“There ain’t no Santa Claus!”
“Don’t say ain’t! Say isn’t.”

Okay, this is more like it. I was surprised as I checked about 10 minutes into this that it, too, like the three Shirley Temple movies I watched at the end of last week, was released in 1934. She looks a year or two older to me as she appears at the start here, marching down the road in flying leathers hitching a ride to the airport, and she looks a lot more comfortable too.

But just 15 minutes later, I discover, yet again there’s something in this Shirley Temple movie that overshadows pretty much all her contribution. It’s Jane Withers, a screen brat who certainly predated but possibly also exceeds the likes of Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed. It’s astonishing given the clear value Temple held for Hollywood at the time that nobody seems ever to have stepped in and put a damper on Withers’ performance – if it can be called that even. Where Temple is as controlled and directed as ever, Withers seems simply to have been placed on the set with her full knowing that if anyone’s going to notice her over her co-star, then dangit she’s gonna have to scream, lol.

Anyway, the story worked for me and even moved me, despite Shirley’s complete inability to stir empathy in me. James Dunn as the godfather Loop is fantastic, particularly when explaining to Shirley about her mother – and the ending is one of the most beautiful ideas I’ve seen in a movie so old … early in the movie, Loop asks Shirley “how much do you love me?” and she gives him the tightest of hugs, and this he repeats in order to make her hold on as they bail out of a storm-wracked plane with one parachute. There’s some funny business with the Uncle in the wheelchair too. Well worth the watch, and I’ll likely bring it out at Christmas some time as that’s where the movie begins.

If someone had told me this had been “Josie and the Pussycatzed up” on its way to the screen, I might’ve got overly excited. I was pretty excited to see a Chipmunks movie anyway, but slipping in a little music industry satire too? How could it fail?

Well, it turns out the brilliant Josie did just about all you can do with that without needing a repeat, and when it comes to the Chipmunks … I’d really prefer it were kept a little more cute and traditional.

I think it was of this Mark Kermode said, “it’s not quite Garfield ...” while I’d say, that’s just about exactly the level it’s at. It has its moments, at 90 minutes it’s not worth complaining about, but really, I’d sooner get some nostalgia and watch the old TV show and get the satire from Josie. That said, if a sequel means Chipettes? Well I’m so there, lol One thing’s for sure, the look of the chipmunks is the least of this movie’s problems … I know a lot of people nearly died when the teaser poster was unveiled but I really don’t see the problem … Theodore in particular is adorable, I want one! And they each have distinctive personalities to the point where you know which is which long before they don the colour-coded sweaters. The point where childhoods really start being raped is with the too-modern songs the guys are singing – but even that complaint gets fairly shot down by the closing credits showing all the albums released under the Chipmunks name over the decades … they have always changed with the times. There’s really nothing wrong with this movie, it’s really just a matter of how well you take it.

One thing I hadn’t bargained on was the major Christmas theme running through the movie. Of course, the Chipmunks’ Christmas album is one of their most popular recordings so I should’ve known. Still, at least I slipped it in before January was out … and it gives me a good excuse to watch it again since at that time of year I’ll pretty much watch anything

I’m gonna come clean here and say, I actually watched this last week but I really couldn’t bring myself to review it because my response was so utterly non-existent compared to what I’d heard about it over the years. It’s directed by Bob Clark, who made A Christmas Story years later, a movie I was similarly underwhelmed by compared to its reputation.

So, I’ve seen it twice now. I get that it was 1974, it preceded all the slashers we all think defined the genre etc, like it even has the POV thing 4 years before Halloween. But, y’know, I’d always pegged Psycho and Night of the Living Dead and Peeping Tom for doing many of these things anyway. It’s better than the remake, I’ll give it that, but, having given it the second chance I give few movies that disappoint me, I’m really still just as I was after the first watch. It gets a little creepy just as they’re realising the killer is in the house, etc, but really, I was close to falling asleep both times. Very disappointing indeed.

Sesame Street recently got released on DVD with warning stickers about it possibly not being suitable for young children. I can’t help but think this troublesome production needs the same treatment – or at least a warning that the title could not be more ironic.

Okay, I know the Muppets probably have more appeal now for adults than children, but I’ve gotta say, aren’t the first 15 minutes of this movie a little too much hard work? Especially at Christmas? It’s downright surreal how this one starts, lol.

The whole thing just makes me feel a little sad for the Muppets. It starts with them having “lost everything” as Kermit moans, before flashing back through the eyes of God to show how it happened. In an attempt to pay back a debt, we see Kermit calling his old celebrity friends to come and help. We see a handful of B-Lister cameos in split screen, but the big names … Madonna, Schwartzennegger, Connery, even some smaller ones you’d really expect would be happy to be seen alongside Kermit and co., are offscreen and they all say no and it’s all too believable. Early on a snowman is accused of being a Burl Ives wannabe, and they couldn’t even get Steve Irwin so we get the worst scene in the movie featuring a bad impersonator (“Safari Animal Tracker” in the credits).

