where: CENTURY 14 VALLEJO in Vallejo, CA
when: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
show: 11:10 a.m.
costs: $9.25 Ticket + $3.75 small Diet/Zero Coke + $4.00 small Popcorn = $17.00
auditorium: 7
seat: 5th row, 19th column
synopsis: Ebenezer Scrooge is a grumpy old workaholic miser who thinks people who take time out for a holiday are just people who want to skip work and still expect to be paid for it and the poor and destitute are lazy, irresponsible people who feel the world owes them some charity. He loves to hoard his money for fear of becoming poor. On the eve of Christmas, 1843, he is visited by the ghost of a former associate, Jacob Marley, who was as greedy and cold-hearted as he is and which warns him that if he doesn't change his ways he will suffer the same fate upon death. Also, Marley's ghost tells him that he should expect a visit from three spirits. The spirits do show up and proceed to show Ebenezer his past before avarice took the better hold of him, the resulting bleakness of his life and what such a vice would lead to in all eventuality. A remorseful Ebenezer promises to change his ways if given the chance. And it being Christmas, the spirits give him the gift of A Second Chance. But will he change his ways as he promised or were his words just the empty words of a fearful and desperate soul?
noteworthy scenes: 1.) At the funeral parlor in 1836; 2.) The locked coal box; 3.) Bob Cratchit playing in the street; 4.) The door knob; 5.) Jacob Marley's ghost; 6.) Ghost of Christmas Past; 7.) The old classroom; 8.) Mr. Fezziwig; 9.) The dance; 10.) Belle releasing Ebenezer; 11.) Skyrocket; 12.) Ghost of Christmas Present; 13.) The Cratchit's home; 14.) The guessing game; 15.) Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come; 16.) The stagecoach chase; 17.) The Dilber's home; 18.) The grave site; 19.) Glad-to-be-alive dance; 20.) Playing in the street; 21.) The carolers; 22.) Nephew's home; and 23.) The surprise for Cratchit.
audience reaction: The audience gave it a "Hands Clapper" ending.
recommendation: Go see the show but don't take little kids to see it with you.
spoiler alert! If you watch this movie in 3-D or I-Max 3-D, the snowflakes will serve more as a distraction than anything else. When Scrooge asked the Ghost of Christmas Past if it was the spirit foretold and the camera zoomed in on Ebenezer's face, you could see that his pupils were not perfectly "squared." The Ghost of Christmas Past held in its hand the wrong kind of mistletoe! The setting for A Christmas Carol is 1843 London; therefore, the mistletoe should have been the European kind ( not the American kind ) which has white--not red--berries. Fezziwig and his wife danced unrealistically. In the skyrocket scene, Ebenezer's mouth was wide open and you could see a full set of teeth--Bah! humbug. People back in the 1800s still had poor oral hygiene so that old people would have very little--if at all--teeth left and, clearly, Scrooge was not wearing a set of false teeth--'check out the cavities--even though his pointed chin would seem to suggest otherwise. The chase scene was drawn-out, very uncharacteristic of a feeble old fart who was shown to easily out-distance the horses even when he was miniaturized. The tiny Scrooge didn't have enough mass and inertia to break-off each and every icicle that he smashed into. Scrooge, at 57 years and 10 months of age in this film, looks too darn old for the part! Tiny Tim had a "spaced-out" look in his eyes; and even at the end, when he sat perched on Scrooge's shoulder, Tiny Tim wasn't exactly looking eye-to-eye with the old man, himself. I used to do charcoal portraits so that I am quite aware of ocular expressions, since a charcoal portrait is heavily dependent on the subject's eyes to invest it with a modicum of "reality." ( Oh, when is Hollywood going to notice my detail-oriented artistic ability and hire my services? [ Sigh .... ] )
fyi: This movie, made by the same people who made 2004's THE POLAR EXPRESS, is more of a sumptuous feast for CGI-starved eyes than its predecessor! The main characters are rendered more life-like in this movie; the supporting characters is a different story, though. I just love the painstaking attention to detail, e.g. The undertaker's zit-faced apprentice; Scrooge's footprints in the snow as he walks up to his gate; Jacob Marley's ghost; The scenes with Ghost of Christmas Present; The rug and the bed curtains; The cooked goose--yummylicious! ( Forget turkey, I think I'd much rather have a goose for Thanksgiving ); And the wet cobblestones, etc ....
I saw this cartoon drawing once. The setting is the Cratchit residence. Tiny Tim's crutch is leaning against the wall. Mr. Scrooge is standing at the dinner table holding a fork and a carving knife. Everybody else is seated around the table. And Tiny Tim is on the table, trimmed and roasted and with an apple in his mouth! I hope that you find this visualization as funny as I found the cartoon, itself. Ha, ha, ha. Merry Christmas.
word of advice: Don't let its MPAA's PG-rating fool you. This is probably the second scariest movie that I've seen in as many weeks! Definitely not for little kids. A boy in the audience could be heard whining scared to his mommy about the movie--he is not going to be looking forward to Christmas presents, that's for sure.
Here, then, is a tip for you: If you don't like giving bratty kids Christmas presents, just tell them that Santa won't be showing up for Christmas this year because the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Yet to Come have taken over the North Pole's Gift Distribution business because Santa had a heart attack. Also, all the elves were fired and Jacob Marley and the rest of the fettered ghosts are working as Santa's Helpers. And that the Ghosts will be using the Black Stagecoach instead of the Reindeer Sleigh. But be sure to take them to see this movie first. Heh, heh, heh ....
tidbits: I'm going to have to see this again, perhaps in I-Max 3-D, because I didn't like where I was seated which I feel compromised my enjoyment of the 3-D effect. The left half of the column of seats in the lower part ( where I usually prefer to sit ) of the auditorium was cordoned-off with some tape while the seats in the top part were mostly taken-up.
On my way home from the cinema, I swung by Uncle Sam's Restaurant on Couch Street because I was going to have some Chinese buffet lunch before going to work later on. But I found out that they don't have a buffet anymore. So, I went to the Wendy's Restaurant on Redwood Street, instead, after I stopped-off first at Chevron's for some gas.
