Mainlining Christmas

Not to be confused with any of the scores of non-Ukrainian-horror movies with the same title, this centers around a woman trapped on a desolate mountainside in Georgia (the country, not the state) being hunted by someone on a snowmobile. The movie has a couple merits - we'll get to those - but on the whole this is style over substance where the style gets old quickly. Director and co-writer Stanislav Kapralov is trying to create a modern Christmas ghost story, but he's stretching material appropriate for a short into a full length movie. By the time we get to the end, we've figured out the two or three twists the movie could take, and when we get to the final reveal, there's no way it can't be anticlimactic. The movie, which features five significant characters and maybe twice as many bit parts, probably didn't cost an awful lot to make, but it had the resources for some realistic (and at times disturbing) make-up effects. Visually, it compares to US movies with...

Your experience with "How to Deter a Robber" is going to depend on your expectations for the film and what you want out of it. This is a low-budget suspense/comedy that understands its budget limitations and works around them. Despite some over-the-top characters, the movie is more grounded in reality than things of this type usually are. If you go into this wanting a surreal nightmare brought to life, you're going to be disappointed. The movie doesn't deliver buckets of blood or a high body count, the villains aren't evil (or at least one of them isn't), and the protagonists aren't action heroes. To the movie's credit, this is criticizing power fantasies ( Home Alone , in particular), not trying to replicate them. All of that is clever and entertaining, but it does come with a bit of a caveat. While the movie is amusing and fun, it's not amazing or emotionally moving. It's a solid hour and a half that offers an experience more in line with wat...

This 2020 British adaptation offers a somewhat unique approach to A Christmas Carol. It's actually a little hard to explain, because the short version, "A Christmas Carol reimagined through modern dance," doesn't actually convey the experience. Perhaps it should, though: the movie's main flaw is it tries to do too much at once and as a result kneecaps some of its best assets. The film starts with a Victorian family preparing a sort of miniature stage, complete with tiny paper characters. The kids are essentially cutting up newspaper and constructing a model using the illustrations and words. Once they've finished, the matriarch begins telling the story, heavily using Dickens's text. We then cut to the world of the model for the performance. This is one of the aspects that makes me almost want to recommend the movie despite... well, we'll get to the "despite" in a moment. But the sets are breathtaking and inventive. The story plays out in a wo...

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...

2020 was the year studios and TV networks simultaneously decided to acknowledge the existence of same-sex couples in Christmas romcoms. The highest profile example was of course Happiest Season  (still great). That year also saw the release of Lifetime's first holiday romcom with gay leads, The Christmas Setup . Around the same time, Hallmark released The Christmas House, their first Christmas movie with.... er... This is actually a bit complicated. The Christmas House is not centered around a same-sex couple, though the movie includes one in a significant supporting role. To put this in perspective, this is one of three couples the movie showcases, and they're given the least plot. Just so we're clear on how small a step forward this actually represents for Hallmark. That's not to say the gay characters in The Christmas House are bad. Brandon and Jake are given some good lines and some fun moments, and the movie does a decent job avoiding cliches and stereotypes. It a...

Over the past few years, I've been transitioning towards favoring original titles over translations when reviewing foreign films when practical, both in the header and in the text. Well... I've got limits, so I'm going to be referring to this film from Denmark by its English title from here on out: Riders of Justice. Sorry, Danish speakers: your word for "justice" is just a tad too righteous for me to type out. I'm seeing this referred to as an action/comedy, which feels like a bit of a stretch. Maybe it's because I'm overly familiar with American action movies, which almost invariably include comedic beats, but I'd almost classify this as drama before comedy. Sure, it's funny, but - again - I expect that of action films. The presence of trauma is a bit more surprising. Before considering whether it's either - hell, even before I'd bother with "action" - I'd consider this an existential film. Riders of Justice is fundament...

I'm fairly certain Wir Können Nicht Anders is the first German movie we've looked at. I should probably note you won't have much luck finding this under that title - it was released in the US as "Christmas Crossfire," with the "Crossfire" part written in blood. I understand badly translated titles is kind of a foreign language Christmas movie tradition, but this one feels particularly egregious. While there is some violence and a touch of suspense, this isn't horror or even action: it's a comedy. A dark comedy, certainly, but nothing like that title implies. A closer translation (at least according to Google Translate) would be "We Can't Help It," which makes infinitely more sense. I'll be sticking with the German name, because I can't bring myself to keep typing Christmas Crossfire. Tonally, this bears some similarities to US dark comedies (think movies by Martin McDonagh, such as In Bruges ). If I knew virtually anything a...

A few years ago, we were surprised and delighted by Angela's Christmas , which was a joy in basically every way. I actually remember seeing that this sequel existed last year, but I was hesitant about it. No more source material plus a lot of good press for the first one could easily lead to something rushed and poorly written. And even in the best-case scenario, what could possibly live up to the first special?  Well, not this, but it's still very good. Funny, charming, adorable, uplifting, and really grounded in ways that animation often isn't. It's just not, you know, transformative children's media. If you liked the first one, I recommend you check this out. If you didn't see the first one, go watch that! Angela's Christmas Wish (also marketed as Angela's Chrismas 2) starts with an introduction that takes place before the events of the first movie, in which we see Angela's dad get on a boat for a job in Australia. (Reminder that this all takes pl...

