The Rooftop Christmas Tree

Leave a reply

Up until yesterday, Sarah (Michelle Morgan) was a “big time,” “hot shot,” big city lawyer, but disillusioned by a legal but immoral (according to Sarah) eviction (at Christmas!), she quit her job, packed her bags, and returned home to Small Town, USA to start her own practice to avoid some of the law’s upsetting gray areas. Unfortunately it seems small towns have injustice as well; on her very first day, she encounters an arrogant line-cutter named John (Stephen Huszar), exactly the kind of person she was hoping to never meet again when she fled the big city. The line cutting just infuriates her; clearly Sarah has a very strong sense of right and wrong, and she’s not afraid to speak her mind!

Small Town, USA is apparently a one-judge town, a judge that Sarah’s known since childhood, a judge who fed her an awful lot of tuna salad sandwiches apparently (unnecessary detail!), a judge who recognizes her return for what it really is: a need for that one client who will restore her faith in the system, and in humanity.

Conveniently, that one client just happens to live across the street from her parents. Mr. Landis has been erecting a Christmas tree on his rooftop since Sarah was nine. No one knows why and Mr. Landis (Tim Reid) won’t tell. Sarah always admired it as a child but new neighbours aren’t as keen. For the last several years, a complaint means the city will force Mr. Landis to remove the tree, or face Christmas day in jail. Every year he chooses jail. Sarah is of course outraged to hear this, but unsurprised when she shows up to represent him in court and finds Arrogant John prosecuting the case.

And yet still they’ll fall in love by the end of the movie. I guess women always think they can change a man. They can’t, of course, not in real life, not really. But is it romantic to try? Some would say Sarah needs higher standards, but she’s already looking down on everyone from her high horse, so I’m not sure that’s a workable solution. Nor does it solve Mr. Landis’ problem, in case anyone still cares. Not to worry: due to some really spiffy timing, there’s going to be a Christmas miracle.

The only interesting thing in this movie is during one scene near the end when a bunch of people are pitching in on a construction project, I pitied the actors as they were clearly working in actual winter conditions, with a wet snow falling and a cold wind blowing it in their faces while they pretended to be cheerful about frozen manual labour. The wet, windy snow felt so familiar I wondered whether it had been filmed in our neck of the woods, and wouldn’t you know it had! (You know you’re Canadian when you recognize snow.)

This movie is baffling but relatively inoffensive, so have at it, or don’t, it’s really no thermal lining off my mittens either way.

Christmas Homecoming

1 Reply

Amanda (Julie Benz), a widowed army wife, is facing her second Christmas alone and still can’t bring herself to decorate for the season during which she lost her husband. Now she’s on the verge of losing her job at the local history museum too, unless her brilliant fundraising plan can save the day – and honestly what are the chances of that happening, and with such a tight deadline?

Good thing she’s recently taken on a tenant, Master Sergeant Jim Mullins (Michael Shanks), who’ll be staying just long enough to heal his broken leg. For reasons unknown to us, Jim is a very big fan of Christmas and the first thing he does is string up lights around his shabby little apartment, after which he immediately begins wildly overstepping. Perhaps he’s unused to idle hands, but he starts playing Mr. Fix It around the house without Amanda’s permission or knowledge, even tinkering with a vintage motorcycle he knows belonged to Amanda’s dead husband, which should have rendered it not only off-limits and sacrosanct. This is the same woman, after all, who still can’t delete her late husband’s last voice mail or throw out even his ugliest bowling shirt.

Slowly but surely, the two begin to heal together – and yes, to even the playing field, Jim does have something more to heal than just his dumb leg. With broken hearts on the mend, love is perhaps not as impossible as it once seemed, but widows are a tough nut to crack. It is much harder to move on from a love that never ran its course, and it’s hard to be compared to a sainted man who died a hero. And yet Jim decides to make things even harder on them by re-enlisting. Sure the retention bonus allows for a grand gesture, but do you think Amanda wants to risk her heart in Afghanistan again?

Hallmark is no stranger to depictions of Christmas for the military family but this year have specifically partnered with the United Service Organizations (USO), the nation’s leading organization to serve the men and women in the U.S. military and their families. This partnership aims to raise awareness about the needs of the military community, honouring the service and sacrifice of the Armed Forces, bringing cheer to military families and encouraging the American public to express gratitude for our men and women in uniform.

Truth or Dare

2 Replies

During Madonna’s 1990 Blonde Ambition tour, she was filmed nearly constantly and the footage was strung together to make this behind the scenes documentary. At the time it was both lauded and condemned for being wild (she exposes her breasts!) and lewd (a gay kiss!). 25 years and a whole lotta Madonna later it almost seems whimsical but it still works as a nostalgia piece.

