Fighting With My Family

This Week: Fighting With My Family

So as the kids say, “it’s been a minute” since I was a fan of professional wrestling. I’ve seen a few pay-per-views over the past few years. I saw SummerSlam with Stephen Amell a few years ago, and then after that I watched a few pay-per-views with my friends, but that’s about it. I’d say from about 1998-2001 I was a big fan of the WWF, back when it was still sharing web searches with the World Wildlife Foundation. After I got into football, Pro Wrestling just seemed too predictable. Monday Night Raw lost the fight with Monday Night Football and I never really looked back.

So as a result, I wasn’t very familiar with Paige and the Women’s Revolution. However, when trailers for this movie started coming out, I decided to invest a little research. I saw the debut fight between AJ Lee and Paige and did a brief review of Paige’s history in the WWE. I didn’t research much more because I wanted to let the movie tell me the story.

Honestly, it’s a pretty good story. I’ll concede it isn’t much different than your standard poverty to stardom underdog story that you see in most sport biopics. However, those stories are inherently intriguing, so that’s why they keep popping up. All the actors are just top notch. Every actor disappears into his or her role.

A few problems with the film mainly come from it being a biopic of a story that is almost 10 years old. For example, 13 year-old Paige/Saraya makes a cardboard WWE Diva’s Championship belt. The problem is the Diva Championship belt was created in 2008, 3 years after Paige/Saraya made her belt. In 2011, Paige’s dad makes a Hunger Games reference. Which is fine if he is referencing the book, but the first Hunger Games film didn’t come out until 2012, so it wouldn’t be a good pop-culture reference at the time. A slightly bigger issue is how they sort of gloss over Paige’s NXT career and Paige’s WWE debut.

The movie kind of makes it seem like Paige got tapped for her debut out of nowhere. NXT in the film seems less like a buildup federation and more like boot camp training. So there is very little focus on her competing in the NXT and is mostly just a training montage. Then boom, she gets inexplicably chosen to wrestle the Diva’s Champion on Raw. She goes up and freezes when she has the mic and then they have a 5-10 minute fight where Paige starts out briefly getting beat up, then starts laying a but whooping on AJ Lee before countering AJ Lee’s submission hold into a slam called the “Paige Turner.” After Paige wins [Spoiler], she then stands tall in the ring, grabs the mic and gives her speech that she could not make before the fight.

Anyone who watched Paige’s ACTUAL debut knows it went quite differently. Paige was already NXT Women’s Champion when she debuted on Raw. So it wasn’t out of the blue, she was likely already a fan favorite in NXT and it just made sense to jump up to the WWE. Then in her debut on Raw, she does do some talking on the mic and although starting out sounding like she was going to make a tough challenge, just decides to congratulate AJ Lee and say she wasn’t ready to fight. AJ Lee then decided to make it a match and it is only about 2 minutes long. AJ Lee beats down Paige for a little bit then locks in a submission hold, that Paige Counters into a slam, and pins her for the win. Paige then runs for her life as AJ Lee’s bodyguard comes in to beat Paige’s ass. Paige is shocked she won and leaves with the belt.

So they drastically change how the fight goes and even went with completely different outfits than what Paige and AJ Lee were wearing in the actual fight. I get they did the other changes for dramatic story telling and current references, but changing costumes for the final fight just seems unnecessary to me. Whatever, standard biopic fare.

In the end, the trailers should be a good barometer of whether you will enjoy this film. If you liked the trailers, you’ll probably enjoy this film. If you are not a fan of Pro Wrestling or underdog sport stories, then this might not be your cup of tea (they’re British, it works).

I just don’t recommend going to the 11:30pm showing when you have work the next morning because you won’t get enough sleep.

Next Week: Captain Marvel.

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

This Week: How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

So this is the first movie of 2019 to live up to not disappoint me. This wraps up the story of the How to Train Your Dragon series fairly well.

I kind of want to avoid spoilers so there is not a lot I can say about it other than it is good.

It’s cute, it has heart, it might make you cry. If you were a fan of the other movies in the series, you’ll like this one. If you weren’t a fan of the other movies, you are a being with no joy in your soul and can’t enjoy good things.

Next Week: Madea’s Family Greta. Big ol nope.

Santa Claus (1959)

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: Santa Claus (1959), a.k.a. Santa Claus versus the Devil

I don’t think it gets any worse than this. Fortunately this is the last movie of this Christmas list, so I can wait a year(or most of it anyways) before I can be proven wrong.

Here’s a basic run down of the plot: Santa Claus is a being of the 5th dimension who lives in a castle on a cloud with an army of children from all over the world. Santa has help from Merlin and Hephaestus to battle a demon sent by Lucifer to make the children of the world do evil.

Not even kidding. Oh, and the movie was made in Mexico before being dubbed in English. And not modern dubbing either. 1960’s dubbing. Weep children. Weep.

So we begin in a castle on a cloud. Santa is preparing for his yearly journey to Earth, and he tries motivating the children he has kidnapped and enslaved to work in his toy factory by playing them songs from their homeland. Starting with Africa.

Santa goes through many of the more populous countries of the world, giving each of them time to sing a brief portion of a song and showing off the most colorful and iconic costumes of their culture. Africans in tribal outfits, Mexicans in sombreros and ponchos, the Swiss in lederhosen and wooden shoes, Americans in cowboy boots and hats, and Germans in rigid discipline and efficiency. The British are mentioned and they sing a song, but the camera decides not to zoom in on them when their song comes up. Maybe they couldn’t afford the stereotypical British outfits.

Meanwhile in Hell,(that’s an odd jumpcut in a Christmas movie) where several demons are all dancing around having a jolly good time. The voice of Lucifer then calls to Pitch and banishes all the other demons. Lucifer tells Pitch that it is his job to make all the children of the world do evil and turn against Santa. Oh and it’s already December 24th. Sort of a late game move in my opinion, but we’ll see how this plays out. Lucifer says that if Pitch fails, Lucifer will force Pitch to eat CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!

