I can instantly give this movie plenty of credit for being what it is - a Christmas, comedy, horror, musical with zombies. I mean, for someone like me, that's a must-see. The trailer spoke to me with the tagline "'Shaun of the Dead' meets 'La La Land'", as I love both of those movies, and it wasn't hard to add this one to the list, knowing I'd take away more than the average person because I love the strange and unusual with a sense of humor. To top it all off, it's British comedy, which I tend to eat up. Anna Shepherd (Ella Hunt) lives in the town of Little Haven, Scotland. On her way to becoming a secondary school graduate, she plans to travel for a year. Her Dad, Tony (Mark Benton), isn't a fan of this idea at all. Perhaps because he's also the school's janitor, and just wants something more for his daughter. In so many movies like this you have two characters fight, part ways, and try to find each other by the end of the movie. That's basically the relationship here between them. Anna's best friend, John (Malcolm Cumming), is secretly in love with her, with the competition of a cocky jock type named Nick (Ben Wiggins). We kinda hate Nick for being "that guy", but damned if he doesn't have the best song of the film, 'Soldier at War'. More on that in a bit. Other friends, Chris (Christopher Leveaux) is having trouble with a school assignment, and Steph (Sarah Swire) is trying to get past the black and white ideas of our villain of this movie, Principal Savage (Paul Kaye), with her school paper articles. All are kinda facing their own thing, but the main focus is definitely the friend-in-love story between Anna and John. As the film unfolds with its very humanistic story lines, a zombie apocalypse unfolds in the background, and before we know it, these kids are faced with more than just a few mild personal challenges. The group sings and dances their way through this musical comedy horror shindig, and by the end, I can openly admit that I had a lot of fun with this one, as I predicted. It's pretty well in my wheelhouse, but that doesn't mean it's just something I'd recommend to anyone. Certain flaws this movie have include a few glaring things, one of which is having the whole zombie thing feel placed completely to the side and added in just because zombies sell. Really, they could have used anything as the threat. It feels more like a later episode of 'Walking Dead' when they manage to accept the zombies as a way of life. The difference being, in 'Walking Dead', lots of time went by before reaching that point. The film is definitely more about teen angst and things like that, using the zombies as the "more intense challenge". Now, about the music. I feel very strange about it, because there's really only one song that stood out in regards to the zombie apocalypse (being 'Soldier at War'). This pushes it even further into the background, and the songs made for the movie mostly have some kind of deeper, double meaning. I can appreciate that, and I do enjoy most of the songs, but perhaps not for the reasons I'm supposed to. If you introduced someone to this soundtrack, it would be hard to narrow it down to 'Anna and the Apocalypse' based on its lyrical content. So, I think the songs are mostly pretty great, but as something non-movie related. My personal favorites being 'Turning My Life Around' and 'Human Voice', but again, based on lyrics much more than their relationship to the film. While I say I had a lot of fun with this one, that's just me talking. Keep in mind that most of my favorite movies are pretty out there and imaginative, but don't necessarily speak to the masses. I couldn't see this becoming some kind of Christmas classic to watch annually (by the way, yes, there are some Christmas songs too. It's still a Christmas movie with a zombie apocalypse). But it is almost definitely something I'll be revisiting. I've seen better in the form of horror musicals ('Evil Dead' being the very best, even if it is stage), but it's still so out there that it can be a lot of fun if you allow it to be. 3/5
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It's pretty rare nowadays that any movie comes along and, weather good or bad, manages to reignite the Christmas spirit I remember having when I was a kid. That certain magical feeling of butterflies in my stomach as I anticipated every December 24th when Santa would come along and reward my good behavior with toys and candy. I think 'Arthur Christmas' was the last time I remember feeling that way. A big part of it is making the concept of Santa's deliveries magical but seemingly plausible, remembering that Santa is so much about magic. For me, this one accomplished all of that, and if I'm honest, I enjoyed this one. But it's certainly not without a few flaws. 