Christmas

Struggling songwriter Dave Seville (Jason Lee) opens his home to a talented trio of chipmunks named Alvin, Simon and Theodore, they quickly become overnight music sensations. But when a greedy record producer (David Cross) tries to exploit the musical ensemble, Dave must use a little human ingenuity-and a lot of 'munk mischief-to get his furry family back before it's too late!

Families come in many different shapes and sizes, but few humans consider rodents members of the family. Dave Seville (Jason Lee) is no exception, so when this flailing musician finds three young talking chipmunks gorging themselves in his kitchen cupboards, Dave is quick to question his sanity and then toss the offending chipmunks outside into the rain and restore order. When Dave hears the chipmunks singing outside his window, he realizes that that unusual trio might just be the world's next vocal sensation and he strikes a bargain with them--the chipmunks can stay with him if they sing his songs. While chipmunks Alvin (Justin Long), Theodore (Jesse McCartney), and Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) quickly begin to see Dave as a father figure, it's strictly a business arrangement for Dave and he maintains an appropriate emotional distance. Dave's frustration with the chipmunks mounts as they unwittingly wreak havoc on his personal life, but when Dave's old friend and record label mogul Ian (David Cross) begins to exploit the chipmunks for personal gain, Dave suddenly realizes what an important part of his life, and indeed his family, the three chipmunks have become. Hilarity reins in this live action/CGI comedy with many memorable scenes--think chipmunks showering in the dishwasher, riding in remote control planes, and bouncing off the walls under the influence of a serious caffeine buzz. Catchy Chipmunks' songs both new and old promise to lodge themselves in the minds of viewers long after the credits roll and even those none-too-enchanted with the premise of singing chipmunks can't help but be entertained by this comical film. (Ages 6 and older with parental guidance due to mild rude humor) --Tami Horiuchi

This hilarious Christmas film tells the tale of a young orphan child who mistakenly crawls into Santa's bag of gifts on Christmas Eve and is transported back to the North Pole and raised as an elf. Years later Buddy learns he is not really an elf and goes on a journey to New York City to find his true identity.

Elf is genuinely good. Not just Saturday Night Live-movie good, when the movie has some funny bits but is basically an insult to humanity; Elf is a smartly written, skillfully directed, and deftly acted story of a human being adopted by Christmas elves who returns to the human world to find his father. And because the writing, directing, and acting are all genuinely good, Elf is also genuinely funny. Will Ferrell, as Buddy the adopted elf, is hysterically sincere. James Caan, as his rediscovered father, executes his surly dumbfoundedness with perfect aplomb. Zooey Deschanel, as a department store worker with whom Buddy falls in love, is adorably sardonic. Director Jon Favreau (Swingers) shepherds the movie through all the obligatory Christmas cliches and focuses on material that's sometimes subtle and consistently surprising. Frankly, Elf feels miraculous. Also featuring Mary Steenburgen, Bob Newhart, Peter Dinklage, and Ed Asner as Santa Claus. --Bret Fetzer

Stills from Elf (click for larger image)

Come along on a surprise journey with Lauri, Scott, and Barney the dog, as they magically disappear into the pages of their coloring book. Meet Sillywhim, who welcomes them to the wacky world of Sillyville where anything can happenÑas long as itÕs fun. But thereÕs a problem here: The yellow Spurtlegurgles donÕt like the green Jingleheimers, while the red Bitty Booties wonÕt talk to the blue Twirlypops. Now itÕs up to Laurie and Scott to teach them the true meaning of friendship, no matter what color they are.

Children of all ages will love to sing and dance along with the characters to 20 best-loved childrenÕs songs.

• When a doubting young boy takes an extraordinary train ride to the North Pole, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery that shows him that the wonder of life never fades for those who believe.Running Time: 100 min. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN Rating: G Age: 012569740648 UPC: 012569740648 Manufacturer No: 74064

Voice of Tom Hanks. Robert Zemeckis directs a this delightful tale based on the favorite childrens' book about a magical train that whisks boys and girls to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus. Animated. 2004/color/100 min/G.

