Miracle on Main Street: A Review

 

MIRACLE ON MAIN STREET

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews annual Christmas movie review, where I look at a Christmas-themed film. This year, one that blends film noir elements with themes of redemption and hope. 

1939 is heralded as the greatest year in film history. The epic Gone with the Wind would probably have been enough to make that year illustrious. However, we not only had that Southern spectacle, but among other films released that year were Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Women, The Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach, Love Affair, Beau Geste, Ninotchka, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 1939 was such a grand year for film that even Poverty Row got in on the act. Miracle on Main Street is a little-known film that has no major stars or big budget. What it does have is a lot of heart and a moving story.

In the Spanish Quarter of Los Angeles, there is the traditional posada Christmas celebration. There is also a seedy sideshow, overseen by shady carnie Dick Porter (Lyle Talbot). Among the various dancers is Florita and her Seven Veils. Florita is really Maria (billed simply as Margo), who happens to be Dick's wife. Maria is unhappy in her demimonde but can't find a way out of it. Without being overt, it is understood that she, through Dick's assistance, sells her charms. They make the mistake of trying that with an undercover cop, but both manage to escape.

In the flight, Maria flees into a church, where she is stunned to discover a newborn in the church creche. Impulsively taking the baby to help in her cover, Maria manages to get back to her apartment. Despite herself and common sense, Maria soon falls in love with the abandoned baby, whom she names Donatio. Aided by gruff but loving landlady Mrs. Herman (Jane Darwell) and drunk Dr. Miles better known as "Doc" (William Collier, Sr.), Maria soon starts a new life.

She also starts a relationship with Jim Foreman (Walter Able), recently divorced who wants a traditional wife and children. They fall in love, but Maria is reluctant to share the truth about her past or Donatio's origins. Though struggling financially, she is happy in her new life as a single mother and seamstress. The past, however, finds her in a quandary. Will she have to go back to dancing? Will Dick, now back, cause her more issues? How will she get out from under Dick's thumb and start anew with Jim?

Miracle on Main Street runs a surprisingly short 78 minutes long yet packs a lot of story within its runtime. Frederick Jackson's screenplay gives us an engaging story with flawed but decent characters to care about. We see early on that Maria really is not suited to be this erotic dancer, but she is also self-aware on her lack of virtues. "Well, say you're pretty nice. And a good-looking kid at that," the undercover cop tells her. "I'm not as good as I look," she replies, the double meaning clear. This is a pretty noir line that would evoke a shady lady. In Miracle on Main Street, it reveals Maria as a good girl trying to be bad.

Almost all the characters, particularly the females, are not saintly or wicked, but complicated and contradictory. Darwell, for example, is gruff and not afraid to push for the rent money, threatening to kick Maria and the child out. However, she also provides cover for Maria and Donatio when Child Protective Services threatens late in the film to separate them, insisting that Maria is Donatio's mother. Maria's two fellow dancers, who also escaped during the raid, end up finding more respectable work. One of them even bizarrely manages to pass herself off as a posh erudite British nanny, with her strong New York accent occasionally breaking through.

This provide some of Miracle on Main Street's comic relief, particularly when she, Maria and Jim are at the beach (though why they are all wearing dresses and suits there is strange). Collier, Sr. is also wonderful as Doc with his comic efforts at both drinking and sobriety. He, however, has surprisingly tender moments too. "A woman will do a lot when she's in love," Doc wisely observes to Maria when she frets over her complicated past.

Major credit should go not just to Jackson's screenplay but to Steve Sekely's directing. He got most of his actors to play the parts in a genuine manner. Darwell and Collier, Sr. were absolutely wonderful in their roles, showing a caring if again, flawed character. Margo and Talbot were a bit melodramatic in their performances, but nothing so wildly out-of-tune. To their credit, especially Margo's, they did bring genuine emotion when sharing scenes. 

Seleky also had some creative visual moments. The entry from outside the Streets of Cairo sideshow to the dance erotique show inside had great camera work. Miracle on Main Street had a surprisingly integrated male audience at the striptease, with black, Asian and Hispanic male patrons alongside white men enjoying the beautiful women dancing their Ripple Dances. 

The film is not perfect. One wonders why the subplot of Jim's first marriage was even there when having him be single would have worked just as well. One also wonders why Maria did not just reveal Dick's blackmail threats instead of trying to drive Jim away with a false story. 

A child is at the heart of both the Christmas Story and Miracle on Main Street. While Miracle on Main Street is a Poverty Row production, the film is mostly so well-acted, well-written and well-directed that the low-rent production oddly enhances the film. This is a hidden Christmas gem, one that might be worth remaking and updating. I was deeply moved by Miracle on Main Street, a film that hopefully will be better-known.

DECISION: A-

2024 Christmas Film: The Holiday Sitter

2023 Christmas Film: Journey to Bethlehem

2022 Christmas Film: Santa Claus (1959)

2021 Christmas Film: It Happened on Fifth Avenue

2020 Christmas Film: Roots: The Gift

2019 Christmas Film: Last Christmas

2018 Christmas Film: Christmas with the Kranks

2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas

2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas

2014 Christmas Film: Prancer

2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951) 

2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

The Holiday Sitter: The Hallmark Television Movie

THE HOLIDAY SITTER

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews' annual Christmas movie review, where I review a Christmas-themed film. This year, I look at the first openly-gay Hallmark Television Christmas movie.

The Hallmark Channel is donning its gay apparel for Christmas with The Holiday Sitter. I figure The Holiday Sitter was something that everyone behind the project patted themselves on the back for. Sadly, The Holiday Sitter will not make anyone's Yuletide gay, as it is probably the worst Hallmark movie that I have seen, which is saying a lot. 

Perpetual bachelor Sam Dalton (Jonathan Bennett) has no interest in much of anything outside his high finance career. He certainly is not interested in either having a family or his current family. Sam is looking forward to his Hawaiian holidays when his sister Kathleen Walker (Chelsea Hobbs) calls. She and her husband Nate (Matthew James Dowden) have to rush out of their New York suburb of Braydon to pick up the baby they have just ordered and hurriedly need a babysitter for their teen son Miles (Everett Andres) and tween daughter Dania (Mila Morgan).

Actually, they have to be there at the birth of their new child born via surrogate, and the birth mother went into early labor. The who, what and why of all this is irrelevant. The Holiday Sitter just needs an excuse to get the parents out and Sam in. 

Sam, who is so removed from his family that he does not know what Nate & Kathleen's house looks like and is I think unaware of his niece and nephew's names, does not tell his sister and brother-in-law that his flight leaves that very day. He just goes, and there meets Jason DeVito (George Krissa). He is the Walker's contractor, comes from a big Italian family and, like Sam, is openly gay. While Sam is totally inept with children, Jason is working to adopt rather than wait for Mr. Right, especially if Mr. Right does not want to start a family.

In the ensuing three days before Christmas, Sam and Jason find that opposites attract, both of them mentor Miles as he pursues Jason's niece Arabella (Bella Leonardo) in a local theater production and cater to Dania's vegan whims and hissy fits. Sam finds the joys of parenting and is even rewarded with his new niece being named Angelica Samantha in his honor. Will Sam and Jason find themselves in each other's arms by the end?

A good way to judge the success of a same-sex romance such as The Holiday Sitter would be if it would work with a heterosexual couple. Judging by that standard, it is possible for it to work, but there are outside factors that make The Holiday Sitter a disaster from the word go. Sam is really a horrible person. He is a bit shallow, clumsy (a running gag involves when he accidentally set the kitchen on fire the last time he babysat) and so bad with kids that when Dania calls him, "Uncle Sam" he responds with "Niece Dania" in a puzzled manner. He appears to not understand why he would be called "Uncle" by a minor. It is as if Sam is not a person or even a character but some odd audio-animatronic figure that is attempting to pass itself as human.

