What I Watched Recently: Boxing Day Edition

This was meant to be a Christmas Edition and published last night, but Ye Olde Author fell asleep in his office chair. Ho ho ho!

Here we go, in no particular order other than how they fall in my screencaps folder.

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(2000)

A fast-lane investment broker, offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives, wakes up to find that his sports car and girlfriend have become a mini-van and wife.

Here's one of my wife's favorites. I'd never watched it until a few years ago, but I can see the enduring appeal. Whenever I feel like my life is not exactly where I want it to be and may never even get there in the time allotted me, I like to remind myself that at some point out there in the multiverse I chose this one over whatever other one. No one knows their own story, truly, until they're yanked out of it. 

Sometimes I like to yell out "Where were you on that one, Don Cheadle?" to the heavens when something goes wrong. Or "Don't try and Don Cheadle me on this, okay?" when anyone overstates my choices.

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(2003)

Raised as an over-sized elf, a human travels from the North Pole to NYC to meet his biological father who doesn't know he exists and is in desperate need of some Christmas spirit.

Just perfect. I was late in seeing this one. Wil Ferrell's man-child schtick is suited perfectly for this (as it was for Anchorman, although this one stays PG.) 

Not enough credit is extended to Faizon Love as the straight man Gimbel's Manager as Buddy the Elf ascends through the realms of Christmas insanity. The contrast/ hard cuts from Buddy to the manager made me laugh out loud each and every time. Perfect expressions/ persona. He's the coach from the "Invincible" episode of Always Sunny, too - plenty besides that, but I love that damn episode. 

A shout-out to Jon Favreau, as well, who went from the kind of 90s-indie-guy I was truly sick of by the end of that decade into a pillar of the industry. An admirable career and I've never read an interview with him where he sounded like an asshole. All too rare. 

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(1984)

A young man inadvertently breaks three important rules concerning his new pet and unleashes a horde of malevolently mischievous monsters on a small town.

Another first for the Dog Star Omnibus kids this year. I tried to introduce it into the Christmas round of viewing last year, but they thought they'd be too scared. But after a year of watching crazier nonsense than this over their shoulder in their Roblox Obbies and YouTube family Squidgame/ Pennywise/ Stuff-Like-This without batting an eye, I made an executive decision. 

A good time was had by all. They are always so grossed out by 1980s-style slimy-monster effects. My middle one made me proud by asking the type of questions throughout ("Wait, why does snow not get them wet? Doesn't that count?" Ditto for all the booze being lapped up and spilled on one another in the barroom scene, or the sliding scale of "bright lights". Or how in the department store at the end it takes Gizmo about five minutes of screentime to traverse the distance Billy and Stripe traversed in about five seconds, and he's in a moving vehicle.) that show the makings of a fine movie-mind. 

I've seen Gremlins many times since catching it on vacation in the States the summer of 1985. (Can that be right? Was it in theaters again the summer after it came out? Did I see it in 1984?) I've got to say the "Why not snow..." thing never occurred to me. This time, I had fun - and noticed Jonathan Banks in there as the deputy for the first time! Who else am I missing in here? - but it struck me as odd that they cast Zach Galligan as Billy. The part seems like it was written for someone Corey Feldman's age. Indeed, Corey Feldman is in the movie, as his buddy, even though it appears there's at least a ten year gap between them. I'm sure it's in any of the commentary or copious literature out there on the movie, but another thing that had never really occurred to me over the years. 

Joe Dante really likes referencing other movies, huh? He was doing mash-up/ sampling before it was cool, I guess. Or to a degree even Brian DePalma found excessive. 

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(1997)

A seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic.

Something happened to James Cameron around the time of The Abyss and he never got right. Well, "right" by my reckoning; by the world's, I'd say he's doing just fine. Like JJ Abrams, another of the world's most successful filmmakers, he makes movies that hoover up the box office and are perfectly watchable - even lovable - while watching them but fall apart like so much biomimetic matter on repeat viewings. 

What makes this all-hat-no-cattle process so baffling is how much freaking overhead and investment is involved. The epitome of scaling a volcano to toast a hot dog and swaddling the expedition in swirling choruses and epic shots. A three hour plus evocation of the paper bag maelstrom from American Beauty. Everyone does fine, everything's made with machine perfection. Each shot is wonderful, each lightbulb is probably authentic. What can you complain about? Antiseptic AF but hey, no germs.

