Jingle All the Way Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: Antics ensue as a workaholic father attempts to find a rare toy for his stupid son on Christmas Eve.

Review: Seriously Arnie? A Christmas movie? That's like doing a movie where you get pregnant...oh wait. I guess this could be considered the scariest Christmas movie I cover this season depending on your point of view. It's safe to say this film is universally hated, but I have a certain soft spot in my heart for it in the same manner as a piece of shit like "Batman & Robin;" it honestly becomes funnier to me each time I watch it. I'm even willing to admit I bought this on VHS back in the day, because that's just how I roll. But is it really as bad as people make it out to be? Well...yes and no. I think people have missed the point, that this film is heavily anti-consumerism, to such a degree that I've read reviews claiming this movie promotes mindless materialism; did we watch the same movie? The other thing I like is that it satirizes a lot of trends from the '90s that sort of slipped under the radar. On the other hand, the acting is atrocious beyond imagination (it's pretty bad when Arnie is out-acting the majority of the cast), and the jokes are especially childish, stupid, and cliched as all hell.

Okay, I'm not advocating that this film is good in any way, I'm simply saying that there are good qualities that are overlooked due to the overwhelming stupidity throughout the film solidified by the terrible acting. First off, this is pretty much the only movie I know of that satirizes the "toy of the year" phenomenon. For those oblivious to this ungodly practice, every year there is some hot toy that everyone is trying to get, but the quantity does not match the demand and all manner of shenanigans ensue with the general public. Sometimes it is somewhat warranted, with the case of various video game systems or cooler toys, but then there are those times where kids only want the stupid toys because other people have them like fucking Furby or molest-me Elmos. In this film they are using "Power Rangers" as their inspiration, which would make sense given that this film was made in '96, and the toy in question is called "Turbo-Man." It really irks me that they keep referring to the toy as a "doll." Seriously, what little boy would go around saying they play with dolls? When I was a kid, you got your ass kicked for such things unless it was a Chucky doll. Anyway, the focus of the story is demonstrating how crazy individuals become in the pursuit of these sought after toys. While things do go a bit overboard in the zany antics department, this film does present a decent look at how commercialized the Christmas season has become with a few jabs at society. There is even an underlying notion that the only way to prove your love as a parent is to give your brats the shit they want, but in the end the film shows that there is more to the parent-child relationship than material gain. Well, maybe I'm drawing more depth out of this film than it deserves, but it was trying to convey this idea I promise.

As for why this movie has such a reputation for sucking, there are reasons aplenty. The cast flat out sucks. Even actors who typically aren't that bad are showcasing embarrassing performances. I wasn't even exaggerating when I said Arnie was one of the best actors here; take that however you wish. Some lines are delivered so poorly it's like they took one take and said, "eh, good enough." But even if the actors brought any kind of conviction to their roles it would still be impossible to make the childish tone more appealing. But oddly enough, I know this is supposed to be a kid's movie, but when you throw in a divorce subplot, the notion of "going postal," creepy jokes and situations, and pretty much admitting there's no santa, are the kiddies even going to watch this? As for Arnie fans, when he's delivering lines like this: "I mean you thought for a minute I would not do something you tell me?" it's hard to imagine the same guy taking on the Predator, T-1000, and Lucifer. Who the hell wrote that total bitch line anyway?! And what's up with that androgynous kid Arnie chases in one of the most pedo-riffic scenes imaginable? And come on, Arnie uppercuts a reindeer! Good lord. But you know, the scenes are so idiotic and over the top, it starts to get to you upon each viewing; you start to appreciate a certain charm to it all that transforms the film into so-bad-it's-good territory. Now when I watch this movie, I no longer cringe with anger but instead laugh at the one-liners and weird nuances.

Although this film has garnered a lot of hate, and rightfully so, it's nowhere near as bad as critics make it out to be. If you grew up in the '90s, or were a parent then, I'm sure you will appreciate this film all the more as it makes light of the over-indulgence of that era. Sure, the acting is laughable, the dialogue is horrendous, and the jokes fall flat more than they succeed, but it is so bad it's good if you can appreciate the stupidity. Plus, what were people really expecting from a family film with Arnie?