As a side note, he is "Uncle Sam" and there is not one joke about that. 

Had it been Samantha and Jason, The Holiday Sitter would still stink. At the top of the list is Morgan as Dania. I think she gave a bad performance, though to be fair every performance in The Holiday Sitter was hopelessly broad and cringey. What sets Morgan apart is how whiny and obnoxious Dania is. She is a vegan, which is already a sign that this tween girl is insufferable. Kathleen, who herself is also obnoxious when Sam finds a long list of dos and don'ts as well as a super-tight schedule for the kids, has given permission for Dania and Miles to have pancakes. Sam, whose cooking skills are already a source of mockery, tries to order out but has no luck. Dania, who wants her vegan pancakes, will not be denied and starts whining and making faces about it. If memory serves right, when Jason comes in to do his "uncle consulting" work, he finds Dania face down on the counter, making moaning noises.

I think that is meant to be funny. It only makes Dania into a little monster.

It takes a lot to make audiences actively hate children, but I hated Dania. Kathleen has promised her little girl that she and Nate will be there for Christmas. That means they have to ride through heavy snowstorms with a newborn to please this little brat. Sure, everyone has to go through hoops and ladders, even put a baby's life at risk, to please one little girl rather than tell her she can't get her way. Dania is perhaps the most awful character in The Holiday Sitter, which made the case that Sam is right in not wanting to be around any of his family.  

Not that anyone else in The Holiday Sitter gave a good performance. It is just that Morgan stood out because her character was so insufferable that part of me wishes she had been left out in the cold. As a side note, given that it is New York in winter, the weather seemed almost tropical in Braydon, the suburban Fire Island with its many gay couples.

Bennett is thoroughly hamming it up as Sam, never bothering to make the character into a real person. In some ways, Sam is a walking gay stereotype, the type of man who knows another man is gay because that man recognizes what type of loafers he wears.

In The Holiday Sitter, Jason tells Sam that he got some baking powder on his Rossini loafers. At first, Sam barely seems to notice what Jason said. As soon as it dawns on him that Jason knows what a Rossini loafer is, he asks him how he knows. Jason only smiles and walks away. Jason silently mouths his delighted reaction. To be fair, at least The Holiday Sitter answers the question on why Kathleen never bothered to hook up Jason and Sam (she knows that Sam, unlike Jason, does not want a family). Credit should be given for probably the only logical point in The Holiday Sitter. 

It is curious that Legally Blonde is now retroactively seen as homophobic because a gay character recognized Elle Woods' shoe brand, but The Holiday Sitter, which has a similar gag, is not. That Krissa and Bennett (the latter who also has a story credit with co-screenwriter Greg Baldwin, writing with Tracy Andreen) are both openly gay makes this bit more curious. They are diving into a gay stereotype which falls horrendously flat. 

As yet another side note, I know a few gay men who have no idea about shoe or clothes brands. That makes me think that The Holiday Sitter was not about moving past the "novelty" of a same-sex romantic comedy but about checking off boxes. Jason is a contractor, and here it would have been a nice change of pace to see someone who moves away from such stereotypes into more "manly" pursuits. That, however, would have required some thinking, which The Holiday Sitter was not about to do.

Jason's subplot about wanting a family is there to show the contrast to Sam, but being an acceptable uncle to his large group of Italian-American nieces and nephews does not show anything about his future parenting skills. I would have suggested making him Arabella's foster father, or even biological one. He could have been a divorced father, accepting his homosexuality after having married a woman and having a child with her. It is, I suppose, easier to keep him childless and giving him this vague goal of adoption, but his desire for a family never rings true and just comes and goes whenever the plot needs it.

I have digressed from the performances, which are all universally awful. Krissa is so blank as Jason, and even when playing against others, Krissa seems so robotic in his delivery. There is no chemistry between him and Bennett. Bennett did nothing but show Sam to be a near-moron, his performance being so broad as to almost transcend camp. When he is told that his new niece will be named after him, I think he is meant to be seen as genuinely moved. As performed by Jonathan Bennett, I genuinely could not tell if he was pretending to cry in an alleged humorous manner or not. That is bad: when what is meant to be moving ends up doubtful about its sincerity. 

Even in their small roles both Hobbs and Dowden were embarrassing as Kathleen and Nate. They were just dull and flat when separate from the central story. Andres probably was the best of the lot, but only when he performed in the Christmas play The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. We'll leave aside the question as to why there was a Christmas pageant on Christmas Eve itself. 

The Miles/Arabella subplot went nowhere, was resolved quickly and was surprisingly the only heterosexual romance in the film. 

The Holiday Sitter was terrible, with director Ali Liebert being the most to blame. Not only were the performances pretty much awful, but The Holiday Sitter drowned in cutesy sitcom music that is annoying and shows the low level of production it flourishes in. 

Bros, with its claims of being the first gay romantic comedy released by a major studio, had a lot of fun mocking the Hallmark Channel romcoms, particularly its Christmas movies. Not to be outdone, Hallmark decided the same year Bros came out (no pun intended) that it was time for its first gay Christmas romantic comedy. While there have been gay and lesbian romances in one or two Hallmark movies, The Holiday Sitter is the first to have a same-sex romance as its central plot. It will probably not the last, but one can only hope that future gay Hallmark movies are better than The Holiday Sitter.

0/10

2023 Christmas Film: Journey to Bethlehem

2022 Christmas Film: Santa Claus (1959) 

2021 Christmas Film: It Happened on Fifth Avenue 

2020 Christmas Film: Roots: The Gift

2019 Christmas Film: Last Christmas

2018 Christmas Film: Christmas with the Kranks

2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas

2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas

2014 Christmas Film: Prancer

2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)

2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

Red One: A Review (Review #1895)

 

RED ONE

Somewhere lurking abouts Red One is the germ of an idea: what if Santa Claus was unable to ride out on Christmas Eve? However, Red One is lost in its own world, unable to fully go the family route or the more action route, ending up nowhere. 

Santa Claus, code name Red One (J.K. Simmons) continues spreading cheer and love the world over. Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson), his head of security is tired after centuries of seeing how bitter adults are getting. Kris Kringle, for his part, keeps the faith and hopes that Callum will go on one more sleigh ride before formally retiring from ELF (Enforcement, Logistics and Fortifications). However, Santa has been abducted! Who is behind this nefarious plot two days away from Christmas Eve?

Eventually, we find that it is Gryla the Christmas Witch (Kiernan Shipka), who has her own evil plans to enact justice on all those on the Naughty List, everyone from killers to jaywalkers as she puts it. Unwittingly helping her is The Wolf, the mysterious hacker who can find anyone and anything. The Wolf is really Jack O'Malley (Chris Evans), who is a Level 4 Naughty Lister, the worst of the worst. Cynical, slovenly, selfish, greedy and a disengaged father to Dylan (Wesley Kimmell), he is now the only person who can find Santa. 

Forced to join the thoroughly stern Callum, he and Jack go from the sunny shores of Aruba to the hidden world of Santa's erstwhile brother, Krampus (Kristopher Hivju) to rescue the Claus and save Christmas. However, there are more twists and turns in finding Jolly Old St. Nick. Will Christmas be saved? Will Gryla enact her own perverse sense of justice on humanity?

