After doing this blog for four years, it's hard to remember what I have and haven't written about. I'm pretty sure that in Christmases past I've listed my favourite Christmas songs; last year, I detailed Christmas in the Netherlands with St. Nicholas and Black Peter...but I don' think I've ever listed some of my favourite holiday movies. So that's what I'm going to do this year. These are, in no particular order films I try to watch every holiday season. Some will be the classics that appear on everyone's list, some will be hidden treasure that you've never heard of before.
1) Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) I love Preston Sturges movies and The Lady Eve might just be the best comedy ever made. Miracle is a great holiday movie because it's so wonderfully, shockingly subversive! It's about a girl, Trudy Kockenlocker (how did that name get by the censors?), who goes to a GI dance with her friend, Norval Jones. Well, Trudy has such a good time that she winds up married and pregnant... but has no idea who the father might be. Norval steps up and tries to do the right thing. It all comes to a head at Christmas ... a fitting time for a young girl who's been unexpectedly knocked up to deliver her "miracle" child.
1) Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944) I love Preston Sturges movies and The Lady Eve might just be the best comedy ever made. Miracle is a great holiday movie because it's so wonderfully, shockingly subversive! It's about a girl, Trudy Kockenlocker (how did that name get by the censors?), who goes to a GI dance with her friend, Norval Jones. Well, Trudy has such a good time that she winds up married and pregnant... but has no idea who the father might be. Norval steps up and tries to do the right thing. It all comes to a head at Christmas ... a fitting time for a young girl who's been unexpectedly knocked up to deliver her "miracle" child.
2) It's a Wonderful Life (1946) This classic film deserves every iota of praise. A truly inspired reinterpretation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol with George Bailey, a good and honest man who has placed the interests of others ahead of himself, believing that his life has been misspent. This film reveals the fragility of life - suggesting that one person could make the difference between a whole community's happiness/success and misery. This is my advisor's favourite movie of all time, and the fact that he lost a job at a prestigious American university because he unrelentingly defended this film when someone's wife dismissed it as sentimental nonsense makes me proud.
3) Scrooge (aka A Christmas Carol) (1951) Many versions of Dickens' ghost story of Yuletide redemption have been made over the years, but this is the definitive. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an absolute moron. I feel as deeply and passionately about this film as any other. I usually watch it three or four times a year and can recite most of the dialogue from memory. One of the great joys and proudest moments of my dissertation has been working this film into a highly praised chapter on Dickens adaptations.4 & 5) About a Boy (2002) and Love Actually (2003) I can't imagine there are many other people with two Hugh Grant films on their must-see holiday lists, but both of these films are great Christmas movies. In About a Boy Grant's character is haunted by his father's very popular, but ultimately innocuous Christmas song, "Santa's Super Sleigh". All but rejecting the holiday, he holes himself up in his apartment watching Frankenstein until he learns that family can be about a community you choose. In Love Actually Grant is one of a dozen or so actors whose intertwined stories portray the highs and lows of the holiday season.
6) Santa Claus (1954) I'm pretty sure I could only ever sit through the "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" version of this piece of Mexican yule-poo (that's for you, Kyler). I recently inflicted this on some friends... and I'm not sure they'll ever forgive me. Basic premise: Santa and his multinational child labourers battle the devil, Pitch, who tries to convince children to steal, vandalize and be naughty. You read that right. Santa fights the devil. I'm sure it's going for "quaint," but it hits "creepy" nearly every single time. Particularly disturbing are the giant toy reindeer that pull Santa's sleigh, Pitch's Busby Berkleyesque dancing, and most of Santa's facial expressions.
6) Santa Claus (1954) I'm pretty sure I could only ever sit through the "Mystery Science Theatre 3000" version of this piece of Mexican yule-poo (that's for you, Kyler). I recently inflicted this on some friends... and I'm not sure they'll ever forgive me. Basic premise: Santa and his multinational child labourers battle the devil, Pitch, who tries to convince children to steal, vandalize and be naughty. You read that right. Santa fights the devil. I'm sure it's going for "quaint," but it hits "creepy" nearly every single time. Particularly disturbing are the giant toy reindeer that pull Santa's sleigh, Pitch's Busby Berkleyesque dancing, and most of Santa's facial expressions.
8 comments:
Love Actually? Really? Top five, watch-every-year? I mean, I surely did like it, but I wouldn't expect you to rank it with all those classics. None of the rest of which I've actually seen, mind you...
Maybe this is why I've never really noticed Christmas before...
It's true. Love Actually makes my holiday season merry and bright. I also try to reread About a Boy.
Okay, so I just watched that short film that you made.
Brilliant.
I was drinking water and very nearly spewed it all over my laptop during the shot where your party guests are revealed. And when the bear slides down the chair . . . priceless.
Make another one!
Oh, yes. That should be on everyone's "Essential Viewing" list.
my top three are:
1. A Christmas Story - classic "you'll shoot your eye out" and "i said it, the f - - -"
2. The Nightmare Before Christmas - who doesn't like Tim Burton?
3. White Christmas - because i like Irving Berlin, and singing!!
I still need to see 'white christmas' for the "sisteeers" part.
Mike, I will never forgive you for seeing Santa shoot the devil in the bum.
We went to see White Christmas on a double bill with It's a Wonderful Life at the Park on Friday (the reason we couldn't go to Roz's couch party). Rachel loves WC; I love IAWL.
Three remarks come to mind: 1. "White Christmas" is a slightly bloated film, compared to "Holiday Inn," wherein Der Bingle first sang "White Christmas" -- have a look; 2. Although the list is an interesting one, and Sturges should be on everyone's list somewhere, I believe that "Miracle on 34th Street" is the best Xmas film, period. I think you might also wish to consider "Holiday" (Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn star in a slightly darker film than "The Philadelphia Story" but also based on a play by Philip Barry); and 3. "Love, Actually" suffers from what pretty nearly all romantic comedies suffer from: it's predictable. This ignores the fact that what makes the genre work is partly its predictability, to be sure. That said, it's not a terrific film, sprawling among too many characters and not pulling the stories together in any meaningful way. And one question: you say you read "About a Boy" -- is the book much better than the movie?
Post a Comment