Some favorite movies

Christmas edition, though I think I'm more inclined to watch movies at Christmas than any other time of the year.

There are several Christmas movies I love deeply, and will stop and watch if they are on the air when I am free:

"Elf" (which I have written about before). Part of the reason I love this movie, oddly, is what I imagine it COULD have been, but chose not to be: it could have been a very cynical and even bleak comedy (e.g., Buddy is actually NOT a human adopted into an elf family but a totally delusional human) or the other actors (Jim Carey was considered for Buddy, I hear, and that would have been a different, and IMHO, considerably less-good, movie than what we got). Another thing I like about it is that Buddy tends to pull everyone around him up - the wild decorating of his birth-father's apartment, which charms his half-brother and the half-brother's mom, for example, and how his cheerfulness and openness makes other people's lives better (his comment to his father's assistant, about how she was so pretty, she should be on a Christmas card). And it's a fundamentally *optimistic* movie, which I think is something a lot of us need.

Also, my all-time favorite movie (I have decided now): "It's a Wonderful Life." I've written about this several times in the past, but every time I watch it, I see something new, despite being able to recite much of the dialog along with the movie. Again, it's a fundamentally *optimistic* movie - it operates under the assumption that human nature is generally good, and that Mr. Potter is a sick anomaly. It also shows someone who self-sacrifices at nearly every turn - but who DOES turn out to have a pretty wonderful life after all, despite (or maybe actually because of) that tendency to sacrifice.

Those are my two favorites.

I also like "Little Women," in its various forms (not, however, the modernized one, called something like "The March Sisters at Christmas" - I watched about three minutes of that, went "ugh," and changed channels). My preferred version is the 1933 one because I like seeing Katharine Hepburn as Jo, but the late 40s (? maybe early 50s?) one with June Allyson as Jo has its own delights. (I said once before I couldn't see why Jo didn't marry Laurie, but in at least one of those movies, Professor Bhear suggests to me maybe it was good she didn't settle...) I like this movie even though I admit my reaction to the death of Beth (oh, that CAN'T be a spoiler, can it? Doesn't everyone know?) is to go, like Big Bird, "I don't like it! It makes me sad!" because I identify with Beth a little bit. (I had scarlet fever as a child, too, but my own bout of it - thanks to antibiotics, I guess, and  a basically strong constitution - was barely memorable, and I only remember it because of my initial worry of "wait, isn't this something kids went blind from in the old days?")

I guess I'm getting more sentimental as I get older. I tried to watch "The Man Who Came to Dinner" this year - I remember enjoying it in the past - but five minutes in, I was annoyed at how nasty Monty Wooley's character was (and yes, I know, that's the point, but) and I switched it to...

Actually, another Christmas movie that I guess I can count in my "modern movies I like" - Arthur Christmas, which I guess got less play here than in the UK? It does seem Disney runs it fairly heavily before Christmas. I like this movie; in some ways it's fundamentally a good-hearted movie and it also gives an interesting twist on the whole Santa legend: Santa is the "office," not the man. And for a long, long time, there's been a dynasty, father to son, of new Santas (going all the way back, it's hinted at one point, to the original St. Nicholas). The main story is the idea of this succession - will it go to Steve, the hyper-efficient, go-go-go son of Santa (whose beard is even trimmed into the shape of a Christmas tree), or the younger Arthur, who is kind of a klutz but also has a good heard and understands how things SHOULD be....and Grandpa Santa (the Dowager Santa? I don't know what you'd call the Santa-before-the-current-one) makes an appearance, and he's a bit of a nutter, but again - he and Arthur connect well, and..... the MacGuffin of the story is a girl in Cornwall who got passed over, and whose bike has to be got to her before the sun rises. But one of the big reasons I like this movie (beyond the plausible "Well, Santa's not immortal, but here's how the role of Santa could be") is the whole world-building aspect of it - the idea that it's a whole operation, they have stuff like GPS and cloaking devices and everything....

I also don't know how I'd feel about "Christmas in Connecticut" this year. I used to love it but last year I found some of it a bit tedious, and the whole "keep up the fiction" subplot....I don't know, it was oddly slightly nervewracking.

I do hope I can catch another lesser favorite, though, "The Bishop's Wife," which is another hopeful movie, in its own way - yes, Cary Grant seems like he could very easily steal the titular bishop's wife away if he wanted....but the upshot of his being an angel is that once he leaves, no one will remember him, but their lives will continue to be changed - so the bishop (an Episcopalian bishop, who apparently still preaches) will find new inspiration for sermons, and his wife will be cheerier and find her spirit again....in some places it is a slightly ridiculous movie (the skating scene, which is pretty obviously using doubles) but it's good-hearted and I like it.

Movies I liked when I was a bit younger, broad comedies like "Scrooged," have lost some of their charm for me. Maybe a liking for slapstick declines with maturity?

And I never was that much into "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and I'd also argue that is  more a Halloween movie than a Christmas one. (And I won't get into "incidentally Christmas" movies like "Trading Places"* or "Die Hard" - when I talk about a Christmas movie, the celebration of Christmas has to be a big part of the plot(

(*Heh. I remember in freshman year of college that was our dorm pre-Christmas break movie-night movie. The RA for the hall argued: "It's got a Christmas tree in it! It's a Christmas movie!" but I think she was just an Eddie Murphy fan)

I'm not sure what version of "A Christmas Carol" I'd pick. I like both the 1938 one and the 1955-ish one. And the Muppet version, though I consider that non-canonical ("Non-canonical! Non-canonical!"). But in general, the whole idea of it - very wealthy man who disbelieves in personal charity ("Are there no workhouses?") learns the error of his ways, and to be more generous, especially with his clerk, Bob.

(The first version of this I EVER saw - and am not sure if I've seen in its entirety since - is the Mr. Magoo version, and so I admit my initial picture of Scrooge IS as Magoo. Though also the version of maybe 15 years ago with Patrick Stewart as Scrooge - well, that one was excellent, too, and portraying Scrooge as something OTHER than a tiny, withered up, weak old man gives a different image of him - someone who would genuinely be physically imposing to his clerk and scary to children....)