Video Link: Judy Garland - Merry Christmas (From in the Good Old Summertime (1949))

Michael's Christmas Movie Guide: The Santa Clause 2 (2002)

 

It took 8 years for The Santa Clause (1994) to get a sequel, but the wait was worth it. While this sequel may not be the pure Christmas classic the first film was, it is still a yuletide delight. 

In this sequel, Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is incredibly happy in his new role as Santa Claus. However, things go south when he finds out that he must get married to continue to be Santa Claus. If he doesn't, he will lose his Christmas magic and have to go back to being a regular man. At the same time, he finds out that his son Charlie has found himself on the naughty list. He decides to go back home to both find out what is happening with his son and find love. To run the North Pole while he is gone, he and two of his main elves create a toy Santa. However, the toy Santa believes all children are naughty and believes that they should all get pool.

This sequel is cornier, sillier and more over the top than the first movie. However, it knows exactly what it is, which makes it a lot of fun. In fact, humor is the one area where this film may improve over the first. The scenes with the toy Santa are incredibly over the top and funny. While this may not be a franchise that necessarily needs villains at least we have a very entertaining one here. This allows Tim Allen to let out his over-the-top comedic side without distracting from the film's story. There are also plenty of slapstick gags throughout and most of them work very well. 

While the movie is more over the top in the comedy department, it still has a lot of heart. The romantic story is actually very sweet and heartwarming. Elizabeth Mitchell and Tim Allen have great chemistry and the romance between them is very believable and surprisingly touching. Another great addition to this film was Scott's niece Lucy. Played wonderfully by child actress Liliana Mumy (who now in her adult career has been providing voices for cartoons for years (most recently as the voice of Leni Loud on TV's The Loud House), she is a sweet and adorable child who feels completely natural and never cloying. Her relationship with both Scott and Charlie feels completely real and earned. 

I only really have two complaints about this film. One is that there is too much going on with multiple storylines. This takes away some of the simple charm if the first movie. The other complaint is that many of the songs on the soundtrack seem to be trying too hard to be hip and cool. This can make the movie feel too much like the early 2000's that it takes away from the timeless quality this type of Christmas film should have. 

This movie was directed by Michael Lembeck. Like John Pasquin (the director of the first movie), he is much better known for his work in TV. He worked on TV as both an actor and director. As an actor his best-known TV role is as Max Horvath on the sitcom, Max Horvath. As a director he directed episodes of such popular shows as Mad About You, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond and Baby Daddy. He would also go on to direct the third film in this series. In this movie the Tooth Fairy plays an important role. Lembeck would later direct Dwayne Johnson in The Tooth Fairy (2010). 

This may be a corny and silly movie. However, with a mug of hot coco it makes for delightful Yuletide viewing on a December night. 

Michael's Christmas Movie Guide: The Santa Clause (1994)

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There may be some bias on my part as I grew up with this movie, but in my mind, this is a real Christmas classic.  

The story line is probably very familiar to a lot of you. A divorced dad named Scott Calvin is watching his young son, Charlie, on Christmas Eve, when Santa Claus falls off of his roof. Santa disappears and all that is left of him is his clothes. The dad puts on the clothes and finds out that doing this means that he is the new Santa Claus. He wakes up the next morning believing that this is all a dream. However, his son also remembers it and wants to tell everyone that his dad is Santa Claus. As the next Christmas comes closer the dad is still skeptical that the whole thing happened, even when he starts to physically turn into Santa. 

To me the real charm about this movie is its sense of imagination. This is especially true about the scenes in the North Pole, which are very visually pleasing and feel like something that came from a child's imagination. The premise of a regular man becoming Santa Claus is a very clever one and the film take perfect advantage of it. I love how he matures and grows into the role as the film progresses. This character arc makes the character feel completely believable and heavily endears him to us. His relationship to his son is also very sweet and endearing. How much he loves his son also makes this character incredibly likable to us, even when he is in denial over what happened or fighting with his ex-wife's new husband. While much of the credit for this movie is often given to the adult cast, Eric Lloyd as Charlie is the real heart of this movie. He pulls on our heartstrings without every feeling cloying. 

Of course, with Tim Allen as the star, there is a lot of comedy throughout. For the most part it works quite well. The best comedic moments come from simple sight gags, such as when Scott is followed by deer or finds a whole bunch of children lining up to tell him what they want for Christmas. Judge Reinhold as his ex-wife's new husband also gets some truly great laughs here. The humor sometimes falls flat when the movie can turn into almost a stand-up routine for Tim Allen. I know Tim Allen is a very popular comedian and he was at the height of his career, but these bits seemed unnecessary, especially as with this movie Tim Allen proves he is a very good actor. When the movie asked him to play a scene straight, he does so seemingly effortlessly. 

With how well Tim Allen does in this role, it is strange to think that he wasn't the only one considered for playing Scott Calvin. Both Chevy Chase and Bill Murray where briefly considered. Chase wasn't able to do it due to scheduling conflicts and Murray didn't want to do another Christmas movie after Scrooged (1988). In November 1992 Disney's Hollywood Studios acquired the script and started reworking it as a vehicle for Tim Allen. 

Director John Pasquin was already familiar to Tim Allen as he had directed and produced episodes of Allen's popular sitcom, Home Improvement. He would continue working with Tim Allen with such movies as Jungle 2 Jungle (1997) and Joe Somebody (2001). He also was one of the main directors and producers of the later Tim Allen sitcom, Last Man Standing. He can be seen briefly in this movie as one of the Santa's in the line-up. 

