Almost Famous: One of the Few Perfect Films I've Ever Seen.

 

Oh my god. That's all I can really say about this movie, just oh my god...

Well that's not true. I have a lot I can say about this movie. Almost Famous is an absolute spectacle of a film. Cameron Crowe has delivered one of the closest attempts to complete perfection that a movie has ever come to. Every joke, ever side character, every conversation, every scene, every second, every FRAME of this movie is some of the most outstanding work I've ever seen in cinema. 

Almost Famous is a movie about aspiring Rock Journalist William Miller in the 1970s, who gets an opportunity to write for Rolling Stone Magazine by following the new up and coming band Stillwater on their tour.
The fact that a random kid in San Francisco could meet and get mentored by a renowned journalist like Lester Bangs is one of the many reasons I wish I was born pre-2000s. 

I'd like to start with the fact that this is the most relatable film I have ever watched, and probably will have ever watched. I too, am an aspiring journalist who wants to write about my preferred form of cultural and artistic expression. (William wants to write about Rock for a career, I want to write about movies). I too, will write for hours on end just for the sake of writing. And I too, would be just as helplessly awkward as he was in the situations he was in. 

There is nothing bad for me to say about this film. I'm not kidding when I say it's perfect. So I'm just going to talk about the many, many scenes and aspects of the film that I love. 

I'd like to talk about the band Stillwater first. They are some of the most endearing side characters I've seen in a movie. Their actors can be funny, dramatic, or inspiring whenever they needed to be and they played off of each other so well. I truly thought that they could've been best friends who started a band together and had been working with each other for years. Billy Crudup as Russel Hammond is too good for words to describe. He is so phenomenal and charismatic in this that the first scene I saw him on screen, I could already tell that he was going to be the kindest band member and the one most willing to mentor and work with William. Watching Stillwater's progression in this film is entirely believable, entertaining, and interesting. I love how the character development isn't done from point A to point B, like most movies do. Each member of Stillwater doesn't have character development, they have character journeys. They range from lows to highs and deviate from the average character arc most movies set in place, several times throughout the film. Russel especially does this. He is a flawed individual who means well and tries to be his best self in every situation, but he slips up or makes the wrong choice several times throughout the movie. But every time he does he realizes it, fixes it, and makes it happen less from then on. His character is so complex and interesting, just like many others that I'll get to soon. Stillwater also lets us in on the life of 1970s rockstars. The scenes inside of hotels are loud, chaotic, and a perfect showcase of how unhinged Rockstar parties would have been back then. 

And in conclusion on Stillwater, I dare you to look me in the eye and tell me this guy doesn't look like Ryan Reynolds. Look him up.

Come on. You can't.

Then there's Patrick Fugit, who's performance as William Miller is unspoken brilliance. 

His performance is talked about a good deal, but not to the depth that it should be. Fugit displays William's inner conflict between his nerves and self-doubt against his desire to accomplish his dreams. The display of awkwardness and nervousness he shows in William consistently throughout the entire movie is matched only by how subtle he makes everything. He never tells us how his character is feeling, we figure it out ourselves, and that's a large part of what makes him so believable. Even without Fugit's Oscar nomination-worthy performance, William Miller as a character is really interesting. I love talented actors in films, but I hate it when the writers leave it up to the actors to deliver the scenes. Instead of doing their jobs and giving good dialogue to go with the performances, they slack off and let the actors pick up the extra weight. This is my biggest problem with the otherwise masterpiece Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. Thankfully, the writing soars in this film and even won an Oscar for best original screenplay. So when Patrick Fugit is expressing his character's dreams of becoming a Rock Journalist, or yelling at a band while in a plane, he gets clever, well written dialogue to say. That, mixed with the incredible and nuanced acting of Patrick Fugit, and the sheer relatability to any journalist, is what makes William Miller a complex and amazing character. 

Then of course there's Penny Lane. 

I will be honest, on first watch I found her to be overly egotistical, but then on rewatch...

Yeah she still was. She thinks she's the most important part of Rock and Roll and is an absolute enigma who is the sole reason for Stillwater's success. It's people like that, in over their head, overemphasizing their role or significance in something, and egotistical, that I can't stand. (Other examples of this include Amy Dunne, the villain from Gone Girl, and Hannibal Lecter). I think it's because after spending her life with larger than life, egotistical rock stars, she would start to adopt that same sort of mentality. Aside from the character though, Kate Hudson is amazing in this. She's so clever, charismatic, and outstanding that you are distracted by the character's ego. Also, I only find Penny's ego to be a prominent issue in her character for the first half of the movie. Her character development is truly great in this and it's another thing I don't hear talked about enough. By the second half she's much more down to earth because she saw the humility of William and realized that was the right way to be. And after that she's much more enjoyable to watch (Hudson's performance is good throughout though. I have never seen Pollock, but this performance is my pick for the 2001 Oscars best supporting actress). 

And then there's the romance between Penny and William.

I usually find romance in movies not centered around it to be stale and a tired trope that doesn't need to happen. But this one just works so well. The bar was really low for things like these. But I genuinely cared. I'm shocked. It was so elusive, I had no idea which way it would go or if it would even happen at any turn. And scenes where it progressed were actually really sweet. The reason this works so well is because every aspect of this movie is cranked up to 10. The actors, the writing, the storyline, they all combine perfectly into an amazing story and an amazing movie as a whole. 

Not only is Almost Famous a wildly entertaining journey, filled with warm, charismatic, and relatable characters, it's one of the most under-appreciated and perfect films I have ever seen. Cameron Crowe absolutely hit it out of the park and made a complete masterpiece that will stick with me for years and years to come. (I'm going to catch a lot of hate for this, but best picture 2001, Almost Famous over Gladiator. Sorry but I'm not sorry). 

Scream 5 Crucial Review

 I did it. I actually saw Scream 5 before it got spoiled for me. Which I did not expect. I had been avoiding the internet to a degree since December 17th so as not to have Spider-Man: No Way Home, and then Scream 5 came out a few weeks ago and my anxiety doubled. I love the Scream franchise. And now that a new one came out and is the talk of the internet, I thought: "How long can I last before I hear a YouTube movie critic slip a spoiler into their video?" And the fact that the absolute boneheads at Cineplex won't put any new movies on their store website to rent and that Ontario is under lockdown with closed theatres across the province didn't help. I thought it was hopeless. And then an absolute miracle showed up for me in the form of the 1000 Islands Drive-In in Gananoque. This Sunday my mom showed me this article she found talking about a drive-in near Kingston that was the only place in Ontario that would show Scream 5. I am not jesting, I am one of the only 500 people to have seen Scream 5 in my entire province. And that place was remarkable. It was set up outside an old boutique-style movie theatre, and it had an even bigger DvD collection than Chumleigh's. They had the Dear Evan Hansen remake, a film I recently defended in an earlier article, on DvD.

