Merry Christmas!

...or Happy Channukah, Happy Kwanzaa, Merry Chrismukkah, Happy Hanukwanzmas, Happy Festivus or whatever you may celebrate. I've decided that to celebrate the holiday season, I shall post quotes from my favourite holiday films.


A Christmas Story

This Christmas film came and went from the box office virtually unnoticed. It wasn't until later when it was on television that people discovered it and made it a classic. Now it's run every year for 24 hours on TBS, and according to Variety, over 30 million people (a sixth of the nation) tunes in every year to watch it. Bob Clark managed to make this 1940's period piece, based on the stories from Jean Sheperd, on a small budget. Starring Peter Billingsley as Ralphie, a young boy who desperately wants an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle for Christmas. Also starring Darren McGavin, as his father, The Old Man, and Melinda Dillon as his mother. The movie is really a series of small vignettes with Ralphie and his family or Ralphie and his friends Flick (Scott Schwartz) and Schwartz (R.D. Robb) who are terrorized by the neighborhood bully Scut Farcus (Zack Ward).


Ralphie went on to continue acting and has done some producing (Zathura, The Break-Up and Trigger Happy TV, which should still be on the air, dammit!) and acted in another great Christmas movie, Elf. Flick went on to manage the careers of some adult film stars, believe it or not, until he decided to get back into the acting ring. Schwartz went on to do some acting and producing and his first directorial debut was Don's Plum which featured Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, filmed between 1995 and 1996. But because of a lawsuit brought on by DiCaprio and Maguire, the film can never be released commercially in the U.S. or Canada. Scut Farkus has had the most successful acting career since, as he has been working nonstop and starred in the TV series Titus.

Too many great quotes but I will settle with this one from adult Ralphie's narration just before the Bumpus hounds attack the family turkey....

"Oh, life is like that. Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at it's zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us."


Christmas Vacation

Classic! A must see during the holiday season. Written by John Hughes and directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik. Starring Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo as Clark and Ellen Griswold in the third installation of the Vacation series. There's a different Rusty and Audrey Griswold in every Vacation movie and these ones are played by pre-Roseanne Johnny Galecki and the awesome Juliette Lewis. The Griswolds are joined by Clark's parents (the late John Randolph and Dianne Ladd, mother of Laura Dern) and Ellen's parents (the late E.G. Marshall and pre-Everybody Loves Raymond Doris Roberts) for Christmas. As is the routine with all Vacation movies, everything that can go wrong, does and hilarity ensues.


The Griswold's are in for a surprise when Cousin Eddie (Randy Quaid) and Cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) arrive unexpectedly with their children Rocky and Ruby Sue and their dog, Snots. I don't think I need to rehash the plot as you have either already seen it, and if you haven't, why the hell not? There's the tackiest lit house you've ever seen, an imploding turkey, an electrocuted cat, a kidnapping, a burning Christmas tree, a rabid squirrel, and more....not neccessarily in that order. The cast also includes the Griswolds' snobby, yuppie neighbors (Nicholas Guest and pre-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and Clark's boss, Mr. Shirley (Brian Doyle-Murray, brother of Bill Murray) as the antagonists. The last movie of Mae Questel (Aunt Bethany and voice of Betty Boop). Also features the late, great William Hickey as Uncle Lewis.

The best line of the movie and my mother's favourite.....from Clark's breakdown rant.....

"Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fuckin Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat, white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse."

Trivia

A Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation have two things in common. One is their link to the other all time favourite Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life. A Christmas Story was a mainly ignored by the critics and audiences during its theater release and did not become a classic with audiences until it was discovered later by audiences on television, just like It's a Wonderful Life. Christmas Vacation's link to It's a Wonderful Life is that the Second Assistant Director was Frank Capra III, grandson of Frank Capra, director of It's a Wonderful Life. Both movies also have the protagonists, Clark and George, annoyed by a loose newell post on the staircase.

