The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause

When Santa Clause 2 came out, it quickly became one of my new favourite Christmas movies. I think my best friend and I went to watch it in theatres 3 times during it's first week of release; then we watched it a bunch more times before it's theatrical release was done. The movie had so many great elements, the tooth fairy who wanted to change his name (to The Molinator, or Roy); Chet, a baby reindeer in training; tyrannical Santa; and, of course, the element of Santa needing to find a wife. The movie also had Elizabeth Mitchell, whom I absolutely adore.

The movie received mixed reviews, with a good portion of the negative reviews trying to compare it to the original. I don't understand the complaints about the sequel; I mean ALL the main characters (and the actors who played them) are back in this movie, and the film added a bunch of great secondary characters. Scott Calvin accepted his role of Santa by the end of the first movie, so obviously the next logical step would be for him to find a Mrs. Claus. I try not to take the complaints about this movie too seriously, this is a wonderful sequel which expands upon the story. Considering the fact it took 8 years from the release of the original movie to make the sequel, I'm honestly surprised that this movie managed to get the original cast back; but I guess that still wasn't good enough for some people.

Anyways, moving on to the movie itself. The film starts with a shot of a plane flying over the North Pole and picking up noise (the sound of tiny hammers). Santa and the elves have to put a temporary stop to their work so as to not be discovered. It's a minor scene, but it does introduce us to Curtis, second elf in command (behind Bernard), and third in charge behind Santa. Bernard and Curtis have the unpleasant task of informing Santa that his son, Charlie, is on the naughty list. In addition to that, they also inform Santa that if he doesn't find a Mrs. Claus by midnight on Christmas eve, he will cease to be Santa forever and there will be no more Christmas. Caught between two problems, Curtis tries to help Santa out by replicating him in a machine he's built. Curtis' idea is to have the duplicate Santa watch over the shop at the North Pole so production doesn't slow down, while the real Santa goes back home to deal with Charlie and finding a wife.

Once back home, Scott reveals to his ex-wife (Laura) and her husband, Neil, his situation of needing to find a wife or no longer being able to be Santa Claus. Laura and Neil try to help set Scott up on some dates which go absolutely terrible. In the meantime, Scott discovers that Charlie is on the naughty list because he's been spray painting graffiti around the school. The graffiti Charlie is spray painting is Christmas related, in response to his Principal's lack of Christmas spirit and decorations around the school. Scott tries to enlighten the Principal, Carol Newman, as to why Charlie is doing these things, and suggests that maybe she could try putting up some decorations around the school. After repeated incidents, Charlie gets sentenced by Principal Newman to do community service work cleaning up graffiti in the community; and because of his repeated attempts to defend Charlie's actions, Scott gets sentenced to be Principal Newman's parental supervisor during the graffiti clean-up. Of course, Scott and Carol actually hit it off and end up getting along with each other - setting up the love story aspect of the film.

With Scott gone, duplicate Santa starts to become more trouble than anybody expected. He becomes extremely tyrannical, and wants every rule of the Santa handbook followed exactly as it's written; and he wants to give all of the children around the world coal instead of toys. He makes an army of tin soldiers to help him carry out his deeds and to make sure the elves get in line with his rules; he even has Bernard locked up for questioning his actions. Horrified by the monster he helped to create, Curtis sneaks off to visit Scott and tell him about what's going on back at the North Pole. On top of Charlie's troubles and needing to find a wife, Scott must now deal with the issue of evil Santa.

As always, I won't ruin the movie for those who haven't seen it, but I'm sure you can guess how it turns out. I enjoyed this movie a great deal; and, as I've already said, I thought this film did a good job of continuing the story of the original. Overall, I would give this movie 4 out of 5.

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The Man Who Saved Christmas

The Man Who Saved Christmas is a 2002 made for television movie staring Jason Alexander. It's become one of my favourite Christmas movies, and when it first aired I was certain it was destined to become a future Christmas classic, but it really hasn't caught on with a mass audience. The movie is inspired by a true story, although - like a lot of movies based on true stories - it takes liberties with accuracy in order to create a better story.

The story is centred around toy manufacturer A.C. Gilbert. A.C. Gilbert is the creator of the Erector set; a popular toy set which not only allows children to play, but also allows them to use their creativity to build and engineer things. A.C. starts creating and selling the Erector sets with help from his wife and brother. His Erector sets don't sell very well initially, and A.C. thinks about giving up on them, but then his wife has an idea. Instead of just leaving everything in boxes, A.C's wife suggests taking the sets out of the boxes and putting them on display; this generates great interest in the Erector sets, and they sell out almost immediately - making A.C. a huge success. 

