*originally posted december 7, 2018

OK folks...time for VHS of the week:

Ok...so now let’s talk about this Xmas not-a-classic. This movie came out when I was seven years-old so my excitement level upon seeing it in the theater could be best described as brain-melting euphoria. Like...I was so excited I entered a fugue state and couldn’t remember my own name for a week. I was probably at the pinnacle of my believing-in-Santa-ness. I made both my parents and grandparents take me to see it multiple times. I even got my GREAT grandparents to take me by lying and telling them that Santa was played by Art Carney (they loved that guy for some reason). I decided to check it out again for the first time in a good 30 years and...you know...it’s a friggin’ bizarre movie. It handles the subject matter (you know...Santa...Xmas...toys) with stone faced seriousness. I suppose it’s a comedy but there aren’t really any...you know...jokes and shit. Throw in a steadicam shot or two and I might believe Stanley Kubrick directed this thing. The film opens in ancient times. When you ask? I don’t know, dudes--just a long ass time ago and somewhere cold as balls. It’s Xmas Eve and the children of some village where everyone has a British accent even though Great Britain does not yet exist are waiting for the local toymaker and his wife to deliver presents in their sled that’s being pulled by two reindeer made out of glued together loofah sponges. On their way back home they get caught up in a blizzard and freeze to death--Santa, Mrs. Santa, reindeer, all. It’s disturbing as shit. Suddenly the snow clears and a Xmas tree hologram appears and shits out like 500 elves. Santa wakes up from his death and is all “am I dead??” and the elves are all “nope..you are at the North Pole! We have mad toys and you’ll deliver them to every child in the world!” He’s like “thanks but no thanks” and the elves are all “this is not really up for discussion, capisce? For your troubles we’ll grant you eternal life. You AND your ladyfriend.” So they move into the north pole where they meet Patch...the head of the department of elf innovation. Dude is like the Elon Musk of the North Pole. He’s played by legendary comedian Dudley Moore...who has this look of “wasn’t I just nominated for an Oscar for Arthur like 5 years ago? Why am I playing an elf in this shitty movie!? on his face for the film’s entire running time. Santa settles in and there’s a bunch of jolly singing and dancing elf montages. They also make Santa an official Santa suit that really does dude no favors. He looks like a diabetic pimp with undiagnosed atherosclerosis. It’s at this point in the film that I realize that the guy playing Santa is The Big Lebowski!! I mean...not the dude, mind you...the real Mr Jeffrey Lebowski. Every time he opens his mouth all I can hear is “nothing is fucked?? The plane has crashed into the goddamn mountain!!” Anyway...Xmas rolls around and it’s showtime for the big SC but first Mickey from Rocky’s 1 through 3 shows up to tell Santa that he needn’t worry about having enough time to deliver all of the toys because “time travels with you!” Whatever you say, gramps. He then slinks away and picks up a check for $50k for 4 minutes of screen time. Patch explains to Santa that he’s made some sort of sparkly hay that, if ingested by the reindeer, will make them fly. No explanation as to what’s in this shit. They just power it down and start shaking like a fleet of crackheads but alas....they can now fly (only six of ‘em though. whoever owned the rights to Rudolph wanted nothing to do with this flick). So Santa delivers toys through the ages no fuss no muss. We know time is passing because there’s a ton of cutaway shots to an hourglass marking...um...the passage of time. There’s also really weird creepy ass music playing under these scenes. Apparently Freddie Mercury was supposed to do the soundtrack but I’m guessing what happened was is that he actually watched the movie (I mean...they decided to do the music for Highlander instead so...there’s that). Not much happens over the centuries. Santa tried to go gluten free to lose weight and fails....he creates the naughty and nice lists, etc. Before long we’re in 1980’s Manhattan...where we meet Joe...a homeless 10 year old who spends his nights gazing longingly through the windows of various local MacDonald’s (hello product placement!)...when he isn’t trying to scam food scraps from Cornelia, a fellow 10 year-old girl who is uber wealthy and who lives in a house that looks like a leftover set from Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon...even though it’s supposed to be 1985. First off: a homeless 10 year old!? Didn’t they have some sort of DSS back in the 80’s? Santa comes cruising up the block and discovers Joe and is super bummed that he’s homeless so he offers him a ride in his sleigh (in the world of this film Joe appears to be the only homeless person alive). Joe apparently didn’t get the message about not getting into flying sleighs with strange old men openly engaging in festive cosplay so...away they go! They try to make the reindeer complete a move called the “super duper looper” but one of the reindeer has acrophobia (I shit you not) so they just fly directly into the south tower of the World Trade Center but stop short of hitting it. It’s eerie. Santa promises Joe he’ll come chill with him again the following Xmas. Meanwhile back at the NP Patch has created an assembly line machine that can make the toys faster...putting a shit ton of elves out of work. I’m sayin’...it’s the 80’s: unless the machine can whack up a bunch of Ataris and Walkman then they best not darken the Tebo chimney! Turns out the assembly line toys are janky as shit and start falling apart and no one likes Santa anymore. Riddled with guilt, Patch decides to fuck off to NYC where he spends his nights doing drugs at the Tunnel with Madonna and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It’s at this point in the film...more than 3/4 of the way through...that we meet an evil cigar-chomping american toy maker played by John Lithgow. It’s like a completely different, even shittier movie all of a sudden! Patch comes to see Lithgow and offers up his stash of weird sparkly reindeer cocaine hay. They make lollipops out of the hay and put them under every tree in the world and now EVERYONE can fly. No idea how high or for how long. This entire segment goes on for about 2 minutes. The lollipops are mad popular, natch, so they decide, in order to capitalize on the craze...they’ll just go ahead and create a SECOND CHRISTMAS! To be called...drum roll...Christmas 2!...and it’ll take place on March 25th. I mean....that’s fine with me. I never have shit to do in March anyway. They decide to make an even stronger batch of flying candy canes...but these shits are dangerous and explode when they get too hot. Apparently the FDA had no jurisdiction over flying candy in the 1980’s. Little Joe tries to warn Santa that Patch is peddling exploding candy down in NYC but Lithgow kidnaps him and locks him in a burner. So it’s up to Cornelia to warn Santa (she is also Lithgow’s niece. Did I mention that? Oh it really doesn’t matter). Patch rescues Joe and takes him on his delivery route in his stolen-outright-from-Willy Wonka flying candy car but their trunk is full of those exploding candy canes. Meanwhile the cops are closing in on Lithgow...hoping to charge him with 700 million counts of kidnapping and child endangerment...so he stuffs his chaw full of flying reindeer hay and floats off into outer space never to be seen again. Seriously....that’s his entire character arc. Cornelia and Santa find Patch and Joe just before their shit is about to explode. The reindeer does the super duper looper and everyone is rescued. Huzzah! Back at the North Pole Santa tells Joe and Cornelia that they can live with him permanently...which...I mean...maybe laws like “illegally transporting minors across state lines” don’t apply if you are taking them to a place that doesn’t really exist. So the kids are cool...and no one is pissed at Patch for selling everyone and creating global chaos with his gravity-defying lollipops. They all sing and dance and the movie ends. Merry Christmas, everyone....