Another year gone, and I'd honestly hoped to be done with this project by now. Or at least to have under 200 films left on the list - I came close, the number's at 205, which is well under the number of days in a year, but to help me out Hollywood's going to have to stop making new movies that I want to see. I went to the theater 5 or 6 times in 2013, which for me is a lot. Seeing "Life of Pi", "Star Trek Into Darkness", "Iron Man 3", "The Wolverine" and "Man of Steel" on the big screen gave me a big head-start on the movies of 2013, and represent my best hope for making some progress.
Oh, and let's not forget "Les Miserables", the first film of the year that sort of set the tone - so many films this year that were either classic literary stories ("The Three Musketeers", "Mutiny on the Bounty", "Jane Eyre", "Vanity Fair", "Little Women", "Tom Jones") or were just generally downbeat stories about the human condition ("The Lost Weekend", "Blue Valentine", "Once Around", "The Descendants", "50/50", "The Sessions", "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "Precious"). And riffing off the theme of revolution and war, that was fertile territory as well ("Marie Antoinette", "Joyeux Noel", "War Horse", "The Patriot", "Troy", "Zero Dark Thirty", "The Thin Red Line", "Red Tails", "U-571", "The Alamo" and "Cold Mountain").
I also got WAY too bogged down in crime films ("Collateral", "Miami Blues". "China Moon", "Stone", "The Brave One", "Billy Bathgate"), and serial killer films ("Summer of Sam", "Zodiac", "Natural Born Killers", "American Psycho", "Taking Lives", "The Bone Collector"). There were more of those than I thought, and it's a really dark subject, it turns out. Having also covered politics, racism, 9/11, school shootings, epidemics, alien invasions and apes taking over the world, I'm anxious to move on to other topics.
On the positive side, I finished off a fair number of franchises ("Harry Potter 7 Pt. 2", "Rocky Balboa", "The X-Files", Ace Ventura, Dirty Harry and all the James Bonds) and got to some films that have been on the list for what feels like forever ("Gone With the Wind", "C.S.A", "Kill Bill"). I also completed what I think will be my last sports chain ("The Fighter", "The Boxer", "Tin Cup", "Hardball", "Goon", "The Mighty Ducks" and "Slapshot") and my last Western chain ("The Claim", "Tombstone", "Wyatt Earp", "Open Range", "Heaven's Gate" and "The Missouri Breaks"). Really, in both cases, if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all.
The best film of the year, according to my highly unscientific rating system, was "The Dark Knight Rises". I was as nitpicky as I could be, but still could find nothing wrong with it, so I gave it a "10". A brilliant fusing of three recent comic-book storylines, action-packed and full of nice surprises. Considering that this year's runners-up with scores of "8" were "Iron Man 3", "The Wolverine", "Kick-Ass" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" - yeah, I may have a favorite type of film. Seeing the films on the big screen may skew the results, because I also gave "Les Miserables" an "8".
Speaking of "Les Mis", most of the principal cast showed up again and again throughout the year - Anne Hathaway came back in February for a 4-pack of dark romance films ("Brokeback Mountain", "Love & Other Drugs", "One Day" and "Rachel Getting Married") and then topped all that by playing Catwoman in "The Dark Knight Rises". Hugh Jackman fought giant robots in "Real Steel" and ninjas in "The Wolverine", and Russell Crowe followed up his failure to catch Jean Valjean with his failure to prevent Krypton from blowing up in "Man of Steel". Helena Bonham Carter showed up in "Dark Shadows", but Sacha Baron Cohen was never heard from again, since no channel ran "Hugo" or "The Dictator". As I said, it was a tough year.
So now I have to deal with the 205 movies left on the list, and I've already torn the order apart and re-structured it for the new year. I found some new acting connections between films, and I'm ready to go. I'm going to finally get to the Woody Allen films I haven't seen, and if I can add films at a somewhat slower rate, I may get to the Hitchcock films also. Still, even with blocks set aside for animated films, kiddie literature films, and February romances, the schedule's only good until April or May, then I'll probably want to reorganize the whole thing again.
Turner Classic Movies ran an interesting block of movies last night - "Beach Party", "The Cheap Detective" and "The Loved One", followed by "East of Eden". I eventually figured out they were doing tributes to Annette Funicello, Eileen Brennan, Jonathan Winters and Julie Harris, all actors who passed away in 2013. Damn, that's a good idea, and I wish I could do something like that, having covered actors' birthdays it would be another good bit of symmetry. But's it's also sort of downbeat, and I've already stolen at least two organizational ideas from TCM.
While I'm thinking about endings, how do I end this project? When do I end this project? Can I get my list down to zero films, or even close? Do I stop at 1,900 films or an even 2,000? What should the last film be? Can I keep it going until the new "Star Wars" film in Dec. 2015? Because I started with a "Star Wars" film, and again, symmetry. I just have to keep going until I can figure out a way to make it stop. My list is only down 8 films from last year at this time, so at this rate, finishing will only take another...crap, 25 years.
And with that, I'm on to 2014's movies...
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Monday, December 30, 2013
New Year's Eve
Year 5, Day 364 - 12/30/13 - Movie #1,600
BEFORE: Well, the plan almost worked. Limiting contact with my niece and nephew delayed my getting sick, but apparently didn't prevent it entirely. I thought I had just a head cold over the weekend, but now it's morphed into some kind of flu. So no food for 24 hours, and lots of sleep - I was supposed to go back to work today, but that would have been a terrible idea. I got this film watched before the fatigue hit - or maybe this film made me sick, who's to say?
Linking from "Love Actually", Billy Bob Thornton was also in "Monster's Ball" with Halle Berry (last seen in "Die Another Day") - you didn't think I'd leave the last film of the year hanging, did you?
THE PLOT: The lives of several couples and singles in New York intertwine over the course of New Year's Eve.
AFTER: Very similar in style to "Love Actually", this film cross-cuts between four or five running plots, some of whose characters have connections to each other, and some of those are revealed only near the end of the film. So there are one or two "fake-outs" when we think we know who's going to end up with who, and then we are surprised (or perhaps not, if you're expecting the fake-out).
The last time I was watching films this late in the year was 2010 - I could have wrapped up the year earlier, but then I would have missed the connection to the two holidays. But there's a sort of symmetry involved here - my first film in 2013 was "Les Miserables", so I started with a crowd of people in the streets of Paris for a revolt, and I'm ending with a crowd of people in the streets of New York for revelry. (or, from one of the best films of 2012 to what I assume was one of the worst of 2011...) More symmetry and synergy in tomorrow's wrap-up.
For now, I have to judge this film on its own merits, such as they are - we've got a man and woman trapped in an elevator, a rock-star trying to reconcile with his caterer ex-girlfriend, a bike messenger helping an older woman cross items off her life list, a man trying to get to a party to deliver a speech, a single mother whose daughter sneaks out to go to Times Square, a couple about to have a baby, a man dying in a hospital, and it's all framed by the dropping of the ball and the woman in charge of making that happen. That seems like 8 separate storylines, except that it's not - it's more like 5 or 6 once you know what the connections are.
But if "Love Actually" had any message, and I'm not saying it did, it's that British people all need to get over their shyness and awkwardness and open themselves to the opportunity of love - but the point here seems to be that love is mainly based on proximity. All you have to do is get stuck in an elevator with someone, or be standing next to them on New Year's Eve, and love, or at least a kiss, will inevitably follow. I'm not sure I can endorse that message - but of course, that's what happens every Dec. 31.
Let me say, as a resident of NYC, the city that adopted me, I would never attend the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. There's like, a few million people there, and people get put into holding pens, treated worse than farm animals, and you have to get a good spot at, what, 9 am? Which knocks out your whole day, and what if you need to eat or use the restroom? I'm guessing you lose your spot. So that's a whole lot of inconvenience for a few seconds of party - you know that they show the whole thing on TV and you can watch it from the comfort of your own bed, right?
I suppose that if I was so inclined, I could point out that the older man dying symbolizes Father Time, and the baby being born represents the New Year - but I think that's a bit of a stretch, no? And there are several instances where forgiveness and reconciliation come into the picture, like the fired electrician who needs to fix the ball, or the rock-star who wants to get back with his ex, but it kind of seems like if you load up a movie with enough plotlines, you're bound to see a connection or two. People make resolutions, people kiss each other, people reflect, so let's just throw a bunch of that stuff together, who cares if it all makes sense, because the human condition rarely does.
Which leads me to wonder - if there were a technical problem with the ball dropping and it didn't work, would you say that the people in charge of dropping the ball really dropped the ball? So in a sense, they would have succeeded.
NITPICK POINT: It's the first baby born in New York City each year that wins something, and I think it's like free diapers for a year. It's not the first baby born in each hospital, and it's certainly not the amount of money portrayed here. Creative license perhaps, but a flawed message to send to the public.
Also starring Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Dark Shadows"), Robert De Niro (last seen in "Limitless"), Hilary Swank (last seen in "The Next Karate Kid"), Ashton Kutcher (last seen in "Valentine's Day"), Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker (last seen in "Striking Distance"), Josh Duhamel, Abigail Breslin (last seen in "Signs"), Zac Efron (last seen in "Hairspray"), Jessica Biel (last seen in "Total Recall"), Seth Meyers (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Katherine Heigl (last seen in "Knocked Up"), Jon Bon Jovi (last seen in "U-571"), Carla Gugino (last heard in "Man of Steel"), Sofia Vergara (last seen in "The Smurfs"), Hector Elizondo (last seen in "Leviathan"), Ludacris, Ryan Seacrest, Yeardley Smith, Til Schweiger (last seen in "This Means War"), with cameos from Matthew Broderick (last seen in "Tower Heist"), Cary Elwes (last heard in "A Christmas Carol"), Alyssa Milano (last seen in "Commando"), Larry Miller (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You"), Common, James Belushi (last seen in "The Ghost Writer"), Jack McGee (last seen in "The Fighter"), Penny Marshall, Cherry Jones, and soon-to-be-ex mayor Michael "Benito" Bloomberg
RATING: 3 out of 10 pedicabs
BEFORE: Well, the plan almost worked. Limiting contact with my niece and nephew delayed my getting sick, but apparently didn't prevent it entirely. I thought I had just a head cold over the weekend, but now it's morphed into some kind of flu. So no food for 24 hours, and lots of sleep - I was supposed to go back to work today, but that would have been a terrible idea. I got this film watched before the fatigue hit - or maybe this film made me sick, who's to say?
Linking from "Love Actually", Billy Bob Thornton was also in "Monster's Ball" with Halle Berry (last seen in "Die Another Day") - you didn't think I'd leave the last film of the year hanging, did you?