The budget for Red One is calculated at about $250 million, and I think I can spot three areas where that money went to. You have the various special effects shots of the North Pole and the Snowmen attacking Callum, Jack and Gryla's middleman Ted (Nick Kroll) in Aruba. You have the elaborate makeup work of Krampus and his dark court. You have the decision to film this in IMAX.

You also, apart from the makeup, really have no reason to rush out to see Red One. At over two hours, it is a punishing length for a story that wanders hither and yon, with no direction. You could have cut the opening section where young Jack reveals the truth about where the gifts come from. The entire Krampus section had little payoff. Same with the Aruba section. It is as if screenwriter Chris Morgan opted to put in a lot but not bother with worldbuilding. 

Take for example Gryla the Christmas Witch. Who is she really? She tells us her plan to punish all those on the naughty list but capturing them in snow globes seems a rather dumb idea. For all the Sturm und Drang about keeping Ted safe from the snowmen because he is the only one who can lead them to his secret employer, he ends up frozen and then promptly forgotten. I think locking Dylan up in a snow globe next to his father seems a tad harsh. 

I think Red One wants to have it both ways and be both an action film and a heartwarming Yuletide treat. It is interesting that Jack mentions that Dylan has a great stepfather, but we never see said great stepfather. For someone who is meant to be something of a lone wolf, one is puzzled on why he even bothers recognizing Dylan as his. It is a way to get Jack to reform, I suppose. It just was not a good way. Did Jack really have to literally steal candy from a baby to show us what a horrible person he is?

I was puzzled not so much by why Santa Claus was grabbed but why ELF thought he was in mortal danger. Yes, I can see why he would need tight security in Philadelphia, where Santa goes to the mall to get recharged. Yet, when Callum barks out that there is a "Code Green", I thought, "has there been a previous attempt on Santa's life?". Perhaps if, say, Santa had been receiving threatening messages or Gryla had hacked the North Pole and issued threats, then we might have had something. As it is, however, Red One was not building up to anything.

To be fair, there were a few moments that I thought were mildly clever. At one point in Aruba, someone calls out that Ted can't get iced, though the pun escaped the audience. Hearing Ted call Callum and Jack the "Magic Mike Christmas Brigade" did make me smile, if only for the sheer idiocy of it all. There was just something sadly predictable in Red One, lazy almost. When they got to Aruba, the people next to me started singing, "Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take you", the opening lines to the Beach Boys' Kokomo. When Callum tells Jack that he is one day short of retirement after 542 years of service, the person next to me whispered, "Always".

Johnson and Evans are slumming through Red One, looking almost disinterested in what is going on. Evans could not make Jack into anything: neither charming rogue nor cynical criminal. I get that Johnson's Callum was meant to be the straight man in how serious he was meant to be. It just did not play well against Evans' more lackadaisical manner. Simmons could have made for a great Santa, even showing off his buff arms. However, for most of Red One, his performance consisted of looking zonked out, so it must have been nice to be paid to look asleep. Maybe he was asleep, who is to say? Bonnie Hunt was sadly underused as Partridge, which I presume is Mrs. Claus' first name or like "Red One", her code name. Lucy Liu just popped in and out, potentially setting up a cinematic universe with the MORA: Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority. 

Red One is not good. It may be too adult for young kids and despite its claims not kid enough for adults. It is not charming. It is not funny. It is not exciting. It is just there. Santa Claus may hate macaroons, but I think he would find Red One more distasteful. 

DECISION: D+

The Holdovers: A Review (Review #1784)

THE HOLDOVERS

There is an old cliche in film reviewing, "I laughed. I cried". With The Holdovers, I found that cliche fit. I did laugh. I did cry. A well-acted, well-written, well-directed film, The Holdovers delights and moves, even if it goes on longer than it perhaps should. 

Barton Academy, 1970. As staff and students at the prep school prepare to close for the Christmas holiday, there will be a skeleton crew to keep watch over the few students who will have to stay at Barton. These students, colloquially known as "holdovers", are watched over by one teacher and one cook. This year, it is kitchen supervisor Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) and Professor Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti), who teaches ancient history to, in his words, "philistines". Hunham is open about his overall contempt for the students: he calls them philistines to their faces. 

Not that his Barton students know what a philistine is or care either about Hunham or ancient history. They just want to move up in life, no knowledge required. All but one of Hunham's students gets a failing grade. Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) passes, but he is equally disinterested in things. Much to his horror, Angus is a last-minute holdover, his mother and stepfather cancelling his trip so they could go on a delayed honeymoon.

As Tully, a frenemy, a jock with hair too long for his father's liking and two child students (a Korean and Mormon) are forced to stay, Hunham sees no reason why they can't be learning, working and exercising during this break. Fortune smiles on the group, however, when Jason Smith (Michael Provost), the hippie jock, leaves early when his father finally overlooks Jason's long hair. Mr. Smith has sent his helicopter and agreed to take every student whose parents agree to go with them. Everyone manages to reach their parents for permission, except for Angus.

Now with both Hunham and Tully angrier at the situation, they slowly come to terms with each other and themselves. Mary, for her part, reconciles herself to the death of her son, Curtis, who was killed earlier in the year in Vietnam. As the break goes on through Christmas and New Year's Day, the three of them reveal secrets, accept things as they are, and find resolution to their various issues.

The Holdovers is firmly set in the early 1970's, starting from its opening credits to the overall aesthetic. We are so immersed in this time period, yet The Holdovers never seems dated or stuck in the past. Rather, it is one of the freshest, most original films of 2023, in turns funny and heartfelt. It is a credit to director Alexander Payne how well he navigates his cast and keeps the film going.

This is Paul Giamatti's best performance out of so many wonderful performances that he has given. As Paul Hunham, he is acerbic, aloof, cutting. "I don't understand," Teddy Kountze (Brady Hepner) states when Hunham gives his class schoolwork over the holidays. Without missing a beat, Hunham retorts in a dry, dismissive manner, "That's glaringly evident". What makes Giamatti's performance so brilliant is that he makes Hunham into a flawed yet fully formed person. Other actors might have made him perpetually sardonic or deliberately cruel. Giamatti, however, makes him more rigid but not without sense. He values knowledge and loathes these wealthy scions who coast through life without any effort. He may be blunt to the point of insulting, but as The Holdovers moves, we see how he cocooned himself.

Giamatti makes Paul, if not cuddly, at least understandable, almost relatable, in his flaws and quirks. Moreover, we see the gradual shift in his nature and outlook. It is a subtle shift, best captured from when he refers to his temporary ward as "Mr. Tully" to "Tully" and finally "Angus". We get wonderful moments of acting from Giamatti, some which just have his face tell us. When he sees the Barton employee that he imagines might be interested in him kiss someone else, he turns away to face the audience. The look of sadness and resignation is deeply affecting.

Randolph more than holds her own as Mary, who is funny and heartbreaking. At one point, she remarks to Paul, "You can't even dream a whole dream, can you?" after hearing what he would like to do if he weren't at Barton. Her best scene is at the Christmas party she, Paul and Angus attend. Slightly inebriated, she finally allows herself to grieve for her son. The next day, she remarks to Paul that she had "cocktail flu", the best euphemism for a hangover I have heard.

Sessa in a standout debut performance is equal to acting alongside these veterans. Angus is in turns maddening and lonely, guarding secrets and sadness behind his sarcasm. 

David Hemingson's screenplay is sharp and funny without being saccharine or cynical. It keeps to their characters and how they would speak, but it also gives each character a complexity and growth through their time together. Paul, for example, explains to a store Santa the origin of St. Nicholas of Myra. It is true to how he sees the world but still manages to be funny without making Paul look bonkers. Paul's kiss-off to his hated schoolmaster is one of the best kiss-offs in film, showing a wit behind the goings-on. 

