Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Jingle All the Way (1996) - Gift-craze Christmas lampooned with fun Schwarzenegger performance

7/09/2022

Jingle All the Way (1996) - Gift-craze Christmas lampooned with fun Schwarzenegger performance

♥♥♥

+ Best Christmas Movie of the Year + Best Minnesota Movie of the Year

Wild chaos and colorful lights beam the way on this poster for Brian Levant's Jingle All the Way

A busy businessman and family father disappoints his son yet again, and the only thing that can make it up again is a much coveted action figure for Christmas, - but he's running last minute, and the figure is sold out!

Jingle All the Way is written by Randy Kornfield (Bloodknot (1995, TV movie)) and directed by Brian Levant (Problem Child 2 (1991)).

It has a fun, - if extremely materialistic, - premise and struggles to find enough meat to its story for the required timespan, but a huge Christmas parade and all sorts of mix-ups help fill it up.

Phil Hartman (TaleSpin (1991, TV-series)) is funny as the unctuous 'prize-worthy' family father neighbor, and Jake Lloyd (Unhook the Stars (1996)) is cute as the son. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Red Heat (1988)) is his usual engaged, high-spirited self. It is a minor film in his body of work, but it has Yuletide charm. - And then Arnie also knock-outs a reindeer in one scene in Jingle All the Way, which is also a special kind of treat for a Schwarzenegger fan.

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 60-75 mil. $ (different reports)

Box office: 129.8 mil. $

= Flop or a big flop (returned between 1.73-2.16 times its cost)

[Jingle All the Way premiered 16 November (Mall of America, Minnesota) and runs 89 minutes. The script was inspired by Christmas toy crazes such as the Cabbage Patch riots over the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls of 1983 and other similar cases of Yuletide toy hysteria and violence. Schwarzenegger was paid 20 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from April - August 1996 in Minnesota and California. The film opened #4, behind fellow new release Star Trek: First Contact and holdover hits Space Jam and Ransom, to a 12.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America where it spent 2 more weekends in the top 5 (#4-#4) and grossed 60.5 mil. $ (46.6 % of the total gross). The foreign market numbers are regrettably not made public. A multi-million $ lawsuit alleging that the premise was stolen was finally decided in favor of Fox in 2004. Roger Ebert gave the film a 2.5/4 star review, equal in rating to this one. Levant returned with Metropolitan Hospital (1997, TV movie) and theatrically with The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas (2000). Schwarzenegger returned in Batman & Robin (1997). Jingle All the Way is rotten at 20 % with a 4.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

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Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

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Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

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Wolfgang Petersen has died

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Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

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7/09/2022

Jingle All the Way (1996) - Gift-craze Christmas lampooned with fun Schwarzenegger performance

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