Bovie Movie

For his sophomore stab at directing, actor/writer/director Jon Favreau (Swingers, Made), took on this holiday comedy starring Saturday Night Live-alum Will Ferrell. Ferrell stars as Buddy, a regular-sized man who was raised as an elf by Santa Claus (Edward Asner). When the news is finally broken to Buddy that he’s not a real elf, he decides to head back to his place of birth, New York City, in search of his biological family. Elf also stars James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Zooey Deschanel, and Bob Newhart.

Eight years after getting a crash course in the fine art of personifying Christmas, Tim Allen returns as Kris Kringle’s replacement in this sequel to the 1994 hit The Santa Clause. While Scott Calvin (Allen) initially had mixed feelings when he became the new Santa Claus, after eight years on the job he’s come to enjoy being Father Christmas, and he and the Elves are looking forward to another holiday season when things begin going a bit wrong. Scott finds he’s becoming less and less “Santa-like,” and his son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) has become difficult enough to land on the official “Naughty” list. Scott discovers most of his problems stem from an obscure passage in his contract with the North Pole which decrees that he has to find a Mrs. Claus. Scott has little choice but to start dating, but he soon learns that when you’re a big guy from the North Pole who lacks conventional employment, single women do not come running. In order to leave him more time to search for a wife, Scott and the Elves create a duplicate Santa to keep an eye on the shop; however, the “other” Santa turns out to be more Naughty than Nice, and in time Scott has to wrestle control of the North Pole away from his doppelganger. Wendy Crewson, Judge Reinhold, and David Krumholtz also reprise their roles from The Santa Clause.

If you know the Clement Clark Moore poem, you’ll know that Prancer is one of Santa Claus’ “eight tiny reindeer.” When 9-year-old Rebecca Harrell, who still believes in Santa despite the remonstrations of her parents and the taunts of her peers, stumbles across the selfsame Prancer in a remote part of the forest, no one will believe the girl. Later on, Harrell’s no-nonsense father Sam Elliot comes across a wounded reindeer, he feels it his duty to put the suffering animal out of his misery. The deer, of course, is Prancer, and it magically vanishes before Elliot’s startled eyes. Harrell nurses the deer back to health in secret, with the help of kindly doctor Abe Vigoda and her troublesome older brother John Joseph Duda. Harrell is determined to contact Santa and let him know where Prancer is, but her efforts only result in public humiliation for her father. But this is a Christmas film, and the spirit of goodwill is contagious by fadeout time, even transforming town-recluse Cloris Leachman into a warm-hearted social animal. Filmed in Indiana, Prancer isn’t quite a classic, but it’s perfect midwinter videocassette entertainment.