More Jolly Ho-Hos
More Jolly Ho-Hos
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco [Video Troll]
Published in: The Manila Times, December 21, 1987
CHRISTMAS just isn’t Christmas unless it’s sensurround. For those of us who can’t seem to get enough of our yuletide jollies from the endless swarm of shoppers and environmental Christmas displays that have lately descended on our urban landscape like flies on a fruitcake, there’s always the stereo and the VCR to fill in the gaps. Here are still more Christmas titles to keep those yuletide juices flowing:
HOUSE WITHOUT A CHRISTMAS TREE — Jason Robards is a Christmas ogre even closer to hearth and home than Dicken’s repentant anti-hero, a hard-working, God-fearing widower grown increasingly morose over the tragic death of his wife during childbirth. His daughter, now a spunky preadolescent, is hardest-hit by his manic distaste for sentimentality in general — and for Christmas traditions in particular — an abiding dread firmly rooted in his own pained recollections. The girl’s stoic determination to have a Christmas tree in the living room despite Robards’ hard-nosed resistance results in a gripping climax that literally tugs at your heart-strings. An intelligently-crafted, full-length video highly recommended for the entire family.
THE 4TH WISE MAN — Opportunity knocks but once — even for kings and star-gazers. Martin Sheen in the title role is a young member of the Venerable Order of Magi who arrives a day late for his scheduled rendezvous with Baltazar, Gaspar and Melchor, and ends up getting scratched off the passenger list for their historic journey to Bethlehem. In the company of his reluctant sidekick (rather tediously overplayed by a painfully miscast Alan Arkin), Sheen decides to go for it alone and spends a lifetime wandering through the desert. A low-budget epic with touches of Zorba The Greek and Lawrence of Arabia, this is probably the best example of yuletide science-fiction at its worst. Still, it’s worth a few laughs in a pinch.
HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS — Probably the most remarkable kiddie treat of the lot, this Scandinavian fantasy centers on a rather benign St. Nick who gets an unexpected visit from a pair of bite-sized juveniles out in search of their missing Mom and Dad. Santa’s fanatical commitment to making every wish come true on Christmas Eve sends him packing to the African coast where the children’s hapless parents are being held for ransom by a bunch of bungling tribal terrorists. The whole idea of Santa Claus as super-hero beyond the cat-burglar gift-giving is pretty much in keeping with every kid’s idea of a jolly red knight, Santa being way up there with the best of them — caped crusaders and all! Stars Karem Cheryl and Armand Meffre, whoever they are.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, MR. LAWRENCE — A Christmas tale more by dint of thematic perversion rather than by affinity to the yuletide genre, this decidedly bizarre passion-play set in a Japanese concentration camp towards the end of the Second World War stars David Bowie as a vaguely-androgenous dissenter who drives a well-starched Imperial officer out of the closet and onto the point of his samurai. Bowie again treads the thin line between it and what-have-you. View at the risk of shaking your Christmas equilibrium!
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “More Jolly Ho-Hos” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, December 21, 1987