THE PLOT: The lives of several couples and singles in New York intertwine over the course of New Year's Eve.
AFTER: Very similar in style to "Love Actually", this film cross-cuts between four or five running plots, some of whose characters have connections to each other, and some of those are revealed only near the end of the film. So there are one or two "fake-outs" when we think we know who's going to end up with who, and then we are surprised (or perhaps not, if you're expecting the fake-out).
The last time I was watching films this late in the year was 2010 - I could have wrapped up the year earlier, but then I would have missed the connection to the two holidays. But there's a sort of symmetry involved here - my first film in 2013 was "Les Miserables", so I started with a crowd of people in the streets of Paris for a revolt, and I'm ending with a crowd of people in the streets of New York for revelry. (or, from one of the best films of 2012 to what I assume was one of the worst of 2011...) More symmetry and synergy in tomorrow's wrap-up.
For now, I have to judge this film on its own merits, such as they are - we've got a man and woman trapped in an elevator, a rock-star trying to reconcile with his caterer ex-girlfriend, a bike messenger helping an older woman cross items off her life list, a man trying to get to a party to deliver a speech, a single mother whose daughter sneaks out to go to Times Square, a couple about to have a baby, a man dying in a hospital, and it's all framed by the dropping of the ball and the woman in charge of making that happen. That seems like 8 separate storylines, except that it's not - it's more like 5 or 6 once you know what the connections are.
But if "Love Actually" had any message, and I'm not saying it did, it's that British people all need to get over their shyness and awkwardness and open themselves to the opportunity of love - but the point here seems to be that love is mainly based on proximity. All you have to do is get stuck in an elevator with someone, or be standing next to them on New Year's Eve, and love, or at least a kiss, will inevitably follow. I'm not sure I can endorse that message - but of course, that's what happens every Dec. 31.
Let me say, as a resident of NYC, the city that adopted me, I would never attend the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. There's like, a few million people there, and people get put into holding pens, treated worse than farm animals, and you have to get a good spot at, what, 9 am? Which knocks out your whole day, and what if you need to eat or use the restroom? I'm guessing you lose your spot. So that's a whole lot of inconvenience for a few seconds of party - you know that they show the whole thing on TV and you can watch it from the comfort of your own bed, right?
I suppose that if I was so inclined, I could point out that the older man dying symbolizes Father Time, and the baby being born represents the New Year - but I think that's a bit of a stretch, no? And there are several instances where forgiveness and reconciliation come into the picture, like the fired electrician who needs to fix the ball, or the rock-star who wants to get back with his ex, but it kind of seems like if you load up a movie with enough plotlines, you're bound to see a connection or two. People make resolutions, people kiss each other, people reflect, so let's just throw a bunch of that stuff together, who cares if it all makes sense, because the human condition rarely does.
Which leads me to wonder - if there were a technical problem with the ball dropping and it didn't work, would you say that the people in charge of dropping the ball really dropped the ball? So in a sense, they would have succeeded.
NITPICK POINT: It's the first baby born in New York City each year that wins something, and I think it's like free diapers for a year. It's not the first baby born in each hospital, and it's certainly not the amount of money portrayed here. Creative license perhaps, but a flawed message to send to the public.
Also starring Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Dark Shadows"), Robert De Niro (last seen in "Limitless"), Hilary Swank (last seen in "The Next Karate Kid"), Ashton Kutcher (last seen in "Valentine's Day"), Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker (last seen in "Striking Distance"), Josh Duhamel, Abigail Breslin (last seen in "Signs"), Zac Efron (last seen in "Hairspray"), Jessica Biel (last seen in "Total Recall"), Seth Meyers (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Katherine Heigl (last seen in "Knocked Up"), Jon Bon Jovi (last seen in "U-571"), Carla Gugino (last heard in "Man of Steel"), Sofia Vergara (last seen in "The Smurfs"), Hector Elizondo (last seen in "Leviathan"), Ludacris, Ryan Seacrest, Yeardley Smith, Til Schweiger (last seen in "This Means War"), with cameos from Matthew Broderick (last seen in "Tower Heist"), Cary Elwes (last heard in "A Christmas Carol"), Alyssa Milano (last seen in "Commando"), Larry Miller (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You"), Common, James Belushi (last seen in "The Ghost Writer"), Jack McGee (last seen in "The Fighter"), Penny Marshall, Cherry Jones, and soon-to-be-ex mayor Michael "Benito" Bloomberg
RATING: 3 out of 10 pedicabs
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Love Actually
Year 5, Day 363 - 12/29/13 - Movie #1,599
BEFORE: Back from Christmas break, I hope your holiday (or non-holiday, or Solstice celebration, or whatever...) was enjoyable and peaceful and not as frantic and drama-filled as ours. The casino stop on Christmas Eve (which we were JUST shy of telling my family about this year...) was a wash, I lost just $6.75 on the slots after winnings were calculated, but I probably gained that back at the buffet (Hey, Mom did say she'd be busy with church, so we should find some food on the way...). Then we had to assist my parents with a difficult decision - my niece and nephew had been sick in the weeks before Christmas, and needed an extra day to recuperate. Nobody wants to tell kids they can't celebrate Christmas, but nobody wants to catch stomach flu either - my Mom was all raw emotion about it, my Dad was more logical, and we had to mediate. In the end, Christmas just sort of went into overtime, and got extended to 4 get-togethers with different family members over 3 days.
I left this film out of my annual romance chain back in February, after asking around to determine if this was best treated as a romance or a Christmas film - with the acknowledgement that it could conceivably be both. However, co-workers who had seen the film recommended it for Christmastime viewing, so while we're still within sight of the holiday, let's cross it off the list.
Now you see why I ended the Christmas animation chain with "Arthur Christmas" - Bill Nighy, voice of GrandSanta in that film, carries over (as does an actress, the voice of Santa's North Pole computer system). You do see it, right?
THE PLOT: Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Valentine's Day" (Movie #775), "New York, I Love You" (Movie #782)
AFTER: I can sort of see where this film sort of spun out of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" - it opens with just one of each type of service - and together both films perhaps kicked off the genre of the meta-romance, jam-packed with stars and interlinked characters, pitched to the public with the philosophy that "more is more". The problem, however, is that sometimes more ISN'T more - some of these romances could/should have been complete developed movies on their own (the Prime Minister storyline, for example, could have been the U.K.'s version of "The American President") but just weren't fleshed out far enough.
As I've discovered by programming movies for February, love is a valid theme, but it's a loose theme. What kind of love? Young love, lost love, long-lasting committed love, love with temptation, love triangles, etc. There are as many types of love as there are types of people - it almost feels like this film is trying to pack as many different types in to cover all of the bases, or appeal to the largest number of people - but in trying to be everything to everybody, it risks having no point when all is said and done.
And some of the romances weren't given the time here to really even count as plots, so in essence they're more like subplots. The couple that meets on the set of a movie - are they actors, or just stand-ins? They get naked together, but is it soft-core, or hard-core? Are they candid with friends about their profession and how they met? Did they both quit the business when they found they were attracted to each other, or did they carry on with their "acting"? I've got so many questions about this, and zero answers. Do they regard their attraction as any less valid than that of other couples, because it had its genesis in stage directions? (I don't mean to belittle the off-camera romances between actors, which do take place, but you kind of see where I'm going with this, right? Love sometimes follows participation in a love scene, which seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse...)
The opening songs of the film tell us that "Love is All Around" (though this is quickly amended to remind us that in fact, it's Christmas that is all around...) and then "All You Need Is Love". Barring the Beatles' attempt to ignore the fact that people also need food and shelter, the film goes on to contradict itself by showing that relationships are a lot more complex than that song title suggests. Love is no good without opportunity, or at least proper timing, and even then, a fair amount of self-confidence and communication skills are also required to act on said love and make the connection with another human. Love is great, but by itself, it only gets you halfway there.
Since the characters here are British (mostly), this is a valid concern - they've got to overcome the stereotypical shyness and reserve associated with being British, along with an apparent ability to screw things up just by speaking their minds. NOTE: I base much of what I know about British relationships from sitcoms like "Fawlty Towers", where miscommunications always make things worse before they get better, but the situations portrayed here just seem to back all that up.
Though it's not revealed at first, all of the people in the 8 relationship situations are connected, they are part of an extended circle of friends and family. By the time of the Christmas pageant most of the connections have been revealed (though not all?) - but still, finding out at the last minute that two apparently unconnected characters are friends seemed like a bit of a stretch. It was like an afterthought, like someone realized that one plotline wasn't intertwined enough with the others, so they'd better make this guy wave knowingly at THAT guy.
By focusing on so many characters, there's also a lack of focus in the romantic theme, no coherent message about the meaning of love. So we're left to make our own decisions about who belongs with which partner, in an attempt to guess or second-guess the filmmakers' choices. Characters with more screen time definitely have an advantage, but what about the minor characters left out in the cold? Are their desires and attractions somehow less valid just because the storyline denies them? Why is a husband with a eye for one of his co-workers somehow "wrong" for pursuing the object of his desire, when a man in love with his best friend's wife is somehow "right" for pursuing his? Perhaps I'm oversimplifying both situations, but the implied judgment still seems rather arbitrary.
This film might have been at the forefront of the modern romance film, but you can still feel that it's become a bit dated, even though it's only 10 years old. Twice it looked like the storylines were going to feature a same-sex attraction, but it wasn't the case. So in the end, it didn't become as unconventional as it could have been, it just relied on many of the same old dated sterotypes about love and attraction, mixed together in a different way, and didn't break much new ground at all.
NITPICK POINT: By way of confirming who does end up with who, there's a scene at the end where every major character happens to be at the airport at the same time. But this takes place a month after Christmas, so why are they all there together? I could maybe see it if it were a week after Christmas and everyone was coming back from holiday, but as it is, it strains credulity. Unless there's some weird British holiday on January 25 that involves picking up loved ones at the airport...
NITPICK POINT #2: There it is again, a scene where a modern writer uses an old-fashioned typewriter, rather than a laptop or word processor. (How does he do a second draft, does he retype the whole damn thing?) I realize it's a plot point that the manuscript has not been saved or backed up, and is therefore at risk, but any writer not using proper technology in this millennium deserves to lose his work. Unforgivable, and not realistic.
