Mainlining Christmas

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. 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. Regardless, this is fantastic, which means it's time for a mandatory spoiler warning. If you're a

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. 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. 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

I somewhat jokingly referred to this as the anti-Love Actually after watching it, and think that would probably be a good selling line to convince American audiences to give this French dramedy a shot. In a sense, that seems accurate - like Love Actually, this follows an ensemble of characters navigating a web of relationships and emotions, but the movie is unambiguous in its assessment of long-term monogamy. Virtually every character over the age of eighteen has been unfaithful to a partner; quite literally, every romantic relationship in the film has an expiration date. However, I now think my immediate reaction was incorrect. Despite La Bûche's pessimistic view of coupling - the movie ultimately embraces love in all its forms and does so enthusiastically. In this sense, it might be better described as a companion to Love Actually (albeit one likely to please that movie's detractors). Regardless, La Bûche is either the most cynically sweet or sweetly cynical Christmas movie I

For those of you who weren't reading last year, well... first of all, welcome to the party, pal! But second and more germane to the topic, I spent a comically large portion of 2022 watching and reviewing roughly fifty adaptations of A Christmas Carol, presumably making me one of the world's foremost masochists on the subject. This was still just a drop in the bucket as far as the breadth of TV and film versions of the story are concerned, but I managed to check off virtually every adaptation on my list. Virtually. There were a couple that slipped through the cracks. The most notable of which is an elusive 1940s version from Spain that's probably going to be one of those "white whales" I obsess over for decades. But after that, there was Ebenezer, a version starring Jack Palance, with the setting moved from London to the American West. This was an extremely late addition to my list - because the title differs from the usual pattern, it hadn't initially caught m

It's actually a little weird I've never seen this before. I was in high school when Grumpy Old Men came out in 1993, so the fact I never bothered seeing it on VHS or even caught it on television is a little unusual. Likewise, it has to be one of the most famous Christmas movies that somehow fell through the cracks this long. Part of that has to do with the fact it intentionally downplays some aspects of the holidays - more on that later - despite absolutely qualifying as a Christmas movie. The movie's primary selling point and presumably its reason for being made is its cast. The film stars Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as the titular grumpy old men, and if there's a reason to see this, it's them. Whether that's enough or not is a more difficult question. The movie is right on the line between "not quite good enough" and "just good enough." Frustratingly, it contains moments and elements of greatness it can't quite maintain. Lemmon and M

Executioners is the sequel to The Heroic Trio, a Hong Kong superhero team-up movie built around three superheroines: Wonder Woman (not that  Wonder Woman), the Invisible Woman (not that Invisible Women, either), and Thief-Catcher (not that... no, wait, I think we're good here). I should note that I have no idea whether the monikers of Wonder Woman and The Invisible Woman correspond with the respective names of the Marvel and DC heroes in Cantonese. The characters don't seem at all connected, for what that's worth. It's also worth noting that both films were released in 1993. If you're wondering whether Executioners feels rushed as a result... yes, of course it does. Obviously. But we'll circle back to that. Let's talk a little about the heroines. Wonder Woman, played by Anita Mui, is essentially a masked ninja, more akin to Batman than Diana Prince. Of the three, she's the most unambiguously heroic. Thief-Catcher (Maggie Cheung) starts out more in the ve

I first watched this about a decade ago, after a friend recommended it as a Christmas movie. I recall being a little annoyed at the time, both because I didn't particularly enjoy watching it and because it failed to meet my tests for qualifying as a Christmas movie. Upon re-watch, I stand by my assertion this is not, according to any meaningful use of the term, holiday entertainment (though I do have some thoughts on how Christmas is used). As for not thinking much of it, well... I'm glad I didn't review it back then. This adaptation is quite good, whether or not I was capable of appreciating it when I first saw it. There are some fairly large caveats to that praise, which I'll get to, but it succeeds in what it sets out to do, which is to adapt the story for the era it was made for. In this case, that largely meant updating characters and feminist themes to be more relevant to girls of the '90s. The movie focuses more heavily on Jo's writing than earlier films,

Right off the bat, I'm going to open with a simultaneous recommendation and a warning: this bizarre, British TV movie from the early '90s is well worth checking out provided you're able to stomach the racism. Because... yeah, the movie's approach to its subject matter, while clearly intended as tongue-in-cheek, absolutely exploits both the culture it's drawing its mythology from and the race of Lenny Henry, who plays the genie. For what it's worth, the movie's portrayal of race is good-natured and well intentioned, with the movie ultimately existing in part as an endorsement of diversity and immigration, but the subtext of a black immigrant being weird and silly by virtue of not understanding British customs is absolutely baked into the premise. I doubt it was a coincidence that the remake flipped the races of both the genie and Bernard (and, for what it's worth, the cast of the remake was one of its best assets). And speaking of the remake... I'm go

This animated TV/VHS adaptation is mainly notable for its cast, which includes Tim Curry as Scrooge, Ed Asner as Marley, Whoopi Goldberg as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Frank Welker as Scrooge's pitbull, Debit. Oh, yeah, also I should probably warn you they gave Scrooge a pitbull. It's that kind of animated adaptation. On top of everything else, it's also a musical, and not a particularly good one. The music itself isn't too obnoxious, but the lyrics are pretty idiotic. Let's talk about the changes to the story, of which there aren't many. Surprisingly, this sticks relatively close to the plot of the original, though the dialogue is somewhat modernized and simplified. The biggest change is (surprise, surprise) the aforementioned dog, Debit, who plays a fairly substantial role. I should probably specify the dog can't speak: Welker's making cartoon dog noises, not Scooby-Dooing in the middle of Dickens's work. Still, it's a very unwelcome ad

Ms. Scrooge was a made-for-TV Hallmark movie from the late 90s that attempted to update Dickens' classic while modernizing the setting and casting Scrooge as a black woman. To be clear, though, this isn't a case where the underlying situation and character are different: the main character is Ebenita Scrooge, and - while her backstory is a little different - the plot and most of the side characters are the same. This is still an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, rather than an homage or pastiche. I want to start out stating the obvious: this isn't at all good as a movie. But if you're approaching a Hallmark TV-movie from 1997 expecting cinematic excellence, you're going to be disappointed. This was never going to have the production values, time, or vision needed to turn it into something worthwhile. The effects are cheap and gaudy (though, for what it's worth, they're better than those in the 1999 TV adaptation with Patrick Stewart). That said, I think some

This seventy-minute TV movie falls in a microgenre in which preexisting characters are acting out a version of A Christmas Carol as part of a play or movie. The original is of course the Mr. Magoo special, though Looney Tunes, Disney, and The Muppets all attempted a similar premise, with varying levels of fourth wall breaks. I'd argue this is a distinct approach to homages in which characters are visited by spirits or in some other way put through a Dickensian trial as themselves. In this case, the characters are treated as actors playing the cast of A Christmas Carol. Well, sort of. Flintstones Christmas Carol alters the formula very slightly in a couple ways. First, it embraces the play-within-a-play motif to a far greater extent than its predecessors. Magoo's Christmas Carol acknowledges the play mainly in an introduction and conclusion, but makes few references throughout. Mickey's Christmas Carol includes no explanation whatsoever for the casting choices (though I'