Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)

Amy picked this for our annual Christmas day movie and all three of us liked a lot the yarn with Josh O'Connor and Josh Brolin as upstate New York priests and Daniel Craig returning to the franchise as the Southern detective assigned to solve the crime. The outstanding ensemble cast includes Glenn Close, Mila Kunis (both wonderfully unglamorous), Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, and Jeffrey Wright.

Rian Johnson writes and directs and his brother Nathan Johnson is the composer, just as they did for the last two Knives Out mysteries. I'm streaming the soundtrack on Apple Music as I write.

We're not bible scholars, so we looked up the meaning of the the road to Damascus, referenced in the movie. Apparently it indicates a flash of insight and includes a blinding light. That tidbit is not included in imdb's list of 35 interesting trivia items. Cinematographer Steve Yedlin  occasionally incorporates blinding light into his work here.

"A Knives Out Mystery" is not in the official title, but was very useful for marketing this third installment. Amy, Jack, and I saw the previous one on Christmas day in 2022 as part of our holiday tradition of a Christmas day movie, every year since 2006 (except 2020).

O'Connor was last blogged for Challengers, Brolin for Dune, Craig, both Johnsons, and Yedlin for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Close for Swan Song, Kunis for The Spy Who Dumped Me, Renner for Arrival, Washington for The Prom, Scott for All of Us Strangers, McCormack for Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Church for Acidman, and Wright for Highest 2 Lowest.

Rotten Tomatoes are reanimated with averages of 92 and 93%. Amy, Jack, and I streamed it on Netflix on, as promised, December 25.

Anora (2024)

Amy, Jack, and I really liked this frenetic story of a New York stripper/sex worker who impulsively marries the immature son of a Russian crime family. X rated with lots of nudity, sex, drugs, and rock and roll, this Palme d'Or winner is no Pretty Woman. Mikey Madison and her luminous smile shine as the street smart title character nicknamed Ani and Mark Eydelshteyn is her hapless prince who looks younger than his age of 22. Lindsey Normington, who plays Ani's strip club nemesis Diamond, has worked as an exotic dancer and was a big help in the production.

Director/writer/editor Sean Baker keeps the energy high throughout the 139 minute run time. Amy commented that the story is good but the last scene is sad. The soundtrack consists of 59 (!) songs listed on imdb. 

The movie has earned 83 wins and 172 nominations so far, up from when I checked even yesterday, and is the first American Palme d'Or winner in thirteen years.

After I wrote about Madison in Nostalgia (when I mentioned her 52 episodes in the wonderful FX series Better Things), she was in the huge cast of Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. Baker was last blogged for Red Rocket and this is Normington's second feature.

Because I was so eager to see this acclaimed title, we went ahead and bought it to stream on Apple TV since it can't yet be rented, to fulfill our 19 year family tradition of watching a movie on Christmas day.

Maestro (2023)

For our Christmas day viewing pleasure, Jack, Amy, and I enjoyed this interpretation of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein. Bradley Cooper, who stars, co-wrote, and directs, portrays the musician as driven, narcissistic, and flamboyantly romantic, from his central relationship with his wife Felicia Montealegre to his male side pieces (closeted, as one had to be in the 1940s and beyond). Carey Mulligan gives us a multi-layered Montealegre heading up the enormous cast, which also includes Sarah Silverman as Bernstein's sister Shirley. As pointed out by several reviewers, some supporting characters' names are said so quickly that you might not know to whom they're referring, for example, composer Aaron Copland, choreographer Jerome Robbins, and comedic musical duo Betty Comden and Adolph Green. 

Josh Singer co-wrote the screenplay with Cooper, the latter of whom has been working on this project for years, including developing a love of conducting at a young age.

I'm streaming the soundtrack, released on the venerable classical record label Deutsche Grammophon, on Apple Music. All of the music is written by Bernstein. The scene in the church with the chorus is one of many breathtaking interludes. One seven minute track of Bernstein's Mass takes me back to college when I sang in a performance of it. I would have liked to have heard more of West Side Story, though.

Matthew Libatique's beautiful cinematography suggests the eras: black and white 4:3 (like an old school television) slowly turning to color and the screen becoming wider as time and technology march on.

With Bernstein's long and accomplished life, it's impossible (and preferable not) to put in every detail, and I must compliment film editor Michelle Tesoro for the blending of eras. She has quite a few nominations for this work already.

Some haters have criticized Cooper's large nose prosthesis. Bernstein's real-life children have no problem with it, and one analyst suggests that it is the same size as Bernstein's nose, but on Cooper's face it looks much bigger. Speaking of the Bernstein progeny, each is played as an adult by a relative of another star: Maya Hawke (daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke) as daughter Jamie Bernstein, Sam Nivola (son of Alessandro) as Alexander Bernstein, and Alexa Swinton (distant cousin of Tilda) as Nina Bernstein.

