Santa Claws JBTF10...
Estimated Read-Time = 56.1 minutes
JBTF10? Not Worth Watching.
Review synopsis: Julia’s the Grinch, right? Or maybe Orange Cat’s the Grinch? Nathan is not the Grinch. Maybe he’s that dog that gets the giant antler tied to his head...
No, I don’t think so. Merely acting like a jerk does not a Grinch make. I can’t recall the original story. And I don’t think we’ve been #blessed with a Grinch prequel yet. But part of what made the Grinch the Grinch was that he was basically an asshole force of nature. His very being was Grinch.
There was no “fall” from grace, followed by a redemption. Which is why it’s such an unconventional bit of storytelling. I was going to say Richard Donner’s Scrooged, in turn, is a riff/re-make of the classic Christmas Carol, featuring a main character who begins the story as complete evil, only to be redeemed. But even Scrooge/Bill Murray are shown, at some point, to have been happy and good at one point in their lives. Which is what Santa Claws tries to do more directly in its first 10.
Sort of, because young Julia is presented as a somewhat secondary character to Santa, and Rigby, and pre-fondle Nathan, and other cat, and CD record… Which is why (sigh) 30 years later, it feels odd to have the movie so completely anchored on Julia and the bankruptcy that is her Christmas spirit. Even though she’s one of two people, arguably in the world in this world, that knows for a fact Santa is real. Yes, there are many odd choices made here in the beginning of Santa Claws. Some of them slightly terrifying. At least one…
...challenging. But, where the oddities of The Grinch are more visceral, stemming from the intent of its creators, the weird in Santa Claws feels more like glitches in the Matrix, things we aren’t supposed to notice because, at some point, talking cats are probably going to save Christmas. Or Santa. Or Tommy. Or the blog. It’s a cloying attempt at best.
And it’s another reason why it’s worth trying to keep trying to hold onto (and revisit, at least once a year) some of the old, weird Holiday rituals that got their hooks into you as a kid. Because while it’s true that what’s old will never be new again, it can certainly serve as the metric to measure whether the new deserves a seat at the table of tradition.
Stars: Ezra James Colbert, Nicola Lambo, John P. Fowler
Directed by: Glenn Miller (as Glenn R. Miller)
Written by: Anna Rasmussen (screenplay)
Check streaming availability via JustWatch
I grew up in a family of five. Not a religious one. But we always celebrated Christmas. Or I think now, looking back on it, we celebrated the celebrating of Christmas. As my brother, sister and I got older, there were certain things we did each year that we looked forward to participating in, our modest high-rituals.
Week before Christmas we’d drive out to Handley’s tree farm, owned by the Handley’s since forever ago. We would trudge up to whichever acreage of trees had matured for the year, then proceed to slowly lose patience with one another because, as always, everyone would have different ideas on which tree we should bring home. We’d finally find one no one of us particularly liked, or Dad would just overrule us and pick the one he wanted the whole damn time.
After a silent car ride home, the tree would go in the basement to warm up for a week. Christmas Eve, it would go up for decorating. We’d then spread out a blanket and sit together underneath it, having a The Picnic as we called it, enjoying all sorts of goodies I can no longer metabolize well – chicken wings, Bosc pears and cheddar cheese, stuffed mushrooms, and a selection of candy from the candy store in Iowa City that, improbably, stayed in business up until a few years ago.
There are a few other elements that became bundled into this annual experience. Nat King Cole’s Christmas album. No opening presents until Christmas morning. And watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas! on TV.
Honestly, I hated it when I was younger. Despite having grown up watching the classic Looney Tunes as part of my weekly weekend television binge, the Grinch always struck me as odd and off-putting. But I’d felt the same about my first sip of coffee and, in turn, beer. And it turns out, over time, I aged into quite the appreciation of all three. (Ironically though, not of coffee beers. Church and state man. Good fences, good neighbors.)
But the Grinch, like good coffee and beer, has within it enough of its own personality that you must be willing to meet it in the middle to enjoy it at all.
The Grinch, it’s story, it’s animation, music, everything is so damned weird and odd. No wonder my folks enjoyed it so. And why the rest of us eventually came around to it as well.
Eventually, I’d be happy if I just managed to catch “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” in its entirety. As much as certain facial animations (Chuck Jones!) would eventually remind me of my grand and great-grandfathers on Dad’s side, the voice of the Grinch, the narrator seemed to share some odd, visceral connection to being with my family during the Holidays.
The Grinch was voiced by Boris Karloff. THE Boris Karloff. Who I think was born in like 302 A.D. Who played THE monster in the ICONIC 1931 movie version of Frankenstein.
The Boris Karloff whose career was part of the seminal era of horror cinema who, toward the end of said career, was selected to be the voice of the baddie in a children’s cartoon based on a work by Dr. Seuss.
The Grinch…the voice, and the song…voice…has come to be one of the few things that sparks any feelings of Christmas to me these days. I wasn’t even in the room “You’re a Mean One” was playing in this year. I was in the kitchen. But I heard it.
I smiled.
It was enough.
(While Karloff didn’t supply the Grinch’s singing voice, it WAS supplied by a man named Thurl Ravenscroft. THURL. RAVENSCROFT.)
Granted, as a parent you’re more managing the Holidays, as opposed to experiencing them. But I’ve never been able to settle into a good balance of what I hope to bring forward from my own childhood to share with my kids, and what we as a family need to discover anew together. And the unsettling reality that meaning well as a parent doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing well. Sorry folks. Been an unsettling year. So let’s use the The Grinch as an excuse to enjoy the warm balm of some new Christmas movie, and put all the end-of-year baggage on hold for a while.
There’ve been three-ish Grinch movies to-date. And while my original fave isn’t on Netflix and the latest whatever is still in theaters, it would seem the Jim Carrey version is ripe for the judging. But I’ve already seen clips from the Carrey outing. And I’ve already heard others’ opinions of it. So, let’s trod the boards a bit, shall we? (Psst. I don’t think I used that phrase correctly. But it sounded nice, didn’t it?)
SEVEN movies produced by Netflix here? Interesting. But, mustn’t pander now. Going to pass. Another Shrek thing I see... singing pigs, and ugh. Beethoven. Guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. No. But hey, while Beethoven’s ilk has always made my insides angry, not all talking-animal movies are bad, right? Babe? Babe: Pig in the City? Milo and Otis, was it? Yeah. I shouldn’t let Beethoven’s dumb dog face get me grinchey too quickly here. And hey, look at this:
Hey, those look like Otis (or was it Milo?). Kittens in stockings. Santa might be up to some wackiness here. Cringy title. And oh God, does that kitten have a glowing, red Rudolph nose?
Okay, good enough. Let us open our grinchy little hearts to the First 10 of Santa Claws…
Ah shit.
The First 10 of Santa Claws begins with us soaring above uh, places. Places that are not cities.
It is night, and snowy, so that’s a decent box to check in the first couple moments of a Christmas movie here. But as we cut from shot to shot to shot, all flying over...places...it feels kind of like we’re in day-for-night situation. Which is, we’ve taken daytime shots, and altered them so they’ll look like night, but will remain clear. Because shooting at night is, well, hard. Take it from me. I went to Iowa Film School.
So, as we’re flying over snowy, wooded, quite mountainous places, a song is playing. It is...jolly? Not exactly the most Christmassy thing I’ve ever heard before. But hell, “You’re a Mean One” is even less so.
This bouncy song bounces along over our aerial shots, one of which pans in just such a way as to suggest this is drone footage. Perhaps stock drone footage. That’s a thing now. But I’m trying hard not to let my prior dance with The Asylum bias my judgment here. Because I’m a God damned (amateur) professional…
As credits in a jolly font inform us of who has done what, we keep soaring over trees and mountains, and suddenly I miss seeing the Patriot Games in theaters with my Dad and brother. Similar opening scene. Only completely different. Though I do think Patriot Games starts around Christmas. Btw, you can just do this?
The New Guy?
You can just put him in there?
Like this?
I guess?
What do I know.
Iowa Film School. (I did quite well actually, except for that one class…)
I’m not apologizing for the non-sequitur there my darlings, because we are still flying over parts of Norway Alaska, over hills, and rivers, buildings and things…
Oh.
Are we Santa? Is this Santa? Who knooooooowwwwwwwssss...because suddenly we’re flying over Los Angeles. I think it’s Los Angeles. Also at night. Music, still jolly, now somewhat repetitive. So it would seem we are getting...somewhere.
Progress is progress. And speaking of progress, suddenly a man’s voice starts speaking over the shot:
"Listen kid, I've been around a few Christmases. It's true,” he, it, says, to...a kid?
As this begins happening to us, our aerial shots shift, taking us over what appears to be more of a residential area.
Then we cut to what might very well be a still photo of one house in particular as the Kid responds, “No way…”
“I swear on my life,” the first voice implores.
“All 9 of them,” the Kid responds.
“Yes,” says first voice...as if this moment needed to be resolved before we could continue here.
Then, with like, a dart and a flash, we’re inside the house and some crazy, gold magic is a rootin’ and a tootin’ its way out of the fireplace.
“Here he comes,” the not-Kid voice says.
This golden demon begins to materialize, but we’re only given a glimpse of one, black boot. Who could it be? Are we teasing this? Perhaps not, as we cut to reveal the presumed owners of those two voices.