Yeah, apparently demons can only really eat burning hot coals, so cold food is painful to them. In Pitch’s case, it is double torture because he is also Lactose Intolerant.

Demons aren’t the only ones that have odd dietary restrictions. Santa apparently cannot go to Earth before sundown on Christmas Eve or else his robotic wind up Reindeer will dissolve and he will be stranded and starve because all he can eat is pastries and ice cream made from soft clouds.

Pitch goes to earth where crowds of people are standing in front of a store window display with the most HORRIFYING ANIMATRONIC SANTA. Damn, Pitch works quickly! Obviously if this is what he makes people think Santa is like, then EVERYONE will turn against-(whisper whisper) wait what? (whisper whisper) This is just a normal display? Pitch has nothing to do with it? (whisper) Nevermind.

A little girl named Lopita is staring at the little doll in the window. Pitch magically appears next to Lopita and he whispers that she should steal the doll. She says no, stealing is wrong, and goes about her day. Pitch then finds three boys and whispers into their ears. This convinces them to grab some rocks and throw them at the shop Santa.

One of the kids has a REALLY great arm, because the rock he throws makes it all the way to the 5th Dimension and pegs the Real Santa in the FACE! At this point Santa decides to investigate what is going on. To this he goes to his command center. He has a machine with giant lips, a machine with giant ears, and a machine with a giant eye. The machine with giant lips allows him to hear what people are saying on earth. He hears the boys plan to lay in wait, attack Santa, and steal all the toys for themselves.

Pitch then appears in a crowded marketplace where Lopita is looking at a table of dolls. Pitch convinces her to take the doll and hide it in her jacket. She walks about 10 feet away and her mother tells her to hurry up before the Narrator tells her it is wrong to steal. Lopita then returns the doll to the table and goes along with her mother. Once they are back home and Lopita decides to go to sleep, Pitch blows into her ear and gives her bad dreams.

Santa is able to watch her dreams from his device with the giant ear. Lopita has a dream where she is surrounded by a bunch of coffin sized presents that open up to reveal the most nightmare inducing human sized dolls ever. Annabelle can suck it. They all keep dancing around her and chastising her for putting the doll back.

Santa then observes another boys dream. The slave children talk about how the boy is rich and must have all the toys he wants, what could he possibly want? Well, he dreams of entering his living room and finding two large presents(again, coffin sized) and he opens them up to find his parents and they hug him. Holy crap, is this Batman?!?

Nope, apparently his parents just go out to parties all the time and neglect him. Lame.

So Santa starts reading Christmas letters to him and one boy is asking for a bicycle, a baseball bat, an ATOMIC LABORATORY, AND A MACHINE GUN! Is this Stewie Griffin?!? Oh and to double down, they write a second letter pretending to be the “older brother” vouching that Stewie has been a good boy and should get everything.

Santa then goes off to visit Merlin and Hephaestus. Merlin gives Santa sleeping powder and a flower that makes him disappear. They go into great detail about how these work and comment on how their memory sucks so they have to rehash this every year. At least the movie covers its bases on its nonsense.

Hephaestus makes Santa a key that opens every door. It is a giant key that doesn’t fit into any lock, it just strikes lock frame and after it fries the locking mechanism, Santa just walks right through. He tests the key by walking through the hall of a Thousand Magic Portals.

It’s just a name, there are really only 967 portals.

We then cut to Santa’s jerking wildly and him laughing. Before we can get too many unseemly ideas, the narrator suggests he’s “dancing” before it pans up and realize he’s using one of those ab shaker machines to slim up for the chimneys. All the chimneys that appear in this film are roughly 5×5, which I guess that the average Mexican household puts out about as much smoke as your average coal factory to justify that chimney size.

As he’s about to set off, one of the Russian children asks why Santa doesn’t use an interstellar space ship. Santa scoffs at this and says his robotic reindeer work fine. Even though it is pointed out that they dissolve at daylight. Oh and when you crank them up, they give creepy laughter like the nightmare abominations they are.

Oh and then Santa and the children have the most disjointed torturous song I’ve heard since Santa meets the Ice Cream Bunny.

Santa finally sets off to Earth. Almost crashing into the moon which is roughly the same size as Santa and his sleigh.

So Pitch tries to thwart Santa by pushing the chimneys aside, so santa can’t go down them. Even though this still leaves a giant hole in the roof that Santa could go down, Santa is thwarted briefly. Until he remembers he has a key to every door and just uses the front door. But first he must use the magic parasol to float down.

Mary Poppins is gonna sue somebody.

So At the next house, Pitch prevents Santa from using the chimney by lighting a fire in the fireplace. And then to thwart him using the front door, Pitch goes Macaulay Culkin and heats up the doorknob using his demon breath. To test it is hot enough, he holds paper above the knob and it instantly catches fire. Pitch casually tosses the paper into the living room.

Can’t deliver presents to a burned down house!

Nope, Santa decides to come in the window instead. Pitch is so enthralled to see Santa burn his hands, he doesn’t notice Santa come in and set up a Cannon behind him until Santa Blows his ass off!

Okay, it was a toy cannon that only shot Pitch in the ass with a dart. Still incredibly dangerous, but it was 1959 and we had kids to spare.

Santa goes to the rich boy, speaks to him in his dream, then makes the parents drink a highly volatile drink that makes them realize they miss their son and go home. End of his story. Until his parents get shot dead in an alley and he fights crime dressed up as a flying rodent.

PIGEON MAN!

Ahem. So the three young criminals are plotting with Pitch to take down Santa with a trip wire. Santa thwarts them by FLYING THROUGH LIKE A BURNING FIREBALL! Santa leaves the boys coal in their shoes and Pitch makes the boys turn on each other. End of their story.

