Mainlining Christmas

I jokingly apologized to Lindsay while starting this. After all, it's a direct-to-video Tom and Jerry movie from 2007 based on The Nutcracker clocking in at just under an hour: every one of those details is a red flag that this will be awful. Seriously, by all rights this should be borderline unwatchable. Really, no logical way this could in any way be redeemable. Right? RIGHT? Well, apparently my understanding of the metaphysical laws governing our reality is less foolproof than I imagined, because this thing was kind of great. More than that, it was great for what would have been the last reasons I'd have expected, if the possibility had even crossed my mind (which, again, it hadn't). The Tom and Jerry stuff is fine but ultimately unremarkable, save for the fact it's barely an afterthought. Sure, there are sequences of zany, cartoon violence, but it's a fairly small part of the film. The bulk of this, and the reason it's good is.... Actually, it's kind of

I'm not certain I need to revisit this at all. Rereading my review from 2014 , I find my opinions haven't shifted much on rewatch. That said, having seen numerous other versions over the past few months has altered my perspective a bit. And, while I'm still not the world's biggest fan of this, its place in the history of Christmas specials kind of demands it be included in this year's project of watching every significant adaptation. I'll start with something positive I only glossed over in my initial review: Jim Backus, the actor who voices Magoo/Scrooge, delivers a phenomenal vocal performance here. He manages to simultaneously stay in character as Mr. Magoo while that character plays Scrooge, and through it all his performance is faithful to Dickens' work. I harped a great deal in 2014 on the downsides of doing this within a frame story of a Broadway production (and I'm going to again in a moment), but Backus deserves credit for pulling it off without

As far as I can tell, Northpole was an attempt by Hallmark to create a family-friendly holiday franchise in the vein of Disney. The fact you've almost certainly never heard of it offers a pretty good summary for how that went. They actually did make a sequel the following year: maybe we'll get to that one of these days. This actually isn't our first experience with the brand. To accompany the movie, Hallmark made a number of tie-in products, most   of   which   we bought and reviewed  (I'll talk about some of those later). This is part of the reason I think Hallmark was trying to turn this into something big: they clearly invested in this idea. Let's talk about what that idea actually was. In the context of the movie, Northpole is a magical city where Santa and his elves live. It's powered by magic snow, which falls from the northern lights, which in turn are powered by happiness. Or something. Look, the idea is that Northpole creates toys so kids will be happ

I'm not at all clear whether this Christmas western/fantasy from 1981 was made for TV or if it was released theatrically. I assumed the former while watching, as it looked formatted for that media, but I came across something implying this may have been due to higher-quality versions being lost (at least for a time). Regardless, this feels like a television movie from the '80s, though - for what it's worth - a relatively good one. Take that as a compliment or insult, depending on your impression of TV from the era. I should note the movie occasionally appears listed as just Christmas Mountain OR The Story of a Cowboy Angel, though both appear on the title screen. There also appears to be a little confusion over the date, with some sources listing 1980 and others 1981. The latter seems more reputable and matches the stamp on the streaming site carrying it, so that's what I'm going with.  The movie appears to have mainly been the creation of western star Mark Miller,

There were numerous live adaptations of A Christmas Carol made in the '40s and '50s, the majority of which were either lost or weren't notable enough to warrant a release. The Stingiest Man in Town seems to have been one of the better-regarded examples, and even that wasn't entirely exempt from being discarded. Until a black and white copy was found in the home of an Alcoa executive in 2011, it was believed lost. Since it's kind of miraculous any version exists, I won't complain too much about not being able to watch it in the original color. Let's back up. The Alcoa Hour was an anthology series sponsored by Alcoa, an aluminum company that's still around. This is the same anthology responsible for the 1955 version of Amahl and the Night Visitors . This 1956 musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol was one of the show's most famous installments. This was also remade as an animated movie in 1978. Scrooge is played by Basil Rathbone, best known as the de

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

All right, cards on the table: despite being plenty old enough to remember the marriage, divorce, and death of Diana, I didn't really pay much attention when it was going on. Or after, for that matter: I never found the news specials, documentaries, or movies/shows appealing. To put it another way, I know very little about the life and death of Princess Diana. I went into Spencer with virtually no context about her or the royal family. That might be an issue here, because I get the feeling you're supposed to have a little background before seeing this movie. It seems to be challenging the viewers' understanding of Diana, which presupposes you actually have one. I don't think this invalidates my opinion on the movie, but I want to be upfront about where I'm coming from and what my limitations are. If you're someone who's been fascinated by this person and the tragedy around her death, you're likely going to view Spencer through a very different lens and w

This 1938 MGM version of A Christmas Carol is notable (among other reasons) for being the first Hollywood adaptation of Dickens' classic with sound, though a British version starring Seymour Hicks beats it by three years and is, in my opinion, a far better film. That's not to say this one is bad - parts are fantastic - but the 1935 is difficult to beat. Tonally, this is far more comedic than its predecessor or most subsequent theatrical adaptations. I'll cover the changes in depth in a moment, but as a rule of thumb most of the darkest bits are excised, and the additions favor light, family-friendly fare. When it's not going for laughs, it skews towards lessons. This version is somewhat more instructive than I'm used to, often outright lecturing on morality, rather than having the protagonist come to his own conclusions. This story deviates significantly from the source material, perhaps more so than any major live-action version prior to the 2019 miniseries . As I

The first thing you need to understand about 1941 is the level of talent - both in front of and behind the camera - is unmatched in its genre. The cast includes Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Candy, Slim Pickens, Christopher Lee, Ned Beatty, Patti LuPone, and Toshiro Mifune, just to name a few. It was written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, who served as producers alongside John Milius. The movie was scored by John Williams, who belongs on the shortlist of greatest film composers of all time. And speaking of "greatest of all time," it's directed by Steven Spielberg. The second thing you need to understand is the movie is absolutely godawful. Just horrible. An utter mess of a film. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe you should flip those two bullet points, so "it sucks" is the first thing, and "it's made by unbelievably talented people" is #2. Before I go on, I need to specify there are two cuts of this movie. Right now, I'm reviewing

Credit where it's due: Netflix has mastered the art of producing low-to-mid budget TV Christmas romcoms capable of garnering far more attention than they deserve. This time, they managed to lure Lindsay Lohan into taking the lead role, presumably by offering her an ungodly amount of cash. The investment seems to have paid off, at least from a marketing perspective. The movie apparently attracted a great deal of interest and - assuming Netflix's numbers mean anything - quite a few views. As for the movie itself... well... you probably have a fairly good idea what I'm going to say. As a rule, I don't like these things. Falling for Christmas, like so many pseudo-fairytale G-rated holiday romances before it, seems to flaunt the fact the script isn't trying. It adheres to its formula and fills in the blanks with some of the worst dialogue I've heard in... well... honestly, I watched a Hallmark Christmas movie two days earlier, so the worst dialogue I heard in about 4