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Monday’s festive-ass holiday bonanza was one of my girlfriend’s favorite Christmas movies, The Ref which I had never seen before despite being in love with Kevin Spacey for basically my entire life. [Calendar.]
I liked it, which is largely a duh at this point. I watch a holiday movie and then I usually like it. (That’s not very exciting, huh? I will try to hate more things in the future.) But it also left me feeling really… ugh, I don’t even know how to explain this without getting into a whole bunch of my psychological issues. BASICALLY, this bitch just hit WAY TOO CLOSE TO HOME for it to be super enjoyable even though it’s funny and smart and real.
It is also SO DATED 90s in such an excellent way. The FASHIONS and the marriage counseling and the weird Enya-esque/acid jazz Christmas score that makes it sound like a movie for 90s sex fiends. There is SO MUCH SHOUTING also, which I don’t like. It stresses me out a lot. Any movie with lots of shouting gets voted a little down for me because it’s so uncomfortable to watch. Which is ridiculous because I am a shouter! Maybe it’s a sign of deep self-loathing. How exciting and 90s psych.
But yeah this was fun to watch sort of? When Mother Rose gets told off it’s REALLY SATISFYING because she’s so terrible and I also really enjoy them all sitting around the table with candle wreaths on their heads because that in itself is SO 90s (not candle wreaths themselves, but awkward, semi-appropriative multi-culturality) and also Christine Baranski who is the most best flawless for forever. Also, Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey forever. Perfect beauteous angel of glory.
I always get bummed when I watch Denis Leary stuff though because he’s just playing Denis Leary, I mean really. Shouting and smoking and ranting and swearing a lot. And he’s hot while he does it and good at it, but dang. Let’s see him play something quiet and sensitive and, like, meditative. Denis Leary, make one movie where you never raise your voice even once. I will give you exactly one dollar.
I also wish Robert J. Steinmiller Jr. had kept acting in movies for me to watch because he looks like a poor man’s mash-up of Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix and I would have been real into it had I seen this in my youth/as an adult if he grew into an attractive adult.
My only solidly legit complaint is that this thing ended REAL ABRUPTLY. Like, everything is just about to get exciting/tense/high-stakes and then Kevin Spacey is like, “SON, TAKE THIS THIEF AND RUN THROUGH THE WOODS WITH HIM” and then they do and the movie ends? How is that? What even? IMDB says that originally Denis Leary got caught but test audiences were like, “UGH NO EXCUSE U” and so they changed it and now Ted Demme is still real butthurt over it. Which I totally believe because 1. the end of the movie is totally rushed and 2. Ted Demme strikes me as an ass.
In conclusion, I DARE YOU TO FIND SOMEONE MORE PERFECT. YOU WON’T. DEAL WITH IT.
After having to re-juggle the schedule, Sunday night’s festive-ass flick became Love Actually [Caaaaalendar.] And it was a nice, easy, relaxing Sunday night because we’ve both seen this one about 600 times, each more enjoyable than the last. [Spoilers, obvs.]
I think part of what makes Love Actually so great is just that the whole thing is really warm. It’s not saccharine or cloying and there are painful things fluttering around in it, but the people involved in these stories love each other immensely, even when they’re hurting each other. Every story line is great, even Colin’s ridiculous trip to the US and each one gets just enough voice and legs to carry itself to a really satisfying end.
This is one of my pre-festive-ass favorites and since I’ve already covered some stuff about loving it, I thought I’d just kind of ramble about things I really love:
– Bill Nighy and Gregor Fisher. I think this is generally one of the most under appreciated elements of the movie. His manager is the love of his life! They’re old and happy together! FRIENDSHIP IS THE BEST.
– Hugh Grant caroling for the little girls who answer the door and the little running man move they do to “Good King Wenceslas” and basically the entirety of his door-to-door episode.
– The Nativity play! Lobsters! An octopus! A Spider-man faced crown-wearing child! It’s just so, so perfect. This is what kid recitals are like. This is so much what I imagine it is like being a parent. Gawd only knows how many times I went home with a weird lists of supplies and necessities for projects and performances. Gawd bless all the parents and guardians who put up with us.
– Which perfectly segues into all the great parenting going on in this thing! Liam Neeson is such a good dad! And Emma Thompson is such a good mom! And it all seems really natural and rewarding and easy but not effortless.
– Laura Linney and her brother. ABSOLUTE TEARS OF AGONY GUSHING FROM MY EYES every single time I watch and Laura Linney interact with her brother and hug him and be SUCH A GOOD AND PATIENT PERSON. Can’t deal with it.
– Every word that comes out of Kris Marshall’s mouth.
– Martin Freeman and Joanna Page. BEST MOST CUTE BEST.
I love all the stories, obvs. And this movie makes me re-love Hugh Grant every single time I watch it. Like, no joke. I love you, Hugh Grant. I do. And this movie has the faux-nostalgia-beautiful-place thing that Christmas movies set in New York do. It looks so pretty and lovely, I start thinking I could live there and be happy and joyful forever even though it’s so totally, adamantly untrue.
