Community Post #151 - Did he do it because that pun was too irresistible?

One more? Yeah, let's do one more.

Raiders of the Lost Films

A Very Murray Christmas
(And a Bald Guy playing a Piano New Year)​

So...That was a thing. Um...It's not bad. I'll stop you there, it's not bad. I know it looks like it should be but it's not.

To me at least, it feels stilted, weird and oddly disjointed. Plot points come and go, mainly to just excuse why Bill Murray and Paul Shaffer (which Americans will recognise from the band playing in David Letterman's late night talk shows) would be in the same place. Just as one possible story unfolds, it's resolved within moments. My best guess is to make a Christmas special that's as free as possible from the usual sentimental guff.

Only to lay on another atmosphere of awkward and strange conversations that just seem to pop up out of nowhere in an effort to give a more 'realistic' tone. Probably, maybe.

Oh! And then they just start singing.

This is a pretty good soundtrack...If you like pianos

As an English fox, I have no bloody clue who Paul Shaffer is and have never listened to his musical stylings before. I've also never heard Bill Murray sing. I didn't even know he could.

So, I came into this expecting a comedy. Because it's Bill Murray. I think of him as a comedian, mainly from his 80's and 90's films. Not necessarily from his various serious projects like The Royal Tenenbaums or The Monuments Men. I don't think of aging cooner.

But that's what we get and, for what it's worth, it's pretty good. I liked it when I just gave up on everything else other than some pretty songs to jive to. Though, I am no expert in music or anything like that. You'd have to talk to our DJs and such for that kind of insight. I'm just a layman. My only scale is whether I cringe while watching or not.

I'm generally pretty laid back about this stuff too so I wasn't howling like I was
under attack or anything during this. That's a pass in my book.​

Based on no expertise other than pure guesswork, most of the songs are well sung though all but one or two are pretty well trodden classics that this cast of random people do bring a good deal of clout to. There seems to be a decent range to voices too.

There's Murray, going for a more bluesy crooner angle. I don't quite think he gets there all the time but he's trying. Good grief he's trying! He pops in everywhere he can, usually drowned out by everyone else. Still, he's entertaining enough. And now we go into the people I had to look up on Wikipedia.

The rougher, deeper bass of the cast comes from David Roger Johansen. Apparently, he's usually best known as Buster Poindexter or as a member of The New York Dolls. This is all kinda meaningless to a non-music geek like me. But, he does seem like a credible fit for the male role when they sing 'Fairytale of New York'. It's not a song for a smooth voice so, I get why he's here. Otherwise, he's not doing much.

Then there's a French band called Phoenix who play the cooks of the hotel. They're all right. They play their decent piece 'Alone on Christmas Day', which breaks up most of the songs with simpler instrumentations. It is a movie of mainly Paul on a piano and a never ending supply of microphones everywhere. If that's not your bag, then at least there's a catchy tune in the middle to perk you up.

Though, curiously, it's a song that was intended for the Beach Boys back in the 1970's but was never released officially. Bill Murray and Phoenix at the first to really bring it to anyones attention. True story, the more you know and all that stuff, right?

There! You now know about one of the hardest pub quiz questions I can think of.​

Next, there's Elliott and his bride, who sing throughout. And I like the voice of 'The Bride', played by Rashida Jones. She's pretty nice to listen to but...as for Elliott, played by Jason Schwartzman, I don't like it all that much. To me, it seems very soft, lacking in much of the power that the other members of the cast could easily drown out. Unless he's trying to sing tenderly? I'd still call him the weakest singer of the cast.

Jenny Lewis turns up to bashout 'Baby, It's Cold Outside'. And they do well. Though, you'd have to work pretty hard to make it worse than the one with Tom Jones on it.

Oh yeah! I'm posting the whole thing here!
Tom Jones is fine even though it's a weird video but why, oh why is
Cerys Matthews singing like she's half-asleep?! It's not sultry or
innocent, it's annoying!​

Maya Rudolph! I might recognise her from somewhere right? She's...Going to be 'Matilda' in the Angry Birds Movie. Aunt Cass from Big Hero 6? I do need to see that. Whatever, I liked her song. It's a song I haven't heard at all but still belted out pretty well, as far as I'm concerned. Rudolph shows off the power in her voice while the random backup singers appear because, why not?

