Mainlining Christmas

Spoiler Alert is a romantic dramedy starring Jim Parsons based on a memoir titled, "Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies at the End", directed by Michael Showalter (the guy who made The Big Sick). The adaptation is co-written by Dan Savage, making his screenwriting debut. That's a pretty remarkable collection of talent, and I didn't even mention that Sally Field and Bill Irwin have supporting roles. The movie is effectively split into two sections: the first is a straightforward rom-com about a gay couple falling in love, building a life together, and encountering complications. Around the halfway mark, the film pivots to drama, as one of the two leads is diagnosed with cancer, which eventually kills him. The movie let's you know where it's heading at the start (sooner, if you're familiar with the full title of the book it's based on), but that doesn't make the transition any less jarring. That's intentional, obviously. The movie is an exploration of t...

I've encountered a few movies from the 1930s that follow a similar template to Made for Each Other, a film that shifts genre relatively dramatically between comedy and melodrama. The idea seems to be to offer a film encompassing a bit of everything, or at least as close as they could cram in. This can feel off-putting now that we're no longer accustomed to this particular mix of tones, but conceptually it's not all that different than what Marvel movies attempt: it's only that the specific genres being incorporated have changed. That does mean this movie feels dated in a way several more straightforward comedies don't. The first half of Made for Each Other holds up pretty well, but as the movie grows more and more serious, I found it difficult to enjoy unironically. Though, for better or worse, moments of the last third kind of come off as unintentionally funny. The movie stars Carole Lombard and James Stewart as newlyweds Jane and John, who eloped immediately after...

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...

This fifteen-minute film tells a story about conjoined homes housing two families, the Giltons and the Biltons. The Giltons have no children but are well off financially. Mr. Gilton is curmudgeonly and selfish, though his wife seems nice enough. The Biltons, in contrast, have three kids and are relatively happy, but they are poor and struggle to make ends meet. So, yeah, we're doing a Scrooge riff, minus the ghosts.  Anyway, the film takes us through a number of brief interactions, the first few show us that Mr. Gilton is a dick. He does have a dog, though, so I guess he's not all bad. Correction: he had a dog - it gets poisoned pretty quick. We never actually learn how the dog got poisoned, and the sparse use of title cards makes it difficult to tell exactly what's going on. My impression is that Gilton suspects his neighbors were somehow responsible, though it's a safe bet they're innocent (they're pretty much paragons of virtue; besides, they liked the dog)....

This fifteen-minute film was directed by D.W. Griffith, which should probably be addressed before we get into the movie itself. Griffith of course also directed the 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, which glorified the founding of the KKK. I am not a film historian, nor have I actually seen Birth of a Nation, so I will not be commenting on its significance in the history of the medium. I will say that any discussion of Griffith as a filmmaker - or any of his films - should probably acknowledge his legacy is at least as connected to the history of white supremacy as it is to the evolution of early film. For what it's worth, I actually watched A Trap for Santa Claus and wrote the remainder of this review prior to realizing who directed it. In short, I'm not just attempting to separate the art from the racist here: I literally didn't notice until after. The story starts with a family down on their luck. Unable to find work, the father is taking their misfortune particularly hard a...

I'm continuing my exploration of Little Women, despite most adaptations falling well short of our usual yuletide requirements. Today, I'm moving on to the 1949 version, which was essentially a remake of the 1933 film. You'd think that would mean my opinion would be the same, but - between the two - I prefer this by quite a bit. I'm in the minority on that opinion, by the way: the 1933 is widely considered the stronger film, with Katherine Hepburn even more widely considered the better Jo. But, as I said in my review of that film, Hepburn felt miscast to me - I just couldn't see her as the character. I don't think June Allyson was by any means a perfect casting choice in the remake (she was in her thirties, and you can absolutely tell in close-ups), but she works better as a teen in my opinion. Likewise, the supporting cast here is stronger, or at the very least more in line with what I want from this kind of movie. The 1933 version was comparatively straightforw...

