Wayne Schmidt's Christmas Movie Guide A list of which Christmas movies to watch and which to avoid.

 
For the past five years my wife and I have made a hobby of watching all the Christmas movies possible that are aired on television during the holiday season and rating them as to which were good enough to purchase and add to our library, which were good enough to watch only once, and which we wanted to make sure we avoided in the future. Understanding that everyone's tastes vary, we still hope that the following lists of our selections help some people find the best movies and avoid the pain of sitting through the worst.

While many pleasant movies have been made that revolve around ghosts, flying reindeers, Santa Claus, his relatives, or angels coming to Earth to perform miracles, our preference is to avoid them. This isn't a reflection of negative secularism, just our feeling that such movies cross over too far into fantasy.

Our criteria for a good movie is that it have an interesting and believable plot that has Christmas as an important element, competent acting, avoids cliched characters and doesn't have smart-aleck children dumping attitude on everyone. Also, since the Christmas season is supposed to be a joyful time of year we prefer movies that are light and happy. We limit ourselves to live action films rather than animated movies.

Almost all Christmas movies follow the standard formula of someone discovering happiness over the holiday season, usually by falling in love. Formula movies don't bother us as long as they're done well.

The movies are listed in alphabetical order within each of the three sections, ignoring introductory "A" and "The". Within a section the best movies have a +s after the review to highlight which we believe are the best.

I've read reviews on Amazon.com of several movies we intensely disliked and discovered many people wrote about them with glowing praise. Obviously tastes vary so please don't take the following reviews as absolutes.

So, without further ado... here are our lists:

 
The Best Christmas Movies We've Found:

 
The Bishop's Wife

While this movie violates our criteria against movies with angels and magic, it does it so well and is so perfectly acted and written that we believe it should be on everyone's much-watch list. From 1947, Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and David Niven are letter-perfect as Grant (an angel) comes to earth to help Niven (the bishop) remember the meaning of Christmas. This movie is hilarious yet has great heart without crossing the line into sappiness. (Available on DVD.)

 
The Christmas Wife

Sad, tragic and thoughtful, this isn't our usual fare for Christmas. Yet Jason Robards and Julie Harris' performances are so unforgettable that we rank this as one of the most touching Christmas movies of all time. He plays a recent widower who looks for someone with whom to spend the holiday. Harris supplies the companionship but she has a secret that tragically keeps them apart. The movie ends on a hopeful note that leaves the viewer believing that, at least for Robards, the future holds promise. (Available on DVD.)

 
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

Barbara Stanwyck scintillates as a big city newspaper woman cornered into posing as a country-bred homebody to entertain a GI home for the holiday. Supporting her are an interesting mob of diverse characters that avoid being cliched stereotypes. This movie's a lot of fun. Some critics complain that the script needed tightening but it worked perfectly for us. (Available on DVD.) +

 
The Christmas Wish

Neil Patrick Harris (Dougie Houser) is very good as an executive taking over his deceased father's real estate business. Along the way he discovers there's more to business than making profit, finds someone to love, and solves a mystery in his father's past. A simple movie that succeeds by doing everything very well. (Available on DVD.)

 
A Different Kind Of Christmas

Shelley Long (Cheers) looks great as a city attorney running for mayor. Complicating things is the legal chaos a man playing Santa creates when he sets up a permanent residence in a local neighborhood. There are several unexpected and believable plot twists that kept us wondering what was going to happen next. Good acting all the way around make this an entertaining choice. We rate this movie in last place on the "must see" list. (Available on DVD.)

 
Fallen Angel

Gary Sinise's outstanding acting makes this mystery of a man discovering love in a girl from his youth a must-have film. (Available on DVD.)

 
A Holiday for Love

Often listed under the alternate title Christmas in My Hometown, this light romantic comedy revolves around a tractor company executive forced to go back home to size up the local factory for downsizing. Disguised as a tractor purchaser, the town thinks he's really there to place an order that could save the factory. Along the way he's thrown together with widowed mother Melissa Gilbert. They fall in love and of course everything works out in the end after some bumps in the road. This isn't a perfect movie because Gilbert's young daughter is cast in some unusual situations as the leader of an adult choir and an elderly man with mild dementia seems out of place, but the total effect is uplifting. One of the things I enjoy about this movie is that the plan devised for saving the factory is totally believable. While this movie may not have the knock-down great acting of some of the others, for some reason it's one of our favorites. (Available on DVD.) +++

 
Holiday Inn

1942 classic about a nightclub owner who doesn't like to work. His solution is a "holiday inn" that's only open during holidays so he can take the rest of the year off. The plot's fluff but Bing Crosby sings, Fred Astaire dances and Marjorie Reynolds does both. What more could you want? One quibble is the inclusion of a couple of what today are considered offensively cliched African-American stereotypes. On the other hand this movie introduced White Christmas, the most recorded song of all time. (Available on DVD.)

