Tag Archives: holiday movies

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The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

by George Wolf

It is surprising that it’s taken this long for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to come to theaters. Well, it’s here now, courtesy of a release date that brings with it some sad irony.

Barbara Robinson’s 1972 children’s novel did get a TV adaptation in ’83 with Loretta Swit and an 11-year-old Fairuza Balk, but now a team of faith-based filmmaking veterans brings the wholesome Holiday message to the big screen with easily digestible intentions.

Beth Bradley (Lauren Graham) is set to direct the latest production of her church’s Annual Christmas Pageant in the small town of Emmanuel. But before beginning auditions, Beth narrates the uplifting story of the town’s 75th pageant, when some misfit kids taught everyone about loving thy neighbor.

Beth takes us back to when she was a child (played by Molly Belle Wright) watching her mother Grace (the always welcome Judy Greer) volunteer to take over the play when longtime director Mrs. Armstrong (Mariam Bernstein) breaks both her legs. The town busybodies aren’t wild about this, especially when Grace allows the six feral Herdman kids to join the cast.

They smoke, cuss, steal and fight, and are often left on their own thanks to a runaway father and a mother working several jobs to get by. The Herdmans wander in to the church looking for snacks, and end up volunteering for the best roles in the play, including the intense Imogene (Beatrice Schneider, a natural) as Mary and wild little Gladys (Kynlee Heiman) as the Angel of the Lord.

Even if you aren’t familiar with the source material, you can probably guess how things turn out and what lessons are learned. Director Dallas Jenkins (“The Chosen” TV series) wraps everything in a nostalgic picture book presentation that recalls A Christmas Story, making sure all the brushstrokes of character, circumstance and humor are broadly drawn and safely conservative. The congregation is predominately white, with women as the sanctimonious busybodies, and the men as patient, understanding elders. Jenkins and his writing team of Platte Clark, Darin McDaniel and Ryan Swanson do manage to squeeze in one nod to a deeper conversation with a reference to the Herdman clan looking “like refugees.”

But remember, this larger-scale Best Christmas Pageant Ever is still aimed at young viewers, and for that target it is serviceable. For adults, the most compelling aspect here is the glaring hypocrisy of so many who will be recommending it. We in America want the children to know what Jesus taught about compassion, charity, inclusion and judging not, and we’ll spend this Christmas season giving plenty of lip service to peace and goodwill. And then we’ll just keep refusing to practice any of that.

Maybe this film could be a small step toward turning things around?

Check the current headlines, and get back to me.

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Not So Silent Night

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Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point

by George Wolf

So, what happens on Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point?

Murder mystery? Love triangle? A miracle of faith?

No, none of that. Director and co-writer Tyler Taormina is more interested in an observational approach, just letting the night play out as members of different generations prepare for some major life changes in the coming new year.

The Balsano family is gathering in their ancestral home in New York. Drinks are flowing, songs are being sung and young cheeks are being pinched by relations wondering how this little one got so big!

But the adult Balsano kids (including Ben Shenkman, Chris Lazzaro and the always wonderful Maria Dizzia) are realizing this may be the last chance to come home for the holidays. It just might be time to finally put Mom in a senior care facility and sell the family house.

This is a big decision, but teens Emily (Matilda Fleming) and Michelle (Francesca Scorsese) are more concerned with sneaking out to meet their friends (including Eighth Grade‘s Elsie Fisher) for some Christmas break hang out time.

And then there’s Officer Gibson (Michael Cera) and Sergeant Brooks (Greg Turkington), two nearly silent partners who observe the socializing while a shameless bagel thief lurks in the shadows.

The are plenty of characters here, but instead of arcs, Taormina (Ham on Rye, Happer’s Comet) serves up some terrific production design, visual mischief (watch for a wandering cardboard standup attached to a Roomba) and plenty of throwback needle drops to keep the mood festive.

And that’s how this film is able to work on you, through its total commitment to a warm, nostalgic tone. Taormina dedicates it to “the lost,” in hopes they “find their way home” for the season. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point makes you feel like you’re already there.

The Screening Room

The Screening Room: A Stocking Full of New Movies

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Helping you separate naughty from nice with this weekend’s movie options, The Screening Room looks at Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Pitch Perfect 3, Downsizing, Darkest Hour, The Greatest Showman as well as your new options in home entertainment. Join us!

Listen to the full podcast HERE.





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You Better Not Pout

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Krampus

by Hope Madden

Hometown boy Michael Dougherty, whose 2007 directorial debut Trick ‘r Treat is a seasonal gem, returns to the land of holidays and horror with his second effort behind the camera, Krampus.

This Christmas tale – not unlike Joe Dante’s ’84 smash Gremlins – hopes to spin a weird and horrifying yet not entirely family unfriendly yarn suitable for seasonal viewing. Young Max (Emjay Anthony) secretly still believes in Santa, but Christmas just isn’t what it used to be. Sure, his German grandmother Omi shares his sentiment, but not the rest of the family – stressed out upper crust parents (Toni Collette and Adam Scott), boorish relatives (led by the ideal oaf, David Koechner), and a cranky great aunt, played by Conchata Ferrell.

