15 Christmas Greats - #3 through #1

#3 - Love Actually (2003)

     Now, I know there's been a lot of pushback against this film the last year or two, especially in the possibility of calling it a Christmas film.  Some people think the film is over-rated and evil incarnate, because it's superficial in what love is and that it's not realistic.  All I can say to these moaners is to drink Drain-O.  (I'm looking specifically at Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress and Chris Orr at The Atlantic.  Two of the worst social commentators in magazine history.)  The movie is very funny, it has a stellar cast, and it's miles better than most romatic comedies out there.  In fact, a lot of us consider it the ultimate romantic comedy.   The movie takes place in the five weeks leading up to Christmas following a whole bunch of people who are effected by love, or the lack thereof in the Christmas season.  Hugh Grant is a single prime minister, Alan Rickman is an office manager...  his wife in the film, Emma Thompson, is a stay-at-home mom who doesn't always feel her husband's love, Bill Nighy is an aging has-been rock star looking for a holiday single comeback, Liam Neeson is a widower taking care of his lovesick stepson, and many more recognizable faces.  

     I can see why some would dislike the film.  It's slick and polished, it doesn't really have much to do with Christmas as a holiday more than setting it at that time of year, it's version of love can be seen as superficial or even sad (as those two commenters I mentioned earlier proclaim), and it's definitely an R rated comedy.  Still, I love the film.  I watch it every holiday season, usually on Christmas Eve (watching it right when I finish this blog actually), and I still find the film amazingly funny and warm.  Heck, it's one of the movies I quote the most, and those that know me well know that I quote movies whenever I can in conversation.  I think a major problem that Americans have with the film is that the humor is British.  That is to say that there's a lot of jokes about growing old or gay people or other depricating jokes, whereas American humor is mostly sex, bodily function or slapstick based.  The English love plays on words and making fun of people whereas here the PC police have taken over.  This is why I find many American comedies so stupid and unfunny.  

     As for the film being unrealistic, I agree in part.  No goofy-looking English guy is going to come to America to Wisconsin, go to a bar and discover three fantastically hot women who all want to share a bed naked with him.  (Not unless he's offering them millions of dollars.)   The Prime Minister of Britain is not going to accidentally end up deeply kissing his personal assistant in front of an auditorium full of parents of schoolkids at a Christmas pageant.  However, I love that the film ends with not everyone falling in love.  There's one in particular that's been cheated on and is clearly no longer in love with her husband.  The rock star doesn't even enter a relationship in the film.  In that way it's more truthful.  Not everyone is going to be okay.   I'm sure most of you reading this have seen this film already as it's so popular; popular enough to have become a Christmas classic to many, actually.  And this goes for me as well.  Here's a great scene from the film concerning the aging rock star, Bill Nighy.

#2 - Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

      Here's another REAL Christmas classic.   About everyone agrees on this one, and I won't dispute it.  This movie is about the real Santa Claus taking over for a drunken fake Santa at the Macy's Day Parade, and afterwards he gets a job at Macy's as the department store Santa.  While there, those that hired him become suspicious that he may be a mental case after he suggests that he really IS Santa, especially after a vindictive psychiatrist that works for Macy's implores that Santa be committed.  Thus begins a court trial to decide whether the man is Santa or not or if there even really is a Santa.  

    Sure, the movie sounds corny and has a really odd plot, but there are very few Christmas films that don't.  Just look at the 13 films I mentioned before this one!  Despite it's oddness, it's a heartwarming, funny, and delightful film.  I just saw this movie again for the first time in about 15 years the other day.  I remembered as a kid I didn't find it that great.  It wasn't consistently funny as Abbott and Costello films were, it wasn't as full-on Christmasy as The Santa Clause or the Rankin/Bass specials.  It was just an old timey Christmas film.  Now that I'm older, I can enjoy it for what it really is.  Which is to say one of the best Christmas movies, heck one of the best 1940s movies out there.  

    The film also has a pretty great Santa Claus.  He's not fat or even as old-looking as most Santas are.  In fact, he's rather trim in this film.  Still, he's a jolly old soul and believes in the kindness and generosity of humanity.  And he loves children.  I love the scene where a mother brings a little girl she adopted from the Netherlands who doesn't speak one word of English, and Santa begins to converse with the girl in dutch.  Or the scenes of Santa bonding with the daughter of the woman that hired him.  I used to think the movie was about the little girl, (Natalie Wood, who would drown under questionable circumstances in 1981 while on a boat with Christopher Walken and her husband Robert Wagner.)  but re-watching the film,  I noticed that's not the case.   The film is 100% about the Santa character.  I believe they may have focused more on the little girl in the 1994 remake, but I haven't seen that one since it was in theaters back in 1994.  

   As you may have noticed, I've run out of words to express Christmas films.  They're so alike there's only so much you can say.  All I can is that this is much more worthy of Christmas praise than the likes of Elf, Fred Claus, Arthur Christmas, and the other holiday movies that have come out since I was born.  It's something you don't get often.  It's unpretentious but not stupid either.  It's wholesome, but still takes some radical chances (the mother is clearly a no nonsense atheist).  Watch it with your family sometime.  It rarely disappoints.

#1 - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)

     Here's one that, surprisingly, I saw for the first time just this year!  I'd been meaning to watch it for a few years now, since I loved the first two films in the series, National Lampoon's Vacation and National Lampoon's European Vacation.   Those are actually two of my favorite comedies!  In fact it was so often hearing this movie called the best in the series that caused me to NOT see it.  I was sure it couldn't live up to the other two, and well, it doesn't.  The other two are better.  Still, this one is a hilarious comedy and the funniest film on this list.

    The plot is simple.  The Griswalds have invited their extended family to their house for the holidays.  Of course more than were invited show up, including Clark Griswald's least favorite family member, Cousin Eddie.  Hilarious hijinks ensue as another Griswald vacation is nearly ruined.  And of course this time a lot of the humor is Christmas centered.  Here's one of my favorite bits. 