 
It's A Wonderful Life

The classic starring Jimmy Stewart as a poor banker who's saved from suicide by an angel sent to show him that his life has meaning. There are several hilarious moments mixed in with truly tragic scenes. The biggest problem with this movie is that it's been aired so many times it suffers from over exposure. We can no longer stand to sit through it. (Available on DVD.)

 
Miracle on 34th Street

A classic from 1947 that's best seen in the colonized version, not only because this is one movie that clearly benefits from color helping to bring the bright Christmas scenes and Mrs. O'Hara's red hear to full glory, but because the original film was restored prior to colorization and upgraded to Dolby stereo so it's considerably sharper and sounds much better than black-and-white versions. Colorization quality varies depending on the amount of effort put into it. I'm happy to report that the quality of colorization on this movie is the best I've ever seen. The acting is universally excellent making this movie a delight even after watching it several times. (Available on DVD.) ++

 
Remember the Night

Another classic, this time from 1940. Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwick hit every note perfectly as he plays a district attorney prosecuting her for shoplifting on Christmas Eve. Through a series of comic mistakes they get thrown together for the holiday. She teaches him compassion as he shows her the value of honesty. Hilarious at times, the movie ends on a tragic, though promising, note. Great by any standard. (Only available on VHS but hopefully that will change soon.)

 
Christmas Movies that Are Okay to Watch Once:

(Flawed selections that are just barely tolerable.)

 
A Boyfriend for Christmas

A young girl asks Santa for a boyfriend, which he promises to deliver in 20 years. Twenty years later the same Santa brings her together with a boy she met briefly in her youth.

 
The Christmas Box

Hard working father gets talked into moving his family into a huge house to look after an elderly lady. Although she at first seems unfriendly and he's openly sarcastic, in time everyone learns to care for each other. The biggest problem is that the father is so rudely critical at every turn and remains that way so long that he turned us off to what otherwise would have been a very nice movie. This was enough for me to vote that it go to the "avoid" list. My wife felt it belonged in the "see-once" category. Some people may feel uncomfortable about the blatant pro-Christian message at the end.

 
A Christmas Carol (4X)

The Dickens classic has been brought to the screen in its original format four times: 1938 starring Reginald Owen, 1951 starring Alistair Sim, 1984 starring George C. Scott and 1999 starring Patrick Stewart. The concept of ghosts representing Christmases past, present and future visiting a miser has been adapted for too many cheap knock-off movies to be counted. The problem with watching one of the originals is that most people have seen so many of the weaker adaptations that they are sick of the plot. Consequently, the four originals suffer from having the concept over exposed, even though all were critically acclaimed when released. That's the main problem I have with them, which is why I'm listing what are considered classics in the "see once" group. Other considerations include the unavoidable fact that the 1938 and 1951 versions, though excellent, are so dated in style that it's hard to get into them. The 1984 version suffers from George C. Scott's unattractive interpretation of Scrooge after he turns good. My preference is for the 1999 version with Patrick Stewart.

 
The Christmas Child

Better written and acted than many made-for-TV Christmas movies, but so sad that we can't recommend it. Also, the preacher and sheriff are extremely cliched characters.

 
Christmas in Boston

A double identity switch makes this familiar tale of pen pals meeting over Christmas more interesting than most movies using this theme. Not great, but tolerable if there's nothing better on. One oddity is an almost black and white scene of a bridge seen from the side some distance away with a lady in bright pink framed in a square of lighter pink walking without moving. It has no apparent connection to the movie. We rewound and watched it again and still couldn't figure it out. Very strange.

 
The Christmas List

A women perfume expert in a department store begins receiving everything on a joke Christmas list her friend drops in Santa's mailbox.

 
Christmas Wish

For no good reason, a spoiled rich girl and poor orphan switch bodies when they make similar wishes at the same time. Confusion ensues, they learn the value of their own lives and eventually get back together with the help of an angel. Sounds pretty bad yet I found it interesting enough to watch through to the end so I'm not dropping it into the "avoid" category. Place this one at the very bottom of the tolerable-to-see-once scale.

