tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83783592958684992452024-03-18T16:52:08.811-07:00Mainlining ChristmasDistilled Concentrated Cheer between Thanksgiving and Christmas. A celebration of Christmas, in all its horror.Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10372317376002783405noreply@blogger.comBlogger1516125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-6491530023076948232024-01-30T16:00:00.000-08:002024-01-30T16:00:00.147-08:00The Holdovers (2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV27pr2TS7XSg7FrVFZ-2Lr31OnWq9ccgmwHdxXHULTrruKKCUB-nDn_t0rFV35L9py0atEyhSsTW8qPZr_3DJh8v1iRZNlBiAUw3YhuYLxri3STAeQ-i0VcSfAMIKNroq51DwnnxcmZGbWovPXq6H5d-R9REeZNimmM7Ptg6fHr7Ds4UnuDwxngfPv6ug/s3000/The%20Holdovers%20(2023).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV27pr2TS7XSg7FrVFZ-2Lr31OnWq9ccgmwHdxXHULTrruKKCUB-nDn_t0rFV35L9py0atEyhSsTW8qPZr_3DJh8v1iRZNlBiAUw3YhuYLxri3STAeQ-i0VcSfAMIKNroq51DwnnxcmZGbWovPXq6H5d-R9REeZNimmM7Ptg6fHr7Ds4UnuDwxngfPv6ug/s320/The%20Holdovers%20(2023).jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Sometimes I'll say a movie doesn't have much of a plot, or that it's not driven by its story. In most cases, I'm lying: the movie has a plot, it's just that said plot is driven primarily by subtle character interactions and developments that are both difficult to remember and even more difficult to recap. In other words, I'm really saying the movie's plot isn't defined by external story beats but internal growth.<p></p><p>The Holdovers is one such film. I'm spelling that all out, because I don't want to give the impression that very little occurs in the course of the movie, or that there's anything less than fantastic about the writing. This is an amazing movie, and it deserves the accolades it's received. But it's also a subtle movie, which means it's a pain in the ass to actually describe the plot, so don't expect more than a vague overview this time.</p><p>The premise centers around two or three characters, depending on which side of the lead/supporting line you think Da'Vine Joy Randolph's Mary falls on. She's a grieving mother whose only son, a graduate of a boarding school she worked at for more than a decade to ensure his enrollment, has just died in Vietnam. And, for the most part, her character arc occurs independently from the other major characters, Paul Giamatti's Paul and Dominic Sessa's Tully. All three are stuck at a boarding school together over Christmas of 1970 - Mary is the chef, Paul is the teacher assigned to look after the students left behind, and Tully is literally the only kid unable to leave for the holidays.</p><p>To say Paul and Tully initially dislike each other is an understatement, though - to be fair - both rub just about everyone the wrong way. Paul is something of a loner fixated on his responsibilities as an educator despite viewing pretty much all his students as spoiled, entitled brats. His students, understandably, hate his guts, as do most of the faculty and staff. Mary is something of an exception, as the two share a similar disdain for those blindly profiting from the classist and racist system that pushed Mary's son into the military while shielding the rich, mostly white students from similar danger. </p><p>Tully is constantly pushing almost everyone's buttons, though it's worth noting he's also shown to be surprisingly empathetic. He reaches out to a couple of younger students being bullied early on and has similar disdain for those who go through life oblivious to their privilege. A large portion of the movie is concerned with him and Paul gradually realizing they're not at all different from each other - in a sense, they could almost be two versions of the same character at different points in their life (only in a figurative sense, mind you; this is a grounded dramedy, not a Christmas fantasy).</p><p>Eventually, Tully convinces Paul to bring him to Boston, a place he's expressed interest in several times over the course of the movie. While there, the two bond further, and we finally find out why Tully's so interested in the city when he visits his father in a mental institution. We learn that Tully's been shuffled around from schools since his father was diagnosed, and - if he's thrown or pulled out of his current location - his next stop is a military academy.</p><p>Likewise, we get some more information on Paul's background. After graduating from the same school he still teaches at, Paul was thrown out of Harvard following a cheating allegation where his side of the story was disregarded in favor of a wealthier kid's. Paul dreams of traveling to Europe and writing, but he lacks either the drive or courage.</p><p>When they return to school, Paul and Tully are summoned to the headmaster's. Tully's visit to see his father resulted in serious complications for Tully's mother and new husband, who want answers. Paul realizes he has a choice: blame Tully for the incident and keep his job or falsely claim the visit was his idea, which will lead to his firing but keep Tully enrolled. Paul opts for the latter, and is fired in the process. At the end, he and Tully say a brief farewell, and Paul drives away, presumably to follow his dreams.</p><p>What's most striking about The Holdovers is its style - in virtually every way imaginable, the movie is scripted, shot, edited, scored, and performed in a manner reminiscent of films released during the era it's set. It wants to feel like a movie released in the early 1970s and damned if it doesn't follow through. Alexander Payne's direction is fantastic, as are the leads' performances.</p><p>The primary use of the holidays is, of course, as a juxtaposition for the overwhelming sense of depression surrounding the characters and their predicaments. We see the weight the three of them are bearing as they attempt to navigate a season of ostensible joy while contending with their own trauma, disappointment, and bleak outlooks toward the future. It's only together that they manage to find any glimmer of hope.</p><p>Well, it's together that Paul and Tully find hope. While Mary is a positive force in both their lives, it's not clear they have much to offer her, try as they might. Her peace is obtained more through a visit with her pregnant sister than anything having to do with the other two. This sequence has some resonance with themes tying the setting back to the whole "Christ child" motif, though the movie doesn't make a huge deal out of it.</p><p>In fact, Paul's atheism is a recurring character beat (and occasional punchline). The movie doesn't seem interested in disabusing him of this philosophy, either, which makes for a nice change of pace in Christmas media.</p><p>A slightly less obvious use of the holidays comes in the form of the sort of "liminal time" existing around Christmas. I mentioned that Paul and Tully function as sort of reflections of each other through time, an idea with a great deal of history around holiday stories. The movie plays with this throughout, but it's most apparent at the ending, when they part as friends. When Paul watches Tully dash away, you feel as if he's silently drawing the same connection, as if he's saying farewell to his younger self. I'm not suggesting this was referencing the scene in A Christmas Carol where Scrooge sees himself as a young man, but it's certainly reminiscent of versions I've seen (right down to Tully's long, black coat).</p><p>On a less serious note, The Holdovers also has a few trivial connections to other Christmas movies. This is, by my count, the third Paul Giamatti movie we've looked at here, after <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2013/12/fred-claus-2007.html">Fred Claus</a> and <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2014/12/all-is-bright-2013.html">All is Bright</a>. It feels unnecessary to point out all three feature him depressed over the holidays, since... I mean... are there any Paul Giamatti movies where he doesn't spend most of the runtime in a state of perpetual depression (other than The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I mean)? But I will point out all three are fantastic films, at least for my money (I realize our take on Fred Claus is a bit outside the norm, but I stand behind it).</p><p>On a more bizarre front, The Holdovers has numerous similarities to The Sacrifice Game, though I want to acknowledge they're all pretty superficial. Both movies were released in 2023, are set in Massachusetts boarding schools in the early 1970s over Christmas break, revolve around protagonists depressed about being in said situation, and were shot and edited in manners intended to resemble movies of the same era (an era that was notably light on actual holiday films of its own, I'd add). Again, this is all surface-level stuff, but it's bizarre we got both so close together.</p><p>None of that matters, of course - I just find it interesting. What does matter is that The Holdovers is an effective, touching, funny film well worth tracking down. This is one of the better movies of last year (or at least of the subset I had time to see), and - assuming you're in the mood for something a bit melancholy - highly recommended.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-1572266234440770732024-01-20T07:11:00.000-08:002024-01-20T07:11:46.506-08:00Things to Come (1936)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bocOY6zXWfOYK5xitYDlHkCt3b1JOCKoL0m7izr_A383ugASF4GZ5Wz5iQoRMeKaVj2OLznhNdTIlvNf-uZd4GWDDIArWKdMjZBp8B2VRAuZusNo84lp0sjkl4m_wXA0EMAMHtb4JdTGe6rzP82i7mUe2NGmcHone9cDhndRctwGYnFyT4aTque5CSA8/s1600/Things%20to%20Come%20(1936).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1288" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5bocOY6zXWfOYK5xitYDlHkCt3b1JOCKoL0m7izr_A383ugASF4GZ5Wz5iQoRMeKaVj2OLznhNdTIlvNf-uZd4GWDDIArWKdMjZBp8B2VRAuZusNo84lp0sjkl4m_wXA0EMAMHtb4JdTGe6rzP82i7mUe2NGmcHone9cDhndRctwGYnFyT4aTque5CSA8/s320/Things%20to%20Come%20(1936).jpg" width="258" /></a></div>Let's acknowledge up front that this isn't something I'd call a Christmas movie, though it comes significantly closer than I'd have expected. Things to Come is a 1936 British science-fiction film directed by William Cameron Menzies and scripted by... hold on... got to check my notes here... some guy named H. G. Wells. Anyone heard of him?<p></p><p>Things to Come doesn't have a typical narrative. While the movie sort of has a lead actor, his characters (he plays a couple) are really just standing in for an ideology. The real main character is the fictional city of "Everytown" (subtle!) which evolves and changes over the course of a century. The movie is less interested in its human characters than it is in speculating on the arcs of history. This is quite literally Wells's vision of a possible future, augmented with absolutely astonishing sets and visual effects that often left me scrambling to figure out how shots were achieved.</p><p>That qualifies as a recommendation, by the way, though I wouldn't worry too much about potential spoilers. This isn't a case where twists and turns are likely to intrigue modern viewers - what endures in Things to Come are the visuals, a handful of fairly impressive predictions, and Wells's accurate assessment of the ongoing cultural struggle that would define our current world.</p><p>The movie begins on Christmas in the then-near-future of 1940. A large portion of this section is filled with imagery hammering home contrasting images and music connected to the holiday with signs and newspaper headlines about the oncoming war.</p><p>We eventually catch up with a handful of characters, the most important of which is John Cabal, who's horrified by the prospect of a second World War. An associate of his argues against his concerns, predicting war most likely won't come to pass and even if it does, it will be a boon for scientific progress, an idea Cabal rejects. Fighting breaks out soon after, and Everytown is virtually demolished.</p><p>John serves in the air force, and we learn he's both courageous and driven by his compassion - he risks his own life attempting to save an enemy pilot. He doesn't seem interested in who's on which side of the conflict, but rather views the world as containing those interested in progress and those rooted to nationalism. So, yeah, more or less right on the money there, Wells.</p><p>The war stretches on for decades. We catch up with Everytown in the 1960s, by which time the world is a post-apocalyptic wasteland scourged by a global pandemic. The disease causes its victims to wander mindlessly with outstretched arms - they don't seem to be trying to bite anyone, but visually this strongly resembles the zombie subgenre that would pop up a few decades later. Society's response is even the same: those infected are shot in an attempt to slow transmission. I'd be shocked if this weren't an influence on George Romero.</p><p>The disease claims half the world's population before vanishing around 1970, at which point Everytown is ruled by a warlord claiming responsibility for eradicating the disease through the aforementioned policy of shooting the infected (the movie is somewhat ambiguous as to whether this is indeed what ended the pandemic, but it paints the warlord and those like him as barbarians). At any rate, most everyone in Everytown follows the warlord's commands without question, though the town's engineer finds him and his methods distasteful.</p><p>This is where John Cabal, now an old man who belongs to an empire of anti-war scientists, inventors, and engineers, appears in a small plane. The warlord takes him prisoner and attempts to force him to build him new warplanes alongside the aforementioned engineer, who sneaks away and flies to inform John's compatriots he's being held captive. They return in massive planes and using mostly non-lethal force subdue the technologically inferior town. John, now freed, declares that they'll build a new world.</p><p>At this point, we transition into another montage of development as Everytown is transformed through the decades into a sort of subterranean science-fiction utopia. If you've seen Metropolis (or even if you're just familiar with the design) you'll have a pretty good idea what the city looks like, with the caveat it's all framed in a positive light. Or at least the science is.</p><p>See, despite eradicating disease and war, some people see the developments of science as unnatural. These individuals, led by a charismatic leader, push back on advancement and openly call for a return to the life their ancestors lived. Not content to simply live this way themselves, they seek to tear down what the scientists have built as well, beginning with the symbol of ongoing progress, a massive space-gun their civilization's leader plans to use to shoot astronauts into space.</p><p>I should note the civilization's leader is the grandson of John Cabal and is played by the same actor, giving the whole thing at least something of a throughline. The movie makes a point of showing him not attempt to silence his opponent - it's important to him that humanity has a choice. That doesn't mean he's willing to sit back while a mob tears his life's work apart however: this whole section transitions into a race to the space-gun to ensure the two astronauts (one of whom is John's daughter) are able to get into space before the angry, regressive mob prevents this. They make it, of course, and the whole thing ends with Cabal spelling out the theme: this is ultimately as much a struggle for humanity's understanding of itself as it is over our destiny. Either we're destined to live and die as animals or ascend to conquer the stars. The choice is ultimately up to us.</p><p>It's important to acknowledge while this is fairly close in its prediction of the ongoing struggle between progressive and conservative ideologies, not all the politics or iconography age perfectly. The poetic speeches on the power of science and humanity's destiny among the stars have colonialist overtones. In addition, Wells didn't take into account the way capitalism would factor into the struggle over humanity. As a result, his heroes occasionally feel eerily similar to modern billionaires less interested in advancing science than in ways they can exploit it.</p><p>I'm not pointing this out to discredit Wells - I really was impressed with how much he got right - but I do want to acknowledge it's easy to overstate accuracy. This was intended as speculative and in that respect I think it holds up fantastically.</p><p>But at the risk of belaboring a compliment, what really stands out nearly nine decades afterward are the effects and designs. The movie is breathtaking in what the filmmakers managed to put on screen. The model work alone is incredible, to say nothing of the matte paintings and what I'm assuming were brilliant applications of rear projection (or perhaps other visual trickery - rear projection rarely looks as clean as some of these shots). Fans of science-fiction will find a great deal they recognize, as well: I saw design elements I suspect were borrowed for both Star Wars and Star Trek, and I already mentioned my suspicions that zombie movies owe a debt to this film.</p><p>Looking back, this is clearly drawing inspiration from foundational classics such as Metropolis and A Trip to the Moon (that space gun is pretty similar, albeit updated). And as you'd expect from a 1930s British genre movie, you'll also see elements of German expressionism throughout. </p><p>But this isn't a science-fiction website, it's a Christmas one, so let's talk about the holidays. As I said in my synopsis, the film opens on Christmas and quite blatantly juxtaposes the season with the threat of war. While this certainly wasn't the first movie to play with the contrasting themes of violence and goodwill, I'm struggling to think of anything made earlier I've seen to so explicitly connect it to war and widespread death. Keep in mind, this movie was made prior to World War II (it's largely about anxiety around the possibility of such a conflict, in fact). This predates the animated short, <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2014/12/peace-on-earth-1939-and-goodwill-to-men.html">Peace on Earth</a>, by three years, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that were another on the long list of movies inspired by Things to Come.</p><p>Contrasting the horrors of war with glad tidings isn't the only purpose of the holidays, however. There's something else going on here that - unlike most of the themes explored in Things to Come - actually is pretty subtle. The beginning of the movie includes religious holiday iconography and music to heighten the sense of impending doom and drive home the idea that violence is inherently evil. But given the overall structure of the film, the presence of Christmas - and more specifically of religious aspects associated with the holiday - serves a second purpose. Keep in mind this is ultimately a movie about progress and societal evolution: in a real sense, the holidays act as a sort of "before" image. The most interesting aspect of Christmas's appearance at the start is its absence at the end of the story. Once Everytown has embraced achievement, humanity is no longer shackled to its customs or religion.</p><p>Perhaps I was a little too quick to say this doesn't qualify as a genuine Christmas movie. Under this reading (which, I'll add, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells">aligns with Wells's opinions on religion at the time</a>), the movie is leveraging the holidays for not only tonal and thematic weight but as part of its overall thesis. Granted, that thesis implies we'd be better off without the holidays, but I don't believe that in any way invalidates the significance of the season to the film.</p><p>It also places this in the extremely rare subset of atheistic Christmas films, perhaps the only category more elusive in holiday entertainment than Christmas science-fiction, which this also of course lands in.</p><p>While I think this technically might qualify as a Christmas movie by my admittedly convoluted definition, outside of the first ten minutes, it certainly won't feel like one to most viewers. In that respect, I wouldn't recommend it to those looking for traditional holiday entertainment. But anyone interested in science-fiction movies from this era should absolutely track this down as soon as possible. It's a truly fascinating film.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-12449372463727753052024-01-01T08:00:00.000-08:002024-01-01T09:20:45.998-08:00The Dead (1987) [Revisited]<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8BJATfLTl3pwHYfFK_aIYLQcWOsCgqt1fg-yOfgosqEu8M5bmXqWhRoWTMwXkguJOcwz8sQVGbhmyOgcgNCcWlMwYzR4BSINYOwD9KRGN8nPs0JvtHTi91BNp8Lbq_eW4bnvpwuoWc83izqyGFkvUbmrwjD6USAaq_91exC5rMiuYXHqRNwccBvS0bjZ/s566/The%20Dead%20(1987)%20%5BRevisited%5D.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="400" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik8BJATfLTl3pwHYfFK_aIYLQcWOsCgqt1fg-yOfgosqEu8M5bmXqWhRoWTMwXkguJOcwz8sQVGbhmyOgcgNCcWlMwYzR4BSINYOwD9KRGN8nPs0JvtHTi91BNp8Lbq_eW4bnvpwuoWc83izqyGFkvUbmrwjD6USAaq_91exC5rMiuYXHqRNwccBvS0bjZ/s320/The%20Dead%20(1987)%20%5BRevisited%5D.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>I've been meaning to re-watch this for a while. I originally wrote about this back in 2016, and while <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2016/12/the-dead-1987.html">I'll link to that post</a>, it's not one I'm proud of. Having a "review" up for a critically acclaimed adaptation of a James Joyce story where my take is basically just me whining that I found the movie boring hasn't sat well with me as my appreciation for different kinds of films has expanded. I suspected - correctly, I might add - I'd react differently if I gave the movie another chance.<p></p><p>That said, I agree with at least part of my original sentiment - this one really isn't for everyone. It requires a great deal of attention to follow the large number of characters and their relationships. Multiple viewings are probably the best approach if you're unfamiliar with the source material - at an hour and twenty minutes, that's not too heavy a lift (I watched this twice yesterday, for anyone curious). Even then, the movie and its underlying plot (which by all accounts is virtually identical to the original story) is difficult to interpret. The general themes are clear, but how those reflect on politics and society in Joyce's time, let alone director John Huston's or ours, is difficult to parse.</p><p>But I'll get to that. Let's talk premise and story - I'll try and do so in a little more depth than my write-up seven years ago. The movie opens with three women - two aging sisters and their young niece - welcoming guests to their annual Epiphany party. There are a large number of guests, but the most significant are their nephew, Gabriel; his wife, Gretta; the drunk, Freddy, and his mother; and Mr. Browne, a protestant who winds up drunker than Freddy. The hostesses are worried about Freddy's behavior (there have apparently been incidents at past parties) and are ecstatic when Gabriel arrives, as they trust him to manage Freddy. Beyond them, there's an assortment of singers, musicians, and academics from the Dublin musical scene.</p><p>The movie makes it fairly clear that Gabriel (played by Donal McCann) is our point-of-view character, albeit an unusual one. He's mostly preoccupied with reviewing a speech he'll be giving at the end of dinner and steals away moments throughout to study his notes. He seems bored with the other guests, though he's generally polite to their faces, preferring to snicker or offer a biting remark behind their backs.</p><p>He shares a somewhat more honest relationship with his wife, Gretta (played by Anjelica Huston, the daughter of the director) - they trade friendly barbs to each others' faces. Their relationship is notable in being cordial but not at all warm through the majority of the film. Gretta feels far more alive interacting with the singers at the party. She is almost always at the side of another man. Gabriel, meanwhile, ends up dancing with another woman, who quarrels with him over politics, leading him to admit a growing disdain for his country and its people.</p><p>There are a few performances, including a piano performance by the youngest host, a song sung by the eldest (whose skill has clearly waned), and a poem recited by a guest. Dominant themes in both the performances and in conversations are longing for youth, mourning for lost times and people, and an acknowledgment that death is inevitable. In addition, we get a few playful moments, such as when one of the hostesses comically attempts to assert her commitment to Catholicism while simultaneously ranting against the Pope's sexist policies (my favorite moment in the movie, courtesy of actress Helena Carroll).</p><p>Eventually, they all eat together, during which Freddy and Mr. Browne have a short but a heated exchange. Gabriel finally delivers his speech, which is essentially a prolonged toast to the three hostesses and Irish hospitality in general. I'm not entirely sure how to read this moment. The movie's told us clearly Gabriel is tired of the country these women seem to represent, and there's an underlying sense of irony to much of what he's saying. But at the same time, the camera frames the oldest of the three women with a great deal of sympathy - she's overwhelmed by emotion, which seems to be the film's commodity for assigning worth to its characters. It comes off as at once sarcastic and sincere - perhaps the implication is it's supposed to be both.</p><p>Regardless, the party begins winding down soon after. Characters leave until only a few remain. As Gabriel is getting his boots on, he sees his wife descending the stairs. She pauses to listen intently to a singer, and she stands in front of a stained glass window, looking like the Virgin Mary. Gabriel is transfixed as he stares at her.</p><p>On the ride to the hotel they're staying at, he tells her a story about a time his grandfather's horse became enamored with a statue, but her thoughts are clearly elsewhere. At the hotel, he pushes her into telling him what's on her mind, and she reveals a part of her life he'd never known about, one prompted by the song she listened to earlier. It's a story of a young man who'd been madly in love with her, to the point he came to see her while sick in the winter and passed away soon after. She breaks down and tears after finishing her story, collapses on the bed, and falls unconscious.</p><p>Gabriel, left to muse on all this, looks out the window at the falling snow. In a voiceover apparently taken verbatim from the end of Joyce's story, he reflects on the sense of death that seems to be covering his nation, and regrets never having known the sort of passion that drove the man who loved his wife to an early grave.</p><p>Trying to parse this movie for some kind of statement is even more difficult than trying to get the same from Gabriel's speech. The movie presents these characters with very little context, making it difficult to know whether they're deserving of our sympathy or disdain. You can just as easily see them all as victims of circumstance or as self-important figures too obsessed with the past to deal with problems that are, for the most part, generally pretty trivial.