It's also become one of the biggest stories in Cinema. All over Canada people are hearing of this place. CBC has talked about this. My parents went to go get the popcorn, and they got their photo taken by an international newspaper.  

I thank the people who ran this so much. Through this experience I feel like a cemented my status as not only a fan of the Scream. franchise, but a fan of movies as a whole. But alas, as a die hard critic, I must judge a movie on its own, free from the bias of how amazing the moviegoing experience was. So does this movie actually live up to its predecessors or the historic event it was shown with? 

yes...

Scream 5, (I know it's actually just called Scream, but come on nobody's buying that. It's another sequel. Therefore I refer to it as Scream 5), is a clever return to Woodsboro in a movie series that looked like it breathed its last gasp. Especially after Wes Craven's sad passing in 2015.  A new cast of potential killers is lead by Dewey, Sidney and Gale to stop the new wave of Ghostface's murders in the small town of Woodsboro. The Scream franchise has always been taking a risk in being a meta-commentary on a whole genre. The first two succesfully walked the line between being sharply hilarious and annoyingly smug. While 3 and 4 had their meta comedy feel a bit more on the pretentious side. Thankfully, this newest one returns to the original quality of meta comedy with some great jokes directed towards itself and equally fantastic subversions.

This movie is amazing! I can't believe it's been 5 straight films for this series and all 5 of them are quality! Name one more horror franchise that's done that I dare you! This is the first time I've been genuinely scared by a horror movie since the original Scream. And that was my first horror movie. When I was watching Halloween or the first two Friday The 13th movies, I just laughed. They weren't scary. But this movie kept me awake until 1:00 in the morning. (I'll admit, the fact that they were emptying a snow plow into dump trucks right in front of my house helped it). 

Now I am going into depth about this movie and there WILL be spoilers. And the Scream series is the work of fiction I LEAST want to spoil out of any work of fiction I've watched.  So do NOT read ahead of this paragraph if you are not one of the few that have watched Scream 5. 

As great as this movie was, I do have many more problems with it than I do with some of the originals. For starters, damn this movie has some dumb characters. For a film series that prides itself on being so meta and explicitly avoiding all of the classic tropes, it really suffers from classically having most of its characters be dumbasses. Generic, Stereotypical Jock guy accidentally offends his girlfriend, who already asininely runs out of the house to go cry in the forest. And then he runs out to go look after her! Speaking of generic Jock guy's girlfriend, where the hell did she go? I think Ghostface killed her but no one knows! She runs out and never reappears.

I also have a huge problem with a few of the death scenes. Specifically Sheriff Hicks and her son's deaths. 

Sheriff Hicks' inclusion as a whole felt really unnecessary. But her death is done especially bad. She goes to pick up Sushi for her and her son, and leaves him alone in the house. She then gets a call from Ghostface saying that he's going to kill him. Naturally, Hicks speeds the hell back to her house and calls police backup on her way. Which doesn't arrive for like a half hour. And then when she runs up to her house she's ambushed by Ghostface on the front door. And while he's killing her, she's screaming bloody murder in the middle of a populated suburb and no one seems to be there. People just stop existing during this scene. And then Ghostface goes into the house to kill the son. Which he succeeds in also. But the thing is, the son had been carrying a taser! He showed it to his mother 5 seconds before she left! He had a hand free when he was pushing Ghostface's knife away. He could'e easily used the taser on him! Frosted tips guy was also a really big waste of potential. Out of the new characters in the side cast, I was mostly interested in him. And I know that they had to kill someone close to the new main character, but they had 3 more perfect opportunities with the Jock, the expert, and the punk girl! The first two got stabbed anyways and the third just disappeared. Generic Jock guy isn't doing anything for the story get rid of him! Don't kill the two people in this series we've seen like sushi! (This might be the reason I dislike their death scenes but I choose to believe it's one of the reasons I gave before that.)

Then we have the main death of this film. This is the thing I least want to spoil in the work of fiction I least want to spoil in the history of fiction. So if you were lame enough to read to this point hoping for some major spoilers, click away NOW. I'm not kidding this is huge. 

So... Dewey's dead now...

The one reason I wanted to watch any of the sequels as a 12 year old, got killed off. David Arquette's performance as Dewey gave the series a new light it otherwise didn't have. His presence in each scene saved the franchise from becoming something like Fear Street. A depressing and dark horror film with no happiness. Dewey brought me joy every time he was on screen. And he made the franchise better than it ever would have been without him. And now he's gone. 

The most angering part of this whole thing is how this scene was treated. In Scream 2, Dewey was looking for Gale and went into a sound booth room, and then got pinned against a plexiglass window and stabbed by Ghostface. And the score is filled with this tragic opera singing and sad violin, perfectly fitting the tragedy that was Dewey's death scene. But then the funny thing is. He didn't die! He gets rolled out on a stretcher just like the last movie! Don't get me wrong I'm really happy that he survived, but what I'm NOT happy about is how THIS movie treats Dewey's ACTUAL death scene. It's almost completely silent. And it just kind of happened and didn't add anything major to the story since Gale was already there and could've just called Sidney later. No one is saved by his death, and barely anyone seemed to be affected by it. I get why they'd do it for the sake of refreshing the series, but it just makes me mad how they did it. 

I also wish there was only one killer for once. That's one of the main things I liked about Scream 3. I do get why there were two though. For instance, some fans of the Friday The 13th series genuinely think Jason can teleport because none of the writers took into account how the killer gets where he does so fast to kill people. There being two killers provides more freedom in putting Ghostface where he needs to be. 

That being said you could've made both of the killers interesting. For the first half of me writing this I legitimately forgot that Amber was a character, let alone one of the two killers. She has nothing outside of one really good scene and getting burned alive. 

                                                 Also, what the hell was the point of this guy!? 

Was he supposed to be a Red Herring? Why is he here? What contribution does he have towards this movie? He dies like 10 minutes in after getting in an unrelated bar fight with the main characters. 

Well that's all the stuff I didn't like. But the things I do like are so explicitly great. For starters, the scene where Amber and the expert are in the basement successfully fooled me into thinking that neither of them could be the killer. Regardless of how unmemorable Amber was as the second killer. 

But far and away my favourite part of this movie is how much they switch everything around. Scream 5 subverted my expectations perfectly multiple times throughout while never feeling like it lost the soul of the original films. First off, I absolutely LOVE that they finally made their red herring the actual killer. Not only that, but the fact that characters like Dewey directly call out Ritchie for being suspicious, and then he ends up being the killer. Just like in real life. The most likely suspect is the actual criminal almost 99% of the time, it makes the whole movie feel more real in a way. Another thing they did that subverted my expectations was making the girl from the opening scene survive and become a major character who ends up playing a vital role in taking down the killers. Speaking of the killers, I loved how hilariously pathetic their motive was. They both went on a massive killing spree just because the newest Stab movie sucked. I didn't think the killers could get more whiny and pathetic than the ones from Scream 4, but they did. And I know that sounds negative, but I found it genuinely funny. 