Hoo boy. Talking cats.
Okay. The Adventures of Milo and Otis, right? Perfect examples of how you can use real animals in a good story whose ability to speak and hear each other is in no way creepy or off-putting. I just need to chill-pill a bit here. Heart open. Let the warmth in.
Cut to Santa, yup, standing in the living room, bag in hand, humming “Jingle Bells” to himself. On the one hand, you’d think he’d be pretty sick of hearing his own stuff all the time. But on the other, I don’t think Kanye does. So we’ll call this one a draw.
“Wowwww,” the young kitten mindsclaims.
“Magical…right?” asks the bigger cat again, with his own mind.
We cut to Santa, who meanders over toward the Christmas tree.
“Where are his claws,” we hear the Kid kitten ask.
(I don’t know Kid. Maybe they’re retractable. Like yours...)
Must say though, do love the look of a room lit only by Christmas lights. This family also has a very nice boom box. Wait. Does this mean this is a flashback? Are we in the past? Everything else in the room looks pretty modern. So we’re going to say no and be calm for now.
Santa then reaching deep down into a nearly empty bag which looks to only have one box left in it (maybe he travels light yeah, rest up in the sled?). He begins fishing around for...something…
We cut back to the two cats.
“He he he, he’s so FAT.” The Kid giggles, his mouth now totally moving along with the words.
“Heh heh heh. It’s his jolliness, Rigby. That’s why he’s so BIG,” says the older cat, who’s mouth is also now totally moving along with the words.
“Ooooohhhhhhh,” offers Rigby.
Why now? Why are the mouths moving now?
Who’s got time to care anyway man, because we cut back just in time to see Santa pull out this very specific thing he’s been rooting around for:
A...CD? Hah. Even better, in that it appears Santa has thoughtfully selected a mix of his favorite songs from Napster and burned a person named Julia a CD for Christmas, complete with paper sleeve.
Oh I know. The hole there in the middle is too big for a CD. But I did get a good laugh when I initially thought the former.
“Is that the record Julia wants,” the Kid helpfully asks. “How did he know?”
He sees everything Kid. He’s listening. Always. Sees everything you do. Every. Thing. (It is kind of creepy when you think about it.)
“He is Santa, Rigby,” the older cat responds. “He knows…”
Santa carefully places Julia’s record that she wants...on the tree? And...starts to leave?
Wait.
That's it? He's done? There are other gifts under the tree. I know the bear was there before. Were the other gifts already there when Santa arrived? Santa just brought the Megamix?
(I try not to do this, because I'm not here to point inconsistency nits, but I go back and check here. WHEN Santa arrived a moment ago, there WERE presents already under the tree — with teddy bear. And while they differ slightly those we see here when Santa begins to leave, the point is...Santa came down the chimney using magic in order to place a homemade CD record onto a Christmas tree and is now leaving. Was I spoiled as a child? This seems odd?)
(Oh wait. No. Santa goes over and places one small present in one of the three stocking hanging from the mantle. All good. Rushed to judgment there. Sorry.)
“I’m going to tell him what I want,” we hear, but do not see, the Kid exclaim.
Despite the older cat’s (off-screen, purely vocal) attempts to stop him, we hear also off-screen that the Kid wants to say hi to Santa.
We see the Kid walk up to Santa’s boot, which seems to amuse Santa.
And now that we can clearly see him, not a bad Santa at that. Good beard. Glasses resting down on the nose just a bit (which would imply Santa is near-sighted, yes?). Pretty good costume, if a bit un-worn in appearance. We’ll give this Santa a 7 out of 10.
“Heh heh. Hello there,” Santa says, in what seems to be George Lucas’s voice.
Santa asks who the Kid is. And the Kid, sniffing around Santa’s boot, responds, “Hello Santa. I’m Rigby.” Oh yeah. Sorry. It’s Rigby.
It’s hard to tell if Santa hears this. Also, Rigby’s mouth is no longer moving when he talks. So I don’t understand how this universe works.
Santa tries to shoo Rigby away.
“I’d love to pet you,” Santa says, “But I better not.” Hah. That’s a line only Santa can get away with. And only barely.
We can hear Rigby talk. But apparently can’t hear? Because he puts his front paws up on Santa’s boot saying, “Helloooooooooooooo.”
Santa sneezes.
Uh oh.
“Eww gross,” replies Rigby in apparent disgust.
The older cat, still under whatever he’s under, chuckles at this. I, however, do not.
Suddenly we hear purring. Which is odd. Because as this happens, we seem to be up by Santa’s head, with Rigby down on the ground. But the purring is mixed so it sounds like it’s right in our ears. The effect is...unsettling.
