Holiday Favorites

[Roscoe]

The Sim SCROOGE/CHRISTMAS CAROL is the one essential Christmas film for me. No other dramatization of the story comes close.

[Red Screamer]

Every year my mom gets the family to gather 'round for the Scrooge musical (Ronald Neame, 1970). I've seen it too many times to be impartial, but I still think it's an overlooked gem, with good songs that range from sentimental to surprisingly dark, and Finney turns in a delightful dual performance as the young and old Scrooge. Alec Guinness hams it up as Jacob Marley's ghost as well. I don't know any of the other adaptations nearly as well, but IIRC this one has by far the most effective version of Scrooge's change of heart at the end.

[Roger Ryan]

Every year my mom gets the family to gather 'round for the Scrooge musical (Ronald Neame, 1970). I've seen it too many times to be impartial, but I still think it's an overlooked gem, with good songs that range from sentimental to surprisingly dark, and Finney turns in a delightful dual performance as the young and old Scrooge. Alec Guinness hams it up as Jacob Marley's ghost as well. I don't know any of the other adaptations nearly as well, but IIRC this one has by far the most effective version of Scrooge's change of heart at the end.

I saw this upon first release when I was a child and it made a big impression on me. I always thought Finney was quite good, considering he was really far too young to play the title character. The scene where Scrooge goes to hell was always cut for broadcast television showings in the U.S, so I began to question my memory of seeing it in the original theatrical screening until finally catching it again a year or two back on TCM.

[Roscoe]

I don't know any of the other adaptations (of A CHRISTMAS CAROL) nearly as well, but IIRC this one has by far the most effective version of Scrooge's change of heart at the end.

For me, Sim's Scrooge stands above all others for precisely this reason -- his change of heart is the most convincing, because it is always shot through with his knowledge of how terrible he had been. His regret and shame over his past actions informs the joy, which adds a layer that no other Scrooge in my experience has. Check out that little scene with his housekeeper, who is understandably freaked out over the change in her boss. He gives her a guinea for a Christmas present, and asks her how much he pays her. Her reply "two shillings a week" elicits a little look of disgust and embarrassment from Scrooge just before he gives her a 500% raise. There are other little moments like that, culminating in that gorgeous little moment in the counting house where his delighted laughter at offering Cratchit a raise turns to something very different, as he says, "I've not taken leave of my senses, Bob. I've come to them." And that sad little moment where he offers to help Cratchit raise that family of his, with the sad little addition "...if you'll let me."

Sim's Scrooge is a heartbreaker. The rest just wake up all nice and happy on Christmas morning, and that's that.

[Gregory]

It would be a fun exercise to watch and rank all the film adaptations, with the likely first place contender being the Sim version and in last place An American Carol (2008), about the not-at-all-made-up problem of Michael Moore trying to abolish the Fourth of July.

[knives]

In just world Sim would take spots one and two.

[aox]

Hot Take: The elongated Christmas episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (A Very Sunny Christmas) at the end of season 6 is a fantastic realist portrayal of the modern American working class, and should replace the hallowed though antiquated A Christmas Story on TBS every year. BB Guns are bourgeois New Deal America. Now the kids throw rocks at trains.

[reaky]

Another one: Christmas, Again (2014) is a sweet indie New York fairytale; a bittersweet redemption story with a perfect last shot that encapsulates the whole thing. Lovely.

[Gregory]

Zoltán Huszárik's Capriccio (1969, 15:43) is elemental and sublime.

[Roscoe]

Hot Take: The elongated Christmas episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (A Very Sunny Christmas) at the end of season 6 is a fantastic realist portrayal of the modern American working class, and should replace the hallowed though antiquated A Christmas Story on TBS every year. BB Guns are bourgeois New Deal America. Now the kids throw rocks at trains.

Seconded. Charlie Day's encounter with Santa is one of the funniest and scariest pieces of acting out there.

[TMDaines]

So far this year, we've watched:

• The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
• A fost sau n-a fost? (2006)
• You've Got Mail (1998)
• Beyond Tomorrow (1940)
• Last Christmas (2019)
• The Lion in Winter (1968)
• The Godfather (1972)

[jazzo]

Canadian Gen Xers like myself probably have fond memories from 30 to 40 years ago of the 16 mm projector being being wheeled into their classrooms around this time of year, and being queued up with this little 1977 gem from Nelvana:

https://youtu.be/cY4dzBb2UeI

For me, this was right up there with The Dog Who Stopped The War (http://www.canuxploitation.com/review/dog.html), which is also available on a Canadian Blu-ray.

Not my absolute favourites, obviously, but ones that I revisit every single year, and now with my own children!

[filmyfan]

Another one: Christmas, Again (2014) is a sweet indie New York fairytale; a bittersweet redemption story with a perfect last shot that encapsulates the whole thing. Lovely.

Yep this is a lovely film - saw it a couple of years ago - looking forward to a revisit this year

[hearthesilence]

If I want to go on autopilot and just watch a bunch of spectacles while occupied with domestic distractions, Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns and The Nightmare Before Christmas may be something of a tradition,with Christmas factoring into all three. There's a lot I absolutely hate about Batman Returns, but if I need something I can turn down to inaudible levels while the family talks, cooks and/or plays, it's more than fine as something to look at while, say, decorating a tree or making cookies.