    I was laughing so hard at this scene.  And guys, this is how comedy is done.  A simple line or bodily function isn't enough.  In an ensemble scene such as this one, the looks and actions of those around the table are what make it so funny.   And at the end of the film, there's a bit of a reprise to this scene which is just as funny, if not funnier.  And boy does this film have the Christmas spirit.  It satirizes just about every single aspect of the holiday.  You have the family get-together that's like walking on eggshells, the dinner, the Christmas tree and finding one that's just right, outdoing the neighbors with your decorations (Home Improvement made this a theme every Christmas season), snow sledding, Christmas bonuses, even the movies that come on at Christmas.  Watching this film is like bringing Christmas into your house.  It's that good at what it does.  

     Of course the movie works in other ways too.  Part of this has to do with the Griswald family already being well-loved from two previous outings  (even though the kids are played by different actors each time).  I identify with Clark Griswald, and I'm pretty sure if I had a family and was his age, I'd be pretty much the same as he is.  (I know, not a compliment to some.)  I mean, who wouldn't react the same way the family reacts when they find a squirrel in their Christmas tree?

Oh, hilarity.  I very much recommend this film because it embodies Christmas.  And none of the scenes are even set ON Christmas!  It all takes place in the few days before the holiday!  There are a lot of families out there that try to make their Christmas perfect just as Clark Griswald does, but it never works out completely right.  (Hopefully theirs ends up better than Clark's does, though.)  If you haven't seen the film, or just haven't seen it in a few years I highly recommend you see it.  It's great fun, it's very pleasant, and it's even somewhat family friendly with just a PG-13 rating.  It's not as good as the former two films in the series, but only by a smudge as the child actors aren't as good as their predecessors and the fact that the other two are some of the best comedies out there.  At least it's apparently better than Vegas Vacation.  (I've not seen that one either.)

Merry Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc to all and to all a good night!

15 Christmas Greats - #6 thru #4

#6 - Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983)

     I'll be a bit short on this one.  I've talked about 3 other adaptations of this classic story in this list, so I  don't have much more to say.  This one has Disney characters portraying the characters from the story.  Scrooge McDuck of course plays Ebenezer Scrooge, Mickey is Bob Cratchet, Goofy is Jacob Marley, etc.  The short film is also completely animated in classic Disney style.  In fact, this was the first time a Mickey Mouse short had been shown in theaters since 1953, a 30 year gap!  This special short was tacked on to the re-release of The Rescuers in 1983.  (Before they got into the VHS releasing business, Disney films were re-released to theaters every seven years, and 1983 was seven years after The Rescuers was first released.) 

  The short runs just under 30 minutes, and thus the story is very much condensed.  Think of it as the cliffnotes version of the classic tale.  It's also appropriately Disneyfied as it sugarcoats the more harsh aspects of the story, such as the people picking over Scrooge's house in the future or Scrooge's old relationship gone sour turning him into a crotchety old man.  The short got a mixed reception when it came out.   It was nominated for Best Animated Short at the Academy Awards, but was given two thumbs down by Siskel and Ebert, who thought it lacked the Disney magic and that it did a disservice to the story.  (Siskel and Ebert hated Disney's output up until 1985's The Black Cauldron.)

    This was always the highlight of the Christmas season for me as a kid.  This and Rudolph being shown on TV were always occasions I had to be home for in the week or two leading into Christmas.  I remember that they used to push this one into an hour long slot and play winter themed Disney animated shorts before starting Mickey's Christmas Carol.  It may be a rather lacking adaptation, but at the time it was the only way to see the classic Disney characters in action since Disney didn't air the old shorts unless you had the Disney Channel back then, which we didn't.  

#5 - Rankin/Bass holiday specials (1960s-1980s)

     Some people love these, others hate them with a passion.  Rankin/Bass was a company that made both stop-motion and animated shorts, mostly themed to holidays.  Perhaps you've seen or heard of some of their titles.  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, Jack Frost, The Little Drummer Boy...  All of those are Rankin/Bass productions, and you can catch most of them on ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas programming.  They didn't just do Christmas stuff though.  They did three Easter ones with Peter Cottontail, they did the animated version of The Hobbit from the 1970s most of us have seen at least once, they did a feature length film with stop-motion monsters called Mad Monster Party and even worked with Toho, maker of Godzilla, on a King Kong film called King Kong Escapes!  The studio doesn't exist anymore, sadly.  They made their last special back in 1985 with an adapation of L. Frank Baum's Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.  

    When I was growing up, Rudolph and Frosty came on in the lead up to Christmas on network television.  I'd never heard of the other inventive specials the company had done until we got cable and some of them came on in the lead up to Christmas.  I fell in love with them.  My favorite then and now is one called The Year Without A Santa Claus, which is a semi-sequel to the classic Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.  If any of you saw the the horrendous Batman & Robin, you may remember a scene where Mr. Freeze is conducting his group of freezing henchmen in a rendition of the Snow Miser song.  It's a great catchy song, and is from Year Without A Santa Claus.  

And his brother, the Heat Miser, sings another version of the song about hot weather.  (It's not as catchy.)

    I think that kids like the stop motion effect.  It's something weird that we don't see often, especially not anymore.  There's an otherworldly look to it that lends itself greatly to fantasy.  Sadly, I think there's not as much fantasy in these new hastily put together ugly Christmas specials.  Also, the songs were pretty great in these things.  Usually they took at least one old song like Santa Claus is Coming To Town or Rudolph and built a fuller story around them.  Who would have thought from the Rudolph song that we'd have a story about an island of unwanted toys, a gay dentist elf, a yeti and a gold prospector?  Not I.  

     Now, not all the specials are great.  The Leprechauns' Christmas Gold comes to mind mostly.  Still, they are mainly good.  If you want a Frosty sequel, the official Rankin/Bass sequel Frosty's Winter Wonderland is much better than the environmentalist/politically correct Frosty Returns from the 1990s (which was not done by Rankin/Bass either).   

#4 - A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)

    I know this one won't be everyone's cup of tea either.  However, this is my list, so there!  I love the Harold & Kumar films.  All three are great comedies, though very much on the risque side.  And I actually think this one may be my favorite of the bunch.  It's shocking, gross, obscene, and tacky while also being heartwarming, funny, cool, and an embodiment of the Christmas spirit.  And of course it has NPH in it, which always makes things better...  And the glorious Wafflebot that I wish were real.  Pancakes suck.

    Anyway, I suppose a brief plot synopsis is needed.  Harold & Kumar have not spoken to each other in years.  Harold now works for a big bank in New York City and is married to a hot woman.  Kumar is basically the same as he was in the last two films.  He lives alone in the apartment and smokes joints.  Then his ex-girlfriend tells him she's pregnant and a package for Harold shows up at the apartment door.  So he gets a friend to drive him to Harold's to drop off the package on the way to a party (where the friend is looking to deflower a girl).  Things happen and there's drug addict babies, a mob boss, avenging robot appliances, our heroes shoot Santa, a Christmas tree goes up in flames, there's beer pong and stop motion giant snowmen chasing after them... Mass hysteria.

    And that's one of the things I love about these Harold and Kumar films.  They're completely insane.   I mean,  just look at this scene.   *Warning:  There's a claymation penis.*

    Ah yes...  This about sums up the feel of the whole film.  And most of all, the movie has friggin' Wafflebot!  I mean, who wouldn't want one of these things?

    So what's so Christmasy about the film?  Well, apart from the fact that the movie's message is togetherness and family?  Apart from Neal Patrick Harris (as a straight guy pretending to be gay just to have sex with more women) doing a holiday musical special in 3D?  Apart from the stop motion scene that is an homage to the Rankin/Bass specials?  Apart from the whole plot being focused around finding a replacement Christmas tree so the inlaws don't kill you?  Uh... I got nothing.    But the movie is a lot of fun, it's very funny, and should be watched by everyone over 15 at least once.  Even if you hate stoner films.

15 Christmas Greats - #9, #8, and #7

#9 - Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

    Continuing on the 1990s Christmas movie binge, here's another one.  This one is sometimes overlooked in the Muppet movie canon.  It was the first Muppet film made after Jim Henson's sudden death in May of 1990, his son directing this one.  It was not the big hit Disney had hoped for when it was released for the 1992 Christmas season either, going up against Home Alone 2.  (Disney had bought Jim Henson Studios in 1989, and the Muppet characters with it.)  The film did okay critically, but I think that the Muppets were on the wane at the time, what with Henson's death a few years earlier and them having been off the television for years.  Still, it's a film worth seeing even if it isn't the crown jewel of the Muppet film crown.

     What we have here is yet another retelling of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  This time there are the human characters, which are the main characters of the film aside from Bob Cratchit, who is played by Kermit the Frog.  Ebenezer Scrooge is the great Michael Caine, Steven Mackintosh is his nephew Fred, Robin Weaver is Fred's wife, and Meredith Braun is Belle.  Besides a few town kids, the rest of the characters are played by muppets.  Miss Piggy is Mrs. Cratchit, Gonzo narrates as Charles Dickens, Statler and Waldorf are the Marley brothers, Fozzie is Fezziwig (here called Fozziwig of course), and Sam the Eagle is the schoolmaster from Scrooge's past.  This is the first time that humans were main protagonists alongside the muppets in a muppet film.  This way of doing the films has continued on in two of the three Muppet films made since this one.    As far as A Christmas Carol adaptations go, this one is pretty good.  It doesn't cut out as much as some adaptations, and the way they work in the songs is pretty great.  There was one song cut from the theatrical version of the film (and the latest blu-ray version) that they released when it was put on VHS.  Most people consider it an important part in the story, as it shows why Scrooge hates Christmas and why he's so mean.  And I agree.  It's also a pretty depressing song, showing how Scrooge and his betrothed break up over money.  How dare they cut out a song written by the great Paul Williams?!

         I don't really have much to say about this one, as I've already spoken of two other adaptations of A Christmas Carol.  It's a great family film and should be home in any Muppet-lover's collection.  I'll leave you with my favorite song in the film, sung by my favorite muppet characters, Statler and Waldorf.

#8 - Twilight Zone:  Night of the Meek (1960)

     Yeah, yeah.  I'm cheating a bit here.  This isn't a Christmas special or a Christmas film.  It's simply the one Christmas episode that was broadcast in the 5 season run of The Twilight Zone.  But it sure is a memorable, heartfelt episode.   Everyone should see this one at least once.  This story has Art Carney playing Henry Corwin, a drunkard who has a job playing Santa at a department store.  He's fired when he gets there an hour late.  He lives in the poor part of town where kids go hungry and everyone dresses in shabby clothes.  He yells out at his former manager that he wishes that if he had one wish he'd "like to see the meek inherit the earth!"  Despondent, he walks the streets and after being refused entry into a bar finds a large sack which produces anything anyone wants.  He spends the evening handing out gifts, for once happy that he's able to do some good for those that need it.  Sadly, those in power believe he's stolen the gifts from his old job and try to get him thrown in jail.  Don't worry folks.  It's a Christmas story.  Even in the Twilight Zone, those have happy endings.

    This is one of the most beloved Twilight Zone episodes, and for good reason.  It has the show's main plot point of ordinary people being put in extraordinary circumstances, getting their wish.  It has that supernatural aspect to it as well.  Most of all, it's good a lot of pathos to it.  It's a tearjerker of a story, yet empowering.  I guess in a way it's like It's A Wonderful Life, which itself could have been a Twilight Zone episode if you think about it.  The episode was written by show creator Rod Serling, who besides having a great speaking voice and a great business mind, also was a profound humanist and writer.  He wrote about a third of the show's stories and when you see this one, you'll realize why he's so highly regarded.  

     Since this show aired, a lot of films have taken the show's plot and morphed it a bit.  There's shades of The Santa Clause and Ernest Saves Christmas in this story too, even though this is definitely not a comedy.  You can view this episode for free on Amazon through streaming and I suggest you do so.  It'll only take 30 minutes.  You can find it in season 2.  Here's an early scene from the episode (the video quality isn't great because it's one of 6 Twilight Zone episodes to be filmed on video instead of film), which shows why this episode is so great.  I mean, he's fired by Piglet!