</p><p>Gabriel's musing at the end can likewise be viewed either as a sincere, profound search for existential purpose or as a pitiable fixation with death. Ultimately, I suspect it's better to view this as a meditation on the topics being explored than as a lesson or treatise. That makes a great deal of sense when you consider the fact <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-dead-1987">the director was dying himself as he made the film</a>. The movie feels like an honest exploration of conflicting emotions and viewpoints surrounding a central theme.</p><p>Now then, let's talk Christmas, or more specifically Epiphany. When I first watched this, I assumed the holiday was selected for its symbolic representation of the end of the Christmas holidays, which... yeah, that was likely a factor. But it's also worth noting the holidays also represent a period between years - in some traditions, the new year doesn't really start until after Epiphany. Granted, this was a bit of an antiquated notion when Joyce was writing, but he'd certainly have been familiar with it. And The Dead is nothing if not fascinated with things that are antiquated.</p><p>More than that, this may tie into Christmas ghost stories. The holidays have long been considered a time of spirits. There may not be literal ghosts in this story, but it ends with the implication that the titular dead are more alive and present than the actual living characters. Setting this during the holidays could very well be a sort of invocation of those superstitions.</p><p>There's also the possible connection between the hostesses and the wise men of Christian mythology who supposedly arrived on Epiphany. Though it occurred to me on this viewing that you could also view the wise men as other characters. For example, three gifts were given to members of the household (Gabriel gave a servant some money, Mr. Browne brought flowers, and one of the students brought some scented soap). Those gifts do bear a resemblance to the gold, incense, and myrrh of legend. Alternatively, the students also appear as a trio - they're the only characters to do so.</p><p>It's also worth noting the hostesses at least vaguely resemble maiden-mother-crone iconography when seated together. It wouldn't surprise me if this was intentional on Huston's part.</p><p>So, I guess the only questions left are whether I enjoyed this movie and whether I'd recommend it. Neither are going to be any more straightforward than my attempts to explain the film, unfortunately. I certainly enjoyed the performances - Anjelica Huston is particularly fantastic. I found the movie far more interesting on these viewings than when I first watched it, both because I have a better understanding of the history of holiday traditions and a much better appreciation for film. I'm not sure that counts as <i>enjoyment</i>, though I also suspect this wasn't a movie created to be enjoyed so much as reflected on.</p><p>As far as whether I'd recommend it... that depends on your background. If you're a fan of Joyce's writing, then it's certainly worth checking out. Really, if you love film or literature (and particularly if you've got an academic background in either of those subjects) this is something you should see. As for general audiences, however, maybe not. This is a movie with a pace so slow it's almost standing still. There's depth to the characters, but very little development or expression. It's a film where nothing really happens and - until the very end - very little of consequence is expressed or revealed.</p><p>It asks a great deal of the audience - if you're in a position to meet it on its own terms, it can be a rewarding experience. If not, you're going to feel like you wasted an hour and twenty minutes. That sounds like more of a value statement than I mean it - keep in mind, I've been on both sides of that line in regards to this film.</p><p>But it is a movie I expect I'll want to revisit again later in life to see how my opinion transforms then.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-27433146672825400952023-12-31T17:00:00.000-08:002023-12-31T17:00:00.129-08:00Cronos (1992)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP1BP8AUEPYVS9LuTqcUsL9eyPc_RQG3KVdCGTB-ebEjjxc4uqbt_9tyvN-IoPP4ItIUwNNFYaOrYa35ae49w88mcNCbqMVjvyjnsTK2ikYkmr8qdlJYX2sKTsOm1QyDYqS51hcQbHd9Zy8sxFWwp01Y3-DrgUQqnU671kGKt07WGV9p4Hv-WA1Re2Cn_l/s500/Cronos%20(1992).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="356" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP1BP8AUEPYVS9LuTqcUsL9eyPc_RQG3KVdCGTB-ebEjjxc4uqbt_9tyvN-IoPP4ItIUwNNFYaOrYa35ae49w88mcNCbqMVjvyjnsTK2ikYkmr8qdlJYX2sKTsOm1QyDYqS51hcQbHd9Zy8sxFWwp01Y3-DrgUQqnU671kGKt07WGV9p4Hv-WA1Re2Cn_l/s320/Cronos%20(1992).jpg" width="228" /></a></div>I first saw this ten or fifteen years ago while exploring Guillermo del Toro's filmography. Filmed in a combination of English and Spanish, Cronos is his first film. I recall thinking it was good but being a little underwhelmed at the time, particularly compared to his follow-up, The Devil's Backbone. If I noticed this was set at New Year's, I forgot it soon after.<p></p><p>While this didn't leave much of an impression on me then, it absolutely did now. I think I was expecting a more typical vampire story, and as a result wasn't ready to fully appreciate the more subdued, thoughtful film del Toro delivered, which is more a fairytale assembled out of deconstructed horror elements than the usual superpowered monsters. In my defense, understated genre films were more common in the '90s and early '00s, so something like this stood out less then than it does in 2023.</p><p>Regardless, this is fantastic, which means it's time for a mandatory spoiler warning. If you're a fan of del Toro's work, you might consider checking out of this write-up before I lay out the whole plot. This isn't the kind of movie where knowing the ending eliminates the joy of experiencing it all unfold, but that's of course for you to decide.</p><p>The premise of the film is built around a completely reimagined vampire adhering to most (though not quite all) of the traditional rules but with an entirely new background. A brief prologue introduces us to the new origin, which involves an alchemist who invented a device granting its user eternal youth, though not necessarily immortality - the alchemist himself is killed in the aftermath of an explosion decades before the main events kick off.</p><p>The device is found by Jesús Gris (played by Federico Luppi), the aging owner of an antique shop, after a potential buyer (Angel de la Guardia, played by Ron Perlman, in case you thought he only got killed by a vampiric protagonist in one del Toro film) unintentionally clues him into its hiding place.</p><p>...And that seems like a good place to pause and acknowledge the name thing. In case you missed it, the main character's name is basically "gray Jesus," and the antagonist is more or less named "guardian angel." That trend continues through all the names - Jesús's wife is Mercedes (basically Mary), his granddaughter is Aurora, and Angel's uncle is Dieter (I'll save you the trip to Google: it basically means "ruler"). It's all a bit silly and on the nose, though it also serves to reinforce the idea this is all a fairytale of sorts (it's even got a narrator). Whether this is a flaw or not is up to the individual viewer.</p><p>The device, of course, starts vampirizing Jesús, though not quite in the sense you'd expect. He initially gains youthful vitality, and he's clearly drawn towards blood (though he won't actually taste any until the halfway point and won't drink from a person until nearly the end). As far as he can tell, the device is a gift.</p><p>The main threat comes from Angel, who ransacks Jesús's store, intentionally leaving a business card among the wreckage for Jesús to find. Jesús goes to their factory and meets Dieter, a dying industrialist with the alchemist's notes and an obsession about prolonging his own life. It's worth noting that Angel doesn't believe (or even really understand) any of the supervillain stuff - he's just trying to lock down his inheritance.</p><p>Things come to a head on New Year's Eve (three days after the movie starts, if anyone's counting). Jesús finally tastes blood he finds on a bathroom floor, though he's knocked unconscious by Angel almost immediately after. Angel then takes him to a deserted location and tries to force him to reveal the location of the device, but seemingly winds up killing him in the process. He stages a car crash to make it look like an accident, then lies to his uncle about what occurred, since that definitely wasn't part of Dieter's plan.</p><p>It should be noted that Jesús stays dead for a while (probably another three days in keeping with the Christ motif, though if this was confirmed I missed it). He rises just before he's supposed to be cremated and makes his way home, where Aurora finds him and hides him in the attic (in a fun nod to Dracula's coffin, he sleeps in a toy chest). By now, he's becoming more and more vampiric - his skin is beginning to peel, and sunlight burns him.</p><p>Eventually he goes after the alchemist's notes in Dieter's possession, hoping to learn how to break the curse. Aurora sneaks along, as well, which turns out to be fortunate - she's instrumental in getting them inside, and she's exceedingly helpful later.</p><p>Once there, Dieter confronts Jesús and offers a partnership. He tells Jesús to peel off the rotting skin, revealing new, pale flesh resembling a traditional Nosferatu appearance. He also clues him into the whole "drinking blood" part. When Jesús tells him he just wants out, Dieter is all too happy to oblige and nearly kills him (in this story vampires can be killed by piercing their hearts with anything). But just before Dieter can finish him off, Aurora smacks the industrialist upside the head. Jesús bites him and begins feeding, completing his transformation.</p><p>Eventually Angel shows up. He's all too happy his uncle's out of the picture, proclaiming, "Merry Christmas," and murdering the old man when he realizes he's not quite dead yet. But while Angel's happy with how things are playing out, he also wants Jesús out of the picture, presumably because he knows too much. As they fight it becomes clear Angel is planning to kill Aurora, too, so Jesús tackles Angel through a glass roof, killing him.</p><p>As Jesús rises, he sees that Aurora is cut and is briefly tempted to attack her. But she finally speaks, tenderly calling him grandfather, and he retains enough of his humanity to instead smash the device, knowing it will seal his fate. The movie ends with him lying in bed dying, with his loved ones nearby.</p><p>The movie's themes play into a couple aspects of New Year's. This is ultimately a struggle between Dieter futilely fighting the inevitability of time and Jesús accepting it. Dieter fears death so much he pushes away the only force that could comfort him in its presence. Meanwhile, Jesús chooses to accept death and continue the cycle in which the next generation replaces the last (a legacy Dieter loses when Angel, mimicking his uncle's selfish behavior, brings about the end of their bloodline).</p><p>This cycle, of course, mirrors that of the new year replacing the old. It's a common theme in Christmas and New Year's media - Cronos would work well in a marathon with Prometheus and The Green Knight. There's even a sequence in which Angel has a speech about having been kept waiting for his uncle to pass that's similar to Charlize Theron's in Prometheus (there are several similarities between their characters, in fact).</p><p>Time is an ever-present entity in the movie - unsurprising, given the title. Clocks fill Jesús's store, both visually and audibly, the alchemist's device is a clockwork mechanism with a living insectoid heart, and there's even a massive clock overhanging the rooftop showdown between Jesús and Angel at the end. Del Toro drives home the idea that death is inevitable, so what matters is the way we live and face it.</p><p>Cronos isn't just playing with these ideas for their own sake, however. Dieter clinging to life reflects the way he's clinging to wealth. I don't think it's coincidental that the villain is rich and the hero isn't - there's a political message about class struggles, as well.</p><p>It's also worth noting that the movie plays into the idea the season is a space outside of time, between the end of one year and the start of the next. The entire movie seems to occur within the twelve days of Christmas, and the main character enters a state between living and dying. In essence, he's stepping out of the solar cycle (which in turn plays off the idea of vampires being unable to tolerate the sun). It's all very clever, providing a great deal for both Christmas and monster movie nerds to dig their teeth into.</p><p>But of course none of that has much to do with why the movie's enjoyable. Rich symbolism makes for a fun exercise, but it's the movie's humor and dark whimsy that make it a fun experience. And, as is the case for pretty much every del Doro production, this offers all that in spades. For a vampire film, it's surprisingly sweet, centering largely on the loving relationship between a grandfather and his granddaughter. The comedy is great as well, flawlessly integrated into the bizarre fairytale world being crafted.</p><p>I should also note that, while this feels more fairytale than horror, del Toro still delivers some genuinely disturbing images and moments. The body horror aspects of Jesús's metamorphosis are both gross and scary, and the movie features a couple shocking moments. The makeup and set designs pull double-duty, giving the film a magical, childlike wonder, but also creepy recreations and updates of classic horror.</p><p>None of that should be surprising to anyone familiar with del Toro's later work: he's been exploring the intersection of fairytales and horror his whole career (and with good reason - the two genres essentially began as one). As much as I like his later films, I actually think I prefer the simplicity of his earliest productions. After rewatching, this joins Devil's Backbone as one of my favorites of his movies. Given how much I adore Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy 2, that's pretty high praise.</p><p>Needless to say, this one's worth tracking down if you haven't seen it, or if - like me - it's been a while. It's aged extremely well and makes for a great New Year's watch.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-55507866429966423912023-12-30T08:00:00.000-08:002023-12-30T08:00:00.138-08:00Ordinary Love (2019)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIomyTiLJ1L7J09VNkgblqF4L9_AEZP-NMLtjNGzwklenaPtrRdh8LMot-BeZn6ifq-ZA9oKFMd9KYVeVJNP1MxwnHfwekfxzUCM6MOLM7mgc-J2wIrsQ8LGVXA0htFpJEWJOZBf_Cx3xMPGBAV3NEU8AHYV2qaPY0VNmETGvGYoKsZBFFmg1zOEHCHbl/s755/Ordinary%20Love%20(2019).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAIomyTiLJ1L7J09VNkgblqF4L9_AEZP-NMLtjNGzwklenaPtrRdh8LMot-BeZn6ifq-ZA9oKFMd9KYVeVJNP1MxwnHfwekfxzUCM6MOLM7mgc-J2wIrsQ8LGVXA0htFpJEWJOZBf_Cx3xMPGBAV3NEU8AHYV2qaPY0VNmETGvGYoKsZBFFmg1zOEHCHbl/s320/Ordinary%20Love%20(2019).jpg" width="212" /></a></div>I found this on a list BFI released of "10 Great Christmas Films of the 21st Century," along with a mix of movies we've seen and ones we haven't (all of which of course went right on my watchlist). While I agree Ordinary Love is a worthwhile film, I'm less convinced it makes much sense to call it a "Christmas film," though it does have the holidays bookend the movie, a common use of them. The BFI's synopsis, however, claims this is "about a Belfast couple grappling with chemo over the holidays," which is demonstrably false - the holidays are well over before the disease is diagnosed, and the bulk of their ordeal takes place significantly later. I'm guessing whoever made the list didn't have a chance to rewatch this before finalizing it.<p></p><p>Which is understandable. By their nature, these kinds of lists are typically tossed together at the last minute, and besides - it's not like the movie is unworthy of praise. I just wouldn't call it a Christmas movie, and if we were still holding fast to our rule of only reviewing those, this wouldn't make the cut. But the movie's interesting enough in its own right, and the use of the holidays - however minimal - makes for an interesting case study in the off-season.</p><p>As is probably obvious from the subject matter, Ordinary Love is a drama. The film is notable for how focused it is on its leads - only the two main characters seem to have last names, and (unless both my memory and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6012380/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_q_ordinary%2520love">IMDB</a> are mistaken) only two others are even given first names. Somewhat impressively, none of this leapt out at me while I was watching. Credit directors Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn with controlling the narrative while still feeling natural.</p><p>And speaking of people who deserve credit, let's talk stars, Lesley Manville and Liam Neeson. Both deliver fantastic performances, but of the two it's Manville who's truly memorable. She plays Joan, whose life is upended when she discovers she has breast cancer. While the makeup team shouldn't be discounted, it's Manville who really sells the emotional and physical toll the disease takes.</p><p>Meanwhile, her husband, Tom, is trying to hide the emotional toll his wife's diagnosis and treatment are taking on him. He's already lost his only daughter (we never get details, but the tragedy hangs over the couple the whole movie), and is terrified by the prospect of losing his wife, as well.</p><p>While undergoing treatment, Joan connects with one of her late daughter's former teachers, Peter, who's being treated for terminal cancer. We see the toll this is taking on Steve, Peter's partner, who Tom eventually bonds with.</p><p>From a plot standpoint, not much happens beyond this, though Ordinary Love isn't the sort of movie that relies on its story. This is a meditation on love, disease, and death, and the way these affect us. I should mention that Joan does survive, though she's of course physically changed by what she goes through. Physically changed, but not so much changed as a person, an idea she discusses with Peter before he passes away. Meanwhile, Tom changes a great deal - he starts the movie gruff and standoffish, but by the end is a far warmer and more open human being. </p><p>As I said earlier, the holidays here act as bookends, and in that respect serve as a sort of representation of the passing of time. That's all in keeping with the notion that the beginning and ending of a year is a sort of beginning and ending of stories and moments of reflection. We of course see this all the time in media invoking the holidays. What's interesting here is that its two leads undergo very different journeys and arrive at different destinations. Joan is surprised - and even disappointed - to discover she hasn't been transformed into a new person: she ends the year as basically the same woman she started it as, at least on the inside. Meanwhile, while Tom looks the same, there's an unmistakable shift in how he interacts with those around him. The holidays aren't a catalyst for any of this, mind you, but they mark the start and end of this story.</p><p>And, again, the movie is quite good. As its title implies, the film is unusually restrained for its genre. The characters feel believable, and what they go through - while of course terrifying - isn't abnormal. The movie doesn't exploit its subject matter to wring tears from its audience's eyes, nor is this manufacturing fanciful obstacles or lessons. It wants Tom and Joan to feel like real people with a real relationship, and it delivers on that premise.</p><p>Whether this is something you'll want to track down is going to depend a great deal on how you react to the idea of watching believable characters go through a cancer diagnosis. I expect this could be either cathartic or triggering for those who have been through it - trust your instincts here and act accordingly.</p><p>But, at the risk of belaboring the point, there's no need to seek this out specifically during the holidays.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-35644716334394906582023-12-29T08:00:00.000-08:002023-12-29T08:00:00.141-08:00Mouse Hunt (1997)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUUdcH4ZV0ELGZHXk_5xO2QJgJUH5vJWW1aQ3vIWkp7RxatGFUWBgZNMk3XMHJxc3eCTBlta0iJVkXSX1tFZzw81BEUSWRqp02rvJ2VtuI1Jx9A7pde60SScZSNmJcTEsL_xuSqGpidIv0uhKSbsL0g-dcG4XC1gUvK2MOiqRkkxth80x3mZTuvSfR3MwX/s1500/Mouse%20Hunt%20(1997).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1018" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUUdcH4ZV0ELGZHXk_5xO2QJgJUH5vJWW1aQ3vIWkp7RxatGFUWBgZNMk3XMHJxc3eCTBlta0iJVkXSX1tFZzw81BEUSWRqp02rvJ2VtuI1Jx9A7pde60SScZSNmJcTEsL_xuSqGpidIv0uhKSbsL0g-dcG4XC1gUvK2MOiqRkkxth80x3mZTuvSfR3MwX/s320/Mouse%20Hunt%20(1997).jpg" width="217" /></a></div>Just about the only thing you'd describe as subtle in this comedy from the late '90s is its holiday setting, which - to be fair - is a bit ambiguous. The film definitely starts just before Christmas, though even that takes a little while to be established. Christmas Eve plays into the story in a fairly significant way, though we sort of breeze through the 25th itself. After that, the timeline gets a little muddled, though it certainly seems like virtually all of the movie would have to be set between Christmas and New Year's.<p></p><p>But I'm getting quite a bit ahead of myself. Let's start by acknowledging what I assume is obvious from the seemingly contradictory fact that this involves some pretty impressive talent yet has been virtually forgotten: it's not good.</p><p>That's not entirely accurate. Instead, let's say this really doesn't work, and most people without an interest in Gore Verbinski's filmography would be better off skipping it. This is Verbinski's first full-length movie, which goes a long way towards explaining both his involvement and the fact this includes some notably impressive set pieces incorporating a mix of practical and early digital effects. The scale here is a lot smaller than, say, the sequences he included in the Pirates movies, but there's a similar approach to treating mayhem like a Rube Goldberg machine. It's impressive, particularly considering this is ostensibly a wacky kid's movie.</p><p>But impressive isn't the same as good, and the discrepancy between the two may in part be due to Verbinski prioritizing what he wants to film over the needs of the film. Mouse Hunt, at its core, should be a cartoon come to life. While Verbinski's approach to action meshes well with that goal, his preference for dark, gloomy, and at times gross imagery and ideas clashes with it. The performers and story feel like something out of a children's book, but Verbinski films it like a dark adult comedy. Hell, at times he drifts close to noir or horror. That makes for an interesting movie, but not exactly a fun one.</p><p>The story here is pretty bare-bones since it mainly exists to set up Tom-and-Jerry-style antics. Following the death of their father, brothers Ernie and Lars (Nathan Lane and Lee Evans, respectively) inherit both his string factory and a rundown house he owned, neither of which initially seem all that valuable. Their father, I should note, wanted them to work together in the string factory, but Ernie has no interest in leaving his successful restaurant to do so. Unfortunately for him, said restaurant stops being successful on Christmas Eve after the mayor eats half a roach and dies of a heart attack. Meanwhile, Lars's wife throws him out when she learns he's refused to sell the flailing string factory. Having nowhere else to go, the brothers head to their father's house, where - thanks in part to a mouse they fail to catch - they find evidence the building was secretly designed by a famed architect and is worth far more than they imagined.</p><p>They get to work renovating, but of course the mouse gets in the way. More accurately, their attempts to kill the mouse get in the way, with each encounter doing escalating amounts of damage to the property, as well as enacting absurd levels of cartoon violence against the brothers. They try getting a cat and hiring an exterminator, neither of which work - it becomes clear that the mouse is smarter than anyone's giving it credit for.</p><p>Eventually, they actually do catch the mouse after inadvertently knocking it unconscious while fighting among themselves, but neither brother is able to bring himself to kill the helpless creature. Instead they put it in a box and mail it to Fidel Castro (the '90s were a weird time), only for the package to be returned for insufficient postage. The mouse winds up free during the auction, and the brothers' attempt to finally get it destroys the property.</p><p>But contrary to their initial assumption, it does not destroy the mouse, which hitches a ride under their car when they go to their factory to sleep. In the morning, they wake up to find the mouse running a block of cheese through the string machinery, resulting in a twine ball of string cheese, which is a success. At the end, we see them working together to produce the stuff, aided by the mouse who functions as their taste tester.</p><p>While the holidays only get minimal screen time, there's actually a lot to discuss in terms of Mouse Hunt's place in the context of holiday movies. I'll start with the obvious: they use the holidays thematically in a cliched couple of ways. The timing sets up a dismal Christmas Eve that serves to contrast expectation with reality. Of course, this also serves to highlight themes of family (the string is a metaphor for family ties, which... look, I said upfront there wasn't a lot of subtlety here).</p><p>For once, the business side of things might be more interesting. This was released in the '90s, and I don't think its similarities to Home Alone are accidental. While this ostensibly focuses on the human characters, the audience's sympathies are of course with the mouse throughout (doubly so among the young members of the audience). This is, in a real sense, Home Alone with a mouse instead of Kevin, and I suspect the studio was all too eager to both implant that idea and to duplicate the release strategy (in case there was any doubt when this came out). While this certainly didn't come anywhere near the box office success of the first two Home Alone movies, it made significantly more than the third one, which it was directly competing with in 1997.</p><p>The movie also may be invoking some older holiday traditions. Perhaps unsurprisingly because of the director, Mouse Hunt incorporates elements of haunted house films in how the location and mouse are framed. You could even view the mouse as the spirit of their father, though this interpretation works better during some scenes than others. Regardless, both the cinematography and dialogue play up the angle that there's more here than a mere rodent. That of course connects this at least tenuously to Christmas ghost stories, and given his interests I have to believe Verbinski was at least conscious of the connection.</p><p>Since we're already exploring loose connections, I'm also reminded of <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2018/11/the-great-rupert-1950.html">The Great Rupert</a>, one of my favorite forgotten holiday films. Mouse Hunt isn't a tenth as good, but both start with the premise of an unusually smart rodent creating mischief in a house around Christmas (though the stories and tones are completely different).