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Film Friday: Kitsch The Bucket

By Mathew Kumar

2007_12_21_todd.jpg
Really not much on in terms of Christmas films this week. The Bloor is showing National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (which is about as far away from a Christmas classic as we can imagine without being a film about aliens from another galaxy that have never heard of Christmas) and White Christmas. We’re still happy to recommend Enchanted (we just saw it, and it was absolutely lovely), but for those of you who want to see something specifically related to Christmas, the Revue has come to your rescue with the help of Dion Conflict, who will be showing Christmas Kitsch-A-Roo at 9:30 p.m. If you’re familiar with Dion Conflict’s Hunk-A-Junk screenings, you’ll know what to expect—a variety of utterly bizarre found shorts—but they’re normally excellent fun and the Christmas theme means some really weird stuff is going to show up. Hopefully he’ll be showing the legendary Santa Claus’ Punch and Judy, which really has to be seen to be believed.
Okay, not every film released across the festive season has to be holiday-themed, but many of the films out this week are just… strange. Is there any real reason that Rob Reiner’s The Bucket List is getting an exclusive Toronto engagement starting Christmas Day? “Hey, it’s Christmas. Let’s go and see a film about a couple of terminally ill, terminally irritating seniors. Hooray!” Or, on the same day, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem? Seriously?
We’re actually more interested in Alien vs. Predator: Requiem than we feel like we should be, but considering everyone involved has promised to make it not as terrible as the original, we can’t help it.
Just as likely to be absurdly dumb is National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It’s about Nicholas Cage on a worldwide search for a special book that presidents get to have that holds all the real information about stuff like Area 51 and the JFK assassination. If that isn’t the most amazingly stupid concept you’ve ever heard, we don’t know what kind of concepts you get to hear, but they must be astonishing.
Hmm, there is Sweeney Todd, which is a musical, and has surprisingly been very well received by critics. When we first saw trailers, we thought, “Gosh, it’s been too long since we saw Johnny Depp playing a grey-faced barber as directed by Tim Burton,” but apparently that was a bit unfair. Norm Wilner calls it “a marvelous romp through madness, revenge and butchery.”
Similarly musical (well, sort of) is Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Even with Judd Apatow’s prolonged running times, we feel like we’ve already seen all the good bits thanks to extensive trailering. And actually, we haven’t read a review yet that noted something funny in the film that we hadn’t already seen in a trailer. Oh well. It’s getting good to middling reviews anyway.
Also out this week: The Orphanage, which Danu Mandlsohn described as having “a string of masterful set-pieces” during TIFF; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (reviewed in classic style by John Harkness); The Waterhorse: Legend of the Deep; The Savages; Charlie Wilson’s War; The Great Debaters and P.S. I Love You, which, by virtue of featuring Gerard Butler, should really be called (can you guess yet) P.S. THIS IS SPARTA.
A very weak joke, we admit. Happy Holidays everyone!

Comments

  • AnarchX

    WHA??????
    “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” is a CLASSIC!!! INMHO, it’s up there with “A Christmas Story” and the even more modern classic “The Trailer Parks Boys Christmas Special”

  • Adam McDowell

    The correct spelling is “kitsch.” Don’t feel bad, Torontoist. A lot of people get that one wrong.

  • Ben

    Why don’t you think Christmas Vacation is a classic? I love it!

    Todd: Hey Griswold. Where do you think you’re gonna put a tree that big?
    Clark: Bend over and I’ll show you.
    Todd: You’ve got a lot of nerve talking to me like that Griswold.
    Clark: I wasn’t talking to you.

    Classic.

  • Mathew Kumar

    Ta, aleslinger.

  • The Explosively Talented Christopher Bird

    MINUS TWO BILLION POINTS FOR A 300 REFERENCE.
    Seriously, Kumar, what’s next? A Spider-Man 3 joke? Come on, you gotta go with more timely quips or you just end up sounding like a scene from Epic Movie, and who wants that, I ask you.

  • Mathew Kumar

    That bit in Spider-Man 3 where James Franco is really, really enjoying some pie is incredibly amusing.
    If I could, I’d make untimely references to that, too.

