Christmas Movie Review: ***^ Jingle all the Way

 This is a Christmas story of a different type.  It shows the commercialism around Christmas very well, as people fight for the perfect toy, an action figure, Turbo Man.  Most particularly Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Myran Larabee (Sinbad) are after the toy on Christmas Eve, which has long been sold out.  They fight and trick each other, and go to the radio station and look for the toy.  In the end, Langston ends up in a Turbo Man costume for the parade, and Larabee steals the Dementor (Turbo Man's enemy) costume and they face off over the toy.  This includes Larabee grabbing Langston's son, Jamie (Jake Lloyd).  Cameos to Robert Wagner as the police officer who keeps crossing paths with Langston and James Belushi as a store Santa Claus running a con game..  Langston must also contend with the divorced neighbor, Ted Maltin (Phil Hartman) who keeps hitting on his wife.

It has it funny parts, but sometimes the fighting is just over the top.  

Christmas Movie Review: Christmas in Conneticutt (1992)

This is a very interesting made for tv movie about the a TV cooking show.  Elizabeth Blane (Dyan Cannon) is the star of a cooking show, but in reality she can't cook.  They take the show to Connecticut, to host Jefferson Jones (Kris Kristofferson) who has been a hermit of late, but in his duties as a ranger, rescued a youth stranded in the woods, and his a hero.  The problem is the story lines on the show are all made up.  Blane does not have a family, is not married, does not have grandchildren.  However all these are provided for her.  Her assistants and her husband take up the spot as Blane's children.  They don't have children of their own, so they borrow a couple children from another family.  Blane's producer (Tony Curtis) plays her husband.  So we have put into play a farsical situation.  This gets worse as Blane and Jones seem to develop a thing for each other.  
When the Christmas show plays (live) the assistant is stranded in a snow bank.  She does all the cooking, and the food is not prepared.  The first section of the show goes wrong, and so the producer says to Blane, be yourself.  This results in her exposing herself and the show as a fraud.  It ends with Blane and Jones ones kissing.  They are all fired, but in the end, honesty created big numbers.

Arnold Schwarzenegger directed.  This is a remake of a 1945 movie.