Netflix Holiday Movie Review: Single All the Way (2021)

Like putting new lenses in a beloved old pair of glasses, this week's sharply written, sweet-natured gay Netflix holiday romcom gives us a fresh look at a familiar genre.

Wisely and earnestly leaning into the tropes of a Christmas romance, in the quick-witted charmer “Single All the Way,” screenwriter Chad Hodge (who created one of my favorite little-seen TV shows of the late 2010s in “Good Behavior”) wins us over with his sincere affection for the films he's using as a jumping-off point.

To this end, when we first meet our adorable yet perpetually unlucky in love protagonist Peter (Michael Urie), he's disappointed once again after another short-lived romance goes down in flames. As tired of working on social media ad campaigns in Los Angeles as he is being single, when Peter begins making plans to visit his family in New Hampshire for the holidays, he ropes his oldest friend and roommate Nick (Philemon Chambers) into coming home with him and posing as his new boyfriend.

Not wanting to lie to a family that's come to mean almost as much to him as Peter, Nick begrudgingly goes along with Peter's plan. However, just when you think you've seen this movie before, almost as soon as they arrive at his parent's house, a wrench is thrown into the proceedings by Peter's jubilant mother Carole (Kathy Najimy). 

Appearing on the scene with her newest homemade sign “Sleigh Queen,” before Peter and Nick can deliver their white lie, Carole decides to play another one of the romcom genre's greatest hits by happily announcing that she's set her son up on a blind date with her hunky spin instructor James (Luke Macfarlane).



But while his mom is content to try to craft a new romance for her son (like it's just one of the many signs she gives as gifts and hangs throughout the home), the rest of his family decides it's time to bring Peter and Nick together once and for all. Sensing not only their obvious chemistry but perhaps the lingering looks sent Peter's way by Nick, Peter's father (Barry Bostwick) and nieces make it their holiday mission to make this vital love connection. Gradually, they bring an amused, if torn, Nick into the fold.

Whether you're a devotee of the endless holiday romcoms produced by the Hallmark Channel or Lifetime every year, or your favorites are the classics like “The Shop Around the Corner,” and Christmas in Connecticut,” etc., or you stick with the treacly yet wicked wit of British comedies like “Bridget Jones's Diary” or “Love Actually,” romance fans know precisely where this film is headed almost as soon as it starts.

Yet rather than run from the genre conventions we routinely see in these traditionally straight romances, “Single All the Way” uses them as vibrant, positive building blocks to show that love is love, family is family, and it's both all relative and universal. Proving this, it layers in a variety of beloved romcom mainstays from its small-town setting (as Peter wonders if he should move back home) and a friends to lovers plotline to a dance number (to Britney, bitch!) and romantic hijinks care of quirky relatives, including an obligatory scene where the two leads must share a bed. 

Along the way, "Single" incorporates an amusing, if undercooked subplot involving a community Christmas pageant called “Jesus H. Christ” that's the brainchild of Peter's colorful Aunt Sandy, who's played by Jennifer Coolidge. Much like Najimy gives the film a needed shot of candy-cane-coated adrenaline as soon as we see her, with her warmth, humor, and vivacity, veteran Christopher Guest scene-stealer Coolidge buoys her part of the film, which, unfortunately, plays like a rushed afterthought.

Guided by a steady hand, “Single All the Way” was helmed by the versatile Michael Mayer, who directed the moving, gorgeously acted but woefully underseen adaptation of “A Home at the End of the World,” as well as the excellent “Flicka” and “The Seagull.” Mayer knows how to work with actors and it shows. 

With so much - at times, too much - going on throughout, although it's easy to predict that of course, Peter will end up with Nick, “Single All the Way” is a loving, spirited ensemble film that never runs out of plot. Tonally, as sunny and bright as the visuals are snowy and cozy, and filled with terrific turns by a talented cast that's ready for anything (including “Schitt's Creek” star Jennifer Robertson), as someone who watches a lot of these films, “Single All the Way,” greatly exceeded my expectations.

Succeeding where last year's well-intentioned, star-studded, but ultimately disappointing Hulu film “Happiest Season” failed, while I'm speaking merely as a straight film critic, it feels truly rewarding and vital for audiences to see an LGBTQ holiday romantic comedy that doesn't make coming out or lying to one's family the main character's entire narrative arc. Similarly fighting against other gay movie tropes where its protagonist desperately wants to escape their small town and go to the big city or make their parents understand their lifestyle, it's refreshing instead to see Bostwick and Najimy scheme and plan to get their son happily coupled up.

