Roxanne's Best Christmas Ever (2000)

Every year at Christmas, we are bombarded with the many different holiday specials.  On network television, you get your Rudolphs, Frosty the Snowmans, and Charlie Browns.  On cable channels like ABC family, you get your 25 days of Christmas programming.  On Hallmark and Lifetime, you end up with countless television romantic comedy movies.  It’s all Christmas all the time for the month of December.  That’s just what television ends up being this time of year.

I don’t know how Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever came about.  I can’t find too much information about it.  When I was trying to find the full cast, I had to use the credits in the movie for it.  It’s a tough movie to find anything about.  Well, perhaps it’s not a movie.  It’s only 24 minutes long.  I’m still going to call it a movie.  I consider it a short film.  The only thing separating it from most of the films that I have featured thus far in the Sunday “Bad” Movies is the length.  It’s simply not feature length.  That’s beside the point though.  The point is that I had to use the actual movie to jot down who was in it, who directed it, and how long it was.  I was having trouble finding anything about it online.

Most of you have probably never heard of Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever.  Neither had I, until I bought the 10 Movie Holiday Collector’s Set at Walmart.  It was in the five dollar bin.  Fifty cents a movie?  Sure, I’ll buy that.  It’s another addition to my collection of Echo Bridge bad movie sets.  And I didn’t have high expectations for it.  I never do with these movies.  Sometimes they surprise me and sometimes they don’t.  In this case, it didn’t impress me.  It was as bad as I expected it to be.

What happens in Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever?  Let me tell you.  Roxanne (Jane Seymour) is a dog living in a town full of animals.  She’s a bipedal, talking dog.  As are the other “people” of the town.  Christmas is nearing, and she still has yet to get at tree.  But when she sets out to find the perfect tree for her holiday celebration, Roxanne realizes that there are no good trees left.  What is Roxanne to do?

Now, I’m not entirely sure what this Christmas special is trying to say.  It could be saying that you shouldn’t leave your Christmas shopping until the last minute.  There is a stereotype of sorts that people wait until the last possible moments of the holiday season to finish their shopping.  And Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever is a sort of cautionary tale about this kind of thing.  But the ending completely undermines that message in every way possible.  Everything works out fine.  It could be about Santa and his giving nature.  All of the characters believe in Santa, and the ending depends upon Santa in order to work.  Yet the story isn’t about Santa until the ending, which makes it seem less like this is the case.  So I really have no idea what the movie is trying to say.  Maybe it’s just trying to tell a story.  It does that.

Whatever the point of Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever, that doesn’t make the movie any good.  The animation is okay, but the voice acting is flat and the story itself is more irritating than engrossing.  The saving grace for the movie is the short runtime, which even then, didn’t manage to keep my attention all that well.  But I guess losing my attention for twenty minutes is better than losing my attention for ninety minutes.  It could have been a much longer movie that bored me.

Now you might be asking, “Why would you choose a Christmas movie from an Echo Bridge set when you could have chosen something like Jingle All the Way 2, which you probably would have had a better time with?”  That long question is a pretty good question.  I have a split history with the Echo Bridge movie sets.  There have been movies in these sets that delighted me.  I’ve liked movies like Backwoods Bloodbath and Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned, which came from these sets.  There are some unknown gems mixed in with the crap that I sometimes end up watching.  So there’s that.  The other big factor in me choosing movies from the Echo Bridge sets is that I own the Echo Bridge sets.  This means that access to these movies is much easier than access to Jingle All the Way 2, which was only just released on video.  I don’t need to buy the movies.  I don’t need to illegally find them online.  I already have them.  It makes more sense for me to choose one of them, especially since there are ten movies in the set.  Get something out of the way, you know?

That’s all I have for Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever.  It’s not a movie worth watching, and that’s most of the reason why it was buried in a set of ten movies that I found in the bargain bin at Walmart.  It’s only twenty-four minutes long, but it’s twenty-four minutes that I could have spent watching something much better and worth my time.  It’s too bad.  With the movies that I sometimes manage to find in these sets, my hopes were high.  My expectations were low, but my hopes were high.  I wanted something fun.  I wanted something decent.  What I got was a boring short film that did nothing to entertain.