The other thing they have in common is that their success has launched online marketing for props that were in the films. You can find the moose mugs that Clark and Cousin Eddie drink eggnog out of in Christmas Vacation for the low, low price of 90 dollars. 90 freaking dollars for one mug at www.canadianmoose.com, and the minimum order is two mugs = $180 (CDN). You can get a matching punchbowl by ordering the antler hooks to add to your own punchbowl for an additional $55. If you really want the sexy leg lamp from A Christmas Story (the Old Man's major award), you can find it at www.theleglamp.com for a reasonable 200 bucks. Oi, yoi, yoi. The movies are that successful they are able to charge those prices.

I wish you all a safe and happy holiday season. Merry Christmas! Til next time.....

The Pursuit of Happyness

I used to watch The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air all the time back in the day. There was one episode where Will's father returns for a short time, only to disappoint Will again. Will lets out what seems like years of pent up frustration and anger at his father for not being there for him. The audience was shocked into silence and he wowed me with that little performance. I thought "Wow, that's some great acting". Will Smith will win an Oscar one day, if not for this performance, for something else in the future.

I took in The Pursuit of Happyness tonight. Yes, it's supposed to be spelled happyness instead of happiness. The question why is answered in the film. It was inspired by the true story of Chris Gardner and is set in San Francisco in the early 1980's during the Reagan era. Will Smith stars as Chris Gardner, a struggling husband and father trying to make ends meet. Chris has invested all their life savings into a supply of bone density scanners and they are not selling well. His beleaguered wife, Linda (Thandie Newton) is frustrated with being two months behind in the rent and working double shifts at a laundry. She leaves for New York for a better opportunity and Chris is on his own now with their son, Christopher (played by Smith's real life son, Jaden Smith). This seems to be the catalyst for everything going wrong that can go wrong. They get evicted, the IRS takes money owed from Chris' account, Chris is arrested for failure to pay parking tickets, etc.


The turn in the story happens when Chris asks a man getting out of a Ferrari what he does for a living. The man tells him he's a stockbroker and Chris decides he wants to be one, too, because to him, everybody there looks so happy. After successfully pestering a man about getting into the internship program, he begins his unpaid six month internship. During his internship, they get evicted again, and Chris and his son are homeless. The whole story is very gripping in that it seems like this man has every hurdle thrown at him in his pursuit of his dream and yet, tries to make the best of it for his son so his son doesn't realize how bad things really are. It reminded me of Life is Beautiful in that way. It's also very realistic in its portrayal of their life on the street. I read that they hired real homeless people to be extras in the film. This film really highlighted the differences in lifestyle between the homeless and the upper crust. I don't neccessarily agree that money = happiness, but not having enough money to live on can sure make you unhappy. This film really resonated with me on a personal level. Will Smith is amazing in this and is nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama. He should also get an Oscar nod and deservedly so. Directed by Gabriele Muccino and written by Steve Conrad.

The Pursuit of Happyness
8.5/10
Highly recommended
See it if...you like Will Smith, love a great underdog story, or you just want to see a great, moving story.
Best line: Chris: "You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it. You want something? Go get it. Period."

The Fountain

So I took in another flick this week. I really liked Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream, so I thought I'd check out his new venture, The Fountain. It's very interesting.

I truly believe Aronofsky's work will be studied in film classes in future generations. This is not a chronological narrative, but an interweaving of three different stories featuring the same people in three different time periods. Starring Hugh Jackman and beautiful Rachel Weisz as two people in love. In the near-present, Tom (Jackman) and Izzy (Weisz) are husband and wife. Izzy is suffering from terminal cancer and Tom is a doctor, obsessed with finding a cure for her disease. There is often repeated images from the present interspersed with scenes from the past. Everything is out of order and topsy-turvy. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. There are flashbacks to 15th century Spain, we learn later it's a result of a book Izzy is writing. In the book and in the past, Weisz is Queen Isabella of Spain and Jackman is Tomas, a conquistador sent on a mission to find the Tree of Life. In the future, Jackman is Tom Creo, an astronaut travelling in a bubble through space to find Nebular, the fading star the Mayans believe is the Underworld.