By making the sexuality of its characters secondary to everything else going on, "Single All the Way" cleverly sidesteps the need for any moral speechifying that would pull us out of the storyline and ring false. Respecting our maturity and intellect right from the start, Mayer's film counts on its audience to have already come to the realization that we all deserve love, not to mention contemporary, clear-eyed, re-framed romantic movies for one and all that are this heartfelt, genuine, and fun.

 

Text ©2021, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Netflix Holiday Movie Review: “A Boy Called Christmas” (2021) & “A Castle for Christmas” (2021)

The Netflix equivalent of putting up your Christmas tree and/or starting your holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving, this year, the streaming service's version of Black Friday comes in two new high profile, high caliber Christmas movies which are scheduled to premiere on Friday, November 26.

Inspired by the question “was Father Christmas ever a boy?” which was posed by author Matt Haig's son, the first film, from “Monster House” director Gil Kenan, is a gorgeously crafted, old-fashioned fairytale adaptation of Haig's bestselling 2015 British children's book “A Boy Called Christmas.”

Tonally a cross between C.S. Lewis, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Dickens, J.K. Rowling, and Roald Dahl in its balance of darkness, magic, heart, and light, Kenan's film begins with a framing device straight out of “The Princess Bride.”Arriving at their home late at night, a great aunt played by the irreplaceable Maggie Smith tells the tale of the brave boy we'll all eventually know as Father Christmas to her young relatives at bedtime. Next, switching to a different time and place, we move away from contemporary London as Smith's fable starts to play out before our eyes.

Still reeling from the loss of his mother, which is something shared by the characters in the modern setting as well, “Christmas” chronicles the plight of Nikolas (portrayed by top-notch relative newcomer Henry Lawfull). Fearing for the safety of the sole parent he has left (Michiel Huisman), Nikolas sets out on a perilous journey to the north to find his dad when he fails to return from his search for the village of Elfhelm in order to bring hope to us all.  

Populated by a who's who of great character actors, including Sally Hawkins, Kristen Wiig, Jim Broadbent, Toby Jones, and Stephen Merchant (priceless here as the voice of Miika the Mouse), the film looks and sounds like a dream, thanks to the effects team and production designer behind the “Paddington” movies, and a lovely score courtesy of the great Dario Marianelli. Additionally, it's fun to see the actors let loose, particularly Hawkins and Wiig who relish their Wicked Witch-like moments to eat up the screen. 

The type of film you could leave on in the background when you make cookies or put up your tree, while it's easy to lose yourself in the snowy spectacle of it all, disappointingly from a narrative standpoint, “A Boy Called Christmas” runs out of steam quickly. With episodic plot points, as the indefatigable, ever-determined, delightful Lawfull encounters one new character or problem after another in a by-the-numbers fashion, it grows increasingly repetitive as it continues on.

Although I am unfamiliar with the source material, I can't help but ask if perhaps its error might be an early “Harry Potter” franchise-style case of staying far too faithful to the book. Needless to say, of course, young fans of Haig's novel are sure to love seeing every moment come to life. For the rest of us, however, despite some beautiful revelations that come to light near the end of the movie, its muddled second act makes it feel twice as long as the first, and I think most viewers who don't know Haig's novel will grow restless as soon as the storyline begins to wander.

Still, from the jaw-dropping 4k presentation where even the opening sequence of Smith walking down a light-filled city street feels painterly (and indeed I wondered but really didn't care if it was CG), “A Boy Called Christmas” is a stellar technical achievement from these talented craftsmen, even if it doesn't fully work for me as a film overall. Not nearly as successful as “Monster House” or Kenan's wonderful adaptation of “City of Ember,” (of which I might be the only fan and still wish for a sequel), he's such a great director that regardless of the film's shortcomings, I look forward to seeing what he'll do next.

Incidentally, it turns out that looking forward is exactly what romance author Sophie Brown (Brooke Shields) realizes she needs to do at the start of director Mary Lambert's picturesque holiday romcom travelogue “A Castle for Christmas.” 