Another really funny moment was when they redid the turn around scene from the original Scream. This time with Ghostface stalking up behind the expert, who's watching Ghostface stalk up behind Randy in the Stab movie playing on the TV, who's watching Michael Myers stalk up behind Jamie Lee Curtis in the original Halloween. Except this time Ghostface actually succeeds in killing the person he's stalking up behind. Plays on the originals like that are why I'm fine with the Scream franchise continuing. 

Scream 5 is a truly great movie and is up there in competition for the best of the franchise. I was really nervous about this movie getting lost in attempts to modernize the series but they do it so excellently. Overall I give it an 8 out of 10. And honestly in years to come I'd like to see Scream get even more movies. I'm sorry but series like Halloween or Friday The 13th have no business having that many movies when half of them are terrible. Scream excels as a franchise not by quantity, but through sheer quality. I want to see this franchise get more films as long as they can still stay true to their roots. I never want to see it do things like what Halloween does where they do trilogies with a movie per year. As long as Scream keeps taking the time in between movies to let things change and make a quality movie each time. And thank god that's what they've managed to do so far. 

Top 5 Subgenres in Film

 

In August of last year I posted an article reviewing Ridley Scott's epic space film The Martian. And in that review I mentioned that The Martian belonged to one of my favourite Subgenres in film. The Space Opera. And that got me thinking. Some of my favourite movies of all time come from subgenres, and I have no Idea what my favourites are when it comes to a subgenre conversation. And once that thought came into my head, it would not leave. Subgenres get nowhere near enough credit for their role in bringing masterpieces to cinema. And I never hear people talk about them, not even when they talk about spectacular movies that come from a subgenre. So now I would like to list my picks for the top 5 subgenres in film. 

Starting off at number 5, The Heist Movie. 

While there definitely is a considerable gap between this subgenre and the rest on this list, Heist Movies are almost always a really fun time with well crafted premises and witty characters. 

I believe the name is pretty self-explanatory, but a heist movie is a film centered around a person or a group of people concocting and executing a plan to steal an item or a large amount of cash from a secured building. Usually under stealth. 

With one exception, this subgenre is the hardest to classify movies into. For instance, to qualify as a heist movie for me, the people performing the heist have to be shown to the viewer as protagonists. Otherwise it's just a movie about people stopping a heist. So Die Hard movies don't count for this subgenre. (Although huge shout out to Simon Gruber, one of the best parts of Die Hard With A Vengeance who had a genuinely elite plan to steal money from heavily secured banks and was definitely a much bigger criminal mastermind than his brother). Despite being hard to distinguish, Heist Movies have given us some true classics that I'm sure you'll recognize if you're a movie fan. (Which you must be if you're reading these articles). The Ocean's series, Fast Five, Baby Driver, and The Usual Suspects are just some of the beloved movies you can find when googling for a heist movie. I enjoy Heist movie for their great writing, comedic timing, and usually well crafted plot structures. But in the end the Subgenres above this one are just too strong for this one to find an edge. 

The number 4 spot goes to the one that gave me this idea in the first place. Space Operas are some of the greatest visual achievements in cinema. 

For those of you that haven't heard of this term before, a Space Opera is a movie that take place for a large portion of the runtime in space, and generally adopts a melodramatic tone.  Space Operas have produced some truly sensational films, the first ones that come to mind are First Man, Interstellar, and of course 2001: A Space Odyssey. Space Operas are some of the most beautiful looking films I've ever seen. They truly can be a changing experience when you watch the best ones. However, like most subgenres on my list, It's a limited field in how different you can make them. It's usually just some person floating through space or another retelling of Apollo 11. And while you'll soon see that the subgenres in my top 3 can be really repetitive, but as a whole they all produce better movies on average and that's what got them the edge. 

Starting off the podium, Mafia Dramas take number 3. 

I mean, you had to know this was going to make the list. Mafia Dramas have given us some of the greatest films cinema has graced us with. Mafia Dramas are movies centered around an organized crime syndicate, and the violent acts that they commit. I'm sure you can already think of many amazing movies from this subgenre, but some of the greatest Mafia Dramas I can think of are The Godfather trilogy, Goodfellas, The Departed, Scarface, and The Irishman. These are some of the greatest movies of all time! Every second of these movies are so beautifully crafted in every aspect. From the plots, to the acting, to the writing, to the casting, it's a 10 out of 10 in every form. To be honest, this is probably the objectively best subgenre in film, but I just love these top two so much I couldn't bring myself to rank this above them. But I have also always been fascinated by the concept of organized crime (except the murder part, I'd like to add), and Mafia Dramas are just so thrilling and riveting. 

I've been struggling to finalize my opinion between the top two for days now, and have made barely any progress in it, but screw it, War Dramas are my number two. 

While Mafia Dramas contain some of the more generally agreed on greatest movies of all time, War Dramas contain some of my picks for the greatest.

Modern War Dramas are some of the most riveting, captivating, haunting, and beautiful experiences I've had in years of moviegoing. One War Drama has single handedly changed my views on Cinema and art itself. (I know that sounds a bit pretentious, but it is not an exaggeration, I'm not going to spoil the name of the movie because I plan to make a huge ranking of my favourite films of all time later on). I would classify War Dramas as drama films that deal with war on the battlefield or the toll war takes on the people left behind. Some of my favourite War Dramas are legitimately my favourite movies of all time! Schindlers List, Life Is Beautiful, Saving Private Ryan, Hacksaw Ridge, Each of these movies are an achievement in cinema and they're only a percentage of the beauty and masterwork that is the War Drama subgenre. 

Number one was such a tough decision. Between this and the War Drama, I spent so long trying to choose which was better. And I'm still not 100% sure. And while the movies that come from the War Drama are some of the greatest I've ever watched, I'm just a sucker for courtroom dramas. 

I'm struggling to describe what it is that draws me to these particular films, but I believe it to be the elegance, and the way the lawyers break the organizational conformity that everyone must follow. Watching a lawyer become truly passionate about the case he's presenting is so beautiful. And don't even get me started on the scenes where they lose it and the judge yells at them to calm down, but they just keep getting more and more intense. Oh my god those are the best. I'm not even going to tell you what a courtroom drama is, you're reading this. You love movies just like me. You already know. 

I plan after this to make a more courtroom drama based article that dives deeper into what I like about specific movies under this subgenre. So I'm not going to talk much more here. But I will say that courtroom dramas are the most riveting films I've ever watched and it truly is my pick for the greatest subgenre in film. 