 
Comfort and Joy

A successful business woman fast-forwards to a future in which she's a happy wife and mother. This movie has better acting than many Christmas movies. The only weakness was the clumsy way the fast-forward was accomplished and the visually jarring way she returned to the present. This one almost made our "must see" list.

 
A Dad for Christmas

A young, single father kidnaps his newborn son to prevent his girlfriend for giving it up for adoption. He runs away to his curmudgeon grandmother's lodge to hide out. Following several incidents the movie wraps up in a court case with the predictable result. Some good acting and a few interesting twists make this movie marginally worth seeing, though it's connection to Christmas is almost non-existent.

 
Eve's Christmas

Unhappy business woman is granted her wish to go back 8 years to change the decisions that lead to an empty life. This movie irked me because with a few minor improvements it could have been great. The acting was universally good, photography acceptable and the storyline, while predictable, was handled as good as can be done. The problems are that the star upon which she made her wish, the pixie dust sprinkling off it when she does and the too-hip African-American guardian angel were unnecessary. The writers and director should have had enough faith in the actors's ability to sell the story without these cheap sight gags. Bill Murray didn't need it in Groundhog Day and the result was a classic. Also, the lead got unattractively drunk too often in the early scenes making her less appealing. If these detractions had been avoided this movie would have easily made it into the "must see" list.

 
Finding John Christmas

This sequel to A Town Without Christmas has an almost identical plot but benefits from better acting and avoiding the original's melancholy by not opening with a child announcing a plan to kill herself. Peter Faulk again plays an irritating and enigmatic angel, which is a distraction from what otherwise would have been a better movie. The connection to Christmas is very weak. One annoying scene at the beginning of the movie has a man draping an American flag around a dog and letting the flag drag on the ground.

 
His and Her Christmas

This one was a near miss. Most of the story was entertaining, well acted and interestingly written. It revolves around two competing journalists meeting and falling in love while they battle each other in their articles over the virtues of Christmas. What ruined it for us is that on at least two occasions, just when we'd been set up to expect them to begin acknowledging their feelings for each other, the female reporter explodes in a maniacal tirade at the other reporter. The virulent and irrational nature of these outbursts were unbelievable and ruined what might otherwise have made it to our "must see" list. +

 
Holiday Affair

Robert Mitchum plays a footloose man who courts a excessively practical single mother (Janet Leigh.) She resists for many good reasons but in the end is won over by his sincerity and charm. Just okay. (Remade in 1996 using the same title. See the "avoid" list.)

 
Holiday Affair

Weak remake of the Robert Mitchum-Janet Leigh classic of 1949. The actors are more attractive but the acting isn't as good. If you haven't seen the original you might enjoy this one.

 
Home for the Holiday

Lady struggles to create a home for two orphaned children of a recently deceased relative.

 
If You Believe

Cynical lady editor gets knocked out and starts hallucinating about being haunted by herself as she was when she was eight years old. Her younger self pokes and prods her into changing her ways and everything ends happy. The isn't a Christmas story because it could just have well taken place anytime of the year. Another objection is that through most of the movie the lead character is so mean she's unappealing. But, it's interesting to watch because the young actress playing her younger self is very entertaining and happens to be one of the first roles for the actress playing "Claire" on the hit television series Heros.

 
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Young boy sees dad dressed like Santa kissing his mom on Thanksgiving and thinks he's trying to steal her away. His solution is to act as bad as possible to keep Santa from showing up. Good acting by everyone and several entertaining surprises kept us wondering what was going to happen next. It dragged a bit toward the end but it's still okay to see once. +

 
Meet Me In St. Louis

This 1944 musical classic revolves around the turmoil of a turn-of-the-century family's impending move away from their beloved St. Louis. While many people rate this as a must-see movie, we placed it in the "worth-seeing-once" category because it seemed a little dated and Margaret O'Brian's performance was a little over the top in places. Still, Judy Garland's singing is great, particular her heart-rending delivery of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas.

 
Mr. St. Nick

Kelsey Gramer is interesting as Santa's rebellious, playboy son who eventually is forced into taking over for dad. Several lame special effects and a particularly irksome wizard and annoying immigration officer ruin what might otherwise had been an okay flick. I rate it as worth watching once... but only if you're in a charitable mood.

