31 days of festive-ass flicks, day two: miracle on 34th street

Last night after spending all day with various incarnations of my girlfriend’s family and hanging up Christmas lights and going to see The Muppets… we STILL managed to come home and watch Miracle on 34th Street just as scheduled. [Here is the calendar if you want to check it out/follow along at home!]

Can we talk about this movie, you guys? [I HOPE IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING THAT I AM GOING TO DISCUSS SPOILERS IN THIS POST ABOUT A SIXTY-FIVE YEAR OLD MOVIE.] I know the story obviously because I didn’t grow up in a bubble, but I had never seen it or the remake with Matilda or even that old-but-not-as-old-as-the-original made-for-TV one. I LOVED IT. I mean, really. I L-O-V-E-D it. I was losing my mind for Kris Kringle and Mr. Macy and Mr. Gimbel being grouchy, reluctant friends and ALFRED. ALFRED AKA BASICALLY THE BEST PART OF THE ENTIRE MOVIE.

these are my super scientific and exact notes about the movie

The Alfred story is kind of my favorite part of the movie and my girlfriend said it wasn’t in the remake and OF COURSE it isn’t because modern people would be like, “I don’t know, that kid seems like a pedo” because that was our immediate reaction because that’s how we’re trained to see young men: sex-crazed and out of control. But, of cooooooourse, Kris Kringle’s okay because old people are sexless. BUT clearly Alfred just wanted to make kids happy and it was so sweet and he ended up being my favorite. Move over Kris Kringle, Alfred Claus has work to do.

I spend most of the time I am watching movies (especially old movies, but new ones too, I AM LOOKING AT YOU, MUPPETS) waiting for people of color and I am always struck anew at how fucking WHITE movies are. Theresa Harris made her couple of lone appearances and gave her, like, one line and was beautiful and talented while doing it, but dang. Still always such a bummer.

Also, I couldn’t get over what a terrible person Doris is. She’s a good provider and a good example of making your way in the business world as a woman of the time and she’s kind of sassy (not as sassy as Kris Kringle tho!) and independent but, man. Like, I know you are upset because your ex broke your heart, but yo, you are not teaching your child to live in the real world you are KILLING HER IMAGINATION. She doesn’t even know how to pretend to be a damn wild animal in order to make friends. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HER?! And I am always bored of the bitter-single-woman-saved-by-love story (even though this one is sweet!). But she could’ve bought a vibrator and gave herself a good time and relaxed a little bit before she RUINED HER CHILD FOREVER.

Anyway, I loved Natalie Wood’s faces in this masterpiece and she’s so cute and precocious and stuff and I love that she believes and that she is SO CUTE and does some good acting things.

AND I LOVED MOST OF ALL THAT NO ONE MENTIONED GOD AT ALL. That was great. Christmas is all presents and Santa and having faith in people and Santa and the United State Postal Service (I am CRAZY IN LOVE with the USPS. Nobody loves the Postal Service like me.) Especially after my girlfriend was like, “Matilda’s ends with IN GOD WE TRUST being the proof-maker” and then I threw up.

ALSO, I loved the little Dutch girl with a mother who essentially seems that she can’t even communicate with her new adopted child but then Kris Kringle is like, “ICH BIN EIN BERLINER” (except… in Dutch) and it’s SO GOOD. And hooray for it being a deaf girl in the remake.

ANYWAY, s my favorite part of the movie is right at the end after Natalie Wood has been disappointed by not getting a HOUSE for Christmas and something breaks in her brain and she turns into a believing-in-Santa ZOMBIE. Looooooooooooooooooooooooooove it. Cued for your viewing pleasure.

November 27th, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: 31 days of festive-ass flicks, babble, festive frippery | Comments are closed - (Comments are closed)

31 days of festive-ass flicks, day one: garfield, the grinch, & charlie brown

click to embiggen

Tonight the girlfriend and I settled into bed with toasties (baguette toasted and loaded with spiced goat cheese, roasted garlic, and oven-dried tomatoes) and watched the first day of festive-ass holiday movies. Tonight was three classic holiday specials that all, coincidentally, first appeared on CBS.

We watched A Garfield Christmas Special first because it was the most recent (1987), the least loved, and also the least good and we wanted to save the best for last. Basically, it’s not that great and the animation is HIDEOUS and it turns out that it really, REALLY bothers me that Garfield doesn’t move his mouth when he talks. If only the viewer could understand him, I’d be okay with that, but there is no evidence pointing confidently in that direction.