With the toys being so popular, it allows A.C. to open a bigger factory to mass produce them (he was originally producing them at home). A.C. was one of the first business owners to give his employees fair wages, bonuses, and benefits. He essentially believes that happy satisfied workers are more efficient workers. He also has a daycare set up in his factory, knowing most people that work for him have families and have nobody to leave their kids with. Having the kids there also allows A.C. to test market toys, he's able to see first hand which toys the kids enjoy and which ones they don't. 

The film takes place during World War I, and although A.C. isn't drafted into the war, his brother is. Adding to A.C's heartbreak of losing his brother to the war is the fact that the government is asking factories like his to convert into munitions factories to help with the war effort. A.C. continues to try to produce both toys and munitions, which causes anger among his employees due to the increased workload. A.C. decides to take the toys out of the factory and produce them from his home, just like he had originally done. 

As the movie progresses and 1917 turns into 1918, with the war still going on, A.C. gets news that his brother is missing in action and presumed dead. Already dealing with this tragedy, A.C. gets dealt another blow when the government announces that it wants to cancel Christmas altogether in 1918 to strictly focus on building ammunition for the war. A.C. reluctantly agrees, and he becomes the face of the governments plea to citizens not to participate in Christmas. A.C. has an epiphany though, and he decides Christmas shouldn't be cancelled after all; his argument is that bringing kids joy will help them envision a brighter future instead of focusing on a bleak present. He goes to congress to argue his case, and congress eventually decides to lift the ban on Christmas. In the end though it didn't matter, as on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the war was officially declared over.

Like I previously said, this movie has become one of my favourite Christmas movies, and I recommend it to people whenever I can. It's a tremendous movie which I hope more people will start watching during the Christmas season with the other classic movies. Overall I'd give this movie a 3.5/5 and I suggest checking it out if you get the chance.

The Answer Man

I came across The Answer Man completely by accident. I was working in a movie store when, one day, I noticed the movie on our shelves. The movie looked interesting, and it had a good cast; Lauren Graham, Jeff Daniels, Nora Dunn, Kat Dennings, and Tony Hale were in it. I read the brief description of the movie on the back cover, and was interested enough in buying it and checking it out.

Arlen Faber (Daniels) is the best selling author of Me & God, a book in which Faber chronicles the "conversations" he had with God. The book was loved by millions of people around the world making Faber a highly sought after author and celebrity; Faber, however, wanted no part of the spotlight, and went into seclusion for 20 years. He didn't live all of those years alone, however, as it is revealed during the film that Arlen was living with his father, who was suffering from dementia and eventually passed away.

Arlen doesn't just want to stay secluded, but he also doesn't want to know anybody to know who he really is; the only person who knows his true identity, and whereabouts, is his publicist, Terry (Dunn). Not even Arlen's mailman (Hale) knows his true identity, although he later tricks Faber into revealing who he really is. Arlen spends most of his time ignoring his fan mail, and avoiding his publicist who is constantly trying to convince him to stop living a hermit lifestyle. 

Arlen has chronic back problems, and one day he throws his back out really bad. Arlen calls Terry, who usually helps him out, but this time - tired of Arlen's attitude - she refuses to help him, leaving him laying in agony on his floor. Arlen has no choice but to literally crawl on his hands and knees to an independent chiropractor; this is where he meets Elizabeth (Graham), a back specialist and single mother. Elizabeth fixes Arlen's back better than any specialist he's ever visited, so he returns to see her again as a friendship starts to build.

Arlen and Elizabeth spend more time with each other, and he even invites her over to his house. Arlen still stays relatively guarded around Elizabeth, but he tells her who he really is, and he also tells her about his father. When he's not spending time with Elizabeth, Arlen starts trying to sell his collection of books to a local used book shop. Kris, the owner, keeps telling him that he can't afford to take his books because the shop went through a crisis while Kris was in rehab getting help for a drinking problem. Kris eventually discovers who Arlen really is and cuts him a deal; if Arlen will answer some of his questions, Kris will take some of Arlen's books.

I don't want to give too much else away, but I'm really glad I decided to buy this movie; it was well worth it. The film was well written and superbly cast. For a low budget film with practically no publicity, this film far exceeded my expectations. I'm going to go ahead and give this film a 4.5/5 

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Pitch Perfect

When I first heard about Pitch Perfect I thought to myself, "oh great, another terrible "musical" movie to target to the fans of Glee." I thought it was going to be a terrible movie, I had no interest in it, and I told myself I'd never watch it. Then one day, out of boredom, I was reading reviews on iMDB, and one of the reviews for Pitch Perfect caught my attention. The headline of the review was something along the lines of "Pitch Perfect, what Glee wishes it could be if Glee was good." I must admit, that made me laugh and sparked my interest; I now had to see this movie.

