Christmas in the Clouds (2001)

I saw this film in an almost-completed version a couple of years ago at the Palm Springs Native American Film Festival. The audience loved it. A lot of people have been waiting with crossed fingers hoping it would find a distributor for a big nationwide release.It's fresh like the mountain air of it's setting. It's laugh out loud funny and somehow manages to be heart warming without being schmaltzy. The cast of newcomers and old favorites like Graham Greene and Rita Coolidge deliver fine performances in every role. Couldn't have come at a better time. We can celebrate this delightful holiday surprise for the whole family together at the movies!

This evening I laughed, and cried a little, to the romantic comedy set in the mountains. A friend asked me to go see this movie, I didn't know much about it before I went. I'm glad I went. I needed some laughs and got more than the usual Hollywood formula would have provided. The characters are given some time for the audience to get to know them, and enjoy their story before the movie ended. Some parts of the movie are "cute," but not excessively for a romantic comedy. This is a "chick flick," though guys would enjoy it too. I enjoyed the mountain scenes. Well worth seeing!

How the Hollywood moguls missed this one is beyond me. Happily, I got to view this movie at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. It deserves to be picked up and put on top of everyone's Christmas Tree!

Be ready to laugh, cry and feel good when you see this film. The main characters are Native Americans, in a non-Native quandry. A freshly divorced, hunky, yuppie Native American hotel owner has to shape up his authority-resistant, rag-tag domestic staff for a make-or-break visit from a hot-shot hotelier guide book spy. The hotel owner's mischievious tribal Chief dad has been writing misleading love letters to a female pen pal on the opposite coast. Her curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to do some spying of her own. Nothing is what it seems. Both visits coincide and collide with the deepest desires of the hotel owner, his dad, the spy and the pen pal gal. Loaded with charm, naturalistically acted and beautifully cast with some familiar faces-some new faces-Graham Green [Dances With Wolves]is a standout as the passive-aggressive-vegetarian-activist Cordon Bleu chef. Tim Vahle is adorable as the yuppie Native, and MariAna Tosca is captivating as the unexpectedly lovely pen pal widow. 'Clouds has a modern day Capra-esque feel of mistaken identity, pure chemistry, fantasy and higher instincts refound. Shot in the new, gorgeous SUNDANCE lodge in Utah, it really makes you long for Christmas to come early. You can take your kids, the only nude scene is the turkey's.