I read that this story is based on one written by Aronofsky after his parents were diagnosed with terminal cancer. In the near present time with Izzy and Tommy's characters, Izzy comes to terms with death and is not afraid to die. Tommy, however, seems to be in denial with his constant testing at the hospital on monkeys to find a cure. In the future, Tom Creo is alone in his bubble with a Tree. He has lived forever, but is alone. The visuals for that section of the film are stunning and fantastical. One of the criticisms I've read people have with this is that it is touted as an eternal love story. But it is not the typical mushy love story people are used to seeing. I believe it is more about acceptance of death, but that is just my interpretation.


The film is in Aronofsky's usual trippy style with fragmented images to that repetitive violin music he likes so much. It's definitely not a story that pulls you into a filmic reality, where you suspend your disbelief for 90 minutes. It's more of an experience. Every single one of my fine arts profs say that the post modernist movement is over and we are now entering another movement, which is still forming and has yet to be named. I say this because although this film bombed at the box office and the boards on IMDB have people either loving or hating it. For some reason, I think it will make an impact. It is confusing, yes, but also very different from the fluff that generally gets shown at the multiplex. I also read that Brad Pitt was originally supposed to star in this, but because of creative differences with Aronofsky, he backed out. I'm glad Aronofsky stuck to his guns.

The Fountain
7/10
Recommended: if you are a fan of Aronofsky's previous work, you want to experience a very unconventional film or you like Jackman and Weisz
Best line: Death is the road to awe.

Employee of the Month

Woo, it's been a long fricken' time since my last post. Sorry, folks. This semester really kicked my ass. Anyhoo...

I finally had a free afternoon to go see a flick at the cheap theaters and I chose Employee of the Month. I like comedies and was in the mood for something light and...I heard this was a comedy. It stars Dane Cook, who was funny in Waiting, Dax Shepard, who had humorous moments in Zathura, Andy Dick, who was funny in Old School, Efren Ramirez, who was funny in Napoleon Dynamite, Harland Williams, who was hilarious in Half Baked and ....uh, Jessica Simpson. Almost all of these people have been funny in other movies, not so much in this one. This was not funny at all.

Zack (Cook) is the central character as the lovable loser who skates through life as a box boy with his friends Russell (Williams), Lon (Dick) and Iqbal (Brian George). All are employees at Super Club (very much like Costco) and have to share a workplace with Vince (Shepard) who is scarily obsessed with being Employee of the Month, and his sidekick Jorge (Ramirez). The inciting incident happens with the arrival of the new store hottie, Amy (Simpson). The rivalry for Amy and Employee of the Month begins when the guys all learn Amy has a "thing" for the Employee of the Month.


The movie just didn't suck me in at all. I was completely aware the whole time I was watching a movie that was supposed to be funny. The performances weren't bad (with one exception), but it just didn't click at all. There were unintentionally funny parts, like when Amy arrives at the store the first day and that stupid "slow mo, fan on high speed, blowing the hotties hair around while the males all watch her, mouth agape" entrance that seems to be the norm in stupid movies like this. Yes, we get it, she's got a nice rack. Jessica's cleavage performed its part well and I think it got more screen time than her face. Her acting however, is another thing. She emotes about as well as a kumquat. Cook's character seemed like it was supposed to be very "Van Wilder". The smooth, under achiever who everyone loves. It didn't suit him and their love story wasn't believable. The old "the lovable underachiever just needs a good woman to believe in him so he can succeed" trip. Excuse me for a sec...*barf*. Okay.

The writing and directing overall wasted some good talent who could have and should have delivered a great comedy.

Employee of the Month
4/10
Recommended: NOT, unless you want to stare at Jessica's cleavage. However, one of her old issues of FHM or Maxim might be less painful.
Funniest line (I should say THE funny line): Russell: Check it out guy, he's the alpha male of the store... chicks always go after the alpha male, they're like lions... kings of the desert. And you, you're just a little tiny fieldmouse dangling in the teeth of the lion while he's banging your chick. Oh wait a minute... boxboy, you're like the little hairy nutsack on the little hairy fieldmouse swinging back and forth while he's banging your chick.

More ramblings to come....