Tag Christmas Movies

The almost annual Christmas movie review

Michael 2 Comments

Welcome to the almost annual Christmas movie review! This year, the non-Christmas Christmas movies.

Did you know that some group out there surveyed the entire country about their favorite non-Christmas movies that are set during Christmas time. I know it was the whole country because the nice people on the TV news desperately searching for filler material found this report and it included a map of the U.S. noting each state’s favorite. I assume they mean the movie most commonly cited by the survey participants in those states, but “they” said the state’s favorite so let’s go with that.

Surprisingly, none of the favorites included “The Poseidon Adventure” which I think is a dandy Christmas-set non-Christmas movie even though it’s really set on New Year’s Eve. That counts as the Christmas “season,” right? The most often mentioned movie was or is depending on how current this information is (filler, remember), is “Mean Girls.” Only one state named “Die Hard” as their favorite which is where it belongs. Err, in the Christmas-set non-Christmas movie category, not just in one state. Although as a Christmas-set non-Christmas movie it’s really not that good. So there’s a tree it in. Big freaking deal. If the line had been written as “Yippie ki yay fella” it would have disappeared 3 months after its release. Anyway, the second most cited movie was/is lGremlins.” I suppose that’s reasonable.

But that was them. This is me. And naturally, I have my own ideas, just as I did in the most recent almost annual Christmas movie review when we discussed (haha, when I told you), the best Christmas movie ever (i.e. my favorite that year), I will lead you gently to the most Christmassy Christmas-set non-Christmas movie.

It’s quite amazing how many such movies there are. For some reason, the first that comes to mind is “When Harry met Sally,” although, like Poseidon, that leans more to New Year’s. And then that makes me thinks of “Ocean’s Eleven,” the good one (aka the original) which also is set mostly on New Year’s Eve. But with all the planning that went on, you know there was a Christmas tree and presents exchanged upstairs in Mr. Acebos’ living room.

A good choice that is, but there are other Christmas-set non-Christmas movies from the golden years of cinema. Let’s look at some of them.

For those who can’t imagine Edward G. Robinson in a Santa Suit there’s “Larceny, Inc.” from 1942. If you watch it, you will still have to imagine him thusly costumed because he wears a regular suit in it all the way through, but the action does take place during the Christmas shopping season.

Another possibility is 1946’s “Lady in the Lake.” I wrote about it a few years ago and mentioned that even though the opening credits of the movie were presented in a series of Christmas cards, Christmas carols provided the background music, trees and wreaths are prominently displayed, and one scene even opened with a recitation of Dickens “A Christmas Carol” playing on the radio, the Philip Marlowe mystery definitely is not a Christmas movie, merely another Christmas-set non-Christmas movie.

But my favorite Christmas-set non-Christmas movie from those olden, golden years is “The Thin Man,” the Hackett and Goodrich adaption of Dashiell Hammett’s mostly fun murder mystery featuring Nick and Nora Charles. The story begins some unspecified time before the end of the year that I contend was around Thanksgiving, and concludes with them on a train heading home where they disembark on New Year’s Eve, encompassing the entirety of the Christmas season. How much non-Christmassy can you get.

That’s all folks!

Blog Art 2

The holidays bring a sense of generosity and togetherness. We can maintain this spirit throughout the year.  Small acts of kindness create a caring and enthusiastic world.
If you think that’s profound, you should read the rest of Do Unto Others. You know, life is life lived alone

But before you go look, have you still not thought about joining the ROAMcare community and have the weekly Uplift blog delivered to your email as soon as it hits the website? In addition to an Uplift release every Wednesday, you will also receive weekly a Monday Moment of Motivation, and our email exclusive Friday Flashback repost of one of our most loved publications. All free and available now at  ROAMcare.org.

The Bishop’s Christmas Movie

Michael 14 Comments

If you’re keeping track, it’s the first Monday in December which really means nothing most years but this year I remembered so it’s time for my Kind of Yearly When I Remember It Annual Holiday Movie Special Post. It’s not a “best of” list or even “my favorites” list. You see, every year I seem to find a new holiday to be my current favorite. “I say my current favorite because like children there can be no real favorite among Christmas movies. The favorite is the one making you smile today or remember yesterday, the one encouraging a perfect alternative to an imperfect world and providing an escape from the ordinary.” That was true in the 2019 version of this post, was true before I wrote that, and is true today.