Now, as for the actual word "actually" - its use has grown exponentially over the last few years, and thanks to reality TV and teen slang, it's now used way too much, and often incorrectly (it does NOT mean the same thing as the casual form of "really"). I found it on a list of "crutch" words a year or two ago (along with the similarly over- and misused "basically", "technically" and "literally") so I made an effort to eliminate it from my vocabulary altogether. I heard it misused no less than four times during a newscast the other night (to be fair, it was not spoken by the anchors, but by the interviewed masses). The reason it's a "crutch" word is that people use it for emphasis when they don't know what else to say - somehow it feels more powerful to say "I actually need to go to the store after work" than "I need to go to the store after work", when those two sentences have the same meaning. If you can remove the word and the sentence means the same, then you don't ACTUALLY need that word. The only use of the word I will allow is when someone is being corrected, or information is being supplied that contradicts previous information. Example: "You thought I was working for the CIA, but I'm actually working for the KGB." When I hear a teen talk and misuse "actually" three times in a minute, it's like a knife in my brain. Literally. No, not literally, not actually, but figuratively.
I think someone (actually) uses the word in each segment of this film, but (actually) I couldn't be bothered to (actually) find out if that was (actually) true, or for that matter if it was (actually) used correctly or not. Do you see what overusing the word does? It makes it (actually) meaningless. So let's all just cut it out.
Also starring Colin Firth (last heard in "A Christmas Carol"), Hugh Grant (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Liam Neeson (last seen in "Wrath of the Titans"), Emma Thompson (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"), Alan Rickman (ditto), Martin Freeman (last seen in "Shaun of the Dead"), Keira Knightley (last seen in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"), Andrew Lincoln, Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in "2012"), Laura Linney, Billy Bob Thornton (last seen in "Tombstone"), Martine McCutcheon, Kris Marshall, Rodrigo Santoro, with cameos from Rowan Atkinson (last seen in "Johnny English Reborn"), Claudia Schiffer, Denise Richards (last seen in "The World Is Not Enough"), Shannon Elizabeth, January Jones, Elisha Cuthbert.
RATING: 5 out of 10 office parties
BEFORE: Back from Christmas break, I hope your holiday (or non-holiday, or Solstice celebration, or whatever...) was enjoyable and peaceful and not as frantic and drama-filled as ours. The casino stop on Christmas Eve (which we were JUST shy of telling my family about this year...) was a wash, I lost just $6.75 on the slots after winnings were calculated, but I probably gained that back at the buffet (Hey, Mom did say she'd be busy with church, so we should find some food on the way...). Then we had to assist my parents with a difficult decision - my niece and nephew had been sick in the weeks before Christmas, and needed an extra day to recuperate. Nobody wants to tell kids they can't celebrate Christmas, but nobody wants to catch stomach flu either - my Mom was all raw emotion about it, my Dad was more logical, and we had to mediate. In the end, Christmas just sort of went into overtime, and got extended to 4 get-togethers with different family members over 3 days.
I left this film out of my annual romance chain back in February, after asking around to determine if this was best treated as a romance or a Christmas film - with the acknowledgement that it could conceivably be both. However, co-workers who had seen the film recommended it for Christmastime viewing, so while we're still within sight of the holiday, let's cross it off the list.
Now you see why I ended the Christmas animation chain with "Arthur Christmas" - Bill Nighy, voice of GrandSanta in that film, carries over (as does an actress, the voice of Santa's North Pole computer system). You do see it, right?
THE PLOT: Follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely and interrelated tales all set during a frantic month before Christmas in London.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Valentine's Day" (Movie #775), "New York, I Love You" (Movie #782)
AFTER: I can sort of see where this film sort of spun out of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" - it opens with just one of each type of service - and together both films perhaps kicked off the genre of the meta-romance, jam-packed with stars and interlinked characters, pitched to the public with the philosophy that "more is more". The problem, however, is that sometimes more ISN'T more - some of these romances could/should have been complete developed movies on their own (the Prime Minister storyline, for example, could have been the U.K.'s version of "The American President") but just weren't fleshed out far enough.
As I've discovered by programming movies for February, love is a valid theme, but it's a loose theme. What kind of love? Young love, lost love, long-lasting committed love, love with temptation, love triangles, etc. There are as many types of love as there are types of people - it almost feels like this film is trying to pack as many different types in to cover all of the bases, or appeal to the largest number of people - but in trying to be everything to everybody, it risks having no point when all is said and done.
And some of the romances weren't given the time here to really even count as plots, so in essence they're more like subplots. The couple that meets on the set of a movie - are they actors, or just stand-ins? They get naked together, but is it soft-core, or hard-core? Are they candid with friends about their profession and how they met? Did they both quit the business when they found they were attracted to each other, or did they carry on with their "acting"? I've got so many questions about this, and zero answers. Do they regard their attraction as any less valid than that of other couples, because it had its genesis in stage directions? (I don't mean to belittle the off-camera romances between actors, which do take place, but you kind of see where I'm going with this, right? Love sometimes follows participation in a love scene, which seems a bit like putting the cart before the horse...)
The opening songs of the film tell us that "Love is All Around" (though this is quickly amended to remind us that in fact, it's Christmas that is all around...) and then "All You Need Is Love". Barring the Beatles' attempt to ignore the fact that people also need food and shelter, the film goes on to contradict itself by showing that relationships are a lot more complex than that song title suggests. Love is no good without opportunity, or at least proper timing, and even then, a fair amount of self-confidence and communication skills are also required to act on said love and make the connection with another human. Love is great, but by itself, it only gets you halfway there.
Since the characters here are British (mostly), this is a valid concern - they've got to overcome the stereotypical shyness and reserve associated with being British, along with an apparent ability to screw things up just by speaking their minds. NOTE: I base much of what I know about British relationships from sitcoms like "Fawlty Towers", where miscommunications always make things worse before they get better, but the situations portrayed here just seem to back all that up.
Though it's not revealed at first, all of the people in the 8 relationship situations are connected, they are part of an extended circle of friends and family. By the time of the Christmas pageant most of the connections have been revealed (though not all?) - but still, finding out at the last minute that two apparently unconnected characters are friends seemed like a bit of a stretch. It was like an afterthought, like someone realized that one plotline wasn't intertwined enough with the others, so they'd better make this guy wave knowingly at THAT guy.
By focusing on so many characters, there's also a lack of focus in the romantic theme, no coherent message about the meaning of love. So we're left to make our own decisions about who belongs with which partner, in an attempt to guess or second-guess the filmmakers' choices. Characters with more screen time definitely have an advantage, but what about the minor characters left out in the cold? Are their desires and attractions somehow less valid just because the storyline denies them? Why is a husband with a eye for one of his co-workers somehow "wrong" for pursuing the object of his desire, when a man in love with his best friend's wife is somehow "right" for pursuing his? Perhaps I'm oversimplifying both situations, but the implied judgment still seems rather arbitrary.
This film might have been at the forefront of the modern romance film, but you can still feel that it's become a bit dated, even though it's only 10 years old. Twice it looked like the storylines were going to feature a same-sex attraction, but it wasn't the case. So in the end, it didn't become as unconventional as it could have been, it just relied on many of the same old dated sterotypes about love and attraction, mixed together in a different way, and didn't break much new ground at all.
NITPICK POINT: By way of confirming who does end up with who, there's a scene at the end where every major character happens to be at the airport at the same time. But this takes place a month after Christmas, so why are they all there together? I could maybe see it if it were a week after Christmas and everyone was coming back from holiday, but as it is, it strains credulity. Unless there's some weird British holiday on January 25 that involves picking up loved ones at the airport...
NITPICK POINT #2: There it is again, a scene where a modern writer uses an old-fashioned typewriter, rather than a laptop or word processor. (How does he do a second draft, does he retype the whole damn thing?) I realize it's a plot point that the manuscript has not been saved or backed up, and is therefore at risk, but any writer not using proper technology in this millennium deserves to lose his work. Unforgivable, and not realistic.
Now, as for the actual word "actually" - its use has grown exponentially over the last few years, and thanks to reality TV and teen slang, it's now used way too much, and often incorrectly (it does NOT mean the same thing as the casual form of "really"). I found it on a list of "crutch" words a year or two ago (along with the similarly over- and misused "basically", "technically" and "literally") so I made an effort to eliminate it from my vocabulary altogether. I heard it misused no less than four times during a newscast the other night (to be fair, it was not spoken by the anchors, but by the interviewed masses). The reason it's a "crutch" word is that people use it for emphasis when they don't know what else to say - somehow it feels more powerful to say "I actually need to go to the store after work" than "I need to go to the store after work", when those two sentences have the same meaning. If you can remove the word and the sentence means the same, then you don't ACTUALLY need that word. The only use of the word I will allow is when someone is being corrected, or information is being supplied that contradicts previous information. Example: "You thought I was working for the CIA, but I'm actually working for the KGB." When I hear a teen talk and misuse "actually" three times in a minute, it's like a knife in my brain. Literally. No, not literally, not actually, but figuratively.
I think someone (actually) uses the word in each segment of this film, but (actually) I couldn't be bothered to (actually) find out if that was (actually) true, or for that matter if it was (actually) used correctly or not. Do you see what overusing the word does? It makes it (actually) meaningless. So let's all just cut it out.
Also starring Colin Firth (last heard in "A Christmas Carol"), Hugh Grant (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Liam Neeson (last seen in "Wrath of the Titans"), Emma Thompson (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"), Alan Rickman (ditto), Martin Freeman (last seen in "Shaun of the Dead"), Keira Knightley (last seen in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"), Andrew Lincoln, Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in "2012"), Laura Linney, Billy Bob Thornton (last seen in "Tombstone"), Martine McCutcheon, Kris Marshall, Rodrigo Santoro, with cameos from Rowan Atkinson (last seen in "Johnny English Reborn"), Claudia Schiffer, Denise Richards (last seen in "The World Is Not Enough"), Shannon Elizabeth, January Jones, Elisha Cuthbert.
RATING: 5 out of 10 office parties
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Arthur Christmas
Year 5, Day 356 - 12/22/13 - Movie #1,598
BEFORE: This is my last film before Christmas break - neatly finishing off the Christmas section. Linking from "A Christmas Carol", Colin Firth was also in "Love, Actually" with Bill Nighy, who provides a voice in tonight's film.
THE PLOT: On Christmas night at the North Pole, Santa's youngest son looks to use his father's high-tech operation for an urgent mission.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Fred Claus" (Movie #722)
AFTER: I'm glad I referenced the song "Father Christmas" yesterday, because this title then makes a lot more sense. If Santa is called "Father Christmas" in the U.K., it follows that his sons would have Christmas as their last name. Yes, Santa has sons, which is a rather neat way of explaining how Santa's been around so long without growing old. Err, older. We're on Santa #17 or 18 by now, since each one takes over the job for 70 or so years before retiring. (If you carry this thought process through to its logical conclusion, this means that Santa is mortal, but we won't be seeing any Santa take a dirt-nap in a kid's film - so in a way he kinda is immortal).
