Ah, the holidays......which these days means avoiding friends, family and Covid-19 by hunkering down in front of the flatscreen......
Also home with us, it goes without saying was our pride and joy BD (Beloved Daughter) who took complete control of the remote and picked all these films to view on the long, long, long Christmas weekend.....
(And that would explain why some of these films seem like things BQ would watch only while being held hostage at gunpoint......)
So let's kick off the marathon with....
Babes In Toyland (1986) Our daughter fondly remembered this from a battered VHS copy we gave her back in our Video Store Buyer days......it's a cheap looking, chintzy TV movie version of the Victor Herbert musical. There's a bit of fun to be had at the sight of a 22 year old Keanu Reeves and an 11 year old Drew Barrymore, but the whole thing looks and sounds like a junior high school musical. If you've kids who want to see it, you can stream it free with your library card on www.hoopladigital.com.....(beware: for adults, it's dreary and tiresome....1 star (*)
Godmothered (2020) This Disney live-action fantasy was no doubt intended for a holiday theatrical release, before attending movie theaters became a life-threatening experience due to the pandemic....that is, if you could even find a movie theater still functioning. So now, along with other Disney theatricals, it lives on Disney Plus. It's in the style of "Enchanted", but Jilllian Bell as a fairy godmother trainee is an acquired taste and she's not anywhere near as funny a she thinks she is. Also, there's no catchy songs......2 stars (**).
Mulan (2020) Another Disney theatrical refugee taking shelter on Disney Plus, after the streaming service tried out charging their regular subscribers $19.99 just to watch it all by itself. Turning the sprightly animated musical into a full fledged martial arts/swordplay epic was a colossal waste of time, money and resources. Asian filmmakers have been doing action spectaculars like this for decades.....and this genre was never designed for Disney demographics.....which begs the question.....why did they even bother? No songs, either. 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2) And holy crap, Jet Li looks 130 years old....
Soul (2020 Disney Plus wisely decided not to soak subscribers with a heavy extra charge to watch Pixar's major holiday effort. We feel like the kid who shouts the Emperor has no clothes with this one.....the mighty Pixar, collector of countless accolades ran aground here. It's a huge mess......like three or four different concepts thrown together with little or no thought as to how they would fit together. Unlike Pixar's usual brilliant storytelling, "Soul" looks like they made it up as they went along. The jazz music part of it is superb......the cutsey-wootsy afterlife/before-life stuff is convoluted, confusing and makes little sense. The Pixar-ians have fallen deep in love with their own cleverness.....and it's not that clever. Beware the grossly overrated reviews.....2 stars (**)
Holidate (2020) This Netflix Christmas rom-com took us by surprise. We assumed it was going to be a mild, G-rated Hallmark kind of thing. Not hardly......it's a full-fledged R-equivalent raunch-fest, with full helpings of sex, sex jokes and every sick twisted joke you could imagine about somebody's severed finger. Two singletons (Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey) commit to that well worn rom-com trope, the "we'll pretend we're a couple" gimmick all through a year's worth of holidays. The only criteria we follow assessing a movie like this is simple......did it make us laugh? It sure as hell did. We don't mind admitting we LOL'd through the whole damn thing. 3 stars (***)
The Prom (2020) TV show-meister Ryan Murphy's adaptation of the Broadway musical about Broadway stars who rally 'round a bullied, teen lesbian who's banned from bringing a girl date to the prom. Fun for a while as the show knowingly spoofs and celebrates musical theater actors and their preening self-absorption and self pity. Meryl Streep and James Corden take those qualities to near obnoxious limits and the film and its endless musical numbers drags on and on. While La Streep and the frenzied Cordon chew the scenery like lions tearing through a side of beef, poor Nicole Kidman stays sidelined and given one lone musical number. Too much of everything altogether. It wears you out. 2 stars (**)
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