TheRetroCritic

  Art  by Aardman & @theretrocritic .

  Art  by Aardman & @theretrocritic .

Review available on the new website .

Released in 1983, A Christmas Story follows young boy Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) as he deals with school and his family during the holiday season, secretly hoping he'll receive a specific air rifle gun for Christmas. Since the late 90's, this movie's popularity has increased quite a bit making it something of a cult classic. Through narration, an older Ralphie recounts the events of a particular Christmas during his childhood. This includes clashing with bullies, sucking up to teachers and playing with friends at school, trying to influence his family to buy him the controversial BB gun and meeting an intimidating mall Santa. In a memorable (if a tad bizarre) subplot, Ralphie's father, played with vaudevillian flair by Darren McGavin, wins an ugly leg-shaped lamp in a contest and insists on displaying it proudly in the house, much to his wife's (Melinda Dillon) chagrin. The film's title is a little misleading in that, while Christmas is an important part

Despite the relatively unkind feedback Robert Zemeckis received after experimenting with CG animation in The Polar Express , he persevered and, in 2009, he delivered his own version of A Christmas Carol starring Jim Carrey as Ebeneezer Scrooge... and the three ghosts. While the animation in Polar Express gave an unwanted creepy puppet quality to the child characters, here the visuals are much more polished and the actors' expressions are captured perfectly. It's fascinating to see Jim Carrey being turned into, not only an old man, but a younger Scrooge, a candle ghost and a big bearded spirit dude. The rest of the cast, which includes Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Bob Hoskins, are also beautifully rendered into their CGI characters. There are still creepy visuals but this time it's very much on purpose as Zemeckis appears to have picked the scariest aspects of Polar Express and Beowulf in order to give every kid watching this movie nightmares throughout the holiday se

Produced by Tony Scott, believe it or not,  Get Santa was a British Christmas comedy from 2014 starring Jim Broadbent as Santa Claus who crash-lands in London and ends up being jailed for attempting to steal back his lost reindeer. The film follows Steve (Rafe Spall) and Tom (Kit Connor), a father and son, as they try to help Santa find his reindeer and sleigh before somehow getting him out of prison so he can get ready in time for his yearly Christmas "flight". Steve is a down-and-out ex-con who wants to reconnect with his son and is thrown into this unlikely scenario when Tom insists that the old man in the Santa suit hiding in the garage is the real deal. Steve is forced to make a choice between convincing Tom that none of this is real or believing his son by pursuing this surreal mission thereby risking going back to jail. Get Santa is at its strongest when it focuses on this relationship as its heart really is in the right place and it delivers just the right amount

The Cagiest moments from the movie Trapped In Paradise .

Because Christmas wouldn't be complete without an obligatory raunchy holiday-themed Hollywood comedy, 2016 gifted us Why Him? starring Bryan Cranston and James Franco as a mismatched potential father and son-in-law who finally meet around Christmas time as hilarity supposedly ensues. The plot sees Stephanie (Zoey Dutch) invite her parents to meet her older boyfriend Laird (Franco) for the first time after it is revealed via a disastrous Skype call that they were seeing each other for a while. As it turns out, Laird is not only the super rich CEO of a video game company but also an eccentric, impulsive weirdo who just says and does the first thing that pops into his head. Having such a wacky character clash with the comparatively uptight and square Ned (Cranston) should have been an easy way to bring some laughs to the table, much like how Planes, Trains and Automobiles did back in 1987. One big problem becomes apparent very quickly, however: neither Bryan Cranston or James Fr

Zoolander 2 wasn't the only belated comedy sequel 2016 had to offer, we also got Bad Santa 2 , the follow-up to the surprisingly good Bad Santa , released back in 2003. It's unclear why we got a second instalment this late in the game or who asked for it but the original was fun so hey, why not have a sequel? Bad Santa was a refreshing remedy to corny, forgettable Christmas comedies: dirty jokes, Billy Bob Thornton in a Santa costume soiling himself, a heist plot. And yet it had just enough Christmas spirit to catch you off guard and work as both a seasonal treat and a dark comedy. In Bad Santa 2, we catch up to the same characters 13 years later as Marcus (Tony Cox) invites Willie (Billy Bob Thornton) to join him for one last job where they would be stealing millions from a charity in Chicago. This time, they are collaborating with Willie's mother Sunny (Kathy Bates) but a lot of back-stabbing quickly takes place. Meanwhile, an all grown up but still completely naive

