What’s your preference when it comes to Christmas movies – sweet, funny or weird? Or do you like all three? If you answered as affirmative “Yes, yes, yes” to the question – it sounded like a cute take on “Ho ho ho” in my blog post-writing but now sounds Continue Reading
Movies
On 12th day of Christmas … I watched The Christmas Chronicles
Good lord but the spirit of Christmas is a fragile and easily-derailed thing. Judging by the sheer exuberantly-colourful preponderance of Christmasness everywhere, you would be reasonably safe to assume that the festive season is a robust and unalterable thing. Not so, counsel endless numbers of Christmas films, with one of Continue Reading
Christmas retro movie review: Die Hard
Merry Christmas, John McClane! In the classic late ’80s blockbuster Die Hard, which is indisputably a Christmas movie – exhibit A is “Let it Snow!” sung not simply by Al (Reginald VelJohnson) but beautifully soundtracked at the end of the film as Argyle (De’voreaux White) the limo driver drives everyone Continue Reading
Movie review: Dumplin’
It will surprise exactly no one that we live in a world unforgiving of difference. If you slip neatly into the box marked “acceptability”with a minimum of fuss and a marked absence of flamboyance and free thought, you are patted on the head, awarded a gold star and sent on Continue Reading
The 12 Days of Christmas – A Tale of Avian Misery
This is the smartest, funniest deconstruction of the song “The 12 Days of Christmas” that I have ever seen. Narrated by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who possesses a voice so mellifluous and wry with inflection that she must be mandated by law, to narrate everything, and I mean everything, the short film Continue Reading
Lessons from the Screenplay: Good Will Hunting — The Psychology of Character
SNAPSHOT There’s a scene in Good Will Hunting that makes me emotional every time I watch it. It is brilliantly acted and directed, but it’s also emotional because we understand the psychology of the protagonist and witness a cathartic breakthrough. So this video examines how characters use defense mechanisms Continue Reading
Thoughts on A Charlie Brown Christmas
In a world of dazzling CGI special effects and ever more postmodern, cleverly-interwoven stories, the beautiful simplicity of 1965’s A Charlie Brown Christmas is striking. Holding close to the look and spirit of Charlie Schulz’s immortally-brilliant comic strip Peanuts, the animated Christmas special features, as you might expect given the Continue Reading
It’s BAAAA’D! Shaun the Sheep has to deal with Farmageddon
SNAPSHOTWhen an impish and adorable alien with amazing powers crash-lands near Mossy Bottom Farm, Shaun soon sees an opportunity for alien-powered fun and adventure, setting off on a mission to shepherd the intergalactic visitor home before a sinister organization can capture her…can Shaun and the flock avert Farmageddon on Mossy Continue Reading
On 7th day of Christmas … I watched Christmas in Connecticut #retroreview
If you think that creative fabrication is purely a product of our digital Fake News what-you-see-isn’t-necessarily-what-you’re-getting age, then 1945’s Christmas in Connecticut is proof that humanity has long had a talent for pulling the wool over others’ eyes, especially if it aids in building and sustaining a career. You could Continue Reading
On 6th day Christmas … I watched The Grinch
For a film that’s ostensibly about a person who hates Christmas with such a ferociously ill-tempered passion that he steals it away from everyone else, The Grinch wears its Christmas-loving heart very much on its tinseled sleeve. Which really makes perfect sense since at heart The Grinch, like Charles Dickens’ Continue Reading