Mainlining Christmas

I want to state up front I'm extremely torn on this movie, and I don't even want to touch on why until I've hopefully scared off a few people who should see this unspoiled. One of my goals in writing reviews is to avoid spoiling worthwhile experiences. On this site, that's usually easy, because a lot of what I'm looking at is pretty old, and quite a bit... well... just isn't good enough to worry about. The Lodge, however, is extraordinarily well made, extremely well acted, and effective at what it's trying to do. It's really just a question of whether "what it's trying to do" is going to impress you or leave you feeling like you wasted two hours of your life. And I really can't offer a single detail as to why  without rendering the point moot by spoiling literally every significant twist and turn this takes. So... I guess it's time for as oblique a spoiler warning as I can offer. If you like horror - particularly atmospheric horror

Despite being a longtime fan of children's media, I admit that Bluey might not have been on my radar if I wasn't the parent of a young child. And that's a shame, because I think this show is funny and poignant enough to charm almost anyone. The show follows the everyday adventures of Bluey and Bingo Heeler, two young sisters (ages 6 and 4) who can and do turn anything into a game. Their parents encourage and play along with the kids' imaginations, and the show is a fantastic portrait of great parents who are still realistic parents. While there are lessons to be learned, they are often subtle, blended into the stories, and sometimes for the adults rather than the kids. The show has honestly made me tear up on more than one occasion. It's popular worldwide for very good reasons. It's also one of the most fascinating exercises in anthropomorphic animal fantasy I've seen in a long while. All the characters are dogs. But they are also people. They have houses an

I have no idea whether or not you'll be able to watch this movie by the time we post this review. Lindsay and I stumbled across this on Amazon Prime a while back. It looked like a weird take on A Christmas Carol, so we decided to check it out. As the credits rolled... well, that's actually one of the reasons I suspect you're not going to be able to watch this. It's not that the credits are particularly unusual: the majority are indistinguishable from a typical Hollywood movie's. It's just that the typical Hollywood movie they are indistinguishable from is specifically the 2019 film, Angel Has Fallen. Once Carol's Christmas runs through its actual cast and crew, it just sort of runs a chunk of credits from Angel Has Fallen. I should note they don't start at the beginning of Angel Has Fallen's credits: they start with the stunt performers. I took a picture: I have no idea if this was some sort of mistake (i.e.: if they uploaded the wrong file, perhaps

In a world where multi-season series are now set during the holidays, an actual three-episode miniseries almost feels quaint and old-fashioned, but that's exactly what the BBC's 2019 take on A Christmas Carol is. We've been meaning to watch this for a few years now, but somehow never got around to it until now. And now that we've finally watched this, I can definitely say... it is not what I expected. More specifically, it's completely different than it was marketed, and not just because the teaser made it look kind of good . From everything I'd seen about this, I'd assume it was going to highlight the horror aspects of its source material, which I've long felt get overlooked. But aside from a veneer vaguely mimicking that genre and a few jump scares, this isn't at all a horror in tone. First and foremost, it feels like a melodrama, with touches of horror and - surprisingly - comedy tossed in. Even more surprising, it's kind of a stretch to call

It's been a good time for foreign Christmas miniseries, thanks to streaming platforms being desperate for content. Continuing that trend is Días de Navidad, a three-episode Spanish show chronicling the lives of four sisters across different eras and - to a degree at least - genres. That last part is an aspect I'm probably going to fumble a bit, because I have a feeling there's an entire meta-narrative I'm missing concerning Spain's recent history and popular media. More on all that in a moment - first let's dig into that premise a bit. Actually, before we get to even that, let's start with a spoiler warning and a somewhat tentative recommendation. I liked this quite a bit, but I imagine the style and tone of this series will turn a lot of people off. This leans heavily on its drama and at times almost feels like a soap opera (albeit one with money to burn). To be honest, I'm not sure why this didn't bother me more - normally, I don't give drama t

