I’m feeling lethargic about this year’s holiday movies, especially when I can watch some of the best films ever made for free thanks to that really big collection up on Mount Pony.
Didn’t they already make a movie called “Four Christmases” with Vince Vaughn? Yeah, I saw it last year when it was “Fred Claus” and it made me want to rip out my eyes.
So I’m not interested in Vaughn’s latest sell-out, though the thing’s made more than $70 million and was number one at the box office the past two weekends. Scary. What happened to you Vince Vaughn?
Well, how about “Twilight?”
Nah, I’m not 13 anymore, and if I want vampires “Salem’s Lot” is more my (blood) type.
“Quantum of Solace” doesn’t look too bad, but too bad my husband’s not interested in drooling over Daniel Craig as James Bond. Oh momma.
“Australia” with Nicole Kidman spans two hours and 45 minutes and I’d definitely need a nap in that time.
There you have it: the number one, two, four and five movies, respectively, at the box office last weekend.
So what’s that leave me?
Number three: Walt Disney’s “Bolt” with the voices of John Travolta and Miley Cyrus. And we got to see it in 3-D.
Excuse my excitement.
Maybe I’d like “Bolt” if I saw it at home on DVD snuggled up with a couple of toddlers. This cartoon is totally for children.
But, all right, it’s cute in the way that Marshmallow Peeps are sweet: it makes you sick.
Travolta provides the voice of Bolt, an American White Shep-herd who thinks he’s Underdog.
Cyrus is the voice of Penny, a child actress who stars with Bolt in a series of the same name. She loves the dog very much having picked him out herself from the pound. They never leave the Hollywood set, and thus, Bolt’s illusions of grandeur.
And then one day, something happens (I had to use the lady’s room) and Bolt ends up on the mean streets of New York City. Here, he meets a scrappy stray cat named Mittens (the voice of Susie Essman) and a fugitive hamster in a ball named Rhino (Mark Walton).
The unlikely trio partners to make their way across the country back to Hollywood and Penny. But first Bolt has to ad-just to the fact that he has no “super bark” and his eyes won’t burn through steel.
There’s a few funny parts in “Bolt” like when Mittens goes begging for food in an RV park, but gets rejected — “Get outta here you stupid cat” — or when Bolt learns how to use “the dog face” (it’s mostly a head tilt) to get free stuff.
The 3-D affects were not particularly impressive — the usual elbows and things coming out at you — and in fact, I thought the glasses made for a very dull affair, like the movie.
Got a houseful of rowdy grandkids over for the holidays? Don’t bolt for “Bolt,” but it might be a nice distraction.
***
Last Friday, it was “Christmas in Connecticut” (1945, Warner Bros.) in the Mount Pony Theater, but I couldn’t get into the spirit here either.
Starring Barbara Stanwyck as the day’s Martha Stewart, but a fraud, and a dashing Dennis Morgan (nice hair) as a wounded soldier looking for a taste of home — and turkey — at Christmas, it was an unlikely story. More fluff than substance.
Not even Sydney Greenstreet as Stanwyck’s publisher could get me out of my funk.
But a friend and fellow movie-goer had just the formula for that: a DVD copy of “Remember the Night” — Stanwyck’s lovely holiday movie from 1940.
Alas, here was the truth and beauty I sought. Plus, Niagara Falls!
A poignant story of redemption and tolerance, “Remember” makes love between a thief and her prosecutor possible. It contains remembrances of home, the good and the bad, and reminds us what Christmas is about: opening heart and hearth to all, regardless of where they’ve been.
Willie (Sterling Holloway) says it best, singing, “A Perfect Day” with Stanwyck’s character at the piano. It was the sweetest thing I’d ever seen or heard.
“For mem’ry has painted this perfect day With colors that never fade, And we find at the end of a perfect day, The soul of a friend we’ve made.”
Want substance in your holiday films? Stay at home and check out “Remember the Night” Saturday at 6 p.m. on Turner Classic Movies. It also plays on TCM Christmas Eve at 11:15 p.m. and Christmas at 6:15 a.m.
Allison Brophy Champion loves Ted Turner. She can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or abrophy@starexponent.com
Bolt 3-D
Rated PG
Directors: Byron Howard and Chris Williams
Starring: (the voices of) John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman and Mark Walton
1 hour 26 minutes
Two stars out of five
Copyright 2008 Culpeper Star-Exponent
