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For this Wednesday Super Slop Night, first up is Placido (1961), a Spanish Christmas-themed class satire. A group of rich ladies decide to demonstrate their generosity by inviting a poor person to sit at their dinner table; they pick the eponymous Placido, a homeless man who lives out of his three-wheeled with his family. Uh-oh, the festivities also include a parade, and the bougies force both Placido and his vehicle to participate, to show his gratitude. Hilarity ensues with rapid-fire screwball-comedy dialogue as Placido faces an endless number of absurd barriers in accomplishing his simple task, all of them tied closely to his low class. Considered one of the definitive holiday films in Spain. Director Luis Garcia Berlanga is otherwise best-known for the death-penalty satire The Executioner (1963), which we have not yet watched.

After that is Last Year’s Snow Was Falling (1983), a 20-minute Soviet stop-motion cartoon about a man in the snowy wasteland of rural Russia, who bumbles his way to collecting a Christmas tree at the behest of his nagging wife. The usual slapstick stuff follows from there as everything goes wrong. This occupies a similar place in the ex-Soviet bloc as, say, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) does in the West. This is the best-known work of animator Aleksandr Takarskiy.

After that is Red One (2024), a Christmas-themed action-comedy-fantasy about Santa’s head security guard (The Rock), who must go to his employer’s rescue after the man himself (code-named Red One, and played by JK Simmons) is kidnapped by sinister anti-Christmas forces. He gathers a rag-tag crew, which includes a hacker (Chris Evans), and a polar bear, among others. Director Jake Kasdan also helmed Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), and yeah, that sounds about right. Christmas flicks don’t come much sloppier than this.

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Blorptube, right here:

https://blorp.bot.nu/o/visual_cuisine

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

Doesthedogdie.com links:

CWs for Placido:

  • Alcohol.
  • Smoking.
  • Poverty.
  • Discussion of religion.
  • Classism.

CWs for Last Year’s Snow Was Falling:

  • Slapstick violence.
  • Smoking.
  • Alcohol.
  • Beatings.

CWs for Red One:

  • Someone leaves without saying goodbye.
  • Alcohol abuse.
  • Cruelty to animals.
  • Someone is physically restrained.
  • Squashed head.
  • Unconsciousness.
  • Kidnapping.
  • Jump scares.
  • Possession.
  • Natural bodies of water.
  • Crying baby.
  • Screaming.
  • Profanity.
  • Someone is watched without their knowledge.
  • Babies.
  • Demons.
  • Honking horns.
  • Screeching tires.

Links to movies: