Trollheart's Christmas Movies & TV Megathread (Incorporating The Scroogedown)

[Trollheart]

Call Me Claus (2001)

And yet another movie in which Santa decides to, as Homer once put it, run out the clock in Florida (or somewhere warmer than the North Pole anyway) and looks for someone to whom to pass the red suit. You would have thought someone of Whoopi Goldberg's stature would have known better than to get involved in this, but then, Nigel Hawthorne also chose it as his final performance. Given his many roles, more notably as the mad king of England in The Madness of King George, Amistad, his many Shakespearian roles, not to mention being fondly remembered as the machiavellian and loquacious Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister, it seems doubtful that he would have wanted to have left this as his final contribution to the world of television and cinema, but there it is. Apparently he died less than a month after the movie's release, on Boxing Day (known to us Irish as St. Stephen's Day). A sad loss.

Something of a twist on the old story here, with Santa warning Lucy (Goldberg) that if he doesn't find a replacement the world will be drowned in a great flood. Why? It seems to be a typical feel-good movie where everything works out in the end, though Lucy takes some convincing. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Is the world ready for a black,female Santa? I guess in 2001 they thought so. Personally, as long as it keeps her out of Ten Forward with that stupid pizza-delivery hat I'm all for it. Hokum, basically, from what I can see.

Rotten Tomatoes ratings

Tomatometer: n/a
Audience Score: 47%

IMDB rating

5.4/10

Metacritic rating

n/a

You know, I don't get it. Some of the quotes from critics on Rotten Tomatoes are shown as "not available". If they're not available why have they got them there? I understand some of the magazines, blogs etc may wish to keep copyright and so don't release the quotes, but why even show them if you can't read them? It's not like there's a link so you can go to the website of whomever the critic works for. Anyway, the few who are available say this.

With Brian Stokes Mitchell and Victor Garber also trying a little too hard, according to John Leonard writing in New York Magazine/Vulture, while Andrea Beach of Common Sense Media notes that although it's a Predictable, dated holiday film is refreshingly multiracial.
 
Audiences were similarly underwhelmed:

It was okay - one of those movies that's good for background while doing other Christmas activities.

I think it should've been released into cinemas rather than made for TV...instead, this year - we got Elf! What's with that? Although this film is rather slow paced, it's funny in all the right places and without trying too hard.

Here you go: just to further annoy you, there are Chinese (or Asian anyway) subtitles. Enjoy!

[Trollheart]

Like this one.

Deck the Halls (2006)

Possibly the only good thing this film has going for it is that it does not feature Adam Sandler. Or Vince Vaughn. It does however feature Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick, who really should both have known better. It's a timeless tale of the Christmas spirit crumbling under the assault of petty neighbourhood rivalry and childish one-upmanship in a time when such things should be relegated to a place of much less importance. Or, as IMDB puts it:

Two neighbors have it out after one of them decorates his house for the holidays so brightly that it can be seen from space.

Rather like their egos, I would imagine. Oh yes, it's one of those movies I remember being introduced with the annoying phrase "This holiday season". This fucking holiday season? What's with that? What's wrong with "this Christmas"?! Okay, so not every culture celebrates Christmas, but I think that's going too far. What's next? Holiday Season cards? Merry Holiday Season? Oh wait, you guys already say "Happy Holidays", don't you? I rest my case.

But wait just one moment! Did I notice the name of Garry Chalk there? Yeah, so what you say. Ah, shows what you know! Let me just check my files... YES! He also took part in that Rudolph movie, where he was the voice both of Blitzen and Rudolph's father (unless they're both the same reindeer? THAT would be weird!); not only that, but he seems to have featured in a good many other Christmas movies, as well as a whole slew of, er, Barbie stuff. Hmmm....

[Trollheart]

The Christmas That Almost Wasn't (1966)

But unfortunately was. Yes, they even made bad movies in the sixties. In Italian. Badly-dubbed Italian. Well, deck the halls! Here's the skinny from IMDB:

Sam Whipple, an attorney in once-upon-a-time-land, is startled to receive a visit from Santa Claus shortly before Christmas. It seems that when he was a child, Sam wrote a letter thanking Santa for the presents he'd received, and offering to return the favor someday. That day is now - a mean old soul named Phineas Prune, who holds the deed to the North Pole, is demanding back rent. Otherwise, he's going to evict Santa, Mrs. Claus and the elves and take all the Christmas toys. It's up to Sam and Santa to find a way to pay off Prune and prevent Christmas from being canceled.

Well now, this is new to me. I was not aware that the presents I received as a child from Santa were given conditionally, that, as a certain Mafia godfather once husked, I do this for you, someday I ask you to do something for me. Very Italian, I must say. What happens to those who, when asked to "repay the favour", refuse? Are their toys confiscated? More likely, relocated to the bottom of the ocean, most probably weighing down the corpse of their owner. What happens at the North Pole, stays at the North pole, capische?

Nobody in it that I know, as they're all Italians, so plenty of Salvatores, Francos and Marcos, but sadly no role for Clint Eastwood, which would probably have been the only way to liven up this dull, one-dimensional embarrassment of a movie. Mamma mia!

I also of course can never read this title without thinking of that terrible movie the kids in The Simpsons were forced to endure, thinking they were going to see The Grinch. When the old reel copy of The Christmas That Almost Wasn't, Then Was burned up, it was probably the most cheers it ever received. Likely the same tale for this turd from Turin maybe.

Although I feel I must take issue with the rather grandiose claim on the blurb accompanying the movie: "A more wonderful, more magical, more musical entertainment than this... there just isn't!" Hello? Trade Descriptions Office? Yes I can hold... 

[Trollheart]

An American Carol (2008)

God loves America. This is an undisputed fact. At least, if you're American. God is good. Santa is good. Santa therefore also loves America. Quite obvious really. erom rof uoy Michael Moore does not love America. At least, not if you're a neo-Conservative, Tea Party member or card-carrying Republican. Santa therefore does not love Michael Moore. Michael Moore is Scrooge.

Thus runs the rather skewed and partisan logic that leads to the premise of this particular Christmas turkey, where a miser, thinly disguised but clearly based on the maverick film-maker and scourge of presidents of the USA since 2001, is taught the meaning of Christmas. Take it away, IMDB!

An anti-American filmmaker who's out to abolish the July Fourth holiday is visited by three ghosts who try to change his perception of the country.

Rather surprisingly, this is written by one of  the Zuckers, who brought us such comedy classics as Airplane! and The Naked Gun, and hosts some heavy hitters, including Dennis Hopper, Leslie Nielsen (no real surprise there), Kevin Sorbo and ... Kelsey Grammer? Surely he didn't need the money? Or the screentime? Also poking their noses in to deliver the Word according to Bush and Reagan are country superstar Trace Adkins (yeah), Jon Voight and James Woods. Oh, and Paris Hilton, as if anyone cared.

What's even weirder though is that although this is basically marketed as a Christmas movie (as if you couldn't tell from the title or the Scroogeisms) they use Independence Day as the holiday Micheal Moore, sorry, the protagonist wants to abolish. Why? Cos Christmas ain't American enough? Ah, God bless 'em, huh? Probably on Trump's must-watch Christmas movies list.

[Trollheart]

That one's pretty bad, admittedly. But I can top it. Oh yes I can. How about


Rudolph and Frosty: Christmas in July (1980)

Uh, what? I don't... um... should this be subtitled "This time it's summery!"? Yeah. Words fail me. God bless the Japanese, who never allow logic to stand in the way or making a few million Yen.

Rotten Tomatoes ratings

Tomatometer: 20%
Audience Score: 36%

IMDB rating

6.7/10 (huh?)

Metacritic rating:

n/a

I'll leave it to the critics.

Like Emily VanderWerff of Vox, who comments, quite reasonably, the attempts to turn these corny stories into some sort of epic strain with flopsweat, and the hoped-for Avengers-style team-up of the company's big two mostly results in scenes where you wonder why Frosty's not melting in the middle of July

Indeed. And Matthew Jackson of SyFyWire is of a similar opinion:
The idea of crossing over Rudolph and Frosty is logical, because they were the company's two most popular character (aside from maybe Santa Claus), but the way it actually happens is just nuts

While Nancy Davis Kho of Common Sense Media was more direct: Dark, creepy story lacks Yuletide spirit.

Those who weren't paid (so far as I know anyway) to watch it more or less agreed with these assessments:

Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July has its moments, but overall it's a disappointing effort that's kind of lacking the spirit of the season (either one of them).

wha? I didn't quite understand or appreciate this movie. It's long and makes little sense. The idea of having Christmas in July at a big circus parade is very unusual. The songs just aren't very memorable.

And there we'll leave it I think.

[Trollheart]

Let's leave the bad movies for now and concentrate on good comedy. And when I say good, I mean bad. Or good. Depending on what your sense of humour is like. Yes, time to check out another of those


Created by two alumni from the anarchic classic sitcom The Young Ones, the series stars Adrian "Ade" Edmondson as Eddie Hitler and the late Rik Mayall as Richard Richard (usually referred to as Ritchie) in a carryover from a previous comedy starring them both and using the same names though different surnames, Filthy, Rich and Catflap. Eddie and Ritchie are two ne'er-do-well wasters who spend their days moping about their flat, moaning about why they never get girls and devising ever more complicated and outlandish ways to fill the boredom between waking to another day on the dole and heading to bed.

Showing the stunning creativity and acting talent of the pair, one of the episodes takes place entirely aboard a giant ferris wheel, which is due to be demolished later. Many comics can do a solo stand-up routine but it is quite another to do that on TV, deprived of props, distractions or a straight man. This is something Richard Wilson found to his cost when he starred alone in one episode of the hugely popular One Foot in the Grave, one which most people agree was the least funny of the entire series.

Though both are hilariously funny in a "God-they-didn't-did-they?" kind of way, in general Mayall was seen more as the straight man (though paradoxically was the most funny - the guy who's hilarious because he doesn't get the  joke) and Edmondson the witty one. But each worked extremely well off each other, which is why with the sudden passing of Mayall it seems there will be no more of this series, which ran from 1991 to 1995, and the future of Ade Edmondson is, at this moment, uncertain.