If there is an issue with The Holdovers, it is the length. It does feel longer than its two-hour-plus runtime. I understand that the first set of holdovers was there to set characters, but I think that section could have been cut.

That, however, is a minor flaw. The Holdovers is a delightful, intelligent film. You care about these characters, even with their flaws and quirks. A film that has you chuckling one moment, quietly sighing the next, it is a nice time staying with The Holdovers. 

DECISION: A+

Journey to Bethlehem: A Review

JOURNEY TO BETHLEHEM

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews annual Christmas movie review, where I look at a Christmas-themed film. This year, I look at what I thought was not possible: a musical built around the birth of Christ.

I attend a Baptist church but am still highly reluctant to be baptized. My spiritual journey, however, has led me to a curious element in present-day American Christianity: the Christmas church show. We are mostly gone from the days when Sunday school students are trotted out to do a medley of Jingle Bells and O Holy Night or reenact the Magi's search for the Christ Child. While we do still see that in some churches, today's megachurches mount epic productions that would make the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark producers marvel at its scope. These are massive spectacles, some with original songs, lavish costumes and visual effects which can overwhelm congregants/spectators. 

I am one of those "they mean well at heart" type of people when it comes to these big Christmas spectaculars. That is the attitude that I bring to Journey to Bethlehem.

Drawing from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew, we start with the Magi (also known as the Three Wise Men) finding a star that they see as leading them to a new king. With that, Gaspar (Rizwan Manji), Melchior (Omid Djalili) and Baltazar (Geno Segers) begin their journey. That leads them to the Roman province of Judea, nominally ruled by King Herod (Antonio Banderas). 

Herod is too busy drinking and keeping his son Antipater (Joel Smallbone) from the throne to care about his people. As such, the romantic struggles of the peasant girl Mary (Fiona Palomo) would be of no interest. Mary would much rather learn the Hebrew scriptures than marry but marry Mary must. As her sisters encourage her to look positively on her upcoming nuptials, she meets a nice but flirtatious Jewish boy who takes a shine to her. Good thing too, for Mary finds at her betrothal party that her fiancée is that same nice but flirtatious Jewish boy, Joseph (Milo Manheim).

While neither is particularly thrilled at the prospect of marrying the other, they do find something of a spark between them. Things take a wild turn when the Archangel Gabriel (Lecrae) comes to Mary and tells her that she is to bear the long-promised Messiah. That will be hard given that she is a virgin. Joseph and Mary's family are horrified at the pregnancy, so she is sent off to stay with her cousin Elizabeth to avoid scandal. Joseph, struggling with his feelings, also has a dream confirming the Child's divinity, and rushes to Mary's side.

By this time the Magi have come to Herod asking for help to find this new King. Herod is alarmed and angry. Will he get Antipater to slaughter the innocents? Will the bumbling Magi make it? Will Mary and Joseph both overcome their own struggles and find a place for her to give birth?

One cannot assume that the story of the Nativity is known to modern audiences. Even in the nominally Christian country of the United States, the basics of Christianity and/or Judaism can be unknown. It should be remembered that on a Jeopardy episode, not one contestant could answer a question related to The Lord's Prayer. As such, Journey to Bethlehem does cater more to contemporary views on society than what Scripture might hold. How else to explain seeing Mary, Mother of Jesus come across as an early version of Yentl. This Mary wants to study the word of God and not get married despite the catchy Mary's Getting Married number. 

It also has Mary and Joseph essentially meet cute, with Joseph a bit of a klutz who tends to start conversations with "Thank you", slightly unsure of what to say. To be fair, a positive element of Journey to Bethlehem is that Mary and Joseph are closer to age versus the more traditional portrayal of Joseph as almost old enough to be Mary's father. 

Journey to Bethlehem also caters to modern tastes at the Annunciation. Exactly why Gabriel has to be a bit clumsy and unsure when he comes to Mary is, to my mind, a way to humanize this most divine and holy of moments in Christianity. Writers Peter Barsocchini and Adam Anders (the latter who also directed), I figure, had the best of intentions in the making of the film. Again, to their credit they did well in humanizing the central characters of Mary and Joseph. We got to see them as young kids, unsure about things, caught up in very extraordinary situations.

However, the Annunciation scene bothered me greatly. I see no reason why the Archangel Gabriel had to be slightly comic in his hesitancy. This is the single greatest turning point in human history: the Word made Flesh, God come into the world. To try and add lightness to what should be a moment of solemnity and dignity runs the risk of making light of the moment. I think it was a mistake to have Gabriel bump his head as he glides towards the sleeping Mother of Christ.

Despite that, a lot of Journey to Bethlehem is entertaining, mostly intentionally so. Musicals live and die on the songbook, and there are some quite good numbers in the film. A true highlight is the Herod number Good to Be the King. Banderas is devouring the scenery with wild glee, delighting in showing off Herod's lust for power. The music and lyrics (written by director Anders, Nikki Anders and Peer Astrom) gives Good to Be the King a wild, pulsating manner. It also manages to work in parts of The Lord's Prayer in a deliberate way.

"Mine is the kingdom, mine is the power, mine is the glory, forever more!" Harod belts out. It is surprisingly bold to put the words of Christ in Harod's mouth, but it works. The songs shift well from scene to scene depending on the moment. You have the overtly goofy Three Wise Guys where the Magi work to charm the mercurial Harod, a clear comic number in keeping with the lighthearted portrayal of the Wise Men. Then there is what I think the other good number that is not Good to Be the King. The surprisingly tender We Become We, a duet between Joseph and Mary when both accept the truth about their feelings for each other despite Mary's pregnancy, is quite pleasant and moving. I would not be surprised to hear We Become We become a wedding song.

I think there were maybe one or two musical numbers that did not fully work for me. There's the aforementioned Mary's Getting Married, which was a bit forced in portraying her conflicted views on the arranged marriage. Smallbone's In My Blood, where he struggles with his legacy as Harod's son, is also slightly unintentionally comic. The dancing Roman soldiers might have done that part wrong. It is curious that Smallbone, better known as part of the Christian Contemporary Music group For King and Country, had one of the weaker numbers.

It is more puzzling that Lecrae, who has a good career as a CCM rap artist, was not given a song to perform. 

I think the performances ranged from the pleasant to the appropriately crazed. Manheim and Palomo are quite pleasant and charming as Joseph and Mary, this couple of kids who go from hesitant to aware of love. Both have solo numbers: Mother to a Savior and King for Palomo, The Ultimate Deception for Manheim. They both did well both separate and together. I would give the edge to Manheim, who made Joseph less polished despite being older than Mary. He is unsure and unsteady, even able to show inner conflict (albeit by literally playing a split version of himself in The Ultimate Deception). Palomo made Mary into a more confident figure, which is at odds with Mary as the humble maiden traditionally thought of. 

Banderas is absolutely loving tearing into King Harod as a drunk, slightly looney but still dangerous figure. He belts out Good to Be the King with wild abandon, a bit camp but still fun. Smallbone looks like his job is to growl and scowl, but it was fine.

Journey to Bethlehem is fine. Given its surprisingly brief running time of 98 minutes, I think families will find in it a nice, mostly inoffensive take on the Yuletide season. I did a like how it humanized Joseph and Mary, down to ending the film with them framing the film as the story they tell a child Jesus about His birth. I think it might have been slightly more reverential given the subject matter, but on the whole, I think they meant well.

