Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Hitchcoc There are risks in doing remakes. When I saw this, I had not seen the Stanwyck film. I just found this about as dull as can be. The whole thing with trying to cook a dinner for a forest ranger and having to hide the fact that she can't cook and going through the gyrations they do, just doesn't work. Is her career really going to hit the skids because the tree guy might find out? Two really tiresome actors, Dyan Cannon and Kris Kristofferson (I like his music) walk through their roles and produce something they hoped would sell at Christmas time. I imagine they managed to put a few people in the seats at the time, but I doubt it has had much of a following. It's just a weak film and can fade into the woodwork of cheap collections of Christmas movies.

moonspinner55 Stultifying TV-made remake of the 1945 chestnut starring Barbara Stanwyck. As directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger (!), this romantic comedy begins with a terrific bit of television-oriented satire involving Dyan Cannon as the hostess of a popular cooking program. Cannon (vivacious as ever) doesn't know her way around a kitchen, and so has cue cards in front of her and lackeys handing her props out of camera range. It's a wonderfully sly bit of prodding at manufactured show-biz 'magic'...however, once the contrived plot kicks in, the film loses that fresh, funny edge. Dyan has to pretend to be a family-oriented country gal in a publicity stunt which pairs her with recent wilderness hero Kris Kristofferson, and the rest you can write yourself. There isn't a spontaneous or uplifting moment in the mix as our glowing couple grows closer and closer, while she is forced to dislocate herself from the awful truth. A better movie might have been had just by keeping Cannon in the city working on her show, maybe with Kristofferson as her cooking guest. Sadly, the writing here was aiming for Bigger! Better! Funnier! while out-of-his-element Schwarzenegger darts around hoping to exploit every crash for knee-slapping laughs. They fail to arrive.

donaldmckercher-1 OK, My second favorite Christmas movie...my 1st being the Orig With Barbara Stanwick. But this re-make is nicely done. The Marta Stewart-esquire Character is perfectly lame in the kitchen and her assistant does all the actual cooking. The Chemistry between Cannon and Kristofferson is nice andTony Curtis is hilarious as the producer/pseudo-husband who is worried about ratings and network politics; the side stories are light and provide comic relief every few scenes.This truly wonderful, heartwarming and funny movie is sure to become one of your holiday favorites too.

B.B.-2 The original was a gem; beautifully written, charmingly acted,well directed. Why remake it? There is nothing about thisversion that works. The premise does not work in the 1990s, thestars are flat; the direction insipid.Save two hours of your life. Skip this and rent the original