BabelAlexandria

My brother convinced me to watch this smorgasbord of absurdness with him over Christmas break. Now I will always respect his right to his own taste in movies, and Red One definitely has some hilarious one-liners, with less gratuitous violence than one might expect. But none of that explains why it's been the #1 movie in America, at least according to Amazon, which, it should be said, apparently owns the studio that made it. I think I have an explanation: its contemporary mythologizing touches on various flash points within national political discourse, without actually adopting a clear stance in one ideological camp or another. Take Santa Claus and the North Pole Syndicate (well, presented more like a corporation): it's a secret organization with its tentacles reaching across the globe, in collaboration with the US government and military. But instead of a nefarious conspiracy, it's actually fulfilling UN-style goals of international happiness, peace, and prosperity. The E. L. F. Crew that supports Santa is nordic in a geographical sense but relatively diverse (including supernatural creatures), while on the other hand the anti-hero calls them out at one point for criticizing him because he's a "normal guy." It's also completely secularized, but simultaneously assumes that Christmas-which it rarely names-is universally relevant. Maybe the most interesting thing is its seeming rejection of punishment for being on the "naughty list". This sort of moral enforcement is found in many religious traditions, even when done by demonic figures such as Gryla the ice queen and her evil Olafs (they like warm, bone-crushing hugs), from Judaism and Christianity to Buddhism. Is this a rejection of personal ethical responsibility or an assertion of privacy as a human right against the expanding surveillance state? In any case, by the end, we can rest assured that all is well in the post-truth era: Christmas has been saved, and we are offered the utopian vision of nano-technology-driven, hyper-efficient delivery service. Is this Amazon or Santa (cf. The Klaus movie)? For my part, I was inspired less by the logistics and more by the vision of Oldman Santa pumping iron and running steps well past the age when he should have retired--but not like RFK Jr.!

The live-action versions of animated films which Disney has been systematically pursuing are strange beasts. They all seem to adhere to a tight formula: the characters and plot are left virtually untouched, with the same songs plus several extra ones. In that sense, it's almost like watching the animated version one more time, with much of the fun from pointing out and discussing connections between the two. It's also true that the distinction between "live-action" and "animation" is increasingly slippery after the rise of CGI, which is often very dramatic in these Disney remakes. In the case of the Little Mermaid, however, Disney made some fascinating changes simply through casting, scenery, and costumes. The original version was not a simple adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's tale, and the live-action one completely abandons the connection, instead presupposing, fairly logically, that the real setting is in the Caribbean, 19th-century or so. After all, Scandinavia is now covered by Frozen, which I see is getting another feature film...