Monthly Archives: December 2017

Scraping the Bottom of the Christmas Barrel

12 Dog Days Till Christmas

A boy named Jack is sentenced to community service by Uncle Carl (Reginald VelJohnson – formerly of Steve Urkel fame). He’s had a “rough” childhood, as evidenced by his medium-bad attitude. He’s a foster kid who hasn’t quite aged out, and he seems to relate a lot to the dogs at the shelter where he’s sentenced to work his hours. They’re unwanted too. But oh no, the shelter’s closing! So when they have the 12 remaining days before Christmas to find homes for 12 dogs, he greets the task with frantic zeal.

The kid who plays Jack is monumentally bad. He’s either someone’s nephew, or he was sentenced community service hours which he must serve by appearing in this very bad movie, which co-stars the woman who was in the Christmas movie about the dog park about to close before the holidays. The dogs are cute, but a couple of nice gifs should prove far more entertaining than the entirety of this movie. In fact, here’s a Christmas picture of my own dogs. If it helps keep you off the Christmas crack of bad holiday movies, it’ll all be worthwhile.

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Christmas Kiss 2

The title implies that there was a Christmas Kiss 1 and I can scarcely believe it was so well-received that it merited a sequel. It’s about a woman who seems to get non-consensually kissed by her boss until she falls in love with him. It co-stars the male lead of that aforementioned dog park movie. It seems that multi-picture deals seem to be big business in the horrible holiday movie racket. I have my suspicions about the kind of person whose IMDB credits include ONLY Christmas made-for-TV movies, but I’m going to keep them to myself. No one in this movie is any good at all but oh my god, the woman hired to play the “hot girlfriend” is god-awful. You might think she was hired solely for her looks, but haha, no. No.

And here’s a fun fact about Christmas movies: in 99% of them, someone is a millionaire, maybe even a billionaire, but usually a secret millionaire, and yeah, it’s usually the guy. Only none of these Christmas movies have the budget to convincingly portray a millionaire’s lifestyle. It’s half-hilarious, half-depressing.

Holiday Breakup

Man, this one really makes you work to get to the Christmas part. It’s about a couple who meet on the Fourth of July and breakup by Halloween but then have to fake a relationship through Christmas in order to…I don’t know, really, fend off awkward questions, I guess? I mean, they were a couple for less than 4 months, I doubt anyone was overly invested in it, EXCEPT FOR NANNA WHO’S ABOUT TO DIE, yet they really pursue this terrible plot because they settled on a title first and the script just followed, for worse or worse still.

An actual quote from the movie: “You used to call me ridiculicious.” “Maybe I’m tired of your ridiculosity.”

Okay, one more just in case you need it.

Pottersville

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Maynard is the nicest guy in town, so it’s kind of upsetting when he goes home to surprise his wife with a couple of steaks and instead finds her – no, not naked in bed with another man, but dressed up in a plush mascot costume with one, which is somehow worse. She’s not just an adulteress, she’s a furry, the kind of person who gets kicks from dressing up and rubbing herself on someone else, also wearing a sweaty costume.

still1_pottersville Maynard is shocked and disturbed, and after a night of drinking, he finds his old hunting gear and an ape mask, though they bring him little consolation. Cut to: the next morning, the small town’s abuzz: big foot is on the loose. It doesn’t take long for Maynard to connect the dots and realize HE’S the one they’re looking for, but he keeps that embarrassing information to himself and the legend grows.

Netflix has a whole bunch of really, um, interesting holiday fare in its lineup this year, and this one stars the likes of Michael Shannon, Judy Greer, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks (as the furry). I kind of dig Michael Shannon. He’s a great actor whose choices sometimes baffle me – this holiday season you can check him out in this, or the Oscar-bound The Shape of Water. Totally up to you. If you’re looking for a Christmas movie that’s light on Christmas, high on conspiracy, and is a tolerable if forgettable watch, well, I can say with confidence that this is the cream of the crop. If it’s also my opinion that the crop this year is spoiled, well, that’s a whole other post.

