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

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

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.

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

Joyeux Noel

Year 5, Day 335 - 12/1/13 - Movie #1,594

BEFORE:  I found time on the night of Thanksgiving to assemble my annual Christmas mix CD.  This tradition started about two decades ago, when I put some of my favorite classic Xmas songs (Elvis Presley, Leon Redbone and Bing Crosby were probably mainstays then) on to a 90-minute cassette (yeah...) and gave it to probably about 10 people.  Reactions were good, so I did it again, and bought more Christmas music CDs the next year, and more the year after that, and it was feeding my typical obsession to collect things AND organize them, but it also started to serve as an all-purpose Christmas gift for family, friends, co-workers and even the UPS guy and the postal clerks.  People ask me if I'm going to run out of songs, and I've determined that's mathematically impossible, I could probably continue this process for the rest of my natural lifespan and never run out of versions of "Silent Night" (plus, if I pull songs from the CDs once a year, then technically I can't be called a "hoarder").

But as with everything I do, there needs to be a process.  There is a certain art, science and logic to creating a Christmas mix, plus I need to feel inspired.  I don't allow the process to guide me, even though the process could be more or less on auto-pilot at this point - just pick a bunch of good songs, make sure no two artists are singing the same song, the length is just under the 80-minute CD limit, and hit "Burn CD", right?  Not so fast.  I simply must have a theme, and that theme could be 80's rock, or jazz, or a cappella, or even Christmas music in the style of famous classic rock songs (one of my more difficult mixes to put together).  This year I had a rough idea for a theme, and it just wasn't coming together as fast as I would have liked, but I realized the clock was ticking.  So I sat down to log in the CDs I bought last year, and I realized I had put a bunch of post-it notes on the CDs, marking songs that I thought would fit in with a theme I've used before - and when I put this together with the songs that didn't make the cut in a previous year, for one reason or another, within a couple of hours I had a mix that was just a few minutes over the legal limit.

This is the best place for a mix of songs to be in - I know I need to cut just one song, and I'm golden.  But which one?  Well, when I pick songs I'm usually drawn to songs that show creativity or are different in some way - I'm most impressed by new arrangements, or singers that change the melody up a little, or stand out in some perhaps undefinable way.  Some versions that aren't just "the same old thing".  Then I'll listen to the mix, and choose the one that perhaps went a little too far (this year it was a very angry-ish version of "Carol of the Bells") and then what's left is usually the final group of songs.

Then it's just a matter of putting them in the "right" order, which is important.  I try to include 6 or 7 traditional Nativity-oriented carols, so that's a section, but I don't want so many that the mix gets bogged down in religious dogma.  Then there's usually a group of the weather- or party-related songs, like "Winter Wonderland", "Let It Snow", "White Christmas", and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree".  Any songs related to Santa / Rudolph / Frosty the Snowman usually constitute a third section, and then there are usually a few songs that are relationship-based, like "Blue Christmas", "Last Christmas" and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)".  Then there are generic well-wishing songs like "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", and other songs that I can take or leave, like "Feliz Navidad" and "12 Days of Christmas" - it has to be a really great version of one of those songs for me to even consider using it.  Plus I like to throw in one or two original songs, just to keep things fresh and maybe move the genre forward a bit.  Sometimes I like to challenge people's perceptions of what a holiday song sounds like, but I don't want to go too far.

Then, after a rough order is established, I have to listen through it one more time.  At this point I ask myself a number of questions, such as "Do I have too many female artists in a row?"  "Are the songs that mention God or Jesus too preachy?"  "Do I really want to alternate like this, fast song then slow song then fast song, or does that seem to bi-polar?"  "What's the overall tone of the compilation?"  Too many slow songs or songs in minor keys can potentially drag the whole thing down, and make it sound like a funeral dirge for Prancer & Vixen.  But too many loud or fast numbers could alienate the older relatives.  Usually cutting out the most egregious offenders in Step 2 takes care of this, and the rest can be smoothed over by just not putting too many downbeat songs together. 

I've got something now that I think is entertaining and even better, interesting.  And by that I mean it's got MY interest right now, and it represents where my head is at, and that's what I want to share with people.  There are a couple sad songs, perhaps "wistful" is a better word, and that's OK.  The mix made me sort of tear up in two spots, and that's a good sign.  But I don't want to depress people, so the cheer comes back to (hopefully) pull people back to a celebratory mood, and I think after a few more listens I'll be ready to mail it out with my Christmas cards.  An even better sign is the fact that right after listening through it, I want to hear it again.

