Foster on Film

In this variation on A Christmas Carol, Christmas hating Allen Karroll (Tom Everett Scott) is accidentally visited by the three spirits of Christmas (Alanna Ubach, Larry Miller, Verne Troyer) who are supposed to be working on the miser next door. Quick Review: Unlike Scrooged, Karroll’s Christmas actually has a clever and twisted idea that has the

At Christmastime, Detective Philip Marlowe (Robert Montgomery) is hired by magazine editor and femme fatale Adrienne Fromsett (Audrey Totter) to find her boss’s (Leon Ames) wife, in the hopes that the wife has done something illegal and Fromsett can take her place.  Marlowe follows the trail to Chris Lavery (Dick Simmons), the wife’s supposed boyfriend,

Smalltime racetrack hustler, the Lemon Drop Kid (Bob Hope) must raise $10,000 before Christmas to pay back a gangster. He tricks the lesser criminals of New York city into gathering the money for him as street-corner Santas. If there is a valid complaint against Bob Hope’s comedy shtick, it’s that it is repetitious. He told more-or-less

There is only one problem with the nice old man (Edmund Gwenn) hired to play the Macy’s Santa Claus; he thinks he is Santa Claus.  When he is institutionalized, it is up to a young lawyer (John Payne) to show that the old man not only isn’t insane, but that he is Santa Claus.  And

Dorey Walker (Elizabeth Perkins), the parade organizer for Cole’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, hires an unknown jolly old man (Richard Attenborough) as a replacement for their drunken Santa Claus, first for the parade, and then for the department store.  The problem is, he thinks he is Santa, and as he tries to bring a bit of

Old humbug Ebenezer Scrooge (Michael Caine) learns the meaning of Christmas from three spirits, but this time, the three spirits are made of felt. The duality of this film is a bit much, even for a film with a talking frog. On the one hand, it is a very straight and rather dull re-telling of the

Michael Baldwin (Paul Le Mat), working for an unreasonable boss (Mason Adams), is drilling for oil too close to Santa’s workshop.  The head elf (Paul Williams) takes Michael’s wife, Claudia (Jaclyn Smith), and their three kids to visit Mr. and Mrs. Claus (Art Carney and June Lockhart) so they can hear about the danger, but

It’s a bad, bad, bad Christmas for the Graingers.  Jack (Gary Basaraba) loses his job and their house, and Ginny (Mary Steenburgen) is stuck working double shifts and hates the holiday.  They have no hope.  Then things really go down hill.  A robbery, a car jacking, yet another job loss, and three deaths.  Luckily, Ginny

Having made a deal with a demon, the owner of a toy company plans to have millions of possessed toys wake up on Christmas morning and slaughter children.  Only a doll repairman (Corey Feldman), his daughter, and four living puppets can stop her. Quick Review: So, Corey Feldman plays the aging intellectual father of a

Duke and Chester (Bing Crosby, Bob Hope) find themselves in snow-covered Alaska, disguised as killers and innocently carrying a stolen treasure map.  The real owner of the map, Skagway Sal (Dorothy Lamour), attempts to seduce the map from them.  The local gangster, Ace Larson (Douglass Dumbrille), and the killers, Sperry and McGurk, also want the

Years after becoming Santa Claus, Scott Calvin  (Tim Allen) discovers that his now teenaged son is on the “naughty list” and that he must find a wife before Christmas or cease being Santa. Quick Review: The 1998 The Santa Clause was a surprisingly delightful, simple, Christmas film, playing with the traditional view of Santa by adding

Martians come to Earth to kidnap Santa Claus because their children are morose.  They plan to set him up in a toy shop on Mars, but one Martian rebels, and it is up to Santa Claus and some children to put things right. Quick Review: I first saw Santa Claus Conquers the Martians at the