Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston and Joseph Cross in the Troy Miller movie ‘Jack Frost’

Set in the fictional town of Medford, Colorado, the Troy Miller directed Jack Frost (1998) is stands adjacent to Christmas among fantasy comedy movies. With writers Mark Steven Johnson, Steve Bloom and Jonathan Roberts at the helm, this movie does remarkably well for being a live action story built for children with children in mind.

(From left, Michael Keaton as title charact Jack Frost and Joseph Cross as Charlie Frost in the Troy Miller movie Jack Frost).

The movie Jack Frost opens with an introduction to the title character, Jack Frost, as the lead singer of a band aiming to make their name in Colorado. Jack Frost, as portrayed by Michael Keaton, pursues a contract for the band that would offer financial security. The pursuit involves time away from Frost’s wife and son, Gabby Frost as portrayed by Kelly Preston and Charlie Frost as portrayed by Joseph Cross.

(From left, Joseph Cross as Charlie Frost and Kelly Preston as Gabby Frost in the Troy Miller movie Jack Frost).

Jack sets the stage for the secondary conflict in the movie by spending time establishing for Charlie that he wishes to be present for his son. The pair build a snowman and practice a specific hockey shot together. Jack shares what he claims to be a magical harmonica with Charlie in what turns into a memento of his father. Jack fails to attend an ice hockey game of Charlie’s to record a song with the band. A later conflict that pits Jack’s career against a Christmas trip into the mountains; Jack rethinks his priorities, dying in an attempt to drive through those mountains to get to his family.

(Henry Rollins as Sid Gronic in the Troy Miller movie Jack Frost).

A year has past with the grief flaring as strong as ever for Charlie. Gabby offers what comfort she can, with Charlie playing the magical harmonica after building a new snowman. There’s magic in this pairing as the harmonica somehow conveys Jack’s spirit into the snowman, with a rekindling of the relationship for father and son as snowman and boy. In addition to Mark Addy portraying father figure Mac MacArthur for Charlie, it becomes Jack Frost as a snowman that offers the values a father wishes to share with his son that becomes the heartwarming story.

(From left, Mika Boorem as Natalie and Andrew Lawrence as Tuck Gronic in the Troy Miller movie Jack Frost).

An additional perspective to grief Charlie Frost feels at his father’s loss had been to set aside his passion for playing hockey. Friends and bullies give him varying degrees of difficulty and support through the course of the movie, with the emphasis on the pre-teen point-of-view being the redeeming experience that I felt being the strength within the storytelling. That bully Rory Buck, as portrayed by Taylor Handley, is able to find common ground with Charlie offers uplift that helps the story.

(From left, Eli Marienthal as Spencer, Will Rothhaar as Dennis and Taylor Handley as Rory Buck in the Troy Miller movie Jack Frost).

The comedic family drama that Troy Miller‘s Jack Frost does have an audience wherein the message can and should resonate. Those that wish for an experience that offers messaging for adults that works as well as it does for a group of 12-year-olds might find the experience does not work so well. I grant Jack Frost as directed by Troy Miller 3.5-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Saturday, December 16, 2023

The Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio documentary ‘George Carlin’s American Dream’

The HBO documentary of comedian George Carlin aired in two episodes this past weekend. George Carlin’s American Dream (2022) offered a fuller look into the man, his career and his life than I ever had seen and read before, attracting commentary from contemporary and subsequent comedians, family, and industry colleagues both directly and through archive. The use of Carlin‘s own writings and archive footage were also used. Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio directed and produced the documentary.

(From left, comedy partners Jack Burns and George Carlin).

“In the 1960s, George Carlin enters the scene as a straightlaced stand-up, but soon gains notoriety for his fearless countercultural comedy,” as quoted from HBO here. Jack Burns was an early partner for this straightlaced period from their radio days in Fort Worth, Texas, as we saw in Part 1 of George Carlin’s American Dream. It is during this period that Carlin meets and marries Brenda Carlin (Hosbrook), whom he meets in Dayton, Ohio. The couple had one child, a daughter named Kelly Carlin-McCall.

(From left, first wife Brenda Carlin (Hosbrook), daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall, and George Carlin).

The partnership with Burns lasted a couple of years, through radio and early television appearances from audition tapes in Hollywood, California. The two worked at a television station while working their craft in coffee houses at night, later moving onto television variety shows. Guest appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for Carlin, who eventually broke from Burns, were a part of this period. This phase of Carlin‘s career lasted through the late 1960s, was relatively profitable compared to the period that followed, and ended in a straightlaced fashion around the end of the decade, despite continued guest hosting of Carson‘s The Tonight Show.

(George Carlin after transitioning from a more straightlaced presentation).

The first major transition of George Carlin‘s comedy into a more countercultural comedy began approximately in 1970. The transition began with the first episode of the documentary, with the remainder of the comedian’s life and comedy addressed with Part 2. “Fellow comics reflect on George Carlin‘s later years and how his prescient political commentary continues to resonate today,” as quoted from HBO here. We get further into the background of Carlin the man, moving beyond the complex relations with his deceased and abusive father, his controlling mother, and his abused brother. We see the complexity of the relations with Carlin‘s first wife and daughter, and subsequent marriage to Sally Wade.

(From left, George Carlin and second wife Sally Wade).

George Carlin‘s career took a major turn when he began using cocaine and his first wife began drinking when losing a connection to helping her husband’s career, like she had at the beginning of their marriage. The use of language became much more pointed and anti-authority. Record albums recorded in the 1970s proved helpful financially, yet complexities did not. The Seven Dirty Words routine, which changed legal history more than a decade after Lenny Bruce was arrested in Chicago, Illinois for swearing in his routine, would offer indecency guidelines. Carlin would become the first guest host of NBC‘s Saturday Night Live in this period, something he would repeat in 1984 after his 1981 A Place for My Stuff album and his 1982 Carlin at Carnegie television special. The 1990s and 2000s would see shifts into increasingly political subjects, including about abortion, race, people as individuals rather than in groups, and in frustration with how decisions were made and the lack of perceived influence over large scale life individual people really have.

(George Carlin quote about the American Dream).

George Carlin’s American Dream provides a deeper dive into the career and life underpinning the man than I have provided here. The insight into the cultural force that the man’s thoughts and feelings were, culturally, as well as offering a sense for the flawed man that existed underneath offer an insight that were shown with a comprehensive quality that in fact was quality. The bridging of the messaging from Carlin‘s past into today was also an achievement, both for the man and the documentary. I give the documentary George Carlin’s American Dream as directed by Judd Apatow and Michael Bonfiglio 4.25-stars on a scale of 1-to-5.

Matt – Wednesday, May 25, 2022