But that's not why you called - so on with the countdown.  Linking from "The Patriot", an actor from that film named Peter Woodward was also in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" with Diane Kruger (last seen in "Troy").

THE PLOT:  On Christmas Eve during world War I, the Germans, French, and Scottish fraternize and get to know the men who live on the opposite side of a brutal war, in what became a true lesson of humanity.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "War Horse" (Movie #1,585), "Paths of Glory" (Movie #1,180)

AFTER:   Well, this goes right along with what I was just talking about.  Music is the initial thing that draws the French and German soldiers together on Christmas Eve.  Music, then alcohol.  Both are sort of universal languages (along with food, I suppose) and to a lesser extent here, religion.  The soldiers from France, Germany and Scotland end up having a mass together, which was easier back then because all of their masses were spoken in Latin.  

But let's start with music.  "Stille Nacht", or as you may know it, "Silent Night", was composed in German and just plain sounds better sung in that language (as does "O Tannenbaum"), but of course it's also recognizable in other languages.  "O Come All Ye Faithful" is shown here as a crossover too (sung as "Adeste Fideles", again, Latin).  I'm sure there are other Christmas songs that are uniquely German, or French, or English, but some of these are just plain universal.  I'm spoiled by the fact that 99% of my Christmas CD's recipients live in English-speaking countries, so I can worry about the theme and the tone and not worry if the messages are being understood or not. 

Speaking of messages, it's a little tough to land on just exactly what the message of this film is.  It's clearly anti-war, but it was a little hard to get much clearer than that.  Obviously it's much harder to shoot your enemy once you've shared a drink with him, and it shows that people on both sides of World War I were "dehumanizing" their enemy in order to make war acceptable in the minds of their countrymen.  It also highlights the difference in attitudes held by the people in government, and those held by the people in the trenches.

But it's tough to say whether this was meant to be seen as a sane moment in an insane war, or perhaps a more insane moment.  Putting Christmas aside, what happened still constituted fraternization with the enemy, and it was perhaps naive to think that their superior officers would never find out, or that there would be no repercussions.  The goals of war are to stay alive and kill the other guy, and however you feel about Christmas, celebrating it ended up interfering with the aforementioned other goals.  Besides, if celebrating with the enemy gets your unit disbanded or gets you transferred to the more dangerous Russian Front, then in the end it hardly seems worth it.

This is the end of the war chain, which began with "Red Tails" back on November 7.  Actually, it sort of began with "Gone With the Wind" in late September, or really you could say it kind of started with "Les Miserables" back on Jan. 1.  Whatever.  Now that peace has broken out, I need to step away and get my Christmas CDs made, my Christmas cards mailed out, the outdoor lights put up, and then I really should think about buying some gifts for people.  Damn, I've got just three weeks until Christmas, so this is going to be tight, and it's my own damn fault.   I'll meet you back here in about two weeks, hopefully, to knock off the last few films of the year, which are mainly holiday-based.

Also starring Benno Fürmann, Gary Lewis, Daniel Brühl, Steven Robertson, Guillaume Canet, Frank Witter, Ian Richardson, Thomas Schmauser.

RATING: 6 out of 10 bagpipes

The Patriot

Year 5, Day 334 - 11/30/13 - Movie #1,593

BEFORE: Happy Thanksgivukkah!  I wish I'd known months ago that the two holidays were going to coincide, I could have transitioned from "Pocahontas" to something like "8 Crazy Nights" - but I didn't.  Instead I went with a Mel Gibson linking, and as a result the war category is almost completely cleared.  I know it seems like July 4 would be a more appropriate date to watch this, and I agree, but I've covered just about every American (and Greek) conflict, except this one.  (OK, so I skipped the Spanish-American War, Korea and Vietnam this time.  You know what I mean.)

The truth is, I don't know what kind of chain I'll be involved in come July, and even though I have a couple other Mel Gibson films left on the list, sandwiching this film between "Payback" and "Bird on a Wire" didn't make much sense to me.  I don't even know for sure if I want to link with actors next year, we'll see. 

THE PLOT:  Peaceful farmer Benjamin Martin is driven to lead the Colonial Militia during the American Revolution when a sadistic British officer murders his son.

AFTER:  This is another war film that felt maybe too long by 25% or so - does any film really need to be 2 hours, 45 minutes long?  Couldn't some editing have been applied to cut out at LEAST 15 minutes, while maintaining the same storyline?  I mean, if we see Gibson's character saying goodbye to his children three times instead of four, isn't that enough?  There are some other redundancies in the plot as well, but I'm not going to mention major plot points for fear of spoilage.  But seeing the same thing happen again and again means that the story could have easily been simplified a little. 

