Smoky Mountain Christmas
by Fox Home Entertainme
Average Customer Review:
VHS Tape (08 October, 1992)
list price: $14.98
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• Color
• Closed-captioned
• NTSC

Reviews (16)

A Great Movie..but priced too high!
Smoky Mountain Christmas is a great movie but the prices are too high.Watch it on CMT every year.I even taped it minus commercials.I love it...well worth watching!

Movie Great
The movie is fantastic. However, The prices that are being offered for this movie are ridiculous.I think that offering a $14.98 video for excess of $45.00 is nuts.Actually offering it in excess of $15.00 is nuts.

smokey mountain christmas
I have seen this movie and want it on dvd please let us know when it comes out ... Read more

Asin: 6301802705
Sales Rank: 15061
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-drama   

Frosty's Winter Wonderland/Twas the Night Before Christmas
by Warner Home Video
Average Customer Review:
DVD (05 October, 2004)
list price: $14.97 -- our price: $13.47
(price subject to change: see help)
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Editorial Review

Frosty's Winter Wonderland
It's no secret that sequels to classic TV specials rarely stack up--they're usually guilty of getting too fancy with characters and story lines, causing irritating fissures to form in our perceptions of the originals. Lucky for a new generation of holiday viewers, that's not the case with Frosty's Winter Wonderland. In fact, lining up a Frosty double feature at home in which the original is directly followed by the new title is a fully cringe-free proposition, thanks mostly to the down-homey, pleasant narration of Andy Griffith and the near-perfect portrayal of the Frosty we all know and love by Jackie Vernon. The Wonderland dialogue doesn't trouble itself with tiresome throwbacks, and even the plot isn't overly ambitious: Frosty, lonely at the North Pole, is bent on keeping his famous promise to the kids that he'll be back again someday, so when the news of a snowstorm in their town reaches him, he waddles off. But once the belly-whopping's run its course, he's lonely again. The children, hoping to salvage Frosty's stay with them, hit upon a solution: they'll build Frosty a wife. Crystal fits every snowman's fantasy of a dream bride, but will jealous Jack Frost sabotage their wintry wedding? For all classic Christmas special fans who harbor hopes that the fun can continue, it's worth finding out. Kids 2 and older will love the songs and the still-intact dribbles of silliness. --Tammy La Gorce

Twas the Night Before Christmas
Animators of all things Christmas, Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass (Frosty the Snowman) take on the famous poem by Clement Moore. Narrated by Joel Grey, the story opens on the night before Christmas, but the reading of the poem must be stopped when two creatures in the house begin to stir: family men Mr. Trundle and Father Mouse. Their restlessness stems from the fact that Santa is angry at the residents of Junctionville, returning all their letters without even opening them. The reason? Somebody wrote a letter to the editor of the paper saying that he doesn't exist. In an attempt to fix the situation, Mr. Trundle, a clockmaker, comes up with a plan to lure Santa into town with a clock that will sing an enchanting song at midnight. When the clock doesn't work on its first test, the townsfolk lose all faith in him. Turns out the cause of all the trouble is Albert, a book-smart young mouse who thinks he knows the truth about Santa Claus. There are a few good songs in the 23-minute program, whose the moral is: don't believe the kids on the playground if they say that Santa doesn't exist. --Andy Spletzer ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Closed-captioned

Reviews (9)

Ok.....
frosty is really good. it's a classic!
i hate watching twas the night before christmas.
it's all about clocks and mouses and liers.
if i were you, i would buy frosty alone, not twas the night
before christmas. rankin/bass has never dissapointed me before,
except with this movie! these 3 stars go towards frosty.

Holiday Classics On DVD Thanks Warners!
These Two Shows i remember as a kid & how good they were,
for alittle bit they were gone from tv around christmas & i could'nt understand why. i mean they're nothing bad in these two shows , nothing but wholesome entertainment so i'm very glad to see these shows on dvd. Thank You Warners At lease somebody has a brain there. this will save me from having to watch those other crappy shows this season that can't hold a candle to rankin/bass shows that had a heart & actually a message.

So Please Do Yourself A favor & pick up a copy of this Wonderful Dvd. Live On Frosty & The Clock Maker of Twas The Night Before Christmas. The Message of These Two Shows is something that every child should hear.

One word...
FINALLY!!! These two have always been among our seasonal favorites, and my VHS copies were down to their last. Rankin & Bass rule the Holidays! ... Read more

Asin: B0002M5U7E
Subjects:  1. Children's Video   

The Angel Doll
by Monarch Home Video
Average Customer Review:
DVD (21 September, 2004)
list price: $14.95 -- our price: $13.46
(price subject to change: see help)
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• Color

Reviews (11)

THE ANGEL DOLL
I have watched this movie at LEAST 3 times!The young boy who plays WHITEY is EXCELLENT!The rest of the cast are fantastic.

