I was woken up this morning by the sound of snowplow blades scraping against asphalt, and looked out the window to see 5 inches of snow on my car. While mildly annoying, it is really nothing new or extraordinary to anyone who has lived in New England for any extended period of time. However, this being the first significantly-accumulating snowfall of the year, tonight I will be partaking in a long-standing tradition of watching The Shining when I get home from work.
Years ago, my friend Craig suggested this as the perfect movie for when it's snowing, and my friends and I made a yearly ritual out of it. The idea was such a good one that it has stayed with me in the 10 or so years since it was conceived. But the real connection between the film and the conditions is obviously just the snow, not anything to do with Christmas or the holiday season in general.
For some reason, this got me thinking on a tangent as I was driving to work this morning at 15 MPH. Sure, there are plenty of bona fide Christmas movies out there, such as Bob Clark's ubiquitous A Christmas Story, or my personal favorite, Brian Desmond Hurst's 1951 version of Scrooge, starring the perfectly-cast Alastair Sim. But for some reason, I have always loved movies that are sort of about Christmas, but not really. Movies in which Christmas is featured, but in a more tangential or incidental sense. So, without further ado, here is my short personal list of favorite "Sort-Of Christmas Movies":
Die Hard - NYPD Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) is invited to LA by his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia) to attend her office Christmas party. It just so happens that at the same time, a group of German terrorists (led by the incomparable Alan Rickman) has infiltrated and beseiged the entire building. In a series of physics-defying Christmas miracles, McClane manages to slip away, assess the situation, and pretty much singlehandedly kill the shit out of all the bad guys, while also managing to piss off the FBI and befriend the dad from Family Matters, who seems to always play a cop in everything he's ever been in. (Cracked's Robert Brockway weighs in on this one here.)
Gremlins - Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante bring us the story of a young bank teller who is given a bizarre and exotic Christmas gift by his eccentric inventor dad, Hoyt Axton. It is an impossibly adorable little furry thing called a mogwai, which, through the violation of some logically arbitrary "rules" and Corey Feldman being an idiot, manages to reproduce and spawn an army of evil, obnoxious reptiles. Chaos ensues, of course. I love this movie mostly because it manages to combine the elements of small-town politics from It's A Wonderful Life with the campy "Monsters are invading the town and the authorities don't believe me!" premise from virtually every monster and sci-fi movie of the 1950's.
Edward Scissorhands - In this highly stylized modern-day fairy tale about a hopelessly deformed misfit adopted by a suburban family, Tim Burton manages to maintain a charming tone while teaching us satirical lessons on morality, love, tolerance, gossip, and the origin of snow. Another bizarre cross-genre film that mixes the gothic feel of Frankenstein with the small-town sensibilities of Anytown, USA. Also notable for being Vincent Price's final film appearance, and I must say that for what amounts to little more than an extended cameo, he really added a beautiful dimension to the film as Edward's creepy-cute mad scientist "father".
Love Actually - A sprawling, sappy manifesto on the many facets of love, which I happen to think is completely adorable. This movie tells the 653 intertwining stories of 1,022 characters who all know each other or are related or fall in love or whatever. The brilliant Bill Nighy totally steals the show as the burned-out former rock star hilariously attempting to use Christmas to resurrect his fame and fortune. Also features some dated and awkwardly shoehorned-in UK vs. USA political commentary between altruistic Prime Minister Hugh Grant, and sleazy US President Billy Bob Thornton, when a momentary love triangle between them and Martine McCutcheon somehow translates into a pissy foreign relations incident. (??)
Brazil - Set during the Holiday Season in some unspecified, dystopian year in the near future, Terry Gilliam's masterpiece is a sort of tongue-in-cheek version of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. In my opinion, this is not only an incredibly great movie and a chilling vision of a totalitarian and beaurocratic future, it is also the single most re-watchable movie I have ever seen (like, 50 times). If you haven't seen this movie, you haven't lived. Features top-notch performances by Jonathan Pryce, Ian Holm, Katherine Helmond, Robert DeNiro, Jim Broadbent, and Michael Palin. (Note: Also available in the despicably mangled studio edit, scornfully referred to as the "Love Conquers All" version. Do NOT watch this under any circumstances.)
So, there you have it. Something a little different for this year's Christmas movie-watching festivities, if you're in the mood. All of these movies are great on their own merits, but they are especially fun to watch during the holidays. Enjoy!
