Michael Gross | Through the Shattered Lens

Happy holidays! Well, the year is almost over and soon, it will be time to look back upon all of the films that Lifetime aired over 2015 and announce my picks for the best. However, before I do that, I need to take a look at the many Lifetime holiday movies that I currently have recorded on the DVR. (I also need to clear up some space for 2016 because, seriously, that DVR fills up quickly!)

That’s right, it is the season for Lifetime Christmas movies! And I’m not complaining. (Or, at the very least, I’m not complaining too much.) Myself, I love Lifetime movies because of the melodrama, the outrageous plot twists, the out-of-control teenagers, and the psycho boyfriends. Lifetime Christmas movies tend to be a bit more life-affirming than your typical Lifetime film. After spending 11 months watching films like Stolen From The Suburbs, Cleveland Abduction, The Bride He Bought Online, and A Deadly Adoption, it takes a bit of adjustment to then watch something like Becoming Santa. It’s not that Becoming Santa doesn’t have its own merits. It’s just that it’s so dramatically different from what we usually expect to see on Lifetime.

Becoming Santa was the first movie that I rewatched in my attempt to clean out the DVR for the holidays. It originally aired on Lifetime on December 12th.

Conner (Jesse Hutch) works for a toy company and is frustrated by the fact that he can’t get children to put down their phones long enough to get excited over a toy horse that he wants to mass produce. However, despite his work frustrations, Conner is still happy because he’s in love with Holly Claus (Laura Bell Bundy). In fact, he’s decided that the Christmas holiday would be the perfect time to ask Holly to marry him. But first, he wants to get the blessing of Holly’s father.

That might be difficult, Holly explains, because her parents live up north. Way up north.

However, Conner will not be dissuaded. And, before you can say Meet The Parents and Little Fockers, Conner is heading up north to meet Holly’s parents. Of course, on the way up north, Conner is conveniently passed out while Holly takes him through the secret portal that leads to the North Pole…

That’s right! Holly Claus is the daughter of Santa Claus (Michael Gross) and Mrs. Santa (Meredith Baxter). It takes Conner a while to realize this, though the fact that his future father-in-law has a big white beard and employs an elf named Mario (Gabe Khouth) should have been a big clue. However, once Conner does figure it out, he’s okay with it.

But will he be okay with the fact that, if he marries Holly, he’ll be expected to take over the role of Santa Claus? And, for that matter, how can klutzy Conner hope to compete with Holly’s ex-boyfriend, Jack Frost (Tony Cavalero)? After all, Jack and Holly have so much in common…

As far as Lifetime holiday movies are concerned, I thought Becoming Santa was actually really cute. The entire cast had a really sweet chemistry, Gabe Khouth brought an unexpected edge to the character of Mario the Elf, and Tony Cavalero was a lot of fun as Jack Frost. Yes, I did have a hard time believing that Conner would miss so many obvious clues as to who Holly’s parents truly were but then again, it’s a Christmas movie on Lifetime. It’s probably not too much to ask us to suspend our disbelief just a little bit!

Becoming Santa was a sweet movie. It’s scheduled to be rebroadcast on Lifetime on Christmas Day.

I just happened to catch one of my favorite creature-feature films on cable this morning and I had forgotten just how much fun this film was and is to still watch. I am talking about 1990’s horror-comedy Tremors by director Ron Underwood (who would follow it up with the very successful and funny City Slickers a year later) and starring the comedic duo of Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward. I was still in high school when I saw this in the theaters and even then this film had me from the get-go.

Tremors is a throwback to all the Saturday matinee creature-features and monster mash films that were huge during the 50’s and through the 60’s. It’s plot was simple enough that even a little kid could keep up with what was going on. We had a small, rundown mining town in the middle of nowhere (it always happens to be one of those small desert or valley towns which dotted the landscape once the national interstate was completed) whose fortunes have seen better days, hell better decades from the looks of it. The town has its cast of characters with Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon’s roles of Earl and Val the two main leads. We even get long-time genre actor Victor Wong in a supporting role as the town’s only store owner and also it’s two-bit hustler always looking to find a new way to make a buck. One of the funniest roles goes to Michael Gross (the dad in the 80’s hit family show Family Ties) who, with Reba McEntire as his wife, play some crazy-ass survivalists who try fighting off the creatures of this feature the giant, underground worms the survivors have dubbed “Graboids” for their propensity to grab people and animals with prehensile tentacle like appendages which shoot out from their mouths.

No, Tremors wasn’t some live-action version of the ever popular hentai, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers of the film were subconsconsciously influenced by them. What the film ended up being was one of the funnier horror comedies which ended the 80’s and announced the 90’s. It was also one of the last few great non-CGI creature features to come out of Hollywood. The Graboids were definitely animatronic and rubber-suited props, but they moved and looked real that one didn’t question whether they were real or not. It would be these creatures who would end up the stars and highlight of this film (the ensemble cast a good second) and follow-up sequels would and could never live up to it. It didn’t help that the sequels ended up using too much CGI which just ruined the illusion built-up by the original.

So, if you ever feel bored and suddenly see that one of the many basic cable channels are showing this little horror-comedy gem from the 1990’s I recommend you watch it with snacks and drinks on hand. There are many ways to make one stop being bored by watching something on the “Tele” and I say Tremors is one of those ways.