Why do we endure? That’s the eternal question I find myself asking this year when Netflix has released some of its worst Christmas content yet — and I say “content” because, really, that’s what these movies are — with its latest films “Hot Frosty” and “The Merry Gentlemen.” Believe me, I’m completely aware that I sound like a Scrooge, a buzzkill harping and carping about innocuous movies that are meant to be little more than background noise while people scroll on their phones. But is that really what holiday movies should be, something to appease loud relatives during the holidays, like they’re dogs we’re leaving the TV on for? The NCU was once a charming if ridiculous way for the streamer to create holiday fare that even occasionally pulled at the heartstrings. Now, the NCU has become little more than a factory line, churning out homogenous products with an ever-so-slight degradation so as not to ruffle any feathers in the time it takes for the slop to calcify.
And worst of all: No one seems to care! It’s like everyone has forgotten that by-the-numbers holiday movies can be good silly and not garbage silly. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything, and it’s time for me to take my stand. We desperately need a State of the Union on the Netflix Christmas Universe, and it’s both my honor and my curse to give it to you.
