Ed's Review Dot Com

Craig Anderson Productions, Edgewood Studios

Candace Cameron Bure, Tom Arnold, Christpher Wiehl, Barbara Niven

What is it with Christmas Stories.  Tom Arnold is starring (or co-starring) in this film and that ought to chase me away screaming, but like Billy Ray Cyrus (see Christmas in Canaan), he’s actually not very annoying, and does a great job.   The story is about one of those 365 a year Christmas villages (a la the many Santa’s Villages throughout the country) called Santaville.  Tom Cruz is Nick (no not St. Nicholas, just a guy named Nick) who owns the little tourist attraction.    His wife is gone, and his daughter Holly (Candace Cameron Bure) has moved away.  She works for a large corporation and takes a short vacation to visit Dad.  She has no attention of staying through Christmas, but her boss insists she’s been working way to hard and is required to take some time off.  (If my boss is reading this, then maybe you ought to watch this!).  But as the days go by, Holly remembers the past and how fun it was to grow up where it’s Christmas every day.   She meets two guys and begins to see how bad things are for her Dad.  They’re about to lose Santaville.

Well Holly thinks maybe it’s time to let it go, but as time goes by, she has some hard decisions to make before determining if Santaville is really worth saving.

This is a cute film, and the characters are well developed.  It’s a similar story, as all Christmas films are, but unique in a way.  Nick is NOT Santa and he does not live at the North Pole.  The location is interesting, and the operation of the place is interesting.  Trying to make something out of an old outdated roadside attraction is tough.  Especially, as the banker says, traffic flies by on the way to the resorts and don’t even stop to buy gas.

You’ll cheer for the heroes and boo the villains.  It’s not very deep or thought provoking as some Christmas stories are, but this film is just plain fun.   Enjoy it again his year!

Alpine Medien Productions, Larry Levinson Productions, Mavocine

Jeremy London, Dorie Barton, James Gammon, Steve Monroe, Chase Hoyt, Jonny Acker, John Littlefield, Sally Struthers, James Lashley

What a lucky couple!  She’s a doctor and he’s a lawyer.  They’re a perfect couple.  Except she’s a bit old fashioned and a small town girl.  When he presents here with a ring just before Christmas, she insists they take the long drive home to Pine Gap to officially ask her father for his blessings.    Well, that’s not likely to go well.   They’re ranchers and he’s a tenderfoot.  And Sadie’s got brothers who don’t like sister’s new guy.  But that’s nothing like the hatred Dad instantly has for this for this guy.   Plus it’s worrisome that she forgot to mention her high school sweetheart who’s still carrying the torch for Sadie.   James is going to have his hands full trying to convince the family he’s a good guy, and it truly seems he’s not going to make it.   Even the dog hates him!  I mean, even Sally Struthers is trying to destroy him.  Trouble is that everyone loves the old boyfriend.

This is a very funny but heartwarming film.   It’s a really good story and is very rich and full.  No boring parts, and the pacing is excellent.  This one is well worth watching.  Very well done Christmas flick about acceptance and understanding.  Maybe they can even learn to get along.

Chester/Perlmutter Productions

Stephanie Belding,  Wayne Curnew, Azer Greco, Lauren Holly, Dennis O’Connor, Rick Roberts, Torri Webster

One of the new Christmas on TV movies for 2010, this film is really good.  It’s the story of a well off family on their way to a resort waiting with lots of presents and plans in Colorado who get stranded in some very bad weather out in the mountains.  They’re in the middle of Nowhere.  Now I capitalize this because it is literally the town of Nowhere.   Nowhere was a mining town, but the mines have closed, and most everyone has moved away.  Those that are left are in dire straits.  Well the family’s car has broken down and it’s going to take a couple days to bus in the parts to fix it.  Meanwhile the Mayor’s wife is hell bent on holding an annual Christmas Pageant on Christmas Eve and her husband is convinced they can’t afford it.  First, hating the town for it’s laid back, nothing to do, no TV no cell phone service, the family begins to make some friend and to empathize with the situation the people of Nowhere are in.  Will the pageant go on?  Will it matter?

This is a rather new story, somewhat different that what we’ve seen before and it’s a lot of fun but has a lot of good principles and feel good moments as well.  This is a refreshing change from the old films we’ve seen over and over and it’s nice to have a brand new Christmas story for 2010.  I liked it.

New Line Cinema, Platinum Dunes

Jackie Earle Haley, Rooney Mara, Kyle Gallner, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, Kellan Lutz, Clancy Bron, Connie Britton, Lia D. Mortensen

It’s odd that this “remake” of Nightmare came out the same week as the “remake” of Karate (Kung Fu) Kid.   Both have the same problem of a remake that probably didn’t need to be made.  Of the two, this one fares a little better because in the horror genre it’s a generally creepy, scary film.  But even though Wes Craven approved and blessed the remake, the new Freddy looks a whole lot different than the Robert Englund films, and you can’t help but notice that “That’s NOT Freddy”.   They also changed the back story a bit which makes it confusing.  It’s what they call a “re-imagining” to take away the stigma of “remake” from the project, but though there were changes to the backstory, basically it’s the same Freddy haunting poeple’s dreams and killing them in the dream makes them die in the real world.  Nothing new or surprising there.

They changed the name of the heroine (Nancy Thompson who is now called Nancy Holbrook.   The other characters are new, but follow the same type of mix of friends and classmates.  I can’t fully recommend this film unless you’re a really big horror fan, or want to see a new way of seeing the original story.  It falls into several traps.  New CGI imagery looks like CGI, and somehow doesn’t add a lot to the presentation, and the saddest thing is that you know every twist and turn in the story already, so nothing is a surprise at all.  Some re-imagines really work.  One great one which comes to mind is “The Shining” where although extremely creepy and a great work on it’s own, the original “Jack Nicholson” feature film was not very true to the book, so it was redone as a mini-series for TV that almost came off as a whole new story.   In this case, they tried to change everything, but in reality, it’s the same story as before, so not much was improved.   And as a result, the new Freddy being so different from the old Freddy makes it uncomfortable.

So if this were a new storyline, or a different retelling of the story, it would have been an excellent job, but to redo the same movie without adding much is mostly ho-hum I’m afraid.  So I can’t strongly recommend it, but as I said, if you’ve got a reason to want to see, then go right ahead, but if you’re looking for something new, just pass on this redo of the same thing.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Larry Levinson Productions

Katerina Graham, Julie Warner, Steven Eckholdt, Dixie Carter, John Ratzenberger

A newlywed couple are trying to put their new family together after each has lost their spouse.  The kids don’t want to hear of it.  Trying to make a happy Christmas mean trying to build new traditions which is hard because the kids will not bend.  Each wants to have it in their own way.   In dealing with the kids, the couple find out that they don’t agree on child raising either.  Then a mother-in-law who comes to stay tries to insert her own will.  And Grandpa has his own issues.  His Grandkids perform in a Christmas pageant with him every Christmas, and the kids on his side of the family want to do that.   Looks like they’re not going to make it.

This is a typical Christmas story of trying the best way to resolve family problems for the holidays.  This is an old problem, but dealt with in a new modern way.  The kids do a great job showing the feeling and emotions of trying to fit in, and the parents do an excellent job, although Mom does seem a bit whiny for my taste.   But having John Ratzenberger and Dixie Carter as the grandparents is a treat.  They are both awesome actors.  This is not may favorite Christmas film by far, but it’s not bad.  It’s got enough troubles and actions to keep it going.