My Choices for the Academy Awards

Feb 232013
  February 23, 2013

Just in time, my choices for the Academy Awards. Since so many of this year’s best weren’t nominated, I’ve selected a best from the nominated works, and then what I consider to be actually the best in that category. Perhaps a secret write-in campaign will follow my choices. Perhaps not…

I’ve skipped a few categories for various reasons (no song deserves anything this year, missed as few docs and shorts, saw several films only on the small screen makes judging sound unfair, etc)

Onward.  This is not a prediction of what will win, but what should win.

Picture

Nominees: Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty

Best of Nominees: Django Unchained
Best: Marvel’s The Avengers

 

Director

Nominees: Michael Haneke (Amour), Ang Lee (Life of Pi), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook), Steven Spielberg (Lincoln), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)

Best of Nominees: Steven Spielberg
Best: Ridley Scott (Prometheus)

Actor

Nominees: Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln), Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Denzel Washington (Flight)

Best of Nominees: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best: Daniel Day-Lewis

 

Actress

Nominees: Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Emmanuelle Riva (Amour),  Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Naomi Watts (The Impossible)

Best of Nominees: Naomi Watts
Best: Naomi Watts

 

Supporting Actor     

Nominees: Alan Arkin (Argo), Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master), Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln), Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)

Best of Nominees: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Best: Michael Fassbender (Prometheus)

 

Supporting Actress

Nominees: Amy Adams (The Master), Sally Field (Lincoln), Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables), Helen Hunt (The Sessions), Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

Best of Nominees: Anne Hathaway
Best: Anne Hathaway

 

Writing – Original Screenplay

Nominees: Amour, Django Unchained, Flight, Moonrise Kingdom, Zero Dark Thirty

Best of Nominees: Django Unchained
Best: Marvel’s The Avengers (unless we count it as an Adapted Screenplay, in which case it is best there)

 

Writing – Adapted Screenplay

Nominees: Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook

Best of Nominees: Lincoln
Best: {See Original Screenplay}

 

Best Animated Feature        

Nominees: Brave, Frankenweenie, ParaNorman, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, Wreck-It Ralph

Best of Nominees: Brave
Best: Brave

 

Best Production Design       

Nominees: Anna Karenina, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Les Misérables, Life of Pi, Lincoln

Best of Nominees: Anna Karenina
Best: Upside Down

Best Cinematography

Nominees: Anna Karenina, Django Unchained, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Skyfall

Best of Nominees: Anna Karenina
Best: Prometheus

 

Best Makeup and Hairstyling         

Nominees:  Hitchcock,The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Les Misérables

Best of Nominees: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Best: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Best Film Editing      

Nominees: Argo, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, Zero Dark Thirty

Best of Nominees: none (they are all horrible in editing)
Best: Marvel’s The Avengers

 

Best Visual Effects

Nominees: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Life of Pi, Marvel’s The Avengers, Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman

Best of Nominees: Marvel’s The Avengers
Best: Marvel’s The Avengers

 

 

 Thoughts

The Problem With Docudramas: Argo and Zero Dark Thirty.

Feb 222013
  February 22, 2013

The Academy loves docudramas. I’d say it’s because it makes members feel smart, but that’s psychology and what do I know about psychology? This year we’ve got two nominated for best picture (OK, there are three, but Lincoln is a whole different critter), both CIA spy stories, and both closely related to the truth. Not truth, but related to the truth. They are similar to the truth, and oh, what sins can hide in similarity. And they hide there because these films are sold as truth, just with a footnote of crossed fingers.

A few years back the docudramas of the moment were The King’s Speech and The Social Network. They shared a problem, but it is so much clearer with The Social Network: It was only interesting because it was real. Would anyone have even sat through The Social Network if it was about the languid rise of a fictitious computer programmer named Fred, and the film’s ending was known to all?  There just wasn’t enough story, or conflict, or development. But hey, that’s OK, because it was real. Except it wasn’t. Through omission, Zuckerberg’s biography was altered, and his motivation was created. What we were given was a movie too inaccurate to be a documentary, and not interesting enough for a narrative.