'The Christmas Chronicles' tells the story about two siblings on Christmas Eve. Kate (Darby Camp) is the little sister who still believes in Santa Claus, and still has that genuine Christmas spirit. Her character is a little bit irritating, but she's no Izzy from 'Christmas Break-In'. Teddy (Judah Lewis) is the big brother preteen who doesn't believe in Santa anymore, especially since his Dad recently died (in NOT a typical car accident, thank you!) Kate comes up with the idea to capture Santa in order to prove his existence, and asks for Teddy's help in true sibling blackmail fashion. During the night, Kate and Teddy are awoken by Santa doing his thing, and they hop on board his sleigh like any kid might dream of doing. When Santa (Kurt Russell) realizes they're there, he's startled, and there's a massive 'Red Sleigh Down' situation going on, dooming Christmas. Realizing their mistake, the kids offer to help in any way they can to help Santa save Christmas. As i mentioned, the film is not without a few problems. The glaring one for yours truly was the musical number. Anyone who has seen this knows about it. But it does have the potential to become this unnecessary guilty pleasure moment, much like the Vanilla Ice moment in 'Secret of the Ooze', only because Kurt Russell is so into it. Furthermore, I wasn't a big fan of either kid. I don't blame the kids so much as the director, asking them to ham it up in certain moments. We also have a very different idea of Christmas elves here, where they are cartoonishly CG'd, and truthfully resemble garden gnomes a bit more. They kinda seem like someone saw 'Gnomeo & Juliette' and 'Trolls' and said, "Imagine their babies, and those are the Christmas elves." They're cute, but I dunno how I feel about them. It just feels like cashing in on the popularity of the cuteness factor that so many things do nowadays. The real star of the movie is Kurt Russell as Santa Claus. There's something perfectly awesome about such a bad ass actor portraying the jolly (not fat) man, and I totally dig the whole bad ass Santa idea. The only other time I really remember it was in 'Rise of the Guardians'. I don't know that I prefer it from the traditional good guy Santa, but it's a fun concept, and Kurt does a great job, meeting the whole thing in the middle. He's stern, but he's a perfectly friendly guy, all the same. Beyond that, I had to appreciate so many of the moments in this that displayed Santa's magic on the screen. My favourite bits were seeing how Santa chimney-jumps, and when we get to see what's inside Santa's sack of gifts. The reindeer are pretty cool as well, but I didn't think they did much with them, other than provide a randomly necessary means of transportation. But that's a nitpick on my part. The reindeer so seldom get time in the spotlight. Regardless of any criticism, this is just a perfectly decent family movie on Netflix, and it's right where it needs to be. Had this been a big screen thing, I might be a bit more critical. But the film is perfectly magical for the kids watching, and will probably get them into the spirit of things. And if any adults watching are anything like me, they might get a kick out of certain aspects throughout, especially seeing Snake Plissken in big, red suit. Not without its problems, but still a lot of fun, and it worked on me as far as reigniting Christmas spirit. 4/5 'Lethal Weapon' is a movie that doesn't need a lot of introduction. If 'Die Hard' is the grandfather of modern action movies, than this is the grandfather of buddy cop movies. Much like 'Die Hard', it takes place at Christmastime, but when all said and done 'Die Hard' has more Christmas elements to it. For me, this is a bit more of an action movie where Christmas is going on in the background, with very little Christmas elements going for it. Still though, it's a fun one to add to the list of unconventional Christmas films, because it's still a legendary action movie, released back in a time when action movies had a certain pizazz to them. 'Lethal Weapon' introduces us to two very different men. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is a by-the-book cop, and family man, living one day at a time. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) is an over-reactive cop who is claimed to be suicidal, living his cop life on the edge. The pair are reluctantly put together to solve the murder of a banker's daughter. In their investigation, they uncover a group of drug smugglers headed by "The General" (Mitchell Ryan) who employ ex-military mercs. It's only a matter of time until things become personal, and the action flies through the roof on a super fun, now completely nostalgic roller coaster ride. Riggs and Murtaugh also have to learn how to trust each other through the whole process. It's not all just mindless action though. I have to appreciate that as soon as we see Riggs as a bit of a loser, we can empathize with him, learning very little information. We catch him in a scene near the beginning, holding a picture of his wife, and really breaking down about missing her. We dunno what happened yet, we just click towards empathy for someone we probably come into it not liking all too much. It makes Riggs one of the more interesting action stars of the time, while other movies are checkered with Schwarzeneggers and Stallones as bad ass action heroes. He's a good dude, he's just off the handle. Murtaugh is pretty entertaining too, but in a different way. He's the one who made the phrase "I'm too