12 Dates of Christmas (2011)

So this movie is basically a remake of "Groundhog Day", but with a female character and on Christmas eve. It's still pretty entertaining, but the parallels to "Groundhog Day" are just too frequent to ignore... Other than that, it's a cute, romantic movie.

This movie was put out by ABC Family before it became the disaster of FreeForm and its crap programming. The story is a Groundhog Day copy of a sorts. However, it is very funny and touching. There are few different twists on it that help differentiate the movie from Groundhog Day. Amy Smart and Laura Miyata are EXTREMELY easy on the eye. Mark-Paul Gosselaar has come a long way from his Saved By the Bells days. All of the characters are fun to watch. This movie needs to be released on DVD. Thankfully, I captured it on DVR when it was shown, but a DVD would be a whole lot better. Overall, it is a good, family friendly Christmas movie without any Hollywood liberal agendas in it.

Almost anything with Amy Smart is worth watching in my opinion. While she does not embody the plastic beauty of the typical Hollywood star I find her extremely attractive in her own right. In this film she keeps waking up to a new Christmas Eve day. Now she remembers the previous days but everyone else doesn't. So she goes through the whole scenario time after time except some things change each day. Since she does remember it changes her actions and responses. It is a really nice film. Amy keeps altering the scenes because of her remembering the previous days. She starts out on the first day with a blind date with Myles Dufine played by Mark-Paul Gosselaar. Then she meets him again and again but in different scenarios. She also runs in to her ex, whom she still has feelings for at the start but as the days repeat she actually helps him pick a ring for her replacement. She meets a black women and they end up at her apartment eating whipped cream and dancing around. Mommy and Daddy show up with Mark while this is going on. So they go walking and end up at the bar. Here Amy runs into a guy who is apparently an angel (?) and tries to get him to fess up. Any way after many different scenarios Amy and Mark-Paul end up together. So all ends well. I have to say that I wished Amy Smart was my girl next door.

I liked this move. It is sweet and good hearted. But it is, more or less, a remake of "Groundhog's Day." And that's not saying that is a bad thing,Kate is stuck in a past she cannot shake. She had an ex-boyfriend that she feels she missed the bus on when he is moving on with his life. A death of a mother. Her father dating a very sweet woman she disapproves of for no other reason than it isn't her mom. So she wishes that she could fix things. Well, in movies like this, some magical force fulfills this.Now she's an unwilling participant in re-living this one day.Ordinarily, I would say, the repetitive nature of these incidences would be aggravating and painful to re-watch. I dismiss them since we're suppose to be going through the same process as Kate. She has a blind date with Myles (Mark Paul-Gosselar's character...who inexplicably doesn't have a listed name in IMDb). His character is really improbable conglomeration of everything sweet a girl would want in a guy. He doesn't exist but only to be tolerably normal. Then the onion begins to peel. Because most of us need a lifetime to discover the person in front of us. Kate is in purgatory to be sure. And so...which could easily derail us into not caring, OR worst turning against Kate. Director James Hayman skates so fine on that line, he finds the joy in being able to repeat her world. Well, entertaining to us anyway. I think the message is clear...which was clear for "Groundhog's Day"...we're resigned to a lot of things in our lives, until we break the pattern. And that pattern is to give into what sometimes the world wants for us. It's not giving up, it's embracing it.Yeah, I'm a sucker for this movie. So, if you venture to watch it, keep this in mind...great performances. Mark-Paul Gosselar is surprisingly low-key. He's every man. A good center. Nothing spectacular in his life...just so simple. He has dreams, but they don't interfere with his good deeds.You will feel good you took the time to watch.