But each Santa in turn takes his opportunity to modernize the process - which also makes sense, because if you asked a kid in the early 1900's what Santa's workshop looks like, you'd hear about a log cabin, with elves toiling away with hammers and nails and such - then a couple decades later, that workshop would probably be described as something like a factory with an assembly line, and today's kid would probably picture something that looks like a N.O.R.A.D. base, with lots of screens and ways to tap into security camera footage like that guy on "Person of Interest", and robots making the toys, etc.
The folks at Aardman Animations picked up this ball and ran with it - while still keeping the comic sensibility of their famous "Wallace & Gromit" series. In those films, Gromit the dog is really the "smart" one in the pair, but Wallace gets all the credit. Here the elves do about 90% of the processing, manufacturing and stealth work, and the doddering Santa makes a few ceremonial placements of toys under trees, while his modern spaceship sleigh hovers over a city like the UFO from "Independence Day".
The high-tech stuff just makes sense, when you consider they'd need a database of millions of kids with their "naughty" and "nice" levels, plus they'd have to keep track of each country's Santa-related customs. In some countries kids leave Santa milk and cookies, but in others they leave carrots for his reindeer, and so on. (I forgot to mention this the other night, but for extra fun read up on Dutch customs, where Santa keeps black slaves called "SchwarzePeeten" and they help whip naughty kids and pelt them with hard candy. Good times.)
Back at the North Pole, the operation is controlled by Santa's older son, Steve, with military-like precision, while his younger son, Arthur, works in the mailroom answering letters. (This is probably a make-work job, since thousands of kids write letters to Santa, but I'm not sure I've heard of Santa ever writing back. Who has that kind of time?) Steve is quite obviously and defiantly next in line to wear the red suit (but the way these films go, he probably won't) and Arthur is clearly out of the running (but the way these films go, well, you can probably guess the outcome).
The other thing that carries over from the "Wallace & Gromit" films is the distinct probably that things will get all cocked up (British term) before they're all sorted out (ditto). This involves a fair amount of slapstick, people falling out of sleighs and dropping things and generally stumbling around. Things get thrown out of whack when a single present is not delivered, and of all the once-and-future Santas, only Arthur understands the importance of making sure that it gets delivered.
I wish the characters could have just agreed to disagree, and moved on - instead there's just too much bickering over the consequences of taking action or not taking action, whether one mistake is statistically worth ignoring, or whether the single present is a metaphor for complete failure. It felt like half an hour of film was wasted on this debate, which means they could have solved the problem three times over in the time it took to figure out whether this was really a problem or not. But the Santas are a family, and families don't always agree -
So Arthur sets out with the "Grand-Santa" (again, old retired Santas don't die, they just hang around and cause trouble) on the old-fashioned but still-magic early 1900's-type sleigh, to deliver the last package before sunrise hits that part of the world. It sounds simple, but between the young Arthur, the old Grand-Santa and a fastidious wrapping elf, there are plenty of mistakes made that make the delivery almost, but not quite, impossible.
All told, it's an enjoyable romp, and my only complaints are that a blind man could see the ending coming a mile away, and the elves (particularly the one traveling with Arthur) were nearly impossible to understand. I realize you have to speed up their voices to make them sound like elves, but their words still need to be clear - I guess British voices don't work well in my ear-holes when they're sped up and high-pitched.
Yep, Santa is British here, so forget all that stuff about Santa being Russian, or Turkish, or even Canadian. If British people are making the film, then he's British. And I only just now realized the similarities between the Santa succession process depicted here and the line of succession to the British throne - the oldest child gets the position next, unless he abdicates...
Well, I'm off to wrap gifts until the wee hours of the morning, then one more day of work - on Tuesday I'll be appearing at the Foxwoods Casino Buffet on my way up to see my parents, and then I'm on kitchen detail on Christmas Day, assuming the ghosts all appear to me in one night. Back in a few days to wrap up the last two slots of the year, then I'll write the annual wrap-up and start organizing the films for 2014.
Also starring the voices of James McAvoy (last heard in "Gnomeo & Juliet"), Jim Broadbent (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"), Hugh Laurie (last heard in "Hop"), Imelda Staunton, Laura Linney (last seen in "Hyde Park on Hudson"), Eva Longoria (last seen in "The Heartbreak Kid"), Michael Palin, with elf cameos from Robbie Coltrane (last seen in "The World Is Not Enough"), Joan Cusack (last heard in "Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil"), Andy Serkis (last not-seen in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"), Dominic West.
RATING: 6 out of 10 time zones
BEFORE: This is my last film before Christmas break - neatly finishing off the Christmas section. Linking from "A Christmas Carol", Colin Firth was also in "Love, Actually" with Bill Nighy, who provides a voice in tonight's film.
THE PLOT: On Christmas night at the North Pole, Santa's youngest son looks to use his father's high-tech operation for an urgent mission.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Fred Claus" (Movie #722)
AFTER: I'm glad I referenced the song "Father Christmas" yesterday, because this title then makes a lot more sense. If Santa is called "Father Christmas" in the U.K., it follows that his sons would have Christmas as their last name. Yes, Santa has sons, which is a rather neat way of explaining how Santa's been around so long without growing old. Err, older. We're on Santa #17 or 18 by now, since each one takes over the job for 70 or so years before retiring. (If you carry this thought process through to its logical conclusion, this means that Santa is mortal, but we won't be seeing any Santa take a dirt-nap in a kid's film - so in a way he kinda is immortal).
But each Santa in turn takes his opportunity to modernize the process - which also makes sense, because if you asked a kid in the early 1900's what Santa's workshop looks like, you'd hear about a log cabin, with elves toiling away with hammers and nails and such - then a couple decades later, that workshop would probably be described as something like a factory with an assembly line, and today's kid would probably picture something that looks like a N.O.R.A.D. base, with lots of screens and ways to tap into security camera footage like that guy on "Person of Interest", and robots making the toys, etc.
The folks at Aardman Animations picked up this ball and ran with it - while still keeping the comic sensibility of their famous "Wallace & Gromit" series. In those films, Gromit the dog is really the "smart" one in the pair, but Wallace gets all the credit. Here the elves do about 90% of the processing, manufacturing and stealth work, and the doddering Santa makes a few ceremonial placements of toys under trees, while his modern spaceship sleigh hovers over a city like the UFO from "Independence Day".
The high-tech stuff just makes sense, when you consider they'd need a database of millions of kids with their "naughty" and "nice" levels, plus they'd have to keep track of each country's Santa-related customs. In some countries kids leave Santa milk and cookies, but in others they leave carrots for his reindeer, and so on. (I forgot to mention this the other night, but for extra fun read up on Dutch customs, where Santa keeps black slaves called "SchwarzePeeten" and they help whip naughty kids and pelt them with hard candy. Good times.)
Back at the North Pole, the operation is controlled by Santa's older son, Steve, with military-like precision, while his younger son, Arthur, works in the mailroom answering letters. (This is probably a make-work job, since thousands of kids write letters to Santa, but I'm not sure I've heard of Santa ever writing back. Who has that kind of time?) Steve is quite obviously and defiantly next in line to wear the red suit (but the way these films go, he probably won't) and Arthur is clearly out of the running (but the way these films go, well, you can probably guess the outcome).
The other thing that carries over from the "Wallace & Gromit" films is the distinct probably that things will get all cocked up (British term) before they're all sorted out (ditto). This involves a fair amount of slapstick, people falling out of sleighs and dropping things and generally stumbling around. Things get thrown out of whack when a single present is not delivered, and of all the once-and-future Santas, only Arthur understands the importance of making sure that it gets delivered.
I wish the characters could have just agreed to disagree, and moved on - instead there's just too much bickering over the consequences of taking action or not taking action, whether one mistake is statistically worth ignoring, or whether the single present is a metaphor for complete failure. It felt like half an hour of film was wasted on this debate, which means they could have solved the problem three times over in the time it took to figure out whether this was really a problem or not. But the Santas are a family, and families don't always agree -
So Arthur sets out with the "Grand-Santa" (again, old retired Santas don't die, they just hang around and cause trouble) on the old-fashioned but still-magic early 1900's-type sleigh, to deliver the last package before sunrise hits that part of the world. It sounds simple, but between the young Arthur, the old Grand-Santa and a fastidious wrapping elf, there are plenty of mistakes made that make the delivery almost, but not quite, impossible.
All told, it's an enjoyable romp, and my only complaints are that a blind man could see the ending coming a mile away, and the elves (particularly the one traveling with Arthur) were nearly impossible to understand. I realize you have to speed up their voices to make them sound like elves, but their words still need to be clear - I guess British voices don't work well in my ear-holes when they're sped up and high-pitched.
Yep, Santa is British here, so forget all that stuff about Santa being Russian, or Turkish, or even Canadian. If British people are making the film, then he's British. And I only just now realized the similarities between the Santa succession process depicted here and the line of succession to the British throne - the oldest child gets the position next, unless he abdicates...
Well, I'm off to wrap gifts until the wee hours of the morning, then one more day of work - on Tuesday I'll be appearing at the Foxwoods Casino Buffet on my way up to see my parents, and then I'm on kitchen detail on Christmas Day, assuming the ghosts all appear to me in one night. Back in a few days to wrap up the last two slots of the year, then I'll write the annual wrap-up and start organizing the films for 2014.
Also starring the voices of James McAvoy (last heard in "Gnomeo & Juliet"), Jim Broadbent (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"), Hugh Laurie (last heard in "Hop"), Imelda Staunton, Laura Linney (last seen in "Hyde Park on Hudson"), Eva Longoria (last seen in "The Heartbreak Kid"), Michael Palin, with elf cameos from Robbie Coltrane (last seen in "The World Is Not Enough"), Joan Cusack (last heard in "Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil"), Andy Serkis (last not-seen in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"), Dominic West.
RATING: 6 out of 10 time zones
Saturday, December 21, 2013
A Christmas Carol (2009)
Year 5, Day 355 - 12/21/13 - Movie #1,597
BEFORE: Happy Festivus to all! I've declared that today I celebrate Festivus, which usually involves me going on a walking tour of NYC's holiday markets and picking up those last-minute Christmas gifts. But because of the shortened season, I wasn't able to take a day off from work, so this year Festivus happens to fall on a Saturday. It would have been last Saturday, but it snowed, so today it is - that's the great thing about Festivus, it takes place when I say it does. My wife joined me for the first time, but still I truncated the tour down to just a pizza place, the Union Square holiday market, the big 5-floor Barnes & Noble, and the Heartland Brewery. Oh, and the liquor store on the way home. Christmas shopping is DONE.
