The Goods: Film Reviews
I’m not wild about the character designs, but my biggest complaint is that the movie leans too much into abstracting the Victorian London setting during the ghostly encounters. The best Christmas Carols are great costume dramas on top of all the other fun stuff. Still, it’s a competent and enjoyable musical adaptation as a reworked take on 1970’s Scrooge.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of my favorite movies and has been from the moment I first saw it in theaters as a sophomore in college.
Feeling depressed this holiday season? Purchase one of several Disney-branded stuffed companions, and all your troubles will go away. Your family will love you again.
This message brought to you by the most shameless short in the history of animation. GTFOH, Disney.
Damien Chazelle is not yet 40 years old, but is one of the most exciting American filmmakers working today.
Unhinged. Horrifying. Totally outlandish. It doesn’t make any sense that this premise could ever occur, even with Santa magic, which is part of the reason it’s so fun and morbid to watch it unfold. Compelling apocalyptic stuff for Sesame Street.
Feels like a jumbo-sized, special-edition episode of Sesame Street in the best way possible. There’s a fun ice skating segment and some terrific musical numbers. The stories eschew simple holiday sweetness in favor of slightly edgier material — like a crisis of faith by Big Bird.
In one of the first scenes of Three Thousand Years of Longing, narratologist and protagonist Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) describes the lost art of storytelling.
She Said is an “eat your veggies” movie.
Mickey Saves Christmas is neat, but is that the bar we want to aim for?
I watched this in prep for our podcast episode on Anna and the Apocalypse, available on the special edition Blu Ray. It has really good background info on the movie, but is really only worth watching for enthusiasts, made entirely of talking heads rather than behind-the-scenes footage.