From the opening scene of the film, I was instantly hooked, and regretting that I hadn't given the movie a chance earlier. The movie opens with an a cappella competition, which includes play by play commentary (provided by Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins). Now, a cappella competitions aren't something I'd expect to have announcers, but EB and JMH are hysterical in the roles. The main focal point of the opening scene is to establish the rivalry between the Barden TrebleMakers (an all male group), and the Barden Bellas (an all female group). The scene ends with Aubrey (Anna Camp) throwing up on stage ruining the Bellas performance.

The movie is centred around an anti-social university student, Beca (played by Anna Kendrick). Beca has dreams of becoming a DJ, but her father - who's a professor at the university - wants Beca to put herself out there more, and wants her to try meeting new people. He makes a deal with her, telling her if she legitimately tries some different activities and tries meeting new people, he will then pay for her way to try and become a DJ if she doesn't like the new experiences. Beca - who's not on the greatest of terms with her dad since he split from her mom - reluctantly agrees. 

Beca sets out on the University activities fair to try to find something to join. Along the way she runs into Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson), and the two of them come across the Bellas recruiting table (at different times, not together). Fat Amy clearly has an interest in joining the group, but Beca does not. Later on Chloe (Brittany Snow) - who, along with Aubrey was trying to recruit for the Bellas - comes across Beca in the showers and hears her singing; Chloe convinces Beca to tryout for the Bellas. 

As you probably already suspected, Beca ends up becoming one of the new Bellas members. In the meantime, Beca also works at the University radio station, alongside Jesse, one of the new recruits for the TrebleMakers. This of course sets up the inevitable love story of the movie. With the Bellas and TrebleMakers being enemies, Aubrey has forbidden any of the Bellas to get involved with any of the TrebleMakers; further setting the stage for the Beca and Jesse love affair that's not supposed to happen. 

I don't want to give too much of the movie away if you haven't already seen it. What I will say is this movie is full of laughs and awesome moments, fueled by a great cast. Are there some sappy moments? Ya, there are certainly sappy moments that could have been cut, but overall it was a really enjoyable movie. I give Pitch Perfect 4.5/5 and highly recommend watching it.

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Ghostbusters 2

I, like many people my age, love the Ghostbusters. Unlike many people, I actually highly enjoyed the sequel. It's always seemed to have gotten a bad reputation, Bill Murray himself has even said how weak he thought the second film was; despite this, I always maintained that the sequel was not as bad as everybody make it out to be. I used to watch both Ghostbusters films all the time when I was younger, but as I've gotten older I stopped watching it as frequently. I must admit, it had been a few years since I had watched either movie, until recently when both films were FINALLY released on blu-ray. The original movie had actually been released on blu-ray back in 2009 (along with a videogame), to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the film. Despite the fact that Ghostbusters 2 was also celebrating it's 20th anniversary that same year, a blu-ray was not released for it at that time; so I was relegated to watching the DVD version of the sequel, which was probably the last time I saw it before it's blu-ray release this year.

With the 30th anniversary of the original Ghostbusters - and 25th anniversary of the sequel - occurring this year, BOTH films were released and blu-ray, and I immediately went out and bought them. Having watched the re-release of the original in theaters over the summer, I decided to go straight to Ghostbusters 2 when I bought the blu-rays. As I sat and watched the sequel I started thinking to myself, "this isn't as good as I remember it being." Overall I still don't think it was terrible, but I did feel a sense of disappointment while watching it. Maybe my nostalgia for the film had over compensated my memories of the film. Perhaps the fact that I had just seen the original on the big screen, and I was watching the sequel at home on my TV is what led to the letdown. Maybe I had heard and read so many negative reviews of the sequel over the years, that they clouded my enjoyment of the movie. I don't know what it was, but I just didn't have the same love for Ghostbusters 2 as I did when I was younger.

The movie was ok, the acting was good, the story was decent, but there just felt like something was missing. I think it was the feeling that they weren't catching any ghosts, the story completely centered around the slime and Vigo (the villain). Outside two short montages, there was really no other mention of the Ghostbusters actually catching ghosts. At least in the original film, in addition to the final fight with Gozer, the Ghostbusters also caught Slimer and there were scenes of them bringing back the traps and emptying them into the containment unit.