Whereas “A Boy Called Christmas” was made for the kids, “A Castle for Christmas” is Netflix's present for teens and adults. It comes in the form of a fun, fluffy, snowflake light hybrid of the kinds of seasonal romances that Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel produce with alarming frequency and the sassier UK romcoms that Hugh Grant made popular back in the '90s. 

Centered on Shields' Brown, the plot of "Castle" is incredibly straightforward.  Having killed off the romantic hero of her dozen bestselling novels after a messy divorce, Sophie Brown incurs the wrath of her heartbroken legion of fans who want their dream man back. In desperate need of a change of scenery, she journeys to Scotland to not only hide out and write the next book in her popular Emma Gale romance series but also visit the castle that her late father loved while growing up as the son of the groundskeeper there. 

Having barely arrived in her new surroundings, Sophie finds new friends quickly when she joins the knitting club in the pub of the inn where she's staying. The same dynamic we encountered in Netflix's outstanding (and much more substantive) adaptation of the acclaimed novel “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society," in “Castle,” the scenes that producer-star Shields shares with her motley knitting crew are absolutely delightful.

Still, as the romance author she's portraying here knows, you can't have a love story without a male lead, and thankfully, for that we have Cary Elwes getting his scowl on as the sour, curmudgeon-like Duke of said castle, who eventually melts under Sophie's charms.

Phenomenally predictable to anyone who's ever seen a romantic comedy before, while the pair are excellent in their roles, Sheilds and Elwes' chemistry does leave a little something to be desired, although that's likely more the fault of their underdeveloped characters than the actors in question, who aren't given a whole lot with which to work.

One of those movies where the credits reveal that it was written by a committee of four different writers, it feels like certain screenwriters were hoping to emphasize the knitting club as well as develop a potential B or C romantic subplot, and others were more clearly focused on the castle angle. All in all, it's a bumpy yet nonetheless, above-average cheery holiday romance.

Featuring a welcome cameo by Drew Barrymore that bookends the film as she first appears in a slightly cringeworthy over-the-top introduction to Sophie Brown who loses it live on Barrymore's talk show (which Shields plays too broadly), Barrymore returns at the end during the final credits in a very funny two-hander between the two women.

Targeted to Gen X, it's ideally suited to those from the era who grew up watching Shields and Barrymore, were dazzled by Lambert's iconic Madonna music video “Like a Prayer,” and frightened by her adaptation of “Pet Semetary,” and fell in love with “Castle” leading man Cary Elwes in “The Princess Bride.” And indeed, Netflix is smart to aim for this demographic. 

Usually overlooked in seasonal fare that's often developed with late teens and early twenty-somethings in mind, “A Castle for Christmas” is just the pleasantly diverting, if ultimately forgettable thing to settle in with after you spend Thanksgiving in the kitchen and Black Friday setting up that tree and/or starting to shop. With so much holiday stress on the horizon, 'tis the season for snowy movies after all.

Text ©2021, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray Reviews: "Holiday Affair" (1949) and "The Shop Around the Corner" (1940)

"Holiday Affair" (1949) 

Fresh off starring in two 1948 westerns, the romantic "Rachel and the Stranger," and the noirish "Blood on the Moon," perhaps the last thing that Robert Mitchum wanted to do was make a Christmas romcom. But pushed into starring in "Holiday Affair" opposite Janet Leigh, after RKO head honcho Howard Hughes ordered him to make the picture following his arrest and jail sentence for marijuana possession one year earlier, Mitchum turned in a sly, shaggy dog performance so sexy that had Hughes thought it all the way through, he might've changed his mind about casting him altogether.

Fortunately for Mitchum fans, hindsight is 20/20. And although the film was a box office disaster when it was released – which might have had more to do with the confusingly noir-inspired ad campaign than anything else – "Holiday Affair" has since turned into a classic Christmas staple, thanks to Turner Classic Movies, which regularly airs director Don Hartman's film multiple times every winter. 

In the movie, Mitchum stars as Steve Mason, a veritable Kerouac-like beatnik ahead of his time. Selling toys in an upscale New York City department store to make enough money to pursue his passion for making and restoring boats on the coast, Steve loses his job after he fails to report Janet Leigh's comparison shopper Connie Ennis, a war widow and single mother of the sweetly mischievous young Timmy (Gordon Gebert). Falling for Connie, after Steve makes the grand gesture of buying her son the expensive toy train set he'd had his eye on, he complicates Connie's already slightly strained relationship with her loyal and kind no-sparks beau, Carl (played by Wendell Corey).