But back in 1992 they were at their creative peak, Mayall had yet to experience the horrific quad accident which would later lead to his untimely death, and moving into the last few episodes of the second season of their wildly successful show. As October gave way to November and the nights began getting both colder and darker, the bumbling duo decided to take on the fast-approaching Christmas, in their own inimical way.

Bottom: "Holy"

Ritchie is like a child, waiting for Christmas with joy and excitement, though also playing the role of Santa Claus to them both. Little does he know, though, as he steals into Eddie's bedroom, that his friend has set a most complicated trap for Santa, and he is soon dangling from a noose. As he kicks his feet and struggles for breath, Eddie cuts him down (after first telling him "It'll cost ya ten quid!") and Santa/Ritchie hobbles, bloody and limping, out of the bedroom. Returning a moment later (just as Ritchie this time) he pretends excitement - ("I thought I heard sleighbells, Eddie! Has he been?") - he proceeds to open all the presents that have been left, while Eddie tries to sleep. It is, after all, only 3:30 AM!

After the present opening, it's time to get ready to make the Christmas dinner, so while Ritchie gets the turkey ready Eddie decorates the place, which basically involves him spraying "Eddie is great" in spray snow on the walls. Unfortunately there's a traditional Christmas accident, as Ritchie chops off one of his fingers with a cleaver. Eddie staples it back on, and by the time Ritchie recovers consciousness it's almost time for dinner, and the guests, such as they are, are arriving. These end up being Eddie's dodgy mates, Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog, who are less than impressed with the meal they are served up. Well, they would be, wouldn't they? The potatoes are so hard they break the plates when dropped on them, the sprouts are as crunchy as hell, and due to a miscalculation on the timings, the turkey has been reduced to a tiny, crisped husk. They're also drinking gravy, as "somebody" has polished off all the sherry!

As Ritchie tries unsuccessfully to engage the guys in games, there is a ring at the door and Ritchie discovers that someone has left a baby on their doorstep. Taking it indoors, he is somehow unaccountably seized by the notion that this is the Second Coming, and that he is the Virgin Mary! He quickly begins to plan revenge on all those who offended him, now that he has been revealed as the mother of God, but all too soon their landlord knocks, declaring that the child is his daughter's and that he just left him there as it was too much hassle to take him with them to the bedside of his wife, who has very selfishly started to die on Christmas Day.

QUOTES
Eddie: "Did you post my letter to Santa Claus? Cos I can't seem to find the "Starbird" that I asked for. Or me Batman cape. Or the ticket to the Bahamas!"

Ritchie: "I thought you said you were going to get me something sun-kissed and exotic?"
Eddie: "And I have! Just open it." (Ritchie does)
Ritchie: "It's a miniature bottle of Malibu. Correction: it's an empty miniature bottle of Malibu."
Eddie: "Correct. Merry Christmas, Ritchie!"
Ritchie: "Well, what use is that?"
Eddie: "You can use it to keep Malibu in. Just keep it away from me!" (Hiccups)

(Through a complicated set of circumstances I'm not going to write about, and which you'll only understand if you watch the episode, Ritchie is looking into a "play telescope" at a drawing of Sue Carpenter. Uh-huh.)
Ritchie: "Why's she got only one knocker?"
Eddie: "No, that's not a knocker. It's a speech bubble. She's talking to you, look!"
Ritchie: "Oh yeah! Fik off ... you sad ... pathic ... winker! Ooh! I wonder what she means?"

Eddie: "Oh no! Not sprouts! I hate sprouts!"
Ritchie: "Will you stop whinging, Eddie? Everyone hates sprouts!"
Eddie: "Then why are we having them?"
Ritchie: "Because it's Christmas!"

Eddie (looking at the turkey): "What you going to do with it?"
Ritchie: "Well, it's the season of goodwill and peace on Earth, so I thought I'd chop off both its feet, rips its innards out, strip it, shove an onion up its arse and stick it in a very hot place for four hours till it's completely burned!"

Ritchie: "Oh god! What's the procedure for someone who's chopped off their finger?"
Eddie: "I think .... they bleed to death in about half an hour!"

Ritchie: "Come ye! Come ye! God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay. Remember ...." (Looks confused, unable to remember the rest)

Dave Hedgehog: "Is it Christmas? Today? Oh well, Merry Christmas then. Must be why that woman gave me that aftershave this morning."
Eddie: "What woman?"
Dave: "Oh you know, that woman who's always hanging around the house. What's her name? My wife. Andrea. No, Avril. No, what am I thinking of? Susan! That's the one!"

Spudgun: "See they changed the titles to Emmerdale Farm. Just called Emmerdale now. Doesn't take so long to read. Gives them a lot more time to do other things, pack more story in."

Ritchie: "I've got a baby."
Eddie: "We don't want a baby. Get rid of it. We're happy as we are. Why spoil everything? We'll drift apart. I mean, it's bound to come between us!"
Ritchie: "Well, I think it already has. Come on Eddie! It's time we faced up to our responsibilities! We can't go around being playboys forever! Besides,  it's a fact now. We have to deal with it."
Eddie: "Why couldn't you have been more careful? "
Spudgun: "Poor little mite. What a way to spend your first Christmas."
Eddie: "What? Lying on your back with a bottle in your mouth? Sounds pretty good to me!"

Spudgun: "Poor little blighter. No family, no friends, no Christmas presents."
Ritchie: "Well, he's got us now."
Spudgun: "Yeah. Look, he can have my present, a box of Terry's All-Gold. We'll have to wait till his little teeth come through before he can manage the chewy ones."
Eddie: "Yeah, he can have this Frankenstein mask I was gonna scare the shit out of Ritchie with later."
Dave: "And he can have my bottle of aftershave. It's a new one. It's called "Grr!"
Ritchie: "Gold, Frankenstein, and "Grrr!" (Looks up at the three of them kneeling before the cot, with their paper hats on) "And you're all wearing crowns!" (And notices the blue shawl he has been entertaining the baby with, now wrapped around his head like a scarf.) "And I'm a virgin! Guys, if I was you I'd stay on my knees! This is it: this is the Second Coming!"

Eddie: "I'm not gonna allow the arrival of the son of God spoil my Christmas!"

[Trollheart]

However, lest we forget the true meaning of Christmas...

(I used to have a great graphic for this, made from an advert for two boxers - no idea who - both of whom I had manipulated into figures of Jesus. It took ages and it looked cool, but I don't have it any more, and unlike many of my other graphics, which can be easily recreated, this one ain't coming back easy. So instead I must just drop in here the title I used for this, when it was originally posted.)

Trollheart presents, for one night only, The Battle of the Classic Christs!

As we all rush through our Christmas preparations, picking up the turkey and ham, checking off the gift list (better not leave out Uncle Seamus: not going through THAT embarrassment again this year!) and queuing in the cold and rain for hours and hours outside that one shop that promised - faithfully - it had just a small number of that toy that's sold out everywhere in stock, let's not forget what Christmas is really about: the birth of Santa Claus.

Seriously, once in a while it's nice to just take a step back from all the secular madness that surrounds, informs and often overwhelms the holiday season and just go all spiritual for a bit. Well, it IS a religious holiday at its heart, isn't it? What do you mean, you didn't know that?

Well, while nobody would ever accuse me of being the most religious person, I do like the story of Jesus and love to see movies about it. Christian fundamentalists would have us all believe that God created everything, and that may be true. If so, then he also created movies. But in another strange, kind of roundabout way, movies could be said to have created God, at least for the big or small screen. As far back as 1905 they were making silent movies about Our Lord, and of course with the advent of colour, 70mm film and things like Cinemascope and Technicolour, it was only natural that the sixties would see some of the biggest, baddest and most over-the-top movies about Jesus ever made.

That's what this section is all about then: deciding which is the better. I had originally intended this to be a three-way fight, but the third contestant, 1953's The Robe, turns out not to be about Jesus at all. He's in it, but only peripherally, and really it would be unfair to put such a movie up against the other two, so we're down to a proper head-to-head, a real slamdown and a fight for the title of the Classic Christ Movie.

In the blue corner, weighing in at 260 minutes and with a budget of approximately 21 million US Dollars, we have

Originally a four-hour-plus epic, drastically cut back in later releases and eventually shortened to 2 hours 17 minutes, The Greatest Story Ever Told was based on a novel by Fulton Ouster, itself based on a radio play that ran in the US in 1947 episodically. George Stevens was the man who intended to bring it to the big screen, but it was a slow process. The screenplay took over two years to write alone, why I don't know. I mean, it wasn't like the whole story wasn't already there! What did they have to screenwrite? Anyway by 1961, four years before its release date, costs had already spiralled to a staggering 2.3 million US Dollars, which even back then was a boatload of money, considering not one scene had yet been shot! So concerned were they with the rising costs involved in making the movie - or more correctly, preparing to make it - that backers Twentieth Century Fox dropped the project, and Stevens had to be saved by United Artists, who eventually released the picture.

Like most of the movies about the life of Jesus, this sticks fairly closely to the "facts", as they were, which is to say, the version described in the Bible. It's almost a direct telling of the story from that revered tome, and doesn't deviate much if at all from the accepted version. Interestingly though, it was a general unknown who was offered the top role, indeed the very man who played Antonius Block, the knight in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Max von Sydow, and for my money he did a good job. Apparently Stevens wanted someone not already linked with any role or character, someone US audiences would not know. I must say though, Charlton Heston in the role of John the Baptist comes close to stealing the show, and that's not an easy thing to do when you're up against the Son of God!

The version I watched clocked in at just under three hours and twenty minutes, and even at that reduced time from the original it seemed long, slow and boring in many places. Definitely a case of being overstretched. I shudder to think what the full version was like! The film also suffers from a "me too!" syndrome, with film stars all wanting a bit part, some of which make no sense. The most famous and well-known of these is of course the sudden appearance out of nowhere by John Wayne, who drawls "Truly this man was the sonnuh God!" in his characteristic, laconic and almost bored manner, but Martin Landau fails to shine as Caiphas, Roddy McDowell as Matthew is almost anonymous and David McCallum is completely wasted in the role of Judas, a one-dimensional, flat and uninspiring character compared to the one played in the other movie. Others of note include Pat Boone, Shelley Winters, Angela Lansbury and Sidney Poitier, though what any of them are doing in the movie is anyone's guess. Even Star Trek's Sarek, the late Mark Lenard, gets a look in!

The music is of course stunning and evocative, as you would expect, and Alfred Newman's score was one of five Academy Awards the film was nominated for. Whether it won any of them I don't know. The sets are also very impressive, though I do wonder about Stevens' insistence on shooting the whole thing in America? Sounds a little like trying to prove God was born in Queens to me! Mind you, our other movie didn't head to the Holy Land either, but with a budget of twenty-one mill you would have thought they would have, literally, gone the extra mile. Or few thousand miles, I guess. Nonetheless, I have to admit that when they show the scene ostensibly taking place in the desert where Jesus faces forty days and nights of temptation and fasting, I would never have guessed it was Death Valley, and similarly, the sermon on the Mount actually takes place in Utah, so it's not like it's obvious, but still, you do feel a little bit cheated that they're not actually walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Unless he ever visited California, which I find unlikely....

All quibbles aside though, and remembering that the movie never grossed even its freakishly huge budget, and so was seen as a flop and an expensive failure, I did enjoy The Greatest Story Ever Told, with certain reservations, which I will detail later on in this article when I compare the two movies and put them up against each other. But what about its classic opponent?

Well, in the red corner, ladies and gentlemen, at a trim 161 minutes and with a budget of a mere 8 million, will you please give it up for


Not to be confused with the earlier movie of almost the same name from the twenties, which just added the definite article to its title, this was the other "blockbuster Bible movie" of the day, and the two are in many ways very similar, and in other ways poles apart. Interestingly, while George Stevens was flying to Rome to consult the Pope on the making of his movie, this one slipped in under the radar and got released four years before his made the big screen, which must have been annoying for the great filmmaker, as this would have been the first "real" movie about Christ since 1935's Golgotha, unless you count Ben Hur, which I don't, or indeed The Robe, which I also don't, as neither focus on the actual figure of Christ and he is basically incidental, although instrumental, to the storyline. But poor old Stevens: that's what you get for farting around with 352 oil paintings as your storyboard and retaking every scene a zillion times: someone else beats you to it!

Starring Jeffrey "I could have been Kirk" Hunter in the top role, it's something of a different take on the story, though again it sticks very closely to the writings of Scripture. King of Kings details the birth of Christ, the journey to Bethlehem and the exile to Egypt, whereas this is brushed over in The Greatest Story Ever Told, which is odd, considering the latter is the longer picture by about an hour and would have easily been able to accomodate such a surely integral and important part of the plot, as it were? But like its rival, King of Kings mainly concentrates on Jesus's life from age thirty or so, from the time he begins to preach, gathering his disciples to him and generally getting up the noses of the Romans. That's not surprising, as really, up to that point there's little in the Bible about Jesus the man, leading to speculation on what exactly he did for those twenty-odd years between childhood and manhood, but that's another story. Any film or series focussing on Jesus will always be firmly set in this short period of his life.

There are, as I said, things I like about TGSET that I don't like about KOK, and vice versa of course. One of the former is the way Jesus's miracles are handled. In this film, we see things like Jesus approaching a blind man who bumps into him as just a shadow on a wall. He stretches out his shadowy hand and the man drops his stick, obviously (I guess) cured. A madman is not portrayed as very mad (did you see the guy in Jesus of Nazareth? THAT was scary!) and in general the miracles are not quite glossed over but definitely not given the sense of drama and power that TGSET lavishes on them. Contrast the scene outside Lazarus's tomb in the other movie with the one here - oh no wait, don't. King of Kings doesn't feature that miracle. What? Jesus's biggest feat, his crowning glory, his piece de resistance, when he proves even Death can't hold sway over someone he calls forth, and they don't show it?

Yeah. The movie suffers from a massive dearth of miracles, and those that are shown are treated in an almost offhand, matter-of-fact way. No angels singing, no shafts of sunlight bathing the Saviour's face as he performs these wonders, no crowds gathering to watch in amazement and then spread the word that the Messiah has come. Very drab and humdrum. Maybe there was a reason, maybe director Nicholas Ray didn't want to focus too much on the miracles aspect of the story, but come on! The guy raised the dead! (Though in fairness, he did not crash the car). He healed the blind and the lame! He cast out demons! You have to show those, and make them an important part of the story.

But where King of Kings fails in respect of its opponent - Miracles: Greatest Story Ever Told 1, King of Kings 0 - it walks all over it (I know: I was going to say something else but figured it wouldn't be appropriate when dealing with these movies. Gotta have respect, even if you don't believe!) on another score, and that is the portrayal of Judas Iscariot. From an early age, we Irish were brought up on the notion that Judas was evil. He betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, but we were never told why. We never asked. It was just accepted, the same as any religious dogma in Ireland at the time was. Why had you to fast before receiving Holy Communion? Why could you not touch it if it got stuck to the roof of your mouth - as it always, without fail, did - and why were you supposed to (in my parents' day, not mine) genuflect if you met a priest in the street? Nobody asked these questions: they weren't even rhetorical, they just weren't accepted as questions. They just were, okay? Accept it and stop asking stupid questions. In the very same way, Judas was a betrayer, a coward and a traitor and you should hate him.

It wasn't till I watched Jesus Christ Superstar and Martin Scorsese's excellent The Last Temptation of Christ that I got the idea that Judas was not just an evil figure, he was a person; a person with ideals and hopes and dreams, and that he betrayed Jesus for a reason. This made more sense, and indeed this is the tack that King of Kings takes. Judas is a revolutionary when we meet him, fighting alongside Barabbas, his leader, and he believes he can turn Jesus to their cause, convince him to fight for Judea and call down hosts of angels, or at the worst, lead his hosts of followers against the Roman oppressor. When he sees this will not happen of its own accord, that Jesus is dedicated to peace, Judas tries to force his hand, hoping that if he is arrested he will spring into action and defend himself, and become an ally of he and Barabbas, leading the Jews to glorious liberation.

At last, someone gets it. I'm no connoisseur of movies about Jesus, but I think I'm safe in saying that King of Kings was the first of this genre to look sympathetically at Judas. Tim Rice would do so ten years later, and others would too: even in Jesus of Nazareth I seem to recall him being a more rounded, less cartoon-villain figure, but this was the first time I think anyone had voiced the possibility that maybe, just maybe, Judas had a reason, excuse or agenda in betraying his master. Played by Rip Torn, he's certainly a better character here than in George Stevens' somewhat pompous oversimplification of the man. In TGSET Barabbas is only mentioned at the end, when he gets his freedom at the expense of Christ's, and he has no other role at all to play in that movie. Here, he is a pivotal if not central figure, laughing at then briefly sharing Judas's hope that they might ally with the Messiah, finally using his speech at the temple to launch an abortive attack on his enemy. When he realises later that Jesus is dying in his place (not that he has a choice of course, but the people have chosen Barabbas) he asks "Why? I never did anything for him." He truly can't understand it, though Lucius, the Roman general, scowls "Your people shouted loudest", obviously at pains to make the rebel leader realise it is only simple good fortune that has secured his freedom, and his life.

Although much shorter than its later companion film, King of Kings gets pretty much the whole story in, which of course you would expect and demand, but also manages to presage it with the arrival of Pompey as he claims Jerusalem and sets up a garrison there, and adds in elements of the later Jewish struggle for independence and freedom, as well as alluding to the Roman governor, Pilate's wife being somewhat sympathetic to Jesus, or at least his message. Again though, the two movies differ vastly when it comes to the crucifixion scene, with TGSET losing out as it watches much of the action from far off, down the hill at Golgotha. I'm not saying I wanted closeups of the nails going into Jesus's hands or anything, but there's a more personal, intimate feeling to the scene in this film, with the action all taking place in front of you; you see Christ nailed to the cross (tastefully done) and raised up, you see people moving about below him as he hangs there, you see the two thieves talk to him (although in fairness you see this in the other movie too, but I think this one just about edges it in terms of drama) and best of all, there's no John Wayne!

Resurrection, I'd say there's very little between the two movies, though this one does just end with the shadow of Christ falling across the apostles, who then sort of wander aimlessly offscreen in the final scene; where it actually shows Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene outside the tomb in this movie,  in TGSET she just meets the angel inside the tomb once Jesus has risen, so again I think this one is slightly more personal. Not to mention that in the closing scene of this we see the smiling, radiant face of Jesus while in the other movie he's just a shadow and a voice. Interestingly, the very same end hymn is used, though it seems to be quite appropriate and was probably the only one that could have been used.

So, both movies represent the story of Christ's birth, life and death reasonably well, and certainly better than some have down the years. But each has its own flaws, and while in one category TGSET triumphs, in others it's KOK that lands the killer punch. So, which movie is better? How can we even choose between two such classics? We probably in reality can't, but for the purposes of this article we have to: to quote Highlander - there can be only one. So how do we do that? Well, let's list off the main points and compare like for like, and see how we do. For each scene, aspect or fact considered I'll award a score out of ten, explaining along the way how I arrived at that score. Then we'll total them up and see who comes out on top, or if this ends up being a dead heat. Even I don't know at this point. Oooh! Exciting, isn't it?

[Trollheart]

Allright then! One of the most important things for any movie is its budget versus its box office. In other words, how much did it cost to make and was that amount recouped, or, as would be highly expected, seriously exceeded on its release? Let's see.

(For handiness' and laziness' sake I'm referring to each movie by a single letter. See if you can guess which is which!)

G: Budget 21 million, Box office 15 million. (Naturally these are estimates, and if they're wrong blame Wiki...)

K: Budget 5 mill, Box office 13 million.
Now on the face of it it would seem that K made less than G, but on the other hand, taken as a percentage of its final costs, K came close to tripling its budget, so definitely made money, whereas G failed to even make its budget, coming in with a definite, and quite substantial loss, almost twenty-five percent in fact. So on pure figures for its return, and indeed on its initial budget too, K did better, costing less to make and earning more in the long run. Though both movies were considered commercial failures, one failed at a cheaper rate than the other. So King of Kings wins this easily.

