Alternate Takes 11.07.09: Christmas Movies

Posted by Shawn S. Lealos on 11.07.2009

With Christmas time already in the air with the release of A Christmas Carol, Alternate Takes looks at some of the best Holiday films, from Scrooged to A Christmas Story.



Welcome to Week 76 of Alternate Takes. I am your host Shawn S. Lealos and you have now entered my world.

This week officially starts the holiday season. When I was a kid, Christmas holiday started the day after Thanksgiving. Somehow over the last few years decorations start to be put up right after Halloween. Now, it is like a giant two month secular celebration with stores already decorated for Christmas a good four weeks before we celebrate Thanksgiving. Now Hollywood is joining in the jump as the most recent adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol hits theaters this weekend, on November 6 no less. I see the studio trying to make as much money as possible with this marketing strategy as it should play all the way through Christmas, eight weeks from now.

While there have been many versions of this Dickens' classic (one is listed below), this one brings us something completely different. Director Robert Zemeckis is the most innovative filmmaker this side of James Cameron. He revolutionized filmmaking with his seamless mixture of live action and animation in his groundbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit. He amazed the world with his Oscar winning technical marvel Forrest Gump. He is not a director to rest on his laurels and started looking at the next big thing, motion captured animation. With what I consider to be a misfire in The Polar Express, he followed up with a great effort in Beowulf and if that movie is any indication, A Christmas Carol should look amazing. Either way, this week starts the onslaught of Christmas marketing and that makes it a great opportunity to look at some of the best Christmas movies of all time.

5. HOME ALONE (1990) Directed by Chris Columbus Written by John Hughes Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, Catherine O'Hara, John Candy I know that this is the spot I will catch flack for. Some people will want a little comedy called Bad Santa to go here. Others might point back even further to the classic masterpiece Miracle on 34th Street. What about animated Christmas flicks like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or How the Grinch Stole Christmas? Charlie Brown, Elf, White Christmas, Die Hard... There are so many to choose from but when you look at a movie that made the most of its opportunity, you need look no further than Home Alone. Chris Columbus is a director who knows how to bring the best out of child actors. Whatever you think of his work on the series, no one can deny it is Columbus who is most responsible for breaking in the Harry Potter kids. He is also the man who made Macaulay Culkin a star. John Hughes wrote the script that gave Columbus and Culkin the chance to make something very special, the highest box office grossing ($533 million) live action comedy film in history. It remained number one at the box office for 12 straight weeks (Nov 16-18 to Feb 1-3) and in the top ten until the weekend of April 26. It is also an early example of where critics and fans are divided. On Rotten Tomatoes, critics give it a 47% rotten rating while fans rank it 83% fresh. I have talked a lot about the money the movie made. At the end of the day, none of that matters if the movie is bad. Home Alone is not a bad movie, and is actually a really good film. Culkin is on top form here and is perfectly matched with the hapless criminals played by Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern. The entire movie is about the traps Culkin sets up to foil the thieves but at its heart, Home Alone is a movie about family and the final scene where mother and son are reunited is as touching as any.

4. SCROOGED (1988) Directed by Richard Donner Written by Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue Cast: Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, John Glover, Bobcat Goldthwait, David Johansen, Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum If I had a dime for every movie that was based on Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I'd have about six bucks. Everyone has tried out this old story, even as recently as this year's romantic comedy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Hell, the movie that influenced this column is a mo-cap version of the story. But I will be honest with you, I can't hear the line "God bless us everyone" without seeing former Olympian Mary Lou Retton somersaulting across the floor. Bill Murray is a God. There is no denying that. His recent amazing output includes everything from Wes Anderson films to more serious stuff like Lost in Translation. Most of his recent work is great, aside from Garfield, a fact Murray admitted before he died from that unfortunate gunshot wound. But this is Murray's second life. His first go around was even more amazing than what he gives us now. Caddyshack. Stripes. Ghost Busters. Kingpin. What About Bob. And then there was his Christmas masterpiece, Scrooged. No one plays smarmy better than Bill Murray, and he is in top form in this movie. He is an arrogant television executive who became successful as a cruel, cold hearted SOB. He does everything necessary to setup the visits from the ghosts and then when they come, the movie hits an even higher note. The ghost of Christmas past is played by David Johansen, better known to me as punk rocker Buster Poindexter ("Hot Hot Hot"). The second ghost is played by Carol Kane, better known to me as Simka, Latika (Andy Kauffman)'s wife on Taxi. By the time these two characters finish with him, the giant ghoul that is the third ghost is pure overkill. This was at the height of Bill Murray's comic career and his true masterpiece was still to come (Groundhog Day). Out of the over sixty versions of this Dickens' classic, I will take Scrooged over them all everyday of the week.

3. NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989) Directed by Jeremiah Chechik Written by John Hughes Cast: Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Juliette Lewis, Johnny Galecki, John Randolph, Dianne Ladd, E.G. Marshall, Doris Roberts, Randy Quaid In 1983, National Lampoon was still a name recognized with comic excellence. Many people today see the name and assume the movie is going to be a stupid sex comedy offering no more than gratuitous nipples. That was on offer in the late seventies and early eighties as well but there was also a quality to the movies not existing today. In 1983, Chevy Chase started his most successful franchise in the Harold Ramis directed movie Vacation. While that original premise is considered the best movie of the Vacation series, I still prefer the third movie in the franchise, Christmas Vacation. Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo return as the Griswold's, although the kids from the first movie have been replaced. Also returning is the only man to survive the entire franchise, Randy Quaid as crazy Cousin Eddie. As expected in a Vacation movie, Clark Griswold accepts nothing less than perfection in every aspect of his family's happiness. As always, this perfection is always put ahead of his family's actual happiness and everything goes to hell. No one was better in the eighties as the butt of physical jokes than Chevy Chase and they roll out of every orifice in this movie. Of course, there is the infamous Christmas light display, something repeated in just about every Christmas comedy since then. The electrocuted cat still makes me laugh as does the crazed squirrel in the Christmas tree. It all ends in a hostage negotiation. This movie throws everything at the wall, hoping something sticks. Luckily, most of the jokes hit home and the movie is a near perfect dysfunctional family Christmas film. Neither Chevy Chase nor the Vacation franchise enjoyed this kind of success again.

2. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Directed by Frank Capra Written by Frank Capra, Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers This is arguably one of the darkest Christmas movies ever made, but it remains on everyone's Holiday play list year after year. I remember when I used to see it on a continuous loop throughout the season, and the reason for that is public domain. See, the copyright for the movie was not renewed properly, thanks to a clerical error, in 1974 and the film slipped into public domain. While anyone could show it, at any time, they still had to pay royalties, but the movie was shown every year on hundreds of television stations. In 1990, Republic Pictures took the case to court and won back derivative rights to the film and now only NBC is currently licensed to show the film. Thankfully, the film is no longer run into the ground every holiday season and can remain fresh for legions of younger film fans. And what a story it is. In his most memorable role, James Stewart plays George Bailey, a depressed man who sees his life going nowhere. His childhood desires, to see the world and be a great designer, have crumbled around him. He is a good man, someone who put aside his own dreams and desires for the good of those around him. He gave up going to college to run the family business. On the eve of George finally being able to leave for college, his father has a stroke and, after he single handedly saves the town, is convinced to stay and run his father's business. When George receives another chance to leave town following his brother's graduation from college, he chooses to stay so his brother can accept a new, better job out of town. When he finally marries the woman he loves, the two have to put off their honeymoon to once again save the town they live in from ruin. Despite all the good will he has bestowed upon those around him, George still finds himself at the hands of the evil Mr. Potter. Unable to continue to see his hopes and dreams crushed, he runs to a nearby bridge, intent to commit suicide and end it all. That is a lot of darkness for a Christmas movie. Yet, It's a Wonderful Life remains one of the most hopeful, sentimental and touching Christmas movies ever made. It has also been used in everything from The Simpsons to Family Guy. It is hard to watch a movie like Back to the Future Part II without thinking of this Capra classic. AFI listed the movie as #11 in their 1998 100 Years... 100 Movies list and #20 in their 2007 update of the list. They also rank it #3 in the fantasy genre and #1 in their 100 Years... 100 Cheers. There is a good reason It's a Wonderful Life was played ad-nauseum for almost twenty years on television. It is not because of public domain. It is because of public demand. The movie is the most inspirational holiday movie ever made.

1. A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983) Directed by Bob Clark Written by Bob Clark, Jean Shepherd, Leigh Brown Cast: Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Ian Petrella If I was only allowed to choose one movie that I could watch every Christmas for the rest of my life, it would be A Christmas Story. The other movies on this list are wonderful in their own ways but there is something about the story of Ralphie, and his dream of owning an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock, that trumps them all. There is absolutely nothing about this movie that is bad. The kid with his tongue stuck to the flag pole. Little Randie wrapped up a little too tightly in his winter jump suit. The obnoxious department store Santa Claus. The fight where Ralphie uses every curse word he learned from his father. Hell, we bought my father-in-law a replica of the fishnet stocking lamp for Christmas a couple of years back. This movie is burned into my mind and signifies everything a Christmas movie should be. When it was first released in 1983 it was met with mixed reviews. Roger Ebert found it "funny and satirical" but others hated it. That comes as no surprise because the director of the movie, Bob Clark, never made movies critics cared for. I feel Clark's reputation has survived the test of time and he remains one of the better directors of his era because he made movies that were completely different from each other, never allowing himself to be pigeonholed into a specific genre. This man made A Christmas Story, Porkey's and Black Christmas. I can forgive him for Baby Geniuses after that. Clark, who tragically died when he was hit by a drunk driver at the age of 67 years old, made a movie here that survives to this day as my favorite Christmas movie of all time. "You'll shoot your eye out, kid. Merry Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!"

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