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Each year, there are inevitably new versions of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol to consume. This year alone saw the release of the splashy AppleTV+ musical Spirited starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. But the better film is Netflix’s animated adaptation, which puts another musical, psychedelic spin on the material. This movie largely works thanks to its stellar voice cast led by Luke Evans as Scrooge, Olivia Colman as Past, Jonathan Pryce as Jacob Marley, Johnny Flynn as Bob Cratchit, and Jessie Buckley as Isabel Fezzwig. Some of the sequences, particularly with the Ghost of Future, veer too intense for children but feel just subversive enough to be fresh for a slightly older audience.
Violent Night
Aside from 2003’s raunchy Bad Santa (and its 2016 sequel) starring Billy Bob Thornton, St. Nick has mainly been depicted as a holly jolly character, complete with twinkling eyes, rosy cheeks, and merry dimples. And then there is David Harbour’s Santa, a brash and boozy man who has stopped believing in himself just as he feels most of the world has. But Santa’s dimming belief system is put to the test when he gets entangled in a crime plot masterminded by a con man with the code name Scrooge (John Leguizamo). Scrooge holds the Lightstone family, led by Christmas Vacation’s Beverly D’Angelo, The Righteous Gemstone’s Edi Patterson, and The Umbrella Academy’s Leah Brady, a young girl named Trudy who is still a die-hard believer, hostage—and Santa is the only one who can shimmy down the chimney to save them.
Menorah in the Middle
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