Mainlining Christmas

Netflix's new animated version of A Christmas Carol isn't a direct adaptation of the source material, but rather a loose remake of the 1970 theatrically released musical, Scrooge . When I first found out this was coming out, I was baffled as to why anyone would opt to do this. The book is public domain, so the only real reason to pay for the rights would be to gain access to the songs, which are - in my opinion, at least - among the movie's weaker aspects. There are also a handful of deviations from the source material made in the musical, but I found it hard to believe these would be appealing enough to warrant using it as a template. Perhaps the makers of this agreed, because the largest deviations are altered or removed and the songs are trimmed back, reimagined, and almost as often as not replaced with new versions. Further, the music here is secondary: I didn't try and time it, but I'd roughly estimate singing compromises between a quarter and a third of the ru

Spirited is one of the best movies based on A Christmas Carol ever made. I want to get that out of the way upfront, before we even get to what it is or what it's about. This is a fantastic musical adventure/comedy you should absolutely watch, and there's no reason to temper the experience with spoilers. So, if you're subscribed to Apple TV+, now's the time to stop reading and start watching. And if you're not subscribed, now's the time to remember they offer free one-week trials you can cancel before paying a cent. Okay, I'm assuming anyone still reading has already watched Spirited, so let's move on to the spoiler portion, beginning with something that's not really a spoiler at all. This isn't an adaptation of A Christmas Carol - it's a sequel. Also, weirdly, it starts with a virtually identical premise to a Hallmark movie released this year, Ghosts of Christmas Always . Both films are primarily centered on the ghosts, with Christmas Present

I'm honestly not sure which title to go with. It was originally released in the United States as "I Come in Peace," but the working title was actually "Dark Angel," which is how it was released in other markets. Since it's a US movie, I'll go with the US title, despite "Dark Angel" being the original intent. As you can probably guess from the fact it's being reviewed here, I Come in Peace is set around Christmas and makes heavy use of holiday decorations, music, and the like. The movie is an R-rated sci-fi/action/suspense/comedy starring Dolph Lundgren and directed by Craig R. Baxley, who seems to have primarily been a stunt coordinator, including work on The Predator (which is going to be extremely relevant to this discussion). Both titles reference the movie's alien antagonist, a super-strong humanoid visitor dressed in black with milky eyes and a propensity for uttering the words, "I come in peace," before murdering his vic

While it stops short of greatness, this Hallmark Christmas Carol/romantic comedy comes significantly closer than you'd expect. Frankly, only a weak ending keeps this from securing a full recommendation, and even then it's a close call. And coupled with the fact this thing offers quite a few surprise turns, if you generally enjoy these sorts of TV movies, you might want to stop reading and start watching before getting spoiled. First, I need to clarify that even compared to other border cases this isn't really an adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Instead, it attempts to build on movies like "Scrooged" and "It's Christmas, Carol" to further build out the sub-sub-genre of quasi-sequels set in a world where A Christmas Carol is based on a true story. I'm actually not the one choosing those examples, by the way: Ghosts of Christmas Always alludes to those movies when a character calls them out as his favorite versions of the story. I'm guessing &qu

Love Finds Andy Hardy is the fourth installment in a series of sixteen movies  about a family living in a generic, fictional America town. The titular character is played by Mickey Rooney in all sixteen of the films, and he has by far the most significant role in the film. Apparently, earlier installments were more focused on the family as a whole, but by now the series had turned into a vehicle for Rooney, who was at the time one of Hollywood's biggest draws. If you're wondering why time basically swallowed up a film series that lasted into double-digits, the answer - at least in my opinion - is that this thing is about as boring as movies come. That's unfair, of course. I'm watching this more than eighty years after its release, and - as I'll cover in a moment - it likely influenced countless pieces of media I'm familiar with. Tropes and jokes are boring after you've seen them a thousand times, but they were all original once. And, as far as I can tell, th