</p><p>Regardless, this one is a bit of a mess. There are sequences that work better out of context, such as the cat and exterminator subplots (the latter features Christopher Walken). But even these are rarely as funny as they are interesting as an experiment in transforming cartoons into live-action. Despite having Gore Verbinski behind the camera, there's just not much here to appeal to the casual moviegoer.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-75698007255171686582023-12-28T08:00:00.000-08:002023-12-28T08:00:00.130-08:00Roadblock (1951)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim1Vzb5oQRftq69jp9U3mD5p_cs0ndolVcYlJzvEvMnah5eFo53y6jRQuI7dys64P9sUQ3DXIlP8eKWmNBtCNZXjkZzqiOLHzq7SzDfvLXkmgqbWogQ3FGJPGkypTLihyphenhyphen2wQSaAEUE22v3Wi2sPgOQ1q7eR_paT42brBpYgKIXVUSqUEx_To-jOLO1M_3J/s1420/Roadblock%20(1951).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1420" data-original-width="906" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim1Vzb5oQRftq69jp9U3mD5p_cs0ndolVcYlJzvEvMnah5eFo53y6jRQuI7dys64P9sUQ3DXIlP8eKWmNBtCNZXjkZzqiOLHzq7SzDfvLXkmgqbWogQ3FGJPGkypTLihyphenhyphen2wQSaAEUE22v3Wi2sPgOQ1q7eR_paT42brBpYgKIXVUSqUEx_To-jOLO1M_3J/s320/Roadblock%20(1951).jpg" width="204" /></a></div>I was torn on whether to write this up at all. The holiday section accounts for roughly thirteen minutes of the movie's runtime, plus or minus depending on when you assume some ambiguous events are taking place. The section is pivotal and the use of the holidays interesting, but this is more a case where it's relevant to trends of how Christmas appears on film, rather than of particular note to the movie itself. But I found it notable enough in context to want some notes, and this blog is largely turning into a sort of public collection of notes I'm compiling on holiday media for.... God, I don't know. I'm still figuring that part out.<p></p><p>Regardless, the compromise I came up with was to write this up but hold the post until after the holidays. I don't want to water down our Christmas season posts any more than I already have. So that's why you're seeing this now.</p><p>This movie, I should note, is a good one. Roadblock is a noir crime story with a tragic love story at its core. The pace is brisk, the dialogue witty, and - once it gets going - the tone is tense. There's an extended chase sequence at the end of the movie (which is where the title is drawn from) that still feels exciting, something not a lot of movies from this era can claim. In short, if you're a fan of the genre, this one's worth checking out.</p><p>Roadblock opens with a man witnessing a stranger shoot another man in a parking lot. The shooter then takes this witness hostage. Naturally terrified, the witness reveals he's a thief himself and as such is in no position to go to the police. The shooter expresses skepticism, and the hostage offers to take him to where his money's hidden, promising to give him a cut in exchange for letting him go.</p><p>But once they arrive, they're joined by the man we saw - or thought we saw - shot dead in the opening. The two men are detectives employed by an insurance company, and the setup was a ruse to locate the missing funds. They take the thief into custody and start back towards the office, splitting up along the way.</p><p>I had a lot of fun with this section - it has the vibe of a Mission: Impossible episode (for those of you old enough to remember that was a television show decades before it became an action movie franchise).</p><p>The man who's (at this point) pretending to be a murderer is Joe, the central protagonist of the film. On his flight home, he meets and falls in love with Diane, an adventurous woman determined to live a life of luxury and who considers rules and laws minor inconveniences in her path. She's interested in Joe, but at this point considers his modest salary a dealbreaker.</p><p>They're eventually reunited when Joe finds her dating Kendall, a criminal mastermind Joe is investigating for theft. By the time Christmas rolls around, Joe is infatuated with Diane. Believing it's the only way to win her, he approaches Kendall with a proposition: Joe will provide the information necessary to pull off a daring heist in exchange for a cut.</p><p>At the same time, Diane - unaware of what Joe is up to - rethinks the direction her life is headed and decides she'd be happier living an honest life. She goes to Joe, and the two are soon married. Joe attempts to call off his deal with Kendall, but the crime lord convinces him it's the only way he'll be able to keep Diane happy.</p><p>The heist mostly goes as intended, though a bystander is killed in the process. Despite Joe's attempts to interfere in the investigation, signs begin pointing towards Kendall. In an attempt to cover his trail, Joe murders the crime lord. Unfortunately for Joe, his partner suspects something's amiss. Eventually, the pieces come together and Joe and Diane find themselves attempting to flee Los Angeles, attempting to evade police roadblocks. Joe eventually forces Diane out of the car and then forces a confrontation in which he's shot and killed. The movie ends with Diane walking slowly away in the empty canal where the chase concluded.</p><p>It's a dark ending but not a surprising one - thanks to the Hays Code, Joe's fate was pretty much sealed the moment he turned to crime. The first part of the movie establishes Joe and Diane as likeable tricksters, which adds quite a bit of gravitas to that finale. The car chase is one of the better ones I've seen prior to the 1960s, too - the movie really sells the sense a net is closing around them, even as Joe's skill and knowledge of the system he's running from keep it from feeling as certain as it really is.</p><p>Again, the holidays really aren't a huge part of the movie, but I find their use here interesting. Both Joe and Diane have moments of transformation linked to the time of year. While these scenes are set at Christmas rather than New Year's, this feels more akin to the sort of annual resolution and change associated with the end of the year, a traditional thematic aspect of the holiday season in stories and film.</p><p>The part I find particularly interesting is the way their paths cross each other's, with Joe falling from grace as Diane ascends. The dynamic reminds me of the contrasting journeys of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, with similarly tragic results (for the men, at least - I suppose there's technically still hope for Diane, despite the bleakness of that closing shot). The emotional weight here is really driven by Joe and Diane not being on the same page - the ending would be the same if she'd never changed her outlook, but it wouldn't have the same impact. Alternatively, had Joe simply just stuck to his principles, this would have a happy ending (though there'd be no real movie, so that wasn't going to happen).</p><p>We of course see the holidays used as a moment of transition all the time, but it's the simultaneous contrasting transformation I found worth discussing. It's an unusual but fascinating way to play with this holiday tradition, and it adds a little extra resonance to an already good movie.</p><p>But, in case it's not already abundantly clear, this still isn't what I'd consider a Christmas movie.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-56348367548183910722023-12-27T08:00:00.000-08:002023-12-27T08:00:00.126-08:00They Live by Night (1948)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-KYNwIpU8gGm9o5uEUJiJu2V93cZac8ZxHoiIEs_NMn5TJTcwryqKpIsFOyR3FdsQVvGSW3Lw2h5HI5SeTBu0V1cl8JDifhhNiR1HsFGoTEQopm3AIkUX9W4mwdGmxLj0yEr3BoKZiKQ_uX9-aDn02UnNec1W8tut_WHd2i4OHfG34rSNgSo986gNg5s/s1440/They%20Live%20by%20Night%20(1948).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp-KYNwIpU8gGm9o5uEUJiJu2V93cZac8ZxHoiIEs_NMn5TJTcwryqKpIsFOyR3FdsQVvGSW3Lw2h5HI5SeTBu0V1cl8JDifhhNiR1HsFGoTEQopm3AIkUX9W4mwdGmxLj0yEr3BoKZiKQ_uX9-aDn02UnNec1W8tut_WHd2i4OHfG34rSNgSo986gNg5s/s320/They%20Live%20by%20Night%20(1948).jpg" width="213" /></a></div>They Live by Night is one of several crime noir films Criterion is streaming this year for the holidays. It tells the story of young lovers on the run from the law. I was on the fence about writing this up. Because the movie's timeline is fairly nebulous, it's not at all clear what portion is set around Christmas. A fourteen or fifteen-minute section starting just after the middle definitely is and you could interpret the entirety of what comes before as being in December, but you could just as easily assume the earlier scenes are in October or November. It just isn't clear. The tie-breaker, of course, came down to some thematic connections, but even these aren't clear-cut. More on all that later.<p></p><p>The main characters are Bowie (played by Farley Granger) and Keechie (Cathy O'Donnell). Bowie just broke out of prison with the help of two older criminals, T-Dub and Chicamaw. They're staying at a service station run by Keechie's father, who's assisting them in exchange for cash. They're also getting help from a woman named Mattie, who's conspiring with the thieves to rob a bank in part to get money to bail out her husband (who's also T-Dub's brother, hence the connection).</p><p>The robbery goes well, and the criminals split the take. Bowie plans to use his portion to hire a lawyer to help him wipe his record clean - because he'd originally been imprisoned as a minor, he believes he has a case. Whether he's right or not is academic. Chicamaw shoots a cop after a traffic accident, and Bowie is implicated. He decides to go on the run, and Keechie agrees to go with him.</p><p>Bowie has a substantial amount of cash, so the two of them are in relatively good shape, so long as they're not caught. They elope and head to some secluded rental cabins Chicamaw suggested earlier. Here's where we jump ahead to just before Christmas, when Chicamaw reemerges and demands Bowie join him and T-Dub on a job. Bowie reluctantly goes along after his partners make it clear he doesn't have much choice. This one goes poorly - T-Dub is shot and killed, and Chicamaw suffers a similar fate soon after. Once again, Bowie is in the crosshairs of the law.</p><p>He returns to the cabin on Christmas to find the building is flooding due to a burst pipe. He and Keechie bicker, and she reveals she's pregnant. The plumber sees something that tips him off as to the identities of Bowie and Keechie, and they go on the run once more, though shelter seems impossible to come by.</p><p>When Keechie grows ill, Bowie brings her to a motel owned by Mattie, whose husband is still in jail (she and T-Dub never managed to get him out). She initially refuses to help, but relents when Bowie threatens her. She gives them a place to stay but turns them in to the police in exchange for her husband's release. The police show up and shoot Bowie. Keechie runs to him and recovers a letter revealing he was going to leave her in order to ensure her and the baby's safety, which is ultimately what's occurred, albeit not the way he intended.</p><p>I found the movie quite effective for the most part. The depiction of the criminals, particularly the older ones, feels grounded and believable. These aren't madmen a hair's breadth from violence - there's a sort of desperation to them that's highlighted by the direction and performances. Same goes for Mattie, who's shown to be deeply conflicted by her decision to betray Bowie. She does it out of love for her husband, but the movie lets us know she's aware that her actions will hurt two people who remind her of herself and the same husband. This is all communicated pretty subtly, without resorting to monologues or anything of the sort.</p><p>Likewise, I was impressed with how suspenseful this is, particularly in the first half. Stylistically this is more realistic than most crime stories I've come across from the decade, and as a result, you feel more of the weight the characters are bearing. Some of that gets lost towards the ending as the movie leans into the drama a bit, but it's still well done.</p><p>The section set explicitly during the holidays mostly uses them in the obvious ways. Chicamaw's interruption as the couple prepares to celebrate serves as a reminder that Bowie's past will never allow him to find peace (an idea spoken aloud by one of the men chasing him, in a notably melancholy tone). Likewise, the revelation that Keechie is pregnant coinciding with the holiday isn't a coincidence - we're supposed to contrast a time associated with a baby with the shadow this casts over them (at first, she implies she might get an abortion before deciding to keep the child).</p><p>Prior to that, there's not much of an indication when the movie's set, aside from the reveal that it's cold outside. My general impression is that everything happening prior to Christmas is taking place in a condensed span of time, but it's very ambiguous.</p><p>While I enjoyed and respect this, I'd hesitate to recommend it anyone who isn't a fan of the era and genre. It's certainly well done, but I'm not convinced this is so much better than the average '40s noir to justify placing it near the top of your watchlist.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-63770741659063156722023-12-26T08:00:00.000-08:002023-12-26T08:00:00.153-08:00Les Parapluies de Cherbourg [The Umbrellas of Cherbourg] (1964)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cATwkbY6ZdMHdz8X4XeAypyCpT4EAGl1S8MG6_sHz7ghDtyPlrxi_zTvCP1p3rA-5Mc7gRY9iWXjivWfe9Dk5ZDN0eHaNaRrmC_UK_v7J5s7hJ4cOVKP0A08u45zFo8WsQy7JRkqNcZ_T6K4JNPbOKSECRumopGt_aM0gh6yXi6AFcSH9sCbk53WXudd/s2265/Les%20Parapluies%20de%20Cherbourg%20%5BThe%20Umbrellas%20of%20Cherbourg%5D%20(1964).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2265" data-original-width="1496" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2cATwkbY6ZdMHdz8X4XeAypyCpT4EAGl1S8MG6_sHz7ghDtyPlrxi_zTvCP1p3rA-5Mc7gRY9iWXjivWfe9Dk5ZDN0eHaNaRrmC_UK_v7J5s7hJ4cOVKP0A08u45zFo8WsQy7JRkqNcZ_T6K4JNPbOKSECRumopGt_aM0gh6yXi6AFcSH9sCbk53WXudd/s320/Les%20Parapluies%20de%20Cherbourg%20%5BThe%20Umbrellas%20of%20Cherbourg%5D%20(1964).jpg" width="211" /></a></div>There aren't a lot of definitions of "Christmas movies" that would include this, and I'm not about to claim otherwise. Despite that, I wanted to share a few thoughts for a couple reasons. First, this is an incredibly important and influential movie, which naturally makes me inclined to loosen my criteria. It's also a foreign film (French, if it wasn't clear from the title), which means it's providing us with at least a little insight into how another culture views the holiday season. Most importantly, while it only contains two relatively brief holiday sequences, one of those uses Christmas in a fairly unusual way, which - unless I miss my guess - reflects back on American Christmas movies. More on that later.<p></p><p>The film is a colorful musical drama about a couple torn apart by a combination of forces beyond their control and their own decisions. It's notable for its operatic approach - although the music is fairly modern (or modern for 1964 musicals), every line of dialogue in the film is sung, which is extremely unusual for the genre.</p><p>The story centers on a young couple, Guy and Geneviève, who consider their relationship to be getting serious, despite the disapproval of Geneviève's mother. Their plans of starting a life together are interrupted by Guy getting drafted into the Algerian War. On their last night together, Guy convinces Geneviève to sleep with him, which results in a pregnancy. She tells him in a letter, but his responses are infrequent, leaving her uncertain where they stand.</p><p>Meanwhile, Geneviève's mother's umbrella store is going through hard times. They get some help from Roland, a kindly diamond merchant, who buys some of their jewelry after a local jeweler is unwilling to help. Roland visits them on a number of occasions, and on Epiphany he expresses his desire to marry Geneviève, who's torn between her feelings for Guy and her concern for the future of her child. She eventually decides to tell Roland she's pregnant and, if he still wants to be with her, accept his proposal. Much to her surprise, he's both understanding and eager to raise the child as their own. The two are married soon after.</p><p>The movie then jumps ahead almost a year to when Guy returns from the war to find his fiance has married and moved away. He reluctantly returns to his old job at a garage, but his heart isn't in the work and he soon loses the job. Meanwhile, his aunt (who essentially raised him like a mother) is dying. Her caretaker, Madeleine, has always had a crush on Guy and shames him out of his rut after his aunt dies. Guy uses his inheritance to purchase a garage of his own (a dream he'd discussed with Geneviève at the beginning) and marries Madeleine.</p><p>We then jump ahead about five years to find them successful and getting ready to celebrate Christmas. Madeline leaves to take their kid shopping while Guy finishes up at the garage. And of course Geneviève drives in with her kid to fill up her car.</p><p>She hadn't meant to go to Guy's garage - she didn't even know he owned one. She leaves her kid in the car and goes in to talk with him. Their interaction is fairly quick, all things considered. There are no accusations or apologies, though it's clear Guy never entirely forgave her. She tells him the name of her daughter: Françoise, a name they'd discussed. He doesn't tell her that his son is named, François. He also chooses not to meet his daughter.</p><p>Geneviève asks if he's happy, and he replies that he is. She leaves, his family returns, and they start playing and celebrating, implying that Guy really is happy despite how shaken he seemed interacting with Geneviève.</p><p>The movie ends there, so we never really get a sense of how her life turned out, though presumably she isn't doing too bad. Still, the fact the last section focuses more on closure for Guy slightly undermines the first compliment I'm going to give this film: this never moralizes or judges its leads. It presents them as flawed, but it's consistently sympathetic towards their predicaments, choices, and reactions.</p><p>But the movie's main strength comes from its visuals: this looks incredible. The shots are meticulously planned and executed, with absolutely iconic sequences throughout.</p><p>If there's a weak point, it's that the characters aren't all that complicated or particularly likable. I don't think that's a deal-breaker - the point isn't so much to like them as understand them - but it does place a limit on how invested the viewer is likely to become.</p><p>Now let's talk Christmas, since it's at least ostensibly the reason we're all here. As I said at the start, I don't really consider this a Christmas movie. However, I do think it's in a sort of conversation with Christmas movies. To be specific, unless I'm misinterpreting, I think the movie is in part a response to Holiday Inn.</p><p>Holiday Inn, of course, is set over the span of a year, with each song jumping forward to the next holiday. It tells the story of a couple who fall in love, run into hardships, and overcome their differences to rekindle their relationship at Christmas.</p><p>This at least starts with a similar structure, beginning in November, then jumping forward to January. After that, there's a series of time jumps of a month each, until this pattern is interrupted again to bring us to March of the following year.</p><p>The movie ends in December, the month it originally skipped over. It's years later, but there's a sense of the movie coming full circle as it brings the two leads back together, if only briefly. We see them struggle with conflicting emotions at the others' presence, before ultimately going their separate ways. In the scheme of things, their romance wasn't meant to last, and the audience - as well as the characters - are left to wonder whether that's for the best.</p><p>The time jumps at once reflect those in Holiday Inn, while also essentially shattering the structure by leaping years and skipping over time, ultimately arriving at Christmas, a moment American movies had been invoking as a symbol of reconciliation, long past the point that would have been possible.</p><p>It makes for a poignant resolution and a powerful image. It also serves as a refutation of the same kind of idealized romance the musical it resembles holds up.</p><p>On top of that, the Epiphany sequence also provides a glimpse into a celebration on the twelfth day (okay, technically night) of Christmas, as well as a variation on the king cake tradition in which guests search for a bean hidden in a cake, and someone is symbolically crowned king. Geneviève finds the bean, and - by virtue of Roland being the only man present - must select him as her king.</p><p>Side note: do I even need to point out that a somewhat absurd number of names in this appear to be referencing Arthurian mythology? I'm not entirely sure why, aside from stories of love from afar being a dime a dozen in those tales, but it's certainly fascinating. I don't seriously think there's anything too complex at play, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't part of me tempted to argue it's an allusion to The Green Knight, which was also set over the course of a year and ended with the Christmas holidays. Again, I don't actually believe that was the intent, but it's kind of fun to think about.</p><p>I also won't subject you to a Freudian interpretation of the fact Geneviève filled her car up at Guy's gas pump, and - for the record - I actually think that *was* intentional on the part of the filmmakers.</p><p>At any rate, this is an impressive movie with incredible visuals and a highly unusual approach to its musical elements. I should also add that this is technically the second part of a sort of trilogy of movies tied together with recurring characters, but I haven't seen the other two and my understanding is they can be watched in isolation.</p><p>I certainly didn't feel like this was missing any important context. Obviously, this isn't for everyone - if you don't like musicals, old movies, or subtitles, you probably won't enjoy it. But for movie fans this one's highly recommended.</p><p>Just not necessarily as a Christmas movie.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-27551346759786839802023-12-25T10:00:00.000-08:002023-12-25T10:00:00.138-08:00The Closing of the Year. Sort of.<p>Christmas Day is upon us once again, so it's time to wrap things up for another year. Well... sort of. See, despite some concerns about whether we'd have enough to keep up with our usual schedule this year, we're actually finishing with a handful of reviews we never got around to scheduling. While we relaxed our rules on limiting posts to media we deemed "Christmas movies" to include films of historical significance or movies that uses the holidays in interesting ways, we held off on a couple that are really movies where Christmas plays a minor role, and post-Christmas seems like a good time to run those.</p><p>I also want to leave open the possibility we might start posting reviews during the off-season (hopefully shorter than most of what we've been doing) of other movies that fall more in the neighborhood of "movies with some scenes during the holidays" than bona fide "Christmas movies." As I said in my intro piece, this blog has piqued my interest around the ways the holidays exist in movies, and that subject extends beyond the limited borders we've drawn for ourselves here. At the same time, I feel like the holiday season itself is better suited to more obviously festive fare.</p><p>I'm not sure whether we'll actually do that, but - hey - keep your eyes open in case we get motivated over the next several months. Needless to say, we wouldn't be posting on any kind of schedule (and said posts would be infrequent), but you just might hear more from us between January and November than you have over the past several years.</p><p>Setting all that aside, I should probably take a few moments to reflect on what we reviewed this year. Our primary theme wound up being early holiday movies, as we more or less covered the first four decades of film. There are, naturally, a handful of movies from the 1930s we didn't get to and God knows how many more we don't even know about, but overall we crossed off what was probably our largest blind spot in the history of holiday movies.</p><p>I'd intended to post some articles on all that encompassing what I'd learned doing all that. I still plan to at some point, though honestly, I think I need some more time to digest what I've been watching. I will say that the experience has reinforced my conviction that the use of the holidays largely changed over World War II, shifting from a Dickensian embrace of charity and a symbol of progressive growth into more regressive themes of nostalgia and a fixation on rural America that still exists to this day. I've written at length about this in various reviews, but at some point, I'll want to pull together my thoughts into something less disjointed.</p><p>But of course, our holiday viewing didn't cut off with the end of the '30s. Thanks to our Criterion subscription, we discovered numerous holiday noir films, most of which we never knew existed. I find myself curious what else is out there floating under the radar of Christmas movie lists.</p><p>And then there are the horror movies we watched. I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed several of these - this isn't a genre I've typically loved. Either my tastes are changing or I just lucked out as far as the movies I selected.</p><p>What's all that mean for next Christmas? Honestly, I have no idea. I feel like I need to revisit quite a few movies from the '40s and '50s we reviewed in the early days of the blog, now that we've got more context for both holiday movies and the medium in general. I expect that'll be something we'll circle around to next year, though it's equally possible we'll find ourselves falling down other rabbit holes into corners of Christmas media we never knew existed.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-68422085097972863222023-12-25T08:00:00.000-08:002023-12-25T08:00:00.134-08:00Santa Camp (2022)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirVw10RwGPfzs-Ol4Bw6CQ7B8DKDSINs2bLbiStCL6CsJdc5eyi6vA0NexA0b7QW3FjRNZLPZavqZS5gp2_h06PRaIH7nwAQTxQImFa7rj8srgj1CKRtN6JYTX-6HVthsKPjrRi__2XriAqRsm3OtS5NeLajIKybm9mypjXIoCi_FSKsV82UV_L_WdbKoi/s1138/Santa%20Camp%20(2022).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1138" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirVw10RwGPfzs-Ol4Bw6CQ7B8DKDSINs2bLbiStCL6CsJdc5eyi6vA0NexA0b7QW3FjRNZLPZavqZS5gp2_h06PRaIH7nwAQTxQImFa7rj8srgj1CKRtN6JYTX-6HVthsKPjrRi__2XriAqRsm3OtS5NeLajIKybm9mypjXIoCi_FSKsV82UV_L_WdbKoi/s320/Santa%20Camp%20(2022).jpg" width="216" /></a></div>Being who we are, we've probably watched more documentaries about professional Santas than most people (such as <a href="http://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2013/12/becoming-santa-2011.html" target="_blank">Becoming Santa</a>, <a href="http://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2014/12/i-am-santa-claus-2014.html" target="_blank">I Am Santa Claus</a>), and we even highlighted a book profiling a variety of professional Santas (<a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2020/12/book-review-we-are-santa.html" target="_blank">We Are Santa</a>). When we started up this documentary, we weren't sure how much of it would cover familiar ground, but the perspective here was specific and unique, and overall, I was impressed.