{"id":26358,"date":"2018-11-25T00:35:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T07:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=26358"},"modified":"2018-11-25T00:48:16","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T07:48:16","slug":"the-christmas-chronicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/the-christmas-chronicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurt Russell and the Ultimate Santasy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThere\u2019s a new Santa<\/a> in town. Everyone is talking about him.<\/p>\n

Over Thanksgiving<\/a> weekend Netflix debuted their new Santa-driven Christmas<\/a> film they dub, probably because they will make this a regular holiday thing, The Christmas<\/a> Chronicles<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In others words, it\u2019s a story \u2013 a Christmas<\/a> tale. This one is a Santa<\/a> story \u2013 a fantastical, magical story as most Santa<\/a> stories are. It is a Santasy.<\/p>\n

Suiting up for Santa<\/a> this time is Kurt Russell. The previews for weeks have raised the eyebrows of men and set a-tingle the hearts of women. The Christmas<\/a> Chronicles<\/em> with this casting suddenly made this must-see family viewing.<\/p>\n

My friends and family, upon seeing the trailers, immediately asked me my opinion. They know very well my almost-sacred reverence for the Big Guy.<\/p>\n

The trailers make this Santa<\/a> out to be anything but reverent.<\/p>\n

Those who know me smelled an epic rant about to pour forth on these pages. After all, I\u2019m the guy who dissed Jim Carrey as The Grinch<\/em> and Will Farrell as Buddy-the-Elf<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Chill. I like Wyatt Earp as Santa<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Netflix reached down deep into Santa\u2019s bag to touch many nerves on this one for me. Kurt Russell was just the first of many right decisions.<\/p>\n

But viewer beware: there is some formulaic Christmas<\/a> slop you have to wade through in The Christmas<\/a> Chronicles<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For weddings they say \u201csomething old, something new, something borrowed and something blue\u201d. The Christmas<\/a> Chronicles kind of sticks to that script.<\/p>\n

As most Santa<\/a> stories go there is the obligatory broken family plot line to first endure before you get to the good stuff. There\u2019s a single working Mom dealing with two kids who are facing their first Christmas<\/a> without Dad, who died saving others in a fire.<\/p>\n

Little sister, age 11, and Big Brother, age 17, are in perpetual sibling conflict. One of their many squabbles is the existence of Santa<\/a> Claus.<\/p>\n

Left home alone on Christmas<\/a> Eve (Mom has to work), after discovering a sliver of evidence of Santa<\/a> from an old family Christmas<\/a> video, the two feuding siblings come together to trap Santa<\/a> and catch him on video this Christmas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They succeed wildly, almost too easily, and this of course leads them to Santa<\/a>, his sleigh, the reindeer, the elves, the North Pole<\/a> and everything magic about it all.<\/p>\n

Best of all, Santa<\/a> turns out to be thoroughly charming.<\/p>\n

You see, Santa<\/a> isn\u2019t the jolly fat man Coke made him out to be. In fact, Santa\u2019s a bit sensitive about that. He doesn\u2019t care for how his image has been crafted and he doesn\u2019t say \u201cHo, ho, ho!\u201d.<\/p>\n

He works out at the gym, he sings the blues and he still somehow gets those dimples to flash from beneath his feathery beard.<\/p>\n

This ain\u2019t your Daddy\u2019s Santa<\/a> Claus.<\/p>\n

Kurt Russell\u2019s Santa<\/a> is thoroughly modern. He\u2019s tech savvy, has great vision. He still winks and has the twinkle in his eye. He wears his red coat long, giving him a jolly Wyatt Earp kind of vibe, and he\u2019s robustly physical.<\/p>\n

But this Santa<\/a> is still magically traditional. He pulls out all the stops to make Christmas<\/a> magic with every person he encounters on this adventure. He knows the end from the beginning every time.<\/p>\n

But there are worrisome details that many have fretted over before the film was released.<\/p>\n

The plot elements of Santa<\/a> getting into a scrape with Chicago police, getting thrown in jail and stealing a car did not escape the critical eye of some professional Santas<\/a> <\/strong>in that community. There was some Santa<\/a> smack going on over these things.<\/p>\n

