Cheese In Your Stocking: Snowglobe

A new development in my life is the weird amusement I’ve found from gooey holiday cinema. If there’s a lesson to be learned at the end, then by golly, I can’t imagine why it doesn’t fit the criteria for reviews on the Doll’s House!

Today’s sugary entry is none other than a film that popped up on the Netflix recommends for Sci-Fi & Fantasy. While I *suppose* the idea of a woman being trapped in an alternate winter wonder-universe via her decorative snowglobe is trippy, the idea that liking Blade Runner implied I’d also like an ABC Family Channel original seemed too intriguing to pass up.

Quick Plot: Meet Angela, a pretty young woman who works at her family’s successful butcher shop in Brooklyn. After each day of wrapping up sausages (no irony! this is the Family Channel!) Angela goes home to her spacious one-bedroom in the apartment building owned by her overbearing family. Mom Lorraine Bracco and obnoxiously pregnant big sister constantly break in to use her oven and holiday plates, much to the annoyance of the “I’d rather be alone!” Angela. 

When not rolling her eyes, Angela gets to spurn the advances of the single architect/bartender/goofball living down the hall, played by the teacher/biologist/villain in Quarantine 2.

Who for some reason, keeps getting cast as the attractive love interest even though I find him about as weirdly horrifying as Tommy on the last season of Hell’s Kitchen.

Anyhoo, poor privileged Angela feels like she has a really harsh life, what with having to eat--gasp--lasagna at Christmas as the price to live in a rent-stabilized home. Of course, she could just get a job that didn’t involve seeing her family every day or, you know, move out of her gigantic one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment and not make her mom a spare key, but Snowglobe has a better idea.

One day, Angela receives the titular Christmas decoration from a mysterious benefactor, only to fall asleep to its charms and awaken inside a sweet Christmas village where goose is always in the oven and fake snow never melts.

It’s there that she meets Douglas, a tall glass of brainless eggnog who makes her perfectly mascara’d eyelashes flutter. Together they ice skate, wrap presents, and do other montage-worthy TV-G rated activities until a twist of fate/commercial break brings Douglas into the real world. 

If you’ve seen Elf, then you know what happens when a tall white guy from a magical land tries to ride a New York escalator. 

Aaaand yadda yadda, Angela learns the true meaning of Christmas--in this case, eating lasagna-stuffed goose with her kooky Cuban-Italian family and falling into the arms of The Goofball Next Door. 

Everyone is happy and our heroine finally discovers her true calling in life by opening up a Christmas store called--get this--Angela’s Christmas Store. It's nice when life is easy enough to not even make you think hard about naming stuff.

High Points

Although Will Ferrell did it first and better, Matt Keeslar and Kailin See have some cutesy fun as the goody good citizens of Snowglobeland

Low Points

Christina Milian is cute as a button. Christina Milian is also a terrible actress.

Lessons Learned

It’s good to fall asleep with makeup in place and giant hoop earrings shiny. Sure, it might be bad for your skin and back of your neck, but if you wake up in a magical fantasy land filled with handsome men, you really should look your best

One of the hardest words to pronounce with a bad Brooklyn accent = drawer

There are no black people in snowglobes

Sass Factor (Vital for any holiday original)
Angela's overly Italian family practically drip garlic, while her fiesty best friend makes the typical single gal mildly tolerable

Montage Mania (how else to show plot development when commercials are imminent?)
I counted at least two, one that showed Angela's happiness in Snowglobeland, the other, Not Will Ferrell's Totally Not Elf-Like NYC tour

Poll of the Day

Green lasagna: festive or tacky?


Stocking Stuffer or Stuffed With Coal?

Eh, Snowglobe is innocent fun for those who like virgin eggnog. And heck, we even get enough mixed drink ideas to bump the rating to a solid PG (eggnog + cinnamon schnapps anyone?). So nah, I’m not recommending it on a so-bad-it’s-goofy scale but I guess those who need to distract babysitting charges could do worse. As for me, my mouth is now watering for a horror director to tackle the idea of, you know, ACTUALLY being trapped in a snowglobe. Because you know, it is kind of horrifying.