 
On The Second Day Of Christmas

This is very similar to the classic Remember the Night recommended in the "must see" list. A department store security guard catches a lady thief and her young niece accomplice. The store owner forces him to take them home over Christmas until they can be arrested after the holiday. As expected they fall in love and everything ends happily.

 
One Special Night

James Garner and Julie Andrews are good in this story of older people finding love, but for some reason it didn't click with us.

 
Recipe for a Perfect Christmas

An all-for-business lady food critic blackmails a struggling chef into dating her vivacious mother. The critic and chef fall in love and his restaurant ends up being a success.

 
Santa Baby

Santa's daughter, who ran away to become a high-powered corporate advisor, returns when dad is laid up with a heart attack. Much better than it sounds largely because Jenny McCarthy is very believable as an intelligent business woman. The outcome is predictable but there are a few unexpected twists along the way that make it worth while. Elves are always difficult to portray; this movie does it as good as we've seen. Mrs. Claus, in particular, is spot-on as far as what one expects: lively, cheery and perky without stepping over the line into sickening-sweetness. (The title Santa Baby comes from a song played during the movie and refers to Santa's grown daughter.)

 
The Santa Clause

A great idea presented only adequately. Tim Allen's character was so sarcastic for most of the movie, to the point where we felt he didn't really want to be with his son, that it soured the whole movie for us. Two scenes with flatulence humor may seem off-color to some viewers. One curiosity is that when the original Santa slips on Tim Allen's roof, the stunt man's hand catches the edge of the fake-snow blanket and throws it into the air. It's odd Disney Studios would let such obvious mistake through to the final film.

 
Secret of Giving

A 1903 frontier widowed mother with a sick son struggles to keep a cold banker from foreclosing on the family ranch over Christmas. Into the scene wanders a stranger with a hidden past. This movie starts off with virtually every cliched situation imaginable yet comes across very effectively, largely due to the outstanding acting of Reba McIntyre. As the story develops, several interesting twists are interspersed with humorous moments to make this a pleasant, if not memorable, viewing experience. ++

 
Stolen Christmas

Thief drifts into a small town and helps the locals build up their businesses so the bank's deposits increase, which he then plans to steal. Love and compassion turn him around. While it's predictable, the story was well enough done that it might have made it to the "see once" list if the lead actor, Tony Danza, didn't look so old and weary that many of the scenes he was in were uncomfortable to watch. This movie almost got banished to the "avoid" list. What saved it was that the ending wasn't sickenly sweet like so many movies of this type.

 
Under the Mistletoe

Ghost of a recently deceased father returns to help his son and wife get on with their lives. Very predictable and we thought the wife showed too much anger to be attractive but it had some fun moments. An interesting twist is that the ghost was as befuddled as the living characters. Some questionable special effects and a cliched ice hockey game at the end weakened the movie but all and all we'd recommend giving it a try.

 
White Christmas

This movie is proof that not everything made during the golden age was great. There isn't so much of a plot to this sequel to Holiday Inn as just an excuse to string together scenes of the actors singing and dancing. The movie was made largely to capitalize on the enormous popularity of Bing Crosby's mega-hit White Christmas. This movie is okay to watch once to see the virtuosity of some of the performers, but ignoring that it almost deserves to be in the "movies to avoid" group.

Christmas Movies to Avoid:

 
Accidental Christmas

Brother and sister conspire to bring their separated parents back together. This idea has been done so many times it came across a being lame. We could have accepted it if the writers had come up with some interesting twists but they didn't. What really killed this movie for us was the male lead. The actor portrayed him as such an absent minded nitwit that it was impossible to believe he was a successful lawyer. Even worse were the many artificial mannerisms that gave the character a slightly maniacal look. Finally, this movie was a complete rip-off as far as the title was concerned. It had nothing to do with Christmas, in fact it took place in a beach house in sunny California. If the movie hadn't opened with a few shots of Christmas decorations on the side of a mall I'd never have suspected it was supposed to be a Christmas movie. I'm guessing the production company realized the movie was a bomb and added a few token references to Christmas in the hopes that holiday viewers would be more willing to accept it. The trick didn't work on us.

 
All She Wants For Christmas

Terrible. The female lead plays an accountant for a struggling Christmas ornament company with a giggly, over-the-top valley-girl personality that's ridiculous.

 
Bad Santa

Billy Bob Thorton may is a drunken, lecherous, abusive crook hiding behind a Santa costume. The constant flow of profanity, even after being edited for television, and crudeness goes so strongly against the Christmas spirit that we were revulsed by this movie.

