JINGLE ALL THE WAY

Jingle All The Way is a film starring none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger and--and, no, I'm NOT making this up!--Sinbad (yes, THAT Sinbad!). This film was released back in the mid-nineties back when Ah-nold wasn't the box office draw he was during much of the eighties (that Red Sonja fiasco-of-a-flick notwithstanding!). Anyway, this was Ah-nold's attempt at doing a more "family-friendly" film (try saying THAT three times fast!). It's kind of like his better-known "family-oriented" flick Kindergarten Cop only without the rather disturbing violence (like, for instance, the bad guy in that film riddles a grade school with gunfire). In this film, Ah-nold plays a rather absentee dad who spends more time at the office than at home. One Christmas, his wife--played by Tom Hanks's hottie-of-a-wife Rita Wilson--goads Ah-nold's character to go buy their son this hard-to-find toy: an action figure called Turbo Man. While he's out searching heaven & earth for this popular toy, he locks horns with a manic mailman played by--you guessed it!--Sinbad who's searching for the very same toy for his kid with rather hilarious results. Especially towards the end of the film when Ah-nold's character winds up playing his son's beloved Turbo Man in a Christmas parade where he gets to pick a kid out of the crowd to give him a coveted Turbo Man personally. However, before he can give the toy to his little bastard, uh, I mean, son, he winds up doing battle with--that's right!--Sinbad who's dressed up like Turbo Man's nemesis Dementor. I won't tell you how the flick ends (though, with it being a "family-friendly" film, you can probably already figure that out for yourself!). It probably goes without saying that Jingle All The Way isn't one of Ah-nold's best-known and/or best-remembered flicks, but, speaking for myself, I did find it rather entertaining. In fact, and I know a number of people would disagree with me on this, I actually liked this flick better than the aforementioned Kindergarten Cop, primarily because in this flick we don't get to see the kiddies as much as we do in KC (and regular readers of this blog--Heaven help you!--will no doubt know how much I just LOVE flicks with a bunch of kiddies in them!). I also found it more entertaining to watch Ah-nold play Turbo Man than watching him play supervillain Mr. Freeze in that George Clooney cinematic crapfest Batman & Robin! And, while this film also won't be regarded a "holiday" classic like, say, Scrooge or Miracle On 34th Street, it would still be an entertaining enough flick for the--dare I say it!--kids to watch one Christmas. Oh yeah, this flick also stars the late Saturday Night Live alumnus Phil Hartman as Ah-nold's horndog of a neighbor who tries to make the moves on Rita Wilson's character. This was, of course, a couple of years before Phil was shot and killed by his wacko wife before she offed herself. Merry Christmas! (Yeah, I know, I'm an A-Hole!)