Becoming Santa

When two shows from the same year are given the same score on this blog, I think the previously expressed protocol says they should be listed in alphabetical order, which is why Becoming Santa tops this list. And anyway, it is the holiday season. Ho Ho Ho and away we go.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. [The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar].

Becoming Santa -2011 (3.0). A pleasant surprise, this well-made documentary about a forty something man with no family left, shows how he decides to spend the holiday season volunteering his time as a Santa Claus and then gets professional training from a Santa Claus school and starts becoming the Santa man. In the course of the film, we enjoy the sincerity, gentle humor and marginally cynical personality of our hero as he has his costume made, selects and attends the school, meets other Santas and spends a holiday season at various events as Santa Claus. The history of the Santa tradition is documented and the meaning of the Santa spirit for adults and children is shown in touching ways.

Boardwalk Empire (Season Two) – 2011 (3.0).  The Prohibition Era takeoff on The Sopranos continues with a few new characters, escalated violence, loss [euphemism] of some old characters and the prosecutorial process starting to zero in on Atlantic City. Some of the freshness is off the series, but the story moves along and makes it difficult not to grit out the violence and start season three when it comes to DVD, just to see what happens next.

A Separation – 2009 (2.9). Winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar, this Iranian drama tells the story of a contemporary couple with a sixth grade daughter. They live with the man’s father, who has Alzheimers, but the woman wants to leave Iran to find a better life for their daughter. The man will not leave his father and refuses to let the daughter go, so they engage the legal system to get a separation and the woman goes to live with her parents. Desperately seeking a caregiver to watch his father, the man quickly hires a woman in-law of a friend of his wife, but she is incompetent and comes with her own problems and those of her husband. Almost like a documentary, we follow these people without music as they struggle with their marriage, the education plans for their daughter, the care of the father and the additional problems brought on by the caregiver and her husband. Along the way we see different ways in which moral decisions can be approached, religiously, ethically and by the civil law system.

Doc Martin (Season Four) – 2009 (2.9). The series perks up as the story arc moves along with Doc working on his hemophobia, struggling with his newly complicated relationship with Louisa, considering a move back to London and being pursued by an old flame.

The Dust Bowl – 2012 (2.8). On PBS from Ken Burns, an interesting subject told in the standard Burns fashion, with interviewees recalling the experience from childhood memories. Again, interweaving the stories of several people is a bit confusing and the anecdotes get repetitious, especially without any technical expert interviewees or enough in the way of historical context. This should have been cut down to two hours from four, or the extra time could have been given to providing more general information and less survivor interviews.

The Women on the 6^th Floor – 2010 (2.8). Set in Paris in the 1960s, this French film had potential for development of the initial story about a stuffy older businessman married to an insecure country girl turned socialite, and the disconnect with the Spanish maids who live upstairs [the reverse of the English Upstairs Downstairs] in the man’s ancestral home in an old apartment house [condo type]. The comedy was true to life in showing the different lifestyles. Unfortunately, the story took a turn for the worse when it veered off to follow the man’s romantic interest in his maid.

Patrik, Age 1.5 – 2008 (2.8). A gay couple think they are getting a one and a half year old boy to adopt in this Swedish movie, but the boy is really a teenager of 15. The men, who are adapting to living in their new hetero neighborhood, have trouble in their relationship and the boy is homophobic which adds to the problems. Well-acted and decently directed, the film starts a little slow but has some humor, sadness and enough drama to keep its audience.

The Pope’s Toilet – 2008 (2.8).  Based on the true story of a 1988 visit by the Pope to a small Uruguayan town on the border with Brazil,this Spanish language film centers on a poor man who smuggles goods over the border by bicycle in return for payment by competing corrupt smuggling lords. The battle between competing lords often catches the bicyclists in the middle and they lose the goods and the money they were to make. The man has a sympathetic wife and a teen daughter who wants to study to be a journalist. The poor villagers prepare sausages and other food to sell to pilgrims, especially better off Brazilians, who will come to see the Pope, and our hero gets the bright idea to build a public toilet and charge for its use. From the tile one might think this is a broad comedy, but it is actually a fairly gritty drama of these poor villagers and of the man and his relationship to his wife and daughter.

Alice – 1990 (2.8). A lesser film written and directed by Woody Allen, this tells of a devout Catholic girl who married a rich man and lives the life of a spoiled wife and mother of a young pampered child. Complaining of yet another ache, she is referred to an eccentric Chinese herbalist who identifies her problem as an unsatisfied heart for which he prescribes a succession of special herbs that introduce a fantasy element as she dabbles with an affair, re-evaluates her marriage and decides what she wants to do with the rest of her life. Not too heavy and not too light, this movie is watchable but ultimately does not have much to say.

Doc Martin (Season Three) – 2007 (2.8). Dropping off a little more, this season sees a new policeman with even more quirks, a silly detour with Auntie Joan, no sensitivity training for the Doc, the same disproportionate amount of medical emergencies and a continuation of the awkward relationship between the Doc and Louisa, which cools and then warms and then might be headed for really serious turf.

Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story – 2009 (2.7). Made for cable TV, this earnest biopic tells the true story of an African-American boy who overcame tremendous obstacles to finally realize near in middle school that he was actually smart and could learn. He went on to become a world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon, pioneering many wonderful surgeries. Trying to cover all personal and professional stages of such a life in a straightforward 90 minutes is a scriptwriting challenge, and this movie, by trying to cover some of all the stages, inevitably had difficulty finding the right balance of time to spend at the various life stages. It probably would have been better to concentrate on his handling of a major case in the impending prime of his career, with flashbacks for the relevant back story telling us how he got where he did.