Linking from "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas", Patton Oswalt was also in "Man on the Moon" with Jim Carrey (last seen in "The Dead Pool"). And thanks to that claymation sequence, my Christmas films this year are all at least partially animated.
THE PLOT: An animated retelling of Charles Dickens' classic novel about a Victorian-era miser taken on a journey of self-redemption, courtesy of several mysterious Christmas apparitions.
AFTER: Two things have to happen for me to really feel like it's Christmas - and neither of them is watching Paul Schaffer's impression of Cher singing "Oh, Holy Night" or Darlene Love singing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", though those are both great traditions. I need to go on the Festivus walking tour, and I need to watch some version of "A Christmas Carol". It can be the Patrick Stewart version, or Bill Murray's "Scrooged", and perhaps next year it will be the Muppets' turn, but this year the spotlight falls on the 2009 mo-cap version, directed by Robert Zemeckis.
NOTE: I'm not calling it "Disney's A Christmas Carol", because I don't acknowledge that as a valid title format. It's CHARLES DICKENS' "A Christmas Carol", goddammit, just as it's really Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan". Once you allow Disney to start adding possessives, where do you stop? Will it someday be "Disney's The Muppets' A Christmas Carol"? Or "Disney's Marvel's The Avengers' Christmas Special"? I'm drawing a line right here, right now. Too many apostrophes.
Anyway, I'm drawn to some version of this story each year (which is my favorite? more on that later) because it's a GOOD story, and good stories are timeless. There are no doubt hundreds of variations on this story, dozens of which air on the Lifetime Network, but the fact that it crosses all ethnic and age barriers just emphasizes how adaptable it is. Sure, you can take it as an examination of Victorian money-lending procedures, but you'd be missing the point. It's really about self-reflection and redemption. Plus, though "The Time Machine" usually gets credit as the first time-travel story, Dickens really beat it to the punch by about 50 years - so suck on that, H.G. Wells.
The story works for the one-percenters who may identify with Scrooge, or more likely appeals to the other 99% of adults who identify with Bob Crachit - who among us hasn't at least looked into the cost of hiring 3 actors in ghost costumes to visit their boss late at night? OK, maybe that's just me. But I'm telling you, it can work if you don't mind a little breaking and entering...
This version is told via CGI and motion-capture, which has its advantages and disadvantages. This allowed the filmmakers to make just about anything mentioned in Dickens' book appear on the screen. If the floor of the room is meant to disappear and create the illusion that the room is soaring over Victorian London, well give some nerds enough computing power, and they can get that on the screen. Jacob Marley's jaw can become unhinged and flap around wildly, without an actor having to work with some weird prosthetic.
The downside, however, is that when all things are possible, there is a temptation to go too far. To have Scrooge's character shrunk down to mouse-size so he can hide in a drainpipe is an odd idea, plus it's not in the book. And he doesn't need to hide from the other characters, since they can't see him anyway. These are just shadows of things to come, remember?
But the process does allow for actors to play multiple characters - which almost hearkens back to the stage productions of "Peter Pan", where the same actor usually played Mr. Darling and Captain Hook (how Freudian for young Wendy!). Carrey's features can be seen not only in Scrooge, but in two of the three ghostly visitors, which would be quite difficult to achieve in live-action (too many split-screens) - and this also reinforces the dream-like nature of Scrooge's visions, since I've heard that in your dreams, all the other characters are really just other aspects of yourself. (Wouldn't it have been great if the Ghost of Christmas Past ended up looking like Fire Marshall Bill from "In Living Color"?)
That's right, I'm going on record as saying that Scrooge's experience is a dream - you can really interpret it either way, ghost story or dream. (I used to wonder about that line in the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year", where it mentions "scary ghost stories" - what kind of a nutty family tells ghost stories at Christmas? Then I remembered, "Oh yeah, Dickens.") But if you think about it, the only helpful ghost is really the second one. Scrooge knows all too well what happened to him in the past (but he needs to be reminded), and he has to know that he's going to die some time in the future, right? The only real insight to be gained is getting that fly-on-the-wall look at how his nephew and the Cratchits celebrate the holiday. Rich or poor, when the day comes, you've got to pull out all the stops.
Scrooge's dream (or spiritual experience, or whatever) follows the simple Rule of Three, and as such contains a message that represents Dickens' formula for redemption/happiness: face your past, enjoy the present, and try not to be such a dick to people in the future. And that's what's universal, almost completely non-denominational, and works whether it's Christmastime or not.
My only other complaint about this version is that we don't get to see enough of Scrooge interacting with the townspeople, most of whom have borrowed money from him. Admittedly it's been a long time since I read the book, so I don't know if this was just a stylistic choice, but I think the story is stronger the more he's depicted as a usurer in the beginning, and the more he's seen forgiving debts at the end. This is something well represented in my favorite version of the story, which is:
The 1970 Albert Finney vehicle "Scrooge". I will defend this version over any other, for a number of reasons. First, it's got great musical numbers, especially "Father Christmas" and "Thank You Very Much", the latter of which is first sung ironically at Scrooge's funeral, and then sincerely at the end once all debts have been cleared. This film was made just 2 years after the Best Picture winner "Oliver!", based on another Dickens classic, and shares some of the same DNA. I just learned they were both filmed at Shepparton Studios, which explains a lot - they probably used some of the same Victorian sets and costumes.
In a casting twist, whereas Ebenezer Scrooge was usually played by an older actor, requiring the casting of a believable younger look-a-like for the flashbacks, Albert Finney was a relatively young man who played the past Scrooge with no make-up, and then they olded him up to play him in the present-day sequences, and he was very believable. (though he's now an older man, and his character in "Skyfall" looked completely different...) Finney was younger than the actor playing his nephew, a fact which oddly enough is repeated here in the Jim Carrey version.
Plus you've got Alec Guinness as Marley, and he does a hell of a job too - jeez, the man incurred a double hernia from wearing the apparatus needed to carry his chains. That's commitment.
NITPICK POINT: (And this refers to all versions of the story, even the original) Marley tells Scrooge he will be visited by three ghosts - but Marley himself is a ghost - so shouldn't it be FOUR ghosts? Or shouldn't Marley at least say "You will be visited by three MORE ghosts, not including myself?"
Marley also says that the ghosts will arrive on successive nights, but then when Scrooge wakes up, he realizes that they got it all done in one night. That's why he's so surprised - but since the story was originally written in serialized chapters, my guess is that halfway through, Dickens realized that Scrooge's redemption would be more powerful if it occured in time to celebrate Christmas, and not Boxing Day.
Also starring the voices of Gary Oldman (last seen in "The Dark Knight Rises"), Colin Firth (last seen in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), Bob Hoskins (last seen in "The Wind in the Willows"), Robin Wright Penn (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Cary Elwes (last seen in "Days of Thunder")
RATING: 5 out of 10 street urchins
BEFORE: Happy Festivus to all! I've declared that today I celebrate Festivus, which usually involves me going on a walking tour of NYC's holiday markets and picking up those last-minute Christmas gifts. But because of the shortened season, I wasn't able to take a day off from work, so this year Festivus happens to fall on a Saturday. It would have been last Saturday, but it snowed, so today it is - that's the great thing about Festivus, it takes place when I say it does. My wife joined me for the first time, but still I truncated the tour down to just a pizza place, the Union Square holiday market, the big 5-floor Barnes & Noble, and the Heartland Brewery. Oh, and the liquor store on the way home. Christmas shopping is DONE.
Linking from "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas", Patton Oswalt was also in "Man on the Moon" with Jim Carrey (last seen in "The Dead Pool"). And thanks to that claymation sequence, my Christmas films this year are all at least partially animated.
THE PLOT: An animated retelling of Charles Dickens' classic novel about a Victorian-era miser taken on a journey of self-redemption, courtesy of several mysterious Christmas apparitions.
AFTER: Two things have to happen for me to really feel like it's Christmas - and neither of them is watching Paul Schaffer's impression of Cher singing "Oh, Holy Night" or Darlene Love singing "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)", though those are both great traditions. I need to go on the Festivus walking tour, and I need to watch some version of "A Christmas Carol". It can be the Patrick Stewart version, or Bill Murray's "Scrooged", and perhaps next year it will be the Muppets' turn, but this year the spotlight falls on the 2009 mo-cap version, directed by Robert Zemeckis.
NOTE: I'm not calling it "Disney's A Christmas Carol", because I don't acknowledge that as a valid title format. It's CHARLES DICKENS' "A Christmas Carol", goddammit, just as it's really Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" and Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Tarzan". Once you allow Disney to start adding possessives, where do you stop? Will it someday be "Disney's The Muppets' A Christmas Carol"? Or "Disney's Marvel's The Avengers' Christmas Special"? I'm drawing a line right here, right now. Too many apostrophes.
Anyway, I'm drawn to some version of this story each year (which is my favorite? more on that later) because it's a GOOD story, and good stories are timeless. There are no doubt hundreds of variations on this story, dozens of which air on the Lifetime Network, but the fact that it crosses all ethnic and age barriers just emphasizes how adaptable it is. Sure, you can take it as an examination of Victorian money-lending procedures, but you'd be missing the point. It's really about self-reflection and redemption. Plus, though "The Time Machine" usually gets credit as the first time-travel story, Dickens really beat it to the punch by about 50 years - so suck on that, H.G. Wells.
The story works for the one-percenters who may identify with Scrooge, or more likely appeals to the other 99% of adults who identify with Bob Crachit - who among us hasn't at least looked into the cost of hiring 3 actors in ghost costumes to visit their boss late at night? OK, maybe that's just me. But I'm telling you, it can work if you don't mind a little breaking and entering...
This version is told via CGI and motion-capture, which has its advantages and disadvantages. This allowed the filmmakers to make just about anything mentioned in Dickens' book appear on the screen. If the floor of the room is meant to disappear and create the illusion that the room is soaring over Victorian London, well give some nerds enough computing power, and they can get that on the screen. Jacob Marley's jaw can become unhinged and flap around wildly, without an actor having to work with some weird prosthetic.
The downside, however, is that when all things are possible, there is a temptation to go too far. To have Scrooge's character shrunk down to mouse-size so he can hide in a drainpipe is an odd idea, plus it's not in the book. And he doesn't need to hide from the other characters, since they can't see him anyway. These are just shadows of things to come, remember?
