Category: Reviews (Page 87 of 120)

With 6 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 19, 2007 /

…Jingle All The Way: Family Fun Edition.

I can’t really say that I miss Arnold Schwarzenegger, given that his position as Governor of California means that he’s on the news every other freaking day, but, y’know, it has been four years since the guy last starred in a movie, and, frankly, the world of action flicks is sorely lacking as a result. Stallone’s been forced to return to his hoary old “Rocky” and “Rambo” franchises to score anything approximating a hit, and the same goes for Bruce Willis and “Die Hard.” Seagal and Van Damme are both trapped in the career Phantom Zone known as the Straight to Video Market, and, really, is there any proper action hero still getting regular theatrical releases? I mean, I like Jason Statham as much as the next guy, but he’s still not on the same tier, y’know?

Watching “Jingle All the Way,” I missed Ahnuld the Action Hero even more than I already did. Believe it or not, I’d never seen it before, which means that I can’t personally tell you any of the difference between the theatrical release and the new extended version; I will tell you, however, that having watched the latter rather than the former, my suspicion is that anything that made it feel particularly long to me probably was in the theatrical version, too.

Arnold plays Howard Langston, one of those stock movie businessmen who loves his family but struggles to make time for them. We see him try and fail to make it to his son Jamie’s karate exhibition, and when he realizes later that evening that he’s forgotten to buy his son the TurboMan action figure he’s been clamoring for, he’s aware that there’s no choice: he has to get that figure. Unfortunately, TurboMan is to this film what a Tickle Me Elmo was to the real world a few years back, i.e. it’s impossible to find, and Howard ends up on a Christmas Eve quest to hunt one down. On a similar quest is an overworked postman Myron Larabee, played by Sinbad, who’s had almost no time off because of the Christmas rush and just hadn’t had a chance to get the figure for his son; Howard and Myron end up crossing paths on a regular basis throughout the film, battling to secure that elusive TurboMan figure…and that’s where the film fell apart for me.

I understand that Howard’s trying to redeem himself with his son, but he knows he’s the one at fault in this situation, whereas Myron is a victim of circumstance, yet it never occurs to Howard to be the better man and let this guy make his son happy. Instead, Howard’s steadfastly determined to win his son’s love through material possessions. If that’s not the antithesis to the moral of Christmas, I don’t know what is. Even his son knows this: when Howard finally gets Jamie the elusive figure, Jamie gives it to Myron, even as Howard is still sputtering, “What are you doing…?”

“Jingle All the Way” is mostly about ridiculous slapstick, but there’s at least one great comedic turn courtesy of the late, great Phil Hartman, who never met a role he couldn’t make into one of the best things in that film. There are also some enjoyable supporting performances, with Robert Conrad (“The Wild Wild West”) as a cop, Martin Mull as a DJ, Jim Belushi as a sheister of a Santa, Phil Morris and Amy Pietz as parade announcers, Chris Parnell as a toy store clerk, Curtis Armstrong as a live-action (and chain-smoking) version of TurboMan’s compatriot, Booster, and an uncredited Yeardley Smith as a woman who Howard thinks has a TurboMan doll. Oh, right, and there’s a crazed reindeer, too. Rita Wilson is little more than a cliche as Howard’s long-suffering wife, and Jake Lloyd…well, let’s just say that anyone who saw this flick couldn’t have been surprised by the lad’s ineffective turn as Anakin Skywalker a few years later.

Yeah, y’know, I guess I do miss Arnold Schwarzenegger…but if he’s planning to return to Hollywood and make another crappy comedy like this one, I’d rather just stick to watching “Commando” again. If you disagree with me…well, just watch this so-called “highlight reel” from the film and see if it doesn’t change your mind.

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With 7 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 18, 2007 /

…The House Without A Christmas Tree.

If you can trust the box art for this particular DVD, then we’ve finally been gifted with the long-awaited release of a cherished holiday classic; as for me, I wasn’t familiar with the film…or if I once was, my memories of it didn’t stick with me for the long haul…but having now watched it, I can say that there’s probably a fair amount of truth in that advertising.

Addie (Lisa Lucas) is 10 years old and really, really, really wants a Christmas tree; unfortunately, her dad, James (Jason Robards), refuses to have one in his house. No, he’s not being a jerk…well, not intentionally, anyway. He’s still mourning the death of his wife, who died within weeks of Addie’s birth, and he readily associates the holidays with how much his wife loved that time of the year; unfortunately, he also associates his daughter with his wife, and it continues to haunt him that, once upon a time, he wished that she’d died instead of her mother. As such, the Christmas season is generally a pretty low-key affair around their house…to say the least. But when Addie wins a Christmas tree in a contest at school – through a method her father taught her, no less – and James still throws a fit over having a tree in his house, resulting in Addie running off in tears, one is forced to wonder if father and daughter will ever be able to reconcile.