[swo17]

But the best part is the score!

[brundlefly]

Happy to see Cosmic Christmas mentioned here. Those stained glass alien wise men who moved via dissolves gave me nightmares the way any good holiday production should.

(And Batman Returns is the best of all the Batman movies, though it isn't even a superhero movie.)

[beamish14]

(And Batman Returns is the best of all the Batman movies, though it isn't even a superhero movie.)

100%. It's possibly the greatest comic book/graphic novel adaptation ever, along with Ghost World. A profoundly sad movie about
how isolating the holidays can be that also doubles as a master class in Jungian archetypes.

[brundlefly]

(And Batman Returns is the best of all the Batman movies, though it isn't even a superhero movie.)

100%. It's possibly the greatest comic book/graphic novel adaptation ever, along with Ghost World. A profoundly sad movie about
how isolating the holidays can be that also doubles as a master class in Jungian archetypes.

I usually defend the hill that it's a classic fairy tale where the hero has to choose whether he's more man or beast, but given the thread I'll sign on to yours.

[hearthesilence]

But the best part is the score!

That is true, during the opening I usually crank up the audio (through my stereo system) for that reason alone.

I've already heard the arguments for Batman Returns, but I don't think what's there lives up to the defense. A lot of the problem lies with the performances (not Michael Keaton but from new cast members like Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito) and the dialogue - they're self-conscious to the point of embarrassment. It feels like I'm watching actors who are fully aware that they're in the biggest, most-hyped production in Hollywood and are just basking in the spotlight with the most irritatingly broad performances. The humor never lands because they think they're being funny when they're not. The film doesn't even work as a "personal" work of art because it's a very superficial exploration of Burton's ideas, and I've never found it to be a moving film because whatever sympathy I'm supposed to feel for the Penguin as an outsider is completely undermined by not only DeVito's performance but his incessant lewdness. Lewdness can be funny, but here it's just annoying. In retrospect, I don't think he ever came off as a genuinely sad and lonely figure, even when he states it out loud. I usually like Tim Burton's '80s and '90s movies, I generally prefer them to any other big-budget mainstream Hollywood film from the same era, but this ain't one of them.

EDIT: I will grant that Batman/Bruce Wayne continues to be a sad figure - that comes across well in Keaton's performance. But he's almost a supporting character in his own film.

[therewillbeblus]

(And Batman Returns is the best of all the Batman movies, though it isn't even a superhero movie.)

100%. It's possibly the greatest comic book/graphic novel adaptation ever, along with Ghost World. A profoundly sad movie about
how isolating the holidays can be that also doubles as a master class in Jungian archetypes.

Well put, I've never ruminated on the Christmas theme of loneliness as the yin to the yang of the holiday's Hallmark image and connective possibilities from nostalgic memory slipping away with age, and that loss only adds a layer to the Jungian identity diffusion so desperate against the grain of an unwelcoming milieu. I even argued this as sci-fi before given its fantastical elements are more a reflection of a hypothesis for exaggerated versions of our own decaying society in post-Reagan urban environments that swallow identity and hope whole at once. I've already seen Batman Returns three times this year, may as well do one more for the holidays. It took a while, but I've come around to believe that this isn't just Burton's best film, but one of the very best films of the 90s.

[wattsup32]

In just world Sim would take spots one and two.

Although I don't agree here, what I love about this version is that so many of the performances, Sim's included, are absolutely unhinged. Even some of the musicians in the orchestra get in on it. It is delightful.

[knives]

I was referring to how he starred in two versions. I actually prefer the Richard Williams version.

[Boosmahn]

Out of all of the "classic" holiday movies I've seen with my family (A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, etc.), my favorite probably has to be Home Alone. I find its spirit to be completely endearing (plus, Somewhere in My Memory will always be the perfect Christmas song). This year, though, I plan to watch Fanny and Alexander for the first time in five years.

I've also compiled a list of "alternative Christmas films" for this year, including The World of Kanako, Wake in Fright, and Dial Code Santa Claus, the last of which I have yet to see.

[reaky]

Mrs Parkington (1944) is a film I had not heard of until yesterday, but the shots of a Christmas tree in HD made me give it a watch. The film opens with the framing story on Christmas Eve, where Mrs Parkington is hosting her family for the festive period. They are depicted as boorish and entitled. Through extended flashbacks, the film charts her rise socially and economically, and her good times and bad with the single love of her life, all the while contrasting that with the family's current arrogant attitude to its immense wealth and her great granddaughter's indecision at being torn between her fiancee and family. Recommended!

Watched this last night - near the end, my other half turned to me balefully and said, “Can I just point out, there’s very little Christmas in this?”

The framing device is a Christmas gathering with an implausibly aged Greer Garson (Dan Duryea among the guests, doing his usual insolent wastrel). The body of the film aims for an epic rags-to-riches biography of a spirited heroine, but refined Walter Pidgeon is no Rhett Butler or Howard Hughes, and Garson’s performance pretty much consists of pursing her lips. Agnes Moorhead treats us to her French accent, and Cecil Kellaway steals the film as Prince Edward.

There’s an odd bolted-on denouement/polemic - this is wartime - calling out entitled parasites and exhorting us to pull our weight and play our parts.

[Jonathan S]

Christmas Under Fire