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THURSDAY IS THE DEADLINE FOR THE HIGH CONCEPT SHOWDOWN!
SUBMISSION DETAILS HERE!
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With Thanksgiving and its 9000 calories worth of delicious stuffing officially behind us, the all-out sprint to Christmas has begun! I spent my Thanksgiving up at my brother’s place in Portland, which is the polar opposite of Los Angeles. Here, it is dry and sunny. There it is wet and rainy. Here, everything is brown and sandy. There, everything is green and lush. Here, we have overrated tourist stops. There, they have overrated donuts.
As part of our holiday activities, we watched a lot of Christmas movies. Now, I did draw the line at any Lindsey Lohan-led Christmas product. Fortunately, there were no official requests for the Loster, so I was able to make it though the weekend Lohan-free.
But pretty much everything else was on the table. As such, I watched Reynolds and Ferrel in Apple’s, “Spirited.” I watched the return of Ralphie in A Christmas Story Christmas. And I watched James Gunn’s halfquel, the Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special. I’m going to review all three of those here, from worst to best. Before I do that, take a quick guess on what you think my order is.
The loser of our bunch was, unfortunately, A Christmas Story Christmas
As I’ve said before, every hit movie that has ever been made is the equivalent of lightning in a bottle. It’s this special thing that happens where everything magically comes together in just the right way at just the right time. No matter how hard Hollywood tries to replicate this lightning, it never works. And that’s because you can’t recreate magic!
Let me give you an example of how hard it is to replicate a great movie. I remember M. Night talking about directing Bryce Dallas Howard in Lady in the Water. Night had directed Howard a few years earlier in the hit movie, The Village. And he talked about how, in between those two movies, Howard had grown up. Whereas, before, she was utterly committed to anything the director asked, this time, she was much more closed off and acting on her terms only. As such, she didn’t give nearly as good of a performance.
That’s the kind of thing that can ruin a movie. And it’s just ONE SINGLE VARIABLE within thousands that you have no control over. The operating modus in Hollywood is to get movies made. That alone is an impossible thing to do. When a few of those movies actually turn out to be good? That’s the miracle. Because, again, you have so little control over everything that, odds are, the movie’s not going to turn out the way you hoped.
A Christmas Story is one of the clearest examples of this. It was a bit of a weird movie that came out of nowhere. But something about the film undeniably worked. It captured the holiday through the eyes of children better than, probably, any movie in history.
Star Peter Billingsly seems to be aware of my Lightning in a Bottle theory as he’s resisted a sequel for years. It was only his good friend, Vince Vaughn, who finally convinced him to do it. I’m sad to say, though, that Billingsly was right and Vaughn was wrong.
The movie made a pretty bold creative choice early on that put it behind the eight ball. The first movie was about seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child. The new film was about seeing Christmas through the eyes of an adult. And, because of this, the movie couldn’t match the charm the first film had. You can’t make something as charming when it’s a hardened 40 year old analyzing it as opposed to an innocent 10 year old.
My dad, who loves the original Christmas Story, gave up on the new film about halfway through. There’s this scene where Ralphie’s friend challenges his other friend to a sled run down a manufactured toboggan structure. So everybody goes out to watch the friend sled down this enormous wooden contraption that didn’t even have a bottom. The bottom was nothing. So, once you got to the bottom, you would shoot off into the air and then fall another 50 feet to the ground.
And my dad said, “This isn’t real. The thing about the first one was everything was real. Nobody would actually sled down this thing because they’d probably die.” And he was right. It was a zany unrealistic situation that wouldn’t have made it into the first film. It violated that authenticity that made the original work. So, this one was a no-go for me.
The number 2 movie on the list is Spirited!
I was really looking forward to this movie. Ferrel and Reynolds working together felt like a no-brainer. And the movie definitely has its moments, more so than A Christmas Story Christmas. But the discussion of whether the film works is much more involved and nuanced.
Spirited does something I tell everyone on this site to do. Which is to find a fresh way into your story. Spirited does that in spades. They take the classic Charles Dickens story and ask the question, what if we told the story through the point-of-view of one of the ghosts as opposed to Scrooge?
As a screenwriter, I love this idea. IN THEORY. A change of POV is a smart way to find a fresh angle. But what you have to understand is that, with great stories, there’s a reason why they work so well. There’s a reason why telling this story from Scrooge’s point of view is so important to it working. When you upset that carefully constructed balance, you are sailing into uncharted waters. And that’s definitely how Spirited played out. It was like, “Okay, we’re going in this direction. I’m not quite sure how to handle it but I guess we’ll figure it out along the way!”
(Spoiler) And they make some fun choices. As it turns out, Will Ferrel’s ghost character is Scrooge! But he needs to be saved a second time. Again, as a screenwriter, I love this choice. You flip everything on its head. The student is helping the teacher rather than the teacher helping the student. It’s as fresh as fresh can be.
But when you’re trying to make a story work with a totally different set of variables than how it usually works, it’s a bit like driving a car backwards on the interstate. The car is still moving. But the chances of crashing and burning go up exponentially. Personally, I felt this movie was trying so hard to be different that it never found its groove.
So, while I probably wouldn’t recommend it, I don’t think you’re wasting your time if you pop it in between now and Christmas. It’s hard not to enjoy Ferrel and Reynolds in anything. And the movie has a genuine earnestness, whereas A Christmas Story Christmas never got there. So, if you’re choosing between the two, definitely go with Spirited. It’s got the best production value of a Christmas movie this year.
And our number one Christmas movie is…… little drummer boy roll please… Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special!
This is one of those times where I wish I didn’t follow the movie industry as closely as I do. Because when you do, you know certain things about projects that you wish you didn’t know. For example, you know that James Gunn wrote this script in less than three hours. You know that they filmed this movie between takes during Guardians of the Galaxy 3. Those things were percolating through my head the whole time I watched the mini-feature.
Cause I’m going to be honest. This *felt* like it was written in a few hours. And it truly felt like they had three locations and everyone was sort of tired and reluctantly standing around in each take.
Now, does that mean I didn’t like it? No!
I did like it!
And that’s mainly because the premise was so fun. Kevin Bacon was Peter Quill’s favorite actor when he grew up as a kid in the 80s on earth. So teammates Drax and Mantis travel to earth to kidnap Kevin Bacon so they can give him to Peter as a Christmas present. That idea beats out the ideas of A Christmas Story and Spirited easily.
Also, James Gunn is just funnier than the writers working on those two films. We eventually find out that Peter told his Guardians teammates about Kevin Bacon AS IF HE WAS A REAL PERSON rather than being a movie star. So Drax and Mantis think that Kevin Bacon really did save a town by dancing. They think he really did help kill a bunch of giant killer worms under the desert. When they find out he’s just an actor, they’re furious.
Also, what I didn’t know was, which this special made clear, that Peter Quill saving the universe at the end of the first movie by dancing was done because Kevin Bacon was his hero and Kevin Bacon saved the day by dancing in Footloose. So it was fun to learn Peter’s inspiration for that climactic moment.
I also liked that they created a brand new soundtrack for the film – creating new Christmas songs. At least I’d never heard these songs before so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
I wish Peter Quill had a little more to do than just stand around and look either bummed or excited. I wish there were more than three locations. But if you’re looking for a movie to get you in the Christmas mood and do so in an original fashion, it’s the Guardians Holiday Special all the way, baby. This is what I would pick over literally, every holiday movie on streaming right now.
Which one was your favorite?
