How did I miss this one from PureFlix?

For those of you who lucky enough never to be exposed to the wretchedness of PureFlix, a film company co-founded by fundamentalist actor/director David A.R. White whose catalog includes such cinematic gems as God's Not Dead (student uses Bible and strawman arguments to defeat evil Atheist professor,) God's Not Dead II (teacher uses Bible and strawman arguments to defend her right to preach the gospel in in a public classroom) and War Room (emotionally abused woman saves her marriage to an abusive, cheating criminal of a husband by locking herself in a closet and shouting prayers,) a film like The Christmas Angel might look like a piece of innocent, dumb fluff and a way to keep your kids occupied for a few hours during the holidays.  As someone who HAS plumbed the almost bottomless depths of inanity and preachyness that these films represent, I urge you to stick to the DVDs of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph.

I haven't seen this particular film, but I can glean the entire plotline from the trailer (it doesn't take a genius- go ahead and watch it yourself if you want to, and tell me where you disagree.)  There's a creepy old house in a neighborhood made up entirely of Christians, all of whom except one family is white.  The kids in this neighborhood have gotten the idea that if they make a wish and break a window in the old house, it will come true.

One day Kevin Sorbo (who played the Evil Athiest Professor in God's Not Dead but is still going to spend the rest of his life being That Guy Who Played Hercules) moves in to the house and, not being particularly religious, gets unreasonably irritated that kids keep breaking his windows (like I said, he's not religious, otherwise he'd understand perfectly.)  His complaints against the innocent behavior of the Very Christian young vandals (who after all are just trying to get God's attention so they can have new bikes and such) are so unreasonable, it creates a wall between him and the community- especially when he goes so far as to use police tape to show that his house is a crime scene (which it is, but man what a jerk, he must hate God or something.)

Gradually, Kevin Sorbo's hard heart softens, probably because of the widowed mom of adorable, rock-weilding children who lives next door (surprisingly not played by Roma Downey or Valerie Bertinelli,)  and maybe he's visited by a Might Be An Angel character played by Dela Reese (who else?  Hector Elizondo?)  The kids stop throwing rocks and write their wishes on pieces of paper to place in a box instead.  What happens when these wishes don't come true?  My guess is that this never comes up because, well, PureFlix.

Unlike the other PureFlix films I listed above, this one was made for television (Hallmark Channel- what else?) so it's hard to say how well it was received.  The other films received wide release and made huge profits on small budgets (War Room, for example, made $70 mil on a $4 mil production budget, and was even the No. 1 film on a very slow weekend.)  I wonder if David A.R. White isn't a little irritated with himself for not rolling the dice and putting this on the big screen.  But I'll be sure to catch it on my small one now that I've seen the trailer.  It looks treacly enough for some good snark, at least.  Merry WTF-ever.

Apple stretches disbelief until it snaps back and hits me in the face

Am I to understand that a middle school somewhere decided to put together a big-budget production of Romeo and Juliet featuring nine-year olds who will, if they provide a faithful rendition of the script, commit suicide on stage at the conclusion?

Ok, I get that the quality is probably not that awesome, and the whole idea is that the iPhone7 is just so superawesomeamazing at taking movies that it will make kids being kids on stage look like they are in something produced by Kenneth Branagh (or even something good,) but this doesn't change the fact that these are very young children performing Romeo and Juliet.  We're kidding here, right, Apple?

What the hell, Samsung?

Ok, so we have these quadruplets opening up identical boxes with identical phones and then proceeding with some of the worst line-reading I've heard in years- "I love you in that."  "No, I love you in that."  "No, I love YOU in that."  It's all so stunningly unconvincing, it would have been just fine with me if they were actually holding cue cards to remind them what their ONLY LINES were.

And having "delivered" their lines, they each act as if they are completely relieved to have that over with so they can go back to staring at their wonderful new phones.  Merry F--ing Christmas.  Just a few questions:

1.  How old are these girls?  I was guessing teens.  But there are no parents about- so who bought these phones?  Assuming they didn't buy them for eachother, did they actually just open gifts from people who aren't there to share the experience?