old for this shit" famous, and I appreciate that through this movie, even though he's the by-the-book guy, he goes full bad ass by the end of things. I absolutely love this movie's climax, it's everything an old school action movie should be in that regard, especially Murtaugh's standoff with a speeding car, and Rigg's fist fight with Mr. Gary Busey, who's basically the General's right hand thug. It's strange to say it, but it's seemingly rare nowadays to just have that man-to-man, street fight anymore. I think it peaked with 'Fight Club', but correct me if there's anything that stands out after that. Anyway, it's an easy one to close off with a very positive review. I haven't seen it in a couple of years, and this time around, I felt that nostalgia hit me, not so much for the movie itself, but for the entire classic 80s action genre. Nowadays, action movies have mostly been taken over by superheroes, the 'John Wick' and 'Fallen' series, and not a whole hell of a lot more. There was something about 80s action movies that suggest a sort of freedom, as back in those days, our critics were Siskel, Ebert, Leonard Malten, and just a handful of others. It wasn't an entire internet pointing out everything wrong about something. The 80s were a time where people were allowed to enjoy things without much ridicule, and these are the people I try to speak to the most with my reviews. 'Lethal Weapon' might represent most of the action cliches of the time, but dammit, that's what made it so awesome. Come to think of it, it actually invented some of those cliches. Again, legendary. 5/5 Just when it looked like these Christmas movies were on the up and up, they must plummet for yet another negative one. But trust me when I say I feel that most of the people out there would agree with a lot of what I have to say about it. In this particular case, we have a gigantic 'Home Alone' rip-off that features criminals that make Harry and Marv look like Stephen Hawking and Neil deGrasse Tyson. The kid, in question, is a girl named Izzy (Cameron Seely). Imagine a nine-year-old girl trying to do her best Kevin McCallister impression, but doing it "wrong". At least that was my takeaway, because this is trying so hard to be 'Home Alone', it's ridiculous. This is a made-for-TV movie, released January of this year... just in time for Christmas. It starts out with Izzy reminding her parents (Mother played by Denise Richards, Father played by Sean O'Bryan) about taking her after school to get a guitar, during a special sale. The parents forget to pick her up after school, for apparently the umpteenth time, and it's during a bad snow storm, making things more difficult. Meanwhile, three crooks (Katrina Begin, Douglas Spain, and Jake Van Wagoner) who have recently robbed a Salvation Army store head to the school to lay low, believing it to be abandoned and... yeah, it's 'Home Alone' in a school. The criminals end up holding the school's janitor, and Izzy's family's friend, Ray (Danny Glover, making me thank God 'Lethal Weapon' is next on this review list) captive while Izzy goes around doing really weak trap stuff that make 'Home Alone's traps look like Kevin's playing a game of 'Saw'. The parents do end up figuring things out, except for the fact that they're terrible parents, and do manage to start making their way back to her. But their entire purpose in this is to be the terrible prat fall parents. Dad gets injured, Mom screams, it's supposed to be funny but we just roll our eyes at it. It's painful to watch, but not in the god 'Home Alone' way. Speaking of which, as a 'Home Alone' wannabe, I mean that to such an extent that even the music in some parts and pretty well copy and paste with a few note adjustments. Believe me, if you're a 'Home Alone' fan, you will notice it as soon as it happens. It's THAT close. Besides that, some of the dialogue is spot on as well, like Denise Richards screaming "We did it again!" (famous lines from, 'Home Alone 2' anyone?) or Izzy realizing that she's alone, with that repeat line, the original being "I made my family disappear? I made my family disappear!" It's almost worth checking out (currently available on Netflix) just to see how bad it actually is. Almost! But really and truly, it's pretty well a waste of time altogether. Even for a made for TV film, it's just a bit too much. I dunno if they thought they needed a 'Home Alone' for a new generation or something, but if that's the case, it's pointless. 'Home Alone' is a timeless classic. This, even if you do watch it, will be forgotten about in seconds as you toss it aside as nothing more than a copycat that pulls things back embarrassingly significantly. 