Ho Ho Ho....it's that time of year again! My, how the time flies. This time last year my wife and I were anxiously awaiting Logan's arrival (Dec 28 was the day, FYI) and enjoying our last few weeks of "freedom" from parenthood. It's been a long, strange trip of a year, filled with the kinds of ups and downs only those who have experencied parenthood firsthand can relate to (sorry, Nephews, neices and cats are all wonderful, but the just don't count!If you think that's the same thing as parenting, you are delusional in the first degree!) but I gotta tell you: I wouldn't have it any other way. As crazed and tired as I've been over this year, that little guy has made me better in every respect. And I am SO looking forward to experiencing Christmas through the eyes of a child again...I'm truly blessed to have that oportunity!
Anyhoo...in the spirit of the holiday...nay the CHRISTMAS season (sorry, but that's what we celebrate here at DIVA CLONES- normally, I revel in my card carrying liberal-ness, but doggoneit I like saying Merry Christmas! Apologies to any ACLU's, Muslems, or Quanza celebrators amonst you...) ...what do you consider the top five Christmas movies of all time? New, old, serious and dramatic, cheesy, funny, cartoon or live action....go nuts! But a warning....anyone who rags ITS A WONDERFUL LIFE or A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS on this blog will get a nice seasonal Ass whuppin from yours truly! HO HO HO!!!!!!
13 points for the seasonal reference! it's one of my favorites... and yes, I know CHARLIE BROWN is not a movie...still and all....
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Ah, yes, those that think cats and babysitting are the same as having your own. Ha! And let me repeat. Ha!
Now Mike and my movie choices (not in any order - and not just five since we're combined on this one)....
1. It's a Wonderful Life - still, and always will, love it
2. Charlie Brown Christmas - I missed it on tv tonight, dammit!
3. Home Alone - sorry, it has it's moments and it still makes me teary at the end
4. Die Hard - Mike's pick, but I agree too, afer all it is set at an office Christmas Party
5. Nightmare Before Christmas - can be a Halloween movie, too, and a little on the dark side
6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - the ORIGINAL one
7. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - okay, who can't love this one? "It's a little nipply outside" and "'Tis the season to be Merry.."
8. Scrooged - love this one, too
9. Muppet Christmas Carol - oh, I love those funny rats
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Top 5, not really in any order.
A Christmas Story--Before Scott Schwartz turned to porn and stopped licking flag poles to start licking......
A Christmas Carol--The one with George C. Scott in it. NOT the Kelsey Grammer one.
Silent Night--An axe wielding murdered in a Santa suit. That spells out holiday cheer for me.
Miracle on 34th Street-- I don't know, it just needed to be listed. The one with Sir Richard. And that cute girl from the flick Matilda. Looking forward to the re-remake with Dakota Fanning!!
Gremlins--I've always asked for a Mogwai ever since I saw this. I finally got my wish with Mogwai's debut album. Not really the same thing, but still......
Top 5, in no particular order....
A Christmas Story--Before Scott Schwartz turned to porn and stopped licking flagpoles to start licking..............
Silent Night, Deadly Night--Nothing spells Holiday Cheer like an axe wielding murderer.
Gremlins--I've asked for a Mogwai for Christmas ever since. I finally got my wish with Mogwai's debut album. Not really the same, but still...........
A Christmas Carol--The one with George C. Scott.
A Muppets Christmas Carol--The one with Kermit and Michael Caine.
Wait!!! It said that I lost my connection so I had to post again! But I see it was still there! WHAT A GREAT EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT!! And I took off Miracle when I remembered The Muppets Christmas Carol. Yeah, screw that movie.
Computers are so retarded.
I'd have to go with these:
5- The Homecoming- the pilot film for the Waltons, with most of the same cast (except for the parents and grandparents- and BOY if this film has a flaw it's that Will Geer and Ralph Waite are nowhere to be seen) Very sweet and well written film.
4- Scrooged- I LOVE this film. It gets better with age,imho. And how great is David Johannsen as X-mas present?
3-Family Man- Nic Cage and Tea' Leone. Yeah it's a little cheesy and it's basically just a remake of my #1, but it's still a great holiday flick.
2- A Christmas Story- Darren MacGaven gives the performance of his life!!! ("Fa rah rah rah rah..."