Sure, the support cast featuring Joan Cusack (being really quite disturbingly evil), David Arquette, and Whoopi Goldberg ain’t bad compared to, say, their Wizard of Oz ... but it can’t hope to compare to the good old days and I really don’t know how younger kids, the only people who might enjoy this, would take the weirdly sincere drama of it all. There’s a scene where Kermit happens upon a statue of himself dancing with 2 children, with a plaque dedication, “To the lovers, the dreamers, and you” and it’s a heartbreakingly harsh comment on how the mighty have fallen (this is, afterall, a TV movie). Later, the movie “does” It’s a Wonderful Life, and in the world where Kermit was never born, network television has been overrun by reality television. Yah-huh, hard to believe, right? Which kind of implies that even in the world where Kermit very much did live and still lives as evidenced by this very movie, his work and the work of all the Muppets has been about as useful to culture as if they hadn’t bothered at all.

It earns a few points from me for plain being so surreal, leaving me sitting at the end agape on the sofa wondering what the hell kind of depressing existentialist puppet show I just watched, pitying any parent who let their children watch it this Boxing Day, lol – and of course the Muppets themselves are all there and that in itself makes it watchable. The movie references are very well done, especially the Moulin Scrooge sequence. Really, there is a lot to like here … it just really doesn’t add up to much in the end, and I personally found it far too transparently bitter for Christmas.

And we’re back to deferring to the Kermodester … or in this case, in a shock twist, completely disagreeing with him to my utmost surprise. He really didn’t like this, and I usually trust him, so I cringed for a good 20 minutes here given dead gags like the “Elfementary School” (haven’t we been told in the first two movies that the elves aren’t children?) etc.

But this one won me over even quicker than the second movie. Martin Short is brilliant as Jack Frost and the basic concept is much more intriguing than the first sequel. Alan Arkin’s facial expressions towards the end, over being “Father-in-law Christmas”, over the Easter bunny and co, and over that line, “They didn’t know about magical hugs,” are just fantastic.

I said I missed the kinda-sorta shameless “creepiness” of the original in part 2 and it’s mostly absent here too. But the hug that warms Jack Frost’s heart here is more than enough to make up for that. For a movie released only last year, the perfect love of that moment really can’t be underestimated. It’s one of those tiny moments that can make me love the worst kind of cheese.

I thought I was gonna struggle to get through this. The scene with the Easter Bunny, Mother Nature, Cupid, etc. The toy clone. The hokiest animatronic reindeer ever put on film, and that’s before you even get to the “talking” and farting. The groan “Mrs. Clause”. There’s lots that’s easy to hate here, and it’s kind of overwhelming at first.

But to my surprise and relief, it actually gets much better in its second half – kinda from the mopey Christmas party in the highschool gym (“It’s a great party. Look! That guy moved!”) onwards. The kid who played Allen’s son in the first movie proves himself to be a decent enough actor, the elves are all just as cute as before, and Spencer Breslin is at his least annoying which is always a good sign. It’s also amazing how little David Krumholtz as Bernard changed in 8 years, lol. It’s missing much of the creepiness of the original, and the toy clone is awful … but when it’s good, it’s more than worth the time.

Okay, I lined all three of these up to watch today knowing for certain I hadn’t seen the third, pretty sure I hadn’t seen the second, and pretty sure I had seen this one. But though there were definitely large chunks here I recognised, I’m actually pretty sure this might have been a first time watch for me.

The story is probably common knowledge to just about everyone by now. Tim Allen, in not much of a variation on his character from Home Improvement, witnesses Santa have an accident on his front lawn and, following the instructions on a card in the red suit, puts it on and takes care of Christmas, not realising this action legally binds him to become Santa until such time as his time comes.

It’s a creepy concept if you think about it enough, and I guess the coolest thing here is that that’s just exactly what the screenwriters have done – even adding in the quite depressing subplot regarding Allen’s son, and the concern his mother has for him when he starts believing a little “too much” in Santa etc.

The visual effects are a little dodgy (though this made a little more sense when I saw the release date on the IMDb – I had no idea it was that old!) Again I just love how it addresses the creepiness of the whole Santa thing and unlike most people these days (I just heard the other day how kids aren’t allowed to sit on Santa’s lap anymore), rather than back off, simply says “F**k you,” to such people.

Another short review I wouldn’t usually write except that this is another must-see just about every Christmas and I feel like I should at least have a few words about it here. Again I was shocked not to find Oscar nominations mentioned on the movie’s IMDb page (sue me, but it’s that time of year and it’s on my mind) – not just for Michael Caine in the Scrooge part, which is surely one of his very best performances, but also for the songs! It’s up there only with Scrooged for me, I think, and like I said, a permanent fixture on the Christmas schedule.