In fact, watching Truth or Dare, I can’t decide what lights up my nostalgia more – the costumes, or the dance moves. And it definitely makes me wonder how Madonna feels about them looking back. If you were a fan of Sex and the City, you may remember a certain episode towards the end where Carrie was tasked with cleaning out her closet. She tries on various costumes that fans recognized instantly from the series, while her friends yayed or nayed them. It was a perfect send-up to the whole era of SATC but should Madonna do the same I think the whole world might implode. Of course we all remember the cone-bras and that’s something that doesn’t really age because it’s iconic. The bustier layered on top of wide-legged trousers, however, feel like a much bigger mistake in retrospect, but one I’m glad to relive (as long as she’s the one caught on camera wearing it!).

There’s also a fair bit of celebrity gossip on hand because Madonna was of course dating (and breaking up with) Warren Beatty at the time. Beatty is definitely not fond of the constant cameras and you’ve got to wonder if they weren’t partially responsible for their parting (although Madonna’s hectic schedule and near-constant touring when health permits can’t have been easy either). Despite it being Warren in the picture, when Madonna is asked who the love of her life has been, she names Sean [Penn]. How much would you wager she’d answer the same today? Madonna herself doesn’t seem to court a lot of celebrity friends and she’s much too busy working to be out partying. A fair number do stop by to watch her concert and bump fists with her afterward, and the best cameo goes to Kevin Costner – no, to Kevin Costner’s mullet – who proves he’s beyond square by calling her show “neat” and acting rather bored.

Instead of partying, she stays in to baby her failing voice, and is often cuddled up with her dancers, decked out in fluffy hotel bathrobes. She and her dancers grow quite close during the tour, and she often talks about an intense mothering instinct that’s brought out in her. She ‘s only 32 or so, not so very much older than the dances, but in experience she’s already ancient.

There are lots of terrific Madonna moments, from being threatened with arrest for “indecency” at her Toronto Skydome concert, to reminding God that “she’s here” should he need her services during a pre-show group prayer.

I watched this as a companion piece to a more recent documentary called Strike A Pose – catching up with the dancers made famous by this documentary and her Blonde Ambition tour. Both are worth checking out, although Truth or Dare is clearly the classic.

The Road Within

3 Replies

Oh man. If you watch one questionable movie (Welcome to Me), Netflix immediately believes the worst in you and starts recommending movies for the hidden loser in all of us. I assume this is what led me to watch something as painful and thoughtless as The Road Within.

First, that smarmy title. If it sounds like a non-selling self-help book, maybe leave it at that.

So the formulaic story is this: three young adults find themselves at a treatment centre under the care of Kyra Sedgwick for their various ailments. So they steal her car and go on an oddball road trip while the good doctor apparently abandons all other patients in order to search for them.

Vincent (Robert Sheehan) has severe Tourette’s – he tics and swears his way through this film; Marie (Zoe Kravitz) is painfully thin and painfully anorexic; Alex (Dev Patel) is as OCD (obsessive-compulsive, emphasis on obsessive) as they come. Though competently acted, I often felt their afflictions teetered on being played for laughs, and this set me on edge for the duration of the film.

Writer-director Gren Wells is remaking a 2010 German film, Vincent Wants to Sea, which is slightly better but didn’t exactly scream to be remade. The thing that kills me is that lots of real-life people live with these diseases, and they tend to do it with a lot more grace than this movie possesses. How does it both trivialize and make a mockery of these afflictions? And why are their characters allowed to be completely defined – and even overwhelmed – by their respective challenges? Because none of them seems to have a personality. They just have illness. And that rings false.

It seems to want to avoid the sentimental ending but can’t quite resist. The trio of young actors do pretty impressive jobs considering the patronizing material they’re wrestling with, but it’s not enough to uplift the movie or to make me feel comfortable with the way it treats some pretty serious issues.

One good thing I’ll mention in regards to this movie:

REELABILITIES hosted a special screening of the movie in April 2015, which was attended by Dr. Danielle Sheypuk. REELABILITIES is a film festival dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities, which is a beautiful idea and a cause near and dear to my heart.

Danielle Sheypuk, if you don’t know her, is a ground-breaking busy-body: a licensed psychologist, media commentator, disability-rights advocate and fashion model. She’s also worn the crown of Miss Wheelchair New York and was the first woman in a wheel chair to grace the catwalk at New York fashion week, February 2014 (a year later, fashion house Carrie Hammer tapped American Horror Story Jamie Brewer to walk their show, marking the first woman with Down syndrome to appear at fashion week). Dr. Sheypuk specializes in the problems of dating, relationships and sexuality among the disabled, a necessary but taboo subject I’ll be covering in my upcoming review of The Sessions.

Smoke

5 Replies

Harvey Keitel plays Auggie Wren, the owner of a neighbourhood smoke shop. One of his most loyal customers is writer Paul Benjamin (William Hurt), a man so clouded in pain that he nearly walks into traffic, saved at the last minute by a kid on the street, Rashid, played by a very young Harold Perrineau. All three of them spend the movie telling various stories, with flexible degrees of reality to them. Truth pales in comparison to an aesthetically pleasing story. The satisfaction in telling these stories is what’s important.

Rashid claims he’s hiding from a gang, but he’s really searching for the father who disappeared from his life years ago (Forest Whittaker, who is only 2 years older than Perrineau, and who wears the world’s worst prosthetic during the film – seriously, people, the fake arm is so absurdly long, we know he’s hiding a perfectly functioning hand in there, and maybe a couple of apples as well!).

Auggie encounters an old flame (Stockard Channing) who tells him that he has an 18-year-old daughter(Ashley Judd), and she’s in trouble, pregnant and addicted to crack. He’s sure she can’t be his, but gets roped into a rescue mission all the same.

This movie is meant to be enjoyed the way a cigar is, appreciated in puffs and wisps at a time, taken in and held. It’s a talky movie – it’s about the art of storytelling and focuses on the everyday, so don’t expect it to “pick up.” It’s meandering. It’s not just taking its time getting somewhere, there actually is no destination.

Director Wayne Wang worked very closely with writer Paul Auster, and it shows. This is as “literary” as a movie is capable of being – any more so, and Keitel would have sat on a stool and simply read aloud from a bo smoke3 ok. The script is all meat, no gristle, and I’m sure it’s an actor’s delight. It belongs to the slow movement for sure, I’m just not sure I could bear to be part of it for much more than the film’s 112 minute running time. Keitel’s “Christmas story” toward the end of the film is a particular combination of gruelling and rewarding. Great story, but it’s just one very long take, something like 13 minutes, just Keitel’s face as he tells the story, the camera slowly closing in on it, and finally just his eyes.

And hey, if moody soliloquies don’t do it for you, there’s always this: it won an MTV movie award for best sandwich in a movie (ham and cheese). Praise be.

Why Stop Now

Leave a reply

Jesse Eisenberg is having a terrible, no-good, very bad day. He’s a piano prodigy who needs to get to the audition that will launch his future, only he has to get his sister to school and his mother (Melissa Leo) to rehab first, if only her drug dealer (Tracy Morgan) will let him out of this inconvenient hostage situation.

This movie has no idea what it wants to be. It ricochets between the hijinks you’d expect from a drug dealer named Sprinkles badly in need of a Spanish translator, to the high drama of a family in turmoil, to the awful lows of the whiny, fast-talking tones of every single Jesse Eisenberg movie ever made. And was I comfortable with the white guy = piano prodigy, black guy = drug dealer dynamic? Not so much.

I suppose this film is mildly entertaining if you can forgive the fact that it doesn’t actually have anything to say. I mean, 5 minutes after it was done, I forgot how it ended. What was the point of all of this? Somewhere between wacky and weepy it gets muddled and lost and never recovers.

Paris Is Burning

Leave a reply

Shot between 1985 and 1989, Paris Is Burning is a documentary that explores the “ball culture” of New York City. These balls were beauty pageants of sorts, for drag queens certainly, but categories for competition tended to make room for black people, latino people, gay people, and transgendered. These categories and sub-categories are so structured that I could never explain them all to you, but people competed in “executive realness” (how well you can “pass” for a business person), for example, or showed off their catwalking skills, elaborate costumes, or dance moves.

Competitors grouped together in “houses” (like the House of Chanel), which were substitute families in a community that really needed them. Director Jennie Livingston spent years interviewing people and putting this thing together, and it’s given me insight into a world I never knew existed. Drag isn’t just a subculture here, it’s a complex thing of race and class and gender identity that allowed for a pretty wonderful self-expression.

The film brought voguing into the mainstream although it was actually just a small part of the movie. What I’ve gleaned is this:

First, reading: to get a good ‘read’ on someone, you find their flaw and you come up with a good insult about it. But the truer the flaw, the better the read. It’s not just about being mean, it’s about being shrewd I think.

Then, shade: to throw shade is to slyly insult someone. You disrespect them with trash talk.

And finally, voguing: which is the dance equivalent. I never knew that all these concepts were somehow interconnected, but yes, voguing is part of a dance battle where you freeze repeatedly in glamourous positions (as if you’re a model on the cover of Vogue magazine), trying to outdo each other. A few years later Madonna will bring this trend to the mainstream, white-washing it and losing its flavour, but it’s actually a pretty cool thing to watch the real stuff go down.

