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Post by GProopdog on Dec 7, 2009 11:50:17 GMT -5
I've mentioned this before but....going into Peter Griffith mode for a moment
A Christmas Story....did not like that movie.
In all seriousness, it really is a very overrated movie IMO. I tried to give it a chance and watched it one night.
....I laughed exactly *one* time, that being the "fa ra ra ra ra" scene.
For the rest of the movie, I just watched it and thought to myself "What *is* the big deal about this movie?"
And TBS' 24 hour marathon of this movie? .....No. No TBS. Bad, bad, baaaaaad TBS.
I'll stick with Scrooged, Charlie Brown X-Mas, Mickey's X-Mas Carol, the Black Adder X-Mas Special, and It's a Wonderful Life over A Christmas Story anyday.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 8, 2009 0:04:46 GMT -5
I've mentioned this before but....going into Peter Griffith mode for a moment A Christmas Story....did not like that movie. In all seriousness, it really is a very overrated movie IMO. I tried to give it a chance and watched it one night. ....I laughed exactly *one* time, that being the "fa ra ra ra ra" scene. For the rest of the movie, I just watched it and thought to myself "What *is* the big deal about this movie?" And TBS' 24 hour marathon of this movie? .....No. No TBS. Bad, bad, baaaaaad TBS. I'll stick with Scrooged, Charlie Brown X-Mas, Mickey's X-Mas Carol, the Black Adder X-Mas Special, and It's a Wonderful Life over A Christmas Story anyday. I think that one's on a "mood" indicator. What I mean is that people don't really sit and watch _A Christmas Story_ any more for the laughs. Instead, they either like the mood of nostalgia/sarcasm it puts forward (a somewhat rare combination in holiday movies), or they don't. Personally, I like it because I think that Darren McGavin's a genius, and that he was born to play that role. But with a simple laughs-per-minute criteria, I don't think it's a great comedy. Fun, but not great.
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Post by doctorz on Dec 11, 2009 10:40:06 GMT -5
Best - Scrooge (The 1951 English version, not the sappy 1970's musical.) I watch this faithfully every Christmas eve. This version is closest to the Dickens's story in feel and substance. It is actually a great ghost story and scared the crap out of me as a kid. I've seen the colorized version, but I prefer the original black and white. Like most cinema buffs I believe if a picture was filmed in black and white then the choices for sets and clothes were deliberately chosen to enhance the experience of seeing it in black and white. Adding of color just muddles the whole thing. Anyway, if you haven't seen this version seek it out and rent it. It is superb. If you want a laugh rent the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol. Everybody in it acts like they are on crack!
A Christmas Story - I've actually watched this too many times and I really can't bear want to watch it anymore, but I grew up in a household much like that one. The 1950's were still pretty close to the 1940's in feel and substance so I recognize a lot of the attitudes and backdrop to the holiday portrayed in the movie. I had one other brother and I was the oldest so I can identify with Ralphie. I have always loved Gene Shepard's work and so that is another plus. The movie rings very true and authentic with my childhood and is probably very popular with the public because it rings true with their experience as well. It was a modest success when it came out, but like Road House, didn't become the phenomenon it has become until Turner started noticing the high ratings it gendered every year and started playing it back-to-back all Christmas Day. Some movies just need to be nurtured to become hits.
Worst - A Wonderful Life - It just seems so unauthentic and false to me. I can't identify with anything in the picture. That was not the kind of family I grew up in. Nobody in my acquaintance ever acted like a single character in the movie. And sending a tottering old idiot like Uncle Billy out with the cash to pay off the debt instead of going yourself seemed to me monumentally stupid even at the age of eight when I first saw it. An immense fabrication from beginning to end. I do, however, agree with the sentiment at the end. "No man is a failure who has friends." Very true.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 11, 2009 10:49:49 GMT -5
"No man is a failure who has friends." Very true. Oh, I don't know...I can think of a few friends of mine...
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Post by doctorz on Dec 11, 2009 11:51:08 GMT -5
Elves sounds awesome. Must see. I'm a sap at Christmas, I'll admit, and I always like a little White Christmas. I think Bing Crosby is a misunderstood genius whose "crooning" actually did for American singing what Kandinsky did for abstract art...but that's not a majority opinion. I also like that White Christmas is pure, unadulterated schmaltz that has absolutely no pretensions to reflecting reality. It's so fake that it doesn't even pull on your heart-strings. It's just pure musical fantasy. But if you want to think of an edgier version, remember that Bing was probably stoned during filming. Vera Allen was deep in the midst of her anorexia when the movie was made, and it shows when she's in her dance costumes. And the story is also bookended by war, the actual war at the beginning and the memory of survivors at the end, which actually haunts the carelessness of the rest of the movie. The song "Snow," which, in the movie, is just a little holiday ditty was written by Berlin as a war song, originally called "Free," and it was about having to believe you're fighting for freedom even while your friends are dying. Plus, if you're in a cynical mood, the story is really less about good Christmas feeling and more about all the ways that people manipulate and misunderstand one another: Danny Kaye manipulates Bing into creating a career for him, one sister manipulates the other into marriage, even the final big Christmas gift is one big exercise in deception and manipulation, making an old man feel like his life has meaning even though he realizes, in the end, that it's all over. In other words, a cool movie that has a few different sides, plus some catchy old music. Wow, I watched this last night. I'm going to have to watch it again with all those dark thoughts in my head. I always thought there was something dark and forbidding lurking in the background of this light little holiday confection. It's like drunken Mrs. Hankey saying, "Dammit it's Christmas and we're going to be a happy family around the tree!" I wonder if someone should try an I-Riff of it? I thought Vera Allen was unwholesomely thin. I was wondering where somebody that skinny got the energy to do all that physical dancing. Then again it was the early 1950's and amphetamines were readily available. Yes, Bing looks pretty drunk in some of the shots. I hope Rosemary Clooney liked the taste of booze.. Sorry that was mean. I agree with your assessment of the General's life. Even though this movie is a pure fantasy I never believed, even when I first saw it and especially now that I'm married that Bing Crosby asking that everybody in that guys division to abandon their holiday plans to attend a surprise party in Vermont on Christmas Eve was ever going to happen. I guess they could have counted on the 6 or 7 unmarried losers in the division showing up, but nobody else if they valued their lives! I guess I like my fantasy plausible not WTF-were-they-thinking implausible. This movie is really a dark journey of the soul isn't it? Wow, I gotta watch this again tonight and take notes!
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 11, 2009 12:06:22 GMT -5
Heh, yeah, this became one of my favorite holiday movies when I started to see it in a different light.
And I think Bing was actually STONED, not just drunk. The man had a reputation for enjoying a bit of the green stuff, and was even tagged for legalization help at one point, although he didn't do much in that direction. I really like Crosby, and I've read a couple biographies. In each one, his pot love comes across. Apparently Louis Armstrong introduced it to him, Bing avoided alcohol as a rule and told his son to get high instead, and some people even wonder if grass is partly to do with his slow and easy style.
But that isn't really "dark." The rest of the movie has plenty of dark ways of interpreting what's going on. Think about how many of the musical numbers, especially in the show they're going to put on, are about how things used to be better than they are now. "White Christmas" itself is about DREAMING of one, not having one. "Gee, I Wish I was Back in the Army" idealizes what was, in reality, awful...but apparently it's better than what they're experiencing in their regular lives. "Choreography" and the Vaudeville song are about how entertainment sucks now but used to be better. "Better When You're Dancing" is about how regular life sucks and only dancing makes it exciting. "Love, You Ain't Done Right By Me" is the only actual love song, and it's about getting your heart broken. It's a theme that runs through the entire movie. I love it.