Over Christmas is a German dramedy miniseries streaming on Netflix. It's getting a little hard to tell, but I believe this was actually a Netflix production, rather than a series they picked up after the fact, though I suppose that's kind of academic, anyway. Supposedly, there's a second season in the works. The story centers around Bastian, a former resident of a small German town who moved to Berlin after high school to pursue a career as a musician. To put it mildly, things haven't been going well - he's still pining over a breakup the year before, he's working in a call center, and his auditions haven't been going well. But despite everything, he's excited to return home for Christmas. So you already know that's going to go poorly. Really poorly, in fact, beginning with the rather abrupt discovery the ex he's pining over shows up to spend Christmas as his brother's guest. Bastian then hooks up with one of his brother's exes, he and hi...

Not to be confused with either of the crappy low budget holiday flicks of the same name we looked at six years ago, Dear Santa is - at least ostensibly - a documentary about Operation Santa , the US Postal Service program that connects letters written by children with volunteers eager to fulfill those requests. I say "ostensibly" because I honestly don't think "documentary" is at all an accurate description, or at the very least not a complete one. While aspects of this qualify, I think the majority is closer to both reality television and a public relations video. That isn't to say it's bad - I actually think it's both technically well made and emotionally effective - it's just not really being truthful about the program or - unless I miss my guess - its participants. The lie around the program itself is understandable. They want this to be viewable by kids, so both the origins of Operation Santa and its current policies are explicitly connect...

Hilda is an animated Netflix series adapted from a series of graphic novels inspired by Scandinavian folklore. The art style mimics the feel of the comics it's based on, building a world that honestly looks like drawn pictures come alive. Depending on the episode, you might end up seeing something wacky and fun, magical and awe-inspiring, or even a little dark and unnerving. It's an absolutely phenomenal show, beautifully written and animated, and we recommend you watch it at once. Which of course poses a bit of a problem. The holiday episode I'm about to discuss is towards the end of the second season, so while I absolutely recommend it, I'd suggest watching the rest of the series first. This isn't so steeped in continuity that you'll be spoiled or confused: it's just better in context. The main character of the series, unsurprisingly, is Hilda, an adventurous preteen girl who moves to Trolberg, a cross between a modern city and a walled medieval village. T...

We've watched a lot of Nutcrackers over the years, but nothing like Debbie Allen's Hot Chocolate Nutcracker.  Created as a showcase and fundraiser for the Debbie Allen Dance Academy (DADA), the Hot Chocolate Nutcracker appears to follow the rough outlines of the traditional ballet (girl gets toy at party, toy breaks, magic happens, crazy tour through fantastical realms), but replaces the standard dance and music with dialogue, comedy, and a vast and ever-evolving variety of musical and dance styles.  I say "appears to" because this documentary follows the rehearsal and backstage information about the show. It's not a recording of a full performance, so we only get to see snippets.  Interspersed with clips of rehearsal and interviews with young performers, we also get basic background on Allen's career, the founding of DADA, and some of the ongoing barriers facing Black dancers, particularly in ballet.  I felt the film was fairly well-balanced between showing t...

Just as a number of Hollywood productions with 2020 release dates got pushed to streaming, quite a few foreign films intended for theaters were picked up by streaming services hoping to expand their customer base internationally. A side effect of this is a number of movies that would otherwise never have seen US releases are readily available, offering a glimpse into how other countries view Christmas media. In this case, that apparently boils down to a fairly by-the-numbers knock-off of English language holiday fare. De Familie Claus (I'll call it "The Claus Family" going forward, since the title isn't getting mangled) is a live-action Dutch language kid's fantasy/dramedy from Belgium about a kid discovering he's the secret heir to the Santa dynasty. If that sounds like Arthur Christmas, you're both right and wrong: there's a hall of Santas set more or less directly lifted from that movie, but they've otherwise deviated from the formula, particula...

I held off on this one when it came out last year, because I didn't want to contribute anything towards salvaging Mel Gibson's career. He's had more chances than damn near anyone, and he doesn't deserve another. At the same time, this is a bizarre spin on Santa, so I felt like I had to get to it eventually. And of course, I was incredibly curious. If you missed the trailers, Fatman is a dark comedy-action-drama-superhero movie about an aging Santa and Mrs. Claus trying to keep their Alaskan factory afloat through difficult times, and also Santa's being hunted by a sociopathic hitman hired by a kid seeking revenge over a lump of coal. So, yeah, that at least sounds like something I'd be interested in. The problem for me is the movie works so hard doing all that competently, it doesn't actually get around to justifying the premise in the first place. In other words, this movie is fine but ultimately forgettable, which is kind of a major failing in a premise th...