journal features

movie review - Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Kokubunji, 2020.12.25

This is a musical number about a genius inventor who is ripped off by his apprentice. He falls into depression and spends many years puttering about trying to make the next big thing. At the movie's outset, his grand-daughter turns up and kicks off a series of events that leads to a confrontation with the dastardly former apprentice, who returns to steal said next big thing. It's well done, though at times uneven in pacing and tone. Forest Whitaker is unusually ham-fisted as the grandfather but this is off-set by the engaging turn from Keegan-Michael Key as the villain. But, it's for kids and I don't think the audience will be particularly troubled by some of the stiffness. It's a good Christmas flick (and let's bear in mind that that is a set of movies that includes Die Hard).

Recommended. Good for watching with the kiddos.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner