This is what I came in here to mention.
As noted upthread, Elf wasn’t great. But it DOES have Zooey Deschanel in it, and I’d pay money to watch her read the phone book.
I had never seen it, so I figured I’d watch and see if it lived down to its reputation.
I made it as far as the point where the nerd kid gets to the girl’s house and suggests they go out in the snow and build a fertility goddess, then I shut the TV off and went to rearrange my freezer.
Another awful one:
In Jack Frost Michael Keaton is a man who dies in a car accident and is reincarnated as a snowman. A nice, light story for the holidays.
I will knee Adam Sandler in the nuts for this if I should ever meet him.
Well, that’s not really a Christmas movie.
It’s a Wonderful Life.
Really. I can’t see how anyone can watch that.
I was actually living in Minneapolis when Jingle All The Way was being filmed. Saw Ahnold at the Mall of America and thought he was his own Mini-Me. The man is SHORT! It was also when I realized that stuff that looks real on film can still look really cheap and schlocky in person. All that perfect snow all around? It looked exactly like Christmas flocking all over the square in front of the St. Paul library.
I love Scrooged. But I’ve always hated It’s a Wonderful Life, too. Also, A Christmas Story.
Found a trailer for this on YouTube is anyone is interested.
An American Carol, right-wing Hollywood’s desperate cry for help.
He was turned down for the role of the Incredible Hulk due to his stature, or lack of it.
He is like 6’ tall, pull up a Mr. Olympia pose off with 6’4" Lou Ferrigno and he doesn’t look small in comparison.
Really? Wow…maybe it’s just because he LOOKS like he’s about 6’ 8" or something in his movies.
My vote would be for A Christmas Story - it is to good Christmas movies what McDonalds is to a goodl restaurant. Phoney, plastic faux nostalgia dreck.
Why it has tickled the fancy of so many is an absolute mystery to me.
I don’t get the love for Elf either, but I hate any movie where wide eyes = innocence. Wide eyes = surprise or shock, not innocence or naivete.
Missed it in the theater but got the unrated DVD after hearing raves for Bad Santa. Guess I just don’t like Billy Bob Thornton. I didn’t laugh once.
A lot of people watch White Christmas and believe they’ve seen the movie that introduced that pop-culture phenomenon to the world. Actually, the song premiered in Holiday Inn, which is as good a venue as such a hit could ask for. To cash in on the popularity of it, however, a movie called White Christmas was slapped together, with a hopelessly corny theme involving the military–what better subject for commemorating the birthday of the Prince of Peace…?
Most of them in the last 10 years are pretty bad. For some reason they have to include gross-out humor or just plain meanness. I like Elf better than I expected and don’t have the hate for it that some here do. I never understood the love for Bad Santa.
Indeed, just from what I’ve seen of it. I think I liked the “Mr. Cranky” review the best. “This movie is essentially a Communist propaganda film.” and “Watching “Christmas with the Kranks” is like watching a dead body being devoured by maggots. It’s not like the corpse can just get up two-thirds of the way through and decide that it wants to live.”
For my own part, I’d probably recommend several of the lesser known Rankin-Bass specials…except that they’re still entertaining. Mostly because they were awful. (Though The Leprechauns’ Christmas Gold was mostly just mediocre. And barely related to Christmas at all.)
I think I’m going to go with “One Magic Christmas”. Even Harry Dean Stanton in a role as a Christmas angel can’t save this steaming pile. (My wife has this movie on tape but luckily we don’t have a VCR to play it on anymore.)
Dude, hate speech like that is a bannable offense.