The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006)

One of my all time favorites.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Though this movie sports a decent cast it still falls short of creating a decent movie. For one, the story isn't too original. Santa is feeling a little under-appreciated and so decides to take the year off. The thing is he doesn't since everything is resolved before Christmas Eve - so even the title of the movie is incorrect.Then, though I've loved Goodman since Rosanne, he just doesn't cut it as the big guy, and his head elf in charge of toy production, Sparky (Kattan), is just plain annoying. If it wasn't for Ethan Suplee and Eddie Griffin as the rogue elves in search of a human child who still believes in Christmas then this would have been one dire movie.Harvey Fierstein is great as the Fire Meiser who along with his brother Snow Meiser control the Earths weather. It's Fierstein's loud and gruff voice along with his overacting that adds to the comedic performance of his character. It's just a shame that they have to sing... and to have some pretty dreadful special effects, especially in the boxing match when Sparky gets into the action.There are a few decent ideas, such as "The Divide" which separates the real world from The North Pole and "The Veil" which keeps them hidden from onlookers. There are also a few good scenes, I particularly liked the BEGOTHS at the toy expo in the opening sequence.That said, I wouldn't really recommend this movie to many people as it appears staid and dated by today's standards. I even think that kids could be bored and uninterested as the film is uncertain of its audience - kids, teens, young adults, adults? It feels uncomfortable trying to please everyone.If there's nothing else on and you're trapped in your home while in a blizzard and there's nothing else to watch...

Every year as Halloween barely passes, the greed of humanity takes its place in the shopping malls of the world as fake joy to the world takes over society. The TV classics come to TV with their spirit covered up with on- screen advertising covering up 25 percent of the screen as the show airs. Ever since the enjoyable "Grinch" movie, there have been wretched attempts to update these classics. Broadway has done o.k., but movies and TV, not so much. I had high hopes for this, but with the magic and mystery stripped, ends up being a shameful ripoff. The idea of seeing Dan Conner meets Suzanne Sugarbaker sounded promising, and two of Broadway's Edna Turnblad as the Miser Brothers (Heat and Snow) even more so. They are not the issues; they are all theater trained actors who could phone in a performance and give more than the lousy direction to what ends up on screen.I like to give more than five minutes to a film before I make a judgment. I looked at this with very cynical eyes from the cheap looking production values in the beginning and the abundance of obnoxious characterizations that oozed like slime off of my TV screen. The TV specials of the 60's and 70's even at their tackiest were professional masterpieces compared to this.I bought this as part of a 3 film disc set with "A Christmas Story" and "Jack Frost" and found this one to be a holiday nightmare. It's excessively liberal to a point of breaking the eew factor out of the thermometer. The inclusion of the Miser Brothers song is the only example of any creativity, with Heat Miser still a Trump lookalike and Freeze Miser quite smooth. Harvey Fierstein and Michael McKean doing their best to rise above the below mediocrity quotient. John Goodman and Delta Burke try to hide their embarrassment, and that just made me feel sorry for them. The remainder of the cast is filled with mostly one hit wonders who are here today, forgotten a minute later, examples of the hideous new wave of celebrity that has no reason in rising to the bottom.

We rented this movie based on the title and the comment on the movie, "Family Favorite Based on the Holiday Classic"; however, this movie is FAR from the original.We made it through about 12 minutes of the movie before shutting it off and taking it back to the rental business.Within those twelve minutes, there is a scene previewing toys, games, etc. where it showed guys chopping heads off with blood spewing from the neck. Then there was a song sung by a teenager where he sang, "Santa, you suck." I am highly disappointed that our family sat down to watch this with expectations of the sweet Christmas story from Rankin/Bass. Rather, in that 12 minutes they were exposed to things I try to avoid exposing my kids to all year long.

Here it is, the script was good. (heck we've seen it before, they just stretched it out by about 30 minutes) The casting was excellent, and the Heat Vixens were, well HOT!!! So, why wasn't I thrilled I stood up to watch it??? Bad directing!!! Lack luster effects, actors not fulfilling their roles and slight variations from the script made this movie DRAG>>>> Of course since this is a made for TV NBC special, what else could you expect. Isn't this the formula they use, good script, great actors and then Blahhh??? NBC, go hire some real directors before you make these dumb a$$Ed made for TV movies and save us all the pain of hope and anticipation. PLEASE!!!!