Scores
G 3/10
K: 8/10 (It wasn't a blockbuster success, which is why I've given it a less than perfect score)

Next up, length of movie. Now, this can be a good or a bad thing. Long movies can pack more story in, or they can just get boring and feel long-drawn out. But when you're dealing with a Biblical movie I think you really work with the maxim "the longer the better", as long as there's enough there to keep your interest. Though G dragged in places, overall it was relatively well-paced and didn't seem too overlong. It's certainly longer than K. Here are the stats.

G: 240 mins (original) down to an eventual 137 mins for the US release, with the one I watched being a total of 200 minutes.

K: 168 minutes
There's no contest. Though K filled its brief well for its overall shorter length - longer than the eventual US release though - the original cut of G has over fifty minutes on it, so it's a clear winner for G.

G: 9/10 (Only awarded less than top score due to the different lengths, and the fact that it dragged a little in places)
K: 6/10

In terms of being "first to the post", ie the first major Biblical film to hit the screens since the thirties, and therefore essentially the first "real" movie about Jesus, George Stevens' faffing about and eternal procrastination, along with his perfectionist nature and a ballooning budget that saw his original backers walk away from the deal allowed his rival to get in a full four years before his film saw the light of day, so it's not even close.

G: Released 1965 - 4/10
K: Released 1961 - 9/10 (Again, not top score because it was not the first EVER movie about Jesus, but close)

And now we come to the main man, as it were. The face-off between the stars, the top men who played what was not a title role but really was, the two actors who brought Jesus to the big screen. In K, we had Jeffrey Hunter. I only know him as the original Captain Pike from the pilot episode of the original Star Trek, the man who turned down the recurring role to pursue a "proper" movie career. I hated him in Star Trek but I must say he did this role proud. With a warm, gentle smile and a humbleness seldom seen among actors he may not have been the ideal choice for Jesus, but he sure was better than Ian Gillan in Jesus Christ Superstar the stage production, a decade later (shudder!) and I think he did really well.

Max von Sydow was more or less unknown to US audiences and fans outside of Sweden, or those who followed the films of Bergman, so for him to take on such a major role must have been a hell of a challenge. Interesting that in the other movie I saw him in recently, The Seventh Seal, he was a knight doubting the existence of God, who says at one point to Death "Why can't I kill God within me?" and then a mere six years later he's playing the son of that very God. But he plays the role well, his slight Scandinavian accent adding to the, if you like, foreigness of Jesus and making him less the all-American blue-eyed boy that could be seen at times in Hunter's character. Probably not as charismatic as his rival, von Sydow exuded for me more a sense of friendliness, calm and love than did Hunter, but even so it's hard to choose between them.

I think in the end, von Sydow had more to prove, being an "unknown" to most cinema-goers at the time, so I'll shade it slightly on his side, and award him the higher score, though there's not that much in it really.

G: Jesus portrayal by M. von Sydow 9/10
K: Jesus portrayal by J. Hunter 8/10

Then we come to Judas. This isn't even close. As related in the synopses of the movies above, the far stronger character is the one in K, where Judas is seen as a rebel, a freedom fighter and has a good, if slightly skewed, reason for betraying Jesus. The part is also better played by Rip Torn, though we know what a great and accomplished actor David McCallum is; he just had a really weak role to work with, and through most of the movie looks unhappy, and so he should be. His Judas could have been so much more, but he's left playing a cardboard cut-out.

G: Judas role (This does not reflect on how the character was played, but how he was written, as it would be unfair to blame an actor for simply carrying out the role he was asked to play) 2/10
K: Judas role 9/10

Music score: Again, there's little to choose here. Both Miklos Rosza's Oscar-nominated music and that of Alfred Newman are stirring, grandiose pieces of music that make your heart swell and at times, in certain scenes, bring the odd tear to the eye. I can't choose between these so I'm going to call this a dead heat and award the very same to both.

G: Score by Alfred Newman 9/10
K: Score by Mkilos Rosza 9/10

Awards/Nominations: From what I've read, though both movies were commercial flops, G was nominated for awards but I can't find anything about K. Five awards in total, whether it won them or not I'm not sure, but even the nominations have to allow G to knock K flat on its back and perform a, at least temporary, victory dance on its body.

G: Awards (5, or at least nominations for 5) 8/10
K: Awards, none 0/10

Some other characters in brief, compared. Herod in K I found more evil, though cartoonishly evil, whereas in G he was more coldly evil and sort of like a snake, quietly evil as opposed to loudly evil, Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter as opposed to Dafoe's Green Goblin. It sort of depends on what you're looking for in a villain I guess, but for me I actually preferred Frank Thring's portrayal of the evil king of Judea as opposed to Jose Ferrer's version. It's hard to choose: one was evil on a megalomaniacal scale, which was quite satisfying if a little one-dimensional, and was clearly harbouring ungentlemanly and unfatherly affection for his stepdaughter, Salome (King of Kings) while she was only alluded to in TGSET and the link between her demanding the head of John the Baptist and Herod's decision to put him to death was made much muddier and not at all clear. Hmm. Because I like cartoon villains, and because he played the part so well, I'm going to go for Thring in King of Kings, but as I say, it's close, almost too close to call. I am calling it, though.

G: Herod Antipas portrayal (Jose Ferrer) 8/10
K: Herod Antipas portrayal (Frank Thring) 9/10

Yeah, I know I said in brief, and that was hardly brief, but you know me. Anyway, there's one or two other main characters I want to look at, but in brief (and I mean it this time) here are some lesser ones.

Mary, mother of God. The version in K bugged the hell out of me with her eternal beatific smile that became almost that of an idiot and just made me want to punch her in the face (sorry), while the one in G was much more restrained and to be fair, hardly in the movie at all. But for her less-than-angelic portrayal Dorothy McGuire takes it for me.

G: Mary, Mother of God portrayal (Dorothy McGuire) 7/10
K: Mary, Mother of God portrayal (Siobhan McKenna) 4/10

Mary Magdalene. Surprisingly (or perhaps not; her time on film had not yet come) in both movies she's almost anonymous. Yes we see the famous stoning scene in both, but after that, other than being seen washng Jesus's feet in one movie and being the one to go to the tomb after three days in both, we see little of her, so there's not an awful lot to choose from. I'll have to take it from her performance in the stoning scene, and in this case I'm giving it to Carmen Sevilla in K.

G: Mary Magdalene (Joanna Dunham) 5/10
K: Mary Magdalene (Carmen Sevilla) 7/10

Barabbas. Well like Judas, and as mentioned in the section on him, there's no contest. In G there is no role for Barabbas, apart from the traditional one at the end, when he is allowed go free for Passover in place of Jesus, while in K there's quite a little backstory built up around him, allowing him his own identity and role in the movie, and also giving a proper and understandable reason for Judas's eventual betrayal of Jesus. King of kings wins this by a country mile.

G: Role of Barabbas 1/10
K: Role of Barabbas 8/10

Pilate. Though he's central to the story of Jesus - he is, after all, infamously remembered as the man who sentenced the Saviour to death - there's very little real substance to the role played by him by Telly "Kojak" Savalas in G, and I for one couldn't stop expecting him to pat Herod's cheek and say "Good boy! You do what you're told, nobody will get hoirt, capische?" Sorry but that's just me, who only knew him from that role on TV. But even apart from that he puts in what I consider to be a poor performance, while the lesser-known (to me) Hurd Hatfield makes a much better fist of it, projecting the true persona of a man who is somewhere he does not want to be, is there because the local king couldn't keep order and also knows or suspects that he is being punished by being sent to this remote outpost, far from the empire and any chance of advancement. It doesn't help that his wife is sympathetic to the message of Jesus. Also it comes across in G that Savalas is only there because he's a big-name star, and not because he's best suited for the role. In fact I think he completely fluffs it. I think Hatfield plays Pilate best, so I award the high score to him.

G: Portrayal of Pontius Pilate (Telly Savalas) 4/10
K: Portrayal of Pontius Pilate (Hurd Hatfield) 8/10

And one more character whose portrayal makes the difference between the two films is John the Baptist. Central to the first half of the movie, he bestrides both like a colossus, but in G he's played by the walking ego, Charlton Heston, who tends to bring more of the macho, self-confident and arrogant posturing to the character than does Robert Ryan in K. His take on John is far more humble, a tough, principled and godly man who knows he is just marking time on this planet, waiting for the arrival of the one whose coming he heralds. Heston makes it more about Heston, Ryan makes it more about John, and has rightly been cited as the best John the Baptist you will see in film, so he easily gets the nod.

G: John the Baptist (Charlton Heston) 5/10
K: John the Baptist (Robert Ryan) 8/10

Actually, that's not it. There's one more character I forgot to include. Pleased to meet you, hope you guessed my name! Yeah, it's the Devil. The only real role Satan plays of course in the story is when Jesus is out in the desert and he's being tempted by the Evil One, but in G he's personified by a strange dark hermit Jesus meets, played by the wonderfully evil Donald Pleasance, while in K he's nothing more than a disembodied voice, the actor not even credited. So the best Devil has to be the one from G, hands (or talons) down. Better the Devil you know?

G: The Devil (Donald Pleasance as "the dark hermit") 9/10
K: The Devil (uncredited, voice only) 3/10

This just leaves us really with two last sticking points. Both have already been mentioned but here I'm going to go into them in some more detail. The first is the handling of the miracles Jesus performs. In K they're almost alluded to, with shadows on walls, notes in despatches and the like, while in G they're made much more of. The best is where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, which isn't even mentioned in K, but Stevens gives it the full Hollywood treatment and you really feel impressed, awed and even a little frightened at times. Similarly, his curing of the lame is carried out in a very personal way, one-to-one as it were, and the blind man who he makes see is arranged beautifully. Jesus, urged by the sceptical people of Nazareth, who find it hard to credit that the carpenter's son is in fact the son of God, to cure an old blind man and prove his divinity, refuses. But later he comes back and cures him in private.

It's a lovely cameo, showing how although he would not be tempted into performing for the crowd, Jesus was still not prepared to let the old blind man suffer for his own principles. In the corner, away from the crowds where nobody can see, he performs a miracle and the old man has his sight back.I feel the miracles are given better weight by Stevens and his way works much better. I guess Ray could have claimed he had not the time for his movie as his rival director had, but the miracles are still in his movie, just not handled so well. Therefore it's no contest, and G wins this round by a knockout.