There are so many movies to pick from. Christmas movies, real Christmas movies, not the movie mill versions put out by television networks that would have been better off sticking to greeting cards, come in two varieties…this who ask of a great deal of suspension of disbelief such as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and those that seem they could have been plucked from among your own family movies like “Love the Coopers.” This year’s choice falls between. It certainly asks for a great deal of suspension of disbelief but is the perfect alternative to the imperfect world as seen through a rather special home movie.

There is something for everybody in this year’s favorite.  For the lover of classic film Elsa Lanchester shows up now and then. Intellectuals will enjoy seeing Monty Woolley and for the more down to earth there is a scene or two featuring James Gleason. Gladys Cooper is the perfect gift for those who look for high society types in their movies. The lover of all things continental will love seeing David Niven, the lover of poise and grace will love seeing Loretta Young, and lover of people whose very lives beg for a suspension of disbelief will love seeing Archibald Alec Leach. Once told by an interviewer, “Everybody would like to be Cary Grant”, Grant is said to have replied, “So would I.” And so Archibald spent his life becoming Cary Grant.

If you haven’t recognized it from that cast list, the movie is “The Bishop’s Wife,” David Niven is the bishop, Loretta Young the wife, and Cary Grant is an angel is disguise. Actually, not much of a disguise as he tells the bishop at their first meeting that he is an angel sent to help the bishop once the bishop figures out where he needs help.

The story of the making of “The Bishop’s Wife” is as much a story as the movie itself. Originally Niven was cast as the angel and Grant the bishop. There are differing accounts if producer Samuel Goldwyn or director Henry Koster made the switch, but there is no question the role reversal worked to the movie’s benefit. Critic Bodley Crowther wrote, “it comes very close to being the most enchanting picture of the year.” (New York Times, Dec. 10, 1947) It’s also been said Grant did not want to switch roles but did at Goldwyn’s insistence. Considering Archibald turned himself into Cary it was a piece of cake for Cary to turn his bishop demeanor into that of a charmingly charismatic guardian angel.

The movie is Christmas. It is most of what anybody would want to expect from any holiday. It’s charming, delightful, thoughtful, warm, and fells like an old friend. If it doesn’t leave you with a tear starting to form, if not already running down your cheek by the final scene, then you have no soul. Adapted from Robert Nathan’s novel, it was not well received in 1947, audiences feeling it to be too religious. In 2023, I find it perfect to be this year’s favorite holiday movie. Maybe it’s time we get some religion in us. That would be a true escape from the ordinary.

Merry Holidays!

Does stress get a bad rap? Most people find stress distressing especially during this season. Don’t let that stop you from finding a positive way to think about stress and enjoy these days! Read how we stress the better side of stress in ‘Tis the Season,” the most recent edition of Uplift! at ROAMcare.org.

IMG_1009

The sort of annual way too talked about Christmas movie controversy and why I’m right again

Michael 12 Comments

It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving and that can mean only one thing. Well it could mean billions and billions of things but if you’re here (and clearly you are) it means it’s time for this year’s My Favorite Christmas Movie post. If it’s my favorite why do we need to rehash this every year? Because, “I say my current favorite because like children there can be no real favorite among Christmas movies. The favorite is the one making you smile today or remember yesterday, the one encouraging a perfect alternative to an imperfect world and providing an escape from the ordinary.” –Me, 12/5/2019. One more thing. It’s the sort of annual because I missed a year here and there. Maybe more than here and there but I’ve done a lot of them!

This year I started watching Christmas movies early and I’ve already seen close to a dozen of them. And only one of them had “Christmas” in the title. And that got me wondering, how many movies have been released as Christmas movies and included the word Christmas in the title? There are plenty of movies and you often know from the title you are going to be in a holiday themed show, but in the grand scheme of things, precious few come right out and mention the word “Christmas” or even “Holiday” and leave no doubt. (Just so there is no doubt, Twentieth Century Fox and John McTierman could have shimmied out on that limb and title the 1988 disaster of a flick “Die Hard on Christmas Eve” and it still wouldn’t be a Christmas movie.)