So is the fact that Rigby can’t understand Santa. Or cats and humans both speak English in a way we can understand but they, together, cannot, since he presses on:
“Excuse me, Santa,” Rigby persists.
Santa wants no part of this, and this mythical, magical being who is centuries old and using all sorts of magic to deliver gifts to people all over the world with the help of flying reindeer continues to anemically shoo away this tiny kitten.
Santa sneezes. Again.
“Oh you made him sneeze again,” we hear the older cat say from wherever he is at the moment.
Things aren’t looking good for Santa, trapped as he is by this ferocious beast. But as he turns, his eyes befall his salvation.
COOKIES I say in my mind.
“COOKIES,” Santa says in this movie.
Mumbling about cookies, Santa walks over to a counter where a plate of cookies and a glass of (no longer cold) milk beckon him.
I always thought Santa took a bite out of the cookies we’d left him just to be nice. But here I love the idea that back up at the North Pole, 364 days a year, Mrs. Claus is running things all gluten-free, bringing home all sorts of odd, dry, Trader Joe’s-type things. So here, the one night of the year Santa gets out on his own, he goes on a total bender. Hell, maybe the presents are just a means to Santa’s end.
“Rigby, get back here,” older cat says, again, from somewhere. We see Rigby scamper off.
Meanwhile, Santa takes a cookie.
Then Santa eats a cookie.
Then Santa takes a sip of the milk.
And the bouncy music’s back. I think it’s back. I kind of zoned out there. But now Santa hears something and looks around behind him.
But...no...one...or...cat...
...is...to...be...seen…
Maybe it’s a ghost. Maybe this is a haunted, adorable talking cat Christmas movie. No, I know there’s no ghost my friends. But something had to have knocked the record Julia’s been asking for (for three years) off the tree.
...right?
“Hello...is someone there,” Santa asks.
We cut and see that Rigby is up by the cookies and milk. And, after a moment, puts his whole Rigby face down into the milk glass and begins slurping away.
Santa begins to turn around. But by the time he sees Rigby on the counter, Rigby is no longer drinking the milk. So Santa doesn’t see that Rigby had some milk. So...why did we have to?
Doesn’t matter. Because Rigby decides to resume his odd attempts to endear himself to Santa Claus:
Back Santa goes, freaking out all the way, as with a screech and a yowl, young Rigby does stay.
Back Santa freaks, back one step more, as his throat slowly closes, ‘round his screams, evermore.
Rigby escapes, asking Santa to chill. But Santa, soon dying, flails as he spins.
And ‘lo, there we see it, the record once more, but back on the tree, instead of the floor.
Where Santa then hits it, knocking it down, where it breaks into pieces, again on the ground.
The old cat is angry, for what he has said, Rigby wouldn’t listen...now Santa is…
He probably just has a concussion. Good thing that no one…
Oh no. Someone lives in this house. And while her parents must not have been able to hear all the sneezing and screaming and shrieking and breaking that just transpired over the sounds of their CPAPs, this little girl, ignoring all logic and human instinct, has come downstairs by herself to see what’s going on.
Aside from her cat’s mouths moving when they speak human words, that sums it up nicely.
But hey, it’s like how I’ve always kind of wanted to see a UFO. Granted, I think doing so would be terrifying, and unsettling, and I’m sure when the aliens would see me they’d all like, want to scoop me up into their spaceship to see what it’s like to kiss me, which would be fine because, despite being aliens and, well, despite all logic and probability, the aliens would actually just look like normal, incredibly attractive human females, albeit from a species whose men had long since perished entirely in some brutally funky global war, leaving these poor, improbably attractive aliens unable to propagate their race.
Haha just kidding, at least with respect to that all being from ME. People have given sword statements that things like the above have happened to them.
Yes. They can be found online.
No. I’m not sure I recommend checking them out.
Okay, let’s bring that around here – it would be scary as all HELL to see a UFO. But, at the same time, there before you would be amazing evidence that this world contains secrets and mysteries we as a species have only just started to comprehend. So. Sort of the same if you came downstairs because of screaming and screeching to find Santa Claus passed out (or dead) on your living room floor.
Right?
No? Fine. WHATEVER…
“Santa,” the little girl asks, apparently in need of further confirmation of what she has just encountered.
Uh oh. Santa wakes with a start like that lady who gets the needle to her heart in Pulp Fiction.
Santa INSTANTLY comes to. “Huhhh! Uhhhh! I can’t let her see me,” he exclaims.
She has seen you Santa.
Just now.
She is not...somewhere else.
She is standing right there.
Seeing you.
