Christmas in Connecticut (1992)

the audience applauded

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

"Directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger" are not words I was familiar with in a sentence. I was totally unaware The Oak ha stepped behind the camera. The fact a Christmas movie was getting shown in the UK in October says it all really. But I was intrieged and in the absence of anything else to watch, I gave it a go.Plot In A Paragraph: Elizabeth (Dyan Cannon) is the star of a successful cooking show and author of several cookbooks. But when her manager, Alexander (Tony Curtis) sees forest ranger Jefferson (Kris Kristofferson) who lost his cabin in a fire, on TV he arranges for a special live show on Christmas, for Elizabeth to cook him Christmas Dinner. Only one problem Elizabeth can't cook. I used to have a crush on Dyan Cannon from when I first saw her opposite Burt Reynolds in 'Shamus' and while she has clearly aged she still has a certain sexiness to her, and Arnie was clearly a fan of her ass, as he showcases it a lot. I've liked Kris Kristoffeson since I first saw him in a Burt Reynolds movie too, this time 'Semi Tough'. Both do fine jobs here, but Tony Curtis hams it up to good effect and steals the show. I'm surprised by Arnie's directorial debut being a Christmas TV movie, and it certainly has it's faults, but it also is not without charm either.

Stultifying TV-made remake of the 1945 chestnut starring Barbara Stanwyck. As directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger (!), this romantic comedy begins with a terrific bit of television-oriented satire involving Dyan Cannon as the hostess of a popular cooking program. Cannon (vivacious as ever) doesn't know her way around a kitchen, and so has cue cards in front of her and lackeys handing her props out of camera range. It's a wonderfully sly bit of prodding at manufactured show-biz 'magic'...however, once the contrived plot kicks in, the film loses that fresh, funny edge. Dyan has to pretend to be a family-oriented country gal in a publicity stunt which pairs her with recent wilderness hero Kris Kristofferson, and the rest you can write yourself. There isn't a spontaneous or uplifting moment in the mix as our glowing couple grows closer and closer, while she is forced to dislocate herself from the awful truth. A better movie might have been had just by keeping Cannon in the city working on her show, maybe with Kristofferson as her cooking guest. Sadly, the writing here was aiming for Bigger! Better! Funnier! while out-of-his-element Schwarzenegger darts around hoping to exploit every crash for knee-slapping laughs. They fail to arrive.

OK, My second favorite Christmas movie...my 1st being the Orig With Barbara Stanwick. But this re-make is nicely done. The Marta Stewart-esquire Character is perfectly lame in the kitchen and her assistant does all the actual cooking. The Chemistry between Cannon and Kristofferson is nice andTony Curtis is hilarious as the producer/pseudo-husband who is worried about ratings and network politics; the side stories are light and provide comic relief every few scenes.This truly wonderful, heartwarming and funny movie is sure to become one of your holiday favorites too.

I've got this movie for my birthday, but I certainly wouldn't have bought it. It's unbelievable how a remake can be this awful. I'm not saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a bad director, but I think somebody else would have made a better movie out of it. The jokes are stupid, the acting is extremely bad, the story seems to go nowhere. It's a shame to waste the talent of these actors. I've only seen it once, and after that one time, I had enough of it. So, I'll give it a 1/5.