Makin' a List of the 10 Best Cinematic Santas!

Paul Giamatti has played some distinctive parts in his film career, from Andy Kaufman’s comic accomplice Bob Zmuda in “Man on the Moon” to curmudgeonly cartoonist Harvey Pekar in “American Splendor” and the simian Limbo in “Planet of the Apes.” But in “Fred Claus,” Paul gets to step into the red pants of one of the most iconic characters in culture: Santa Claus. As the holiday season begins to rev up, we thought we’d stuff a stocking with our ten favorite movie Santas!

10) Ed Asner in “Elf” (2003)

The idea of a gruff Santa is nothing new (most of the classic Rankin/Bass TV specials featured a crusty Kringle), but there’s something particularly amusing in casting Lou Grant as the man in red. Ed Asner (who also voiced Santa in the animated TV special, “Olive the Other Reindeer”) has a world-weariness to him in Jon Favreau’s retro Xmas tale. When he warns human elf Buddy (Will Ferrell) of the perils of civilization (gum on the street is not free candy), you get the feeling that while he’s not about to give up the job, Santa’s just about had it with us silly mortals. And who can blame him? Barely any of us believe anymore (betcha Ted Baxter does).

9) Oliver MacGreevey in “Tales from the Crypt” (1972)
Still, Asner’s Santa isn’t likely to chop up anyone with an axe. The same can’t be said of the deranged Claus from the 1972 anthology adaptation of the classic 1950s EC horror comics. In “All Through the House,” Joan Collins plays a desperate housewife who kills her hubby with a fireplace poker on Christmas Eve, but finds that she can’t dispose of the body due to an escaped homicidal maniac in a Santa suit hanging around outside. This was the beginning of a whole slew of slasher Santa flicks, from the “Silent Night, Deadly Night” series through 2005’s “Santa’s Slay,” and while it’s a genre we don’t love, this first entrant is enough to give even Cindy Lou Who the willies.

8) Jeff Gillen in “A Christmas Story” (1983)

The exasperated tapioca-loathing department store Santa is a mere cameo in the Bob Clark adaptation of Jean Shepherd’s classic Christmas memoir, but it’s indelible. As seen through the terrified eyes of the kids overwhelmed by the garish plastic North Pole and pressured to hurry with their gift requests by surly teenagers in elf costumes, Santa is far from jolly. He’s a bellicose, intimidating red monster who sends screaming tots down a plastic slide to holiday hell after crushing their dreams! Ho oh No!

7) Unknown in “The Night Before Christmas” (1905)
This silent Edison short was the first screen adaptation of Clement Moore’s classic poem, featuring a Santa who, despite wearing a polka-dot coat and mismatched pants, is a fully-realized image of the icon. While the name of the actor in the Santa suit has been lost to time, the film (by director Edwin S. Porter) is unforgettable, with its then-revolutionary cross-cutting between two stories (Santa preparing for his journey and a family readying for bed) and simple, yet mesmerizing miniature effects.

6) James Cosmo in “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” (2005)
In 2005’s adaptation of the C.S. Lewis tale, Father Christmas is an arms provider to the Pevensie kids, giving them weapons to aid in their struggle against the evil White Witch. This Santa’s a brown-clad, earthy, slightly foreboding guy (he initially scares the bejeezus out of the wardrobe-travelers), definitely the most butt-kickin’ Santa on our list. Except for maybe…

5) Billy Bob Thornton in “Bad Santa” (2003)

One can only imagine the catharsis this film holds for anyone who’s ever had to don a Santa Suit and endure the mewling queues of avaricious children crawling all over them. As the thief who, with the aid of his elf accomplice, uses Santa jobs to gain access to department stores in order to rob them, Billy Bob Thornton is gloriously profane, a drunken slice of pure id with no self-control or shame. That is, until a pathetic kid named Thurman Merman teaches him that it sucks to be a selfish a-hole. Hey, we’re just using Santa’s vernacular!

4) Professor Grampy in “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” (1936)
The revolutionary Fleischer Studios produced this charming short using their “tabletop technique,” in which animated cels lay over actual 3D sets. One Christmas morning, a traveling inventor named Professor Grampy comes across an orphanage too poor to afford decent presents for the kids. So The resourceful Grampy utilizes items from the kitchen to create toys: a washboard is turned into a sled, a frying pan becomes a banjo, a percolator and tea set becomes a toy train. Grampy then fashions a Santa suit for himself and bestows the goodies on the thrilled tots. The cartoon ends with a singalong in front of a rotating tree (made from nesting green umbrellas stuck on a victrola) that elicits “oohs” to this day. But we have to wonder… where the heck is the orphanage staff in this thing?

3) Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon) in “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993)
We’re choosing Halloweentown’s Pumpkin King’s imitation of Santa over the genuine article in Tim Burton and Henry Selick’s stop motion holiday crossover tale because, let’s face it, he brings a fresh perspective to Christmas. Who wouldn’t prefer a shrunken head to a pair of socks? Jack may find the bright, joyful shiny Christmas to be exciting, but he still can’t let go of his Goth roots, which is why he many consider him to be the only cool Santa on this list.