G: Portrayal of miracles 10/10 (This first ever top score is awarded due mostly to the awe-inspiring scenes outside the tomb of Lazarus)
K: Portrayal of miracles 5/10

Finally, perhaps one of the most crucial scenes in the film, either of them, the crucifixion of Jesus. While nobody wanted to, or was expecting to see a Mel Gibson-style gorefest, the way K handled it was much more up close and personal, and gives you a real feeling of being involved. You can hear the nails being hammered in, watch the almost workmanlike industry as the Romans bustle here and there, this just another day, another execution for them. You see Jesus's cross being raised, and hear him talking to the two thieves on either side of him. In G, much of the actual crucifixion, the attaching to the cross and its raising, are viewed from far down the hill, so it's too impersonal and could really be anyone getting crucified. After a short time the camera does go back up the hill, but it's grimly unsatisfying and almost seems an afterthought on the part of the director. Badly handled I think, and so K gets the nod here, without question.

G: Crucifixion scene 4/10
K: Crucifixion scene 8/10

Before I total up the score and see who the winner is, there are a few more points I want to raise. Firstly, for such a long and epic film, the opening titles to G are pedestrian and very small, and don't evoke the kind of drama and majesty that those of its sister movie do, despite the stirring music. The ending too, seems a little rushed, odd considering how long the film is. These two disappointments earn G an automatic deduction of 20 from whatever score it ends up getting.

Secondly, K has a narrator, and it's Orson Welles. I'm not sure whether I prefer this sort of movie with or without a storyteller, as everyone should already be familiar with the plot anyway, but for securing the services of such a star and using him well I'll add an extra 10 points to its score.

K also gains an extra 5 points for being the first film in cinematic history to show the face of Jesus onscreen.

And so, the tally. After everything has been added up, here are how the initial scores stand:

The Greatest Story Ever Told: 97
King of Kings: 109

Now for the adjustments: G loses 20 for boring titles, opening and closing, as above, which brings its already losing score down to 77. With 10 points added for Orson Welles and another 5 for getting to the post first as above, K gets a total additional 15 points, bringing its final score to a whopping 124!

So, 124 plays 77. Bit of a knockout there for the King! Even without the adjustments K had it over G by a good 12 points. Now, with the adjustments taken into account, there's a gap of 47!

And so, with a final score of 124, ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the winner of the contest, the victor of the Battle of the Classic Christs, the first movie to show the face of Jesus on celluloid, give a big hand to

The undisputed heavyweight champion of classic Jesus movies! (Well, of these two, anyway!)

[Trollheart]

Right, I'm all Christ-ed out, so to speak. Bring on



Title: "A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas"
Series: Family Guy
Season: Three
First aired: December 21 2001
Written by: Danny Smith

Look, I'm going to be honest here: the Family Guy Christmas specials, with one or two notable exceptions (and perhaps a few I have not seen; I stopped watching it some time ago) are nothing to write home about. Family Guy seems to subsist on the idea of usually poking - not always gentle - fun at traditions, and Christmas is of course ripe for such treatment. Now, that's all well and good, and I have no issue with it - providing you do it well, or at least make it funny. Look at how American Dad (another show I have stopped watching) handled the idea of turning Christmas on its head, and yet managed to make it somehow not seem an insult to those who believe. Maybe. But over the years I have found Family Guy to be getting more and more offensive, seemingly just for the chance to knock races and religions, and less and less funny.

This, however, comes from the third season, before Seth lost it, and while it's not great it's at least worthy of inclusion in this feature, if for no other reason than we see Lois, the usually solid, workaday mother go totally apes[COLOR="Black"]hi[/COLOR]t and climb the Christmas tree, King Kong-like! But I get ahead of myself.


We open at the lighting ceremony of the Christmas tree in the Quahog town centre, where it becomes clear that the reason the senior citizens volunteered to decorate it was so they could arrange the fairy lights to spell out YOUNG PEOPLE SUCK! How they managed a) to climb up the massive tree in the first place and b) to arrange the lights without testing them I leave to you to puzzle out. Like much in this series, logic is not a welcome visitor and reason can go shove it. Lois is waxing lyrical about the Christmas season when, as usual, Peter arrives and wrecks everything. Literally, this time, as he ploughs into the manger and destroys it. Drunk as always, he dances around singing. Lois is not impressed. At home, she berates Peter for not yet getting a Christmas tree for the house, and he goes outside to chop down the one owned by his neighbour.

A visit to Joe and Bonnie's - a place Peter didn't want to go anyway, offering to ensure Lois doesn't have to lie if she excuses herself by saying her mother has died, by offering to kill her mother - is not much better. Joe is drunk on eggnog and not feeling the Christmas spirit. Quagmire and Cleveland arrive to go wassailing and off they go, leaving the women behind. To his horror and intense annoyance, Joe tells Peter he must be the designated driver, so no beer for him. Stewie is intrigued by the news that Santa is watching him, and every child, and comes to the conclusion that the only way this is possible is if Santa has hidden cameras in the ornaments on the tree. That night he has a dream of being captured by him and set to work as one of his elves. Waking, he fears he is now indeed under surveillance, and may be dealing with someone who could be his match.

Peter is aghast the next morning to realise that he has mistakenly dropped off ALL of the presents to the charity, when Lois told him only one was to go, and the rest were the actual presents for the family. He really has no excuse for this, as he was the only one not drunk last night, but then, he does labour constantly under the crippling handicap of being dumber than a bag of rocks. Luckily for him, Lois takes his stupidity as an act of kindness, however unintentional, and goes to buy more presents. At home, Brian goes to check the turkey, not noticing an ember that jumps from the fire and when he comes back in the place is on fire! Stewie meets Santa in the mall, and makes a deal with him that if he brings him some plutonium for Christmas he will be a good boy.

Returning home, Lois sees the mess but takes it surprisingly well, considering the house is all but burned down. Peter, however, seeing his beloved couch and television destroyed, is less sanguine. Clearly, though, this has all been coming to a head in the mother of the family, as, as she attempts to cheer everyone up and make out things are not as bad as they seem, she finally explodes when she is told there are no kitchen towels with which to clean up the mess. She goes on a rampage, and Peter and the family, believing the Christmas pageant, in which Stewie was to star, and to which she had been looking forward, might bring her to her senses, head there. At this point, I should add, she's scaled the Christmas tree, as I spoilered at the beginning. Yeah. They end up taking her down with a trank dart, and she drools her way through Christmas.

Notes: There's a pretty good parody of one of those annoying Christmas specials that air on US TV, this one starring KISS, of all people. Ridiculous, but it does illustrate rather well the kind of crap you poor Americans have to watch during the festive season, and how any star or has-been will agree to be in a Christmas show to boost their profile, ego, ratings or all three. Stewie's battle of wits with Santa is handled reasonably well, and Peter's boorishness is not lessened for the holiday season. I do question though why, when he's chasing the old woman through the mall in pursuit of the last pair of barettes, and they're on the escalator, she a few steps ahead of him (and older) he doesn't just run up and grab them? But instead he stands there as the staircase moves slowly on, as if he can't or hasn't thought of walking, or is too lazy. It's probably intentional, to show how thick he is, but it's a little unbelievable. Still, that's Family Guy for you.

It's a little hard on Lois. She's the one arranging everything, she's the one holding it together, then when she finally loses it she ends up being a drooling idiot in the corner, missing Christmas. But Seth has never been one to care much about female characters - look how Meg is consistently - yeah, you really can't call it anything else - consistently abused by, well, the whole family, but mostly by Peter. Chris as usual may as well not be there for all the impact he makes, and this pretty much applies to Meg too, though this is par for the course: apart from the odd Meg-centric episode, the female Griffin child is usually conspicuous by her absence, or just there to hang bad taste/abuse jokes on. Peter as usual is the centre of things, and does his usual moronic and ignorant job, while Stewie's encounter with Santa Claus (culminating in his actually getting plutonium for Christmas, a nice touch) is okay but doesn't really add much to the story.

The story itself is quite thin. Basically we watch the often sad breakdown of the mother of the family, while at the end she's ignored as the family laughs at the television and enjoys their Christmas. Quite how the house got repaired on Christmas Day is not established, but again, Seth has his own world where logic and reality don't really tend to make many house calls, and where things just happen because shut your yap that's why. As a Christmas episode it does at least break the traditions of Christmas specials by attempting, in a rather ham-fisted way and in a reasonable speech given by Stewie at the end as Jesus, to explain why people behave - or should behave - better at Christmas, but as usual Seth can't resist poking his finger in the eye of Christianity by mocking the Virgin Mary. I'm not a believer, but even I think this is in poor taste, especially at Christmas.

Oh, and why is it that when Peter slaps in his new tape of KISS save Santa it starts at the end? Any reason for that? All right! All right! I'm going! Just thought I'd ask; no need to set the wild reindeer on me. Sheesh!

[Trollheart]

Christmas is a time for giving, so let me give you a treat. We've seen, or at least read about, some pretty awful Christmas movies so far (and more to come) but believe it or not, there are worse. Oh yes, children! Far, far worse. We haven't even begun to explore the deep, dark depths of the worst of the worst, those movies so awful they must only be viewed under special, laboratory-controlled and supervised conditions, and to that end are kept somewhere very safe, inaccessible to the public, most of which are even ignorant as to its existence.

So if ye be of stout heart (or have consumed too much stout) and strong stomach (which you'll need to be if you have consumed too much of the aforesaid stout) I invite you to crowd nervously behind me as I gingerly light a taper and we descend the slippery, rusty iron steps down to the sewers as we go in search once again for a movie so bad it could only ever end up here. In other words, welcome to our Yuletide visit to

And what else would we look at in this festive season but a Christmas movie? But not just the one, oh no. Either you've been very good and Santa has answered your letters or the reverse, but either way you're getting a three-for here. Yup: three of the very worst Christmas movies ever made by hand of man. The kind of movies that make you either laugh uncontrollably at how bad they are, scratch your head and say "huh?" or just make you wish your religion didn't require you to celebrate this "holiday season".