Old Mel shows a bit of the "Mad Max" psycho here (or maybe it's the "Lethal Weapon" psycho) as his character is a pacifist at first, but then gets dragged into the conflict of the American Revolution.  I'm sure there must have been some people who voted against taking up arms, but according to this film, with the way that the British army treated even the Americans who were loyalists, by commandeering their slaves, land and supplies, they created more dissent wherever they went.  Which means that the U.S. might have remained colonies if the Brits hadn't been such royal dicks.

But when his family is threatened, and his son is in danger, Benjamin recalls his fighting days from the French-Indian War - there's a backstory which eventually gets told - and takes on a squadron of Redcoats thanks to a few well-placed already-loaded muskets and his trusty tomahawk.  It's only believable because of how long it took to reload a gun back in those days.  Seriously, it took like 5 minutes at best, and even then you weren't sure you did it correctly until you pulled the trigger and it didn't blow your own face off. 

What you see in the early battles of the war is a lot of gentleman-like behavior - you guys line up over there, and we'll line up over here, and you fire your weapons, and we'll get hit, then we'll take our turn.  Were things really like that?  Men were expected to just stand there and anticipate getting shot?  With the Brits' superior numbers, there was no way for the Colonials to win - until they started "fighting dirty", hiding in fields and forests and shooting without warning.  Yeah, they broke the rules but the rules sucked to begin with.  And isn't that what rebels do, break the rules?

I remember learning this sort of thing in U.S. History class, but I think it's probably an oversimplification to suggest this idea came from ONE guy, or was a practice used just by the South Carolina militia, for that matter.  But I suppose it makes it more dramatic to show the scrappy bunch of farmers, not professional soldiers, coming together to create more underhanded but efficient tactics. 

There are also some insights into the proper methods of courtship in the 1700's, and they sort of nailed how formal people acted back then - plus I think there are some keen insights into the motivations of the colonists, the reasons for the Revolution.  But there's also a large amount of melodrama here - like the young daughter who can't (or won't) speak.  Seems sort of a cop-out to explain why she wasn't given any lines, or if not that, then the use of a disabled character to wring more suffering out of this family's situation.

We also see Gibson's character melt down his tin soldiers to make his own musket balls.  Which was very effective since it turned out the British had no defense against irony.  You think that a gunshot hurts?  These also sting...

Also starring Heath Ledger (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You"), Joely Richardson (last seen in "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "Recount"), Jason Isaacs (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"), Chris Cooper (last seen in "The Horse Whisperer"), Rene Auberjonois (last seen in "Where the Buffalo Roam"), Donal Logue (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Adam Baldwin, Leon Rippy, Logan Lerman (last seen in "The Three Musketeers").

RATING: 5 out of 10 rocking chairs

Pocahontas

Year 5, Day 331 - 11/27/13 - Movie #1,592

BEFORE:  It's raining today in NYC, which would only be a problem if it were a big travel day or something.  I'm fortunate that I still live within driving distance of my parents, relatively speaking, so we don't have to drive anywhere until tomorrow morning.  I spent about a decade meeting up with my parents on Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house in Rockland County, and I feel that all those years of holiday travel have given me something of a pass - now for Thanksgiving I can choose where I want to go, or to choose nowhere if I want.  But after another three years of driving out to Long Island to spend the day with my wife's brother's in-laws, this time we're going to drive up to New Haven, which had the foresight to position itself roughly halfway between NYC and Boston, and meet up with my parents for lunch tomorrow.  One of New Haven's finer restaurants (I hope) will be providing the food, my mother and I can always cook a turkey together for Christmas.

I had the foresight about 6 months ago to buy two pairs of sneakers instead of one, which came in quite handy when the weather forced me to admit that I've worn some considerable holes in the first pair.  It's like I bought myself a gift on layaway.  Speaking of gifts, I've got to get moving on Christmas stuff.  This Friday simply MUST be the day where I pick the tracks for my Christmas mix CD, and then comes the dubbing and the labelling and the mailing of cards and CDs.  Then I've got to make lists (I love lists...) of gifts and where to look for them, and then there will be a flurry of internet ordering - you won't catch me at the mall on Black Friday, I assure you.  But after one more film I've got to put movies on hold to catch up on holiday preparations.

Linking from "The New World", two actors carry over - Christian Bale and Irene Bedard, which is kind of amazing considering that both movies cover almost exactly the same material.

THE PLOT:  An English soldier and the daughter of an Algonquin chief share a romance when English colonists invade seventeenth-century Virginia.