Destined to become a holiday perennial, The Polar Express also heralded a brave new world of all-digital filmmaking. Critics and audiences were divided between those who hailed it as an instant classic that captures the visual splendor and evocative innocence of Chris Van Allsburg's popular children's book, and those who felt that the innovative use of "performance capture"--to accurately translate live performances into all-digital characters--was an eerie and not-quite-lifelike distraction from the story's epic-scale North Pole adventure. In any case it's a benign, kind-hearted celebration of the yuletide spirit, especially for kids who have almost grown out of their need to believe in Santa Claus. Tom Hanks is the nominal "star" who performs five different computer-generated characters, but it's the visuals that steal this show, as director Robert Zemeckis indulges his tireless pursuit of technological innovation. No matter how you respond to the many wonders on display, it's clear that The Polar Express represents a significant milestone in the digital revolution of cinema. If it also fills you with the joy of Christmas (in spite of its Nuremberg-like rally of frantic elves), so much the better. --Jeff Shannon

The World of The Polar Express

The book by Chris Van Allsburg

The Soundtrack

The Magic Journey (Polar Express the Movie) (book)

Stills from Polar Express (click for larger image)

When the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world and into ours -- in fact, smack dab in the middle of Central Park. Just three apples high and stuck in the Big Apple, the Smurfs must find a way to get back to their village before Gargamel tracks them down.

Once in a blue moon, one gets a glimpse of what's truly important in life--and it's not always what one might expect. In the hidden land of the Smurfs, the perpetually happy blue creatures are preparing for the Blue Moon festival. They have no clue that the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) is about to follow one of them into their secret world in an attempt to capture their happy essence--a substance guaranteed to render his magic all-powerful. In a striking parallel to Enchanted, a vortex suddenly opens up and sucks Papa, Grouchy, Smurfette, Brainy, Gutsy, and Clumsy Smurf into the middle of New York City, with Gargamel following close behind. Shocked expectant parents Patrick and Grace Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays) end up with an apartment full of the little blue beings. They eventually befriend the Smurfs and agree to help them outsmart Gargamel and find their way back home. What ensues is a danger-filled, comical adventure that takes the Smurfs from Central Park to Patrick's place of employment and even FAO Schwarz. Just when it looks like their plan to return home will fail, and that they've destroyed Patrick's career in the process, things really heat up and everyone learns a lesson about what's really important in life and about believing in oneself. The film does a good job melding live action and animation, and there's plenty of humor involved for both kids and adults. Most kids will laugh their way through the film, but there are some situations of peril that the very youngest or easily frightened might find rather intense. Harris and Mays do a good job interacting with their new blue friends, but it's too bad these talented actors weren't given a bit more depth of character to work with. Azaria is quite an effective villain and Frank Welker's cat Azrael is hysterical. Other notable voice talent includes Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Alan Cumming as Gutsy, Katy Perry as Smurfette, Fred Armisen as Brainy, George Lopez as Grouchy, and Anton Yelchin as Clumsy. The Smurfs is funny enough family entertainment, but given its star-studded cast, it had the potential to be even better. (Ages 7 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

• This delightfully funny holiday gem tells the story of Ralphie Parker (Peter Billingsly) a 1940's nine-year-old who pulls out all the stops to obtain the ultimate Christmas present.It's Christmas time and there's only one thing on Ralphie Parker's Christmas list this year: a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot, Range Model Air Rifle, but many obstacles stand in the way of his dream because every adu

Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Peter Billingsley. Follow the hilarious adventures of Ralphie Parker as he pursues the gift of his dreams-a Red Ryder Air Rifle in this classic holiday treasure. 1983/color/98 min/PG/fullscreen.

Director Bob Clark's charming, touching, and very funny adaptation of humorist Jean Shepherd's nostalgic, autobiographical Yuletide novel, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash, remains essential holiday family viewing. Narrated by a man (Shepherd) recalling his childhood, the film looks back at the compulsive efforts of 7-year-old Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) as he tries every means possible to acquire his dream Christmas gift--a Daisy-brand Red Ryder repeating BB carbine with a compass mounted in the stock. Problem is, he lives in a Norman Rockwell-esque Midwestern town in the 1940s, where his parents, teachers, and even Santa Claus all warn Ralphie that "he'll shoot his eye out." Episodic in nature and seen entirely through the eyes of a child, the film offers a wonderful look at the day-to-day eccentricities that grew out of this conservative period. More interestingly, it cleverly captures childhood urgency, where even the most trivial fantasies or objects become immediate life-or-death necessities. While countless family Christmas movies serve up clichéd situations suffocating with preachy sermons, Clark's acute eye for detail and odd mixture of warmth, satire, and quirky humor are the reasons why so many viewers have rediscovered this after it initially bombed in the theaters. Sentimental without being syrupy, it's a true rarity: a holiday movie that adults and children can enjoy equally, for completely different reasons and regardless of the season. --Dave McCoy

• Disney makes this beloved musical more magical than ever with an all-new, feature-length production! Featuring an all-star cast and new choreography, this charming tale of an adorable orphan named Annie captures all the fun of the original but adds an unmistakable Disney touch! For a young girl living a "hard knock life" in a children s orphanage, things may seem pretty bad especially at Christ

