Allow 366 Weird Movies to toast you with a seasonal treat: a tall, frosty glass of reindeer urine!
Have a merry (and very weird) Christmas!
Tag Archives: Christmas
2012 ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS MOVIE LIST
It’s that time of year again to present something a tad different for the stocking. I am going to start off with four titles recommended by Todd M. Coe. Then, beginning at number five, a list of silent-era Christmas films. These may not have been weird in their day, but are rendered so now because of their archaic texture (and that is the beauty of cinema in it infancy stage—these films now seem something from another world altogether).
1. Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny (1972): I am with Todd on this one: this is naive surrealism on suicide watch. And yes, it’s that much of a hoot! St. Nick (Jay Ripley) must have swallowed some of Winter Warlock’s reindeer corn himself. Only thing is, it has the opposite effect on immortal toymakers. His sleigh gets stuck in a mound of Florida sand. The toy-licking, blue clad “Kids” belt out a song that makes Leonard Nimoy’s golden throat sound like Jose Carreras. The Kids do what anyone would do in such a circumstance, and get the help of a gorilla! The oversized Curious George is of no help, so the Kids then try out a bunch of other animals. Santa gets peeved, tells then the story of Thumbelina (a previous film by the same producers) before the Ice Cream Bunny (!) comes to save the day. Well, sort of. Actually, there’s something lascivious going on between the Creepy Clause and our cool-toned hare. I half expected a Bugs Bunny drag scene, but alas, no.
2. Rich Little’s A Christmas Carol (1978): Nearly (not quite) the Christmas equivalent of Paul Lynde’s Halloween Special (alas, it doesn’t have Kiss, Mrs. Brady, or Pinky Tuscadero). Rich plays all the characters, doing his trademark impressions including Paul Lynde as Bob Cratchet, W.C. Fields as Scrooge, Johnny Carson as Nephew Fred, Jean Stapleton’s Edith Bunker as Mrs. Hatchet, Truman Capote as Tiny Tim (sheer genius), Richard Nixon as Jacob Marley and, in supporting roles, George Burns, Groucho Marx, John Wayne, Jack Benny, James Mason and Dean Martin. It’s highly inventive in Rich’s inimitable way, even for an oft-told tale.
3. A Cosmic Christmas (1977): A bizarre product of its time, this animated Canadian short came right on heels of the initial Star Wars (1977) hysteria. Imagine George Lucas’ iconic cantina scene mixed with the Peanuts’ Linus’ explanation of the holiday’s true meaning, thrown in with the ViewMaster version of St. Luke’s yuletide tale, all in outer space with a kid named Peter standing in for the Little Drummer Boy. Oh, and there is a goose named Lucy too. Yep, that sums it up.
4. Christmas Evil (1980):Todd, I am sure Ally and Zoom know (with this suggestion) that you have moved out of the 1970s, into 1980! Shocking! I promise that I will do my utmost to block this information from Santa’s crystal ball, so as not to send the old boy into a panic. Alas, 366 Weird Movies has again beat us to the punch in covering this title. So, we will just have to refer back to that link.
5. A Christmas Carol (1901): Scrooge or Marley’s Ghost was the original title for this first cinematic (British) version of Charles Dickens’ story Continue reading 2012 ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS MOVIE LIST
CAPSULE: SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY (1972)
Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny was promoted onto the List of the 366 Weirdest Movies of all Time. Please make all comments on the official Certified Weird entry.
DIRECTED BY: R. Winer, Barry Mahon (Thumbelina)
FEATURING: Jay Ripley, Shay Garner
PLOT: Santa’s sleigh is stuck in the Florida sand, so he shows the assembled kids a movie until help arrives in the form of a giant rabbit-man in a fire truck.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is weird enough to make the List, but the fact that it can only be endured by injecting Novocaine directly into the part of the brain responsible for processing continuity would make Certifying this movie a public health risk.