 
Borrowed Hearts

Businessman "rents" a single mother and her daughter to make a potential client think he has a happy family. Cliched and annoying characters and plot lines.

 
Call Me Claus

Santa has 4 weeks to reinstill the Christmas spirit in Whoopi Goldberg, a hard-as-nails business woman designated to replace him. She's funny as a cynic but doesn't sell it when she turns nice. Lame with poor special effects and cliched elves.

 
A Chance of Snow

While snowbound at an airport, a separated wife and husband meet and circumstances force them to resolve their issues. Though not badly acted, there's an offensive thread running through the plot that made it a real turn-off. The couple separated because the husband had an affair. All through the movie the husband's affair is portrayed as a minor, almost innocent, transgression while the wife's anger and frustration at it is portrayed so as to make her seem selfish, unreasonable and maybe even her fault. Both of us found this anti-wife prejudice disgusting. Also, the fact that all the action took place in an airport made the scenery boring.

 
Chasing Christmas

Tom Arnold is unattractive as a Christmas cynic who is subjected to a gimmicky, hip version of that overworked theme: A Christmas Carol.

 
Christmas at Water's Edge

The opening scene has a senior angel showing a new angel his first assignment on a heavenly television screen: a young woman devoid of the Christmas spirit. Predictable with poor special effects.

 
The Christmas Blessing

This sequel to The Christmas Shoes depends to much on having seen the original. It has too many story lines and a young boy dying at the end of the movie soured it for us.

 
Christmas Caper

Lady jewel thief hides out in her home town and discovers love and the value of home. Painfully predictable and the girl playing the lead has a painfully tired look around her eyes. It gave us the impression she hated being in this movie but had to do it for the pay check.

 
Christmas Do-Over

Unfunny remake of Groundhog Day. A Christmas-hating divorced father goes home for the holiday. He's so frenetically sarcastic that before ten minutes had passed neither of us cared what happened to him. He was such a jerk that he hated the idea of spending a single day with his son. It was unbelievable that anyone would have married him in the first place.

 
Christmas in Connecticut (1992)

Dyan Cannon stars in a lame remake of Barbara Stanwyck's 1945 classic.

 
Christmas in Paradise

Single parents on a cruise with their children meet and fall in love. Each has a cliched good kid and one with attitude, the soundtrack is annoying, the director uses too many split screen effects and the editing is choppy. This movie gave us both eyestrain. Adding to this long list of negatives is some weirdness about the three kings from a Caribbean nativity scene coming to life and appearing sporadically throughout the movie.

 
A Christmas Memory

Overly-colorful and quaint characters make this depression-era story of the emotional trauma about a hard-as-nails aunt sending her nephew off to boarding school difficult to watch. While it doesn't end as expected, the ending is so sad it robbed us of Christmas spirit rather than boosted it. The connection to Christmas is so weak as to be almost nonexistent.

 
Christmas on Chestnut Street

A disgusting movie about a Christmas decorating contest that turns everyone into win-at-any-cost monsters. Vile humor derived from an man's affliction with Alzheimer's, cliched character humor from a Frenchman and a dwarf, crude language and a brawl over Christmas ornaments make this one of the worst Christmas movies we've ever seen.

 
A Christmas Romance

This movie starring Olivia Newton-John as a widowed mother struggling to keep her house from bank foreclosure could have been alright except one of her daughters displayed an annoyingly negative and impatient attitude while the bank officer sent to inform her of her status, who later becomes the love interest, is so self-centered that we hated him from the start.

 
The Christmas Secret

Richard Thomas is a great actor but even his skill couldn't make this movie about a flying squirrel expert becoming obsessed with the science of flying reindeer believable.

 
The Christmas Shoes

This movie was so sickeningly tender and the boy playing the lead such a poor actor that it was painful to watch. (Stories about someone's slow death are extremely difficult to write, direct and act and have only been successful a very few times. Dark Victory starring Bette Davis is one of the best.)

 
A Christmas Visitor

William Devane stars in this movie about the ghost of his son, killed in the Gulf War, coming back to fix things at home. The story was sad and I found the patriotic gestures too forced, and I say this as a 20-year veteran of the US Air Force.

 
Christmas Wedding

Business woman called away on a job leaves organizing her wedding to her fiance. Confusion results. This isn't really a Christmas movie since the holiday has no effect on the the plot.

 
Christmas with the Kranks

This isn't really a movie with a plot but rather an excuss to string together a series of sight gags. I found one scene where a neighbor's cat is abused as particularly offensive. How can something like this claim to represent the Christmas spirit?