Cooper was last blogged for his directing and co-writing debut A Star Is Born and for acting in Licorice Pizza, Mulligan for Saltburn, Silverman for Battle of the Sexes, Singer for First Man, Libatique for Don't Worry Darling, and Hawke for Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood. I don't remember Nivola in White Noise but I did watch Swinton's 17 episodes of And Just Like That as Rose/Rock Goldenblatt. Tesoro's credits include On The Basis of Sex and seven episodes of The Queen's Gambit, all of which included some flashbacks and -forwards.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are in tune with a 79% average but its audiences are about to walk out at 62. We watched it on Netflix as our annual Christmas day movie.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)

Amy, Jack, and I loved this thriller as our yearly Christmas day movie tradition. Daniel Craig reprises his role as Southern-accented detective Benoit Blanc and is joined this time by a fun ensemble including Ed Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., and Janelle Monáe.

Rian Johnson once again directs and wrote the clever screenplay, with his brother Nathan Johnson composing the music, as he did last time. The score can be streamed on Apple Music.

The sparkling cinematography by Steve Yedlin, gorgeous production design by Rick Heinrichs, and imaginative wardrobe by Jenny Eagan all contribute to the high production values of the picture.

Craig, Rian Johnson, and Yedlin were last blogged for the first Knives Out, Norton for Isle of Dogs, Bautista for Stuber, Hudson for Marshall, Hahn for Private Life, Odom for One Night in Miami, Monáe for Harriet, and Nathan Johnson for Nightmare Alley.

Heinrichs, Oscar winner for Sleepy Hollow (1999), and nominated for A Series of Unfortunate Events (2005) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2007), also designed sets for Dumbo and was nominated for the latter by his peers in the Art Directors Guild, among other accolades. Eagan was nominated by her peers in the Costume Designers Guild for this one (awards on February 27), Widows, and the miniseries Olive Kitteridge, and won for the original Knives Out, as well as more nominations.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences aren't tearing up at this with averages of 92 and 93%.

We streamed it on, you guessed it, December 25, on Netflix.

The French Dispatch (2021)

Well suited for our family's Christmas movie, this madcap "love letter to journalists" from auteur Wes Anderson fleshes out four stories and an obituary that appear in a New Yorker-type magazine, and we loved it. Its full title is The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun.

The cast of over 250 features, among others, Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, and Bill Murray in the disparate segments, many of which take place in a fictional town called Ennui-sur-Blasé, which translates to boredom on apathy. There are too many puns and Easter eggs to list. Just be alert, especially if you know any French.

Anderson directed and wrote the script with story help from Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness, and Jason Schwartzman. This is Anderson's tenth feature and I'm glad to have seen them all.

I'm streaming the jaunty score by Alexandre Desplat on Apple Music as I type, and you can also get it free on Spotify. Here's also a list of songs.

Director of Photography Robert Yeoman aptly mixes black and white with glorious color in the various segments, framed with creativity, and I must mention the terrific production design team, led by Adam Stockhausen.

Anderson, Coppola, and Schwartzman were last blogged for Isle of Dogs, del Toro for Sicario, Brody for Third Person, Swinton for The Personal History of David Copperfield, Seydoux for The Lobster, McDormand for Nomadland, Chalamet for Little Women, Murray for On the Rocks, Desplat for The Midnight Sky, Yeoman for Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang, and Stockhausen for Bridge of Spies. And, though I didn't mention it in the blog, Guinness co-wrote the story for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are rather blasé, averaging 74 and 76%, respectively. We heartily disagree.

On December 25 we rented it from iTunes and I, for one, was glad to have the pause button to look at the magazine covers displayed with the end credits. And, just for statistics' sake, this is the 16th movie in 17 years that Jack, Amy, and I have watched together on Christmas day (COVID kept us apart last year but at least this year we were able to isolate together!).

Happiest Season (2020)

We loved this brand new holiday classic, a dramedy about a woman going to meet her girlfriend's family, only to discover the girlfriend hasn't come out to them. That doesn't sound funny but there are lots of laughs, with Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as the main couple Abby and Harper. Mary Steenburgen is hilarious as Harper's tightly wound mother Tipper (!), as is Daniel Levy as Abby's best friend John. Alison Brie is Harper's uptight sister Sloane and Aubrey Plaza plays it straight (see what I did there?) for a change as Harper's high school friend Riley. The cast is big and star-studded even beyond those names.

This is the second feature that actress Clea DuVall has directed and written, sharing screenplay credit this time with Mary Holland, who plays Harper's other sister Jane, also very funny. DuVall appears only in the end credits in a photo next to Plaza.

The soundtrack by Amie Doherty is available to stream on Apple Music with a subscription and for free on Spotify.

Stewart was last blogged for Certain Women, Davis for Tully, Steenburgen just now for Elf, Plaza for Ingrid Goes West, and Doherty for The High Note. Levy is best known for creating and starring in all eighty episodes of Schitt's Creek and Brie for 38 of Mad Men as Trudy Campbell, 110 of Community as Annie, and 30 of G.L.O.W. as Ruth.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 83%, are a bit more joyful than its audiences at 76. It's a Hulu original, so we streamed it that way.

