My love to the Toy Story movies knows few, if any, bounds, but last year’s Halloween special, Toy Story of TERROR!, left me unimpressed.
It’s not that it was bad, exactly—there were plenty of moments to smile at, the animation was as lovely as we’ve come to expect from any Pixar product, and, at half an hour, it didn’t wear out its welcome like some holiday specials. (Looking at you, Grumpy Cat.)
Maybe it was because TERROR! lacked the emotional impact of the three Toy Story movies (all of which left me a hot sobbing mess). It was cute and charming, but not much more. Perhaps my expectations were just too high.
One thing I will say for Terror, though, is that writer/director Angus MacLane had the good sense to turn the focus away from the main characters of the franchise—cowboy Woody (Tom Hanks) and space ranger Buzz (Tim Allen)—and concentrate instead on Jessie (Joan Cusack), one to the many supporting characters, instead.
This year’s holiday special, Toy Story That Time Forgot, employs the same strategy toward its cast—Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang are on hand, but the spotlight is on Trixie (Kristen Schaal), the toy triceratops who joined the gang when they were given to Bonnie (Emily Hahn) at the end of Toy Story 3.
In this special, which begins just as Christmas is ending (thus just barely qualifying it as a holiday event), Trixie is frustrated: She’s happy to have a kid to play with her, but she’s upset that she’s never used as what she is—a dinosaur. (For much of the special, Bonnie pretends that Trixie is a reindeer.)
When Bonnie brings Woody, Buzz, Trixie, Rex (Wallace Shawn) and a kitty/bear ornament from the Christmas tree (Emma Hudak) along for a playdate with her friend Mason (R.C. Cope), the toys get quickly tossed aside for video games and wind up in a playset for Battlesaurs—humanoid dinosaurs in armor who, um, battle and stuff.
Trixie is immediately smitten with Reptillus Maximus, the Battlesaurs’ best warrior, and Rex finally gets the larger arms he’s always wanted. (T-Rexes had itty-bitty arms that weren’t good for anything.) But the Cleric (Steve Purcell, who also wrote and directed this special) is not exactly welcoming to these strange new toys and has sinister plans afoot—plans that could be downright lethal to our heroes.
With Woody and Buzz pushed to the background (literally—they’re yanked off-screen and stay gone for several minutes), it’s up to Trixie to impart life lessons to Reptillicus, Bonnie, Mason and (as it turns out) herself, all while saving everybody from the Cleric’s evil schemes.
Toy Story That Time Forgot improves on its predecessor with a faster pace, more action and, most importantly, more and better character development. (Jessie was already pretty well fleshed out before Toy Story of TERROR!, and a rehash of her abandonment issues didn’t break any new ground.)
Trixie, arguably the least fleshed-out of all the Toy Story gang, really shines at center stage, and Schaal seems to have a ball with the character—her slightly squeaky, slightly high voice contrasts nicely with the bulk and awkwardness of the triceratops (much the same way Wallace Shawn’s voice has always complemented Rex’s supposedly ferocious appearance). Trixie gets to be sweet, smart and (unlike Rex) decisive when everything around her starts spiraling out of control.
Toy Story That Time Forgot may only marginally qualify as a Christmas special, and it may not be the same as a full-blown movie (that we have to wait another three years for), but it’s a good time spent with characters we love--and one little dinosaur we now love a lot more.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Holidaze Review: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
“The Coca-Cola Santa is just a hoax.”
So explains Pietari (Onni Tommila), the shy young son of Rauno (Jorma Tommila), a reindeer hunter in a small Finnish village near the Russian border.
Pietari would know: He’s been pouring over books with ancient woodcuts and researching the heck out of the subject ever since the American crew with their hardhats and digging equipment began excavating the nearby mountain where he is convinced that Santa Claus is buried.
Pietari also has a point: Even though the legend of Santa Claus is centuries old, the popular perception of him—jolly, fat, red suit, ho ho ho, all that—is of much more recent vintage. Whether you’re looking at Clement Moore’s poem, “The Night Before Christmas,” the illustrations of Thomas Nast or, yes, the advertising art of Coca-Cola, our popular perception of Old St. Nick comes from within the last couple of centuries—and is almost wholly American.
So it’s more than a bit (intentionally) ironic that it’s an American excavation crew that digs into the nearby mountain and releases…something.
Something that slaughters most of the reindeer on which the inhabitants of the village make their money. Something that makes all the Americans disappear. Something that steals all the heating devices in the village (stoves, radiators, blow dryers, etc.)…and more.
It’s up to introverted Pietori, angry, bitter dad Rauno (who nonetheless makes tasty Christmas cookies) and Rauno’s buddies to solve the mystery, stop the mayhem and somehow survive Christmas.
Rare Exports is an unusual hybrid: An action/horror holiday comedy that doesn’t skimp on any of the above. It’s also got plenty of chases, explosions, cursing and gore; no wonder it’s the rare Christmas movie that’s rated R.