Though this movie was originally going to be released under Disney's Hollywood Pictures but when Disney saw that they had a huge hit on their hands, the released it under the Disney banner. It was a massive hit. It grossed $19.3 million on its opening weekend become the second highest grossing opening weekend of 1994. 

One scene you will not see in the movie today involves Scott Calvin stating, "1-800-SPANK-ME. I know that number." This turned out to be a real adult hot line and it was pulled from DVD and streaming versions of the film as well as TV airings. 

Resources Used

 https://www.vulture.com/2011/09/the-lost-roles-of-chevy-chase.html

https://variety.com/1992/film/news/h-wood-aims-to-nail-allen-for-clause-101652/
  

Video Link: Abbott & Costello Christmas Show

Movie Review: Sisu Road to Revenge

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A-

An action packed and blood-soaked good time. 

This movie is one that prioritizes action over all else. There is little dialogue here with the movie almost playing as an ultra-bloody silent film. The storyline is very simple and is set up in the opening scenes and concluded in the closing scenes. Everything between that is just pure action. The action is extremely bloody and over the top, but it is so much so that it is a blast to watch (with the exception of a scene involving glass which was simple uncomfortable to look at). What also makes this blood-soaked action scenes work is that it keeps a good sense of humor throughout. Many of these gory scenes almost resemble an R rated Roadrunner cartoon. There is a lot of slapstick humor throughout that is simply hilarious. The mixture of action and slapstick makes for pure entertainment at its best. 

I also still feel that Jorma Tommila is simply a great action star. Without even saying a word he is incredibly compelling to watch. He also manages to feel like a real tough hombre while also being quite vulnerable at the same time. This vulnerability adds a bit of humanity and an emotional connection to this over-the-top movie. 

This is simply a heck of a good time at the movies. 

Movie Review: Fackham Hall

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

A really dumb and lowbrow but very funny comedy. 

Once again, I am very happy to see this type of incredibly silly comedy come back to movie screens. Sometimes when I go to a movie, I just want to laugh, and I don't care how dumb or lowbrow the humor is as long as it makes me do so. And this movie is pure dumb nonsense of the highest order. There are puns, slapstick gags, fart jokes, juvenile sex jokes, blink and you miss them background gags, movie and TV spoofs and even the occasional clever bit of satire. If you don't find one gag funny, there is probably one that will make you laugh in just a few seconds. What makes this movie work is that in the vein of Airplane or The Naked Gun, no matter how absurd or dumb the humor gets every actor plays their roles completely straight. 

The dangerous part of making a feature length comedy is that it is hard to remain funny for the whole runtime. There are a couple stretches here, where the movie loses its comedic footing. Luckily, it finds its way again each of these times. 

An excellent comedy. 

Silent Film of the Month: The Christmas Dream (1900)

Run Time:  4 minutes. Studio: Star-Film. Director: Georges Méliès. Main Cast: Georges Méliès. Original Title: Rêve de Noël. 

It should not come as a surprise that French filmmaker, Georges Méliès should have directed one of the earliest Christmas films. Georges Méliès was one of the early masters of fantasy films and magic played a major role in most of his films. With how fantasy and magic fit perfectly with the Christmas season, this a match made in heaven.

In this film, on Christmas Eve a woman tucks two little kids into bed and reads to them. A couple set pieces of Christmas go through the children's heads. The first involves a land of toys that come to life and dance. The second involves a church at wintertime. After these wonderful dreams, the kids awake on Christmas morning and rush downstairs to see a big Christmas tree with presents underneath. 

With a runtime of 4 minutes, naturally the storyline is very simple. Yet this is the real charm of this movie. In this short runtime, the film perfectly captures what it is like to be a kid at Christmas time. As a child there is nothing like going to bed on Christmas Eve and waking up Christmas morning. Like many of you, my mind would run wild as I went to bed on Christmas Eve night. I was excitingly thinking about the magic that Christmas brings. Then waking up Christmas morning was simply the greatest feeling in the world. To frame these imaginative set pieces with going to sleep on Christmas Eve and waking up on Christmas morning makes it feel all the more magical as it brings us back to our own childhoods. 

The set pieces themselves are fantastic. The set and backdrop for the Toyland scene is fantastic. It looks like a world that would come straight from a child's imagination. The church at wintertime gives a very peaceful and serene feel.

The visual filmmaking is very sophisticated for its time and even for today it looks great. This movie has many perfect uses of cross-dissolves, a filmmaking technique that would have felt new and fresh to audiences at the time. Such an effect was not easy to achieve at the turn of the century. Historian J.B. Kaufman (on his wonderful website) described how this was done. "This means that all of this picture would have been photographed on one continuous strip of film and must have called for meticulous preplanning. Once the first scenes had been photographed and the first dissolves were in place, there was no turning back. Méliès and company would have exactly one chance to film each scene in this little pageant, and if any mistakes occurred, retakes were not an option. That shoe at center stage, far from indicating a careless or slipshod filmmaker, is actually a testament to the pains Méliès took in crafting this and his other films."

If you want to watch this delightful film, you can do so below. 

This is a very underrated Christmas time treat. 


Resources Used

https://www.jbkaufman.com/movie-of-the-month/r%C3%AAve-de-no%C3%ABl-1900