#7 - Home Alone/Home Alone 2 (1990/1992)

     Who doesn't love Home Alone that grew up in the 1990s?  Just as those that grew up in the 1980s had A Christmas Story (not a favorite of mine), and those that did so in the 2000s had Elf, we had the Home Alone films.  Heck, I even liked the third one!  (Not included here because I never found it Christmasy enough, and let's face it, it pales in comparison to the first two.)   This is the film that catapulted Macauley Culkin to stardom... for about five years.  Who could resist a movie about a cute mischievous little boy who's accidentally left alone at home while his family goes to France for Christmas?  Oh, and he's got to deal with burglars and a man who may be a killer lives on his street too.  It's pretty evident that John Hughes wrote this, isn't it?  What, that story's not enough?  How about two years later little Kevin gets on the wrong flight and ends up in New York while his family is in Florida?  (Man, this kid's got the worst parents in the world!  They should be up for child neglect charges!)  

     Let's talk about the first film.  It was an instant Christmas classic from the time it was released.  It conveyed the message that family is important around Christmas, even if you don't get along most of the time.  Sure, the traps Kevin sets for the Wet Bandits are way above a typical 10 year old's cognitive abilities, but they're funny to watch.  Who cares in that case?  It's implausable, but then again most films are.  If they were all truthful, they'd be boring as hell most of the time.  We see Kevin grow up a bit as he's left to fend for himself as the film goes on, and we see his mother try anything she possibly can to get back home to her son, because she feels (rightly) that it's all her fault.  It's rather heartwarming.  It helps that Catherine O'Hara is a wonderful comic actress who can do heartbreaking well too.  Even Culkin is a pretty good actor.  (Okay, so he didn't really have to emote.  So what?)  I mean, a young kid carries basically the whole movie on his own, with just a bit of help from the ever annoying Joe Pesci and the ever in pain Daniel Stern later in the film.  Those guys do slapstick so well it's a wonder Joe Pesci doesn't do it more. (Stern is better at it, though.)  By the end of the film the family gets back together and everyone now knows the meaning of togetherness at Christmas.  Awww....

    Now two years later, part 2 came out.  It's basically the same film as the first one was, with all the major cast from the first film returning as well.  However, this time Kevin is lost in New York City alone... with his dad's credit card.  (How very convenient, yes?)  Of course, the stakes are higher here as the Wet Bandits escaped jail and are also coincidentally in New York, and the consierge at the four star hotel that Kevin is staying at is a big snoop as well, knowing something odd is going on.  (It's the fantastic Tim Curry in that role, and it's one of my favorite of his. He's great at comedy and should do more of it.)  There's a lot of repeated jokes and lines from the first film, which kids like but film fans tend to groan at.  I must admit in this film, I like them.  The frail old man that Kevin is afraid of in the first film is replaced by a bird lady in this film who fills the same role-type here.  The film is still totally implausable, but it still works.  In fact, I like the second film more than the first one.  The film even has the same third act as the first one with Kevin setting traps for Marv and Harry.  This time, they tend to be even more painful though.  It got bad enough that Roger Ebert took offense at the violence.  "Cartoon violence is only funny in cartoons. Most of the live-action attempts to duplicate animation have failed, because when flesh-and-blood figures hit the pavement, we can almost hear the bones crunch, and it isn't funny."  He wasn't the only one that thought so either.  The film was attacked by concerned parents groups, as many films were in the early 90s.  

Here's one of my favorite parts from the second film.  It's one of those scenes which harkens back to the first film and the Angel With Dirty Souls scene with the tommy gun noises.

    It's a series of films that people of my generation should definitely show their kids.  Hell, watch it every Christmas with them.  They're great family films, great Christmas films, heck just great films period!

15 Christmas Greats - #11 and #10

#11 - Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

         There's a bit of a debate on whether this is a Christmas film or a Halloween one.  Perhaps it's both and should be viewed in November?  At any rate, I usually count it as a Halloween movie, but I'm in the minority on that.  And I can see why people would call it a Christmas film.  It's subject is Christmas, most of the movie either takes place preparing for or doing Christmas, and a secondary message of the film is that Christmas can't be ruined.

     The film came out in on October 29, 1993.  (See?  It is a Halloween film.)  I was eight years old when I saw it in theaters.  To tell you the truth, even though it had a scant 76 minute running time, I got bored around the halfway point.  (Although I was ADHD diagnosed, so that could be a reason.)   I still feel that the middle of the film does start to drag a bit from when he gets back from Christmas Town to when Jack starts to deliver the ghoulish presents.  Still, I can handle it better now and it's become a classic of sorts to my generation.  (No thanks to the emo/hipster types that about 7 years ago made me never want to see the movie again due to it's overmarketing to them.) 

     The film brings back memories of the Rankin/Bass holiday specials that came on from the 1960s to the 1980s like Rudolph, Mad Monster Party, Year Without A Santa Claus, Jack Frost, or Here Comes Peter Cottontail.  The film is, like those were, made of stop motion animation.  It is also holiday themed with catchy songs.  And the songs really hold this film together.  They were written by the great film score composer and member of Oingo Boingo, Danny Elfman.  He also provides the singing voice for Jack Skellington. (Chris Sarandon does the speaking voice.)  My favorite songs from the film are What's This?, Kidnap the Sandy Claws, Oogie Boogie's Song, and Making Christmas.  All of the songs have that trademark of Danny Elfman's early scores like Batman, Beetlejuice, and Scrooged.  There's a lot of tuba, harp, piano, and trombone in this soundtrack.  I also like the way Sally acts as a type of Cassandra figure in the film, and as a sort of Greek Chorus.

    But why is it a great Christmas film?  Well, I think it shows how odd the holiday really is when looked at from the outside, such as in the song 'What's This?'.  The song also shows, through what's shot, the difference between the dead fall/winter period of Jack's world (and ours in the few months leading up to the holiday) and the glowing lights, happiness, and lifefullness of Christmas. 

     It's become a classic, but a Christmas classic?  I'm not sure it's there yet for most, but for a lot of people it is.  So it belongs at #11 on this list.

#10 - The Santa Clause (1994)

    

    Another one from my childhood.  Is it sad the thing I remember most about this one is how long it took to come to home video?  The movie came out in theaters on November 11, 1994.  It took until the Christmas season the next year to come out on VHS.  That was a long wait for my sister and I, as we loved the film.  We still quote it all the time, as we do with many films, but I haven't actually watched the film in about seven years or so.  However I remember it very well as I watched it many many times when I was younger.  In fact, the movie is funnier now than it ever was when I was a child.  There's quite a few more adult jokes in the film that flew right over my head back then, and that's the mark of a great family comedy right there.  (See Rocko's Modern Life for more of that!)  For the nonexistent bunch of you who have never seen the film, here's the trailer so you can get the gist of the story.