Lots to watch. Good thing the Christmas season lasts more than one night! Thanks for sharing your faves.
— By Pat McDermott, on
December 9, 2009 7:25 PM
For any form of satire to be considered truly great, I believe it has to walk so close to the truth that it's barely distinguishable from it. Whether exaggerated or slightly understated, satire is probably my favorite form of comedy. It often brings about some of the most sophisticated, clever, and disturbing genius comedy has to offer.
Many years ago, my sister introduced me to The Onion, and its brilliant satirical walk through fake journalistic history called "Our Dumb Century". By creating imaginary past issues of a newspaper that would often make either terrifyingly true or intentionally false predictions about the future (which was actually the past or present), "Our Dumb Century" underlined much of the stupidity and ridiculousness of human progress and historical events. The 1969 Moon Landing, for example. Taking into account the entire scope of human history, it seems a little less exciting today than it probably did 40 years ago.
Today, after a long hiatus from reading The Onion, I clicked on it this morning before heading off to work, and was simultaneously awed, disturbed, and greatly amused by the Onion's latest meta-joke. The owner of the Onion, one T. Herman Zweibel (think the Simpsons' Monty Burns with a bad case of Alzheimer's) has sold the paper to China. Today's issue features disinformation, propaganda galore, self-aggrandizing nationalistic rhetoric, harsh criticism of Americans and American culture, and a lot of censorship. Included are such hilarious articles as:
This "sale" comes on the heels of many terrifying stories reported from China, such as the blocking of the wildly popular micro-blogging site Twitter due to the fact that it seems to have allowed too much communicating between Chinese citizens that directly contradicted official, sanitized government reports. The paper's sale also seems to have roots in the many shutdown scares of long-respected American newspapers on the verge of bankruptcy.
In any case, I applaud the Onion for bringing attention to such full-blown fascism, and doing it in such a way that makes us laugh instead of cry. The political and social climate in China remains fascinating food for thought, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop and have a few much-needed laughs along the way to whatever solution might lie on the horizon.
I am something of a grammar and spelling Nazi, and find myself ashamed beyond words when it's discovered that I've accidentally butchered the English language in some way. For the rest of you Nazis out there, have you ever seen a sign in a store, park, marquee, etc. that had unnecessary quotation marks around it? I have, far too often.
I just took a peek at my Netflix queue to see what was headed my way once I return the movies I have at home. I was a little disturbed to find out what was destined to arrive in my mailbox in the very near future.
THIS:
In case you were wondering, yes that is Sean Connery. The movie, which I had until yesterday completely forgotten that I had ordered, is called Zardoz, a post-apocalyptic commentary on caste systems, organized religion, and apparently, fashion dos and don'ts.
Being a fan of the whole dystopia genre, my curiosity (which later deteriorated into morbid curiosity) was piqued when I heard about this supposed cult-classic by the guy who directed Deliverance, featuring former James Bond and future Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez clad in a red diaper and suspenders. Um... apparently there's also a lot of stuff about penises in the movie too. At least, that's what I've heard. Based on that picture up there, I can hardly say I'm surprised.
In the last few years, I've been quite an avid fan of movies predicting bleak futures for humanity, mostly because of how plausible some of them seem. Before I continue with the real reason for this post, allow me to list a few of my favorite films depicting utterly insane, and largely believable, scenarios concerning the future of mankind:
The whole Mad Max trilogy: An Australian highway cop in a really awesome car goes nuts and exacts gruesome revenge after a biker gang kills his family. Later he becomes a legendary messiah figure, pisses off Tina Turner, and battles a retarded giant in a steel cage.
Logan's Run: The entire population of the US lives in a huge domed city controlled by computers. To stifle population growth, people celebrate their 30th birthdays with a mandatory mass-suicide ritual.
A Boy and His Dog: Don Johnson and a talking (?) dog named "Blood" try to survive as scavengers in a nuclear wasteland, and end up discovering an underground community of bible-thumping nutcases wearing clown makeup and overalls.
Equilibrium: To put an end to man's predisposition to violence and war, people are forced to take drugs that suppress all emotions. Christian Bale is a lawman who arrests/kills anyone who goes off their meds.
Wizards: Millions of years after humankind is wiped out by nuclear war, the forces of good (magic) and evil (technology) battle for dominance of the world.