Full and fair disclosure here: as I mentioned already, I don't tend to watch too many Christmas movies, much less those considered really bad, so I don't know anything much about the ones I'll be doing here. They'll all be a first-time experience for me. However, unlike the ones I've featured prior to these, I will actually be watching these, all the way through. On this terrifying journey into the weird and not so wonderful, I'm being guided by lists and by the likes of Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, working on the assumption that if a large proportion of people hate movie X, then it must be terrible. Of course, almost everyone seems to hate Jingle All the Way and I liked it, but I guess there are always exceptions.

Reading about the movies though, you can usually make a relatively informed decision as to whether or not it deserves to be lambasted, and the first two certainly leave no room for doubt. The third, I don't know but we'll see, I reckon it's a fairly safe bet though.

[Trollheart]

Kicking off with this one, well known for being not only one of the worst, but certainly one of the trippiest, whacked-out movies of all time. I mean, spaced out gets a new meaning with this one. Originally released in Mexico and obviously in Spanish, it was re-released (god alone knows why) the following year, with what I am reliably informed is bad dubbing, and a few slight changes. But for all that, while I would like to watch the original my Spanish doesn't come up to the level of being able to ask for a tequila while also enquiring where the bathroom is, and even if it has subtitles, well, it's probably going to be more fun to see what a poor job the Americans did dubbing it.

Title: Santa Claus
Year: 1959/1960
Writer(s): Adolfo Torres Portillo and Rene Cardona
Director: Rene Cardona (original) Ken Smith (US version)
Genre: Science-fiction (yeah...)
Stars:  A whole lot of hombres you won't know. In this version, for some reason, none of the cast are named. At all. Other than the narrator. Who is also the director. Yeah. Ken Smith. Go figure.

Before we get going, a word on the title. I mean, I know it's supposed to be an awful film (which we will decide for ourselves over the course of the next 94 minutes, which may seem like 94 hours), but couldn't they have come up with a more original title? I mean, it's so bland! Santa Claus? Really? That's the best they could do? Couldn't they have called it something more Mexican? L'Hombre de Cristomas or something? Would that have been racist? Can you be racist about your own people? In any event, this is what it's called, and you only track it down on Google by inserting the year after it, otherwise you're there all day.

Right, so: a few things to get straight from the get-go. Santa, contrary to popular belief, does not live at the North Pole. Not according to these guys anyway. Santa doesn't even live on Earth, but in some kind of cloud in space (how does a cloud form in space? Your guess is as good as mine, and mine ain't so good) where he lives in a Disneylike castle. Oh wait: according to the narration, he does live at the North Pole - but the North Pole is in space. Or he's several hundred thousand miles above it, out in space. The main takeaway from this informational snippet is this: Santa lives in space.

Now, when we first see Jolly Old Saint Nick we only see his arms and chest, as he fixes up a Christmas crib, and I must admit, his deep, booming laugh sounds less jolly than maniacal - I expect when the camera pulls back to see he has a co-ed or two tied up, terror in their eyes, sweat on their ... no? Oh well. It's off-putting for sure. As is Santa's sitting down at a Phantom of the Opera-style pipe organ and, um, using it as a computer monitor? Seems Chris Cringle doesn't need elves in his workshop, far more progressive. Or possibly regressive, as it seems he has bunches of human children working for him. What sort of child labour laws apply in, um, Toyland, as it's called, anyway? Right, well, either those so-called helpers from Spain are seriously anaemic or they've all been drained by vampires. They're white! I mean, absolutely white! No colour at all. We don't even get to see the kids from England, only from a distance.

I must say, the architecture of Santa's slave palace I mean workshop looks very Arabic. Hmm. Yeah, it goes on like this for about ten minutes as Santa displays all the different nationalities of kids he has pressed into service for him. Jesus on a pogo-stick. We get the idea. Can we get on with it please, before it really is Christmas?

Finally the excruciatingly long - and somewhat racist - parade of the United Nations of Enslaved Children is over, and we're in Hell. What? You thought we were there already? Well, kind of. If you'd had to listen to Mexican toddlers singing "La Cucaracha" or English brats singing "London Bridge is Falling Down", you would probably have come to that conclusion. As did I. But now the scene changes and we really are in Hell, where Lucifer orders one of his demons, Pitch, to go to Earth and make all the children evil to get on Santa's wick.

Look, there's something disturbing about being shown the slightly upsetting scene of a small girl whose mother can't afford a doll for her for Christmas, and hearing fucking Santa ho-ho-ho-ing all over it. A little insensitive, don't you think, big guy? And why is he so jolly all the time, that's what I'd like to know? He only works one day a year and what he makes can't possibly cover his overheads. Santa has to be deep in debt, probably owes big to the Chinese Mafia, may even have some sort of addiction that has to be fed with cookies and milk every Christmas Eve, mistreats his reindeer, forcing them to fly and has an odd propensity for climbing down chimneys, an act otherwise seen by the law as breaking and entering I believe. I don't feel Santa has too much to laugh about, but there he goes, and he won't fucking stop. Maybe it's a nervous thing?

Pitch is soon in among the kids anyway, sowing mischief - I assume he's invisible, as otherwise that woman he's pushing up against would be saying something like "Hey! Keep those fucking horns to yourself, pal!" Though probably in Spanish. Anyway, thanks to Pitch a riot soon doesn't break out, though some kids throw stones at the window at his urging. Oh no! Kids throwing rocks! That would never normally happen! Santa sees what's going on and focuses on the little girl who wants the doll. He watches her (in Mexico, natch) as she first steals the doll and then puts it back, annoying the demon. Santa however is delighted.

Yeah. The girl - what's her name, Lupita? - well, her mother either has a baby under her shawl or massive and misshapen tits! Fucking weird! Also weird are the machines Santa has in his workshop: more like the deck of the TARDIS! Some crazy thing with big lips, something that resembles a dildo and moves out with an eye on it. And is that a rat moving slowly across the floor? And he has a machine for seeing into people's dreams. That might be awkward. "His dream will appear on the dreamscope. Oh, wait, now what's that? Oh dear! OH DEAR! Children! Avert your eyes! Quickly!" Never underestimate the dreams of a ten-year-old!

Lupita gets attacked by creepy dolls in her dream - Jesus! Reminds me of Barbarella! Actually they're just women, don't even look like dolls, but then, the budget for this was probably 50 pesos and all the fajitas the crew could eat, so what do you expect? Lot of smoke here, probably meant to convey dreamspace, but it looks like the place is on fire. Oddly enough, the dialogue for the Japanese kid is not translated, so he keeps speaking Japanese; probably couldn't figure it out. Confusing though, as he has a fair few lines. Reminds me of Toshi in American Dad. Not a clue what he's saying. Santa just ignores him, obviously as much at a loss to understand him as we are.

Overall though I have to say, it's pretty slow and boring so far. If I wasn't reviewing this I'd be saying oh hell no and be moving on. Let's hope it picks up a little before too long.

Disturbing, too, that when Santa gets a letter asking for a brother, he seems to think he can arrange it. Are we to assume Santa has taken the details and is going to pay the kid's mother a visit? Is Santa a rapist now too? He goes out onto the factory floor to gen up the troops, forcing them to redouble their efforts to make toys - does the Bureau of Child Safety know about this? Does such an organisation exist? And what the blue living fuck is Merlin doing here? Merlin, court wizard to King Arthur at Camelot, working at the North Pole. In space. For Santa Claus. Right. So Merlin (referred to by Santa as Mister Merlin) is mixing some sort of sleeping draught in an urn which he clearly says is made of uranium and plutonium, therefore highly radioactive and quite deadly. Does he use gloves, a mask, a hazmat suit? Does he take any precautions at all? Does Health and Safety know about this?

As Santa prepares to leave his sleigh is made ready - the reindeer are clearly models that show no animation whatever - and he is given a special key that will open any door, so forget about that hi-tech security system you have: if this guy wants to get in, he's getting in. More annoying singing from the kids - one of, I would have to say, the worst parts in a pretty poor movie so far - oh I see. The sleigh is a mechanical one, and so are the reindeer. Santa winds them up and off they go. Not bad, I have to admit. Rich kid goes to sleep with a toy rifle in his hands - obviously preparing for that scary night when a homeless black guy breaks in - and the three kids who were throwing rocks earlier have, at Pitch's urging, decided to kidnap Santa and rob all the presents. Shades, perhaps, of Nightmare Before Christmas, long before, you know, Nightmare Before Christmas.

One thing I will give this movie is its not overly sentimental attitude to religion, which is to say, whereas most Christmas movies tend to either overdue the religious motif or ignore it altogether, this one weaves it rather tastefully into the story, with Lupita's mother talking about the nativity and Santa hoping Jesus can join him on Earth. It's subtle, but kind of respectful; without ramming it down your throat, they gently remind you what Christmas is all about.

The kids who were going to rob Santa seem to be easily frightened out of their plan and instead fall to fighting with one another, while Pitch tries to steal Santa's sleigh, but the reindeer will only obey Santa so no luck there. He does however succeed in ripping the bag Santa carries with the powder to send kids to sleep and he drops the flower that allows Santa to disappear - look, it was all in the sequence with Merlin; I didn't talk about it because, frankly, this movie is giving me a headache. If you really want to know, subject yourself to the same slow torture and watch it. Just take it from me, it's bad.

Setting a guard dog on Santa, Pitch forces him to climb a tree to safety and then wakes up the householder, who happen to be Rich Kid's parents. He whispers that there's an intruder in the garden, but has not counted on the fact that it would appear Rich Kid's dad is a coward, handing the gun to his wife and recommending she go out and confront the intruder! Pitch then has others make phone calls to the police and fire department, giving them nightmares and holding the phone so they can speak. Santa has a real problem now. If he can't get back to, um, his palace in space before sunrise his reindeer will turn to powder and he'll be trapped on the Earth. What? Because shut up, that's why.

So he calls for Merlin - apparently just yelling out will make you heard out in the vastness of space, and contrary to the blurb for Alien, in space someone can hear you scream - who tells him to use one of the toy wind-up cats he has in his sack to distract the dog. This allows him to get out of the tree, drop off the doll for Lupita and still get back before sunrise. Meanwhile, Pitch has the fire hose turned on him.

What, are you still here? No, that's it. Finito. Over. Terminado. Arrriba! Vamoose!

