Happy Hogswatch

Over the past few days, I have been lucky enough to catch a couple of truly wonderful films. The first of these, Hogfather, is really more of a mini-series, I suppose, produced in 2006 for British television. Hogfather, while sharing, at the most basic level, many of the themes of your average American Hallmark mini-series, the sort that plays across two or three nights on NBC – Merlin for example, is a significantly better written and produced affair. The film/mini-series is based on one of the books in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. While I am somewhat familiar with Mr. Pratchett from his and Neil Gaiman’s collaboration Good Omens, I have never read any of the Discworld novels. Further, as Hogfather is apparently the 20th such novel, I approached this film with some small amount of reservation. Luckily, there is little one needs to know about Discworld that isn’t explained up front. Further, the plot itself stands largely apart from the rest of the series, while those characters who do carry over from other novels all have the necessary parts of their backstory explained in due course.

Discworld, it seems, is a sort of fantasy world, the sort where magic is real and wizards exist, placed in a contemporary setting. What’s more, Discworld is, in fact, a disc, a flat earth situated atop the backs of four elephants who stand on top of a the shell of a giant turtle that floats through space. As the film opens, we learn that it is Hogswatch Eve on Discworld, roughly the equivalent of Christmas Eve on Earth, and that the Hogfather, think Santa Claus but with tusks and an affinity for pork products, will soon arrive with presents for all the small children of Discworld. At least, that’s what is supposed to happen. Unfortunately, someone has hired the Guild of Assassins to dispose of the Hogfather. The Guild sends the bizarre Mr. Teatime (Tay-uh-tym-ee), a bizarre little man with curly blonde hair, boyish good looks, frightening eyes and a disturbing cadence that sounds a bit like Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka. As Teatime invades the Toothfairy’s castle in a clever bid to control the belief of the world’s children through their teeth, Death, your standard robed skeleton, discovers the waning belief in the Hogfather and decides to take the jolly one’s place. So, with red suit and fake beard in place, Death himself sets out to play Santa, ostensibly buying time for his granddaughter, Susan, a damned cute girl with stark white hair streaked with black, to both discover and thwart Teatime’s plan. It is, admittedly, a rather complex piece of work, but that is to the film’s credit. After all, everything is explained in time and the ride along the way is a very enjoyable, charming one that ends with a subtle, yet profound truth about the very nature of humanity. I can’t recommend the whimsical Hogfather enough, if only to watch Death himself attempt time and time again to perfect his “Ho ho ho.”

The second film I want to share with you is 1967’s The President’s Analyst. James Coburn is hilarious as a psychiatrist who has been secured to become analyst to the (unnamed) president of the United States. Coburn is at the president’s constant beck and call, trying his damnedest to calm the gargantuan fears of the leader of the free world. Before long, Coburn runs away, first with a family of gun mad liberals (led by the terrific William Daniels) and, later, with a group of hippies. Of course, every intelligence agency on the planet, including Russia, Canada, China, and two US organizations, are after the man with intimate knowledge of the president’s deepest secrets. There are several hilarious bits in this film, including a montage of Coburn being inopportunely summoned to the president’s side and a series of assassins murdering each other one by one in order to get a shot at Coburn as he picnics in a field. Alright, so it sounds more like a thriller on paper, but trust me, this is funny, funny stuff and easily one of the best edited movies I’ve seen in years.