I want to start by saying upfront: you should discourage your kids from watching these. I'm not joking. And I'm not saying that because these are awful - they are, but that's the least of their problems. These specials cross a line between obnoxious and inappropriate in how they market their toys to kids. I'm not just talking about using animation as an extended ad, either -- this goes way beyond GI Joe or Transformers. GI Joe never explicitly told kids owning their crap would help save Christmas; these specials - all three  of these specials - quite literally convey that message. You want Santa's sleigh to fly? Help by "caring for" one of these three magic toys. I am not exaggerating. I don't recall ever seeing a show or special do anything like this before. With that out of the way, let's talk about the specials themselves, or rather the specials as a group. While all three contain unique characteristics, the overall concept and structure is iden

A minute or two into Santa Girl, I remarked to Lindsay that I'd seen student films with better production values. Ten minutes later, we paused the movie to check whether it actually was a student film. The answer is somehow both no and yes. Santa Girl was produced through a partnership with Shenandoah University. I'm still a little unclear on the specifics, but Shenandoah boasts the majority of the cast and crew are students . It shows! I was honestly a little surprised to learn the movie wasn't written or directed by students, too. Let's talk plot. The story is centered on Cassie Claus, daughter of Santa, reimagined as a calculating, business-oriented yuletide CEO. Cassie is betrothed to the son of Jack Frost, because the house of Santa requires their patronage in order to... Wait. Is this going for a corporate thing or a medieval royalty vibe? Both! Probably should have picked one, because the mixture comes off as incoherent. Regardless, Cassie isn't happy about h

Hjem til Jul is a Netflix-produced Norwegian semi-romantic Christmas comedy/drama series. As is becoming more and more common, it's produced as a solid block of Christmas entertainment, almost like they surgically removed a holiday episode, regrew it into a full organism, and discarded the rest. Alternatively, you could think of this as a movie that got chopped into episode-length pieces. That might be more accurate in some ways: Hjem til Jul's seasons are six episodes, each approximately 30-minutes long, so at plus-or-minus three hours, it's still within movie-length (though admittedly twice as long as you'd typically find within this genre). Be aware said movie would definitely be rated R. The humor is at times crass and explicit, and while the vast majority of the dialogue is in Norwegian, speakers occasionally switch to English to drop an F-bomb. This review is going to cover the first season - I'll do the second at a later time. Also, I guess there's a thir

So, technically I should probably open this with a spoiler warning, because structurally this is one of *those* movies where the entire plot hinges on a single misdirect, but... here's the thing. If you've ever seen a movie before - quite literally any movie - you will see the twist coming. Not near the end: from the moment the "twist" character shows up. Hell, I mostly figured it out from the trailer. By the time the obligatory realization montage plays and the main character realizes the truth, I literally said to the screen, "You don't have to do this - everyone gets it." But here's a twist you might not have seen coming: I love this movie. I love it unironically. Also, I love it ironically. This might be the first movie reviewed on Mainlining Christmas to earn both a "highly recommended" and a "so bad it's good" label. It feels like someone made a computer program watch 10,000 hours of Christmas movies and spit out a scrip

I watched and reviewed the original 1974 Black Christmas a full decade ago. You can click on that link if you want to, but I'll save you time by revealing the main two takeaways: I hated the original My reviews were crap back then I've since read some pieces that make me think I should probably revisit it, that perhaps quite a bit went over my head. I'm still skeptical I'd enjoy it, but there's a chance I might appreciate it a lot more.  I mainly bring that up to explain that while I'm familiar with the original, I'm in no way attached to it, which is probably for the best, since last year's film is less a remake than a complete reimagining of the premise. There are elements and ideas borrowed from the '70s film, but it's ultimately a new story. The premise this time centers on a sorority at a college founded by a misogynist who studied the black arts. The main characters are a pair of sorority sisters trying to navigate a culture of sexist tra