Michael Dougherty directs Toni Collette, Adam Scott and Allison Tolman in the Christmas horror comedy about a family terrorised by naughty list festive themed beasties.
Clearly aiming to be a modern day Gremlins with its mixture of snow, decorations and deadly monsters… this misses the target. Krampus’ crippling problem is it takes up way too much runtime not being all that funny before we get horrific. We spend an hour in the arguing, bullying, nagging company of the ensemble. Home Alone managed to cover the same ground in seven minutes. When the mayhem finally arrives it is hard hitting. The creature design is evocative and disturbed. But we detest the cast so much (and there are some solid actors here) you wonder why the massacre took quite so long to warm up, and why it is in quite such a rush when we want to savour some of these arseholes’ demises. The holiday setting will mean it is now an option every December, maybe begrudging repeat viewings will smooth off those rough edges.
Chris Columbus directs Robin Williams, Sally Field and Mara Wilson in this family comedy where a divorced Dad transforms himself into an elderly nanny so he can con his ex into giving him daily access to his kids.
A massive hit back in its day now proves a passable distraction. Overlong and self pitying, it only really comes to life in the housework montages and sections where the script is thrown out the window so Williams can riff and do voices at whatever extra can stare blankly at him the longest. There’s thankfully tons of both of these segments. The framing scenes are manipulative, syrupy and sitcom-my. An inflated TV show pilot that would have been cancelled if Williams wasn’t mixing it up front and centre.
David Lean directs Robert Newton, Alec Guinness and Kay Walsh in this classic tale of the orphan boy who gets caught up with some London pickpockets.
The first strange thing about Lean’s Oliver Twist is, through no fault of its own, you keep waiting for the cast to burst into song. Such is the cultural stranglehold the sixties musical version has that you cannot escape examining the bleaker version under the spotlight of mindwashed cockney sing-a-long comparison. And it is far bleaker, taking the high contrast gothic imagery that defined the prologue of Lean’s superior Dickens adaptation (Great Expectations) and committing to displaying the stark social horrors unwaveringly. The second strange thing is Alec Guinness’ pantomime Jew stereotype. A hangover from a more prejudiced time, his racially awful Fagin stinks a fair few scenes out for modern noses. For such a tight and visually daring film to be hampered by such a dated piece of physical anti-semitism jars. If you can get over that shoddy barnacle, then this is an otherwise perfect slice of Victorian tragedy.
Alan Parker directs Scott Baio, Florence Garland and John Cassisi in this homage 1930s cinema where the gangsters are played and the music number are performed by kids.
Another beloved film from my childhood. In that we watched it ALOT as kids. Been possibly a decade or even two decades since I revisited it in its entirety. A weird mix… adult voices on lip syncing kids, golden age period detail with splurge guns and pedal automobiles. The production values are high but tellingly creating a purposefully movie-fied universe. Clunky yet crafted. You can’t really tell if it is charming or compromised. Only Jodie Foster’s Tallulah and Fat Sam feel like fully fledged characters. And some of the songs wallow… yet there are enough I feel warm nostalgia for (Tomorrow, My Name is Tallulah, So You Wanna Be a Boxer and the grand finale group hug of a closing number). At times it can be joyous but in the main it feels like an experimental kids film that got very lucky it worked at all. There’ll always be something juvenile yet satisfying about watching an entire cast take custard pies to the face. Splat!
James Mangold directs Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz and Peter Sarsgaard in the action romance where a car parts dealer meets cute with a spy on the run and mayhem unfolds each subsequent time they cross paths.
I have discussed in my Mission Impossibe retrospective that Tom Cruise’s box office appeal is recovering from a decade long downward spiral. You could say this marked the nadir of his popularity. An undemanding OTT action romantic comedy that struggled at the box office. Significant not in that it was risk that didn’t pay off but that it was a safe bet that really didn’t deliver. The film itself is colourful, busy and inoffensive. It looks and feels like a blockbuster, a Mrs and Mrs Smith or a Romancing The Stone clone. Cameron Diaz and Cruise play well of each other, even if the set pieces around them come so thick and fast very little heat is generated in the brief interludes. Cruise’s character is almost a parody of his Ethan Hunt persona, a disavowed superhuman in skill and survival. And like Cruise himself it plays up on the fact both character and star are a little unhinged as well as being overly perfect, perfect to the point of ruin. Yet the action and romance and comedy all run out of pep at the one hour mark. You are left with two game stars waiting around in a plot the audience and the screenwriters have given up any interest on. There are certainly worse films, this at least entertains even when it doesn’t know what to do with itself, but you can see why there wasn’t any word of mouth to power it to a profitable multiple after a lacklustre opening weekend.
Rob Marshall directs Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Whishaw in this legacy sequel to one of the greatest children’s fantasy musicals ever made; where again a magical nanny reinvigorates a dysfunctional family with imagination and song.
Well… this could have went either way! The sixties original is a cherished classic full of wonder, showstoppers and strange sexual tension between Mary and Bert. No one was crying out for a decades later follow-up. And Rob Marshall has been responsible for some duffers in the past, in this very genre. Luckily Poppins 2 is no Into the Woods. The casting helps. Emily Blunt almost assures quality and sparkles here. She’s the one element that matches her original counterpart. In fact, she’s even more comfortable in the bawdier moments when the mask of fiction slightly slips and you get the feeling you are watching the help (a governess and lamplighter) flirt at the service entrance, viewed through the trippy filter of a child’s overactive imagination. Lin-Manuel Miranda is also winning as our Bert substitute, Jack. He bravely tackles the unique Dick Van Dyke accent and optimism. They make for a spirited pair who convince and sell as they enter 2D animated realms and dance across the rooftops of landmarks. And when DVD does turn up, he is used well, without exhausting the old wizardry. Bless him, he goes at his cameo full pelt. Julie Andrews doesn’t show up, but the role she would have occupied is kept and feels glaringly obvious that is why it exists. The songbook is solid. It tries to match its parent’s sequence by sequence. They all get the toes tapping and are furnished with strong dance numbers. Yet only Trip a Little Light Fantastic and The Royal Doulton Music Hall threaten to become standards. All in all, this makes a lovely extension of the original classic, even if it never fully becomes its own movie in its own right. Mary Poppins Returns will keep the family captivated for Christmases to come.
