Merry Christmas! This year, I've been watching a lot more untraditional holiday specials and movies, or rediscovering ones I don't watch as much anymore, trying to find new annual favorites, and to break the mundanity of forcing myself to sit down and watch the same holiday films every year. So here's a list of my personal favorite non-traditional holiday watches:
Film:
Joyeux Noel
Die Hard
Lethal Weapon
Black Christmas
Krampus
Silent Night, Deadly Night
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Batman Returns
Edward Scissorhands
TV Episodes/Specials:
"Kegel the Elf" from The League
The Snowman
"Night of the Meek" from The Twilight Zone
"And All Through the House" from Tales from the Crypt
"A Krampus Carol" from The League
"Confrontation" from Wilfred
A Claymation Christmas Celebration
"A Very Venture Christmas" from The Venture Bros.
"Mr. Grumpy-Pants" from Superjail!
Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol
The Cricket on the Hearth
The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold
Ernest Saves Christmas (if you hate yourself)
"A Very Sunny Christmas" from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
"Silent Night" from American Horror Story: Asylum
"Birth" and "Afterbirth" from American Horror Story
"O Holy Moly Night" from F is for Family
Arthur's Perfect Christmas
The Town that Santa Forgot
"Christmas Special" from The League of Gentlemen
The Star Wars Holiday Special (only if you enjoy so-bad-it's-funny specials)
"A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas" from Family Guy
"Road to the North Pole" from Family Guy
"Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" from The Simpsons
"The Fight Before Christmas" from The Simpsons
"Tis the Fifteenth Season" from The Simpsons
"Woodland Critter Christmas" from South Park
"Sabrina's Christmas Wish" from BoJack Horseman
"It's Christmas in Canada!" from South Park
"A Very Crappy Christmas" from South Park
"Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson!" from South Park
"Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo" from South Park
"Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics" from South Park
"Red Sleigh Down" from South Park
"HappyHolograms" from South Park
"Black Friday" trilogy from South Park
"A History Channel Thanksgiving" from South Park
"Helen Keller! The Musical" from South Park
"Merry Christmas, Mister Bean" from Mister Bean
"The Draft Dodger" from All in the Family
"Blackadder Christmas Carol" from Blackadder
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Friday, December 25, 2015
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Krampus: The latest holiday horror film from the director of "Trick r Treat"
Krampus:
(Images: Wikipedia, comingsoon.net)
It's the modern holiday seasons: an upper middle-class family is reluctantly having their obnoxious redneck in-laws over for Christmas. Hijinks ensue, resulting in the youngest son taking back his Christmas wish for his family to better themselves. Suddenly, an intense blizzard knocks out the neighborhood's power and prevents road travel. Very quickly, the family begins to realize that a supernatural force is tampering with their lives: the Krampus, the ancient German demon who comes to punish those who do not embrace the Christmas spirit.
I've found the legend of the Krampus fascinating for a while now. The irony of this dark and morbid story being told to children around the happiest season of the year was intriguing to me. So when I heard Michael Dougherty (director of the Halloween horror film Trick r Treat) was doing a film about a family who encounters this creature, I was hyped. Initially the trailers were very dumb, but I was confident it would be a fun little movie. And it was. Slightly disappointing, considering how great Dougherty's first effort was, but still enjoyable.
The humor of the film blends with the horror surprisingly well, and Adam Scott, Toni Collette, Allison Tolman, David Koechner, and Conchata Ferrell were great comic relief in the film, and while initially seeming very unlikable, slowly start to grow on you as the survival portion of the film sets in. Krista Stadler, Emjay Anthony, and Stefania LaVie Owen were good supporting characters, playing the grandmother and two kids, respectively. Some reviewers complained the family was unlikable for the most part, but I found myself sympathizing them more and more as the film went on, and I believe that was Dougherty's intention. However, characters often make dumb, horror movie mistakes, but the tongue-in-cheek nature of the film makes this more understandable.
Krampus himself takes a backseat most of this movie, which was slightly disappointing, but also built suspense to his eventual arrival. His design was pretty great in this movie, paying homage to traditional portrayals, while trying its' own thing. The special effects of the monsters in this film were fantastic, mostly practical effects, though at times the effect of the Jack-in-the-Box creature looked like a Power Rangers monster suit, and one key scene of a character falling was laughable looking and almost ruins the climax. There is, however, a short clay-mation/CG sequence that looks amazing and shows Dougherty hasn't forgotten his background in animation.
The story at times had holes (how much of the town Krampus' snowstorm has enveloped is unclear), and the ending (as Chris Stuckmann pointed out in his review) felt a little too similar to the ending of Jeepers Creepers. The jump scares felt a little cheap, and I know from watching Trick r Treat that Dougherty can do better, and overall you can tell he wasn't having as much fun with the Christmas horror concept as with the Halloween one. In fact, the PG-13 rating seems to drag down this project with its' obviously censored dialogue ("Get away from my kids, you fudger!") and lack of blood. I'm all for "what you see is less scary that what you don't", but with a big, dumb, in-your-face monster movie like this, some gore would be a good payoff but I never got that. Trick r Treat was rated R, and therefore went all-out with the gore and was better for it.
