Over and over and over we keep reading about how Hollywood’s holiday box office was some sort of silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud. But once again, the context-challenged entertainment media only tells us half the story. Here’s a sampling:

Box Office Mojo:

Based on studio estimates, the four-day weekend will end up at over $201 million, or up around 10 percent from the same four-day period last year.

DHD:

Let’s party hearty with the end-of-holiday box office for end-of-year 2011. Or let’s not (and say we did.)… [S]ources tell me this final weekend will definitely be up over last year.

Los Angeles Times:

Most films sold more tickets over the New Year’s holiday than the Christmas holiday, with family films benefiting from the biggest bumps. Overall, the weekend was up 10% compared with the same period in 2010.

Cinema Blend:

Sales were up considerably from last weekend’s Christmas holiday and the new year is off to a solid start.

Except…

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You’ll have to click on the image below to watch the video, which is legitimately clever and funny. Christianity takes a few hits, but I don’t know of any Christian who can’t laugh at his or herself as long we’re not — per the usual — being singled out by cowardly satirists posing as “ballsy.”

Thankfully, that is certainly not the case here and as expected, the very same leftists who would praise the bravery of anyone trashing Christians, are now screaming “Islamophobia!”:

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Gothamist:

While Leary is probably trying to shock his fans out of their pre-holiday stupor—fueled by a never ending stream of wallpaper Christmas tunes—we had a very tough time sitting through this particularly xenophobic one-note joke.

Islamophobia Watch:

A jaw-droppingly Islamophobic video has been posted by Irish-American comedian Denis Leary on WhoSay. Some years ago Leary took a firm stand against Mel Gibson’s antisemitism. But apparently crude anti-Muslim stereotyping is fine with Leary.

Please note that neither one said anything objecting to Leary’s shots at Christianity.

Who’s the “phobe” now?

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1. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: $26.5M — The only real bright spot, the only unqualified hit of the season. Cruise’s 4th outing with impossible missions should exceed the take of the last one. You can’t ask for more than that.

2. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows: $17.8M — There’s been some spin claiming Robert Downey Jr’s. sequel rebounded a bit this weekend, but that’s grading on a curve. After ten days in release, the first film was sitting at $138m. Compare that to part two, which has brought in about half that ($76m).

3. Alvin and the Chipminks: Chipwrecked: $13.3M — After ten days “Alvin 2″ was cleaning up with $133m, compared to “Chipwrecked,” which sits at $50m.

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: $13.3M — Two observations: First off, who in their right mind would want to see such a downer during the holidays? Second, it appears as though fans of the book were perfectly satisfied with the perfectly satisfying 2009 version.

5. Adventures of Tintin: $9.1M — The number that matters with this one is the $250m already made overseas. American audiences aren’t  familiar with Tintin. However, you would  think a better job would’ve been done to market to the U.S. But after decades of only marketing known brands, I’m not sure the studios have the brainpower to introduce new concepts and characters. Those are muscles no one’s bothered to flex in a long time. For that reason alone, a lot of money was left on the table. We’re talking Steven Spielberg for crying out loud.

6. We Bought a Zoo: $7.8M — Matt Damon is not a star AND he works overtime to alienate 60% of his potential customers.

7.  New Year’s Eve: $3M – Guess we won’t be seeing “Arbor Day.”

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“Do you believe that Jesus died in the sense that if you had been there that day, you could have rubbed your finger on the cross and got a splinter in it?”

–Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There

I read that simple, elegant question as a senior in high school, and it’s stuck with me for almost seven years now. How profoundly that illustrates the unique historical revelation of the Gospels; instead of revealing himself through a lengthy vision or message that could only be seen/translated by one lucky individual, God showed up on earth to be seen, heard, even touched by anyone who was able. The disciples’ letters in the New Testament often reaffirm this sensory proof; 1 John refers to “[t]hat which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched.”

