with his quirks) to fall in love with, seeing as this is a romance film. All around, she was completely unprofessional. This was a detail that annoyed me the most. If you want to be treated equally then you'd best be as professional as your male counterpart. A workplace is not a playground. This movie is unrealistic, nobody likes to be treated dismissively (no one is a masochist) and also irrational (no matter how beautiful you are, love needs respect to thrive). Will the female protagonist's poor character improve in the next 60 minutes of the movie? I didn't stick along to check it out, disrespectful behaviour is a no-no for me. I won't accept it, and I won't be a hypocrite to give it to a man, woman or child.

Greetings, salutations, and a seasonal welcome to all you movie aficionados. Here are my considerations and recommendation for A Pastry Shop Christmas. Story: 1.25/2 - Direction and Pace: 2.50/4 - Performances: 1.50/2 - Enjoyment: 1.50/2 Total 6.75/10 This Christmas Romance Story surprised me. I enjoyed the hell out of it, though the story is relatively simple, uncluttered, and follows plenty of commonly used plot lines. It was the well-defined and credible characters in the lead roles, which made the story for me. Better still is that the couple possesses a gradual chemistry: The pair don't hit it off straight away, but we watch as they form a friendship, then a working relationship, and finally, as it blossoms into a romance. These steps of attraction add to the realism, which's a pleasant change for a Christmas Love Story where it's usually all eye meeting eye and instant chemistry with lip-locking to follow. The writer gives the audience a plethora of believable characters and situations. Happily, the performers add additional realism with their excellent performances, especially the two leads, Camila Banus and Mark Hapka. A Pastry Shop Christmas - Sweet Navidad is one of the finer-performed tales on offer in this Goodwill Season. And the director adds the perfect pinch of light-heartedness and a sprinkling of heartwarming to the mix. I'd joyfully recommend this for your Christmas viewing pleasure, especially if you're cuddled up with your loved one under a duvet with a mug of hot chocolate. It's a definite snuggle movie. Please check out my HO! HO! HO! Christmas Belles list to see where I ranked the movie. Take Care, Stay Well, And Best Wishes For A Merry Christmas.