The film felt longer than it was, but that's a good thing. It felt like a solid length for this type of movie. Krampus is an entertaining movie, albeit a slight let-down. Best case scenario: it encourages more viewers to check out Dougherty's Trick r Treat, which, unlike this film, was given a criminally limited theatrical run and then went straight to video and on demand for vague reasons, despite having a good budget and cast. Worst case scenario: it disappoints people and discourages them from watching ore of Dougherty's horror films, which would be a shame, as Dougherty is a talented filmmaker who should branch out and do more work outside of just writing. Give this one a watch, and then go out and buy Trick r Treat for next Halloween (or just watch it now, it doesn't matter). 7/10 stars.
(Images: Wikipedia, comingsoon.net)
Thursday, November 26, 2015
The Peanuts Movie: The first movie I've seen this year to surpass expectations for it
Today, I look at the first modern big-screen adaptation of Charles M. Schulz's classic comics.
The Peanuts Movie:
Charlie Brown, the social pariah of his school and community, seems to never have the upper hand on life. His constant embarrassments and failures only reinforce his peers' views of him. Suddenly, a new student arrives: a little red-haired girl. Instantly becoming infatuated with her, Charlie Brown must find a way to impress her while not making a fool of himself, as he always does.
It's probably the most basic film I've seen this year. There's no twist or action scene or grand epic finale, it's just a simple, nice film. The only surprise I had was how much I enjoyed it. Even though I'm very nostalgic for the Peanuts cartoons, I was kind of on-the-fence about this film. BlueSky Animation is sometimes hit-or-miss with their projects, and I'm so nostalgic for the characters it seemed like it would be surreal to see these characters in a new, modern take. Luckily, the people who wrote the film are Schulz's own son and grandson, and the studio was able to get his widow on board, so my worries were slightly eased. Finally, after seeing the film, I can say it felt like a full-length Peanuts special, though with slightly more cohesion, and that's the highest compliment paid to it. It didn't update any of the timeless feel of the strips and specials, with the characters making no references to any modern tech or social media, which is something they could have so easily done to appeal to the modern audiences. This was a film made by people who cared enough to try and accurately replicate the look and feel of the original material, while adding in the polish of modern animation and adding in their own takes on characters.
The animation is so unique, it looks exactly like a 3D version of Schulz's original drawings, and some of the sequences, such as Snoopy's fantasies, provided some nice visual flair among the sometimes simplistic environments explored by our main characters, and showed the full scope of what can be done in a Peanuts cartoon now. The opening animated short featuring Ice Age's scrat was fairly amusing as well and had some nice animation, but felt a little jarring when placed next to the tonally so distinctive Peanuts.
The opening 20th Century Fox logo's theme music being played by Schroeder on piano reminded me of The Simpsons Movie featuring Ralph Wiggum wailing the Fox theme music. The ending credits feature a character dancing by whatever credit is being shown on screen at the time, and they put the detail of having Schroeder as the music icon, and it's the little touches like that that show me that people who made this put a lot of thought into it.
The story, like I said, is charming in its' simplicity. While the ending is not nearly as melancholy or bluntly realistic as the strips and specials could sometimes be, it still retains the theme of failure as just a part of life that Schulz included many times in his work. The writers included some nice references to the strips and previous specials if you are familiar with them (a moving truck company is named after Peanuts producers Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez), but doesn't rely on one's nostalgia for them to make it a great movie. There were time in the film where I was actually on the edge-of-my-seat because I could so relate to Charlie Brown's fear of being in front of his peers trying to do something, his fears of failure in front of his peers, etc.
The music by Christophe Beck is great, as it is able to try and replicate Vince Guaraldi's unmistakable style that he used in scoring the original cartoons, but doesn't feel like a carbon copy. The only complaints about the music are the uses of pop songs: once in a montage, and over the end credits, with at least one being by Meghan Trainor. They don't fit with the end of the movie at all and I feel are the only things that could date the film.
The voice acting is excellent, with most of the performers replicating the sound of the original voice actors remarkably. Bill Melendez, who passed away, still voices Snoopy and Woodstock through archival voice recordings.
The only other complaint I have with the film is the fact that it would make for a great film to watch for the holidays, only the climax takes place in summer, which kind of throws that off. But you almost can't watch it any other time of year, because 3/4 of it is set in the holiday season.
The Peanuts Movie is brilliant in its' simple, down-to-earth approach. It is non-pretentious, and has no need for the spectacle seen in so many animated features these days. Not since Wreck-It-Ralph has an animated film come along that has touched me in a way that I can't really explain, but one came around again: this one. Especially after the disappointments of Frozen and Big Hero 6 and the semi-disappointment of Inside Out, and unlike Goosebumps, it doesn't almost entirely rely on nostalgia to keep you entertained. No need to modernize or reference pop culture every few minutes for cheap laughs, just telling a nice, uplifting story. I don't know if it's just my nostalgia talking, but it made me feel almost like a kid again watching it, and it's the first film this year to surpass expectations I had for it, and the first film since Sicario I've wanted to go back and see again, only even moreso than that film. I can see myself watching it in coming years during the holiday season along with the other Peanuts specials. If you have no attachment to the franchise at all, you can still appreciate it as an above-average family film. If you do enjoy the franchise, you'll probably love this movie. This is something I think it is safe to say Charles Schulz would have been proud to call his own. 8/10 stars.