The movie touches on predjudices and on CHOOSING how to act and beleive.

This IS a sad movie but one EVERYONE should watch.EXTREMELY WONDERFUL!

That a boy should love his sister so much that he spends his salary to buy her a special doll, is so heartwarming.It also shows how special friendships can be.

If you have not seen it DO SO! You will miss out on a great movie if you do not!

not quite
This appeared to be the kind of movie I like: a heart-warming family/Christmas movie.Yet, the movie was disappointing.The actors were likeable enough (luckily) and did a good job.So, what was it?

This is a nostalgia movie, not a Christmas movie, and the Doll comes in only at the end.Okay, nothing wrong with that.But like so many such movies, this one tried to mute every possible effect.First of all, use of a narrator put the audience at one remove from the story.On top of that, the events of the story happen to somebody else, not to the main character.The main character is merely an observer, which puts the audience at an additional level of distance from the story.As if that weren't enough, the screenwriter has the major event of the movie, the death of the little girl, happen off-screen.It is told, not shown.All of this makes for a movie of such emotional torpor that the story hardly touches the heart.And the story could have and should have.The effect of emotional tepidity is reinforced by the fact that there are only two events in the entire story, which means that for most of the screen time, "nothing" is happening, only the day-to-day life of a ten-year-old boy.Add to that a rug-pull ending: the event we have been waiting for...doesn't happen, and you have an unsatisfying viewing experience.

Bottom line: rent or borrow this DVD, since this is not a movie you'll want to watch more than once.

Inappropriate scenes for children
Angel Doll was a sweet, heart warming movie. Unfortunately, there were two scenes that ruined it as a family movie. The first was inappropriate shot of a customer's heavily endowed and exposed (on purpose) chest of one of the boy's customer on his paper route. The boys dicuss the display at a camp-out with the word "boob" being banted around excessively. Are they marketing this movie to families or to pre-teen boys? The other scense had nothing at all to contribute to the movie. It showed the main character showing his buddy how to rip off candy with out getting caught.
I thought the over all movie was great. I really enjoyed it when I didn't think about the inappropriate scenes to which I had just exposed my children. ... Read more

Asin: B0000CEB59
Sales Rank: 7208
Subjects:  1. Christmas   

Ernest Saves Christmas
by Buena Vista Home Vid
Average Customer Review:
DVD (03 September, 2002)
list price: $9.99 -- our price: $9.99
(price subject to change: see help)
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• Color
• Closed-captioned
• Widescreen

Reviews (25)

Ernest helps Santa bring Christmas to the world!
I am a big Ernest fan, I have been for years. So, as you could probably guess, my review will be biased, but hey, take what you can get.

As you could guess from the title (or at least I hope you could), this movie is about Ernest saving Christmas. The plot itself is pretty typical, but like most good movies, it is not the originality that makes the movie good, it is the presentation, and this movie excels in that.

The man who plays as Santa, Douglas Seale, is good, but really, how hard is it to act like Santa? You could get a hobo off the street and train him to act like a good Santa. What makes Seale good is that when he laughs, it actually sounds genuine. Also, he doesn't have the stereotypical giant coat of fur around his face. Finally, his voice actually fits. It's not that most Santas have horrible voices, it's just that some people are not meant to play as Santa...

Next, Ernest is his usual lovable self in this movie. He is a taxi driver (who is rather bad at driving) that ends up helping Santa when it is revealed that he arrived in order to find a replacement Santa. However, when the replacement, Joe Carruthers (Oliver Clark), refuses, it turns bad. Things goes worst when a girl on a bad path steals steals his bag of presents.

Some recognizable faces from the usual Ernest movies appears and also new faces. This is a great movie no one should miss! Myself? I thought it was a classic!

NOT REALLY TOO FUNNY OR ENJOYABLE
THIS TIME AROUND, SANTA CLAUS RETIRES AND IT'S UP TO ERNEST TO GET HIM BACK BEFORE CHRISTMAS COMES. NOT REALLY FUNNY AND IT'S JUST NOT THAT ENJOYABLE. THIS WAS THE SECOND MOVIE IN THE ERNEST SERIES. KIDS WILL PROBABLY LIKE THIS ONE, BUT OLDER TEENS [LIKE MYSELF] OR ADULTS WON'T REALLY FIND TOO MUCH OF ANYTHING TO ENJOY IN THIS MOVIE. SKIP THIS ONE. FOLLOWED BY ERNEST GOES TO JAIL.

sometimes you just need to laugh
It's very heartening to know that so many people appreciate this movie. Maybe the world is not as cynical as I suspected. This is one really funny movie and one I would recommend.

