Wow that was a fantastic and levelheaded post Colleen.
That said, I totally understand how something like this might rub somebody Ina different social group the wrong way. as a Jew I've often cringed at not only the portrayal of Jews in many films, but I've been generally annoyed by films and media reinforcing ideas of how Jews behave. But on the flip side, I will never critique a Christmas movie for not presenting the viewpoints of Jews or any other religious group. That is ultimately my problem with skjerva's complaints. Instead of taking a film on the level that it presents itself there seems to be a need for the movie to specifically appeal to certain personal needs.
The movie is written by straight white guys about their own views on their relationships and those of people they know. It was directed by a straight white guy who brought his own experiences to the table. That's the experience that the movie offers. I'd much rather see the director stick to that material than attempt to shoehorn in some added commentary on lgbt relationships of which he likely knows next to nothing about.
If the film had contained gay characters and skjerva felt that their portrayal was unrealistic or promoted certain stereotypes then I'd have no problem, but to constantly berate films for not even presenting a certain viewpoint is a faulty argument from the start.
Yes but you could watch a Christmas movie and think, I am so sick of Christmas Christmas Christmas in my face all the time when it means nothing to me, so even though this may have been an aesthetically pleasing movie, I was annoyed by it/hated it/whatever. Or be acutely aware of the total lack of diversity in a town where everyone is celebrating Christmas, EVERYONE. And the one person who doesn't has to be "taught the meaning of Christmas" or somesuch because anyone who doesn't celebrate Christmas has to be "fixed".
To me the critiques offered here are more along the lines of reviews. There are a few people with the technical expertise to speak to how well a film is constructed or edited or directed. Those are interesting but generally aren't going to affect whether I see a movie or not. Someone like CCSChneider (?) or ElectricOtter will have interesting takes on a movie.
Then there are people who argue that a movie is empirically or objectively "great" or "awful" and judge it as though their personal take on the movie has some larger implication of the movie being good or bad. These are interesting arguments but I don't buy the basic premise--each viewer brings their own baggage with them and it will affect how they see the movie. Someone like sdedalus because he has such a breadth of film experience I will listen to and enjoy a lively discussion but I don't tend to participate in it.
Then there are a lot of people who report on their own experience of a movie. Those are the majority of the posts I see in this thread or other threads reporting on a movie recently watched: I noticed this or I noticed that or this worked for me or this didn't. I take them the same way I take professional reviewers. I know the things skjerva is going to ding a movie for and if they are generally something I don't care much about, then I ignore his overall judgement of the movie. Just like while I generally can trust Ebert reviews, I know he is not a big horror fan so will not necessarily take his horror reviews that seriously. Even a review I don't agree with might tell me something I want to know about the movie. "I hated this movie because it had cardboard characters and was nothing but action sequences and things blowing up." Well, on a day when that's exactly what I'm in the mood for, I might go see that one.
And then there are the posters who take the "movie is objectively good or bad" approach without backing up the reasoning at all, or giving really shallow or idiosyncratic reasons for their judgement, but they make their judgement as though everyone else should see it their way too. Those are pretty much worthless but occasionally amusing.