Guillermo del Toro: At Home With Monsters

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Guillermo del Toro has long been one of my favourite story-tellers even though he makes movies that, technically, I shouldn’t care to see. He operates mostly within genres – horror and fantasy being his favourite, and generally, my least favourite. But I’ve been drawn in by the visual spectacle. There is beauty in everything he creates. It sparks my imagination, as it so clearly springs from his. Sean hasn’t seen as much of his catalogue as I have but I hesitate to rewatch them with him because to be honest, lots of his movies have genuinely scared me. It’s not the monsters or the horror that’s scary, it’s del Toro’s excellent world-building. You can get lost in the details, and that’s what haunts me. These fabulous details really fuck with me: anyone can create a monster, but when that monster has a horrifying little trinket on a shelf in his cave, that thing whispers to me, sticks with me.

Del Toro grew up in Mexico, raised by a strict Catholic grandmother who tried to exorcise him (twice) because of the monsters that sprang from his pen. Sean and I were in Toronto this weekend where the Art Gallery of Ontario is hosting a special exhibit on Guillermo del Toro called At Home With Monsters. Del Toro’s visual panache extends well outside the bounds of his film making. The themes that so often crop up in his movies appeal to him in his real life as well: religion, death, magic and alchemy, gods and monsters, insects and their symbolism, gothic detailing. He’s obsessed with Charles Dickens, Frankenstein, and macabre art – so much so that when his collection overwhelmed his home, he bought two more just to house the stuff. Adjoining the two houses, which he calls Bleak House, it has become a museum of sorts, stuffed to the gills with every crazy thing that’s ever inspired him. And now he’s curated from among his pieces and sent them out into the world for the rest of us to enjoy and think over. The exhibit comprises some 400 pieces – just 10% of his collection, but still more vast than I had anticipated, and it includes story boards, props, and costumes from his movies. It runs in Toronto until January 7th so you should really check it out if you can. If you can’t, you can try to console yourself with just a small sampling below.

20171217_144349 Del Toro based the Pale Man’s face on the underside of a manta ray – as a kid he found the fish’s tiny mouth and nostril slits frightening. In Pan’s Labyrinth, the Pale Man consumes fairies and children, but in today’s political climate del Toro sees his creation as an example of predatory white male supremacy. Just after the 2017 US Presidential inauguration, he tweeted “The Pale Man represents all institutional evil feeding on the helpless. It’s not accidental that he is a) Pale b) a Man He’s thriving now”

There’s also a piece about how del Toro believes that simply moving the eyes creates a monster. It gave me shivers: he’s not wrong, is he?

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Kate Hawley did the wonderful costumes for Crimson Peak. Her team spent 8 weeks on the leaf motif of Jessica Chastain’s blue dress alone. Period pieces are always a challenge, but for this movie, with del Toro always wanting more more more, every piece had to be created from scratch, often taking inspiration and silhouettes from real life vintage pieces but being made more dramatic, with more fabric and volume than would have been historically accurate, strictly speaking.

This you may recognize as the Angel of Death from Hellboy II: The Golden Angel. Again 20171217_150534 del Toro has simply moved the eyes to instantly create monstrosity. We learn as babies to expect two eyes, and when we don’t find them where they should be, it’s instantly disorienting. He drew inspiration from the archangels of medieval manuscripts, which had eyes on the feathers of their wings. The Angel of Death has a bony faceplate and misplaced eyes, making it literally blind to human suffering – the opposite of what we think a ‘guardian’ angel should be, which throws us off balance. Del Toro is really, really good at that. He defies and challenges our expectations.

Wooden puppets created by Simon Verela for The Book of Life. Guillermo del Toro’s works are always about death in one way or another, and his dead characters don’t often stay dead. But The Book of Life is actually a celebration of life, and a vibrant tribute to Mexican folklore.

Yes, that enormous Frankenstein head really does usually hang in the entrance of Guillermo del Toro’s home. Frankenstein is his favourite movie monster and his memorabilia is plentiful. “Frankenstein, to me, is instrumental in the way I see the world…It is the essential narrative of the fall of man into an imperfect world by an uncaring creator.”

20171217_151039 The Faun, from Pan’s Labyrinth, was inspired by del Toro’s recurring childhood dream (nightmare?) of a goat-faced figure who slowly emerged from behind his armoire. In the film, the Faun is intended as neither good nor evil, like nature, he is there to witness but has no agenda – he literally doesn’t care whether Ofelia lives or dies.

