Paul O'Donnell: December 2006 Archives

"All-Time Worst Christmas Movies" is not just a list, but a debate. Readers of the movie-ga-ga website Pearl and Dean recently voted "Jingle All the Way," a 1996 flick starring the current governor of California, the worst Christmas movie ever, and you can find it on plenty of other lists as well ("Nothing more than an odious, unfunny tribute to the greed and commercialism of Christmas," says a reviewer on British MSN.)

But how to define "worst"? "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" tops a dishonor roll compiled recently by Dave Larsen, a writer for the Dayton Daily News, who also nominates his favorite God-awful Christmas specials. But the seemingly intentional badness of this bizarre 1964 sci-fi hash might disqualify it as a spoof. (If only. We don't recommend imbibing this film unadulterated. Try the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version, available on DVD.) A movie has to be trying to be good to fail, right? But then, does Ben Affleck ("Surviving Christmas," 2004) ever really try?

For our money, the worst is defined by what we couldn't bring ourselves to watch, even to make fun of. And ladies and gentleman, there's no way we're watching "Santa With Muscles." Two years after director John Murlowski made this "nosebleedingly bad" 1996 Hulk Hogan vehicle, he was given the helm of "Richie Rich's Christmas Wish," possibly as punishment, and we'll even take Richie over Hulk.

For gluttons for Christmas schmaltz, Maxim has also identified the Worst Christmas Albums of 2006.

Last night, the German Opera's production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" went on in Berlin without incident, albeit two months late and with more than 100 green-clad cops on hand. The heavy security was deployed to protect the artistic freedom of the production's director, Hans Neuenfels, who had added a controversial scene in which Mozart's eponymous king lays out the severed heads of Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, and Poseidon. Neuenfels had explained that the scene was a protest against "any form of organized religion or its founders."

Muslims, of course, were offended by the treatment of the Prophet. Their protests, coming soon after violent protests against a cartoon depicting Muhammad in a Danish newpaper, had forced German opera authorities to cancel the revived Neuenfels production's premiere in September. Those same authorities appeared last night, of course, to declare the triumph of artistic principles and their own intestinal fortitude.

While I'm the first to applaud anything to make opera more relevant, it's difficult to get too fired up for Neuenfels's defense of art. It's one thing to deny the existence of God or gods (and Neuenfels could do that by taking The Blasphemy Challenge here), but opera and organized religion face so many common challenges--declining attendance, a failure to lure young people and the hardening of ideological positions among their remaining adherents--that for an opera maven to publicly decry organized religion smacks more of jealousy or marketing slickness than principle. After all, of the two, organized religion is getting a lot more press of late.

Full disclosure: I have run to the top of the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, extended my arms, and bounced on my toes while da-da-dah-ing "Gonna Fly Now," the theme to "Rocky." I felt ridiculous and, yes, exhilarated, but not for a second was I mindful of Christ's victory over death on the cross.

My bad, it turns out. According to Sylvester Stallone, who surmounted the museum steps so memorably in the first of his "Rocky" films--the sixth debuts next week--the hard-luck champ was always a Christ figure. And this month, Stallone told a group of pastors that, while still a Catholic, he considered himself born again.

Skeptics have pointed out that the director made this claim in a conference call set up by Paul Lauer, the man who marketed Mel Gibson's "The Passion" to church groups and helped convince evangelicals that Disney's "The Chronicles of Narnia" was true to C.S. Lewis's books. "The call focused on Stallone's faith more than the film," wrote one conference-call participant, "and seemed at times to be about establishing his bona fides as a believer."

Lauer's firm, Motive Entertainment, has also put together "Rocky Resources," a curriculum for ministers interested in using the aging Balboa's last fight to pump up their congregations. The leadership guide assumes a lot of bona fides, suggesting that pastors preach a three-week sermon series based on the film, complete with new clip each week.

It's no stretch, of course, that Rocky is a Christ figure. Stallone points to his own heavyhanded opening shot of "Rocky," in which a painting of Jesus looking down on the "Italian Stallion" in the gym. And nearly a third of Catholics now say they are born again. And if Lauer can sell Mel Gibson, director of "Lethal Weapon" and "Braveheart," as a kinsman of evangelicals, why not Rambo?

The wonderful payoff of "American Idol"--it's the most successful reality show, with record deals and American Music Awards all tallied--is that the show finds actual talent amid all those "Gong Show" rejects and braying, overtanned blondes tarted up like porn stars. FOX's new reality series, "My Bare Lady," which debuted last night on the FOX Reality channel, reverses that formula by looking for a payoff even more wonderful: The show takes a group of actual porn stars and tries to turn them into legitimate talent.

They don't succeed, of course, and one suspects the real point is to revel in the awfulness of Chanel St. James, Kirsten Price, Sasha Knox and Nautica Thorn (stars of such films as "Fashionably Laid," "Good Girls Doing Bad Things" and "Hand to Mouth") as they audition and vie for a spot in the cast of a London production of "The Cherry Orchard."

While it's often entertaining, there are no surprises in "My Bare Lady"--except, perhaps, in FOX's continued cultural schitzophrenia. The company, whose moviemaking arm has declared itself the home of family-friendly (and faith-friendly) films, appears to vent its dark side when it turns to television. Where on the FOX corporation flowchart do these divergent tendencies meet? Hint: Look first in the accounting department.