Bad Santa

Bad Santa
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

The true meaning of the spirit of Christmas is well-worn cinema territory, and thank Christ that Bad Santa is nowhere in the realm of family holiday cheer. In fact if your kids are the kind who still leave out cookies and milk for the fat guy, then keep them well away from this hilarious gem.
Director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World) pulls no punches in his depiction of an alcoholic Santa who hates children and his equally foul-mouthed elf (Tony Cox) who each year work in a different shopping mall, before robbing the place of it's holiday takings on Christmas eve.
Santa Clause (Billy Bob Thornton, A Simple Plan) is on the slippery slope to alcoholic oblivion, soiling himself more often than the spoilt children who sit on his lap each day. However firing the duo is impossible for the store manager (the late John Ritter), as his elf is not only a "little person", but he's also black.
Things get interesting for Santa when two people enter his life. He finds himself, between swearing fits, having to placate an 8-year-old boy who believes he really is Santa; and a barmaid (Lauren Graham, Gilmore Girls), who has a thing for guys in the red suit.
With a nosey store detective (Bernie Mac, Oceans 11), sniffing around, and in a film where Santa has exactly zero redeeming qualities, you can be sure this bad boy isn't ending like other Christmas favourites; Miracle on 34th Street, or The Santa Clause.
The script is hilarious, Billy Bob is pitch-perfect, and the story flies by while the jokes keep rolling. Bad Santa is brilliant and bawdy and shows us what the true meaning of Christmas really is. (Commercialised robbery).

Bad Santa rates 4 1/2 stars.

Napoleon Dynamite

Napoleon Dynamite
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

The most quotable film of the year is undoubtedly Napoleon Dynamite. The small budget, small-town film by Jared Hess started life as a low-budget short. It's now a low-budget feature, and cult favourite among those who love a genuine flea-bitten, three-legged underdog.
Like a less caustic version of the Todd Solondz teen-angst film Welcome To The Dollhouse, Napoleon Dynamite is a brightly coloured, badly dressed, and poorly accessorised characterization of the type of geeks society pushes into the high-school lockers of life.
Napoleon (Jon Hedder) is in high-school, likes drawing pictures of a supposedly mythical half lion/half tiger creature he calls a Liger, believes in developing his nun-chuck skills to impress the ladies, and has the boldest male perm this side of the 80's.
Beginning life as a short film appears to have impacted the film in terms of structure and is still a relatively short 86 minutes. Napoleon is in essence a succession of sketches building on each other rather than a coherent feature film. It is in effect a feature-length sitcom, except funnier than anything you'll see on television anytime soon.
All the teen movie plot devices are there to be played with: A girl, a prom, a student president race, authority figures who don't understand and Napoleon front and center as the school looser. The difference to other examples of the genre is that Napoleon has not one ounce of diffidence. In fact he's over-confident and constantly rolling his eyes at the losers he's surrounded by.
Napoleon Dynamite is laugh for laugh one of the funniest films of the year, including a brilliant A-Team action sequence that will blow you away.

Napoleon Dynamite rates 3 1/2 stars.

Garden State

Garden State
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

Estranged from his mother and father for ten years, part-time actor, part-time waiter Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff, TV's Scrubs) returns home for his mother's funeral. Avoiding confrontation with his distant, psychologist father (Ian Holm), Largeman reconnects with his old New Jersey friends, and starts to experience life for the first time in a long time without the aid of the antidepressants he's been prescribed since early adolescence.
Whilst waiting for an appointment to see a doctor about his persistent headaches he meets Samantha (Natalie Portman, The Professional), a fellow chemically unbalanced person with whom there is immediate chemistry. His former best friend (Peter Sarsgaard, Shattered Glass), now a gravedigger/robber takes Largeman and the younger Samantha on a guided tour of a place that used to feel like home.
First time writer/director Braff has, with the help of a stellar cast, crafted an insightful, black comedy. The camera work is inventive without being over-ambitious whilst trying to convey Largeman's sense of being alone in a crowded room and evolving sense of isolation, as he explores who he is, how he got here, and where he might be going.
Garden State is a sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes hilarious journey of self-discovery, accompanied by one of the best movie soundtracks to come out in the last year.
There is a sense of hope for each of these characters. Success, we find, doesn't really come in large doses. It's subjective and impossible to judge without looking closely, and Braff doesn't judge his characters. Like Largeman he is content to observe these people with fresh eyes and to try to understand.

Garden State rates 3 1/2 stars.