Back in 1985, Terry Gilliam directed Brazil , a science-fiction comedy like no other about a dystopian future in which the world is run by totalitarian bureaucracy. It wasn't a big hit in the US but it did well everywhere else and over time it has become something of a cult classic. The film follows Jonathan Pryce's Sam Lowry, a meek government employee whose dreary life is turned upside down when he literally meets the woman of his dreams. The world depicted in Brazil is a gloomy, depressing one with its backwards technology, its inhuman laws, its crushingly industrial metropolis and yet Gilliam manages to find the humour in that setting by emphasising just how ridiculous this society has become with countless larger-than-life characters and awkward tech. The result is kind of a cross between 1984 , Blade Runner and Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life . The dreams Lowry has, in which he's flying, saving a damsel in distress from monsters, look beautiful and work a

Robin Williams stars in this surreal comedy from 1992 directed by Barry Levinson in which a toy factory is handed over to a sadistic army General who uses its resources to create war toys. A box-office flop, Toys famously did not exactly wow critics and audiences alike even if it did receive some praise for its creative visuals. Indeed, the René Magritte-inspired art direction and costumes earned the film some Oscar nominations but little else about it managed to charm anyone. The main complaint being that, while Toys is rich in fancy sets, it is weak in terms of story and character and with a running time of over two hours that's a legitimate concern. On paper, this is a simple, straight-forward story and yet in Levinson's hands it's borderline incomprehensible. Every scene aims to entertain by showing you increasingly whimsical stuff but it all falls flat due to a lifeless, unfunny script and some criminally underwritten characters. Tonally, the film is also off as

After two disastrous holidays, The Griswolds came back for yet another in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation , a 1989 sequel in which Clark (Chevy Chase) and Ellen Griswold (Beverly D'Angelo) attempt to host a Christmas dinner with the whole family. As ever, whatever Clark touches turns to catastrophe and every step of the way his plans are plagued by his own incompetence or just plain bad luck. Whether it's finding a suitable Christmas tree, checking out the attic, setting up Christmas lights or simply driving on the road, there's always a crash, a fall or an explosion around the corner. Written and produced by John Hughes, the film is right off the bat much better than its predecessor National Lampoon's European Vacation which looked cheap and was basically one stereotype after another with some cameos thrown in. Here, the premise is simple but the gags all pay off as Hughes imagines every single thing that could possibly go wrong on Christmas Eve and mak

Based on a novel by, believe it or not, John Grisham, Christmas With The Kranks is a comedy from 2004 starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis as a couple who decide to skip Christmas altogether when their daughter tells them she has to go to Peru for a Peace Corps assignment, much to the anger and disbelief of their neighbours. While the film did well at the box-office, critics were much less enthusiastic and it still holds a surprisingly low rating on Rotten Tomatoes and other sites. Maybe the corny poster and the fact it's yet another holiday-themed Tim Allen-starring family-friendly flick made it easy to dismiss as a trashy cash-in or maybe there's just something about Christmas With The Kranks that didn't sit well with people. On the surface, this is a pretty harmless film about a couple engaged in a goofy tit-for-tat battle with the neighbourhood, sort of like in the equally despised  Deck The Halls . There's nothing harsh or particularly unpredictable about

Another lesser known Christmas comedy, The Ref  (aka Hostile Hostages) was released in 1994 and it starred Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey as a bickering couple on the verge of a divorce who are taken hostage by a petty thief on Christmas Eve. We first meet the couple as they attend a marriage counselling session which quickly goes off the rails. Meanwhile, criminal Gus (Denis Leary) is in the process of robbing jewelry from a nearby home but that also backfires and the thief is forced to get a ride from someone so he kidnaps Lloyd and Caroline (Spacey and Davis) and gets them to drive him back to their house where he ties them up. Gus' plan to wait for his bumbling partner to come up with an escape plan proves more difficult than anticipated when Lloyd and Caroline's incessant disputes prove to be more than distracting. Then there's the couple's rebellious son who comes home unexpectedly and the rest of the dysfunctional family, led by Lloyd's cold, possessive mot

Trapped In Paradise was a comedy released in 1994 about two ex-con brothers Dave and Alvin (Jon Lovitz & Dana Carvey) who convince their brother Bill (Nicolas Cage) to rob a bank with them in the small town of Paradise on Christmas Eve. Despite trying desperately to not be like his petty thief brothers, Bill nevertheless agrees to help steal the money from the bank when he believes himself to be a fugitive after an earlier incident involving the kleptomaniac Alvin trying to rob a convenience store. The robbery itself is a bit of a mess but it is successful, it's escaping from Paradise which proves to be the real challenge with bad luck and distractions getting in the way. As they meet more and more of the city's genuinely friendly and caring inhabitants, they start to have second thoughts about keeping the money. The Lovitz, Carvey & Cage team is an unlikely one and, indeed, Nicolas Cage feels very much like the odd one out but this is quite appropriate for the ch