 
Crazy for Christmas

Howard Hessman is over-the-top as a rich man tossing away hundred dollar bills during Christmas as he stupidly and clumsily tries to bond with a daughter from an affair with her mother. Particularly offensive is the cliched portrayal of two elderly women.

 
Deck the Halls

Single mother business woman recaptures the Christmas spirit from her new neighbor who is employed as an advertising specialist at the toy company where she works. The problem is that this guy is supposed to be quirkily enigmatic but the actor goes so over the top that he comes off as an irresponsible flake. And guess what... he ends up being the real Santa.

 
Ebbie

Susan Lucci as Ms. Scrooge, a cold hearted department store manager. Offensively cheap special effects and the use of the overworked Christmas Carol idea make this a good movie to avoid.

 
Elf

While the idea of a human being raised by Santa as an Elf then sent to New York to be with his real father is creative, we found the humor edgy and so frenetic that the movie didn't pull us into it.

 
Eloise at Christmas Time

Unattractively spoiled and inconsiderate young girl terrorises the hotel where she lives. Terrible.

 
Family Holiday

Unattractive con man, at one point he steals money from an elderly man by making him pay COD for a box he thinks his wife ordered before she died, grabs two runaway orphans off the street and hires a too-sweet lady to act as his wife and their mother so he can inherit $20M from an uncle. The predictable happens.

 
A Fare to Remember

Advertising lady connects with an enigmatic cabby on her way to discovering fulfillment. The female lead exhibits so many stupid behaviors (losing purse, important documents, failing to verify transportation, dancing on a curb to attract a cab when there aren't any cabs around) that it was totally unbelievable that she'd ever have been a success. The man lead begins with such offensively off-the-wall behavior that in the real world he'd have been locked up long ago. These two problems ruin the very few good moments later in the movie.

 
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas

While this movie admirably shows off Jim Carey's physical virtuosity, the fact is that the makeup design and behavior of the inhabitants of Whoville are so unattractive that this movie has a very uncomfortable edge to it.

 
Holiday in Handcuffs

A girl whose boyfriend dumped her right before a family gathering, kidnaps a handsome man at gun point to force his to fill in. Interested concept ruined by the lead actress because she portrays her character in such a frenetic, scatterbrained manner that it's both unbelievable and jarring.

 
A Holiday to Remember

Divorced mother moves back to her hometown. Her teenage daughter and a runaway boy are so cliched and have so much attitude that this movie was painful to watch. It stars Randy Travis and amply displays the limitations of his acting.

 
Holiday in Your Heart

Rising country singer, played by LeAnn Rimes, learns important lessons from a past great singer, played by Bernadette Peters. This movie has only the slightest connection to Christmas and could just as easily taken place any time of the year. For the most past it's just an excuse to showcase Ms. Rimes' singing ability.

 
Holiday Switch

A young wife and mother dissatisfied with a life with love and poverty dreams of marriage to a rich, successful man. She bumps her head and after awakening, crawls through her clothes drier into the life she imagined she always wanted. It turns out the life she dreamed off wasn't as sweet as imagined. Lack luster acting couples with a predictable script to produce a movie worth avoiding.

 
Holiday Wishes

Two girls from different sides of the track trade psyches when they wish upon the same star at the same time. Lame.

 
Home for Christmas

I like Linda Hamilton, but she looks so old and beaten up in this movie about her being a homeless person that it was painful to watch. (Sometime listed as Home by Christmas. There appear to be two other movies with the title Home for Christmas.)

 
Jingle all the Way

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a father willing to do anything to get the latest hot-toy for his son, including theft and violence. Many people like this movie and applaud it for Arnold's comedic skills and the satiric look at the commercialization of Christmas. We felt it was so harsh it failed to reflect the Christmas spirit.

 
A Mom for Christmas

Olivia Newton John, who normally I love, plays a mannequin brought to life by a lady angel to fulfill and young girl's wish for a mother for herself and a wife for her widowed father. This "B" grade production was written as if no one knew where they wanted to go with it. Cheesy special effects including lighting effects and music reminiscent of The Exorcist gave the movie a disjointed feel. The ending is so predictable it made us wince.

 
Ms. Scrooge

Cicely Tyson is over the top as a cold pawn shop owner who gets the Christmas Carol routine.