COMMENTS: When someone like me, who’s watched They Saved Hitler’s Brain multiple times—voluntarily, not as part of a CIA experiment in breaking interrogee’s wills—tells you that Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is quite possibly the worst movie they’ve ever seen, you should take notice. First off, there’s the paradoxical fact that Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny is hardly Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny at all. It’s actually much more Thumbelina. Or, maybe it’s primarily an advertisement for a sad-sack, pre-Disneyland southern Florida bemusement park called Pirates [sic] World. If you’re confused, and not concerned with the prospect of having Ice Cream Bunny‘s plot spoiled, then read on.
The movie begins with what looks like home-movie footage of Santa’s sleigh stuck in the sand on a Florida beach. The tone-deaf Kris Kringle sings a plaintive (dubbed) tune of lament, then falls asleep, then psychically summons the neighborhood children to help him. (This sequence of events suggests that the entire movie may be St. Nick’s heat-stroke influenced nightmare). At any rate, the children flock to his aid, bringing livestock (?) and a man in a gorilla suit (??) to attempt to dislodge the sleigh out of the half-inch of sand it’s buried in (why did the kids think a pig would succeed where eight magical reindeer had failed?) When this brain-dead plan predictably bears no fruit, Santa decides to tell everyone a story—a story of eternal hope, a story about a magical place called Pirates World.
Actually, the story is the fairy tale “Thumbelina.” But we can’t simply jump into it. That would Continue reading CAPSULE: SANTA AND THE ICE CREAM BUNNY (1972)
SATURDAY SHORT: KASIO KRISTMAS (2008)
“Kasio Kristmas” features a man in a Conehead mask frantically dancing to a series of Christmas tracks recorded entirely using Casio instruments. Enjoy.
For songs, loops, and merchandise visit KasioKristmas.com.
CLAUS GUTH: HUMANIZING MESSIAH (2010)
There are endlessly fascinating artistic directors working in the art of opera. Then, there are great artists. Claus Guth is a great artist. In his 2009 staging of Handel’s “Messiah,” Guth calls to mind the Protestant theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who believed that the Church had become inadequate in speaking about God. Bonhoeffer was embarrassed by the Church’s failure to convey the shocking, liberating, revolutionary power of the divine ideal. To attain that, Bonhoeffer once symbolically suggested a one hundred year moratorium on the name (and word) God. Perhaps then, the name and word could be attained.
Guth’s “Messiah” inhabits Bonhoeffer’s realm with a strikingly prophetic voice. We are, unwittingly or not, starved for such a challenging and provocative voice. Guth’s productions have never been less than impressive. Fortunately, many of these have been filmed and are available on DVD: Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (2006), the Mozart/Czernowin Zaide (2006), Richard Strauss’ Ariadne Auf Naxos (2006), Franz Schubert’s Fierrabras (2007), Mozart’s Don Giovanni (2008) and 2011’s Cosi fan tutti (Guth’s most uneven production and an odd fit in his Da Ponte trilogy ). From Guth’s body of work on film, it is clear why he is such an in-demand artist.
Still, I was not prepared for his version of Handel’s perennial favorite, Messiah (2010). Guth’s staging has been called agnostic, and that might be an apt description according to the traditional meaning (as opposed to contemporary interpretation) of the word. Simultaneously, this may also be the most “Christian” filmed religious narrative since Michael Tolkin’s The Rapture (1991). Guth’s Messiah makes an overly familiar yuletide narrative startling again. This production was staged for the 250th anniversary of George Frideric Handel’s death. I believe Handel would have approved.
The history of the composition is well known. Handel was in ill health, destitute, and on the verge on being sent to debtor’s prison when he received a commission from librettist Charles Jennens to write an oratorio on Christ’ Nativity, Passion, Resurrection and Ascension. The libretto was a pastiche, borrowing from the Bible and the Book of Common Prayers. Handel composed it within three weeks and insisted on its being performed in secular Continue reading CLAUS GUTH: HUMANIZING MESSIAH (2010)