Mainlining Christmas

The Electric State is not a Christmas movie, at least not in my opinion. It only has two scenes which incorporate holiday elements: a flashback to a holiday interaction and a sort of virtual reality recreation of that same holiday at the end. Had the context been a little different, the finale set at the virtual holiday might be enough to justify arguing this counts as a Christmas movie (plenty of romcoms - including the classic Holiday Inn - have effectively claimed the label under similar circumstances). But for reasons we'll go into, the context here is a little different. So why talk about it at all? Well, because I've got some thoughts about the Christmas elements, and I think it makes for an interesting case study in the way holidays are often utilized in film. I should note this is one of the very few aspects of The Electric State I found remotely interesting. I'll start by saying I'm not approaching this with any kind of axe to grind against the Russo brothers....

Pinning this down to a genre - or even a short list of genres - is virtually impossible. The movie, for better and worse, plays like a barrage of ideas and imagery drawn from Ghostbusters, Blade, Marvel movies (Doctor Strange in particular), The Matrix, Men In Black, as well as more obscure fare - there's a surprising amount of The Frighteners in this. Meanwhile, the pacing feels like it's right out of a Michael Bay Transformers movie, which I promise is only 50% intended as an insult (Nekrotronic, for all its faults, is consistently interesting to look at, which is no small feat on a limited budget). If I had to try to classify this, I'd settle on action/adventure/comedy/horror/fantasy/superhero. More than any of that, this feels like a tongue-in-cheek two-decade-late adaptation of Mage: The Ascension (ask your parents to ask those weird people they knew in college). You'll note something was missing from that long line of genres: Christmas movie. And that's going ...

I mean, I put it on, so I really don't have anyone to blame but myself. Bikini Bloodbath Christmas is the third movie in the Bikini Bloodbath series, an extremely low budget horror/comedy franchise I'm guessing was not intended to be watched or considered critically (or sober, for that matter). I don't even mean that as a slight - this is the sort of thing that's mainly just in-jokes and over-the-top sequences parodying mainstream entertainment. It's not pretending it's anything other than bad, which is a good thing because - make no mistake - it is bad. I should probably add I haven't seen the first two installments, nor do I intend to. This stuff isn't for me. I'm not sure it's for much of anyone anymore, given how dated the references feel, but that's another matter. I'll do my best to offer a synopsis, but I'm not sure there's much to say. Part of the joke is there's really not a lot of story here, and what is present inte...

You'll generally only see this marketed in the US under the title, "A Christmas Tale", which seems be an accurate translation, with the caveat "Cuento de Navidad" is also how "A Christmas Carol" is often translated into Spanish. The other part of the full title, "Películas para no dormir," is the series it's from, consisting of six Spanish TV horror movies originally airing in 2005. That's... actually the short  version: if I'm understanding right, they were sort of a revival for a television series called "Historias para no dormir" which was produced sporadically from the late 60s to early 80s, but let's just focus on what's at hand. I don't believe any of the other five films in the 2005 series were set at Christmas, though I'm tempted to watch to find out. Because "A Christmas Tale" (or whatever you want to call it) is absolutely phenomenal. There's no "graded on a curve" or ...

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...

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 ...

This 2023 Canadian movie is difficult to categorize. For purposes of marketing, it appears to be getting classified as some sort of horror/comedy or comedy/thriller, but - aside from a couple brief shots that feel as if they were wedged in as an excuse to connect it to the popular horror genre - this is really more a Christmas comedic fantasy. It's admittedly in the grey area between genres, but it's closer to something like The Bishop's Wife  or even last year's Dear Santa than It's a Wonderful Knife . The nebulous genre isn't an issue; the fact it's not all that good, however, is. That's also unfortunate, because the movie has a lot of potential. The premise is bonkers in the best way possible, and there are a handful of twists and concepts that are brilliantly inspired. Sadly, the pacing is off throughout, the ending is underwhelming, and whatever lore is supposed to be underlying this fails to coalesce. In addition, the movie is light on the sort of...

Lindsay and I wound up seeing this because our daughter has become fixated on Winne the Pooh. I believe we've now watched or re-watched all of the animated movies at least once; most more than that. Judging by her level of excitement while this was playing, I'm guessing we're going to watch this several more times, so I actually wanted to write it up before I become sick of the damn thing. "More sick" might be a more accurate description. Don't get me wrong: I'm a fan of the bear with very little brain and have been for a very long time. Hell, I used to wear a Winnie the Pooh pendant in college, and I'd take it out when asked about my religion. It was a joke, of course, but my affection for the character is genuine. I still love the original Disney shorts and the movie they were compiled into, and I was pleasantly surprised to find The Tigger Movie - something I'd last seen in theaters - holds up. The 2011 movie is pretty great, too. But as we'...

Another in a growing line of films I'd never seriously consider calling a Christmas movie, but it's old enough, interesting enough, and uses the holidays in an interesting enough (albeit limited) capacity to make it worth discussing here. The holiday, incidentally, is New Year's (I don't believe Christmas is so much as mentioned), and for the most part that holiday's role is symbolic - the leads discuss it several times, but it's in the context of plans that can never be. It's not technically part of the actual narrative, though there is a brief epilogue offering a glimpse of the day in question.  I should also note this movie is fantastic, offering a complex blend of drama and comedy, with the latter enhancing the emotional impact of the former, rather than detracting. The jokes, which I'll add are pretty hilarious, pull you into the sense of whimsy and hope that comes with falling in love, even if the situation is dire. Tonally, this is a fairytale set...

The Preacher's Wife has been on our watch list for years, but it's one of those movies that never seems to land on streaming services, or at least not ones we're subscribed to. Eventually I broke down and ordered a DVD, which then sat in a pile beside my TV for months. There it remained until someone commented on our 10 year old review of The Bishop's Wife  politely calling us out for not getting to the remake. Guess what we watched that night.  My first observation watching it was that I was going to need to rewatch the original if I wanted to have anything more substantive to say than, "yeah, this one's really good, too." Fortunately, the 1947 film is a lot easier to watch online than the remake, which is why you're getting a hybrid article covering both versions. Looking at them together has the unusual effect of making both seem even better. The films start with the same underlying premise but approach it in such radically different ways they feel ...