    Now this one came out when Tim Allen was at his most popular, being in Home Improvement at the time.  If only Johnathan Taylor Thomas had been in it, it probably would have broken box office records.  And boy do I wish he was in it, because the son in this film you just want to do horrible things to.  He's so damned annoying.  However, he's not as annoying as he is in the two sequels.  Still, he's a whiny, petulant, sulky child throughout most of the film.  And he doesn't have one funny line or scene.  However, Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold, and David Krumholtz are at the top of their games here.  Each have quite a few funny scenes and make the movie enjoyable.  This is nothing like Tim Allen's recent stuff which has been god awful.  He's basically a really cynical version of Tim Taylor, his character from Home Improvement here, and it's great to see that cynicism melt as the story goes on and he becomes Santa.  Still, his son does bring the movie down, and I can't get over that.

     The movie is great because it deals not just with the whole doubting Santa phase that kids go through at least once before they learn the truth later on, but it's also a divorce/custody film and a mid-life crisis film.  Now, I must point out, because I find such subjects to be interesting, a part of the film that has been removed from recent home video versions of the film.  There's a part where Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) has a phone number given to him in case of emergencies by his wife.  He looks at it and says, "1-800-SPANKME?!  I know that number!"   Well, a kid called that number and racked up a $400 phone bill.  It's not a big removal, but I'm glad my family has the original VHS that has the line still in tact, as I hate censorship. 

     The early 90s was a good time for family-friendly comedy, even though most were poorly reviewed.  There's an absence of the genre today, and it's good to go back to the likes of The Santa Claus to remember it.  Sadly, none of the best scenes are on youtube, or I would have shared them.  No, only a few random ones were.  Ones that weren't indicative of the film.  So that's where I end this, sadly.

   

15 Christmas Greats: #13 and #12

#13 - Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)

     I know, a lot of people find Ernest P. Worrell to be dumb, annoying, unfunny, and... well, just plain stupid.  Well, he's three of those things, but I find the first few Ernest films to be quite funny.  And this is the best Ernest film, in my opinion.  Not only that, but it's a darn good Christmas film too.

    In this film Ernest is a cabdriver who happens to pick up Santa Claus.  Now Santa is not in his red suit, but looks like a regular old guy.  He's down in the United States to meet a guy who he thinks is just right to take over the job of being Santa Claus.  That person is a guy who did a children's TV show that was just recently cancelled, and who is now looking for other work as an actor.  Just as Santa is about to ask the guy to take over his job, the guy's douchebag agent blocks him from talking to the actor and has him thrown in jail as a crazy man.  Meanwhile Ernest has been fired because Santa didn't pay (he only had fake kid money) and Santa has left his Christmas sack in Ernest's cab.  So the girl and Ernest try to find Santa to give him his sack back.  After that, the three of them must convince the actor guy to become Santa and get him ready in time to start delivering stuff for Christmas.   Think of it as Mrs. Doubtfire meets The Santa Clause, but with a country yokel as the main character.

    This movie was a modest hit when it came out in 1988.  It was only the second Ernest film, and made 4 1/2 times the amount it cost to make.  Ernest films were family-friendly non-offensive entertainment.  They made very young kids laugh at Jim Varney's physical humor (and his two in-real-life buddies that were in most of the films are the funniest parts of the films, in my opinion), but adults were usually rolling their eyes at the stupid puns.  Never mind that, though.  This is a great Christmas film if nothing else.  It's not consistently funny, it's not too original, and it's probably not a movie that most children of today would care for.  However, to those of us that grew up with it coming on television or renting it on home video every Christmas season, it was great.  I don't think it's shown much anymore, but when I was 5-12 years of age, I watched it every year along with other Christmas traditionals.  The movie, as I said, isn't funny all the way through.  It is quite entertaining though.  The Santa in this film is amazing.  I agree with That Guy With The Glasses on this one in that he's probably one of the best ones on film.  He's so good, nice, and earnest (no pun there, folks).  He's not like the angry Santa we see in Rudolph or Santa Claus The Movie.  He has hope for everyone, and never once loses his temper.  The message the film gives about Christmas is also pretty good.  Still, the funny parts are pretty good when they work.

#12 - A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

     I'm sure a lot of you figured this one would be closer to the top of my list, but it's not one I really watched as a kid.  I always found it rather pedestrian and boring back then.  I did watch the 1992 Peanuts Christmas special every year or so though, as we had that one on VHS.  Let's just say there's a reason few remember it.  It was just a series of interconnected stories based on actual stories related to Christmas from the comic strip.  No, the 1965 one is the one to go for.  I think the difference is that the original special was made for families, the sequel for kids.  The special isn't all that funny, is very corny and preachy, and really is as trite as you can get for a Christmas special.  So why is it on my list?  It's all due to the making of the special and it's staying power throughout the years.  I may not understand the love for it, but it does fascinate me.

    The special was made on a very low budget, causing the production to be a bit sloppy (notice that Schroeder will stop playing his piano before the music ends), and the voices/sounds to be improperly recorded and mixed.  Peanuts creator Charles Schulz had full creative control over the special, which the studio bosses found quite frightening.   This was especially true for the following scene.