This is the fifteenth year that Jack and I have watched a movie together on Christmas day after opening presents and before dinner, but the first of those fifteen years without Amy. Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow.

Little Women (2019)

Amy, Jack, and I loved this adaptation of the classic novel, with its focus on empowered women, decorated with magnificent photography and luscious costumes and set design. Though a tad too long at 2:15, the performances and visuals make up for the excessive length.

Saorise Ronan is made for the lead as Jo March, the most forthright of the four sisters in the Civil War era. Apparently Ronan told, without actually asking, director Greta Gerwig she was going to play the part. Emma Watson plays her older sister Meg, Eliza Scanlen younger sister Beth, Florence Pugh is youngest sister Amy, Laura Dern their mother Marmee, Timothée Chalamet their besotted neighbor Laurie, Chris Cooper Laurie's grandfather, Meryl Streep is the girls' Aunt March, and Tracy Letts the editor Mr. Dashwood, among others.

The cinematography is thanks to Yorick Le Saux, the costumes are by Jacqueline Durran, and production design is by Jess Gonchor.

This year's #OscarsSoMale shut director/screenwriter Greta Gerwig out of a directing nomination (Oscars and elsewhere) but she did get one for the script, as well as the producers' nomination for Best Picture (it won't win), Ronan and Pugh for acting, Durran for costume design, and Alexandre Desplat for the score, which can be streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, and more.

Ronan was last blogged for Mary Queen of Scots, Watson for Beauty and the Beast, Dern for Wilson, Chalamet for Beautiful Boy, Cooper for It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Streep for The Laundromat, Letts for Ford v Ferrari, Gerwig for Lady Bird (which also starred Ronan), Le Saux for Non-Fiction, Durran for Anna Karenina (it won her the Oscar, and she was also nominated for Mr. Turner, Darkest Hour, and Beauty and the Beast), Gonchor for Hail, Caesar!, and Desplat for Isle of Dogs.

Full disclosure: getting over a cold on Christmas day, I had a coughing fit and left the room, missing a good ten minutes towards the end. I'd like to see those ten minutes sometime. This was the fifteenth year in a row Amy, Jack, and I have watched a movie together on Christmas day. Pro tip: always get your Christmas day movie tickets in advance.

PBS has complied a list of the almost two dozen adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's two-part novel. This is a good one, not only according to us, but also to 95% of Rotten Tomatoes' critics and 92% of its audiences. See it on a big screen if at all possible.

Vice (2018)

Amy, Jack, and I loved this satirical bio-pic of Dick Cheney, though it made us liberals sigh and groan, watching the VP and his wife control the country with politics and goals so divergent from our own.

Christian Bale (last blogged, and Oscar-nominated, for The Big Short) completely disappears into the role of Cheney, with his much-reviewed 45 pound weight gain and top-notch hair and makeup. As his wife Lynne, Amy Adams (most recently in these pages for Nocturnal Animals) brings passion and power to the woman behind the man who, in later times, might have become influential in her own right. Sam Rockwell's (last in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri for which he won his first Oscar) George W. Bush and Steve Carell's (most recently in Beautiful Boy) Donald Rumsfeld are terrific as well, with hair, makeup, voice inflection, and even humor. It's a huge cast, but they are the highlights.

Director/writer Adam McKay (won his first Oscar for co-writing The Big Short and was nominated for directing it) is nominated for Golden Globes directing and writing here, among the picture's six Globe nominations--Bale and Adams are also nominated for SAG awards. See my list here. I predict a Best Makeup Oscar nomination as well.

Bale studied up on heart disease for the role. So when McKay had a mild heart attack during post production, he remembered Bale's method acting which may have saved his life (watch this short video). Black and white footage of McKay's heart stent surgery is in this movie--he calls it his cameo.

The music by Nicholas Britell (last blogged for Battle of the Sexes) can be streamed on Spotify and Apple Music. I don't remember the songs, other than America from West Side Story playing over the credits (here's a clip from the WSS movie).

Another bit of trivia is that a musical number was produced and shot but eventually cut because it didn't work with the narrative.

There's a very funny "crazy credits" gag, too, before America, reminding us that this is a satire, even though so much of it is true (the gag is clearly not). And another one at the very end, so don't rush out before the movie is completely over.

The cinematography by Greig Fraser (after his Oscar nomination for Lion he shot Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) may cause Motion-Picture-Motion-Sickness or MPMS (see my running list here) in sensitive people. I think. I have been bingeing movies this week and they're beginning to run together.

We three saw this in a matinee on Christmas day (the 14th year of this particular family tradition), which was opening day in this case. Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences are now averaging 64 and 57%, respectively.

