Sunday, June 12, 2022

8-Bit Christmas (2021)

IMDb plot summary: In 1980s Chicago, a 10-year-old sets out on a quest to get the Christmas gift of his generation: the latest and greatest video-game system.
Directed by Michael Dowse. Starring Winslow Fegley, Neil Patrick Harris, and Steven Zahn.

8-Bit Christmas is a holiday movie where a man tells the story of one of his childhood Christmases -- in particular, one where he was trying desperately to get a Nintendo, whether by purchasing it, winning it, or begging his parents until they got it for him. This is absolutely A Christmas Story for kids who grew up in the 80s, with its episodic storytelling and hyperbolic flights of fantasy and adult voiceover wryly commenting on the action. And it definitely taps into a fresher version of that childhood nostalgia and works for me about as well as that one did, which is to say it's charming and has some fun moments but I don't find it moving or deeply relatable for my own experience, and it's definitely banking hard on its relatability. It's the kind of thing that does indeed only make sense to watch around the holidays, when my nostalgia levels are turned way up and I can be nostalgic for a childhood that wasn't even mine and still have a good time with it.

How it entered my Flickchart:
8-Bit Christmas > C'mon C'mon
8-Bit Christmas < The Game
8-Bit Christmas < The River Wild
8-Bit Christmas > Divergent
8-Bit Christmas < Green Room
8-Bit Christmas > Inspector Clouseau
8-Bit Christmas < Children of Paradise
8-Bit Christmas > The Sword in the Stone
8-Bit Christmas < You've Got Mail
8-Bit Christmas < The Gold Rush
8-Bit Christmas < Bowfinger
8-Bit Christmas > Footlight Parade
Final spot: #1494 out of 3577, or 58%.

No comments: