[rating: 3] As sequels go, The Santa Clause 2 is none too shabby. It's much better than I expected. By and large the film is very entertaining, though for much of its runtime it lacks the emotional warmth that The Santa Clause had in spades. It turns out that the peculiar contract that got Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) the Santa Claus gig in the first place has another non-negotiable stipulation. Just as Sonny is nothing without Cher, so too is Santa nothing without Mrs. Claus. If Santa doesn't take a wife by Christmas Eve, he'll stop being that jolly old elf altogether. The de-Santafication process has already begun—Santa's bowlful of jelly abdomen is wasting away, he's shed his beard, and his ability to work magic is rapidly dwindling—so time is of the absolute essence. Adding to the pressure of finding a matrimonial prospect in doublequick time is the fact that Santa's teenaged son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) has gotten himself on this year's Naughty List thanks to some acts of vandalism. On top of a frantic search for a wife, jolly old Saint Nicholas must also deal with the difficulties of punitive parenting. As in the first movie, the scenes where Santa is dealing with ...

[rating: 3.5] All of us, as human brothers and sisters living together on the planet Earth, enter into a social contract with one another. One of the primary stipulations of that contract is that none of us will ever enjoy anything with a live action Tim Allen in it. It's for our own good and, really, it's just common sense. As remarkable as it seems, The Santa Clause forces us to violate the terms of that contract. But it doesn't seem that way from the start, believe me. Though it manages to redeem itself, the movie has to work hard to overcome the shakiness of its opening half hour. Tim Allen is Scott Calvin, a divorced toy company executive whose son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd), seems much happier with the new man in his mother's life than with his own father. (This new man happens to be Judge Reinhold. That seems to be a lateral move at best.) Charlie is spending Christmas Eve with Scott, but he's not particularly thrilled about it. In all these early scenes, before it becomes a movie about Tim Allen being Santa Claus, this unfortunately is just a movie about Tim Allen being Tim Allen, with all the unendurability and ...

[rating: 2] This is the hardest kind of review to write. When a movie is great, you can't wait to discuss it with the world and recommend it to everyone you meet. When something is painfully, unendurably awful, it inspires you to make humorous, rage-fueled observations. But when, like Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale, a movie is just sort of whatever, there isn't much to say. Granted, by comparison with yesterday's version of The Nutcracker, this thing is practically Citizen Kane. But on its own merits, the only word you can use to describe it is: meh. The cartoon is a very loose telling of the Nutcracker story, with Jerry the mouse taking on the duties of the title character. A pretty little ballerina has been kidnapped by the evil cat king, who has also usurped the leadership of Toyland. (It's sort of weird to use a mouse as the hero in a story where it's traditionally the villains who belong to the order rodentia, but there it is.) Jerry must rescue the imprisoned ballerina and depose the pretender to the throne. The cat king sends out troops—led, of course, by none other than Tom—to put a stop to Jerry's do-goodery. For the ...

[rating: 0] Have you ever thought to yourself What I'd really like to see is a direct-to-video Strawberry Shortcake Christmas cartoon made almost twenty years after the last time anybody cared about Strawberry Shortcake. Of course you haven't. You'd be certifiable if you did. And, yet, Berry, Merry Christmas exists. I know the depths of depravity to which humanity can sink—mass murders, the Stanford prison experiment, acts of terrorism, Catholicism—but I usually think I have a handle on it, that I understand what evil lurks in the hearts of men and have enough useful perspective on the matter to go about my life. Then I see something like Berry, Merry Christmas and realize that all past evils were mere throat-clearing in preparation for this, the main event. When you watch a Strawberry Shortcake cartoon, prepare to stare into the abyss and see only unending blackness staring back at you, crushing your spirit and leaving your soul as withered as a dead fig tree. In case you don't know, Strawberry Shortcake is a little red-headed girl who lives inside a piece of fruit and doesn't have any parents or guardians. She breaks into shocking non-sequitur songs, related to nothing that comes before or after them. ...

[rating: 4] I confess I was sorely afraid that Bah, HumDuck! A Looney Tunes Christmas would be untrue to its source material. Not to Dickens' A Christmas Carol—it's been adapted enough times and can handle a few deviations from the script. No, I worried this would besmirch the name of Looney Tunes by being only a pale imitation of the classic Warner Bros. cartoons we all love so much. I'm pleased to report that those fears were wholly unfounded. This little movie was just great. The story does play a little fast and loose with the specifics of A Christmas Carol, but that's just fine; fast and loose is the very essence of Looney Tunes. Here Daffy Duck is the cruel but staggeringly wealthy owner of a department store. He forces his employees—including his forever put-upon assistant manager Porky Pig—to work extra long hours with no overtime, heaps abuse on everyone he sees and, of course, hates holidays. That kind of miser is just asking for a haunting and that's what he gets, first in the form of the ghost of Sylvester the cat, the "unscrupulous CEO" who was Daffy Duck's idol. That's right, Sylvester is dead. Squashed by a forklift, in fact. Sylvester warns ...

[rating: 1.5] There was no way How the Grinch Stole Christmas was going to be anything but disappointing. Dr. Seuss' classic book is beloved by generations of people. The 1966 animated television adaptation translated the story perfectly to the screen; in fact, it's probably supplanted the original book as the first thing that springs to most people's minds when you talk about the Grinch. For that matter, it's probably the first thing that springs to mind for many people at the mention of Christmas. So in a way this picture was fighting a battle it couldn't possibly win. It could, however, have been disappointing by comparison but still good enough. Alas, that's not the case. I should probably say right off that, while the movie isn't a good one, the fault doesn't lie with Jim Carrey in the title role. That may shock you, as I make no secret of my disdain for Carrey's style. This, however, is just the sort of role that's suited to his screen persona: a cartoon character made flesh. Carrey brings the right level of energy to the Grinch: cartoonish, but actually toned down a bit from the insanity of the roles that initially brought him fame. Where, then, ...

[rating: 1.5] You know those times when you hear about a movie or a show and think to yourself “Man, I can’t friggin’ wait to watch that?” And then time goes by, maybe even a few years, and you don’t ever see the thing, but at last you do and you’re just thrilled? But then you finally see it and basically it sucks? That’s the exact situation with me and this My Little Pony cartoon called A Very Minty Christmas. It tells the story of Christmastime in Ponyville. The trees are being decorated, gifts are being wrapped, goodies are being baked. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash and Thistle Whistle (seriously) are all fixin’ to have one rip-roarin’ Yule, especially after completing the biggest annual Ponyville tradition: the creation of the Here Comes Christmas Candy Cane. The Here Comes Christmas Candy Cane is, well, a big candy cane. It goes on the top of the tallest Christmas tree in Ponyville where it gives off an eerie/festive glow. This glow acts as a beacon for the Christmas Big Man himself, Santa Claus, so he’ll know where to stop to deliver all the pony presents. But then along comes Minty. Minty’s a green pony (duh), she’s the only pony ...

[rating: 1] You probably don't recognize Bob Clark by name, but he is the creative force behind Porky's, one of the all-time greatest teen raunch comedies. He's also the man behind two Christmas pictures. One is A Christmas Story, a movie I hate more than Hitler and broccoli combined; the other is Black Christmas, a 1974 holiday horrorfest. Before the movie was remade in 2006 you'd probably never even heard of it, though you may have seen it in the video store under the title Silent Night, Evil Night. If you've never heard of that either, don't worry; it's just a stupid Bob Clark movie. It's hard to believe that a movie with Margot Kidder, Olivia Hussey and John Saxon could turn out so poorly, but if anyone could make that happen, Bob Clark could. Of course, when I say it turned out poorly, I mean poorly even for a schlocky B-horror film. While some such movies can be a goofily corny way to spend 95 minutes, these are 95 minutes I desperately want back. The first several of those minutes introduce us to Olivia Hussey, some guy who looks just like Gene Shalit, a dirty-mouthed Margot Kidder who always sounds like ...

[rating: 3.5] Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is perhaps the very epitome of that saying about what audiences want from a sequel: more of the same, only different. If you've seen Home Alone, you've seen Home Alone 2. They differ in the particulars but, rest assured, it's the same movie. Fortunately for we audience members, that means that, for the most part, this is a fun movie with a heartwarming Christmas message about acceptance and the importance of family. Instead of being left behind when his family goes away on Christmas vacation, this time young Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) accidentally boards a plane to New York while the rest of his kith and kin head to Miami. Alone in the Big Apple but, thanks to the machinations of the plot, carrying his father's credit cards, Kevin reckons he'll make the best of the situation and enjoy his stay. So instead of charming sequences of Kevin having the house to himself, we're treated to charming sequences of Kevin staying in a fancy hotel and shopping in toy stores. All the memorable bits from the first movie are reprised—Kevin outsmarts adults using his wits, Kevin outsmarts adults using an impossibly quickly assembled marionette, Kevin outsmarts ...

[rating: 3.5] Die Hard is every testosterone-crazed male's favorite Christmas movie, but we mustn't overlook the fact that Die Hard 2 also takes place on December 24th. Thus, it falls into that wonderful "Christmas movie on a technicality" category that's perfect for early in the season. I only liked the first half of Die Hard with a Vengeance and didn't like Live Free or Die Hard at all, but this first sequel was a worthy successor to the original. It knew what ingredients were needed to make not just an action movie but a Die Hard movie, things like John McClane (Bruce Willis) having to work essentailly alone to stop the bad guys and the action involving a relatively localized, confined space. Granted, the movie's totally absurd, even by the bonkers standards of big action flicks. We'll accept that John McClane is involved in another terrorist hostage-taking situation. That kind of improbability is the nature of sequels. But then there's the fact that this takes place on the precise anniversary of the events of the previous film, and that's a little tougher to swallow. Add in the fact that McClane's wife (Bonnie Bedelia) is again one of the terrorists' captives and that the ...