<p></p><p>Part of the film documents the particularly wacky vibe of the titular Santa Camp, an annual weekend retreat in New England for professional and aspiring Saint Nicks to come together and socialize and learn tricks of the trade. This setting provides many artistic and surreal shots and you can tell why the idea tickled the fancy of Australian filmmaker Nick Sweeney, who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/dec/10/why-should-santa-be-white-or-cis-the-camp-where-anyone-can-learn-to-be-father-christmas" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">told The Guardian that he loves "documenting subcultures."</a> </p><p>Of course, that article leads with the real core of the film: the founder of Santa Camp, Santa Dan, (along with strong support from another prominent Santa who passed away during filming and more tentative support from others) is actively trying to encourage more diversity in their jolly ranks. The movie primarily follows three newcomers to Santa Camp: Santa Chris, who is Black, Santa Fin, a young man with spina bifida, and Santa Levi, who is trans.</p><p>We learn about their lives, families, and motivations, and all three have reasons to attend Santa Camp and also real reasons to be concerned that it won't be a good experience. We were worried that the film would soften the reality of the situation in favor of some kind of heartwarming message, but the filmmakers actually seemed determined to show the nuances - both the positive and negative - of everyone's experience. </p><p>Santa Chris is determined to show up for his daughter and his community after he received anonymous hate from a neighbor for his Black Santa yard decoration. He is the only Santa of color attending camp. The older Santas mostly seem to mean well (at least the ones who speak on camera), but there are definitely people attending who have trouble interacting with Chris and others who comment about Santa "traditionally" being white. I think it was Santa Dan who shut some others down with a comment about Saint Nicholas being from Turkey. </p><p>Santa Fin is obsessed with all things Santa, and dreams of riding in a Christmas Parade. His mom, who attends camp alongside him, is open about her concerns that the old white men who become Santas won't be patient with Fin, who communicates primarily with an iPad and sign language, but has a strong "Ho, Ho, Ho" to offer. Although we see plenty of activities going on at camp that Fin wouldn't be able to take part in, he does seem to have positive interactions with many other attendees. </p><p>Santa Levi and his wife are nervous as well about the old, white, male environment they're walking into. There was an awkward panel about the relationship between Mrs. Claus and Santa where it wasn't 100% clear whether the panelists were making actual sexist comments intended as such, or if it was intended as friendly teasing banter that the Mrs. Claus on the panel (being a long-standing member of the community and a bit of a firebrand) was in on. I felt much better about what we saw of a class about Mrs. Claus. Levi's partner speaks up about her wish to be "Dr. Claus" (she has a Ph.D., after all), and it spurs a whole discussion among the women there about festive pantsuits and the variety of ways that character could be a fuller partner in Christmas events, etc.</p><p>After camp ends, the movie continues to follow Chris, Fin, Levi, and a few others through the next Christmas. Santa Chris gets a lot of support from his neighborhood and despite some people's doubts, attends a successful community event. Santa Fin gets his chance to be in a parade. Santa Levi and Dr. Claus hold a meet and greet through a progressive church, but their event has to be moved due to threats, and frightening protestors end up showing up at the new location. (Big old content warning for a revolting, hateful, "Christian" woman and a scene where the filmmaker confronts some domestic terrorists. Props to him for mentioning to a Proud Boy that Santa isn't in the Bible, which the terrorist scoffs at. I felt tense and sick all through watching this section, but nothing violent happens.) </p><p>Not everyone thinks that it's a worthy thing to have diversity in Santa, but the film lets the joyful kids visiting Santa Chris and Trans Santa speak for themselves. </p>Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10372317376002783405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-41531616728034377342023-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:002023-12-25T00:00:00.136-08:00Black Christmas (1974) [Revisited]<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSO7gzPsUJDPHerEBcXxoZ8sdmo7p-xylVbSsEgDMvGDPhyIQTZmWIC8wgeG4FSnZc7X2a8m95_k-rm-3QQQzShlEFGaLySxpaW8kB7rTbCciCCj035s7H1aCFShT7tCVOwv30nuy8xuBdi3VWXi37fj92wmQt7Ho_djObIA8wWSiN3TRj1VwKp4Z2PS5-/s999/Black%20Christmas%20(1974).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="999" data-original-width="699" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSO7gzPsUJDPHerEBcXxoZ8sdmo7p-xylVbSsEgDMvGDPhyIQTZmWIC8wgeG4FSnZc7X2a8m95_k-rm-3QQQzShlEFGaLySxpaW8kB7rTbCciCCj035s7H1aCFShT7tCVOwv30nuy8xuBdi3VWXi37fj92wmQt7Ho_djObIA8wWSiN3TRj1VwKp4Z2PS5-/s320/Black%20Christmas%20(1974).jpg" width="224" /></a></div>I originally saw and "reviewed" <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2010/12/black-christmas-1974.html">Black Christmas back in 2010</a>, and if you're wondering why "review" is in quotation marks, go ahead and click on the link. For what it's worth, we weren't exactly trying to write actual reviews in those days - this all started out as sort of a novelty Christmas blog where the gag was we were binging as much holiday stuff as possible and writing about the experience. Sharing our discomfort as we sat through genres we didn't enjoy was all part of the fun. Or so we hoped.<p></p><p>But over the years this site has evolved, as have my taste in movies and my knowledge of the history of Christmas media. Even back then, we knew Black Christmas was important (which is why we included it that first year). And as I've encountered <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/black-christmas/">various think pieces exploring the film</a>, it became clear I really needed to revisit it.</p><p>Having rewatched it, I still wouldn't say I enjoyed the experience, but it's far more nuanced and interesting than I originally gave it credit for. The control of tone is impressive, and the last act is genuinely scary, which is rare in horror from the era. This is, in short, a good horror movie, particularly in the context of when it came out.</p><p>The movie chronicles a sorority house where members are being murdered by a serial killer hiding in the attic right before Christmas. While it takes a while to become apparent, the movie has a main character: Jess (played by Olivia Hussey), who's just discovered she's pregnant and is planning to get an abortion over the objections of her boyfriend. Throughout the movie, Jess receives a number of lewd, anonymous phone calls from the aforementioned killer.</p><p>Jess is the archetypical "final girl" (arguably the original). Joining her (at least until their grisly deaths) are Phyl, Claire, Barb (played by Margot Kidder), and their housemother, Mrs. MacHenry. Claire is the first to die: she's suffocated, and her body is taken to the attic and placed in a chair, an image that would adorn the movie's posters. Mrs. MacHenry eventually stumbles across the scene only to be murdered and left hanging on a hook. No one finds either of their bodies. No one's even looking for MacHenry, since she had a trip scheduled around the time of her disappearance.</p><p>The sorority girls go to the police for help with the anonymous calls, but the first cop they interact with is fairly useless. Eventually, they meet up with a more competent detective who takes the matter seriously. By then, Claire's father has also shown up looking for his missing daughter, so there are multiple suspicious events connected to the sorority. They tap the phone, hoping to determine who's placing the calls. Through this, Jess is also dealing with her boyfriend, who's becoming a bit unhinged after learning she's pregnant and planning to get an abortion. The movie, to its credit, films these from Jess's perspective and portrays her as the rational one, while the boyfriend is depicted as emotionally unbalanced.</p><p>The pace picks up when the body of a missing local teenager is discovered murdered in a nearby park. The movie never tells us for certain whether she's a victim of the same killer, but I assume that's the implication. Regardless, the police become more invested in finding Claire and in determining the identity of the caller. When they finally trace the call, they learn (pause for suspense) the call's coming from inside the house. They tell Jess to leave immediately, but she runs to fetch Barb and Phyl, only to discover them murdered. She also spots the killer's eye as he watches her from behind a door. He chases her, and she hides in the basement, where she's found by her boyfriend.</p><p>Unfortunately for him, by this point she believes he's the killer (as do the cops), and she kills him with a fire poker off camera. The police find her traumatized and barely conscious. They take her to her bed while they deal with the rest of the scene. When Claire's father collapses, as well, they rush him to the hospital, leaving Jess alone. The camera then moves to the attic to show us Clair and Mrs. MacHenry's bodies. We also hear the killer, implying he's still up there.</p><p>Like I said at the start, I still don't love this. A lot of that comes down to genre preference and the era this was made: until the last act, it's paced pretty slowly. I also don't find the humor - of which there's a surprising amount - all that entertaining (I don't find Bob Clark's other beloved holiday film, A Christmas Story, funny, either, so adjust your expectations accordingly).</p><p>That's entirely subjective. I do have at least one issue I consider more substantial: the movie really doesn't seem interested in exploring the sorority girls' relationships with each other. We're shown they care about each others' safety, but their relationships ultimately come off as casual and superficial.</p><p>To be fair, there's a pretty good reason for this. Clark set out to portray the girls as mature, realistic people (as explained in this <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/1115334/bob-clark-used-1974s-black-christmas-to-redefine-how-young-adults-were-portrayed-on-film/">article from Slashfilm</a>). In a huge departure from the usual depiction of young women in 70's movies, they discuss sex openly, they swear, and they mock authority. I imagine this was extremely refreshing when the movie came out, and it's deserving of praise. However, looking at the film in hindsight, it does feel like it overcompensates and fails to show us meaningful emotional connections between the main characters, which in turn sacrifices an opportunity to invest us emotionally with them.</p><p>I feel like this would have been less notable had the movie revolved around Barb, the crassest, hardest-drinking, most caustic of the girls. I kept waiting for her callousness to flip around into toughness, but she winds up devolving into a mess too drunk to realize she actually saw the killer at a point where the knowledge might have saved her.</p><p>I don't want to disparage Jess: as a POV character, she's fine. But she's also kind of a blank slate. Of all the girls, she has the least personality. I think she needed stronger onscreen connections to other characters to fully sell the weight of the story.</p><p>But since we're discussing Jess, I should probably touch on the aspects of the character admittedly ahead of their time. Hell, treating a college kid seeking an abortion because a child would interfere with her plans as a mature adult is still unusual in movies today. That said, I'm not entirely convinced the movie was trying to paint her decision in a favorable light. There's a scene towards the end where she watches a group of kids singing carols that could be interpreted as her having second thoughts.</p><p>Or maybe it's just trying to show us that the decision to have an abortion shouldn't be equated with a dislike of children. There are quite a few ways we could take that moment, including some that are ambiguous. Which is arguably the case with most of the movie's themes, honestly. Earlier, I linked to an article that was celebrating the movie for its feminist themes. <a href="https://www.themarysue.com/black-christmas/">I'll link it again</a> - it's worth reading regardless of your feelings towards this film. But while I like the article, I'm not sure I agree.</p><p>To be clear, I'm not sure I disagree, either. And, right or wrong, it's an interesting take. I've seen similar analyses of the movie elsewhere, and I certainly see where they're coming from. But if that's the point of the movie, I find the execution a bit muddled. For instance, if the movie is trying to illustrate that the safety of women is undervalued, it's odd to portray the higher-ranking male police officers as effective public servants (at least until the ending, which... more on that in a moment). Likewise, it's a little difficult to reconcile that reading with sequences that contrast Claire's level-headed conservative father with the more outlandish Mrs. MacHenry and Barb.</p><p>That said, there's something to be said for this treating its female characters as complex people, and the fact the movie's message - assuming it was intended to have one at all - is unclear isn't necessarily a problem. The act of showing sexually active college women as realistic, intelligent people in a '70s horror film could be considered progressive in itself, even if the movie doesn't manage to say anything further on the subject. It's also worth acknowledging the movie never treats its characters as eye candy, as would become the norm in the subgenre this helped spawn. While there's an implicitly exploitative aspect to slashers, this never shows the women nude or frames their bodies as something for the viewer to enjoy. Their deaths are depicted as horrific, rather than exciting, which is unfortunately more than I can say for some horror movies.</p><p>Setting politics aside for a moment (though perhaps not too far aside), I want to talk a little more about the ambiguous ending, an aspect I complained about fourteen years ago. The movie never tells us who the killer was, nor is it clear as to Jess's fate, choices Clark apparently fought for. In my original review, I argued the ending added nothing to the narrative, and the idea the police would leave without even searching the attic was laughably absurd.</p><p>I'd very much like to retract those points.</p><p>First, the ending reinforces the underlying sense you're hearing a folktale or having a bad dream. Tonally, the movie conveys these through the way the killer and bodies are shot throughout the film, as well as the score and the inhuman phone calls. The resolution doesn't need to make logical sense; I'm embarrassed I ever thought otherwise.</p><p>Mea culpa.</p><p>It's almost worth exploring whether the killer is symbolically linked to Jess's pregnancy. In a sense, his presence in the building mirrors an impregnation, and there's an infantile aspect to the way he talks. He references her pregnancy and planned abortion on the calls, too. I have no idea whether this was intentional, but I wouldn't be surprised.</p><p>Though, again, I'm unsure how to interpret it. Under that reading, you could just as easily view the movie as a horror about the fear of unwanted pregnancy and the significance of choice as a condemnation of the decision to abort. Perhaps the ambiguous ending is an invitation to read whatever politics you want into the story. There's nothing wrong with the approach, assuming it's what Clark was going for.</p><p>Regardless, I feel like I have a much better idea for why this is as beloved as it is, and I have a great deal more respect for the film than I had after my original viewing fourteen years ago. That said, I still wouldn't say I like it. The pacing through the first two acts drags by today's standards. And, while I think the last act is good as a horror, this isn't really a type of horror I personally enjoy.</p><p>Whether or not you should track the film down depends on your interest in the history of slashers, your curiosity about the politics, and your tolerance for slow-paced horror. If the first two pique your interest and the last isn't a deal-breaker, by all means check this out. It's a classic for a reason, regardless of whether or not it's my cup of tea.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-68171068737978382222023-12-24T17:00:00.000-08:002023-12-24T17:00:00.149-08:00Tawo [The Tower] (2012)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif3SLVxgbFScKB9TcHqFHAoSDv4YXMP3kcfMAVGfSk-f5AhzwRAFBlsb-I81R1cUWLZXqb7Udzf9SKWAsrNPNTu8o7vmQirbNX9WRflpxcnLfCoZUM3ccmi8PGpCnYd5ICv_ZFh4Jbpus_gloQUC28_jtp7I_JZ1YK1Wvz9RstKseZsWymv47er537PPbD/s2139/Tawo%20%5BThe%20Tower%5D%20(2012).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2139" data-original-width="1501" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif3SLVxgbFScKB9TcHqFHAoSDv4YXMP3kcfMAVGfSk-f5AhzwRAFBlsb-I81R1cUWLZXqb7Udzf9SKWAsrNPNTu8o7vmQirbNX9WRflpxcnLfCoZUM3ccmi8PGpCnYd5ICv_ZFh4Jbpus_gloQUC28_jtp7I_JZ1YK1Wvz9RstKseZsWymv47er537PPbD/s320/Tawo%20%5BThe%20Tower%5D%20(2012).jpg" width="225" /></a></div>Here's one that's been on our list for a while. This is a 2012 South Korean disaster movie set on Christmas Eve directed by Kim Ji-hoon. The effects and overall production values are, for the most part, at the level of a Hollywood blockbuster, and the movie was a massive success in South Korea. It was so well executed, I found myself a little surprised it hadn't received a US release... until it got to the third act, when it became extremely clear why this particular market wasn't an option.<p></p><p>The premise is going to be familiar to anyone who's heard of the 1974 film, The Towering Inferno, whether you've seen it or not (which is fortunate, because that's another one I still need to get around to). At its core, The Tower is about people trying to escape a burning skyscraper, with the complexity coming from who the characters are, what their relationships are to each other, what they're willing to risk or sacrifice for each other, and so on.</p><p>While the premise is straightforward, the plot is a tangled web of intersecting storylines. There are a lot of characters in this, too many to try and list here, though four or five stand out as the primary protagonists.</p><p>To the extent this has a main character, it's Lee Dae-ho, the building manager of a massive residential tower occupied almost exclusively by wealthy patrons. Dae-ho is a widower looking after his daughter, Ha-na, who he brings to the tower to experience the Christmas light display, which this year includes artificial snow sprinkled in through open roofs by helicopters. When he needs to take care of some late work, he leaves Ha-na with Seo Yoon-hee, a woman Dae-ho is smitten with but has yet to find the courage to ask out.</p><p>Naturally, one of the helicopters crashes into the building, setting a massive fire and killing a bunch of people outright. Yoon-hee and Dae-ho's daughter are trapped in the middle of the tower, and Dae-ho is trying to reach them.</p><p>You may have noticed we're a few major characters shy of what I promised. Those would be two of the firefighters trying to minimize the loss of life. And, to be clear, when I say "two" I'm being selective: there's at least one other firefighter with comparable screentime, but he's not as connected to the other major characters.</p><p>Captain Young-ki is something of a legend among the other firefighters. He's supposed to have the night off, but when the alarm sounds he joins the others despite their protests. Lee Sun-woo, meanwhile, just graduated from the academy and is eager to prove himself and serve the community.</p><p>Dae-ho eventually meets up with the firefighters and bonds with Young-ki, though the two are separated almost immediately, as Young-ki is tricked by his superiors into prioritizing "high value" individuals over those in the most need. When he realizes his time has been wasted, he's furious and returns to trying to locate Dae-ho, who reunites with his daughter, Ha-na, and a number of other trapped survivors, most of whom are service workers.</p><p>After a harrowing escape from one collapsing floor using a window-cleaning gondola, they make their way to a glass bridge that connects to the other tower in the complex, where they reunite with the firefighters. The walkway starts to break, forcing them to try crossing one at a time. Dae-ho's daughter goes first and makes it across with Sun-woo's help as the walkway collapses.</p><p>Dae-ho thinks his daughter may have died, as everything's unclear in the collapse, so he's naturally in a bad state of mind. Nevertheless, Young-ki needs his help to release a massive tank of water that will get their remaining group some time to escape (they're still on the 70th floor). There's a clock ticking now, because the tower they're in is going to collapse, and the officials on the ground have already decided to demolish it first to minimize the damage to the surrounding area - it's just a question of how long they can risk waiting first.</p><p>There's still no path down, so Young-ki and Dae-ho come up with a desperate plan to cut the cables on an elevator, ride it past the fire, then hope the emergency breaks will save them. This sort of works, but the brakes don't hold long enough to get everyone off before the elevator plummets to the basement. For our simplified purposes, that means Dae-ho and Young-ki make it out, while Yoon-hee (the prospective girlfriend) and a few other characters wind up trapped below.</p><p>Outside Dae-ho is once again reunited with his daughter, albeit briefly. There's yet another desperate plan on the table to save Yoon-hee and the others before the building is demolished in 20 minutes. But this plan will require them to go in through the sewers, find the survivors, set up explosives against another massive water tank, then ride the wave of released water to the river, where rescue boats will be waiting.</p><p>Also, Dae-ho is going with Young-ki on this mission, because if a building manager with no training tagging along for something like this is going to be a deal-breaker, you've already been watching the wrong movie for a couple hours. Oh, and Lee Sun-woo comes along, too, so he can get a dramatic scene with Young-ki later.</p><p>They find the missing survivors and set the explosives, but by this point the remote detonator has fallen down a hole. Captain Young-ki locks himself behind a gate with the explosives, so the others can't stop him from detonating them manually. First, he gets the aforementioned scene with Sun-woo. He also leaves his wife a voicemail apologizing for all this, then sets off the explosives.</p><p>Everyone still alive gets picked up by the boats. By this time it's Christmas morning, though the movie's more focused on exploiting the drama than celebrating.</p><p>That's it for those plotlines, but I really can't stress enough how much of the movie I'm glossing over. There are quite literally at least a dozen other characters who have arcs and relationships. The movie works hard to keep you guessing as to who lives and who dies. There are a handful that are relatively obvious (I was never all that concerned about Dae-ho's daughter's odds), but there are also pretty convincing misdirects going both ways.</p><p>Tonally, the movie starts fairly comedic before pivoting to suspense (and even occasional horror) after the accident. It still occasionally incorporates comedic relief, but the dominant tone from that point on skews relatively dark.</p><p>The holiday elements of course interest me. Christmas is primarily portrayed as a romantic holiday in the movie - at least plotlines touch on the concept. Santa is referenced, as well, and of course there are quite a few decorations and songs. Religious connections appear in one subplot, interestingly in a farcical way. It's also worth noting the depiction of Christianity is heavily simplified. The movie sort of jumbles various references from the Bible - old and new Testaments - into a series of jokes and misunderstandings. It's fascinating to see Christianity in effect treated the way minority religions have long been treated by Hollywood.</p><p>Ultimately, though, I suspect the main driver for setting this during Christmas was to connect it to American films. Particularly the first half seems to be emulating the feel of Christmas-set US action flicks. I could be mistaken, but I got the impression this welcomed comparisons to Hollywood productions (it certainly seems likely, given how much the premise borrows from The Towering Inferno).</p><p>One area the holidays don't appear to be leveraged in is theme. The movie's message mainly concerns class disparity and a critique of capitalism. The accident is ultimately caused by prioritizing advertising and profit over safety. Likewise, various protection systems fail to function because retail space took precedence over things like sprinkler systems.</p><p>You could of course argue that those themes are intrinsic to the holidays and have been since at least Dickens (explorations of class are far older, with traditions such as the Lord of Misrule dating back centuries, if not longer). But if the filmmakers were aware of these connections, they didn't exploit or really even reference them. That's in no way a criticism: Christmas, while significant in South Korea, is nowhere near the cultural juggernaut it is here, and there's absolutely no reason the movie should be expected to explore it in the same depth. My guess is the holidays were included for more surface-level purposes.</p><p>The movie is well done, but its value is contingent on the viewer suspending disbelief. And, to be clear, it asks quite a bit in that regard - explanations for what's occurring rarely make sense, laws of physics are wantonly ignored, and timelines feel arbitrary. Almost every aspect feels untethered from reality.</p><p>The exception is something worth mentioning, however, as it may serve as an important trigger warning to prospective viewers: the design of the tower (more accurately two towers, though only one is destroyed), along with the damage sustained and the visual depiction of its eventual collapse, was clearly inspired by the World Trade Center. The situation is obviously different - this was an accident, rather than an attack - but the movie makes numerous visual references to the event.</p><p>Like I said, there's a good reason this didn't get an American release.</p><p>Moving into the flaws, I'll admit some of the more extreme leaps in logic strained my willingness to accept the rules of the world. I also had some issues keeping track of everyone - again, there are a lot of characters here. And while most of the effects were great, this of course utilizes CG fire at times, and it's pretty obvious.</p><p>That said, the comedy is funny, the suspense is suspenseful, and the drama succeeds in selling the weight of the situation. </p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-15392916065043514632023-12-24T15:00:00.000-08:002023-12-24T15:09:10.821-08:00WordWorld: The Christmas Star/A Christmas Present for Dog (2008)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQo7YLXTskdah9sNYA-ZHzT1ZJAeDr8mSk6AdYFUBWR5K_4XlQHoNmJtzjsStGifFoA2Z12H6x1kqkRhertbW6frXHCoTrihgW2e0PI91z8il1nCiefJJAaBEywpbijgaLmAc9heO3H3k_wJPDwmM9tGTltr86a3lZDs1h3YL6ioEtYWsq_GPJzjvCtyDH/s500/Word%20World%20The%20Christmas%20Star%20A%20Christmas%20Present%20for%20Dog.