These are part of a distinctly sad collection in the exhibit – concept art from a movie that never got made. HP Lovecraft has always been a huge inspiration in everything that del Toro does, and he spent a decade adapting Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness for the screen. In fact he and his studios have created over 400 pieces of art, part of the pitch they presented over and over to studios, who have rejected his wish for an R-rated tentpole horror with no love story or happy ending (even with Tom Cruise and James Cameron on board to produce). With Oscar buzzing around his The Shape of Water, will del Toro’s At The Mountains of Madness finally get made, or will this always be the one that got away?

Anything here look familiar? Aside from his influences, this exhibit covers all of Guillermo del Toro’s movies except his most recent. Which ones can you identify?

On Second Thought – Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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I am not a Star Wars fan. I knew about it peripherally – its symbiotic relationship with pop culture is hard to miss – but I’d never seen the movies and never cared to. But Sean has always carried a special spot in his heart for Star Wars, or for the original trilogy anyway. He was just born when the first one came out but as a little boy he was enamoured with the series, with the very concept of space cowboys, and swords made out of laser beams, and cool flying cars. And while I think he respected my stance on keeping Star Wars out of my life for the most part, he kinda sorta took advantage of me when I had massive back surgery two years ago. While I was high on pain pills, he screened all 6 movies for me, and I was ambivalent at best. I’m totally okay with these movies existing in the world and I’m happy for anyone who takes joy from them, but they aren’t for me and never will be. But I still experienced vicarious excitement for Sean when The Force Awakens was announced. It felt like we waited forever to get our hands on that one, and it felt a little out of this world to sit in a theatre and watch that famous crawl go up the screen. Ultimately, though, Sean was disappointed by TFA. He felt it was a little too similar to a previous Star Wars film ands couldn’t quite work up the same enthusiasm for this retread. But that didn’t let us off the hook for the opening night of Rogue One. Nor for The Last Jedi, of course, and this time, Sean was a little more enthusiastic.

Warning: spoilers ahead. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, steer away. Maybe check out Sean’s spoiler-free review instead, or my own of the original trilogy.

I was not. Enthusiastic, I mean. I don’t mean to be a wet blanket on his boyhood nostalgia, and it wasn’t as if the film was without merit. I didn’t think it was bad, I just didn’t care all that much. And at two and a half hours, it was long and felt it, and I couldn’t help but sneer at the scenes that I thought of as bloated – that extended Finn/Rose casino adventure that never went anywhere in particular.

But later, thinking about this one scene between Luke and Rey, I reconsidered. “I failed him” he says of his nephew Kylo Ren’s defection to the Dark Side. No, she says, “He failed you.” And that’s when the movie really opened up to me and I started thinking of the film in terms of theme – that theme being failure. Triumphs are easy. Heroes are only truly tested when things don’t go their way. Rose and Finn are not going to accomplish their mission but they never stop trying, they never stop believing, and that doggedness inspires hope in others. That mission was never as crucial as they believed. Vice Admiral Holdo had another plan in mind the whole time, and she orders the evacuation of her ship. But this plan fails too. The escape pods are picked off one by one and Holdo ends up sacrificing herself to save them. When she reveals to Leia that she’ll stay behind in what will amount to a suicide mission, Leia says “I can’t take any more loss” to which Holdo responds “Yes you can.” Never mind that it feels like Laura Dern is speaking for us, the audience, who have so recently lost Carrie Fisher. It’s also a tiny admission by a formidable General that her job is hard, and weighing on her heavily.

“Yes you can.” Three devastating little words that permeate even the vacuum of space. Loss doesn’t ask for permission. It must be endured. Even when you think you can’t possibly take anymore, the universe laughs, and serves you a double helping. But broken hearts still beat. Loss and life are inseparable, two sides of the same death star.

Leia looks weary in this movie. The toll of each loss is written in the slope of her shoulders. But her unwavering belief in the cause fuels her persistence, as a Rebel and as a Leader , a figurehead who inspires others but also a teacher who is grooming the next generation. Poe seems to be a favourite of hers, though all agree he’s a bit of a hot head who prefers the shoot-em-up approach. Poe’s whole raison d’etre this film is to learn some hard lessons. He too must fail, and learn to put the Light first and foremost, ahead of even his own ego.

