The Best Christmas Movie EVER -- by naudy

It's a Friday night. I'v got the flu. I'm wearing three sweaters, sweatpants, I'm rolled up in a blanket, (and yet I'm still cold!), eating Cheezy Poufs, and watching the World Sumo Challenge on ESPN2. Wild and crazy night, huh?

Anyway, as I was watching the sports announcer try to drag his Grand Master Sumo sidekick up to a conversational trot, (which didn't work), I got to thinking. I thought about how much funnier it was to watch this mismatched pair after having seen DODGEBALL. I thought about the New Years when my family, having just seen BEST IN SHOW, laughed long and hard at the "celebrity announcer" of the National Dog Show on New Years Day because the real celebrity was so much sleazier than the one they could get away with in the movie. I started to think about remade movies, and recalled the moment in the recent version of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE where the crowd was yelling "Arthur, Arthur!" at Liev Schreiber. Which immediately led me to think about The Best Christmas Move, EVER.

If any of you doubt that Steve Martin starred in the Best Christmas Movie EVER, then you have woefully misunderstood the genius that is Mr. Martin. Sure, he's the king of pratfalls, of course he made BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE, and yes, he's paying the bills right now with CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2. However, for anyone who has ever heard him play the banjo, or seen SHOPGIRL, you know that Steve Martin is an artist. How he chooses to use his talent is the question, not if he has any. For every stupid moneymaker film he's ever made, (FATHER OF THE BRIDE), he has made witty satirical brilliance palatable and entertaining (BOWFINGER.) (Yes, I'm the only person in the world who has seen that movie. Everyone should see it these days, particullarly with all the Tom Cruise hub-bub floating around.) At any rate, Steve Martin is a genius and his Christmas Move, MIXED NUTS, is officially The Best Christmas Movie EVER.

What is MIXED NUTS about? It's about the peculiar warm-weather Christmases which can be found in California. It's about people who are lonely, people who are needy, people who are silly, or outcast, and people who are just rotten. MIXED NUTS has all the charm of WHITE CHRISTMAS (regretably without a lot of male back-up dancers), the hysteria of NATIONAL LAMPOONS CHRISTMAS VACATION (I do love Cousin Eddie!), all the pathos of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (except I don't want to kill myself afterwards), and most of the wry commentary found in A CHRISTMAS STORY. MIXED NUTS has it all, and if "all" includes Madeline Kahn rapping, Adam Sandler singing about grape jelly, Parker Posey and Jon Stewart in lycra bike shorts, and Liev Schreiber tangoing with Steve Martin, well, you've got quite a movie. What you've got is in fact The Best Christmas Movie EVER, and if you don't believe me just see it for yourself.

ROLL BOUNCE -- by naudy (4)

Surprise!! It's a Barbershop movie! This time it's supposed to please the kids AND the parents! It's got Bow Wow! It's got rollerskates! It's got a Hendrick's wanna-be, hot teen girls, afro jokes, bellbottoms, rainbows, and Chicago!

So, what is this movie really about? There's a lot of junk
in it about growing up, and being a parent, and trying hard so you can achieve something. But, really, it's about skating. Okay, skating and 70's clothes. But mostly about the rollerskates. These kids actually learned how to do all of this stuff and it's really good. The skating is great and I wish there was more of it. Instead we are treated to racial diatribes from "Junior" who is just the pint-sized version of the role Cedric the Entertainer invented in the first Barbershop movie. It's nothing you havn't seen before either on an after-school special, or in one of the endless Barbershop franchise films. Patchy, confusing, saccarine, funny, and charming is what we've come to expect and we get it. However, with this film we get a little bit more. We get to see some amazing skating and it brings on memories of when Saturday afternoons were best spent teetering on eight little wheels under a disco ball.

NARNIA, THE L, THE W, AND THE WRDBE -- by naudy (3)

Yeah, I was bored. Lucy, while cute as a button, acted a lot like my niece Jamie when she is "acting", Susan was a complete pill, they changed stuff for no reason, and I got impatient with both the CGI and the need for Peter The Magnificent to do his hero bit.

I heard from assorted friends that Mr. Tumnus was a creepy pedophile but I totally disagreed with that. I believe he acted in a perfectly natural fashion considering that he would be instantly killed or at least painfully tortured for talking to cute little Daughter-of-Eve Lucy. Admittedly his penchant for fabulous scarves, flute playing, and tea parties makes one think he's a touch on the fey side, but there's no harm in that. He's a faun, after all. And fauns have so few accessories.

The costuming was strange. I was confused by the White Witch's need to move completely independantly of her clothing, and her lack of clothing options, but the final battle scene dress was so great I forgive Isis Mussenden for being so dully Nordic in her choices. It was brilliant to make Tilda Swinton a dress that's got a lion's mane made out of Aslan's shorn hair. The coordination of make-up and dress (with the Witch giving herself lion eyes) was perfect in a way that's rarely seen. As for the rest of the costumes, well, we'll be seeing Queen Lucy's dress at The Disney Store in approximately ten minutes since it was apparently designed to be replicated by the ton in South American sweatshops.

I'm trying to figure out why I didn't like this film. It was relatively well done. It... well, while they dropped the patronising bit's from C.S. Lewis (I'm speaking here of the line that angered me as a child "Girls make war ugly." Like it's less ugly w/ just men??) they also dropped a lot of the depth and weight that came with Mr. Lewis. It was pretty but a bit shallow. Like, without the moral weight, why does everyone get so pissed off at Edmund considering he A) could have had no idea that the witch was evil, B) was poisioned, C) was behaving just as badly as all the other kids were!!! Oy. Poor kid.

Anyway, it's not my favorite. And in my next life I want to be a Beaver.