Thank you for Reading the article. Follow James_Ferris on LetterBoxd to see my thoughts on even more movies. 

Jojo Rabbit Crucial Review

 

I've never been more worried about a movie in the same way as I was with Jojo Rabbit. I was watching the 2020 Oscars and this movie stuck out to me much more than any other. And not in a good way. I saw this movie get nominated for a ton of awards and even win Best Adapted Screenplay. And based off of the few clips I saw, I was horrified. "Why is there a Comedy about Nazi-Germany in the middle of World War II where Hitler is the main protagonists best friend? And why are you making a comedy about war in general? This is the absolute last thing I would choose to write a comedy movie about!".  

While horrified, I also knew that at some point I was going to watch this movie out of pure curiosity. And yesterday I finally did. And let me just say it definitely wasn't what I was expecting. It is so much better. By the end of this experience, I was amused, entertained, shaken, and absolutely amazed at the beautiful film I had just witnessed. And I wanted to be able to talk about it to the extent and depth it deserves. So here it is. Jojo Rabbit's crucial review.   

As you read during the intro, I had my doubts going into this movie, and it never fully put them to rest on my first viewing. The tone sort of disgusted me and it was hard for me to feel invested in the story. But eventually by the second and especially third act it won me over. But not entirely. Jojo Rabbit suffers from the same issue one of my personal favourite Disney movies, The Hunchback of Notre Dame does. It is a tonal disaster.  The movie is plagued with not knowing what it wants to be. Jokes and comedic elements are shoved in between some really powerful scenes. Evident when Jojo sees the Jewish people who were murdered in the city square, and even the final battle where the Allies invade Jojo's town. That scene is an absolutely stellar climax and the muffled, slightly slow motion sequence is just artistic. But still there's times in it where the movie is trying to tell jokes and that weighs it down significantly. 

I hated the tone going into the movie, but on the rewatch I liked it significantly better. Once I knew the direction they were taking the story, I could watch and enjoy the movie much more and even laugh at most of the jokes. I could also respect the tone of the movie much more on the second watch. I see now that the first act's tone emulates how Jojo's susceptible mind feels about Adolf Hitler and the war. He had grown up seeing Nazi propaganda all around him and that would warp a young child's mindset about right and wrong. And the movie displays this through film phenomenally. 

That being said the tone shifts are a bit abrupt and could be built up more. For example one second Jojo's running around and happily burning books with the rest of his fellow Hitler youth, the next we see a haunting scene where the teenage instructors try to force him to strangle a live rabbit on the spot, which is a  perfect way to show how heartless and cruel Nazi Germany expected people to be even from a young age. 

Another example of abrupt tone shifts would be the absolutely beautiful and poetic scene in the second act where Jojo and his mother see the hung Jewish people in the center square. 

"What did they do?"

"What they could"...

This is one of the best scenes of 2019. 

The way they transition it could be better but it still works. Jojo is pasting up some new Nazi propaganda as instructed by his Nazi youth center. He walks around town to cheerful German music, and then finds his mother in the town square, staring at the unjustly murdered dead Jews hanging right in front of them. The German music is abruptly stopped and drowned out by absolute silence. Scarlett Johansson's character just stands there, with a look that says it all and yet has perfect subtlety. You see the mixed feelings of sympathy, remorse, and disgust conflicting inside her. And on the rewatch you can tell she fears for her safety, the safety of the Jewish girl she's protecting, and the safety of her son. And then my favourite moment in the movie happens, Jojo turns to look away, just like so many people have done to ignore the mass murder their country has brought, and his mother turns his head back and forces him to look, to see what this war has brought and what his hero, Hitler, has done. This scene speaks so many volumes to us and yet it's done with almost no words, and then the best line in the film is spoken. "What they could." The

Jewish did nothing to provoke this and only ever did what they could to survive it. Scenes like this are what make good, believable character development.

Then right after that, another remarkably well done scene comes where Jojo finds the Jewish girl that his mother is hiding from the Nazis. From the Disney+ description of the movie, I knew what was going to happen here, but the suspense was still, hitting me hard, and when he was crawling through the mysterious corridor he found in his walls, I was genuinely scared. This is thanks in no small part to the absolutely sensational score. It lets us feel every thought of fear and worry going through Jojo's head as he crawls deeper into the dark. This is the first time I noticed how brilliant a score was for myself rather than have someone point it out for me on YouTube later. I had watched movies like E.T, Up, or even Jurassic Park many times before and loved them, but never noticed their phenomenally great scores until I watched YouTube reviews of them after because apparently back then I was TASTELESS AND HEARING IMPAIRED. Those scores are legendary! And to finally be able to hear a score on my own on the first watch felt like a really big accomplishment in my moviegoing life. I later googled the composer of Jojo Rabbit to see who I could give my thanks to, and the result did not surprise me at all. Of COURSE it was Michael Giacchino, that man is one of the greatest living composers of the modern era! He is one of two cinematic composers who, in my mind, could stand toe to toe with the great composers Mozart, Beethoven or Bach. (The other of course being John Williams. The greatest composer I've ever heard). Michael Giacchino is behind some of the greatest scores in the medium of animation, and film in general. He is responsible for Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Inside Out, and even the award winning score of Up. If anyone was going to be behind the first score I ever noticed on my own, it was him. Something else I like about this scene is how it portrays the Jewish refugee differently from other movies of a similar storyline. In most movies like this that I have seen, they make the Jewish person quickly warm or kind to people around them, or even scared of the person that finds them. No. Not this time. This girl is rightfully pissed at Jojo and is not pulling any "good cop bad cop" crap here. She has the upper hand over Jojo, a person who stands for the thing that has taken everything from her and is now going to get her killed, and she exploits it and scares Jojo into staying quiet. I haven't heard enough people talking about this part and I want to bring it to attention because it's just one of many smaller details that make this movie great. 

Then we get a beautiful and heartfelt conversation between Jojo's mother and the Jewish girl she's protecting. I have nothing to say about t I just want to point it out too. Scarlett Johansson has another brilliant acting moment, and her line. "As long as there's [A Jewish Person] still alive, then they lose, they didn't get you today or yesterday, make tomorrow the same." This movie is written to absolute perfection. 

Then we have my favourite scene in the movie. The dinner with Jojo and his mother. I love this so much that I can only attempt to describe its greatness with words. But let me try. Jojo has just learned that his mother is protecting a Jewish girl from the Nazis. And he still believes in the genocide of all Jews, making him furious at her. But he can't tell her outright what he's mad about, so he becomes very irritable, trying to find ways to express his anger towards her in different ways, like when he slams on the table and yells at her for being happy that Germany is losing the war. Sensing that Jojo is going to soon kill the vibe, his mother shuts it down by saying "Dinner is neutral ground, this table is Switzerland". So listen, this movie definitely has some objectively better lines than that, but this is the one I think I'll be remembering for longer, it's just so spectacularly clever. 

