#1 - 31 NORTH 62 EAST
Stars - John Rhys-Davies, Marina Sirtis, Craig Fairbrass, Heather Peace
Director - Tristan Loraine
Memorable Quote - 'Okay, let's nail these bastards.'
Review - Set in an alternate reality where John Prescott seems to be Prime Minister, this film was quite clearly filmed on a tighter budget than its director would have like - though it's difficult to see where anyone was able to sink the $3 million that were apparently wasted on it. The shooting style is primitive, the acting is poor at best, and the most extensive effects involve a fan and some miniature flags that are not as long as you are supposed to believe. The entire thing seems to be a car advert, since those are the only things that we actually see clearly in almost every scene: at one point the Prime Minister is talking to someone from Eastenders and the only thing in focus is a telephone on his desk. The lighting is so badly done that some scenes are tinted orange, whilst others are coated in totally inappropriate and amateurish shadows. Many of the scenes also fade into a tacky black screen before we experience a timeskip, possibly the clumsiest use of this technique that I have ever seen - and I've been watching Australian soaps for all of my twenty years, for Christ's sake. I can see that there was some political motivation, but this was lost in the ridiculously melodramatic script and, of course, the cop-out of using false events and made-up characters. The soundtrack does not survive either, descending into absurdity about halfway in, as we are suddenly introduced to brash, over-loud, over-cheesy American rubbish blared out over a supposedly touching graveyard scene, simply because it contains a vague line about a sister. TACKY. The casting was confusing, given that two characters were played by the same person, and the entirety of the ending was a completely unnecessary twist. Seriously, one of the first rules of a story, whether it is a novel or a play or a film, is that tragedy only works if the character stays dead. Since she was alive all along I don't care any more, and I find her quite merciless given that she was willing to go torture someone innocent and let the entire population of the UK see that you're able to get results by doing that, given what she had gone through. A valiant effort, I suppose, but really not worth the waste of two hours or so of your life. 1/5
#2 - One Magic Christmas
Stars - Harry Dean Stanton, Mary Steenburgen, Elisabeth Harnois
Director - Phillip Borsos
Memorable Quote - 'Well, uh, I'm an angel. A Christmas angel.'
Review - I don't mean to be the Christmas grinch or anything, but I really don't understand what is wrong with the people who run television in this country. First they cancel Kingdom, and now this! Who on earth would put this on television? It's one of the creepiest and worst things I have seen in quite some time. No surprise, then, that it was released slap bang in the middle of the eighties, that renowned era of classy movies. This one is basically about a little girl who talks to a stranger on the street, a creepy man in an overcoat who claims to be an angel called Gideon. Being naive and having not been warned against such gentlemen, she believes him, and later allows him to sit in her bedroom and such things. Hey kids, this movie says, if a man approaches you in the street, don't worry! He's a Christmas angel! If you do everything he asks you to then your Daddy won't die! Um, yeah. Moral questionability aside, it isn't even a good or logical plot - this so-called Christmas angel allows a hell of a lot of horrible things to happen to the mother so that she will damn well learn to appreciate Christmas, damn her. She's so scared by it all she ends up spending $50 on a cooker that she doesn't need, even though her family are about to be evicted from their home. I can't actually believe I sat there and watched this whole thing. 1/5
#3 - The Gruffalo
Stars - Robbie Coltrane, Helena Bonham Carter, James Corden, Rob Brydon, John Hurt
Director - Max Lang, Jakob Schuh
Memorable Quote - 'A gruffalo? What's a gruffalo?'
Review - Chucking this one in here for a bit of relief, since I think this post needs it. Needless to say, being over the age of ten, I did not think I was ever going to watch this, but Christmas TV being what it is I ended up doing so. I usually hate James Corden as well, so when the mouse opened his mouth it nearly ruined the whole thing for me. Sticking with it though, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Of course you enjoy in a fond sort of way, as an adult looking at a child's story, but that doesn't necessarily devalue it at all. The graphics are all very cute and enchanting, the characters are played perfectly by a high-flying cast and the story itself is, of course, magical. So, much much better than both of the movies above, even if it is only a fraction of their length. Something to show to kids everywhere, who will no doubt fall in love with this plucky mouse and his skill at outwitting such a fearsome beast. 4/5
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