the mistakes you missed in your favourite films, books, stories, and life.

It’s cold, but he shaves.

It’s hard to consider the Christmas season complete without the requisite viewing of White Christmas, Christmas in Connecticut, Elf, and a Liam Neeson revenge film set in the snow. I recently completed a first viewing of Cold Pursuit, in which Mr. Neeson plays a snowplow driver whose son is killed by a vicious drug lord. If you’ve ever loved the classic O. Henry story Gift of the Magi, then you should know that this film also has a plot twist. But first a spoiler alert:

*SPOILER ALERT* Mr. Neeson does not take his son’s passing well, and in a plot twist reminiscent of certain classic O. Henry stories, but not involving hair, he chooses to not let his son’s murder go unpunished. Using his giant snowblowing machine and a sawed-off shotgun, he embarks on a journey of vengeance that eventually takes him to the man responsible.

The film may strike some chords with White Christmas fans, as they share something in common: snow. In some ways, Cold Pursuit is a much better film because there’s much more snow. But they both have their charms. Pursuit is a strong December film and has many wonderful scenes and comic lines; most of these are him saying something humorous before executing someone.

My only real problem with the entire film - and it’s a tough one to get past - is this: it’s set in the snow, yet Mr. Neeson barely has a beard. He has a bit of rough stubble, and it’s evident that he can grow a full beard. But he doesn’t. This makes no sense. He lives in the brutal cold. He works in the brutal cold. He’s not comfortable being in front of people SPOILER ALERT at the beginning of the film he is awarded Citizen of the Year and doesn’t want to talk in front of people. Yet he is clean shaven. It is not consistent with his character or with the brutality of the conditions he lives in. It appears a vanity decision; one chosen to take a few years off Mr. Neeson’s weathered face rather than be true to the character he plays. It’s a small thing, yet a small thing that takes away ever so slightly from our ability to completely believe this snowy tale of family and love.

Again, it’s classic December cinema and aside from this, it’s perfect. But for the sequel, know this, people who made this: give the man a beard. Make us believe.

12-17

Yet they still FaceTime.

A Christmas Prince: The Royal Baby is the third installment in the Netflix series, in which all the storylines take place during the month of December in the fictional kingdom of Aldovia. I enjoy a good fictional story as much as anyone, so I have no problem with the creation of a mythical country. If Tolkien can do it, why not anyone? I’m easygoing about these things.

This tale is charming for the most part, and involves *SPOILER ALERT* a royal pregnancy and important treaty that is being sabotaged. So far it’s brilliant. But here’s the thing no other critics have noticed:

There’s a winter storm that takes out all the airports and travel in and out of Aldovia…yet all cellular service is somehow intact. When you see the size of the snowfall, it is impossible to believe that it wouldn’t have taken out at least part of the power grid, and therefore connected communication networks. But the story just plays out as if all high speed interfacing is fine, including video conferencing. We’re supposed to believe that a giant storm took out all travel, yet didn’t affect the communications infrastructure at all? It’s not completely outside the realm of reality, but it’s unlikely a storm of that magnitude, if disrupting travel, would not disrupt communications as well. Perhaps things were disrupted, but the filmmakers (Christopher Nolan?) chose to not address it, in which case there would be some political overtones of proletariat versus bourgeoisie that would be appropriate to address, given the backdrop of an imperial family. There is no hint of this either, so it stands as a disappointing oversight.

It’s troubling. Not an impossible point to get past, but again, a disappointing oversight in an otherwise flawless film. You can do better, Mr. Nolan.

12-12

There’s no secret compartment.

There’s a certain amount of fakery we can handle with our movies; a sleight of hand that is part of the pact between filmmakers and audience. We obviously don’t believe everything we see on film can happen. But we expect a certain level of adherence to reality. And there’s an egregious breach of this in the holiday film classic Elf, in which the title character, Buddy, is sitting at the dinner table with his new family.

They’re enjoying a lovely spaghetti meal together, and he asks for syrup. Syrup for his spaghetti. I am not even going to to address the stereotypes this perpetuates about elves and their diets. I will accept that as an innocent, albeit insensitive oversight.

The real problem is that when told there’s no syrup at the table, he shrugs it off, and informs the table he has an emergency supply. He then reaches into his right coat sleeve and pulls out a small bottle of syrup.

We hear no Velcro ripping. We hear no buttons being unsnapped. The angle at which he pulls the bottle out makes it impossible that it would stay there, stuck up his sleeve, without some mechanism for keeping it in place. Yet from both a visual and an auditory standpoint, there is no indication that this is the case.

This flies in the face of physics and reality, and sadly, will probably ruin the film for most, as it should. Other than that, it’s a watchable piece of cinema. But seriously: don’t treat your audience like idiots. We’re not gonna take it.

12-10

It doesn’t fly.

In the Richard Scarry classic Best Christmas Book Ever, there is a story entitled “Trouble at Santa’s Workshop.” In this story, Santa keeps his tools locked up at night to make sure his elves get their rest, which is a commendable, albeit authoritarian dictate to make in protection of the proletariat. But one morning he wakes up and his keys are lost. Can’t find them anywhere. He calls up his old friend Lowly Worm (who is a worm) to help. SPOILER ALERT: Lowly flies up and eventually helps by inserting his body into the keyhole and unlocking it. The tools are available, the elves can get back to work, and Christmas won’t be ruined.

Here’s the thing: first of all, the vehicle Lowly flies to the North Pole in is what author Scarry calls an “applecopter.”

It closely resembles a helicopter, which could potentially be grounds for copyright or patent infringement, but more importantly, it’s shaped like an apple (probably why it’s called an applecopter?). It’s completely non-aerodynamic. I’m not a physics guy or NASA or NASCAR expert or anything, but it’s clear from the illustration that there is no possible way this applecopter would ever fly. It’s ludicrous to expect children to believe that a worm - even a worm with flight training - could fly something that flies (pun intended) in the face of reality.

Also, and of lesser importance: Santa never finds his keys, which is a key (pun intended) plot point that is unresolved. Sloppy.

12-08-2019