Unconcerned with fact (I GUESS), Santa grabs his bag (lol, no, you big perv) puts his finger to the side of his nose (this is a thing, right?) and, despite the little girl pleading for Santa to wait, exhales sharply through his unobstructed nostril and magics himself back up the chimney.
The little girl stands there for a moment, seeming to wonder where Santa has gone. (C’mon kid…)
Santa, helpfully, resumes sneezing upon the rooftop, which the girl can hear.
She runs to a window...
...where she wouldn’t be able to see her own roof.
She’s at the window to look...where?
Next door?
Why is she looking at an empty random window?
Who is this walking up to the random window.
It’s implied she’s looking up at him. And, in turn, he’s looking up at her…roof?
Was he sleeping?
Santa sneezes woke him up?
He sleeps with a camera around his neck?
The bouncy music is back. Again, I can’t recall if it ever went away. But here it is again. And I swear here, with the sound of Santa sneezing again off-screen, we hear a man say, “Catch!”
“Santa,” this kid yells. At least someone knows what they’re looking at. He then raises up the Polaroid camera he wears to bed to get a shot of Old Saint Nick. (Flash won’t work at that distance kid.)
Snapping a pic, he then shakes it like a Polaroid picture. (Polaroids? Boom boxes? Is this the past?)
The girl sees this (?), smiles and waves up at this boy and his glasses and his hair.
Cool and quite normal beans, right?
Totes! Nothing out of the ordinary here, fellow child.
Then, the girl proceeds to look up from her window in the same direction, but as if she’s looking at or for something — not this boy.
And the boy’s picture must not have turned out. Because he reacts with disappointment. We never see the photo though. Must be really crappy.
(Dad Voice: I TOLD you about the DAMNED FLASH…)
But, kids? Santa is still right up there on the roof at this point, right? Why is no one looking at Santa?
Too late. Santa zips off into the sky, loudly yelling, “HO HO HO MERRY CHRISTMAS!” like nothing that just happened did happen. Maybe that is just a recorded message. Comes out of speakers in his sleigh when he takes off. Or something.
We cut back to the boy. “Dang it,” he says, and judging by how the camera gracefully floats down to frame him up for this shot, he is now the hero of this story. Whoever he is.
Also, the moon in this universe is apparently square.
Dissolve to...the title of this film. The logo. Thing.
And then…
Holy shit.
Wait.
Are we in the future now? Or just in the now, now?
If that mess all took place in the past, like the ’80s (Polaroids, Boom boxes), 30 years could, in theory, bring us into the present of when this movie was released (2014).
You’re right! I remember this shot from before! The exterior shot of them home with car didn’t, in any way, feel like it was “selling us” the past.
Did you know there’s a website called worldlicenseplates.com? I didn’t. Till now. And it clearly shows that the plate featured on this car (by the font used for California, the blue date in the upper left, and the “dmv.ca.gov” below the actual plate #) would be, at the earliest, from 2011!
So that means we, at the earliest, have fast-forwarded to the year 2041! Suck it, Blade Runner...let’s go!
: /
?
Is that the same car?
Is that the same house?
They’re at the same house.
Ok…it’s 30 years from the past, so it’s now, but it isn’t, and the young girl, now grown, returns to her childhood home with who we can safely assume is her son, and in her parents’ car from the past, which had license plates from the future the night Santa Claus, who is real, came down her chimney to deliver the record she’d be wanting, only for Santa to be assaulted by cats whose mouths move when they talk but only some of the time.
And we’re just over 4 minutes into the movie here.
Okay.
Okay.
As the car pulls up to this house, the little boy asks if his mom can pop the trunk. The mom gives this boy a look (LITERALLY BEHIND HIS BACK NO LESS). As a human, what the hell Mom? But as a parent, who knows what she just spent the last hour and a half listening to this kid go on about while stuck there crawling along on the 405 (Thanks Ranker!)
Meanwhile, next door, a grown man is kissing a plastic Santa statue in broad daylight.
Thought I was kidding?
Yes, the bouncy music’s back again. But there are limits to the things that bouncy music can make palatable.
Anyway, the kid gets out of the car and goes to that trunk he had his mom open, so he can grab some groceries...and...help.
Oh, and Mom looks like a badass:
I mean, no. This is not the look of infinite patience and understanding one would typically wield toward one’s child, which she is doing. But, you know. Pretty badass.
“Mom,” the kid begins, obviously because he is not looking at this expression of hers right now, “Nathan has a tree…”
“Tommy, please,” she responds. We’ve been through this before?
“But Mom,” Tommy persists, “Everyone else has a treeeee.”
Mom says we’ve talked about this. And he should get himself inside.
Tommy goes inside. And we suddenly cut to three...sigh...kittens...drinking out of a water bowl...and oh my God here we go as a voice from somewhere goes, “Hmmm?”
