Skip to main content

Gremlins for Christmas

In trying to figure out my favourite Christmas movie, I find myself stuck. I’m not really a big fan of the traditional yuletide films like A Christmas Carol or It’s a Wonderful Life, though I do love A Christmas Story. I guess that would be my favourite Christmas movie, in the strictest sense. However, I do have another in mind….

Part of the problem, of course, is deciding what counts as a Christmas movie. Just because the story is set during the season does not make it valid. I appreciate the ironic sentiment behind calling Die Hard a Christmas movie, but it’s a tad violent for the label, in my opinion. Also, does simply having a seasonal setting make Batman Returns eligible?

So it is with some sense of humour that I nominate Gremlins as my favourite Christmas movie. It’s seasonal, it involves family and gift-giving, there are some life lessons (Phoebe Cates’ character has a particularly dark backstory) and it is packed to the rafters with Christmas music and songs. Superficially, at least, it seems like a Christmas movie, though in fairness it was released in the summer of 1984.

Perhaps the real reason I respond to it is that it feels like a subversive, almost anti-Christmas story, or a photo-negative of a traditional tale. Cates' history of childhood tragedy debunks Santa Claus and the town is overrun by chaotic anti-elves who make mischief instead of toys. They are dispatched when a movie theater explodes (there’s something ironic about a movie featuring the destruction of a movie theater as a plot resolution), while the climactic confrontation takes place fittingly in the one place everyone is all too familiar with at Christmas time: a department store.


True, the film is rather dated in several ways, but the practical puppet effects are still impressive. There is a high splatter quotient which makes it probably inappropriate for young kids’ family viewing, but I don’t have a family, so I’ll be selfish and say Gremlins is my favourite Christmas movie (after A Christmas Story).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Film Review: Blade Runner 2049

Denis Villeneuve has succeeded in creating that rarest of films: a very late sequel that respects and improves upon the original. Blade Runner 2049 expands the canvas of the first film with new locations and characters, all of whom feel authentic and true to the tone and themes of 1982’s Blade Runner . I thought it was magnificent in terms of setting and imagery and it packed an unexpected emotional punch which was absent in the first movie. I wanted to see it twice before I wrote my review and I am confident in saying it is superior to the original film while remaining tonally and esthetically consistent. I loved it. Foremost, I loved the story – complex without being hard to follow and never violating any continuity laid down by its predecessor. There were plot twists I could see coming but then the revelation would have more dimension than I was expecting. There were also genuine surprises in a couple of scenes. The cast is wonderful, with everyone well-suited to their roles (...
Post a Comment
Read more

Oscars

For the first time that I can remember, I have seen all but one of the nominees for the Oscars, which were held last week. At the time, I had seen all of them except for The Post and The Shape of Water , which I finally saw after it won best picture. My thoughts on it and the rest of the nominees: The Shape of Water is essentially Splash re-imagined with the Creature from the Black Lagoon instead of a mermaid, but nowhere near as good. I was impressed by the creature design, certainly, but the rest of the movie felt frustratingly underdone. It was a very typical Guillermo del Toro film, in that sense: I think he’s a gifted visualist, but his stories and characters leave a lot to be desired. Get Out is actually my third favourite movie of 2018, behind mother! and Blade Runner 2049 , so if I had been an Academy voter, this is the one I personally would have chosen for best picture. It’s very smart, very funny and very poignant without being preachy. It’s really brilliant,...
Post a Comment
Read more

IPO Statement

This weekly blog is intended (like most people’s) to be a space where I can talk about the things I’m interested in. I’ll be using it to post critical reviews of movies, books and whatever else I might want to unload my mind about. In general, I’m going to keep things as positive as I can because there’s already enough negativity out there and I would rather spend time focusing on the things I like rather than the things that upset me. I am a rational anarchist. I believe nobody has any right to tell anyone else what to do, but that the limits of anarchy make it unworkable in groups larger than a hundred or so individuals. I think with this many people around, impersonal rules are an unfortunate necessity, but I will only respect the ones that seem fair, in my mind. There is no excuse for injustice or abuse of power and as people and populations change, so must the rules that govern us, meaning they should always be challenged or at least suspected. Art and culture are my pass...
Post a Comment
Read more