The scene where Ernest delivers a Christmas tree to Vern's house has to be one of the most hilarious things I have ever seen. You REALLY need to let your guard down just once if you haven't seen this film and just laugh and marvel at the characters Jim Varney can improvise. Pour yourself some potent eggnog, I don't know. We all need this kind of therapy now and then.

Back in the 80's you could make a movie like this. Ernest was always just a kindhearted bumbler; innocent and funny. Think about some of the elements in light of today's culture. A cynical but positively stunning runaway girl just starts staying with Ernest at his house. At one point she is wearing a schoolgirl outfit with pigtails - and walks right into a prison cell past a bunch of men who pay no attention to her at all. Back in 1988 when I first saw this movie that didn't seem particularly weird at all. That was 1988 and this is now.

Just like some of the anachronisms in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or A Charlie Brown Christmas, you just have to kick back at Christmas time and drink a toast to better days when you watch Ernest Saves Christmas. I only hope Jim Varney knew how much people loved him. ... Read more

Asin: B000068MBV
Sales Rank: 17147
Subjects:  1. Feature Film-comedy   

One Magic Christmas
by Anchor Bay Entertainment
Average Customer Review:
DVD (20 August, 2002)
list price: $14.98
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Editorial Review

Grab an econo-pack of tissues, gather your loved ones around a cozytelevision, and bring on the hot cocoa--it's time for a dose of Christmasspirit. The tender and charming Mary Steenburgen (Parenthood) dons a sour disposition in her role as Ginny Grainger, a woman who finds little joy in lifelately--let alone in the impending holiday season. Money is tight, herhusband (beautifully downplayed by nice-guy Gary Basaraba) lost his job,and the family must move out of their house. Ginny cannot even bringherself to say, "Merry Christmas," despite her family's enthusiasm aboutthe big day. With help from Ginny's brave and loving daughter (sweetlyperformed by Elisabeth Harnois) and a Christmas angel named Gideon (Harry DeanStanton), Ginny undergoes a life-altering experience à la It's a Wonderful Life. The result? Happy endings, hugs andkisses, pass the tissues.

Not a light holiday entertainer by any means, the plot verges ondepressing at times, as the family struggles through money issues and thetedium of daily suburban survival. While handled fairly subtly, some ofthe bridging story--including a shooting, a kidnapping, and adrowning--might prove disturbing to children under 6 years old. Andreally: if the somber Harry Dean Stanton (Paris, Texas) repeatedlyappeared in your neighborhood, cloaked in a cowboy hat and overcoat,would you allow your kids outside? Still, a well-made favorite tocherish. --Liane Thomas ... Read more

Features

• Color
• Widescreen

Reviews (49)

A Peek into an Alternate Reality
So many Christmas movies come at us at the end of November and December that I tape all of the Christmas movies and my wife and I work them in when we can.I taped this one from tv and we watched it 2 or 3 days ago.It was surprisingly good, better than we thought from the listed description.My wife enjoyed it in spite of her not liking too much fantasy and she hates anything that looks like time travel, or alternate reality. Harry Dean Stanton is a long time character actor acting in what must be almost 100 movies.I thought he looked more like the Shadow in my old comic books of the 40's than an angel but he pulled it off very well, performing a little magic now and then.The story was hard and realistic.Mary Steenburgen is one of my favorite actresses, having seen her in many movies, and is currently starring in "Joan of Arcadia," a popular series.She played a sad mom very convincingly. I did have to rewind a time or two to get the sense of when the alternate time changed.This is a movie you have to pay attention to while it is running.TV version.

Believing Can Be Everything
This is a movie that refects what stress and money can do to an individual around the holiday season, and how one persons actions can create a turmoil of events to themselves and those around them. When you think you are down and out, just watch this movie to see how wonderful life really is and the importance of believing. Enjoy, its a really good one!

A Different Take On a Similar Theme
This is a very different kind of Christmas movie than most of us are used to. The theme is one we have become familiar with -- someone, in this case the mom, has lost her Christmas spirit and belief in Santa. The husband, however, holds onto his and wants their two children to keep theirs.

The remainder of the film, however, is a departure from most films. First of all, the family is an ordinary working class one with some money worries. Next, the angel is not what we're used to seeing; in fact he seems almost like a child molester. The settings are stark and cold, with plenty of snow and dull colours, but the story is warm. This gives the story a certain amount of realism to play against the fantasy that surely must follow in a story like this. And the bleakness serves as a reminder that for many, this can be a depressing time of year.

There are some surprises along the way, and we're not sure how we're going to get there, but since it is a Christmas story there must be a happy ending. A very warm and gentle movie about finding the true meaning of Christmas -- family and friends. Well worth watching (as I do every year).

And as at least one other reviewer noted, parents with young children should talk about the scenes with the little girl and Gedion when they're alone. If you have children, I am certain you don't want them talking to strangers alone at night on an empty street. ... Read more

Asin: 6305537372
Subjects:  1. Christmas