With screwball-worthy elements including a hilarious sequence that plays out in court and one of the steamiest holiday screen kisses in this or any year (in a moment that word is Janet Leigh didn't even know was coming), "Holiday Affair" is a winning, admittedly odd, yet adorable romantic comedy. Featuring a Lux Radio Theater production of the tale, which was based upon John D. Weaver's story "Christmas Gift" and adapted by screenwriter Isobel Lennart (who would write for Mitchum once again in both "The Sundowners" and "Two for the Seesaw"), this crisp transfer of the wintry black-and-white film has been newly released on Warner Archive Blu-ray.

"The Shop Around the Corner" (1940)

Though by now the plot device has been used so many times in romantic storytelling that it's spawned an entire subgenre of the trope titled "enemies to lovers" fiction, one of the most endearing early examples of this in screen romantic comedy can be found in director Ernst Lubitsch's bittersweet 1940 holiday classic "The Shop Around the Corner."

Based on the 1937 play "Parfumerie," by Hungarian writer Miklós László, which was adapted by longtime Lubitsch screenwriter Samson Raphaelson (in addition to an uncredited assist by Ben Hecht), the movie led to a number of high profile stage and screen remakes, including Broadway's "She Loves Me," as well as the films "In the Good Old Summertime," and "You've Got Mail" (which was also inspired by the classic enemies to lovers Jane Austen novel, "Pride and Prejudice").

Notable for its decision to leave politics out of the equation but pay tribute to its origins by setting the action in Hungary at a time when America was on the long on-ramp towards the second world war, "The Shop Around the Corner" takes place just before Christmastime in the small Budapest based Matuschek and Company leather goods shop. 

Getting to know a trio of its handful of workers intimately, the film primarily revolves around the store's kind boss in the midst of a personal crisis, Mr. Matuschek (Frank Morgan), as well as his loyal right-hand man Alfred Kralik (James Stewart), and the store's newest employee Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan). Pitted against one another in real life with their dueling sales practices and taste, the viewer soon discovers that Alfred and Klara are at the same time also falling in love on paper as anonymous correspondents, writing each other romantic love letters which are delivered to numbered post office boxes. 

With its trademark sophisticated Lubitsch wit, which boldly alternates from subtly sexy lines such as "I took you out of your envelope and read you, read you right there” and a startlingly sad subplot concerning Matuschek which takes the film into much darker territory, "The Shop Around the Corner" is that rarest of all holiday movies. Still incredibly modern in the way that it acknowledges both the romantic highs and lonely lows of the season, it's a refreshingly mature, grown-up work that makes today's overly beige, cookie-cutter, assembly line ready made-for-cable movies feel outdated and far too quaintly naive by comparison.

Though "The Shop Around the Corner" is a lovely romance all around, it's still undoubtedly Morgan's Matuschek that most tugs at the heartstrings both from an acting standpoint and when you watch the film in the devastation of 2020. Still, "Shop" generates most of its fire from the winning chemistry of Stewart and Sullavan as we find ourselves siding first with one lead followed by the other from one scene to the next. Enviably written and performed, despite how much I enjoyed both of its famous American remakes, this even-handed approach didn't translate nearly as well in "In the Good Old Summertime" or "You've Got Mail" since we're predominantly only drawn in by the female protagonists' plights throughout.

Beautifully shot by Lubitsch's frequent DP William H. Daniels, who's also well-known for being Greta Garbo's personal cinematographer, the film's lushly snowy black-and-white photography is given a glossy new shine in Warner Archive's new Blu-ray release of the film, which includes two radio broadcasts of "Shop" along with the bonus feature "A New Romance of Celluloid: The Miracle of Sound."

Text ©2020, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. https://www.filmintuition.com  Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  Also, as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases made off my site through ad links. FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

Blu-ray Review: Await Further Instructions (2018)

Now Available 

Bringing home a new romantic partner to meet the parents is always stressful but traditionally it's hardest on the outsider.

Not so in the case of Nick (Sam Gittins) in Await Further Instructions who, mere moments into the movie, pulls into the driveway of his family home after a long drive and is instantly ready to put the car into reverse, asking his girlfriend Annji (Neerja Naik), "can we not do this?" before adding, "we're going to ruin everyone's Christmas."