Say, this sure sounds like a merry Christmas movie, doesn’t it? Well, don’t worry: it wouldn’t be a holiday classic if things didn’t eventually turn out all right…but, then, you probably already figured that.

Robards’ performance is appropriately gruff when he’s dealing with Addie while being just sad enough for us to realize that, yeah, that’s a major emotional rollercoaster the guy’s on, and who’s to say we wouldn’t react similarly in that situation? Mildred Natwick plays Addie’s grandmother (and James’s mom) in a manner that will no doubt strike a chord in many of us, the way she walks that tightrope between wanting to make her granddaughter happy without damaging the relationship with her own child. Lisa Lucas is…well, she’s a kid. She’s an average 10-year-old little girl. She was never destined to win an Emmy for her work, but she does well enough.

“The House Without A Christmas Tree” was made in 1972, and it shows, but that’s a good thing, actually; the reason it shows is that it was filmed on video tape, and the result is that it tends to feel less like a movie and more like a play. There really aren’t many different locales involved – the family’s house, the school, a store, and another nearby family’s house – and the brief outdoor shots could easily be left out if anyone wanted to make this into a stage play. You may also recall that 1972 was the year “The Waltons” premiered, so don’t be surprised when you tune in to find that A) the story takes place in the 1940s, B) the goings-on are, by and large, pretty mundane by today’s standards, and C) there’s as much heartbreak as there is happiness.

But, like I said, things turn out all right in the end, and that’s what counts.

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With 8 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 17, 2007 /

…The Johnny Cash Christmas Specials for 1976 and 1977.

Me and Johnny Cash go back a long way. One of my earliest music-related memories is sitting in my dad’s Ford pick-up truck and listening to an 8-track of “Live at Folsom Prison,” a fact which does a pretty decent between-the-lines job of indicating how old I am; in fact, it was probably right around the same time when these Christmas specials originally aired, although I don’t have any recollection of having watched them at the time. But between my dad and my grandfather, I’m sure at least one of them was watching ’em.

Funny how much difference a year makes, though. The ’76 special is apparently filmed at Johnny Cash’s house, as he brings in friends and family to celebrate the holiday and play some music; there are plenty of members of the Carter family in attendance, but also making appearances are Barbara Mandrell, Roy Clark, Merle Travis, and…Tony Orlando? Yes, sir. And not only is Orlando there, but he’s spurred to perform his signature number only after Johnny gives him a wink and a nudge and says, “Hey, you know what kind of tree that is, don’t ya, Tony?” Moments later, a yellow ribbon suddenly appears around it – tied in a neat bow, of course – and serves as the cue to start the music. It’s goofy as hell to see Johnny, June, and Tony Orlando walking arm in arm, singing such a severely schmaltzy number as this one, but it still inspires a smile rather than a groan. When Roy Clark shows up, he teams with Cash and Orlando for a medley of…Stephen Foster songs? As Christmas specials go, this really isn’t very Christmasy at all, frankly; there’s a season-appropriate sermon of sorts from Rev. Billy Graham toward the end of the show, but if you just look at the songs, the ratio of 3 Christmas songs to sixteen non-Christmas songs. But, y’know, it’s Johnny Cash, and you can let the Man in Black slide once in awhile.

Tony Orlando and his good friend, Santa,
now appearing together at Harrah’s Casino.

The ’77 special, though, is a whole other ball park…so much so, in fact, that one wonders if people kept asking Cash, “Johnny, how come you done you a Christmas special and didn’t hardly sing no Christmas songs?” This time around, it’s almost entirely about the holiday music, including Johnny and the Statler Brothers on “Blue Christmas,” a return visit from Roy Clark to help Johnny with “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “Frosty the Snow Man,” Jerry Lee Lewis’s piano-pumping take on “White Christmas,” and all-star versions of “Silent Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” It’s practically a Sun Records reunion, with Cash joined not only by Jerry Lee but also Carl Perkins and Roy Orbison. The middle of the special features each of them doing one of their signature numbers – Cash’s “Big River,” Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes,” and Jerry Lee’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” – and they all team up to pay tribute to their recently-deceased colleague, Elvis Presley, on a version of “This Train Is Bound For Glory.”

The grand finale of the show is a version of “Children Go Where I Send Thee,” where everybody – yes, everybody – takes a lead vocal at one point or another. The entire audience, from the floor seats all the way up to the balcony, is on its feet by the time it’s all over, and you’re liable to be as well. It’s really interesting to see how unabashedly religious Cash’s specials were, even if it’s sad to realize how little of that we see on TV anyone; everyone’s so damned afraid of offending someone else’s beliefs that it feels like we’re not even allowed to demonstrate our own.

Merry Christmas, Johnny. We still miss you down here, but you be sure to give our best to the big man, wouldja?