1) you guessed it...IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE- Dark, brooding and uncharacteristicly so for the time. Stweart gives as good of a performance as have ever been put to film, Donna Reed is radiant, and has there ever been a worse bad guy than Barrymore's Old man Potter? I used to watch this when it only came on once a year on PBS- commercial free,no less! And Steve is right, thank the gods they don;t show it as much as they used to.
Holiday specials:
-Rudolph- Dammit Dramamama, hermie is NOT gay...he's just sensitive!
- Rugrats Chanukah special- gotta love the 'rats...their Thanksgiving show is aces, too.
- The Grinch- DAMN YOU Ron Howard for almost ruining this one for me...
- The Bing Crosby Holiday special- from 77, I believe. it's the one where Bowie and he duet on little drummer boy. Who would have thought THAT pair would produce such a classic?
- CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS- The show that almost wasn't ! Like WONDERFUL LIFE, it was very dark, and the network fought tooth and nail to keep it off the air. It also used REAL children for the woices, and was blatantly Christian and anti- commercial...yet somehow, it has become the standard for all holiday specials. AND, it's funny as hell!!! (watch the kids sance to Linus and Lucy's theme if you don't believe me...)
..ok DANCE, not SANCE.....my bad, man!
Oh! I forgot White Christmas! I love that one, although Danny Kay is a little too much at times.
And, I love The Family Man also! It's better to watch if you have kids, huh?
Rick...LOVE ACTUALLY is a fantastic film! Total agreement there...I never thought a film that is seemingly as fractured into that many pieces could work, but it does like a charm!...that almost makes up for the fact that you have never seen WONDERFUL LIFE...(commie!)
And I've never seen that Rich Little thing but MY GOD it sounds hilarious!
And regarding Santa being a fascist in RUDOLPH...ever notice he's kind of a dick in ALL those specials? THE YEAR W/OUT A SANTA CLAUS he just decides to CANCEL CHRISTMAS caused he's depressed! He's a bully in Frosty...I don't think Rankin or Bass liked ole Saint Nick that much! (I TOO love yukon..."This is MY land...GOLD AND SILVER- SILVER AND GOLD!!! WAAAA-HOOO!!!!!")
* And FYI- let us remind the veiwers that I not only remember the STAR WARS X-MAS special, BUT I also had the 45 of he song that JEFFERSON STARSHIP played on the show!!!!! (called LIGHT THE SKY ON FIRE fyi)...GEEK CHECK!!!!
Damn, am I FINALLY gonna stump ya'll with the song reference?????
Some of you folk need to broaden your palette and find some touchstones outside your own generation.
Best Christmas Movie EVER. PERIOD! NO DISCUSSION!:
(Drum roll,please!)
1) A CHRISTMAS CAROL - the 1951 British version ( yeah, be daring...give black and white a chance) starring the brilliant Alistair Sim the definitive Scrooge. (Also Patrick McNee as a young Marley). It is a crime that this is on no one else's list!
The rest in no particular order:
2) IT'S A WONERFUL LIFE...it's gotten over-exposed, so every few years I give it a moratorium. But it's still great.
3)MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET..the original one with John Payne and Maureen O' Hara, Edmund Gwen ( his last words..."Dying's easy; comedy's hard.") and Natalie Wood.
4)HOLIDAY INN...yeah, it includes more than just Christmas, but it introduced WHITE CHRISTMAS, for Christ's sake (and isn't that for whose sake we're celebrating, after all?)
5)WHITE CHRISTMAS...a little cheesier than the one above it's modelled on and it has two of the worst Irving Berlin songs ever in it...We'll Follow The Old Man and What Do You Do With A General?, but still fun and full of good seasonal cheer.
6) LOVE ACTUALLY...excellent choice, Rick!
7) A HOLIDAY AFFAIR...Robert Mitchum and Janet Leigh in a lovely little, unpretentious seasonal love story.
8) REMEMBER THE NIGHT...Lawyer Fred McMurray is left in charge of a Shoplifter he's prosecuting when the court breaks for Christmas. He takes her back to Indiana where he celebrates a rural Christmas with his mother. Another lovely little unpretentious seasonal love story.
9) A CHRISTMAS STORY...another one getting over-exposed every Christmas, but still funny, still good.
10)THREE GODFATHERS...3 bank robbers fleeing a heist escape in the desert where they come across a stranded covered wagon. Man dead, woman pregnant. They deliver the baby and she also dies. They've got to journey across the desert to save the baby, heading for a town called Jerusalem on Christmas Eve. Off-beat John Ford western, starring John Wayne.
