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.

Bill Murray plays Phil, a TV weatherman working for a local station in Pennsylvania but convinced that national news stardom is in his grasp. Phil displays a charm and wit on camera that evaporates the moment the red light goes off; he is bitter, appallingly self-centered, and treats his co-workers with contempt, especially his producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and cameraman Larry (Chris Elliot). On February 2, 1992, Phil, Rita, and Larry are sent on an assignment that Phil especially loathes: the annual Groundhog Day festivities in Punxsutawney, PA, where the citizens await the appearance of Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who will supposedly determine the length of winter by his ability to see his own shadow. Phil is eager to beat a hasty retreat, but when a freak snowstorm strands him in Punxsutawney, he wakes up the next morning with the strangest sense of d?j? vu: he seems to be living the same day over again. The next morning it happens again, and then again. Soon, no matter what he does, he’s stuck in February 2, 1992; not imprisonment nor attempted suicide nor kidnapping the groundhog gets him out of the loop. But the more Phil relives the same day, the more he’s forced to look at other people’s lives, and something unusual happens: he begins to care about others. He starts to respect people, he tries to save the life of a homeless man, and he discovers that he’s falling in love with Rita and therefore wants to be someone that she could love in return.

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.

Four wacky guys take on a pack of rich stuffed shirts (does this premise sound at all familiar?) in this broad comedy. Rick (Jason London) is a slobby but good-natured snowboarder who is mending a broken heart after splitting up with Anna (Caroline Dhavernas), a girl he met while on vacation in Mexico. Rick has headed back to Bull Mountain, AK, where he and his buddies Luke (Zach Galifianakis), Anthony (Flex Alexander), and Pig Pen (Derek Hamilton) spend their days riding the slopes and their nights partying hard. Rick and his pals hope to someday open a hangout for fellow boarders, but after Papa Muntz, the city’s founder and largest landowner, passes on, his son Ted (Willie Garson) sells most of his property to John Majors (Lee Majors), a wealthy but pompous developer who wants to convert Bull Mountain into Snownook, an upscale ski resort catering to yuppies. Determined to keep Bull Mountain safe for like-minded burnouts and radical skiers, Rick and the gang declare war against Majors and his associates, though Rick feels a bit conflicted by the fact that John is Anna’s father — and his daughter is tagging along with her father as he relocates to Alaska. Anna, however, has a rival for Rick’s attention, as Jenny (A.J. Cook), a cute ski bum, has shown her interest in him. Out Cold was the first feature film from sibling directorial team Brendan Malloy and Emmett Malloy, who previously worked in television commercials and created several snowboarding videos.