THX 1138: Robert Duvall is a bald drone in a society of bald drones who is tricked into going off his mandatory mood-suppressing drugs and gets caught, sentenced, and imprisoned for his crime of having feelings and falling in love with his roommate.
Minority Report: Tom Cruise yells his way through this adaptation of Philip K. Dick's story of a future police department that can accurately predict the future and pre-emptively arrest criminals before they've even done anything wrong, opening up a whole messy philosophical and moral can of worms.
Demolition Man: Basically a re-telling of Huxley's Brave New World with guns, explosions, and Denis Leary. 'Nuff said.
And the list goes on and on, some examples being, of course, infinitely better than others.
So to all my friends, family, and loved ones: In case my mind does not survive the journey of Zardoz, know that I love you all and will see you on the other side.
There's nothing I can say that can accurately convey the sense of loss I feel over one of the 20th Century's most important authors, except that his writing had an amazing way of putting everything -- our actions, our mere existence, the universe itself -- into perspective. Vonnegut was a man who broke down the hugeness of our planet, and the monstrousness of our species, into childlike concepts. I will never forget seeing him on a tv interview, advocating a new and much-needed Cabinet position: "Secretary of the Future".
Here's a pretty comprehensive summing-up of his life.
(Although they left out the part where he wonders aloud how long he was going to have to wait before the damn cigarettes finally did their job and killed him already.)
One more thing: Kurt Vonnegut, a cynical, curmudgeony genius, would no doubt appreciate the minimal media coverage (or lack thereof) concerning his death, and what it ultimately says about our culture and its fascination with "celebrities" vs. "actual important topics 1 through infinity". After browsing through several other blogs and message boards, it was difficult to keep from crying when I read the messages of grief and loss from his readers. Unfortunately, we have no problem focusing our attention on (for example) Anna-Nicole Smith and her death, her fortune, the lineage of her child -- for WEEKS on end. But the passing of a brilliant mind like Vonnegut's will surely receive only the most cursory mentions on tonight's news broadcasts. I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it.
Note: I just checked Google News. Anna Nicole Smith is at the top of the quick-links list for today's news, with over 2,100 related articles. Kurt Vonnegut's death is listed about 3/4 of the way down the page, with about 800.
Is it "Groundhog" or "Groundhog's" day? I never really knew for sure.
Anyway, this day is kind of a bizarre and pointless tradition, but this year ol' Phil has predicted an early Spring for the first time I can remember. I wonder if this has anything to do with global warming?
Ok well, it may be a silly day and a silly tradition, but the movie of the same name is one of my all-time favorites. Here's a politicized spoof by Tom Tomorrow. Enjoy!
When I was at SU, I had a comic strip in the Daily Orange that ran two days a week, called "Welcome To My World". It was poorly drawn, but I was more focused on the humor at the time. Probably my biggest inspiration at the time (1998-2000) was a little strip from Canada called Space Moose. If you've never seen it, there's really no way to do it justice with a simple explanation (warning - it's NOT for kids.)
In recent months, I've been considering starting up a new series of comic strips, because at least once a day I have an idea that I think would be pretty funny. The only problem is, there are already so many strips out there on the Web that are amazing and hilarious, that it's actually kind of discouraging. I'm fairly certain that nothing I can come up with will ever be as good as some of the genius I've seen out there. I'm sure you have felt the same way about something before, be it music, art, writing, or whatever.
Anyway, I still may end up doing a strip if I can force myself to work hard enough on it. But for now, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you. If you're planning to read any of these while you're at work, at church, or while someone is taking a nap in the other room, I strongly advise against it, because it's guaranteed that some of these will make you laugh WAY out loud. Check it:
"Get Your War On" - A highly political strip that I assume evolved from the author's prior series, "My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable". Both are absolutely insane and fantastic commentaries on the state of business, world politics, and clip art.
"The Perry Bible Fellowship" - Hilarious and disturbing at the same time. The author is an SU grad (just like me!) who used to have a strip in the Daily Orange (just like me!). One way in which he is not just like me is that his comics are an equal blend of witty dark humor and fantastic craftsmanship.
Excellent. I love when you show me stuff from "The Perry Bible Fellowship". I never remembered what it was called to read it myself. Done and done.
— By Rebecca, on
January 22, 2007 10:42 PM
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