The Worst Christmas Movies
Posted on December 8, 2011 at 8:00 am
Slate has an article about the five worst Christmas movies. But there are so many to choose from! I know that it is risky to list my candidates because all bad movies have their guilty pleasure fans, Christmas movies more than most. They can be more powerful family bonding experiences than the classics. As my son and I always say, “Just because a movie is awful is no reason not to watch it.” So, with that in mind, here are some of my candidates for the worst Christmas movies ever, but I am more than happy to hear from anyone who loves to hate or just plain loves them.
A classic of the “so bad it’s not exactly good but it is kind of mezmerizingly hypnotic” is Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
Part of what makes Christmas with the Kranks so awful is the abuse it inflicts on its original inspiration, a sweet-spirited novel by John Grisham called Skipping Christmas
Santa Claus: The Movie
Jungle All the Way
Fred Claus An efficiency expert tries to improve operations at the North Pole while Santa’s clumsy brother Fred deals with sibling rivalry issues and the problems of towering over the elves.
If you have a favorite terrible Christmas movie, let me know!
about his time as a third assistant director (basically a gofer) on the set of a movie she made in England with Sir Laurence Olivier. You can have your own week with Marilyn Monroe, the most popular sex symbol in movie history, by watching some of her films. I recommend:
Monroe plays a gold-digging showgirl in this colorful and energetic musical. Her signature song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” inspired Madonna’s “Material Girl” video.
The American Film Institute’s pick for the funniest American movie of all time is Billy Wilder’s gender-bending masterpiece about two male musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) who disguise themselves as women and join an all-female band so they can hide from mobsters. Monroe plays the band’s lead singer who has a weakness for saxophone players. It gets better and funnier every time you see it.
Yves Montand plays one of the wealthiest and most successful men in the world. When he hears that a small off-Broadway musical satiric revue makes fun of him, he goes to the theater to complain. But the director thinks he has shown up to audition and when he sees Monroe (in sheer practice tights and leotard) is in the cast, he pretends to be an actor. She sings a sizzling version of “My Heart Belongs to Daddy.”
Many people think Monroe’s best performance as an actress is in this poignant story of a cowboy in love with a bar girl. She sings a heartbreakingly (intentionally) trashy “That Old Black Magic.”
Monroe’s most iconic pose comes from this film about an innocent flirtation between a man who stays in New York while his family is on vacation and his free-spirited upstairs neighbor.
When Monroe wanted to be taken more seriously as an actress she formed a production company to finance this film, co-starring and directed by Sir Laurence Olivier. It is more interesting to watch to compare their incompatible acting styles than it is to try to care about the slight story, but definitely worth seeing if you plan to watch “My Week With Marilyn.”
Monroe co-stars with Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable in this romantic comedy about three blonde models with a plan to find wealthy husbands.
. Garner got his start in the theater playing a juror in “The Caine Mutiny” on Broadway, which gave him an invaluable lesson in focus and the best seat in the house to observe brilliant acting every night. He specialized in playing laconic but honorable men and is best remembered for his television work: 
and 
. But I am a big fan of his movies, especially the two he did with Julie Andrews: 
and 
and two he made with Doris Day: 
and 
. His pair of comic westerns, 
are a lot of fun. He is an adept dramatic actor as well, in films like 
and 
. This new book is a great opportunity to revisit his performances.
The rise of industrialized fishing, the current demand for fish and the methods used to fulfill it are taking an irreparable toll on the world’s oceans.
Mordantly funny and trenchantly sobering, this is a Big Mac attack you can sink your teeth into. And then it will bite you back. Film-maker 
Food growing and production, once the primary occupation of Americans, is now controlled by a few enormous corporations. This film explores what that means for the quality and health of what we consume.
Two friends grow an acre of corn to see what becomes of their crop in a documentary from director Aaron Woolf. Corn is America’s most productive and subsidized grain and following an ear of corn from seed to the dinner table has some disturbing surprises.
In the future, wars are conducted by gladiator-style battles between giant robots in this film starring Gary Graham, Anne-Marie Johnson, and Paul Koslo.
This is a much darker story than “The Wizard of Oz,” so it is not for younger kids, but it is an imaginative adventure and Tik-Tok the mechanical man is a delight.
with managers in luxurious surroundings and workers condemned to live in dungeons. A beautiful robot modeled after a kind-hearted woman from the managers group plays a crucial role.
, directed by J.J. Abrams.