I have found a movie worthy of being up there on the Christmas DVD shelf with the likes of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Finland has exported a gem!
"Rare Exports" is a movie about, well...
A film for those who think
In the depths of the Korvatunturi mountains, 486 metres deep, lies the closest ever guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up!
they don't believe in Santa Claus anymore
It plumbs the depths of Santa myths, and gives us great Christmas Horror tale. I shall not speak more of it, for I don't want you to spoil a single scene. I want you to trust your Aardvark on this one. SEE THIS FILM! From the first scene, it feels completely different than American cinema, less plastic-ey.
The subtitles (yes, one of those...) are very readable and well-timed. The dialogue is a tad...spicy at times, but you heard it all in high school anyway. And you will come away with an unaccountable yearning for gingerbread....
TRUST YOUR AARDVARK!
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Now, my disdain for Syfy channel knows few bounds, but last night they hit three out of the park! (reel it in, Aardvark...one out of the park, and two runs.) Eureka's Christmas special ("Do You See What I See?") was worthy of the classic Christmas specials of yore...because of a malfunctioning McGuffin, the entire town became...animated. Their uber-photon thingie rewrites reality and the whole cast and environs cycle through animation styles from Looney Toons to "Rudolph" to Disney (sorta) to the Peanuts Christmas, to an anime finale. It works. The animation as excellent, the writing and voice work are crisp, (Jim Parsons voices the Sheriff's Jeep, Carl.) I don't care how you see it. (cought*rrentcough), just buy it when it is available!
again...
TRUST YOUR AARDVARK!
I mean, come on...it's got snow ninjas! Made of snow !!
The Haven and Warehouse 13 (A "Wonderful Life" homage) Christmas eps were quite good as well, But Eureka stole the evening.
9 comments:
I'll think about Rare Exports. As for the rest, I became so disgusted with cable tv that I turned it off. I simply hate having to skip through politically correctness and false science everywhere and always, never really having a good place to land. No more television, no more commercials, no more absolute (and wrong) political correctness, no more liberalism, overt freakish sexuality, and the rest of Hollywood's corruption. Yeah, that was my Christmas present to myself AND I made money on it.
They even begged me to keep it, and offered a basic package for $5 or $10 (instead of the $80 they had somehow been charging me). I loved watching her sweat it, the woman I was dealing with at the cable company. I almost think they are punished any time someone dumps the number one propaganda tool. *grins*
Rare Exports is definitely a film I need to keep an eye out open for.
As for the SyFy Channel, it still gets coal in its stocking. It's the Hallmark Channel of SF (or is the Hallmark Channel the SyFy Channel of family films?).
Doom: The cable chick being punished made me think of the little Camazotz boy in the box being conditioned to bounce the ball in time with the light, and screaming when he broke rhythm. And I smiled.
Michael: Yes. I know. We are on the same parapet brandishing broken bourbon bottles on this. I was just so incredibly surprised at how well they did the whole Christmas special thing. Canada is closer to the North Pole than we, so I guess some Christmas magic rubbed off.
The rest of Canadian input into Syfy is drek. And Hallmark.
Remember when "Hallmark" meant National Geographic Special-level entertainment productions? Now it's Lifetime with a moral. We are killing off cable in Jan. If we want to see something, we can catch it online. I read people fussing about Netflix raising rates, but it is still much cheaper than cable.
Yes, I am old enough to remember when "Hallmark Television Specials" meant exquisite performances by ballet companies, excellent stage dramas and all sorts of cultural wonders I wish I had appreciated more. Now they're just recycling the same five or six plots over and over again, only with different performers (e.g. broken family finds new meaning when . . . insert odd incident or near-death accident, etc.).
Does anyone remember "Amahl & The Night Visitors"? Does anyone remember the last time it was shown on television?
Amahl and the Night Visitors!!!!!!
I remember it well. It has been decades since it was shown. May be the mid-Sixties. It was the inaugural broadcast for Hallmark!
I don't know if you have scruples re: (apparently) abandoned public domain downloading, but here is a link that I found of the 1951 showing.
I am assuming that it is not, in fact, lemming porn.
http://tinyurl.com/72s8uar
Also, cheap amazing vintage TV and OTR stuff. The web catalog is an education, alone!
http://www.mediaoutlet.com
Thanks for the URL! I'm saving it for when I get money.
In regards to scruples, I have sort of a sliding scale. If a cable network is making a sincere attempt to run quality material (e.g. Tuner Classic Movies) then I treat it with respect. But with channels such as SyFy, The Hallmark Channel, Ion, etc. the gloves come off.
Well, enjoy Amahl!
In regards to scruples, I have sort of a sliding scale...
Way too funny. Just had to let you know. I will be chuckling about this for days, maybe a week, after that whenever I remember. And, yeah, I get it.
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