1/5 Okay, so it's not really a Christmas movie in the traditional sense. It's more like a light horror comedy that takes place around Christmas. It's less in the tradition of 'White Christmas' and more in the tradition of... actually this is the first Christmas horror comedy I can think of. And being that it was rated PG, I saw it probably way earlier than I should have. But with that said, 'Gremlins' represents some of my first toe-dips into horror. It was kinda great at the time (I think I was around 5 or 6 when I first watched it). It had the cuteness of Gizmo (Howie Mandel), the kindness of Billy (Zach Galligan), the prettiness of Kate (Phoebe Cates), and that seemed to give a good balance to the otherwise scary premise. The story centers on Billy, whose father (Hoyt Axton) brings him home a Mogwai from Chinatown while trying to sell his latest invention. The Mogwai, Gizmo, comes with a set of rules - don't get it wet, keep it away from light, and whatever you do, don't feed it after midnight (which is obscure, but we kinda roll with it). Eventually we learn that water makes them multiply, light is just plain bad for them (sunlight could kill them), and feeding them after midnight causes them to cocoon and eventually turn into Gremlins. Gremlins, in this case, are mischief making, violent, and hilarious. But they're just frightening enough that when watching this as a kid, you kinda fear one may be lurking under your bed. These Gremlins wreak havoc on the town, and it's up up Billy, Gizmo and Kate to stop them, even if they do end up sidetracked by horrific stories about the harsh realities of Santa Claus - something this film has since become famous for to such an extent that they make fun of it in 'Gremlins 2'. Of course, anyone familiar with this movie realizes that the Gremlins, in a way, are villains we kinda route for. When we see them causing mischief. But the biggest villain of this movie isn't any of the Gremlins, not even Stripe (Frank Welker), who's pretty much the Gremlin's leader. It's Mrs Deagel (Polly Holliday). Her biggest claim to fame is her desire to slowly murder Billy's dog. So yeah, we really wanna see her meet John Wick one day. But don't worry, she's also a reason to route for these crazy critters. Surprisingly enough, though the Mogwais and Gremlins don't say a whole hell of a lot, the cast of voice actors is impressive. Aside from the two I've already mentioned, Peter Cullen (the one and only Optimus Prime), Michael Winslow (the sound effect guy from 'Police Academy'), Mark Dodson (Salacious Crumb from 'Return of the Jedi'), Bob Bergen (No Face and the Frog from 'Spirited Away' are among a few of the more well-known. That's an interesting tidbit I actually only just learned. The film is considered a classic of an 80s monster movie, and it really fits in with its era. As time has passed, it hasn't aged incredibly well, but we still hold it close to or hearts as an important piece of nostalgia. Even though I say that, a newcomer could watch this and still have a lot of fun with it. I really don't think it was ever meant to be taken that seriously to begin with. It's still one I hold close to my heart. 4/5 I know I may seem like a bit of a Christmas Grinch with my first bit of Christmas reviewing, but fear not, for it is time to switch gears. I decided to do a bit of a nostalgia trip with this one, which I haven't actually watched since its initial video release in late 1995, making me 13 at the time. I was just starting to lose some of that Christmas magic, but this movie came along and reinvigorated the spirit within. I remember loving it at the time, feeling like a kid again (as far as that can go at 13), and even going so far as to imagine how lucky the kid in this was to have Santa as his Dad and be able to visit the North Pole etc. I may have been the age I was, but I could still appreciate what Christmas magic was to a younger kid. What's truly heartwarming to see is that this film, since its release, has become a Christmas classic in its own right. At the time of its release, friends and I avoided seeing it in theaters based on it getting pretty terrible reviews. And though the film is by no means perfect, such reviews were a little too harsh for this one, based on what it was trying to be - a simple, heartwarming story, mostly aimed at kids with a few adult gags to keep an adult audience captivated. From my perspective, it sorta bridged a gap between childhood and adulthood, and I still say it's a great, harmless family flick. The story, for those who may not have seen it, involves toy maker and businessman Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) who has been separated from his wife Laura (Wendy Crewson). He still manages to spend time with his son, Charlie (Eric Lloyd), but also has to deal with Laura's new man in her life, Neal (Judge Reinhold), who we all love to hate. Neal feels that Charlie is too old to believe in Santa, and seems to want to take the illusion away. He's also a child psychologist, so that makes absolutely no sense to me, and makes me hate him so much more. And oh yes, Scott interjects enough to mention that a kid having an imagination is a great thing. On Christmas Eve, while Charlie is visiting his Dad, he hears a clatter on the roof and wakes his Dad up. Scott goes to check it out, finds Santa, scares him, and causes him to fall off the roof to his death. As a result, Scott must now take Santa's place, as part of the "Santa Clause". Somehow or another he manages to finish Santa's work that night (I think?) and makes it to the North Pole where he meets head elf Bernard (David Krumholtz). He wakes up Christmas morning believing it all to be a dream, but as the next year unfolds leading up to Christmas, Scott transforms both in physical body and spirit, becoming the next Santa Claus. Going back and watching this as an adult, it's a little more difficult to get through, and some of it feels dated, especially when it comes to the early CG effects. But with that said, I'm thankful to say that I could look past anything kinda bad about this movie, and realize that is has some great heart to it. It's more about two things here, Charlie's chance to have a normal childhood in believing in Santa, and giving Scott a chance to grow as not only a human being, but a loving father. It's a film that goes to show that there's absolutely nothing wrong with believing in the magic of Christmas, whether you're a kid or adult. It's not without a few issues, but I feel like the heart of this movie overshadows any problems it may have, and it has since become one of the more spiritual Christmas movies out there today. I see several people adding it to their Christmas list of annual movie binging, and I'll probably revisit it a few times more now. Even if it doesn't make my list of regulars, it's a nice reminder of what Christmas is about when you're a kid, and so much of it is about the only mysterious, bearded man you'd ever actually want breaking into your house. I had lots of fun watching this again for the first time in about twenty-four years. 4/5 Sometimes a good romantic Christmas comedy is nice and manages to fill a sort of missing piece to my marathons ('Love Actually' is thus far my personal favourite). They may not usually be my cup of tea, but they don't generally bother me either. They are often nice, heartwarming stories, especially when centered on the Christmas season, as so much of it has to do with the simple theme of love. This though... sorry to its fans, but I thought it was mostly just painful, with but ONE redeeming quality (which I'll get to in a second). Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are a kinda out-there couple, who perpetually lie to their families in order to avoid them on the Christmas holidays. Instead, they take vacations far away from home for some peace, quiet, and maybe a bit of romance along the way. However, this year, their trip to Fiji is botched when all flights are cancelled, and they're caught on live TV, pretending to take a trip to help the less fortunate. As a result of the flight being cancelled, they begrudgingly face their stressful family Christmases - four separate ones in just one day. They agree to use the word "mistletoe" as their "escape word" for when they really need to get away from their horrible families. What follows is a star-studded cast representing their families, the best of which has to be Jon Favreau as Brad's UFC fighting brother. He provided pretty much the only real laughs I got from this, and his character is a far cry from the MCU's Happy Hogan. This cast also features some great names like Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek as Brad's parents, John Voight and Mary Steenburgen as Kate's parents, Dwight Yoakam, Tim McGraw, and perhaps a few more. However this great cast isn't quite enough to save it from just being a little too over the top silly with a seemingly very forced issue to overcome. During their visits, Brad and Kate end up bickering more and more, leading them to realize that maybe they're not as in love with each other as they might think. But this is a romantic comedy Christmas movie, so the whole thing turns out too predictable. The real heart of this movie comes from showing us the all too familiar disfunctional family at Christmas. Brad's Dad's side is a bunch of psycho, rough and tumble brothers, Kate's Mom and her sister are a bunch of hot-for-Brad Golden Girl types, and things get pretty extreme in this case. But its all been done before and done much better, 'Christmas Vacation' being the peak of the dysfunctional family Christmas movie. For me, this just seemed a little too slapped together and rushed to provide audiences with some sort of Christmas comedy for the year, 2008, which was not a big year for Christmas movies at all. Fans tend to sort of meet this one in the middle, and I can see it being remotely enjoyable for a toss-your-brain-out-the-door Christmas comedy. But I just can't do that with this. I felt that even 'Bad Santa' had more actual heart in it than this. This was just a little too typical as far as the love story side of things go. To each their own, but it's not one I'll be revisiting any time soon. 1/5 Stumbling on this one in my search, I decided to check it out so that maybe I could take a peak at what a Japanese anime film's take on a Christmas story might be like. After last year's Ghibli marathon, I've gained a bit of an interest in the culture's way of expressing themselves through film. What's so interesting to me, however, is that even for a Christmas film, this is a culture that is not afraid to get dark. 