They saw a man walking over the deep sea; they saw the blind and lame healed; but most importantly, they saw a dead man–dead from an extremely thorough, conclusive form of murder–alive, still sporting his wounds but eating and drinking, walking and talking. Their insistence upon claiming they sensed these things led virtually all of them to a life of constant persecution and eventually execution.

It’s with that in mind that I present the end result of my obsession with Schaeffer’s question, “I Could Get a Splinter,” a song that’s far too serious for me, given all the anti-hipster hipster cred I’ve built up with constant sarcasm and above-it-all potshots. I hope that this song, as well as its B-side, “Who Could Have Known,” help you feel a little bit of wonder at the Incarnation and how God became a man so that we could be forgiven for constantly choosing our self-destructive autonomy over his perfection. (more…)

Holiday films and specials are a favorite American pastime. Whether you watch the same cherished movie with your family every year or you’re running out to the theatre Christmas morning to see that potential Oscar contender on its premiere date, holiday specials never fail to work their way into our lives as a beloved tradition.

However creating a Christmas classic certainly requires a magical mixture of ingredients.  A few cups of sentiment, a drop of imaginary wonder, spoonfuls of yuletide joy and unforgettable quotes that make it a definitive holiday trademark.

15. “Elf” - “Buddy the elf, what’s your favorite color?” Will Ferrell stars as Buddy, who thinks he is one of Santa’s little helpers, but is clearly out of place. One of the most hilarious Christmas stories ever written and Ferrell at his finest.

14. “A Christmas Carol” (Original B&W Version) - The 1951 British classic stars Alastair Sim as Scrooge and has its share of darkness and happiness as old Ebenezer is haunted by three spirits on Christmas Eve. The funniest moment is when Scrooge’s housekeeper Mrs. Dilber awakes him on Christmas morning and he raises her pay from 2 shillings a week to 10, she responds almost half frightened, “Merry Christmas Mr. Scrooge. In keeping with the situation!” (more…)

KYLE SMITH RIPS ‘DRAGON TATTOO’

Ouch:

Once the hype dies, this movie will be best enjoyed as a drinking game. Down a shot of Absolut every time Craig whips his glasses on or off and you’ll be blitzed by the halfway point. When he can’t figure out an excuse to do that, he does bizarre things with the specs, such as leaving them dangling beneath his face like a chin strap. The poor man is under the delusion that eyewear can make anything here seem intelligent.

Here’s “John Boot” at Pajamas, who seconds that emotion:

So take the critical hosannas for Larsson’s trilogy with a grain of salt. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo could hardly be pulpier, nastier, more contrived, or more risible. Its characters — morally pure crusaders, evil fanatics — could not be less developed. The sex scenes between Blomkvist and Salander seem thrown in to give us one more chance to see Mara (who is in her twenties but has the body of a high-school sophomore) naked, not because Fincher makes us see any connection (emotional or physical) between the characters. The film is as depraved as Caligula, but at least Caligula didn’t pretend to be anything other than smut.

It doesn’t sound as though Smith or ‘Boot’ were fans of the original trilogy of films released last year, either.

Though I haven’t seen the remake, I’m a big fan of the original trilogy. And while I do agree with both that the material is pulpy, nasty, and simplistic in both its politics and in the good and evil characterizations, I don’t see those qualities as bad things. None of that bothered me because at heart “Dragon Tattoo” is a vigilante film, and the most satisfying vigilante films are nasty, pulpy, and simplistic.

I cheered every kill.

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The producers of “Bad Santa” must’ve dug up Charles Bukowski and offered him a bottle of scotch in exchange for his version of a Christmas movie. There’s no other explanation for this film. “Bad Santa” can be summed up pretty simply: It’s a typical Christmas movie; it’s got the kids and love and a happy ending (sort of) and even a little tidbit at the end that digs into the anti-materialistic  meaning of Christmas. The only difference between this and a regular old Jolly Saint Nick movie, I guess, would be the profanity, excessive drinking, general anger targeted towards innocent parents and children and, last but not least, midget jokes. Other than all that though, this is the perfect Christmas movie for the whole family!