I spent most of this watch OBSESSING over British Christmas trees though. Like, I know they are not SPECIFICALLY British, they’re just untrimmed firs, but I could not stop freaking out about how PRETTY they are and the only way I was able to find similar ones was to Google “british christmas trees” so that’s just what they are.
Also, there are three separate incidences of holiday breasts in this one. Bless the British.
Saturday’s (Yes I am still behind, WHAT OF IT?!) festive-ass flick was three Rugrats holiday specials. “A Rugrats Chanukah”, “A Rugrats Kwanzaa”, and “Babies in Toyland”. [CALENDAR.] I had seen Chanukah and Kwanzaa before, but “Babies in Toyland” was all new to me — produced for season nine, after the introduction of Tommy’s little brother Dil and Chuckie’s step-sister Kimi and well after I was regularly comsuming Nickelodean animation. (Chanukah is from season four and I remember it well, but weirdly, Kwanzaa was season eight but I had still seen it. It’s not like I don’t watch cartoons, I’m just usually better at remembering how/when I watched them.)
ANYWAY. Chanukah and Kwanzaa are both good, “Hey, let’s teach babies about a culture they don’t belong to thereby education our viewers simultaneously!” and I’m pretty sure everything I knew about Chanukah as a kid was because of this episode of Rugrats. And this is also probably true for Kwanzaa. I HAVE LEARNED A LOT MORE SINCE THEN. Just to clarify.
I also really wanted to be Jewish as a kid, like, REALLY BADLY and for no real discernible reason. I was raised essentially a-religious. I vaguely believed in god because other kids did, but my parents never told me to and I never got taken to church unless someone died. But JEWISH. That sounded COOL. I think I just wanted to be something/something different. We celebrated Christmas secularly (like we still do) and that got boring, I guess?
At 13 this crystallized into an even more specific desire to be ethnically Jewish and born/raised in Hawaii. As an adult, I realize that I just wanted to be Bette Midler? And that’s cool. (As an adult I also recognize my privilege/innocent idiocy in being able to say I desired Jewishness. But, you know, that’s what learning/growing is all about.)
As a kid I also thought that the houses with blue Christmas lights were the Jewish houses. But like, I also believed that the red blinking lights of the radio towers visible from my backyard were alien spaceships keeping an eye on me and that I could hide under a floral sheet if a natural disaster was coming and it wouldn’t be able to get to me. I wasn’t exactly a normal kid.
The Rugrats are adorable and these are good introductory/sweet/easy cultural lessons for eeeeeeveryone. Hooray for he Rugrats. They also taught me about Passover! So much learning.
“Babies in Toyland” was a different experience because I hadn’t seen it before [I actually wanted to watch the Christmas episode from the first season called “The Santa Experience” but Netflix only has episodes starting from season four. UNACCEPTABLE. But survivable.] and it didn’t have a lesson to teach me other than don’t be horrible and evil and appreciate the time you have with the people you love which are the most common Christmas special lessons. “Babies in Toyland” was real cute/sweet/funny and I would watch it again. THE BEST PART THOUGH BY FAR is when the back of Chuckie’s snowsuit gets torn open and Phil proclaims, “I didn’t know you had Reptar undies, Chuckie.” and Chuckie yells, “QUIT LOOKIN’ AT MY UNDIES, PHIL.” Because, I don’t know, I am twelve and it was CUTE. Watch it. It’s already cued to the right spot and everything.
The lesson in this episode is basically that Angelica is SUCH A TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING that she makes Santa QUIT. Ugh, she’s so awful! I think as a kid you recognize that you shouldn’t act like Angelica and then you get a little older and you realize that the babies should NEVER LISTEN TO HER and then you get to be an adult and it’s like, “Damn, if she was my child I would have a hard time not employing spanking as a disciplinary option.” Which is a serious-ass thought to have about a cartoon character.
Chuckie is still my favorite followed SO CLOSELY by Phil and Lil. Chuckie is me and I am okay with that. And if you aren’t on the Phil and Lil boat, you deserve to sink. DEAL WITH IT.
Friday’s festive-ass flick was Nothing Like the Holidays which we really did sit down and watch on Friday over pizza (from a new place in town! We have no good independent pizza and this was definitely better than average! And CHEAP. What up, Chalkboard Pizza, we love you now.) and it has actually taken me this long to write about it because this movie is pretty forgettable. Do you see how few notes there are? And then we had to rearrange the entire movie schedule again because Netflix took Santa’s Slay off of Instant for no discernible reason (THANKS, NETFLIX!) and yeah. [Here is the updated version. Again. Good gawd.] Also, spoilers.
It is, however, a movie full of people of color! In a holiday movie! Puerto Ricans who do Puerto Rican cultural things like La Paranda! THIS IS COOL.
And it made me spend a lot of time thinking about how rare that is. Because we are all still operating in a culture and consuming media that says movies with casts of color are for “those” people while movies with primarily white casts are for everyone. STILL. In 2011 this is still a legitimate issue. And because we all keep buying into it, the studios keep operating under the assumption that we’re all still racist. [Read this for some additional insight. It is probably the one Cracked article you will ever see me link. Ever.]