  • beth maher

    Juno is playing in limited release at the Varsity. That’s the one I’d recommend. We saw it this week, and it was amazing. Like Superbad meets Ghost World (which I’m sure that’s the way the producers pitched it).
    And you forgot to add that National Treasure Two is an absurdly dumb movie that knows it’s a absurdly dumb movie and is also a absurdly fun romp – like the first one was.

  • ked

    Juno is so hollow, please avoid.

  • beth maher

    Ummmm… I don’t know why you people are so cranky, but Juno’s only hollow to those who are hollow themselves.
    At this point, in the literary world, realism is left to Romance novels and Who-Done-Its, and quirky plotting and innovative dialogue are the hallmarks of intelligent new work.
    I don’t know why the film world is still so caught up in “I don’t buy it” and “but It’s sooo unrealistic.”
    But these are the same reasons people can’t appreciate National Treasure for the ridiculous, if completely brain-dead, entertainment that it is.
    If there were a word that combined pretentious and undiscerning I would use it here.

  • Mathew Kumar

    Dear Beth,
    Thank you for your (initial) take on Juno. I disagree completely with it, and find “Superbad meets Ghost World!” a hilarious thing to say about it. So thanks for the amusement!
    However, I really think in the second post you seem like the cranky one. I mean, you’re making a lot, a LOT of assumptions about people in the post. In fact, it’s not really a defense of the film as it is an attack on anyone who dislikes it. I don’t dislike you for liking Juno, Beth. You can like it if you want! I don’t like it, though, and neither does ked, and clearly neither of us would recommend it.
    I really am fairly astonished to read you write “Juno’s only hollow to those who are hollow themselves.” I’m not entirely sure what that means. Perhaps you could explain what you are implying.
    (To be honest, I don’t even buy “At this point, in the literary world, realism is left to Romance novels and Who-Done-Its, and quirky plotting and innovative dialogue are the hallmarks of intelligent new work.” We could perhaps get into the concept that Juno has “innovative dialogue”, though. What’s innovative about it? I can give you that the plotting is “quirky” though: not necessarily a good thing.)
    Before I continue, I would like to note that I liked this take on Juno quite a lot.
    Anyway. You also seem to claim that people who don’t like Juno also can’t understand or appreciate films which are “ridiculous, brain-dead entertainment” and then want to combine the words pretentious and undiscerning to describe these people (pretentioundiscerners?)
    Sadly, Beth, I think you’re very wrong in my case at least. You see, to dislike a film like Juno or National Treasure is neither pretentious nor undiscerning. In fact, I’d argue it is simply an example of being able to discern what is good or bad for ourselves that allows us to hold such opinions.
    (Not that it matters, but I actually was using humour to talk about National Treasure. I don’t see what I wrote as an attack at all.)
    For example, recently I greatly enjoyed the Tracey Fragments, also starring Ellen Page, which I found had a very emotionally involving take on a teenage girl in trouble: with “innovative dialogue” and “quirky plotting” even! And when it comes to ridiculous, brain-dead entertainment, oh man! I loves it! Commando might be my favourite film of all time!
    You are fighting with an opinion by making assumptions about the people who hold them, which isn’t going to work. We’re within our rights to find Juno hollow as you are to not. Perhaps you did just “buy in to it” while others can’t for whatever reason. I heard recently that someone I know hates Ferris Bueller’s Day Off because they just don’t buy it. To me, yes, that initially seemed like the height of absurdity, but, when I thought about it, I could see it. It’s like Juno – I can see why many people might like it (I’m not going to say these are your reasons) such as its cute indie tropes, the dialogue is very ostentatious, etc etc etc, but to me those are similarly reasons why it doesn’t seem like a very big deal at all.
    It must be, though, I just wrote this on Christmas Eve when I should be writing e-mails to people. What am I doing? Jet lag, probably.
    Anyway.
    Best Wishes,
    Mathew

  • beth maher

    Matt, I think you made way more assumptions about me than I ever made about you. I just disagree with you (and “ked”), is all.
    And did you ever think that my Ghostworld meets Superbad line was MEANT to be hilarious? Cause it was. I’m pretty self aware. I get the irony, and stuff. I’ve met a producer or two in my time.

  • ked

    I love Enchanted!