“Miracle on 34th Street” could be about any inexplicable event happening in New York City in December but it’s pretty clear we’re talking Santa, and “Elf” could be about cookie bakers living in hollow trees but again Santa clarifies that point. The majority of Christmas movie titles themselves can be addressing almost anything. “Love, Actually” could be a garden variety romcom. “The Polar Express” might be an Agatha Christie mystery gone north. “Home Aline” could be about the plight of inner city latch key kids, “The Apartment” might be a prequel to “Rent,” and “Meet Me in St. Louis” a travelogue. Even my favorite from last year, which is still a favorite in any year, “Remember the Night” might be about the sinking of the Titanic if your memory is just a little faulty.

So I did some research and I tried to dig up all the Christmas movies with Christmas in the title. Naturally I mean theatrical releases, not Hallmark or Lifetime or any other movie mill cable network holiday offerings. It’s not an exhaustive list but a list until I became exhausted by it. (And you won’t find “Black Christmas” and “Christmas Evil” among them because even though they have Christmas in the title, see the Die Hard in Christmas Eve explanation above. And unfortunately you will not find “A Charlie Brown Christmas” among them either because it was released directly to television.)

  • A Christmas Carol (all 20-some versions)
  • A Christmas Story
  • A Christmas Story 2 (really, from 2012)
  • A Christmas to Remember (I didn’t)
  • A Muppet Christmas Carol
  • Christmas in Connecticut
  • Christmas in July
  • Christmas with the Kranks
  • National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
  • The Nightmare Before Christmas
  • White Christmas

Almost all worthy to carry the word Christmas in their titles, there are a couple that stand out for me. “Christmas in Connecticut” stars Barbara Stanwyck and that’s never a bad thing, and “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” made moose head egg nog cups complete with antlers THE gift in the early 1990s. But of them all, my favorite Christmas movie with Christmas in the title has to be “White Christmas.” It has singing, dancing, comedy, romance, a gruff old guy and a gruffer old gal. It’s one of only two movies with Vera-Ellen that I can name off the top of my head (“On the Town” is the other), and it’s just plain fun. How can you not look at the final scene when the wall opens and the first snowfall of the year is blanketing the Vermont countryside and not smile about it.  

What was that I said? “The favorite is the one making you smile today or remember yesterday.” I’d say “White Christmas” does a little of both. 

Merry Christmas Movies everyone!

5DB839A7-E3F0-4C69-8E44-F98C6FE4AF9B

There aren’t any post about Christmas movies but there are lots of articles on refreshing your enthusiasm for life and finding the motivation to push through the day everyday at ROAMcare.org. I’d be honored if you were to visit.

I remember…

Michael 5 Comments

Oh we are so very close. Just a couple days separate us from Christmas which means it’s well past time for a Christmas movie post.

I didn’t talk about Christmas movies last year. We were too busy praying. Actually, one can never be too busy praying but last year I put the prayer out in public. But this year, let’s talk movies again.

I’ve visited this subject four time before, the most recent from 2019 when I revealed my then current favorite Christmas movie. At the time I said, “I say my current favorite because like children there can be no real favorite among Christmas movies. The favorite is the one making you smile today or remember yesterday, the one encouraging a perfect alternative to an imperfect world and providing an escape from the ordinary.” I stand by that thought still. There can be no favorite among the 873 bazillion holiday film offerings, even if only a handful are truly good movies. If they make you feel good, then they are. Except Die Hard. It isn’t, it never was, it never will be, end of discussion, period. (And it’s not a western either even though the main character does say, “Yippee ki yay.”)

When you get down to it, almost any of our favorite “Christmas movies” can be reworked to be set in some other month, some other season, with some other set decorations, and would play just as well. Maybe we set the bar too low for what we expect of holiday film fare. Maybe we really need those classics that wouldn’t work any other time of the year. Ebeneezer Scrooge would not convey the same sense of repentance in August. A Christmas Carol is a Christmas movie.

My current favorite most likely would work any other time of the year. In fact, the basic story is released dozens of times every year, and I’m surprised Hallmark or Lifetime or whoever churns out a new Christmas story every evening between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve hasn’t lifted the very plot for one of theirs. My current favorite wasn’t even in the theaters at Christmas, its general release coming in mid-January although it had a Boston release on New Year’s Day. That’s not at all unusual. There are more Christmas movies released in the summer months than any other time. Many studios feel winter releases won’t generate the type of first weekend or first month income their investors demand. One of the greatest Christmas movies of all time, Miracle on 34th Street, was released in June, the classic White Christmas was released in October, and for the younger crowd, it was barely October when Elf arrived. However, you have to give credit to George Minter Productions who managed to get the definitive Christmas Carol starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge released on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. in 1951. No, release date does not a Christmas movie make.