 
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

If you enjoy Chevy Chase's constant comic mugging you'll like this movie. We found it repetitive, crude and a complete waste of time. I have to admit, though, that I did enjoy the scene when he turns on all the Christmas lights he put on his house and the drain on the power grid is so severe it maxes out the county generator station.

 
Noel

Penelope Cruz plays a woman engaged to an excessively jealous policeman. His jealousy is so extreme it's offensive. Add to this a silly story line about an old man thinking the policeman is the reincarnation of his wife and the whole thing becomes an unredeemable mess.

 

Once Upon a Christmas

Santa thinks the world has lost belief in him so he threatens to quite. Good daughter decides to visit a non-believing family to convince them to embrace the Christmas spirit and in so doing restore Santa's faith. Bad daughter attempts to thwart her. Lame and ridiculous ending in a glowing-light, laying-on-of-hands scene that was painfully hokey.

NEW!!! A Perfect Day

There are three things wrong with this Rob Lowe movie released in March of 2008. First, although the final scene takes place during Christmas it's not a Christmas movie because the fact that it's Christmas has nothing to do with the plot. Second, the plot of a nice-guy writer seduced by sudden success and turning into a self absorbed egotist is cliched. Third, the surprise revelation at the end of the movie was so poorly written that it felt contrived.

 
Prancer

The excessively adorable girl of an overly curmudgeon single father saves an injured reindeer thinking it's Prancer. The deer is captured, put on display, she gets injured trying to free it and the deer saves her live by laying next to her to keep her from freezing before help can arrive. The last scene shows the obvious truth about the reindeer.

 
The Road to Christmas

Lady fashion photographer gets stranded in the middle of nowhere. A single father and his daughter give her a ride to her supposedly dream wedding. The expected happens with painful predictability.

Richie Rich's Christmas Wish

Adolescent silliness. The ridiculous gimmicks might entertain children... if they're very young.

 
The Santa Clause 2

Tim Allen has to get married or lose his position as Santa Claus. He also has to deal with his now teenage son who has turned into a graffiti vandal. While Santa's away dealing with these problems an creepy looking artificial Santa is used to keep things running at the north pole. Tries too hard.

 
Santa Claus, the Movie

This is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. The first hour is a heavy-handed account of how Santa Claus came to be. It's stylistically archaic, like a grade "B" presentation of a European myth. The second half is like a completely different movie took over the plot as one of Santa's elves leaves and hooks up with an unscrupulous toy manufacturer. Using a mixture of Monty Python and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory held together with low budget special effects, the second half, filmed in an oddly flat-looking manner, is bazaar to say the least. John Lithgow has some funny lines as the toy manufacturer but many times he plays it over the top. This is a good one to miss.

 
Santa Jr.

Santa's son gets arrested for breaking into a house. The police think he was stealing presents, not leaving them. Some interesting twists in the first third of this movie get it off to an interesting start. But, it quickly deteriorates with the introduction of a couple of coarse characters, several unfunny slapstick scenes and ends with ridiculous special effects and sickenly sweet and artificial sentimentality. The most disappointing aspect of this movie isn't that it ended up poorly, but that by changing just a few plot and character details it could have been a keeper.

 
Santa Who?

Leslie Neilson seems as confused about what he's doing in this movie as the amnesiac Santa he portrays. This is an unfunny "low-B" movie filled with uninteresting characters. The particularly poor special effects by themselves make this a great movie to avoid.

 
A Season For Miracles

A jobless, homeless, drug addict mother kidnaps her children so they won't be placed in the care of her mother. They end up living in an abandoned house in a small town where she falls in love with a policeman. Depressing and unbelievable with an unrealistic portrayal of how easy it is to overcome drug addiction.

 
Snow

Santa's son looses one of the reindeer a week before Christmas to a zoo hunter and uses a spacial warp through a mirror to find the animal. Stereotypical sassy young boy, perky blonde, lecherous bad guy, dithery old people and everyone trying too hard make watching this mess pure torture.

 
Snowglobe

Cliched characters are tiresome in what is supposed to be an Italian family, except the father is African American and the two daughters are Hispanic. We have nothing against mixing ethnicities to create interesting interactions but this felt artificial, like the casting director decided to add one of everything in an attempt to please everyone. Also, the mother, one of the daughters and her husband are unbelievably selfish. (At one point they try to take over the other daughter's apartment and expect her to pay for the rent because they can't afford it. Then they give her attitude because she doesn't think it's fair.) The theme of the story is that the single daughter doesn't like her life and in dreams gets pulled into the ideal Christmas world inside a snowglobe. Magically, things, including two of the globe's inhabitants, come with her into the real world. In the end she finds the man of her dreams and learns to love the family and life she has. It was a cute idea handled very poorly.

