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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