And perhaps it is Luke himself who most needs to learn how to continue on in the face of failure. Having failed his nephew Ben, who then serves under Snoke as the formidable Kylo Ren, Luke is so devastated and full of self-doubt that he retreats. Not just physically, though he does completely disappear at a time when, arguably, the Rebellion needs him most. But he also retreats from the Force. He cuts himself off completely. And maybe it’s his fear that he’ll fail again that prevents him from giving Rey the help she needs. It’s certainly a side of him we hadn’t anticipated. The Hero always steps up. How is Star Wars of all things, of all franchises, suddenly subverting the very archetypes it helped define?

In the film’s last epic battle, Luke is literally fighting his own failure. Kylo Ren is the kid he couldn’t save. Despite three movies’ worth of heroics, it’s this one failure that defines him now, that shapes his legacy as man and Jedi. But more than Kylo Ren, he’s also fighting his own apathy, his own instinct to hide. Anyone can be brave when things are easy. But Luke has had to reach down to previously unplumbed depths in order to find the will to continue on. There is no light saber in the galaxy half as powerful as the sheer will it takes just to show up, to stand in the face of failure even when you fully expect to find failure again. There is power in resilience. There is strength is perseverance. Anyone can wear the hero’s mantle, but to show up cloaked in failure, ready to face the impossible, expecting to lose but willing to do it anyway? This is what we come to the movies to see and to feel. Fuck heroes. Flying is easy. Shooting (first) is easy. But showing up for people even when your own self-worth has been shattered? That’s fucking something. Writer-director Rian Johnson has single-handedly redefined everything we thought we knew, and has done it smack in the middle of a trilogy. Ballsy.

Though The Last Jedi is a direct continuation from where we left off in The Force Awakens, Kylo Ren seems to have grown up quite a bit. He’s more self-assured and he’s more powerful. But he’s still prey to his own temper, which betrays him. He should have been able to pick up on Luke’s misdirection if he hadn’t been letting his rage dictate their interaction. The truth is, temperamental as he may be, Kylo Ren is a contender now. We’ve been underestimating him, and we’re not the only ones. But does he have a fatal flaw? Certainly, Kylo Ren has failed the Light. He’s failed his parents, and his heritage. But is he also failing himself? And if the answer is yes – does he have the means to soldier on?

Now we wait for Episode IX.

Four Christmases

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Being a child of divorce, I can relate to this notion of multiple Christmases, and most people seem to be stressed enough by just the one. Of course, the truth is, if you have divorce in your life or not, you probably already have multiple holiday celebrations: office, friends, in-laws. The holidays are never simple.

So who can blame Brad and Kate for opting out? They’re a fun loving couple in a committed but unmarried relationship who have kept family out of the equation. Instead of choosing between celebrations, they fly south for the holidays, and this year they’ve got their sights set on Fiji. EXCEPT the stupid San Francisco fog has other ideas and their flight is cancelled AND they get caught on live television so the secret’s out and the families start knocking on the door immediately.

Not only are Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) on the hook for 4 Christmases, they’re also meeting each other’s parents for the very first time. And what a MV5BMTg4Nzg1MzE1OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMTI1NzMyNw@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1492,1000_AL_ motley crew that turns out to be! Kate has a cougarrific Mom (Mary Steenburgen) who’s currently dating a rockstar pastor (Dwight Yoakam) and a sister (Kristin Chenoweth) who is dead set on dredging up her entire embarrassing past and a father (Jon Voight) who’s trying to turn over a new leaf. Meanwhile, Brad hippie Mom (Sissy Spacek) is dating his childhood friend who’s aggressively trying to stepfather him despite the non-existent age difference, and his Dad (Robert Duvall) is rough around the edges, to put it nicely, while his brothers (Tim McGraw, Jon Favreau), UFC wannabes, take rough-housing to an uncomfortable level. So I guess the question is for Brad and Kate: do they know each other well enough to survive this family tornado? Or does their relationship depend on constant fun and no entanglements?

The truth is, every family is a juggling act. I remember the first time I brought Sean home to meet my crazy family. I had prepared him as well as I could: someone will cry, someone will lock themselves in the bathroom in a fit of drama, someone will overshare, someone else will shock him with a highly inappropriate question or six. And you know what? ALL of those things happened that first Thanksgiving, as I knew they would, because they always do. But we had a grand time because they’re a fun if dramatic bunch and the problem with families is not really what they reveal of themselves but what they reveal of YOU – as in that hidden part that you shield from new dating partners. But your Mom will inevitably drag out an old photo album that she refuses to cull of your bad haircut phase, and your sister will you call you by your highly unflattering childhood nickname, and your carefully curated cool girl persona will crumble faster than Mom can say “Who wants seconds?”

Anyway, that’s the holidays. They don’t always bring out the best in us, but maybe they bring out our true selves, for better or worse. And if you can’t let that guard drop in front of your partner, then maybe you aren’t really as close as you think. Four Christmases isn’t a great movie, not destined to be a holiday classic, but you can do worse, I suppose, and around the holidays, any excuse to cuddle up on the couch is a good one.

Noel

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This movie’s got more Oscar winners and nominees than most, so I can’t quite figure out how I’ve never heard of this movie before. Alan Arkin plays a creepy cashier who’s obsessed with Paul Walker, who plays a cop who’s crazy-jealous over his super hot girlfriend, played by Penelope Cruz, who thinks she may be pregnant with her crazy-jealous boyfriend’s baby and she’s feeling so insecure she confides in a lonely woman played by Susan Sarandon, who’s completely alone for the holidays other than her comatose mother and a complete stranger she meets while visiting another patient, played by Robin Williams, who’s an ex-priest having a crisis of faith.

penelope_cruz_noel_still_2004_OGXxLss.sized This holiday movie has something for everyone: spirituality, homophobia, reincarnation, crippling depression, dead babies, and more. But in its heart of hearts it’s really just about a bunch of people who don’t want to end up alone – on Christmas, on their deathbeds, in the world just generally. Some of us feel encumbered by all our obligations to friends and family over the holidays but others are completely bankrupt when it comes to people who care, and for them, the holidays can be really, really hard.

If you’re one of those people, maybe opt for something a little more cheerful. And if you’re already feeling cheerful, why bring a good mood down? This is possibly just too depressing for Christmas fare, and that’s not even counting the fact that it stars two men now dead in real life, one of whom also expires on camera. It’s a real corker! Contrived doesn’t begin to cover it; Noel is a stocking full of sadness hung by the chimney with despair. But it does have Penelope Cruz dancing around in lingerie, so.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

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It is a good thing that Disney did not try to stick a Frozen short in front of Episode XIII, which weighs in at a hefty 2 hour and 33 minutes not including ads and previews. It doesn’t help that much of that time is spent watching Poe Dameron try really, really hard to learn a fairly simple lesson. Poe got it on what by my count was the fourth try, during a battle that took me by surprise because I expected the movie to have ended before that fight even started!

So this was not the ideal movie to have dragged Jay to, with it being an unusually long entry in a nerdy franchise she has less than no interest in. At least trying to spot the rumoured William & Harry cameo kept her busy for a while. I hope.

For those of us invested in this behemoth franchise, this is a solid Star Wars film that changes things up a bit more than did The Force Awakens, though this one sometimes feels like it’s spinning in place. Still, being the Star Wars fanboy I am, I was more than willing to forgive a few extra scenes and a few too many contrivances because what this movie gets right, it REALLY gets right.

At the top of the “gets right” list are the Last Jedi. And since Jedi is plural, that makes for multiple entries on the list.

First, Luke is actually in this movie for more than one scene and it’s the Luke we know from all three original films, for worse and then for better, and then for so much better. Bear with Luke as in the course of this movie he manages to transition (again) from whiny back-planet farmboy to ass-kicking robed avenger. It’s truly fantastic.

Second, Daisy Ridley’s Rey is really, really great for the second movie in a row. She is the heart of this third trilogy and for my money she’s the best Jedi we’ve ever had (because unlike Luke, Anakin and Ben Kenobi, Rey never had a whiny phase).

Third, we get a Jedi ghost appearance that was an unexpected bit of closure I didn’t even know I needed, as it’s one last advice-giving opportunity from master to student. It will make you wish that Han Solo was a Jedi so he had a chance to pop up in ghost form during Episode IX to rehash the good old days.

Speaking of the good old days, it is bittersweet to see Carrie Fisher get a prominent role here. Great as it is to have Leia be the true leader of the resistance, her importance means Fisher’s death will leave a massive hole in Episode IX that can’t (/shouldn’t) be filled (CG stand-ins creep me out and should creep you out too). RIP Carrie.