Notable Moment: When Arnie is screaming about, "PUT THAT COOKIE DOWN!!!" There always has to be one-liners in these movies and that's my favorite.

Final Rating: 5.5/10

Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out) Review

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!

Plot Summary: A man, traumatized as a child at Christmas, believes himself to be Santa Claus and delves into murderous insanity.

Review: First, this has no connection, as far as I know, to "New Year's Evil" although it should! Goodness gracious this has to be one of, if not, the most bizarre Christmas themed movie out there. Okay, yes, there are some really horrific Christmas movies out there, but this one has a level of disturbing all to itself. I have this piece of shit on VHS and it kind of enhances the absurdity of it all with that grainy footage, but I did recently see a DVD version and it still looked bad. I think it's supposed to be a slasher, but there are so few deaths while the vast majority of the film is comprised of the slow exploration of the lead character, Harry's, drift into madness. I will give this film some credit though, it is scary in a real life stalker kind of way where you would worry about that creepy guy hanging around your kids. And...it does have one of the craziest endings known to film.

I really have to break down this one's plot since it needs to be analyzed properly to understand just how crazy it is. Well, back in 1947, Harry, as a boy, believes he sees the real santa showing up at his house, and I suppose he is somewhat in awe and half scared. Although, did they seriously leave bread and butter for santa...pst amateurs, I always leave that bitch pizza. Harry's younger brother, Phil, tries to explain that santa was their dad is disguise, but Harry doesn't believe it. Wait, santa's not real?! Say it ain't so! So Harry tries to prove him wrong when he stumbles upon santa groping his mom by the Christmas tree. That's how that song goes, right? I saw mommy getting groped by Santa Claus? And what the hell, that's like the worst groping I've ever seen! It's like he's trying to tenderize her thigh...dude, this is the worst foreplay--bring your A game it's Christmas after all! In response to this sight, Harry cuts himself? Was he the forerunner for all emo babies out there? You'd think there would be more to this trauma, but that's about it; it's nowhere near the antics seen in "Silent Night, Deadly Night." To be fair, the film does acknowledge the outlandish and over the top spazzing out over such a trivial sight later on.

So we skip ahead to "present day" which looks a lot like 1980 since we see it written all over the place multiple times including the same fucking scene that says "present day." Alright, it is never explicitly said, but I'm going to jump to the assumption that Harry treats everyday as if it's Christmas since the film opens sometime in November presumably. This includes playing Christmas music when he wakes up, dressing in red pajamas with Christmas paraphernalia strewn about, appearing to open presents offscreen, and using his shaving cream to amuse himself with a fake beard. In essence, Harry has become obsessed with Christmas and gradually likens himself to be Santa as the film progresses. To get his mornings off to a good start, Harry busts out the binoculars to start spying on the neighborhood kids and record their activities in his naughty and nice books that he has been logging for years. I have to say, the music enhances most scenes nicely to properly convey the emotions and shenanigans of Harry's sporadic thoughts. I guess I should stress that although Harry appears to be a pedophile stalker, the film wants him to be more obsessed with trying to be santa than to be interested in the kiddies in any other way...but come on! Conveniently, Harry works at, you guessed it, a fucking toy factory where he was somehow promoted to a manager which is peculiar given how much of a lunatic he appears to be--always one step away from going postal. And seriously, this factory is the absolute worst toy factory known to man with the saddest toys I've ever seen; I suppose this can be explained away by budget constraints.

I'll give this film credit yet again--it definitely does not spoon-feed the audience as there is a lot going on under the film's surface, and you have to draw a lot of the conclusions on your own. I don't know what was the exact trigger to make Harry finally go off the rails, but after about 40 minutes of showing the audience just how creepy Harry can be, he finally begins to take action. Maybe it was the fact that the toy company he works for sucks that set him off, or maybe he just wanted to grab a kiddie already, or maybe it has something to do with "playing the tune" of humanity he keep rattling on about--I have no clue; at least one character does say "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about" in response to this nonsense. Let's just say someone like Natre from "Shutter" scares me on one level and someone like Harry scares me on a whole different level. I should probably mention there are scenes of Harry staring at a picture of one of the neighborhood girls who appears to be his unspoken favorite, going out of his way to mess with one of the naughty kids in the most unusual manner, and a restrained rage as he has nothing but unhealthy means to express his emotions both suppressed and repressed. Harry is at least interesting, you can't argue with that.