2.  How many rooms are there in this house?  Why do they all sit on the same couch- it just magnifies their asshattery.  I mean, think about this for a moment- these girls are obviously sisters.  They all just got new phones, and then handed out stilted compliments.  And now they are all crowding against eachother instead of, I don't know, maybe spreading out a bit?  Or is this how kids nowadays pretend that they are sharing a moment- hey, they are all in the same room, so they are all together, even though they are all staring at different screens?

3.  When they bleat "I love you in that" they aren't looking at eachother, but at their phones.  So what are they responding to?  Do their screens magically have pictures of their sisters wearing different outfits?  I mean, they were together before they opened those boxes.  Why wait until they were distracted by their phones before complimenting eachother?  Makes NO sense.

American Aviator: Because we are living a Post-Shame Era

This one's gonna take some work.  Like frame-by-frame work:

"Hi, I'm Rick Harrison, and this is my Pawn Shop..." Rick Harrison is the "star" of "Pawn Stars," which I think is one of those atrocities The History Channel developed when it decided it was all done showing us "History."  It makes a lot of sense to buy a watch from a guy who runs a Pawn Shop, because....um, Reasons, I guess.

"I knew when I introduced the American Aviator Watch, the public would like it...but it's actually becoming a Symbol of American Patriotism and Pride."  Well, yeah, says right there- "Symbol of American Pride," right on the screen.  But who is saying this?  Who is being quoted?  I mean, name one person who calls your cheap knock-off of a WWII-era watch a "symbol of American Patriotism and Pride," Mr. Harrison.  Just one.  And no, you are not allowed to include yourself, because you're kind of biased.

The Aviator Watch was developed as a precision instrument to be used by pilots so they could drop their bombs on their targets.  That watch is not being made available by Rick Harrison through this commercial, just his version of it- which, I gotta say, doesn't look a hell of a lot like the original.  Seriously, it's a totally different watch; I'm surprised we get to see them side by side.   Maybe Mr. Harrison wasn't fortunate enough to have multiple old veterans coming in to his shop to pawn their watches so he could examine them more closely and make his knock-offs more authentic-looking?

Ah, but they cost "a lot less money."  Adjusted for inflation, I guess?

Then we get the sad old veteran (I suppose) tell us that when he sees a non-veteran wearing one of these pieces of cheap junk, he sees it as a "wink and a nod that he cares, and that he understands, and that he gets it."  Um, really?  Not that the watch owner just saw this commercial, thought that the watch looked pretty cool, and ordered it?  How exactly does buying a watch make you more patriotic or knowledgeable about veterans, again?   Later another vet will tell us that wearing this watch shows "you know what it means to serve your country."  Seems to me that all it shows is that you know how to give your credit card number to Rick Harrison, but what would I know, I'm not a vet...

And then we get another sad veteran- "Dean R.," who isn't quite proud enough to share his entire name so he comes off like the people who give testimonials for Publisher's Clearing House or Sham-Wows.  Dean is proud to have served his country in Desert Storm, which he seems to remember as including a lot of crawling through wheat fields.  He's also proud to have this junky watch.  which "honors our American servicemen"- again, no idea how.

Ralph M, a veteran of the Korean War, tells us that not only will he wear his knock-off of what was probably a cool watch from now on, but that he'll "always stand for the National Anthem."  Um, thanks for your service and for the non-sequitor, Ralph.  Or are you saying that owning this watch is just like standing for the National Anthem- if you don't do both, you are Un-American and don't care about sacrifice and should just go back to Russia?  What the hell?

