Mainlining Christmas

I don't recall ever having heard of this before seeing it listed in Alonso Duralde's book, " Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas " in the chapter devoted to the worst Christmas movies of all time. Actually, it was in the "other titles to consider" section of that chapter, right between Six Weeks (agreed) and Thomas Kincaid's Christmas Cottage (so bad it's amazing). It was the year of production that really drew me to this one in particular - excluding specials, I really haven't seen that many Christmas movies produced in the 1970s, and far fewer I'd consider at all worthwhile. Lists of holiday films usually only include a spattering of examples. I suspect there are quite a few in hiding - I've been doing this long enough to have seen entire eras and subgenres of Christmas media seemingly emerge from the void several times in the past, but for whatever reason the '70s don't seem to have been excavated in the way that, say, ...

You'd think after doing this for fifteen years I'd already know about a Christmas movie made by one of the most famous and revered filmmakers in cinema history, but here we are. Directed and cowritten by Akira Kurosawa, the legendary creator of Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Yojimbo, The Hidden Fortress, and numerous other classics, Scandal tells the somber story of a painter and singer who are victims of libel, as well as their lawyer, who struggles after accepting a bribe to sabotage the case. The bulk of the film is set in December of 1949, with about fifteen minutes spent on Christmas itself, which serves several thematic purposes and sets up the movie's final act. The film is quite good, which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one after hearing who made it. The cast features some of Kurosawa's regulars, including Toshiro Mifune as the painter, Aoye, and Takashi Shimura as his lawyer, Hiruta. The singer, Miyako, is played by Yoshiko Yamaguchi (I'm just going ...

This is a 45-minute stop-motion special about an Australian outback tour operator accidentally trading places with Santa Claus. Based on the premise and a minor character with a heavy Australian accent, I assume this was produced for the Australian market, but I actually haven't been able to verify that. The production company behind the project is Canadian, the main voice actor is Australian, and the only firm information I can find on it playing anywhere pre-streaming is a French film festival. IMDB does list a release date of December 25, 2008 in Australia, but it seems odd for it to have been delayed three years if that was the *first* time it was seen outside of festivals. I swear, it used to be a lot easier to research this kind of stuff before AI turned the internet to crap. None of that reflects on the quality of the special, of course, but I'd like to at least know whether this is an Australian or Canadian special, whether it's popular anywhere, and so on and so fo...

I find it interesting that Nicole Kidman has been in two high-profile sexual thrillers doubling as unexpected Christmas movies (side note: I really need to give Eyes Wide Shut another shot - my tastes in movies have changed a great deal in the past decade, and I am NOT proud of that review). The movies seem to be playing with different aspects of the holidays - Eyes Wide Shut was leveraging the otherworldly, dreamlike aspects associated with old ghost stories (see past-Erin: that wasn't so hard), while Babgygirl... Actually, Babygirl might be doing something even more interesting. By centering a story about power dynamics around the holidays, it evokes traditions of inverted power dynamics dating back to the solstice (the medieval Feast of Fools is probably the best known example, but there were numerous Christmas festivals and traditions centered around similar concepts). Echoes of that seem to be present in Halina Reijn's film about a high-profile CEO who engages in a submis...

Along with Netflix's Carry-On , Apple TV's Wolfs was a breakout hit last Christmas, to the limited extent the term can be applied to streaming movies. Getting a lot of views doesn't necessarily translate to a significant number of new or retained subscriptions: we know these were seen by a lot people, but it's an open question whether that means anything. This one had a great deal of potential, between reuniting Brad Pitt and George Clooney and coming from writer/director Jon Watts, who overdelivered on both his live-action Spider-Man trilogy and Star Wars Skeleton Crew. He's not necessarily the most exciting name in the industry, but he's been on a strong enough run recently that the prospect of him making a slick, funny holiday comedy/noir in the vein of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was intriguing. But while the movie isn't at all awful, Watts doesn't recreate enough of Shane Black’s proficiency in the genre to make this memorable or special. It's a little ...

It's weird Netflix dropped this in April, right? Particularly after having so much success with Carry-On last year (assuming their reporting can be trusted), you'd expect they'd want to hold something like this over to December and try to build a reputation as a service providing Christmas action flicks. Perhaps executives felt Havoc's less-than-jolly ending wouldn't play as well in the holiday season, or maybe there were business reasons for wanting to get Gareth Evans's film out as soon as possible. But whatever the logic, it strikes me as odd that they had a Christmas movie starring Tom Hardy, Forest Whitaker, and Timothy Olyphant directed by the guy behind The Raid movies and couldn't see the value in putting it out during that season. I should note I didn't love The Raid movies. I know, I know: heresy, but I feel I should be upfront about these things. Now that I've killed my credibility among fans of that genre, I'll say I actually did lik...