Favourite Christmas movie? Mine: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
"Rare Exports" (original title)
R | 84 min | Adventure, Fantasy, Horror | 3 December 2010 (Finland)
In the depths of the Korvatunturi mountains, 486 metres deep, lies the closest ever guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up!
This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus.
Director: Jalmari Helander
Writers: Jalmari Helander, Jalmari Helander (based on the original idea by) (as The Helander Brothers) , 3 more credits »
Stars: Jorma Tommila, Peeter Jakobi, Onni Tommila |
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401143/
This movie will make you fall in love with Christmas all over again.
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For a more atheisty one Santa Slays is fun
The first makes my teeth hurt just looking at it.
A young actress is trying desperately to get the non-speaking part of an Angel standing around during the birth of Jebus.
The movie's producers step aside to discuss her casting: "And what credit does this Angel get? 'Angel Who Blew The Producer To Get Her SAG Card?'"
Sorry, old-timers, I know I mention this one every Xmas. And sometimes on the Fourth of July. But it is a sadly neglected religious classic and I like to make sure newbies know about it.
Check out the casting:
Cain and Abel are portrayed by Lou Ferrigno and Andy Dick. ("What? I get KILLED?"
Mrs. Noah = Eve Plumb, a/k/a Jan Brady from "The Manson Bunch"
Moses = Soupy Sales
God = an old hippie in a Cadillac who likes to reminisce about dropping acid at Led Zep concerts.
Storyline: two low-budget movie producers, previously known for epics such as "Nude Ninjas," suddenly get a huge amount of studio money to film the entire Bible. From Genesis to Revelation. ("But let's leave out the Lot stuff. It's just weird."
The only caveat: along with a puerile and Non-Sophisticated Theological mockery of religion, this flick is a send-up of the whole movie industry. From studio nepotism right down to the caterers, animal wranglers and truck drivers. So you might appreciate it more if you know a little about how the movie industry (mis)functions, or if you've ever worked on a movie yourself.
There are lots of great in-jokes. Like the pretentious cinematographer: "Sven Nykvist gave me this light meter. He said I needed it more than he did."
There's a running joke about filming the Ten Commandments scene at Vasquez Rocks. That's a spot in the desert right outside Los Angeles. And if you've ever seen any older B&W movie on Turner Classics, you've seen the Vasquez Rocks. Hundreds of westerns were filmed there, along with cinema classics like the 1953 "Robot Monster."
Oh, and "Star Trek." That's the Vasquez Rocks behind The Shat and his friend:
The Making of "...And God Spoke:"
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107492/
It's the perfect antidote to all of the sickeningly sweet and absolutely awful family-friendly movies that we're subjected to every year.
I love it so much I'm asking for the dvd as a Festivus present.
I have a friend who needs to see this for the holidays! He will love it.
Sadly, my wife actually likes those sickeningly sweet family-friendly movies. I'm OK with It's a Wonderful Life or Elf. But those things on the Hallmark channel... 
This movie is part folktale, part horror, part sad story about a kid who misses his mom on Christmas and it has a wicked twist which makes for a happy ending.
Well, except for Santa.
It's a perfect gift for the sick heathen on your list.
And I feel your pain, my s/o likes Lifetime and WE.
It seems like The Black Saint has seen about 50 movies this week alone. I haven’t of course but it’s only Tuesday but who knows what my final tally for the week will be? I’ll tell you this though, the best movie I’ve seen this month and one of my favorites for the year is “Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale”. A really strange & completely bizarre movie from Finland that takes the Santa Claus mythos & turns it on it’s ear in a really unexpected but wonderfully twisted way.
The film opens in Finland with an excavation crew looking for something buried deep inside Mount Korvatunturri. One of the workers discovers, strangely enough. some sawdust. When he reports & shows his find to his superior he immediately tells his employee that sawdust was used to keep frozen things insulated hundreds of years ago & that they are close to what he is looking for. He immediately produces some new cards for distribution to all of the other workers & instructs them to follow them to the tee. Among the new rules on the cards: No smoking, no cursing, no fighting, etc..etc. Of course, the employee curses & lights up a cigarette in response. The cigarette is promptly pulled out of his mouth & he is warned to watch his language. Seriously. The boss then instructs all of the workers to keep digging into the mountain proclaiming: “We have a grave to rob”!
Cut to a young boy named Pietari & his father Rauno who live not too far from the foot of the mountain. Pietari & his friend Juuso have cut a hole in the fence surrounding the excavation site & overheard the workers grumbling about what they’re looking for & the new rules. He doesn’t want to tell his father because he believes in Santa Claus & doesn’t want to be labeled as a bad boy. He has a book chronicling the REAL Santa Claus & is scared because according to this book when Santa is upset with you he doesn’t just leave coal in your stocking. He tortures you mercilessly & then kills you in most unpleasant ways. This really scares young Pietari so he makes sure his house is well lit & he is prepared for Santa’s imminent arrival so he can defend himself against him because he’s cut a hole into the fence & he thinks Santa will look at him as a bad child.
Meanwhile Pietari’s father & his friends notice some very strange things happening around town as the days get closer to Christmas. The movie begins on the first day of December & continues to Christmas day. Young Pietari has one of those 25 days of Christmas calendars on his wall. The kind that has little windows representing each day of the month until Christmas day. Pietari is so afraid of the day arriving that he tapes & then staples the little window representing the 25th shut. He’s afraid of Santa, really afraid. Meanwhile, someone has killed off all of the Reindeer that were in the pen outside of his home save for two of them that got away & when the men of the town (actually only 4 of them) go to the excavation site to investigate & hopefully find out what happened to their Reindeer they find the site devoid of life & a very large hole in the mountain. It’s obvious that something was dug up from very deep inside the mountain. Something evil..something like….SANTA CLAUS!
“Rare Exports” is a very rare type of film indeed. It combines elements of “John Carpenter’s The Thing” & “Night Of The Living Dead” & any number of legitimate Christmas movies & weaves them into a funny & scary little parable about what the holiday means to children. It’s even a sort of coming of age story as well because our hero, young Pietari begins the film as a very innocent little waif who carries around his teddy bear & ends the film as the one person who figures out what is going on & also devises a way to stop Santa & his army of (very strange) Elves from wreaking havoc worldwide.
http://horrornews.net/22599/film-review-rare-exports-a-christmas-tale-2010/
All those naked old elves in the snow really bring a whole new meaning to the term "shrinkage". Poor guys!
Bestest Christmas movie evah!