The Greatest Showman (2017)

Amy, Jack, and I loved this musical, based on the life and career of circus creator P.T. Barnum in 1800s New York with the theme of yearning for acceptance. Hugh Jackman has been wanting to make this for years and he's spectacular in the lead (he was last blogged for Logan), dancing and singing new, 21st century style songs written for the movie by the lyricists from La La Land. Michelle Williams (most recently in Wonderstruck) is sweet as Barnum's patient wife Charity--she can sing, too, but if you saw My Week with Marilyn you would know that. We already knew that Zac Efron (last blogged for The Paperboy) and Zendaya (at 21 years old she's been recording since her debut on Kidz Bop in 2010) can sing--they play Phillip and Anne. But did you know that she did all her own trapeze stunts and he did many of his? Here she is talking about it with Jimmy Fallon. Rebecca Ferguson (most recently in Florence Foster Jenkins) studied music, but the songs she sings in the role of Jenny Lind (known as the greatest singer of the time) are dubbed by Loren Allred (a contestant on The Voice). Props to the pipes of Keala Seattle (played Sharon in Ricki and the Flash) as Lettie, the bearded lady. And all of the above can act up a storm as well. The cast has nearly 200 people.

Michael Gracey, a visual effects supervisor, makes his directorial debut, working from a story by Jenny Bicks and co-written by her (she wrote 16 episodes of Sex and the City, ten of The Big C, and was series creator of Men in Trees) and Bill Condon (Oscar winner for adapting Gods and Monsters (1998) which he directed, nominated for adapting Chicago (2002) which he didn't; he also wrote Kinsey (2004) and Dreamgirls (2006), both of which he directed).

The sparkling cinematography by Seamus McGarvey (last blogged for Anna Karenina) is supplemented by the work of many special effects companies.

I was curious about the choreography, with many numbers punctuated by Jackman et al throwing their arms triumphantly out to the sides. La La Land had one choreographer and two assistants. This has Matthieu Leopold (three Dancing with the Stars final episodes to his name, two of which had the word "aerialist" in them), buried in the Stunts list. The early sequence with Jackman and Williams dancing on the rooftop with her skirt twirling is but one of many marvelous routines.

The songs are terrific and you can stream a playlist on youtube (until it gets taken down for copyright reasons). Before writing the lyrics to La La Land, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul wrote a few songs for the TV series Smash, which I loved. Two of my favorites from this one are This Is Me (nominated for Critics Choice and Golden Globe awards so far), which is about unapologetically being yourself, and Rewrite the Stars, which is about taking control of your destiny regardless of society. Both final versions are included in the playlist above, but here's tape of a stirring studio rehearsal of This Is Me featuring Seattle. John Debney (who scored Home Again) and Joseph Trapanese (who wrote the non-N.W.A. music in Straight Outta Compton) provide some background music but you're unlikely to remember it. I don't.

The last Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus shows were in May 2017.

I think Broadway would do well to make this into a live stage show. Get Julie Taymor or someone to do the elephants! Perhaps the Rotten Tomatoes critics' average of 55 will be a deterrent. Broadway producers and you should pay attention instead to the audience average of 90%. The Hollywood Foreign Press has also nominated this for a Best Picture Musical or Comedy Golden Globe.

We saw this on Christmas day, the twelfth time the three of us have seen a movie on December 25. You know how I like lists, so here's our history: 2006 Dreamgirls, 2007 Walk Hard, 2008 Cadillac Records, 2009 Nine, 2010 The Fighter, 2011 We Bought a Zoo, 2012 Django Unchained, 2013 The World's End (streamed at home; our first choice American Hustle was sold out and that's the last Christmas we showed up without buying advance tickets), 2014 Into the Woods, 2015 Joy, and 2016 La La Land.

La La Land (2016)

I loved every minute of this romantic original musical about two kids struggling to make it (their careers as an actress and a jazz pianist and their love for each other) in LA. Jack and Amy liked it, too. The opening production number, taking place during a freeway traffic jam with hundreds of singers and dancers, or so it seems, is alone worth the price of admission. The title is clever--La La Land is a derisive nickname for Los Angeles that many who inhabit that city have come to embrace.

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling (last blogged for Irrational Man and The Nice Guys, respectively) are terrific as Mia and Sebastian. Their singing is literally pitch perfect and I'm a harsh critic. I found videos of each singing as kids (Emma singing the Meredith Brooks song Bitch and Ryan in a Disney Channel boy band--he has a solo at about 1:30) just to prove this is no fluke. And they dance--oh, do they dance. Yeah, it's a little corny. If you don't like musicals, stay home.

Apparently the Oscar for Best Picture almost always goes to movies whose cast is nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Best Ensemble Award. This was not nominated (Oscar nominations will be announced on the 24th) because, despite the 200 or so players, the movie is all about Stone and Gosling, with small support from Rosemarie DeWitt (most recently in these pages for Men, Women & Children) as Sebastian's sister, J.K. Simmons (last blogged for The Accountant) as his boss, and John Legend as a jazz-rock fusion musician friend--Legend wrote and performs the song Start a Fire (he won an Oscar for his song in Selma, produced Southside with You and this one).

