Mainlining Christmas

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

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

Yeah, we probably should have gotten around to this last year when it was relevant, but trying to prioritize the seemingly infinite number of streaming holiday movies is an exercise in futility. By the end of last year it became clear Carry-On was something of a hit, at least to whatever extent that term means for streaming, so... well... here it is now. Cutting to the chase, I liked this one despite a plethora of pretty serious issues. It's the sort of movie that has dozens of things wrong with it but a handful of strengths redeem the experience. In this case, those strengths mostly boil down to Jason Bateman and Danielle Deadwyler elevating this from a tedious unnecessary throwback to '90s suspense flicks to... well... a pretty entertaining unnecessary throwback to '90s suspense flicks. The premise focuses on a TSA employee who dreams of being a cop getting targeted and blackmailed by powerful forces who are attempting to get a chemical weapon onto a airplane on 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 think the most immediate thing you need to know about this movie before deciding whether to watch it or not is that writer/director Alice Maio Mackay is currently twenty years old, and this is not remotely her first movie. The fact she's making anything at that age, let alone horror films receiving relatively wide distribution, critical attention, and a growing fan base represents an awesome achievement, even before factoring in the fact this is a competently directed genre movie. However, that does mean we're talking about a microbudget independent production lacking the resources of a major studio. The narrative also stumbles at times... just not anywhere near as many times as you'd expect from something written and directed by a twenty-year-old. I wanted to open with that to explain why this is going to be tough to review. Compared against most low-budget independent films I've seen, Carnage for Christmas feels professional. But compared against, say, a five- or te...

Some of my least favorite reviews to write are low-budget, independent horror flicks. They're ambitious, they're low budget, they almost always have interesting premises, and - of course - they're almost always pretty bad. Silent Bite, a movie about a group of bank robbers who find themselves hiding out in a mostly abandoned hotel on Christmas Eve alongside a family of hungry vampire dominatrixes, is no exception. Despite some above-average performances and a couple unexpectedly good comedic sequences, the movie leaves you far more bored than you'd think possible given a 90-minute runtime and that premise.  I should note that I have only tidbits of information about this production. There's no Wikipedia page for the film, and a cursory internet search didn't reveal any in depth articles or interviews. This was made by a small production company that appears to specialize in this sort of thing. It was produced and written by Simon Phillips (who also plays one of ...

I always love stumbling across a Christmas movie while catching up on genre fare I missed. Is that weird? Most likely, but then so is this movie, so that's appropriate. I should acknowledge this is one of those times viewers of the film are likely going to be surprised to hear it described as a Christmas movie, as references to the season are relatively sparse. However, the timing is unambiguous and noted on multiple occasions - in fact, the movie goes out of its way a few times to keep Christmas present. There's no reason that Orlok's familiar needed to be captured in the Christmas market, for example, but the movie drops in that detail. The second half of the film is explicitly set during the holidays (possibly the 24th through 28th, though I'm making a few assumptions to get that specific), which is plenty to cement this as a Christmas movie, albeit a subtle one. Backing up, Nosferatu is a remake of F. W. Murnau's 1922 silent horror film, which in turn was an uno...

Easily one of the most polarizing Christmas movies in recent history, Christmas Eve in Miller's Point can be viewed as either a masterpiece of atypical narrative structure, or as a failed experiment. The problem I'm running into is I can't decide which side of that line I fall on. I find it a little easier to address the more pressing question most of you likely have: whether or not you should watch it. The answer is almost certainly not... unless you're a diehard cinephile, that is. Just to be on the safe side, let's get the spoiler warning out of the way. This is, after all, a new movie, and its fans absolutely adore it (with good reason, I think). I'm still trying to sort out where my opinion falls, but I don't want to spoil the story of a movie this controversial without giving you a chance to make up your own mind. So, just to be clear, if you're still reading after this sentence, you're doing so with the knowledge you're about to have the s...

Like its predecessor, the second Adult Swim Yule Log movie takes a lot of risks. But while this is ultimately a solid comedy/horror (leaning a lot more towards comedy this time), those risks don't pay off to anywhere near the same degree. It's probably unfair to expect otherwise, though: the first installment in this franchise felt revolutionary and exciting, essentially materializing a horror film from literal smoke. Even those of us not lucky enough to stumble on it organically when it aired advertised as a literal Yule Log video could sense the energy and excitement. That's just not here this time. While the movie has some very good and fairly original ideas, it ultimately feels much more conventional. This is a campy Christmas horror movie in the vein of Jack Frost (with the caveat I enjoyed this much more). It's got some practical creature and gore effects, an interesting premise exploring genre signifiers as a metaphor for trauma, and another good performance fro...

I find myself using the word "frustrating" a lot when talking about Hallmark Christmas movies and the adjacent genre they inhabit. In this case, I'm using it in a somewhat favorable light, as what's frustrating is the disconnect between the stuff that works and the stuff that doesn't. This starts out as a pretty serviceable comedy and maintains that for a little more than half its runtime before, well... we'll get to that. First, a little about what Sugarplummed is. Or even better, what it isn't. I'm seeing a number of sites list this as a romance, which is just plain wrong. Bizarrely wrong, in fact, to the point I find myself wondering if those categorizing it as such actually watched past the Hallmark logo. While the main character's relationship with her husband goes through a rough patch, it's all part of her strained relationship with her family, all of which is secondary to the central relationship at the core of this story: her friendshi...