Christmas In New York (2005)

Directed by Orlando Corradi

Ever wanted to watch a Christmas film that isn’t burdened by the cruel mistresses of logic and causality? Then do I have a movie for you! Christmas In New York is a deceptively blandly named film about the adventures of a young man named Ari. After living for an unspecified amount of time in an unnamed jungle, Ari learns about Santa Claus from his tutor, a talking owl named Professor. To get presents for his friends, two talking dogs named Fox and Winner, Ari travels to NYC by using a magic tree man that can transport him to any forest on earth so he can hand-deliver his letter to Santa. None of that was a joke. Those are the first five minutes.

What follows during Ari’s escapade in NYC is a cavalcade of high-energy nonsense. I regret not keeping track of how many times I threw up my hands and gasped, “WHAT?!?” during this movie because I’m sure it would be approaching the triple digits. What I love about this is that I was constantly trying to figure out either what was happening or why it was happening, so I never really got bored. Bad family films can so easily become boring but there’s always something weird and interesting happening, whether it’s a backstory that never gets elaborated on blatant animation errors, or even random English words on buildings. Seriously, there’s a building that has the word ‘Harem’ on it, in a CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS MOVIE. Not everyone will get the kind of wild-eyed enjoyment I did from this movie, but if you’re looking to expand your Christmas horizons, this may be the good-bad Christmas cartoon for you.