By Christmas Eve, Harry has assembled a custom santa suit, glued on a beard, and has exclaimed "it's me!" accompanied by the most maniacal laughter. Oh yeah, that's perfectly sane...hell, I do that once a week. It's tough to say what exactly was his plan since we see Harry do a wide array of things on this night with little to no direction. At first it seems like he wants to kill his boss and people who have been making him mad, but when he goes to kill some guy in marketing, he ends up just killing the people in front of the guy. Uh okay. Harry stops a few times to deliver presents as he stole a great number from the toy factory; this includes breaking into some houses while also delivering some to a hospital for retarded kids. Aww, he has a heart of gold deep down inside! He even takes a break to dance and entertain at a party. Maybe I should also mention he painted his van (yeah, I know, a pedophile-like dude with a van) to have a slay on the side, and when he's driving he pretends he's cheering/whipping his reindeer. I think a lot of this kind of speaks for itself at this point. After all manner of zany antics, Harry decides to end the night by killing the guy he works with that makes fun of him most but not before leaving some presents for the kids.

Now that it's Christmas Day, Phil begins to worry about Harry since he noticed how weird he was acting earlier in the film, and I think it's safe to say he knows how obsessed Harry is with Christmas. With the news broadcasting about a killer santa, Phil easily suspects that it's Harry. But it doesn't matter, because Harry is still running around delivering a few last minute gifts until some guy tries to fight him while Harry manipulates kids into helping him. This is when the movie goes right into the stratosphere of absurdity with one ridiculous scene after another. So the families that witness Harry's fight with this guy grab torches and create an angry mob that chases Harry. What, no pitchforks? I mean, seriously?! Keep in mind, it is subtly revealed that the setting is the suburbs of New York City, and you're telling me these people would gather an angry mob with torches like this is fucking "Frankenstein" or something? Harry escapes in his van and flees to Phil's house where the two get into a fight as Phil realizes Harry is the killer santa. Harry is still talking about playing some tune like a nutcase, and they address what I mentioned earlier about Harry's shoddy motive for becoming insane. Phil says something about how Harry claims he's insane because that one time when the two were kids Phil said santa wasn't real and Harry has been trying to prove him wrong his whole life. Good lord, at least the film is aware to the idiocy of it all! It's so funny too when you think about it--this guy has become this degree of insane over one line his brother told him as a kid. Oh, but the fun isn't over yet! After choking Harry into unconsciousness, Phil decides to drag him back into his van as he wakes up and punches Phil in the face in an overly comical way. Harry drives off but is somehow confronted by that same angry mob who apparently possessed the first GPS tracker. Or maybe it's all a dream because right when Harry is cornered, he drives off a cliff and instead of crashing into the ground, he whimsically flies off to the moon and becomes the real santa after all. I'm not even making this up. That's how the movie really ends. HE FUCKING FLIES AWAY! Take a few minutes if you will to laugh.

A lot goes unexplained like what's up with his fascination with the kids, does he associate Christmas with sex or at least with the repression of it, why does he want to be santa if he believes he groped his mom, what the hell is this nonsense about playing the tune (at best we assume he implies fitting in), and why do we only get inferences on how crazy Harry was throughout his life? This movie is scary, no doubt about that, but not in the way you'd think. While it fails as a slasher, and probably a late "Halloween" ripoff at that, it succeeds at presenting one of the weirdest and creepiest characters ever. There are so many strange nuances, odd choices, and seemingly nonsensical scenes that this film feels like a bad ecstasy trip. If it weren't so boring with so few deaths, this really could have been one of the greatest cult classics of the '80s, but instead it all feels like a bad dream--how I'd imagine Christmas looks like in hell. But is this film any good? Eh, it's tough to say because it needs to be watched to fully grasp the ridiculous nature of everything, but at the same time, it is hard to enjoy. Plus there's that ending...eh, make of it what you will.