Then Rick Harrison brings us back into very familiar territory, telling us that we "could spend a thousand bucks for a watch like this."  Yeah, and I could blow my paycheck on scratch-off tickets, too.  What's the point- that your bad copy of a classic watch isn't as expensive as other people's bad copies?  Anyway, this thing costs $39.95 plus shipping and handling and comes in a "classic collector's case" (a cardboard box with a picture of a plane and the words World War II on it) plus a brochure he probably copped from a museum somewhere.  Oh, and an official certification to assure you that this is a genuine knock-off.  Oh, and Mr. Harrison doesn't quite have the guts to admit it, but they throw in a keychain flashlight, too.  What, no Ginzu knives or ID-safe wallets?

Well, there you go.  Almost two solid minutes of "if you're a real American who loves the troops you'll buy this watch, oh and you'll stand for the National Anthem, too."  I'd like to say I was surprised that after all this "support our vets" blather we don't find out that a portion of the profits goes to organizations which actually support vets- but I'm not.  I'm sure Rick Harrison figures he's doing more than enough by selling the watch.  I mean, it's got a laser-etched American flag on the back and I'm sure Mr. Harrison has a Support Our Troops bumper sticker on at least one of his cars.  And after all those cars, like Freedom, isn't free!

Quaker Presents: Taste, Totally Flattened

Or maybe "laid to waste."

I mean, let's slightly rewrite the narration for this ad:  "Here at Quaker Oats, we take berries, honey, oats, raisins, and other good, wholesome food and pound the living crap out of it until it's reduced to thin, dry, utterly tasteless wafers which can be stacked, wrapped in plastic, and packaged for all you posers who absolutely refuse to make the effort to search out and eat real food but instead seek out this processed crud - not only seek it out, but actually manage to get it down because you think you're doing something good for yourself.  For you, here are New Quaker Flats- quite literally, dried-up and mass-produced fiber chunks held together with honey which might, if you don't think about it too much, be a passable snack if consumed with a very hot, very strong cup of coffee."

I'm always amazed that there's a market for six dollar boxes containing a few cents worth of food, but then I remember- there's always people like the ones I described in the first paragraph.  Lazy, Niave morons looking for a short cut brought us Carnation Instant Breakfast and Eggo Waffles.  This stuff fits right in.

KIA ramps up the Dumb

Nothing about this ad makes even the slightest sense.

First, what's with the 1980s video football game?  Is KIA trying to reach the fiftysomething car buyer with this ad?  Maybe so, because Second, what the heck is Bo Jackson doing even attempting to play football here?

Third, the electronic version of Bo Jackson in the game looks like he has a pretty good shot to go 95 yards for the score, but instead decides....to cheat by running out of the stadium, getting into his car, and driving it on to the field?  Now we've moved beyond "makes no sense" and are deep into "this is really, really stupid" territory.

Fourth, why are the other electronic players attempting to tackle Jackson's car?  Why is Jackson carefully weaving his car around the players as if he's concerned that it will get tackled?  I don't care how big NFL players are nowadays, they aren't taking down a freaking SUV.

Fifth, what is Bo Jackson celebrating at the end?  That he managed to drive across a football field in a car without being tackled?  That he's still marketable enough to be in an ad and that's a good thing even if it's one as dumb as this?  That he's in an ad and at least it isn't for Five Hour Energy?

Why do I think about this stupid crap so much?

Dodge really captures the spirit of the holidays in this ad

Ostentatious competitiveness.  Surly looks.  Drag races which endanger the lives of the Not One Percenters who might be trying to cross these urban streets.  Concluding with a reminder that hey there are even more self-satisfied prigs willing to trash their Christmas trees if it means they get to show off the fact that....um, their cars go forward when you press the gas pedal.

Yeah, this is somebody's idea of what the holidays are all about.  "Somebody" being pretty much everyone who writes commercials to be broadcast in the month of December.  Because I'm not kidding- as I was watching the Ravens-Dolphins game Sunday afternoon I couldn't help noticing that at least nine out of ten of the ads broadcast featured the message that the best thing you can do for yourself this holiday season is to buy a car you probably don't need but will make you the envy of the neighborhood and in the end, what else really matters?

Merry....Um, something.  I guess.