QUOTES

Santa: "Look at all those letters! Wonderful! They don't forget old Papa Noel! Saint Nicholas! Santa Claus!"
(Um, yeah. We know who you are, and even if we didn't, a) the damn film is called Santa Claus b) you're in a big red suit with a long white beard and c) you won't shut the fuck up laughing. Only two people laugh that much: you and lunatics. Why do you feel the need to confirm your identity to us, as if somehow we don't get it?)

Santa (kneeling down beside rich kid who is asleep): "I know all those toys don't make you happy. But I'll do something for you that I only do for very good children."
(Uh, yeah...)

Yeah, not much in the way of quotes I'm afraid.

Notes

For most of this movie I just felt bored, frustrated and not a little depressed. Much of that, to be fair, is down to the "listen with mother" style of the narrator, who seems to think he's describing the movie to a bunch of children. I guess he might be; but as an alleged adult I can see what's going on, so I don't need his annoyingly American voice telling me "Oh no this is happening!" or "Oh no! What will Santa do now?" It's just aggravating.

The story itself is very very poor. The idea of kids taking Santa hostage never comes to anything, is basically forgotten until someone must have said you know that idea to kidnap Santa? What happened there? And then they had to crowbar in a frankly unsatisfactory scene where the kids, who had laid their trap, are frightened off by light and noise, like a bunch of raccoons scared away from the dustbins. Other than that, the central premise of the film, to have kids turn bad, just doesn't happen. Lupita is steadfastly good, Pitch unable to sway her, and only three little brats succumb to the demon. Hardly a revolution now is it? The rest of the movie basically follows Santa as he delivers his presents and Pitch as he tries, with increasing ineptness, to thwart him.

The acting is minimal: Santa (José Elías Moreno, a well-known Mexican character actor) completely hams it up, and while Pitch, played by José Luis Aguirre, you would expect to overact, does, it's almost more as the capering jester than the supposedly evil demon he tries to be. It's almost a cartoon, though nowhere near as funny. It is, to be blunt, a real struggle to get through, and I was constantly watching the running time, counting down to the end, willing it closer. It's a confused jumble of ideas, some good, some terrible, and nothing really ever meshes with anything else.

I suppose that's a little unfair. The Rich Kid's parents, having drank from Santa's cock... tail of love, go back from their night out (on Christmas fucking Eve??) to their son and they all embrace, and Lupita is rewarded for not stealing, and gets her doll. But if you were to try to write out the basic plot in one sentence, it would not be easy, as there kind of isn't one. The kids all stumble around, desperately trying to, I guess, remember lines, and that's fair enough: these are young kids. I mean, Lupita can't be more than six or seven, Pedro, who helps in the workshop, little older, and even the Rich Kid might be ten years old but that would be it. I feel if this had been shot in America those kids would not have been allowed take part due to their ages.

One thing I will say: there's a heavy dose of morality in it - mostly the idea of "be good because Santa wants you to be good" rather than "be good to avoid punishment" - and most of it grates because it's laid on so very thick and without so much as the tip of the tongue in the cheek, but the scenes with Lupita's mother, struggling because she is poor and her husband can't find work (well, this is Mexico after all) are actually very touching and seem almost to belong in another film. Even the music here - generally badly-rendered versions of Christmas carols everywhere else - is different, a kind of fifties Hollywood drama score, wringing every last drop of emotion and sympathy out of the viewer. You can't say much about Lupita's performance (yes that's her real name too: Lupita Quezadas) as she's just a little kid and looks like she's mouthing words without any real idea of what she's saying, but as a figure she works well, as a moral compass for the movie, and as a symbol for sympathy.

But overall this is a movie you can definitely avoid seeing and never worry you were missing out. It's not even in the category of being so good it transcends scorn and becomes something to celebrate. It's just bad. Really, really bad.

But if there's one thing I can pick out that's worst about it, it's not the irritatingly preachy Santa, not the stupid, almost gay Pitch, nor the various annoying children. It's the only real change made north of the border, and it's the incredibly badly acted narration of Ken Smith. Shame on you, sir! You succeeded in achieving almost the impossible, and made this already terrible film even worse.

Was there anything good about this movie?

Well, surprisingly, yes there was. Shining like a diamond set in shit, the gentle humility and grace of Lupita's mother, who's not even mentioned in the credits even as a character, takes the film, for the times she's on screen, to a whole new level.Not that it was on any level to begin with. I think someone must not have explained to her her role, or that she thought she was acting in a different film altogether, but she plays her part with heart-wrenching pathos and is, as it were, the adult in the room. If more of the movie had revolved around her, this might actually have been good.

But that's it. Everything else about it is Grade A shite.

[Trollheart]

Humbug! Humbug, I say!


Okay, time to check out three more versions of this classic tale and see how they measure up. First we have this one, and no, it's not quite chronological, but to be honest I had originally intended not to feature this one, then thought better of it. So this comes just before the 1951 version. And no, my 1938 DVD has not yet arrived...

Year: 1949
Medium: Black-and-white
Starring: Taylor Holmes, and narrated by Vincent Price
Directed by:
Length: 26 mins

Brief comments: Although it's wonderful to see Price reading the story and bringing his usual flair and warmth to the movie, the acting is at best adequate and the way I see this is almost like the original 1910 version but with sound and slightly - slightly - better effects. It seems very rushed, as the ghosts sequences are truncated and the whole idea seems to be to get the thing done as quickly as possible, which does not translate well to the screen.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Not the greatest, but then Holmes is rather rushed through his role. I'll be generous and say a 4.
Marley: Awful. Nothing more than a man standing in front of Scrooge, not even an attempt at making him seem transparent. When he leaves, he simply walks out the door. The version ten years previous did him far better. 2
Cratchit: Again, just adequate. Nothing stands out about him. 4
Tiny Tim: Same really. Back to annoying again, and the constant androgynising of Tiny Tim through these movies - at least the early ones - he always seems like he could be a girl (Tiny Tina?) - is annoying. 3
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: Awful to a man. Or, you know, a spirit. I won't even bother separating them, and will give them a low score of 10 to share among them.

Faithful to the novel: Yes, but very rushed and abridged, so only gets a 4 again.
Emotion level: Zero
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: Zero
Soundtrack: Meh, pretty standard. 5.

So that makes a total of 32. Lowest yet, even lower than the silent version, which comes across as far superior. I do however have to take into account the titanic figure of Price, without whom this would never have flown, and so he adds an extra 10 to the poor, poor score, leaving it at a pretty low but somewhat more respectable 42.

Year: 1954
Medium: Black-and-white (Originally colour apparently, but only a b/w version has survived)
Starring: Frederic Marsh, Basil Rathbone
Directed by:
Length: 60 mins

Brief comments: For a so-called musical, the movie seems to consist of a drama with its own score, with intermittent interruptions from a vocal choir. Weird. Made-for-TV special, not particularly impressed with it I must say. Messes with the ending: no massive turkey for Cratchit, Scrooge has dinner with them instead of his nephew, and generally it ends on a song, pretty annoying.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Terrible. Flat, uninteresting/ed, not in the least scared when Marley appears. Very very poor. Does improve a little as the movie goes on. Still, I'd give him the lowest rating yet: 2
Marley: You'd think with an accomplished actor like Rathbone playing him he'd give a good performance. You'd be wrong. He's stiff, flat, boring. He walks like a zombie or a robot. Poor. Another 2.
Cratchit: Least annoying yet. Kind of reminds me of a cross between Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope and Kelsey Grammer. Doesn't make me want to puke. 8
Tiny Tim: Meh, he was doing reasonably ok until he started singing in an annoying soprano. Losing points for that! 5
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Good twist, this time it's a pretty girl, whom I think is meant to resemble Scrooge's lost love. 5
                     The Ghost of Christmas Present: More like a bellboy than a ghost, and he sings! Like, constantly! He won't shut up! If I have to hear this fucker sing "A Merry Merry Christmas!" one more time I'll bloody bury him with a sprig of holly through his heart! Plus he looks like Fred, Scrooge's nephew. Yeah, same actor. Scrooge even remarks upon it, though the ghost pretends he doesn't know what he's talking about. Still, have to give him points for being the first original Ghost of Christmas Present, even if his singing does get on my wick! Okay, okay! A 7, 8 if you'll shut up singing. No? 7 it is then.
                      The Ghost of Christmas To Come: Not shown. Scrooge wanders alone into the graveyard and in something of a "two-for-one" sees his own grave and then Tiny Tim's. A bit cheap, though the use of the crow on the headstone is good. Is that meant to be the ghost? Cheap get-out but again marks for originality. All I can award here really though is a 4, as there is no actual ghost shown. Although it may be the crow. But it may not be.

Faithful to the novel: Not really. In its way yes, but very rushed and truncated. 5. I'm revising that, due to the liberties taken with what is always the ending, so down to 3.
Emotion level: Not terribly. Maybe a 3
Puke level: Again, no. Zero.
Horror level: Little, but the crow adds something and Scrooge being alone in the graveyard gets this a grudging 2.
Soundtrack: It's a musical, so it has songs, but they're mostly in soprano which is annoying and none of them speak to me. Still, have to award it points for originality. Say 6.

Total then is 47. However because of the serious screwup on the ending I'm deducting 10 points. A Christmas Carol is a story that, no matter what you do, the ending is set in stone and should never be changed as they did here. So because of that, this effort can only muster a paltry 37. Boo!