But context is everything. Any time you mix Santa<\/a> with a plot line you\u2019ve got to make room for magic. It\u2019s his great escape. And it generally works.<\/p>\n

In this tale Santa<\/a> is willing to bend a little: he\u2019ll take that car since it was stolen before he got into it. After all, he\u2019s Santa<\/a>. He\u2019ll just return it to them better than new when he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s in jail \u2013 because the cops aren\u2019t buying the whole grand theft auto thing \u2013 he turns a collection of drug addicts and street walkers into a blues band and does his best Elvis.<\/p>\n

This Santa<\/a> is amazingly diverse.<\/p>\n

When he busts out of jail he, as Santa<\/a> is wont to do, admonishes his fellow cellmates to be good. They shrug. Santa<\/a> knows how it all works and he works with it. There is plenty of reality in this fantasy.<\/p>\n

Now, The Christmas<\/a> Chronicles<\/em> are not all sugar plums and eggnog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a Netflix feature, which is a thoroughly modern term for \u201cmade for television\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some of the production values and special effects were lame. Maybe it\u2019s just my TV but some scenes felt more like video than film.<\/p>\n

The time warp stuff, the bottomless Santa<\/a> sack, and the reindeer in flight were all missing something in terms of true Hollywood special effects. \u00a0They gave the film a kind-of Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs<\/em> quality at times.<\/p>\n

At one point, Santa<\/a> turns to one of the kids and says, \u201cHey, I\u2019m just Santa<\/a>, not Yoda\u201d. That irony isn\u2019t lost on the viewer.<\/p>\n

There is also a real tendency for d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu with this movie too.<\/p>\n

The kids lay an ingenious trap by creating a houseful of horrors including a strung line intended to trip the intruder. Check: saw that in Home Alone<\/em>. Santa<\/a> gets captured by the cops and interrogated. Check: saw that in The Santa<\/a> Claus<\/em>.They borrow aplenty from the Ghost of Santa<\/a> past from Hollywood.<\/p>\n

There is also the weird little gremlin like elves in this film \u2013 an element that just didn\u2019t work for me. The magic in any movie about Santa<\/a> is answering questions, not creating new ones. This film leaves you scratching your head in the elf<\/a> department.<\/p>\n

None of that really matters though. I watched and it struck me almost immediately this movie has the same re-watchable quality that sends people back to Elf<\/a><\/em> every Christmas<\/a> season.<\/p>\n

Great lines, a feel good story, and a total escape from reality for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n

Having seen many reviews of the previews I was curious what the \u201cofficial reviews\u201d now say about The Christmas<\/a> Chronicles<\/em>. It is an interesting thing to Google:<\/p>\n

RogerEgbert.com? Hates it<\/strong>.<\/a><\/p>\n

Variety? Hates it<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rotten Tomatoes? Hates it<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are all the same people who last year said The Man Who Invented Christmas<\/a><\/em> was good. Hmm, curious. They like re-written history but can’t deal with Santasy. How curious indeed.<\/p>\n

In my book, comparing the lameness of The Man Who Invented Christmas<\/a><\/em> to this made-for-Netflix Santasy, it\u2019s not hard to see what is wrong with Hollywood, its reviewers and just why it is so hard to see a good Christmas<\/a> movie ever coming out again.<\/p>\n

True Christmas<\/a> fans, like true Santa<\/a> believers, get it when it comes to The Christmas<\/a> Chronicles<\/em>. In the end, it is us, the fans of Christmas<\/a>, to decide what is a classic Christmas<\/a> movie, or TV show, or Netflix special or whatever.<\/p>\n

This Santa<\/a> will be around for a long time to come.<\/p>\n

He may, in fact, someday make the Santa<\/a> Hall of Fame, joining the likes of Edmund Gwynn, Mickey Rooney, Tim Allen and others who have donned the Red Suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a new Santa in town. Everyone is talking about him. Over Thanksgiving weekend Netflix debuted their new Santa-driven Christmas film they dub, probably because they will make this a regular holiday thing, The Christmas Chronicles. In others words, it\u2019s a story \u2013 a Christmas tale. This one is a Santa story \u2013 a fantastical, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":70,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-movies","category-christmas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}