ThiefHott Too much of everything

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

HotToastyRag Based on Truman Capote's autobiographical short story, a young boy, T.J. Lowther, spends Christmas with his father in New Orleans. He and his dad, Henry Winkler, don't get along, and they haven't seen each other in a long time. Repairing the bonds of father-son-hood isn't going to be easy, even over the holiday season.While the majority of the film is about father-son bond, there are some secondary plot points. Henry tries romancing Swoosie Kurtz, but since he's a conman, he's not exactly trustworthy. And Swoosie's aunt, Katharine Hepburn, adds a bit of class to the movie and helps everyone get a little more out of life. If you absolutely love Kate, you might be a bit conflicted about seeing this movie. It was her final film, so if you'll be upset seeing her looking old and frail, you might want to stick to On Golden Pond instead. But if that won't bother you, and you like a bit of sappy family drama at Christmastime—who doesn't?—you can rent One Christmas. Don't expect too much from it, though; I prefer watching Little Women during the holidays instead.

SimonJack This Christmas film and drama was based on the last Truman Capote work published before his death in 1984. The short story by the same title came out in 1983 as a gift booklet. Capote's writing output slowed to a trickle the past two decades of his life. He had become wealthy and was a celebrity who mostly lived a gay lifestyle immersed in alcohol and drugs. But in this autobiographical story he returns to his youth as a young boy given up by his divorced parents to be raised by cousins on his mother's side. The nostalgia comes through, mixed with initial dislike for his father and his dad's life in New Orleans. Three years after this TV movie was made, Hallmark would make a film of Capote's first story about his childhood. "A Christmas Memory" was published in 1956 and made into a film in 1997, starring Patty Duke as Capote's beloved elderly cousin, Sook. That was a superb performance. We don't know if this story is true or not. Here, his character, Buddy, goes to visit his father for one Christmas as a boy. Sook (here played by Julie Harris in a short beginning) helps him pack and takes him to the bus in their hometown in Alabama. The original (1956) story doesn't give a hint of Buddy visiting his father while he was living with his cousins. And, he had no recollection of his father in that film. So, this may have been a fictitious visit that Capote made up for another story. Or, it was something that had taken place but that he hadn't remembered or wanted to remember until his later years. Katherine Hepburn got top billing for this film, but her role of Cornelia Beaumont was a minor one. She was 87-years-old when this film came out. It was her last film before she died in 2003 at age 96. It must have been a difficult role, and her lines were hard to hear a couple of times. She plays an irascible spinster and matriarch of a wealthy New Orleans family. At one point, she tells Buddy (played by T.J. Lowther) that she never had children and she didn't like them. This may have been a close parallel to Hepburn's own life, which biographers and other writers have recorded as an unusual life of varied sex. This film hasn't been very well received, and it doesn't quite come across as a Christmas movie. It is more of a short chapter in a boy's life, but the focus being as much or more on his estranged father. That is the best part of this film and why I give it six stars. Buddy's dad is played superbly by Henry Winkler. It's a look at a different type of lifestyle, and a type of gigolo and flimflam man who hung around the fringes of the top society of New Orleans. This also reveals a striking aspect of Capote's childhood. His dad comments on his lack of interest in or knowledge of baseball, football, or other sports that boys play while growing up. As Buddy is in these two movies, Capote in real life was raised in the world of women. He never had a fatherly figure or healthy masculine influence in his youth. He didn't go to a military school, as the later film implies. Rather, after being raised in his early boyhood years by his elderly cousins, he then went to live with his mother in New York City. So, during his teen years he was exposed to party life and the seedier atmosphere surrounding the theater. Recalling that the setting of this film was around the early 1930s, I wondered about a scene toward the end. Miss Emily (played very well by Swoosie Kurtz) is talking with Buddy. He says that his father lied to him. She says that it's a normal thing of society and that people tell many lies. She gives various reasons. This clashed with what Buddy had learned up to the point in his life – being raised in rural Alabama. In my childhood of the 1940s we also were taught the importance of telling the truth – and not lying. So, I wonder if Capote was trying to make a distinction in his story between cultures. Was it the rich and people around them who told lies as a matter of course? Or, was it people of the big cities? Or a combination of the two? This, in contrast to the rest of America where truth still held ground?This movie probably wouldn't make anyone's list of good Christmas flicks. But, it does provide a rare look at one life style that survived by softly peddled scams. And in that, Henry Winkler gives a superb performance.

bkoganbing Some of Truman Capote's childhood memories are the basis for One Christmas in which a film legend took her final curtain call.Young T.J. Lowther all of 10 years old has been living in the custody of his aunt Julie Harris in rural Alabama. Harris is a kind and loving, but way too overprotective of the lad. But one holiday season during the Great Depression the boy gets a chance to spend some time with his father Henry Winkler. Winkler is a self described promoter and entrepreneur, but is actually just a conman who lives high on the hog on other people's money. That's a profession that had even less respectability during the Depression. He's busy trying to promote an air race, and not an honest one.The boy's very naiveté has an effect on Winkler and all around him, including the women and its women he usually is trying to fleece. He goes after them young and old with the vigor and zest of Zero Mostel as Max Bialystock from The Producers. One of them is Swoosie Kurtz who falls for Winkler and even her formidable dowager aunt Katharine Hepburn is affected by him.Winkler and Kurtz are the stars, but as befitting a film legend, first billing goes to Katharine Hepburn. We barely see any of Hepburn in the first 2/3 of the movie. It's only in the last third when she nearly runs a runaway Lowther down and brings him to her home to explain some of the facts of life to him. No, not those facts of life. Poor Kate was really showing the tremors of Parkinson's Disease, but trooper that she was made it through the film. It was a nice farewell performance.I wonder what memories young Mr. Lowther now approaching 30 has of working with two acting legends, Katharine Hepburn and Julie Harris. One Christmas isn't all warm and fuzzy like Miracle On 34th Street or A Wonderful Life. Still it's a more realistic type of coming of age at Christmas story in which the whole cast acquits themselves well.

Goon-2 I can't really enjoy a film if I do not care for the main character. This one is a bratty little kid named Buddy who gets sent to live with his father during the Depression-era Christmas season. Buddy had previously been living with some older-by-about-60-years cousin(the only character I kind of liked) due to the fact that his father is basically a scheming criminal. The father(Henry Winkler) pretends to be some great success for Buddy, but Buddy doesn't really buy it and neither does the rest of the town, which looks down on the dad. Although the father makes an enormous effort with Buddy, Buddy the monster never really accepts his father or his new living situation. This means Buddy yells, complains and has outbursts similar to annoying Kevin Arnold's at the end of a Wonder Years episode. Instead of people yelling at Buddy and teaching him to appreciate his life, constant praise is heaped upon him and it is clear that Buddy is supposed to be some wonderful, charming child. I didn't buy it and did not appreciate being subjected to the little brat! (for the record, the rest of the film is disinteresting, slow-moving and not worth investing one's time in)