Which brings us back to 2013. Neither of the docudramas have much in the way of plot. Argo has enough of a story for a cute 45 minute short. It follows a CIA agent as he attempts to get six US embassy workers, who have been hiding with the Canadian ambassador, out of Iran during the Iran Hostage Crisis. He does this by creating a fake film, that is to be shot in Iran, and claiming the “house guests” are Canadian filmmakers. Zero Dark Thirty‘s plot can be covered in one tag line: CIA agent has a hunch on how to find and kill Bin Laden, and she’s right. What saves them, what should save them, is their reality. But of course, they are only related to reality.

Argo‘s shifts from truth are less damming, and harder to understand. OK, I get why they added a nonexistent chase at the airport (as the 6 Americans are escaping on a plane). The reality of their covers holding up and them passing through customs smoothly is not terribly dramatic. But why downplay the Canadian’s role? Or state that the British refused to help? Those are pointless lies. And why make up a never-existing sci-fi  script, when in reality they used the screenplay and art for a film version of Zelazny’s classic novel Lord of Light. Any science fiction fan would be all over that nugget of information. But instead Affleck and company go for a less interesting fiction.

Zero Dark Thirty is a police procedural, with spies. For two hours it follows Maya, an obsessed, methodical desk jocky, who likes to go with her hunches. She looks at a lot of pictures, questions a lot of prisoners, takes a lot of notes, and without the facade of this being real, every viewer would be snoring. She does hang around torture at the beginning, which isn’t entertaining, but at least something is happening. At the end, the film violates good story telling form by leaving the only character we’ve been with for two hours, to give us twenty minutes of Bin Laden killing with characters we don’t know (If Bin Laden’s death is a spoiler for you, you need to read the news more often). Unlike Argo, which at least has an amusing premise, Zero Dark Thirty has nothing except the truth. (Yes, the acting is good, but good acting does not make a good movie.) The killing of Bin Laden was a significant event; it is important. It is worth the truth. But this isn’t the truth…not quite.

I’ll narrow my focus to one bit, the most notorious part of the film: the torture scenes. Maya gets her big break from the torture of a prisoner. Many congressional movers and shakers have come out saying that isn’t true. Is it true?  Is it false? It is really essential to know in our current political climate. It is essential to the story. But director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal didn’t care. They have no idea what is true, and Bigelow has stated she just put in the scene because torture was part of what was going on, and that was a good place to put it dramatically. She isn’t lying, she’s just making shit up.

Most people smile and say it is dramatic (or poetic) license, and then put it out of their minds. But this is the history that people will remember. Truth gets lost in dramatic license, and that’s a shame. But I’m a film critic, not a historian. So I can instead say that it’s a shame for film as well. These are movies that are loved because viewers can laugh afterwards and say “Wow, you just can’t make that stuff up.”

Only they did.

And if everyone clearly understood that they did, no one would care about these films.

 Thoughts

I Should Be Allowed to Hit Academy Members With A Rock.

Feb 212013
  February 21, 2013

Watching all of the films nominated for awards in the major categories for the 2012 Academy Awards. This means they are responsible for the my torturous two hours of Amour. Yet, if I were to hit the members of the Academy with a rock, I’d be in trouble.

 Thoughts

Les Misérables – Will It Ever End?

Feb 172013
  February 17, 2013

Watching it now. My god, does Les Misérables ever end? Or does it just go on and on, forever, with semi-songs searching, but rarely finding a melody, and actors constantly in fear of having their noses smacked by the camera?

 Thoughts

Top Five Genre Films of 2012.

Jan 172013
  January 17, 2013

2012 was an excellent year for fantasy, science fiction, and horror films…at the top…but it didn’t have a lot of depth. I’ll ignore mediocrity for now and focus on the winners.

#5 Upside Down

I’m starting with a cheat. I can’t say that Upside Down is the 5th best genre film of the year, even if I can type it. But nothing in the bundle of gore-feasts, animated horror comedies, and action dramedies that could take its place stand out. They just aren’t special. Upside Down may not truly be better than all the second tier offerings, but it is spectacular.