However, this movie has won eight Critics Choice Awards, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay (tied with Manchester by the Sea), and Score. See my list of awards and nominations sorted by title here.

Director/writer Damien Chazelle (co-wrote 10 Cloverfield Lane, directed and wrote the much acclaimed Whiplash) had been working with his Harvard classmate, composer Justin Hurwitz, on this project for many years. They couldn't get it off the ground so took time off to make Whiplash together. Good move. Here's a playlist of many of the songs from La La Land. While writing this, however, I'm listening to an instrumental playlist of Hurwitz's compositions and piano solos from the movie.

The look of the picture is lush with cinematography by Linus Sandgren (last shot The Hundred-Foot Journey) and swinging retro dancing dresses credited to costume designer Mary Zophres (Hail, Caesar!).

As a former Angeleno, I appreciated the fabulous locations, including Griffith Park observatory. Here's an article about the locations. And as a lover of jazz, I enjoyed Sebastian's preaching about improvisation early on.

More love from Rotten Tomatoes' critics, averaging 93%, and audiences, weighing in at 89. As I said,  if you don't like musicals, skip it. Everyone else, just show up, as we did on Christmas day, the eleventh year the three of us have gone to a movie before celebrating with family. Sufferers of MPMS-Motion Picture Motion Sickness, sit in the last row for occasional swinging camera moves.

Joy (2015)

Amy, Jack, and I liked this story of a woman believing in herself despite crazy relatives and a society that kept women down. Loosely based on the life of inventor Joy Mangano, who came to prominence in 1990, its script veered so far away from Mangano's experience that director/writer David O. Russell (last blogged for American Hustle, as was star Jennifer Lawrence) said he didn't want to meet Mangano until he was finished. Robert De Niro and Bradley Cooper, who worked with Russell and Lawrence on The Silver Linings Playbook and were most recently in these pages for The Family and Burnt, respectively, join the cast as Joy's father and a businessman--one angry and the other ebullient. On the distaff side, Diane Ladd (she was Oscar-nominated for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), Wild at Heart (1990), and Rambling Rose (1991); she was good in, among others, the TV series Alice 1980-81, Black Widow (1987), Primary Colors (1998), 28 Days (2000), and all 18 episodes of Enlightened (2011-13) playing her real-life daughter Laura Dern's mother, as she did in Wild at Heart and Rambling Rose) narrates the movie as Joy's loving grandmother, and hottie Virginia Madsen (sister of Michael, she was Oscar-nominated for Sideways (2004) and I liked her in Slam Dance (1987), The Hot Spot (1990), and The Rainmaker (1997), to name a few) is nearly unrecognizable in oversize glasses and neuroses as Joy's mother.

It was unclear to me where it was supposed to take place. Joy Mangano was from Smithtown on the north shore of Long Island, and shooting locations were in Boston and environs.

Credited composers are David Campbell (father of Beck, whose real name is Bek David Campbell) and West Dylan Thordson. Here's a link with four songs of original music and a cover of Something Stupid, made famous by Nancy and Frank Sinatra (here's the earlier version). But what you will come away with are the songs, listed here, especially I Feel Free, from the 1967 debut album of "super group" Cream. For the drive home, we found that video on the phone and streamed it via the car's bluetooth speakers. I love technology.

Before we saw the movie on Christmas day, Amy and her friends, all the same 20-something age as Lawrence, commented that it would be weird to see her playing a 35-year-old, and that did make me notice her flawless, dewy skin, even in the later scenes. And there are a few unnecessary moments. But 57 and 58% from critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes is too harsh.

Into the Woods (2014)

Thrilling. Amy and I loved the adaptation of the popular musical intertwining four fairy tales into one darkly comic operetta (more singing than talking). With show-stopping performances, it's musically excellent and artistically imaginative. In the (urban) dictionary for "chewing the scenery," there should be a video of Meryl Streep (last blogged in The Homesman) as The Witch. Jack, who was with us, liked it but found it too long.

And that singing! To my discriminating ear, almost all delivered each note and difficult interval spot-on, particularly Anna Kendrick (most recently in The Company You Keep) as Cinderella, Lilla Crawford (in her feature film debut after playing the title role in the 2012 Broadway revival of Annie) as Little Red Riding Hood, Daniel Huttlestone (Gavroche in Les Misérables) as Jack (and the Beanstalk), Emily Blunt (last in The Edge of Tomorrow) as The Baker's Wife, Chris Pine (most recently in Horrible Bosses 2) as Cinderella's Prince, and Streep.