DECISION: C+

2022 Christmas Film: Santa Claus (1959)

2021 Christmas Film: It Happened on Fifth Avenue

2020 Christmas Film: Roots: The Gift

2019 Christmas Film: Last Christmas

2018 Christmas Film: Christmas with the Kranks

2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas

2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas

2014 Christmas Film: Prancer

2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)

2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

Santa Claus (1959): A Review

 

SANTA CLAUS

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews annual Christmas movie review, where we look at a Christmas-centered film. This year, we go down Mexico way, to perhaps the oddest take on jolly old Saint Nicholas ever committed to film.

Santa Claus is an American creation, though like many an American creation, with foreign roots. Santa Claus the film, however, is to my mind, a rare time when an American creation is appropriated by a foreign market.  In turns weirdly charming and just weird, Santa Claus is more infamous than famous, but not without a strange, albeit loony, charm.

Narrated by Keith Hetherington, Santa Claus takes us to jolly old St. Nicholas' literal castle on a cloud. Here, children from all over the world help Santa (Jose Elias Moreno) make toys. Santa is not able to go to Earth until Christmas Eve, leaving much room for Lucifer to wreak havoc on mankind. 

His generally inept minion Pitch (Jose Luis Aguirre "Trotsky") is tasked to turn children to evil. While he is successful with a trio of bad boys, his efforts at corrupting sweet but poor Lupita (Lupita Quezadas) fails. Santa can only watch at Pitch keeps making his pitch to turn kids to the dark side. Pitch fails with both Lupita and Billy (Antonio Diaz Conde hijo*). Billy is as rich as Lupita is as poor, but a literal "poor little rich boy". He has everything a child could want, but his parents' attention. They do not ignore him per se, but they are going out to swanky nightclubs on Christmas versus spending time with Billy.

At last, it is Christmas Eve. With some help from his good friend Merlin (Armando Arriola), Santa carries a powder that will put people to sleep and a rose to make him invisible. Will Pitch, however, be successful in thwarting Santa's sojourn down Mexico way? Will Lupita get her doll? 

Santa Claus is, well, bonkers. I think the film is sometimes called Santa Claus vs. The Devil (though I think Santa vs. Satan would have been better); that title is just slightly more rational than the perhaps more well-known and more infamous Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. It is somewhat difficult to judge Santa Claus given that the original Spanish-language version is not as available as the English-dubbed film mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I can't, however, imagine that the original is any better.

There are some absolutely cringe moments in Santa Claus that, if one is extremely generous, come across as wildly misguided. When we see Santa's children workshop in Toyland (already the notion of de facto child labor being odd), seeing the "African" children in loincloths and bones in their hair is ghastly. Not that noting the "Orient" children perform an Indian dance makes things any less culturally clueless.

Other moments look like they came from a very cheap LSD trip. Of particular note is when Fetch gives Lupita a dream about the doll she wants. From out of wardrobes pop up rather frightening-looking dolls that are more terrifying than endearing. Quezadas' puzzled expression matches the viewers who watch this very bizarre Ballet of the Blue Dolls. 

Hetherington's narration, meant to explain things, only ended up coming across as, if not patronizing, more elementary school type. Hearing a kind of sing-song voice say things like "OH NO, LUPITA! DON'T TAKE THAT DOLL!" adds an extra level of silliness to an already whacked-out premise.

I do not think that there are any performances. On a certain level, director Rene Cardona keeps a childlike manner to how he has his actors play the roles. A lot of Santa Claus is at a child's level, so we can be a bit generous. Nevertheless, Moreno's Santa Claus can come across as a bit loony to creepy, particularly when he laughs. Trotsky as the Devil aims for whimsical, but even for something as lighthearted as Santa Claus, it can be too exaggerated.

Also, the thought of "Trotsky as the Devil" seems to work.

Despite the poor acting, weird sets, very irrational elements (somehow, the idea of parents going out on the town while their son is asleep on Christmas Eve is both strange and rational), there is something oddly charming about Santa Claus. It is like seeing a child's family drawing. It looks like a bunch of lines, out-of-alignment facial features, and nothing like what anyone looks like. Still, you find yourself delighted by the effort, wildly misguided and all. 

* Hijo in Spanish can be "son" or "boy". Here, I suspect it is closer to "Junior". 

DECISION: C+

2021 Christmas Film: It Happened on Fifth Avenue

2020 Christmas Film: Roots: The Gift

2019 Christmas Film: Last Christmas

2018 Christmas Film: Christmas with the Kranks

2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas

2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas

2014 Christmas Film: Prancer

2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)

2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

It Happened on Fifth Avenue: A Review

IT HAPPENED ON FIFTH AVENUE

Welcome to Rick's Cafe Texan's annual Christmas review. This year, it is It Happened on Fifth Avenue, which I would argue is not a real Christmas film. Pleasant enough but not particularly interesting, It Happened on Fifth Avenue has an idea around it that just did not fulfill its promise.

Hobo Aloysious T. McKeever (Victor Moore) slums it every winter in the boarded-up mansion of Michael O'Connor (Charles Ruggles) while O'Connor is in his Virginia winter home. Aloysious happens upon veteran Jim Bullock (Don De Fore), recently thrown out of his apartment to make way for another O'Connor building. As there is plenty of room in O'Connor's Fifth Avenue mansion, Aloysious offers him room to stay.

Al clears up the confusion that he really isn't O'Connor's friend and assuring Jim that he leaves things exactly as he found them, which puts Jim at ease. However, unexpected complications arise with the arrival of Trudy (Gail Storm). Al and Jim mistake her for another homeless person when in fact she is O'Connor's daughter. She keeps up the ruse, with "Trudy Smith" and Jim falling in love. 

However, Michael eventually finds his wayward daughter. To please her and see if Jim is really in love with "Trudy Smith", he agrees to be "Mike", yet another homeless man. The house is bursting with people, as two of Jim's former Army buddies (and their respective wives and children) also take up residence at the O'Connor mansion. Mike is displeased at the indignities foisted on him in his own home and is on the edge. Only the arrival of his ex-wife Mary (Ann Harding) can help keep up the subterfuge and bring this unofficial house party to a joyful conclusion.  

There is a Christmas scene in It Happened on Fifth Avenue. There is even a Christmas song (That's What Christmas Means to Me). However, for a film billed as a "Christmas movie" this is the only reference to Christmas in the whole of It Happened on Fifth Avenue. Christmas itself appears to be incidental to the story. It is not the focus of the film, so I am puzzled as to why It Happened on Fifth Avenue is called a "Christmas movie".

The movie is not terrible, but I found it dull and long. That isn't to say there weren't nice elements in It Happened on Fifth Avenue. Moore is absolutely winning as Aloysious T. McKeever, the wise and kind hobo. He is polite, caring, moral (he won't have any hanky-panky going on between Mike and Mary) and despite his squatting and breaking-and-entering, he leaves the mansion exactly as he found it. There's a lightness to Moore's performance that is endearing.

De Fore and Storm (perhaps the most uniquely named actress of her time) were also pleasant and delightful as Jim and Trudy. Ruggles and Harding too worked well as the formerly married pair who still loved each other. Curiously, Ruggles got the best lines and moments, surprising given he wasn't a major part of the film until past the halfway point. 

The best bit is an extended albeit perhaps unnecessary part where he mistakenly thinks Trudy already has a baby. The wordplay is good enough to make it barely plausible that Mike gets the wrong impression, though to my mind it is a bit forced. De Fore also has a bit of clever dialogue when he is ejected from the apartment while chained to his bed. "Just because I'm in bed it's no sign I'm taking this lying down!" he yells on his way out.

