By Taylor Gleason, Clarissa Olson and Ale Ibarra Posted December 21, 2018
“The Santa Clause”
By Clarissa Olson
Fun family movies are the linchpin of the holiday season. Time gathered around a comedic flic with family is a Christmas emblem that brings us all together. Disney’s “The Santa Clause” is one such festive favorite.
Rather than the Christmas celebrity Santa Claus, the tile of the movie refers to the clause, or contract, of Santa. When a divorced father, Scott Calvin unwittingly becomes Santa after accidentally killing the previous Santa, he embarks on an adventure of moral discovery with his son Charlie. Once a corporate jerk, Calvin learns the value of giving and selflessness through an ironic adventure of humor and Christmas joy.
Calvin faces many challenges throughout the movie. He loses visitation rights when young Charlie adopts an obsession with his dad’s new job as Father Christmas. Charlie is constantly spurned by his classmates, school administration, mother, and psychiatrist stepfather, Neil. Deemed crazy for believing the tale himself, Calvin and his son spend their Christmas dodging police as they deliver joy to children all over the world.
With the assistance of elves mature beyond their apparent years, Calvin fixes his attitude and adopts the selfless giving attitude that his life lacked. His ex-wife and Neil see the error in their ways as well as they discover the importance in promoting their son’s hopes and dreams, rather than forcing him to think in the way they want him to. The morals in “The Santa Clause” are applicable to people of all ages, making it one of the best family Christmas movies of all time.
“Home Alone”
By Taylor Gleason
When it starts to get closer to Christmas time my whole family will get together and turn on “Home Alone”.
It has been a tradition ever since I was a baby. Everyone in our family that lives in town will get a text message from my mom asking if you could bring hot chocolate, marshmallows, etc. We all meet up at either my grandma’s house or our house. “Home Alone” is about how a kid gets left home alone and two robbers are trying to break into the house and the kid sets up traps to keep them out of the house while the cops are on their way.
“Music of Silence”
By Alejandra Ibarra
Movies that show the life of an icon since their childhood and how they rose to fame are popular around the holidays. From the Netflix features to the Hallmark channel tearjerkers, these heart-wrenching memoirs can make one realize how fortunate they are. They are played during this time of the year because they’re the few times when most people see their family. It makes everyone come together.
One movie has stood out to me in particular and has changed the way I see my problems in life. Those quotation marks are to show the irrelevance of the issues that society may face in their daily lives. “The Music of Silence” is about the life of the one and only Italian opera tenor, Andrea Bocelli.
Bocelli grew up in Lajatico, Italy; a commune in the region of Tuscany. The movie starts with the icon in his dressing room just before a concert when all of a sudden the movie flashes back to when Bocelli was born. The doctor immediately realizes that there’s something wrong with him because of the nonstop crying. He was later diagnosed with congenital glaucoma and lost his total ability to see at the age of 12 from a head injury in a game of football. His disability hindered his motivation to play the piano and sing again, along with the fact that he damaged his vocal cords not long after he was diagnosed. Bocelli trained as a lawyer in Pisa and during his studies earned money by singing in piano bars because he refused to depend on his father’s income. This mediocre setting of a piano bar ends when the president of Milan’s Sugar Label music company heard him perform Nessun Dorma and invites him to record it.
The main character, dubbed “Amos Bardi” in the movie, is played by Tony Sebastian from the TV series Game of Thrones and he does a fantastic job at portraying the iconic tenor, despite not being able to open his eyes the entire time. The multi-award-winning Antonio Banderas also makes an appearance as Bocelli’s vocal coach about halfway into the movie. The struggles, excitement, joy, and tears that actor Tony Sebastian acts out are just a fraction of what Bocelli’s life must have contained.
This humbling yet rewarding production is available to stream on Netflix.