It was never going to be easy for this 1994 remake of the Christmas classic Miracle On 34th Street to capture the charm of the beloved original. Writer and producer John Hughes was no stranger to holiday-themed movies after the success of the Home Alone franchise so if anyone was going to make it work, it would have been him. The inspired casting of Richard Attenborough as Kris Kringle right away should have been a clue that we were in safe hands. Indeed, there aren't many on-screen Santas who are more charming than Attenborough's in this film and that's with no confirmation at any point that this Kris Kringle is the real thing. Real or not, this Santa certainly feels like the real deal. Elizabeth Perkins plays Dorey, a mother who fears any kind of disappointment, going as far as to teach her daughter Susan (Mara Wilson) about how Santa doesn't exist, and who is reluctant to give a relationship with Dylan McDermott's friendly lawyer (paradox?) a chance. Whe

Released in 1988 and directed by Richard Donner, Scrooged was a modern retelling of Dickens' classic story  A Christmas Carol with Bill Murray as a particularly grouchy TV producer who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. This marked a mini-comeback for Bill Murray after The Razor's Edge failed to make a dent at the box-office and despite Scrooged not sitting well with the likes of Roger Ebert, it's enjoyed something of a cult status since its release. This was certainly not the Scrooge re-imagining anyone was expecting as it's far stranger and more mean-spirited than you'd think, which might explain some reviewers' reservations. The tone throughout yo-yos between creepy and goofy so when the inevitable uplifting climax happens, you might find yourself too weirded out to really buy it. Perhaps part of the problem is that Murray sells his character's meanness too well so his 360 switch to "happy mode" needed more work to be convincin

One of Robin Williams' last films, A Merry Friggin' Christmas got a limited release in 2014 so you shouldn't be too surprised if you missed it. Unfortunately, good Christmas movies are hard to come by so let's see if this one is worth checking out. The film sees Boyd Mitchler (Joel McHale) and his wife Luann (Lauren Graham) having to spend Christmas with Boyd's father Virgil (Williams), who doesn't get along with his son, and the rest of the family. Boyd's primary goal, to keep the magic of Christmas alive for his young son, is soon put in jeopardy when he realises he forgot the kid's presents back home. He jumps in his car and sets off to recover them but he faces several setbacks along the way. In the vein of Bad Santa , this is a black comedy with a dash of Christmas spirit and it's a refreshing change from the sappy releases this season tends to churn out. This one isn't too focused on gross-out humour and, instead, it prioritises the t

With all the many movie versions of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" out there, it's rather difficult to pick one to talk about but, growing up, one of the most stand-out versions for me personally had to be Mickey's Christmas Carol , a 1983 Disney short feature with, obviously, Scrooge McDuck (voiced by Alan Young) taking on the role of the iconic grump Ebeneezer Scrooge. Of course, many other classic Disney characters portray key roles from the story: Mickey is Bob Cratchit, Goofy is Jacob Marley, you've got Donald Duck as Scrooge's nephew, Daisy Duck as Scrooge's old flame (which is weird when you think about it), Minnie Mouse as Cratchit's wife, Jiminy Cricket as one of the ghosts, even Chip and Dale show up for a cameo. Pete pops up near the end as the ghost of Christmas future, mostly to terrify younger viewers. As a kid, that last part, Scrooge falling down a fiery pit inside his own grave as a hooded Pete laughs his butt off, nearl

What's this?! A movie that's both perfect for Christmas AND Halloween, not to mention a treat for Burtonites and Oingo Boingo aficionados? What. Is. This? It's The Nightmare Before Christmas , of course. Henry Selick's stop-motion Disney classic based on the gothic surrealism of Tim Burton who contributed the story and the characters while Danny Elfman not only took on the music and the lyrics but voiced the Pumpkin King himself, Jack Skellington, during the songs with Chris Sarandon on voicing duties the rest of the time. The film quickly became a Christmas and Halloween tradition since its plot cleverly merged both holidays in a unique way without coming off as overly gimmicky. After a thrilling opening number, "This Is Halloween", which introduces us to Halloweentown and its spooky inhabitants (vampires, witches, you name it), we finally meet Skellington, the bony showman who has been making the best out of every single Halloween, wowing the to