It's the last half of Nick's plea that gives us pause and in the hands of another screenwriter might've been used to dig a little deeper into the mind of our main character but is employed in Johnny Kevorkian's movie like a jump scare, reminding us that we're watching a horror movie by foreshadowing the darkness to come.

Giving in to his girlfriend's wish to meet the family that the audience is already primed to be suspicious of before they give us cause, Nick introduces Annji to his people-pleaser mother (Abigail Cruttenden), racist grandfather (David Bradley), his bitter father (Grant Masters), heavily pregnant sister (Holly Weston), and brother-in-law (Kris Saddler).

From lewd comments about Nick being under his girlfriend's spell (only in much coarser language) to rude cracks about foreign doctors or ignorantly accusing Annji of sneaking Indian words into a Scrabble game, as Nick sticks up for them both in a series of escalating arguments, his reasons for not going home for three years suddenly become crystal clear.

Tired from the long day and in no shape to drive, they vow to make a run for it the next morning before everyone wakes up. Unfortunately, Nick and Annji are greeted with the horror movie equivalent of a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking when they open the front door of the house and discover that a mysterious, solid, and indeed black-as-coal substance has trapped them indoors without any communication to the outside world, save for the ominous titular message on the TV to "await further instructions."

With everyone's minds working overtime as they fear the worst and the TV flashing increasing demands at them (which Nick's military oriented grandfather and office manager father are all too willing to follow no questions asked), the young couple must try to find a way out of an even more impossible situation before the family either turns on each other or loses their minds.

An allegory about the dangers of television combined with a pitch black, cynical twist on the holiday season that warns you can never go home again or you may risk not leaving, Await Further Instructions feels like it would make an intriguing triple feature with the thematically similar, albeit vastly superior horror entries It's a Disaster and The Invitation.

Yet while the idea by screenwriter Gavin Williams is a good one in theory, by not bothering to develop the characters beyond the subtlety of an axe that Nick uses to try and knock down the mysterious wall keeping them in, we find we feel very little connection to our protagonists.

Likewise by taking all of the mystery and intrigue out of Instructions in favor of an over-reliance on not so much sci-fi horror special effects as chaotic visual excess, in the end we're left with one big mess that ruins the impact of the film's otherwise inventive premise.

Heavily stylized but narratively empty, Kevorkian wears his '80s era horror influences proudly throughout this work of budget British horror and while both he and Williams exhibit occasional flashes of potential, somewhere along the way they managed to trap themselves inside the heart of the film as well with no idea how to get out...except by chopping at the plot's brains with an axe.

Text ©2018, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy or screener link of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique. Cookies Notice: This site incorporates tools (including advertiser partners and widgets) that use cookies and may collect some personal information in order to display ads tailored to you etc. Please be advised that neither Film Intuition nor its site owner has any access to this data beyond general site statistics (geographical region etc.) as your privacy is our main concern.

DVD Review: Santa's Little Helper (2015)

Now Available to Own   

Further proof that the WWE is filled with potential star quality, although Santa’s Little Helper provides another terrific showcase for its likable lead, unfortunately Mike “The Miz” Mizanin’s reunion with his Christmas Bounty director Gil Junger is infinitely less successful than the pair’s earlier holiday movie, which was released two years ago in 2013.

Upbeat and fast-paced cookie cutter Christmas fare baked with a variety of ingredients often seen in countless other direct-to-DVD and/or made-for-TV seasonal releases, Helper does receive extra points however for refusing to follow only one tried-and-true recipe.

Yet as well-intentioned as the film is, unfortunately it also serves as a painful reminder to screenwriters (and cooks) everywhere that while you can always add more sugar and spice to your final dish, you can’t exactly take it away.

Carved out of the familiar comfort food appeal of a Scrooge or Grinch style narrative centered around Mizanin’s coldhearted corporate businessman, although Santa’s Little Helper opens on a strong note, it loses the good will and momentum it establishes early on by spiraling out of control.

More like a collection of seasonal SNL skits than one cohesive work, while most contemporary holiday movies play pretty fast and loose with storytelling logic, Santa’s Little Helper spreads itself so thin that it waits until the last ten minutes of the movie to try and resolve multiple plot-points.

Attempting to serve up something for everyone (including the kitchen sink) in the hopes of satisfying all appetites ages six to sixty, Santa’s Little Helper moves awkwardly from one scene at a senior center where a shirtless Mizanin sweats to the oldies with some randy retirees to a third act “Hail Mary” North Pole style gauntlet that pits Mizanin against WWE Diva Paige.