(Image: Wikipedia)
The Peanuts Movie:
Charlie Brown, the social pariah of his school and community, seems to never have the upper hand on life. His constant embarrassments and failures only reinforce his peers' views of him. Suddenly, a new student arrives: a little red-haired girl. Instantly becoming infatuated with her, Charlie Brown must find a way to impress her while not making a fool of himself, as he always does.
It's probably the most basic film I've seen this year. There's no twist or action scene or grand epic finale, it's just a simple, nice film. The only surprise I had was how much I enjoyed it. Even though I'm very nostalgic for the Peanuts cartoons, I was kind of on-the-fence about this film. BlueSky Animation is sometimes hit-or-miss with their projects, and I'm so nostalgic for the characters it seemed like it would be surreal to see these characters in a new, modern take. Luckily, the people who wrote the film are Schulz's own son and grandson, and the studio was able to get his widow on board, so my worries were slightly eased. Finally, after seeing the film, I can say it felt like a full-length Peanuts special, though with slightly more cohesion, and that's the highest compliment paid to it. It didn't update any of the timeless feel of the strips and specials, with the characters making no references to any modern tech or social media, which is something they could have so easily done to appeal to the modern audiences. This was a film made by people who cared enough to try and accurately replicate the look and feel of the original material, while adding in the polish of modern animation and adding in their own takes on characters.
The animation is so unique, it looks exactly like a 3D version of Schulz's original drawings, and some of the sequences, such as Snoopy's fantasies, provided some nice visual flair among the sometimes simplistic environments explored by our main characters, and showed the full scope of what can be done in a Peanuts cartoon now. The opening animated short featuring Ice Age's scrat was fairly amusing as well and had some nice animation, but felt a little jarring when placed next to the tonally so distinctive Peanuts.
The opening 20th Century Fox logo's theme music being played by Schroeder on piano reminded me of The Simpsons Movie featuring Ralph Wiggum wailing the Fox theme music. The ending credits feature a character dancing by whatever credit is being shown on screen at the time, and they put the detail of having Schroeder as the music icon, and it's the little touches like that that show me that people who made this put a lot of thought into it.
The story, like I said, is charming in its' simplicity. While the ending is not nearly as melancholy or bluntly realistic as the strips and specials could sometimes be, it still retains the theme of failure as just a part of life that Schulz included many times in his work. The writers included some nice references to the strips and previous specials if you are familiar with them (a moving truck company is named after Peanuts producers Lee Mendelson and Bill Melendez), but doesn't rely on one's nostalgia for them to make it a great movie. There were time in the film where I was actually on the edge-of-my-seat because I could so relate to Charlie Brown's fear of being in front of his peers trying to do something, his fears of failure in front of his peers, etc.
The music by Christophe Beck is great, as it is able to try and replicate Vince Guaraldi's unmistakable style that he used in scoring the original cartoons, but doesn't feel like a carbon copy. The only complaints about the music are the uses of pop songs: once in a montage, and over the end credits, with at least one being by Meghan Trainor. They don't fit with the end of the movie at all and I feel are the only things that could date the film.
The voice acting is excellent, with most of the performers replicating the sound of the original voice actors remarkably. Bill Melendez, who passed away, still voices Snoopy and Woodstock through archival voice recordings.
The only other complaint I have with the film is the fact that it would make for a great film to watch for the holidays, only the climax takes place in summer, which kind of throws that off. But you almost can't watch it any other time of year, because 3/4 of it is set in the holiday season.
The Peanuts Movie is brilliant in its' simple, down-to-earth approach. It is non-pretentious, and has no need for the spectacle seen in so many animated features these days. Not since Wreck-It-Ralph has an animated film come along that has touched me in a way that I can't really explain, but one came around again: this one. Especially after the disappointments of Frozen and Big Hero 6 and the semi-disappointment of Inside Out, and unlike Goosebumps, it doesn't almost entirely rely on nostalgia to keep you entertained. No need to modernize or reference pop culture every few minutes for cheap laughs, just telling a nice, uplifting story. I don't know if it's just my nostalgia talking, but it made me feel almost like a kid again watching it, and it's the first film this year to surpass expectations I had for it, and the first film since Sicario I've wanted to go back and see again, only even moreso than that film. I can see myself watching it in coming years during the holiday season along with the other Peanuts specials. If you have no attachment to the franchise at all, you can still appreciate it as an above-average family film. If you do enjoy the franchise, you'll probably love this movie. This is something I think it is safe to say Charles Schulz would have been proud to call his own. 8/10 stars.
(Image: Wikipedia)
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