It creates a universe new to film, where two worlds hang within spitting distance of each other, and both have the strange property that their gravity only effects objects from that world. People from “up top” are upside down to those “down below,” which leads to some fascinating office furniture layouts. Of course this isn’t science fiction (the science doesn’t hold up, nor is it meant to), but a romantic fairytale set in an incredible dystopia. OK, the story wobbles around, the narration should have been cut, and the romance is not believable (though Kirsten Dunst is charming enough that I wanted it to be believable), but the world(s) is so brilliantly conceived and breath-takingly realized that the rest can be forgiven. If it was slated to win the Oscar for Art Direction and been nominated for cinematography, I’d have let it be, but as it won’t be getting the honors it deserves, it will have to settle for my #5.

#4 The Man With the Iron Fists

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino solidified the Nouveau Grindhouse movement with Kill Bill, From Dusk Till Dawn, Machete, and of course Grindhouse, a group of playful, self-aware films that honor the ’70s “grindhouse” and drive-in era.  The Man With the Iron Fists is the newest entry in the movement and the best not made by Rodriguez or Tarantino (though Tarantino does have a finger in as “presenter”). If you long for old school Hong Kong chopsocky, but with the addition of greater racial diversity and Hollywood A-listers, your dreams have come true. Rapper RZA takes the director’s chair, as well as the role of the titular character, giving the feature a 2012 vibe, with a nod and a wink. Hands get lopped off, bodies get ground up, blood sprays across rooms, and it is all good fun. Russell Crowe hasn’t displayed this much life in years, and Lucy Liu shines with all the strength and  mesmerizing beauty that she lacks in her weekly TV show.

I would have found the movie more rewarding with a change in who won (it was a given that the bad guys would lose, but that doesn’t mean all the good guys win), but it does nicely as is.

#3 Prometheus

Call it a flawed jem. Ridley Scott’s return to science fiction is the most beautiful film of the year, and the most confounding. It gives us the year’s best character (the android David), the coolest spaceship, the greatest mysteries, the tensest moment, and the only self applied human/squid abortion. The last might not be a plus for everyone, but it was for me.

A semi-prequel to the highly influential Alien, Prometheus often is overly familiar, and then it leaps into no man’s land. It answers far fewer questions than it asks and can be a frustrating ride for anyone not wanting to put in an hour after viewing figuring out what it all meant. But if you love to swim in seas of symbolism, Prometheus is your ocean.

I wrote an article on the character issues in the film (Geek-Out: Let’s Save Prometheus). Since, a sequel is planned, there is still a chance that Scott will deal with those issues, in which case I’ll raise Prometheus to #2.

#2 The Cabin in the Woods

Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard manage to close out the horror genre in grand style. Really. It’s all done. There is nowhere to go after The Cabin in the Woods. Pack it up because any fright fests are just going to look silly now. I’ve tried it, following it with Sinister and The Apparition and I was left giggling. OK, there might be another explanation for that…

Going meta on the meta films, the pair turned all previous horror films into weak prequels to this final installment, and along the way managed to make hundreds of terrible monster movies watchable as they now make sense. This is a real horror film, not a parody, with all the scares and two times the gore that anyone could ask for. But it is also jammed with humor. If you haven’t watched a few hundred horror movies, you’ll laugh at the clever dialog and twisted characters. If you have, you’ll bathe in the in-jokes and homages. This is smart horror, and that is a very rare beast. Sure, it killed the genre, but what a way to go.

Whedon would have had a good year if all he’d done was write and produce The Cabin in the Woods, but he had another project:

#1 The Avengers

I can’t recall having a better time at the movies. The Avengers is perfectly crafted entertainment and perhaps the most satisfying picture of the decade. Filled with charismatic actors playing appealing characters in a big colorful action-fueled epic, it has invoked cheers at every screening I’ve attended.