If the film had kept its focus on the romances and this particular family, we could have had a better film. However, It Happened on Fifth Avenue instead started becoming too crowded, just like the mansion itself. You had nine characters all vying for attention, and something had to go. What had to go was the two married couples and their two kids. They not only added little to nothing to the film but also were pretty much forgotten for most of it.

They were needed only when the film turned its focus on Jim's plans to turn a former Army barracks into low-cost affordable housing for returning GIs. There is nothing unique about the cold and uncaring businessman attempting to squash the little guy until he gets wise thanks to the kindly poor. It Happened on Fifth Avenue squandered a good opportunity to be a good film by crowding in too much and too many.

It is like a Frank Capra knockoff: the basic idea of it but without the skill and heart Capra would have brought to it.

It Happened on Fifth Avenue, despite claims to the contrary, did not strike me as a genuine Christmas film. It is barely passable thanks to the performances, especially Moore, but I am hard-pressed to make it a genuine Christmas classic.

DECISION: C+

2020 Christmas Film: Roots: The Gift

2019 Christmas Film: Last Christmas

2018 Christmas Film: Christmas with the Kranks

2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas

2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas

2014 Christmas Film: Prancer

2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)

2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

Roots: The Gift. The Television Special

ROOTS: THE GIFT

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews Annual Christmas , where I review a Christmas-themed film for the holidays. For this year's Christmas-themed film, I will look at a television special whose connection to Christmas is tenuous at best.

The idea of a Roots "Christmas Special" seems downright bonkers. The epic miniseries detailing the "peculiar institution" of slavery through the experience of four generations of an enslaved family does not appear to open itself to the happy warmth of the holiday season. Roots: The Gift is not about how Kunta Kinte met Santa Claus. It aims to be a story of the genesis of the Underground Railroad, but if you have seen or are aware of Roots, this spinoff undercuts a bit of what has come before.

Roots: The Gift, made eleven years after Roots captivated the nation is set seven years after the infamous and heartbreaking moment when African slave Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton) is finally whipped into submission to accept his literal slave name of "Toby".

Spotsylvania County, Virginia, December 1775. Both Toby/Kunta and Fiddler (Louis Gossett, Jr.) are owned by Dr. William Reynolds (Jerry Hardin), whose been invited to a Christmas party at the nearby plantation of Edmund Parker, Sr. (John McMartin) and his wife Amelia (Michael Learned). While happy to take Fiddler so as to provide entertainment, the doctor reluctantly takes Toby to be the coachman.

Once there the Parker plantation finds itself awash with all kinds of visitors welcome and not. Edmund Parker, Jr. (Shaun Cassidy) has arrived from Harvard. Also here is Mr. Cletus Moyer (Avery Brooks), a whose appearance and status as a free man of color stuns Kunta. Despite being a free man of color he is still black, and is captured by Hattie Carraway (Kate Mulgrew) the rare female bounty hunter.

Cletus has been aiding runaway slaves and as such is a wanted man. Hattie cares only for money, the rightness or wrongness of slavery irrelevant to her. Kunta and Fiddler learn that Cletus was about to help more runaways when taken and asks Kunta to take his place. He's eager to and get freedom for himself, but Fiddler is more reluctant. They do go to meet Cletus' contact of "Ciris", who turns out to be a surprising figure but agree to help the runaways with the chance of them joining the party.

A slave rebellion terrifies the whites and even longtime loyal slaves like Mammy May (Fran Bennett) and house slave Marcellus (Tim Russ) are treated not as "family" but as that appalling word by their masters. Despite the dangers, Kunta and Fiddler help the runaways after Moyer and two runaway slaves are lynched.

Will Kunta and Fiddler lead the small group, including a pregnant woman about to give birth, to freedom? Will they themselves be free?

I think the answer to the last question will be easy to answer if you again know anything about Roots. That takes away from any tension or suspense in Roots: The Gift since we already know what will happen. D.M. Eyre, Jr.'s screenplay also does not really bother setting up "Ciris" true identity and it should be pretty obvious who "Ciris" is. It's almost to where one wonders how long it would take to get anyone to figure it out.

Roots: The Gift also has some pretty bad performances, as if everyone involved was either thrilled to be part of the Roots storyline or aware that they were "acting". I was surprised that Brooks' Cletus was excessively dramatic as Cletus Moyer from the get-go, posing and using his rich voice to sound rather grand even when saying sometimes banal things. Learned and McMartin were also somewhat theatrical, sometimes to unfortunate effects. The scene where Edmund, Sr. slaps the subservient Marcellus should have been shocking. As played by McMartin, it comes across close to silly.

Cassidy, to be sure, was quite beautiful as the progressive Edmund, Jr., but he was not exactly a complex character, the white voice of reason in this evil world. I think by now both Burton and Gossett, Jr. knew their roles so well that they seemed to more coast through it, a shadow of their excellent work in Roots. Curiously, the best performance came from Mulgrew. She was evil incarnate from the get-go, but at least she had a more complex figure to play than some of the cardboard characters in Roots: The Gift. She was a bit of a feminist albeit a twisted one: a woman who had no love for the slaveholding aristocracy and certainly knew that her options were limited as a woman.   

The special has a hard time balancing the horror and inhumanity of slavery with the logic of the plot. Take for example when little Arabella Parker (Brandy Brown) uses Kunta as a camel for a Christmas pageant (down to pulling monstrously hard on his reins). When he's reached the end of his patience with this dual indignity he stands up literally and figuratively to everyone there and mentions that he is not a camel. Despite some addled protests from Arabella's mother, Kunta seems to be in command.

More surprising, he tells Arabella that his name is "Kunta Kinte" and everyone around him behaves as though a slave calmly but firmly reprimanding a little white girl is perfectly normal. All I could think was that they were very understanding white folks, letting a slave talk back to them with no word of complaint versus slapping loyal slaves who were actually helping them withstand the oncoming rebellion.

Roots: The Gift feels like a lost episode than a genuine addition to the Roots story. One can appreciate the message that "the gift" on this Christmas Eve is freedom, a most worthy gift. However, since we know Fiddler and Kunta Kinte/Toby will not be free, it does make it less than what it could have been to where it might have worked better if Kunta's descendants had met the Underground Railroad.

5/10

2019 Christmas Film: Last Christmas
2018 Christmas Film: Christmas with the Kranks
2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas 
2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns
2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas
2014 Christmas Film: Prancer
2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)
2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

Last Christmas: A Review

LAST CHRISTMAS

Welcome to Rick's Texan Reviews Annual Christmas Day Christmas Film review. Each December 25, I look at a Yuletide-themed film and this year we have Last Christmas.

I imagine that while most people know the chorus to Wham!'s Last Christmas, few know the entire song verbatim. The film Last Christmas is said to be 'inspired' by the music of the late George Michael, but it's more inspired by one song, which if memory serves correct is played in some way at least four times. Last Christmas is mercifully not terrible, but it is bad, continuing a run of poor holiday films that push themselves on audiences.

In 1999 Yugoslavia little Katrina sings like an angel, but in 2017 Croatian refugee Katrina or "Kate" (Emilia Clarke) is floundering. A drunken slut with vague ideas about being a singer, she jumps from one-night stand to one-night stand, crashing at whatever friend's couch that she hasn't managed to alienate. Kate works at a Christmas-themed shop open all year run by a woman calling herself "Santa" (Michelle Yeoh). Always dressed like an elf, Kate is openly miserable.