If you are to go by set decorations and locations, it would be difficult to call my current favorite a very Christmassy Christmas movie. The tree in the Poseidon Adventure gets more screen time and there are few, precious few, presents unwrapped. Most of the action is in a court room and there is one scene where our top credited stars milk a cow. Other than snippets of “Jingle Bells” heard occasionally, there is no Christmas music in a movie featuring a half dozen full songs. Appearances don’t seem to make a Christmas movie either.

So what does make a Christmas movie and why should my current favorite rank so high this year? It has the same unknown last year’s favorite has. Imperfect characters making imperfect plans, and ordinary people doing ordinary things while dealing with ordinary problems. Somehow, among all that mediocrity come glimpses of joy until the end when you find yourself smiling amid the improbability of a happily every after ever happening and the true desire to wish it could.

2021-12-22 (1)My current favorite Christmas movie is the 1940 production of “Remember the Night,” pairing Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck four years before they team up to become the couple you love to hate in “Double Indemnity.” Here they are the non-couple you want so badly to become the couple you love. All the printed synopses are blah. The story they describe isn’t the movie at all. I saw this movie years ago and promptly forgot about it. Maybe it was where I was in my life. Maybe I wasn’t looking for joy. I saw it in the summer and maybe the joy was there but lost in the stifling heat of July. I saw it again a few years ago at Christmas and fell in love with it. This year I can’t get enough of it. To me, it really is “a perfect alternative to an imperfect world.”

As I was doing some research for this post, I discovered it is #69 on Rotten Tomatoes list of top Christmas movies. There are any number of questionable offerings ranked higher, including their number 2, but at least Die Hard isn’t among them and that my friends, is this year’s true Christmas miracle!

2021-12-22 (2)

Watch “Remember the Night” trailer

Yippee Ki Yay…

Michael 7 Comments
We’ve bitten off the better part of the first week of December. That certainly makes it Christmas movie time without complaints that it’s “too early for Christmas!” Personally, I watched my first Christmas movie for this year, this year’s new favorite Christmas movie, on Thanksgiving night and I’ll watch it again at least once a week until Christmas Eve. More about that later. 
.
I haven’t done a rant on what makes a Christmas movie for a few years and it’s probably time to revisit that topic lest some of you try to use the season as an excuse to pull out Die Hard from your old VHS library. Yes, there is a Christmas tree in the ball room or whatever that room was supposed to be. If it was the company’s reception area that was the grandest display of corporate opulence even by movie standards. Anyway, the presence of a Christmas tree is not the defining factor of what makes a Christmas movie, otherwise The Poseidon Adventure, Gremlins, and Eyes Wide Shut would be experiencing revivals at your local Bijou every December. 
.
Along with characters and plot, movies have to have a setting. Even if it’s an indeterminate long ago and far away they take place at some time in some place. Sometimes the some time is around Christmas. The Shop Around the Corner (which grew up to become You’ve Got Mail) and Untamed Heart are two movies that spend a lot of time around Christmas yet neither identifies as a Christmas movie. The production companies, distributors, and audiences recognize them as love stories and if some scenes have a Christmas tree it is just creating a believable setting. 
.
Every once in a while things get more than a little confusing in that regard. In 1947 George Haigt, and Robert Montgomery, and MGM Studios teamed up to present Lady in the Lake, a Steve Fisher adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s 1943 novel of the same name featuring private detective Philip Marlowe. Movies don’t often mimic the books from which they are adapted, in fact you can say they rarely are on the same page. Chandler’s readers were probably confused right from the opening credits of the movie which were presented in a series of Christmas cards with popular Christmas carols providing the background music. Throughout the movie, Christmas trees and wreaths are prominently displayed, holiday greetings are offered and returned, the season is toasted, gifts are exchanged, and one scene opens with a recitation of Dickens “A Christmas Carol” playing on the radio. All from a book whose action takes place entirely in mid-summer in a movie that was released in late January. Christmas movie? Um, no.
.
But fear not Christmas movie lovers, there are scads of films, old standbys and newer releases, that will transform the Scroogiest viewers into holly, jolly revelers without ambiguity – movies that add punch to any nog and present their presents wrapped in bows and delivered with care. Everyone has a favorite and every favorite has an ardent following. Yours may be a classic in black and white or an animated interpretation of a classic tale. It could be a big budget musical or an independent dark horse. It’s your favorite because you identify with a character or are reminded of an event every time you hear the title song. Or perhaps it offers a dream holiday you know you will not experience in your own life. Or, like my current favorite, offers an experience almost exactly like my own life.
.
I say my current favorite because like children there can be no real favorite among Christmas movies. The favorite is the one making you smile today or remember yesterday, the one encouraging a perfect alternative to an imperfect world and providing an escape from the ordinary. My current favorite is full of imperfections. Imperfect characters making imperfect plans, and ordinary people doing ordinary holiday things while dealing with ordinary year long problems. With all that mediocrity come the glimpses of joy and the fleeting feelings of fun that accompany real people living real lives. Before the closing credits roll you are smiling at them and yourself and ready to get back to whatever is next on your to do list only now you do it with that song running through your head. And not annoyingly.
.
My current favorite Christmas movie for this year is Love the Coopers. It’s so unmovielike! It asks you to suspend very little disbelief and quite believably could be about any family, including mine. You want to give them all back but you can’t because you love them so dearly. Love the Coopers, I think it needs a comma but Steven Rogers didn’t and it’s his story so I guess he should know. Maybe it’s more commanding that way. Or maybe it’s supposed to be just a little ambiguous. Just like us.
.
Merry Early Christmas!
.
20191204_161307
.