'Tokyo Godfathers' takes place around the Christmas - New Year holiday, and the season is used as much more of a backdrop than anything. I wouldn't fully consider this a "Christmas movie" in the traditional sense, so much as a story about homelessness and abandonment. That's not to say it's bad, it's actually a great story, But so help me, I just don't get "Christmas" from this one, despite covering themes about acts of kindness, humanity, and valuable lessons learned along the way. We meet three very different homeless people, who have made themselves a sort of family. Gin (Tôru Emori) is your average, middle-aged homeless man with a bit of a drinking/anger problem; Hana (Yoshiaki Umegaki) is a former drag queen who dreams of one day being a mother; and Miyuki (Aya Okamoto) is a young runaway girl, having no place to turn to after wounding her father. We pretty much immediately click with this group, Gin being the glass half empty, Hana being the glass half full, and Miyuki is caught in the middle. One day, while rummaging through some trash, they find an abandoned baby. Hana, with her motherly desires, wants to try to take care of the baby and have her dreams come true. But being the realist, Gin insists that they just drop it off at the police station and let them take care of the situation. They sleep on it, and then decide the thing to do is to find this child's real parents, and set out to do just that. Along the way, they each end up revealing a lot about their pasts and how they became homeless, each of them a pretty sad story. That's more or less where the movie gets dark in its atmosphere (I mean, other than finding a baby among a heap of garbage), with this trio wanting whats best for this baby, and not to be in the same situation as them. And speaking of dark, it gets even darker when it gets to the climax, and you really end up feeling the utmost empathy for this poor baby through the whole movie. You want nothing more than for this kid to be safe. So as far as recommending it, it's a tough one. As far as it falling into my traditional Christmas movie list, it really doesn't stand a chance. However, as a dark anime about tough but important themes that carries a mild sense of humor with it, it's actually great. Somehow this movie balances the dark and cold of the winter with a bunch heartwarming moments. Atmospherically, I'd almost compare it to 'A Christmas Carol', but certainly not by theme. If you're an anime fan who likes a good story, if you can find it, check it out. Just be forewarned, an English dub of the film is damn near impossible to find. 3/5 I had every intention of catching this in theaters in order to review it for my 'Now Playing' page for Christmas of 2017. Alas, I missed out, and I haven't bothered to check it out until this year. I'm happy to say that I've actually found a new Christmas movie I like enough to try to spread the word about. To me, this has become a hidden gem among Christmas movies over the past couple of years. People don't seem to talk much about it, but let me tell you, its execution is something that's right up my alley. Taking place in 1843, this is the story of a struggling Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens). After the release of 'Oliver Twist', Dickens writes a couple of other stories that become critical flops, and turn him into his own worst enemy. He's pretty well convinced that if his next story doesn't shine, he may have to give up trying. But, of course, since we all know who Charles Dickens is, we know that sure as hell doesn't happen. In fact, his next story ends up being 'A Christmas Carol', which, upon its release, quite literally did change the world, and the holiday, for the better. But what I really took away from this one was that as the story unfolds, we find out how he was inspired to write about almost every detail of the story. Some of this inspiration comes from his personal relationships with people, and we find that the character of Ebeneezer Scrooge (Christopher Plummer - who does a fantastic job here) is a sort of ghost of a muse for him, seemingly based on his dark and doubtful side. Scrooge is that voice inside any aspiring writer who says "no, that's not good enough" or "wait, why would this happen?", but at the same time, Dickens find the strength within himself to oppose this figure, and eventually finish the book with a very tight deadline. In many ways, this is sort of a retelling of the classic tale, putting Dickens in Scrooge's place. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future all come to him separately as he looks at his own life, and many of the similarities he, himself, has to both Scrooge and Bob Cratchet. So its not right on the money, where the spirits show him what he needs to see in a literal sense, but they end up presenting more of a metaphorical view, inspiring Dickens to write what he knows from his own past, present, and potential future. The film is executed as a sort of dramedy, and we get to really check out the darker side of Dickens. It kind of paints him as a bit of an eccentric, crazy person with a short temper, and it's even mentioned how hard it is to be his friend. But at the same time, when we see him hard at work, we can't help but admire how he manages to come up with certain things, especially when things he puts to paper delve into his own life, getting inspiration from so many different angles. I really have no idea how this goes as far as accuracy goes, because I have never really studied the history of Charles Dickens in any sense. I've listened to 'Christmas Carol' on audiobook once, and that's about as far as my knowledge goes. So to some purists, this may very well not hold up as well as it did for me. I liked the way Dickens was portrayed here, as it showed him as being very human and vulnerable as opposed to just a writing hero. It's also interesting to think that he may have single-handedly breathed new life into Christmas with his story. Let's face it, it probably is the single most popular Christmas story in existence, with about 30+ movie adaptations over the years, so it wouldn't really surprise me. This one is a good length, doesn't go overboard on its storytelling, and all in all, it's actually pretty inspirational for anyone wanting to get into writing. It lets us know full well that even legendary authors get stuck, and it further tells us to listen to our friends and families criticisms on how we execute our stories. For example, Tiny Tim was originally supposed to die. Could you imagine?? Anwyay, if you can find it, it's well worth checking out as a sort of new adaptation of 'Christmas Carol', but at the same time, a neat glimpse into the life of the one and only Charles Dickens. 5/5 So, it might be important to understand that this year, a lot of my selection came from randomly Googling "obscure Christmas movies" in order to find more Christmas titles that are floating around out there. That said, it didn't go much further than that, and I ended up checking out this made-for-TV family flick. Loaded with a bunch of unknowns, it's essentially the story of four brothers who partake in their family project known as "Elving", where they deliver things like baked goods to the less fortunate by playing Ding-Dong-Ditch, and leaving the goods on the front porch. They watch from a distance as these people bring in their goodies, and say "thank you" to an unknown source. It's a nice, if not slightly creepy concept. But really, the story revolves around the eldest middle child of four boys, Matthew Buckley (Jacob Buster). The time of year blends with things like a first crush who can't act her way out of a paper bag, Juniper (Grace Hallows, but to be fair, she seems to be pretty unknown), and a bully at school, Finn Hagbart (Gabe White). Things take an interesting turn as Matthew sees that there may be more than meets the eye to his bully, when he and his family become the subject of their next Elving, which also involves a 9-month pregnant and emotional mother (Alison Akin Clark), and supportive and frankly kinda awesome father (Brian Neal Clark). So more than anything, it mostly ends up being a sort of after school special kinda movie, focused on Matthew and how he deals with his feelings surrounding what ends up being a pretty eventful Christmas for him. And when I say after school special, it's presented as pretty much exactly that. This is the kind of movie your school or church might show you in order to educate you about your newfound feelings, so one must understand that before going into it, because it's incredibly cheesetastic with the way it unfolds. But something also struck me as odd about it. Something about this film struck me as being the kind of thing I would land on while channel surfing on a day home sick from school, back in my elementary days. It's poorly executed, but being that it's a TV movie made for Christian families, it's harmless, and in its own way, it's kinda strangely comforting. When it comes to the parents in this, and even the brothers' relationships with each other, you see that this is overall a well-functioning, happy family, and there's nothing bad going on with the family in the background. The closest it gets is having a pregnant mother, and being that she's already had four kids, she takes it like a trooper, and the husband/father never overshadows her as some sort of hero. So really, it's hard to know what to think of this movie. It's not without its moments, it's heartwarming, and it's a nice flick for the whole family. That said, the acting is pretty brutal when it comes to a cast of unknowns, and a lot of the jokes fall flat. Again, it's not without a couple of giggles, but for the most part, as I mentioned before, it's pretty cheesetastic. It feels like it belongs in the 90s, but it takes place in '86, so I'm a little lost on that as well. All in all, it's not what I'd call a good movie, but for some weird reason, it makes me think of my childhood and there's a sort of messed up comfort to it despite how bad it is. Again, this is plain and simply an after school special, directed mainly as the younger end of childhood. I have to give it a bit of leverage in that case because it wasn't necessarily made for me, a 37-year-old dude. It teeters on a 3, but considering there are just better movies out there that cover similar subjects... 2/5 |