From frame one, “Bad Santa” is ridiculously funny. Just the image of a miserable Bill Bob Thornton in a Santa suit drinking alone at a bar with overhead narration that you definitely wouldn’t want your grandma to hear is enough to make you die of laughter. “Bad Santa” is my pick as the perfect Christmas movie because its political incorrectness and general on screen misbehavior make it more than relevant and more realistic than other Christmas movies.

“Bad Santa” is about a drunk played by Billy Bob Thornton. This drunk and his partner in crime, a black midget who gives them their niche, pose as Santa and an elf every year at a different mall in a different city. At the end of the Christmas season, they rob the mall for all its worth and pack up until next Christmas. Now, they are back at it again, only Thornton is worse than usual in his drinking and ends up staying at some loser kid’s mansion while the kid’s dad is in prison. The kid (played by Brett Kelley) adds some of the more quirky humor in the film. He seems about two steps away from being mentally handicapped, but Willie (Thornton) takes pity on him and tries to teach him a thing or two (in between yelling at the kid and coming close to physically abusing him. Remember this is not typical Hollywood fare). (more…)

This weekend was supposed to turn all that bad box office news around for Hollywood,  but both saviors that went into wide release yesterday are not only trailing their predecessors (as you’ll see below), they are falling well below expectations. “Entertainment Weekly” predicted “Sherlock 2″ and “Chipwrecked” would open to $54 million and $30 million respectively, which is low compared to some others.  If these numbers hold, the silver bullet Hollywood assumed would solve all their problems suddenly won’t look all that silver.

If these two franchises, these two titles, these two pieces of product can’t put butts in seats — what can?

And how do you blame Redbox and piracy on this one?

DHD:

Sources are starting to send me more numbers for today. Both Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Warner Bros) as well as Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (Fox) are badly trailing their previous installments. (Sherlock 1/$62.3M vs Sherlock 2/$42.4M and Alvin 2/$48.8M vs Alvin 3/$25.8M.) The Robert Downey Jr-starring and Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock 2 includes $1.25M from 1,650 midnight shows. It’s early yet but audiences seem to be rejecting sequels and threequels. Of course, the movie studios point out that both the last Sherlock and Alvin opened either on Christmas or after kids were already out of school. Execs are hoping to make up the difference before year’s end. But more pics will open, too, creating clutter. So if this weekend’s low grosses continue, then the domestic box office slump may very well ruin Christmas for Hollywood.

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Jon Stewart got busted by PolitiFact for peddling a falsehood on “The Daily Show.” To be fair, the Comedy Central show supposedly got the whopper from The History Channel. That didn’t stop Stewart and co. from continuing to mock those upset that the War on Christmas continues.

Never let a good, albeit false, meme go to waste.

In the attached clip, Stewart explains how the show incorrectly claimed that Congress worked on Christmas Day for 67 years straight, thereby showing that Christmas isn’t as deserving of federal respect as many claim it is.

Turns out the number was off by 66 years, as Stewart cheerfully notes.

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The Wrap openly wonders if the recent collapse at the box office is more about a dwindling audience for films as opposed to a lack of titles moviegoers are interested in. If that proves to be the case, and we’ll know a lot more at the end of the year, that’s a real problem for Hollywood.

Why the studios chose to jam so many titles over the next two weekends and get out of  the way of “New Year’s Eve” and  “The Sitter” this last weekend makes absolutely no sense. 

The Wrap:

Moviegoers will have a lot to choose from under the big box office tree this Christmas holiday — in fact, they might even have too many choices.

Beginning next weekend with the release of “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” and sequels to “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and “Sherlock Holmes,” an unprecedented number of big studio films will be crowding into the domestic box office at the same time.

From Dec. 16 through Christmas Day, eight films will be released wide (see chart) – including two by Steven Spielberg – while about a half-dozen specialty titles will either enter the market or expand their footprint.