Lastly, George Clooney and Miley Cyrus turns up. Why? Bill Murray gets drunk and has a dream sequence with them in. They sing a few bits though I couldn't keep a straight face as soon as Murray and Clooney started singing 'Santa Wants Some Lovin''. Yes, Santa's moved on from simply kissing your Mum and is looking get his fireplace lit, if you catch my drift. In this, for whatever reason, Clooney sings the titular line. It sounded so daft I giggled every time. It's this deep voice with something he thinks is a funky twang while popping out from behind a Christmas Tree that I didn't know he could do that just sounds so stupid.

Oh! And Miley Cyrus is here because...she's old enough to wear a tiny cocktail dress now. Now, Cyrus can be pretty ear-splitting sometimes when she's allowed to screech at the top of her vocal range. Here though, she's fine. I'm no fan of Cyrus at all, but I didn't mind her on screen once I got over the fact that she's there. That did let me sit there and be amazed by how much of her accent is still in her voice when she sings. The barest hints of a twang are there which seem absent in most of her recent stuff I've heard.

Though, I get the feeling the intended reaction is this.​

Just an odd thing I couldn't stop noticing.

So, yeah! Music was all right. All varied or trying to mix a few lesser known songs in with everything else. No bad thing.

What's the point of having a story if it has nothing to do with anything?

Apparently, Bill Murray is miserable. Did you know that? Because that's what he wants you to think! We start the movie with Murray about to put on a live christmas special from a hotel ballroom. He doesn't want to because it would be two hours of just him with no guests or anyone else but Paul Shaffer to work with on it. Petrified, he tries to perform anyway.

He has no guests because of a blizzard knocking out most of New York's traffic system, grinding everything to a halt. OK, nice set up for a show. There'll be some zaney antics as Bill tries to keep the show afloat or get out of it as soon as he can as random celebrities turn up out of the snow to seek shelter right?

Well, Chris Rock turns up and I figured that was the angle they were trying for. In a genuinely funny part of the show, Murray forces Rock into the live performance, petrifying him in front of the cameras to sing 'Do You Hear What I Hear?' with him.

But then power is knocked out across the city and the special is cancelled. Chris Rock immediately vanishes in the blackout. 'Kay... What is the rest of the show about then?

He doesn't even crack a joke. He's just there when Murray begged
for a guest on the show. Did he have somewhere to go or could he only
make it to the Carlyle Hotel? Does he have Plot Convenience Radar? No idea!​

Well, we're in the Carlyle Hotel. Maybe we mosey around here for a bit? And they do. Bill and Paul head to the bar to drink and sing some more with the hotel staff. After finding out that the fridges have died in the kitchens as well, Murray declares that they'll throw a party and eat all the food. So, now they've got champagne and lobster flying all over the place.

One particular part of the collection is a melting wedding cake. It belongs to nameless bride who is crying after her and her husband Elliott have been fighting.

Oh! So now, we're going to follow these two trying to patch things up for the rest of the movie right? It's Bill Murray to the rescue, in the name of love! He's going to get these crazy kids together through the power of Murrayness! Lasers and jokes and free lobster! On my!

Resolved in under ten minutes. Murray shares his 'deep' understanding of relationships then the couple sing. Story arc over. Pass around the vodka shots!

Now, this is a variety show. It's not likely to have some epic storyline to explain why people are suddenly singing everything. But a narrative throughline can help make a connection with an audience. It's why musicals work. They layer on more emotion and expression within a number in a bigger way than just chatting about it. It's like a little emotional weather report.

In a variety show, you don't necessarily need a story. You can just have people turn up but the overarching plot, if you have to have one, needs to have natural reasons why people will suddenly be putting on a show for all watching. I'm sure many video producers have made us keenly aware of what happens when this goes horribly wrong.

Star Wars Holiday Special, is what I mean. It's a pointless trainwreck of a story but it's coherent...Enough to know that Chewie wants to get home for <insert sci-fi sounding holiday here>, Empire does bad things and family of Wookies watch random crap to fill air time.

"We can air two hours of Wookie noises right?"​

Murray's special gives us some new alternative of 'not quite working': being utterly inconsequential.

I'm a story guy. I think anyone that's been reading these daft little articles can attest to that so I do get grumpy or fidgety when something I'm watching doesn't have a clear narrative I can hook on to. I can get with a non-linear narrative that bounces around like a pinball if it adds up to the bigger picture but just being a loose excuse to string a series of set pieces together had better have some amazing set pieces.

I had this issue when I got to see Cats for the first time. Yeah, the songs are fun and the amount of fascination you can get out of watching dancers attempt to contort themselves into something slickly feline is very watchable. I just sat around thinking: "Well, what's the point? Why are we watching this? Sure! There's a big cat gathering, but why are we watching this one in particular? What happened that merited this one get's documented?". The catnapping doesn't happen until the last few scenes of the show so, why focus on the random fat cat or the outcast instead?

