Once again, I have to reckon with an unavoidable fact: There aren't very many movies about Hanukkah. Over previous holiday movie marathons, I've reviewed almost every movie that prominently features the Jewish Feast of Lights. This quirky collection of films includes a Blaxploitation parody, an extremely crude cartoon, a Disney movie-of-the-week, and a low budget slasher film. Yet the ever advantageous executives at the Hallmark Channel, some years back, realized there was an untapped market for movies centered around that other December holiday. “Hitched for the Holidays” would be the first of several movies made for the network, that foreground Jewish faith and the winter festival in one way or another. Yes, it's come to this: I'm reviewing Hallmark Movies for my blog. Thus is life.
Rob Marino works for an advertising company. When his beloved grandmother, who practically raised him thanks to his mentally ill mother, develops terminal cancer, she presents Rob with a final wish: To see her grandson happily married. He lies and says he already has a girlfriend. Meanwhile, Julie is tired of her nosy parents trying to set her up with obnoxious dates. She also lies about having a partner. The two mutually seek out someone to pose as their fabricated partners for the holidays of Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years. Rob and Julie soon find one another and the deception is on. Yet, as the scheme continues, they begin to develop real feelings for each other.
Yet, like most of the bigger budget rom-coms, "Hitched for the Holidays" is hampered by contrived writing. I mean, just the premise is completely ridiculous. The two meet on Craigslist-but-Not-Called-That, which is already improbable. The idea of finding a fake romantic partner for a series of office parties and family get-togethers is already bordering psychopath behavior. Like seemingly all rom-coms, "Hitched for the Holidays" does that obnoxious thing where the couple melodramatically break up at the end of the second act for nonsensical reasons. Julie complains that the whole relationship has been a lie — reasonable enough — while Rob gets mad that she... Broke up with her last boyfriend? Ya know, dude, if you're going to date, to have to be okay with the fact that your partner was in prior relationships. Even the movie admits this is a nonsensical excuse. In general, the script is crowded up with unnecessary subplots about Rob's ad agency job, his mother's mental health, and Julie being too nice in her job as a play reviewer.
Of course, "Hitched for the Holidays" is only partially a Hanukkah movie, as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Eve all play prominent roles in the story as well. I guess a homogeneous, overwhelmingly WASPy cultural force like Hallmark just acknowledging that non-Christian people and festivals exist was a step-forward. This half-assed attempt at diversification must've worked for the network, as they've produced a few other Hanukkah movies since this one. I suppose I'll have to watch those for future December marathons, unless some better options emerge in the next year. "Hitched for the Holidays" isn't for me and I understand that fans of these things will embrace the cliches I deride. I found it to be badly written and largely laughless but maybe the Hallmark Movie devotee in your life will have a different opinion. [5/10]
These days, the Nickelodeon brand is fairly well established, split between wacky cartoon comedies and tween-targeted sitcoms of dubious merit. This is true to the point that, when the network has a hit that doesn't fit either category, they don't quite know what to do with it. In the nineties, Nick was still defining itself, throwing game shows, quirky slice-of-life stories, a news program, and even the occasional horror anthology show into the mix. This is the environment "Weinerville" emerged from. That was a hard-to-categorized children's variety show that mixed comedy, games, music, and hideous puppets that aired on the network from 1993 to 1996. I sometimes watched the show but have nothing but the vaguest memories of it. Mostly, I remember the disturbing sight of the show's host and namesake, Marc Weiner, sticking his head on little puppet bodies. Last year, our friends at the Haunted Drive-In uploaded "The Weinerville Chanukah Special," a title so bizarre that I knew I had to add it to this year's holiday lineup. It's not like there's a ton of other Hanukkah programming to pick from anyway!
The loose premise of "Weinerville" is that it revolves around the wacky happenings in the town of Weinerville, with most of the characters being played by Weiner or those aforementioned ugly puppets. The Chanukah special takes place at the town's ski lodge, where a Hanukkah party is underway. A group of latke aliens, persecuted by an evil king named Antidorkus, crash-land in the lodge. Antidorkus soon arrives and subjects everyone to his mind control ray. A group of Weinerville puppets — led by the frequently screaming Boney the Dinosaur — seek inspiration in the story of the Maccabees to stand up to and defeat Antidorkus. Ah, but there's not enough oil left for the aliens' space ship to return home! I think you can figure out where this is going...
It's television made for hyperactive seven-year-olds, which means my old man eyes mostly found it incredibly annoying. However, one or two moments did amuse. A "TV Funhouse"-like gag has Boney and friends heading to the grocery store to buy frying oil, harassing customers along the way by stealing their box of donuts or dropping apple sauce into their hands. There's lots of Hanukkah trappings here, like a dreidel-shaped spaceship, a singing menorah, and the aforementioned latke aliens. (Among the special's least appealing characters.) This Jewish content peaks when the puppets visit an old man who sings an educational song about the holiday. The special also concludes with an original song about the menorah that eventually turns into a mash-up of "Chanukah Oh Chanukah" and "Blitzkrieg Bop."
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