Notable Moment: The end of course. I mean, seriously, it has to be one of the weirdest, most unexpected scenes of all time.

Final Rating: 5.5/10

The Ramblings of Ryan Volume 2

So it's once again time for a regular blog post. The first thing I wanted to say was that I seriously dropped the ball again this November. I didn't do any reviews last year and this year I only did a couple! Tsk tsk. Well, I partially blame this on "Battle Royale II: Requiem," because I vowed to never watch it again, and I'm trying soooooo hard to force myself to finish it (but failing)! And I must stress it's my love for the first BR that makes me hate the sequel so much. I should probably also explain my review process since it's kind of overly complicated which typically isn't my style. Usually I will watch a movie, even if I've seen it a million times, and then add it to my blog with a basic framework of what I want to talk about. But because I juggle anywhere from 10-20 movies at a time, my time of viewing these films may be anywhere from weeks or even months ago. This leads to the fact that I sometimes lose interest in a film to review, and, on occasion, I just forget a movie altogether. Of course there are exceptions like when a movie is so bad I feel inspired to write immediately, but, for the most part, this is the pattern I follow. I simply need to make sure BR doesn't fall through the cracks, because BR II sucks so much!

Anyway, I will try and make up for things with a lot of Christmas movie reviews--for better or worse. Some will be horror themed, of course, (and I'm starting off with a doozy) and some will be generic Christmas movies--I'll have to see how festive I'm feeling. Eh, I'm sure I'll throw in some non-Christmas movies just to spice things up. I mean, it just wouldn't be the holidays without a decapitation or two, right? What has been keeping me busy was part work and part addiction to the video game "Borderlands 2." I'm not sure how many are familiar with that game, but it's awesome! I definitely recommend going out and playing it, but be weary of the price especially as it has way too much shitty dlc; if you can possibly get just the core game, I'd say the only must-have is the dlc "Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep." It might not seem like all that much at a glance, but once you play it for a while, you find yourself hopelessly immersed!

Another thing on my mind is that I have been thinking about redoing a couple reviews and adding an "updated" label to them to establish a differentiation. It's not to say that everything about the original review would be lost, simply that there are some movies I felt I did not give it my best--especially my earlier ones. Then there are the instances when I re-watch a film and my original view of a film may have differed one way or another. I definitely want to redo my review for "Muoi: The Legend of a Portrait," because that has remained my most popular post since it was uploaded, and I feel as though I'm doing a disservice by not providing a more thorough review. Also, I don't think my point that it was a good movie was expressed properly. Right now I have it at a 6/10 rating, but I originally intended to give it a 7/10. The problem was that I began to think more about the story and realized only one scare in the whole film was real while everything else was merely a dream. This fact bothered me, because how the hell do you make all of your scares dreams?! It was just stupid. Eh, I'll go back over it at some point; I simply want it to be made aware. Plus, there are a few movies I have re-watched and have quietly added revisions, but I want to be more thorough like how I'm still kicking myself for not addressing the ladies of "C-ute" that were in "Ousama Game!"

I know it's kind of late, but seriously, that fucking "Dexter" series finale pissed me off! There are so many stupid things to say about the entire last season in general that I could go on all day, but I don't want to get too detailed--just want to express my rage, because I felt it was worth discussing. In my mind, there is only seasons 1-4, and after the (spoiler!!!) death of Rita, due to Dexter sparing Trinity, he gave up killing. I don't even care. It's better to imagine that ending than the atrocious, disgraceful decline into mediocrity that was seasons 5-8. There were so many laughably bad moments that it's embarrassing to think of the endless potential this show had and the direction it was taken leading to its miserably unsatisfying conclusion. On the other hand, at least "Breaking Bad" did live up to the hype! Also, I wanted to mention that I am surprisingly enjoying the show "Sleepy Hollow" for it's "Supernatural" meets "The X-Files" vibe coupled with my love for all things apocalyptic. I know it can seem campy as hell, but check it out with an open mind and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.

And finally, Rika says merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone!