#(this is a metaphor for Imagination keeping the spirit of Santa Claus alive)

[warlockedfox]

It’s wild how just months ago I couldn’t fathom the idea of ever raising young kids and,, now I’m laying in bed with the 2 people I’d most want to raise kids with in the world, thinking about how I’d respond when the littles ask if Santa Claus is real

[wehavethoughts]

Jingle Jangle Review!

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey David E. Talbert (2020) Netflix Original Movie Fantasy, Holiday, Musical, Children’s Movie

Rating: 5/5 Waves

“I think it’s time for a new story.” – Journey

This review CONTAINS spoilers for Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

Summary: Jeronicus Jangle is a genius toymaker who has everything he’s ever wanted until betrayal and tragedy strike and rip away his magic and inspiration. Jingle Jangle follows his journey with his bright, spunky granddaughter to finding his way out of darkness and towards family, love and inspiration.

No content warnings apply for Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

Last year was a mess and 2021 is already on thin ice, but one of the best things to happen to me this season was my girlfriend sitting me down and convincing me to watch Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey. While the trailer looked fun, especially since it was a musical Christmas story featuring a primarily black cast, I hadn’t prioritized watching it. I tend to feel that everything has already been made when it comes to Christmas movies and I don’t want or need another retelling of the same stories. If I need a bump of Christmas spirit around the holidays, I indulge in a classic and move on. Fortunately for me, she wanted to watch it and we needed a Christmas Eve movie.

I loved so much about this movie that I could write tens of thousands of words singing its praises, but I wouldn’t do that to you, so I will narrow my praises to the most important parts of this movie to me. At the top of the list is just how good this movie looks.

Jingle Jangle is one of the most visually appealing movies I’ve ever seen. From the set to the costumes to the choreography, every single shot of this movie was pleasing to the eye. The clothing was sharp and colorful in a way that I expected to get on my nerves, but it ended up stunning. Costume designer Michael Wilkinson described the fashion as “Afro Victorian”. The characters’ hairstyles are another part of the costuming that stood out. They were creative and fun while also adding dimension to the characters’ looks. And let me just take a minute to personally thank the creators of Jingle Jangle for allowing all of these black characters to have natural hair. I have never seen that in a movie and it almost made me cry. Both the clothing and the hairstyles mirrored the characters’ arcs and added depth to the narrative.

The beauty of this movie can mostly be attributed to its fabulous designers, but I also want to point out that everything looked and felt fabulously expensive. I could not find the budget of Jingle Jangle in USD, but with every set piece, CGI shot, song and outfit you could tell that someone who loved this project spent a whole lot of money on it. It is refreshing to see a story like this getting the financial backing to do it properly.

The visuals were so stunning, in fact, that even if the actual story had been terrible, I would still have been happy to just sit and watch it on mute. Fortunately, Jingle Jangle’s story was phenomenal; heartwarming and inspiring with just enough humor to keep it light without feeling overly juvenile. It also had such meaningful emotional themes that I cried at least three times (in a good way).

The emotional core of this movie is the relationship between Jeronicus and his granddaughter Journey. Jeronicus is a grumpy, disillusioned inventor who abandoned his aspirations after achieving his dreams lead to nothing but betrayal and heartache. Journey is a bright, talented child who wants to learn from her brilliant grandfather, but she realizes she has to reignite his belief in himself first. The story centers around belief in the impossible, like most Christmas stories, but instead of asking the audience to believe in something like Santa Claus, Jingle Jangle reminds the audience to believe in themselves and their own abilities. Personally, I’ve never felt more inspired than when a small child belted about how “The square root of impossible is me!” The story digs into how depression can destroy a person’s creativity and inspiration and sometimes what we need is other people believing in us so we can be reminded to believe in ourselves.

My whole deal is reviewing fantasy though, so I feel like I should mention magic. Like most things in the movie it is very pretty to look at. When Jeronicus and Journey use their magic it is glittery, dazzling and very obviously a metaphor for imagination and creativity. Personally, these characters could have probably just have been very smart, but having a visual to see them thinking in new and exciting ways was nice. Math-but-its-glowing as a magic system is not something I’ve seen much of recently, but I know just enough math words to delight in what is coming out of these character’s mouths when they talk about their inventions. This might be a difficult movie for haters of math or people who study it for a living. If hearing characters say things like, “Belief! It collapsed the wave function.” and “Take the circumference of spectacular, divided by the second derivative of sensational…” is a deal breaker for you, then maybe skip this movie.

Also, I should note that this movie is a musical. This came as a surprise to us the first time we watched it, but luckily we love musicals. The first time the music swelled and Jeronicus started singing we were swept away by the magic of the moment, delightfully surprised and in awe of the musical talent. Every single song in this movie is energetic, fun and refreshingly Black. Director David E. Talbert said that he was inspired by southern soul and gospel music as well as Afrobeat and other primarily black genres. The mix of inspiration creates joyful and fresh new songs for the holiday season.