There is a reason for her misery: she had a heart condition requiring a transplant but she is thoroughly careless in how she manages her health and life. Kate also hates her mother Petra (screenwriter Emma Thompson) and resents her more successful older sister Marta (Lydia Leonard), though she's fond of her father Ivan (Boris Isakovic). And then she meets Tom (Henry Golding). He's fun, wacky and more important, interested in her. Interested enough to pursue our dour Kate, who eventually falls for his charms.

Despite herself, Kate starts growing as a person under Tom's mentorship. She stops drinking and picking up men. She becomes an unofficial matchmaker for Santa. She slips into volunteering at a homeless shelter, in particular by singing in front of it to raise money. After outing Marta as a lesbian, she starts making amends. She even starts reaching out to Petra and helps her become less reclusive and depressed despite the bigotry of Brexit.

Kate, however, still can't figure out why Tom disappears for days on end and is hard to find. It isn't until she goes back to his flat that she makes a shocking discovery: that 'last Christmas' it was Tom who literally gave her his heart when he was killed in a bicycle accident. With her ghostly romance over, Kate can now be a better person.

"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it away. This year, to save me from tears, I'll give to someone special". It's one thing to draw inspiration from George Michael's lyrics. It's another when you use them as the plot itself. Last Christmas, Tom gave Kate his heart but the very next day (or at least following surgery) she threw it away (with booze and boys). This year, to save her from tears, she'll give it to someone special: her family, her friends, her fellow humans.

Is it a strange thing that Last Christmas appears to be as if someone decided to make a romantic comedy out of A Beautiful Mind? At least John Nash had the "excuse" that he was schizophrenic, but was Kate just bonkers? Her entire romance was a delusion, but if that wasn't already bad enough one wonders exactly how did Kate know who Tom was. Do people routinely know the name and life-story of those whom they received organs from? I figure Thompson (cowriting with Bryony Kimmings) and director Paul Feig thought this would be a heartbreaking & touching twist, but it ends up making Kate look crazy.

Still, a little part of me does wish there had been a sex scene between Kate and Tom. Seeing it revisited after discovering Tom was already dead when he and Kate met would have been wild! How would Kate end up having sex with a figment of her imagination?

I'm sure everyone meant well, but Last Christmas is thoroughly unbalanced. The relationship between Santa and Kate is contradictory. At times Santa and Kate appear to be almost besties. At other times Santa appears to be unaware of Kate's name: more than once she refers to Kate as "Elf". The subplot of Santa's own romance seems from another film altogether, and moreover is so overtly overplayed as to make one wonder if they were aiming for farce.

It's a terrible disservice to Yeoh, who comes across as a combination Dragon Lady stereotype and idiot. Despite Kate's irresponsibility in not locking the shop which results in a robbery, Santa won't fire her. Again sometimes she's her BFF, sometimes she's her tyrannical boss.

I never saw Game of Thrones, but I did see Me Before You and am thoroughly puzzled as to why Emilia Clarke is constantly pushed at me as this 'bubbly' personality. To her credit Kate did grow as a character but Clarke's efforts to be all adorkable grew tiresome, and her disheveled manner wasn't that good either. Golding was pleasant enough, but why Tom had to do these oddball dance routines to woo Kate one can only guess at.

As a side note, and something that may be a bit too technical, I did wonder how Katrina, despite having come to Britain as at least a tween, has no Croatian accent. Her older sister equally sounds quite British, or is Marta her younger sister? Thompson most certainly had an accent, making her sound like The Bride of Dracula and a way to throw in some anti-Brexit sentiments.

Last Christmas has such a ludicrous twist that I did literally burst out laughing, but on the whole I softened a bit to it. It's not good and illogical, but I suppose as far as bad Christmas movies go, Last Christmas will serve until Next Christmas. 

DECISION: C-

2018 Christmas Film: Christmas with the Kranks

2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas

2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas

2014 Christmas Film: Prancer

2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)

2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas

Ben Is Back: A Review

BEN IS BACK

Ben is Back wants to be a searing drama on an important issue. It does not quite hit that level, sometimes slipping into what I like to think of as an unhinged Hallmark Hall of Fame special. It is saved by one performance, a reminder that Julia Roberts still has so much more to offer than a million-watt smile.

It is Christmas Eve, and the Burns Family is getting ready for the holidays. Holly Burns (Roberts) shepherds her three children: teen Ivy (Kathryn Newton) and elementary school Lacey (Mia Fowler) and Liam (Jakari Fraser) through a church pageant (despite being agnostic/atheists). There's food and presents...and then there's Ben (Lucas Hedges).

Ben is back, and while Holly and the two youngest are thrilled, neither Ivy or her stepfather Neal (Courtney B. Vance) are. Neal is especially dubious of Ben given his troubled history of drug addiction.

Ben insists that his sponsor suggested he was ready to visit, but Neal and Ivy do not agree. Holly does not want to see their point of view, but eventually a deal is struck: Holly sticks with Ben at all times and gives him a drug test and he can stay.

The rest of Ben is Back surrounds his dark night of the soul on a most exhausting Christmas Eve. A visit to the mall (begging the question why anyone would go shopping on Christmas Eve, but whatever) triggers him and gives Holly a chance to verbally abuse Ben's old (and senile) doctor for prescribing medication that got him hooked.

An NA meeting where he meets a pretty young girl whom he doesn't recognize until she tells him he was her old dealer.

A Christmas pageant that leaves him in tears, especially after seeing the mother of Maggie, the girl he sold drugs to leading to her overdose.

A dog-napping where Holly and Ben search for whoever stole Ponce from them in retribution for Ben being back.

As we plunge further into this Yuletide nightmare, Holly learns that Ben would turn tricks for his history teacher in exchange for drugs and that Maggie's dad is still enraged with him; we also meet his former friend Spencer (David Zaldivar) now going by 'Spider'. Spider, still an addict, knows that their old deal Clayton (Michael Esper) had something to do with the dog-napping.

Ben tricks Holly into going to Clayton alone, where he's pressed to do one last drug run. Holly keeps frantically searching, evading Neal's constant calls. Eventually, Ben does the job, gets Ponce back and almost overdoses himself, rescued in time by Holly.

As I think on Ben is Back, I wonder if writer/director Peter Hedges (coincidentally or not Lucas' father) was perhaps throwing in way too much (not that the 'shopping on Christmas Eve for clothes when I figure Ben would have some clothing in his house' bit isn't a bit curious already). The film is filled with wild coincidences and chance meetings that would make Charles Dickens blush, albeit perhaps with envy.

The film desperately pushes for 'emotionally devastating' and it does not quite get there. I put it to a variety of factors: the endless coincidences that pop up reminders of Ben's troubled past, the almost cliched manner of the parents and their joint children, the wild 'one last score' story, the predictability of how Holly was going to be tricked.

There is also another element: Lucas Hedges. It was by sheer coincidence that I saw Ben is Back immediately after Boy Erased, so I got a Lucas Hedges double feature. I think I've seen enough of Hedges fils as 'troubled young man', and moreover this was the first time in his short but respectable career where I did not believe Lucas. There was an artifice, a mannered and almost 'actory' take on the role. I could see him acting.

Part of it is with the limitations on the part (troubled young addict). However, part of it is Lucas. There is something wrong when you agree with a character saying "I'm not worth it". Ben is just bringing chaos wherever he goes.

However, the film's saving grace is Julia Roberts. We do get that "Julia Roberts Smile" early in the film, but for the rest of the movie we see her pull out the dramatic work as Holly, blinded by love. Whether it's in her telling off the doctor slipping into dementia for causing the problem or frantically searching for her firstborn or even having to ask for help from Maggie's mom, Roberts excels past this domestic drama riddled with cliches.

