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Dec 2, 2007

Holiday List Season

With the Holiday Season at full throttle, I thought I'd take a few posts here and make a list of a few of my favorite things. (Hark, is that Julie Andrews I hear?) All lists will be ranked in order of preference from 10 to 1. Please feel free to weigh in and let me know about your favorites.

I'm kicking my list of lists off with my favorite holiday movies.

Top Ten Holiday Movies

• Christmas in Connecticut - I'm a huge fan of Barbara Stanwyck. Most famous for her sultry turns as a big screen femme fatale, she could also do comedy, and this movie might just be her best work. She stars as journalist Elizabeth Lane, a sort of mid-century Martha Stewart. She writes a column about her perfectionist homemaking exploits on her Connecticut farm. Complications start when her publisher tries to boost circulation by getting her to entertain a recently returned war veteran at her farm for the holidays. Problem is she's a city girl living in Manhattan and can't cook. It's a good old fashioned screwball comedy and it makes a great way to start my list.


• The Polar Express - Robert Zemeckis brought the classic Chris Van Allsburg story to life with Tom Hanks playing several characters, including a seemingly Valium-laced Santa. Despite some of the failings of the movie, the sleigh bell payoff makes the whole film, as well as the book, worth every minute.


• Scrooged - What can I say, I'm a big fan of Bill Murray. And even though he seems to be phoning it in through parts of the movie, I've really come to appreciate this modern retelling of A Christmas Carol. The replacement of Scrooge's counting house with a television network makes for a great shift to more modern sensibilities. There are also some fun bit parts for Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum, and Mary Lou Retton. It also take a good stab at the commercialization of Christmas, especially the effects caused by TV.
  


• The Nightmare Before Christmas - Pumpkin King Jack Skellington is bored and decides that he can do a better job of running Christmas than "Sandy Claws." This stop-motion masterpiece is full of weird and twisted fun and images. Its offbeat characters are a perfect fit within the Tim Burton universe.


• The Santa Clause - I know after sitting through Clauses II and III you're about sick of looking at Tim Allen in a fat suit. Me too! But you can't go wrong with the original. It's a good concept - the man who accidentally brings Santa to an untimely demise must take over the red suit and sleigh - and is expertly acted by Allen. His cranky toy executive Scott Calvin is an unlikely fill in for Santa, but it's a Disney film so, hey, everything works out in the end.


• White Christmas - Sure it's sappy and sells a version of 1950s American that never really existed, but I'm still buying. Bing Crosby is as smooth as silk and Danny Kaye is his usual kinetic self in this film about two army buddies and successful song and dance men trying to put on a holiday show for their old general who has fallen on some hard times. Others may like the similarly themed Holiday Inn, both starring Bing and the music of Irving Berlin's White Christmas, but I love the Technicolor glory of this film better, despite the absence of Fred Astaire.


• It's a Wonderful Life -You either love this film or you hate it. I love it. I love the schmaltz and the schmarm and the overly sentimental treatment of Bedford Falls. The key is Jimmy Stewart's turn as everyman George Bailey. I don't believe this little bit of melodrama would've been remembered if it weren't for Stewart's gentle and heartbreakingly human portrayal of George. This role alone would've been enough to turn Jimmy into a movie icon. Again the studio was busy selling a slice of American life wholly fabricated on the back lots of Hollywood, but we didn't care then and we don't care now. This movie is holiday magic.


• Miracle on 34th Street - Edmund Gwenn is a perfect Kris Kringle in this tail of a Macy's Santa who may just be the real deal. Normally I cringe at any review that claims a story to be heart warming, but that really is the perfect testimonial for this gem from 1947.


• Scrooge - It's been my experience that most people don't know about this musical rendition of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. If you don't, then by all means do. Albert Finney plays one the best Scrooge's ever, while the movie is filled with infectious songs written by the legendary Leslie Bricusse. One thing that every adaption of A Christmas Carol has lacked is the understanding that this is a ghost story not just a Christmas story. This movie doesn't forget that fact. As a kid, I was scared out of my young pants watching the sequences with Jacob Marley. This movie truly does Dickens justice.


• A Christmas Story - Ralphie. Randy. Scott Farkus. The Bumpus Hounds. The Red Rider Range Model Rifle. And "Oh, fudge!" Yes, I've watched this movie as many times as you have - maybe more, but it never gets old. We recently took the kids to a screening at a local theatre. It was the first time I had seen it on the big screen, and it was like watching it for the first time all over again. While set in a fictional Indiana town in the 1940s, I could relate to my own Pittsburgh Christmases as a kid in the 1970s and 80s. Apparently my own kids can relate too; they loved it.
  
  "Deck the harrs with boughs of horry. Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra."
  

Stay tuned for my next list: Top Ten Holiday TV Specials.

1 Comments | Link to this post   posted by Teddy 1:37 PM

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