Necessity is the mother of invention. In the weeks leading up to Christmas 1977, Maryanne Kinkade has fallen behind in her mortgage payments and is about to lose her small house in Placerville ...

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.

If you think you’ve never seen a painting by Thomas Kinkade, think again. The late artist, who is said to have sold more canvases than any painter in history, created a cottage industry (pun ...