Classic Movie Review: The Santa Clause (1994)

Christmas movies are supposed to take place at Christmas. That's the general rule of thumb. And that's generally how I remembered The Santa Clause. Lots of North Pole elves and Santa suits and the like, except that's the sequel that I'm thinking of. In fact a lot of this movie takes place during the rest of the year. That doesn't mean it's bad, just different. In a good way.

Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is a toy company executive who isn't a Christmas person at all. He puts on the Christmas cheer for his son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) though, which is more than his mother Laura (Wendy Crewson) and stepfather Neil (Judge Reinhold) do. Neil is a psychiatrist who believes that Charlie should face the realities of life and tells him that Santa Claus doesn't exist. That is until Christmas Eve when Scott accidentally kills Santa and has to take his place. Head elf Bernard (David Krumholtz) fills Scott in on the contract that he unknowingly has signed and gives him a year to get his affairs in order before it becomes a full time job.

So The Santa Clause kind of isn't a kid's movie, although I definitely saw it when I was one. There are a lot of themes around divorce and mental illness that are an interesting step to take this kind of movie. Scott has so much animosity for his ex-wife it's unbelievable. The best part of the movie however, is the antagonistic relationship that he has with Charlie's stepfather Neil. Normally Judge Reinhold is known for playing fun loving characters, but Neil is an incredibly dark and cynical person, which is how psychiatrists were portrayed in the 90s. It is a shame that there weren't more scenes featuring Peter Boyle (best known for playing Ray Romano's father in Everybody Loves Raymond).

While there are some funny moments, especially during Scott's physical transformation into Santa, it's the darker moments of the film that are better. When Scott first gets roped into being Santa, he is incredibly reluctant about and treats the job with a level of hatred. The idea of the actual Santa hating his job would be a funny movie to watch. Kind of like Bad Santa, but if Santa was real. The movie's ending is also darker than I remember, with Scott being accused of kidnapping and is hunted down by heavily armed police. Not quite the kid's movie content I was expecting.

Apart from moments of horrendous 90s CGI, The Santa Clause is a great cynical Christmas movie to revisit - especially after the year that we've had. It may not set out to have a cynical message, I'm sure they were trying for some lighthearted fun when the made it, but it's unavoidable to miss the sad undertones about divorce and kidnapping. Not at all like that Home Alone movie.

Sausage Party

Cartoons for adults have popped up more and more in recent years with TV shows like BoJack Horseman, Rick and Morty and Archer being really popular examples, so it makes sense that that popularity should spill over into movies. And who better to make such a movie than Seth Rogen and his crew of comedy friends. At first glance, the trailer makes Sausage Party look like the same old movie from these guys, but it is actually really funny and original.

The day in a supermarket begins with all the items singing a song about "The Great Beyond", a magical place where you go when one of the gods (humans) buys you and you can live in harmony with them. Frank (Seth Rogen) and his girlfriend Brenda (Kristen Wiig) are excited to be picked because of "Red, White and Blue Day" and they know that they will finally be together. Everything is going okay, until Honey Mustard (Danny McBride), who has returned from "The Great Beyond" and knows the truth, is put in the cart. He attempts suicide and as a result a whole bunch of items are thrown from the cart, including Frank, Brenda, Sammy Bagel, Jr (Edward Norton), Kareem Abdul Lavosh (David Krumholtz) and Douche (Nick Kroll). In the mess that results, Douche is severely injured (his nozzle is bent) and makes it his mission to take his revenge on Frank who just wants to get back to his shelf.

With all those characters, especially Douche, it sounds like Sausage Party is just filled with childish, infantile jokes that would only appeal to teenage boys. But it actually has a lot of jokes that go beyond that. A large chunk of the movie is dedicated to relationship between Kareem Abdul Lavosh and Sammy Bagel, Jr and is used as an allegory for the current Arab-Israeli situation (the Halal food was in their aisle first, but then the Kosher food just had to start taking over). There's actually a lot of this us and them mentality in the film that mirrors real life, everything from more land disputes (Firewater (Bill Hader) says that the supermarket used to be all Native American before other foods came in and took it away), historical genocides (the sauerkraut wants to eliminate all the juice) and even the blind acceptance of religious belief. It's not all real life, a lot of pop culture is made fun of too. My favourite was when the classic Meat Loaf song "I Would Do Anything For Love" is sung by, well, a meat loaf.

This is what we're doing to bacon? It almost makes me not want to eat it.

The characters in this are so fun to watch because special care has gone into creating nearly every single grocery item (both from a character and animation point of view). All the foods are the nationality that they represent, and while this can make for some cultural stereotypes, it's still pretty funny. Salma Hayek's lesbian taco is a bit too obvious but very fun to see (well, hear) such a big star in this role. The same goes for Edward Norton. I had no idea it was him, I actually thought it was Woody Allen. My favourite character was the villain Douche because his characterisation of a fraternity brother who just wanted to get juiced or jacked the whole time made complete sense. Another favourite was the Stephen Hawking style gum who had his own wheelchair and provided the heroes with vital information.

While Sausage Party is crass and vulgar at times, it's also really original. Who would've thought a movie about grocery items would be funny let alone evocative of history and current events (to be fair, it does gloss over these things). Overall, it's a top notch comedy and it's great to be able to go see how far animation has come without having to go to a movie for kids.