Disney makes this beloved musical more magical than ever with an all-new, feature-length production! Featuring an all-star cast and new choreography, this charming tale of an adorable orphan named Annie captures all the fun of the original, but adds an unmistakable Disney touch! For a young girl living a "hard-knock" life in a children's orphanage, things may seem pretty bad -- especially at Christmas. But feisty Annie carries a song in her heart and hope in her locket -- the only thing she has from her parents. One day, fed up with the dastardly Miss Hannigan (Academy Award(R)-winner Kathy Bates), Annie escapes the rundown orphanage determined to find her mom and dad. Her adventure takes her from the cold, mean streets of New York to the warm, comforting arms of bighearted billionaire Oliver Warbucks, with plenty of mischief and music in between! Filled with memorable songs and magical moments, Disney's ANNIE brings this heartwarming story to a whole new generation. And now you can relive the magic over and over again!

Disney's 1999 TV production of the classic 1977 musical Annie is remarkable for its casting of stage actors rather than ratings trump cards. Tony winners Audra McDonald (Grace), Alan Cumming (Rooster), and Kristin Chenoweth (Lily) join four-time nominee Victor Garber (Daddy Warbucks) and Les Misérables veteran Alicia Morton (Annie) to tell the tale of the Depression-era orphan who gets a taste of the upper-crust life. Not surprisingly, they all turn in strong performances, and even Oscar-winner Kathy Bates acquits herself well in a singer's role, as the villainous Miss Hannigan. Perhaps best of all is the original title moppet, Andrea McArdle, making a sensational one-minute cameo as the Broadway Star-To-Be in "N.Y.C."

Compared to John Huston's plodding, overly busy 1982 theatrical release, this production as directed by Rob Marshall (Cabaret, among other shows) is quite conservative; few numbers leave the confines of their sets, giving it the feel of a stage production. It is also more faithful as a whole to the Broadway original, though at a running time of 90 minutes it leaves out most of the historical context of the FDR administration as well as some of Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin's familiar songs, and makes a few plot changes, some of which work and some of which don't. Because of the omissions, this probably isn't a definitive film translation of Annie, but it's well paced for a young audience, and would be an excellent introduction to get children interested in live theater. Annie was produced by the team behind the 1993 telecast of Gypsy with Bette Midler, as well as 1997's Brandy-Whitney Houston Cinderella, and there are plans for many others. As Broadway shows are too often represented on video by inferior big-screen translations, this trend toward good, solid small-screen productions is most welcome. --David Horiuchi

• Five-time Emmy nominee and Golden Globe winner Henry Winkler stars in The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, the story of what happens when you open your heart to the power of Christmas. Disenchanted single mom Jennifer Cullen (Brooke Burns) is a Scroogette when it comes to anything Christmas. In fact, even her six-year-old son, Brian, is having trouble believing in Santa Claus. But when her Uncle R

Henry Winkler, Brooke Burns, Warren Christie. A single mother who thinks Christmas is a humbug, gets a visit from her Uncle Ralph who brings a handsome young stranger with him to the house. Together they manage to bring the miracle of Christmas to Jennifer and her non-believing, six-year-old son in this wonderfully uplifting holiday tale! 2008/color/87 min/NR/fullscreen.

• Now digitally restored and remastered with state-of-the-art technology, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS is deeper, darker and more brilliant than ever -- just as Tim Burton originally envisioned it. Can Christmas be saved? Bored with the same old scare-and-scream routine, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, longs to spread the joy of Christmas. But his merry mission puts Santa in

Now digitally restored and remastered with state-of-the-art technology, 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' is deeper, darker and more brilliant than ever -- just as Tim Burton originally envisioned it. Can Christmas be saved? Bored with the same old scare-and-scream routine, Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, longs to spread the joy of Christmas. But his merry mission puts Santa in jeopardy and creates a nightmare for good little boys and girls everywhere!

For those who never thought Disney would release a film in which Santa Claus is kidnapped and tortured, well, here it is! The full title is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, which should give you an idea of the tone of this stop-action animated musical/fantasy/horror/comedy. It is based on characters created by Burton, the former Disney animator best known as the director of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and the first two Batman movies. His benignly scary-funny sensibility dominates the story of Halloweentown resident Jack Skellington (voice by Danny Elfman, who also wrote the songs), who stumbles on a bizarre and fascinating alternative universe called ... Christmastown! Directed by Henry Selick (who later made the delightful James and the Giant Peach), this PG-rated picture has a reassuringly light touch. As Roger Ebert noted in his review, "some of the Halloween creatures might be a tad scary for smaller children, but this is the kind of movie older kids will eat up; it has the kind of offbeat, subversive energy that tells them wonderful things are likely to happen." --Jim Emerson