And now for the little bit of notes:

• I mentioned a couple movies in the review that I have covered.  Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned and Backwoods Bloodbath.
• Have you seen Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever?  Have you even heard of Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever?  Are there any other bad holiday shorts that you want to bring to my attention?  How about Echo Bridge?  Do you own any of their sets?  Do you like any movies you’ve found in them?  If you want to answer any of these questions, feel free to do so in the comments section below.
• If you would like to suggest any movies for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can do that in the comments below.  Or you can message me on Twitter or email me at sundaybadmovies@gmail.com.
• Next week there will be two posts.  One inspired by the movie Money Train, which is next week’s Sunday “Bad” Movie.  The other one is a bonus post I’m going to do about my ten worst movies of 2014, out of what I’ve seen so far.  It was going to be one where you guys participate, but only one person submitted anything.  If anyone else does, I’ll include it.  If they don’t… Oh well.

The Spirit of Christmas and Santa, Jr. (2002)

Christmas comes but once a year.  Unless you are watching movies, that is.  All year round you get movies set at Christmas.  Die Hard was released in July.  Iron Man Three was released in May.  It’s a Wonderful Life was released in January.  And Lethal Weapon was released in March.  All of the movies are set around Christmas and touch upon aspects of the holiday season.  Some more than others, of course.

But the true Christmas movies aren’t movies that are only set at Christmas or around that time of year.  The movies that truly represent Christmas are the ones that get into the holiday spirit.  These are the movies that take their time to lay out everything Christmas related and give off that festive feeling.  Some of them dive into the capitalism that Christmas has come to represent in the modern era.  Many of them simply harken back to the tested and appreciated idea of giving and caring about others.  The holidays are about caring, giving and family.

That brings us to this week’s Sunday “Bad” Movie.  Santa, Jr. is a 2002 movie that is about Christmas spirit and holiday cheer.  When Santa Jr. (Nick Stabile) is arrested for breaking and entering, he spends the days leading up to Christmas under house arrest.  The house belongs to his lawyer, Susan Flynn (Lauren Holly), a woman willing to help out a guy who looks like he needs the help.  Not as willing to help out are Darryl Bedford (Judd Nelson) and Norm Potter (George Wallace), the detectives present during Santa Jr.’s arrest.

The description of the plot in itself describes one aspect of the caring and giving spirit of holidays that everyone has come to know.  Susan Flynn is willing to give her address as Santa Jr.’s when he is put under house arrest.  Most people wouldn’t do this sort of thing.  Santa Jr. could be a serial killer.  He could murder you in your sleep.  He could steal all of your belongings, cut his tracker, and bolt.  You wouldn’t know that if you didn’t know him.  Yet Susan lets him stay in her house.  She isn’t worried.  She just wants to do something good for someone who seems to need the help.  She won’t get anything out of it.  She’s only doing it to be nice.

Susan’s gracious hospitality isn’t the only instance in the movie in which characters do things for other characters without expecting anything in return.  Darryl and Norm were also involved in some selfless acts during the movie Santa, Jr.  With Santa Jr. under house arrest, there was no way that his presents would be delivered on time.  For that reason, or because the officers were under the assumption that the gifts were stolen, they decided to hand the presents out in the police station parking lot.  They put all of their time into handing out presents and they weren’t getting anything for it.  They were simply making people happy.

The flip side of giving and not asking for anything in return is actually personified in Santa, Jr. with the character of Wally Fisk, aka The Christmas Bandit.  He’s a man who has been breaking into houses and stealing all of the Christmas presents just because he wants to be famous for it.  There may be other reasons, but he gets mad when Santa Jr. is arrested because he isn’t getting the credit he deserves.  He is the one character who cares only about himself.  He doesn’t give a gosh darn about what anyone else wants or needs.  He wants fame and presents, and he will go out of his way to get them.  He’ll even find out where Santa Jr. is staying just so that he can hunt him down and take the title for himself.  He’s a selfish bastard.  And he is the perfect counterpart to the overall theme of the movie.

Throughout Santa, Jr., the idea of giving and caring without getting anything in return is built up through the above aspects, as well as a few others.  The concept comes to the forefront with one line near the end of the movie.  “When a person goes that extra mile, and they have nothing to gain, and maybe even something to lose, that’s the Christmas spirit.”  So, it really has almost nothing to do with Christmas.  The Christmas spirit, according to the movie Santa, Jr. is all about helping other people out without wanting something in return.  It’s about giving and sharing and caring, but not receiving.  It’s the same sort of message that gets conveyed through many of the holiday movies that pop up around this time of year.