Jon Turteltaub directs Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman and Peter Gallagher in this romantic comedy about a transit worker who saves a handsome commuter, then pretends to be his fiancée while he sleeps in a coma.
Petty much standard Hollywood product for its time. Only really notable for promoting Bullock and Pullman to star and leading man status respectively. They had languished as second fiddles for most of their careers and now they were carrying a movie. Suprising, only in how their likability manages to spin the bad taste premise (coma victim family conned and exploited by stalker) out without ever even looking into the shadows of it. This stays cutesy wootsy, safe a milk throughout. In fact, it goes into overtime with the plot machinations and somehow outstays it’s welcome… there’s a far earlier moment in the narrative where everything can be tied up neatly without testing the patience.
Gore Verbinski directs Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp and Ruth Wilson in this mega budgeted western about a masked lawman and his native sidekick.
The Pirates of the Caribbean team produce their best Pirate film with nary a long sail or swashbuckle in sight. This large cartoonish western has issues. It is way, way, way too long and convoluted. Depp’s Tonto is good value within the fiction but difficult to defend in the real world marketplace. Yet if you can get past these stumbling points, then there is an unprecedented scale, kineticism and visual unhingedness running throughout that creates a lot of daft larks. Unpack it, unpick it and there’s a joyously OTT movie here, and a western to boot. The William Tell Overture scored railroad demolition derby finale, for example, is a manic joy to behold. Very watchable.
Charles Shyer directs Steve Martin, Martin Short and Kimberly Williams in this family comedy about about a loving father not quite ready to let his little girl go when she announces she is getting married.
A remake of a Spencer Tracy movie, and let’s be honest Steve Martin is no Spencer Tracy. Strange that he choose to suppress his trademark wild and crazy energy to play straightman in a series of glossy, interchangeable family comedies. It feels a waste having him in such light, manipulative fare. Yet if you can get past the lack of jokes and palpable deficit of craziness, you can see why he made the shift. These projection booth soufflés made more box office dollar than his wackier jaunts in the 1990s. The film itself is easy listening filler, pleasingly gliding through its own warm sugary doughyness. The wealth on display is slightly offensive, no one lives like this and complains about the cost of a wedding. But part of the hook is seeing the chocolate box lifestyle turned into something even more… ‘aspirational’? Maybe tastefully gaudy is the more apt words. Anyhoo… you can’t blame a film for being what it is, not when it is so masterfully assembled. A product, made not for me, but made well.
Jeannot Szwarc directs Dudley Moore, John Lithgow and David Huddleston in this Christmas “classic” about the creation of Santa and a runaway elf who makes some dangerous magic candy canes.
A Christmas perennial. I remember going to see it as a child, in a cinema so rubbish it had no foyer. You had to wait in its cold, wind inviting shared doorway, shared with a smoky snooker club. Then I remember watching it again at our church community centre. A bizarre three coloured lightbulb projection system was used that you only saw at youth clubs and caravan parks. A big wooden box, a plywood piano of image generation, was rolled out in front of the children seated on hard floor and we peered at a murky, dim picture for two hours. And then it was on ITV, programmed with so many adverts it devoured a whole afternoon. Every Christmas, Santa Claus: The Movie in all its gaudy, uneven glory.
I know everything wrong with this film. The two, basically unrelated halves. One a Father Christmas Begins that brushes over the fact the Clauses and his mortal reindeer freeze to death in the first ten minutes. The second a dry run of Elf, where Dudley Moore’s accident prone toy making creature teams up with an exploitative capitalist. The two plots are cleaved down the middle by a homeless kid watching people eat McDonalds and enjoying a can of Coca Cola. The film literally takes a half time break to show us what happens in a fast food restaurant in 1985, getting us salivating for a post cinema Big Mac. Big Macs were massive in 1985. The Salkinds are infamous for producing two movies out of one production shoot, conning actors out of double fees and recycling sets and costumes. This is the opposite. Two barely connected stories, smashed together by a product placement sequence.
Dudley Moore, has the most screentime over both sections… and is dreadful in this. Every other line a pun on the word “elf”. Elf improvement, Elf and safety, Elf determination. Pffffffff. Lithgow is a belter though as the smarmy capitalist bad egg, B.Z.. A pantomime villian for a movie that doesn’t realise it is a pantomime. As for The Big Lebowski himself as Santa… he kinda gets lost in his own movie. He does help a homeless kid but then leaves him on the street two winters in a row. A more realistic film would show what a burnt out shell that street urchin becomes from being abandoned to the doorways by Santa for the other 364 days of a year.
It is too much movie, none of it holds together well, with loads of creepy toy making montages whenever the energy threatens to drop to flatline. Yet I regard it fondly. For a bad film it never bores. I know all its beats back to front. Like Christmas dinner with the family you know it is not the most pleasant dining experience but it reorders your soul, brings you back to a comfortable place, easier to digest than a new experience. Having justified the film in a hippy dippy way, I’ll conclude by saying I’d never ever watch this beast of cheese outside of December. You shouldn’t either.