Garfield suffers the same fate as most people and is forced to endure a holiday with people he doesn’t like but it’s particularly irritating to him because they won’t come to HIS HOUSE where he has his warm bed. This is a problem with which I relate. I would be way more amenable to hanging out with people I dislike if I could just do it from the comfort of my glorious bed.

Anyway, the best part of this entire thing is Garfield’s sassy, but gently sad Grandma who is fucking awesome. She’s smart-mouthed and loves Garfield and says that since Grandpa died she’s spent a lot of her time “rockin’ and strokin’ my cats”.

I don’t regret watching this, buuuuuuut it’s not exactly going to become a family tradition. I honestly can’t even remember if I had seen it before. Not exactly stellar memorable fare.

Next up was How the Grinch Stole Christmas…, the second eldest (1966) which is obviously excellent and beautiful and sweet and moving and stuff. The art direction in this thing is glorious and it really follows the spirit and brilliance of the book to a T.

I want to live in Whoville. I want to be a Who. I want to feel so moved by the spirit of joy and Christmas love that I sing nonsense while holding hands with my fellow Whos around the tree in the town center. I want to compel the Grinch to suddenly and abruptly give up his evil quest just with the power of my mad caroling skills.

This one is a classic for a reason even though it kind of ends suddenly. Also, Boris Karloff. Also, Chuck Jones. Also, Thurl Ravenscroft. Get over it, you know you love this thing.

Finally, we watched the oldest (1965) and the most iconic of the television Christmas specials, A Charlie Brown Christmas. OBVIOUSLY this one is great and beloved for a reason and it’s adorable and sweet and has the best soundtrack to ever come from a holiday television special ever. It’s not Christmas for me until I watch this thing. It is Christmas.

The thing is, the special itself isn’t that good. It is? I don’t know. It’s pretty to look at in a very rough/sweet way and the music is OUT OF THIS WORLD good and it’s the Peanuts so it’s obviously important to our collective media conscious and so many iconic things come from it visually/~spiritually~ — that sad little Christmas tree, Snoopy’s doghouse all decorated, the singing kids at the end, the dancing kids on the stage — but, and this is probably largely because it’s a 30 minute special made for television — it doesn’t really have a solid, genuine cohesive element.

Charlie Brown is sad and the other kids are mean to him for no real reason then he gets upset because no one knows the true meaning of Christmas then Linus quotes a LOT of the bible and then… Charlie Brown is still sad and shouting about COMMERCIALISM, but now the kids are kind of nice and decorate his tree? And then hark some angels and it’s all over, Merry fucking Christmas.

Regardless, it’s still better than the shit one that aired in 1992 which we watched anyway because we hate ourselves.

And the Vince Guaraldi soundtrack is still the most amazing collection of holiday music ever ever ever.

It is so good that one time when I was in high school, I was doing chemistry homework while listening to the dulcet and jolly tones of the Dish Network holiday channel and I was SO INTENSELY MOVED by the version of “O Tannenbaum” from the soundtrack that I stood up and slow-danced with a couch cushion while crying.

November 26th, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: 31 days of festive-ass flicks, babble, festive frippery | Comments are closed - (Comments are closed)

top five holiday movies: pre-festive-ass edition

So earlier this month I came up with a way to get myself writing consistently and posting and also writing about shit that people probably care about way more than how I wash my face. So I decided that starting the day after Thanksgiving and ending on Christmas Day, I would watch a holiday movie every day and post about it. So I came up with a list and a name (31 Days of Festive-Ass Flicks) and have been ~preparing dutifully~ since.

But I thought I should write about my five favorite holiday movies coming into the project, so I can compare and contrast the list to one I will write when the dumb thing is done with. Also, I need practice writing about stuff. So, without further ramble:

ash's top five holiday movies

5. Christmas Vacation

Christmas Vacation was THE holiday movie of choice in my household growing up. We are not a sunshine and unicorns kind of family. We are loud and brash and embarrassing and unapologetic. We have never, ever fooled anyone into thinking we were IN ANY WAY AT ALL perfect. No one has ever seen us as a group and been like, “Damn, that is some Leave It to Beaver status familial relationship shit going on right there.” But we love each other and we work pretty hard to treat each other well and bring each other joy.

The Griswolds remind me of my family in the way that the Conners from Roseanne always have. They are imperfect and they make mistakes and a lot of shit happens to them (both of their own fault and not) but they LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH.

