Christmas in Connecticut Movie Review

Per the DVD box: She's hungry for ratings. He's hungry for dinner.

You'll be hungry for a better movie after suffering through this film, a vanity project and made-for-TV remake of a 1945 film, the first and only directorial experience by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

What's Ahnold doing directing a Christmas movie? God knows, and it's something probably best forgotten, like that strange dust that's piling up under the wooden beams in your house.

The story's a total bust -- Elizabeth Blane (Dyan Cannon) is a famous TV homemaker/chef type who, in reality, has a diastrous life and can't cook to save her life. Enhancing the sham is her producer (Tony Curtis), who sells a live Christmas show from Blane's house with her "family." Absurd scam ensues, revolving around Elizabeth's horrible reality and dashing outsider (Kris Kristofferson), who isn't in on the joke.

Kristofferson is a hoot, particularly in the inevitably catastrophic finale, and Curtis is always a joy, but there's so little artistry in this movie that you can't help but feel ripped off watching it. Cannon is ghoulishly scary, and Schwarzenegger's "direction" is nonexistant aside from working in a kid who loves to quote movies including, naturally, "I'll be back."

I will say one thing: Christmas in Connecticut did succeed in distracting my two-year-old daughter for an hour, as she kept watching for the baby to pop up on camera, which it does like clockwork, every five minutes.