Many Christmas movies focus on the capitalist, give me everything nature of America.  They point out how greedy Americans are and how they should have everything they want.  Santa, Jr. and the movies like it point out that Christmas isn’t supposed to be about that.  Christmas is not supposed to be about what people do for you.  It’s supposed to be about what you do for other people.  That is a valiant proposal that should be recognized and adhered to.  Does that make Santa, Jr. a classic Christmas movie?  Perhaps not.  It is one that should be watched at some time or another, though, as it does give a more positive spin to the holiday season.  Though set at Christmas, it shows that the Christmas spirit of giving and helping out other people could be a part of any time of the year.  The Christmas spirit isn’t about Christmas.  And that’s an important thing to remember.

That’s a fairly short post in terms of the Sunday “Bad” Movies recently.  But there are some notes that will make it a bit bigger.  Here they are:

• Santa, Jr. was suggested to me by @LastFilmSeen
• Ed Gale made an appearance in Santa, Jr.  He could previously be seen in Tiptoes, Chopper Chicks in Zombietown, and Howard the Duck.
• Other movies about Santa Claus and/or his family include Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Santa Claus: The Movie.
• What are your thoughts on the Christmas spirit?  Is it more Christmas related than Santa, Jr. makes it out to be?  Is it just a state of mind that could be had throughout the year?  What do you think of the movie Santa, Jr.?  The comments section is open for your thoughts.
• If you have a suggestion for a movie that I should watch for a future installment of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can leave that suggestion in the comments.  Or you can find me on Twitter.  Or you can email me at sundaybadmovies@gmail.com
• I’m still trying to get that end of the month bonus post together, covering some of the worst movies of 2014.  What’s a movie that really sucked?  What’s a movie that was deliciously bad?  If interested, email me a paragraph about a movie, or talk to me on Twitter.
• Next week’s movie is going to be Roxanne’s Best Christmas Ever, a 24 minute animated film from 1998.  Never heard of it?  That doesn’t surprise me.  See you then.

The Degrees of Liking Bad Movies and Elves (1989)

Over the course of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, a few movies have stood out as the pinnacle of bad movies.  They are movies that are so bad that they bring complete entertainment through how bad they are.  Many of the earlier movies fit that description.  Since around the week forty mark, these shining lights have come fewer and farther between.  Sure, I still enjoy many of the movies that I watch for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, but there are few that cross the line from like into love.  This week’s movie is one of those movies.

First, however, I want to go into what I mean by that first paragraph.  I want to elaborate upon the words that I just wrote.  There are a few levels of enjoyment I get out of bad movies.  I’m going to say that there are five.  Let’s start at the bottom.  There are movies that I absolutely hate and never want to see again.  They’re so terrible that the time I spend watching them is entirely filled with self-loathing and agony.  The movies have no redeeming qualities that I can see.  These are very rare, but they do exist.  Example, 30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I have nothing positive to say about that movie at all.  The second level are the movies that I dislike, yet can still see some good in there.  Basically, movies like Cruel World.  Cruel World was bad and I don’t want to watch it again, but the core concept of the movie is interesting.  If done in a different way, it would be a great idea for a horror film.  The third level is the middle of the road, forgettable movie.  Usually, this means Lifetime or Hallmark movies.  A Nanny For Christmas or A Crush on You or The Craigslist Killer.  They aren’t terrible, they aren’t great.  They exist and you don’t remember them come a week later.

Now we get onto the more positive side of the scale.  These are the movies I like or love.  These are the movies that stand out among the bad movies as good bad movies.  The ones that I like are movies that I enjoy the whole way through but they don’t go above and beyond being a good bad movie.  They don’t transcend the bad movie description to become something completely insane.  These movies are movies like Hansel and Gretel Get Baked or Ghost Storm.  The movies are wacky, and they have some crazy moments in them.  But they are too restrained and well done to be an amazingly bad, good bad movie.  The movies I love are terribly done but the insane, bad aspects of them are so over the top that you can’t help enjoying the hell out of them.  Movies such as Miami Connection, Winter’s Tale, The Room, and this week’s movie, Elves.

“Elves is incredible.  So many packs of Camel.” -- @Mattsuzaka

Elves was a movie that I had very low expectations for as I went into it.  It looked like it was going to be one of the painful, excruciating movies, with only hints at something good.  I didn’t get the hints at anything good in the movie.  What I got, though, was a movie so bad that it ended up being one of the most entertaining movies I have watched in a while (excluding last week’s rewatch) for the Sunday “Bad” movies.  It hit that sweet spot of being so bad that the bad was unbelievably great.

