BAD SANTA review

When was the last time you saw a movie set entirely in a mall that never once showed a single name brand product? No FOOTLOCKER, SUNCOAST, DILLARDS, J.C.PENNY’S, RADIO SHACK, SPENCER’S GIFTS, FREDERICK’S, SHARP ELECTRONICS…. None of the stores that are synonomous with MALLS. You go to in-door malls and they are all the same, and when you watch BAD SANTA it isn’t that you deliberately notice that you are not being programmed, but as I sat down with Father Geek, Johnny Wad and Ravvy at our favorite post-great-film Pakistani/Bangladesh/Indian restaurant, SHALIMAR… this wonderful place that never seems to have Anglos other than us, and the tellys are always attuned to either Cricket or Bollywood films… And the food is so good. BUT anyway, as I was munching on Naan and my Boti Masala I suddenly realized that I couldn’t remember a single brand name shown in the film. That there wasn’t a single gift that a boy or girl asked Santa for that was a “known product.”

This is a detail of an overall larger issue that BAD SANTA has to do with. Sure, the movie is a general roasting of the Holidays. A skewering of the “ideals” so tightly wound around that most sacred American tradition… consumerism.

Billy Bob’s Willie T aka the “bad Santa” is a beef jerky of a man. Dried out, tired, weathered and just the sort of truck stop trash that you would never think of in a Santa outfit. He’s an alcoholic in the sense that the bottle only ever leaves his hand empty. We look at him and he’s a really sad fucking guy. We don’t know what he does in life, but a brief look at his home tells us he’s a simple fellow. Not a lot of possessions. No happy memory pictures around. The stripper he’s got there to fuck, well that and the empty and soon to be emptied bottles of alcohol being the only thing he really partakes in. One a rush of feeling, the other a dulling of feeling. Neither is particularly complicated.

Willie T has tattoos. Prison? Military? Neither? Both? Not really sure. He doesn’t know much, but he does know how to crack safes. He’s got that down. We never learn how he hooked up with Tony Cox’s little person… or how the concept of being a Mall Santa and Elf would give them the inside access to a Mall during the richest time of the year, but their ingenious plot to make one big score a year, then live off of it till the next score is actually quite admirable.

The film doesn’t take place in the real world though… This is a fantasy film. In a way, like both CRUMB and GHOST WORLD. And yes, I am aware I called CRUMB a fantasy world, but even though that was a Documentary, you can't really call R. Crumb's reality... reality. BAD SANTA while being completely not from the Underground Comix world, it very much is THE Underground Christmas Tale.

Imagine if you melded A CHRISTMAS CAROL (the Alastair Sim one) with Gilbert Shelton’s FORTY YEAR OLD HIPPIE comic with a dash of A CHRISTMAS STORY, but with better dialogue than any of those ever dreamt of.

You won’t see this film on Network Television ever. However, for people that go to a Jewish Deli on Easter, that eat meatloaf on Thanksgiving, that give out canned beets on Halloween and that on Christmas… well, they check out an early matinee of something… This will be the DVD that those people show their friends every holiday season, and will be a film they’ll show new people they meet to help define to them their own sensibilities.

This won’t be a film for the regular whole family, but in a way… I found it deeply sweet. Mr Beaks brought up Bukowski in his review back in January, and well… the movie isn’t that heartless… that black. The film is made by the soul of a man that can listen to the despair of 30’s Black Blues and smile. The result is a certain amount of melancholic mirth. A bleeding heart of a Christmas tale that is never quite as broken as it’d make you think it should be.

You see, I’m not real sure if Billy Bob’s character is continually the alcoholic that we see, or if it is just a… this time of the year thing. I’ve got a theory, to me… Billy Bob is a ‘could give a shit’ sort of guy. I think he used to believe in a lot of things. We learn what his family life was. The hollow sort of black pit that only a kid can survive. I like to think that he got out of that and wanted something different for himself. He probably had a whole string of disappointments that left him believing that life is something you tread. Keep your head above water, don’t invest yourself in anything, because it’s all a load of shit.

Then Marcus… Marcus the midget, dwarf, squirt… little person showed up with this scam. The first time was probably easy for Willie, the kids would come hop on his lap and he’d pretend a bit. But as the seven years of repetition came along, sitting in that mall realizing that the kids on his lap were being forced there by parents that just wanted that photo, not for any sort of cherished memory, but because of some sort of fucking programming. These kids would come up and tell him whatever piece of crap trend toy of the year was what they wanted. These fucking mall rugrats no longer knew what they want, they were just spouting the same shit. How fucking original. He realizes that not only is life empty and worthless, but that just putting on that outfit he becomes a perpetualization of the whole fucking farce. That scam, the bullshit, it all starts with the fucking Santa suit. That line with the frantic moms thinking about all the shit they have to remember, or think they have to fucking remember. And it’s all such a load of shit to him, because he knows that some of those kids have as fucked up a life as he had, and if they didn’t… well, they’re just deluded and full of it.

