Category: Movies (Page 398 of 498)

With 7 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 18, 2007 /

…The House Without A Christmas Tree.

If you can trust the box art for this particular DVD, then we’ve finally been gifted with the long-awaited release of a cherished holiday classic; as for me, I wasn’t familiar with the film…or if I once was, my memories of it didn’t stick with me for the long haul…but having now watched it, I can say that there’s probably a fair amount of truth in that advertising.

Addie (Lisa Lucas) is 10 years old and really, really, really wants a Christmas tree; unfortunately, her dad, James (Jason Robards), refuses to have one in his house. No, he’s not being a jerk…well, not intentionally, anyway. He’s still mourning the death of his wife, who died within weeks of Addie’s birth, and he readily associates the holidays with how much his wife loved that time of the year; unfortunately, he also associates his daughter with his wife, and it continues to haunt him that, once upon a time, he wished that she’d died instead of her mother. As such, the Christmas season is generally a pretty low-key affair around their house…to say the least. But when Addie wins a Christmas tree in a contest at school – through a method her father taught her, no less – and James still throws a fit over having a tree in his house, resulting in Addie running off in tears, one is forced to wonder if father and daughter will ever be able to reconcile.

Say, this sure sounds like a merry Christmas movie, doesn’t it? Well, don’t worry: it wouldn’t be a holiday classic if things didn’t eventually turn out all right…but, then, you probably already figured that.

Robards’ performance is appropriately gruff when he’s dealing with Addie while being just sad enough for us to realize that, yeah, that’s a major emotional rollercoaster the guy’s on, and who’s to say we wouldn’t react similarly in that situation? Mildred Natwick plays Addie’s grandmother (and James’s mom) in a manner that will no doubt strike a chord in many of us, the way she walks that tightrope between wanting to make her granddaughter happy without damaging the relationship with her own child. Lisa Lucas is…well, she’s a kid. She’s an average 10-year-old little girl. She was never destined to win an Emmy for her work, but she does well enough.

“The House Without A Christmas Tree” was made in 1972, and it shows, but that’s a good thing, actually; the reason it shows is that it was filmed on video tape, and the result is that it tends to feel less like a movie and more like a play. There really aren’t many different locales involved – the family’s house, the school, a store, and another nearby family’s house – and the brief outdoor shots could easily be left out if anyone wanted to make this into a stage play. You may also recall that 1972 was the year “The Waltons” premiered, so don’t be surprised when you tune in to find that A) the story takes place in the 1940s, B) the goings-on are, by and large, pretty mundane by today’s standards, and C) there’s as much heartbreak as there is happiness.

But, like I said, things turn out all right in the end, and that’s what counts.

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With 9 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 16, 2007 /

…Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

As much as it pains me to say this, honesty requires that I must: “Santa Clause 3” wasn’t as God-awful bad as I thought it was going to be…or, more specifically, it wasn’t as bad as the God-awful trailer for the film would’ve had me believe.

I mean, man, when I first saw that thing, my reactions were as follows:

* “The first film was legitimately enjoyable, the second one had its moments, but the funniest joke here appears to be the one in the title. The trailer is 100% laugh-free. David Krumholtz – formerly known as Bernard the Elf – should be sending his agent a solid gold Mercedes this Christmas for getting him ‘Numb3rs’ and keeping him far, far away from this picture.”

* “As Santa is my witness, the only highlights are the clips from the first two films. It’s really that unfunny. Example: a kid tells Jack Frost to ‘just chill,’and he howls, ‘I invented chill!’ Ughhhhhh.”

“Awful awful awful. Count on a solid opening weekend, but, God willing, word of mouth on the playground will kill the flick quickly after that. Even the under-10 set should have better taste than to accept this.”

And y’know what? I meant it. All of it. Every word. It was just that damned bad.

Having now subjected myself to a viewing of the film, however, I walked away from the experience far less horrified than I ever would’ve expected. Yes, there’s plenty of cheesy kid stuff in the flick, and if the inclusion of reindeer fart jokes isn’t enough to send most people with a modicum of taste running for the exits (or, in this case, the “eject” button on their DVD player), Martin Short’s hammy performance as Jack Frost will probably do the trick. If you can make it to the halfway point of the film, though, it falls back on the old “It’s A Wonderful Life” bit of seeing what the world would’ve been like if Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) had never put on the Santa suit but Jack Frost had instead. It’s a hackneyed Christmas plot device, but as a sci-fi geek who always enjoys a good alternate-universe tale, I still enjoyed it; it was also entertaining to watch Scott figure out how to get his old life back. Even Short earned a laugh when, after Jack’s plans have been foiled, he just kind of blinks and says, “Well, that didn’t work out like I’d hoped.” The best part of the film, though, was the surprise of finding Alan Arkin and Ann-Margret as Scott’s in-laws; I’m sure I’d known at some point that they were in the cast, but I’d totally forgotten it until they appeared on the screen. As ever, Arkin scores laughs, and Ann-Margret…well, she coasts by just by being herself.

I’m still of the opinion that only the first “Santa Clause” film is a must-see, but if my kid wants me to put this in at some future juncture, I probably won’t twitch…much.

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With 10 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 15, 2007 /

…A Flintstones Christmas Carol.

