Ed's Review Dot Com

Bulb Wars Productions, Pitchblack Pictures Inc, The Hallmark Channel

Daniel Stern, Morgan Brayton, Lesley Ewen, Matt Frewer, Ryan Grantham, C. Ernst Harth, Ellie Harvie, Tim Henry, Allison Hossack, Alf Humphreys, William Hutchinson, Luis Javier, Maxine Miller

Stu Jones (Matt Frewer) and Bob Wallace (Daniel Stern) were childhood friends who fell out of friendship over a competition way back in high school.  When suddenly 25 years later they end up living across the street from each other,  the competition all comes back.   This year the town has a christmas decorating contest with a $5000 prize.   Naturally the two will go all out to win, no matter what it takes or who they destroy,  even if they destroy each other.

Reminiscent of Deck the Halls with Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick, this story is really just about two guys going WAY overboard in decorating their house.  There is not a lot of meat in this film, but it’s a new film for 2010, and is very humorous.  As each tries to outdo the other, and at the same time to torpedo the other, it’s really pretty funny.   If you’re not looking for a lot of drama, this is a funny way to kill a few hours.  Hallmark is repeating it over and over this year since it’s a premier in 2010, so it should be easy to catch, and it’s a nice diversion from all the heart wrenching sad stories.  Eventually things will end up happy as they always do, but it’s fun to watch these guys hate each other, at least for a while.  The ending is a switch from the earlier Deck the Halls movie and is actually pretty sweet.

Warner Brothers Pictures

Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, Reginal Dardiner, S.A. Sakall, Robert Shayne, Una O’Connor, Frank Jenks, Joyce Compton, Dick Elliott

Elizabeth Lane writes a food column for the paper.  In her fictitious life she’s a hard working farm woman, taking care of children, and an excellent wife and cook.  She describes in great detail the life that she really knows nothing about.  In reality her good friend Felix is the one who has all the wonderful recipes.   She’s a complete fraud and lives in an apartment and can’t cook a lick.  But the owner of the newspaper thinks it would be a great idea to invite a sailor who is a war hero to visit Elizabeth on the farm for Christmas and spend a lovely holiday with her and her “husband” enjoying fine food and a lovely country holiday.  Miss Lane is in trouble as she has to keep the truth about her life a secret or her whole career is over, but she has no clue what to do as she’s helpless.   As lies build upon lies, she gets worse and worse in trouble, but to make matters worse, the single Miss Lane falls for the sailor who thinks she’s an “odd” kind of married woman.

This movie was remade in 1992 with Dyan Cannon and Kris Kristofferson, and rumor is that there is going to be another remake next year.  (1945 – 1992 moved it from the newspaper to a tv show.  I wonder what the 2012 version will offer as the job of Ms. Lane.)  This is the original 1945 version.   I really have to say that the original is far superior in some ways.  The charm of the original black and white film makes it a real Christmas classic. The twists and turns Elisabeth has to take to keep the charade going is really funny.   There are many famous actors in this film, and it’s got some very charming performances.

Lifetime, WUMM Productions

Wendie Malick, Cynthia Stevenson, Vikki Krinsky, Tommy Lioutas, David Eisner, Patrick McKenna, Reagan Pasternak, Martin Doyle

Suzie Fine (Wendie Malick) and Henry Kringle (Tommy Lioutas) are a couple planning to get married.  They want their parents to meet, so Suzie and Henry are going home to visit Henry’s family for the holidays, and Suzie invites her parents to stop by and meet Henry’s family.  The problem is that the Fine’s are Jewish, and the Kringle’s are Christian.   So from the start everything Henry’s mom tries to do to include the Fine’s is wrong and one disaster after another occurs.  Finally doubt and jealousy creep in and they figure they are too different to make a life together.  It seems they don’t want the same things anymore,  and splitting up is the best choice.

This storyline is so very similar to Meet the Parents, it isn’t funny!  Right down to the ex who causes the other to be jealous that it might not be quite over yet, to the leaving for the airplane to fly back home.  But it’s a holiday film, and the situations are very funny.  (Imagine when the Jewish lady kills Rudolph!).   This is a refreshing story, and a movie that hasn’t been on so many times.  Therefore I truly enjoyed it, and the story was a lot of fun.  There is a whole subplot about the neighborhood house decorating contest with a neighbor that is very Danny DeVito/Matthew Broderick out of Deck the Halls.  But it’s just a side story.   All in all, this was a very enjoyable couple hours, and an unusual opportunity to learn a lot about traditions and customs and how to build a life when the backgrounds are so different. Good one!

Insight Film Studios, Cinamour Entertainmnet, BDS Productions

Lea Thompson, Andrew Airlie, Rachel Hayward, Doug Abrahams, Christina Jastrzembska, Rick Ravanello, Richard Ian Cox, Fiona Martinelli, Jill Morrison, Cashel Satchwell

Sophie (Lea Thompson) is a working mother.  She’s a lawyer and stressed out.  It’s just too much trying to do it all.  So she makes (and gets) a Christmas wish that she had concentrated on her career and not married and had children.  Of course, very “It’s a Wonderful Life” style, she finds that getting your wish is not always what you expected.  So she goes into overdrive trying how to undo the wish.  But it’s not that easy.  She only has until Christmas Eve to return her “gift”.

This is a familiar story, and I like “The Family Man” or “Comfort and Joy” more than this one, but that being said, this is still a cute movie.  Lea Thompson is good, as usual, but her character is a bit high strung and she runs around like a chicken with her head cut off through most of the movie.  Still, it’s not that bad, and it’s nice to see a different take on the same old story.   It’s a simple diversion, and at least your life is probably better than hers anyway, so it makes things seem not so bad and might lift your spirits a bit.  Just be careful before you wish half of your life away!

Calash Corporation, GGG, Santa Claus Ltd.

Dudley Moore, John Lithgow, David Huddleston, Burgess Meredith, Judy Cornwell, Jeffrey Kramer, Christian Fitzpatrick, Carrie Kei Heim, John Barrard

Originally advertised as Santa Claus: The Movie, this film is in two parts.  The beginning, taking place way back in the past shows how Santa Claus became who is he.  How an ordinary man was given immortality and chosen for the task.  At that point, Ancient Elf (Burgess Meredith) explains how it all works.  In the second part, one of Santa’s elves, Patch (Dudley Moore) sets out on his own and falls in with B.Z. (John Lithgow) who is a toy manufacturer with a plan to turn the toy business into a monopoly, take over Christmas, and kick Santa out once and for all.  It’s up for Patch and Santa to thwart his plans and save Christmas.

I know there are many people who really love this movie, but I didn’t get it in 1985, and watching it again now, I still don’t get it.  There are some big names in the film, and the budget was about 50 Million which it didn’t come close to making back.  They even got Henry Mancini to do the soundtrack.  But the film has a spaghetti western feel to it (even though it was filmed at the Albert Broccoli 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios).  It jumps around and soundtrack is really ticky-tacky sounding.  This movie just never clicked with me, and I really hated it.  Perhaps I suspected too much from it at the time, but watching it again all these years later has just reinforced my original dislike for this film.   It is a big disappointment.