Pitch then tries to steal the sleigh, but the robo reindeer don’t obey him. So Pitch simply cuts the bag holding Santa’s sleep powder and invisible flower.

Santa then goes to a house with a dog outside. Without the powder to make the dog go to sleep, Santa gets chased up a tree. Pitch then convinces the family inside that their is an intruder outside and to bring the guns and call the police. Pitch also calls the fire department and using his demon breath, makes fire burst out the other end of the phone!

The fire department says its a five alarm fire. I think when flames start bursting through the phone lines, you have to change your ranking of fires to the One Punch Threat Levels. This is Threat Level Dragon fire level at least.

So with the police, fire department, an angry family with guns, and a Single dog about to bear down on Santa, all appears lost. Merlin pulls a Jeff Goldblum and starts linking words together and suggests Santa use a toy cat to chase the dog away. It works and Santa gets away. Pitch gets blasted with the fire hose and is thwarted.

Santa is out of time, but manages to make one last run to give Lupita the doll she wanted. Santa then flies back to his castle in the sky. Oh, Lupita’s father came home lamenting that he couldn’t find a job, but hey, Lupita has a doll.

This is just an insane movie. Santa Claus isn’t a very popular figure in Mexico, so the basics that we have here in the States just aren’t that well known. As a result, instead of the North Pole and Elves, you have floating castles in space and enslaved children from across the globe. Instead of the power of non-belief and corrupt business men trying to destroy Santa, you have the literal Devil.

There is just some unrestrained Nightmare Fuel in this film, but I would recommend checking it out with Rifftrax. Might be a good time.

Next Time: Well, This Christmas is finally over. And I managed to finish it all in the allotted time frame, just like the Spirits in A Christmas Carol.

Unless the time stamps screw up and say that I posted this in February or some nonsense. Mark Zuckerberg would certainly send a personal letter of apology detailing why such a thing was allowed to happen.

In 2019, I don’t know how often I’ll do the bad pictures thing. I have some big plans for October, but I don’t have anything planned for the interim. I’ll keep you posted.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Alita: Battle Angel

This Week: Alita: Battle Angel

Uncanny Valley: The Movie.

They try and avoid the Uncanny Valley CGI feel by having Alita have unusually large eyes, so that she inherently seems slightly alien and our brains are more able to readily accept her. However, the way Alita acts, reacts, and behaves is just a hair off from natural, so that’s where the Uncanny Valley feeling comes from. Which kind of works to an extent. She is intentionally someone who is not fully human and does not necessarily know how to act human. Not quite the robot baby from the TurboTax commercials, but in that general area.

She also has a creepy scene where she is LITERALLY TRYING TO HAND OVER HER HEART TO HER BOYFRIEND and it seems very much like the Overly Attached Girlfriend meme.

Oh and the Dog Dies. You don’t see it, you just see the guy make a stomping motion, and everyone make, “Oh no he killed the dog” faces, and then Alita SMEARS THE DOG’S BLOOD ON HER FACE before making the “I won’t stand by” speech.

Your mileage may vary with this movie. I personally felt this movie lacked some necessary heart to get me personally invested in the movie. The action scenes were awesome, but I kept comparing this movie to Speed Racer and Astro Boy, which I just enjoyed those ones so much more. And they are surprisingly apt comparisons. Speed Racer for the “Motor Ball” scenes, and Astro Boy for the general Robot learning who they are premise.

The Biggest problem with this movie is it sets up a sequel, but I don’t have faith that it will get one. The side cast is fantastic, the main character is forgivable, and the effects are all phenomenal. Like I said, it just lacks some much needed heart.

Next Week: How to Train Your Family: The Fighting World

Isn’t It Romantic

This Week: Isn’t It Romantic

So the movie I wanted to see this week was Alita: Battle Angel. My Fiancé wanted to see What Men Want. However, due to it being Valentine’s Day, we figured the more appropriate movie to see was Isn’t It Romantic.

My Fiancé loved it, I. . . enjoyed it fine. Although it isn’t bad, there just isn’t a lot to it.

I just didn’t think it was that funny. The funniest parts of the movie are any time Rebel Wilson tries to say the word “F***” or when she finds out she can’t have sex, just gets right to the point of about to have sex and then wakes up the next morning. Both of which appear in the trailers.

There was no seriously funny moment. Also, for a movie that is about subverting the tropes of Romantic comedies, it kinda sticks to them. There is no real surprise on where the story goes and who she ends up with.

So it’s okay, but I call it a skip. Unless you just REALLY like the comedy of Rebel Wilson, then go right ahead.

Next Week: Fighting with my Dragon: The Hidden World

The Nutcracker in 3D

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: The Nutcracker 3D: The Untold Story

Holy shit do things get real. So in 2009, they created another Nutcracker movie. I have never really seen any of the Nutcracker movies, plays, or stories, so other than the fact there is a Nutcracker and a Rat King, I know nothing about this story.

And after watching this movie, I’m pretty sure I still don’t.

So we open on an ice skating rink in . . . somewhere? London? Switzerland? New York? I don’t believe they ever clarify. Nathan Lane plays Uncle Albert (Einstein), and he is riding in a carriage and apparently very late to meet his neice and nephew. He briefly talks to the camera about how interesting it would be if he were being followed, but alas he is not. Sure, just like it would be really interesting it would be if I was being spied on by the government, but alas I am not.

(Brief Glance at the figurine on his mantle that he doesn’t remember buying)

Yeah. . .

So we are introduced to Mary and Max. Mary is writing a christmas letter and Max is . . . setting his sister’s ornament on fire. She freaks out and he says it’s an accident. Max’s thing is he intentionally breaks toys and doesn’t want to be punished. Their parents are going to the Palace so the mother can sing.

It’s a weird family dynamic based on accents. Uncle Albert is American(though going for german), his brother(the father) is English, the mother is Russian(though going for American accent), and the children are simply bad actors.