   No, it's not because there was a war on Christmas in 1965, it's merely due to the fact that he's quoting King James version scripture in something that the studio wanted to market to kids.  They figured kids didn't want to be preached to in a cartoon for Christmas.  Kids in this time period got that enough from the stop-motion show Davey and Goliath.  However, Schulz wanted kids to know the origin and true meaning of the holiday as he and a lot of America saw it.  To show that it wasn't about commercialism, greed, and lights.  That there was something that was being celebrated, that it was not just a meaningless celebration that it seemed to have become at the time, like Charlie Brown was annoyed at.   And this was with the show having corporate sponsers, which the special chastised.   The special also didn't use a comedy show laugh track, which was unheard of at the time, and used children to do the voices of the child characters, which was also unheard of.  So of course the studio, CBS, thought the special would flop and some thought the end of the Peanuts comic strip as well.  (Best try a Family Circus special next year folks!  /sarcasm\)   

    Well, what do they know....  The special was watched on about half of American televisions that night and has been critically hailed since.  It's a story of nothing going right, but still being successful, just like the story in the special itself!   No matter if you're indifferent to the special as I am, or love it, it's embedded in culture now.  The song Christmas Time Is Here, which is heard throughout malls, stores, and commercials was brought about in this special.  There's the image of the sad drooping Christmas tree burned into our memories.  The first live instance of the 'Snoopy Dance'.  It gave birth to 4 feature films, a tv show,  and over 40 TV specials featuring the Peanuts gang.  I'd say that's pretty darn successful and a good story even for a special that holds little appeal to me.

15 Christmas Greats - #14

Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962)

     This is a Christmas special that those of my generation, at least where I lived, didn't watch.  It was never shown on TV, we'd never heard of it...   Heck, until the 1997 live-action film with Leslie Nielson playing Mr. Magoo, most of us probably hadn't heard of the character.  (And that movie didn't make many of us want to watch more Magoo either.)  Apparently, the special had not been aired on the basic broadcast networks since the 1980s until last year on NBC.  Even then, it is usually cut quite a bit for commercials now, including last year.  However, it's apparently a much loved Christmas classic.  So yesterday I watched it for the first time, and in it's full 53 minute form.  And I was pleasantly surprised!

     So the story is the same basic Charles Dickens story that has been told in a slew of ways many times.  Here there's a wraparound story that has Mr. Magoo and some other players putting on a play of A Christmas Carol.  And besides the wraparound, Mr. Magoo's eyesight problems (which is what the character is famous for) don't play too much in the story.   Unlike the more popular 1980s special Mickey's Christmas Carol, there's more time to tell the story here as Dickens wrote it.  Still, there a few alterations, subtractions and mash-ups to make the story shorter, as with most adaptations of the tale.

    What's really great here, however, are the songs.  They were written by an actual duo of Broadway song-writers, Jule Styne and Bob Merrill.  These two wrote the music and lyrics to the very popular musical  Funny Girl not long after they worked on this, and Jule Styne wrote the music for the famous holiday song, Let It Snow!, Let It Snow!, Let It Snow! way back in 1945.   Besides the first song, which is most of the beginning part of the wraparound segment that's usually cut out, the rest of the songs are of high quality.   My favorite is the song sung by the plunderers of the dead Mr. Scrooge (a part of the story that most adaptations leave out) sing as they try to sell them.  It's pretty good fun as a song in what is usually the darkest part of the story!

    Why such a good adaptation left the airwaves for so long is anyone's guess.  It's funny, it's got good songs, it takes it's time, and it was considered a Christmas classic up until the 1980s being broadcast every Christmas season like Rudolph, Frosty, and A Charlie Brown Christmas are today.  It's available to view for free on Amazon Prime's unlimited streaming right now, you can view the whole thing on Youtube, and it's out on DVD as a special feature on some Christmas discs.  So give it a view if you've never seen it.  It's pretty great.  The only hit against it is the very cheap animation, but that's easy to look past if you grew up on Hanna-Barbera like I did.

15 Christmas Greats - #15

Gremlins (1984)

     Yes, I count Gremlins as a Christmas film.  You know I had to include one odd choice on the list, and I decided to get it out of the way first thing.  I simply love this movie.  It starts out as an honest to goodness Christmas film with crackpot inventor Rand Peltzer in the city trying to find a unique Christmas gift to give to his son... and to sell his inventions.  He ends up in a Chinatown antique shop run by Mr. Wing, played by the great Keye Luke, who had played Charlie Chan in those films of the 1940s.  While in the antique shop, he hears the humming of an odd tune and discovers a Mogwai in a cage.  Mr. Wing refuses to sell the Mogwai, because it's 'too big a responsibility'.  As Mr. Peltzer leaves, Mr. Wing's grandson brings out the Mogwai and sells it to Mr. Peltzer, along with giving him 3 important rules, which he repeats to his son when presenting the Mogwai as a gift when he gets home.

     Now the town where the Peltzers live is all set up for Christmas, it's blanketed with snow, it's a beautiful place.  However, the townspeople aren't all nice and Christmasy.  There's the guy (Judge Reinhold) who wants Billy's (Zach Galligan) girlfriend and the promotion to bank manager that Billy really wants.  The girlfriend is played by Ms. 80s teen herself Phoebe Cates.  Then there's Mrs. Deagle (Polly Holliday) who is the Scrooge of the town and lives by herself in a house full of cats.  There's Mr. Futterman (Dick Miller) who is a paranoid and old-fashioned WWII vet that thinks gremlins cause all technological problems.  And scariest of all, a young Corey Feldman.  Even scarier?  He lives!

    Chris Columbus wrote the script for this, which was originally much darker, with gremlins eating McDonalds customers, the dog being killed, Billy's mother being killed, and Gizmo the Mogwai becoming Stripe the Gremlin instead of just birthing him.   In fact, this was Columbus' first produced screenplay, and he'd later go on to being a popular director, directing things like the first two Harry Potter films, Adventures In Babysitting, Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone 1 and 2, Rent, and the first Percy Jackson film.  However, this film was directed by one of my favorite directors, Joe Dante.  He had already directed Piranha, The Howling, and a portion of Twilight Zone: The Movie.  He'd go on to direct Small Soldiers, The Burbs, Innerspace, Gremlins 2, and Looney Toons: Back In Action.  And his direction here is very similar to that of his other films.  There's lots of references to old sci-fi and horror films and a lot of zany Looney Toons style humor.

    Though I consider this a Christmas film, it's not for very young children.  People die in this film.  The gremlins can be quite frightening and icky.  The film proclaims that there is no Santa in it's most famous scene where Phoebe Cates tells the story of why she hates Christmas.