You’re right. You’re right...
I chose this.
The decision to do this was...sigh...mine.
Dude just kissed a Santa statue though. You know? That wasn’t on the damn cover..
Tommy begins to take off his jacket. Then he begins to put it away in a closet, which is by the front door. Which is good, because had we not been shown this we might have, you know, wondered what happened there.
Meanwhile, outside:
Then…
And then…
Aaaaand then…
Right?
Fine.
Whatever.
Back to Tommy’s jacket…
We cut to Tommy, closing the door to the closet, his jacket now safely inside.
“Kittens! I’m home,” Tommy announces, finally free to worry about things other than his jacket.
“Tommy’s home,” someone exclaims while one of the kittens dashes away from the water bowl.
But where he dashes no one knows. Because we bounce back outside (is this the same music again?) to the man and Mom.
The man is all like:
But Mom’s like:
Then Mom leaves. So the guy’s like, “LOL, no Santa. I’m not going to go talk to her. YOU go talk to her. But I don’t know what to say. You’re Santa. You’re the one who knows all this stuff.”
But he says this TO the plastic Santa.
While also fondling it.
Thought I was kidding?
Back inside Mom’s house (thankfully) we push in toward the mantle above a strangely familiar fireplace.
We see photos.
There’s a shot of Mom with Tommy...cute.
One of all three of those kittens...okay…
Another one of Mom and Tommy...cute…
A random orange cat...with its...mouth...open...okay…and finally the girl from 30 years ago…sitting on some steps...holding Rigby and the other one. The camera pushes in on this photo, suggesting...something…
That girl in the photo. She must have lived here. At one point? But not now...
Now this woman..the Mom...but kittens...random orange cat...Tommy...
Hey, Rigby’s probably dead by now, right?
Mom comes inside, sternly warning Tommy that he needs to close the door when he comes in, or the kittens will get out.
We cut to the kittens, who are still, wow, gathered around that water bowl.
Get out?” someone says in a voice. “She’s crazy. Why would we want to get out?”
Cut to a smooth little tracking shot that brings us into the kitchen as Tommy arrives, dropping off the one bag he grabbed. He lets it drop absent-mindedly, because, HELLO, there are kittens right there (still) drinking out of a water bowl.
Back to Mom, who’s putting her stuff down and who calls out that Tommy needs to put the milk away. Or it’ll go bad. Yeah Tommy…
“Okay Mom,” Tommy replies. Tommy has answered Mom. But has he really HEARD Mom? I don’t know. These dang kittens. A tad dehydrated perhaps? What is going ON with this water bowl?
“Did someone say milk?” a new voice asks.
Back to Mom who, before joining Tommy in the kitchen, takes a sharp, deep breath to steady herself. No kidding. This Tommy kid SUXXXX.
“Here she comes,” one of the someone/somebodies says, down by the water bowl.
Cut to a wide shot of the kitchen. Tommy reaches into the grocery bag and removes....a bag of...SOMETHING? (TOMMY! C’MON!)
Mom enters.
As Mom passes by, Tommy removes...a bag of NOT MILK. Does this kid realize he’s playing with FIRE?
“Wow, this tastes so good,” a voice down around where the water bowl says. Then one of the kittens walks out of the shot. Because it’s a caaaa...wait what tastes good? It’s water.
“Mommmm. It’s Christmas Eve,” Tommy says, in an attempt to confuse me.
“We don’t even need to get a big one,” Tommy reasons, like any reasonable child would.
Mom explains that they’ve already discussed this. And that Christmas “is just something marketed by companies to sell more toys and other things they have too much of at the end of the year.”
Cut to kittens clearly at a BOWL OF WATER.
Kitten voice, "Here comes another sermon I'm outta here..." One of the kittens runs out of the shot.
(It’s water.)
Tommy doesn’t seem to be too jazzed by the TRUTH Mom is laying down for him. "I remember," Tommy sighs.
Mom seems to soften a bit. "You know I love you very much, right," she says.
"And,” Mom continues, “That's why I'm not going to lie to you and tell you Santa's real. He was made up by a Soda company."
I'm sure lots of young, impressionable children read these movie reviews, so I'm being careful not to weigh in definitively here. But Mom’s assertion as stated is not correct. Very much not correct. So much so that one must wonder if Mom knows this and is lying to her child? That would be...interesting?
"Look, you have to learn to be self-sufficient,” Mom brings the point home. “Not rely on someone to bring you the things that you want."
Okay gang, second here. We know this Mom is Julia from the very beginning of this film. And Nathan is the kid, driven insane from 30 years of exposure to Polaroid chemicals.