With all that, though, there’s a reminder that, for all the bright lights, glass balls and tinsel, Christmas has some older, darker traditions. Pietori’s research reveals a Santa Claus who is fierce and frightening, tormenting and eating children whether they’ve been naughty, nice or anywhere in between.
(There seems to be a conflation of Santa Claus and Krampus, his traditional demon-like companion who punished the bad children while Santa presumably rewarded the good. Or, perhaps, it’s a really subtle suggestion that the two are one and the same—and always have been. Given how smart and well observed the movie is otherwise, I’ll assume it’s the latter.)
There’s also the emotional center of the film: The relationship between Pietori and Rauno, who are both suffering through the holiday without Pietori’s mom, but find out how much they need each other just to make it past December 25 alive—and how capable the underestimated, picked-on Pietori can be in a crisis.
Rare Exports provides an antidote for those who are weary of holiday cheer--and for those who have always suspected that something sinister hides behind that red suit and white beard.
So explains Pietari (Onni Tommila), the shy young son of Rauno (Jorma Tommila), a reindeer hunter in a small Finnish village near the Russian border.
Pietari would know: He’s been pouring over books with ancient woodcuts and researching the heck out of the subject ever since the American crew with their hardhats and digging equipment began excavating the nearby mountain where he is convinced that Santa Claus is buried.
Pietari also has a point: Even though the legend of Santa Claus is centuries old, the popular perception of him—jolly, fat, red suit, ho ho ho, all that—is of much more recent vintage. Whether you’re looking at Clement Moore’s poem, “The Night Before Christmas,” the illustrations of Thomas Nast or, yes, the advertising art of Coca-Cola, our popular perception of Old St. Nick comes from within the last couple of centuries—and is almost wholly American.
So it’s more than a bit (intentionally) ironic that it’s an American excavation crew that digs into the nearby mountain and releases…something.
Something that slaughters most of the reindeer on which the inhabitants of the village make their money. Something that makes all the Americans disappear. Something that steals all the heating devices in the village (stoves, radiators, blow dryers, etc.)…and more.
It’s up to introverted Pietori, angry, bitter dad Rauno (who nonetheless makes tasty Christmas cookies) and Rauno’s buddies to solve the mystery, stop the mayhem and somehow survive Christmas.
Rare Exports is an unusual hybrid: An action/horror holiday comedy that doesn’t skimp on any of the above. It’s also got plenty of chases, explosions, cursing and gore; no wonder it’s the rare Christmas movie that’s rated R.
With all that, though, there’s a reminder that, for all the bright lights, glass balls and tinsel, Christmas has some older, darker traditions. Pietori’s research reveals a Santa Claus who is fierce and frightening, tormenting and eating children whether they’ve been naughty, nice or anywhere in between.
(There seems to be a conflation of Santa Claus and Krampus, his traditional demon-like companion who punished the bad children while Santa presumably rewarded the good. Or, perhaps, it’s a really subtle suggestion that the two are one and the same—and always have been. Given how smart and well observed the movie is otherwise, I’ll assume it’s the latter.)
There’s also the emotional center of the film: The relationship between Pietori and Rauno, who are both suffering through the holiday without Pietori’s mom, but find out how much they need each other just to make it past December 25 alive—and how capable the underestimated, picked-on Pietori can be in a crisis.
Rare Exports provides an antidote for those who are weary of holiday cheer--and for those who have always suspected that something sinister hides behind that red suit and white beard.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
Holidaze Review: Remember the Night (1940)
It’s unfortunate—ironic, even—that a movie called Remember the Night should have been forgotten for so many years.
After all, it starred two of the most popular actors of the time, Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray; it was written by the great Preston Sturges (this was the last movie he would only write—he would also direct every one of his scripts hereafter); and it was a box office hit when it was first released (oddly, on January 19, 1940, missing the holiday season by several weeks).
For whatever reason, though, the film faded into obscurity until recently, when TV showings and home video releases by Turner Classic Movies (including a restored Blu-ray release this year) have boosted its profile substantially.
And deservedly so: Remember the Night is a hidden gem with its two stars, writer and director (Mitchell Leisen) all at the top of their game, carefully toeing the line between romantic comedy and holiday drama without leaning to heavily on either. (Until the ending, anyway—more on that later.)
Stanwyck stars as Lee, an unrepentant shoplifter who has the misfortune to get busted right before Christmas. When her attorney puts up a spirited, unique defense (“Hypnotism!”) that appears to sway the jury, Assistant District Attorney John Sargent (MacMurray) convinces the judge to continue the case after the New Year—which means Lee will have to spend Christmas in jail.
Feeling guilty, John has Lee bailed out of jail, and the bail bondsman, thinking John has, um, other “plans” for Lee, delivers her to John’s apartment. John’s getting ready to head back to his Mom’s house in Indiana for Christmas, but it turns out that Lee is a Hoosier too, so he offers to drop her off on his way.