She so dominates the film that we pretty much forget everyone else, though to be fair Peter does too, giving the rest of the Burns family little to do.

Ben is Back in terms of story is nothing unique to the issue of drug addiction. It even loses its way a bit when we have to make Ben a mule to get Ponce back. However, the film is worth seeing if only for Julia Roberts, proving yet again that she's more than just a 'Pretty Woman'.

DECISION: C+

Christmas With the Kranks: A Review

CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS

Welcome to the Annual Rick's Texan Reviews Christmas Special. For seven years I review a Christmas-themed movie to celebrate the festive Yuletide season. For this year, it's Christmas with the Kranks.

I confess to never having read a John Grisham novel. I do have vague memories of when Third Rock from the Sun spoofed the repetitiveness of his oeuvre.  Each of the Solomons mentioned how they were reading "a great John Grisham novel" about "a young Southern lawyer who fights an evil corporate giant". The joke was that while each book was a different title, they all had the same plot.

I figure that Grisham must have already locked down his fanbase by the time he wrote Skipping Christmas, on which Christmas with the Kranks was based on. Otherwise, I imagine that if he had tried selling Skipping Christmas as his debut, it would have been dismissed for the SH-IT that it is. As I have not read Skipping Christmas, I cannot vouch for how faithful Christmas with the Kranks is to the original.

St. Nicholas help us if the film is like the book.

Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) sadly see their 23-year-old daughter Blair (Julie Gonzalo) fly off to Peru for a year to join the Peace Corps the Sunday after Thanksgiving. Luther is shocked when he makes his calculations of the family Christmas spending: $6,120. He decides that since Blair is no longer at home, he and Nora can 'skip Christmas' and take a Caribbean cruise costing on $3,000. Nora, who generally enjoys decorating and hosting a lavish Christmas Eve party, is reluctant but soon agrees.

Bad idea, for as soon as their friends, neighbors and Luther's employees learn of this plan, they all essentially turn into Christmas fascists. Their neighbors, particularly Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Ackroyd) literally stage protests in front of the Kranks' home, demanding they put up lights and especially a Frosty the Snowman figure on their roof. "Nora Krank! We're here for Frosty!" he yells in front of their house with what looks like a mob about to lynch the Grinches.

The various shops and organizations they normally order from during the holidays all but berate them for not 'doing Christmas', and Nora's friends are appalled they won't be having their party.

Their 'protest' even makes the local newspaper!

Nora is buckling under the pressure: no surprise given that Frohmeyer at one point chases her down in her car. Luther gets the cold shoulder from employees, who make sarcastic remarks about getting 'cheap gifts' because he won't put in any. Luther, for his part, stubbornly holds to his Caribbean holiday.

Then they get an unexpected call from Blair. She's in Miami, with her new boyfriend/fiancée Enrique (Rene Lavan) (she states that Enrique has proposed but for the rest of the film she and everyone else calls him her 'boyfriend'). Blair is flying to Chicago to see her parents and show our Peruvian hunk 'a traditional Christmas'.

At this point, both before and after watching Christmas with the Kranks, I asked 'why could they not tell their 23-year-old daughter that they were not going to celebrate Christmas and decided to go on their own holiday'? I also asked, 'how does someone who joined the Peace Corps manage to wrangle leaving within a month of her assignment to fly up for Christmas?'

Oh, me and pesky logic.

Nora, pushing Luther, scrambles to put the house in Christmas order in less than two days. After a series of chaotic events that lead to Luther hanging precariously off the roof of his house, the whole neighborhood rushes to help the Kranks get their house to be a winter wonderland.

Because in this universe, 23-year-old children have to be placated.

I laughed only once at Christmas with the Kranks. It was when Nora attempted to make Luther's skin paler after his pre-vacation tanning by applying far too much creme. He looked like he was auditioning for kabuki theater. That was funny.

Apart from that, Christmas with the Kranks is not so much misguided (though it is that) as it is nasty and unpleasant, trying to be jolly and even uplifting when it really is a cautionary tale of suburban fascism.

God help any non-Christian families who live on the appropriately named Hemlock Street. Can you imagine if the Rothsteins or Singhs lived here? Would their neighbors subject them to harassment and intimidation to get them to decorate their house?

Moreover, I cannot get over how the premise of Christmas with the Kranks is built around the idea that a 23-year-old bimbo has to be coddled to an almost infantile level. First, it's really outlandish that a Peace Corps volunteer would arrive at her assignment in late November and then get permission to leave within a month. Second, it's even more insulting that her parents simply could not tell her that they had made other plans, were leaving the country and could not change them at the last minute just to accommodate her childlike whims.

Did they never speak to Blair in that month to tell her, 'Hey, we've decided since you're not here there's no reason for us to decorate the house and decided to take a holiday instead?'

If this is the kind of plotting John Grisham is proud of, how did he ever get to be the literary powerhouse he is (and I say this as one who liked The Firm and The Client).

Blair mentioned that she had met Enrique before while at Brown (a school she clearly does not have the intellectual prowess to have attended), so Luther and Nora should have already had experience living without her, albeit not at Christmas. Still, the entire Krank family is so categorically stupid one wonders why Enrique would want to join it (unless it is for the sex).

Christmas with the Kranks really pushes a false idea that the film is about 'community' and caring. Nora says as much when she thanks everyone for pulling together to 'save Christmas'. This is extremely psychotic given that less than 24 hours prior, this same 'loving community' was all but terrorizing her into faux-festive submission.

Director Joe Roth really went out of his way to make everyone give horrible performances. At the top of that list is Curtis, who was not acting so much as she was embarrassing herself. Curtis was trying much too hard to try and make Nora funny but ended up going for dummy. In her exaggerated hysteria and whimpering over every little thing Nora was so unpleasant I would advise Luther to divorce her immediately.

Allen, to his credit, at least made Luther somewhat rational. He at least looked like he was taking the premise and situations seriously as the besieged man. The script made one bad mistake in having be totally absolute about their 'Christmas boycott'. He wouldn't give in to Nora's request to give $600 to charity and their church before leaving, which I consider a reasonable request. Eventually he gave in, but why he was made to be so hostile was a misstep. Nora was a wimp and Luther a bully, two things they should not have been.

Ackroyd came across as a literal Christmas terrorist, and just about everyone in the neighborhood came across as insane. Having the cops escort Blair and Enrique is bad enough (as if these cops spelling it as "N. Reeky" didn't already do that). Having said cops take a burglar they caught with the to the Kranks Christmas bash is straight-up insulting to everyone.

John Debney's score made things worse. It was one of those 'look at how cutesy and whimsical everything is' types of scores, where the music tries to push the humor where there is none.

If one thinks on it, Christmas with the Kranks is really a celebration of conformity, an ode to the power of bullying. Essentially, Chris Columbus' screenplay (and Grisham's book) is saying, 'how dare Luther think of himself and his wife and put them first over groupthink? Better to buy a tree they won't use, get personalized Christmas cards and throw a party they don't want to rather than make plans by themselves for themselves'.

That is not a true Christmas message, and Christmas with the Kranks is not a true Christmas movie.

DECISION: F

2017 Christmas Film: The Man Who Invented Christmas

2016 Christmas Film: Batman Returns

2015 Christmas Film: A Madea Christmas

2014 Christmas Film: Prancer

2013 Christmas Film: A Christmas Carol (1951)

2012 Christmas Film: Arthur Christmas