There are three major moments in the movie Elves that helped to elevate it from a standard bad movie into one that I now love.  Each of these moments involves a line of dialogue that will seem ludicrous when written out of context.  For that reason, I will give the three lines of dialogue and then explain what makes each of those moments in the movie stand out as something so bad that it is great.  Warning: there is some foul language coming up.

“I’m your fucking sister.”

“Yeah, you’ve got big fucking tits and I’m going to tell everybody I saw them!”

This is actual dialogue from Elves.  And it was the moment that completely got me into the movie.  About five minutes into the movie, nothing had really happened.  The main character, Kirsten (Julie Austin) went out with her friends, cut her hand, and went home.  It’s when she hops into the shower that Elves takes its first step into the amazingly bad territory.  Kirsten gets out of the shower and catches her little brother peeking into the washroom while she’s naked.  Why would he do that?  He gets off on seeing his sister’s “big fucking tits,” obviously.  It was at this point that I knew there was something wrong with the movie.  There was some sort of disconnection in what was happening and what should be happening.  This peep show should not have been happening.

“Santa said oral.”

That’s right.  That’s what the dialogue says.  Kirsten works in a department store.  She and her friends decide to go and mess with the store’s Santa.  Kirsten sits on Santa’s lap and he immediately begins to rub his hand up and down her leg.  And then he says the line of dialogue.  For some reason, the leg rubbing didn’t bother Kirsten.  But Santa saying that he wanted oral was crossing boundaries.  Kirsten slaps him.  He is fired and storms off to his changing room.  He is then attacked by the elf, and dies.  The police report that his penis was ripped off.  So… That happened.

“Dad is in the study.”

“Grandfather is in the study.”

“Your father isn’t dead. The man in the study is your grandfather… AND YOUR FATHER!!!”

Yeah, so this one happens later in the movie.  I’d say about two thirds of the way through.  It changes the whole dynamic of the family while not changing much of it.  Kirsten’s grandfather is her father.  That’s a thing.  He had sex with his daughter to help bring about the master race.  Pure blood and all that stuff.  Okay.  Other than that, it really doesn’t change much of anything.  You just know that stuff now.  It wouldn’t make much of a difference to the story if it didn’t exist at all.  And to top it all off, the line readings during this scene are downright terrible.  But they’re terrible in that way where you know that someone thought they were great.  It’s ridiculous, bad, and hilarious all at the same time.

Those three moments helped to make Elves into one of the most enjoyable recent Sunday “Bad” Movie additions.  They can’t be the only reasons though, right?  There’s also the plot.  If I boil the plot of Elves down to its most basic plot points, this is what the movie is.  An elf that isn’t really an elf (more of a tiny troll looking thing) kills people while searching for a virgin to mate with in order to create the master race.  Yes, there are Nazis involved.  No, it doesn’t take place in Nazi Germany.  It takes place somewhere in America in the late 80s.  But that’s the story.  If that story seems dumb but fun, this is the movie for you.

Hell, if anything I’ve written seems fun, this movie is for you.  I had a pretty damn good time watching this movie, and I smile every time I’ve thought about it since seeing it.  It’s honey bunches of hilarity.  If there’s one bad movie I would recommend this Christmas season that isn’t The Christmas Consultant, it would be Elves.  Find it.  Watch it.  Love it.

If you loved that post, you’re going to love my notes:

• What movies did I mention throughout this post?  30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Cruel World, A Nanny for Christmas, A Crush on You, The Craigslist Killer, Hansel and Gretel Get Baked, Ghost Storm, Miami Connection, Winter’s Tale, The Room, and The Christmas Consultant.
• Jack Frost is another Christmas set horror movie.
• You can find @mattsuzaka by clicking his name.
• What helps you fall in love with a bad movie?  Have you seen Elves?  Did you enjoy it?  Does it sound crazy?  Any thoughts or comments can go in the comments section below.
• If you have suggestions for future movies to be included in the Sunday “Bad” Movies, you can suggest in the comments.  You can also find me on Twitter or email me at sundaybadmovies@gmail.com.
• I’m looking for people who want to submit a paragraph or two about one of the worst movies of 2014 that they have seen.  You can contact me on Twitter or email me if you are interested.
• Next week’s movie will be Santa, Jr., a movie from the early 2000s.