Mainlining Christmas

This noir film directed by Robert Siodmak stars Deanna Durbin, Dean Harens, and a relatively young Gene Kelly, which may be enough to pique some of your curiosity. Know the movie is extremely weird, with a plot that takes a while to establish what the story's going to be. That said, it's beautifully shot, with some impressive crane sequences, loads of shadows, and an appropriately dark story. This one's definitely not on the "feel good" end of the Christmas movie spectrum. It's worth noting this was loosely based on a novel, though there were some significant changes made to update the characters for an American audience and to avoid running afoul of censors. So a Russian prostitute is now a singer from Vermont, and the British POV character is transformed into an American soldier. The movie starts with the soldier, Charlie (Dean Harens), who's excited to be going on holiday, because he has plans to return to San Francisco and marry his fiancé. Only things...

I vaguely recall hearing some positive buzz when this came out, but because it premiered on a cable station as opposed to streaming, it wasn't really on my radar. I'm honestly a little surprised it took this long for someone to point me towards this. Setting aside the fact the tone and style are right up my alley, the first season is entirely set at Christmas, which is obviously why we're discussing it here. I'm glad I finally got a chance to watch this - it'd rank this on my list of favorite genre TV seasons in recent history. As to what genre... well.. that's where things get complicated, because the first season of Happy! isn't easily described. It's an adaptation of a Dark Horse comic book written by Grant Morrison, who also seems to have been heavily involved in the show. I've never read the comics, but I might have to track them down, if only to confirm or falsify some theories. There's sort of a vein in comics that plays with the fact the ...

Before I even get into the spoiler warning, I want to open this with a content warning. The movie I'll be talking about includes a sexual assault, and while I won't go into much depth in the review, I found it disturbing even relative to other films that touch on that subject matter. [Editor's note: I found this scene incredibly upsetting to watch. I was glad I sought out spoilers ahead of time so I knew what I was in for - Lindsay] If that's not something you're willing to sit through, you'll want to steer clear of this one... ...And I needed to open with that, because this is one of those movies where plot spoilers could impact your experience quite a bit. And also, yes, this is a pretty great sci-fi noir flick directed by Kathryn Bigelow, so it's probably worth your attention, assuming the last paragraph isn't a deal-breaker. The film definitely has some issues aside from that, so it's not like this is required viewing or anything, but it's g...

I'm not sure how this one flew under our radar for as long as it did. Lady in the Lake is an adaptation of a Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe mystery filmed almost entirely in first person from the perspective of Marlowe. Because of this, the movie is both directed and starring Robert Montgomery. Lady in the Lake is fascinating as a concept, yet somehow excruciatingly boring in execution. The solution to the mystery is needlessly complicated and poorly portrayed. Characters central to the mystery never appear on film, and significant sequences of Marlowe's investigation are skipped over and instead described in conversation. Most notably, the titular lady is never actually shown, nor is the lake, which is arguably the most significant location in the mystery. It honestly feels as though they couldn't find or afford a location, so they rewrote the script at the last minute. The plot is too convoluted to explain sequentially, so here's the idea. Marlowe is hired by Adrienn...

This is, for better and for worse, a pretty good example of what genre movies released in the '80s were actually like. Those of you born after the '80s probably think you know what the decade offered - after all, you've seen Ghostbusters, Terminator, Goonies, Blade Runner, Aliens, and a host of other films. But here's the thing: those were exceptions. Those were the movies that endured. The classics. The vast majority of 80's movies were... not those. They were this. Honestly, that might be generous. Trancers, an extraordinarily weird time-travel-action-Christmas-noir, is pretty good, as far as schlocky B-movies go. It's fun, campy, and inoffensive. I suspect this was trying to be a cult hit but didn't quite pull off the formula. Its weirdness feels a little too intentional, it's not bad enough to be "so bad it's good" but not quite good enough to be some sort of hidden gem. Still, it's a fun bit of '80s camp and a rare entry on our...

Nothing Lasts Forever is, arguably, the most influential Christmas novel written since A Christmas Carol, and if it's title hadn't been changed when it was adapted into a movie nine years later, I wouldn't have to explain why. That movie, incidentally, was Die Hard. I'm not sure what I expected from the book, but it wasn't this. I knew going in it was a sequel to a novel Thorp wrote in 1966 called The Detective. I've never read that, but I have seen the film adaptation, which starred Frank Sinatra in the lead role. It's pretty obvious from reading Nothing Lasts Forever that Thorp wrote this with Sinatra in mind. The plot. It's exactly the same as the movie's. Also, it's completely different. The book starts with Joe Leland (they changed his name along with the title for the film) being driven to the airport on Christmas Eve. Leland isn't actually a detective anymore: he left that profession at the end of the first book and became a ...

First of all, The Detective is not in any way, shape or form, a Christmas movie. It's not set at Christmas, and it isn't about Christmas, and I'm not claiming anything to the contrary. So. Why am I talking about it? While this isn't a Christmas movie, it is indirectly connected to one of the most significant Christmas movies ever made. The Detective is based on a book by the same name, and that book has a sequel called Nothing Lasts Forever which would be adapted into a movie two decades after this one. Unlike The Detective, the name "Nothing Lasts Forever" didn't survive the adaptation: they changed it to Die Hard. In other words, The Detective is John McClane's origin story. Well, sort of. The main character in The Detective was named Joe Leland, and several details about his relationship with his wife were notably different. But other details, like him being a New York police detective who breaks rules, are consistent. In some ways, I fou...

It's a few days before Christmas and bank manager Harry Fordyce (played by Peter Cushing) is making his employees' lives hell. It's not difficult to see the connections between Scrooge and Harry - hell, it's impossible to miss them as he quibbles over every trivial discrepancy and outright ignores their planned holiday party. Instead of a ghost, he gets visited by a robber masquerading as an insurance investigator. The thief reveals his true identity to Harry and also tells the manager why he should cooperate: his conspirators have abducted Harry's wife and son and are threatening to torture them. If Harry wants them released safely, he'll have to ensure the robbery goes off without a hitch. The movie is set almost entirely inside the bank, as Harry is forced to help the criminal outmaneuver his own security protocols. But in the process, Harry also realizes the same lessons Scrooge did a century earlier: that people matter more than money. It turns out ...

Distributed by Neflix and widely panned by critics, Mute is an SF/noir movie directed by Duncan Jones and set (spoiler alert) in continuity with Moon. I liked this quite a bit more than the average critic, but I won't deny it was a deeply flawed film. If you hear the words "SF/noir" and immediately think of Blade Runner, you have the right idea - Duncan was quite open about drawing his inspiration from Ridley Scott. Oh, also it's set at Christmas. I was a little surprised by that - I put it on because I'm a fan of the genre (the SF/noir genre, I mean, though obviously I'm also a fan of Christmas movies). It wasn't until decorations started popping up that I realized I'd be writing a review. More on all that in a bit. Set in the not-too-distant future of 2035, Mute follows two plot lines simultaneously. The ostensible POV character is Leo, a mute Amish man living and working in Berlin. He more or less lives for his girlfriend, Naadirah, a...