Man, I used to love me some “Flintstones” when I was a kid. Jenn and I were sitting on the couch this morning, watching this with our 2-year-old daughter, Ally, and once again, it came flooding back to me how many of the original episodes I must’ve sat through during my childhood. Every time I catch an episode on Boomerang, I’m invariably washed over by a wave of memories I didn’t realize; whether they’d schedule it early in the morning or immediately after I got out of school, I’d always camp in front of the TV and absorb every moment of “The Flintstones.” Yes, even the Great Gazoo years. (Dude, seriously, I fucking loved Gazoo. I don’t know why he gets hassled so much.)

Unfortunately, “A Flintstones Christmas Carol” isn’t from the show’s glory years; it was a 1994 TV movie, and, well, if you’ve ever caught any of the more recent Flintstones material, you know that things have been going steadily downhill since the original series. But, really, this is just a weird film all around, mostly because a surprising chunk of it stays steadfast and true to the original Charles Dickens story. The premise involves Fred playing the part of Ebeneezer Scrooge in a Bedrock production of “A Christmas Carol,” but his ego gets the best of him, and it gets to the point where his head’s so swelled that it barely fits through his dressing room door. Inevitably, it becomes a case of life imitating art, Fred realizes the error of his ways, and it’s just as happy an ending as you’d expect.

Unfortunately, Ally started getting antsy right around the point when Jacob Marbley (yes, you read that right) comes to visit Scrooge…and I couldn’t blame her, because it was deadly dull and barely anything like a “Flintstones” episode. So I started scrambling to figure out how to remedy the situation, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the words “Bonus Episode” on the DVD box. And, bam, it was off to watch “Christmas Flintstone,” the episode from the original series where Fred takes a part-time job as a department store Santa, only to be drafted to replace the REAL Santa, who’s been waylayed by illness. Oh, it was great stuff…and Ally, bless her, was enthralled by it, snuggled up to her mama, watching every moment of it and, at the end, asking for “‘nother one.”

So, clearly, I’m not going to recommend “A Flintstones Christmas Carol” in and of itself, but if you find it for an inexpensive price, it’s worth picking up for that bonus episode. I might never watch the film again, but I’ll be breaking out “Christmas Flintstone” every year for the long haul.

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With 11 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 14, 2007 /

…The Munsters’ Scary Little Christmas.

What on earth possessed Universal to suddenly release this 1996 made-for-TV flick onto DVD for this holiday season? I mean, it’s not like they haven’t had a decade’s worth of Christmases to get it out there, and it’s not like the popularity of “The Munsters” has suddenly soared. Well, whatever the reason, it’s here now, so let’s take a look at it, shall we?

As you can probably tell from the cover art, that ain’t Fred Gwynne playing Herman Munster. It’s always a dicey proposition when you take iconic TV characters and recast them – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t – and this wasn’t Universal’s first attempt to bring back “The Munsters.” Only a year earlier, they’d done a TV movie called “Here Come The Munsters” which featured Edward Herrmann as Herman (yes, the patriarch of the Gilmore family once sported green make-up and neck bolts), Veronica Hamel (“Hill Street Blues”) as Lily, Robert Morse (“Mad Men”) as Grandpa, and Christine Taylor (a.k.a. Mrs. Ben Stiller) as the family black sheep, Marilyn. Presumably, it did pretty well, since it quickly spawned a sequel, but for whatever reason, every single role was re-cast. In “Scary Little Christmas,” Herman’s played by Sam McMurray, who tends to pop up on various sitcoms as the boss who thinks he’s way cooler than he actually is (he played Doug’s supervisor on “The King of Queens” and Chandler’s boss on “Friends”); Lily is now portrayed by Ann Magnuson (“Anything But Love”), Grandpa by Sandy Baron (he was Jack Klompus, the retiree on “Seinfeld” who foolishly told Jerry he could keep his pen), and Marilyn by the crazy-hot Elaine Hendrix, who wears spectacularly short skirts…and wears them well.

Personally, I always preferred “The Addams Family” to “The Munsters.” The latter always drifted way too much into slapstick for my tastes…and, as expected, this flick is very much in keeping with that tradition. There are several storylines running throughout which echo classic material from the original series – Eddie’s depressed, Marilyn’s found a new guy, Grandpa’s having trouble getting an experiment to work right – and they’re interspersed with the holiday-themed plots, including a holiday house decorating contest and, most importantly, Grandpa accidentally bringing Santa and two of his elves into his laboratory. As Grandpa tries to get Santa and his elves back to the North Pole in time to make his rounds, the elves are more interested in going to a bar and partying, while a potion error turns Santa into – scout’s honor – a figgy pudding. The highlights include the inspired casting of Mary Woronov (Miss Togar in “Rock and Roll High School”) as the neighbor who desperately wants to beat the Munsters in the decorating contest, the underutilized plot thread of the Munsters’ Christmas party (every Universal monster you can think of makes a cameo at the party, but the funnier bits come earlier on, when they’re receiving their invitations), and, okay, those short skirts of Marilyn’s really were awesome.

It’s a fair bet that fans of the original series will just cry “blasphemy” and take a pass on this flick, and I can’t really blame them, but most kids will really enjoy it…and, yes, even the little kid in me was entertained enough to feel like it was worth my time to have watched it. Of course, the adult in me probably just kept watching because of Elaine Hendrix, but, c’mon, look deep into those gorgeous eyes and tell me you don’t suddenly feel a burst of Christmas spirit yourself.

Yeah, I know, I could’ve made a far more tasteless joke about feeling one’s Yule log stirring. But I do have some standards, you know.

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