Uncle Albert shows up and presents Mary and Max with a toy house and the eponymous Nutcracker. Max IMMEDIATELY breaks it. Mary is pissed, but Uncle Albert fixes him. Then they sing a song about Relativity. For a story built around a famous ballet, the songs and dancing are AWFUL. The choreography is essentially the children just doing freestyle arm flailing.

I’m pretty sure the choreographer lied on his resume. What was Joey doing in 2009?

Anywho, the nutcracker comes to life and Mary takes it in stride. She makes the nutcracker grow to full size by knocking it off the top of a shelf. Because.

Mary and the Nutcracker(who prefers to be called NC and for typing purposes I shall grant this request) argue for a few minutes about the differences between boys and girls before they go to the living room, which has grown to massive size. The toy house and its occupants(A drummer, a clown, and a monkey in a suit) are also human sized now.

After briefly meeting the occupants, Mary and NC use a system of pulleys and levers to go up the now gigantic christmas tree. They meet the Ornament that Max set on fire earlier(who is played by the mother). This is made clear by the dialogue, “You look exactly like my mother.” “But I’m not.”

How many people DID lie on their resume in this movie?

So the not-mother sings a song and because of Mary’s belief, NC turns back into a real boy. That is the easiest cure to a curse I’ve ever seen. Believe in something for five minutes and BOOM curse lifted.

The musical number resumes and a couple of Biker Mice from Mars nearby see that the prince has returned, and then offer a brief critique on the movie, “That music is terrible.”

After the rats fly off, the now human NC tells the backstory of the Rat King. He basically had giant black phallic tanks rise up from the ground and had storm troopers come out and march through the streets. The Nazi kind, not the Star Wars kind.

Apparently these are very non violent storm troopers, considering one guy decides to attack them with a bouquet of flowers and they decide to keep marching instead of shooting him to death.

After their invasion, the Rat King’s factories blot out the sun with their smoke because he doesn’t like the sun. Personally, I prefer Mr. Burns’ giant sun shade, but whatever. Mary has the brilliant idea of shutting down the factories which the brilliant military strategist NC never thought of.

We then meet the Rat King played by (SQUEEE!) John Turturro! Oh this ought to be FANTASTIC!

(One musical number later)

Wow. Okay. Maybe I oversold his saving grace a little too much. The Rat King is apparently able to summon bands at will, but not, you know, good ones. And I’m not sure of John Turturro’s singing ability, but I’ll blame the fact that NONE of these songs were meant to have lyrics. And the Dancing Nazi Rats just complete the insanity.

And then, with all that insanity, the Rat King kills his pet shark. Just because?

After he finds out the Prince is alive, the Rat King goes to his Mother and cries that the spell is broken. She starts sucking down a cocktail that distorts her face and turns NC back to wood.

The rat soldiers use robo rats to chew out the base of the tree and it collapses. Causing mary to wake up in bed. Her parents come home and blame the children and nanny for its destruction and of course do not believe Mary’s story of robo rats.

So the next day we get another crappy song about Mary not being believed.

Uncle Albert shows up and again breaks the fourth wall like it is a Nick Jr. show. He shows up the house and the parents try to convince him not to come around anymore. He sings a song about magic pebbles, and the matter is dropped.

That night, NC again comes to life, but this time recruits Max as well as Mary. NC tells Max he can come if he promises not to break anymore toys. Max agrees, but crosses his fingers behind his back.

Seriously, this kid is a little shit. Sid from toy story was more tolerable than this. At least when HE found out Toys were alive, he had the decency to wet his pants in fear whenever he saw one again!

So NC goes off to wake up the doll house and immediately gets . . . dragged to hell?

Mary and Max come downstairs to find the living room giant sized again. Mary can’t find NC anywhere, until she starts hearing his voice from a dark corner.

She reaches out her hand to the darkness and THE RAT KING GRABS HER HAND!

Briefly. Then lets go.

The Rat King has NC, the clown, and the drummer boy from the doll house held captive by his rat soldiers. After a bit of banter, the Rat King demands the drummer boy play something. What the drummer boy plays isn’t to the Rat King’s liking so he RIPS OFF THE DRUMMER BOYS HEAD AND THROWS IT TO MAX!

WHAT THE EVER LIVING HELL?!? Yes, the drummer boy is technically a toy, but unlike the Nutcracker which is CGI and looks fake, the Drummer boy is played by a person and is not made to look fake.

Oh right, this was also originally shown in 3D, so the Rat King ripped off his head and immediately throws it TOWARDS THE AUDIENCE! I really hope the 3D wasn’t used their or the theater seats are never getting cleaned!

After throwing the head around a bit, he puts it back on the Drummer boy. Mary then grabs a fountain pen(which is the size of a spear) and sprays some Ink at the Rat King.

Which misses. But it still causes the Rat King to lose his cool and attempt the Large Marge Face jump scare. However, the scariness is kind of undercut by John Tuturro just making the “scary rat noise” with his mouth. It really just sounds like him going “blahh!!!” Might freak kids out, but it just looks silly.

After regaining his composure, the Rat King has the toys taken to the smoke factory. Max joins the Rat King because they will let him have his own motorcycle. With Machine gun attachments.

Mary returns to the dollhouse to find the monkey is still there. They go to the attic and find the mirror is a portal to the Rat King’s world. They knock out the only posted rat soldier and go out into the empty streets. They walk by a guy who is wearing a trench coat and clearly nothing else. And they freak HIM out.

Truly this world is upside down when little girls freak out flashers.

Meanwhile, NC and the other toys manage to pull off a daring escape, mainly by using the clowns but to block the view of the driver in back. However, this is short lived because NC manages to get his hat stuck while being pursued by robo rats and is captured again.