A few days ago I was reading an Entertainment Weekly interview with Ernie Hudson. In the interview, Mr. Hudson mentions what little role his character, Winston, actually played in the movies. In the first movie, he comes in as a new recruit about halfway through, so Winston playing a small role in that film made sense with the story line. However, it wasn't until I read this interview, and then thought about it, that I realized how little of a role Winston has in the second movie as well. Although there are some scenes where all 4 Ghostbusters are together, a lot of the time it'll just be 3 of them together; and most of the time the missing person is Winston. When the Ghostbusters initially dig a hole in the middle of a street and discover the slime, it's Ray, Egon, And Peter - no Winston. When they go to Dana's apartment at the beginning of the movie to examine baby Oscar, again it's just Peter, Ray, and Egon. I, like I think most people, think of the Ghostbusters as a foursome, but a lot of the time there's just 3 of them together while 1 other person is missing - and usually, that person is Winston.

As I previously stated, although I still think Ghostbusters 2 is better than most people give it credit for, it's not as good as I had remembered. If you asked me 5 years ago when I last watched it what rating I would give, I'd easily give it 4/5. However, after my recent re-watching of it, I'm giving it a 3/5.





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The Way Way Back

The Way Way Back was a little independent movie which I probably never would have known about - or bothered to check out - if it hadn't been a pre-movie trailer on a DVD which I had bought. When I saw the trailer for it, the movie had already been out for a year, but I had never heard of it. From watching the trailer, the movie looked really interesting and funny; it also had some fairly well known actors for a small production movie - actors such as Steve Carell, Rob Cordry, Maya Rudolph, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Amanda Peet, and Sam Rockwell.

The movie focuses around Duncan (played by Liam James), an introverted 14-year-old who's on Summer Vacation with his mom Pam (Collette), her new dick-wad of a boyfriend Trent (Carell), and his bitchy daughter Steph (Zoe Levin). The movie starts out with Trent driving the 4 of them to his summer cottage. While Pam and Steph are sleeping, Trent tries to start a conversation (half-heartedly) with Duncan; he asks Duncan to rate himself on a scale of 1-10, and when Duncan says that he'd rate himself 6, Trent retorts with "I think you're a 3!" This gives you an idea of how big of a dick Trent is, and adds to the disdain that Duncan has for him.

Upon arriving at the cottage, the family is greeted by Trent's summer neighbour, Betty (played by Janney), and her children Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and Peter (River Alexander) - who has a lazy eye that Betty constantly makes fun of, and forces him to cover with an eye patch. Although Susanna tries to initiate conversations with Duncan, his shyness prevents him from saying anything more than a few words to her each time they talk.

Duncan - being introverted, but not wanting to stay around the house because of Trent - decides to take a bike ride around the town, where he discovers Water Wizz, the local town water park. Duncan sneaks in through the employee entrance where he continues to stay to himself and just sits at a picnic table. He is approached by one of the employees, Owen (Rockwell), who tries to kid around with Duncan, but Duncan takes everything Owen says literally and seriously. Owen decides to take Duncan under his wing and show him around the water park, introducing him to the other staff members and eventually getting a job at the park.

Duncan doesn't tell anybody that he's working at the water park,, as it's the only place he's truly happy and finally opening up. However, curious as to where Duncan is sneaking off to everyday, Susanna eventually decides to follow him to the water park one day. Susanna approaches Duncan and starts talking to him while he's working; Owen, and one of the other employees (Roddy), see this and go out of their way to both embarrass Duncan AND help him get the girl.

As the summer progresses, Duncan discovers that Trent is having an affair with one of the other neighbours, Joan (Peet). Fed up with Trent's shit, and no longer wanting to keep things to himself, Duncan lashes out at Trent at a Fourth Of July barbeque party. This leads to Duncan running off, and Susanna following after him to try to comfort him. Duncan eventually sneaks off to the water park's employee Fourth Of July party with Peter. The two of them stay at the party all night, letting loose and having a good time.

I don't want to ruin the rest of the movie, but this has definitely become one of my new favourite movies. I HIGHLY recommend this movie, as it has mostly laughs, but also has some great dramatic scenes. I never thought I could hate Steve Carell in ANY role, until I saw him in this film; that, I believe, speaks to how truly good of an actor he actually is. I would rate this movie a 4.5/5 and I would certainly list it as a movie you should purchase and add to your collection.

The Way Way Back is available on Blu-Ray and DVD on Amazon.



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