I remember that French dinner scene cut from the original release of Apocalypse Now where Francis Ford Coppola took such elaborate pains to make the temperature of the wine right on the table, or paired with the food, etc. It strikes me as the epitome of a certain type of madness. 

When this came out I remember asking my grandfather (just before he went into the nursing home, i.e. in his last six months of life) if he had any plans to see it. "I've seen that one five or six times now," he said with a smile. I miss that guy. I watched an episode of St. Elsewhere the other night where one of the characters, referring to a deceased loved one, said something like "There was a time where (so and so) did not exist. And that time has come again." It's a very true, surgical way of looking at it. Surgery can be helpful; hell, it's often essential. I swear there's a tie-in, here, to Titanic, and making it over and over again, and diving down to the bottom of the ocean to remember its husk. R.I.P. to all granddads everywhere. 

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(2006)

Two women troubled with guy-problems swap homes in each other's countries, where they each meet a local guy and fall in love.

Another one my wife showed me - only this year, so this was a first. Here's a rom-com that does everything right. Oh, it hits all the branches you'd expect: that cad Jude Law, Y2k's answer to Emily Blunt Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz proving a sincere study of Doris Day, a meet cute, and then another one - and then someone defines meet cute, and then references it again -, successful ladies who imbibe too much and the truth gushes out, examining their lives, connecting with the magical elderly, "they say when the Santa Ana winds blow, crazy things happen...", smarmy Jack Black - okay, that last one is a bit of a bump in the road.

But: even Jack Black's insistence on Jack Black-ing every gd situation of his life and ours isn't enough to ruin this one. A really cute and wonderful movie. Has nothing to do with Christmas, so far as I can see, or less to do with it than, say, Die Hard or Die Hard 2, but I don't see people having those kind of online arguments about whether or not it's a Christmas movie. 

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(2005)

An uptight, conservative businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family's annual Christmas celebration and finds that she's a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.

Here's a movie that will make you unbelieve in Christmas... okay, not really. It should be on the poster, though. The lack of self-awareness from every character - as they discuss self-awareness - and that imbues every scene and line of the script is uncanny. Like someone saw Pieces of April (or looked ahead to Rachel's Getting Married) and thought 'What this story needs is less self-awareness.' I picture a Narcissism machine like the wind/rain machines big productions have, just raining it down over the heads of everyone.

Everything that happens in The Holiday as far as rom-com branches happens here, too, just brainlessly. Meet-cute becomes whoops-I-fell-off-the-bus-on-my-face! etc. This film needs to be studied. There's a certain type of furious self-absorption being celebrated here, the kind where characters in the same room fail to hear or see what other characters are doing or how their loved ones feel or how anyone actually feels on the inside, etc. as a virtue instead of the key to escaping the family horrorshow. 

I can't get to the bottom of it in a capsule review like this. Just two things  - throw a dart and there's fifty more but here's two:

- My wife and I do this "Dermony Mulroney... has... hu-man Christ-mas??" Frankenstein voice based on his character here. Holy moley. If the film had a line or two indicating he was a robot studying holiday customs, maybe it'd be fixable. Without it, you're left agonizing over his lack of human verisimilitude. He might get it from his family, it's true, and the two sisters joining in are certainly alien and insane as well. The whole "family stone" might be some kind of metaphor for (again) biomimetic death spasms and hallucinations. Just with none of the nobility of "Course: Oblivion."

- There's one scene where Diane Keaton's character (dying Mom) says to Rachel McAdams (cynical twentysomething) re: an old photograph of her when she was pregnant. "That's us, kiddo." But she says it in a gruff, low voice, and the reaction shot from McAdams is one of almost horror. The whole scene needs a David Lynchian re-tuning. I wish I had the kind of editing/You-Tube time to do it. But loop that, with the right sound design and close-ups, and you have struck close to the heart of existential parental horror. 

"That's us, kiddo..." FOREVER. AND EVER.

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(2003)

Stranded at a desolate Nevada motel during a nasty rain storm, ten strangers become acquainted with each other when they realize that they're being killed off one by one.

Here's a film I always refer to as "the other 9/11." Maybe the real 9/11. Because after this movie, nothing was ever the same again. Suddenly every film had fifty stupid nonsensical twists at the end, by law it seemed. An entire way of filmmaking was gone in an instant. Scripts were reverse engineered from nonsensical twists. Better than nonsensical religious dogma, I grant you, but not much.

