The Christmas Movie Report Card, Part 1
A simple way to talk about two new streaming holiday movies.
Welcome to the Christmas Movie Report Card, a completely arbitrary thing I made up yesterday while I tried to plan the important Christmas movie watching I will be doing over the next twenty-two days.
This is a system I will use to objectively score Christmas movies, to help me decide if they are “Good” or not. I have a strong feeling that the best graded movies won’t be my personal favorites, and that the worst graded movies will have some worthy experiences among them.
I will score movies as I watch them, including new releases. Today, I’ll cover two 2024 entries that I have already watched to help create this whole system, since they were new to me, which is a valuable trait, since I have seen a ton of these things, and I watch a ton of them every year.
I created a rubric that I hope is:
A.) Understandable to everyone
B.) Easy to score high on (all movies are trying to be good, let’s let them be good!)
C.) Representative of what I think Christmas movies should have, or be good at
Here are the traits we will be grading:
Characters
Christmas movies are like going home for the holidays. It is way better when you actually like spending time with the people you are with. Now, obviously, some of the best characters in these movies are people you explicitly don’t want to spend time with, a la your crazy uncle, your mean boss, your ex who’s dating the sister of your current partner, etc.. That’s great! We love to hate people! But we also need characters who we love to love. Great Christmas movies have good characters, sometimes on both the nice and the naughty list.
Christmas Spirit
If it is claiming to be a Christmas movie, it has to involve Christmas, in some way. It is not necessarily the case that the more it is Christmas on the nose, the better; and it is also the case that some of the most fun movies are only Christmas movies in the shallowest depths of technicality. We love those here at Something New. Good use of Christmas elements will help here: music, scenery, cultural norms, characters. Playing against these types might give a high score, too. This category will be mildly subjective.
Is It Fun?
Christmas should be fun. Movies don’t always have to be fun, but the ones I’m watching connected to this holiday need to be, at least in passing moments. Greta Gerwig’s Little Women is fun; It’s A Wonderful Life is fun. Do those movies have some of the most devastating emotional gut punches in cinema? Correct. Are they also rip-roaring, crowd pleasing cinema? Also correct. We deserve both.
Is It Moving?
I’m a sap. A sucker. I cry at many movies. I want to cry. I want to cry about something nice, especially in these dark and cold months. I, and I think everyone making movies, agrees that Christmas movies should make some attempt at sentimentality. That is what we are all here for. Are you going to stick that landing? That’s what the score is about.
Story/Idea
This one is simple: does your movie have a coherent, cohesive plot, story, screenplay? Do I know what is going on? Do I care? Additionally, do you have ideas about life, or love, or culture, or politics? Is it clearly stated and defended here? This category isn’t about having a “good” idea or story, it’s simply about having one at all. This will weed out the Netflix/Hallmark rot that comes out every year.
Rewatchability
I don’t want to spoil the surprise for anyone, but: Christmas happens every year. I want to watch Christmas movies every year. I want to watch good Christmas movies every year. If the movie is funny, if the characters are fun to hang out with, if the story is heart-warming, you’ll score well here. If I watched the movie when I was 13 or younger, you’re going to do extra well here.
That Special Something
This is the “free space” of the bingo card. This is the “I went to art school and we didn’t get letter/number grades” of the report card.
Someone Gave a Shit
This is me again defending against the Netflix/Hallmark slop. If the movie looks like shit, and the actors are simply reading lines, and the director does nothing with the camera, you are getting low marks here. Be better. Give a shit!
Author’s note: I’m not typically interested in numerical rating systems for art; that’s a way of thinking that I don’t think is best, and is limiting and narrow. But, it is also an easy way to talk about something subjective, and is an easy way to get me writing more things without the weight of too deep of rumination and posturing and opportunities to get side-tracked. So, to have some fun, I’m diving in!
Without further ado, let’s check in on how some recent releases scored.
Hot Frosty
2024, Netflix
When a young widow’s magic scarf brings a dashing snowman to life, can he help her rediscover romance, laughter and the holiday cheer before he melts away?
Characters
There are a couple of people doing routine, uninspired work around the margins of this, and they give the movie a slight boost, a little juice, but barely anything. The leads offer nothing that I am interested in.
D
Christmas Spirit
This movie is about a snowman, a little town celebrating Christmas, a widow who needs help finding love. These are fine parts, but nothing warmed the cockles of my heart, like a real Christmas movie should, especially not the song that takes this movie to it’s end credits. Yeesh.
