Last year we loved Klaus, and earlier this Christmas season I was really taken with a little LGBTQ+ Christmas movie called A New York Christmas Wedding. Knowing Netflix, those two films probably represent about ten percent of the Christmas-related content they've released in the past two Christmases. I know there are a couple Christmas Chronicles movies out there that we still haven't watched, one of which might get watched on Christmas night.
But our Christmas Eve viewing took the cake.
I swear I'm not picking these out to keep up with this week's musical theme. In fact, I didn't pick out Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey at all. It was my wife's suggestion. Unlike most new releases on Netflix, I wasn't even aware it was coming out, which could be because the opening of cinemas has given me actual theatrical releases as an option to review again, so I haven't been desperately combing Netflix.
So this movie gave us color, as it has beautiful sets, costumes and visual effects, and color, as in, people of color. The cast is almost entirely Black -- African-Americans and African-British alike -- with just a few token whites thrown in. It's a role reversal we have direly needed, especially in a period Christmas story like this one, which appears to take place in Dickensian England, though the setting is never named.
And yes, of course, it was a musical.
That makes it the third straight musical I've watched this week, and the songs were really good -- even if I only remember one or two now that the viewing has finished. But in a wonderful sign of what Netflix can bring to the cinematic landscape, this is a big budget (or looks big budget anyway) Christmas movie with top notch visual effects (toys that come to life) and a cast that almost exclusively has dark skin. This would never have happened in the Before Times, and though I usually use that phrase to refer to times before the pandemic, in this case, it is times before streaming. Society and streaming have been in lock step with making progress and documenting that progress on film, and the result is Jingle Jangle. (Never mind the two steps back we sometimes seem to get with that one step forward on the progress -- it's Christmas, so we can afford not to think about that for one day.)
I could conventionally praise this film for some time -- Forest Whitaker is great, Keegan-Michael Key makes a moustache-twirling villain, and newcomer child actress Madelen Mills has charisma coming out the wazoo -- is it appropriate to talk about a young girl's wazoo? -- but I don't really want to give you a blow by blow of what's great about Jingle Jangle. What I really want is for you to see it yourself, since some of you may read this before all your Christmas viewings are done and dusted for 2020.
If you need more evidence, I can tell you that my ten-year-old son wanted us to pause the credits so he could tell us this: "That was, by a mile, by far, the greatest and bestest movie I have ever seen." (Some grammatical inaccuracies inserted by me for effect.) Now, he has made this claim about ten different times in 2020, so take it with a grain of salt. But if there was ever any doubt that young white children could be swept up in the magic of a holiday tale told by and starring Black creators, I submit this as Exhibit A providing evidence to the contrary.
I had a second movie in store on Christmas Eve, as I wrapped a last few presents and actually crossed the barrier into Christmas proper. That was The Muppet Christmas Carol, which I had never seen, despite it existing on this earth for 28 years. It wasn't in my head at all, but then someone mentioned it on Facebook, and I remembered that the Muppets were one of the collections they have on Disney+. Sure enough, The Muppet Christmas Carol was there on the service, waiting for me.
This too is -- can you guess what I'm going to say by now? -- a musical.
I suppose most muppet movies have some singing and dancing in them, but that honestly did not occur to me when I selected it to accompany my last present wrapping of the season. And I'll spend a bit less time on this, since most of you would have already discovered it, but this is fun as heck as well. The songs are really good -- "One More Sleep Until Christmas" will certainly stick with me -- and all the usual muppet mayhem is typically delightful. Michael Caine gives a real performance as Scrooge, a character it would appear he was born to play. I also loved Gonzo as Dickens and his sidekick Rizzo, and was there ever a more natural Bob Cratchit than Kermit the Frog?
Just as one quick thought: I had an idea for a funny variation on A Christmas Carol as I was watching. In the scene where Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past go back to look at him at school in his childhood, she (creepy creation here!) tells him that these are only shadows of his past, and they can neither seen nor hear him. Well, what if there were a version of this story where one of the kids looks over and says "What? I can see and hear you just fine." And then "Ahhh! Travellers from the future!" And the whole rest of the story would be about the time travel conundrum that the eight-year-old Scrooge sees the 60-year-old version of himself, and how that turns him into a crazy person, and suddenly the 60-year-old is wearing a straight jacket as he has been in a mental institution for his whole life.
But that's a story for another day.
Today is Christmas, and I wish you a merry one, fully of color, song, and joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment