The Screengrab : the santa clause

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: Dec. 6-12, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:00:00 GMT

Hey, kids. Frosty the Snowman here. I gotta say, I’m not feeling the love from the Screengrab this holiday season. I was certain this week would see their Top 10 List of Greatest Snowman Movies Ever. After all, there are so many great ones to choose from. Who doesn’t shed a tear every year during their annual viewing of Jack Frost, the heartwarming tale of Michael Keaton becoming a snowman and learning to be a better dad? And then there’s, uh, the other Jack Frost, about the mutant killer snowman, and its sequel, Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.

But no, instead we get this list of The Best and Worst Stage-to Screen Adaptations of All Time (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven and Eight). What does that have to do with snowmen? And even when they do acknowledge the Christmas season, as in the 12 Days of Christmas Marathon (Bad Santa and The Star Wars Holiday Special) or Yesterday’s Hits: The Santa Clause, my brothers in snow get nary a mention.

Still, I’m willing to rise above it all and point out a few of my favorite posts of the week, if only they’ll turn up the air conditioning in here.

Other non-snowman movie reviews include Wendy and Lucy, the Unwatchables Ed and Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!, and When Good Directors Go Bad: A Life Less Ordinary.

Forrest J. Ackerman, Bettie Page and Robert Prosky were all friends of the Snowman-American community, and they will be missed.

LA Critics Go Wacky for WALL-E

OST: The Man with the Golden Arm

Roger Ebert Supersizes Top 10 of 2008

The Terrorists Win

Yesterday's Hits: The Santa Clause (1994, John Pasquin)

Paul Clark — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Well, it’s the holidays again, and that means that Christmas movies are back in season. But while Christmas movies have long been an annual tradition, in the last few decades the market for new holiday-themed classics has grown by leaps and bounds. Gone are the days when scruffy little movies like A Christmas Story would do decent business in theatres only to become classics on video and cable. Today, Christmas movies are big business, and rare is the big budget holiday movie that doesn’t clean up at the box office. For my next three Yesterday’s Hits columns, I’ll be taking a new look at three of the biggest holiday hits of all time, to get you all in the spirit of the season. This week, I’ll begin with the 1994 blockbuster The Santa Clause.

The Santa Clause came after nearly a decade of Christmas movies that shied away from dealing with Santa Claus. While this might seem odd nowadays, there was a good reason for this at the time- 1985’s Santa Claus: The Movie was a massive flop, scaring the studios into making less fantasy-based holiday movies in the years to come. But by the mid-1990s, Disney decided it was time to bring back the jolly old elf, and The Santa Clause served up St. Nick with a twist on the old tale. After several established movie stars (Bill Murray and Chevy Chase, to name two) turned down the role, Disney turned to the star of the hugely popular sitcom Home Improvement, a former standup comedian named Tim Allen. The combination of Christmas and Allen’s big-screen leading man debut proved as irresistible to audiences as milk and cookies, and The Santa Clause became the biggest hit of fall 1994, spawning two sequels and propelling Allen to movie stardom.

The premise of the film certainly helped. Rather than beginning with its main character born as Santa, The Santa Clause took the novel approach of having its protagonist Scott Calvin (played by Allen) more or less inherit the job. In the film, if something happens to the current Santa, the next person to don the suit takes his place, with all of the side effects that implies. The Santa Clause’s best sequence takes place right after Scott finds himself thrust into the role of Kris Kringle, when we discover through his eyes the perils of the job- snarling dogs, home security systems, gifts that are too big to fit under the tree. And while Scott predictably finds himself turning physically into Santa, gaining 45 pounds in a week and growing a long white beard in a matter of minutes, the sight gags are fairly enjoyable nonetheless.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie isn’t as much fun as the Santa material. Scott’s life in the temperate latitudes includes a well-paying job as a toy company executive and an ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), with whom he shares custody of their young son Charlie (Eric Lloyd). Naturally, Charlie is jazzed about his dad being Santa, but of course none of the other adults believe his stories of when they visited the North Pole and went around delivering gifts. Laura’s new husband Neil (Judge Reinhold) just happens to be a psychiatrist, and he quickly concludes that Charlie is having trouble distinguishing between reality and fantasy, and that Scott with his physical changes is feeding his son’s delusions in order to look better in Charlie’s eyes. The resulting plot developments are too contrived to be effective, and they’re exacerbated by Reinhold’s awful performance, in which he comes off less as a competent doctor than someone who’s suffered a recent blow to the head.

Ever since Charles Dickens penned A Christmas Carol more than 160 years ago, there has been a fairly standard trajectory for Christmas stories and, later, Christmas movies- a character, or group of characters, overcome their self-centered ways by discovering the meaning of Christmas. Even Bad Santa’s Willie, the most dissolute of recent Christmas movie protagonists, ended up finding some member of the Christmas spirit through his unlikely mentorship of a (very strange) kid. The Santa Clause was directed by John Pasquin, who had previously worked with Allen when he directed numerous episodes of Home Improvement, and the movie feels and looks like a big-screen sitcom, with some easy laughs and nothing offensive to scare away audiences. Like most Christmas movies, it’s an okay way to take a break from holiday shopping or entertain visiting relatives. But as a movie, it’s really nothing special.

The Rock IS "The Tooth Fairy" and Other Worst-Case Scenarios

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:30:00 GMT

As soon as Jon Stewart bid us goodnight and told us to drive home safely, the powers that be in Hollywood breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, they could put all of this "quality filmmaking" nonsense behind them and open the crapgates for another load of sequels, remakes and high-concept star vehicles.

Leading the parade is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who will play an ordinary Joe who takes over the Tooth Fairy's duties in, well, The Tooth Fairy. Yes, it's basically The Santa Clause all over again, and appropriately enough, it will be directed by Michael Lembeck, who helmed the two Clause sequels. The concept might also ring a bell for those who have closely followed Arnold Schwarzenegger's career. As Entertainment Weekly reported in 1992, The Man Who Would Be Governator had his choice of several projects, including "Sweet Tooth, an action comedy about a U.S. Marine who finds out at his father's deathbed that he's inheriting the family legacy — the job of tooth fairy." (He opted for The Last Action Hero. We'll call this one a draw.)

In other news, despite their claims to the contrary, it appears that Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon are both on board for a fourth Bourne adventure. (If they're looking for a title, may we suggest Bourne to Be Wild?) We've enjoyed all the jittery suspense as much as anyone, but surely these guys have better things to do than go to this particular well one more time.

Finally we have the latest in unwanted and unnecessary horror remakes. The duo behind the fourth and fifth Saw installments (Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who scripted Feast for Project Greenlight) have been hired to resurrect Hellraiser, while Dylan Walsh of Nip/Tuck will attempt to fill Terry O'Quinn's shoes as The Stepfather. We're trembling with fear already.