The major studios will be packing in these expensive films at a time when business has been weak, with box office revenue down 4 percent year-to-year and attendance plunging 5 percent, according to Hollywood.com’s Paul Dergarabedian.

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As a child I always looked forward to that annual rite of the holiday season: the prime time broadcast of animated Christmas specials. I’m not sure why these meant so much to me–some of them were downright bizarre.

Now that my four-year-old daughter has been asking to watch some of them, I began thinking about the actual content. Here’s a run down of my impressions of a few of the TV specials. (If I get some of the details wrong, excuse me, but I’m not going to go back and re-view every one. My memory should be good enough, having watched all of them annually for more than ten years.)

A Charlie Brown Christmas

I did watch this one recently–I picked up a DVD and settled in with my daughter and a bucket of popcorn. I was surprised at a couple of things. For one, its only 30 minutes long. I remember it as a feature length film. I guess it seemed more of an epic tale when I was a kid. Also surprising, there are several threats of physical violence in the show. Not that I mind a little fighting in children’s programming–it just came as a surprise that the Peanuts gang seemed to resolve many of their conflicts by simply punching each other in the face. When my daughter asked about it I just said, “I think these kids are from California.”  I know it made no sense, but it put an end to the conversation.

What did not surprise me about the Charlie Brown special was the now de rigueur message about the over-commercialization of Christmas. I guess this was a quaint theme in 1970 but I think we’ve heard enough of it by now. Can we all just admit that commercialization puts food on everyone’s table and is basically the engine that drives everything that is good, convenient, tasty, and comfortable about our lives? (more…)

Hollywood, hear our plea:  Could you make some mainstream movies that don’t suck?  There’s nothing worse than a Christmas season where going to the movies seems about as appealing as sharing a straw with Lindsay Lohan.

Throw us a bone – how about more than just one or two flicks a year not targeted to the demographic that thinks Lady Gaga is a boundary-pushing icon of limitless creative vision?  Maybe a couple that are not focused on shiny supernatural creatures who chat about their feelings and stare longingly into the eyes of dead-eyed starlets acting as the surrogate for the millions of lonely shut-ins who adore them?  Just a few films not aimed squarely at creepy man-children dwelling in their moms’ Kleenex-strewn basements wishing they too could winch their bloated tushes into tights and fight crime just like their cinematic heroes.

How about more than just a handful of movies for men and women who need more than five hands to count out their age, who breathe through their noses, who have lives?  I have some dough – well, at least until the President and his fellow travelers declare me rich too – and I’d like to take my hot wife out once in a while to see a movie.  I used to go a lot, a few times a month.  But it seemed that five years ago there were always at least a few movies that piqued my interest.  Perhaps it’s me – perhaps I’m too demanding, what with my stubborn insistence on interesting stories told in a coherent manner by competent actors.  Or perhaps it’s just that the recent crop of movies is exceptionally crappy.

Let’s address the curmudgeon question here and now – yes, I have occasionally turned my hose on those damn kids when they messed up my lawn, but hobbies aside, the fact is that Hollywood is both leaving money on the table and sacrificing what little artistic credibility it has left by ignoring the normal adult demographic.  It appears that Hollywood has simply thrown in the towel and decided to focus on feeding formulaic moron fodder to a waiting cohort of slack-jawed ninnies eager for the next story about a magical robot or a superhero with issues. (more…)

There’s been a dearth of Yuletide material here at Big Hollywood this month, so as The Most Wonderful Day of the Year draws nigh, let’s spend some time saluting the five men whose voices echo most strongly through the Christmas chapters of the Great American songbook.

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5. Johnny Mathis (b. 1935)

A host of other crooners fought tooth and nail for this fifth slot — Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Jim Reeves, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole — but Mathis wins the day via an impressive five Christmas-themed albums, the best of which are immeasurably improved by the melodic mastery of maestro Percy Faith (1908-1976), whose inventive yet unashamedly unambiguous orchestrations make him my favorite instrumental interpreter of Christmas tunes.

