Angela (Christina Milian) receives an enchanted snowglobe from a mail carrier on her way home from the family business at Christmastime. The family is Cuban-American-Italian and owns an Italian market. Homemade lasagna is one of their specialties. Mama wants Angela to get married and keeps on renting out the studio apartment on her floor to eligible bachelors. After a noisy family dinner, she unwraps the snowglobe, places it next to her bed, and wakes up in "The Village" inside of it. She goes ice skating and has a Christmas dinner complete with a "magical oven" that makes roast goose in a jiffy. She wakes up in her own bed very tired. It's not a dream, as she has the red gloves given to her, and the snowman is knocked down. She spends more and more time inside the globe and becomes increasingly fond of "Douglas" in this place where it's always Christmastime. Douglas finds his way out through the evergreens, and she gives him a tour of Brooklyn and NYC. (Actually Canada.) Later his girlfriend "Marie" follows into the real world the same way. Like "The Purple Rose of Cairo" once they walk out of the globe, the two are dysfunctional and can't perform the simplest tasks. Douglas misses his job, shoveling snow. Where they are from, money does not exist. Not exactly "Whoville" and not exactly real. What are they? Inevitably, Angela gets trapped inside the globe as it crashes to the ground. She gets back with another mysterious snowglobe delivered to her inside the original one! Then they fix the globe to send Douglas and Marie back to "The Village" with the gifts of a clock radio for her and deli "hot dogs" for him. I am sure I could find several things wrong with the film if I tried. Christina is not "Waspy-looking" but quite gorgeous in her own right. A minor mention of The Christmas Story as the "Villagers" know nothing of it. It's predictable. Angela marries the nice guy down the hall and looks pregnant. She opens a "Christmas Store". The whole thing is a silly fantasy? Then why did my family enjoy it so much? (Do not confuse this with the bland 2013 sequel.)
... View MoreBEWARE OF FALSE REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. SOME REVIEWERS HAVE ONLY ONE REVIEW TO THEIR NAME. NOW WHEN ITS A POSITIVE REVIEW THAT TELLS ME THEY WERE INVOLVED WITH THE MOVIE. IF ITS A NEGATIVE REVIEW THEN THEY MIGHT HAVE A GRUDGE AGAINST THE FILM . NOW I HAVE REVIEWED OVER 300 HOLIDAY FILMS. I HAVE NO AGENDA.Angela (Christina Milian) always wanted the perfect Christmas. But for her, anywhere is better than home for the holidays. When she receives an antique snow globe as a gift, it shakes up her life and transports her to a magical world where it s always Christmas. Now, she ll have to choose between the man of her dreams and the one she never imagined possible. It s a new kind of holiday romance!What is nice about this film is that what looks like a perfect little world is not so perfect. The story gets a little tiring however there is enough cleverness to hold most viewers attention
... View MoreChristina Milan AGAIN? Jeez, did she lose a bet or something? Anyway, this ABC Family original gets bonus points for having significantly less booze flowing about than others I have seen. Milan plays Angela Moreno, who lives in an apartment owned by her family and working in her family's butcher shop. Her mom is Italian and her dad is black, and her sister doesn't look anything but white. Whatever. Angie's family is worse than the "Worst Family in England" sketch that Monty Python did. Her family wanders in and out of her apartment putting whatever they feel like in there without so much as a glance in her direction, they make plans regarding her life without consulting her, and they leave when they feel like it and keep the volume on the TV as loud as they can stand it. There is even a subplot about her pregnant sister being treated better because she is married-to a deadbeat who shows no desire to actually get a job and take care of his growing family. Angie is- horror of horrors!- SINGLE! And in an ABC Family Christmas movie no less! There is one apartment in their building that has a frequent turnover as Angie's mom puts up young single men there to marry Angie off.Okay, so there's this magic snowglobe. Angie shakes it and thinks about it and is transported inside to the pastoral village depicted therein. There just aren't any people who are more into Christmas than these folks...yet somehow they know nothing of Christ. This is a plot point. The people in the village are empty-headed, Pleasantville, Stepford Smiling, drones. Angie thinks this village is just TOPS. She spends more and more time there and time keeps on passing in the real world while she is there and finally when she isn't around to walk over, her family care, but just so they can guilt her about being inconsiderate. I'm serious here. She meets up with a guy there who shovels the snow and goes ice skating with a girl in town. Angie starts seeing him a bunch and makes the ice skater girl jealous. Angie also begins to build a relationship with the current "potential husband loft" resident who is an aspiring architect.In the third act the snowglobe guy somehow comes out of the globe and wants to spend time with Angie in the real world, which prompts her to ask if he's having some sort of existential crisis knowing that he lives in a snowglobe and he doesn't bat an eye. The girlfriend shows up too, and forced drama all around, and the snowglobe falls and gets damaged, and I feel asleep a few times watching this one. Luckily Cheffiepie was there to fill me in.They repair the snowglobe with pieces of other snowglobes and send everyone home, and she moves in with architect guy in the next apartment down the street and no one learns anything. God bless us, everyone! This movie is dull, annoying, and dull. I really hate this movie.
... View MoreThis movie made me fall in love with Christina Milian. It's a light, innocent and romantic Christmas movie, without being tastelessly sugar-sweet. The story situates itself sort of in two places; the too ideal dream-place of the snowglobe and the everyday challenging real world. Angela (Christina) gets tempted to lay the emphasize of her interest at the snowglobe, and the too naive and jolly person she meets there. Thus becoming blind for the real boy that lives down the hall and that gets invited by her family to meet her. After the two worlds start to mingle, she starts to realize the charm of the real world and starts to fall also for the real boy. The whole is however presented in a very light and easy to comprehend way. Yes, the family-interaction is not always worked out in the most believable way. But Christina's beauty and the sweetness of her lovely character in this movie compensates more than enough. For one lonely Christmas-evening she became my ideal snowglobe-girl.
... View More