I don't mean to denigrate the others: James Corden (last in Begin Again, and soon to take Craig Ferguson's hosting job on CBS) as The Baker and narrator, Christine Baranski (returning here to her comic roots from 87 episodes of Cybill in the 1990s before 124 episodes and counting of the drama The Good Wife; she was also in Chicago (2002) and Mamma Mia! (2008)) as Cinderella's stepmother, Tracy Ullman (most recently in I Could Never Be Your Woman) as Jack's harried mother, and Billy Magnussen (new to me) as Rapunzel's Prince are quite capable of carrying a tune. Lucy Punch (last in Bad Teacher) displays her considerable slapstick talents as one of the stepsisters and Johnny Depp (most recently in The Lone Ranger) is a revelation as the Big Bad Wolf.

Director Rob Marshall (last blogged for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) brings his style to the show with the help of Tony-award-winning playwright James Lapine adapting his own play to the screen in an utterly cinematic way. My discriminating ear is also very grateful that the performers were permitted to overdub their singing in studios, unlike in Les Mis.

Although I have great respect for Stephen Sondheim, I'm not all that familiar with his shows after A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962). I should really brush up, but it was fun learning the story for the first time with the Christmas day audience (and I didn't miss the songs from the original show omitted here). It was a return to our tradition of seeing a musical movie on December 25, which we began, I think, with Dreamgirls in 2006, and have been sidetracked many times.

Here is a link to stream the entire one hour and 37 minute soundtrack.

I know many folks have brought their kids to the show, but it does have some scary bits (taken from Grimm's fairy tales, after all) so it's not for the very young. That said, this will be good on the big screen if you can swing it. Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 71% and audiences at 59 are not in agreement with us, but plenty more are voting with their wallets--it was second at the box office its opening weekend.

The World's End (2013)

Amy, Jack, and I enjoyed this crazy British comedy about four 30-something buddies recreating a bar crawl from their teens which morphs into something else entirely. This is the third part of a trilogy (Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007)) and the first that any of us had seen. We picked it on Christmas day because American Hustle was sold out, we returned home to find something on demand, and I recognized the title from someone's top ten list on NPR. All three were directed by Edgar Wright (last blogged in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and co-written by Wright and Simon Pegg (most recently in Star Trek: Into Darkness). All three include stars Pegg (his Peter-Pan-like Gary is quite funny here), Nick Frost (not so familiar to me), and Martin Freeman (the latest Hobbit, starred in the British Office, and blogged in Son of Rambow). Noted Irish actor Paddy Considine (my favorites are In America (2002), My Summer of Love (2004), and Cinderella Man (2005)) was in Hot Fuzz. I guess I should see the other two.

If we had seen the trailer we would've known what happened next and I'm glad we didn't. Rottentomatoes critics give this a resounding 89%, with audiences coming in at 73. It's out on DVD already. You'll know after 20 minutes if it's your cup of tea. It was ours.

Django Unchained (2012)

Best Quentin Tarantino movie yet! This over-the-top story of a freed-slave-turned-bounty-hunter recovering his wife from her new owner has plenty of the signature QT grisly violence, but plenty of humor and cartoonishness to temper it. I had to put my hands between my eyes and the screen about five times. Her mother's daughter, Amy chose this as our Christmas day movie. I saw friends in the packed room before it started and asked, "Ready for a feel bad movie?" Rhonda said, "It's a love story!" and Judy's son Geof added, "It's about retribution and vengeance." They're both right.

With a cast listed on imdb of just over 100 you will see familiar faces and not recognize others whose names might ring a bell, but you will recognize the auteur himself (director/writer Tarantino is profiled in my post on Inglourious Basterds) with a silly Australian accent in the second act. Christoph Waltz (last in the blog in Carnage, he won the Oscar for Inglourious Basterds) brings back his Austrian accent to play Django's mentor, an articulate German dentist/successful bounty hunter named King Schultz. And his articulateness can be credited entirely to Tarantino, who wrote the part just for Waltz. Jamie Foxx (covered in The Soloist) may not have been the director's first choice for the title character, but he is riveting, even when the joke is on him (there's a great gag about wardrobe). Leonardo DiCaprio (most recently blogged in J. Edgar) and Samuel L. Jackson (last in The Avengers) have also been getting good reviews for their parts as ruthless plantation owner Calvin Candie and his trusted manservant (or house n-word) Stephen. Foxx told Craig Ferguson a few weeks ago that DiCaprio was so upset about having to use the n-word that Foxx had to calm him down.

Film student that he is, Tarantino references many masterworks, e.g. naming Kerry Washington's (profiled in Mother and Child) character Broomhilda von Shaft, hoping we will guess that she and Django are supposed to be the ancestors of John Shaft of the movie Shaft, played by Richard Roundtree on screens big and small in the 1970s and by Jackson in the 2000 remake. Perhaps I was the only one watching the movie thinking of the comic strip Broom-Hilda, even as Schultz pronounces it the German way, Brünnhilde. Here are some other references.