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQo7YLXTskdah9sNYA-ZHzT1ZJAeDr8mSk6AdYFUBWR5K_4XlQHoNmJtzjsStGifFoA2Z12H6x1kqkRhertbW6frXHCoTrihgW2e0PI91z8il1nCiefJJAaBEywpbijgaLmAc9heO3H3k_wJPDwmM9tGTltr86a3lZDs1h3YL6ioEtYWsq_GPJzjvCtyDH/s320/Word%20World%20The%20Christmas%20Star%20A%20Christmas%20Present%20for%20Dog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>FYI: This show is watched by our 4-year-old. Her feedback will be included in this review.<p></p><p>WorldWorld is a PBS show (originally 2007-2011) that teaches preschoolers basic spelling and phonics along with some other positive messages. I've always found it generally amusing, although the in-world rules raise a lot of questions. </p><p>All the things, including the characters, are physically made up of the letters that spell their names. And if you can spell something, you can create it. For example, if you line up the letters H, A, T, you now have a hat. So it's a bit like the Star Trek question of why anything would be scarce in a world with replicators, but it's an exponentially larger issue here because the characters find letters basically anywhere (they don't seem to be a finite resource) and in several episodes, it's established that you can pluralize words to create <i>infinite</i> stuff. </p><p>Each half-hour episode includes two separate stories.</p><p> </p><p><b>The Christmas Star</b></p><p>This story opens with Frog, Duck, and Dog decorating for Christmas inside Frog's log, singing offkey. They build a TREE (putting T R E E together) and begin to decorate that, using single letters as ornaments. </p><p>Frog mentions that he always puts a special star on the top of his tree. Duck asks why. Frog says there's always a beautiful bright star in the sky for Christmas. Okay, sure, that's as good a story as most.</p><p>Frog can't find his star, but he doesn't seem too upset. Later that night, Duck decides that he wants to capture the "real" Christmas Star for Frog's tree. (This places this story in a small subgenre about <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2022/12/george-and-christmas-star-1985.html" target="_blank">using a literal star as a decoration</a>.)</p><p>Duck sings a solo about his plan, and the music in the show is usually pretty decent, switching genre and style to suit each story. This song is a bit longer than most and it's very jazzy, clearly inspired by holiday standards.</p><p>At this point, my daughter voiced some concerns. In another episode Duck flew south for the winter, so why is he back for Christmas? I admitted I didn't know. </p><p>Duck does see a low shooting star and manages to lasso it, but after a brief sequence in which the star tows him all over the countryside, he's thrown off, and the star returns to the sky. </p><p>Duck is crushed because he doesn't have a great present for Frog, but he goes to sleep.</p><p>Meanwhile, Frog sees how disappointed Duck is. He and Dog build a CAP (a Santa hat) and quietly deliver a secret present to Duck's nest.</p><p>A few other friends arrive in the morning to celebrate. Duck wakes up, still upset, but finally notices that he has a present. He is excited about it, but another character has to explain that it's the letters S T A R. The group builds STAR and they finish decorating the tree. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>A Christmas Present for Dog</b></p><p>This story opens with Pig, Ant, Bear, and Dog writing letters to Santa on Christmas Eve, and singing about it. Pig wants a new sled, Ant wants a cookie, and Bear wants a doll. Dog (who doesn't speak, only barks) gets Bear to help him with his letter - he wants a ball, and they spell BALL on his paper. </p><p>They release the letters near the fireplace and they fly up the chimney into the sky. </p><p>Santa (unseen, but heard) flies overhead and drops letters down into each house that assemble themselves into each gift. However, the last L in BALL bounces off Dog's chimney instead of falling in, so he's left with just B A L in the morning. </p><p>He's disappointed, but he goes out to see the others. Bear and Dog look around for another L to make Dog's ball. (There's a giant room full of letters in Dog's house, but everyone conveniently forgets that when it isn't part of the plot of a particular episode.)</p><p>Bear and Dog run across Pig and Sheep. Sheep admires Pig's new sled, and he decides that he doesn't need a new sled after all and gives it to Sheep for Christmas. Pig sings a little verse about how giving is better than anything.</p><p>At this point, my daughter objected, asking why they didn't just take turns. She definitely had a point. I was wondering why they didn't just build a second sled. It isn't hard.</p><p>Going on, Bear and Dog see Ant share his Christmas cookie with all his cousin ants, being left with none for himself. He also sings the little giving song.</p><p>Bear decides to take apart her new doll to get a new L for Dog, and she sings the giving song as well. Bear and Dog build the BALL and play with it. </p><p>I'm not sure a story about giving up your gift to make someone happy has any emotional weight in a world when all the gifts can hypothetically be immediately replaced. However, my kid almost immediately started practicing writing words with LL in them, so I guess the actual point got through. </p><p>Neither of these are brilliant Christmas stories, but they're cheerful, pleasant, and educational, and the music isn't bad. As a parent, that's a pretty good deal. </p>Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10372317376002783405noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-38980081064592746532023-12-24T14:00:00.000-08:002023-12-24T14:05:42.394-08:00A Biltmore Christmas (2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0BoXUzkF0y3REQaTH1BJzKHuUFUBddMlfy4qSwj5L0cj8QhF4gvu-UZBT22zvo0wvrq6IndyNk__D20o8aIqP-8QXb6o2rq5r0ETM1l-nLQfn88GsUsf0UclsQo2lGRg4FZYZjxpjwJM5D4Hr464N0ZrkB-qnuc66WKePSvmlh6Z38Vvy69JKhUD_UyC/s2048/A%20Biltmore%20Christmas%20(2023).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1366" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ0BoXUzkF0y3REQaTH1BJzKHuUFUBddMlfy4qSwj5L0cj8QhF4gvu-UZBT22zvo0wvrq6IndyNk__D20o8aIqP-8QXb6o2rq5r0ETM1l-nLQfn88GsUsf0UclsQo2lGRg4FZYZjxpjwJM5D4Hr464N0ZrkB-qnuc66WKePSvmlh6Z38Vvy69JKhUD_UyC/s320/A%20Biltmore%20Christmas%20(2023).jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Fairly high concept for a Hallmark movie, this is about a screenwriter scripting a remake of a classic Hollywood Christmas movie getting magically transported back to the production of said movie in 1947 and falling in love with its tragically doomed star. If all that sounds a tad over-ambitious for a studio known for cranking out relatively uniform (but surprisingly high-quality) low-budget television movies... well... that is an issue here. While A Biltmore Christmas is decent, it's clear they're biting off a bit more than they can chew. Watching, you can tell everyone involved is putting in real effort, but you can see where they just didn't have the time to set up complex shots, learn more than surface-level impersonations of characters from classic Hollywood films, or nail the look and feel of the era they were emulating.<p></p><p>I don't think any of that is necessarily a dealbreaker, depending on what you want out of this. This is, after all, a TV Christmas movie, and in that respect, it delivers a series of fun moments and amusing characters. On top of that, the first thirty minutes at least actually pack in a few surprises and deviations from the typical formula. And the looming clock on the love interest's life means there's at least a bit of tension here, a feature I've often found lacking in the company's output.</p><p>But that tension turns out to be a bit of a double-sided sword when we reach the inevitable conclusion. This is a movie that needed a bittersweet ending, something Hallmark continues to take a firm stance against.</p><p>The movie's protagonist is Lucy (played by Bethany Joy Lenz), a screenwriter and fan of the classic 1940s film "His Merry Wife!", now tasked with scripting its remake. The movie has a happy ending, which Lucy believes needs to be updated into something more bittersweet, a sentiment not shared by her boss, who sends her to the Biltmore House, the location of both the original and planned remake.</p><p>And... I'm going to pause here, because it's worth reflecting on the somewhat disjointed effect of having a fictional Hollywood studio remaking a fictional 1940s film starring fictional people, but using a very real location that's been widely used for actual films. If all that's starting to sound like some kind of complex marketing plan, a quick visit to the <a href="https://www.biltmore.com/things-to-do/events/christmas/">Biltmore website</a> where they're using the movie to promote their own holiday-related ventures should confirm your suspicions. Is any of this a problem? Eh, probably not, so long as you go in understanding you're kind of watching an advertisement.</p><p>At any rate, once Lucy reaches the Biltmore, she's given a tour by the manager, played by Jonathan Frakes, who, shockingly, won't be the only Trek alum to take a small role in this - Robert Picardo shows up in the last act as the 1940s studio head. On the tour, she meets Margaret, a mega-fan of the movie who won't really impact the story but might be this movie's MVP. She's played by A.K. Benninghofen, who instills the role with real comedic energy.</p><p>Before long, Lucy is introduced to the McGuffin of the film, an hourglass used in the original film that was damaged and repaired during the production. Riker conveniently leaves her alone with the device, which of course transports her back in time.</p><p>The movie has some fun with this at first. Because the Biltmore hasn't changed and Lucy's jetlagged, it takes her a minute to piece together that anything's changed. Her time's more or less out before she even figures out she's in the past, and afterward she's unsure if she imagined the whole thing. But she also learned the ending of the movie she knows wasn't what was originally scripted, and she naturally wants to know more.</p><p>Once she realizes the hourglass is responsible for her temporal displacement, she heads back a second time. Margaret is present when Lucy re-materializes, so she becomes an accomplice (I briefly hoped she might inadvertently get shunted back in time as well, but no such luck). During Lucy's next trip, however, the hourglass is broken, stranding her until it can be repaired.</p><p>Here's where the movie starts adhering more to the Hallmark formula. The doomed star of the film, Jack Huston, becomes interested in Lucy, at first because he believes she's a studio liaison, then romantically.</p><p>Sorry, I need another sidenote. Huston is played by Kristoffer Polaha, and I want to take a moment and commend Hallmark for producing a movie in which both its leads have real names with more obvious holiday connections than those of the characters they're playing. This is growth.</p><p>The remainder of the movie is a jumble of various plotlines in which Lucy helps the screenwriter reunite with his wife (which in turn results in the movie getting the happy ending she's familiar with), convinces the lead actress not to quit the picture, and tries to evade detection. Oh, and also she falls in love with Jack. Because of course she does. </p><p>By the end, she tries to warn him he's fated to die the following Christmas, but is interrupted, only managing to blurt out the date before being chased off by the studio head. This is after she's told him she's from the future, a claim he probably doesn't believe until witnessing her vanish in front of him.</p><p>She arrives home to find history hasn't changed - the movie adheres to pretty rigid rules around time travel, to its credit - and Jack's recorded date of death is still Christmas of 1948. We jump ahead a year to find the new movie shooting with Lucy's script, complete with an updated version of the happy ending. Then Huston shows up in the present to reveal he was able to use the hourglass to time-travel, and also that he faked his death in the past, so he and Lucy can be together.</p><p>To be fair, the film spends a great deal of time debating the merits of happy endings and laying out the philosophy behind Hallmark's holiday formula, so it's not like this comes out of nowhere. But at the same time, exploring that dynamic increases the significance of the ending, as do the movie's other themes: sacrifice and the relationship between reality and fantasy. By the end of the movie, I was on board with Lucy having changed into a less cynical person capable of seeing happy endings as aspirational and uplifting, but the fact she ultimately had to sacrifice nothing for her own happy ending to magically land in her lap felt like a cheat.</p><p>I'm not saying this needed a tragic ending. I can come up with at least a half-dozen variations that would have ended with her going on to a life full of joy and love, but with some sort of cost to make the payoff meaningful. All things considered, the ending we got was a bit too Hallmarky for the movie that came before it.</p><p>That said, the flip side to that criticism is that in a lot of ways A Biltmore Christmas succeeds in not feeling like a generic entry. The first thirty minutes don't feel formulaic at all, and even the more straightforward sections come off a bit more exciting and energetic than I'm used to. And while it's not at all unusual for Hallmark heroines to succeed both professionally and romantically, the subtext around having a man from the 1940s give up his dreams to be with a successful woman carries some weight.</p><p>Even if... I can't believe I'm saying this... this might be a rare situation where having her give up her dreams to stay with him in the past would probably have been more narratively satisfying.</p><p>Now then, let's talk time travel. A Biltmore Christmas references Back to the Future (it even uses some similar sound cues), though Biltmore actually follows stricter rules. Nothing Lucy does seems to change the past, save in ways that have already been changed. This is arguably the toughest approach to time travel to write narratively, as it's difficult to make predestination satisfying, but - again, excluding that ending - this pulls it off admirably.</p><p>I also want to mention the movie's choice of sidestepping any effects around time travel. We know Lucy is vanishing and appearing, because we see a couple characters react accordingly, but the camera never puts the event onscreen. It's a simple choice that no doubt saved them a bit of money, but more than that... I really just appreciate the restraint. Too often these sorts of movies try to interject some CG portals or other silly visuals where they're neither needed nor wanted. A comical reaction (or, in the case of Huston at the end, a dramatic one) is far more effective. This was a good choice.</p><p>A more mixed aspect is the movie's portrayal of the 1940s. The cast gave pretty uniformly fun performances that seemed to be largely pulled from characters from movies of the time, but that did mean they were using the sorts of affectations from movies to represent what were supposed to be actors in those movies. This wasn't a big deal - again, what they were doing was still fun - but struck me as a missed opportunity where the material could have been elevated into something smarter.</p><p>As far as Christmas is concerned, the holidays are used in mostly obvious ways, though there are a couple aspects worth mentioning. First, while "His Merry Wife!" is a fictional movie, its premise seems to be largely derived from the very real Christmas film, <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2014/11/the-bishops-wife-1948.html">The Bishop's Wife</a>, with a handful of surface-level allusions to the far better-known <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2011/11/its-wonderful-life-1946.html">It's a Wonderful Life</a>.</p><p>Perhaps more significantly, this is a Hallmark Christmas movie that's - at least in terms of subtext - about the use of a formula in Hallmark Christmas movies. The company explored this terrain in the 2017 movie, <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2022/12/the-christmas-train-2017.html">The Christmas Train</a>, as well, though that approached the topic from a more subversive angle. A Biltmore Christmas comes across as a repudiation of critics tired of the constant barrage of happy endings (so people like me, I suppose). I wouldn't mind them turning the tables if the movie had resolved in a way that came across as satisfying, but - again - that just wasn't the case.</p><p>I should also note it felt a tad self-serving seeing the modern-day movie executive embracing this philosophy treated as sage and benevolent: I did feel like Hallmark was patting themselves on the back with that minor character. Though, to be fair, they paid that off a bit in the past.</p><p>This one's certainly not bad for a TV movie, but it falls short of its potential. A Biltmore Christmas feels like growth for Hallmark, but at the same time it reminds you they've still got plenty of room for improvement.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-59802922305235752892023-12-24T12:00:00.000-08:002023-12-24T12:00:00.135-08:00Spoiler Alert (2022)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyYWLSlaf57HGizIaGdAAKFVMgJ6loPM-BquHGk2WJBJbvEgHqHooIV1rhPMC9XgY6aAHjyfmyds2vSHmbFSKku95Ry5uT8GEg7HeeEL6xRwa7Srai5xr7O3PJUBAlkgn6U5fbWEl0y0ORKfOy0cGSFyudEPZdDjnX_nxr-qIOcF8ynYJGdxVpsKZ1ZQbx/s3000/Spoiler%20Alert%20(2022).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="2025" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyYWLSlaf57HGizIaGdAAKFVMgJ6loPM-BquHGk2WJBJbvEgHqHooIV1rhPMC9XgY6aAHjyfmyds2vSHmbFSKku95Ry5uT8GEg7HeeEL6xRwa7Srai5xr7O3PJUBAlkgn6U5fbWEl0y0ORKfOy0cGSFyudEPZdDjnX_nxr-qIOcF8ynYJGdxVpsKZ1ZQbx/s320/Spoiler%20Alert%20(2022).jpg" width="216" /></a></div>Spoiler Alert is a romantic dramedy starring Jim Parsons based on a memoir titled, "Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies at the End", directed by Michael Showalter (the guy who made The Big Sick). The adaptation is co-written by Dan Savage, making his screenwriting debut. That's a pretty remarkable collection of talent, and I didn't even mention that Sally Field and Bill Irwin have supporting roles.<p></p><p>The movie is effectively split into two sections: the first is a straightforward rom-com about a gay couple falling in love, building a life together, and encountering complications. Around the halfway mark, the film pivots to drama, as one of the two leads is diagnosed with cancer, which eventually kills him. The movie let's you know where it's heading at the start (sooner, if you're familiar with the full title of the book it's based on), but that doesn't make the transition any less jarring.</p><p>That's intentional, obviously. The movie is an exploration of the concept of a love story, both as a romanticized ideal and in its realistic form. It's extremely effective, though I personally think a 75/25 split between comedy and drama would have served the film better than the 50/50 they went with.</p><p>That's intended as mild criticism, at most. The movie is fantastically put together and a big part of the reason I find myself wishing for more comedy is the jokes are <i>really </i>funny. More importantly, the humor is rooted in the characters, a fact that makes them all the more likeable and ultimately increases the impact of the tragedy in the second half.</p><p>The drama is good, too, incidentally. It all looks and feels pretty realistic (aside from a few equally effective diversions into impressionistic dream sequences), so you'll want tissues handy - this doesn't pull many punches. They could probably have delivered the same impact with less time in this section, which is why I think there was some room for improvement, but it's not like any of this ever dips short of greatness.</p><p>We've yet to talk Christmas, so let's explore why the movie is being discussed on this blog at all. The story is set over a span encompassing more than a decade, but Christmas - for a variety of reasons - is used as the clock driving that timeline. The main character's narration literally measures their time together in Christmases, and the narrative returns to December again and again.</p><p>In part, this is a reflection of the writer's lifelong love of the holidays, which the movie establishes early on. It also tethers this to the relationship and what Christmas comes to mean for them as a couple. In addition, it plays with visual connections between holiday decorations and the lights of New York City. Even when the setting drifts away from Christmas, we see colored lights in shops and restaurants, as well as backdrops of the city at night.</p><p>On a deeper level, this all of course plays into connections between the midwinter holidays and the passage of time, as well as age-old associations between Christmas and death. The movie doesn't go so far as to actually move Kit's death to Christmas, but it does use some sleight-of-hand to ensure the holidays are associated with the tragedy. Their last scenes together prior to the hospital are set at Christmas, with the added detail of narration establishing they had this last Christmas.</p><p>It's all well handled - frankly, everything in this movie is. The writing, directing, and editing are fantastic, as are the performances. Jim Parsons in particular establishes himself as being capable of an incredible amount of depth, while also being absolutely hilarious. Meanwhile, Sally Field and Bill Irwin steal scenes left and right.</p><p>Between this and The Big Sick, Michael Showalter is carving out a niche of high-quality romantic dramedies based on actual events. He is ridiculously good at this, and it'll be interesting to see what he does next.</p><p>Needless to say this one's highly recommended to anyone who's at a point in their life where they can handle watching a movie in which one of the main characters dies slowly from cancer. No judgment if that's a deal breaker for anyone, but if you're able to watch, it's a fantastic film.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-7484660855086616282023-12-23T17:00:00.000-08:002023-12-23T17:00:00.131-08:00The Children (2008)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB4DqPy9lIjGRIjxbi9qi6-pjdDNjQWScjnvFb-aWsAC2GRbIkONsl73n8MjSafnTR1z4_UHFdeYew6ZKZKstju9c-ophkfZPTcMxaRyPRN34I8Gn564LYGtAZwTptEJr3Sz8Pwpvqyq9YvsYVaVorGQD-9vrX8Jh7GUU4_AUPNrRjG0VWweW0uq0XK_aM/s1920/The%20Children%20(2008).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1920" data-original-width="1280" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB4DqPy9lIjGRIjxbi9qi6-pjdDNjQWScjnvFb-aWsAC2GRbIkONsl73n8MjSafnTR1z4_UHFdeYew6ZKZKstju9c-ophkfZPTcMxaRyPRN34I8Gn564LYGtAZwTptEJr3Sz8Pwpvqyq9YvsYVaVorGQD-9vrX8Jh7GUU4_AUPNrRjG0VWweW0uq0XK_aM/s320/The%20Children%20(2008).jpg" width="213" /></a></div>Well, this one's going to be hard as hell to rate. On a technical level, The Children is an extremely impressive movie. It's well-shot with atmospheric visuals, effective jump scares, and a really unnerving premise. The central conceit, that children turn on adults, is executed so convincingly I'm honestly unsure whether to credit the film's editing or the performances of the young actors for selling the kids as terrifying, deadly, and remorseless.<p></p><p>And if reading the last paragraph made you a little sick to your stomach, you may already have an inkling of the "but" coming up. Just because you <i>can</i> show something in a movie doesn't necessarily mean you should. I kind of feel like I just watched a new form of exploitation being invented.</p><p>Okay, "new" is an overstatement, and not just because the actors playing The Children's young antagonists are now old enough they might have kids of their own. While the details of the premise have changed, the central idea is in part recycled from Children of the Corn and similar tales. The idea of evil kids has been explored for ages, but this... this takes things a lot further by fixating on the horror their parents go through making one impossible decision after another and paying the price for trusting and loving their kids.</p><p>The story and characters are pretty barebones. That's not a criticism: this is the kind of movie built around primal fears, so the characters mainly exist for us to experience those fears. I'll lay out the basic idea, but I'm not going to bother going through each kill or the way things escalate - it's just not all that relevant to what we're here to discuss.</p><p>The POV character is Casey, a teenage girl being dragged against her will to spend New Year's with her extended family. In addition to Casey's mother, stepfather, and two half-siblings, the movie features her aunt and uncle, who have two children. For the most part, that's it for characters.</p><p>When they arrive, Casey's half-brother throws up, ostensibly from motion sickness. Over the next day, we see the other young kids display minor signs of illness of their own and - more troublingly - exhibit odd behavior. The grown-ups initially write this off, but Casey is disturbed. Then "accidents" start happening to the adults. When things escalate to the point where they're clearly not accidents, Casey's aunt and stepfather suspect her of murdering her uncle and one of the kids who dies attempting to murder Casey's mom, who already sustained a broken leg. Casey's mother is in shock from the experience and unable to describe what she saw.</p><p>Casey's father strikes her, locks her in an upstairs closet, and takes off with her stepsister. Casey and her mother fend off the remaining kids (lethally, at times). They take the remaining car and start to drive away, stopping when they find Casey's stepfather's car crashed. Casey becomes ill and throws up, which by now has been established as a sign of infection. A whole bunch of kids, presumably from the neighborhood, show up, as well, and stare menacingly as she and her mother drive away. The movie ends with a close-up on Casey implying she's probably turning, though it's ambiguous enough to leave open the possibility she was just sickened by the sight of her stepfather dying in the snow.</p><p>Beyond that, the movie's light on answers. Even the virus apparently causing the kids to go evil is left open-ended: the sickness might be incidental. There are a handful of moments implying some supernatural connection has developed between the kids, and an illness wouldn't explain why they're suddenly competent murderers, knowing precisely how to trick their victims and kill them. The movie also features ominous shots of the woods, so a more conventional (by genre standards) haunted reading isn't out of the question.</p><p>Again, the cause isn't the point. The movie's about the fear; it's trying (and succeeding, I think) to be a sort of nightmare come to life.</p><p>Regardless of whether you interpret the cause, the movie's tone is absolutely invoking that of a ghost story, a long-standing Christmas tradition in Britain, where this was made. In addition, the New Year's holiday, through its associations with eras ending and beginning, plays into the idea of a new generation sacrificing the old.