The only one of our Top 5 who is still alive, Mathis made his Xmas bones by singing what is, for my money, the single most beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” ever recorded — a feat accomplished when he was just twenty-two. Fifty years on, no one has matched the infectious, jingling energy Mathis and Faith brought to “Sleigh Ride.” And despite a good showing by Andy Williams, I daresay he takes the prize for “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and “Winter Wonderland” as well. (more…)

If you aren’t happy with the kind of films coming from Hollywood these days, don’t worry. Thanks to the wonderful technological advancements and restorations we can enjoy and rediscover some great films of years past. Think of how impressive The Searchers looks on Blu-ray, with the Technicolor monument valley as detailed and expansive as ever, showing new life never before displayed in previous versions. Blu-ray has the ability to reinvent classic films in a way that can leave even the most elitist film buff with his or her jaw on the floor. Below are a few suggestions of some of my favorite films that have made it into beautiful Blu-ray and would be a great Christmas purchase for the movie lover in your life.

‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’

David Lean’s films are famous for being beautiful and scenic, something that can make or break an epic film.  Lean, who was later to make Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, directed this film which starred such greats as Alec Guinness and William Holden. Like any other truly wonderful film, The Bridge on the River Kwai has stood the test of time. It is an epic action film that flows brilliantly from beginning to end and is exactly the kind of film that deserves a Blu-ray restoration.

Like The Searchers, The Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed in Technicolor and provides a glorious 1080p picture. The enormous landscape of this film was perfect for one of the early uses of widescreen and looks like it could have been filmed yesterday. The mountains, trees, wildlife and the roaring River Kwai all look breathtaking. If only David Lean could see the treatment his film was given, he sure would be proud of it.

Special features include a short film from USC introduced by William Holden discussing how the audience views The Bridge on the River Kwai, a making of feature, appreciation by filmmaker John Milius who calls Kwai “a Citizen Kane grade film.” One thing is for sure, this movie gets better with every viewing and the Blu-ray disk is a great way to rediscover the film and its excellent photography and characters all over again. (more…)

Recently, the LA Times carried a column in which Steven Zeitchik tied the absence of new Christmas films to a lack of interest on the part of filmgoers. To bolster his point, he referenced “a sack full” of Christmas movies that came out in 2006 and drew lackluster audiences at best. The examples he provided included Danny DeVito’s comedy, “Deck the Halls,” and a horror movie, “Black Christmas.” (If these are the kind of examples on which he’s going to rest his case, he might as well cite 2005’s disastrous “Dukes of Hazard” as proof that movies marketed toward good ol’ boys are dead and gone too.)

It simply makes no sense to uncover low audience figures for films that ought never have been made and then use those figures to argue that making Christmas films is not business-smart.

Earth to Zeitchik: The audience for Christmas movies is alive and well, the problem is that Hollywood has essentially said bah humbug to the idea of making one. When they do make them, we go.

Do you need proof? Consider Christmas movies that have debuted since the awful 2006 season Zeitchik cited: 2007’s “Fred Claus” made $72 million domestically, 2008’s “Four Christmases” made $120 million domestically (another $44 million overseas), and 2009’s “Christmas Carol” made $137 million domestically (another $187 million worldwide).

And perhaps an even stronger indicator that there’s an ongoing audience for Christmas movies is the fact that “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s a Wonderful Life” air multiple times every Christmas season. (Would television stations be carrying these same two movies time and again every Christmas were they not popular enough to attract advertisers, and thereby make money?)

It seems Zeitchik’s piece was really nothing more than a strained attempt to provide cover for Hollywood producers who are not in the mood to do a new film about Scrooge, because they’re too busy being a Grinch themselves. (more…)

Yesterday I walked into my local supermarket to find they already had a massive Christmas tree up ornamented with gift cards. Yes, it’s quickly approaching “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and that means gifts to buy, preferably before you find yourself scrambling from store to store in a panic on Christmas Eve.