This seemed obvious enough that it didn’t bear mentioning directly (unlike all the other choice observations and asides that have made it into the final review here).
But how did sneezing Santa and talking cats and broken cd records, hell even just witnessing the very EXISTENCE of Santa firsthand (and magical flying reindeers and sleighs, btw) lead to soda pop conspiracy theories and not letting her own kid have even a crap tree?
Is this a Rosebud moment?
“Okay?” Mom asks, intently. Mom is going to make sure her point is understood.
The bouncy song sort of returns (less bouncy, but still the same song, I think?), probably to soften the fact that, as Mom keeps on truthing here, Tommy has started gently punching/harming himself.
Push it down, Tommy. Everything you feel is wrong. The Mom’s truth is all that matters.
Hey! How are those kittens doing? They run out of that amazing water yet?
Cutting back to the kittens to check, the last kitten runs out of the shot as another (new?) voice-overs, “Hey. Where'd you guys go?"
Back to Mom: "That's why when you do your chores you get an allowance. So you can buy the things you want," she reasons. (Like a tree, Mom? Could he buy his own tree? That would also be interesting...)
"Trust me,” Mom begins to wrap this successful conversation up for the both of them. “When you get older? No one's going to hand them to you."
"I know,” Tommy replies, today’s repression now complete.
"I love you very much?" Mom asks in the way parents do when it's supposed to make everything okay that wasn’t okay up to that point.
"I love you too, Mom," Tommy says. Sure, Tommy.
We cut back to the shot the kitten used to be in as a new cat comes into frame (Orange Open Mouth from the mantle photo???), and proceeds to sniff the bowl. "Hmmm," a new voice exclaims, "those little rascals didn't leave any food for me..."
"Let's make a deal," Mom says.
(God, can we cut to Nathan, please? He’s got to be halfway down plastic Santa’s pants by now…)
Hopes and dreams safely locked back within his greedy, unrealistic little heart, Tommy seems willing to hear Mom out.
Or, as she’s talking, maybe he (like I) is wondering if this is still the same fucking song that's been playing for the past seven minutes and twenty-two seconds.
"Finish putting away the groceries,” Mom begins, “and I'll post my new article (Oh. Oh no, she's a writer) and then you can do your chores...dust the living room...water the plants...and THEN we go to dinner..."
Again, with Mom's emphasis on "THEN," this feels like this is the response to a prior conversation that we haven’t been privy to. Alternatively, this is a really sucky deal (i.e., this line would have worked as designed had Mom been directed to emphasize, "living room...water the plants...and THEN we go to DINNER!).
Hope that Orange Open Mouth Cat isn’t starving too bad down at the water bowl right now.
As Tommy goes right off to dust and water the plants (the GROCERIES FIRST TOMMY! GOD DAMMIT!) we watch Mom stare at him for a while, her face kind of going:
As Mom opens a drawer (she's putting the groceries away now???), she regards the Random Orange Cat down by the WATER BOWL.
"Are yours this much trouble?" she asks...a cat.
"You have no idea," a voice says as we look at the cat.
By Mom’s reaction, she hears this. Or does not.
Merry Christmas?
We cut to the kittens who are sitting side by side over in front of the fireplace.
And then to Tommy who is SPRAYING DOWN A COUNTER AND NOT DUSTING LIKE HE WAS TOLD TO DO...while voices that may be one of the kittens, or all of them, begin to talk as Tommy continues to NOT DUST.
"Ah, I'm bored," one says.
(Hah. Yeah...)
"We better not go anywhere," says another.
"It's almost nap time," says another.
Meanwhile, Mom sits down at a computer with a coffee mug that seems to be empty. Must be time to post that new article. She leans back and sighs sadly. Must be a good one.
As Tommy continues to not dust or water plants (it's a COUNTER, Tommy...I think it’s good), Mom leans forward. It’s go-time for this article.
Thanks to the above reverse shot, we see that Mom is posting a new article to her...Mom blog, which is titled “The Budget and the Single Mom.” The hero image is one of the cute pictures of her and Tommy which was also, I believe, featured back on the mantle.
We don't hold here long, but we are able to see, by way of the author name, that this is, in fact Julia.
Also, from what we can briefly glimpse of the (new?) copy, Julia has noted that prices are rising everywhere, which can make it challenging if you want your child to eat healthy, and (related to this or not) "...a great option is to start your own garden and plant with REAL seeds..."
(In case we’re still sorting out time and date issues — the bottom-right of her computer says its June 11, 2014. … Which directly contradicts the vertical text on the left side of the screen. -Ed.)
Meanwhile, Tommy's probably buffed a solid inch off that same counter (It’s GOOD, Tommy...)