But the movie itself is pretty good! It’s not great and it’s not memorable, but there are some nice tender moments that feel really authentic to the complexities of family and to growing up and the idea of home. And there are great funny parts. And just a lot of little moments that add up to a solid enough dramedy experience. It’s not really a holiday movie though.
The holiday feels really incidental to the things happening in the movie and it’s not exploited in a placemaking sense either. These people could have been coming back together at any time and had the same experiences here. And there are a couple of beautiful shots of winter-time Chicago, but nothing that screams holiday the way most holiday movies do. That’s totally an okay thing for a movie to do! But not one that tries to sell itself as a holiday movie and if you want to see how hard this thing is trying to be a holiday movie, just check out the website.
It also lacks that… warm bath feeling? At the end of most holiday movies you get that sort of snuggled-in-to-bed or sinking-in-to-a-warm-bath chest swell. Everything is going to be okay and you are happy for the people in the box. This one has a sense of well-okay-these-people-are-going-to-be-alright-but-also-their-dad-is-still-dying-and-the-sister’s-new-boyfriend/friend-of-the-family-was-still-going-to-shoot-someone-even-if-he-didn’t and that’s not a totally great way to end a Christmas flick.
It’s an okay movie though! Worth watching. Just don’t go into it looking for some Miracle on 34th Street Bing Crosby Charlie Brown warm and fuzzies. Nothing like the Holidays is kind of nothing like a holiday movie.
The seventh festive-ass flick was Joyeux Noël which both I and my girlfriend are familiar with because she made me watch it with her when we first met because she is crazy and loves French things. [Spoilers ahead! Also, here is the calendar again because this is what I do.]
Joyeux Noël is the story of the World War I cease-fire that theoretically/historically/fictionally/sort of happened on Christmas Eve in 1914. There are elements of the movie that are based on things that are known to have happened, but IIIIIIIIIIII don’t really care ’cause I just watch movies for entertainment. Not to learn stuff. LEARNIN’ IS FOR NERDS.
So the three commanding dudes of the French, German, and Scottish armies basically tell their dudes to hang out after the Scottish guys play bagpipes and a German dude sings “Silent Night” in German and in a joyous and loud manner and then climbs up into No Man’s Land carrying a Christmas tree and continuing to sing operatically like it’s no big deal and all of this is totally normal. But no one shoots him so it’s okay and they all get drunk together and a French and German dude argue over the provenance of a little orange tabby cat that has been playing them both for food. Cats is smart. And also a bunch of stuff happens and it’s all very heartwarming and a good reminder that war is bad and it SUCKS for everyone in it and no one is totally evil? Except Hitler, but this isn’t his war yet, SO HOLD ON.
I like this movie a lot. It’s really beautiful and moving and FUNNY and sweet and old timey and stuff. And it’s worth watching! And it’s got a nice, moving middle bit. But it’s just SURROUNDED BY DEATH. It’s like: war and dead people, war and dead people, BREASTS, friendliness, ten minutes of Christmas joy, and then EVERYONE GETS PUNISHED AND GOES TO HELL. And that’s kind of a bummer.
My favorite parts of movie are this:
– the German and French dudes being super friends in sadness
– the Scottish guy being all Scottish and jovial and rabbit-looking
– the operatic dude looking like someone tried to draw Crispin Glover after having only been described his face and also with their eyes closed
– the cat being shot for treason (this is sad but ALSO TRUE — they shot a CAT for TREASON)
– the march from one trench to another to avoid being bombed because everyone was friends then and didn’t want to kill each other
– the way all these dudes react to seeing a woman in the trenches
– French guy making the German eat the chocolate first and then giving it back when they fight over the kitten like, “I DON’T NEED YOUR CHOCOLATE, THIS IS MY CAT”
– sharing pictures of their wives
– Daniel Brühl being all Daniel Brühly and also being like, “LOL XMAS I AM JEWISH.”
– Scottish teamwork to dump their commander in human excrement.
– I am not going to pretend I am not deeply interested in Diane Kruger’s nipple. Merry Topless Christmas.
My LEAST favorite part of the movie is the Scottish guy that keeps hugging his dead brother. Like, I am sad for that guy. They went to war together! And they were together! And his brother died! AND THAT IS SO AWFUL. And I am normally SO INVESTED in brotherly tragedy/pain/angst. But then he spends the whole time hugging him and crying while STRADDLING HIS DEAD BODY and then almost getting killed because he’s trying to bury him and it is just AWFUL. SO AWFUL. And he keeps sending letters to his mom being like, “ME AND MY BROTHER ARE OKAY. WE LOVE OUR MITTENS. LOVE YOU MOM.” Please, Dead-Brother-Hugger, stop it. I don’t know how to read you as a character and you are making everyone REAL UNCOMFORTABLE.
So yeah, watch this one. It’s real good and pretty and wonderful. Joyeux Noël is a movie for people who like war and death and breasts with their Christmas. Grit’s good for you, damn it. It can’t be candy canes and reindeer and snowflakes on eyelashes all the time OKAY.
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