Don’t Wait for the Movie

Michael 2 Comments

The people at My Recipes put out their Christmas Cookie Christmas Movie pairings this week. The question why do we need to pair things notwithstanding, nor the other question why are these mostly just different shapes of sugar cookies neitherwithstanding, we really need to address, like as in once and for all dammit, is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie? Let me say, I like Die Hard. I even like its four sequels (and there aren’t a lot of people who can say that). But “Die Hard” is no more a Christmas movie even though it takes place on Christmas Eve yet was released in July, any more than “Die Hard 2” is a Christmas movie even though it also takes place on Christmas Eve yet also was released in July. Why doesn’t anybody ever argue to include “Die Hard 2” in the Christmas movie debate? You actually get more of a sense of at least winter in “Die Hard 2” than in “Die Hard” but it just hangs out there with all the other movies set at Christmas time that nobody willy-nilly-y sticks in the Christmas movie category.

For instance, when did you last hear an argument for including “The Poseidon Adventure” among Christmas movies. At least on the boat they made use of the Christmas tree. Technically “The Poseidon Adventure” and its sequel “Beyond the Poseidon Adventure” were set on New Year’s Eve and Day, but still. A Christmas Tree. As a ladder. Really. Now that’s Christmas don’t you think?

“Three Days of the Condor” didn’t have anybody climbing a Christmas tree but Good King Wenceslas and Silver Bells are unmistakable on the soundtrack. Like “Die Hard 2” it is clearly cold and snowy out there and wherever Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway go, Christmas decor is in full swing. The movie is based on the novel “Six Days of the Condor.” Nobody ever explained where those other three days went but I bet you’ll find them in somebody’s stocking hanging by the chimney with care.

The Oscar winning “The Apartment” starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine is so filled with Christmas images there is even a scene with people decorating their Christmas tree. So what if the plot has nothing to do with the holiday. By the “Die Hard” measuring stick, “The Apartment” decks the halls more than many modern “real” Christmas movies. If you haven’t seen this classic give yourself an early Christmas present or late Hanukkah present or whatever present getting holiday you celebrate and put a copy of this movie on your TV screen now! Spoiler alert, nobody is going to mistake Jack Lemmon’s bosses for the Wise Men.

And how can we leave “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” out of the discussion. George Lazemby’s only portrayal of the venerable Bond, James Bond portrayed him in pre-Christmas Switzerland rescuing the world from biological weapons released by 12 unsuspecting women who go home for the holiday from the villain Ernst Stavros Blofeld’s allergy treating institute. And yet nobody considers that a Christmas movie. Tsk, tsk!

