My younger brother spent last night at the home of his girlfriend Bev, so I had the T.V. to myself in the evening.
Friday evening, his early homecoming forced me to cancel out of a Christmas movie, so I tuned it back in last evening via the YouTube 'app' that is downloaded into our T9 Android 8.1 TV Box. YouTube conveniently remembers where it is that someone broke off from a video and will resume the play from that point.
I judge the movie to be worthy of adding to the list I am compiling as entertainment for my brother and Bev when he brings her over here for what has become our annual two-day Christmastime Christmas movie fest. I am the only one in this household who understands how to operate the Android TV Box, so I will be in charge of our movies ─ unless my brother or Bev actually have a nomination they would like me to find for us to watch.
Anyway, the movie was from 2001 and titled The Sons of Mistletoe.
That Wikipedia's one-sentence description is somewhat inaccurate: "A cold businesswoman threatens to close a boys foster home during the holidays when she returns to her home town to settle her late father's estate." She was not "cold" at all.
A better description is at RottenTomatoes.com:
Jimmy Adams (George Newbern) is dismayed when the benefactor of his charges at The Sons of Mistletoe boy's orphanage suddenly dies and leaves the facility to his daughter, Helen Radke (Roma Downey), who appears ready to pull funding from the orphanage. As the situation worsens, it looks like the only thing that will save The Sons of Mistletoe is a Christmas miracle.
I had no idea that Helen Radke was being portrayed by Roma Downey of Touched by an Angel fame. I was never a fan of that T.V. series, but I did on occasion watch it.
I only learned who was playing Helen Radke when I became curious about the actress and came here to my computer to learn who she was, for she presented as a very attractive blonde with a very effective empathic and soulful expression. In fact, she most aptly evinced her Touched by an Angel character.
Her character in this movie had only come back home to divest herself of her late father's properties, and signed a contract to sell it all off 'kit and kaboodle' except for, apparently, the family home. The buyers were a huge New York City firm. Only too late did Helen Radke realize that she was also selling off the home for the half-dozen or so boys that young resident caretaker Jimmy had always relied upon Helen's late father to subsidize ─ the late father was the landlord and had leased the home to Jimmy for a mere $1 a year.
That most certainly would no longer be the rate once the New York firm took over!
So Helen Radke ─ after reluctantly but willingly enough being escorted to the home by Jimmy ─ became clearly drawn to the boys straight off.
Initially I did not like Wylie, the delinquent newest addition to the boys' home. But once he began to like the other lads, he became irresistible. I especially liked how the youngest of the boys in the home ─ Benny ─ seemed to fixate upon Wylie as a big brother and best friend, and Wylie came to relish the role.
I had no idea that Cathie Lee Crosby had the role of "Mary" in the movie. I can't now remember who that character was, but I think she may have been Helen Radke's receptionist or secretary.
Incidentally, actress Roma Downey had her 59th birthday this year.
I liked the movie, and I definitely will not mind at all re-watching it around Christmastime in December.
When I accessed the YouTube video, it made no sense to me why it displayed as being well over two hours in duration ─ the movie was only supposed to run for an hour and 40 minutes. It made me wonder if maybe there was a sequel that I was unaware of that would play at the conclusion.
Well, not so. For whatever reason, the movie was uploaded in duplication. The entire movie immediately began to replay once the first copy finished.
I didn't have to watch too much of the movie to come to its finish, for I had left off Friday evening very late into it. And so, I decided to find myself another Christmas movie to enjoy my Jack Daniel's with. Thus it was, I settled upon trying to find the 2002 movie Santa, Jr.
Once again, RottenTomatoes.com has a superior description of the movie than does Wikipedia.
Alas, although it was available at YouTube, the idiot who uploaded it did so with a split screen. The movie played in duplicate all at once.
To hell with that ─ it was unwatchable.
To hell with that ─ it was unwatchable.
But man! ─ did I have trouble finding the movie anywhere else! One supposed source resulted in my computer freezing right up with a fake Microsoft warning demanding that I immediately telephone them to unlock my computer.
So I had to force it to shut down, and then restart it.
I finally did locate a functioning source at website 123Putlocker (http://123putlocker.club). But how to watch it through my Android TV Box on our television?
On my computer, I have three browsers: Explorer, of course (it came preloaded on my computer); and Firefox and Chrome.
I do all my work in Firefox, and have Adblock Plus as an add-on so that I don't have to put up with loads of intrusive ads imposing themselves. Explorer is hardly ever used by me because it is so ponderously lethargic. And Chrome ─ I tend to use it to access websites that block me on Firefox because of my ad blocker, for I don't have an ad blocker on Chrome.