As a whole this movie got my highest rating because the things I love about it outweigh the flaws. That being said, there are a couple pieces of the story that either didn’t make sense or it feels like they did not think all the way through. First of all, the main conflict revolves around the villain Don Juan, a toy matador who has been given sentience through Jeronicus’s miraculous inventions, not wanting to be mass produced. While the story tries to convince us that the conflict revolves around Don Juan’s narcissism, if you think about this plot point too hard you realize that our protagonist plans to mass produce and sell his creations that are clearly alive and intelligent. Obviously the movie doesn’t dig into the ethics of this, since Don Juan is more concerned about not being one-of-a-kind rather than worried that he is going to be bought and sold as a commodity, but it is a concerning angle that implies some very uncomfortable things about this universe.

Another piece that I found falls apart when you think about it too hard is the framing of the story within a story. Jingle Jangle is told a bedtime story being read by a grandmother to her grandchild (similar to the Princess Bride). The first scenes introduce us to a couple of cute kids who ask their grandmother for a Christmas story and in opening the book we get some spectacular CGI and animation to introduce us to Jeronicus’s world. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this method of storytelling, I found it to be unnecessary since the children listening to the story and the grandmother don’t add much as independent characters. Unfortunately, the story seemed to feel the need to justify these characters’ existence and so in a big reveal at the end we discover that the grandmother is Journey, Jeronicus’s granddaughter.

While seeing Journey with her grandchildren is cute, it leads to questions that I personally did not need to have at the end of this otherwise tied up narrative. For example, the children seem to have never heard of Jeronicus Jangle, Don Juan or Buddy 3000 (another important toy character), yet we are meant to believe that Jeronicus’s story happened in the universe that the children live in? Why wouldn’t they know stories about their rich and famous great-great-grandfather? Why had they never heard of Jeronicus Jangle when it is implied that the toys they have grown up with would have been his or his family’s inventions? By making the children related to the people in the story, the writers distracted me from Jeronicus and Journey whose story is much more interesting and heartwarming. Jingle Jangle is a movie that asks me to think and reflect, so I don’t feel bad poking holes in the story, but I don’t love that they left me hanging with all these questions.  

Additionally, there are also some things that I wish the writers hadn’t included in the movie at all. For example, they fridged Jeronicus’s wife almost immediately which was completely unnecessary and I hated to see that in a movie that got so many other things right. Also, having the only obviously Hispanic character (Don Juan Diego) be the villain in such a cartoon-y way left a bad taste in my mouth.

But Jingle Jangle still got my highest rating because as the sum of its parts, it was a fantastic story and I am so glad I got the chance to watch it. My very favorite part of this movie that has stuck with me even weeks after my first viewing is the relationship between Jeronicus and his family. There are sections of this movie where Jeronicus falls into the stereotypical absentee black father trope, but this story allows his character space to talk about what he did wrong, how he is hurting and Jeronicus learns to do better which is so important. I love the current trend in movies where parents apologize to their children because that can be such a healing experience and Jingle Jangle gives us that, but additionally, it makes the parent work for it and prove to their child that they are healing themselves. It offers hope to children struggling through painful situations like this and give parents an example of how they might be able to fix what they broke.

Overall, Jingle Jangle left me with a feeling of joy and contentment while inspiring me to remember what I used to love and rethink my self-imposed limits. The core message of this movie is a reminder that sometimes our lack of belief in our own skills is enough to stop us from achieving our dreams. Jingle Jangle reminds us to believe in our own capacity and lift each other up even when times are difficult. I don’t know if this movie will become a classic in the general consciousness, but it will certainly become a tradition in my family.

~TideMod

[daresplaining]

What are your thoughts on Evil!Matt Murdock from the Spider-Gwen universe? He's obviously very different from the Matts of other universes, but what might he have in common with them? Do you think he'll end up with a redemption arc, or will he stay a villain? Sorry that most of this is so vague, but I'm just REALLY into alternate versions of characters.

    We’re loving evil Matt. He’s so gleefully malevolent! It’s great fun to see a version of this character who has the life he wants and is enjoying every minute of it.

    (Gosh, look at him…)

    As you know (and in case anyone doesn’t), there are many, many Matt Murdock-inhabited alternate universes (both Marvel and DC are big on alternate universes), and someday we should do a comprehensive post about all of them, because there’s great variety. There is (to name a few) a Matt without superpowers, a Matt who is an agent of SHIELD, a Matt who is a demonic chef, several zombie Matts, Matts from a range of time periods and social backgrounds, a whole bunch of tragically deceased Matts, and even a Matt who is a mouse.