GManOn the other side of the ledger, “You’ve Got Mail” and its grandmovie inspiration “The Shop Around the Corner” are probably the most Christmas centric movies that never get credit for being Christmas movies. The story of two people who cannot stand each other’s’ physical beings but are head over heels over the inner selves they anonymously reveal in letters between pen pals (in 1940) and by email (when we get to 1998) culminates on Christmas Eve with each pair expressing their love for the people they really are, not the people they thought they knew. That’s the spirit Christmas.

Proof several times over that just taking place in late December is not enough to propel a movie into the ranks of Christmas fare. Maybe if we culled the chaff we can get some movies that really do capture the spirit of Christmas back in the theaters this time of the year.

For the record, My Recipes paired “Die Hard” with Snickerdoodles. Apparently we’re going to have to begin the discussion what constitutes a Christmas cookie.

 

 

Movie Along – or – There’s Nothing to See Here

Michael Leave a comment

Thanksgiving just isn’t the same holiday as it used to be.  Used to be just sitting around eating with friends and family.  Used to be the day one would rest up for the assault on the Christmas sales the upcoming weekend.  Used to be parades and football.  And it used to be the evening when all the Christmas movies and specials would hit the airways and America would fall asleep in front of “It’s a Wonderful Life” having just experienced part of one.  It’s time for another tradition to bite the dust.

Where did all the Christmas movies go?  It didn’t take a very long look at the TV listings for last Thursday to see an absence of any cinematic welcome to the Yule season. Oh, there were movies.  “Jurassic Park,” “Maverick,” “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” “Eight Men Out,” and “Tora! Tora! Tora!,” all good movies but not a Christmas Tree among them, were featured by the broadcast and basic cable stations.  No “Miracle on 34th Street,” no “Christmas Vacation,” not even a “Fred Claus” was beamed into living rooms on Thanksgiving.  There must have been too many shoppers out looking for Thursday Night Pre-Black Friday Specials for the networks to take a chance on making the Christmas movie season opener special.

Certainly sometime in the next 25 days we will see all of the “Home Alone” offerings, a “White Christmas,” and several versions of a “Christmas Carol.” If one makes an effort to see them one will see them.  Otherwise there will be snippets gleaned while cookies are baked, presents are bought, packages are wrapped, and cards are signed.

Maybe that’s the tradition.  Not so much the movies but the memories of them while the hustle and bustle of the season grabs the biggest part of our attention.  We’re living in a time when time is more valuable than most of what we do with it.  And Christmas is the time when time is at its dearest.  There is more of everything in this last month of the year.  It might be the only time that our houses look different with seasonal decorations.  We spend most of our disposable income right now.  More of us go to more churches and services than any other time of the year.  We plan, attend, and even avoid some of the only parties of the year right now.  We even know we have to bake cookies but we aren’t sure why.

Whether it’s with the memories, the movies, or the cookies, Thanksgiving still starts the Christmas season.  Make of it what you will.  It’s your time.  Even if you choose to spend it watching “The Poseidon Adventure” and swear it really is a Christmas movie.  There’s even a tree in it.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

(To see some of our favorite Christmas movies, go to “And the Winner is…” from December 24, 2011.)

 

Everything Old Is New Again

Michael Leave a comment

It’s that most wonderful time of the year again.  Well, it’s that time of the year again.  That time when every department store has a CD player in the shape of a 1950s jukebox, every home improvement store has next to the high tech LED lights those big C-3 bulbs, and every video department has “Miracle on 34th Street,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “Frosty the Snowman.”  Yes, it’s retro time!

Retro is an interesting concept.  Can’t come up with an original idea?  Retro it!  Can’t come up with a winning idea?  Retro it!  Can’t come up with any idea that won’t get you fired before the holiday breaks?  Retro it!  And quite often it works.

There truly is more right than wrong when it comes to retro.  Consider these.  Look at all of the retro car designs that have hit the road in the past few years.  The underpinnings were new but the looks from the Chevy HHR to the Ford Mustang were based on clear winners from the past.

Check out some of the most recent movies to hit the big screens.  “Walk Among the Tombstones” released a couple of months ago is based on a Lawrence Block novel published in 1992.  The Bond flick “Casino Royale” from 2006 was written in 1967.  The upcoming “Imitation Game” is based on the 1983 publication The Enigma.