When family dysfunction pushes him too far, Max tears up his letter to Santa, unwittingly inviting in his stead, the evil shadow-Santa, Krampus.

The film looks good, the performances are solid, but Dougherty has trouble finding and keeping a tone. Though Koechner does deliver a handful of decent lines, the film, on the whole, is not funny, nor is it particularly scary.

Perhaps hamstrung by a PG-13 rating (unlike the similarly themed 2010 Dutch film Saint), Krampus feels too restrained for horror lovers, too horrific for families.

The ancient demon and his anti-merry makers get too little screen time, and though a couple of them get a fantastic design, Krampus himself is never as visually articulated as he should be.

Dougherty has put together a very talented cast and crafted some interesting characters for them, the writing (duties he shared with Todd Casey and Zach Shields) feels lazy. Often the film pauses for what would be a one-liner zinger, and instead we get the talented Conchata Ferrell delivering a line no more interesting than, “I got this.”

Heavy with sentiment but light on redemption or terror, Krampus is one of those Christmas treats that doesn’t feel quite worth the caloric intake.

Verdict-2-5-Stars





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The Weed of Christmas Present

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The Night Before

by Hope Madden

It was fun spending the apocalypse with Seth Rogen and his friends, so why not Christmas?

The Night Before gives you that chance. Isaac (Rogen) and BFF Chris (Anthony Mackie) have spent Christmas Eve with Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) every year since his parents died. They have the same routine, hit the same spots, seek the same elusive party. But the tradition’s getting a little pathetic as the trio heads into their mid-thirties, so this is their last holiday hurrah.

It’s a lame set-up about embracing adulthood without abandoning your true friends, but there’s magical Christmas weed and a slew of hilarious cameos, so maybe things will work out OK?

JGL is reliably likeable, Rogen is – well, you know what you get with him. Mackie is no comic genius and his performance feels a bit too broad. But the secret here is in the supporting players.

Jillian Bell is characteristically hilarious, as is Broad City’s Ilana Glazer, but the way Michael Shannon walks away with scenes is tantamount to larceny. He doesn’t do a lot of comedy (unless you count that sorority girl’s letter online), but his deadpan performance is easily the highlight of the film.

It’s hard to tell whether the film is too silly or not silly enough. It has its laughs, raunchy though they are, but the adventure feels simultaneously slapped together and formulaic.

Director Jonathan Levine (50/50) and his team of writers (including Evan Goldberg, natch) dip a toe in schmaltz rather than investing at all in actual character development, preferring to string together episodes of goofball fun.

The zany misadventures aren’t enough to carry the film, and lacking depth of character creates a “holiday spirit” climax that is tough to care about.

Verdict-2-5-Stars





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Rebel Rebel

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The  Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1

by Hope Madden

What makes the Hunger Games franchise so much stronger than the rest of the adolescent lit series out there? Perhaps more than anything – more than a compelling hero’s quest, more than the peril and drama, more than director Francis Lawrence’s eye for action and sense of pacing – it’s that each new film expands the profound talent in this pool of actors.

The great Julianne Moore joins ranks that include 2-time Oscar nominee Woody Harrelson, consummate bad guy Donald Sutherland, genius character actors Jeffrey Wright, Jena Malone, Elizabeth Banks and Stanley Tucci, and the greatest actor of his generation, Philip Seymour Hoffman. And who can forget the lead – a performer with an Oscar and two additional nominations under her belt at the ripe old age of 24? Let’s be honest, these humans could elevate any script that fell into their collective grasp. They could make a decent film out of Fifty Shades of Grey, for God’s sake.

Lucky for us, instead they collaborate on the third of four episodes in the program, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

Reluctant hero Katniss, having destroyed the games and been rescued by rebel forces, agrees to be the face of the rebellion in return for the rescue of her beloved friend Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).

Gone is the Battle Royale nightmare and excitement of the games themselves, replaced with the broiling drama of a budding revolution. Gone, too, are the writers that mined Suzanne Collins’s novel Catching Fire for its underlying political maneuverings. They are replaced by Collins herself, who adapts her novel, as well as Peter Craig (The Town) and Danny Strong (The Butler). Their treatment lacks much of the excitement of earlier installments, spending more time with the brooding, dramatic Katniss than with the arrow-wielding badass.

They don’t write down to their audience, though, touching upon the helplessness and compromise of political manipulations, finding similarities between the behavior of the rebellion and that of the dread Capitol.

Credit Lawrence (the director) for keeping a quick pace though saddled with more exposition and fewer action sequences, more heavy drama and less bloodshed. But honestly, the magic of the film is in Stanley Tucci’s disingenuous TV interviews, in Moore’s subtle evolution, in Hoffman’s every bemused chuckle, and in Jennifer Lawrence’s ability to transform into a skulking, unlikeable, single minded teen who happens to carry a revolution on her shoulders.

Verdict-3-5-Stars