2) José Elias Moreno in “Santa Claus” (1959)

Oh, how we love this oddball Mexican film pitting Santa Claus against a mischievous devil named Pitch, out to ruin the holiday. The movie presents Santa as a sort of outer space overlord, with children from around the world replacing the typical elves as his slave labor, keeping tabs on boys and girls with Dali-esque spy devices. Santa rides his terrifying robotic reindeer to Mexico where he does slapstick battle with Pitch, rewards a poor little girl with a giant doll and drugs some wealthy, but neglectful parents with a mickey that readjusts their priorities. Truly, magically, wonderfully bizarre.

1) Edmund Gwenn in “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947)
Choosing anyone else would be ridiculous. While some dismiss this holiday classic as saccharine-pap, it’s actually a sometimes-dark film, portraying humankind as often petty, selfish, narrow-minded and cynical. Gwenn plays a harmless mental patient who believes he’s really Kris Kringle, and winds up working the red suit for Macy’s when their Santa proves too soused to Ho-Ho-Ho. Kris’ insistence that he’s the genuine article (and refusal to compromise Santa’s integrity) creates difficulties for the angry in-store shrink, Mr. Macy and the cynical woman who hired him. But when a resourceful young lawyer proves in court that Santa exists, all cynicism melts away. The film works due primarily to the amazing performance of Gwenn, whose charming mixture of humor, wonder, compassion, intelligence and even strength makes him eminently believable to everyone, both onscreen and in the audience. Simply stated, the perfect Santa.

Naturally, everyone has his or her own idea of what Santa Claus should be like. Maybe for you, it’s Jim Carrey in Grinch makeup, John Call conquering Martians or (yikes) Tim Allen in a fat suit. But it’s a safe bet that no movie Santa Claus will ever measure up to Dad in a bad rented costume.
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ORIGINALLY POSTED in REWIND on MTV.COM, November 2007 (the final installment!)

The 10 worst Christmas movies of all time

Word has it that some Christian groups are up in arms (what else is new) about “Black Christmas,” the new remake of the 1974 horror flick. In the movie, a group of Sorority sisters move into a new house and begin getting threatening phone calls during Christmas break. Soon, the girls start disappearing, and it ain’t cuz’ they’re hiding, waiting for Santa.

We think it’s rather silly to get upset about nothing more than the use of the word “Christmas” in the title of a slasher film. There are far more reprehensible Xmas movies that don’t contain one murdered sorority sister. Let’s take the black bow off of our package of the ten worst Xmas movies ever made!

10) “Surviving Christmas” (2004)
Even the concept is depressing: Ben Affleck plays Drew Latham, a narcissistic, materialistic, lonely millionaire who pays the family currently living in his childhood home to let him spend the holidays with them. The Valcos turn out to be a dysfunctional, bickering lot who don’t exactly make the holidays bright. Of course, by the end, all is merry and gay, but despite a stellar supporting cast including James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara and Christina Applegate, the film is as discomforting as when creepy Uncle Chester catches you under the mistletoe.

9) Jack Frost (1998)
We’re on record as stating that we don’t think children’s entertainment needs to pull punches when it comes to difficult or disturbing material. And yet, there’s something that just feels wrong about a Christmas movie in which a neglectful dad dies and gets reincarnated as a snowman in order to have one last chance to prove his love. Part of the film’s problem is that it’s far easier to accept star Michael Keaton as a kinda jerky musician who would rather be on the road instead of home with the wife and kid than it is as a sentimental Frosty who spouts “clever” one-liners like “My balls are freezing!”

8) Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)
Having had some success with another flying guy in a red suit, the producers of “Superman: the Movie” turned to Saint Nick, hoping for a repeat lightning strike (even reusing the superfluous defining tag, so we wouldn’t confuse it with “Santa Claus: the Hemorrhoid Cream”). Following the “Superman” formula, the script starts with the secret origin of Santa (a serviceable but unspectacular David Huddleston), then moves into a modern adventure in which an errant elf named Patch (a grating Dudley Moore) teams up with an unscrupulous businessman (John Lithgow) to create a competing holiday, “Christmas II.” Ponderously directed by Jeannot Szwarc (of, uh, “Supergirl”), the movie is amazingly devoid of any sense of wonder or joy, given the subject matter. The Rankin/Bass TV special “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” is a far more satisfying origin tale for Herr Kringle.

7) I’ll Be Home for Christmas (1998)
In this execrable Disney flick, Jonathan Taylor Thomas plays Jake, a wise-alecky college student who has trouble getting from California to New York for the holidays (he was gonna blow the whole thing off until his Dad promised him a vintage Porsche). Stuck in a Santa suit without a ticket, Thomas endures countless sitcom-level obstacles on his journey home. It’s kinda like “Ferris Bueller” meets “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” but with none of the humor of the former, nor heart of the latter. And Thomas (perhaps taking lessons from his “Home Improvement” dad, Tim Allen, the star of many a crappy Christmas movie) is one of the least likeable, most obnoxious leading men, uh, lads in film history.

6) Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)
In the second (of NINE!!!!) films starring Jim Varney as the mugging, “knowwhutahmean” spouting hillbilly, Ernest P. Worrell has to help Santa Claus find a replacement (a recurring notion in some of these films that we frankly find both improbable and troubling). “Ernest Saves Christmas” is about as warm and inspiring as any holiday movie starring a former commercial spokesman and shot entirely in Orlando Florida can be.

5) Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis play the Luther and Nora Krank, a couple who decide to skip Christmas when their daughter Blair (Julie Gonzalo) announces she’s going to go on a Peace Corps mission instead of coming home. But when Blair changes her mind at the last minute, the traditionally traditional Kranks have to rush to make the holiday happen in a hurry. It’s an okay premise, but the film is a ham-fisted, unfunny slapstick handled with the deftness and skill of a troupe of lobotomized orangutans. It’s a schizophrenic mess that wants to mock the Styrofoam snowman trappings of a middle-American suburban Christmas while celebrating them at the same time.

4) Jingle All the Way (1996)
You know how every December, the news has stories about parents beating each other up at the local Wal-Mart to get their hands on the last super-hot toy, be it Cabbage Patch Doll, Tickle Me Elmo or a Nacho LIbre action figure (that last one was a joke)? That’s the germ of the idea that begat the virus known as “Jingle All the Way.” Arnold Schwarzenegger alternately mugs and emotes through this stinker as Howard Langston, a neglectful Dad in a citywide race against an evil mailman named Myron (Sinbad!) to find the last available Turbo Man action figure on Christmas Eve. The film has all the believability of a Road Runner cartoon (a mail bomb explodes leaving a cop with nothing more than a dirty face), but with worse acting and an ending that will make you wish for a giant falling anvil to crush Ah-nuld and his annoying kid (played by the boy who would be Darth Vader, Jake Lloyd!).

3) Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
New York City, despite being mostly laid out in a simple grid system, can be a daunting place in which to maneuver, especially during the hectic holidays. But for the ever-precocious Kevin McCallister (Macaulay Culkin), it’s a brightly lit playground in which he can handily outwit the staff at the Plaza hotel, befriend a homeless pigeon lady, impress the head of the biggest toy store in the world and again enact kooky cartoon violence upon that inept pair of burglars, the Sticky Bandits (no longer wet, as they were in the first, almost as painful film). The contrivance that allows Kevin’s parents to again travel far without their youngest child is enough of a stretch, and we KNOW it’s not supposed to be a realistic film, but by the time Donald Trump makes his inevitable cameo, you wish he’d fire the entire cast and crew of this pile of pigeon droppings.

2) Santa with Muscles (1996)
We’re shooting fruitcake in a barrel here, but this “comedy” starring Hulk Hogan just can’t be ignored. The Hulkster (in a toupee worthy of William Shatner) plays Blake Thorne, a bodybuilding billionaire who gets konked on the head and wakes up with thinking he’s Santa Claus (see, he was wearing a Santa suit… the reason is absurd and besides the point). In short order, the steroid Santa battles an evil real estate developer (Ed Begley, Jr.) who wants to take over the local orphanage (home to a young Mila Kunis)! As in every Santa Claus film, the ripe, jolly old elf beats the crap out of bad guys and… oh, forget it. Yes, it’s that putrid.

1) Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
You may wonder why films like the cult classic, “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” (1964) or the 1959 Mexican weirdie, “Santa Claus” aren’t on this list. Well, first of all, they were made on a budget comparable with the cost of filling up the tank of an H3 and secondly, they’re actually a lot of fun! The same cannot be said of the big budget, live action version of “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” Ron Howard directs a hyperactive Jim Carrey as the scourge of Whoville in a film so overblown, so loud and crass, so utterly grating and charm-deficient, so lacking in rhyme (and reason) that you have to wonder if the filmmakers ever read Seuss’ beloved 1957 book or saw Chuck Jones’ classic 1966 cartoon version. Fans of this film argue that something had to be done to stretch the story to feature length, but by giving the Grinch a complicated backstory to explain his two-sizes-too-small heart and adding a superfluous romance, the beautiful simplicity of the tale gets buried at the foot of Mount Crumpet. The extreme accompanying merchandising likewise felt like something anathema to what Seuss intended, completely going against the notion that Christmas, perhaps, doesn’t come from a store.

Maybe the reason that generally acknowledged Christmas classics such as “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Story” and “Miracle on 34th Street” achieved said status is how brightly they shine in comparison with the crass unoriginality of most holiday fare (and note that there’s nothing on this list from earlier than the 1980s). It’s as if one of Hollywood’s favorite holiday traditions is churning out crappy Christmas movies! Tim Allen, knock it off! Please!
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ORIGINALLY POSTED in REWIND on MTV.COM, December 2006