This one got on my radar because William Shatner plays the Ghost of Christmas Present, and I really wanted to be able to say I've seen versions of A Christmas Carol starring four Starfleet captains. As the title implies, this is a gender-flipped adaptation. Set in the present day (or at least what those of us who are growing old still think of the present day), this Hallmark movie focuses on self-centered TV personality, Carol (Tori Spelling), who's preparing to do a live broadcast on Christmas Eve and who... Hold on. That sounds kind of familiar. Let me check my notes... Undervalued assistant who purchases presents for boss's sibling's family... Love interest who's devoted their life to helping the homeless... Comedic ghosts played by famous actors... This isn't based on A Christmas Carol: it's a knock-off of Scrooged. Okay, maybe not tonally. This is far more... well... Hallmark in its approach. At least it's 2003 Hallmark, before the studio mandated ...

By their nature, movies with titles like this always fall into one of three buckets: either they're inexplicably amazing, bad in an amazing way, or just borderline unwatchable. I went in hoping for that middle option, as those are the most fun, with "amazing" as a second choice. Unfortunately, neither was to be, so we were stuck watching just a godawful low-budget kids' flick. The primary issue here isn't the story or dialogue, though neither is particularly good. Rather it's the pacing that makes this drag. Most of the time when I refer to pacing as an error I mean structural pacing: the length, arrangement, and layout of scenes. Typically, pacing complaints fall on the writer and editor. But Unicorn for Christmas doesn't even reach that point: the problem here is how each and every scene is directed and acted. Characters speak slowly, as if concerned the audience will be unable to follow along. Running this movie at 125% speed would honestly help. Becaus...

Let's start with the disclaimer: The Best Man Holiday is the sequel to The Best Man, a 1999 dramedy I haven't seen, meaning thematic and story connections between the films almost certainly went over my head. As such, I'm only able to review this as a standalone installment, rather than a piece of a longer story. There's a popular perspective that this shouldn't be a shortcoming in my ability to review a work, as movies supposedly need to be able to stand on their own. I do not share that ideology - I believe that presumed context isn't an unreasonable assumption on behalf of filmmakers and that those of us lacking that context should at the very least be upfront about it. Hence this paragraph. I don't feel quite as bad about this as I sometimes do, because the bulk of what I have to say is going to be positive and most of my complaints relate to story beats and character choices wholly contained within the narrative of this film. On top of that, I found eve...

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...

I'll start by saying upfront that anyone who loves the original is probably going to love this. It does an admirable job of recreating the look, sound, and feel of the 1983 film, which takes skill, time, and care. This is a movie created with love for fans. And I am most certainly not one of them. I have no nostalgic connection to the original, and I don't find the experience of sitting through it at all enjoyable. So it should come as no surprise that I didn't much like this one either. That's not the same as the movie being bad. In a real sense, this is a good movie. It set out to do something that couldn't have been easy, and it succeeded in its goal. Taking a step back, I respect what they achieved, even if I didn't enjoy it. At all. Seriously, I found this a chore to sit through, and - in case anyone needs to be reminded - I'm the guy enthusiastically watching dozens of adaptations of A Christmas Carol this year. Because not enough people are angry with...

Depending on how you're approaching it, Christmas at the Golden Dragon could alternatively be described as a departure for Hallmark Christmas movies or a fairly by-the-numbers installment. It is, ultimately, a paradox in that respect: it looks and feels like a generic TV movie, but differs from others I've seen both structurally and in several details. I should pause here to acknowledge I'm not exactly a connoisseur when it comes to these films. While I've seen a somewhat absurd number of theatrically released Christmas movies and more than my fair share of assorted television movies, I'm actually trying to catch up on Hallmark specifically. So take that last paragraph with a grain of salt. The main way this differs from the usual Hallmark fare is it lacks any kind of central lead or core story. Christmas at the Golden Dragon feels roughly modeled after ensemble films like Love Actually. If anything, this might push the concept a little further, in that Love Actuall...

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...