In 1992, Thomas Kinkade painted his first “Victorian Christmas” of a grand Victorian home in Placerville. “It was a fine house with fine people living there, with big parties,” Patrick ...

So when I was assigned Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage, a straight-to-DVD film releasing today, some of my friends and co-workers reacted as if I was reviewing the bottom of the film barrel.

The Christmas cottages have dimmed their lights while millions of little azaleas droop their Pepto-pink heads. Thomas Kinkade, king of landscape kitsch and self-billed Painter of Light™, has ...