Entire television networks have been built around classic television shows from the 50s, 60s, and 70s.    Feel free to consider this as retro-programming.  Sometimes the networks will even run original commercials with the shows.  Now that’s retro!

Fashion, furniture, and architecture are rediscovering styles from a generation or two past.  Classic art is experiencing a resurgence in galleries and at auctions.  Even food is going retro.  The hottest meat in town is buffalo – that would be burgers, not wings.  And they are being sold out of trucks a la Mr. Softee.  Modern is taking some time off so we can appreciate what was.

Obviously there is much more right with retro than there is wrong.  It’s the seasonal stuff that one sees in catalogs and weekly ad flyers that give retro a certain queasiness.  You can’t even make a cheap imported CD player look like a classic jukebox let alone create the feel of a 1950s diner in your family room just because now you can play Lady Gaga in a plastic box with an arched top and blinking lights.  So let’s leave the retro to those who know what they are doing and how to develop it for today’s markets.

Now if you really want to gift your favorite bloggers with a 1950s style jukebox, type “Jukebox for sale” into your favorite search engine. Skip the results that start with “CD” and peruse the remaining offerings.  There’s a corner in the family room ready to go.

Now that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you.

 

And the Winner Is…

Michael 1 Comment

Christmas movies…some of the all-time classic movies are Christmas movies.  “White Christmas,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas.”  Well, there’s clearly something for everyone in the Christmas movie catalog.   What’s your favorite?

Those who know say that the number one Christmas movie of all time may be “A Christmas Story.”  And indeed the movie itself can be a ‘major award’ of holiday classic-ism.  There’s no mistaking it for anything but a holiday favorite.  It’s even in the name.  Ditto for “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” and “White Christmas.”  Yes it takes more than putting “Christmas” in the title to make a movie a yuletide hit but it doesn’t hurt.

There are some dark horses out there that you’d not guess from title or plot would ever become holiday favorites but ask anybody who’s personal collection contains a copy of “We’re No Angels” that it’s often the answer to the trivia question, ‘name a Christmas movie starring Humphrey Bogart.’  It also doubles as the answer to the question, ‘name a comedy starring Humphrey Bogart.’  (Didn’t know there was one, of either, did you?)

Comedies and Christmas are a natural combination.  Why not?  Both make you feel good.  “Home Alone” (one or two, we never were real sure about 3) combines tickles and tinsel and still throws in a couple ‘feels so good you want to cry’ moments.  From “Miracle on 34th Street” to “The Santa Clause” comedies have been proving that there really is a Santa, even going to court when necessary.

Christmas and music is almost a requirement.  We finally get to hear Schroeder play his miniature grand in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and it is grand.  Ok, technically that’s not a movie but it is 25 minutes of sheer holiday joy.   Even movies not about Christmas but set around the Christmas holiday a la “Die Hard” 1 and 2 can’t resist putting a Christmas song somewhere in the mix. 

What about Christmas and the Muppets.  Either one can make any child, and almost any adult squeal delightfully.  Christmas is ahead, there being a little over 2,000 of them but the Muppets are close with over a dozen movies and specials starring Jim Henson’s puppets.  A true classic among them is “Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas,” Henson’s adaptation of Russell Hoban’s twist on there’s a reason that everything happens as it does.   

And don’t forget about families at Christmas.  “Christmas Vacation,” “Christmas with the Kranks,” “Home Alone,” “A Christmas Story,” and about 4,000 others all have family at the center of the story.  But there might be only one that takes a brother’s unique approach to the holiday and that’s “Fred Claus.”   Without Fred, Santa might not be with us today.  Talk about brotherly love!

Just because we mention certain movies please don’t confuse these with any sort of ‘best of’ list.  Although we put some of these movies near the tops of our respective lists, even we can’t agree on the best of the best of the Christmas classics.  And that’s probably the best thing about holiday movies.  Every time you watch one it might become your favorite for those couple of hours.  Isn’t that really the magic of Christmas?  Every year you see that same ornament in a different light and suddenly it becomes a gem you’re so glad you took out again.  Every year you see those same lights across the street but this year there something special in the way it glistens against the wall.  Every year we try to be our best this time of year even though we know we’re no angels but we’re not Scrooge either.

So what’s your favorite?  Feel free to change your mind tomorrow.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?