Then Jojo sees that his mother isn't eating her dinner, realizing she's going to give it to the Jewish girl when he's in bed. And then, with the most smug expression I've seen a child actor give in a movie. He eats it for her so it "Won't go to waste". This is his way of getting back at the Jewish girl, and as wrong and horrible as it is, it's really funny. Come on. 

Then this scene has another abrupt tone shift, except this time it works because the way the characters have their conversation makes it feel more natural. Jojo tells his mother how he's a deformed kid with nothing to live for, and as she tries to comfort him, he tells her this absolute dagger to the heart: "I wouldn't expect you to understand, if my father were here, he'd get it. But instead, I'm stuck here with you".  That's when you see the mother's mood completely change, she quickly storms off, dresses up as Jojo's father, and just yells at him. She has been bottling up this fear and disappointment and anger towards Jojo's beliefs for all this time, and here she finally gives up and lets it out for a brief second. i love this scene, it's equally hilarious and heart shattering at the same time and it's cinematic perfection and Scarlett Johansson shows us she's more than an MCU superhero actor. 

Another thing I want to talk about is how perfect the relationship between Jojo and the Jewish girl (Who's name I now realize is Elsa), develops. For the first bit they start hating each other, then Jojo begins to show interest in her and her people, making her comfortable enough to tell him about her late fiancée, Nathan, and how he's in France fighting for the resistance. Then she hands the paper back to Jojo, who told her to draw where the Jewish live, and it's just an insulting picture of his head. She then tells him that's where they live. This may seem like another insulting joke to Jojo, but it's actually a clever way of telling him that the Jewish people he thinks of aren't real and only exist in his head because other people put them there. 

Then Jojo, not knowing Nathan is dead, decides to write a breakup later from him to deliver to Elsa. And then a majour plot point occurs. Seein g how devastating this trick letter was to Elsa, Jojo makes up another one to try and make her feel better. Elsa, who knows this is just a trick letter as Nathan died last year, realizes that Jojo's making a fake letter to comfort her and realizes that maybe there is some actual good in this kid. I love this particular part because you can tell it's a majour point in the movie without it yelling that in your face. Nothing happens that explicitly tells you this is important to the overall story structure of the film, and you're allowed to connect the dots on your own, it has subtlety, something modern cinema needs more of. From then on, the two begin to grow a friendship bond of some sorts. Jojo slowly gaining sympathy towards Elsa is exactly what character development should look like in a movie.

A few more scenes pass, Jojo and Elsa become good friends, and he and his mother reconcile. Then this comes up. Jojo answers a knock on the door to find German inspectors at his front door. This scene made me feel sick to my stomach,  My heart was in my throat this entire time, and the stakes are at the perfect height. And the facial expressions and acting of Roman Griffin Davis make them feel so real and elevate the scene even more. 5 Nazis are looking around Jojo's house trying to find the Jewish girl he'd just become friends with. And when it looks like they've found her she dresses up like Inge, Jojo's dead sister, who the movie has established the perfect amount as a character to make this work and feel relevant. From then on I just couldn't breathe. The head inspector interrogates her for a minute about who she is and then tells her to go get her citizen papers. Then my favourite character in the movie finally gets to shine. Captain K. Asks "Inge" when her registration photo was taken and what the date of birth on the card said. And to the relief of the two children, she guessed right, or so they thought. Turns out she was 6 days off on her date of birth and Captain K. protected them from being exposed. And my heart just melted at that point. They were safe. For about 5 more minutes of runtime. 

The inspectors leave and Jojo tries to continue his life. He is walking around town seeing the military getting trained for battle, and then the movie hits us with an absolutely devastating blow to the heart. 
Jojo walks around town for a bit longer and then stumbles upon town square. Finally beginning to see the beauty in his life, and then he sees it, and his life as he knows it is torn to shreds, along with his heart. Jojo is following a butterfly flying along the ground, beginning to feel knew happiness, and then, he stops and sees his mother's red shoes, still on her dead body in a shot with nearly all color drained out to provide a miserable, gray atmosphere. She was hung for harboring a Jew. After this scene I don't think I fully recovered. And Roman Griffin Davis' acting is heartbreaking here. The worst part of it all is, he never got to tell his mother she was right, she had always hoped that Jojo would realize the right way to live, and he finally did, but she never got to live long enough to see it. he then goes back to his empty home with his knife to kill the Jewish girl for revenge, that close to finally tipping over to the dark side forever, unable to come back, but he stops himself because his mother taught him that isn't the answer. He then falls asleep watching bombs fall over his city, seeing the hardships the war he supported all this time has brought other places, and having his blindfold of fanaticism permanently ripped off. 

And then the climax finally falls upon us. A beautiful, slow motion, muffled sequence where Jojo and hi friend Yorki run to find safety among an allied invasion of Germany. I do have problems with how there's a few out of place jokes in this scene that I pointed out earlier, but for the most part this is a stellar scene that excels beautifully in bringing the war to the movie. Then the allies win and capture all of the remaining Nazis, liberating Germany and the Jewish people. And as if this movie wasn't sad enough, the final blow to what was left of my ability to keep my composure happened. Jojo walks around seeing the new Germany, and the soldiers from the allied forces. He is taken by a soldier one of the areas where the Allies put the surviving Nazis, and he finds Captain K. Still in the flashy uniform he designed with Jojo, sitting against a wall. Jojo soon realizes they are going to shoot the rest of the Nazis dead. Including him. And Captain K realizes how scared he is. He then comforts Jojo like the father figure he's been for the whole film, shows that he is a tender and loving guy. His last words to Jojo are: "Now go home and look after that sister of yours, and then he stands Jojo up, rips off his Nazi uniform and yells at him like he's a Jew, saving his life. But not his. Jojo is carried away by a soldier, screaming at them not to hurt Captain K. As was I. He is then shoved away by the soldier, who yells at him to go home. And I'd like to just say quickly, I love when a movie doesn't paint every single member of the morally correct army as perfect people, just because they are fighting for what's right, doesn't mean they are good people. (Another good example of this is Cold Mountain where a group of Yankees commit a bunch of crimes on a woman's house and family). Even though their side was right, they can still be horrible people. And that was the case a lot of the time. 

And with that, the last we hear of Captain K is his death to the hands of an Allied soldiers SMG. This is the most I have cried at any movie death in the 21st century. Jojo's mother's death was horrible and very sad, but this just hit even worse. Hell, this is the most I've cried at any movie scene in general of the 21st century. And yet, I was still smiling. Because even in death, he was the nicest character in the movie.  Then, with almost nothing left in his life to care about, Jojo trudges home. Where he is greeted by his imaginary Hitler. (He also tells the Jewish girl that Germany won the war. Which I don't understand so I won't even try.)