Well, I didn't know it was based on a T.S Eliot book called Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats; a collection of poems that illustrate the lives of a group of otherwise unconnected cats and their eccentric ways. Cats is just this book with more singing. If I'd known that, I might have calmed down and enjoyed the show. It's cats showing off. Enjoy the glowing UFO that floats down for some reason because it's pretty.

Well, now! There never was ner-ever! A cat so clever as Mister Mistoffelees!
HA! Now that songs in your head too!​

A Very Murray Christmas doesn't have this excuse. It has two different plots that would have made for fun, enjoyable plots to a special where Murray grows ever more desperate to fill his two hour slot on Live TV. That would have been perfect! Instead, the unfocused screenplay rambles on about people coming together under booze and singing a few songs.

I don't get it but that doesn't mean I don't catch on to what might have been the aim of this thing.

Coppola Probably Wanted a Christmas Special that felt more 'Naturalistic'

There's none of the usual Christmas fluff on this thing right until the end where Murray gets so drunk, he has a dream sequence of the Christmas Variety show he wishes he could do. With Miley Cyrus in a tiny cocktail dress that lets you count off almost all of the tattoos she has. And that's likely only because Murray wanted George Clooney to turn up and Michael Cera suggested Cyrus in the hallway when trying to sign Murray to himself.

Yeah, Michael Cera is in this as a talent agent. It goes nowhere, doesn't really pay off in any other way other than in Murray's alcohol fueled dream sequence and doesn't do much for anything other than make you think that Murray's life seems kinda crappy.

Though, this might be intentional. If the idea of the narrative is to try and strip out the glitz, the glamour and the fluff and expose our titular star as just a guy trying to get through a crappy Christmas Eve where he has to perform in a cheesey little show where it's just him. No guests, no backup of any kind. Just Bill, Paul and some pre-recorded reactions of celebrities from last years Oscars that they're going to patch into the show to make it seem like he has more of an audience.

Because, normally, we're bombarded with the cheesey wholesomeness of something like...I dunno, David Bowie and Bing Crosby chatting about just happening to be neighbours then launching into 'Little Drummer Boy'. It's from the obviously-taking-place-in-a-TV-set Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas. The lead up to that is so scripted, I'm sure someone's got cuecards ready off-screen.

Huh...Bowie seems naked without face paint or a giant wig, doesn't he?​

Though, what people remember from that is that song.

A Very Murray Christmas is looking to humanise Bill Murray. Which is odd, as he is a hollywood actor that doesn't seem to take himself seriously enough to build up any mystique around him but OK. It helps that Murray is likeable so when he's panicking about a show that is almost certain to bomb because they can't get the big stars in, you see that. He panics, he squirms, he's shepherded around by his sycophantic but equally hard nosed producers that are only looking to make sure he does what he's contracted to do. He does make a few jokes and silly lines though only because he's Bill Murray. Of course he would.

So, instead, the story is about Murray's awful Christmas and how he turned it around by hosting a little party in the Carlyle Hotel. Once the power is cut, Murray is free to try to salvage his evening. Which leads him to the bar and discovering that the hotel's fridges are closed. So, he declares it open season on the contents! From there, he finds the bride of the bickering couple.

Much like Cats, this is really just supposed to be some fun songs for you to enjoy but below that surface, there's something going on. Instead of a peak into the world of eccentricity that the titular cats inhabit but keep away from the likes of humans, this is about finding joy in the most unlikely of places, simply by opening up.

Yeah, it's a little weird when they're just chatting. There's barely any non-diegetic sound. Everything is supposed to be being played on-screen leaving the parts outside of the song performances as quite cold or lifeless. Murray and Paul are seen as alone when they're performing for the TV Special. The bride is alone when Murray finds her sobbing.

There's no warmth in the colours on-screen until people are all together, singing and drinking together. Do you get it?!

Humanising Murray as an actual guy with feelings, fears and caught in a demeaning job rather than as 'Bill *squee!*ing Murray, Everybody! YEAH!' also allows us to not fidget uncomfortably when Murray tries to get heartfelt or insist on these huge sweeping gestures.

After all, he did just command the hotel staff to give away lobster and champagne. I'm going to be hoping for natural disasters in any hotel I got to from now on. Though, knowing my luck, it'll be a dingy little place where the best I can hope for is a few packets of M&Ms, a pina colada mixer and some sausages made from something not of this Earth.