Conveniently boasting a digital copy to entertain kids during this season’s travels, although most parents won’t be thrilled at the prospect of explaining a Magic Mike reference to their children, aside from a few spicy moments, Helper is best appreciated by grade school aged WWE fans eager to see Mizanin and Paige tackle an albeit short-lived Santa themed obstacle course.

Largely forgettable and disappointingly nonsensical to everyone else in spite of its charming cast (including a spunky Annalynne McCord), it’s safe to say that you won’t want to line up for a second helping of the overstuffed Helper.

However, those on the lookout for a fun, if admittedly hokey family-friendly action themed holiday comedy would be better off hunting down Junger and Mizanin’s previous collaboration via Christmas Bounty.

Text ©2015, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to voluntarily decide to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Saving Santa (2013)

Now Available to Own:

    


 
Photo Slideshow 
 

Stellar CG animation and appealingly energetic original songs help elevate this otherwise generic straight-to-Christmas-disc children's feature that centers on Bernard (voiced by The Hobbit's Martin Freeman), a well-intentioned North Pole elf with an unfortunate unintentional knack for getting in trouble.

 

An aspiring inventor, as the movie opens Bernard returns to present his latest holiday related piece of gadgetry to the revered Saint Nick affiliated elf think-tank dubbed SANTECH. Shortly thereafter, he finds his day going from bad to worse when an accidental glitch in the meeting mistakenly reveals the classified location of Santa's illustrious workshop to Tim Curry's snooping billionaire baddie with a grudge, the aptly-named Neville Baddington.

 

A middle-aged Mama's Boy to the movie's gender-flipped Grinch meets Cruella deVil hybrid (voiced by Joan Collins), Baddington is eager to steal the secret technology of Santa's ultra-fast sleigh to use in the family's worldwide delivery service empire.

Hoping to make Santa obsolete due to a longstanding childhood grudge that's fairly easy to predict to any viewer that’s been around the candy cane laden block of holiday hits of days gone by, Baddington's unwelcome arrival in the North Pole inspires Bernard to go from Reindeer Pooper Scooper to Time Traveler Super Duper.

 

Impressed by Bernard's cleverness and appetite for invention, just before they're interrupted by the ruthless businessman and his un-merry band of Santa haters, the Tim Conway voiced Claus entrusts the sleigh's intel to Bernard with the hopes he can thwart the villains and save Christmas for good.

 

Drawing obvious inspiration from Back to the Future and parallels to Groundhog Day as the movie continues, Bernard realizes he's forced to go back in time repeatedly, reliving and re-experiencing earlier events from a different vantage point. As such, Saving Santa may feel a tad too familiar and start to bore those older than grade school age midway through its otherwise succinct 83 minute running time.

Fortunately what it lacks in plot, it makes up for in song as the infectious charm of Grant Olding's original musical numbers keep toes tapping along all-the-way through the predictable Grinchian ending.

 

Similarly augmented by the film's bright colored, yet soft-edged warm holiday animation completed by the same company (Prana Studios) that was tapped by Disney to work on Planes and the wildly successful (not to mention eye-poppingly gorgeous) Tinker Bell series, Saving Santa's strengths in picture and sound come through one hundred percent on a flawless Blu-ray transfer, which plays best on systems that smooth fast-motion sequences so your eyes can remain lost in the image rather than pulled into the questionable frame rate of a slightly staccato sequence.

 

Light on extras, the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack contains two mini-featurettes that offer a glimpse into the Recording Sessions with Freeman singing what he describes as one of the "Bacharach Muppet songs," and a post-production sound byte heavy featurette that seems as though it had been made as a marketing tool to negotiate foreign rights with plenty of references to the film’s "selling points."

While it probably would've been to their benefit to serve up a few more kid-friendly gems, the obvious standout for fans of the High School Musical actress who voices the elfin love-interest to Freeman's character is an Ashley Tisdale music video for the track "Some Kind of Miracle."

 

Directed by first-time feature directors including editor turned filmmaker Aaron Seelman and former Disney character animator Leon Joosen, Saving Santa is a charming, if ultimately forgettable new stocking stuffer that's at least colorful and quirky enough to hold the attention span of little ones this holiday season.

