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Carry On Christmas (1969)

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This is one of those times where I find myself a bit lost. Ostensibly a comical retelling of A Christmas Carol, this is really better described as a farcical sketch special loosely tied together with a frame story about Scrooge. The key word here is "loosely," in that the majority of the sketches have nothing at all to do with the story or its characters. Also complicating matters is the fact it's part of a franchise of comedic British films with what I assume is a similar style of humor. That style, incidentally, is a longstanding British tradition utilizing innuendo, absurdity, and intentional shock. While I suspect this is a form of comedy deserving of respect, it's also kind of the forerunner of what would eventually turn into things like Scary Movie. In short, I didn't like this, but I'm having a hard time parsing out whether that's because it's bad, it's dated, or I'm simply lacking the context necessary to appreciate what they're doi

So You're Planning to Remake A Christmas Carol...

If you've been following along, you know I've been watching adaptations, remakes, homages, and reimaginings of A Christmas Carol in bulk this year. As you might expect, I've got some thoughts about what makes an adaptation work and what doesn't. I figured I'd pass on my notes to whatever studio executive thinks it's a good idea to remake Scrooge for the [checks notes] I have no idea what number time we're up to. As a sidenote, this article is mainly going to concern itself with adaptations of the original book. I might turn to quasi-sequels like Scrooged and Spirited for guidance, but that's not what this is about. Do We Need Another Adaptation? I thought I'd start with some thoughts on whether there's even a point in doing this again. You may be surprised to hear my answer is, "Maybe." One takeaway from this whole project is that while there are a lot of versions out there, there isn't really a single definitive one that meets all

A Christmas Carol (2020)

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This 2020 British adaptation offers a somewhat unique approach to A Christmas Carol. It's actually a little hard to explain, because the short version, "A Christmas Carol reimagined through modern dance," doesn't actually convey the experience. Perhaps it should, though: the movie's main flaw is it tries to do too much at once and as a result kneecaps some of its best assets. The film starts with a Victorian family preparing a sort of miniature stage, complete with tiny paper characters. The kids are essentially cutting up newspaper and constructing a model using the illustrations and words. Once they've finished, the matriarch begins telling the story, heavily using Dickens's text. We then cut to the world of the model for the performance. This is one of the aspects that makes me almost want to recommend the movie despite... well, we'll get to the "despite" in a moment. But the sets are breathtaking and inventive. The story plays out in a wo

Holiday Heritage (2022)

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Over the past year or so, Hallmark has been quietly rebranding itself in an attempt to offer at least the appearance of representation. The area they've been attracting the most attention has been their recent pivot towards including same-sex couples, but that's hardly the only change in programming. After years of fixating only on Christmas, the company has finally decided to keep focusing on Christmas. But, you know, also toss in a Kwanzaa movie. That's also about Christmas. So a Christmas/Kwanzaa movie. That's where Holiday Heritage, a family dramedy with a side of romance, comes into the picture. The movie's main character is Ella, a successful Boston graphic designer planning to open her own company and go into business for herself. But that's an "after the holidays" thing - first she's going to return home to the small town in Pennsylvania where she grew up, because there's no way in hell Hallmark's going to make a movie about Kwanzaa

Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)

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Buckle in, everyone, because even explaining what this movie is might get a little complicated. Here's the first issue: I fundamentally disagree with every synopsis I've seen of "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" on the internet. I'm not talking about whether the movie's good or not (though my opinion is significantly more favorable than the consensus). I mean, on a quintessential level I disagree with descriptions of what the movie's about, who we're supposed to sympathize with, the subgenre it's in, and - hell - even the overall genre. I don't really think this is a horror. Okay, I might be overstating things a bit. This was clearly marketed - and to some extent made - as a psychological horror, but I think it's better understood now as a dark comedy. One of the primary complaints I'm seeing skimming the handful of reviews present on Rotten Tomatoes is that this really isn't scary. Frankly, I don't think it's supposed to be. It&#

The Santa Clauses, Season 1 (2022)

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Well, I didn't entirely hate it, which makes this my favorite installment in the Santa Clause franchise by a wide margin. To be fair, I haven't seen the trilogy this is sequeling since reviewing them, which was between nine and twelve years ago, so it's possible I'd have a more favorable reaction now. Possible, but unlikely: the stuff I recall disliking about those movies isn't the kind that tends to age well. Regardless, the new Disney+ limited series picks up in real time, sixteen years after the end of the third movie. Santa and Mrs. Claus have two kids: Buddy (who was born at the end of the third movie) and Sandra. Mrs. Claus - or Carol, as she used to be called - is going through an identity crisis, Buddy dreams of seeing the human world, Sandra seems completely uninterested in anything that isn't an animal or a witch, and - due to declining Christmas spirit - Santa's magic seems to be failing. When he learns about a "Secessus Clause" which wo

An American Christmas Carol (1979)

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Notable for having perhaps the least creative title among scores of loose adaptations, An American Christmas Carol is a 1979 TV movie that's sort of a mix of a retelling and a sequel of Dickens's classic. Like the big-budget musical that kicked off the decade, the lead role is played by an actor in his 30s with makeup used to effectively double his age. In this case, the actor is Henry Winkler, best known as Fonzie from Happy Days. And, for what it's worth, I think he works a little better as an old man than Albert Finney in 1970's Scrooge, despite Finney's makeup being quite a bit better. Winkler's physicality sells his age, which makes for a more convincing illusion. Because this is set in New Hampshire in 1933, Winkler isn't technically playing Scrooge - his character is Benedict Slade, which isn't quite an anagram for Ebenezer Scrooge, but if you squint you can see the game they're playing. Same with the name of his underpaid assistant, Thatcher.