Cinema Wellman’s Holiday Wish List

Hello and welcome to Cinema Wellman. Today we will be reading our letters to Santa Wellman in order to find out what our cinematic “Wish List” looks like this year!

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As you probably fully realize, just because you wish for something doesn’t mean you’re going to get it.

Letters to Santa (and Santa Wellman) included. 

When you were a kid, did you ever ask Santa for a pony for Christmas? 

Did you ever get a pony for Christmas?

I rest my case. 

If you’ve been with us since the start, you’ll know that this is our 2nd “Cinema Wellman Holiday Wish List” episode, and we hope to make it an annual thing whether we get our wishes or not.

Last year, our wish list included some wonderful suggestions, NONE of which were realized in 2023. 

But let’s not get discouraged! We can’t be the only people who want these things to happen (or in today’s case, stop happening). Hopefully filmmakers will get the idea one of these days. 

Our first letter is from little Johnny K. from Fairfax, VA who has quite a list for Santa Wellman.

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Dear Santa Wellman,

I’ve been a relatively good boy this year and would like movies to STOP doing ALL of the following things:

*Stop making movies over two hours

*Stop making sequels, and while you’re at it, stop making prequels!

*Stop making superhero movies AND Star Wars movies

*Stop making movies about people who are still living

*Stop letting Mel Gibson and Kevin Costner make (or be in) movies

*And ENOUGH with animated movies based on products

I also have a list of things I want movies to START doing, but I figured this part of my list was enough for this year.

Don’t eat the yellow snow,

Johnny

I have to be honest with you Johnny, I agree with just about everything you included in your list. You know you’ll never get all of that, but I hope some of your wishes come true. 

We here at Cinema Wellman have gone on record many times with our loathing of long movies, sequels, prequels, and the comic book movies. (Not to mention Costner!)

I’d agree with you about the ban on movies based on products after seeing Battleship, but Barbie has turned me around on that for the time being. Let’s see how long that lasts.

Thanks for watching, and Happy Holidaze!

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Our next letter comes from Chet Jr. who lives in Littleton, MA. 

We know Chet Jr. is forced to watch since his dad works here, but thanks for the letter anyway!

Dear Santa Wellman,

Could you please use your influence to have the movie industry stop the practice of feeling the need to end every movie they think may make money with a final scene that teases a possible sequel?!?!

We KNOW you are out of original ideas, stop hedging your bets that every movie deserves a sequel!

Thanks,

Chet Jr. 

You are not alone with this feeling! Our previous letter alluded to stopping the sequel train, and I like that you added to that by wanting them to put an end to even teasing a sequel! Here here! So annoying.

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We have one more letter before we get up on our own Santa Wellman soapbox and air our grievances! Speaking of the airing of grievances, Happy Festivus, to those of our viewers who celebrate the holiday. 

Jason, from Edison, NJ, sends us the following letter:

Dear Santa Wellman, 

I enjoy movies about time travel, aliens, ghosts, and interplanetary travel experiences as much as the next guy, BUT…

During all of this craziness and lunacy that’s going on and is being seen by all sorts of people, why is there always a character who has a theory that’s also lunacy, but THAT character is treated like they belong in an asylum for bringing up such a thing! All of a sudden, with everything going on, and after everything that everyone has seen, nobody believes them. 

“Everyone just saw the ghost of an alien from 1950s Mars, and you don’t believe MY story?!!?”

And, of course, please let’s get rid of the old, “We don’t have time for that right now.”

I know you only asked for “movie wishes,” but could you also do something positive for my Washington Commanders?

Thanks, 

Jay

Sorry, Jay, but Santa Wellman has zero control over your football team of choice. Cinema Wellman’s squad is terrible as well, so you are not alone in your misery. 

I do agree with your suggestions, though, and in addition to getting rid of the “We don’t have time for that right now,” we also need to eliminate the “You need to take a look at this,” cliche that our friends at Cinema Sins have been griping about for years. Stunning how many movies those two lines are in when you’re looking for them. 

Just lazy, lazy screenwriting. At best. 

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Thank you for the letters, and thanks for watching! If you think of suggestions during the year, please write them down since you know we’ll be asking for more material next year. 

Unless, of course, all of our dreams come true. 

The staff here at Cinema Wellman have come up with a few items of our own that we’d like the cinematic world to cease and desist!

*First off, can we get rid of the old “I’m supposed to kill you, I have a weapon and you don’t, but I’m going to drop my weapon and fight you barehanded to the death anyway cliche.”

Seriously. This would NEVER, EVER happen in a real-life scenario! If you needed to kill the other person, and they were unarmed, you WOULD KILL THEM! You wouldn’t give them a chance!

Come on, that’s Hired Killer 101 there!

NEXT!

*Do me a favor. The next time you drive past a construction site, make sure you look for the ramp. 

What ramp? The ramp at every movie construction site that launches vehicles into the air, of course.

Spoiler Alert: The launchpad ramp won’t be there. It’s there in every movie, but it’s never there in real life. 

Stop making that a thing. 

And, one more thing on our list before we go, and it’s something we asked movies to stop last year…

STOP HAVING CHARACTERS VOMIT ON SCREEN! We know what it looks like by now! Have them make the noises, have them barf offscreen. We don’t want to see any more vomit!

I even watched a short, animated film this year that featured a vomiting character that was an inanimate object!! Balls of yarn do not possess a digestive tract or stomach from which to expel “content.” 

It happens so often that I’m actually going to keep track of how many “Vomit Movies” I see in 2024. If it’s not too many, I won't mention it again. 

While I’m on vomit, can we also stop having characters do their own stitchwork with needles, pins, fish hooks, etc. to close up gaping gunshot and knife wounds?

We get it. The characters are wicked tough. Isn’t there another way to show that aside from DIY Surgery?!

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Well, that’s a wrap for our 2023 Cinematic Holiday Wish List! There weren’t any suggestions of things we want movies to start this year, which means we’re determined to have them stop doing what we hate first.

Fair enough!

We hope you join us next week for a very special New Year’s Eve (Amateur Night) episode when we do our best Spotify imitation and present “Cinema Wellman’s 2023 Unwrapped!” Or since it’s film, should it be Unspooled? I like that! 

Everyone here at Cinema Wellman would like to wish you and your families a safe, healthy, and happy holiday season.

Make the best of the quality time you’ll hopefully spend with those you love. 

Maybe you can watch a movie together! That’s always a nice experience. I have a couple queued up already for my brief holiday trip. 

I’ll see you on the other side of that, and…

Until then, take care.