QT fans won't be surprised that there's a terrific soundtrack, available everywhere, featuring, among others, "spaghetti western" style songs by Ennio Morricone. I did notice that the iTunes version includes a bonus track of rapper/actor/director RZA's song from the end credit sequence. This link includes videos of some of the tracks in their entirety. One song that was omitted from the soundtrack that I definitely heard onscreen Tuesday is Richie Havens' Freedom, even though another song by that name is included.

Right now, 12:30am on Friday, after 3 days, this movie has grossed over $25 million. And it's 2:45 long. Rottentomatoes' current rating is 88% critics/92 audiences. You know who you are if you'll like it. If you've never heard of any of this, skip it.

We Bought a Zoo (2011)

Amy, Jack, and I chose this for our Christmas day movie and we liked it a lot. A family reeling from the death of the wife and mother makes a new start in a country property that just happens to house a zoo in need of revitalizing. Matt Damon (last discussed in these pages in Contagion) is good as the dad Benjamin (it doesn't hurt that I've seen him talking on late night shows about being a regular dad of three), Colin Ford (at 15 he's already got 38 credits) is good as Dylan, and Maggie Elizabeth Jones (now 7) is awesome as little Rosie.

Cameron Crowe (he was a 15 year old writer for Rolling Stone and immortalized his story in Almost Famous (2000), which won him the Original Screenplay Oscar, was nominated for writing Jerry Maguire (1996) which he directed, also known for writing and directing the iconic Say Anything... (1989) in which John Cusack holds up the boombox) and Aline Brosh McKenna (Devil Wears Prada (2006), Morning Glory, more) adapted Benjamin Mee's memoir to make this. Patrick Fugit, who was the Crowe character in Almost Famous, is in this as one of the zoo workers, but, interestingly, he's almost mute. More support can be found from Thomas Haden Church (Oscar-nominated for Sideways (2004), also great in 123 episodes of Wings (1990-95), Spanglish (2004), Smart People (2008), Another Happy Day, and more) as Benjamin's brother, Scarlett Johansson (covered in Iron Man 2) as the head animal keeper, Elle Fanning (I wrote about her in Super 8) as her niece, Angus Macfayden (perhaps best known as Robert the Bruce in Braveheart (1995), but I like to think of him as wild man Julian in Californication--new season starting January 8!) as wild man Peter, J.B. Smoove (Leon in Curb Your Enthusiasm and the cab driver in Date Night) as the realtor, and John Michael Higgins (last covered in Bad Teacher) as the zoo inspector.

Mention must be made of the magnificent photography by Rodrigo Prieto (after I wrote about him in Broken Embraces, he shot Biutiful and Water for Elephants).

To be expected of Crowe, there's an imaginative soundtrack by Jon Thor Birgisson, AKA Jónsi of the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. As I write this I am listening to his 15 songs from the movie streaming from a page on the Rolling Stone website. In addition, there are 20 more songs, listed here.

This is a nice movie to see with kids of all ages (that reminds me, I need to update my kid movie list). It's been nominated for nothing (critics 63%, audiences 83% on rottentomatoes), but we still enjoyed it thoroughly.

The Fighter (2010)

Amy, Jack and I liked this movie, based on the true story of Micky Ward, an up and coming boxer from Lowell, Mass (30 miles from Boston, 5 from New Hampshire), and his half brother Dicky Eklund, whose crack addiction ruined his career in the ring. Good family fare for Christmas day! A strong cast, led by Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale as Micky and Dicky, respectively, Melissa Leo as their prickly manager-mother, and Amy Adams as Micky's feisty girlfriend, kept us involved. I loved director David O. Russell's outrageous comedy Flirting with Disaster (1996), thought I Heart Huckabees (2004) was pretty funny, and everyone liked Three Kings (1999), myself included. Bale (I wrote about him in Public Enemies) has more nominations and wins for his supporting role as the mercurial addict than Wahlberg (after I wrote about him in The Lovely Bones, he was in Date Night and The Other Guys) as the little brother and they're both great. Melissa Leo (nominated for an Oscar for Frozen River, she was good in Homicide the TV series and its movie (2000), 21 Grams (2003), and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), to name my faves of her 92 titles) wears her 1990's bleached hair, spike heels (costume or hair nominations?), and pursed lips well as the matriarch of the family of two brothers and seven sisters, the latter who are pretty much a shrieking mass of hair and hormones (here's a scorecard to differentiate the players), even though one of them is played by Conan O'Brien's sister Kate. This seems to be Adams' grittiest role to date (after her Oscar nominated performances in Junebug (2005) and Doubt, she was fluffy in Enchanted and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, and determined in Sunshine Cleaning and Julie and Julia) and I found her character of Charlene fully formed and self-aware. Jack McGee (I miss him on Rescue Me and he's got 162 titles on imdb!) plays Micky's dad George and Mickey O'Keefe, Micky Ward's real trainer, plays himself, as do Art Ramalho (the owner of the West End Gym in Lowell, where those sequences were actually shot), champion Sugar Ray Leonard, and Richard Farrell, who did in fact direct an HBO documentary about Dicky Eklund. After you've seen the movie, read this about the real Dicky Eklund and this about Richard Farrell (the Farrell link has a big spoiler in it, the Eklund link potentially a little one).

