The Naughty Nine | 2023 Christmas Movies

The second Disney+ movie of this season is The Naughty Nine. I didn’t even see the cover art for this when I added it to the list. It’s always interesting going into a movie completely blind. I have no idea what to expect.

Andy (Winslow Fegley) and his best friend, Dulce (Camila Rodriguez), are troublemakers. When Christmas Day rolls around, there are no presents from Santa under the tree. That is when they find out that they are on the naughty list. They They gather a group of other naughty list kids to break into Santa’s workshop and get their presents.

Disney is not immune to bad movies. But they also have really good movies. Thankfully, this is an awesome movie. It’s basically Ocean’s Eleven with kids. There’s a getaway driver, a gymnast, a technician, a costumer…every job you could need to break into a place. And those kids are good at their jobs. The Naughty Nine had me laughing throughout the entire movie. They have set it up for the sequel and I really hope that it is as good as this one.

Rating: Can I go to the elf after-party?

8-Bit Christmas | 2021 Christmas Movies

It’s time for HBO Max to throw themselves into the Christmas movie ring with 8-Bit Christmas. Can HBO even compete with the Hallmark, Lifetime, and Netflix Christmas juggernauts?

Annie (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) wants a cell phone for Christmas. Her father, Jake (Neil Patrick Harris), decides to regale her with the story of how he received his beloved Nintendo Entertainment System in the late 1980s. The story doesn’t go quite the way Annie thinks it will.

I have seen people comparing this movie to A Christmas Story or Jingle All The Way. I can see the similarities that people are noticing but they aren’t really good comparisons. A Christmas Story is entirely told in flashback, like 8-Bit Christmas, but we never see Ralphie as an adult and it’s also a series of smaller stories within the big story of Ralphie trying to get a Red Ranger BB gun for Christmas. Jingle All The Way is the story of a father trying to get his kid the hot toy of the season. The parents in 8-Bit Christmas refuse to buy Jake the Nintendo he so desperately wants. Sure, both the Nintendo and the Turbo-Man action figure were “hot” toys for their respective eras but that is the only real comparison there.

Personally, I really enjoyed 8-Bit Christmas. Maybe it’s the nostalgia factor - I did grow up in the 80s so this story pretty much hits me in my childhood. But it was also just fun. Winslow Fegley as young Jake is so emotive. It’s difficult to not feel disappointed when he’s disappointed or smile when he’s having fun with his friends. And he’s not the only one. All of the kid actors were really good. The only one I had difficulty connecting with was Jake’s younger sister, Lizzy (Bellaluna Resnick), which I think was intentional since Jake is the storyteller.

I don’t know that I would watch 8-Bit Christmas every year but I think I will show it to my daughter. It is some good family entertainment. Just keep in mind that it won’t end the way you think it will!

Nightbooks | 2021 Halloween Movies

The phrase “family friendly” is a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand, there are some amazing PG rated movies out there. On the other hand, calling something “family friendly” tends make people think a movie is dumbed down or boring. This year, Netflix released Nightbooks, a movie based on a 2018 horror-fantasy children’s book. It definitely piqued my interest.

Alex (Winslow Fegley) loves writing scary stories. After a particularly bad day at school, he trashes his room and decides to destroy all of his “Nightbooks,” the notebooks that house his creations. On the way to the apartment building’s furnace, he gets coerced into one of the other apartments. Soon, he finds that he is trapped in the apartment of an evil witch, Natasha (Krysten Ritter), who forces him to tell a scary story every night after dinner. Along with Yazmin (Lidya Jewett), another child Natasha trapped, Alex must find a way to leave the apartment and get back to his parents.

It took me a little while to get into the plot of Nightbooks. I thought it was going to be another anthology movie like Twilight Zone: The Movie or Tales from the Darkside. Boy, was I wrong. The stories within the plot are but a small part of the actual storyline. As a matter of fact, when I thought we were reaching the end of the film, I found that we were actually only halfway through it. I couldn’t figure out how they were going to squeeze another 45 minutes out of a story that seemed to be over. And those 45 minutes were the best parts of the movie.

On top of the pretty amazing storyline, the acting was superb. Krysten Ritter was breath-taking as Natasha. Part of it was the special effects when she used her magic but a lot of it was Ritter’s take on the character. That’s not to say the kids didn’t do a great job as well. There wasn’t a time that I wasn’t convinced that these kids were scared that they were going to die at any minute.

I loved Nightbooks so much. This was the perfect example of how you could make a terrific movie with an extremely small cast. Yes, this was filmed at the end of 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Any movie that doesn’t look at this and feel bad that they couldn’t pull off something so wonderful should feel ashamed of itself.

Well, I think you get the idea. You should definitely watch this movie. Actually, you should add it to your annual Halloween movie list along with Hocus Pocus and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I hope they make a sequel and I hope it is just as good.