Look! All the toilet roll we can eat! It's even 2 ply! Very filling. So posh!​

Let's also not gloss over that he gives some love advice to the squabbling couple, telling them to sing with the moment they first met in their heads. In anything else, that would be kinda sappy but Coppola's ground work on the tone, the atmosphere and the characterisation transforms a soppy excuse for another song to an experienced guy sharing his wisdom with two people having a little trouble. That's their little Christmas miracle.

I don't think it fully works but they're trying to make this all fold out as if it was all not planned at all. Which only clashes a little with people bursting out into song. After all, there is a point where the lounge singer makes Elliott drink a cocktail then sings a song about missing someone on Christmas as a sort of lesson. Why? Because...because.

My guess is that it was meant to try and cut through the cynicism surrounding Christmas specials by embodying then trying to almost own it but then showing how it can give way to togetherness or something once all the characters hit the bar. The problem is that it's not engaging enough for us to want to follow through on that. It's not very fun because it's unfocused, dialogue feels weird in spots and nothing coalesces into anything other than plodding through some Christmas tunes. It makes me wonder if the talky bits were improvised.

As I've said: Bill Murray and Paul Shaffer trying to keep a doomed TV special together when it's just them would have been memorable and entertaining. Bill Murray and Paul Shaffer trying to get a couple back together in time for Christmas could have been something at least. We could have learned about the characters or heard more from the random staff members that are around. It could have been memorable.

I'd have better justification for knowing who Paul Shaffer is​

As it is, it feels like they're trying to have their cake and eat it. Like, there's a story about the show business of Christmas, a little love story and then they have a big blowout right at the end with what people were probably expecting so they can put that in the advertisements.

The intent seems to be to make it small. It's not world shattering, it wants to be intimate and personal to just those characters that were there. But it encourages the notion that you can do the same. They're having a perfectly good time making the most of the situation. Couldn't you do the same? Would you do the same?

Am I reading too much in it? Maybe. That could be me trying to find something in the subtext to help me justify liking it a little bit but I don't think this is for me. I was hoping for something more bouncy or exciting but I do respect what it's trying to be. It wants to distance itself by doing it's own thing. It takes a tried and tested format and bends it into a new shape where every song is a little vignette of character rather than to advance any major story.

It's inconsequential to me but it might be the best thing ever to you. Try it out, see if it fits but I'll stick to Muppets Christmas Carol and the like.

When your production isn't as entertaining as a felt rat and a hook-nosed
alien in a top hat, you might want to rethink a few things​

- Site News

Right! I need to throw this down before this list gets too big.

NEW SONGS FOR EVERYPONY RADIO!

• Denz Xavier
  Equality
  Freedom Ride
  Inner Demon
  Spitfire
  
• Draconequus
  FlutterWonder
• Flight Rush
  The Spectacle (FlightRush RVZZLE DVZZLE Remix)
• Luna Jax
  Sunburst
• Spectra/NeverLastStanding
  Peace At Last
• Redd Pony
  The Spectacle
• Jason Creer
  Lost in Ley Lines - featuring Liquid Harmony 2.12

Enjoy them right now! And remember to tune into New Song Sunday!

- Recommended Reading

I just realised! This is a Bill Murray picture with lobster in it just like I said in #149. If it had a scottish duck in there too, it would have been really spooky.

So, now that Discovery has gotten right out of the bed with Hasbro, Nickelodeon is getting stuck in instead. Am I bothered by this? Ehhh...

I guess it makes a little sense though I'd sooner be more comfortable with Nickelodeon than Hasbro over most shows but it does make more sense to have another big kids entertainment company work with another one. Still, Hasbro mainly make toys, they lucked into having successful shows as well. Nickelodeon builds itself on it's shows more than it's merchandise, which is a nice change of pace from Hasbro often showing that it's a toymaker first.

Eh, I don't know what will become of this nonsense but I doubt it'll mean MLP is going away any time soon.

Yeah, I don't know what 'On Fleek' is either, Poisonous Nightmare! I also don't know why you don't just say 'On Point'. Has that really fallen out of style recently?! Weird.

Also, you do know you can change your blog's writing colour so it's legible right?

OK, it's a slow week this week. We're winding down for the big celebration at the end of the year.

For everypony out there, have a great holiday season with whatever your celebrating and I'll see you all in 2016.

Where I start panicking about BUCK 2016 and the varying levels of 'ready for it' I am. Fun!

 

Oh blimey! That's right! Wow! I guess that slipped by me. Sorry.