With that in mind, here are five drool-worthy stocking stuffers for the cinemaphiles in your family, all of them due to be released in the next few weeks.

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1. Frank Sinatra: Concert Collection (November 2, 2010, $54.99 at Amazon)

Get hep to this, man: seven discs containing fourteen hours of TV specials and filmed concerts, with Ol’ Blue Eyes joined by Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Gene Kelly, Antonio Carlos Jobim, John Denver, Bing Crosby, and of course Dino. Four of the specials have never been released, and a host of isolated TV clips are thrown in for good measure. Top it all off with a 44-page booklet chock full of rare photos and scholarly commentary, and the Chairman of the Board is truly back in all his scotch-soaked glory.

The seventh “Bonus Disc” sounds like the perfect thing to have playing in the background while you are decorating your tree: a “Happy Holidays with Bing and Frank” color TV special. (more…)

If you’ve seen Superman: The Movie (1978), you surely remember the character of Perry White, the tough-as-nails editor of The Daily Planet. Played pitch-perfect by actor Jackie Cooper, he’s one of the comedic highlights of the picture. “I want the name of this flying whatchamacallit to go with the Daily Planet like bacon and eggs! Franks and beans! Death and taxes! Politics and corruption!”

Cooper delivers his one-liners in a Preston Sturges staccato that helps give the 1970s film a pleasant 1930s gloss, bridging the gap between comic book and movie. But if, like me, you were just a kid when you saw Superman, you may not have known that here was an actor who, fifty years earlier, was one of the most popular and recognizable in the world, courtesy of a little picture called The Champ. (more…)

On this, the one-year anniversary of Big Hollywood, it is fitting that ‘One Pissed Off Dude’ should mark it with a proper lambasting of one of America’s favorite films ever: “It’s a Wonderful Life.”  I’ve intentionally held off until after the holidays.  I didn’t want to be a Grinch Who Attempted to Steal Christmas…or a Scrooge Who Wallowed in Contrariness… or worse, a Reid-Pelosi Christmas Eve Douchebag.

I am a huge fan of Frank Capra.   And whereas it pains me to do so, I must call a proper spade a spade.  In my (what I presume will be ‘lonely’) opinion…this single movie has done more to undermine  America than any other in memory. 

And yes, I realize I’m about to infuriate both the Left and the Right… Christians and Atheists… Socialists and the ACLU… Jimmy Stewart fans, movie buffs, my entire readership, and my mother…but I have to say it:  There is an insidious lie placed smack dab within the heart of this otherwise exquisite movie.  And the strange thing is – along with hundreds of millions of people worldwide — it is still one of my favorite movies of all time.  And therein lies the rub. 

The most dangerous and injurious of falsehoods is the one that is shuffled in with the Truth. (more…)

My family and I have been big fans of NCIS since it began.  So this Christmas break, one afternoon we sat down with my daughter home from college to catch up on the Christmas episodes of both NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles that aired December 15th. 

Both shows started with wonderful Christmas flair: NCIS had a couple cutting down their own Christmas tree in a snow covered forest and NCIS: LA had a beautifully decorated downtown street complete with a Salvation Army Santa. Unfortunately the Christmas Spirit in both shows didn’t last through their first commercials. 

In the NCIS episode, the couple in the woods found a young white Marine, a Muslim, killed while praying toward Mecca. His father, once a Marine Colonel, retired to become a minister because in his words, “When my wife died, I wanted to be closer to God, now he’s taken my son as well.” 

As Gibbs and his team take the forty-eight minutes to figure out who-done-it, the audience is treated with some not so light-handed preaching favoring Islam. At one point, when the father of the killed Marine utters, “God forgive me, and Tom’s God too.” Gibbs responds with, “They are one in the same colonel.”  And although I would beg to differ, anybody who watches NCIS knows that whatever Gibbs says is gospel.  (more…)