On Strike for Christmas (2010)

I love Christmas movies, especially the ones made for TV. Most of them are cheesy and unrealistic, but thats what I love! They take you completely away from reality! They have to, most of them have Santa in them right? :)The casting for this movie, yes, very questionable. Daphne looked much older than the gentleman playing her husband, but the worst casting of all time, in any movie I've ever seen, is the older basketball playing son. He does look like he's 30+, and his hairstyle, for a man who looks 30, makes me laugh every time I watch this movie. But its one of the reasons I keep watching it, lol! Every year I look for this movie, because that actor makes me cackle! :) It's still a warm Christmasy movie, family, friends, gorgeous Christmas decor, beautiful home, everyone always looking so stylish and fancy (I wear my pajamas when i decorate my tree, hm, i wear my pajamas for a lot of things i think..) and the moral of the story is nice.So if you're not hard pressed to work for the two hours that it airs, sit, relax, dial your brain down, and look for the older son's hairstyle! ha ha ha! :)

This is possibly the worst casting I've ever seen. Not because the acting was bad, just that the actors didn't appear to look the age they were supposed to look, which made the relationships between the characters in the story very confusing.I have to admit I did not watch the whole movie, but I saw enough to know what I had a problem with.I happened to start watching the movie while the three men of the house were baking cookies. Honestly, it was a little difficult to tell which one was the father and which ones were the sons.But then when I saw Julia Duffy playing Daphne Zuniga's mother, I kind of just gave up at believing this would be a decent movie.Counter to what other reviewers have said, I didn't really notice a big jerkiness on the men's side, but this could be because I only watched a few scenes. What bugged me is that Joy didn't just want the men of her family to pitch in and do their part, she actually wanted them to do their part ONLY in the way that she dictated it should be done. I don't blame them for being annoyed when she criticized the *process* they used making cookies, even when the end result they delivered was exactly what she wanted. I've seen this theme too often.

This is a light and quite amusing family comedy. The first two thirds of this movie is quite fun and entertaining. Haven't really seen a movie where the men try to cook and mess up and it's quite laugh out loud funny.Daphne Zuniga looks quite young for her age and is pleasing to watch - always wondered why she didn't get more roles. David Sutcliffe looks a bit young to be a father of teens. The later part kind of gets corny but it's a good movie for families with just sons and no daughters to watch (or daughters who don't help their moms). Watch it and appreciate mom a bit more.

Joy Robinson goes "on strike for Christmas" because she's doing all the preparation work herself with no help from her apparently unappreciative husband and sons.The movie starts out well enough, but by the time the men take over in the kitchen, it starts playing like a bad sitcom. The plot picks up and starts turning the corner into a decent watch in the scene wherein Joy (Daphne Zuniga) and her mom (Julia Duffy) have a serious mother-daughter talk about what Joy really wants to come out of her strike. The proceedings pick up from there, and the movie would deserve a higher rating overall were it not for the slapstick scenes in the early going."On Strike..." differs from most Christmas movies in that the children here are not a couple of cute tykes, but seniors in high school preparing to leave home soon to pursue their educations, and in one case, a football scholarship at Bowdoin, while in the other case, music and girls at Oberlin.The real value in this film is its message. Yes, Christmas is for kids, but Mom deserves more appreciation for all the hard work she puts in for the good of the family.