Mary and the monkey come upon a rally where the Rat King is having toys gathered up and thrown in a pile to be burned. The rat king then gives another song with dancing rat Nazis.

The Rat King is so enthralled with the suffering of children he runs into the crowd taking pictures of crying children and posts them as wall art.

Max finally realizes he has chosen the WRONG DAMN SIDE. The Rat King has him locked up, and resumes his awful song.

Mary jumps into a pile of toys to find out where they end up. Luckily she chose the correct pile, because she manages to find the clown, drummer, and NC.

NC is in bad shape, because his leg is off and he is not animated. Mary needs a distraction to go help NC, so the Drummer, Clown and Monkey do a musical number. Which does a good job because the Rat Soldiers do absolutely nothing.

Mary manages to put NC back together and then I guess her tears make him human again. And him just being Human again is enough to inspire the enslaved humans to rise against the Rat army.

The Rat King instantly knows the curse is broken and apparently all is lost. Apparently the rat army he used before is useless. Which based on all their actions before is kinda true. The Rat King’s mother suggests abandoning ship, like rats do, but the Rat king wishes to fight on.

A brief battle ensues in the smoke factory and NC shoves Mary into a metal elevator. For one of the more terrifying moments of the movie, you see the Rat King trying to break into the elevator. First you see his fingers come through the sliding door trying to wrench it open. Mary yells back, “I’m not afraid of you!” You see the fingers slip back out, then you see the fangs of the Rat King tear a hole through the metal door in a very creepy way, briefly seeing the mad glint in his eyes.

Then he sticks his mouth in the hole and goes “blah aha” totally ruining the whole thing.

The Rat King yanks Mary out of the elevator and demands to know where NC is or else he’ll start biting her fingers off.

Seriously, this quick shifting between 1st and 5th gear on the scary scale is doing no one any favors.

NC makes his dramatic move by sounding the high frequency alarm, which disables the Jet pack rats and convinces the Rat King to run away, with Mary as his hostage.

Max and the Rat Queen try to fly away in the helicopter, but apparently neither of them know how to start the thing.

Eventually everyone makes it up to the Helicopter pad and a dramatic aerial spree before they just crash into a pile of toys. Everyone survives, the rats turn back into proper rats and run away.

The sky becomes clear, speeches are made, flowers bloom, songs are sung, Mary wakes up and has her “and you were there, and you were there” moment, even meeting NC, named Nicholas Charles, and the movie FINALLY FUCKING ENDS!

This movie had Nathan Lane, John Tuturro, and Richard E. Grant in it! They even had Moaning Myrtle doing the voice of NC! HOW DID THEY SCREW THIS UP?!?

I guarantee you that the number of people lying on their resume before this film is NOWHERE NEAR the number of people lying about this afterwards. Surprised the cast and crew page isn’t just a long line of Alan Smithee’s.

Again, if you want to see it, find it for free somewhere. Do not part with your money for this.

Tomorrow: We finally bring this long dreadful Christmas to a close with the ultimate showdown. Is Santa any match for THE DEVIL?!?

The Year Without a Santa Claus(2006)

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: The Year Without a Santa Claus (2006)

No, not that one. In 2006, someone thought it would be a good idea to take a beloved animated classic and turn it into a live action TV special. They made the right decision in casting John Goodman as Santa Claus, and while they were patting themselves on the back, they accidently cast Chris Kattan, Eddie Griffin, and Carson Kressley as Elves. After realizing their mistake, they attempted to course correct with Delta Burke as Mrs. Claus and a younger. . .uh. . .that kid from Goosebumps and 13 Reasons Why as Iggy Thistlewhite.

The movie begins at SANTA EXPO! A North Pole convention where the elves are showing off their latest toyline ideas. Santa is getting put into his Santa Suit by Carson Kressley, who keeps making jokes about Santa’s weight. Carson Kressley also makes a joke about how he should have been a dentist. (sigh)

Chris Kattan is Santa’s Assistant, Sparky. Clearly he spends way too much time up Santa’s ass, because Christ Kattan has a mean case of pink eye. Sparky is obsessed with modernizing Santa, such as having Santa speak in Hip-hop lingo, delivering toys that require parents to buy accessories, and even designing a new Santa outfit that is a green Superhero costume. If they released this a few years later, it would be CGI animated, just to complete the horror. Sparky gets annoyed with Santa’s inability to modernize with the times that he even suggests going on without Santa. Of course, donning the Green Santa Super Suit in the third act. Still has pinkeye. Through the whole thing.

We still get Jingle and Jangle played by Eddie Griffin and Earl’s brother who can’t see sailboats (Ethan Suplee). Jingle spends much of his off time watching Human Television on his phone, including Dr. Laura, Local News of Southtown (mumbles the state), and. . .the Animated version of The Year Without a Santa Claus?!? I’d complain about spoilers, but they would be WAY off base.

So Santa gets frustrated with the Emo Barbie line of toys and accessories and after the Doctor tells him he needs a vacation, Santa just fully gives up and says he isn’t doing Christmas this year, unless he can find one child that even gives a crap. Jingle and Jangle overhear this and steal vixen to go off to Southtown where they saw the guy from Goosebumps as a little kid named Iggy. Iggy is apparently sponsoring a Christmas event, even though he doesn’t believe in Santa. Vixen gets picked up by the police and placed in . . .Animal Jail? The local pound? The proper name will come to me eventually.

Jingle and Jangle try to convince Iggy that they are really Santa’s elves, but he doesn’t believe him. Even when they show up at his school and show off their ears, do amazing backflips, and . . . do really well at a snowmobile video game? Yeah, that last one wouldn’t convince me either.

While at the school, the P.E. Teacher corrals Jingle and Jangle to find out why a couple of Elves are hanging around a High School. The P.E. Teacher turns out to be the Greek Goddess Artemis. Apparently when humans stop believing in Gods, they have to get real jobs. Even Hercules is now doing Advertising for a Mythological Retirement Community.