Road trip hijinks ensue--including car crashes, wrestling matches with cows and just a hint of arson—before they arrive in Lee’s hometown to find that her mother is a cold, hard, bitter woman who wants nothing to do with her larcenous offspring, so Lee sticks with John to visit his mom (Beulah Bondi) and the rest of the family.
Of course, Mom and everyone else assume that John and Lee are a couple, even when they both say they’re not, so guess what happens? Yup, they fall in love, which makes the whole prosecutor/perpetrator thing so much more complicated.
This may well sound like a typical screwball comedy with a holiday theme—and, except for the ending, which tips the storytelling scales in favor of full-blown melodrama, it pretty much is.
What distinguishes Remember the Night, however, is Sturges’s excellent script, in which adults talk and act like adults, even in situations that lend themselves to silliness or sappiness.
For example: Before John and Lee take off for Indiana, they have dinner and talk about Lee’s shoplifting “career” in terms both serious and witty (hint: it’s not “Hypnotism!”) And John’s mom, realizing the “kids” are falling for each other, goes to Lee’s room and expresses her concerns over what their budding relationship would mean for John’s career. It would have been very easy to paint Mom as cruel or insensitive, but Sturges fills her dialogue with warmth and gentleness, and Bondi and Stanwyck play the scene with beauty and sensitivity—when Mom asks, “But you love him, don’t you?” and Lee answers, “Yes, I’m afraid so,” it’s downright heartbreaking.
It doesn’t hurt that MacMurray and Stanwyck have great screen chemistry, which they’d uses to even greater effect four years later in Billy Wilder’s classic film noir, Double Indemnity.
It’s deeply cool that Remember the Night has emerged after all these years as a lost Christmas classic and is getting the respect and play that it deserved all along. If you’re tired of the holiday staples and are looking for something “new,” Remember the Night might just be for you.
After all, it starred two of the most popular actors of the time, Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray; it was written by the great Preston Sturges (this was the last movie he would only write—he would also direct every one of his scripts hereafter); and it was a box office hit when it was first released (oddly, on January 19, 1940, missing the holiday season by several weeks).
For whatever reason, though, the film faded into obscurity until recently, when TV showings and home video releases by Turner Classic Movies (including a restored Blu-ray release this year) have boosted its profile substantially.
And deservedly so: Remember the Night is a hidden gem with its two stars, writer and director (Mitchell Leisen) all at the top of their game, carefully toeing the line between romantic comedy and holiday drama without leaning to heavily on either. (Until the ending, anyway—more on that later.)
Stanwyck stars as Lee, an unrepentant shoplifter who has the misfortune to get busted right before Christmas. When her attorney puts up a spirited, unique defense (“Hypnotism!”) that appears to sway the jury, Assistant District Attorney John Sargent (MacMurray) convinces the judge to continue the case after the New Year—which means Lee will have to spend Christmas in jail.
Feeling guilty, John has Lee bailed out of jail, and the bail bondsman, thinking John has, um, other “plans” for Lee, delivers her to John’s apartment. John’s getting ready to head back to his Mom’s house in Indiana for Christmas, but it turns out that Lee is a Hoosier too, so he offers to drop her off on his way.
Road trip hijinks ensue--including car crashes, wrestling matches with cows and just a hint of arson—before they arrive in Lee’s hometown to find that her mother is a cold, hard, bitter woman who wants nothing to do with her larcenous offspring, so Lee sticks with John to visit his mom (Beulah Bondi) and the rest of the family.
Of course, Mom and everyone else assume that John and Lee are a couple, even when they both say they’re not, so guess what happens? Yup, they fall in love, which makes the whole prosecutor/perpetrator thing so much more complicated.
This may well sound like a typical screwball comedy with a holiday theme—and, except for the ending, which tips the storytelling scales in favor of full-blown melodrama, it pretty much is.
What distinguishes Remember the Night, however, is Sturges’s excellent script, in which adults talk and act like adults, even in situations that lend themselves to silliness or sappiness.
For example: Before John and Lee take off for Indiana, they have dinner and talk about Lee’s shoplifting “career” in terms both serious and witty (hint: it’s not “Hypnotism!”) And John’s mom, realizing the “kids” are falling for each other, goes to Lee’s room and expresses her concerns over what their budding relationship would mean for John’s career. It would have been very easy to paint Mom as cruel or insensitive, but Sturges fills her dialogue with warmth and gentleness, and Bondi and Stanwyck play the scene with beauty and sensitivity—when Mom asks, “But you love him, don’t you?” and Lee answers, “Yes, I’m afraid so,” it’s downright heartbreaking.
It doesn’t hurt that MacMurray and Stanwyck have great screen chemistry, which they’d uses to even greater effect four years later in Billy Wilder’s classic film noir, Double Indemnity.
It’s deeply cool that Remember the Night has emerged after all these years as a lost Christmas classic and is getting the respect and play that it deserved all along. If you’re tired of the holiday staples and are looking for something “new,” Remember the Night might just be for you.
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