Christmas was so nice, they lived it twice! (#SFWApro)

Anyone who’s followed this blog since last year knows I love embarrassing myself by watching lots of Christmas movies and specials. While work on the time-travel book precludes that devotion this year, there’s no shortage of Christmas films that fit.

CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY (1996) was the first of the several Christmas do-over films, wherein as Erik von Detten endures the Worst Christmas Ever only to discover those who do not learn from Christmas are forced to relive it.This and the following movies make me appreciate that even when the protagonist isn’t a dick (as Bill Murry was in Groundhog Day, the definitive time-loop film), the film still has him/her helping out everyone around as part of the character arc. This may be because it’s Christmas, when we’re supposed to have goodwill for all mankind—Last Day of Summer didn’t follow this path. This is fun with the minor quibble that father Robert Hays is so pushy about his son playing basketball, I’m surprised telling dad No wasn’t part of the story (instead it’s a matter of learning to shoot hoops better). With Bess Armstrong as von Detten’s mother. “Early this morning a young unidentified boy broke into the Ferguson home and using a fire extinguisher he just happened to be carrying, put out a burning Christmas tree.”

The rom-com 12 DATES OF CHRISTMAS (2011) rewatches much better than I’d have expected, as Amy Smart finds herself relieving Dec. 24 over and over, from pasisng out in a department store to learning the bad news about her ex (“I just proposed.”) to trying to make her blind Christmas Eve date with Mark-Paul Gosselar come out right (the requirement for breaking the time loop being Finding Love rather than character growth).  “My life is a parking garage!”

MICKEY’S ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS (1999) is an anthology film, the first segment of which has Donald Duck’s nephews wishing as Christmas ends that every day could be just like it … and when it happens, they experience initial delight, followed by boredom, rebellion (pranks that ruin everyone’s Christmas) and finally redemption when they understand the True Meaning of Christmas. Not bad, but I didn’t bother with the other segments.  “Where are my kisses?”

Now, the non-Christmas stuff: Despite the title, PREMONITION (2007) is in the same life-out-of-sequence subgenre as Shuffle, as Julian McMahon’s death sends Sandra Bullock bouncing back and forth from the days after to the days before, while everyone wonders why she’s acting so confused. Thinking of it this way makes the film much more understandable than when I first watched it, but it still doesn’t work—too much heavy-handed angst and an ending that belongs in a sub-par Twilight Zone episode. “If I let Jim die, is that the same as killing him?”

2009 LOST MEMORIES (2002) is an excellent South Korean movie set in 2009 as Korea celebrates a century of Japanese rule. A Korean investigator hunting anti-Japanese terrorists learns this is actually an alt.history created by Japanese time-tampering, and joins with the revolutionaries to put things right. This presents the Japanese more sympathetically than I expected (I think it confirms Gavriel Rosenfeld’s thesis about the perspective brought as the years pass).“That ancient archeological site held a secret which would open the doorway of time.”

THE ATOMIC MAN (1955) is the dull thriller in which a science reporter begins to suspect a John Doe near-murder victim is actually the famous “Isotope Man” nuclear researcher (the title of the book on which this was based, of course). The eponymous character’s habit of answering questions several seconds in the future qualifies this for the appendix, but no more than that. With Faith Domergue as the protagonist’s girlfriend. “This is something far more valuable than gold.”

BARBIE AND THE ROCKERS: Out of This World (1987) was an understandably failed attempt to launch a Barbie series, in which she out-Jems Jem by being such a musical genius her songs can even bring about world peace, not to mention time-warping the Rockers into the 1950s (what, you think I’d watch it for any other reason?). Forgettable, and wastes way too much time on music videos. “This will be the most cosmic concert ever!”

+1 (2013) has teens at a wild party notice some events (and people) seem to be repeating themselves and variously trying to exploit the time jumps or fearful of them. The ending seems to be trying for darkness, but it’s not well executed (there’s no sign that killing your doppelganger makes any sort of difference, so who cares?). “I mean to be that random dick.”

(All rights to image with current holder).