But anyways, the last thing I would like to talk about is Taika Waititi's Hitler.

This was the aspect of the film I was most concerned about going in. I wondered to myself "Why?" Why is Hitler in this movie? Why is he Jojo's imaginary friend? Why the hell did Taika Waititi CHOOSE to play this role? I didn't think that Hitler's character in this would matter at all to the story, however, he's actually kind of crucial in the grand scheme of this. Hitler works as a perfect contrast to Jojo's arc in this movie. Jojo starts out blinded by his fanaticism towards Hitler, who emulates how Jojo thinks of him at the start. Jojo thinks of Hitler as a kind, helpful leader with his best intentions at heart. Then during the second act when Jojo begins to see glimpses of the real world, Hitler begins to show glimpses of his real self, showing us the way Jojo could have been had he continued down the path Hitler led him down. Then in the third act, Hitler finally takes off his mask and becomes the real him. Trying to force Jojo back to Nazi beliefs. As Jojo keeps going higher as a character, Hitler sinks deeper and deeper into the darkness of Nazi beliefs, and watching his slow slip from that fake cheer and friendliness, to the evil dictator he truly is magnificent. All of this is taken further with some truly great acting by Taika Waititi. It's truly great to see him take the money he made from Thor: Ragnarok and put it towards great movies that excel in creativity and quality. I cannot wait to see what this man has in store for us later on. 

 
This movie is about overcoming blind fanaticism and forming your own opinion in a world that tries to tell you what to think. And they develop Jojo's journey through this path amazingly. The first act demonstrates how Jojo has a rigid, unchangeable opinion on the world around him, the second act is where we see things that begin to challenge his opinion and let him start to see the things around him in a clear light, and then the third act is when we see him fully understand the world around him and have his opinion finally changed for the better. After my first viewing, I gave this movie 7 and a half stars out of ten, bordering on 8 stars. But then over the past few days it has stuck with me, haunting my brain, and I realized that rating was truly unjust. This movie is a 9 out of ten, INCHES away from a 10. If you have not seen it yet, PLEASE check it out, stop assuming it's all "Hitler is nice" hijinx. It absolutely isn't. Jojo Rabbit is an absolute masterpiece and a beautiful and artistic view on a genre that seemed to be nearly played out, but this film revitalized the genre with a fresh, creative new stance that will make you laugh, cry, and change your view on cinema as a whole. I know it did for me. 

Dear Evan Hansen Is An Amazing Movie But A Horrible Musical Adaptation

Picture this, it's June of 2021. I have just gotten word that a Paw Patrol movie is coming out, and as a lover of sophisticated cinema, I get hit with the cold realization that animated movies, and movies in general are dying. Modern day cinema has left near all aspects of storytelling, artistic merit, and passion for its work behind and has been corrupted by corporate greed and brand names. These days, there are no more Ratatouilles, no more Toy Story 3s. Hell, there aren't even any more Wreck It Ralphs. It's just a wasteland of corporations pushing out terrible movies for the sole purpose of making money. Movies have become known solely as entertainment, whereas the glory days were equally entertainment and art. 

I had almost lost all hope for movies. But then August came around. I had been anticipating Free Guy, (an amazing and creative movie on its own that started to restore my faith while walking out of the theatre) since early June. And it lived up to my anticipation. It's not artistically great or anything but it's a great movie that definitely brought back a sense of creativity to an otherwise uninspired year for blockbusters. 

But when I was watching Free Guy in theatres, a certain part of the experience definitely stuck out to me. That being the previews. There was a few trailers that stuck out to me that day, but not as much as Dear Evan Hansen. Right when my hopes for movies to return to their old level of storytelling and love for art, this movie suddenly appears out of seemingly nowhere. The story looks different and original, the acting looks magnificent, and the movie as a whole looks like an absolute anomaly. I was so excited for September to roll around so I could finally get to experience this movie and have my panics about the future of cinema put to rest. I had avoided all talk of the movie and trailers online so that every second of this movie could be savored as much as possible. 

It's mid September now, Dear Evan Hansen had just released in theatres, and this is the most anticipation I've felt for a non comic book movie in a long time. But, while browsing one of my favourite YouTube channels about movies I accidentally learn a horrifying fact. Dear Evan Hansen, is a god damn MUSICAL ADAPTATION! And apparently a bad one at that. 

I thought that Dear Evan Hansen was an original movie, and that was proving to me that creativity in film wasn't dead, and to learn that this is a broadway copy-paste was a bit of a blow to the heart. Instead, it's a Tony-winning broadway play starring Ben Platt and Rachael Bay Jones, who both won Tony awards for their performances. The musical is generally admired in the theatre world, and it even won the Tony for best musical in its year. So does that mean this years remake will reach the same levels of popularity with audiences and critics?

The actual second that Dear Evan Hansen was released, hate was thrown on it faster than it was on Green Book's best picture win. (Both have some valid points, but in majority it's exaggerated and unnecessary. More on that later). People keep saying this movie is insultingly terrible. 

I don't get it.

I guess I should start out being understanding with their critiques. It was a really lame choice to let Ben Platt reprise his role as the titular Evan Hansen. The director blatantly admitted the entire reason for this remake was to immortalize Ben Platt's Tony winning performance. Which is such a crappy decision. Ben Platt is a 28 year old man why are you casting him as the 17 year old Evan Hansen!? And if you're doing this just to cement Ben Platt's performance in entertainment history, why is Julianne Moore playing Heidi Hansen? You made this entire damn thing to celebrate Ben Platt's LeGeNdArY performance, why wouldn't the same notion be extended to Rachael Bay Jones, who arguably did better than Ben Platt on the original play and delivered so much more raw emotion in the play than Julianne Moore did in this movie.

Also, Heidi got so much less time in this movie than in the play and even got her song cut. All she gets is a few short scenes that begin to set up an overworked mom who can't spend enough time with her child arc, but it falls so flat because it never gets screen time to develop or flesh out enough, it is ignored to the point where it becomes an afterthought in the movie. The only other thing she gets is this annoying scene where she gets mad at Evan for hanging out with a family that can actually spend time with him while she's at work, and she just angered me so much in that scene that it ends up being negative for here character overall.

Aside from Heidi's song being cut, other changes in the soundtrack really leave a bad taste in the mouth. Cutting out Good For You was a terrible choice because that was the time in the play where Evan finally receives consequences for his sociopathic actions. And without that he just gets off way too easily.  And they changed the time at which Only Us is sung, so now rather than it being sung while Evan and Zoe are already dating, it's how they start. This would be fine normally, except they didn't change the song's lyrics, so they sing as though they are already dating, and what's supposed to be one of the most touching scenes in the movie ends up just being a hilarious mess.

