"Christmas Story" audience shaming

A lot has been written about the "Deck The Halls" finale of the live musical production of "A Christmas Story." The producers decided not to repeat the joke that the Chinese waiters mangle the song with "Fa Ra Ra." Instead they sing it with perfect diction. So they decided to kill an insensitive joke and replace it with ... not a joke.

Making it worse, the dad says, "That's not what I expected." And the restaurant owner says angrily, "What were you expecting?" He is scolding the dad, and by extension, the viewer, who was also expecting "Fa Ra Ra Ra."


So, they capped a delightful and fun musical with a scolding to the audience. I get it, the joke aged badly. So kill it! Don't draw attention to it and then shame the viewer for laughing at it in 1983.

The scene doesn't even need the caroling. The point of the scene was: the family's Christmas adventure had a happy ending at the only restaurant open on Christmas day in the small town they lived in.

They could have easily killed the caroling part of that scene.

One last note: The kid they got to play Ralphie was great.

Movie review: Thor: Ragnorak

Spoiler in the one-sheet

It's another winner from the Marvel factory. It basks in its own silliness without ever disrespecting the characters. (Maybe this is the problem with DC movies. Maybe DC's contempt for its characters is why the movies are so divisive.)

Thor must return to  Asgard when his sister, the God of Death, takes over. Before he can do this, he and Loki get sidetracked to a gladiator planet (this used to happen to Capt. Kirk a lot), where he's matched up against the Hulk. This was supposed to be a big surprise but since this scene was in every trailer and commercial it turns what should have been the biggest surprise in the film into the lamest.

Not a dramatic speech goes by without some heckling, and no heroic action takes place without some self-deprecation. In a funny set of sequences, Thor plays the Hulk and Bruce Banner against each other.

Tom Hiddleston again becomes the spotlight hog. Such a great character, sometimes good, mostly bad, but always captivating on screen. Why hasn't this guy been signed up to be the next James Bond?

Jeff Goldblum plays the most powerful nebbish in the galaxy. Closure for the character doesn't come until the closing credits.

Minor quibbles:

This film and "Age of Ultron: both end with the heroes evacuating a city while fighting an army of drones.

The sequence with Doctor Strange is fun, but entirely gratuitous.

When Mark Ruffalo broke out in movies he was compared to a young Brando. Watch the scene where Thor debriefs Banner and you'll think, 'is he intentionally channeling Brando?"

The problem with "Elf"

It's funny, it's beautiful, Will Farrell is hilarious; the scene with Peter Dinklage is well worth admission.
But, "Elf" has a problem.
There's no plot.
There's a premise, but that's not a plot.
They set up a premise, then there's 90 minutes of sight gags.
This is the state of cinema comedy today. There are no stories, just premises followed by gags.

What was the last comedy you saw with a plot? The two that come to mind for me are "The Producers," and "A Fish Called Wanda." The characters had a mission in each film, they had to go from point A to point B.

Will Ferrell just had to act silly.

Quick review: Mystic U #1

I walked in cold, I had no idea what it would be about. But, I'm a big Zatanna fan, so I was intrigued ... up until page 3 or 4 when I realized someone at DC said, "What if Zatanna went to Hogwarts?"and someone else said, "And what if she had misfit friends like "Monsters U?"

And they squandered all my intrigue.

After a half dozen Harry Potter books and a few seasons of "Witches of Waverly Place" haven't we had enough of sorcery schools?

It's beautifully drawn, and they're building up to a "big evil is coming" story line (where did we see that before?), but ... Zatanna is better than this. Read Paul Dini's Zatanna books, they're a revelation full of crazy new ideas. This is just a retread of books and movies we've seen before.


Maybe I'm looking at it all wrong, maybe Dini's Zatanna was aimed at older readers and this book is aimed at preteens? Even so, preteens deserve better.

I did enjoy the allusions to DC's early 70s horror lines, OK, they made an old coot like me happy, but even then, they were a little more than cameos.