When you think of Netflix’s The Christmas Chronicles, the obvious comparisons are holiday classics like Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, Jingle All the Way, Elf, etc. What you probably don’t think of is Mel Gibson’s grueling Biblical epic, The Passion of the Christ, and its 120 minutes of Jim Cavaziel’s Jesus getting beaten to a bloody pulp on his way to being graphically nailed to a cross. Granted, it’s technically a Christmas movie, but it’s not in the same category as Rudolph, you know what I mean?
So it was very odd when The Christmas Chronicle‘s hot daddy Santa, Kurt Russell, compared his holiday franchise to Mel Gibson’s crucifixion movie while promoting the sequel. Russell’s logical leap is made even weirder by the fact that it stems from his amazement at the language used by the cartoon elves in the family friendly films. Via The New York Times:
It’s not to be taken lightly. I’ll never forget when I saw “The Passion of the Christ” and went, “Mel discovered something that nobody figured out for all this time we’ve been making movies.” If you do anything that’s historical, especially the Bible, and you do it in an original language, it gives it a sense of authenticity. And when I saw that, and I read this script, I thought, elvish will give this a sense of authenticity.
Fortunately, Russell’s wife Goldie Hawn, who plays Mrs. Claus is in the new sequel, was on hand to bring things down to Earth. “He says it’s a language, but in my mind it’s just sounds,” she told the Times.
We’re gonna go with Team Goldie on this one.
(Via The New York Times)