• A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938) Reginald Owen portrays Charles Dickens holiday humbug Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser s miser who has a huge change of heart after spirits whisk him into the past, present and future. From sets to stars to story, this triumphant adaptation adds a glow to the season. Like Tiny Tim s benediction, it blesses us every one.CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (1945) A magazine columnist totall

A Christmas Carol - Reginald Owen portrays Charles Dickens' holiday humbug Ebenezer Scrooge. Christmas In Connecticut - Laughs, romance, holiday cheer: that's the recipe Barbara Stanwyck and a stellar company follow in this perennial favorite. It Happened On 5th Avenue - Home for the holidays! GI families hit by the post-World War II housing crunch take over an abandoned New York City mansion. The Shop Around The Corner - Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart play bickering store clerks who are unknowingly secret pen pals.

Christmas in Connecticut
Christmas in Connecticut is a holiday film that plays 365 days of the year. Barbara Stanwyck gives a brilliant, sardonic performance as Elizabeth Lane, a columnist for Smart Housekeeping magazine, whose enticing descriptions of the exquisite meals she prepares for her husband and baby on their bucolic Connecticut farm earns her fame as "America's Best Cook." A writer, she is; a cook, she is not. As she types the words, "From my living room window, as I write, the good cedar logs cracking on the fire..." the view is of clothes flapping on the line outside her bachelorette Manhattan apartment. An able supporting cast keeps her lie on life support: her editor, her stuffy and detestable architect suitor, and the wonderful "Uncle" Felix (S.Z. Sakall), an English-garbling Hungarian chef who provides the recipes that fill her column.

Cut to Jefferson Jones, a sailor adrift at sea for weeks after his destroyer is torpedoed. Memories of the food described in Lane's columns are central to his survival. After his rescue, as he's recuperating in a naval hospital, a marriage-minded nurse thinks she might nudge Jones to the altar if he could only experience a real domestic Christmas. And it just so happens that she was nurse to the grandchild of Alexander Yardley, the wealthy and powerful publisher of --you guessed it--Smart Housekeeping magazine. And so, she pens the letter that could unravel Lane's carefully constructed fraud. She writes to Yardley asking that Jones be included in America's ultimate Christmas--the one to be held at the Lane family farm in Connecticut. The pompous Yardley (ably portrayed by Sidney Greenstreet) believes the Lane myth and instantly sniffs a story that will send his magazine's circulation skyrocketing. And staring down a lonely holiday, he decides to join the Lanes for Christmas on the farm, too. Now, all Lane has to do is come up with a farm. And a husband. And let's not forget the baby. Christmas in Connecticut is classic screwball entertainment of the best kind, with its on-target skewering of social convention and house-of- cards-about-to-tumble tension: a perfect farcical vision of domestic blitz. --Susan Benson

A Christmas Carol 1938
This is the desert-island choice of the many versions of A Christmas Carol, with a magnificent, full-bodied portrayal of Ebenezer Scrooge by Alastair Sim that leaves everyone else in the dust. Lean and direct, this film's version of the story wastes no time trying to impress viewers with the magical nature of the spirits' visitations. Director Brian Desmond Hurst keeps the focus on Scrooge's life story, beautifully simplifying and underscoring the theme of lost women with a haunting musical refrain from the folk song "Barbara Allen." Sim's commitment to the role is at times astonishing; his Scrooge's Christmas-morning ecstasy is a marvel of giddy technique. Watch for Patrick Macnee (Steed in The Avengers) as the young Jacob Marley--the actor made his screen debut in this 1951 production. --Tom Keogh

The Shop Around the Corner
One of the most charming and romantic films around, this 1940 comic romance finds James Stewart (Vertigo, It's A Wonderful Life) working in a small shop in Budapest and longing for a girl to call his own. His coworker, Margaret Sullavan, feels the same, and soon they are both corresponding and falling in love with their respective pen pals. What they don't realize is that they are writing to and falling in love with each other, but the problem is that they can't stand each other in person. The beguiling nature of the mistaken identity formula that influenced countless films is done to perfection here, and the wry combativeness and delightful banter between the two leads makes this a very special film. --Robert Lane

It Happened on 5th Avenue
Making his winter home in a vacant New York City mansion,owned by vacationing industrialist Michael O'Connor (Charlie Ruggles), a philosophizing hobo decides to take in a homeless ex-G.I. O'Connor's unhappy daughter, Trudy (Gale Storm), running away from finishing school, returns home unexpectedly but doesn't tell anyone who she is or who her dad is when he comes looking for her disguised as a butler. Meanwhile, O'Connor unwittingly competes with the ex-G.I. in a land deal. The film, nominated best original story, contains a worthwhile message of self worth.