He’s the deepest and blackest type of cynic. The type that finds his answers by forgetting the questions. And that’s why that kid… That weird genetic cross between Porky Pig and the Greatest American Hero that Zwigoff found. He’s seemingly, at first glance, a spoilt retard of a boy. Though through it all… he becomes a release for Billy Bob. Nothing huge, this isn’t a situation where the Grinch hears the Whos sing and his heart grows 3 sizes too big… He finally has a feeling that comes that isn’t on his dick. It doesn’t change him tremendously. He looks at this sad pathetic kid that nobody anywhere should give a shit about, and like a blind dog with two broken back legs… ya just can’t not fill his water dish… ya know what I’m saying? It’s like, no matter how pathetic your own life is, here’s the evolutionary step down. This kid represent the oblivion in all those bottles he’s consumed without ever attaining.

OK… now that sounds like this is one depressing as hell flick, but it isn’t. This film is FUNNY AS HELL. When most people say something is “Funny as Hell” they never really sit back and think how utterly ridiculous the concept of hell is. I mean, think about it. You got this Underground Eternally dank and creepy and hot and humid endless apartment complex carved out of the bowels of the Earth. Each layer down you go, the conditions are worse. You’ve got layers where people are suspended upside down and throughout eternity they’re being dipped face first into boiling shit! Now first off… Where’s all this shit coming from? It’s just got to be being piped in from the eternal feast aplenty in the Heavens right? So that boiling shit, is the shit of saints and martyrs’ excessive compulsive gorging? Secondly, what is worse, the guy that’s being dipped face first into the boiling shit or the guy that throughout eternity is having to yank and let go of the rope to let the guy go face first in the boiling shit. I mean, sure the first time you go in the boiling shit, it burns and scalds your face, but after a year or two… well, I’m sure your nostrils have fused together and the skin is just numbed to the pain. Whereas that poor sap on the edge of the lake, pool or river of boiling feces… He never gets a respite from smelling it and… he’s forced into manual labor throughout eternity. NOW, what I want to know is what the difference between the two sinners are, are they truly stuck in these situations throughout eternity, or is there like a merit system. If so, does that mean there’s an official that watches them throughout eternity, and if so… is it from an air-conditioned cubicle free of the shit smell, or is this official also a sinner, and if he’s a sinner… can you imagine anything more boring than eternity of filling out recommendation paperwork based on the performance skills of the shit diver and the rope puller? So, when I say this movie is funny as hell, that’s the sort of funny I’m talking about.

You might notice that I haven’t talked about Bernie Mac. Well, that’s deliberate. He isn’t in the movie much, but his Mall Detective is wonderful. He isn’t in it much, and he isn’t very likable… matter of fact, he’s a right dirty festering asshole of humanity. A bottom feeder that feeds on the lowest of the low, but has the prance of a king of the forest.

John Ritter, he’s ok. Just a sniveling mall administrator. Nothing big.

Cloris Leachman? She’s the boy’s spry Grandmother. I really wish she’d had a nude scene. She could take Kathy Bates. The scene of her in that chair… she should’ve been nude with a vibrator on idle… and when Billy Bob touches her, it should’ve plopped out on the floor and hummed around a bit. That would’ve been cool.

Lauren Tom… Bitch.

Lauren Graham? I love her. Her Santa fetish fuck habit is just a thing of beauty.

Ok, so how’s the film? I loved it. Absolutely deep of my bones loved it. It was a wondrous work of perversity. A blissful look at a joyous sty filled with the very drippings of humanity.

In a way… Imagine that Robert Crumb is playing Santa Claus. That indifference, disdain for humanity, contempt for the intelligence of the common person. That’s the sugar in this Sundae. I can’t wait to hear the music that Terry Zwigoff finally puts on this puppy.

Whenever this film finally gets release at… the end of this year, you folks that loved GHOST WORLD and CRUMB… you’ll be delighted with Zwigoff’s latest. This is a that rusted aluminum Christmas tree you’ll find this coming Holiday Season.

P.S. The film's script was apparently written by John Requa & Glenn Ficarra. Now those guys wrote the terrible scripts for CATS& DOGS and LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION. Now before you think I must be absolutely looney myself for liking this thing... the script did have the second draft handled by the Coen Brothers I'm told... Though it looks like they won't get credit, though they are on board as Producers. But just so you know, this is much more like a Coen Brother film than a CATS & DOGS type of film. Though to put it quite simply... more than anything it feels like a Holiday film from the director of CRUMB and GHOST WORLD... and that's why you should definitely check it out later this year...