But the process does allow for actors to play multiple characters - which almost hearkens back to the stage productions of "Peter Pan", where the same actor usually played Mr. Darling and Captain Hook (how Freudian for young Wendy!). Carrey's features can be seen not only in Scrooge, but in two of the three ghostly visitors, which would be quite difficult to achieve in live-action (too many split-screens) - and this also reinforces the dream-like nature of Scrooge's visions, since I've heard that in your dreams, all the other characters are really just other aspects of yourself. (Wouldn't it have been great if the Ghost of Christmas Past ended up looking like Fire Marshall Bill from "In Living Color"?)
That's right, I'm going on record as saying that Scrooge's experience is a dream - you can really interpret it either way, ghost story or dream. (I used to wonder about that line in the song "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year", where it mentions "scary ghost stories" - what kind of a nutty family tells ghost stories at Christmas? Then I remembered, "Oh yeah, Dickens.") But if you think about it, the only helpful ghost is really the second one. Scrooge knows all too well what happened to him in the past (but he needs to be reminded), and he has to know that he's going to die some time in the future, right? The only real insight to be gained is getting that fly-on-the-wall look at how his nephew and the Cratchits celebrate the holiday. Rich or poor, when the day comes, you've got to pull out all the stops.
Scrooge's dream (or spiritual experience, or whatever) follows the simple Rule of Three, and as such contains a message that represents Dickens' formula for redemption/happiness: face your past, enjoy the present, and try not to be such a dick to people in the future. And that's what's universal, almost completely non-denominational, and works whether it's Christmastime or not.
My only other complaint about this version is that we don't get to see enough of Scrooge interacting with the townspeople, most of whom have borrowed money from him. Admittedly it's been a long time since I read the book, so I don't know if this was just a stylistic choice, but I think the story is stronger the more he's depicted as a usurer in the beginning, and the more he's seen forgiving debts at the end. This is something well represented in my favorite version of the story, which is:
The 1970 Albert Finney vehicle "Scrooge". I will defend this version over any other, for a number of reasons. First, it's got great musical numbers, especially "Father Christmas" and "Thank You Very Much", the latter of which is first sung ironically at Scrooge's funeral, and then sincerely at the end once all debts have been cleared. This film was made just 2 years after the Best Picture winner "Oliver!", based on another Dickens classic, and shares some of the same DNA. I just learned they were both filmed at Shepparton Studios, which explains a lot - they probably used some of the same Victorian sets and costumes.
In a casting twist, whereas Ebenezer Scrooge was usually played by an older actor, requiring the casting of a believable younger look-a-like for the flashbacks, Albert Finney was a relatively young man who played the past Scrooge with no make-up, and then they olded him up to play him in the present-day sequences, and he was very believable. (though he's now an older man, and his character in "Skyfall" looked completely different...) Finney was younger than the actor playing his nephew, a fact which oddly enough is repeated here in the Jim Carrey version.
Plus you've got Alec Guinness as Marley, and he does a hell of a job too - jeez, the man incurred a double hernia from wearing the apparatus needed to carry his chains. That's commitment.
NITPICK POINT: (And this refers to all versions of the story, even the original) Marley tells Scrooge he will be visited by three ghosts - but Marley himself is a ghost - so shouldn't it be FOUR ghosts? Or shouldn't Marley at least say "You will be visited by three MORE ghosts, not including myself?"
Marley also says that the ghosts will arrive on successive nights, but then when Scrooge wakes up, he realizes that they got it all done in one night. That's why he's so surprised - but since the story was originally written in serialized chapters, my guess is that halfway through, Dickens realized that Scrooge's redemption would be more powerful if it occured in time to celebrate Christmas, and not Boxing Day.
Also starring the voices of Gary Oldman (last seen in "The Dark Knight Rises"), Colin Firth (last seen in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"), Bob Hoskins (last seen in "The Wind in the Willows"), Robin Wright Penn (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Cary Elwes (last seen in "Days of Thunder")
RATING: 5 out of 10 street urchins
Thursday, December 19, 2013
A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
Year 5, Day 353 - 12/19/13 - Movie #1,596
BEFORE: Will get back to the Santa Claus story in a few days. I would think the linking would be quite obvious here - Chris Pine from "Rise of the Guardians" was also in the last 2 "Star Trek" films with John Cho.
THE PLOT: Stoner buds Harold Lee and Kumar Patel cause a holiday fracas by inadvertently burning down Harold's father-in-law's prize Christmas tree.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (Movie #9), "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" (Movie #234)
AFTER: Like the "Tyler Perry's Madea" films (a Tyler Perry production, directed by Tyler Perry), at least this franchise respects the Rules of Ernest - first your character has to go to jail, and only THEN do they get to "save Christmas". At some point they need to go to camp as well, but I guess we'll deal with that when the time comes.
NOTE: These musings will no doubt be repeated when my University lesson plan is approved, and I teach my proposed class on modern history as seen through "buddy" films. We'll start the course with Arbuckle & Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, then it's on to Abbott & Costello, Hope & Crosby, and eventually we'll end on "Dumb & Dumber", Jay & Silent Bob films, and this franchise. It should be a scathing review on the decline of U.S. culture...
It's been 3 years since the last "Harold & Kumar" film was released, but in the stoner-verse, 6 years have somehow passed - and we find the two main characters in completely different places. Harold has a respectable job and has married into a stereotypically terrifying Latino family, and Kumar has quit medical school and become an aimless stoner slob. As such, they've ceased interacting and even communicating with each other, and each has picked up a substitute friend. Harold appears to be living drug-free, and has even given up eating those wonderful White Castle belly-bombs.
But fate throws them together again ("through the years...we all will be together...") and the MacGuffin this time is the perfectly-shaped balsam fir Christmas tree - the quest for said item once again takes them across late-night New York City, this time filled with Christmas parties, Ukranian gangsters, stoner Santas, waffle-dispensing robots and dick jokes.
There's even a clay-mation sequence that riffs on the old Rankin-Bass holiday specials, but since it's included as part of a drug-fueled hallucination, it can't possibly be taken seriously. Then again, I suppose nothing included here is meant to be taken seriously, which is a shame. What am I supposed to do with a nerd pursuing sex with a virgin (this was "Superbad" territory, no?) a baby constantly exposed to drugs (come on! a BABY?) and a riff on the "tongue stuck to a frozen pole" sequence from "A Christmas Story" (only that's, umm, not his tongue).
I guess I missed the cue in the film for when I was supposed to light up (thinking back on it, it was probably when the clock radio read 4:20...). That would have made things more enjoyable, no doubt. Actually I haven't done anything like that since 1988, unless you count morphine and painkillers when I had the kidney stones. But I have a number of friends who do partake (shout-out to the Tumblr Wake 'N Bakers!) and I do approve of the M.J. becoming more acceptable, and in some states even legal.
So, the franchise had a chance to portray toking up in a more positive light, and they blew it - sacrificing any social commentary to fit in more off-color humor. Though I suppose if I think back on the events of the film, the "problem drugs" were cocaine and ecstasy, and marijuana leads only to good times and wild adventures. Makes sense - why can't we make a similar distinction between a natural herb organically grown and something synthesized in a lab from cold medicine and cleaning products?
We live in confusing times. Smoking pot is legal in some states (next movie: Harold & Kumar Go to Colorado?) and approved for medicinal uses in others (Harold & Kumar Open a Pharmacy?) and in most states, still illegal. Some people are serving time for possession, but others are let go if the quantity was less then 4 oz. - can we all get together here and agree whether this thing is OK or not? It's easy to make the connection to same-sex marriage - gay people can get married in one state, but not another, and "border-crossing" weddings will soon be commonplace - but how do we get one state to recognize a marriage that took place in another? I love consistency much more than the thought of people enforcing their outdated belief systems on others.
My drug of choice is still beer. Good beer, not that shit that most Americans drink. If the ability to savor different flavors of beer and pair them with food got taken away from me, I'd be rightfully pissed. At the office Christmas party on Monday, I brought in 5 bottles of Stone Brewery's "Vertical Epic" series, dated 2008-2012. They were meant to be enjoyed in sequence on 12/12/12, and I missed that opportunity. The series was released on 2/2/02, 3/3/03, and so on, and the vintages were designed to age together, and present a sort of "flavor narrative", with each year representing a twist in the story. But this was simply too much beer to enjoy alone, so I shared. I don't know if much inspiration was gained through this radical approach to storytelling, but we had a good time, and the 2009 Vertical Epic paired very well with chocolate cupcakes. The 2012 was a Christmas ale, with spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and clove, so I felt the beers were appropriate for the occasion.
So, when I hear people talk about varieties of pot like "Winter Wonderweed", I get it. I don't smoke it, but I get it. However, just once I'd like to see this film franchise take the high road and not just try to appeal to the lowest common denominators of comedy each time. I will, however, happily support the real-life invention of the WaffleBot. You may not realize you need this product, but you do.
Also starring Kal Penn (last seen in "Superman Returns"), Thomas Lennon (last seen in "The Dark Knight Rises"), Amir Blumenfeld, Neil Patrick Harris (last seen in "The Muppets"), Danny Trejo (ditto), Elias Koteas (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Patton Oswalt (last seen in "Seeking a Friend For the End of the World"), with cameos from Bobby Lee, Eddie Kaye Thomas, David Krumholtz (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You").
NOTE: Christopher Meloni had an uncredited appearance in both previous "Harold & Kumar" films - and there was a perfect part for him in this one. I can only assume he wasn't available, and the actor who most closely resembles him, and is probably often confused with him, was cast. What a shame.
RATING: 3 out of 10 Rockettes
UPDATE: Shortly after going to press I was saddened to learn of the death of men's magazine publisher Al Goldstein. This may seem odd at first, but I can't think of a better place to mention the man, because he also catered to the lowest common denominator - but he was damn good at it, and proud of it. I met him a couple times at parties, and I recommend viewing any of his interview sessions with filmmakers where he dared to ask the tough questions about their sexual habits, or reading any of his many missives against his ex-wives and their money-grubbing bastard lawyers. I never got to say, "Thanks for the box of porn, Al."
I'd say that Al was the poor man's Hugh Hefner, but that was really Bob Guccione's job. I'd say he was the poor man's Larry Flynt, but that was Larry Flynt's job. Al was just Al, ruling over his porn empire like Jabba the Hutt, laughing boldly while flipping the world the middle finger, no doubt surrounded by many unsavory characters. After the fall of Screw magazine, Al worked as a greeter at the 2nd Ave. Deli for a while, and I'm also sorry I never got to see him holding court there. Maybe he never got around to effecting lasting change, but the world's a little less raunchy tonight, and that's too darn bad. I'll give Al a mention here because I would hate for his passing to be overshadowed by that of Joan Fontaine, Peter O'Toole and Nelson Mandela, who all never even had the courtesy to meet me.
BEFORE: Will get back to the Santa Claus story in a few days. I would think the linking would be quite obvious here - Chris Pine from "Rise of the Guardians" was also in the last 2 "Star Trek" films with John Cho.
THE PLOT: Stoner buds Harold Lee and Kumar Patel cause a holiday fracas by inadvertently burning down Harold's father-in-law's prize Christmas tree.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle" (Movie #9), "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay" (Movie #234)
AFTER: Like the "Tyler Perry's Madea" films (a Tyler Perry production, directed by Tyler Perry), at least this franchise respects the Rules of Ernest - first your character has to go to jail, and only THEN do they get to "save Christmas". At some point they need to go to camp as well, but I guess we'll deal with that when the time comes.
NOTE: These musings will no doubt be repeated when my University lesson plan is approved, and I teach my proposed class on modern history as seen through "buddy" films. We'll start the course with Arbuckle & Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, then it's on to Abbott & Costello, Hope & Crosby, and eventually we'll end on "Dumb & Dumber", Jay & Silent Bob films, and this franchise. It should be a scathing review on the decline of U.S. culture...
It's been 3 years since the last "Harold & Kumar" film was released, but in the stoner-verse, 6 years have somehow passed - and we find the two main characters in completely different places. Harold has a respectable job and has married into a stereotypically terrifying Latino family, and Kumar has quit medical school and become an aimless stoner slob. As such, they've ceased interacting and even communicating with each other, and each has picked up a substitute friend. Harold appears to be living drug-free, and has even given up eating those wonderful White Castle belly-bombs.
But fate throws them together again ("through the years...we all will be together...") and the MacGuffin this time is the perfectly-shaped balsam fir Christmas tree - the quest for said item once again takes them across late-night New York City, this time filled with Christmas parties, Ukranian gangsters, stoner Santas, waffle-dispensing robots and dick jokes.
There's even a clay-mation sequence that riffs on the old Rankin-Bass holiday specials, but since it's included as part of a drug-fueled hallucination, it can't possibly be taken seriously. Then again, I suppose nothing included here is meant to be taken seriously, which is a shame. What am I supposed to do with a nerd pursuing sex with a virgin (this was "Superbad" territory, no?) a baby constantly exposed to drugs (come on! a BABY?) and a riff on the "tongue stuck to a frozen pole" sequence from "A Christmas Story" (only that's, umm, not his tongue).
I guess I missed the cue in the film for when I was supposed to light up (thinking back on it, it was probably when the clock radio read 4:20...). That would have made things more enjoyable, no doubt. Actually I haven't done anything like that since 1988, unless you count morphine and painkillers when I had the kidney stones. But I have a number of friends who do partake (shout-out to the Tumblr Wake 'N Bakers!) and I do approve of the M.J. becoming more acceptable, and in some states even legal.
So, the franchise had a chance to portray toking up in a more positive light, and they blew it - sacrificing any social commentary to fit in more off-color humor. Though I suppose if I think back on the events of the film, the "problem drugs" were cocaine and ecstasy, and marijuana leads only to good times and wild adventures. Makes sense - why can't we make a similar distinction between a natural herb organically grown and something synthesized in a lab from cold medicine and cleaning products?
We live in confusing times. Smoking pot is legal in some states (next movie: Harold & Kumar Go to Colorado?) and approved for medicinal uses in others (Harold & Kumar Open a Pharmacy?) and in most states, still illegal. Some people are serving time for possession, but others are let go if the quantity was less then 4 oz. - can we all get together here and agree whether this thing is OK or not? It's easy to make the connection to same-sex marriage - gay people can get married in one state, but not another, and "border-crossing" weddings will soon be commonplace - but how do we get one state to recognize a marriage that took place in another? I love consistency much more than the thought of people enforcing their outdated belief systems on others.
My drug of choice is still beer. Good beer, not that shit that most Americans drink. If the ability to savor different flavors of beer and pair them with food got taken away from me, I'd be rightfully pissed. At the office Christmas party on Monday, I brought in 5 bottles of Stone Brewery's "Vertical Epic" series, dated 2008-2012. They were meant to be enjoyed in sequence on 12/12/12, and I missed that opportunity. The series was released on 2/2/02, 3/3/03, and so on, and the vintages were designed to age together, and present a sort of "flavor narrative", with each year representing a twist in the story. But this was simply too much beer to enjoy alone, so I shared. I don't know if much inspiration was gained through this radical approach to storytelling, but we had a good time, and the 2009 Vertical Epic paired very well with chocolate cupcakes. The 2012 was a Christmas ale, with spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and clove, so I felt the beers were appropriate for the occasion.
So, when I hear people talk about varieties of pot like "Winter Wonderweed", I get it. I don't smoke it, but I get it. However, just once I'd like to see this film franchise take the high road and not just try to appeal to the lowest common denominators of comedy each time. I will, however, happily support the real-life invention of the WaffleBot. You may not realize you need this product, but you do.
Also starring Kal Penn (last seen in "Superman Returns"), Thomas Lennon (last seen in "The Dark Knight Rises"), Amir Blumenfeld, Neil Patrick Harris (last seen in "The Muppets"), Danny Trejo (ditto), Elias Koteas (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Patton Oswalt (last seen in "Seeking a Friend For the End of the World"), with cameos from Bobby Lee, Eddie Kaye Thomas, David Krumholtz (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You").
NOTE: Christopher Meloni had an uncredited appearance in both previous "Harold & Kumar" films - and there was a perfect part for him in this one. I can only assume he wasn't available, and the actor who most closely resembles him, and is probably often confused with him, was cast. What a shame.
RATING: 3 out of 10 Rockettes
UPDATE: Shortly after going to press I was saddened to learn of the death of men's magazine publisher Al Goldstein. This may seem odd at first, but I can't think of a better place to mention the man, because he also catered to the lowest common denominator - but he was damn good at it, and proud of it. I met him a couple times at parties, and I recommend viewing any of his interview sessions with filmmakers where he dared to ask the tough questions about their sexual habits, or reading any of his many missives against his ex-wives and their money-grubbing bastard lawyers. I never got to say, "Thanks for the box of porn, Al."
I'd say that Al was the poor man's Hugh Hefner, but that was really Bob Guccione's job. I'd say he was the poor man's Larry Flynt, but that was Larry Flynt's job. Al was just Al, ruling over his porn empire like Jabba the Hutt, laughing boldly while flipping the world the middle finger, no doubt surrounded by many unsavory characters. After the fall of Screw magazine, Al worked as a greeter at the 2nd Ave. Deli for a while, and I'm also sorry I never got to see him holding court there. Maybe he never got around to effecting lasting change, but the world's a little less raunchy tonight, and that's too darn bad. I'll give Al a mention here because I would hate for his passing to be overshadowed by that of Joan Fontaine, Peter O'Toole and Nelson Mandela, who all never even had the courtesy to meet me.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Rise of the Guardians
Year 5, Day 352 - 12/18/13 - Movie #1,595
BEFORE: Well, I've been away for 2 weeks but it's been a very busy time. Most of my Christmas cards and CDs have gone out, about half of the requisite presents have been purchased (I'm hoping for some last-minute inspiration) and I've attended three office Christmas parties (two at companies I work for, I must be slipping). The only thing I haven't done yet is go on my annual "Festivus" walking tour of the NYC holiday markets, but really, there's almost no time for that. This past weekend I was sidelined by a snowstorm and a big blister on my foot, so the tour has been rescheduled for this coming Saturday, when the weather should be nicer.
But it's just one week until Christmas, and I've only got to slot in four films, and then two after Christmas to finish out the year. No problem, piece of cake, I got this. Linking from "Joyeux Noel", an actor from that film named Christopher Fulford was also in "Scoop" with Hugh Jackman (last seen in "Real Steel").
THE PLOT: When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world.
AFTER: While Christmas movies come and go (usually around this time of year...) superhero movies are hot hot HOT! And essentially, that's what this is, a superhero movie where the superheroes are classic children's characters all known for sneaking around at night without being seen. That's what unites Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy, other than the fact that they're all metaphors for different aspects of childhood.
So somebody got the idea to do a superhero spin on these characters, putting them together in a "Justice League" sort of organization, a type of an X-Men-ification if you will. In fact the basic plot follows the open of the first "X-Men" film quite closely, with an amnesiac Jack Frost in the Wolverine role, ambling through the countryside until he meets the other members of the team. After that Jack sort of fills the "Iceman" role from the X-Men, and the Easter Bunny takes over more of the Wolverine role (I don't think it's a coincidence that E.B. is voiced by Hugh Jackman...so I see what you did there...). The Tooth Fairy, as a goddess-type is sort of Storm-like, though I suppose the relatively new X-Men character Pixie is a closer analogue. And Santa Claus is big, imposing and high-tech, so he's a bit of Professor X meets Magneto meets Bruce Wayne.
The coincidences / comic-book ripoffs continue - Santa's got a big holographic map of the globe that highlights the children who truly believe, and it looks an awful lot like the X-Men's Cerebro device. The high-tech sleigh leaves Santa's workshop through a tunnel that calls to mind the way the Batmobile leaves the Batcave, and so on. The villain, Pitch (aka the Boogeyman), seems like a cross between Marvel's Nightmare character and DC/Vertigo's Sandman (Morpheus). In fact, it's hard to find any element of this film that doesn't call to mind something similar from Marvel, DC or Vertigo.
ASIDE: The Sandman seen in this film is, however, not directly based on the Vertigo Sandman. This one's more of a happy roly-poly sort, who is non-voiced by Teller from the comedy/magic duo Penn & Teller (I assume - though this doesn't really make sense, it's a fun factoid I just made up.) End of ASIDE.
That being said, if I compare this film to your average comic-book team-up, or a film like, say "The Avengers", there are a few places where it seems to fall short. What, exactly, is the villain's plan to take over the world - how is he going to accomplish this? This seemed very nebulous here, and his plan involved getting kids to fear him, but NOT believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny. Which seems a bit self-defeatist, because if kids mature and learn to not believe in fairy stories, that could also involve him, because he's perceived as a similarly imaginary character. It's all or nothing with the fairy tales - they're either all true, or all fantasy. The more exact elements of his plan seem to involve turning dream horses into night mares (get it?) but I'm not seeing his endgame here. Once all the kids in the world are scared of the Boogeyman - then what? He signs a book deal and stars in a TV biopic?
But, on the upside, it's a step toward advancing/updating the Santa Claus mythos, which quite honestly sometimes seems very mired in the past. How many homes even HAVE a working chimney these days, thanks to central heating? And what kid hasn't done the math to try and calculate the time it would take Santa to visit EVERY home on Christmas Eve, and determined that even if you discount the non-Christian households, it still seems a tall order for him to get into each house, deliver gifts, eat cookies, drink milk, shout "Ho Ho Ho!" and go back up the chimney in under 0.00001 seconds? I know, I know, time zones, magic reindeer and the curvature of the earth - and then Lois Lane comes back to life for good measure. My kid would be questioning the whole thing from the get-go, which is one more reason why I don't have a kid.
Recent debate over the exact location of the North Pole seems to place it in Canadian territory - but Santa Claus is Russian here for some reason, wielding sabers and wearing a Cossack-style hat. I'm guessing the ability of the voice actor to do a Russian accent and an inability to speak in a Canadian style had a lot to do with that. And the recent Fox News report about Santa Claus' race (Spoiler alert: He's WHITE) sort of demonstrated the ability that myths have to change over time. The original Saint Nicholas was Greek, but lived in a section of the world that is now Turkey, so he probably was more brown than some people today might be comfortable with. (Same goes for Jesus, despite the whiteness of his skin as depicted in most Renaissance artwork, people seem to forget that he was born in Israel, so was probably more of an olive-skinned gentleman.)
NITPICK POINT: On the same track as the Fox News "Christmas racism" scandal, despite a nod to the European version of the Tooth Fairy (Ratoncito Perez), this film is mostly based on American versions of these characters - how do these characters play overseas? We are shown Santa and the Easter Bunny visiting desert huts and Chinese pagodas, but are they even known in those regions? If a country doesn't celebrate Easter, why would they know the Easter Bunny? And putting kids' teeth under their pillows, is that even a thing in most other countries? I'll research when I have some more time...
NITPICK POINT #2: It's a valiant effort to come up with a reason WHY the Tooth Fairy collects teeth, even those with a little bit of gum attached, but still...eww. The whole practice seems rather barbaric. I like to challenge my friends with small kids by asking them what they're going to tell their kids about Santa, maybe I need to start asking them how they're going to handle the whole Tooth Fairy thing too - because that's just the kind of skutch I am.
But if the stories change over time, who's to say they shouldn't? Why shouldn't Santa have a high-tech workshop with high-speed internet access and lots of flashing lights, dials and switches? Why wouldn't he use a roomful of servers to keep track of the naughtiness of millions, if not billions, of children? Why can't he be Russian, or Canadian, or Hispanic, or look different to everyone who (almost) sees him? Why does the magic automatically stop when it comes to Santa's skin color?
Of course, there are many different forms of magic. I saw a recent news report where a plane full of kids who had battled cancer were taken on a plane ride to the North Pole (and I'm resisting the use of sarcastic quotation marks here...). The windows of the plane needed to be kept closed the entire time, because you can't risk kids seeing how the magic happens, and at the end of the plane ride, the kids landed at Santa's Workshop, which looked exactly like they hoped it would, and nothing at all like hangar B-3 at L.A.X. And somehow the same reporters who saw the plane take-off also found a way to report from the North Pole itself - again, it's all part of the magic.
I may be getting older and finding myself to be more and more cynical about Christmas tales, but I'm not one to reveal how magic tricks are done. Not to sick KIDS, anyway. Jeez, is that what you think of me? I thought we had a real relationship here, and then you pull this on me...
Also starring the voices of Chris Pine (last seen in "Star Trek Into Darkness"), Alec Baldwin (last seen in "Rock of Ages"), Jude Law (last seen in "Cold Mountain"), Isla Fisher.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Russian composers
BEFORE: Well, I've been away for 2 weeks but it's been a very busy time. Most of my Christmas cards and CDs have gone out, about half of the requisite presents have been purchased (I'm hoping for some last-minute inspiration) and I've attended three office Christmas parties (two at companies I work for, I must be slipping). The only thing I haven't done yet is go on my annual "Festivus" walking tour of the NYC holiday markets, but really, there's almost no time for that. This past weekend I was sidelined by a snowstorm and a big blister on my foot, so the tour has been rescheduled for this coming Saturday, when the weather should be nicer.
But it's just one week until Christmas, and I've only got to slot in four films, and then two after Christmas to finish out the year. No problem, piece of cake, I got this. Linking from "Joyeux Noel", an actor from that film named Christopher Fulford was also in "Scoop" with Hugh Jackman (last seen in "Real Steel").
THE PLOT: When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world.
AFTER: While Christmas movies come and go (usually around this time of year...) superhero movies are hot hot HOT! And essentially, that's what this is, a superhero movie where the superheroes are classic children's characters all known for sneaking around at night without being seen. That's what unites Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman and the Tooth Fairy, other than the fact that they're all metaphors for different aspects of childhood.
So somebody got the idea to do a superhero spin on these characters, putting them together in a "Justice League" sort of organization, a type of an X-Men-ification if you will. In fact the basic plot follows the open of the first "X-Men" film quite closely, with an amnesiac Jack Frost in the Wolverine role, ambling through the countryside until he meets the other members of the team. After that Jack sort of fills the "Iceman" role from the X-Men, and the Easter Bunny takes over more of the Wolverine role (I don't think it's a coincidence that E.B. is voiced by Hugh Jackman...so I see what you did there...). The Tooth Fairy, as a goddess-type is sort of Storm-like, though I suppose the relatively new X-Men character Pixie is a closer analogue. And Santa Claus is big, imposing and high-tech, so he's a bit of Professor X meets Magneto meets Bruce Wayne.
The coincidences / comic-book ripoffs continue - Santa's got a big holographic map of the globe that highlights the children who truly believe, and it looks an awful lot like the X-Men's Cerebro device. The high-tech sleigh leaves Santa's workshop through a tunnel that calls to mind the way the Batmobile leaves the Batcave, and so on. The villain, Pitch (aka the Boogeyman), seems like a cross between Marvel's Nightmare character and DC/Vertigo's Sandman (Morpheus). In fact, it's hard to find any element of this film that doesn't call to mind something similar from Marvel, DC or Vertigo.
ASIDE: The Sandman seen in this film is, however, not directly based on the Vertigo Sandman. This one's more of a happy roly-poly sort, who is non-voiced by Teller from the comedy/magic duo Penn & Teller (I assume - though this doesn't really make sense, it's a fun factoid I just made up.) End of ASIDE.
That being said, if I compare this film to your average comic-book team-up, or a film like, say "The Avengers", there are a few places where it seems to fall short. What, exactly, is the villain's plan to take over the world - how is he going to accomplish this? This seemed very nebulous here, and his plan involved getting kids to fear him, but NOT believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny. Which seems a bit self-defeatist, because if kids mature and learn to not believe in fairy stories, that could also involve him, because he's perceived as a similarly imaginary character. It's all or nothing with the fairy tales - they're either all true, or all fantasy. The more exact elements of his plan seem to involve turning dream horses into night mares (get it?) but I'm not seeing his endgame here. Once all the kids in the world are scared of the Boogeyman - then what? He signs a book deal and stars in a TV biopic?
But, on the upside, it's a step toward advancing/updating the Santa Claus mythos, which quite honestly sometimes seems very mired in the past. How many homes even HAVE a working chimney these days, thanks to central heating? And what kid hasn't done the math to try and calculate the time it would take Santa to visit EVERY home on Christmas Eve, and determined that even if you discount the non-Christian households, it still seems a tall order for him to get into each house, deliver gifts, eat cookies, drink milk, shout "Ho Ho Ho!" and go back up the chimney in under 0.00001 seconds? I know, I know, time zones, magic reindeer and the curvature of the earth - and then Lois Lane comes back to life for good measure. My kid would be questioning the whole thing from the get-go, which is one more reason why I don't have a kid.
Recent debate over the exact location of the North Pole seems to place it in Canadian territory - but Santa Claus is Russian here for some reason, wielding sabers and wearing a Cossack-style hat. I'm guessing the ability of the voice actor to do a Russian accent and an inability to speak in a Canadian style had a lot to do with that. And the recent Fox News report about Santa Claus' race (Spoiler alert: He's WHITE) sort of demonstrated the ability that myths have to change over time. The original Saint Nicholas was Greek, but lived in a section of the world that is now Turkey, so he probably was more brown than some people today might be comfortable with. (Same goes for Jesus, despite the whiteness of his skin as depicted in most Renaissance artwork, people seem to forget that he was born in Israel, so was probably more of an olive-skinned gentleman.)
NITPICK POINT: On the same track as the Fox News "Christmas racism" scandal, despite a nod to the European version of the Tooth Fairy (Ratoncito Perez), this film is mostly based on American versions of these characters - how do these characters play overseas? We are shown Santa and the Easter Bunny visiting desert huts and Chinese pagodas, but are they even known in those regions? If a country doesn't celebrate Easter, why would they know the Easter Bunny? And putting kids' teeth under their pillows, is that even a thing in most other countries? I'll research when I have some more time...
NITPICK POINT #2: It's a valiant effort to come up with a reason WHY the Tooth Fairy collects teeth, even those with a little bit of gum attached, but still...eww. The whole practice seems rather barbaric. I like to challenge my friends with small kids by asking them what they're going to tell their kids about Santa, maybe I need to start asking them how they're going to handle the whole Tooth Fairy thing too - because that's just the kind of skutch I am.
But if the stories change over time, who's to say they shouldn't? Why shouldn't Santa have a high-tech workshop with high-speed internet access and lots of flashing lights, dials and switches? Why wouldn't he use a roomful of servers to keep track of the naughtiness of millions, if not billions, of children? Why can't he be Russian, or Canadian, or Hispanic, or look different to everyone who (almost) sees him? Why does the magic automatically stop when it comes to Santa's skin color?
Of course, there are many different forms of magic. I saw a recent news report where a plane full of kids who had battled cancer were taken on a plane ride to the North Pole (and I'm resisting the use of sarcastic quotation marks here...). The windows of the plane needed to be kept closed the entire time, because you can't risk kids seeing how the magic happens, and at the end of the plane ride, the kids landed at Santa's Workshop, which looked exactly like they hoped it would, and nothing at all like hangar B-3 at L.A.X. And somehow the same reporters who saw the plane take-off also found a way to report from the North Pole itself - again, it's all part of the magic.
I may be getting older and finding myself to be more and more cynical about Christmas tales, but I'm not one to reveal how magic tricks are done. Not to sick KIDS, anyway. Jeez, is that what you think of me? I thought we had a real relationship here, and then you pull this on me...
Also starring the voices of Chris Pine (last seen in "Star Trek Into Darkness"), Alec Baldwin (last seen in "Rock of Ages"), Jude Law (last seen in "Cold Mountain"), Isla Fisher.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Russian composers
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