Strictly speaking, this probably doesn't need  to be revisited. Lindsay reviewed it back in 2011 , and while it's more a summary than what we do these days, it's more substantial than most of our reviews from the first couple years of the blog. Even so, I'm trying to rewatch every significant adaptation of A Christmas Carol, so I've got some thoughts. This is, of course, the CG motion capture version directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge and all three spirits. The intention was to bring Charles Dickens's story and John Leech's illustrations to life through the use of modern visual effects. Motion capture offered a way to merge performance with animation to an extent that hadn't previously been possible. It was a lofty goal. I don't think it's controversial to say they failed miserably. There's something deeply wrong with the way the human characters (and most of the spectral ones) appear. They resemble grotesque wax f

I picked this at random, not realizing a few things: first, it's based on a novel  Lindsay read and reviewed  a few years ago. Second, it's the second movie in a series surrounding the same characters. This is, essentially, the Christmas installment of both the book and movie series. Because I didn't see the first movie, I'm not familiar with the characters, so it's possible (however unlikely, in this case) I'm missing significant context to appreciate jokes, arcs, and the like. In theory, movies are supposed to be made so viewers can watch without first seeing earlier installments, though television shows aren't under that assumed constraint. I'm not entirely sold on that idea as it pertains to movies, and in this case, the situation feels even more muddled. I'm really not sure this can reasonably be called a movie: it feels far more like a long television episode in terms of structure, character, and production values. I should mention this is a Ha

This one's going to be weird because I'm still trying to figure out what kind of movie I just watched. Wikipedia describes it as a noir crime, IMDB has it tagged drama and romance (in addition to crime), and until the end, I was certain I was watching a comedy (still not entirely convinced I wasn't, despite... well... we'll get to that). I don't necessarily consider it a bad thing that this is difficult to identify, though I'm torn on whether it's a case of a complex premise or just a disjointed tone. Normally, this is where I'd go read some articles on the movie, but those don't seem to exist. So... I guess I'm just going to do my best here. First, a word of warning. This movie contains a couple details that haven't aged well. First, there's sort of a running plot thread about spousal abuse that at times feels like it's being played for laughs. To be fair, it takes a turn and gets serious later - the movie is making a pointed argumen

For those of you who - like me - don't have much of a background in 1930s film, this is for all intents and purposes the movie that cemented Shirley Temple as a child superstar. Along with two other films she made the same year, it also netted her an honorary Juvenile Academy Award, the first of its kind awarded. This is also the origin of the song, "On the Good Ship Lollipop," which... is not a mark in its favor, in my opinion. Let's jump into the story. Shirley Temple plays Shirley, a part you'll be shocked to hear was written for her. Shirley is obsessed with aircraft, largely because her late father was a pilot. She spends most of her time at the airfield with her godfather, James, who'd been her father's closest friend. When she's not there, she's living with her mother, a maid boarding with her employers, the Smythes, who are greedy, selfish, and self-obsessed. Also living with the Smythes is their uncle, Mr. Smith, who's standoffish but

We've seen this before, of course - Lindsay did a brief write-up back in 2010 . But we were overdue for a reexamination of this even before I set out to watch every significant version of A Christmas Carol ever made. I realize this isn't a popular opinion, but I'm not a huge fan of this movie. There are elements I really like, and I admire what they're trying to pull off here. But as a whole, I think it fails more than it succeeds. It tries to be too many things and doesn't manage to pull its disparate parts together. First, let's try and break down what this is trying to do. The Muppet Christmas Carol represents a surprisingly high-concept approach to the material - this really isn't just the Muppets doing Dickens. The best description I can offer is it's a relatively straightforward adaptation of the story (aided by musical numbers), paying homage to previous adaptations, with a Muppet narrator and supporting cast accompanying Michael Caine as he encou

We're trying to catch up on at least a few Hallmark Christmas movies this year. We mostly dropped them a while ago, in part because we got tired of writing what felt like the same review over and over again, and in part because it became easier to watch similar offerings from streaming services we were already subscribed to. But after stumbling across a few better-than-average offerings, we found ourselves wondering if the production company had improved, or if we'd just seen a few anomalies. Consider this a data point in what will no doubt be a long attempt to answer that question. And this data point is a check in the "anomalies" column. Every Time a Bell Rings is a Christmas dramedy centered around three adopted sisters, now grown up, dealing with unresolved issues, life events, and the loss of their father, all while reviving a childhood tradition in which they complete a scavenger hunt to try and locate a bell family legend claims grants wishes. I'll tell you