There are so many songs, from the movie's 1993 setting, that the Oscars have apparently disqualified it (I wouldn't be myself if I didn't mention that the above link punctuates and spells The Kids Are All Right wrong in its first line but right subsequently) for eligibility for best soundtrack. If the site is correct in predicting the nominees for best score, I will have seen only three of the five, and that's few for me.

Critics and audiences have loved this movie, giving it 89% and 90% respectively on rottentomatoes. If you're okay with the violence to be expected in a movie about boxing, then definitely see this one.

Nine (2009)

This is the fourth year in a row that Jack, Amy, and I have gone to a musical on Christmas day (last year, Cadillac Records; Walk Hard in 2007, Dreamgirls in 2006). Yesterday we enjoyed the spectacle, the smoke, the mirrors, the dancing, the costumes, the eye makeup, the vistas, and the high production values in a story about a Federico Fellini-type director in 1965 with writer's block. Some have called this a sequel to Fellini's 1963 autobiographical movie 8½, but I would call it an homage (and there is a recurring gag that made me think of the recurring gag from Woody Allen's Stardust Memories (1980), where Allen's fans say, "We love your movies, especially your earlier, funnier ones."). Anyway, as far as we were concerned, the songs Cinema Italiano (danced and sung by Kate Hudson) and Be Italian (Fergie) were worth the price of admission. 

In an interesting coincidence, Amy and I had watched the Glee episode about "hair-ography," choreography with flying hair, the night before, and Nine has lots of hair-ography, including in those numbers. I also appreciated the use of the big stage set for dancing and climbing and jumping. We had an inkling that this was based on a Broadway production but knew nothing of the source material. Today I bought the soundtracks to the movie and the 2003 Broadway version (after reading complaints on some websites that the songs from the movie weren't all in the play and vice versa) and will do that research later. 

Speaking of research, imdb's trivia page for this movie has a lot of details of the sort I usually put in, so thanks to them for saving me time. You should especially read the big long bullet point about the cast and pretend I wrote it (I will add that La môme (2007), also known as La Vie en Rose, which won Marion Cotillard her Oscar, was a bio-pic about Edith Piaf, but Cotillard did little of the singing). I can't believe that Nicole Kidman had recently delivered a baby when this was shot--her waist is miniscule (perhaps that was part of the visual effects department's job). Black suits and skinny ties look great on Daniel Day-Lewis (in addition to his big hits I really liked The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), written/directed by his wife, Rebecca Miller, daughter of playwright Henry), and I was surprised that he's not bad as a singer.

I was going to mention that this was the third 2009 number nine movie, after 9 and District 9, but imdb beat me to it and added a fourth that was new to me: $9.99 (2008). I like numbers, particularly nines and eighteens, so I was glad I didn't hate this one. It doesn't really have much of a story but is accumulating nominations and one should see those coastlines on a really big screen. If you keep your expectations reasonable, you won't be disappointed by spending a couple of hours with Nine.

Cadillac Records (2008)

Donnie said, when I told him I had saved it for Amy, "Ugh, the reviews have been awful." We liked it, Donnie! And she, Jack, and I were glad we saw it on Christmas day. However, it was not what I expected. I thought it was a Beyoncé movie but she didn't appear until an hour had passed of the 1:49 running time.

Cedric the Entertainer, playing Willie Dixon, narrated this picture that followed the friendship and partnership of Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody, Oscar winner for The Pianist (2002), pivotal in Summer of Sam (1999), and, a favorite of mine, Liberty Heights (1999), playing a Jewish boy named Van--all 4 of these, coincidentally, are period pieces) and Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright, who was wonderful as Basquiat (1996) and as Colin Powell in W. (2008) with many other roles in between), and the rise of Chicago's Chess Records from "race records" to "cross-over." Wright, Brody, and Ms. Knowles as Etta James all turned in powerful performances, as did Columbus Short (he played the maligned bespectacled writer on the late great NBC series Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) as gold-toothed blues harp phenom Little Walter, Eamonn Walker (he was in HBO's Oz, which I didn't watch, and Duma (2005), which I loved) as Howlin' Wolf, and Gabrielle Union as Waters' wife Geneva. Mos Def played Chuck Berry and Emmanuelle Chriqui (Sloan on HBO's Entourage) was Mrs. Chess (we couldn't decide if she was also the blonde he was dating in the first scene. If you see it after reading this, let me know).

Apparently the historical accuracy is arguable, according to those that post on imdb, but we still had a great time with the music, the cigarettes, and, oh, the cars. Afterwards I told Amy I had a credit on Amazon and asked if I should get the soundtrack of new musicians covering the oldies as played on screen. She wants the oldies. They are goodies.