Marvel bet big, and won. Four stand-alone superhero films, and one sequel all acting as prequels to this massive mash up; it could have gone wrong in so many ways. How many multi-character superhero films have toppled over the cliff?  Somehow they’d pulled off those prequels, but they weren’t over-stuffed with gadgets, plot threads, and stars. Enter Writer/director Joss Whedon, master of the ensemble. Every character has a moment, none dominate, and all feel necessary. It is the ultimate feat of juggling. And character is the key. The action scenes in The Avengers are as good as any in 2012, but they aren’t the draw. It is the dialog. The joy comes from listening to Tony Stark banter with Bruce Banner. Captain America trade jabs with Thor. Nick Fury speechifying (look it up) to everyone. If they happen to be blowing things up at the same time, all the better. No film in 2012, of any kind, had better dialog, and with those spoken words, The Avengers earns its #1 spot.

 Lists, Thoughts

Top Five Overrated Genre Films of 2012

Jan 142013
  January 14, 2013

Overrated does not mean bad. That’s obvious, but I feel I need to point that out to save myself from hate-filled emails. None of these would five would fit on my worst of 2012 list. There are things so much worse. These films are watchable, but have garnered far more praise than they deserve.

#5 Ted

The story of a man-child, his nearly perfect hot girlfriend, and his crude living teddy bear supplies a reasonable number of laughs, and shines when compared to most of 2012’s lame crop of comedies. However, when it popped up on multiple critics’ top ten lists, the world went out of whack. Seth MacFarlane, the mind and voice behind TV’s Family Guy, brings his edgy, twisted, animated-comedy sensibilities to the big screen, and nothing more. Actually he brings a little less as Ted is about the level of his lesser, but still funny American Dad. Here was a chance for him to go wild, and he didn’t. Half the episodes in any season of Family Guy are smarter, more transgressive, and just funnier, and they play four or five times a night on cable. Ted is fine viewing, but nothing special.

#4 The Dark Knight Rises

This tale of revenge and regeneration is the most interesting of Nolan’s trilogy, and one of the most interesting films of the year, but interesting does not mean good. On the plus side, the many (many, many) political references could keep you in water cooler conversations for months. Add in some middling action and a sexy Cat Woman and we’ve get a moderately entertaining superhero movie.
On the minus side, like Nolan’s previous entries, it wears its self-importance like a badge of honor. But The Dark Knight Rises brings along a new set of flaws that ripped me out of the film: so many flaws in so many different areas. There are flaws in medicine (broken backs heal with rope and pulleys), psychology (depressed shut-in becomes extroverted again when a girl pops in), time & space (travel to and from distant deserts is timeless), senses (no secret identity is safe from orphan-eyes), action (an army of police run down a long street toward an army of henchmen and no one uses a hand gun), banking (the Fed would never just let the stock trading go through), criminology (the inmates of hell hole prisons are the nicest people), police practices (every policeman in Gotham goes under the city), verisimilitude (the cinematography paints a realistic world, but in-flight CIA plane gobbling is not realistic), pacing (let’s see some trucks drive around…again), mystery (did anyone not know the “secret” villain?), climax (truck crash; I’ll say no more), and many more. If you can suspend your disbelief for The Dark Knight Rises‘s overlong running time then you have superhuman gating abilities.

#3 Holy Motors

Mainstream critics love to praise a foreign-language film they don’t understand and no one understands Holy Motors. The real fun is not watching the movie, but reading reviews where the author tries so very hard to say something sensible, and fails. “It’s about voyeurism” they cry, and no doubt they are correct, but what about voyeurism they cannot say. “It implies that life is a show,” and again they are right, though Shakespeare said a great deal more in a single line.
The story follows a man who travels around town in a limo, going from “appointment” to “appointment” where each appointment consists of him transforming himself into a different person and living for a time as that person. This is interesting for a time and occasionally comical, though I found myself laughing at it more often than with it. By the halfway point, the routine had gotten old and I was left feeling that any theme could have been presented in a short film. By the time the chimps show up… Well, maybe this would be a great film if you were really high.