Ok now on to the good stuff...

Everything Else!

Aside from the few bad things about this movie that I just listed, the rest of the criticisms I hear about this movie are just comparing it to the original musical. And I think that's really unfair. It's just like The Force Awakens in that regard, it's clearly derivative from A New Hope and it absolutely cannot touch it's greatness, but without the context of A New Hope and how it came first, you can stop comparing The Force Awakens to its clearly superior predecessor and begin to appreciate it as its own film. And once you do that with the Dear Evan Hansen remake, it gets so much better. 

Now I understand that with most people, being able to watch the movie free from the context and comparisons of its predecessors is impossible as they watched the musical when it was released, before this remake was even a concept. But I am lucky enough to have been able to watch this remake beforehand, and not make comparisons to the movie that came before it, or expecting it to live up to its predecessor. Just because a remake isn't as good as the original product its remaking, doesn't mean the remake is automatically garbage. Instead I can appreciate the movie for what it is on its own, and it is magnificent on its own. 

A huge misconception I heard people is that all of the songs don't work and are subpar. And that is truly the most incorrect take I've heard spoken about this movie. To put this simply, all of the songs slap hard. In many different ways, with one exception, (Only Us) each one is an 8 out of 10 or above. Waving Through A Window is an amazing song beautifully illustrating the life of this 17 year old in roughly 3 minutes and is a near perfect opening song, For Forever is a great emotional ballad that further illustrates the main character, Sincerely Me, while not really fitting the tone of anything that just happened, is really funny and catchy and I think it's perfect as a small breakup between the more emotionally rich scenes. If I could Tell Her is fine, definitely the weakest ballad in the movie, Only Us but still works really well in the movie and out. The Anonymous Ones is the second best written song in the entire film, the lyrics in this are insightful and just works of poetry in their own. And You Will Be Found is the second song in this movie that made me cry. The scene with him on stage singing the speech and you seeing the looks of awe and wonder wash over the audience, followed by all of the reactions online from his speech, are so perfect it almost makes you forget about the disgusting thing that Evan is doing here. 

But then there's Requiem. My favourite song I've ever heard in a musical. (Granted, I haven't watched many broadway musicals, but it definitely beats anything from Hamilton for me). Seeing the way the Murphy family is impacted by Connor's death is heartbreaking, Kaitlyn Dever's talent was on full display as she was in the car, and Danny Pino delivered my favourite performance in this movie as Larry Mora, the stepdad of the family. His small part of this song was too good for words and he would keep that elite consistency for the rest of the film. I was really concerned when he first appeared on screen that he was going to be a heartless, semi-antagonistic character but those fears were put to rest almost immediately. I definitely want to see him in more movies in the future.

Overall this movie is an 8 out of ten. I can definitely see why people dislike it but absolutely not to the degree they do. When I heard it was a musical adaptation I was terrified that my anticipated movie would turn out horrible, but to my relief, and contrary to what everyone else seems to think, it recovered and stuck the landing well. If you haven't seen the original yet, please watch this first then make your comparisons after. I guarantee it will make both a much better experience. 

The Top 5 Christmas Movies of All Time

The holiday season is filled with some of the greatest genres of their art forms. I recently published an article about the top five Christmas singers of all time on my music blog The Alt Rock Cult. In that article I informed the readers that I would be making a small series of articles throughout my blog network revolving around all different things Christmas. Today I'll be talking about one of the greatest things the holiday season has ever brought us, Christmas movies. Watching a Christmas movie is one of the most joyful things you can do and the best of them are viewed as some of the biggest classics in the industry. 

So without any further drawn out intro, let's get into my top 5 Christmas movies. (Also I would like to note that I've never seen Miracle on 34th Street so it will not be making an appearance on this list.)

My number 5 may surprise some of you, but Jingle All The Way is such an underrated gem.

Every single point of this experience hits on a 10/10 note. Something I like about this movie is the way it looks at a different angle of Christmas than any other movie I've watched. It follows Arnold Schwarzenegger, a successful man with a high power position at his job, who is at work so much that he starts to become estranged from his only son. And the final straw is pulled when he misses his son's karate... thing, by staying too late at an office Christmas party. Arnold fears that his relationship with his son may not recover from a cut that deep, so he sets off to get the one thing that could redeem him and make his son truly happy, the Turbo Man action figure. However, the figures have been sold out for months and Arnold, through sheer determination and love for his son, travels across the city in many different adventures searching for his son's wish. 

I watch this movie as many times annually as I do Elf and Home Alone. It's also one of the three Christmas movies that I bought on DvD. It's that good. The fact that this movie almost meets the highs of Elf demonstrates that. Almost every single FRAME of this movie is completely perfect. The fact that this movie can take us into so many different random directions and make almost all of them feel plot relevant and taken to the perfect length and measure. The Santa mob!? Come on! That is 100% in literally every category. It's just hilarious. And the fact that they got Jim Belushi to play a member of the mall Santa mob is like 10% of why I love this movie. Probably one of my favourite scenes in a Christmas movie. And the climax is just superb. Arnold accidentally crash the local Christmas parade's main attraction, the Turbo man float. In a clever nod to what a behemoth Arnold is, he gets mistaken as the fill in to play the super hero Turbo man on the top of the float. And after a full day of running himself to emptiness trying to provide his son with his Christmas wish, Arnold is handed a Turbo Man figure and is told he can choose one kid from the audience to give it to. And at that moment, Arnold sees his son amongst the crowd, and finally gets his son what he wanted. And then out of the crowd at flawless timing, bursts Myron, Arnold's rival throughout the entire movie, taking one last attempt at taking the Turbo Man doll for his son. Myron is dressed as the main villain in the Turbo Man franchise, and he begins to try and hunt down Arnold's son and take the toy from him. What follows is a 110% great sequence that caps off a 110% great movie. Seriously if you haven't seen this movie and you're on your 53rd rewatch of Elf and Love Actually, give this a try. It's so well worth it.

The number 4 position was a heavy debate between these two movies, but in the end I decided that Home Alone edges out Jingle All The Way.