Most such websites that will block me in Firefox really don't interest me ─ I have to be somewhat desperate to use Chrome to allow me to look at them.
My computer also has Malwarebytes, incidentally ─ along with AntiVirus Free (i.e., AVG AntiVirus).
Well, my Android TV Box only had the Chrome browser, and AntiVirus Free.
When I access 123Putlocker in Firefox on my computer, I see a search field at the top of the webpage, and below that are a number of movie mini-posters to tempt the visitor who might want to watch something.
When I located Santa, Jr. in the search field, it began to play without issue.
So off to my Android TV Box I went and attempted to use Chrome to find the website. Well, I did find it. However, it was overlaid with what I can only label as adware. There were none of the movie mini-posters that displayed in Firefox on my computer.
And when I used the 123Putlocker search field, the movie did come up. But whenever I attempted to play it, a new tab would open up instead that was just another advertisement. This happened over and over each time I attempted to play the video. I would shut down the new tab, but as soon as I tried to play the video, another tab would hijack me to that website.
So I decided to duplicate my computer's setup.
I downloaded into my Android TV Box a Firefox browser, and then I added the Adblock Plus ad blocker add-on. Finally, I downloaded Malwarebytes.
Then when I opened up 123Putlocker in my new Android Firefox, everything appeared just as it did on my computer ─ no ads were being forced on me. Thanks is probably due to Adblocker Plus for that.
And the movie played perfectly.
It proved to be enjoyable enough, but it was more of a comedy and not designed to be heavily emotional ─ emotion is what I seek in a Christmas movie. Oh, sure ─ the movie had its tender and sentimental moments; but it was still intended to be a comedy.
It will not be on my list of movies to watch at Christmastime with my younger brother and Bev. Once was enough for me.
I will confess, however, that lead actress Holly Lauren was a beautiful young woman to watch, and she looked very familiar to me. Notwithstanding, after scanning her various T.V. and film credits at Wikipedia, nothing at all supports why she should seem so familiar.
And I see there that she had her 56th birthday not quite two weeks ago!
I sure do hate getting older, and I hate to see it happening in others.
Anyway, despite my bit of drinking last evening, I did get to bed very soon after 10:00 p.m. I wanted to be able to get up early and get away to do some shopping this morning at the Real Canadian Superstore outlet (Google map) approximately 3¼ miles distant from me ─ I would be walking, for I do not drive.
I found myself awake at 2:25 a.m., and by 3:00 a.m. had given up trying to sleep, so I rose and mixed up a big mug of hot and black instant coffee.
The store opens at 7:00 a.m., so I left here barely ahead of 6:00 a.m., and arrived at my destination with several minutes to spare, waiting around outside for it to open.
The sole reason I went there was to buy two 1-litre cartons of Dairyland whipping cream, for the priced reduction is quite striking over the cost of a single carton. Two cartons can be bought for $7.18, whereas a single carton costs $5.48. Since the whipping cream freezes without too much loss of quality, I would freeze the spare.
I only use the cream for my coffee. Once a frozen carton is thawed, the cream is perfectly serviceable as long as a little shaking of the carton is done before using any ─ freezing seems to bring on a separation of the butterfat from the milk, but some shaking of the carton basically resolves that problem for any one use.
Since I was at the store, I decided that I would browse around a little as I made my way to the dairy section, and pick up a few other items as I moved along.
Well, guess what?
I got to the damned dairy section and there was not one bloody litre-sized carton of whipping cream available! I had hiked there for nothing, apart from the exercise I derived.
But if I had not wanted to go shopping, I would have gone walking earlier for the exercise, and travelled considerably farther.
I felt obliged to continue with my shopping, for I didn't feel like retracing my steps and putting everything that was in my basket back where I had found the items. However, since I did not exactly need any of those things, I honestly felt gypped by the entire experience.
When I had first left home, after about a half mile of walking, it occurred to me that there was another Real Canadian Superstore outlet that might have been no farther, and which was in a direction that I would have preferred walking at that time of morning. Yet since I was already committed to my journey, I kept on with it.
Since being home, I now understand that the other outlet is less than three miles from here ─ almost three-quarters of a mile closer to me; and I could have had a better walking experience that actually resulted in success where the whipping cream was concerned.
Hence, I will probably not early on any morning be deliberately seeking that store outlet that I visited today.
I had a good nap soon after returning home; but now that I have finally had a meal around the mid-afternoon, I am set to have myself another lie-down ─ maybe even another nap, for it is nigh 5:00 p.m.
So I shall call it quits for today's post.
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