#2 Beasts of the Southern Wild

Critics affection for obtuse foreign fare is nothing next to their love of little indie fantasy films where all of the fantastic elements can be written off as a dream. It saves them from admitting to liking fantastic fiction while allowing them to give a nod to the genre. Toss in a condescending look at the impoverished and a spunky child and it is orgasm time.
The child here is indeed spunky, and good enough that her Academy Award nom is not an embarrassment. The directing and story do not stand up so well as it is a surprisingly ugly film that meanders here and there. Hey, it’s about a young girl’s bravery and world view during tough times, so why bother with a plot? (Yes, you should be able to answer that question.) Giant boars do pop up from time to time, ushered in by a storm that is half Katrina, half the apocalypse, and all metaphor. It is an hour and a half of boredom and pretension, wrapped with an uncomfortable poverty porn bow. The child deserved better.

#1 Looper

Beware science fiction films labelled as smart, as they rarely are, and never have anything else to offer. Looper is this year’s go to film for critics who don’t read. The basic story is incredibly straightforward. Two gunmen must face each other, with one trying to protect a child so that the kid won’t grow up with a bad childhood the way he had. The “complexity” comes from one gunman being the future version of the other who’s traveled back in time. Of course this brings up the grandfather paradox, which was old for any reader of SF by 1930. So how does this smart 2012 movie deal with this problem, a problem that is extremely important to the structure of the film, and to the characters’ choices? It doesn’t. Instead Bruce Willis’s old gunman says he’s not going to explain any of that time travel shit, and that’s it. After that, the film does whatever it wants and ignores rules. That can be OK in an action flick, but most of the action here involves looking at farm fields. If you like your sci-fii to be adventure low but farm house high, you are in luck. Looper is slow, unengaging, and as dumb as one of the posts that farmhouse no doubt uses.

 Lists, Thoughts

Countdown of the Doctor Who Christmas Episodes

Dec 312012
  December 31, 2012

Nothing brings the glow of good will, candy canes, and mistletoe to a geek’s heart more than the annual Christmas appearance of Doctor Who. Since his return in 2005, no holiday season has lacked a visit by the Time Lord: some dark, some light. I could explain who The Doctor is, the history of the show, etc. etc., but there is no point. If you can’t recite the history of the last Gallifreyan, go rent the regular season episodes. If you, like me, bleed geek, you already know anything I could say, so on to evaluation: A count down of the Christmas episodes. Most are excellent and all are at least worth the time to watch.

#9 The End of Time (2009)

The Doctor faces the end of time as The Master returns, unknowingly fulfilling the plans of a much greater power.

The End of Time is a vast epic that never fulfills its potential. At times it plods along, at others it leaps forward, always unevenly. Concepts that should have been the central element of their own episode (the duplicating of The Master) only divert from the main story and end up being irrelevant. Serious elements turn out to be silly. Jokes turn out to be silly. Special effects look silly. “Silly” is the word of the day.

Timothy Dalton was an inspired choice as the leader of the Time Lords, but he brings nothing to the table except his commanding voice as he chews the scenery like a first year theater major. The end, both of the story, and of Tennant, is satisfying, which makes this worthwhile, even if it is a slog to get through.

 

#8 The Snowmen (2012)

In 1892 London, Snow is taking on a life of its own, and threatening the existence of mankind. Strangely clever Clara seeks the help of a reluctant Doctor and his band of colorful colleagues.
The third Xmas outing for the eleventh Doctor is the most uneven. There is little story to speak of and what is there doesn’t deserve to be spoken of. Plot slips away as symbolic elements become nonsensically literal. Matt Smith fails to carry the emotional load he shouldn’t have been given. But while the most vital elements of storytelling collapse, lesser ones shine. The new companion, Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) is witty, complex, strong, and exactly what the show needed, taking away the sting of Amy’s departure. She comes wrapped in a puzzle that should keep Whovians arguing for months (till the next episode airs). The secondary characters include the sword wielding detective, and lizard, Vastra, and her assistant and wife Jenny, along with a worse-for-ware alien soldier/nurse who supplies the comedy. They outshine The Doctor every second they are on screen, and scream out for their own show, as well as making The Snowmen worth the time of Who fans, though not the general public.

