Hot Frosty (11.22.24)

 

The only thing that is more annoying to me than Christmas encroaching more and more on Thanksgiving's territory each year is people complaining about Christmas encroaching more and more on Thanksgiving's territory each year. With that in mind I thought I’d give in and watch a new Christmas movie… in November. I saw that Craig Robinson was in a new one called Hot Frosty, and hey, the guy who played Alexis's boyfriend in Schitt’s Creek is in it too! Neat. How bad could it be?

Hot Frosty is pretty bad! But you might be into that for all I know?

The gimmick of Hot Frosty is fun enough on the surface. Christmas movie veteran Lacey Chabert plays a widowed lady who brings a snowman to life with a magical scarf, but unlike the many times this has happened before in fiction (and hopefully just in fiction) the snowman is hot. It’s allegedly supposed to be one of those cute fish-out-of-water romcoms where a hardened realist has her heart melted by a naïve newcomer that teaches her to love again, but the love story is bland and the stabs at comedy frequently made me want to hide my face in vicarious shame and embarrassment.

Jack (the snowman played by Dustin Milligan of Schitt’s Creek who might be hot if his hair wasn’t distractingly bad) is no Olaf or Buddy the Elf. What he knows and doesn’t know as someone who essentially just popped into existence isn’t consistent, nor are his moments of ignorance amusing. And just like with Buddy the whole “I’m an innocent baby man-child who falls in love with a grown person” thing is a bit disturbing in its implications, especially when he is getting oggled at by the elderly.

Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truglio (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) seem to have a little bit of fun in their roles as the local cops, but even they can’t make most of the moments work. As for Lacey Chabert, well… as stated earlier, a quick IMDb search told me that she has been involved in a lot of Christmas movies, and I can’t imagine that her roles in those were in any way different than the character she played here. That being said she did fine.

I did chuckle a couple of times, truth be told. There was a reference to Mean Girls (which Chabert starred in back in the day) that was pretty good. And the movie is short. That’s… that’s pretty much it for the good parts of Hot Frosty. Other than that the film doesn’t rise above the most mediocre of your typical Hallmark-esque holiday fare, cast aside. If you need to know how bored I was, just know that this was the first review I actually finished writing while still actually watching the film. That’s not a great recommendation, is it?

But hey, it’s still plenty early in the season, and Hot Frosty didn’t kill my pet or anything. If you’re a connoisseur of cheesy Christmas movies you might not hate it. As my mom said when we were done, “It was a perfectly adequate bad Christmas movie.”

Hot Frosty is now available on Netflix.

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on November 22^nd, 2024. Visit at www.keizertimes.com

 

My Old Ass (11.15.24)

 

Everyone wants to be able to tell their younger self something, if only to convince themselves to trust Rufus and get into the mysterious time-traveling phone booth at the Circle-K. Potentially universe-destroying paradoxes aside, it could be quite useful. One could change the world, gain riches beyond their wildest dreams, or at the very least get a good grade on their history report. My Old Ass is of similar scope to the latter situation, and the small story contained therein feels universal because of it, not to mention heartwarming, sad, and, most ironically of all, timeless.

Maisy Stella plays Elliott, an eighteen-year-old who is eager to leave home and move on to the next phase of her life, but not before she does mushrooms in the forest with her friends and somehow meets her thirty-nine-year-old self played by Aubrey Plaza. The two (one?) do what anyone else would in this situation—they freak out, reminisce, maybe kiss a little, and ultimately do their best to exploit the situation in order to create a more perfect life for themselves in the future. Most of the advice that Old Elliott gives Young Elliott is predicable and just common sense; hang out with your family more, don’t waste a moment of life, and, most importantly, stay away from guys named Chad. 

But these are lessons that every teenager should learn, and the growth that Elliott experiences is poignant, sweet, and feels applicable to everyone regardless of their situation. This emotional journey takes up the vast majority of the film, but the simplicity and straightforwardness of the story (which was aptly penned by Megan Park, who also directed) is an asset to the film in this case, as is the limited cast and beautiful settings.

Maisy Stella does a great job as our main character, someone who is young, naïve, yet fully three-dimensional. And Aubrey Plaza (who, regrettably, isn’t in it much but I guess is still technically the main character because she’s also Elliott?) shines by giving us just a hint of that classic April Ludgate sass but by also showing off a slightly more dramatic side that I have never seen her exhibit before. They make for quite the enjoyable duo, even if they don’t really look that much like each other and even if their actual shared screen time is limited. Embedded in the story of Elliott becoming a more present and appreciative person is a love story between Young Elliott and the aforementioned Chad (Percy Hynes White), and it is also very simple while also being satisfying and sweet.

We never learn why these time-traveling shenanigans happen or what the mechanics are, but My Old Ass is not the type of movie where this matters. The time-traveling via hallucinogenic mushrooms premise is more of an excuse to explore a classic coming-of-age tale that pulls some heart strings, elicits a few laughs, and leaves a glowing impression. What would I tell my younger self? Probably to see this film a little sooner than I did.

My Old Ass is now available on Amazon Prime.

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on November 15^th, 2024. Visit at www.keizertimes.com

Music By John Williams (11.08.24)

 

No composer has done as much for modern pop culture than John Williams. Go ahead and hum the first movie theme that comes to mind—there’s a pretty good chance that John Williams wrote it. Yet despite his omnipresence in some of my favorite films and franchises I did not know much about the man himself, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this. After watching Music By John Williams I still feel that way, as the documentary is really more of a celebration of the music and career of the composer rather than a deep dive into who he is as a person, but that might just be enough—as Williams himself says, there is a little bit of him in everything he writes.

Music By does go through some touchstones of Williams’ life—his birth, education, the tragic death of his first wife, etc. But once it starts focusing on his career and its impact it rarely touches on anything else. This telling is roughly linear, starting with Williams’ early days as an ensemble jazz pianist to his first composing gigs to his years of universal recognition as the guy who wrote the Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones soundtracks. Near the end of the runtime things do get a bit more scattershot, bouncing from Harry Potter to Jurassic Park to his various non-movie compositions as if dutifully crossing things off of a list as to not irritate any fans of a particular work by omitting their favorite. This makes for a rather rushed and awkward ending that could have used some more tweaking and streamlining.

There are some insights that I quite enjoyed in Music By, especially Williams’ explanation of the psychology behind the famous five-note refrain from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as the more general importance of character themes and leitmotifs. Keep in mind that while I greatly enjoy and appreciate music I am by no means any expert, so the fact that I understood the occasional intricacies discussed by Williams and the rest of the talking heads speaks to their ability to dumb things down for laymen like myself without making us feel like idiots.

Ironically it is the music itself that makes this film exceptional. Is it even possible to create a bad documentary when you're using John Williams’ music? Isn't it kind of cheating? Music By John Williams could have consisted of a two-hour shot of a monkey scratching itself or grass growing, because as long as Williams’ soundtracks are in there, it really couldn’t fail.

Even so, the filmmakers went the extra mile to make Music By visually interesting, mildly enlightening, and highly entertaining. I may not know the man behind the music much better than I did before, but if he is to be believed his personality and story were behind the notes all along, subtly zipping through our zeitgeist like a potato-faced Extra Terrestrial or a handsome Kryptonian. He will live for as long as we hum his songs, which will probably be forever.

Music By John Williams is now available on Disney+.

 

This review was first published in the Keizertimes on November 8^th, 2024. Visit at www.keizertimes.com