An Almost Christmas Story (2024) -
This film was so full of heart and reminded me of the lovely sweet films of my childhood like 'The Snowman' (1982).
I loved this one's animation style and the soundtrack worked with it very well too, even John C. Reilly's nonsense warbling. The cardboard backgrounds were charming and cleverly used.
Personally I think that they just don't make enough of these artistic and beautifully styled things anymore, it's all CGI, which don't get me wrong has it's place, but it's not the be all and end all. So it was lovely to see them bringing stop motion back.
The story of a young Girl helping to get an Owl back to its family, having somehow become lost in New York (No it wasn't called Kevin, although there were some similarities to that story*) was sweet and innocent and I'm sure that the residents of the Big Apple could rip it apart for factual inaccuracies and I must admit that I did make a few comments to that effect myself before I realised that it wasn't really made to be perfect like that.
I supposed that some of the intention of the story was to inspire people to be kind to others because you never know what they're going through, it can be a big scary city out there, sometimes even in a small town and that's not something that everyone can cope with, so just be nice. That's the sort of thing I like.
If I'm totally honest it didn't hit all of the notes that have me revisiting some other films so often, but I do hope that it will always be available to dip in to whenever I do want to, because I was smiling all the way through.
786.11/1000.
*Home Alone (2): Lost In New York (1992)
