Winter In Vail - Hallmark For All Seasons »

Welcome to 2020, everybody!  I’m so excited to cover another year of our favorite Hallmark movies!  When I started reviewing Hallmark movies a year ago I never really thought that I would truly watch and comment on almost every Hallmark Channel movie that came out in 2019.  I owe any modicum of success at Hallmark For All Seasons to you.

THANK YOU for coming to this website, and thank you for reading my commentaries (I guess that’s really what they are – they aren’t “reviews,” in the strictest sense).  I hope that you continue to visit in 2020 and comment and share your own opinions of each movie discussed.

The rankings begin anew, and we had a strong contender out of the gate with our first Winterfest offering: “Winter in Vail” co-starring Lacey Chabert and Tyler Hynes.  It was filmed in both Vail, Colorado, and Alberta, Calgary in Canada.  Both locations had a lot of snow and a lot of COLD – as evidenced by the real snow in this movie!

In a nutshell

With two heavy hitters in Chabert and Hynes, there’s no way this could be anything but delightful.  And delightful it was.  Great chemistry, a good story, incredible scenery – it all added up to the perfect nightcap after the chaos of the holiday season ended (although the Michael Rady/Aimee Teegarden New Year’s movie would have been a true perfect nightcap, Hallmark…).

Plot (from Hallmark Channel website)

Chelsea (Lacey Chabert) inherits a house in Vail. She meets Owen (Tyler Hynes) and gets a much-needed break. Together, they put on Strudelfest to highlight the charm of Old Vail.

It’s funny that this movie’s plot is a little similar to another Lacey Chabert fan favorite, “All of My Heart” (which happens to be my number one Hallmark movie of all time).  The only difference is that Owen didn’t own half the house. But the house WAS undergoing renovations, and Chelsea DID have some baking experience. Soo…

Actors

Lacey Chabert and Tyler Hynes are both Hallstars, really, so there’s not much to say there.  I always keep an eye out for their movies, and they rarely disappoint.

For this movie, we’ll play Six Degrees of Kris Polaha with Greg Lawson, who played Owen’s dad Karl Becker, the owner of the German restaurant in the movie.  Lawson, who has a long iMDb page, starred in “Carolina Moon” with Claire Forlani in 2007.  I remember seeing that mystery movie and being so upset that Jonathan Scarfe ended up being the killer.  Anyway, Forlani had earlier played a role in 2004’s “Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius,” which also featured Wilbur Fitzgerald.  Fitzgerald went on to co-star with Polaha in 2013’s “Devil’s Knot.”

Chemistry

Chabert and Hynes were a super combination to see.  I love that Hallmark has found Hynes’ niche and lets him rock the sarcasm and banter in his movies.  He excels at that kind of material and I’m glad that Hallmark recognizes that and lets him play.  And Chabert is just sweetness and light and easy to watch on screen.  The result of these two together in a movie?  Simply wonderful.

Tropes

Since “Winter in Vail” is a winter movie we still had plenty of winter tropes.  We got a sleigh ride, a snowball fight, some ice skating, a few big scarves, at least one scene with empty coffee cups, and scenes filled with baking and an INCREDIBLE looking hot cocoa, which is REAL and can be found at The Sebastian Hotel in Vail, Colorado.  Non-season related tropes included the fact that Chelsea was a workaholic AND an event planner.

Bingo Cards Are Taking a Break

Since my bingo cards are very Christmas-centric, I won’t be playing bingo again until 2020’s Christmas in July event.

Did I Hear/See That Right?

Only one thing really took me out of the movie, and it was a minor thing, but it did have me shaking my head.  When Chelsea spends a cold night in the chalet she inherited from her uncle, she has a heater at the foot of the bed to help keep her warm.  The problem is she had a parabolic heater, and that’s not how they work.  I know this because I have one in my office at home.  Our office in my house has a vent, but it is useless – we think the homebuilder never connected it to the system.  As such, the office is warm in summer and cold in winter.  We keep a fan and a parabolic heater in that room all year round as a result.

Parabolic heaters are FANTASTIC (we got ours at Costco many years ago but you can get them at most big box stores nowadays).  The reason they are great is because you turn them on, and within seconds you feel the heat when you stand in front of them.  No waiting for the entire room to heat up, like with a space heater.  Not only that, but a parabolic heater does not heat up things like furniture or metal.  In fact, when I have mine on low, if my feet are cold I will rest them directly on the metal guard of the heater itself and let the parabolic heat do the rest of the work.  In winter, when I have it running, my animals will plop themselves down right in front of it and steal all the heat for themselves.

So in the movie, Chelsea had the heater going, and it was literally heating almost nothing because she was at least 6-7 feet away.  She’d have been better off having it on the SIDE of the bed, where it would heat her whole body (or at least, one side of it).  The only thing staying warm with it at the end of the bed are her feet.  Parabolic heaters are great proximity heaters.  Again, not for entire rooms.

Feelgoods

I had one feelgood from this movie, and it related to the joy she felt when she found her uncle’s strudel recipe.  When my grandmother passed away, the one thing that some family members requested was my grandmother’s peanut butter pie recipe.  My grandmother could NOT cook, but apparently her peanut butter pie was worth the fuss (I wouldn’t know because I don’t think peanut butter belongs in a dessert so I doubt I would have ever tried it).  Fortunately, in her recipe box I found multiple copies written in her own hand, and was able to give those out to the family members that requested it.”  I even took a copy for myself even though I’ll never make it in my lifetime.

Re-watchability

Yes, I almost definitely will watch this one again, if only for the great chemistry that Lacey Chabert and Tyler Hynes had.  In fact, I didn’t delete it from my Tivo after watching it, just in case I wanted to re-watch it sooner rather than later.

The Ranking

“Winter in Vail” is currently in the number one spot! *lol* Let’s see if it can hold its lead as the weeks and months continue.

1. Winter in Vail (air date: Jan 4) – 623 pts – weighted score: 108.8 (76.4%)

To see where this movie lands in my overall rankings of Hallmark movies, visit my Hallmark Movie Rankings page!

What did you think of “Winter in Vail”?  Comment below and let me know!

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