And the movie marks a certain change for John Cusack as well. He went from an actor who chose interesting roles and seemed to be realizing something pretty cool onscreen, project to project, to someone just doing Identity ten to eleven times a year, every year, for the rest of his and our lives. He and Nic Cage seem to be competing on the wig-and-hair-dye/how-many-movies-can-I-be-in-this-year front, but at least Nic seems like he's working or is occasionally animated on screen. I can't remember the last performance from John Cusack where I felt that was the case. 

Identity seems like the conspicuous pivot, both for his career and for us as a nation. If only the movie was meant as a metaphor for our schizophrenic American consciousness! I'm sure someone involved probably though it was.

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(2019)

In rural 1977 Georgia, a misfit girl dreams of life in outer space. When a competition offers her a chance to be recorded on NASA's Golden Record, she recruits a makeshift troop of Birdie Scouts, forging friendships that last a lifetime.

Another film where you have to marvel at the lack of self-awareness on the part of the filmmakers. The transparencies of casting and theme make this Amazon commercial seem subtle. Our cultural betters are 1000% focused on their reflection in the mirror and editing it in Photoshop. 

What they get right here:

- I mean, the kids are all cute, performance-wise. Likewise, I mean, it's not a mean-spirited film or anything, excepting the offense-to-spirit that all such optics-jihadism represents.

- Viola Davis and Allison Janney can do no wrong. They're great. But that's no news.

- The smoking. Holy moley - this was like every memory of every family get-together I had in the 70s and early 80s. 

What they get wrong:

- Oh, let's just say everything else, to be charitable. Holy moley, though. There are scenes and sequences here that so perfectly illustrate why simplistic commitments to woke optics by any means necessary end up undermining whatever message you think you're sending. 

- The commitment to unreality is as well-sketched-out here as it is anywhere. Each of the kids is a grotesque, a simulacrum of the (affluent lefty parent)'s fantasies. It's like a kids pageant drag queen show in many respects, with religion and caste lanes for everyone to see. For a more insightful take on such, you're better off just watching the "Always Sunny" episode. 

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(1996)

A father vows to get his son a Turbo Man action figure for Christmas. However, every store is sold out of them, and he must travel all over town and compete with everybody else in order to find one.

We did not set out to watch this one this year. It's safe to say no one does. But I threw it on while we were wrapping presents and it just kind of stayed on, minute after agonizing minute. 

What on earth were they thinking with this movie? I really would love to sit down with Arnold, Jim Belushi, and Sinbad and talk to them about it. (Similarly, are they buds? Were Jim and Sinbad guests at the Governor's Mansion? I hope so.) It's like at every turn they made a movie that would repel you visually and emotionally. What should have been if not a slam dunk at least some kind of reliable moneymaker is a turkey in every respect.

When this came out, it was probably at the height of my and my old buddy Klum's Arnold-mania. One drunken night in Oakwood, Ohio we got going on Total Recall and laughing and the next thing I know I was talking like Arnold for years. (This was the mid-nineties, so about ten years after the first wave of everyone-talking-like-Arnold; we were bringing it back, bigtime.) People still see me sometimes and yell out "GAAAA!" so associated was I with making that Arnold-noise at one point.

All of which is to say you probably could not have found two people more motivated to find something to love in Jingle All the Way than me and Klum were the day we saw this in the theater. And yet the most we could muster was a groan here and there, or a mild chuckle. 

In the theater that day, there was one guy, though, in the back row, busting a gut laughing at every damn scene. Like DeNiro in the theater in Cape Fear. Me and Klum kept looking at one another and wondering - who is that guy? What the hell? I guess I can finally reveal, that was me - time traveled back to spend some time with 1997 Bryan and Klum but doing so gave me the bends. In my dizzied state I found the movie unbearably funny and didn't even get to interact with either of them. A kindly projectionist found me afterward, collapsed among the milk duds, and led me back to my time pod. I tried, fellas.  

Merry Christmas in the great beyond, old buddy.

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There'll be one more of these before the end of the month. I watched a lot of movies lately - I don't want to rob myself of the opportunity to tell you all about it! 

Here are some leftover screencaps of films I left out of the above. Happy Boxing Day, world.