DailyView: Day 232, Movie 320

One of the most classic Christmas tale is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It has been adapted into countless variations over the years, both live action and animated. This is one of the Disney animated versions of A Christmas Carol starring Mickey Mouse, Scrooge McDuck and other Disney characters.

Ebenezer Scrooge (McDuck) was a covetous old sinner, more concerned with his gold than people. He spent his days counting his money and tormenting his clerk, Bib Cratchit (Mickey Mouse). On Christmas Eve, he was approached by the ghost of his old deceased business partner Jacob Marley (Goofy), who claimed that, if Scrooge did not change his ways, he would spend eternity hauling around heavy chains, just as Marley has to do. Marley told Scrooge that he would be visited by three spirits and that these spirits were the only way to avoid such a fate.

Each spirit (which included Jiminy Cricket, Willie the Giant and Pete) showed Scrooge scenes from the past, present and future, including scenes from the family of Bob Cratchit and his family, which featured his sickly son, Tiny Tim.

These ghostly visits changed Scrooge, making him a caring, loving individual, who embraced all that Christmas had to offer.

This was a nice adaptation. They covered the story effectively despite having to edit out a lot of the story because of the time. Tis could have benefitted from a little longer run time as the 26 minutes felt a little rushed.

Truthfully, being familiar with the story, it is more apparent with what Mickey’s Christmas Carol left out than what it had. There were some classic lines of dialogue that always appear in the adaptations that had been removed from this version that minimize the impact of the tale.

Still, this would be a nice way to introduce the story to a younger audience (although I think the Muppet Christmas Carol would be even more effective). The music was interesting, especially the opening song.

This was fine, but I think a longer, more involved version would allow for more depth of story and character and less of, look who is playing whom.

DailyView: Day 231, Movie 319

There is such a plethora of these National Geographic documentaries on Disney +. I recently enjoyed one on Atlantis and now, I have found one on one of my favorite “mythical” creatures, the Yeti. I have always been fascinated by the story of the Yeti and its North American cousin, the sasquatch, and this doc looked to be intriguing.

The documentary features explorer Gerry Moffatt as he goes on his “hunt” for the yeti. He heads up Mount Everest to search for the evidence of the yeti. They research footprints, hair samples, sightings as well as the famous “yeti scalp” at Khumjung Monastery in Nepal.

Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum appeared in the doc. He is a known bigfoot researcher, with several bigfoot books in his arsenal.

The section of the doc with the Yeti scalp is the most interesting part of the story. Unfortunately, it seemed that the evidence found by Gerry Moffatt was less than convincing.

These docs remind me of the old “In Search Of” series narrated by Leonard Nemoy, which helped spur my own fascination with these unknown creatures. It is where a lot of my own creativity has come from and it is neat to see these docs, even if they do not provide anything too satisfying in the realm of answers.

DailyView: Day 230, Movie 318

One day after announcing the extension of the DailyView for a second time to encompass a full year (365 days), I kicked it off with a Christmas movie that I found on Disney +.

The Christmas Star felt like a made-for-TV movie from the mid-80s, especially with a cast that included Ed Asner, Fred Gwynne and Rene Auberjonois.

Ed Asner played Horace McNickle, a counterfeiter who was serving his time in prison. With just a few months to go on his sentence, McNickle saw a TV program that showed the hiding place where he and his former partner hid their money. Afraid that he was going to lose it all, McNickle organized an escape, dressed as Santa Claus, to whom he had a resemblance to.

McNickle got help from a couple of kids, Billy (Nicolas Van Burek) and Trudy (Vicki Wauchope), who believed he was the real Santa Claus. McNickle played on the kids’ naivety and tried to get them to do his dirty work for him. However, he began to see the charm of the children and his inspiration for his plan waned.

As I mentioned earlier, this felt like a TV movie and the plot fell right into that corner. It is extremely cheesy, filled with ridiculous plot points and some of the strangest, out-of-nowhere bits I have seen. This movie changed tones multiple times, even including a mysterious ghost train that played a big part in the story as if it were a different movie.