AFTER: Once again, DisneyCorp. has seen fit to whitewash history.  Of course, with any life portrayed on screen, there are decisions to be made about what to leave in and what to take out, so no biopic can ever be considered complete, unless the running time matches the person's natural lifetime.  But with the story of Pocahontas it's pretty telling what was depicted, and what wasn't.

First off, even though it was the first Disney animated feature to be based on a real person, being the chief's daughter made her technically a princess, so you just know that's why DisneyCorp. was eager to tell her story.  Nothing like holding up another princess for little girls to aspire becoming someday...  OK, so she's not Caucasian, which makes it seem like a step forward, but is it really?  She is depicted as a woman who is unable to define herself other than through her future husband, so to me that's a big red flag, and a sign that we haven't really progressed as fast and as far as one might think.  Some stories maintained that she had a husband in the tribe before she fell in with John Smith, but of course they're going to just sweep that under the rug for a kid's story.  Additionally, history estimates her age as 12 or 13, not as an older teen as depicted here - we can't show cradle-robbing, now can we?  (also, she probably would have walked around topless, but I understand some concessions must be made for a kiddie film...)

Similarly, this story only covers the period that includes Pocahontas meeting Smith, their romance and tours through the animated Virginia countryside, and then their parting after Smith is injured and forced to return to England.  Man, that's a hell of a long ambulance ride.  At least in this version Smith doesn't feed her the "I couldn't call you, I was dead" line.  But there's no mention of the love triangle that includes John Rolfe - because god forbid that a kid's film suggest that relationships are at all complicated.  Nope, you meet your true love, and if you screw it up, you don't get another shot.  That ship has sailed - literally, it's leaving with the tide.

The relationship between Pocahontas and Rolfe constitutes the first interracial marriage in American history.  Doesn't it seem like that might be the more powerful story?  Shouldn't that be celebrated and depicted, instead of her dalliance with John Smith?  Although it was the first interracial romance seen in a Disney film, I guess that's something.  (Ah, I'm being told that Disney did produce a sequel, in which Pocahontas meets Rolfe and subsequently travels to London.  Never mind.  Carry on.)

Honestly, though, no one really knows the true nature of the relationship between Pocahontas and Smith.  Smith wrote his journals in the third person, so we don't get a lot of insight into where his head was at.  Seems like he was kind of ambivalent about it, if you ask me.  You'd think if he was tapping that, he'd at least brag about it.  But it was a different time, when some men were gentlemen, I guess.  The first account of their romance didn't appear until 1803, and that's quite a distance to be speculating from. 

As for Smith, "The New World" made allusions to his mutinous behavior on the way to the New World, but this film depicts him jumping overboard to save a comrade.  That's quite a discrepancy - but everything's conjecture, really.  However, it's just so blatant that everything was made to fit a particular formula, one where heroes are good and villains are bad and there are no gray areas in-between.

The other obvious complaint is that there are too many sidekicks - about three too many - but that's pretty standard for a modern Disney film.  Really, everything they do is a distraction, which means that DisneyCo. considers kids to be about as intelligent as a housepet.  "Hey, look over here!" is the overall effect, because we don't believe in the ability of youngsters to pay proper attention to the main storyline.  And they wonder why so many kids have HDAD these days - can anyone tie the growth of this condition to the increase in animated sidekicks?   There was even supposed to be a fourth sidekick, a turkey named Redfeather, voiced by John Candy, but when he passed away the role was not recast, and in fact all of the animals lost the ability to speak English at that point.

Yes, the original plan was to have the cutesy raccoon, pug dog AND the hummingbird speak English, which would have made "Pocahontas" just as non-sensical as "Madagascar" or "The Little Mermaid" or any of the others - I suppose it's a step forward that they merely make animal noises here, but I think it would have been a bigger step if their roles were reduced or even eliminated entirely. 

On top of that, the name "Pocahontas" is spoken way too many times.  After a character is introduced, there's not usually much reason for stating their name over and over - it almost seems like time-filler here, or an admission that most characters don't have anything else constructive to say.  Pocahontas herself even starts sentences with it, which seemed quite odd because why would she address herself before speaking to another person? 

Also starring the voices of Mel Gibson (last seen in "The Bounty"), David Ogden Stiers (last heard in "Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil"), Russell Means, Linda Hunt (last seen in "She-Devil"), Billy Connolly (last seen in "The X-Files: I Want to Believe"), Gordon Tootoosis (last seen in "Legends of the Fall").

RATING:  4 out of 10 shovels