Mainlining Christmas

First, I want to clarify that this isn't the infamous Christmas episode where the Devil shows up. That was released in 1982. and we discussed it back in the first year of the blog (apologies for the lack of detail - we had a very different concept of what this was back then). 'Tis the Season is a special from 1987, during the seventh season of The Smurfs. If you're just now realizing a seventh season exists, you're in good company - I'd have guessed three. Turns out there were actually nine, but that's outside the scope of this review. The three main characters featured in this are Grampa Smurf, Sassette, and Wild Smurf, and I don't know who the Smurf any of these Smurfs are. Grandpa, unsurprisingly, is basically an older version of Papa Smurf. Sassette is a young girl, so... I guess Smurfette isn't the only female Smurf anymore? And Wild Smurf is basically Tarzan. He primarily communicates by making animal noises, and from context I'm guessing he w...

Released alongside the live-action Smurfs movie on DVD, The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol is a mix of 3D and 2D animation loosely adapting Dickens' story. I should probably note that I've never seen the movie this ties to: I only subject myself to things like that when Christmas is involved. The story is, of course, set in Smurf village, which is getting ready for Christmas. Everyone's singing "Smurf the Halls" and decorating except Grumpy Smurf, and when the others confront him, he tells them he hates the holiday and won't decorate or celebrate with them. This comes as a surprise to his neighbors: despite his name and personality, he apparently used to like Christmas. They all gather together to try and find a way to improve Grumpy's disposition - because it won't be the same if everyone doesn't conform to the culturally and commercially mandated yuletide enthusiasm. Seriously, cartoons need to stop pulling this crap. The problem with Scrooge isn'...

First, a note on the title. Or titles, more accurately. The book this is taken from is a collection of short stories that translates to "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka," and the story in question is "The Night Before Christmas." Because of this, it's not too surprising this has been released with both titles. In fact, both appear separately in the film, itself. It's not the first adaptation of the work - I've already reviewed the 1913 version, which introduced me to the story. This version was directed by Alexander Rou, who'd go on to make  Morozko a few years later. It shows: the two movies look similar in style. I'm not complaining, mind you - I enjoyed Morozko quite a bit. The plot to this is very close to that of the 1913 adaptation, so I'll forego repeating the full synopsis. There are some shifts in how it's all presented that are worth highlighting, though. The 1913 version presented the hero, Vakula, as something of a comically ...

This 41-minute silent film is based on a 19th-century novel by Nikolai Gogol and directed by the legendary stop-motion pioneer,  Ladislaw Starewicz . It's the first adaptation of this work - expect a review of the 1961 version, titled "Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka," soon, but for now let's focus on the 1913 adaptation, which is... well... it's bonkers. Let me jump right into the plot. The movie starts by introducing us to Solokha, the witch, and her demonic lover. Apparently, the book makes it clear this is a devil, rather than THE Devil, but it was a bit ambiguous in the movie (there's a decent chance that might be due to the translation, though). At any rate, they climb up Solokha's chimney, fly around on her broom, and briefly steal the moon before returning to her home. Around this time, Solokha's son, Vakula, is trying to convince Oksana to marry him. She dismisses the idea but mockingly offers him a chance: if he can bring her the Tsar's d...

Masters in This Hall K.J. Charles, 2022 After watching so many Hallmark movies this year, I was beginning to forget that humans feel any emotion stronger than the desire for a single chaste kiss. Happily, one of my favorite romance authors came to the rescue with a surprise new holiday novella! This is technically part of her Lilywhite Boys series, but it easily stands alone. The series generally features criminals and detectives plotting schemes and romance in late-Victorian era London. In keeping with the theme, the main character in this novella is hotel detective John Garland, recently fired from his job due to a major robbery occurring on his watch. The man he suspects of the crime has been hired to run a grand week-long Christmas party at his wealthy uncle's estate, so John turns up to try to defeat any further skullduggery.  Of course, he is also desperately attracted to the man, but that should be neither here nor there... The story proceeds apace in Charles's best styl...

I'm being particular about the title this time, because there seems to be some confusion. The movie is actually listed a couple times on Amazon, with different versions having different streaming tiers. The difference is a subtle one: one version includes the comma, while the other doesn't. It's clearly present in the title appearing onscreen in the movie, so that's the one I'm going with. Speaking of titles, this is far from the first modern re-imagining of A Christmas Carol I've seen where the role is gender flipped and the lead is named "Carol." These reviews won't be run in the order watched, but by my count this is the third, and I'm aware of at least one more. Hell, this isn't even the first I've seen produced by Hallmark featuring a legendary science-fiction star as a ghostly helper. The 2003 TV movie, "A Carol Christmas" included William Shatner, so for balance to exist in the universe I suppose we needed a similar ver...

Through the first two acts of this 1978 crime thriller, I was convinced I'd come across something truly special. Yes, there were flaws, along with plenty of things that aged poorly, but overall the experience was tense, engaging, and extremely rewarding. Then, sadly, came the third act, in which the plot unraveled. This isn't even one of those cases where they'd written themselves into a corner: there were easy, obvious ways to end this on a satisfying note. This just wanted to go in a different direction. It didn't invalidate what worked up until that point, but it still left me disappointed. The movie's protagonist is Miles, played by Elliott Gould, a bank teller frustrated by his job and most of his coworkers. It's not entirely clear why  he's so discontent - he doesn't seem to approve of the infidelity around him (it's kind of a running theme in the movie), but I don't think it's meant to be more of an annoyance. If anything, it feels a l...