It occurs to me that a two hour version of this movie might have been my favourite Star Wars of all, if they had cut out much of the Poe and Finn stuff (which are the scenes that inspired my earlier reference to spinning in place). As it stands, this is still a good film that did not disappoint, and it might edge out Return of the Jedi for third place on my list, which is pretty damn respectable.

Santas For Everyone!

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My Santa

Santa’s son Chris is on the prowl. He needs a wife, for some reason, and he’s searched thirstily in “Chicago, New York AND Miami” – which seems like an unusually wide net, though I suppose if a humble little Asshole such as myself could have visited all of those gleaming metropolises, I guess Santa must have at least as much access. Anyway, the point is he’s hard up, until he meets plucky single Mom Jen, who’s bitter about Christmas ever since her ex chose that exactly holiday on which to leave her. Anyway, the more Chris falls for Jen, the more magical Santa powers he inherits from his Dad – like uncooking turkeys, and upcooking cookies, that kind of thing, super logical stuff.

Anyway, Jen’s heart remains unconvinced until her dead mother sends a sign, and then guess what: she becomes Mrs. Claus? Yeah, I don’t know: but fun fact – Chris is played by Matthew Lawrence…you know, Blossom’s Joey Lawrence’s younger brother? Star power!

Dear Santa

As you know, every good Christmas movie needs one of two things: a single mom, or a dead mom. In this case, there’s a dead mom, with the mom slot open and waiting to be filled – that’s the one and only thing Olivia is asking from Santa this year. And so it turns mail fraud into a fortunate situation! It just so happens that on the very day Crystal is cut off from mommy and daddy’s vast fortune, she happens to find Olivia’s note to Santa on the sidewalk (thanks a lot, negligent mail carrier!), and since the only way she can think of to fund her lifestyle is to marry, she decides to pursue the widower for all he’s worth.

The hilarious thing is that handsome widower Derek “owns a soup kitchen” cause, you know, that’s a thing that people own. Just the kind of small business that would keep a family comfortable. So spoiled Crystal sets about impressing Derek by donating her best fedoras and Walmart-brand spices to the homeless – and then competing shamelessly and degradingly against another woman she believes to be a love interest of Derek’s. It’s a humiliating movie for women and humankind, but a real boon to the makeup and costuming departments, who outfitted all the homeless extras with real nasty teeth. But fun fact: it’s directed by your teenage crush, Jason Priestly.

Small Town Santa

Dean Cain is small town sheriff Rick (real heroes don’t wear capes – wink) and a real Christmas grump. When Santa “breaks” into his house on Christmas Eve, he pulls a gun on him before throwing him in the clink! But Santa’s got his number: Rick wasn’t a good husband and is maybe even deluding himself about being a good dad. All his daughter wants this Christmas is for him to be around but he’s too busy feeling sorry for himself to come through for her.

Can “Doctor” Santa successfully shrink sheriff Rick from inside his cell? And can he escape it in time to deliver presents to all the good boys and girls the world over? And why is he wearing acid-washed jeans? It’s nail-biting thrills, thrills, thrills. AND WILL ANYONE FIND JESUS? (He’s missing.) A not-so-fun fact I’m totally stretching for: this movie co-stars Christine Lakin, one time star of Step By Step, a forgettable part of ABC’s TGIF Friday night lineup.

So what we’ve learned today: Christmas movies must have a single mother or a dead mother, and both if they’re serious about it. Some sort of eviction\foreclosure scenario is also preferred, as is some sort of 90s teen sensation you forgot existed. But if your standards are low, low, low, you just might find yourself entertained for the holidays. But probably not.

Merry Christmas – Love, Netflix

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A Dogwalker’s Christmas Tale

Luce is a spoiled little rich girl who LOVES Christmas. But her perfect Christmas is threatened when her imaginary boyfriend breaks up with her and her parents fly to Botswana for charity work. Left alone in a big empty house, her neighbours ask her to walk their adorable dog Hank while they’re busy over the holidays. At the dog park she meets a keen young man named Dean who’s everything the pretend boyfriend was not, but his love of animals means he pressures her to broach the subject with her new dog employers – because of course they’re the nasty developers responsible for tearing down the dog park.