 

Though the convoluted plot that borrows a bit too heavily from preexisting entertainment threatens to bog down the second half of Santa and weigh heavily on the goodwill served up by animation and sound, ultimately its sweetness in message and affably earnest elf hero (with a standout bit of voice-work by Freeman) manages to save it from obscurity after all.

Referenced & Related Reviews

101 & 102 Dalmatians

High School Musical Trilogy

Tinker Bell

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue

Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure

     

Text ©2013, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited and in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.  FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I may have received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Movie Review: Christmas Story (2007) -- English Dubbed Version

Now Available on DVD

AKA: Joulutarina; En julberättelse

Thanks to Christmas carols and television specials, by the time children who celebrate the holiday hit grade school, they can recite the entire roster of names possessed by Santa's tiny reindeer including the red-nosed Rudolph. And while they can additionally fill in the blanks regarding how many times Santa Claus checks his "naughty or nice" list to differentiate between the lumps of coal for stockings and the toys built by the hardworking elves at his workshop in the North Pole, the one thing they can't answer is just how in the world the bearded man became jolly old St. Nick.

In this creatively ambitious and impressively original Finnish made family film, director Juha Wuolijoki and screenwriter Marko Leino (who collaborated with two others including the director on the heartwarming storyline) bravely offer a new narrative explanation that centers on the coming of age of the man Christmas revelers likewise came of age with while celebrating in their youth.

Exquisitely capturing the snow covered desolate Lapland village where the film is set thanks to first rate lensing by cinematographer Mika Orasmaa, we're presented with a Dickensian tale of tragedy and triumph centering on the evolution experienced by a boy named Nikolas as he becomes the sleigh driving gift giver who delights millions of children each and every year.

After losing his parents and sister in an icy tragedy near the start of the film, the young goodhearted Nikolas matures quickly as the residents of the humble fishing community decide that the best way to take care of the boy is to each take turns sheltering, clothing, feeding, and nurturing Nikolas for a single year. In this cooperative environment, Nikolas then finds himself with a brand new family and home every single Christmas morning.

Although the locals are stunned when the reclusive Scrooge-like carpenter Iisakki takes in Nikolas after they're hit by a perilous shortage of resources, Nikolas is the most surprised individual of all when he realizes that instead of a mere young manservant for the grump he must call "master," he becomes a far more gifted woodworker.

Whittling presents annually which he delivers for the former "brothers and sisters" with whom he'd previously resided, Nikolas' carving skills improve even more under the master's tutelage especially when he finally gains access to Iisakki's hidden workshop. Embarking on a tradition of bringing the residents their gifts-- sight unseen-- every Christmas morning as the amount of presents and their quality improves with age, eventually Nikolas makes strides. In doing so, he goes from heartbroken orphan to becoming Father Christmas by relishing in his anonymity, discovering the traveling benefit of reindeer and moving towards that famous red suit.

Initially, however you may find yourself distracted by the lack of synchronization between the audio in English and visual disconnect of mouths moving rapidly in the original Finnish audio track. Luckily, the combination of voice talent by actors including the incomparable John Turturro, Noah Emmerich and Katherine Borowitz, along with the truly involving story and high quality of the feature releasing from Lighting Media and Anchor Bay Entertainment makes it much more successful than a traditional foreign dubbed work.

While I suspect that it's only a matter of time before someone remakes the movie completely in English since foreign films are always ripe fodder for Hollywood interpretations, honestly it's one that you wouldn't need to see in a different format even as I saw it in a simple screener, minus any bells and whistles including bonus features or extra material. Unfortunately, due to its unimaginative new title of Christmas Story, I fear this Finnish film will simply blend into the scenery among other holiday releases.

However, despite its melancholic opener and general audience reluctance to foreign films, this uplifting PG-rated movie is one I urge parents to seek out to offer a new alternative to the primarily commercial approach of Santa Claus movies.

A beautiful work filled with the ingredients that make our classics including A Christmas Carol, Nutcracker and other holiday movies so endearing, director Juha Wuolijoki's Story also garnered prestigious accolades in time for its DVD debut including a seal of approval by The Dove Foundation and an All-Star honor by the well-respected Kids First! Coalition for Quality Children's Media.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

The Flight Before Christmas (2008)

View the Poster & Photos

I must admit to being a bit of a soft-touch when it comes to Christmas specials. Although I remember making cookies and getting more frosting on my fingers than I did on the sugary confections, riding a sled down "suicide hill," having to put on layers of clothing just to make it to the bus stop, and unwrapping beautifully packaged presents in a matter of greedy seconds, I have the fondest memories of Christmas entertainment.