Does this really go anywhere? No. Is it ever brought up again? Nope.

Although Jingle and Jangle’s video game skills don’t convince Iggy they are elves, the tickets they won convincEs Iggy to steal a Reindeer for them. Iggy uses the fact he is the mayor’s son to convince the Animal Control Officer to give them Vixen. Vixen then flies away and Iggy is now willing to believe.

Santa eventually finds out about their tomfoolery and goes out searching for them. First he passes through the cavern separating the Miser Brothers.

Yeah, remember in the original the Miser brothers were on two different islands? In this one they live right across from each other. And they are constantly at war supposedly making travel through from the North Pole very treacherous. Except it didn’t? Jingle and Jangle made it through fine. In fact they don’t bring up the danger until well after they are safely in South Town.

But we do get the Heat Miser/Snow Miser songs! Well, Song. They combine the two songs into a single musical number. Which I actually prefer. Their songs were two sides of the same coin. So there was no need to waste valuable movie time . . oh wait, I forgot which movie this was.

Well, more accurately we didn’t want this thing any longer than necessary. Heat Miser and Snow Miser go from hurling ice and fire balls at each other, to getting into a boxing match. When Santa is trying to figure out where Jingle and Jangle are, and the Misers are being very unhelpful, Santa calls for Mother Nature, played by Carol Kane. She does a fantastic job. You know, at playing a crazy person.

I have to wonder, does Carol Kane only take crazy roles, or is she given regular roles and just make them crazy? Either way, god bless the woman!

Mother Nature sets the Miser Brothers to rights and Santa eventually finds his way to South Town. There he runs into Iggy who, finally believing in Santa again, manages to soften Santa’s heart and make him believe in Christmas again. Santa asks what Iggy would like for Christmas and Iggy asks for snow in South Town. Santa goes to the Miser Brothers and convinces them to let it snow in South Town, or he’ll call their mother, yatta yatta yatta.

As I briefly mentioned before, Iggy is the Mayor’s son. A lot of Iggy’s motivations are wrapped up in the fact he doesn’t get to see his dad because he is so busy. The Mayor is apparently working with some greedy corporations to do . . . something. And it is apparently bad? But when it snows, the Mayor remembers to true meaning of Christmas and calls off the deal. (shrugs)

So Santa is heading back to the North Pole with Vixen, Jingle, and Jangle, and he has a renewed spirit of Christmas inside of him. Sparky on the other hand decided to take advantage of Santa’s absence and don the new Santa Super Suit and declare himself the new Santa! He is laughed off stage and Santa arrives just in time to make his yearly run.

Afterwards, due to the deal with the Miser brothers, everyone at the North Pole is sitting around enjoying a warm summer’s day in the middle of winter.

This movie is honestly a parody of itself. The movie goes out of its way to point out how modernizing the traditional aspects of Christmas for commercial success is a bad thing. Yet that is EXACTLY WHAT THIS MOVIE IS TRYING TO DO! Instead of Santa just being sick and wanting to take a year off, he is bitter and has become disillusioned with the holiday. The elves themselves are actually phasing Santa out of the Holiday and making everything commercial instead of heartfelt. And how does this all come out in the end. Santa decides to just keep delivering presents. He doesn’t seem to change anything else.

All in all, I would say this one pulls about the middle. It’s not godawful, it just seems mediocre, which is disappointing for the number of good actors in it. I would say if they ever get a streaming option for it, watch it then. As it stands, I had to go pay money for this, and it wasn’t really worth it.

Tomorrow: You know what Christmas movies have been missing? Horrifying imagery and Rat Nazi’s!

He-Man and She-Ra A Christmas Special

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special

To begin with, I didn’t watch He-Man as a kid. I was just never really into the concept. Robots that transform into cars. Sweet. Turtles that are also ninjas. Awesome. A muscular guy using a sword to transform into a slightly more muscular guy and lose most of his clothing in exchange for a deeper voice? Nah. I prefer my voice drops to come from ancient puzzles and used primarily to win children’s card games.

So unfortunately I’m kind of ignorant on whether the batshit insanity is from this being a Christmas special or just standard batshit insanity.

The story begins with the royal court of Eternia and Etheria combining to celebrate the birthday of He-Man and She-Ra. While everyone else is decorating, Prince Adam and Man at Arms are putting the final touches on a Rocket ship to spy on Skeletor.

Orko decides to get on the rocket and accidentally launches the ship. He then has to get a job at Higbees to pay back Man At Arms for the damage. Oh wait, I’m getting my notes mixed up with Christmas Story 2. Orko flies around for a bit as the opening credits play.

Skeletor’s ship comes across Orko’s ship and decides to attack it. He-Man and She-Ra decide to attack Skeletor’s ship and take it out. Orko panics and ends up teleporting the whole ship to Earth.

We briefly cut to He-man and Man at Arms discussing a way to find the ship and then have a jarring cut to Orko’s Ship crash landing on earth. Orko finds a couple kids lost in the mountains and brings them to the ship to stay warm. The children then tell them the story of Christmas.

Meanwhile, Man at Arms says he found the ship, but to bring it back, he needs a special Crystal not found on Eternia. She-Ra goes to fetch it and after fighting off a Beast-Monster(I think it was a placeholder name, but then they remembered they were writing for He-Man and She-Ra and put a hypen in and called it a day), recovers the crystal and then is attacked by Decepticons!

Oh wait, they are called Monstroids. Damnit, just got screwed out of an EPIC Crossover. She-Ra trys to fly away but the Monstroids shoot her with a. . . bubble laser? The Monstroids then transform and leave her there? Why did you shoot her if you were just going to leave her behind?

At least they left her trapped in an unbreakable bubble that can only be destroyed by a magic sword engulfed in fire.