It almost sounds like someone picked random holiday elements out of a jar and strung them together (loosely) in this movie. It’s pretty awful, but you can spice things up by counting the times you’d like to throw an ice-encrusted, gravel-stuffed snow ball straight through Jonathan Bennett’s perfect, shit-eating grin. Will they save the park? Will they fall in love? Of course they will, it’s a goddamn Christmas cliche-a-thon. Oh, and Sean suggests fans of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers may enjoy a mini reunion: Dina Meyer and Patrick Muldoon both find themselves in this spectacular ensemble.

How Sarah Got Her Wings

Sarah is a good person; in fact she dies performing an act of kindness. Spoiler alert! She dies! And she “wakes up” in The Lobby, the purgatory outside the gates of Heaven, and she “isn’t on the list.” Which is confusing because she’s prudish, non-smoking, church-going, and charitable – what more does Heaven want? She gets sent back to Earth and she’s got until Christmas Eve to do whatever she must to earn her wings, as such.

Trouble is, Sarah’s ghost gets sent some hot, naked dude’s apartment. Even better: it’s her ex-boyfriend, whom she unceremoniously dumped last Christmas! Now it’s her task to, I don’t know, make his Christmas dreams come true or possibly just get him to shave. But earning a spot in Heaven won’t be as easy as she thinks…after all, there are 90 whole minutes to fill! Added bonus: features a Steve Jobs cameo – or at least the back of the head of an actor pretending to be Steve Jobs’ ghost.

Back to Christmas (or as it’s known on IMDB: Correcting Christmas)

Last year, Ali expected a ring for Christmas from her boyfriend Cam but she didn’t get one, and promptly broke up with him. This year, the normally Christmas-obsessed Ali is down in the dumps, but a roast-beef-loving angel lets her take a mulligan on that fateful Christmas. She Groundhog-days the Christmas Eve that sealed her fate, and this time she’s determined to be totally cool about it for the health of her relationship. But just because she’s repeating Christmas doesn’t mean it’s going to play out exactly the same!

People in Christmas movies never love Christmas a regular amount, they always have to be weird about it. Like, DSM-diagnostic weird. But then, Ali seems to love her brother a not-regular amount also, so passion just runs high in these films and if you can’t deal with it, I guess you’d better chug a little eggnog to make up the difference.

Wakefield

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Howard Wakefield is a cruel man possibly in the throes of a nervous breakdown – but let’s not let that excuse him. In a fit of selfish pique, he one day decides to leave his wife and kids – only not leave them in the traditional sense, but rather he decides to disappear without telling a soul. Which leaves his wife and daughters devastated, but not devastated enough, according to Howard, who in fact has not actually left but is hiding out in the garage so he can more effectively spy on his grieving family.

It’s not as creepy as it sounds – it’s way, way creepier. Wakefield is a difficult movie to watch because Harold is a nasty soul impossible to forgive. He talks to us, the audience, as if we can relate, but no Harold, we can’t. He has everything he ever wanted – ever Wakefield_Mingasson_2060.CR2 cheated in order to get, but when he finds that it’s not enough, he doesn’t just abandon it, he makes it into a game, one that his family can never win because they don’t even know they’re playing, but even if they did, the deck isn’t just stacked against them, the rules are impossible. It’s not really his family that’s the problem – it’s Harold’s own dark, empty soul. And it’s terrifying to get glimpses of it as he spends months becoming a feral creature up in the attic of his detached garage. He risks starvation and exposure just to carry out this cruel little experiment. Is he missed enough? Grieved enough? His absence respected enough? No one can ever measure up – but Harold himself conveniently escapes his judgement.

Harold is brilliantly played by Bryan Cranston, which makes him riveting, but all the more loathsome to watch. But really it’s his wife who’s the most compelling – we see and experience her only through Harold’s narrow focus. Jennifer Garner has the difficult task of animating her, a woman who can never truly be real to us, even if we do project our own anguish and frustration on to her. I can’t say I enjoyed this film; it’s a bit dull and uneventful, but more than that, it’s just detestable. Harold is an anti-hero incapable of redemption. But there are two fine performances and ideas about marriage and identity that will challenge the least of us. Who are we really – are we fully knowable to our partners? And do we all have secret garage moments?