Klaus (2019)

It hijacks the Christmas tradition and completely fabricates a Christmas origin story, but Klaus is worth watching for the beautiful hand-drawn animation alone, and for Jason Schwartzman's hilarious voice performance of the main character Jesper - a lazy son cast out by his father to a remote snowy outpost - who finds reward in hard work and in getting good out of people, albeit duplicitously.

★★★★☆

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School of Rock (2003)

The nuns are students, the convent is a private elementary school, the criminal masquerading as a sister is a loafer masquerading unqualified as a teacher and, also just like Sister Act, rules are broken, music unites, the no-hoper discovers a purpose, his charges discover their inner rock gods, and it is all thanks to Jack Black's genuine, unabashed, and infectious enthusiasm for rock and roll that this movie, despite its well-trodden plot and issues here and there with gender stereotyping, is a feelgood classic.

★★★★★

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Snatched (2017)

A really funny opening scene in a clothes store showcases Amy Schumer's exceptional talent in sending up self-obsessed urban American Gen-Yers - and then the rest of the film transports this talent to the jungles of Ecuador where Schumer's character Emily and Emily's mum (Goldie Hawn) go on the run from kidnappers in a story that passes in so mindless, so mundane and so unfunny a fashion, the movie ends with you realising you have been looking at it but not watching.

★☆☆☆☆

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Addams Family Values (1993)

Morticia has a baby, Uncle Fester marries a notorious Black Widow killer, and Wednesday and Pugsley spend time at a Summer Camp in this overlong but surprisingly funny second of the 90s live-action Addams Family movies.

★★★☆☆

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