What do you mean She-Ra has a magic sword engulfed in fire?!? Well, she uses that to escape and gets the Crystal to Man At Arms. Man at Arms uses the teleporter to transport Zwerking to the north pole to help save Santa from losing his company to Snavely. DAMNIT!(shuffles papers again) Man at Arms uses the beam to recover Orko from Earth.

Orko just finished hearing the story of christmas when the glowing light of the transport beam appears nearby. Orko decides that instead of hoping the children find their way home on Earth, to take them to another freaking dimension(galaxy? Universe?).

Man at Arms says he can teleport them back in a few days. The kids are worried they will miss Christmas. Nobody cares that the Parents on Earth will be freaking the hell out!

Meanwhile, Horde Prime(Are you SURE this isn’t a Transformers crossover?) senses the Christmas spirit has entered his realm and summons Skeletor and Hordak to kidnap the children. And Skeletor and Hordak set their differences aside and decide to embark on a coordinated effort to kidnap the children.

No, of course they don’t, the bicker and get in each others way. Hordak manages to kidnap the children first using retractor beams and freeze rays from his . . . Helicopter Dildo Ship.

So Hordak flies off with the children, until the Monstroids attack. The lead monstroid reaches up and grabs the Shaft of the Helicopter Dildo Ship and yanks it down.

Screw you I’m milking this for all it’s worth.

That was also intentional.

The Monstroids steal the children from Hordak. For some reason. I don’t know why. But the children are soon rescued by. . . The Manchines? How many factions are in this damn show?!?

The manchines are apparently the enemies of the Monstroids- okay, did you try to get a Transformers/Masters of the Universe crossover and it just didn’t work out or what?!?

The Monstroids are like 50 feet tall and the manchines are the same size as the children. He-Man and She-Ra show up but are largely not needed because the manchines go full Ewok on the Monstroids and wipe them OUT. Well everyone is distracted, Skeletor steals the kids.

Skeletor doesn’t get far before Hordak shoots him out of the sky. Skeletor starts to force march the children to Horde Prime, but the children are too cold. So Skeletor uses his magic to summon coats for the children. The Christmas spirit is starting to infect Skeletor, so when a whompa attacks, Skeletor defends the children. Then Hordak attacks with his Army. Fortunately He-Man and She-Ra show up.

Then Horde Prime shows up in his ship and uses a claw machine. . .claw to kidnap the children. But Skeletor decides he MUST SAVE THE CHILDREN and blasts Horde Prime out of the sky!

The children thank Skeletor and He-Man and She-Ra return the children home. After giving them flight belts as presents. So the children get home to their parents and-holy shit, is their dad Ron Jeremy?!? Have fun tearing down your missing posters, kids!

So yeah, I’m not sure how much is just standard fare for this show, but all in all it’s not bad. I write most of it off as this is the way the shows are, so I’m more forgiving of this than the Star Wars special which has no real semblance if Star Wars. If you like He-Man or She-Ra, this may be a good watch, but if you don’t then this will get you nowhere.

Tomorrow: So we’ve had a couple movies without a Santa Claus, so lets see if we can go a year without one.

The Star Wars Holiday Special

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: The Star Wars Holiday Special

The holiday special that lives in infamy. Spoken about in hushed tones and irreverent whispers. This aired in 1978, one year after the original Star Wars was released. This is technically the second Star Wars film.

And it has never been officially released since its first airing. The only reason anybody can watch it now is because somebody decided to hit record on their VCR. As a result, we still have the commercials. So i watched 2 hours of 1970’s television tonight.

So the basic story is Han Solo is trying to get Chewbacca back home to his family to celebrate Life Day, the Wookie holiday that was covered up by the Pagan Holidays, that were later covered up by Christmas. Because Han and Chewy are Rebel Scum, the Empire decides to make it difficult.

We spend most of the special at Chewbacca’s home meeting his wife, Mala, his son, Lumpy, and his father, Itchy. If I was Mala, I would bail HARD on a family where all the names are Chewy, Lumpy, and Itchy. I bet they fought HARD over the naming of their kid.

So we spend about 10 minutes of the Wookie family interacting in Shryiiwook. And because the party line is not to translate Shryiiwook, we just have about 15 minutes or so of Wookies growling at each other and miming at each other to try and get the message across. And I can tell you, having to sit through 30 minutes of growling charades will drive you mad. Finally after about 45 minutes of just wookiespeak, we finally get the first english speaker.

The wookies are concerned that Chewbacca hasn’t arrived yet, so we get a video call to Luke Skywalker, who is wearing just WAY too much makeup. His face looks weird, all I’m gonna say. Then they call Art Carney, who is selling an imperial guard a laser beard trimmer that also does his taxes. Art Carney speaks in code, calling Chewbacca a carpet shipment.

Isn’t that really offensive? I get Princess Leia calling him that in the first movie, she was annoyed and being hurtful. But I would think comparing a wookie to carpet for the sake of another wookie would result in somebody’s arms getting torn off.

So another call is made to Leia and everyone is concerned that Chewy hasn’t shown up yet.

So Mala decides to take her mind off it by watching Harvey Korman in drag blackface doing a cooking show. Itchy decides to watch porn. Lumpy decides to watch a circus show. Oh and the running theme of all these is that they go on for way too long.

Then the empire shows up and starts tearing stuff up. Art Carney distracts them briefly with a hologram of Jefferson Starship. Lumpy watches a cartoon of his dad meeting Boba Fett for the first time.

Boba Fett starts out looking like a good guy at first, helping Luke Skywalker fight off a jelly dinosaur. However, Luke and Han both come down with some sickness, and Boba Fett and Chewbacca head into town to buy the cure, when it is revealed that Boba Fett is working for Darth Vader.

An Imperial Officer sees Lumpy on the computer and comes over to investigate and Lumpy quickly switches to his homework. Lumpy’s Alt+Tab game is on POINT. With the Officer gone, Lumpy switches back to the cartoon.