</p><p>You could also make a case the movie's holiday setting ties into associations between the season and children, albeit in a darkly ironic context. Obviously the movie is concerned with children (it's the title, after all) and the reverent way adults view their offspring. A recurring theme in the movie concerns the way those same children defile that idea, implanting toy "babies" in their victims. Likewise, Casey claims her mother attempted to abort her, and that she was unwanted, a character beat resolved when that same mother is forced to choose to kill her other daughter to save Casey.</p><p>Again, this is a pretty messed up movie.</p><p>Whether this is worth seeing rests almost entirely on your response to its premise. Personally, I had a hard time watching, despite finding the tone and style both impressive and engaging. Part of me thinks a movie built entirely (and very seriously) on ideas and images this disturbing needs some justification for existing stronger than "being creepy," but I acknowledge a great deal of that reaction is likely due to the fact I'm a father of a young child. If you're a huge fan of the genre and not instantly repulsed by the concept of kids turning evil and being killed by adults in defense, you might find quite a bit here to appreciate. But if your gut is telling you to steer clear, do yourself a favor and listen.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-22130654893026402322023-12-23T15:00:00.000-08:002023-12-23T15:00:00.128-08:00Backfire (1950)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMsEZu-YZi1bIBiwOYI6bSw-W3FLUWgP4cQPFCxO6kozi8T6szF1XCxsOXg17mBCZPXKK7euq5qV9iATT1h2fimrmOdLKDv8kcKlGYjXdx_fmS291s24jgcjTeo66lv44VrfDuqtTl_x3_6JRmOmKnAYyZAJkvbGwQORvryY4u2tyW93STEljK0dGJonpz/s1517/Backfire%20(1950).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1517" data-original-width="1000" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMsEZu-YZi1bIBiwOYI6bSw-W3FLUWgP4cQPFCxO6kozi8T6szF1XCxsOXg17mBCZPXKK7euq5qV9iATT1h2fimrmOdLKDv8kcKlGYjXdx_fmS291s24jgcjTeo66lv44VrfDuqtTl_x3_6JRmOmKnAYyZAJkvbGwQORvryY4u2tyW93STEljK0dGJonpz/s320/Backfire%20(1950).jpg" width="211" /></a></div>I'm working my way through the collection of "Holiday Noir" Criterion is streaming this year (God, I love that service). Like some of the other movies in this collection, the "noir" label should be taken with a grain of salt. It certainly has elements in common with noir - particularly towards the end - but the tone here is relatively light throughout, and this isn't as stylized as I generally expect from the genre. Or maybe my definition of that term is simply too restrictive - I'll defer to serious noir aficionados so long as they listen to me when I tell them films like Backfire should be recognized as legitimate Christmas movies.<p></p><p>Whatever labels you attach to it, this one's quite a lot of fun. It's not unique or bizarre enough to be a "must watch," but it's a pulpy, energetic mystery that throws a barrage of fun twists at you from start to finish. For a movie with an escalating body count (including at least one character you actually care about) and some pretty heavy themes around the lasting effects war has on those who come back, Backfire makes for an oddly enjoyable experience.</p><p>While this falls just short of getting a blanket recommendation from me, it's still a good mystery, so if you'd rather not have the whole thing spoiled... now's the time to hop in the nearest cab and head across town. You've been warned.</p><p>The movie opens in a veterans hospital in 1948, and we're quickly introduced to Bob, Steve, and Julie, three of the movie's main characters. Bob is recovering from a spinal injury that threatens to derail plans he and Steve made during the war of buying and operating a ranch together. Steve is really just worried about Bob, even suggesting they rethink their plan, but Bob is adamant about following through on it. Meanwhile, we get some brief references to the fact that Bob and Julie, a nurse at the hospital, have feelings for each other.</p><p>We jump ahead to Christmas Eve. Bob is still at the hospital - he'll be stuck there for ten more days. He and Julie are definitely an item (he gives her a gift, and they share a kiss). Julie gives him something to make him sleep and leaves.</p><p>While he's alone, a strange woman enters his room and tells him Steve is injured with a broken back and is contemplating suicide. Bob, barely able to stay conscious, tells her to tell Steve he'll be out in ten days. He asks the woman to write the address where Steve is staying on a pad of paper and then passes out. The woman leaves without writing anything.</p><p>Ten days later, Bob is finally getting discharged. He's been unable to convince anyone that the woman who saw him was real - even Julie insists he must have hallucinated the event - but he's afraid for his friend. Almost immediately, Bob's picked up by the police, who bring him in for questioning. They inform him that Steve is missing and suspected of being involved in the murder of a gambler.</p><p>Against their wishes, Bob begins investigating. Julie helps him and turns out to be something of a natural - she's the one who figures out the two key connections. At each step, Bob finds himself speaking with various individuals who knew Steve, and every time we're shown flashbacks shedding light on what occurred. Naturally, the events are out of order, leaving Bob - and us - to piece the story together.</p><p>After visiting Bob in the hospital, Steve ran into Ben, a mutual friend of theirs from the war who now runs a funeral home. He was offered a job but seemingly refused, not believing that kind of work was something he'd take to. Eventually, he starts working for Lou, an unseen criminal, instead - that's how he met the aforementioned gambler. He also soon met Lou's girlfriend (or more accurately the woman Lou considered his girlfriend), Lysa - this is who Bob met on Christmas Eve. Lysa and Steve fell in love with each other, and when Lou found out, he caused an "accident" which seemingly left Steve paralyzed.</p><p>The gambler was the first person Lou killed to keep this secret, but he wouldn't be the last. Over the course of Bob and Julie's investigation, Lou kills a former roommate of Lysa's, a servant he employs, and a doctor he'd paid off to tell Steve and Lysa that Steve's injury was more permanent than it was. All of this was to accomplish two goals: the first was to keep Lysa from leaving, and the second was to protect Lou's identity.</p><p>The first half stopped being an issue on Christmas Eve. When Lysa returned from speaking to Bob, she realized the accident had been faked and told Lou she was leaving him. Lou strangles her to keep this from happening, then lies to Steve and tells him she ran out on both of them - perversely, Lou likes having someone who he can talk to about Lysa.</p><p>That last part is spelled out by Lou himself, who's actually (cue dramatic music) Ben, Bob and Steve's supposed war buddy. Ben's had something of a breakdown and created a dual life for himself: he's been using the funeral home as a front for his criminal activities performed under the name of Lou. And now that Bob knows the truth, he's decided to kill him, too.</p><p>But he didn't count on Julie getting the crucial details in time to call the cops, who arrive in time to shoot Ben/Lou dead. Julie and Bob ride with Steve in an ambulance, in which Steve thanks them and passes out. We then cut to a final short scene showing them picking up Steve at the hospital from earlier and heading out to the ranch.</p><p>That last scene is somewhat fascinating. I'm not sure whether it was intentional, but it actually feels a touch ambiguous as to whether or not it's real. You could interpret it as a sad hallucination of Steve as he dies, both because it's unrealistically optimistic and because the concept of that sort of hallucination was established early in the movie.</p><p>Regardless of how you interpret the ending, it's a solid movie exploring the difficulties of adapting to post-war life (certainly a timely theme, given World War II had ended just five years beforehand). I also appreciate how Ben/Lou's villainy is tied up in his sense of entitlement. He is, in a sense, a precursor to incels and other modern misogynist movements. He thinks Lysa owes him something and when he's denied, he reacts violently.</p><p>In addition, it's nice seeing a war hero whose main assets are his will and compassion, as opposed to physical strength. By virtue of his injury, Bob comes off as fairly fragile. He and Steve (who's even more injured by that point) fight off Ben/Lou for a couple seconds, but it's clear they'd be dead if not for Julie and the police.</p><div>Likewise, I really appreciate how effective Julie is as a character. I can't help but wonder if her relationship with Bob might have been in part a callback to The Thin Man (perhaps this also inspired the holiday setting of Backfire).</div><p>And speaking of... let's talk Christmas. When the movie jumped to Christmas Eve a few minutes in, I became skeptical this would even count as a holiday film. I shouldn't have doubted: while it's true Bob and Julie's sleuthing takes place in early January (though still technically within the twelve days of Christmas), the flashbacks keep bringing us back to lead up to the holidays. Moreover, the last flashback circles back to Christmas Eve itself, bringing us full circle to the scene that kicked off the mystery. I'm having trouble thinking of another Christmas movie that uses its timeline in a similar way.</p><p>I also find it interesting how Backfire contrasts Bob and Steve's dream of owning a ranch against the crime-ridden world of the city around them. The ranch is a symbol of their desire to return to old-fashioned American ideals lost during the war.</p><p>What's interesting to me here is how that theme <b>isn't</b> integrated into this movie's portrayal of Christmas. My experience with movies of the early '50s is admittedly somewhat limited outside of those occurring at Christmas, but my impression is this was a very common theme in American films in general. In the case of Christmas movies, this theme became entrenched, to the point we still see echoes to this day (there's a reason so many damn Hallmark movies involve the lead trading in a job in the city for a life in small-town America). I find it fascinating to see a movie set at Christmas, incorporating that theme, but not yet feeling any need to connect the two concepts.</p><p>If anything, Christmas here is still used as a sort of symbolic transition from one time to another. We see Bob and Julie's relationship blossoming and we later see Lysa and Steve's attempt at a life together tragically torn away from them the same night. Likewise, Bob's visitation on Christmas Eve - passed off at first as a vision - bears a resemblance to a Dickensian Christmas ghost story (all the more so when we later discover Lysa's fate).</p><p>I said at the start this was a good movie but not a great one; I should probably at least mention why it's coming up just short of getting a recommendation. First, the movie includes a minor Chinese character played (very awkwardly, I'll add) by a white actor. Yeah, I know this was common at the time; that doesn't mean it's okay.</p><p>In addition, while this is fun, it's not so much fun that you forget how old it is. The experience of watching is one where I was consistently mildly enjoying it, rather than ever being overjoyed or excited by what I was seeing. Lindsay (who's really got more detective story cred than I could ever hope to) also pointed out that the bulk of their deductions were based on information conveniently dropped in their laps, as opposed to information the leads were able to dig up based on their skills or backgrounds (though Julie does utilize her nursing knowledge later to infiltrate a corrupt doctor's practice).</p><p>In short, this one is solid and enjoyable, worth checking out if you're a fan of 1950s cinema or old mysteries in general. Otherwise, this is good but not quite exceptional.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-15449163929694091522023-12-23T12:00:00.000-08:002023-12-23T12:00:00.136-08:00I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes (1948)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_ZCk4IDe-fdnE9tu20QX1Eu_UzLU4xe3UzduVyg3HtTGbKyonPayFbaAV2eCE_mpw8t8whl7CgvcpmcabZbiF9WU00rQv0XLYhdmJKEcifXNFM5aQLxLuQNPsOSsDJ6VA-viUPH0HZiCE4Ysy2NLdrJbS8FW0J1PAvR6KN_CAhpIOGOD8VSXwxMRK_K-/s2476/I%20Wouldn't%20Be%20In%20Your%20Shoes%20(1948).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2476" data-original-width="1657" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_ZCk4IDe-fdnE9tu20QX1Eu_UzLU4xe3UzduVyg3HtTGbKyonPayFbaAV2eCE_mpw8t8whl7CgvcpmcabZbiF9WU00rQv0XLYhdmJKEcifXNFM5aQLxLuQNPsOSsDJ6VA-viUPH0HZiCE4Ysy2NLdrJbS8FW0J1PAvR6KN_CAhpIOGOD8VSXwxMRK_K-/s320/I%20Wouldn't%20Be%20In%20Your%20Shoes%20(1948).jpg" width="214" /></a></div>I assume this is obvious to everyone subscribed to Criterion right now, but I'm finding a bunch of these thanks to a collection they dropped entitled Holiday Noir, which - to be clear - is pretty high on my list of "things in 2023 to be grateful for." I bring that up mainly because I think this movie's inclusion in that collection is a bit of a stretch, not because of its holiday content (this is very much a Christmas movie) - but rather because I certainly wouldn't classify it as "noir." It's admittedly a fuzzy term (even more so than most movie genres), but I tend to look for movies with pervasively dark tones that typically set out to leave you less optimistic about the world than when you started, movies where even victories feel like defeats and true happy endings are a virtual impossibility.<p></p><p>And that just doesn't describe "I Wouldn't Be In Your Shoes," which I'd consider more akin to your run-of-the-mill drama. There's certainly a suspense element, as well, but it's a movie with several hard lines it refuses to cross, the tone is more sentimental than bleak, and (spoiler alert?) the ending is upbeat. </p><p>I just gave away the end, so you can probably guess this isn't going to be a recommendation. That's not to say it's bad - the movie has quite a few merits, particularly as far as its themes and politics are concerned - but it doesn't deliver any of the various sorts of experiences movies that endure from this era offer. From a moral standpoint, this is actually pretty fantastic, but sadly the story isn't as resonant. </p><p>That story centers on husband and wife Tom and Ann, as well as Clint, a police inspector, who... we'll get to that. The movie opens with Tom on death row a few days after Christmas and transitions into a series of flashbacks, which in turn sort of haphazardly follow the various leads. Earlier that year, Tom and Ann were going through financial hardships. They're dancers by trade, and to make ends meet Ann has turned to the sordid profession of teaching men ballroom dancing in a well-lit environment.</p><p>No, really. That's her work, and that's basically how it's presented. The fact that men - <b>men who aren't her husband</b> - pay her to dance with them on the pretext of learning is treated as a moral failing on her part. To be clear, the movie explicitly tells us she's not sleeping with them, though I suppose it implies she might be flirting a bit to improve her tips. Scandalous!</p><p>To the movie's credit, Ann isn't villainized for any of this. It's treated as a hard decision she's making to survive tough times. Tom isn't happy about it, but he understands and even apologizes after initially giving her a hard time about a particularly generous tip she's received from a repeat customer she's nicknamed Santa Claus. That's Inspector Clint Judd, by the way, who will play a larger role later. First, we need to talk about the cats.</p><p>A couple cats outside their window are making noise, so in a fit of frustration, Tom throws his shoes out the window at them. He thinks he's throwing an old pair he no longer needs, but he accidentally tosses his good dancing shoes. He tries to find them in the dark without luck and resolves to track them down the next day, though he doesn't have to look far - some good Samaritan leaves them outside his door the next morning.</p><p>However, things aren't quite as rosy as they seem. That night a man was murdered, a large sum of money was taken, and the only clue is a footprint. The police make a cast of the print, reasoning they'll be able to use it to build a profile of the killer. This is hilariously effective - in what feels like an analog version of the "enhance" cliche that would appear in sci-fi movies decades later, they're able to determine virtually everything about the shoe's owner and even match it to Tom through the store where he bought it.</p><p>By then, Tom's also stumbled across a wallet containing a few thousand dollars. Barely aware of the murder and completely unaware the police are about to suspect him, he shows this to Ann. He initially plans on turning the cash over to the cops, but Ann convinces him to keep it. They each spend a few hundred dollars - Ann purchases some things for herself, while Tom buys her a comically early Christmas present she'll hold on to until the holidays.</p><p>Unfortunately for them, this is what the police were waiting for. Now armed with the added evidence of the cash, they close in and arrest Tom and Ann. The police grill Tom for the whereabouts of the rest of the money - the two thousand recovered is only a fraction of what was taken - but of course, he knows nothing.</p><p>Clint and Ann recognize each other, and he even convinces his boss to release her. While he expresses anger at her for never telling him she was married, he likes Ann and asks her to consider starting a serious relationship with him now that Tom's prospects don't look good. Ann rejects him, of course. She feels responsible for what's happened to her husband and does what she can to help, but the evidence is too strong: he's convicted and sentenced to die right after Christmas.</p><p>Just before Christmas, Ann contacts Clint and makes him an offer: if he saves Tom's life, she'll leave her husband and marry him. She argues passionately for Tom's innocence, pointing out the evidence was entirely circumstantial. Ann finally kisses Clint, which seems to convince him, and he gets to work, eventually finding a lead that brings him to another suspect. He arrests the man who professes his innocence and brings him in. For a while, it seems like this is the actual killer, but - once again - the evidence is entirely circumstantial. After a closer examination, it turns out the new suspect was recovering from emergency surgery at the time of the murder and is therefore off the hook.</p><p>By now, we're back where we started, with the clock approaching midnight, when Tom is scheduled to die. Clint goes to see Ann, arguing that she shouldn't be alone. He points out he did his best to get Tom released, and that she should consider following through on her offer to marry him. He also reveals that he's rented and furnished an apartment for her.</p><p>Ann initially tells him off but reverses her stance after he tips her with a $20 bill matching the type that had been stolen. She agrees to come see the apartment right after she grabs her coat. From the coat room. Over by the phone.</p><p>At the apartment, we learn Clint has been stalking Ann longer than she even realized he existed. He admits to committing the murder and framing Tom, explaining he did this for her. But of course, Ann phoned the police while getting her coat, so Clint's boss is in the next room, along with another officer. Clint goes for his gun, but he gets shot in the process. There's still just enough time for a last-minute call to stop Tom's execution, so the movie ends with the reunited couple happily on their way to start a new life in California together.</p><p>Again, there's a great deal to respect in terms of the concept and themes, including several aspects I'm a little surprised made it past studio censors. Rules regarding the portrayal of police in movies were fairly strict, but this got away with having the villain be a cop. More than that, the movie was fairly critical of law enforcement in general - at one point, Ann accuses an officer of being motivated solely by a desire to kill someone. This accusation is never really refuted, despite the movie being careful to establish the "good cops" want justice. Even so, it's notable that the movie ends with the man she accused being one of the two officers who gun down Clint (though technically it's his subordinate who gets to his gun in time). You could interpret this as implying the reason Tom is permitted to live is that the system's bloodlust was sated.</p><p>While the criticism of police is admittedly ambiguous, the movie feels much clearer in its condemnation of the death penalty. In addition to Tom, the other inmates are presented sympathetically, and it'd be hard to miss the subtext surrounding people getting sentenced to die due to circumstantial evidence. When the alternate suspect is exonerated despite a substantial amount of circumstantial evidence, Ann points out the hypocrisy, and it certainly seems as though she's laying out the movie's central message in the process.</p><p>I also appreciate how the movie calls attention to stalking and male entitlement. Coupled with the power dynamics at play, this certainly feels ahead of its time. The villain is quite literally a powerful white man abusing his authority in an attempt to control a woman. I'm struggling to think of another movie I've seen from the 1940s that fits that description.</p><p>While some of the writing around Ann echoes troubling trends from the time (really I'm referring to her husband being largely virtuous, while her profession and fighting to keep the money are effectively the causes of their problems), these are largely mitigated by the fact she's really much more the protagonist than Tom is. The movie's POV drifts around a lot, but I'm fairly certain she gets more screen time and she's certainly the one to solve the crime. Some of her flaws come off as dated, but she's a good enough character I can overlook it.</p><p>The reason I'm not rating this higher mainly comes down to it all being just a little too overly sentimental to work as suspense and the story not being serious enough to work as a drama. I kept chuckling at various twists or details that weren't supposed to be funny, which isn't a great sign. It doesn't work as a mystery, either, because the solution is fairly obvious from the start.</p><p>I do want to stress this complaint is intended to apply to the context of watching the movie <i>now</i>. My guess is at the time the emotion hit harder, and audiences likely weren't as conditioned to suspect a cop of being the bad guy. The movie drops in quite a few red herrings in that respect and is fairly clever about concealing hints inside misdirection... just not quite clever enough for audiences today, who aren't likely to be surprised by the ending.</p><p>The holiday elements are mainly present to contrast Tom's predicament with the ostensibly happy season. A Christmas in which the leads contend with loss, depression, and separation, was a common theme in the aftermath of World War Two.</p><p>What's almost more interesting are the running details used to anchor the narrative to the holidays even during scenes set in the summer. Ann and Tom discuss Christmas a few times early on, and of course the odd detail of her nicknaming Clint "Santa Claus" serves the same purpose. This goes out of its way to tell and remind the viewer that it's a Christmas movie - that's not really common for movies from the era, even ones with more direct holiday associations. Perhaps they were encouraged by the success of Miracle on 34th Street a year earlier.</p><p>This is an interesting movie and - from certain perspectives at least - a pretty good one. The messages here have merit and are certainly still relevant. It's also worth noting the film features diverse characters in supporting roles without defaulting to stereotypes or jokes. This is, for lack of a better word, an admirable film.</p><p>I'm just not convinced it delivers what most people want from any of the genres it's straddling, least of all noir. Under a magnifying glass, there's a great deal to appreciate, but that doesn't elevate the experience of watching above average.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-90263136152875415062023-12-22T20:00:00.000-08:002023-12-22T20:00:00.134-08:00Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuxc_JMPlzfB1FiSzdLzuB4OR-cGW3oyB0xaFZDNjgoNZk8hCziI6H_oZRvox1K84I8jJdahyphenhyphenpzjF4_ZA3iLOUXnHLF3X7ajtzk3-A7Sendm54WqDAqpsG9fIcZuu-Spz9LbsmN8k-OEnpSX0ItFnlyuS5uKiVTcBfkLX7K8lFRUd3AYCbB21xoFmdbfE2/s1500/Christmas%20Bloody%20Christmas%20(2023).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1013" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuxc_JMPlzfB1FiSzdLzuB4OR-cGW3oyB0xaFZDNjgoNZk8hCziI6H_oZRvox1K84I8jJdahyphenhyphenpzjF4_ZA3iLOUXnHLF3X7ajtzk3-A7Sendm54WqDAqpsG9fIcZuu-Spz9LbsmN8k-OEnpSX0ItFnlyuS5uKiVTcBfkLX7K8lFRUd3AYCbB21xoFmdbfE2/s320/Christmas%20Bloody%20Christmas%20(2023).jpg" width="216" /></a></div>Aside from knowing the basic premise, quite literally every expectation and assumption I had going into this movie about an animatronic store Santa malfunctioning and going on a murder spree turned out to be dead wrong. Fortunately, one of those assumptions was that I probably wouldn't like it all that much, and...<p></p><p>Okay, let's do the spoiler warning right off the bat, because this is one I'm absolutely recommending to fans of horror, who might want to experience it without realizing what they're getting into. I was about to say that recommendation <b>only</b> applies to horror fans, as the movie's content is decidedly R-rated (both in terms of sex and violence), but this isn't exactly my go-to genre and I loved it despite... well... it gets pretty gruesome at times, even if the gore has an intentionally anachronistic look. <i>(Editor's note: this is not a case where we are united in our opinion. I admit that I generally detest slashers, but this is no exception for me. I <b>deeply</b> disliked what I saw of this film and stopped watching - Lindsay)</i></p><p>That's not a criticism, by the way. This is a throwback to films of the 70s and 80s, and the effects are (or at the very least seemed to be) practical. Only "practical" isn't the primary adjective I'm drawn to when thinking about how this movie looks and feels. That word is one I want to hold off on, in case any horror fans are on-the-fence about that spoiler warning, because it's the thing I least want to give away. Let's circle back to that after we talk a little more about the story.</p><p>This might be a short section. The movie is light on plot, focusing on only a handful of characters as they contend with a killer robot hacking its victims apart one by one. After a brief opening with a series of in-world commercials that feel like a fusion of the ads at the beginning of <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2011/12/scrooged-1988.html">Scrooged</a> and those throughout RoboCop, we're introduced to a pair of characters we assume are going to be the leads: record store owner Tori and her employee, Robbie. We follow them as they stop by a toy shop where their two friends are planning to spend the night together. This also reintroduces the movie's mechanical villain, who was also established in the opening commercials.