The kids involved were not great actors at the time, but they were not meant to be. They were there for the cuteness factor (although, to be fair, Nicolas Van Burek did continue on with a decent career).

Ed Asner, who passed away this year, is always fantastic and his very inclusion in this movie elevated it from the drek that it should have been. Asner is charming as the bad Santa who learns a Christmas lesson from a Christmas miracle. Fred Gwynne’s put down police detective character has a few minutes of funny too.

As a family film, this could be worse. It is far from a classic, but I did not hate watching it. Judging it on a scale of silly Christmas movies, this was pretty good. It’s nothing that I would put up for an award, but as a family film during the holiday season, you could absolutely do worse. That may not be a rave review, but it is about much as I can give it.

DailyView: Day 229, Movie 317

There is a lot of things wrong with The Rite.

Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donaghue) joined the Seminary to get away from his father and his father’s mortuary business, but he was finding a lack of faith or belief in God holding him back. Instead of letting him resign, Father Matthew (Toby Jones) sent Michael to Rome to take a course on learning to be an exorcist. Michael finds his way to one of the most successful exorcist in the world, Father Lucas Trevant (Anthony Hopkins) who is involved in trying to help a young pregnant girl.

There were some interesting moments in the movie. There was some intriguing possibilities with Michaerl and his father (Rutger Hauer), but the exploration of this relationship was inconsistent and underdeveloped.

Colin O’Donaghue, who becomes a star in the TV show Once Upon a Time as Captain Hook, was too laid back the whole film. He did not show any of the charisma he did as Hook. He had a good look, but I just wanted more from the actor.

Anthony Hopkins is always great. He is an amazing performer and gives his best in every movie he appears in.

However, some of the dialogue being tossed around by the “demon” possessing the characters was laughable and, no matter how great an actor you may be, you cannot make some of these lines anything but ridiculous.

Another problem was the film, which had some moments working for it, really came off the tracks heading into the third act. I think the actors in this film deserved much better than what they were given.

DailyView: Day 228, Movie 316

I watched one of the classic Westerns today for the DailyView. It was 1953’s Shane. Shane tells the Western trope of a gunslinger trying to stop living the life and start something new only to have someone or something pull him back into the violence. We have seen it in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven right up to the X-Men’s Logan.

Shane was available to watch on Hulu, and so I played it. I have been familiar with the story of Shane, but I have never actually sat down to view it.

Directed by George Stevens, Shane featured Alan Ladd, Jack Palance, Jean Arthur and Van Heflin.

Mysterious gunfighter Shane (Alan Ladd) arrived in a town where a group of people who have claimed their lands legally, but were being pressured by a vicious land baron Ryker (Emile Ryker) to leave their land. Shane met the Starrett family, Joe (Van Heflin), Marian (Jean Arthur) and their son Joey (Brandon De Wilde) and started to work for them. Unfortunately, Ryker was escalating things as time passed that would force the mysterious past of Shane to come back to the present.

The film does a great job of setting up the conflict and it does an admirable job of creating the antagonists as well as the protagonists.. Ryker is the clear villain, but he is anything but a mustache-twirling stereotype. In fact, he is shown as a person who wants to compromise with Joe and Shane. Of course, he is compromising from a position of privilege, and he takes measures that are anything but cooperative.

One of those measures is hiring Jack Wilson (Jack Palance) as a potential hitman, pointing him in the direction of people who would not agree to his terms. Wilson was notorious and extremely quick on the draw.

The ending was tense and exciting. Shane showed many of the tropes of the Western and became an inspiration for many of the Westerns that come after it.

DailyView: Day 228, Movie 315

I am not very familiar with the catalogue of performances from Roy Scheider, outside of Jaws and Jaws II of course. When I came across this film with Scheider and Meryl Streep on Amazon Prime, I was interested and the synopsis tripped some buttons for me.