So Chewbacca and Boba Fett have the cure, and suddenly find themselves under attack by storm troopers. Boba Fett shoots back at them very wide. Chewbacca yanks Boba Fett’s blaster away and kills the Stormtroopers in one shot. Chewbacca and Boba Fett arrive back at the Falcon and After curing Luke and Han, the droids reveal that Boba Fett is working for Vader. Boba Fett then decides to just. . . leave.

Why didn’t Fett just kill Chewy and not cure Luke and Han? There are so many ways Boba Fett could have won this scenerio, but he takes his, “I’m helping,” act way to far and does more good than harm.

With the cartoon done, the Imperial officers watch a special video of Tatooine to show people how good they’ve got it by NOT living on Tatooine. Literally, that is their reasoning. Bea Arthur apparently runs a bar on Tatooine and due to a curfew imposed by the Empire, she has to shut down her bar for a while. She gets one musical number in before she shuts down though.

Lumpy then decides to watch an instructional video starring Harvey Korman wearing Android face. He badly explains how to set up a transmitter. Again, this goes on for way too long. This allows Lumpy to send a fake signal to the Imperial officers that they need to return to base. They leave one Stormtrooper behind.

This stormtrooper finds Lumpy using the transmitter. At this time Han and Chewy show up and. . . the Stormtrooper trips over some wood and falls to his death.

Useless, the lot of them.

So the wookies are all together and they gather their crystal balls, put on their red robes and walk into the light. There all the wookies are gathered and Leia sings a traditional Life Day song. Then we end on Chewbacca’s family sitting around a table peacefully thinking about all the cool scenes from Star Wars. The end.

This is on its surface a weird show. However, you kind of have to have an idea of where it is coming from. In the 70’s, Variety shows were really popular, and Star Wars was only a year old. So this was not too far out from a standard variety show finding excuses for musical numbers, sketches, and cartoons while using the big name big money actors as little as possible while also having a bunch of guest stars. The main problem is that it has almost NOTHING to do with Star Wars. There is no action, adventure, or story.

But honestly, it was not as much of a chore to sit through as the last two movies, so check it out. If nothing else to cross it off your list.

Tomorrow: We do another TV Christmas Special, but this is less to do with a Galaxy Far Far Away and more to do with the Universe!

Santa and Sons and Daughter

THE WORST CHRISTMAS movies EVER!

Tonight: Santa and Sons and Daughter

Sorry this was late, been a busy few days. I could cut this all short, but there are still several movies on the list I want to do, so I am invoking the 12 days of Christmas, which means Christmas doesn’t end until January 6th. So yay! Deadline extension!

On to the review!

So this movie was watched in 2 sittings. We started it on Sunday and I called it about an hour in because I needed to go to sleep. Or something. Today we finally had some time to finish off this movie.

Yeah. . . there was some very good reasons we didn’t jump right back into the show.

So Santa, due to modern times and population boom, has become incorporated and works with his sons(and daughter) to advance the operation. However, an evil businessman named Snavely tricks one of Santa’s sons into signing a contract granting him full ownership of Santa’s likeness and operations, unless Santa pays him 20 Billion dollars. In the fine print obviously.

Snavely, being corrupt large and small, is also trying to evict an inventor named Zwerking(everyone mishears it as Working, for jokes) who is trying to make a videogame called the Santa-Matic. The game requires a special chip that Snavely’s company makes to work. Santa pulls a solid and gives them the chip. The game eventually works. It has no impact on the plot.

Santa’s Daughter visits Zwerking to assist with the chip problem and finds out that Zwerking has also invented a teleporter and disintegrator(which was supposed to be a second version of the teleporter). BUT THE INVENTION THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO PREVENT HIS EVICTION WAS THE VIDEO GAME!

So Santa’s Daughter falls in love with Zwerking and vice versa. Over the period of a few days. Oh and he also proposes. And she accepts. After having only met a few days ago.

Oh by the way, Santa’s daughter is over 500 years old. And this is the first non-elf male she has met that is not family.

So Santa’s eldest son takes Zwerking to see Snavely using Santa’s Sleigh and his “Invisible Reindeer”. I’m never quite sure whether the Reindeer are actually invisible or if there are no reindeer and the Son is just messing with him. There are conflicting signs. Either way, when they take off, Zwerking’s son and an elf stow away in back.

While Zwerking and SantaSon try to talk to Snavely, the elf and Zwerking’s son get out of the sleigh and break the teleporter somehow. They fix it with gum. However, when Zwerking and SantaSon return to the sleigh, the boys decide not to get back in and let them fly away.

Snavely and his mother get into a helicopter and try to follow Santa’s Sleigh, but Snavely’s mother sees Zwerking’s son and the elf about to be attacked by the invisible mountain lions from Birdemic and decides to save them. Snavely decides to kidnap the boy and elf and steal the teleporter. Snavely also ended up stealing the disintegrator.

So Snavely changes into NegaSanta and storms the North Pole. Santa comes out to fight Snavely Claus. Snavely uses the disintegrator on Santa and Santa. . . INVOKES THE POWER OF ODIN TO UNDO SNAVELY’S SOUL?!? Did this just become the awesomest of Christmas movies?!?

Nope, it is stupid. Snavely has most of his essence wiped away, and now because of all the delays, everyone has to chip in and help deliver presents. The end.

This movie is stupid. It has cheap effects, terrible actors, a nonsense plot that goes nowhere, and to make this even worse, it’s a musical! All the songs suck and you are just waiting for them to freaking END!

Spare yourselves. Get drunk on eggnog and pass not this way again.

Tomorrow: I’m going to be celebrating Christmas with my family(due to schedules, we had to delay our gift exchange) so I will be granting them the choice of a holiday mangling of a beloved series, or a live action mangling of a beloved cartoon.