Clark’s an excellent dad and a good husband. He works so hard to make Christmas special for the people around him and it’s always struck me as a perfect mix of selfish and noble and heartfelt. And I love him and I love the Griswolds and comparing my family to them is a pretty damn good compliment.

4. Love Actually

I hate — HATE — romantic comedies. This initial hate came from a rejection of all things feminine because they were weak, but even once I learned better and grew out of that, I could never get my head into the game of romantic comedies. The women are so often weak and wilting and embarrassing, the men caricatures of what success or failure or rebellion is supposed to look like. MOSTLY THEY ARE BORING. And I’m just not into it. But since the very first time I saw Love Actually I have LOVED it. And I’ve said, again and again, it’s the ONLY romantic comedy I love and recommend.

When I worked at Hollywood Video, we’d do staff picks up on the couner and whenever someone was like, “Ash, you’ve picked three horror movies in a row” or “Ash, stop putting Clerks up,” I’d grab Love Actually to shut them up. There isn’t a single story I don’t LOVE. I laugh and I get choked up watching Liam Neeson be this amazing dad and I love Keira Knightly and Martine McCutcheon and Laura Linney is one of my favorite actresses.

IT IS ALL FLAWLESS.

3. Elf

My girlfriend hates Will Ferrell. This is not, on its own, a dealbreaker because, I mean really, what do I care? I like Will Ferrell okay and all, but I’m not going to go around declaring war because someone’s not into what he’s throwing down. Sometimes I don’t like Will Ferrell either! But in Elf he is a perfect beautiful angel beam of light from heaven. He is… is there a word for more than perfect? Because that’s what it is. So I waited, like, three years to watch this with her so that if she didn’t like it, I’d be too entrenched in our relationship to break up with her over it.

Elf hits me in all my feel-good movie places. It’s got this wonderful, warm father-son relationship between Buddy and Papa Elf and the new, strained one between Buddy and Walter. It has a woman totally willing to accept her husband’s adult child into their lives without question and with warmth and excitement. It has lights and decorations and the most best Christmas soundtrack. It has that NYC nostalgia thing that works even for people who’ve never been there. It has a Zooey Deschanel that I not only don’t hate, but actively love.

Complete excellence package.

[I am only now realizing that these are probably the things I would’ve written for my reviews/posts when I actually watch them for the project. OOPS. Oh well, I guess I will just have to find a new angle/way/lens through which to be awesome and astute and articulate. UGH.]

2. A Charlie Brown Christmas

A television special rather than a movie, but this is my list and I DO WHAT I WANT.

Charlie Brown is great. The music is… a word more flawless than flawless? The animation is so simple and so iconic. The story is human. Charlie Brown is a loser (through no real fault of his own) but he plugs away, trying to make things good for other people, trying to treat people and things fairly even when all they do is shit on him.

I love Charlie Brown’s dumb tree and Snoopy’s blue ribbon decorations and catching snowflakes on tongues and Sally’s letter to Santa. I love Linus’s exasperation. I love Schroeder the very most, plunking out “Jingle Bells” for Lucy until she says it’s right.

This would be higher on the list (aka #1) but I am a heathen and the “reason for the season” shit has unsettled me forever, even when I was a kid and thought there was a god. The sentiment is all good though. Peace on Earth, good will toward men. Let us treat each other like humans all year round, okay? And just add some glitter and alcohol and tunes for the holidays.

1. A Christmas Story

Duh?! Duh. A Christmas Story is perfect and weird and beautiful. Ralphie is the most perfect version of what it is to be a kid ever put on film. THAT IS WHAT IT IS LIKE SOMETIMES. That family is beautiful. Ralphie’s imagination is beautiful, the lamp is beautiful, swearing is beautiful. And now adult Peter Billingsley can get it.

As a kid, I couldn’t figure out the age of this movie and I got really tense about watching it because I thought it was from the 50s and I got really weird about watching/reading/using old stuff. But it seemed so modern! And like how people around me were! And I remember it confusing me SO PROFOUNDLY. I don’t even think I realized it was an 80s movie until I was a teenager.

There is a reason TBS airs this ish for 24 hours on Christmas. If you don’t love A Christmas Story just get the fuck out.

Honorable Mentions: Eight Crazy Nights and Scrooged.

WHERE WILL THEY STAND WHEN THE 31 DAYS ARE OVER?! CHRISTMAS FIGHT TO THE DEATH!

November 21st, 2011 | Tags: , , | Category: 31 days of festive-ass flicks, babble, festive frippery, rave | Comments are closed - (Comments are closed)
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