While spending a year employed at Hallmark cured me of my love for Christmas carols since they played incessantly for what seemed like four months, I still feel a child-like anticipation when faced with another animated special or film related to Santa Claus, the elves, reindeer, and all of our friends at the North Pole. Yes, Virginia, I never run out of Christmas entertainment and while Garfield, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and The Muppets all offered memorable holiday episodes that I enjoyed far more than the traditional old-fashioned Rudolph special that hits the airwaves like clockwork every December, I always looked equally forward to a new crop of productions as well (both in the theater and at home).

When I glimpsed some of the majestic animated stills from the upcoming straight-to-DVD feature-length, internationally produced holiday movie, The Flight Before Christmas (scheduled to fly onto shelves on 10/28 courtesy of the Weinstein Company and Genius Entertainment), I couldn't wait to add it to my collection of modern Christmas classics. And even though I found the animation far more dazzling once the DVD began to play as the nuances of every character and dimensions of the intricate computer generated effects offer an unparalleled digital viewing experience to those of us raised on videotape and rabbit-eared television reception, I was stunned to discover that the plot-line of Flight was extremely dark and very disturbing.

Although it's rated "G" and described as "a festive addition to the holiday library that the entire family can enjoy" in its press release, I soon realized that it was a work which I felt that it would be best to advise parents to avoid for children under the age of ten. This being said, initially, it sets itself up harmlessly enough. The film centers on the ambitious Niko, a young reindeer who wants to join Santa's Flying Forces of brave reindeer alongside his father whom he's never met, but we deduce in a rather abrupt, subtle yet still pointed conversation revealing that he'd impregnated our young hero's mother as though she were a groupie in a one night stand-- or rather-- sleigh ride.

Unable to fly no matter how badly he wishes he could as he's coached on to believe in himself and ignore the bullies who thrive on his failure by his loyal squirrel and surrogate father Julius (Norm MacDonald), Niko secretly makes plans to practice his skills and pursue flying lessons on Antler's Hill. When he mistakenly leads the villainous and deadly pack of wolves back to his community of Home Valley, suddenly the entire population is at risk by the wolves who intend on eating every reindeer in sight. When Niko and Julius separate from the group along with a singing weasel named Wilma (Emma Roberts), soon the wolves decide to change plans and make their way to take on not just Santa's Flying Forces of Reindeer but eat Santa as well as all of the little children to whom presents are delivered around the world.

With such a macabre and off-putting, sinister plot, The Flight Before Christmas is sure to be upsetting to young children who may develop nightmares about wolves aspiring to eat Santa and babies as well as a storyline that just doesn't fit the holiday film paradigm by including a "River of Certain Doom," Santa's reindeer who act like a group of hard-drinking, horny frat-boys, and a teenage runaway etc. And while ultimately it offers an excellent message of being true to yourself and choosing your own family among friends and those who love you without question and the sheer gorgeous quality of the animation is remarkable and rivals that of first-run, big screen animated fare, this international production from numerous European countries has its heart in the right place but just doesn't quite understand how to craft something appropriate for its intended demographic. Of course, a darkly comedic holiday tale is fine in theory and for adults has worked well with Bad Santa as well as teens who latched onto Tim Burton's cult classic Halloween/Xmas hybrid The Nightmare Before Christmas or even the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas from Dr. Seuss.

However, without trying to market or develop itself correctly to tweens and early teens of the Harry Potter age and instead by packaging it as though it were as harmless and sweet-natured as other holiday films for true youngsters, Flight just crashes and burns. Not helped by awkward voicing by Norm MacDonald or a poor script-- the sole saving grace is the masterful CGI animation as it is sheer textbook-level. Although it would've been best appreciated as though it consisted only of select stills playing in a digital picture frame with the sound off and leaving the idea of going Hannibal Lecter on St. Nick tossed outside in the snow-- without enough layers of clothes on for protection so that ultimately it will end up freezing and disappearing from sight altogether, ensuring that sugar plums are the only dessert dancing in children's heads and not visions of the corpse of Santa Claus.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

(Find Your Favorites Below at Amazon)