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With 9 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 16, 2007 /

…Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

As much as it pains me to say this, honesty requires that I must: “Santa Clause 3” wasn’t as God-awful bad as I thought it was going to be…or, more specifically, it wasn’t as bad as the God-awful trailer for the film would’ve had me believe.

I mean, man, when I first saw that thing, my reactions were as follows:

* “The first film was legitimately enjoyable, the second one had its moments, but the funniest joke here appears to be the one in the title. The trailer is 100% laugh-free. David Krumholtz – formerly known as Bernard the Elf – should be sending his agent a solid gold Mercedes this Christmas for getting him ‘Numb3rs’ and keeping him far, far away from this picture.”

* “As Santa is my witness, the only highlights are the clips from the first two films. It’s really that unfunny. Example: a kid tells Jack Frost to ‘just chill,’and he howls, ‘I invented chill!’ Ughhhhhh.”

“Awful awful awful. Count on a solid opening weekend, but, God willing, word of mouth on the playground will kill the flick quickly after that. Even the under-10 set should have better taste than to accept this.”

And y’know what? I meant it. All of it. Every word. It was just that damned bad.

Having now subjected myself to a viewing of the film, however, I walked away from the experience far less horrified than I ever would’ve expected. Yes, there’s plenty of cheesy kid stuff in the flick, and if the inclusion of reindeer fart jokes isn’t enough to send most people with a modicum of taste running for the exits (or, in this case, the “eject” button on their DVD player), Martin Short’s hammy performance as Jack Frost will probably do the trick. If you can make it to the halfway point of the film, though, it falls back on the old “It’s A Wonderful Life” bit of seeing what the world would’ve been like if Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) had never put on the Santa suit but Jack Frost had instead. It’s a hackneyed Christmas plot device, but as a sci-fi geek who always enjoys a good alternate-universe tale, I still enjoyed it; it was also entertaining to watch Scott figure out how to get his old life back. Even Short earned a laugh when, after Jack’s plans have been foiled, he just kind of blinks and says, “Well, that didn’t work out like I’d hoped.” The best part of the film, though, was the surprise of finding Alan Arkin and Ann-Margret as Scott’s in-laws; I’m sure I’d known at some point that they were in the cast, but I’d totally forgotten it until they appeared on the screen. As ever, Arkin scores laughs, and Ann-Margret…well, she coasts by just by being herself.

I’m still of the opinion that only the first “Santa Clause” film is a must-see, but if my kid wants me to put this in at some future juncture, I probably won’t twitch…much.

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With 10 days ’til Christmas, a publicist sent to me…

December 15, 2007 /

…A Flintstones Christmas Carol.

Man, I used to love me some “Flintstones” when I was a kid. Jenn and I were sitting on the couch this morning, watching this with our 2-year-old daughter, Ally, and once again, it came flooding back to me how many of the original episodes I must’ve sat through during my childhood. Every time I catch an episode on Boomerang, I’m invariably washed over by a wave of memories I didn’t realize; whether they’d schedule it early in the morning or immediately after I got out of school, I’d always camp in front of the TV and absorb every moment of “The Flintstones.” Yes, even the Great Gazoo years. (Dude, seriously, I fucking loved Gazoo. I don’t know why he gets hassled so much.)

Unfortunately, “A Flintstones Christmas Carol” isn’t from the show’s glory years; it was a 1994 TV movie, and, well, if you’ve ever caught any of the more recent Flintstones material, you know that things have been going steadily downhill since the original series. But, really, this is just a weird film all around, mostly because a surprising chunk of it stays steadfast and true to the original Charles Dickens story. The premise involves Fred playing the part of Ebeneezer Scrooge in a Bedrock production of “A Christmas Carol,” but his ego gets the best of him, and it gets to the point where his head’s so swelled that it barely fits through his dressing room door. Inevitably, it becomes a case of life imitating art, Fred realizes the error of his ways, and it’s just as happy an ending as you’d expect.

Unfortunately, Ally started getting antsy right around the point when Jacob Marbley (yes, you read that right) comes to visit Scrooge…and I couldn’t blame her, because it was deadly dull and barely anything like a “Flintstones” episode. So I started scrambling to figure out how to remedy the situation, when what to my wondering eyes should appear but the words “Bonus Episode” on the DVD box. And, bam, it was off to watch “Christmas Flintstone,” the episode from the original series where Fred takes a part-time job as a department store Santa, only to be drafted to replace the REAL Santa, who’s been waylayed by illness. Oh, it was great stuff…and Ally, bless her, was enthralled by it, snuggled up to her mama, watching every moment of it and, at the end, asking for “‘nother one.”

So, clearly, I’m not going to recommend “A Flintstones Christmas Carol” in and of itself, but if you find it for an inexpensive price, it’s worth picking up for that bonus episode. I might never watch the film again, but I’ll be breaking out “Christmas Flintstone” every year for the long haul.

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