Episode 813- Jack
Frost
Movie
Summary: Jack Frost, near
as we can figure, is a Russo-Finnish co-production. Like so
many of our movies, it is comprised of a bunch of unrelated
elements which then are sort of taped together to form a
tangible blob of moving pictures to which we viewers apply
our persistence of vision and suspend our disbelief. I
think...I'm guessing...I have been led to believe by the
film that: the lovely, sweet Nastinka is despised by her
stepmother who favors her own daughter. Nastinka meets Ivan
in the woods one day, after he's had a long day of
frolicking with a mushroom dwarf who then puts a spell on
Ivan for his conceitedness. The spell turns Ivan into a bear
shortly after meeting Nastinka. Nastinka feels she is to
blame, as all women do everywhere for everything, and
searches the land to find Ivan, who himself is trying to
find out how to reverse the spell. I think. I've only seen
the movie seven or eight times, so it's all kind of unclear.
Meanwhile, the evil step-mother is trying to marry off the
other daughter. Throw in a bunch of elves, witches, dancing
houses, snow and, of course, Jack Frost, who screws
everything up then puts it all to right.
Prologue: Mike Nelson IS Michael Flatley in Lord of the
Dance. Gypsy looks on, duly unimpressed.
Segment
One: Pearl Forrester is away,
taking the prescient children from Episode 812 back to their
omnipotent parents. She has left Observer and Bobo alone,
and Bobo insists he's in charge; but Brain Guy has to take
care of Bobo's daily ablutions. Bobo confronts Brain Guy
about his odor de body and Mike gently referees.
Segment Two: Crow brings in an expert to elucidate the
film, Yakov Smirnoff, played by prop-master extrodinaire
Patrick Brantseg. Yakov doesn't know jack about the film,
natch.
Segment Three: Crow has taken his bear simulation to the
extreme, and down on the "Camping Planet" [as was our
working title for the scenes not shot on the SOL] Bobo and
Brain guy have finally, grudgingly bonded.
Segment Four: Who better to explicate the film than the
drummer of Survivor's great-aunt Gladys Fletcher's friend
Eunice Torgeson's estranged half-brother Earl Torgeson, a
butcher in Sanford, Maine, who specializes in old-world
sausages, who visits the SOL and recounts many a tale and
fable about the movie Jack
Frost.
Segment Five: Servo is darling. He's cute. He's
adorable...as he persistently insists. Down in Camping
Planet, Bobo and Brain Guy have an intense
tête-à-tête about whether Every Which Way But Loose or Every Which
Way You Can is the better ape
film. They bring Mike down to con-fab, and Pearl arrives
back declaring that Dunston
Checks In is the best ape
movie ever.
Reflections: This
movie had one of my favorite characters ever, the mean
step-sister. The step-sister was, how shall I say, a virile
woman with a deep, dubbed voice. She was mean and spiteful
and spoiled but I daresay she wasn't irredeemable, nor can
she wholly be blamed. She was a product of bad parenting!
And she made me laugh, especially when she's getting made-up
by her mother; when she's trying to fake her way through
dinner; and most especially when she brawls with Jack Frost
himself. -- Mary Jo Pehl.
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