But suddenly Tommy knocks the paper towel roll onto the floor. But Tommy is way too into over-cleaning this counter to notice. And it must be one of those new spring-loaded paper towel rolls, because it begins unrolling itself all over the floor in front of the kittens.
"Quick. Get it!" one kitten exclaims.
"Ah, but it's almost nap time," another wet-blankets.
"Oh, lighten up," the third retorts, a solid burn.
So, like, the paper towels roll out one way. And the kittens kind of run around…
But then the roll rolls back another way?
And then another?
The kittens are doing this?
"You paper towels. You thought you could escape me," one kitten says.
The same music is still playing? I think this is wackiness?
"Quick. Don't let it run away!" says one kitten.
"You’re right, this IS fun," says the kitten who told us to lighten up a second ago. Apparently the voice actors don’t even know who is supposed to be talking right now.
The roll has completely unrolled. We are down to raw tube.
“Quick, don’t let it run away,” cautions one of the kittens. It? The tube?
Cut back to Tommy who is STILL POLISHING THE COUNTER.
Behind him, someone (hopefully a well-appreciated and compensated production assistant) begins tossing handfuls of ripped-up paper into the air.
We cut back to the kittens, who in slow-motion shots are playing (“woooo hoooo”) and diving throughout the completely shredded paper towels like they're leaves in Fall.
“We got to make sure it never escapes again,” a kitten says.
“Nice job, Mittens. This feels great on my claws,” Not-Mittens says.
(sigh) I miss you guys, too, Nathan...
More shredding.
More shots of kittens.
More voices talking over this.
More paper thrown up in the air.
Why can't Tommy hear this if we can hear this? Or why didn't they just think to do the old "I'm wearing headphones so I totally can't hear what you, the audience, are seeing happen in the background behind me right now" thing. Which is a bit, yeah. But at least it would lend some logic to this scene. And it could be a cute or funny moment here, actually.
This, though, is predicated on the presumption that a given director and editor (et. All) want to take advantage of how information is conveyed to we, the audience. It also requires we believe the characters are subject to the physics of the world they exist in and aren’t just puppets of the script.
I’m sure you’ve seen a movie scene where a character, facing us, rocking out to music, (headphones or not) is oblivious to the hilarity or chaos unfolding behind them.
(Me too! But for the life of me I couldn’t think of one to share a shot or .gif of here. I’m sorry.)
The magic is, we see the hullabaloo. But they don’t. So, this temporary dissonance can be humorous. It’s like, for just a few precious moments, we’ve connected directly with the movie. It’s us and it’s in sync, poor character be dammed. And no other medium can do that quite like film (movies) can.
Sure, the headphone thing can also fall flat. But it feels like the potential of what cinema can do to us, and with us, ultimately comes down to whether or not a given movie is trying to create a thing to be experienced, or a thing to be consumed.
This same idea, the character unaware in a scene, can actually be wonderfully versatile if the movie seeks to share the moment with us. We’re not even limited to comedy. These unaware moments can be touching:
Or unsettling:
Point being, it’s a shame that Santa Claws seems so focused on throwing up shreds of paper towel in the air that a genuine moment for this movie to actually connect with us was lost.
Adding insult to hyperbolic injury here, Tommy even THINKS he hears something for a second. But instead of turning around and doing the “SHRUG. Must be nothing…,” he just shakes his head, whatever…
And no, I did not manage to capture whatever in that screen shot — but look at that! I swear we captured Tommy’s true nature because after not turning around, he goes BACK TO POLISHING THE COUNTER.
Kittens.
Tearing.
Jumping.
The song playing.
Always playing.
Voices talking.
Tommy, eventually, with no real prompting, turns around, walks over towards ShredTown™, see’s what’s going on, and informs the kittens that what they have done is “not cool.” Good thing Mom’s all up in her blog right now.
Mom then comes into the living room still holding her empty coffee mug and a random green folder. Does she keep her blog in there?
She asks what happened.
The kittens happened, Mom.
“Whatever,” Mom says. “Just clean it up. They’ll be out of our hair soon enough…”
She really says that. That isn’t me getting bitchy as we weather these last few minutes.
She actually stares at Tommy like that as she walks out of frame.
As the worst of all the moving mouths in this movie so far moves, Orange Cat informs the kittens that Tommy and Mom can't do everything for them. And if they can't prove that they can take care of themselves (?) they'll...
"They'll what?" the kittens ask.
Orange Cat sighs. It looks like this.
I’m on my last rope here, but I do believe that cat has human lips.
“They’ll give you a new home," Mom says sadly.
"A new home???”
“No!"
"They can't do that!"
The kittens are, understandably, all upset.
"Yes,” Orange Cat says. “They CAN."
And that…
... is the First 10.
