Double post, but for good reason.
Me, Jordan and Stephanie (newest acquisition to our crew) went and saw Arthur Christmas. Is that not ringing any jingle bells? Let me refresh your memory with its stagnant, deplorable and utterly despicable ad-campaign.
You can stop cringing now. The hill begins going upwards rather drastically.
So first of all, with all due respect to Sony Pictures Animation, Aardman, and that shithead who voices over all of these damnable trailers: Fuck that commercial. It's the most plebian, misleading and generally infuriating thing I've ever seen. Multiplied by several trillion after seeing the movie itself.
I'm cynical about Christmas. I like the time with my Family, gettin' stuff, givin' things, Egg Nog (LOVE me some Egg Nog)...really, the day itself is fine. But the detestable period between November 1st and December 24th is what we can call my 'Grinch Period'. Any ad I see for a toy, a store, a show, and of course, a movie just sends me into a frowntastic little spat of jaded, miserable hatred for Corporate X-Mas. It's disgusting.
But this movie...
This movie...
Changed that. At least for 2 hours. It's a wonderfully put together story that tells us that you can't attribute Christmas to any singular negative or positive, that you can't both love and hate Christmas. All those bullshitty ads? I'm wrong to think they're 'Christmas ads'. It's not an anti-corporate, pro Christmas-luddism epic, a central part of the story is that in this day and age Christmas really can't be without a bit of a crutch from technology, good organization and a delicate sprinkling of massive corporate salesmanship. It's hard to say it's got any message in particular.
What matters is that it was excellently written, had gorgeous 3D animation (Also saw it with 3D glasses, it wasn't in your face but it was there) and had a very likeable cast of Characters, all of whom were inexplicably British. That just added to the charm. Also, Canada! There was an entire scene that took place in Toronto. The SAS elves were neat, but not overwhelming, the whole 'BADASS SPACESHIP CHRISTMAS 4000!' was essentially the opening scene, without which the vast majority of the film wouldn't make sense. It was really great. The only shortcoming was the soundtrack, which wasn't very memorable. It wasn't bad, it was just clear most of the money went into the writing staffs brainholes and the rest went into making the various beards and sweaters seen throughout the film look amazing.
See it with your friends or with some children if you can catch some. Just top notch.
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I see you jockin' me.
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