Lifetime Christmas movies

Even New Yorkers need cowboy skills

There’s a Hollywood tradition that most actors follow:
If a producer asks if you can ride a horse, you say “yes!” Then you rush out and try to learn.
That was trickier for Melissa Joan Hart (shown here with Duane Henry), whose “Mistletoe in Montana” debuts Friday on Lifetime. She and her mother produced the film; it’s hard to lie to your mom, harder to lie to yourself.
“I worked all summer on lessons,” Hart said, including “lasso lessons. I knew there was archery involved and square dancing, but I was just like … ‘I just wanna get comfortable on a horse.’” Read more…

Summer heat brings cool Christmases?

It seems so easy, making all these Christmas movies.
They almost have the same cheery backdrops, the same perky heroine. She’s often expected to return to her home town and/or to squabble with a handsome guy who turns out to be OK after all.
Still, these aren’t that easy to make … starting with the weather. “You always do a Christmas movie in July,” John Schneider said. “As you always do a beach movie in November or December.”
His movie – “Reba McEntire’s Christmas in Tune” (8 p.m. Friday on Lifetime), shown here – has more music than most, along with some of the brightest colors this side of animation. It was also a rare case of a holiday film shot in the South. Read more…