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Post by Ratso on Dec 11, 2009 12:46:30 GMT -5
Elves (1989) Dan (Grizzly Adams) Haggerty vs. an elf that has been genetically engineered by the Nazis to mate with a virgin on Christmas whose spawn will be the Antichrist. Greatest. Christmas. Movie. Ever. www.imdb.com/title/tt0099496/This movie has win written all over it.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 11, 2009 16:30:31 GMT -5
Best is the shot of the two little girls just listening that all of that.
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Post by The Mad Plumber on Dec 11, 2009 18:20:02 GMT -5
My opinion of Elf is that it works out very funny for the first two acts, but that it falls apart in the third act. As for Will Ferrell, I'm not really a fan, but I will note that, in retrospect, he was probably the best SNL player from that era in the late 1990s; Molly Shannon's probably second behind him. His success is uncanny: either he holds out for scripts that he feels he can make successful, or else he's figured out the secret of turning s**t into gold. By the way, Bob Newhart was much funnier in his small part than Will Ferrell was in the whole movie.
Scrooged is also a favorite of mine from my childhood. Films like Scrooged and A Christmas Story were more than Christmas films; my sister and I would watch them anytime of the year. "If I know your father, he's out chasing Beaver."
My mother has a particular affection for Heidi. I suppose it's okay. I'm a little dissuaded by films that came from an era where actors wore blackface.
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Post by mrcleveland on Dec 23, 2009 16:31:16 GMT -5
Other good ones-
"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" This not only stars Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid, but also Doris Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld), Mae Questel (Betty Boop), Sam McMurray (Tracy Ullman), and Brian Doyle-Murray.
"Holiday Inn" Though some segments aren't Christmas, the biggest scenes are in Christmas and New Years. You can watch this film all year round, even on Lincoln's Birthday!
"White Christmas" With Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.
Not Recommended...
"Miracle on 34th Street" Not the original, but the 1994 version.
"Home Alone 3 and 4" Watch the first two...they're much better!
"It Happened One Christmas" The dreaded "It's a Wonderful Life" remake/sequel with Marlo Thomas and Wayne Rogers replacing Donna Reed (MST3K Quote)!
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Post by The Mad Plumber on Dec 14, 2010 8:00:51 GMT -5
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Post by Shep on Dec 18, 2010 1:58:41 GMT -5
"It's A Wonderful Life" is amazing. Part drama, part comedy, part Twilight Zone episode. Stewart's performance blows my mind everytime.
I also love "A Christmas Story," "Bad Santa" and even"Black Christmas" lol.
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Post by Don Quixote on Dec 18, 2010 6:07:05 GMT -5
I'm among those who do not like A Christmas Story. It's not a horribly-made movie or anything, I just don't care for it that much. Maybe because my family was never like that, and I didn't grow up in that era, I don't know. I won't begrudge a family member who wants to watch it on Christmas, but if you leave TBS on, I'm afraid I'll have to say something. I can definitely see where it's supposed to be "fun", but I just never had any while watching it. Go figure. Scrooged and National Lampoon's Vacation are probably my two favorite Christmas films. I still include a clip from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in my Christmas Albums to the family every year. It's the bit where Randy Quaid is filling the storm drain with his chemical toilet. I'll let you figure out what it says (hey, I NEVER said I was classy). The original Miracle on 34th Street is pretty good too. I'm probably unique here in never having seen It's a Wonderful Life. I've always wanted to, but the only time I ever even see it for sale is during the Christmas season, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay fifteen bucks for a sixty-year-old movie that's probably five bucks the rest of the year (ditto for Scrooged, minus about forty years). Elves (1989) Dan (Grizzly Adams) Haggerty vs. an elf that has been genetically engineered by the Nazis to mate with a virgin on Christmas whose spawn will be the Antichrist. Greatest. Christmas. Movie. Ever. www.imdb.com/title/tt0099496/This movie has win written all over it. From the very first line of dialog, you can tell this movie's gonna be a winner.
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Post by Skyroniter on Dec 18, 2010 10:58:27 GMT -5
Why did I never read this thread before? I'm after Elves for sure.
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