 
Sons of Mistletoe

Overly cold hearted daughter of a philanthropic man plans to sell off his business and cancel all his charities after he dies. Excessively buoyant director of a boys home romances her and tries to get her to change her mind. Cliched characters and plot combine with pedestrian performances to make this a movie to avoid. Some people may feel I'm being unfair but the lead actress looked so anorexic that her face had an unattractive, almost skeletal, appearance.

 
Stolen Miracle

So many troubled people, a young boy with a virulently-negative attitude and the kidnapping of a sick baby made this movie so revolting we couldn't finish it. Maybe it has a redeeming finish but the first half was too bad to endure.

 
Three Days

Success-driven business man sees his wife die and an angel grants him the chance to relive the last three days of her life. There's a desperate melancholy running through this movie that doesn't make watching a pleasant experience. The ending is painfully predictable.

 
A Town Without Christmas

Child writes Santa to say he's going to kill himself to help his parents. Public outcry develops and a reporter struggles to figure out mystical clues and dim memories of his own past to save the child. I found it ridiculous, unfunny and unsatisfying.

 
Twice Upon a Christmas

Sequel to Once Upon a Christmas. Santa's evil daughter is at it again, this time selling off the old homestead. Good daughter returns with her children to save the day. Silly.

 
A Very Brady Christmas

My wife and I were wincing in pain before the opening credits finished on this film. Watching it made us feel as uncomfortable as if hundreds of spiders were crawling over our skin. The weird style of writing and acting made it seem more dated than movies made back in the 40s. I acknowledge that there are fans of the Brady Bunch who will love this film, but for us it was a fingernails-on-blackboard experience to watch.

 
A Very Married Christmas

Happily married man discovers his wife's been unhappy for a long time, has had a affair and is leaving him. Feeling lost, he signs on as a mall Santa in the hopes of going out with a woman he sees working with the program. This movie has a edgy, weird feel to it caused by the subject matter and many flashbacks and vignettes. The one good thing about it is that it features the always attractive Keri Matchet.

Comments:

While watching all these movies I noticed several mistakes were repeated again and again which either weakened or ruined what would otherwise has been good movies.

The most common problem concerns the plot where a cynic is converted by love or the Christmas spirit into being a better person. Far too many movies start off portraying this character as unattractively mean. I understand that they actor or director may be trying to emphasize "before and after" contrast, but making the character too mean prevents the audience from forming an empathic bond with him or her. This is the obvious problem with A Christmas Romance. A better approach, as executed in A Holiday for Love, is to have a basically good character forced into doing something bad. Equally good is to have the character regretting doing cynical things but forced into it by circumstances beyond their control or haunted by an unfortunate experience in their past. Either way, it's important for the audience to know that the character has remorse.

Equally important is the quantity of the cynicism. Even if the character regrets it, a constant, unending torrent of cynical behavior is such a turn-off that the audience quickly loses empathy for the character.

The type or quality of cynicism must be carefully metered. For example: the character should never make a young child cry because in the audience's mind this crosses the line from redeemable cynicism to unforgivable meanness. The female lead character in the movie If You Believe commits both this and the error mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Too many Christmas movies are simply familiar romantic plots recycled using Christmas as a backdrop. The fact that it's Christmas doesn't significantly impact the plot. Titling such movies as "Christmas movies" is misleading. The audience will quickly realize it's being baited-and-switched and will think less of the movie because of it.

Quality control is also a big problem with most Christmas movies. Writers, producers and directors should appreciate that just having a Christmas tree in the background doesn't issue them a free pass to cut corners on production values or good acting. One cheap special effect can turn an otherwise good movie into a laughing stock. In the case of special effects it's better to do without than use something obviously artificial and second-rate. If for some reason "cheap" can't be avoided, then at least keep its impact to a minimum. The cheesy "Christmas powder" used at the end of Santa Jr. is a good example of what to avoid.

I appreciate that because Christmas movies aren't given a great deal of respect, it's not economically practical for production companies to invest a lot of money in a movie that'll never earn it back. But, the suggestions above could be implemented without additional cost. Why they aren't is a complete mystery to us.

 
That's it for Christmas 2007! Please check back next year for even more reviews. Until then... Merry Christmas!

 
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