You wouldn’t expect much from a short movie about the famous Christmas novelty song, but lo and behold Rankin Bass manage to pull off an impressive feat. “Frosty the Snowman” is a great short fantasy film that knows when to call it quits and is never a cloying over abundance of cute and obnoxious.
Yet another of the Christmas favorites that faded away from television land, “ A Garfield Christmas” is a wonderful and often times hilarious look at Garfield’s ringing in the Christmas festivities with Jon and Odie. Garfield is taken out of his beloved home and to Jon Arbuckle’s old home to celebrate Christmas with his country bumpkin family.While there, we not only garner an insight in to Jon’s odd ball personality, but we also get to see how Garfield reacts to the relationships around him.
A long time ago in a galaxy Far, Far Away, Bea Arthur ran a cantina with her alien pals.
And bandit Han Solo found it in his heart to interrupt his daring exploits to take Chewbacca home to be with his family for Christmas–er–Life Day. Though Chewbacca was explained as being a loner whose only friend was Han in the first film, he found time to bonk Mrs. Chewie and birth some chewbacca babies. So every now and then, I imagine Han has to stay over at his pal’s house, listening as Chewie and his wife argue with one another about taking out the trash, while Han tries to unfold the cot for his awkward sleep over.
Made around the time of the Hal Roach collaborative period with the duo making nothing but shorts, “The Music Box” became the standard for complicated situation talkies that would show buffoons making a bad situation out of a predictably simplistic one. When we learn that yes, it could have all been so simple, we groan at their idiocy, and then realize: What fun would that have been if they took the easy way in their job?
What Michel Gondry does is take some of the most realistic and unique teenagers from the South Bronx, plants them on a public bus, and creates what is basically his own “The Breakfast Club” with the aimlessness of “Dazed and Confused.” Every character is put on to the bus by circumstance and come to some sense of realization by the end of the ride that will likely have no effect on their personal lives. In the end, every character in “The We and the I” are victims of peer pressure and their home lives, and are just ships passing in to the night. Filled with a cast of young actors that were cast right out of the South Bronx and honed to work with Gondry for their characters, “The We and the I” is a pretty excellent dramedy about the modern teenager that never sugarcoats their dynamics.
Director Josh Johnson pulls off an ingenious move with “Rewind This!” Truly, it’s about the age of VHS and recalls many of the fond memories of buying VHS and learning how to enjoy the spoils of the hunt for the perfect Friday night entertainment from your local mom and pop video store. But by the end of the documentary, director Johnson is wise to warn about how personal media and art is slowly becoming impersonal and is gradually breaking from our grasps.
Director Darrell C. Hazelrig’s “The Dark Companion” is an odd animal to make out. It’s darkly comedic, but also kind of grim when you think about it. It’s about a world where humans and puppets live beside one another, and drink in the same bars, and yet puppet Howard’s plight can be interpreted in both ways, when you boil it down. Director Hazelrig has a good time toying with this premise of a puppet that realizes it has a sentient hand up its back, and I like where the story inevitably goes.