Mainlining Christmas

On its most basic level, Cobra is an R-rated '80s action movie written by and starring Sylvester Stallone, but that doesn't begin to describe what makes it unusual or (with apologies for jumping right to the punchline) awful. Because at the end of the day, Cobra is bad, despite some impressive stunts and a genuine attempt to make something interesting. Let's back up. For a while, Stallone was looking to play Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop, a role that would eventually go to Eddie Murphy. Stallone, of course, had a very different vision for that movie's tone, which (coupled with the budget his vision would require) seems to be the main reason that version ultimately fell through. I have no idea if he perceived Cobra as some sort of proof of concept, or if he just had a bunch of ideas floating around his head as a result of working on the other project. Regardless, he pulled his ideas together, combined them with ideas borrowed from a novel called Fair Game (which the cr

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 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

From the perspective of a Yuletide nerd, this is an interesting case. I actually wouldn't consider this a Christmas movie, despite the fact it technically passes my litmus test. The entirety of this film is set around the holidays, which is usually more than enough. But the specifics of the setting and story render the timing moot for the majority of the runtime, and neither the story or the themes are particularly connected to the holidays. Both those points could probably be debated. The premise uses the holidays as an excuse to bring the characters together, and some of the themes - connecting with old friends and growing older - have a history of being associated with Christmas media, but I don't really buy that these are causally connected to the frame story visibly being set over the holidays. Frankly, I think the Christmas connection appears here for the same reason the last movie included a coda set during the same time: this series has always been released at Christmas

For those of you who weren't reading last year, well... first of all, welcome to the party, pal! But second and more germane to the topic, I spent a comically large portion of 2022 watching and reviewing roughly fifty adaptations of A Christmas Carol, presumably making me one of the world's foremost masochists on the subject. This was still just a drop in the bucket as far as the breadth of TV and film versions of the story are concerned, but I managed to check off virtually every adaptation on my list. Virtually. There were a couple that slipped through the cracks. The most notable of which is an elusive 1940s version from Spain that's probably going to be one of those "white whales" I obsess over for decades. But after that, there was Ebenezer, a version starring Jack Palance, with the setting moved from London to the American West. This was an extremely late addition to my list - because the title differs from the usual pattern, it hadn't initially caught m

If you look at Bruce Willis's filmography, the third to last credit is "Detective Knight: Redemption," and three of the last five are in the "Detective Knight" series. To put this in perspective, this was one of the last movies Willis was in before retiring and being diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia. The movies he made at the end of his career were rushed direct-to-video productions effectively shooting and editing around his disability. I'll get to Redemption in a moment, but the ethics around this are going to take priority. There are really two ways to look at the existence of this movie: either as an exploitative business cashing in on Willis's recognition at the cost of making him into the butt of bad jokes or as a sort of tradeoff where an aging star is provided an opportunity to earn some money they very well might need. Setting aside the fact these scenarios aren't mutually exclusive, I have no idea which is closer to the truth and no

It's actually a little weird I've never seen this before. I was in high school when Grumpy Old Men came out in 1993, so the fact I never bothered seeing it on VHS or even caught it on television is a little unusual. Likewise, it has to be one of the most famous Christmas movies that somehow fell through the cracks this long. Part of that has to do with the fact it intentionally downplays some aspects of the holidays - more on that later - despite absolutely qualifying as a Christmas movie. The movie's primary selling point and presumably its reason for being made is its cast. The film stars Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as the titular grumpy old men, and if there's a reason to see this, it's them. Whether that's enough or not is a more difficult question. The movie is right on the line between "not quite good enough" and "just good enough." Frustratingly, it contains moments and elements of greatness it can't quite maintain. Lemmon and M