 

#7 The Runaway Bride (2006)

The Doctor stumbles upon a bride and an ancient evil that plans to use her to return.

Donna Noble appears as the first companion-for-a-single-special, only to pop back a year later to become a full time companion. Her shtick was pretty much the same from show to show, but it’s new here. David Tennant and Catherine Tate are at their comical best with a constant stream of bickering, which is made even better by the killer, robot, Santa Clauses from The Christmas Invasion. It’s all good holiday fun, but also juvenile, harkening back to the 1960 children’s show origins of Doctor Who. Don’t use this one to prove that Doctor Who isn’t just for kids.

Compared to later specials, it has surprisingly weak cinematography but budget will show.

 

#6 The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe (2011)

The Doctor’s attempt to repay a debt goes wrong, and it is up to a recent widow to pass through a dimensional gateway to rescue her children and The Doctor from a forest of living Christmas trees and acid rain.

As the title suggests, there is a lot of C.S. Lewis to be found in this outing (WWII setting, children sent to the country to avoid the bombings, a gateway into a snowy world), but it is only window dressing. The actual story has nothing to do with Narnia, and very little to do with…story. This is the slightest of all the Christmas specials, with almost nothing happening, and no conflict. Outside of setting up the doorway, even the doctor barely acts. Call it a little story with a lot of emotion. But little stories can be enjoyable, and this one is.

 

#5 A Christmas Carol (2010)

On a distant world, The Doctor goes pseudo-Dickens in an attempt to persuade a curmudgeon to use his weather machine to save a plummeting space craft.

The eleventh Doctor’s first Christmas special is warm, emotional, funny, and a lot less Dickensian than the title would suggest. Why show someone the past, present, and future to change them, when you can instead go back in time and actually change him? The romance feels real and heartbreaking, the cinematography is first rate, and the music is beautiful.

 

#4 The Christmas Invasion (2005)

Rose returns to Earth with a comatose Doctor, not yet recovered from his regeneration into Doctor Ten. Unfortunately, malevolent aliens can feel his energy, and choose this as the perfect time to attack Earth.

I’ve a full review of this one, but in short it has Rose, Harriet Jones, killer Santas, weaponized Christmas Trees, and one of the best regeneration recoveries in Doctor Who’s 50 year history. Its flaw: Too little Doctor. Tennant’s Doctor is nearly perfect; too bad he sleeps for half the running time.

 

#3 Voyage of the Damned (2007)

The Doctor joins the party on a space-faring luxury liner (named Titanic, and yes, The Doctor notices that) headed to primitive (2007) Earth. Purposely dropped shields and a trio of flaming space rocks spell disaster for the ship. Now if The Doctor and waitress Astrid Perth can just stop the Earth from blowing up when the vessel crashes.

Ah, what might have been. Kylie Minogue’s Astrid would have made an excellent full season companion, but as we only got her for this episode, its nice to know we can go back and watch it over and over.

The story is pure Poseidon Adventure, with the requisite heartrending deaths and uplifting survivals. It is surprising how much I felt each one. The concept is so-so, but the execution elevates it. And you have to love The Host. The universe needs more homicidal angels.

 

#2 The Next Doctor (2008)

The Doctor returns to the late 1800s for another Christmas, and is surprised to find a Time Lord named The Doctor already there. This Doctor has no memory of his past, so Doctor number ten decides to help with a mystery involving murders, missing children, and cybermen.