Scheider played psychiatrist Sam Rice, who had a patient named George Bynum (Josef Sommer) who was murdered. George was stabbed to death and the police wanted to know if George had told Sam anything of importance.

However, before the police arrived, a woman named Brooke Reynolds (Meryl Streep) came to see Sam with a watch that belonged to George. She admitted to having an affair with him and wanted Sam to return the watch to George’s wife so she did not have to suffer more than she already was.

Sam became infatuated with Brooke and he was intrigued with trying to find out if she was actually involved in the murder.

This was an okay film, but I did not love it. It felt fairly pedestrian. We spend a chunk of time at an art auction that seemed to try and build some tension, and it was a long and dull stretch of time.

Scheider and Streep were good here, as was Jessica Tandy, who had a small role as Sam’s mother. Joe Grifasi played a police detective that was interesting, but he did not have much to do.

The biggest issue is the mystery. The police kept indicating that the killer was a woman. Because of that, we have Meryl Streep’s Brooke and one other main female character in the movie. This means that either it was Meryl or it was this other woman. Not much of a mystery, especially since they spent most of the film making it look as if it were Meryl.

Still of the Night, which is a nondescript title, is not a terrible film, but there is little about it that really stands out. This is the type of movie that will not stick with me for long.

DailyView: Day 227, Movie 314

Jeffrey Dean Morgan has had several big roles over the last few years, but few lead roles in movies. So when I found The Postcard Killings on Hulu, I was interested. It was a serial killer story which I have always liked too.

Morgan played police detective Jacob Kanon, the father of a daughter who was murdered, along with her husband, on her honeymoon in Europe. Jacob went to find the murderer, realizing that his daughter had become a victim of a serial killer.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan is extremely likable and you can feel his pain during this story. We have seen the vengeful father trope before, but with Morgan, the film avoids the clichés of this character because of his acting and general presence.

After Morgan, much of the film is unremarkable, but watchable. There is nothing new and exciting in The Postcard Killings, but the familiar was okay.

Famke Jansson played Jacob’s ex-wife, Valerie, who has little to do. She has a scene with the father of the killer that is interesting, but doesn’t go far enough.

The final scene, however, is quite a cop out and feels like a poor horror film desperate to continue a franchise than a conclusion to the story.

DailyView: Day 226, Movie 313

This weekend sees the release of Steven Spielberg’s remake of the classic West Side Story so I thought that it would be appropriate to watch another musical set in New York for the DailyView. Who would’ve believed that a musical about the 1899 newsies strike would be made by Disney. Heading over to Disney +, I pulled up Newsies, the 1992 musical.

I was shocked when I saw a young Christian Bale as Jack Kelly, the main character of the musical. I did not know he was involved in the film. There were other faces that were familiar in the film such as Bill Pullman as newspaper writer Bryan Denton, Robert Duvall as Joseph Pulitzer, Anne Margret as Medda, David Moscow as David, Max Casella as Racetrack, and Luke Edwards as Les.

Of course, the most important part of any musical is the music and one of the great musical composers, EYG Hall of Famer, Alan Menken, but, in Newsies, the songs were a mixed bag. I think the biggest issue with some of the songs were the fact that the actors who were singing them were not necessarily the best singers ever.

Robert Duvall as the antagonist of the film was so over the top with his character that he was a distraction from the rest of the cast. I am not sure the character choices made here, but they did not work.

The dance choreography was decent and the kids did a decent job with it.

The ending was anticlimactic to me and failed to put a real bow on the story that was being told. Still, some of the young actors were charming and Christian Bale showed that he was going to be a star as he carried Newsies on his back.

While the movie was lackluster at best, the stage musical that was inspired by it actually turned out to be a Tony winner, including Best Musical. That goes to show that it may not have been the material that was the failure in the film.

The movie Newsies had its moments, but a lot of the story was hard to believe and the people in the cast who should not have been singing always seemed to be singing. The film was a little long, but was not without its positives. We’ll see how it compares to West Side Story.