Your Christmas Movies! Whatcha' Watchin' this Christmas season?

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Santa Baby (2006)

Mary Class (Jenny McCarthy) is a successful marketing manager in the city who is also secretly the daughter of Santa Claus. When she gets a call that her father has had a heart attack she returns to the North Pole to help out. However her big city marketing and organizational strategies don't go down well with the Christmas Elves.

I've had this US dvd knocking about for years and never bothered watching it despite the presence of the lovely and outrageously bubble Jenny McCarthy - I used to religiously watch The Big Breakfast whilst she was a presenter as she was always great to get you up in a morning - however i'm pleased i finally got round to it as it was quite enjoyable.

In a way it's Elf (2003) in reverse as Mary screws everything up including her love life at the North Pole whereas Buddy the Elf did the exact same thing but in New York. Santa Baby will never go down as a great Christmas film but this ABC TV movie is certainly charming, very sweet and entertained me no end late last night. In fact for a TV movie it's excellent.

Special mention to Cheers fave George Wendt who makes for a pretty good multi-layered Santa Claus and the Elves who rock out to Slade as they celebrate Santa's sleigh setting off on it's mammoth journey.

[MrBarlow]

ATM. 2012.

3 colleagues head to a ATM machine after leaving a Christmas party and find themselves trapped by a hooded assailant.

First time seeing this and I found my self thinking why dont they just...At the start there is a good character build up of the three main actors, im sure we needed at bank machine at stupid o clock in the morning, you got a empty car park yet they park about 100 feet away, cold night and in a kiosk yet no one seems to think of keeping the door what, there is some noticeable goofs. The hooded figure is never really explained except enjoys tormenting, playing the mind game and then killing. There was some decent built up of tense moments but not the best thriller.

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[trebor8273]

What a absolute pile of poo. It basically reminded me of ones of those dreadful soap opera that used to be showing in the afternoon's in the 90s, with some nonsense about a witch and children being murdered . Absolutely awful acting we had a couple of good kills and that was it.




First of the Harry Potter movies, young Harry discovers he is a wizard and on his twelfth birthday is enrolled to Hogwarts. He will make friends and enemy's and discover a sinister plot. All very enjoyable the kids at this point might not be the greatest actors but it's made up by a fantastic cast of adult British actors.

Now watching

[MrBarlow]

Silent Night Bloody Night. 1972.

After inheriting a house by his grandfather, Jeffrey Butler looks into the crimes that happened and how his grandfather died.

This is a very low budget horror that seems to be shot on a cheap camera, yet you don't need a big budget to pull of a good decent atmospheric horror. The plot itself is something different and gives out some suspense during a flash back sequence shot in black and white. The voice over part can be a bit murky and slow to the thought of what is the point. The acting can be a bit uneven at times where your thoughts can trail off to someplace different then becomes better. Still a good B grade movie.

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[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Whistle and I'll Come to You (2010)

Taking liberties with MR James original story in having the central character, Parkins, as a married man who has just placed his wife, sadly in the latter stages of dementia, into a care home where she sits in an almost cataleptic state, and visiting the place on the sea shore where they used to holiday together, gives the story a whole new texture and reason for being rather than the roaming bachelor of the original written word.

The differences in story mean it's easy to watch and enjoy both this version starring John Hurt and the more faithful 1968 original with Michael Hordern practically back to back without any sense of deja-vu.

There's a morbid air of sadness to this re-imagining not present in the original. I'm not sure what's worse. The ghostly banging during the night at the mostly deserted hotel or the real life horror of someone's body outliving their soul in the case of Gemma Jones scarily realistic performance as Hurt's wife. No, forget that. I do know which is worse. This is a much tougher viewing experience.

Terrifying stuff, whichever version you watch.

[trebor8273]

At the end of WW2 wife beater Bing Crosby and his friend the man who can't act Danny Kaye or should it have been Danny Gay with how camp he was a times, just look at that wrist! become a famous song and dance act, years later they find out that their old CO is in finical trouble with the inn he's running , so the two decide to run a show around Christmas too help out. Lots of singing and dancing usual for no apparent reason , we have romance with Vera Allen and Rosemary Clooney , aunt of George . It's enjoyable with famous songs such as white Christmas but it is a little strange with Crosby harping on about family values etc.

Now watching



Followed by.

[MrBarlow]

The Muppet Christmas Carol.

The Muppet's give us their version of Charles Dickens tale with Michael Caine as Ebeneezer Scrooge who does enjoy shouting a lot with some good songs. Aimed mostly for kids and adults but wonder how many notice Beaker giving a gesture to Scrooge??

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Die Hard 2 (1990)

As far as sequels go this is superior stuff that almost rivals the original for sheer excitement and fun, not to mention classic one liners from Bruce Willis as the iconic John McClane.

Taut, tense and thrilling as well as featuring one of the great movie plane crashes, Die Hard 2 always does the business for me.

Whilst there's no Alan Rickman the films supporting cast actually tops the original with Bill Sadler, Franco Nero, Dennis Franz, John Amos and Fred Dalton Thompson all on board along with Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson and William Atherton from the first one.

Best line - McClane to himself -"John, what the f*ck are you doin' out on the wing of this plane?"

In all truth this is probably more of a Christmas movie than Die Hard

[trebor8273]

Started out ok then went rapidly downhill, a pair of psychos who believe they are Mr and Mrs Clause escape a mental institution years after a massacre and set out too finish what they started . The two psychos came off as a cut price Joker and Harley Quinn.


Now watching.



You probably thinking what's this got to do with Xmas until I started it and found it's set around Christmas time.

[MrBarlow]

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol. 2022.

Another adaptation and another animated version that borrows some songs from the 1970 version. This was decent enough and a bit of a laugh that Scrooge has a dog and even the dog can't stand the old miser. We all have our favourite versions of this film but this is certainly not won me over.

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