AN EXTRA...I'm not sure of the title. I think it's IT HAPPENED ON FIFTH AVENUE. A bunch of dispossessed people creep into a Fifth Avenue mansion when the onwers leave for the holidays to winter in Florida and live there in high style.
WORST CHRISTMAS MOVIE
SCROOGED...Bill Murray did not get alongh with Dick Donner apparently (I don't blame him, neither did I) and it shows in almost every frame of this overblown, laboured, loud, unfunny movie.
BEST TV
MR. MAGOO'S CHRISTMAS CAROL...Magoo as Scrooge. Delightful and curiously touching.
THE GRINCH WHO STOLE CHRISTMAS...A half hour cartoon perfect. That's all the time it needs. The characters and the story are true Dr. Seuss. It doesn't need embellishment into an inflated two-hour movie.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL with George C. Scott. A very nice, perfectly respectable version.
A CHRISTMAS CURIOSITY
A (I think) live TV musical production of a Christmas Carol starring Fredrich March as Scrooge...with the original commercials still in it.
If I may mention a couple of my favorites that have not been mentioned...
CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT Barbara Stanwyck is stunning to watch decorate the tree.
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS No, it's not completely about Christmas, but any movie that introduces "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" has got to be considered.
MY THREE ANGELS (the original) Christmas is the moving force behind this film that always moves me.
Roger Leasor.
Tim knows i will watch ANY Christmas special on tv...it doesnt matter what washed up tv actor is starring and how sappy...i just love to see them all. The most recent cliched and dreadful was the one with Tate Donovan and Anne Heche...oh it was an insult to the holidays BUT it was brought to us by the Hallmark Hall of Fame Series...so it included at every commercial break those tear jerking, lump in your throat Hallmark card commercials that had me crying every time.
I like the usual movies ...Its a Wonderful Life, Chirstmas Vacation, any Rankin Bass cartoon, the Grinch, The Bells of St Mary, Charlie Brown, etc.
I saw A Christmas Story at the theatres when i was in ninth grade and remember just hating it. It wasnt until years later that i re-watched it and saw the humour.
How about some of those old Tv Specials like the Judy Garland Xmas where she is sloshed and introduces Liza with her handsome "boyfriend".....man that one is a hoot.
I'm not into Christmas movies that much. I miss the Bob Hope specials though.
I also like that stop-motion or whatever-ya-call it show like Rudolph where it shows the guy in charge of the ice world and then the one in charge of the fire world. Someone please tell me the name of that.
And for some reason, I've always considered Coppola's "The Godfather" a Christmas movie.
Hold it. Hold it. Just let me explain...
I first saw "The Godfather" during the Christmas season many, many moons ago. I fell IN LOVE with it then and it is my all-time favorite film today. The movie has events that take place during the Christmas season, and when I think of Christmas I always think of Michael walking with Kay down the sidewalk in the snow asking her what she wanted for Christmas.
Then, later, while Michael tells Kay that he would possibly love her more if she were Ingrid Bergman he reads in a paper that his dad was gunned down while thumping cantelopes at the market. Then he calls Sonny and Sonny tells him that Pops was hit bad and that he needs to come home to be with their Mom. Then, at Sonny's house, there is a loud crashing noise and the newborn twins start crying. Sonny grabs his gun and yells "Who is it?" A voice off-screen says "Open up! It's Clemenza." Sonny opens the door and lets Clemenza in. Clemenza tells Sonny that the word on the street is that Vito is dead. Then Sonny almost beats the shit out of Clemenza as Clemenza tells him to take it easy.
After calming down a bit, Sonny asks him where Paulie (Vito's usual bodygaurd)is. Clemenza says that Paulie was out sick. Sonny asks him how many times he's been out sick and Clemenza claims it has been about 3 or 4 times. Sonny is non-plussed at this and tells Clemenza to go get Paulie and bring him there. Exit Clemenza. Sonny turns to his wife and tells her there's gonna be a couple of "people" coming over.
Then the phone rings. When Sonny answers the phone, Sollozzo (a neo-gangster of the drug-dealing type)
asks if this is Sonny Corleone. Sonny replies that it is.
"We have Tom Hagen. Bla, bla, bla.
Do everything he says before you do anything."
Sonny says he'll wait and hangs up the phone.
Sollozzo turns to Tom Hagen who is sitting in a chair wishing he was Daniel Webster instead and says "Your boss is dead. I know you're not in the muscle-end of the family, Tom, so I don't want
you to be scared. I want you to help the Corleone's, and I want you to help me. Bla, bla, bla.
Then Tom says it doesn't matter because nobody is gonna call off Luca Brasi. Sollozzo says "Yeah, well, let me worry about Luca."
(At this point in time Luca Brasi is already sleeping with the fishes.)
Then Sollozzo lets Hagen go.
A car pulls up and honks it's horn and Sollozzo goes over to it to get the news that Vito is STILL ALIVE!
Michael gets home and Clemenza tells Mikey that Vito is gonna pull through. Everyone gathers in the living room and starts discussing what they are gonna do about the assassination attempt on Vito.
Then Paulie comes in wheezing and sniffling and Clemenz tells him that he thought he told him to stay put. Paulie replies by saying someone brought a package out front. Sonny tells Tessio to go see what it is. Then he asks Paulie if he is alright and tells him to go get something to eat or drink some brandy to help him sweat out his cold. Paulie leaves and Tessio comes back with a package and puts it in Sonny's lap. Sonny unwraps it and finds a dead fish. He says "What the hell is this?"
And Clemenza says "It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes."
Time passes and Clemenza leaves his house with Paulie driving. Rocco is in the back. He tells Paulie not to hit the kids while backin' out of the driveway. On the journey to get "the mattresses", they stop and get cannoli (plural). We don't actually see this part, but we know it is connoli because after that they go driving in the country and Clemenza tells Paulie to stop because he has to take a leak and while Clemenza is leaking, Rocco shoots Paulie in the back of the head and while they begin to walk away from the scene Clemenza says "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."
Then it cuts to the Corleone house where Clemenza is stirring a pot of Italian food and the phone rings. Clemenza answers it and calls for Mikey to come to the phone. Mikey asks who it is and Clemenza says "Some girl."
Of course it is Kay calling to check up on Michael because she is paranoid and wears weird fuckin' clothes.
Michael finally hangs up with her as Kay tries to get Mikey to tell her he loves her. He mumbles that he does and hangs up.
Then Clemenza says "Hey, Mikey, why don't you tell that nice girl you love her? Then, in an exaggerated Italian accent Clemenza sing-songily says "I love you with all-a my heart! If I don't see you again soon, I'm a-gonna die!" and then laughs.
He tells Mikey to come watch him cook and that one day he may have to cook for twenty guys some day. As he tells Michael how to cook something or other, Sonny comes in and tells Clemenza to cut the crap and that he has more important things for him to do.
But I digress.
Christmas Vacation IS funny.
Oh yea. We do know Clemenza is going to get cannoli before the assassination because as he is walking to the car his wife tells him not to forget the cannoli.
Sorry. I'm not good with details.
Roger, I was going to mention Christmas in Connecticut, but I thought ten was a nice round number (and then, of course, I threw in an extra anyway). Babs Stanwyck plays the shoplifter in Remember the Night. The late, great Beulah Bondi (one of my favourite actresses) plays Fred McMurray's mom in it. She, of course, also played Stewart's mom in It's A Wonderful Life. If you haven't seen Remember the Night, I've got the tape. We'll watch it this Christmas.
i would like to add "Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas".
by the way, which reference did you mean, the kinks or elp?
You tell me Mr anonymous....if that IS your name!!!!
how about elp and the kinks. i believe the title of both is father christmas.
I'll give u 1/2 creit...the line is from Greg Lake's (though ELP does a version ) of "I belirve in Father Christmas..."
Kinks verion is just called Father Christmas...
Tim, could I interest you in a new spell checker for xmas? by the by, check local pbs listings- tuesday night they are showing, in n-vegas at least- Springsteen live at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975.
LOL! No shit...I have an excuse this time...I had an 11 month old in my lap and was typing one handed!!! That shit is like an extreme sport!
Thankx for the BOSS info- ps...email me about the Monday night after xmas-
Heh... The last time I used the "one-handed typing" excuse was in 1999, before I got broadband and video became more fulfilling than chatroom encounters... heeyyyy!...hooooo!
tim, how bout a new topic?
You're a sick, sick man...
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