Mainlining Christmas

This one flew under the radar last year, despite having an impressive cast that includes Danny DeVito, Andie MacDowell, and Wilmer Valderrama (Fez, from That '70s show). This is also a bit unusual, in that it's an English language Italian remake of the 2022 Italian language film, Improvvisamente Natale . The original doesn't appear to be available in the US at present, but it's going on the list of foreign Christmas movies I'll check out if I ever get a chance, especially because the remake is surprisingly good. I say "surprising" for a couple reasons. First, remakes of this sort don't have a great track record - usually, whatever was interesting in the original gets watered down, with the finished product generic and childish. Second, on paper the premise doesn't instill confidence: a family throws a summer Christmas for a young girl who's upset her parents are planning to separate. When I said this "flew under the radar," I may have...

I want to start by acknowledging this is a bad movie. Very bad, in fact. Painful at times. But as bad as this was, it's nowhere near as bad as its reputation implies. This is a film with a 3% on Rotten Tomatoes which holds the record for the most Razzies "won." And... yeah, like I said, it's bad. I didn't like it, I didn't find it particularly funny, and I wouldn't want to watch it again. But after one viewing, it's not even my least favorite Adam Sandler holiday movie (though honestly that review seems so unnecessarily mean-spirited I'm inclined to rewatch Eight Crazy Nights to see if I was being too harsh, or at least as penance for some of the more hyperbolic statements). But based on what I remember, this is in line with other live-action Sandler films I've seen (many of which were also directed by  Dennis Dugan). Jack and Jill is bad. I don't particularly care for Adam Sandler as a comedian, and there is a laundry list of choices in t...

In terms of holiday credentials, "Catch Me if You Can" is appropriately evasive. In a real sense, it both is and is not a Christmas movie: it leverages the holidays in interesting ways and returns to them throughout the movie, but the holidays don't shape the the tone, narrative, or theme the way they might in a romantic comedy or drama with a similar structure. They're a supporting player here and they clearly serve a purpose, but they're not the core of the movie, nor do they occupy the bulk of its runtime. But we'll get to that. First, this is based on the (allegedly) true story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a conman and forger who wrote a popular (and suspect) autobiography about his life. But true or not, it makes for a gripping, funny, engaging adventure in the hands of one of the best directors of all time. Apparently 1941 didn't sour Steven Spielberg on Christmas forever, so here we are. The movie is driven forward by the various cons and tricks Frank (...

Before I even attempt to describe this 1929 silent German film, it's worth noting this movie is - in my opinion at least - bonkers in ways no movie with synchronized sound I've encountered approaches. The plot seems to be largely pulled from its source material, a pair of plays by Frank Wedekind detailing the life and death of Lulu, a fictional woman whose sexual charisma and liberality seem to bring about destruction. What makes this more than garden-variety misogyny is the fact that while Lulu certainly isn't blameless, virtually every turning point leading to a character's death, destitution, or corruption is instigated by a male character. The film examines the way society blames women for roles it forces upon them. It's not really Lulu who's responsible for the majority of what occurs, but rather those around her. Or at least that's my interpretation. I find silent pictures harder to analyze than the talkies we're all more familiar with due to the i...

I see John Waters's 1974 film on lists of Christmas movies fairly often, though I'd hesitate to categorize it as such myself. The movie features an extended opening set during the holidays, but at 13 minutes, it's a small portion of the overall runtime. I still wanted to say a few things here, since the movie's Christmas sequence is both memorable and used innovatively. More on that in a moment. First, I should say a few things about the movie, or at the very least attempt to do so. Female Trouble is, by design, a weird, off-putting, offensive movie. Waters gravitates towards taboo subjects, finding humor in grotesque imagery. I believe this is the first NC-17 movie we've written about on this site, and the movie earns its rating. None of that is meant to be presented in either a positive or negative light: frankly, I'm not at all sure how to formulate an opinion on this as a film. I found quite a bit of it funny, though I was just as often repulsed by what was ...

Until I saw some online discussion surrounding this recently, I hadn't realized it was an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. I'd never seen the movie and have no memory of the trailers - if I ever thought about the movie, I must have assumed it was a fairly typical romantic comedy with supernatural elements. Hell, until we expanded our purview five or so years ago, we wouldn't have considered this worth reviewing the blog at all (it explicitly is not  set at Christmas). But the Dickens connection here is significant and worth exploring, and - for better and worse - this is an interesting movie. It's also surprising in a number of respects. This is a far more faithful retelling of A Christmas Carol than I'd ever have expected given the premise. It incorporates elements of the story and characters, mostly in clever and subtle ways (though I could have done without the "What day is it" callback gag near the end). That's the "better" side of the ...

It's taken me fifteen years, but I'm ready to make a case for 12 Monkeys being a Christmas movie. That's fifteen years of blog time - like most nerds of my generation I caught this in theaters 30 years ago. It left an impression, too - this is on the short list of my favorite movies of the 90s, as well as my favorite of Terry Gilliam's films (though in the interest of full disclosure, there are several I'm overdue for a rewatch and even a couple I've never seen, so that could conceivably change). If I'm remembering right, I last saw this about ten years ago when I wrote an article about the intersection of science fiction and the holidays , at which time I claimed (incorrectly) it couldn't reasonably be considered a Christmas movie. In the same article, I argued (correctly) that Prometheus could. What I hadn't pieced together at the time is that these are using the holidays for similar purposes, and further that 12 Monkeys is essentially a forerunner...

There's probably no more damning indictment of this movie than the fact Shane Black released a Christmas action/comedy based on a beloved crime series, and no one seemed to notice or care. I think that's a fair response, too: while there are some strong elements here, the movie as a whole doesn't work. Black can't seem to settle on a tone, the action set pieces feel uncharacteristically uninspired, and the main character is shockingly dull. It's difficult to say to what degree Parker's shortcomings are due to the script versus the casting. Mark Wahlberg is so wrong for this role, you're left trying to piece together how he ended up in the part. He doesn't come off as likeable, intimidating, or really much of anything. The character is just sort of an empty void. And before someone chimes in, I realize some of that is an apt description of the character in the books. I've read most of the... okay, I've only actually read the Wikipedia summary of t...

I heard this classic Hong Kong action movie was technically a Christmas film, so I decided to give it a rewatch, only to discover that wasn't possible. To rewatch a movie, you need to have seen it before, and I discovered a ways in I actually hadn't. I'd have sworn otherwise, but while I've seen numerous of the movie's various stunts and set pieces in clips, the rest was new to me. First, let's jump to the Christmas stuff, with the caveat there's very little. For the record, I'm going to defend this as a Christmas movie for the same reason I defended the label being attached to  Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! - films set at Christmas in a time and place where the holiday is afforded less importance tell us about how those cultures relate to Christmas. The holiday doesn't belong to Hollywood or the United States, and I think it would be a mistake to limit our viewpoint to the tropes, conventions, traditions, and assumption of our own nati...