Dakota Beacon

The world is on fire at the moment, with protests and street violence from Hong Kong to Santiago to Colombia to Iran, not to mention the on-going violence always on tap on London Bridge and starvation still a feature of everyday life in Venezuela. Most of this can be traced to elitist governments which oppress the people. However, during Christmas season we really should take a break, right?

So I went to see Last Christmas, Emma Thompson, et al’s seasonal offering. If you want to escape politics for a couple of hours, go to something else. I might recommend Ford vs. Ferrari or even Knives Out, which although the latter can’t quite step outside of its political correctness and just tell the whodunit, at least it isn’t every minute and every issue.

Last Christmas is about a girl, the daughter of a sour, dysfunctional immigrant family from Eastern Europe, which is an inappropriate stand-in for immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Africa who are currently terrorizing the ordinary Brit while being welcomed in by anti-Brexit toffs who don’t usually have to deal with them. There are other “minority” issues of course, and we get a dose of that with our “Christmas” story. I won’t give you the spoilers in case you do decide to tough it out and go, but you’ve at least had a warning. It is almost impossible to warm up to the feckless and generally inconsiderate “heroine” played by the very pretty Emilia Clarke. I won’t complain about the music – if you are a George Michael fan maybe it just might save the movie for you.

It isn’t just Brexit. It isn’t just the other themes – it’s the relentless hammering of the Left at every opportunity. It’s bad enough when we get it the rest of the year, but right now it seems like overkill. Homelessness is one of the side stories here, but the Left just stuck it to the homeless by a certain measure at least in the U.S., by bullying Chick-fil-A into dumping its contribution (very small to begin with, of $115,000) to the Salvation Army and bullying a pop star into threatening to pull out of her performance at a Thanksgiving Day Dallas Cowboys game - at a time when the homeless have the greatest need. The Salvation Army has been helping the homeless and hungry effectively for going on 150 years now. It seems disingenuous for the Left to talk about hunger or homelessness this year. Maybe by next year people will have forgotten how they didn’t care this year. I won’t, but a lot of people will. Maybe then they can go back to moaning about homelessness.

Thompson is a talented screenwriter – she has produced excellent work with projects such as Sense and Sensibility years ago, but that was a beautifully realized classic with none of this social justice nonsense thrown in – just plain ol’ Jane Austen and a good story with a great cast and magnificent settings. I love that kind of movie. I loved Emma Thompson in that movie. So it was doubly disappointing to be slapped around by another social justice battle on my dime (or, I guess we could say “my eight bucks”).

If you do want to see Last Christmas, better hurry. It’s tanking and won’t be at theaters much longer. If, on the other hand, you long for the “good old days”, check out your favorite movie theater for some classic re-runs. I might just go see Home Alone. Never saw it on the big screen, so that might be fun, and if you are the romantic sort look for the Irving Berlin classic, White Christmas. Or maybe just watch an oldie on DVD, like A Child’s Christmas in Wales, A Christmas Story or one of your favorites.

Meanwhile, try to stay cheerful if you can! Avoiding Last Christmas might help in that regard.

Comments:  (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)