C-
Is It Fun?
There are a couple of moments in which I had fun: the introduction of “Jack”, a.k.a. the snowman, when he comes to life, which was extremely weird, but at least it was funny; a short scene in which a woman — notably not the main character — is attracted to this “hot” guy, and the movie makes some shallow, obvious sexual references and innuendos. Good! This should be the entire movie! And finally, the start of a shopping/makeover montage, which wasn’t very good, but at least gave me momentary hope of a fun segment. That’s three scenes in an entire movie. Not great, Bob.
D+
Is It Moving?
No. They try to be, but, just, no.
D
Story/Idea
He’s a snowman. He’s hot and naked and dumb, but he does know English, and can patch a roof after being alive for 12 hours, and no one fucks. And HE’S A SNOWMAN.
D
That Special Something
If they fucked, that would have been something special. But getting the opportunity to decry “HE’S A SNOWMAN” after literally every scene was a unique opportunity, I’ll give them that.
D+
Rewatchability
This isn’t camp, which was its only chance at scoring well here. Though, honestly, it’s weird enough to make my sisters watch, so it has some short-term staying power, potentially.
D+
Someone Gave a Shit
The writer wrote a lovely, loving post on Letterboxd about this movie. I couldn’t find anyone else giving a shit. This is an innocent, simple movie, that people were likely well paid for. But no one was trying to impress anyone.
D
This was the first movie of the season for me, and I demanded that my visiting brother and his wife watch it together while we waited for their flight. I knew a bit about it, including that the characters didn’t fuck — a devastating reveal — and was dissappointed to learn that nothing else really happens in the movie either.
Final GPA: 1.2 (D+)
Nutcrackers
2024, Hulu
A strait-laced man finds his life suddenly upended when he becomes the caregiver for his rambunctious, orphaned nephews.
Characters
The outlines of the characters here are solid. Distant brother becomes guardian of four young boys, a helpful child services agent gets interested in brother, there’s some local townsfolk, but the depth of these outlines isn’t quite there.
C+
Christmas Spirit
Honestly, this is very tangentially a Christmas movie. The canonical Nutcracker ballet plays a pivotal role, but otherwise this is just a family dramedy, which most Christmas movies should be. It is something older kids can watch with you — they do have extended talks about what sex is, including anatomical terminology — so the family friendliness is a plus.
C-
Is It Fun?
Ben Stiller is a talented, if rusty, comedian, and the movie is definitely a comedy. It has kids who are wacky in a straightlaced way, it has dancing, it has a big performance at the end, and it has some slapstick-ness. It invents nothing new, and passes at sprinkling in tropes. It’s fine here.
C+
Is It Moving?
I thought this one would get to me when I first hit play and got a whiff of the setup. Ben Stiller has definitely gotten to me before (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), and Linda Cardellini is a great dramatic performer. But the pieces are flat, and don’t add up to anything greater than themselves. There is a repeated line/idea that is supposed to build into the final emotional wallup. The punch misses.
C
Story/Idea
Our first solid grade of this rubric! This movie’s ideas and story are clear, full stop. An uncle needs to learn to love others and himself, and these kids need to do a little learning themselves. Maybe they can all do it together, and maybe we’ll all learn something along the way!
A-
That Special Something
A film about a successful Chicago guy having to move out to the cornfields of the rural midwest and deal with some boys and tomfoolery? This movie is for people like me! But, alas, those elements didn’t spark much joy in me, and there’s no other alchemy at play here.
C
Rewatchability
Despite being solidly passing so far, I don’t see myself revisiting this one, even with it’s connections to my rural midwestern upbringing.
D
Someone Gave a Shit
You can tell that the director, incredibly successful and weird choice to direct this movie David Gordon Green, enjoyed playing around with this one. It looks like the cast had fun, and the movie looks better than typical straight-to-streaming fare. People gave a shit!
B
Final GPA: 2.25 (C+)
Nutcrackers is objectively better than Hot Frosty, but there are absolutely modes in which I would sooner recommend Frosty. If you need to watch something with a family or group with broader, simpler tastes, go with Nutcrackers. If you are with a group who wants to live in the moment, and doesn’t mind a strange shared experience, go with Hot Frosty.
Gradebook
Nutcrackers (2024) - 2.25
Hot Frosty (2024) - 1.2
Of course, there are literally hundreds of Christmas movies you can choose to watch. I have already watched four before December 3rd. I’ll see you here again with more grades, more Christmas, and something new.