Sunday, December 14, 2014

Cycnical 30 Year Old Watches Miracle On 34th Street

The movie starts off with Macy’s Cole’s Thanksgiving Parade’s Santa taking in a few pulls of bourbon.  We’re off to the races.  That this guy was close enough to get to the staging area is a history lesson of pre-9/11 New York.

Damn Real Santa gets pretty unhinged here.











Did they not vet this Santa for such a high-profile event?  Or have another one on standby?  Like, what if he got the flu?  Or was murdered by a hobo?

So Mom comes home and her daughter is gone, and there's a video cued up for her to push play.  You don’t even see the Brian guy, just him picking her up and taking her out of the frame.  More like Taken From 34th Street.


Aww precocious kid doesn’t believe in Santa Claus.  In about 15 years she’s probably not going to believe in marriage either.  Or meat.

We’ve got our bad guy – the head of the competitor department store.  He’s literally sitting in an all-black room with a chess board.   I think he also played the bad guy from one of the Bill & Ted movies.  I’m glad this actor has found his niche.

Oh shit, his assistant is Richard Wright from Sex and The City.

The almost/sorta family sits down to a glorious Thanksgiving dinner.  Brian’s 90s hot in this. 


Real New York Brian would be spending Thanksigiving buried under coke and prostitutes.  Instead, he’s spending it squarely in the friendzone.

I wonder how Santa manages to live in Manhattan though.  Like, what does he do for rent and stuff?

Gaaaahhh an avalanche of children.  This is literally my worst nightmare.


Oh the bad guy store is called Shoppers Express.  Cold. Unfeeling.  Selling gum guns.  No wait, giving them away to sad children.  They look like storm troopers.


Damn, Shoppers Express is selling some blow-up swimming action figure thing (whatever the kid said) for like half the price of Cole’s.  No wonder Cole's needed a two-bank bailout.

Whaaaaaaat Allison Janney is in this?  Telling off the GM for overselling stuff.   Yet, she says she’s coming to Cole’s for all of the things, despite them being like twice as expensive as everywhere else.  I don't think she understands how money works.


But GM and Mom are implementing the “if we can’t find it we’ll find it for you” campaign, proving that in every movie, when Allison Janney speaks, you fucking listen.

Except that this plan only works if Santa works all year round.

Bad guy is berating Richard Wright and OMG Daphne from Frasier about why they didn’t come up with that idiot plan.  Neither of these places deserve to succeed.


Isn’t Brian a New York lawyer? How in the name of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar does he have all this time to stand in line with a kid who isn’t his to see Santa?

Also, Susan is hardcore judging Santa.  She’ll be the funnest girl in the dorms when she hits college.


And then he tells Santa that Susan and Mom are “non-believers.”  Like they’re Suppressive Persons for Scientologists.  Maybe that’s why Mom doesn’t like you, bro.  Bigot.

Nope, it’s because he asks Mom to come back to his place and try out the Mistletoe.  Dude.  No.

Then Mom’s all, Oh but you can take my kid home for me, though.  Thaaaaaanks.

Jesus Christ, Santa lives in an old-folks home in Harlem??  And Richard Wright and Daphne give him a lift home after catching him shooting the shit with a rando reindeer.


I wonder if the cops bring him into the home all the time and are all “Yeah, he was feeding a reindeer again. The zoo people have asked him repeatedly to leave them alone.  Seriously, we don't have time for these shenanigans."

OMG it’s the deaf kid scene.  Right in the feels.


Damn, Santa sadsack party at the bar.  The place where children’s innocence is in tatters on the floor.

Meanwhile, Brian arranges a “really good babysitter” and it’s Old Man Reindeer-Whisperer.


Just so he can take Mom to Times Square?!?

Susan tells Santa that if he’s real, he’ll get her a house, a brother and a dad.  Resorting to emotional blackmail.  Poor Santa looks fucking miserable now.

What the fuck, Brian’s already popping the question.  After one actual, real date.  After she’s said no to countless dates with him, and never having said she wanted to get married.  Girl, RUN.


“I do everything to make you happy, and asking for nothing in return.”  Dude, you JUST asked her to marry you. 

Now Drunk Santa makes a scene at Cole’s.  And is now following him down the street and provoking him.

Wow, there are a lot of witnesses and photographers to the aftermath.  Where were they when this actually happened?

Noooo, he’s sitting sadly by the window with the saddest music.

So now Mom’s freaking out about her job and he calls Brian.  Real New York Brian would be all, “Well, well, well how the tables have fucking turned.”


Has there ever been a movie in the 20th or 21st century where the press didn’t "have a field day"?

God the change in mood for Santa is so sad.  RIP, Richard Attenborough.


So Cole’s takes a page out of Susan’s manipulation for youngsters handbook and says “If you don’t believe this man who is charged with assault isn’t Santa Claus, you’re an asshole.”  Even the teamsters get behind it, though.

It’s like the Christmas version of “support our troops.”

I don’t think I’ve seen one person of colour in this movie yet (who wasn’t an extra in the courtroom).

Brian fucking subpoenaed a child.  And the prosecutor’s wife.  Mom says no and he’s hell-bent on ripping through everyone else’s families like a goddamn tornado.

“My workshops don’t exist in the physical world! They’re in the dream world!” Logic: airtight.  Has this ever held up in a courtroom?


Real talk.  A looooonng time ago I was watching the news around this time and some guy answered the question of how he’s able to travel the world in one night, he said “Santa just snaps his fingers, and there he is” and I screamed back at the TV: then why does have the reindeer, sir? Why. Does. He. Have. The. Reindeer. SIR.

I kind of like the prosecutor.  He knows he’s a prick and he gives no fucks about it.


Isn’t Brian and the Judge discussing the case when court is adjourned a conflict of interest?

So the kid just skips up to the judge’s bench while court is in session?? Surely she would be held in contempt.

New York City stops dead just to hear this verdict.  But not cyclists.  NEVER cyclists.


OMG and the prosecutor’s like, my kids want to make you stop by, and Santa’s all “Oh, I’ll see you real soon.”  Like, you’re going to get fucking robbed, sir.

So, if Santa didn’t win, how would he have done Christmas this year?  Like, how would that have worked?  And wouldn't it have reinforced the argument that Santa didn't exist?

Mom’s got a date at the church this Christmas Eve.  As does Brian.  Set up by the Beard-o.


This is a forced marriage.  What. The. Hell.  This would be my reaction:


Jesus Christ that house is huge.  Unrealistically so for such a small family.  At least the Home Alone family had like twelve kids.


I wish someone would give me a house like that, though.  That’d be sweet.  I promise I’ll believe in Santa.


No comments:

Post a Comment