Year: 1962
Medium: Colour (Animated)
Starring: Mister Magoo!
Directed by:
Length: 62 mins

Brief comments: I thought about not including this, but if I did that then I would have to question looking at other animated versions, and there are some really good ones, so in the end I decided to go with it. I initially thought I was not going to like it, as t here's an annoying little supposed-to-be-funny prologue where Magoo has to get onstage (the whole movie is acted out on stage) and accidentally goes to a restaurant. But once it settles down it's actually very well handled and the songs are really quite good. Its hard to take Mister Magoo as Scrooge seriously, but it's not the disaster I had worried it would be.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Decent, but it's a little hard to take anyone seriously (even a cartoon character) who has his eyes screwed up all the time. Plus, who doesn't love Magoo? Have to rate him at a mid-range 5 really.
Marley: Again, ok, but a little overacting. Decent ghost, and they remembered the chains. 5 also.
Cratchit: Least annoying Cratchit yet, even less so than the previous but still a little too willing to accept their situation with good grace, damn him. Have to say a quite decent 8
Tiny Tim: The first one not to annoy me. He's cute and bearable. A high 9 for him
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: Ghost of Christmas Past: Very good, quite cute and even sexy (!) in a way (yes, there's something wrong with me, I know!). Smiles a lot but has a sort of sadness in his/her smile (not sure if it's meant to be male or female). Of all the Ghosts of Christmas Past so far, definitely the best, considering it's a cartoon. I love the way the burning candleflame above his/her head dims when their time is running out. A serious 8 here.
                     Ghost of Christmas Present: Pretty much the same as all others, but with a severe aspect I haven't seen in the others. Give him a 6
                      Ghost of Christmas to Come: Although again a hooded figure, there's something creepier about him than the others, so he gets a 6 too.
Ghosts Total: 20

Faithful to the novel: Very much so. Even Fezziwig is included, although Scrooge's love is called Belle, not Alice? Even so, a very high 8
Emotion level: Zero.
Puke level: Zero.
Horror level: Zero.
Soundtrack: Very decent, some nice songs, first one to have songs written for it rather than just use hymns and carols. Got to give this an 8

So the total then is 60. But then it has to get extra points, both for being the first animated version and for being the first version in colour, so let's say 5 each for those, bringing us to a Grand Total of 70, highest score yet, surprisingly in some ways!

Which means that despite his short-sightedness, ol' Magoo races to the top and easily into the next round.

Oh Magoo! You've done it again!


Winner of Round 2: Mister Magoo from sixty-two!

[Trollheart]

Frasier: "Perspectives on Christmas"

Like the title says, this episode allows us to view one event, or one series of events, from four different perspectives, each of which makes an seemingly innocent act look suspicious, or vice versa; the true meaning of not having all the facts before you come to your decision. We open in a massage parlour, where Martin is relaxing and relates to the masseur how things went, from his view:

Martin's Perspective: As they decorate Frasier's apartment for Christmas, Daphne opines that it's odd that, when she was walking Eddie just now, he turned as if to go into the local church. Frasier remarks that the dog did the same with him yesterday, when he was walking him, but Martin brushes it off. He also exits quickly, which sparks the suspicions and then fears of  his family. Martin, however, explains to Frasier in the kitchen that the reason Eddie has been going into the church is that both he and the dog have been asked to play a part in the Christmas pageant. He is embarrassed though, as one of the songs he has to sing, "O Holy Night" has a note in it he can't hit, so Frasier and Niles agree to help him practice.

Daphne's Perspective: All innocent and explainable, right? But then look at it from the viewpoint of one who has only caught some of the conversation and come to her own conclusions as to what is going on. Daphne sees only Frasier comforting his father, who appears to be coughing badly (this is after he has mistakenly laced Martin's eggnog with paprika rather than nutmeg) and as Frasier leaves he assures his father that Niles and he will be there for him (this is for the practice, but she doesn't know that.) She then asks him if he contacted his doctor for the results of his physical and he says he did, is noncommittal about it. When she then hears him on the phone talking to the priest she again gets her wires crossed and thinks he's talking about dying, when he's worrying about playing his part in the drama. Add in Eddie's diversions to the church and she soon puts two and two together and gets nine: Martin is sick, perhaps dying. Martin thinks it's hilarious when he finds out what she was thinking.

Just as they figure it out and are having a right ding-dong, Niles staggers into the apartment, looking wet and much the worse for wear, and collapses, unnoticed, behind the sofa.

Niles's Perspective: He relates how he got into the lift and had to share it with three people - and a huge Christmas tree. Worried about his Italian suit, he stayed as far as he could from the tree, but then the lift jams. Trapped together, the four of them have to figure a way out. With the maintenance crew at least an hour away, Niles has to climb up the Christmas tree to the lift shaft in order to trigger the remote door release. Unfortunately, once he does everyone legs it and nobody waits for him, whereupon the doors shut again and the lift begins to ascend! Dirty with grease, stuck with pine needles, his expensive suit destroyed, Niles crawls out of the lift and into Frasier's apartment, where he collapses. Unnoticed.

Roz's Perspective: Roz meets Frasier and gets a call from her mother, who is coming to visit. Unbeknownst to him, he tells her about her daughter's pregnancy, news which Roz was waiting till the right moment to break! As the Crane house descends into bickering and arguing and sniping, Frasier decides the best thing to do is get some masseurs and masseuses over to help them all unwind, and so we come to the end, and also the beginning, of our story.

QUOTES

Martin: "That dog does weird things. Yesterday, when we were taking our bath together, he spent fifteen straight minutes pushing the soap around with his nose like an otter! Weird!"

Martin (on phone about his role in the play): "Well I'm terrified about this, Father. It all came around so suddenly. I'm not prepared. Now, tell me what I'm supposed to say when I see Jesus for the first time?"

Daphne: "You were going to let all this happen without letting a soul know?"
Martin: "Well yes. I didn't want everyone staring at me in that church, stiff as a board, all that makeup on my face..."

Niles: "How am I supposed to get up there?" (The lift shaft)
Woman: "You can climb this tree."
Niles: "Oh surely not!"
Woman: "Oh come on now. I'm sure you climbed plenty of trees when you were a boy."
Other woman: "That's Doctor Crane's brother."
All: "Ohhh..."

Woman: "Why is that man crawling?"
Man: "That's Doctor Crane's brother."
Woman: "Oh."

Frasier: "My gift does not come from some fancy store, or wrapped in glittery paper. My gift comes from my heart. Tonight I intend to sit each once of you down and tell you in my own words exactly how much you mean to me. (Following protests and claims that this is the cheapest present ever he quickly backtracks)  Or, or, I could get us someone up here to give us all massages!"

[Trollheart]

Sorry, I will not be featuring Jingle All the Way here. I happen to think it's a great movie, even if everyone else thinks it sucks. What I will concede, though, is that it was not ever the kind of movie that demanded, needed or merited a sequel.

That, of course, did not stop this being made, and so it ends up as one of the next batch of


 
Jingle All the Way 2 (2014)

Most people will agree that Jingle All the Way is a terrible movie, and an awful Christmas movie. I don't. In fact, I very much to my surprise enjoyed it. I'm not saying it's the best Christmas movie I've ever seen - very far from it - but I was pleasantly impressed at Arnie's comedic turn as a father desperate to track down the only remaining Turboman doll for his kid. But even I, with my minority view of the original, can't stand over a sequel that, from what I can see, doesn't even have the decency to try to write a new story, but simply transplants Larry the Cable Guy into Arnie's shoes, changes the name of the toy and runs the same basic film. Not even a subtitle? The original title doesn't lend itself well to a sequel, but at least they could have tried, I don't know, Jingle All the Way Again, Jingle A Somewhat Further Portion of the Way If Not All, or hell, I don't know, Re-Jingle All the Way? But no: stick a 2 in front and we're good.

Well no, we're not. I'm not familiar with LTCG but I couldn't personally see anyone other than the Governator playing this role, and no matter how good (or bad) Larry is in this, he's always going to be compared (by those who care) to Arnie's original, and I believe will always come up short. I mean, let's be honest: was this a movie anyone needed?

Rotten Tomatoes ratings

Tomatometer: n/a
Audience Score: 30%

IMDB rating

3.8/10

Metacritic rating

n/a

Critics said: well, nothing, and probably just as well. Audiences were scathing.

This is still a bad movie, no question about it. But this one will disappear from the public eye, if it even came close to being on it, by the end of this year. There are far more superior holiday movies than this, so you can clearly do better.

The acting is all pretty terrible, and Larry's comedy stylings are extremely lame. Also, there's really no sense of fun to any of the crazy antics or charades that the two fathers go through. Incredibly bland, Jingle All the Way 2 has nothing really going for it.

And perhaps most damningly and honestly of all

It should've been better. I mean... yes. A lot better.

No. It should have been drowned at birth.

[Trollheart]

 
Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (2014)

We all know Grumpy Cat, don't we? If not from memes and parodies then from YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. This cat has millions of likes and followers! I mean, I like cats but come on. Anyway, some bright spark apparently had the idea to extend Grumpy Cat's fame into the world of movies, leap from YouTube to the real tube, as it were, with a made-for-TV Christmas movie. Oh, you can just hear the groans, can't you?

Everyone loves a cat, eh? Except nobody did.

Rotten Tomatoes ratings

Tomatometer: 27%
Audience Score: 39%

IMDB rating

5.0/10

Hank Stuever in the Washington Post quipped Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever could use a whole lot more of Plaza's ad-libbed derision for the entire project and the suckers who find themselves watching it. The claws do come out, but the scratches just aren't deep enough

Gil Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch believed There's a plot, which any of us could have written in our sleep.

Brian Moylan was not amused in The Guardian: If the people behind Sharknado could make a movie about Santa, it would look something like this.
 
While Libby Hill of AV Club offered this: The best way to describe the film as a whole would be if Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure, Home Alone, Garfield, icanhascheezburger, product placement, commercial breaks, outdated cultural references, suburban community theater, and acid had a baby.

And Josh Bell in the Las Vegas Weekly called it A cross between a crass piece of holiday marketing and the kind of thing that might air on Adult Swim in the middle of the night.

Audiences were not any kinder:

Half-assed and a quarter. Aubrey Plaza really phoned this one in with her higher whiney vocal range instead of her lower "give no ****s" vocal range. She could have even Janet Snakeholed it up a bit in the dramatic fantasy segments, but nope. Megan Charpentier is pretty natural for a kid actress, and Russell Peters as the inciting incident Santa is the highlight of this weird, embarrassing effort. The metatheatrical jokes are awkward and annoying

Commercial diarrhea. Avoid.

And I would leave it at that, except going back to AV Club, they had the best comment on it, and I can't close this out without quoting it. Here it is.

the largest turd in [Lifetime's] crap crown of original programming...so unforgiving, so psychologically trying, that the process alone leaves the viewer straining to hear the dialogue over the sound of the soul being crushed wholesale, bone and sinew wrenched apart at the joint

Libby Hill again. You go, girl!