Despite my claimed intention to get to bed if my younger brother has not arrived home by 9 p.m., the previous two evenings have seen me having supped so late that I was not yet prepared to be seeking my bed when he showed up. On both occasions, he was home well before 9:30 p.m.
So maybe I should make 9:30 p.m. the deadline, then? Perhaps.
I also got held up last evening because I was watching a Christmas movie and enjoying some spiced rum. The movie was 2018's Nativity! 4: Nativity Rocks!
I have now seen all four of the Nativity films in the series, so this will have been the very last Christmas movie that I shall be viewing until much later in the year.
Since I do not tend to read about a movie before watching it, I did not realize that Marc Wootton and his "Mr. Poppy" character were not to be reprised ─ he was the sole recurring presence in the previous three movies.
I expect that because his antics were 'front-and-centre' what established the three previous movies, the producers felt that he needed some fashion of duplication, so they invented a long-lost younger brother who was every bit as infantile or imbecilic.
I am sure that because I was feeling some melancholy over the recent loss of my very longtime friend William A.G., the spiced rum helped me feel especially emotional ─ the storyline of a young refugee boy separated from his father was keenly touching, as was the lad's friendship with a lonely rich kid named Barnaby.
The refugee child was played by a young actor named Brian Bartle who has as yet virtually no biography nor credits. Initially, I believed that his character was a little girl, and it made no sense that everyone he met seemed to immediately realize with one glance that he was a little boy.
Barnaby was played by an equally young actor named Rupert Turnbull who does seem to have had more acting credits to his name than Brian Bartle, but of course little else by way of biography.
Both boys were very touching in their portrayals.
Simon Lipkin as the new "Mr. Poppy" took 'some getting used to', but he did manage to be as believable as Marc Wootton in the role.
The lengthy musical pageant at the latter portion of the movie was not much enjoyed by this viewer. I would have preferred that the movie had used more time developing the plight of the refugee son and father, as well as of lonely rich kid Barnaby. Those two storylines alone would have made for a very interesting and heartwarming movie without any "Mr. Poppy" and his nonsense intruding.
Because of the emotion that I did feel, I would equate this movie as being at least on a par with the original. It was far superior to the two movies that were released as the second and third entries in the Nativity franchise.
I have to say that I was quite disappointed with the little that I saw of actress Jessica Hynes reprising her role from the second movie as Angel Matthews ─ she looked absolutely hot in her original appearance as that character!
As a result of sitting up late with my brother yesterday after he got home, I was not to bed until late into the midnight hour. My wife ─ who had worked a full day at the Thai restaurant where she has part-time employment ─ actually went to bed ahead of me.
She didn't have to work today, and remained home until she finally left us ahead of 4 p.m., saying that she would be back on Monday. She spends much of her weekends somewhere in Vancouver.
Earlier in the afternoon, I had my usual nap; and then I got busy and filled out the tax returns relating to tax year 2020 that I gave up on last Spring when I instead filed using the free GenuTax software that I had downloaded.
As a consequence of not having filed a paper tax return last year, the government will no longer be mailing copies for her and I.
I may try to print out the various receipts tomorrow that I will need to have on hand for filing returns for us this year through GenuTax. However, I have not used the printer for a number of months, so I am unsure of its ink status.
My early evening is already begun; because I want to have a bath ere partaking of some supper, I must here bring this post to a close. I will say that the day seemed to be cloud-free after a night that just managed to dip into the freezing level.
No comments:
Post a Comment