    I wonder how many little kids went seeing this PG rated film and learned there was no Santa.  No wonder this film and Temple of Doom brought forth the need for the PG-13 rating.   It's a sick story to tell in a family film, but I do love the dark tone it brings to a mischievous little film.  And that's what the movie is.  That's the right word for it.  Because the scenes of the havoc the gremlins reap across the town on Christmas Eve are not totally mean-spirited.  The gremlins are having fun and the deaths have comedy to them, such as when the gremlins hotwire Mrs. Deagles stair chair.  Then there's the gremlins singing along to the movie theater showing of Snow White's song Hi-Ho.  It's such fun.

    By the end of the film, everything is set right.  Christmas is saved.  And who doesn't want a bit of mischief at Christmas time?  Everyone should have this on their Christmas watch list.  It's fun, it's absurd, and just a joy to watch.  And tis the season for joy, after all.

 

Favorite Sci-Fi Films - #2

Flash Gordon (1980)

    

     If you value the changes that Star Wars made to film, special effects, and history, you have Dino De Laurentiis to thank.  George Lucas originally wanted to do a film of Flash Gordon, which had been a comic book hero and a movie theater serial character from the 1930s and 40s.  However, Dino De Laurentiis held the rights to character, so Lucas created Star Wars.  And I'm so glad he did that and Laurentiis did this one.  Flash Gordon is perfect the way it is.  It's a comic book come to life, complete with bright colors, unsubtle dialogue, and some of the most fantastic art direction this side of Speed Racer.   Instead of going for a dirty used look of space vehicles and other planets as Star Wars had done, the filmmakers decided to go a decidedly camp route.  Everything is shiny and bright here.  The score would not be done in a classical grandiose style as that film was either.  Instead, there would be minimal orchestration and the score would be done by a rock group.  Who better to do a space opera soundtrack than the biggest band in the world at the time, Queen?!  Their theme song for the film has become the thing of legend.  So camp, so catchy, and you love it or you hate it.

     I don't know how one could hate that song, but some do.  And some people also hate the movie.  It's for the same reason some hate the 1966 Batman film, which oddly enough has the same screenwriter.  Imagine that.  This film does not go to the height of stupidity that that film does, playing itself at least somewhat straight at times.  I see the film as just a celebration of the comic strip and the serials.  Every single shot in the film would fit perfectly as a comic book panel by the way they are blocked and shot.  There's no realism here, which I guess turns some people off, especially nowdays.  I'm not a huge fan of everything being strongly realistic, as most of the time it makes films a chore to sit through, all the fun being sucked out.  I know I'm in the minority on that one, but hey it's my blog.  I get to say what I believe.

     Now Flash Gordon had originally been a comic strip, then it was adapted into 3 different movie theater serials (back when people went to the movies once a week), then into a 1950s TV show, two soft-core porn parodies in the 1970s called Flesh Gordon, and finally this movie.  The story here is that the villainous Emperor Ming, ruler of the planets of Mongo has taken to playing with Earth, causing tidal waves, earthquakes, "hot hail", fireballs, and sending the moon off it's orbit.  The earth will be destroyed in a few days.  Meanwhile Flash Gordon, quarterback of the New York Jets, is flying home in a plane along with a girl named Dale Arden.  The plane's pilots disappear due to Ming and it crash lands in the lab of Dr. Hans Arkov, who is pretty sure that evildoers in space are causing all this mess.  He's made a rocket ship to try to make contact and save earth, and he kidnaps Dale and Flash and the rocket goes up into space.  It lands on a planet of Mongo and Flash tries to start a rebellion after Ming tries to have him executed and takes Dale as his sexual plaything.  Arkov is supposedly mind-washed into being a secret agent for Ming.  Yes, this is the stuff that used to happen in space operas.  In fact, Star Wars isn't too different.   Lucas simply took earth out of the equation, which was a smart move.  And in fact, having Earth involved is the one weak spot in this film.  After the first 5 minutes, we don't see Earth again, and we could care less if it's destroyed or not.  Besides, these new planets, races, and monsters are much more fun than boring old earth. 

   

     The film was made on a good sized budget of 20 million dollars.  By comparison, Star Wars cost 11 million and Empire Strikes Back, which came out the same year as Flash Gordon, cost 25 million.  The film would get pretty good critical reviews, but in America, the film only made 27 million, which was a disappointment as they were trying to get Star Wars sized success.  (A feat which few films that tried ended up even getting close to.)  Still, the film was a pretty good success in England, probably mostly due to their understanding of campy film which Americans don't get and due to the Queen soundtrack.  In fact, the Queen soundtrack went Gold on the Billboard charts even here in America despite vocals only being on two of the songs.  However, in 1980 Queen was at the peak of their success in America and most of the world, having just released the one album that gave them #1 hits in America, The Game.  The more highbrow critics didn't care for the movie, but those that realize that some films are there for "fun" loved it, including my favorite critic Pauline Kael.  And that's what the movie is.  Fun.  It's not art, it's not an important piece of cinema history, it's not worthy of Oscar praise.  It's just pretty and fun.  And sometimes that's enough.

    The movie has a hit or miss list of actors and actresses.  You have Playgirl model Sam J. Jones as Flash, Melody Jones as Dale...  Two actors most have never heard of.  In fact, until the movie Ted that came out a few years ago, no one probably knew who Sam J. Jones was.  And in that film, he just reprised his role of Flash.  (That whole movie worships this movie.  It's wonderful.)  However, the rest of the actors are of very high caliber.  Max Von Sydow, main actor in many Ingmar Bergman films and the old priest Father Merrin from The Exorcist plays the odious Emperor Ming here, and he's definitely enjoying the role.  He's so over the top and evil.  Critics gushed over him in this role even if they didn't like the film.  You have now famous British actors like Brian Blessed, Timothy Dalton, Peter Wyngarde, Richard O'Brien....  And for some reason Topol was chosen to play Dr. Zarkov.  And all I see is Fiddler on the Roof...  Still it's a very fun cast.  

    The special and visual effects are great.  Not realistic at all, but a comic book come to life.   I mean hell, you got henchmen that look like Shy Guys from Mario!

Most of the effects work, like Star Wars was done via blue screen and rear projection, however, unlike Star Wars, which used black backgrounds of space in order to hide the matte lines and such, there's a lot of red in this film.  And I mean a LOT of it.  And on Arboria, one of the planets, everything is green tinted.  As I said, the art direction is great.

    So why should you see this film?  Well, because there's nothing else like it out there.  The closest things are probably the 1966 Batman and maybe Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.  Seriously, if you haven't seen the film, track it down.  It's the perfect popcorn film.  It's not heavy sci-fi, but it's a good fun time for the whole family.  Here.  Revel in this scene's comic book dialogue, hokey acting from Dale, great music, and profound playfulness!

Favorite Sci-Fi Films #1 and A Note

     Before I get started, I'd like to thank everyone who's viewed my blog for the 2,000 views I've gotten in the past 1/2 year.  So thanks for that!  

    Now, I'd like to explain how I'm going to do this next installment here.  I was originally planning to do a list of my top 20 sci-fi films... and I realized I couldn't push it down to 20.  Then I decided to separate it into sub-genres.  The problem there was that so many of these films have overlapping genres.  Therefore, I'm going to do a continuing series of posts on my favorite science fiction films without them being in any order of greatness or limited to a specific number.  So this will be a continuing series that I do from time to time.  This also means I won't get burned out on a specific genre as I did with horror films back in October.  I still plan to do a set of posts on my favorite Christmas films/specials come December, however.  

So without further ado, here's the first of my discussions on specific science fiction films...

When Worlds Collide - (1951)

     

     There was a time when science fiction sold.  And it sold well.  This trend lasted from the late 1920s on until we went to the moon in 1969.  After that, science fiction pretty much died until 1977 and George Lucas brought it back.  Sure, there was science fiction in the early 70s, but it was very dark and cynical with films like Logan's Run, Silent Running, the Planet of the Apes films, and Soylent Green.  Dystopias abounded.  But in the 1950s was when science fiction was at it's strongest.  From giant animals or beasts caused by nuclear radiation to traveling to other worlds...  Our hope and gung-ho attitude about science and space had not yet produced the sad results we got when we sent our probes to mars and noticed it was nothing more than a dead rock or went to the moon and didn't know what to do when we got there.  No, we knew little about our solar system at the time.  Mars could have an atmosphere or hold a long-dead civilization.  Maybe the moon had some importance we didn't know about yet.  We couldn't possibly be alone out here.  Alas, science and discovery hit us where it hurts.  We would be alone for the forseeable future.  There was no long lost civilization.  We couldn't go to Mars.  There's nothing out there in the immediate vicinity.  With those sad discoveries, we lost our interest in space.  We've shrunk NASA's budget to miniscule proportions.  We don't want to know any more depressing facts.  

    Travel back to 1933.  Science fiction was Buck Rogers, John Carter, and other pulp creations.  Then Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer wrote a very successful book about our world being collided with by a rogue planet and sideswiped by another before that.  It was called When Worlds Collide.  It would influence the creation of two new comic book characters, Superman and Flash Gordon.   The book being a huge success, it would only be a matter of time until it was made into a film.  Enter George Pal.

   George Pal was a film producer who had made the very popular science fiction film Destination Moon in 1950.  That was the first film that showed the dangers and trials of space travel in a time when space fever was beginning to engulf the world.  It also won an award for Best Special Effects at the Academy Awards that year, and was one of the first sci-fi films shot in color.  To follow that success up, he chose When Worlds Collide.  Not only was it a cracking good science fiction story, but it was also a doomsday film.  It's about a scientist who discovers that two rogue planets are on a collision course with Earth.  The first one, Zyra, will merely pass dangerously close to earth.  Enough to cause tidal waves, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc. due to it's gravitational pull. (Flimsy science, I'm sure, but it's all in good fun.)  The second planet, Bellus, is on a true collision path and will destroy our planet.  Well, the rest of the scientific community scoffs at this idea and the world once again puts it's head up it's butt refusing to fund attempts at a "space ark" which will launch and piggyback onto Zyra before Bellus hits the earth with some people on board to restart the human race on their new home.  Okay, the story may be silly and unbelievable, but you have to understand...  This was the early 1950s.  We knew little about rocket capabilities, the movement of planets, space, or anything like that.  Also, there's a bit more to the story than what I told, but I don't want to give away some of the more moral and ethical dilemmas present.

    

George Pal was a very visual man. He would go on to produce War of the Worlds right after this film, which has become known as one of the most quintessential science fiction films ever made. He knew he would need to have the film shot in color, have an epic scale with lots of danger, and that he'd need astounding visual effects. And he got all three. The film would go on to win Best Visual Effects for 1951. In fact, George Pal films won the award 3 times in just 5 years! George Pal was Roland Emmerich before Roland Emmerich or Dean Devlin were even around! He was destroying the world before even Irwin Allen was doing his stuff in the 1960s and 70s! It's such a shame the man isn't remembered as he should be.

      When Worlds Collide isn't as well known anymore, sadly. Perhaps this is due to it's less well known director in comparison to War of the Worlds' Byron Haskin who had already done Disney's Treasure Island. In comparison, Rudolph Mate, director of When Worlds Collide was mainly known for cheap film noirs like D.O.A and The Dark Past. In fact, he's better known for his cinematography work than his directoral work. He did cinematography for such films as Foreign Correspondent, Passion of Joan of Arc, To Be or Not To Be, and Vampyr. (All those are in the Criterion Collection, by the way.)

      I'm sorry if I've made the film sound like a cheesy 1950s science fiction film. I mean it is all those things, but it's also not something to really make fun of. The film isn't all that stilted as the lower budget science fiction of the time routinely was. This was a big budget film done by a major studio that gave it a wide fanfared release. It was a huge moneymaker. In fact, I find it possibly less cheesy than some of the 1970s disaster films that I love so much. And the ending surprised me greatly. You think that in a 1950s film they wouldn't dare actually have the planet hit the Earth and kill everyone... But they do. (Sorry for the spoiler, but the movie IS over 60 years old.) Still, the film ends on a message of hope and perseverance anyway. I highly recommend those that loved Roland Emmerich's 2012 to watch the film, as it's got a lot of the same ideas in it. In fact, this one makes more sense, though that isn't saying much.

The film can be streamed for free in HD if you have Amazon Prime, and is also available on DVD for cheap. See this sadly forgotten film if you can. I like it better than War of the Worlds. I mean how can you not like a film that depicts a rocket being launched like a roller coaster?!

Ingenious!