Candy Cane Christmas

Leave a reply

Phoebe (Beverley Mitchell) and childhood bff Laurie (Benedicte Belizaire) co-own the Seeing Green florist shop where they go all out at Christmas. Phoebe is very attached to tradition and so adverse to change that Laurie’s slightly different twist on Christmas decorations gives her anxiety. Worse still, Candy Cane Lane, a street in her neighbourhood famous for its well-lit homes, won’t be happening this year for the first time Phoebe can remember – or possibly ever again thanks to dwindling interest. Laurie sees this as an opportunity for Phoebe to step outside of her stifling comfort zone and encourages her to try new things in attempt to fill these new voids.

That’s how Phoebe meets (well, re-meets) Eric (Mark Ghanimé), a very handsome veterinarian whose only flaw is having closed himself off from love after a bad break-up. Seriously, piercing green eyes AND he likes dogs? Take me now!

But no. Settle down, folks. This is a very respectable Hallmark holiday movie we’re talking about, and Eric is a true gentleman whose only known hobby is hanging out in a retirement residence with his aunt (Sean recognized it as local: this film was shot right here in our backyard). Although Hallmark guarantees a happy ending and true love forever, it can’t make it too easy on you, or it wouldn’t achieve its 91 minute runtime. A series of misunderstandings will do the trick, and string us along until it’s time to kiss and commit. Ah, Hallmark, you traditional old fool.

Jingle Bell Bride

Leave a reply

Jessica’s celebrity client not only has some pretty hefty demands for her upcoming wedding, she’s also a chronic mind-changer, and wouldn’t you know it, the famous singer is demanding a last-minute change to her bouquet, and wedding planner Jess (Julie Gonzalo) has no choice but to fly to a tiny and remote Alaskan community to track down the essential jingle bell blooms.

In fact, the town (population 112) of Tapeesa is in the midst of their Jingle Bell Festival, celebrating their rare and beautiful flower. With the high-profile wedding just days away, Jess needs her round-trip expedition to be flawlessly executed, and of course it is not. First there’s plane maintenance (the Tapeesa airport has just the one plane, and just the one flight out per day), and then there’s a storm (what, snow in Alaska? No wonder they’re flummoxed!), and long story short, while her boss freaks out back in the big city, Jessica is grounded in Alaska, with nothing to do but attend the festival and become its queen. Oh, and fall in love with her tour guide and flower hookup Matt (Ronnie Rowe), who teaches her the charms of extremely small town life, and how not to die in the extreme Alaskan cold.

But if love does manage to blossom like those dainty jingle bell blooms, what then? They live miles and worlds apart. Can love overcome a pretty common obstacle? I have faith that Hallmark with find a way.

Snowed-Inn Christmas

Leave a reply

Jenna Hudson (Bethany Joy Lenz) and Kevin Jenner (Andrew Walker) both work for the same publication, and now they’re basically competing to see which one will keep their job come Christmas. They’ve both volunteered to fly to Aspen to cover luxury holiday chalets but wouldn’t you know it, a fierce snow storm forces them to land in Santa Claus, Indiana. Which, okay, I admit I’m skeptical that their plane would get diverted to small town Santa Claus, but sure, they’ve been diverted to a rinky dink tiny town that’s so unprepared for snow they’ll be snowed in for days.

Or should I say: snowed inn. Because of course the only place they can check in is a historic inn run by Carol and Christopher Winters.

Now, let’s remember that Jenna and Kevin have volunteered to be away on assignment over Christmas, even if this is now the wrong assignment. Neither is holiday-oriented, and they’ve done all they could to escape celebrations. Santa Claud, Indiana, is not much of an escape. It’s pretty in-your-face and down-your-throat about the whole Christmas thing, so now Jenna and Kevin have no choice but to pair up and write about this, their small town Christmas extravaganza, even though they’re holiday-averse and they’re polar opposites when it comes to work – Jenna organized and a little rigid, Kevin unprepared and winging it. Neither is impressed and yet we the savvy audience have a pretty good idea that they’ll soon be putting aside their petty differences to fall in love, with both the season, and each other.

What do you think, guys? Can the spirit of Christmas triumph over all, even their career ambitions? Even the not too tragic tragedies in their back stories? Even Jenna having failed to anticipate a Christmas ball and not packed an appropriate dress, thus borrowing one from an elderly woman who’s aesthetic can only be described as “Mrs. Claus chic?” Only a view will tell – or, you know, a pretty lazy guess.