Home Alone is the highest grossing Christmas movie ever made and viewed by a large group of people as the greatest Christmas movie of all time. And I can see why. The characters are mostly likable, the dialogue is sharp and entertaining, and the premise is fun and original.  All in all this movie near flawless. So why is it only number 4 you ask? Well, for every category Home Alone excels in, I decided that the 3 movies I've placed above it are better every time and just work better altogether. The comedic climax, while being elite, gets heavily outclassed by the sequel. Also, some people have raised understandable points debating about whether or not it even qualifies as a Christmas movie. Although I view those arguments as people who are grasping at straws to try and prove their insane opinion that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

That being said this movie is a banger. I cannot find anything wrong with this for the life of me. The intro where Kevin gets sent to the attic after ruining the pizza dinner for the family perfectly demonstrates how Kevin feels like the entire family discriminates against him and treats him like the black sheep. The montage of the things Kevin does when he first realizes he's home alone is immensely relatable, the scene where Kevin gets a free pizza by using the Angels With Filthy Souls VHS he finds to scare away the pizza guy is just comedic genius. The old man who shovels snow on the street truly is my favourite character in this movie. The way he's introduced as the threatening villain and then is shown as a soft wise man with internal conflicts and emotions just like any other character in this movie. The scene where he sits next to Kevin in the church is absolutely beautiful and I love how they talked about problems within his life too. This makes the reveal of how awesome the man (Apparently named Marley) is, more believable and feel more plot relevant than if they just discussed and tried to fix Kevin's problems. 

And then The Carol Of The Bells remake they used to transition between the church scene and the climax is sensational. But the climax is definitely the Magnum Opus of this movie. Kevin places traps out of household objects for the two burglars trying to rob his house while his family is away on vacation. The burglars are played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, who do an amazing job as Harry and Marv. They play off of each other really well and Joe Pesci, an actor known for shooting a man that called him funny in GoodFellas, has really good comedic timing and you could never tell from watching this movie what a mature movie catalogue. But back to the climax, some of the greatest slapstick comedy I've ever seen. The absolutely brutal ways the burglars are punished never fail to make me laugh even on the 40th rewatch. Overall Home Alone is made so perfectly it's beautiful. But the three movies above it on this list are just that much better. 

Number 3 might be a controversial decision but it really shouldn't be. Number 4 is one of the few good Sony animation movies, the most underrated holiday movie in the discussion, Arthur Christmas. 

I have so much to say about this movie, Arthur Christmas is a beautiful underrated masterpiece. Everything about it is fresh and nothing about it feels tired or unoriginal. I love the concept of the title of Santa being passed down through generations, it's really believable. I love how they don't paint the current Santa as perfect but as a flawed individual who means well. The dispute between old and new technology feels really relevant to today. And I absolutely love how they set Arthur's brother up to look like a twist villain who's going to take the role of Santa by force, but then he isn't. The twist villain trope had been brutally butchered by Walt Disney Animation Studios in years before and after this movie and to see a movie subvert that is so refreshing. Everything about this movie is so tonally different than the Christmas movie status quo. The action, comedy, storyline and stakes are all so new in my opinion and this movie is absolutely perfect...

For the first 15 minutes or so. The rest of the movie is phenomenal but really forgettable. I have probably watched Arthur Christmas around 45 times and I can't tell you for the life of me what happens during the second or third act. However the few parts that do stick with me along with the first act definitely justify its placement at number 3.

Next up at number 2 is an even more controversial opinion but I am fully prepared to back it up. 2 spots above its predecessor, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is my number 2.

Home Alone 2 is definitely a better Christmas movie, and movie overall, than the original Home Alone. It's such an amazing sequel and excels off of the foundation that Home Alone built. Taking Kevin to New York is such genius not only for world expanding but New York provides such a better Christmas vibe than the first movie had. I love seeing Kevin mess around in the hotel and that scene with the turtle doves at the toy store is so wholesome. As are the scenes where Kevin gets to know the bird feeder lady can only be described as art. The slapstick climax where the robbers invade the house is also way funnier this time around. The original was hilarious but this one does even better. When Daniel Stern falls into the pit is my single favourite example of line delivery ever. When he says "Wow, what a hole!" that gets a laugh out of me on the 20th rewatch. I also love that they brought back the Angels With Dirty Souls gag from the first movie and built upon it to make it so much better. Just like what this entire movie does. The original Home Alone may always be generally viewed as the best in the series but head to head I'd take Home Alone 2 any day. 

Before we reveal the king of Christmas movie I'd like to list some honorable mentions that almost made the list.

A Christmas Story

good but I didn't really gain anything from it or have a ton of laughs either

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 

I watched it four years ago and cannot find a place to watch it anywhere (No I am not paying ten dollars to watch it Amazon!) all I remember was a cat being fried by electricity. It gets 8 points for that alone.

2018's The Grinch and 2000's How The Grinch Stole Christmas

The 2018 animated Grinch movie is actually very good and the best quality movie out of them all. The competition was just too strong. And I was very underwhelmed by everything about 2000's Grinch movie and aside from Jim Carrey's (ahem) Carreying, of this movie, there's not much to look at here quality wise. 

It's a Wonderful Life

left me conflicted on whether this was a Christmas at all. The ending put those to rest. It is impossible to not smile while you watch it. Just got beat by the movies on the list.

Die Hard 1 and 2. 

These are not Christmas movies. The fact that we are still debating this in 2021 is saying something about us. Murder and German terrorism does not make for a holiday experience. Some drunk guy probably called it a Christmas movie one night as a joke 30 years ago and we all just ran with it.

Well that's all I can think of at the moment. So on to number one. And I'm not going to act like there's any suspense to which movie gets this honor. Because I knew the second I thought of this list that Elf was the greatest Christmas movie ever made. 

There truly is nothing left to say about this legend so I'm going to keep this brief. Elf is a completely perfect movie in every aspect. Every second from start to finish in this movie is flawless comedy. Rather than just repeat the words of hundreds of other critics, I'm going to list my top 5 favourite parts of this movie. Remember please that this is the movie equivalent of picking your top 5 favourite Beatles' songs. It's hurts your brain trying to make the decisions.

Number 5: When the children's author kicks Buddy's ass because Buddy think's he's an Elf from the North Pole. Oh my god. That's all i can say. Oh my god. 

Number 4: Buddy's Father's whole character arc isn't talked about nearly enough. It's done well, his Character feels like an old burnt out version of David Spade in Tommy Boy. And in the climax when he walks out on his bosses to go find Buddy, I have never fist pumped harder while watching a movie. Just hell yes.

Number 3: The Mailroom. Buddy's Naivety towards the world is shown in full swing here and it's perfect. And really charming too.

Number 2: Every scene that takes place within the mall. From the famous "SANTA! OH MY GOD! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!" and "You sit on a throne of lies, you smell like beef and cheese!" scenes, to his decorating of the mall, it's all flawlessly funny and I can't stop laughing for a second of it even on the 15th rewatch or whatever time I'm on now. 

Number 1: "Buddy The Elf, What's Your Favourite Color!?" (I don't believe I have to elaborate here.)

This article has been probably one of the most fun I've ever gotten to write. And if you read to the end and didn't leave the second you saw me put Home Alone 2 over the original, thank you. I really appreciate that. Well I need to go give my brain a break now because making those decisions gave me a migraine. Merry Post-Christmas everybody!