</p><p>It's worth noting that the movie has very little interest in explaining the killer robot. We're given some throwaway lines about it being based on military technology. On the surface, this idea is treated as something of a punchline, but the joke also has the benefit of avoiding the need to provide any kind of elaborate backstory. The movie doesn't care why there's a robotic Santa Claus hunting down its characters, because this is rooted in horror, not science-fiction. Likewise, it won't tell us why it seems to be hunting its leads, how it tracks them, or why any of this is happening. For the record, while watching this I didn't care or even really think about that stuff, either - I was too engaged.</p><p>Eventually Robbie and Tori make their way to her house and have sex, unaware the robotic Santa has killed their friends and followed them. The Santa-bot either doesn't realize which house they're in or randomly goes into their neighbor's house, where it kills the family inside (child included, in a notable departure from slasher-Santa norms). Tori and Robbie actually see the last murder through the window and try to escape. Santa sees them as well and heads over. It kills Tori's sister and her husband, but she and Robbie make it out of the house. Robbie doesn't make it much further.</p><p>By then a police officer shows up. He shoots the robot, which momentarily stuns it, though it finishes him off soon after. This gives Tori a chance to get away in his car - she's soon arrested and taken to the police station while the bulk of the town's first responders head to the crime scene, where they're eventually killed off-camera. The robot Santa drives an ambulance to the police station and kills the remaining cops. Tori damages it with a taser, but this doesn't stop it. Neither does overturning a car on top of it and blowing the vehicle up, though this does further damage the machine. Tori retreats to her record store, and the robot follows her. She eventually defeats it through a combination of methods and weapons, and in the process loses the fingers on her right hand. When the robot is finally destroyed, she stumbles outside, rolls on the ground, and releases a primal scream as the movie ends.</p><p>What none of that conveys, of course, are the emotions and character beats driving all this. Tori sees herself as a rebel in the vein of the metal music she loves. She considers herself strong, both mentally and physically: she complains the men she knows can't keep up with her mentally, physically, or sexually. Until the violence starts, the movie lulls us into thinking that Robbie is the one she's been waiting for. Likewise, we assume the movie will be the two of them proving themselves against the robot.</p><p>Only it's not that simple. When the violence starts, she's not the instant badass she (or I) expected. That's not to say she's weak, only that her reactions are those of a <i>human's</i> when confronted by something terrifying, rather than the action heroine I'd expect from a campier, sillier version of this premise. She panics, screams, and makes mistakes (as I expect we all would in similar circumstances). As the movie progresses, though, it pushes her further and her fear turns to rage. As the robot's plastic exterior is stripped and it becomes more clearly mechanical, Tori's methods devolve. Her weapons go from firearms to explosives to a sword to the elements themselves. By the end, she's fighting with animalistic intensity, and it's in this primal form she finally wins: primordial life triumphing over inorganic metal through rage. She becomes, in essence, METAL, and as such is able to defeat a metal monster.</p><p>The movie as a whole moves with the intensity of the music genre it's inspired by, which (I assume goes without saying) forms the soundtrack. The pacing of the first half hour drags a touch (we spend a lot of time watching Tori and Robbie stumble through town, flirting and arguing about music and old horror movies), but once it gets going, it's relentless.</p><p>And even those first thirty minutes have their charm. Perhaps the movie's strongest assets are two I haven't touched on: set decoration and lighting. The movie is infused with a neon glow that makes the world it's set in eerily beautiful. Add in the tactile sets (right down to the presence of actual, artificial snow, God bless them - I can't tell you how sick I am of CG snow flurries), and you've got a movie that's gorgeous to look at. I spent a great deal of the opening just marveling at how everything looks.</p><p>Earlier, I teased an adjective I wanted to keep in my back pocket. The word is "artistic," and - for the record - I still can't believe I'm using it to describe a movie about an animatronic toy store Santa going on a killing spree. But this feels more akin to artful horror than the movies it superficially resembles.</p><p>I'll get specific. While this obviously makes numerous references to the first Terminator movie, the movie I was most reminded of is Mandy. While it's in a different subgenre (this is a slasher, while Mandy is a revenge thriller), they look and sound similar, and both movies approach their respective subgenres as sort of canvases to explore emotion channeled through a grindhouse aesthetic. I don't want to give the impression this is as good as Mandy - I like this a lot, but... come on, it's still a Shudder original - but fans of that movie would be well advised to give this one a shot.</p><p>These visual similarities also serve as a good transition to the topic we're supposedly here to explore, namely the holiday elements of this film. While it's not the first holiday connection you'd leap to, the use of holiday lights to create an unearthly glow might be the most striking way the film utilizes its setting. That sort of ambiance of course has a long history in horror. In addition to Mandy (which, granted, favors red and purple compared with the red and green pallet of this), I'm reminded of clips I've seen from Suspiria (sidenote: I'm not proud that I haven't actually found time to sit down and watch that movie - it's on my list). Regardless of what directly inspired the design, it's a clever use of holiday lighting to evoke the tone of the genre while simultaneously contrasting that ironically with more wholesome associations.</p><p>But the yuletide aspect I found most intriguing concerns the way the movie uses its antagonist as a sort of symbol for the omnipresent holidays. This is, in a very literal sense, a story of someone trying to escape Christmas, a common reaction to the cultural juggernaut the season has grown into, driven by commercialism and cultural conformity. There's a sense in which we're all Tori (who, it's worth noting, explicitly states she doesn't like the holidays on numerous occasions), fighting back against an unstoppable object that seems to be waiting around every corner.</p><p>Okay, all of <i>you </i>are Tori. I sold my soul to the North Pole back when this blog started.</p><p>Perhaps you think that's reading too far into the subtext, and perhaps you're right. But I would respond it's one of my more grounded readings into the movie's holiday themes. Now let's get into the more outlandish ones.</p><p>Among other things, this is an example of a movie focusing on surviving Christmas Eve, a concept with very old roots. The holidays, after all, are set just after the winter solstice, when the nights are longest and coldest, so it's no surprise there are numerous stories centered around surviving them. Modern incarnations include everything from <a href="http://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2012/12/die-hard-1988.html">holiday action flicks</a> to <a href="http://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2011/12/home-alone-1990.html">comedies</a> to a <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2020/12/3615-code-pere-noel-1989.html">horror movie literally linking those last two examples together</a>. But this also ties to folklore concerning various demons, ghosts, giants, witches, and the like: the idea isn't a new one. Perhaps this was something director Joe Begos was thinking about; perhaps not. Either way, the movie serves as a great example of the trope and connects to one of the oldest traditions in holiday fiction.</p><p>Circling back to the idea that the movie is a fight against Christmas itself, it's also important to note that the holidays (and associated religion) are based on a history of violence. L. Frank Baum actually endorsed and celebrated the connection between cultural genocide and Saint Nicholas, and his novel The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus - a major contributing factor to modern Christmas lore - <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2019/12/we-need-to-re-evaluate-l-frank-baums.html">seemingly attempts to justify the genocide of indigenous people</a> (consider this your periodic reminder that L. Frank Baum was a horrible human being whose legacy should be dragged through the mud). Transforming Santa into a mindless killing machine without mercy or remorse works as a sort of acknowledgment of the origins of the holiday in addition to the more obvious critique of how it's evolved commercially. </p><p>Again, I have no idea whether the people behind this are aware of any of that. Probably not the Baum stuff (that's still pretty obscure), but perhaps they were thinking of more general associations between the holidays, cultural assimilation, and genocide in the early days of the church. Or maybe they just wanted to play with the already creepy idea of a robotic Santa - I warned you a few paragraphs back I was going to overanalyze the shit out of all this.</p><p>Ultimately, I don't think it matters, at least as far as the experience is concerned. Christmas Bloody Christmas is a surprisingly beautiful, engaging horror movie that pulls you into the bizarre world where it's set. It's also a rare Christmas movie that actually reads as being anti-Christmas. A lot of horror is sold as seasonal counter-programming, but it's rare to see one follow through on the idea that Christmas itself is the bad guy without having the protagonist come around to liking the holidays. That alone makes this stand out.</p><p>But it's the beauty and visceral momentum that really caught me. I watched this assuming I'd be seeing a silly, campy B-movie constructed around a joke. While there's some comedy here (the opening commercials, in particular, are hilarious), that's not how the movie approaches its subject matter. Instead we're given something unusual and fascinating.</p><p>I could go on. I didn't even touch on how the movie embraces sexual exploitation <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2021/12/silent-night-deadly-night-1984.html">similar to the way classics in the slasher Santa subgenre do</a>, but subverts those moments by prioritizing female pleasure. I also haven't mentioned just how good actress Riley Dandy is as the lead (why in hell isn't her IMDB page overflowing with upcoming projects?!!!). Hell, I didn't even talk about <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2011/12/futurama-x-mas-specials-1999-2001-2010.html">the Futurama specials</a>.</p><p>But all that really matters is that this one's worth checking out. It's the rare movie that plays out completely differently than you expect in the best ways possible.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-81546555398723810362023-12-22T17:00:00.000-08:002023-12-22T17:00:00.125-08:00Made for Each Other (1971)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdrrphzQZ8qv5cNCf105Kh5xZRAqAa_UJy4wLTTOhlvwz44xnLdAyvoPtLaD0vAC91LVPr2nEJSWb59IZZaZUyg9fGgIFGR1f6DWj_Z9B4rNSKFjWRu2-nzbaHFkhyphenhyphenb6FlSvjfvEq-1RAB7Qh8n2Ds4W23rZ3x1yZc0zDfLg4WjOdKmRBGFpVTSk0f-6gC/s2180/Made%20for%20Each%20Other%20(1971).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2180" data-original-width="1428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdrrphzQZ8qv5cNCf105Kh5xZRAqAa_UJy4wLTTOhlvwz44xnLdAyvoPtLaD0vAC91LVPr2nEJSWb59IZZaZUyg9fGgIFGR1f6DWj_Z9B4rNSKFjWRu2-nzbaHFkhyphenhyphenb6FlSvjfvEq-1RAB7Qh8n2Ds4W23rZ3x1yZc0zDfLg4WjOdKmRBGFpVTSk0f-6gC/s320/Made%20for%20Each%20Other%20(1971).jpg" width="210" /></a></div>While looking for background on the 1939 movie of the same name, I saw a Wikipedia article about this. I clicked through expecting to find a remake but discovered the two movies were completely unconnected. Much to my surprise, this coincidentally is also a Christmas movie (more so, in fact). The 1970s are probably the decade we've explored the least, so I was excited to find a movie I never knew existed from the era.<p></p><p>Or at least I was until I started watching it. To be fair, I'm not at all certain that this is actually bad or if the style of humor is simply so grounded in the era it was made that it feels alien to someone watching fifty years later. I suppose the distinction is largely academic: either way, this isn't something virtually anyone is going to be interested in sitting through today.</p><p>The movie is written by its two costars, Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna, a married couple whose prior screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. That one was based on a play they also wrote together, a fact that wasn't at all a surprise to learn after finishing Made for Each Other - while this wasn't adapted from a play, it has all the hallmarks of being the product of writers far more comfortable in that medium. Scenes drag on for longer than feels natural onscreen, there are a limited number of sets, and the story is almost entirely told through dialogue. None of that is inherently unworkable in film, but it takes a director who understands the dynamics of both mediums. Made for Each Other is credited to first (and apparently last) time director, Robert B. Bean, who doesn't seem capable of threading that needle.</p><p>I couldn't find confirmation that the main characters, Pandora and Gig, were exaggerated versions of Taylor and Bologna, but it seems likely, considering the broad outlines of the characters' lives and backstories mirror those of their creators. If so, the effect comes across as anything but egotistical, since the characters are extremely unlikeable.</p><p>The movie opens with sequences about their respective parents conceiving them. Neither come from remotely healthy families - Gig's father is constantly getting into fights, while Pandora's mother is obsessed with astrology and convinced she's timed things to guarantee her daughter a destiny of fame and fortune. Gig and Pandora are each raised to internalize these traits, which will define their lives going forward.</p><p>Once we're through this prologue we find them at a support group on Christmas Eve (technically we find Pandora already at the group; Gig shows up late). They provide brief explanations of who they are and why they think they're here - she doesn't feel like she's found herself, and he's disturbed that he keeps ruining women's lives. We also get flashbacks fleshing out their childhoods, though these feel less like insight than attempts to kill time with humor (this will be a running theme for the first hour or so).</p><p>After the session, they hook up and spend the night together. Unsurprisingly, their relationship starts dysfunctionally, with Gig treating Pandora as disposable and her becoming fixated on receiving the respect she believes she's due. They clash but fall in love.</p><p>On New Year's Eve, Gig watches Pandora perform on stage and discovers she's horrible. When pushed, he tells her so, which of course leads to more conflict. Pandora goes home and reevaluates her act while Gig tries to have a fling with a woman he meets and finds he can't perform.</p><p>The next day Pandora goes to confront Gig and invites herself to New Year's dinner with his extended family. Like everything else, this implodes, largely due to his mother's intolerance towards Pandora's Jewish heritage. They leave and have another fight, but eventually Gig professes his love and tells her he wants to marry her. The movie ends soon after.</p><p>I found the first two-thirds of this borderline unwatchable (not that it ever stopped me before). All but a few of the jokes just didn't land for me, and I found the characters extremely unpleasant. I had a slightly better experience with the ending - while I still didn't find the New Year's section funny, the direction embraced the weirdness of the premise and characters in a way that was at least interesting. Likewise, the reconciliation scene was set on the docks and just seemed to be trying harder to feel like an actual movie than what I'd been watching up until that point, which frankly felt more like a dated sitcom.</p><p>But, again, I want to be a little careful here. The portrayal of the characters and situation felt like I was watching parody where I'd never seen the original. I actually think that might literally be the case: the movie really feels like it's referencing specific conventions and styles at times. If that's indeed the case, I could be missing crucial context necessary to judge the movie.</p><p>But even if that's the case, it doesn't help anyone else lacking that context, as well. Hell, even if this is a parody of several romantic dramas from the 70s, things like that generally rely on audiences feeling overwhelmed by the material being lampooned. There's a reason all but the best parodies tend to drop out of public consciousness after a decade or so.</p><p>Now that that's out of the way, let's talk Christmas. Obviously, this is structurally mirroring countless romantic comedies set over the holidays that culminate on New Year's and use the day's associations with transformation as a symbol for their leads growing into people capable of finding lasting happiness together. What's interesting here (conceptually, at least) is how little the movie leverages any of that. The holidays are referenced with title cards and mentioned in passing, but they're given absolutely no deference. Gig and Pandora don't even really seem to care what day it is. If anything, the movie seems to be highlighting the absence of tones and emotions traditionally associated with holiday movies, perhaps as yet another joke that just isn't connecting with me.</p><p>For all this movie's faults, I do respect what it was attempting to accomplish. This is a romcom about a couple who aren't likeable people, a concept that has since proven to have merit. The premise of Made for Each Other is notably similar to that of <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2022/01/when-harry-met-sally-1989.html">When Harry Met Sally</a>, right down to both movies attempting to mine humor from discussions about the female orgasm in inappropriate circumstances. The endings of the movies also feel very similar in their approaches, as well.</p><p>Granted, When Harry Met Sally executes quite literally everything at such a higher level of competence it's absurd to discuss these in the same sentence, but I still think it's worth mentioning that the blueprints bear a resemblance to each other.</p><p>I assume I've made my opinion on this clear by now. While I'm not quite willing to discount the possibility it worked at one time, this material certainly doesn't work now. You can definitely skip this one, which shouldn't be difficult: it's been all but forgotten and is a pain to track down, anyway.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-19118974035986583232023-12-22T15:00:00.000-08:002023-12-22T15:00:00.132-08:00Made for Each Other (1939)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDM9aES_sgpxYPq6fVja2hT-zUgO3qFXRRzgunkEQfXVkTYydu2u-gne7rJ9e0RVRcwqIEXcBMX-lSYsbvTolyR8UJVJD5tkzBJa3HiS39ACD1HS-wPtayvFOyLDu6ZlonXisHYTjC-x0iwcAnalgfg1kU-1GAn2U04nOF9adTX1sQkjz_osvUfbHAlNnr/s1212/Made%20for%20Each%20Other%20(1939).png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1212" data-original-width="800" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDM9aES_sgpxYPq6fVja2hT-zUgO3qFXRRzgunkEQfXVkTYydu2u-gne7rJ9e0RVRcwqIEXcBMX-lSYsbvTolyR8UJVJD5tkzBJa3HiS39ACD1HS-wPtayvFOyLDu6ZlonXisHYTjC-x0iwcAnalgfg1kU-1GAn2U04nOF9adTX1sQkjz_osvUfbHAlNnr/s320/Made%20for%20Each%20Other%20(1939).png" width="211" /></a></div>I've encountered a few movies from the 1930s that follow a similar template to Made for Each Other, a film that shifts genre relatively dramatically between comedy and melodrama. The idea seems to be to offer a film encompassing a bit of everything, or at least as close as they could cram in. This can feel off-putting now that we're no longer accustomed to this particular mix of tones, but conceptually it's not all that different than what Marvel movies attempt: it's only that the specific genres being incorporated have changed.<p></p><p>That does mean this movie feels dated in a way several more straightforward comedies don't. The first half of Made for Each Other holds up pretty well, but as the movie grows more and more serious, I found it difficult to enjoy unironically. Though, for better or worse, moments of the last third kind of come off as unintentionally funny.</p><p>The movie stars Carole Lombard and James Stewart as newlyweds Jane and John, who eloped immediately after meeting each other a few days before the movie starts. This creates some friction, as both John's live-in mother and his boss had been hoping to see him married to said boss's daughter. This seemingly costs John a promotion at the law firm he works at, which places stress on him and Jane, who's already unhappy John's job cost them a honeymoon.</p><p>Things get even more complicated when Jane becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son (who actually seems to be portrayed by a very young infant in early scenes). John's salary isn't enough to afford a larger apartment, and he doesn't seem to have the backbone to demand the money he deserves. Jane pushes him to stand up for himself, but - despite being more than capable of fighting for his clients in the courtroom - he's unable or unwilling to stand up to his boss.</p><p>Around the two-thirds mark, we find ourselves at New Year's Eve. They grudgingly go out, and John apologizes for failing to provide for his family. He more or less says they should get a divorce, so he stops dragging Jane down. She goes home but quickly circles back with the news their baby is extremely ill.</p><p>They take the child to a hospital where they learn he'll die without a rare serum, the only available supply of which is in Nevada on the other side of the country. Making matters worse, a severe winter storm is preventing planes from taking off, and the only pilot they locate even willing to entertain the idea refuses to take the job for less than five thousand dollars.</p><p>John goes to his boss's house and wakes him up to ask for help. Somewhat surprisingly, the old man is more than willing to do so, no strings attached. The pilots try to back out, but John argues one into submission.</p><p>We then spend a substantial amount of time cutting back and forth between his adventures braving the storm and Jane dealing with the devastating realization she might lose her child. At one point, a nun brings her to a chapel to pray to God for help. Immediately after, we see the airplane - now lost - break down, forcing the pilot to bail out.</p><p>Despite this, God's attempt to kill the baby is thwarted. The pilot manages to crawl to a farmhouse before collapsing (it's not at all clear whether he lives or dies, incidentally), and the owner finds the package and calls the hospital, which is conveniently close by. They get the medicine, and the child recovers.</p><p>The timeline is slightly unclear, but I believe the implication is that all of this occurred over the course of one night.</p><p>We then jump ahead in time a few months to see John, now an assertive, respected man (honestly, he's kind of turned into a dick). He's about to lay out some conditions for accepting being made a partner at his law firm when Jane and his son interrupt with the exciting news that the child can speak, and the movie closes on an awkward joke about the boss's hearing aid.</p><p>To be fair, the bulk of the comedy in this lands pretty well. Stewart and Lombard are both fantastic actors, and when the script tries to be funny, it generally succeeds. It's only when the movie starts shifting gears that it becomes harder to appreciate.</p><p>Even then, there are quite a few elements I respect. Rather than abruptly shifting into melodrama, Made for Each Other sort of evolves from one genre to another, and even then it peppers the humorous segment with serious beats and the dramatic half with moments of levity. It makes the transition feel less jarring than it otherwise might.</p><p>I also felt like the movie did a good job giving its characters depth. The boss at first seems like a two-dimensional antagonist, but when the chips are down, he behaves heroically. Likewise, John's mother is presented as overly critical, but as we get to know her she reveals a great deal of pain - the movie's strongest dramatic scene is one in which she and Jane reconcile their differences and bond.</p><p>Somewhat harder to rate is the movie's portrayal of its only major black character, Lily (played by Louise Beavers, who also appears in <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2011/12/holiday-inn-1942.html">Holiday Inn</a>). Lily is the last in a line of cooks employed by John and Jane, and she comes across as significantly smarter and more perceptive than the white women she replaces. In that sense, she's a fairly progressive character for the time. The problem is that, despite her strengths, she's absolutely written as a stereotype. Hell, the key speech she gives takes the form of a metaphor about watermelons.</p><p>Although the New Year's setting only encompasses about a third of the movie, it's leveraged to enhance the drama and play up traditional themes associated with the holidays. The movie is largely a story of a couple struggling through economic hardships, a concept that would have been on the minds of its audience, who'd been going through the Great Depression for the previous decade. The connection between the holidays and the plight of the disadvantaged was well established between Dickens's A Christmas Carol and (more applicable to New Year's Eve) Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl, to say nothing of nine decades worth of imitators to both. This is of course on top of the usual associations between the New Year's and transformation, new beginnings, and renewed connections, all of which play significant roles in the film.</p><p>I'm almost more interested in the religious aspects exploiting the idea of a child at risk during the holidays. The surprising part of this might be that none of this is being set on Christmas Day, which is more immediately associated with both babies and religion. I can't imagine the same choice being made a decade later, but movies in the 1930s seem to prioritize New Year's over Christmas.</p><p>There's one other possible holiday connection I want to mention, though it's likely coincidental. I noticed watching this that several aspects of Made for Each Other are similar to those that would be incorporated by Billy Wilder a few decades later in The Apartment. Both movies focus on somewhat effeminate men working in offices who learn to stand up for themselves. Likewise, there are some similar design choices, particularly early on (I noticed at least one shot of a backdrop used to create the illusion of a long hallway reminiscent of the forced perspective used by Wilder to give the office in The Apartment a sense of intimidating scale). But of course, these movies go in very different directions: here, the character stands up for himself by essentially taking command and embracing the masculine culture around him. In The Apartment, the main character becomes a <i>mensch</i> by finding the courage to walk away from the toxic environment exploiting him. I can't help but wonder if The Apartment might have been in some small way responding to Made for Each Other (though, even if it in some way was one of The Apartment's inspirations, it's worth noting Wilder's classic has other, better established ones).</p><p>On the whole, this one isn't a bad picture, but the tone of the last third makes it a tough sell to anyone not accustomed to films of the decade. Fans of its leads should check it out - both give fine performances - but there are better places to start if you're beginning to explore 1930s cinema.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-71171945756763224402023-12-21T20:00:00.000-08:002023-12-21T20:00:00.137-08:00Blast of Silence (1961)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXBNJE8nMxwvAONvEZB2rDjVep7AL1K9l_WFh0mL5z_JFjsn5ynwT3DFqBTXI0VeNyKZ7Qg0OqQoM4n7pal4esKAbExOzjBUf9Qu_b7USQ7s7pCVaJEZt3ArojQ-KiH46lh2uzj0P2DG9GwNYuEM0asjIbAuL0ORFmCEKI0EJID7EtHBxXjq6FJEafyun/s899/Blast%20of%20Silence%20(1961).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="580" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiXBNJE8nMxwvAONvEZB2rDjVep7AL1K9l_WFh0mL5z_JFjsn5ynwT3DFqBTXI0VeNyKZ7Qg0OqQoM4n7pal4esKAbExOzjBUf9Qu_b7USQ7s7pCVaJEZt3ArojQ-KiH46lh2uzj0P2DG9GwNYuEM0asjIbAuL0ORFmCEKI0EJID7EtHBxXjq6FJEafyun/s320/Blast%20of%20Silence%20(1961).jpg" width="206" /></a></div>This is one of seven "Holiday Noir" movies streamed by Criterion this month. A few of the movies they included aren't exactly what I'd call "Christmas movies" (not that Criterion promised they would be), but Blast of Silence passes my litmus test with flying colors (or in this case, flying black and white). The entirety of the film plays out during the holiday season, starting a few days before Christmas and ending on or around New Year's.<p></p><p>The movie's "noir" credentials are a bit more complicated. Technically, this falls outside the window of what generally qualifies - Wikipedia identifies it as "neo-noir," which seems a more accurate designation. Essentially, this acts as a bridge between the dark melodramas of the '40s and '50s we now call noir and the gangster epics that would become popular over the next few decades. At least on the surface, this is a focused, contained crime story built around a single character.</p><p>The movie's story is fairly barebones. It follows a hitman named Frank, returning to his hometown of New York for a job. He trails the mark, acquires a gun, kills a criminal acquaintance who attempts to blackmail him, assaults a woman he'd known when he was younger, completes his assignment, then is eventually killed by his employers, presumably because he tried backing out of the deal earlier.</p><p>None of that's all that important, however, because Blast of Silence is more about style and point-of-view than plot. The most striking aspect of this is the film's narration, which takes the unusual approach of talking in the second person. The story is quite literally being narrated to Frank, who functions as a sort of audience surrogate. It's going for a similar effect to what <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2020/12/lady-in-lake-1947.html">Lady in the Lake</a> (also included in Criterion's collection this year) was working towards, albeit in a very different way. While that film was shot from a first-person perspective, this features relatively straightforward camera shots, with added context via narration.</p><p>I should note the narration wasn't originally part of the movie, but rather was added later. That's not too surprising: it doesn't tell us much about the story that can't be gleaned from what's on screen. What it does do is put us in Frank's shoes. It also contextualizes what's happening within existential and psychoanalytic ideas. The first shot we're shown is a point-of-view shot from the perspective of a train emerging from a tunnel, and the narration compares this to the experience of being born. We're told Frank (or alternatively that we the audience) has chosen a life of loneliness, and further that we desire that feeling.</p><p>...And that brings us back to the holidays. Throughout the film, we're periodically shown and told that Frank is remembering (or sometimes trying <i>not </i>to remember) Christmases past, as well as something he's wanted. It's not until the end when Frank is shot dead and lying in the mud that the movie assures us he has - or again, that we have - found what we want: a return to the silent, peaceful darkness we remember from before we were born.</p><p>Essentially, the narration is leveraging the tradition of holiday nostalgia (a popular theme in Christmas music, movies, and other media following World War 2) in order to explore the idea that humanity is seeking a sort of primal peace we knew before birth. Whether you want to view this through a religious lens (the movie evokes God a few times) or a more general search for nihilism is up to interpretation. Either way, it's pretty bleak.</p><p>But then so is the framing of the holiday. We see Frank moving past New York's Christmas decorations, which are muted in the black-and-white footage. It's all shot to feel hollow and empty. Onlookers gathered to gaze at the lights are oblivious to the killer in their midst, which is of course the point.</p><p>I should note the onlookers were almost certainly literally oblivious. Even before confirming on Wikipedia, it was pretty obvious to me this was being shot without a permit - seeing the lead on busy New York sidewalks at Christmas time being filmed from what's clearly a moving car is a good indication this didn't go through the usual channels. Right or wrong, the effect makes for unusually realistic and natural sequences.</p><p>Speaking of behind the scenes... If you've got time, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_of_Silence">the Wikipedia article on this has some bonkers details about how Blast of Silence was financed and produced</a>. We're talking about smuggling film equipment out of Cuba stuff - I want a movie about writer, director, and star Allen Baron's experiences making this thing. Plus, the narration was written and delivered by Waldo Salt and Lionel Stander respectively, both under fake names due to being blacklisted by the House on Unamerican Activities Committee.</p><p>The holidays also play into the story in a couple ways. First and most importantly, they seem to leave Frank a bit unstable, which in turn leads to the aforementioned assault. After he misinterprets a woman's seeming interest in his life as romantic, he forcibly (and violently) kisses her. She fights him off, and he gets hold of himself. She insists she forgives him and advises him to find companionship, which he mistakes as implying a desire to be that companion. Later, following a period of reflection similar to what you'd expect in a holiday romance, he approaches her at her apartment to ask her to run away with him. But of course, she was just giving him advice, a fact that becomes obvious when Frank finds her boyfriend home, as well.</p><p>The holidays also play into the way the story plays out. Frank exploits his target going to see his mistress for the holidays to carry out the hit. He's also given a strict deadline to carry out the assignment by New Year's, which also seems to be around the time Frank himself is gunned down. In that respect, this also seems to be playing with the idea that this is a time for death and rebirth, or in this case maybe just death.</p><p>Blast of Silence offers a great deal to think about and even more for those of us bizarrely fascinated with how holidays appear in media. For those just looking for an enjoyable movie, it's a little harder to say. This is a solid crime story, with real tension and some dark ideas, but the pacing does drag at times. That's clearly a choice - the movie is playing with the way time seems to slow at the holidays. <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2014/12/in-bruges-2008.html">In Bruges</a> does something very similar, but that's got a lot more whimsy and dark comedy to hold your attention. I do think Blast of Silence is well enough made to make it worthwhile to fans of crime stories from the era, but it's not something most people should rush out to find.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-53595562805595562362023-12-21T17:00:00.000-08:002023-12-21T17:00:00.132-08:00Red Snow (2021)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLA4v7MS2CAVwhTSFtucFZF57eFgtOsEeh0ig2irhmANNMUBl6C047O2qxOjWOFPkWbY5ANt3hmeChYHYkfIWe_pI4lqh6GJq9KfhufO42lPfgCWDBnfw3ZzqMIqyHZ_3as9N-MQeHGtgCCi9tIS1rlnPvhWl8yX6C6pYTZe4D-bXjqy0RBlGS5dYO1Sqw/s2362/Red%20Snow%20(2021).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2362" data-original-width="1595" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLA4v7MS2CAVwhTSFtucFZF57eFgtOsEeh0ig2irhmANNMUBl6C047O2qxOjWOFPkWbY5ANt3hmeChYHYkfIWe_pI4lqh6GJq9KfhufO42lPfgCWDBnfw3ZzqMIqyHZ_3as9N-MQeHGtgCCi9tIS1rlnPvhWl8yX6C6pYTZe4D-bXjqy0RBlGS5dYO1Sqw/s320/Red%20Snow%20(2021).jpg" width="216" /></a></div>After watching Red Snow, I find myself a little surprised it's not better known, which is another way of saying I had a blast watching it. This is a horror/comedy vampire movie, and - honestly - that's about all I want to tell you before dropping a *spoiler warning* and advising those of you who like this sort of thing to check it out.<p></p><p>Okay, I'll toss you a few more bones, in case you need more convincing. Or, in the case of those of you who are die-hard horror fans, perhaps a warning to temper your expectations. After all, this is a movie *I* really enjoyed, and - in case you've forgotten - I don't exactly have the best tolerance for scares, gore, and the like. Red Snow is absolutely the kind of R-rated horror movie that elicits complaints about not being gross or scary enough for a significant subset of the genre's fanbase. If that's a deal-breaker for you, you're probably better off skipping this. But for the rest of you, it's delightful. And, for what it's worth, it's not bereft of blood or jump scares: those simply aren't what's driving the film.</p><p>So, what is? It was pretty clear to me this movie was inspired by Lost Boys even before I skimmed Wikipedia and saw that director Sean Nichols Lynch has said as much. I also found myself thinking of Buffy quite a bit while watching this.</p><p>So if either of those are things you enjoy, or if you feel particularly inclined to trust my advice, now would be a good time to stop reading before I spoil the whole damn plot.</p><p>The movie's POV character is Olivia (played by Dennice Cisneros), an aspiring writer obsessed with vampires staying in a secluded house alone over Christmas. A few days before the holiday, she finds an injured bat on her porch and brings it into her garage. The next day, she discovers it's transformed into a man - still injured - with elongated canines. And unlike every other version of this you've ever seen in her life, she doesn't doubt or question for one second that she's found an actual vampire.</p><p>Before she can even talk with him, she's interrupted by an older man named Julius claiming to work for a detective agency looking for the man in her garage, along with his two friends. She claims she hasn't seen anyone and gets him to leave, then begins bonding with the vampire. His name is Luke (played by Nico Bellamy), and he's the film's secondary lead. He tells Olivia that Julius is the one who wounded him, and that - until he's strong enough - he'll almost certainly die if she throws him out. Both these things are true, incidentally, unlike some other details. For example, he claims to be essentially harmless (the trio of vampires he's with are most definitely killers), and he insists the agency Julius works for has killed so many vampires, he and his friends may be the last of their kind alive (not remotely true).</p><p>Olivia nurses Luke back to health with pig blood she buys from the local butcher. She also gives him some clothing belonging to her late mother, leading to several of the movie's best visual gags. She also gives him her manuscript to read, hoping to get some notes from an actual vampire.</p><p>But first Julius returns, attacks Olivia, and threatens to kill her if she won't take him to Luke. She brings him to the garage, and he attacks the injured vampire. Before he can kill Luke, Olivia knocks Julius out with a shovel, and Luke tears the man's throat out with his teeth.</p><p>Naturally, Olivia gets out of there and locks the door behind her. She does not, however, do anything else. Eventually, she's lured back to the garage when Luke offers to give her notes on her book.</p><p>On Christmas Eve, they eat dinner together (she brings him more pig blood), she gives him some actual men's clothing she bought (including a nice sweater), and they watch Scrooge. Towards the end of the movie, Olivia falls asleep on the couch, and we see Luke struggle with the instinct to bite her. But he really does care for Olivia, and he suppresses the urge. That night, his friends, Brock and Jackie, show up and force their way in. Actually, in the case of Jackie, "friend" is a bit of an understatement - she's Luke's lover and the de facto leader of their group. The movie implies she may have some kind of supernatural influence over them, though it's never fully confirmed. Luke tries to fight to help Olivia, but in his weakened state Brock is easily able to restrain him. Luckily for Olivia, Jackie's more interested in mind games than killing her outright, so she's given enough of a head start to reach Julius's car, which is still parked on the street. She gets away and contacts the agency Julius worked for, though there's nothing they'd be able to do for months.</p><p>Meanwhile, the three vampires go hunting at Jackie's command. They find three teenage boys, lure them into an isolated field, and kill them. Luke is the most brutal of all, tearing the head from his victim.</p><p>Pissed off, Olivia returns home armed with Julius's equipment. She manages to kill Brock but is quickly disarmed by Jackie. Once again Luke fights to protect her, but Jackie catches him off guard and wounds him. This gives Olivia enough time to reach the kitchen, where she retrieves a wooden stake/cross made of skewers she stashed there early in the movie. She manages to plunge it into Jackie's heart before the vampire can finish her off.</p><p>Olivia then retrieves a crossbow she brought from Julius's car and points it at Luke. She tells him she'll kill him if he lies to her and asks him several questions, to which he responds honestly, assuring her she won't turn into a vampire despite being bitten by Jackie during the fight, saying he really cares about her, and most important that he really liked her book (aside from some issues they'd discussed earlier). Olivia relaxes for a moment then sees the sweater she gave him for Christmas, now covered in blood from the prior night.</p><p>She shoots him in the chest.</p><p>We then jump ahead ten months to a book signing - Olivia has become a successful novelist. The head of the agency Julius worked for offers to recruit her, but she turns him down, saying she'd rather write about vampires than hunt them. After the signing, she returns home and brings a cup of pig's blood to her garage, where she has Luke - still alive, albeit barely - chained to a chair, where she keeps him as her "muse."</p><p>Yeah, I know that sounds twisted and joyless in an outline, but I assure you the actual movie is twisted but oddly joyful. The first half, particularly, is an absolute pleasure to watch as it walks a tightrope between romantic comedy and horror, never giving away where it's going to end up. The movie gets a great deal of mileage out of the fact you're so fixated on which side of the ethical line Luke's ultimately going to land on, that you're inclined to overlook some troubling actions Olivia takes. It helps that Cisneros plays her as a nerdy, affable fangirl caught up in her excitement at seeing a fantasy creature she's been obsessed with her entire life in reality. And likewise, we empathize with her reluctance to trust Luke, even before it's confirmed he's indeed every bit the monster Julius claimed.</p><p>What all this accomplishes is to control how we view each of their roles, a sleight-of-hand trick that keeps us from seeing the bigger picture until the end. This is, after all, a horror story in which someone in need of help finds a secluded abode, is welcomed in by the owner (with the stipulation his movement inside is limited), eventually trusts the owner despite several red flags, then ultimately learns the hard way he'll never be permitted to leave.</p><p>It's a classic vampire motif, with the roles reversed. That's clever.</p><p>I should acknowledge you could also view this through the lens of horror criticizing the way authors have effectively transformed the mythic vampire into something commodified and controlled. I'm not sure I buy that interpretation, though - the movie takes pains to distance itself from Meyer and other paranormal romance authors, despite Olivia's approach bearing some similarities. There's a fairly pointed line that seems present to reinforce the idea that grouping female vampire novelists into a category is sexist, so I'm skeptical the movie was doing anything of the sort.</p><p>Now then. Let's talk Christmas.</p><p>On the surface, the holidays are primarily used to highlight and contrast the genre mashup. This is, after all, both a horror movie and a romantic comedy (though perhaps it would be more accurate to say it's a horror movie masquerading as a romantic comedy), with the holidays serving as a visual representation of the romcom end of the spectrum. This is most directly exemplified when Olivia expresses anger late in the movie that she has to fight vampires at a time she's supposed to be enjoying the festive season.</p><p>But of course, there's a lot more going on here. Historically, the Christmas season was absolutely one in which vampirism and other forms of horror were believed to be active. The bleak, cold winter was widely associated with supernatural terror in the areas of Europe vampire myths originated from, so their presence here is extremely appropriate.</p><p>Though, honestly, I have no idea if the filmmakers realized that. The movie doesn't seem to directly reference historical connections between the undead and the Christmas season, so maybe they just thought setting one of these at Christmas was amusing.</p><p>Regardless, this one's smart, funny, and most of all enjoyable to watch. Aside from a few awkward lines early on dropping some exposition about Olivia's background, the writing here is extremely good. The strongest asset, however, is the two leads - Cisneros and Bellamy are great here, each portraying characters who don't quite fit into any of the molds you expect.</p><p>Red Snow is a masterclass on low-budget filmmaking, building a satisfying movie out of a premise that only needs a handful of characters in a confined space. This is definitely worth checking out.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8378359295868499245.post-44839592049378738182023-12-21T15:00:00.000-08:002023-12-21T15:00:00.127-08:00The Christmas Raccoons (1980)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJRVMDT9LZCFy2TqdHIDkU4KMl_mIrQOVddJd-zxj_BxJzn1itTYjp7XJBpKeNAnLdP33lFIVNpk5FLIuPS0SG1z2kmxsSIAW9PriHg_Ytfz76gmr2zky-iy7V-A_LbpBNMuxgh-vzifYp1lIg6AMpKfdN-VoSQxh7AsPUDXwPdl3SodXwWSh3HxxH8QNP/s640/The%20Christmas%20Raccoons%20(1980).jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJRVMDT9LZCFy2TqdHIDkU4KMl_mIrQOVddJd-zxj_BxJzn1itTYjp7XJBpKeNAnLdP33lFIVNpk5FLIuPS0SG1z2kmxsSIAW9PriHg_Ytfz76gmr2zky-iy7V-A_LbpBNMuxgh-vzifYp1lIg6AMpKfdN-VoSQxh7AsPUDXwPdl3SodXwWSh3HxxH8QNP/s320/The%20Christmas%20Raccoons%20(1980).jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Animated Christmas specials serving as stealth pilots is something of a tradition in its own right. The most successful example, of course, was <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2010/12/simpsons-roasting-on-open-fire-1989.html">The Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire</a>, but a number of <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2022/11/the-cabbage-patch-kids-first-christmas.html">other properties</a> <a href="https://www.mainliningchristmas.com/2012/12/christmas-in-tattertown-1988.html">attempted to use the format</a>, as well, including the one we're looking at today. Astonishingly, this one seems to have been successful, as it spawned a number of additional specials and eventually a series that lasted for five years.<p></p><p>Lindsay grew up watching said series - I did not. She assures me that the kids who appear in the frame story of this special would be dropped pretty fast, with the world defaulting to one entirely occupied by anthropomorphic animals. That premise does sound at least marginally better than what we just watched.</p><p>Let's start there. We're introduced to a park ranger, his two kids, and their dog, Schaeffer. The forest they're living in (and that the ranger is looking after) is being mysteriously cut down, so he goes to investigate while the kids go to sleep. It's the evening of December 23rd, incidentally.</p><p>This kicks off a dream sequence that comprises almost the entirety of the special. Also, it's definitely really happening. But also it's definitely not. This isn't ambiguous or unclear - both these contradictory facts are confirmed true at the end. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First we need to talk about the raccoons and aardvarks.</p><p>The raccoons first, since they're the protagonists. I should probably be capitalizing "Raccoons," since it seems to be their family name. But also they're raccoons. Their names are Ralph, Melissa, and Burt. Ralph and Melissa are married; Burt is crashing on their couch.</p><p>Anthropomorphic raccoons, to be specific. And they live in a tree that gets cut down by greedy mill owner named Cyril Sneer, a similarly anthropomorphic aardvark smoking a cigar. Also worth noting is Cyril's college-educated son, Cedric, who does his father's bidding but spends the whole special trying to convince him to switch to legal, sustainable practices.</p><p>Before long, they cut down the Raccoons' home, but fail to collect it when dragging away the other trees they've illegally harvested. The kids and their dog meanwhile come across the downed tree and take it home as a Christmas tree. The Raccoons see them, mistake them for the ones cutting down the forest, and follow them home in order to steal back their Christmas stockings from the full-sized apartment hidden inside the tree.</p><p>The kids head to town, leaving their dog to guard the house while the Raccoons break in. The dog chases them outside, over a frozen river, and eventually they all stumble upon the mill. Schaeffer, who hasn't spoken up until this point, reveals he actually can speak, and the Raccoons quickly explain the confusion. Schaeffer and the Raccoons apologize for the misunderstanding and become friends. They then look in the window and spy on Cyril and Cedric, and learn the former intends to cut down every tree in the forest.</p><p>They then wait for him to come outside, jump him, beat him up, and - with the surprise help of his son's college education - convince him to adopt sustainable forestry practices that will net him higher profits in the long term.</p><p>No, for real, that's what happens. It's like they just forgot to make a third act.</p><p>Okay, there is sort of a third act, because we still haven't dealt with the Raccoons being homeless and sad at Christmas. Cue the pop ballad montage (not the first in the special, I'll add), as they follow Schaeffer to his cabin. They wait outside while he goes in. The kids locate the Raccoons' stockings, Schaeffer takes them to the window and shows them the animals in the snow, and the kids deduce the rest.</p><p>I was a little surprised they didn't have the kids invite the Raccoons to stay in their Christmas tree, but I guess the writers decided that would be too unrealistic. Instead, they went with the equally unrealistic ending of having the kids promise their father will find a new home for the Raccoons.</p><p>Only that can't happen, because the kids wake up first - this is all a dream, after all. Only they had the same dream, and when they ask their dad about the mysterious tree thefts, he reveals that it all stopped and replacement saplings were planted overnight.</p><p>Also the kids look outside, and the three anthropomorphic Raccoons are there. The narrator (voiced by Rich Little) then informs us that the forest will never be in danger again, because it's under the protection of three raccoons and a dog, which... I mean... I'm not feeling entirely convinced here.</p><p>The story is a mess, of course - I can't begin to convey how bizarre it was to see the heroes jump the villain a minute after learning of his existence and coerce him to reverse course two-thirds of the way through the special. I wouldn't call the pacing or structure inspired prior to that point, but I'm having a hard time thinking of another example where a story was derailed to this extent.</p><p>Likewise, the starting premise was clearly a work in progress. As I said earlier, this would be heavily reworked as the series was being produced, but at this point the tonal imbalance is glaring. The human characters are fairly grounded, while the animals feel like they're operating in a different universe. The attempt to bridge the gap through the prism of a dream fell flat, as well.</p><p>The good news is there are a couple areas where this fares quite a bit better, starting with the animation. There are some intricate sequences, involving elaborate, fluid character designs. There are also a couple sequences involving an illusion of three-dimensional movement through a landscape. For the time, both techniques were pretty unusual - this is the era of Hanna-Barbera, after all. The special also utilized several shortcuts, but the fact any scenes were more advanced is impressive.</p><p>The music also deserves praise. This features original songs by Rita Coolidge and Rupert Holmes, both of whom also voice characters in the specials. '70s pop isn't exactly my favorite musical genre, but it's clear these are a lot better than what you'd expect.</p><p>Thematically, the environmental and anti-capitalist message is undercut by the insistence that law-abiding forestry is fundamentally good. My suspicion is this was something the producers demanded in an attempt to avoid offending conservatives - it feels tacked on. I should also note the practice of creating entertainment with any environmental message was a fairly new phenomenon when this came out, so my criticism should be taken with a grain of salt. But regardless of how it was intended or even received in 1980, at this point, the themes come off as muddled.</p><p>Like a lot of what we dig up, this one's more interesting as an artifact of its time than a story in its own right. Unless you grew up with this, there's no real reason to track it down. If you did watch this as a kid and want to revisit it, the special is pretty easy to find online.</p>Erin Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00894781339191061541noreply@blogger.com0