There Are 24 Lights: Patrick Stewart Headlines Light-hearted ‘Christmas Eve’

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Patrick Stewart stars in Christmas Eve, a new independent light-hearted Christmas comedy story of six groups of New Yorkers who become trapped in elevators over Christmas Eve night.

Patrick Stewart fans will no doubt remember his iconic role as Ebeneezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol and will be happy to know that Stewart brings plenty of that regal Scrooge-ness to his role in Christmas Eve.

The film is currently in only limited release (I saw an exclusive screening in Alexandria, Virginia) but could get picked up for broader distribution in theaters, TV, or the Internet.

Set in New York City, the film tells the stories of various characters as they become trapped in six different elevators on the night before Christmas – and of course all have the kind of amazing cathartic experiences that can only happen in movies when you’re trapped in elevator with strangers.

Christmas Eve looks surprisingly good considering how cheaply it must have been made. Since all of the different groups of characters are silo-ed in their respective elevators, the filmmakers didn’t need to come up with a complicated shooting schedule. Indeed, most of Stewart’s scenes are just him – he probably shot them all in one day.

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The ensemble cast of mostly unknowns also features Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), James Roday (the guy from Psych), Gary Cole (the boss from Office Space) and Cheryl Hines (Larry David’s wife on Curb Your Enthusiasm).

Christmas Eve is directed by Mitch Davis, who co-wrote it with Tyler McKellar, and co-produced it with Larry King. (King is of course most notable for his cameo in Ghostbusters and his 50 years in radio and television journalism.)

I give the film 3 out of 4 lights. (Is that OK to make that joke twice in one article?)

 


 

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Not related to this but if anybody wants to see a fantastically made documentary on Trek, check out Chaos on the Bridge on Netflix. . . I know it’s been out for a year but I just discovered it.

@ Snugglepuff

Is it true that your dad is H.R, Puffinstuff?

Cheryl Hines played Larry David’s wife Cheryl on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm.’

BSG’s Ellen Tigh was played by the loverly Kate Vernon.

Gary Cole has been in EVERYTHING, including the gone-too-soon ‘Crusade’ and is currently in ‘Veep,’ in addition to ‘Office Space.’

Otherwise, good review.

So did anyone win the competition from about 6 weeks ago and what did they win?

Is Sir Paddy getting short of cash? This is a very low budget “movie” in budget and story.

It’s a shame that you didn’t mention the fact that Patrick Stewart has been trapped in an elevator before. Why you chose to talk about the lights, I have no clue… Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques…

Son of Jello — if you mean the fan fic contest, it’s still going on. Scroll down the main page or Google ‘Strange New Worlds’ Contest. First prize is publication in a book. Deadline is January. Winners announced in March.

Looks like a fun movie.

3 CmdrR, and Gary Cole was the absent dad who comes back (with cougar) to help his son Ricky. Bobby overcome his fears to drive really fast and finish first in Talladega Nights.

And the gun advicate and forensics expert who becomes ultraliberal Diane Lockhart in “The Goid Wife.”

Actually he has a lot of film credits … including Mike Brady in the Brady Bunch movies. They made Brady Bunch movies?? Jeebus. But actors gotta eat.

If I may say so, Mr Cole is a stone fox!

Anyways I hope I can catch Sir Pat in this latest. Perhaps it’ll come to my North FL backwater, or make its way to Netflix.

Sir Pat is a stone fox too ;-)

7. CmdrR – December 12, 2015

Thanks for that ;).

christian propaganda.

@12 JohnR:

“christan propaganda”

Must be nice being Scrooge, eh?

Regards,

Watched this movie last night after renting on iTunes. Terrible. Poor script and unlikeable characters. Stewart was wasted in this movie.

In case you folks haven’t yet seen it, the Star Trek Beyond trailer has been leaked online… and it looks bad. (And by “looks,” I mean that I can only judge the visuals since it’s in German.) The trailer consists almost exclusively of things blowing up (including, apparently, the Enterprise) and people dangling from precipices. Hopefully, it will come off better in English.

Haha I need to see this :) I bet it’s great!

Blowing up the ship–again? Can’t they get another idea? How many times they gonna beat the daylights out of the Big E and blow her up?

Well, hopefully, this means they might get a ship that looks better.

I suspect the look of the trailer is a rough cut of the special effects.
I hope the film looks better –and we get a clearer, cleaner trailer.

You are smoking crack if you think this is going to be good- the trailer could have been in Shakespearian English and it wouldn’t matter.

What did you expect other than Fast and Furious in space?

Fun? Maybe.

Star Trek?

Not in your Vulcan mind.

Aww Ya thanks Bill Murray!!!!!!!!!

ya endeavour, the general public wants to watch all that action from the original series or even Next…give me a break.

Don’t care for the new transporter effect, looks like a 4th of July Sparkler run amok. Liked the circling effect better…but it looks liek theyre on an alien or at least a different ship, so that could explain it. Makeup is a little rough as well…but it looks like a lot of fun. Love the TOS style rocks on the planet! And interesting choice of music, not sure it paid off or not. But it’s basically a teaser, more polished trailers to come as the film’s release gets closer…so reserving final judgement on the over-all “cheaper” look to the film.

21 Tiberious Subprime

It actually DOES look like a new idea. Not in the blowing up of the ship, but the blowing up of a ship l the middle of the 5 year mission, most likely far from Federation help, stranded on an alien planet with what looks to be a hostile race.

This kind of looks like one of those stories in TOS where the Enterprise comes across a ship that crashed 100 years ago and they have to figure out the mystery, but from the perspective of the crashed ship.

27. LogicalLeopard

Very good points.

Another link of the trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrjGoWIJBms

Well, it does look like TOS mixed with Deep space Nine :)

Watch “Star Trek Beyond Trailer (2016) – Paramount Pictures” on YouTube
https://youtu.be/XRVD32rnzOw

So…The new movie is Star Trek: The Search for Spock combined with Insurrection?

Off topic but didn’t want to get lost on teaser thread.

I’ve noticed that Star Trek movies (except for Nemesis I think) are no longer available on Netflix or Hulu Plus. I think they are available for purchase on Amazon Prime, but I don’t have that.

Can anyone tell me if Star Trek movies are available for streaming anymore, or is the only option now to purchase them – like through Amazon?

#9. Marja – December 12, 2015

”And the gun advicate and forensics expert who becomes ultraliberal Diane Lockhart in “The Goid Wife.”” — Marja

I hope you mean “becomes” as in “moonlight becomes her” because otherwise you’ve just spoiled a major plot development in THE GOOD WIFE that I did not see coming. ;-)