Mouse Murdock: “Stay back, Fisk, or you’re going to have a long, bad day.”

[Howard the Human #1 by Scottie Young, Jim Mahfood, and Justin Stewart]

    Thanks to this range of interpretations, which play with and subvert almost every aspect of Matt’s character, there are actually very few consistent cross-universe qualities that tie them together. He’s usually blind, and tends to possess that strength/stubbornness of spirit that is such a staple of the DD narrative. But beyond that, they’re all over the place.

    The variant we think bears the closest resemblance to Spider-Gwen’s Matt is from the What If? Daredevil VS Elektra one-shot by Karl Bollers. In this universe it is young Matt, rather than Elektra’s father, who is killed during the hostage situation at Columbia University. The Hand, who are aware of Matt’s abilities and training, steal his body and resurrect him to fight for them. Taking on the moniker “The Advocate” (because of course he does), he performs the Hand’s dirty work for years until crossing paths once more with Elektra– now a SHIELD agent– who must put aside the knowledge of who he once was in order to take him down.

Elektra: “I’m here to stop you.”

Matt: “From doing what? Bringing order to chaos? Imagine these widowmakers without my guidance. You’re still holding onto the ideals of youth. Your father raised you in a sheltered, protected bubble allowing you limited contact with the rest of the world. Clouded your thoughts with fairy tale notions of ‘good’ and ‘evil’.”

[What If? Daredevil VS Elektra by Karl Bollers, Rafael Kayanan, and Lovern Kindzierski]

    It’s a straightforward (albeit quite nuanced) Elektra/Matt role reversal, and given the core concept of Earth-65– in which a tragically dead past love switches places with her superhero counterpart– we were originally expecting Spider-Gwen Matt’s situation to be similar. 

    We learn, via his character page at the end of Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #3, that Earth-65 Matt has the same basic origin story as his 616 counterpart, though he isn’t trained by Stick until after Jack’s death. An unspecified amount of time later, the Hand kill Stick and adopt Matt, finishing his training and inducting him into their ranks. By the time we first meet him in Edge of Spider-Verse #2 he has become the leader of the western branch of the Hand, and has used his power and influence to take over Wilson Fisk’s criminal dealings while he’s in prison. As in Daredevil VS Elektra, here we have a Hand-trained, Hand-allied Matt who operates as an assassin.

[Spider-Gwen vol. 1 #5 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, and Rico Renzi]

    However, there’s clearly a power difference between these two universes. “Advocate” Matt, while technically the leader of the Hand, was brainwashed by his resurrection and operates as a tool to do the Hand’s bidding– while Earth-65 Matt is calling the shots, living a full life, and shows no signs of brainwashing whatsoever. There’s no crisis of conscience and, beyond his affiliation with Fisk, no hint of anyone pulling his strings behind the scenes. He acts solely for his own benefit, offering aid when it best suits him and daring others to compromise their morals by accepting it. He’s a proud ninja/assassin/mob boss/sleazy lawyer, and he doesn’t care who knows it.

Matt: “’Kingpin’?! Moi?! Captain, I’m just a blind servant of justice. Why, I can’t even dress myself.”

[Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #5 by Jason Latour, Chris Visions, and Rico Renzi]

    The obvious question is, then, how did he end up this way? What is the X factor on Earth-65 that turned its Matt willingly villainous? To start, he’s one of those characters whose past has always contained the potential for a super villain origin. There’s even a famous Frank Miller quote about it. Were it not for his optimism and strength of spirit, and his devotion to law and justice, Matt very well could have pulled an Elektra and just given up on humanity. That’s a core part of Elektra’s character concept actually– a demonstration of how someone very like Matt could end up on a non-heroic path. (We wrote a whole post about this, for anyone who wants the rambly details.) In fact, 65 Matt’s situation is much more similar to 616 Elektra’s than that of the other evil Matt, discussed above. 

    One key difference between the 616 and 65 realities is Matt’s support system, or– more specifically– the destruction of it. Young Earth-65 Matt suffers the loss of not one, but both of his parents (616 Matt was raised thinking Maggie was dead, so was never faced with the actual trauma of losing her. To extend this tangent, while we’re here in the parentheses, it’s interesting to note that 65 Maggie is still alive. Did she ever come out of the coma? Is she going to reappear? Are we going to get awkward mother/evil son bonding? Jason Latour, are you reading this?) 

    Then he is taken in by Stick, who is apparently an all-out vigilante crimefighter in this universe. 65 Stick would have been much more of a parental figure to Matt than his 616 counterpart– who was parental to a certain degree, but wasn’t Matt’s sole source of emotional support due to Jack still being around. Note that at this point 65 Matt is still a moral person, operating in what must have been a sidekick role. But then Stick is killed, a third parental figure lost, leaving him alone. The timing on the character bio is a little shaky, but if we go ahead and assume that the timeline is 616-based, Matt would have been in college– and there’s no mention of any other contacts or friends he might have had at this point. No connection to Foggy, as far as we know, who we’re convinced was instrumental in keeping him focused and grounded in the main continuity.