Two Doctors for the price of one, and both funny and able to twist your heart. Good story, tension and humor, geektastic moments (images of the entire line of Doctors are projected on a wall), a first rate villain in Miss Hartigan, and a steampunk giant, The Next Doctor has it all. It is also the most cinematic of all the specials (and of all the episodes), with some beautiful shots (Hartigan’s red dress seen through falling snow in a black and white world). This is the best of the specials, and would be the best Doctor Who Christmas except…

 

#1 The Unquiet Dead (2005)

The Doctor miscalculates, taking new companion Rose to Cardiff for Christmas where a depressed Charles Dickens is performing a public reading. When an animated corpse disrupts the event, The Doctor teams up with Dickens to get to the heart of a real ghost story.

Not a special, but the 3rd regular episode of the “new” Doctor. Everything was fresh. Christopher Eccleston was mysterious and dangerous. Billie Piper was charming and sexy. They are tossed into a world that is frightening and exhilarating. Every character has a moment to shine, a moment to learn, and several moments to fail. The Unquiet Dead is not only the best Christmas episode, but the best of the “…..meets a historical figure” episodes, and one of the top episodes period. Merry Christmas.

 Lists, Thoughts

The True Meaning of Christmas

Dec 252012
  December 25, 2012

Friends can be replaced and your family doesn’t really like you all that much, but movies always have meaning. Remember this Christmas to spend time with a few Christmas movie classics.

 Thoughts

Christmas Films You Might Have Missed

Dec 152012
  December 15, 2012

It is time for sitting around the TV with family and hot chocolate, and lots of booze, and watching Christmas movies. There are so many, good or otherwise, that everyone knows about. You’ve probably seen A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and a few versions of A Christmas Carol. So, here are a few suggestions for more unusual Christmas film viewing.

The Hog Father: On the night before Hogswatch (a Holiday very much like our Christmas), the Hogfather has vanished, so Death puts on the red suit and a fake beard and tries to play the part while his granddaughter attempts to save the season…and the world. A delightful version of Terry Pratchett’s novel. This is perfect for those with a slight “Addams Family” outlook on life.

Fitzwilly: A team of servants rob from the rich to keep their broke (and unaware) mistress living the high life. When a new secretary is brought in from outside their criminal fold at Christmastime, the jig might be up, but romance is also an option. An old fashioned romantic comedy that should not be obscure, but is since it has never been released on DVD. If you’re lucky you can catch it on TCM. Dick Van Dyke is at his best as the suave butler and Barbara Feldon gets one of her few good roles.

Bell Book and Candle: A witch decides she wants a publishing executive who happens to be engaged to an old enemy, so enchants him at Christmastime. A fun romance with a great cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Nicky Holroyd, Ernie Kovacs, Elsa Lanchester. The gender sensibilities are a little old fashioned, but Novak is breathtaking as a powerful “modern” witch and Lemmon is hysterical as a less powerful warlock.

Trancers: A policeman from the future must travel back in time stop a plague of zombies. OK, this might not be a classic, but it is loads of fun. Watching Tim Thomerson’s cop, Jack Deth, fight a zombie Santa while a young Helen Hunt in an elf costume looks on makes this something you can’t miss. Besides, you need one horror movie at Christmastime.

We’re No Angels: (And I’m not talking about that 80s De Niro film of the same name) Three escapees from Devil’s Island find their way into a small shop. Their plan is murder and robbery, but somehow they end up bringing needed Christmas cheer for a troubled family. Why isn’t this one of those Christmas flicks everyone watches every year? It a joy from start to finish. Humphrey Bogart plays the lead villain in a rare comedic role and it is directed by Michael Curtiz, my favorite director who also helmed White Christmas.

That should get you going. What’s your favorite unusual Christmas films?

 Thoughts Tagged with:

Two Hours of Happiness

Dec 122012
  December 12, 2012

The local Movie Studio Grill had a $1 Girls Night Out screening of Love Actually tonight, and I defied gender rolls and went (with my wife Eugie). It is a strange movie in that I liked it quite a bit when I first saw it, but I like it more and more each time I see it. It just doesn’t get old: eight or nine intertwined tales of love at Christmastime, some gleeful, some tragic, all funny. If you need a newish Christmas film tradition, Love Actually is the film. An excellent way to celebrate.

And the foods not bad.

 Thoughts
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