Foggy: “You’ve gotta snap out of it, Matt… like your dad would’ve wanted! We’ll be graduating soon… and I want you to join me, Matt… as my partner!”

[Daredevil vol. 1 #53 by Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, and Artie Simek]

    Another possibility– since Foggy does exist in this universe– is that they did know each other, but had some kind of falling-out. Who knows? Either way, faced with this absolute isolation, it makes some sense that 65 Matt would have seen the Hand as the only place left to go.

    We’re short on details about his time training with the Hand, but his flippant reference to having been “raised by ninjas” (in Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #5) suggests that he does think of them as family. If brainwashing was involved, it was very subtle, but at that point it may not even have been necessary. The Hand would have offered him a purpose, a direction, and an opportunity to make something of himself– all offers that would have appealed to a seemingly directionless Matt. They would have offered him empowerment– both literal and metaphorical– which is something Matt has always strived for, regardless of the universe. Seeing a hero like Stick fail might have colored his perception of how effective good guy justice could be. And the loss of everyone he has previously cared for could have hardened young Matt enough to allow him, in conjunction with his Hand training, to suppress his respect for human life.

    It’s tough to say at this point whether or not he’ll get a redemption arc, but his current trajectory makes it seem unlikely. Unless this has all been an act to cover up for some bigger scheme yet to be revealed, he hasn’t shown any signs that he’s at all interested in redemption. The criminal thing seems to be working out very well for him, and as charming and entertaining as he his, he hasn’t yet displayed any in-universe redeeming qualities. He wouldn’t have any desire or motivation to become a good guy at this point because he just keeps winning.

Gwen: “But… why?”

Matt: “I don’t know. Why not? Because I can? Or maybe it’s just that the season is the reason. The “why” doesn’t matter. All that matters is– now I’m your only hope for being Spider-Woman. And that’s fun, right? Like having your own personal Santa Claus.”

[Spider-Gwen vol. 2 #15 by Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez, and Rico Renzi]

    But it’s also entirely possible that this could change. His seemingly positive upbringing, and the superhero training he received from Stick, suggests that he was once a moral person. There’s been a trend in this series of exploring villains’ motivations, often as a way of paralleling Gwen’s personal journey. Harry Osborn and Jesse Drew received this treatment, as– to a certain degree– did Frank Castle and Mysterio. Evil Cindy Moon’s motivations are clear, even if she’s still very much an antagonist. Heck, we even got a bit of Bodega Bandit’s life story. If Matt sticks around (which he clearly will) and as Gwen starts to spend more time with him, it’s likely his backstory will start to make its way into the narrative. At the very least, we might get a sense of exactly why he’s so interested in recruiting Spider-Woman, which could involve more than simply wanting a powerful pawn to play with. This would open the door for a more complex understanding of his motivations, if not a full redemption arc. That, we feel, would require his plans to start failing him, and for the cushy life he’s been leading as a villain to develop some cracks.

    Currently, he seems to have four points of potential weakness: S.I.L.K., George Stacy’s upcoming trial, Fisk, and Gwen herself. Despite Matt’s current *cough* truce with Cindy, S.I.L.K. is still his biggest rival for power in the criminal underworld– and they could very easily turn on him. We honestly doubt Matt will have any trouble with the trial, if it even ends up happening at all, but it’s fun to imagine D.A. Foggy Nelson kicking him around the courtroom a bit, isn’t it? We also don’t know how Fisk feels about Matt having taken over as Kingpin, or whose idea the transition of power even was. Once he gets out of prison, is Fisk going to want his job back? And of course, at some point Gwen is going to find the power and leverage to start fighting against Matt’s blackmail. She is the hero, after all, and it’s practically guaranteed that she will beat him in the end. And who knows where that might lead?  

    As one final tangent, we wanted to point out the “Skills/Talents” section of 65 Matt’s character bio:

“Skills/Talents: Murdock’s superhuman abilities give him a unique synthesis between his motor reflexes and the outside world– particularly a refined motor control and sense of balance. Little is yet known about the extent of Murdock’s ninja training during his time abroad, though his command of both his powers and respect of the ninjas in his employ suggest that he not only completed his training, but thrived.”

   616 Matt received only basic ninja training– which was more than enough to turn him into a badass, of course, but which also left him locked out of a lot of the upper level, magic-based Chaste/Hand skills. But here we have a version of Matt who has reached his full potential. High level Hand ninjas can do all sorts of cool things, from bringing people back from the dead to taking over the minds of others… and we are really excited to see what kinds of tricks 65 Matt has up his sleeve.