Well, there’s no point fighting it. Christmas is racing towards us like the Road Runner roaring down the rocky highways of a yellow and orange Warner Brothers desert, and I don’t even have an Acme rocket sled at my disposal to stop it.
So I may as well just resign myself to the inevitable, and make sure I’m prepared with plentiful entertainments to make the season suitably jolly.
A couple of years back, I decided that at the AKA Grotto we would have a Christmas movie every year. (This is, of course, just an excuse for me to watch old movies. Let’s not kid ourselves.)
For the first Christmas in our new home, the choice was easy: It’s A Wonderful Life, the heartwarming confection about a suicidal depressive beset on all sides by small-mindedness, avarice, incomptenece, bullying and impending bankruptcy. It takes a particularly sick world to hold this movie up as The Spirit of Christmas, but I ain’t complaining. Dark, mean, and hard. Like Jim Kelly in a vendetta kind of mood.
Then, last year, I chose Planes, Trains & Automobiles. Yes, I know. My memory failed me on that one, ‘cos it’s a Thanksgiving movie, not a Christmas movie. Moving swiftly on...
This year, still mired in my strange 80s kick, I’m struggling to choose between two movies. Should it be Scrooged, with Bill Murray as (kinda) Ebenezer Scrooge, transposing Dickensian London to modern-day New York, and shifting the action to the life of a misanthropic television executive? With added Robert Mitchum for extra crustiness? And who could resist a side order of Lee Majors? Yes, TV’s Colt Seavers! It’s almost enough to make me start singing The Unknown Stuntman.
Or should I go for the classic (and I don’t use the word lightly) Trading Places? Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy when they were still funny! Jamie Lee Curtis when she was still hot! Denholm Elliott when he was still alive!
I think I’m going to have to make it a double-bill, because next year, I’m determined to choose Die Hard. Yippiekyay!
Well, I'm not the kind to kiss and tell, But I've been seen with Farrah.
I've never been with anything less than a nine, so fine...
5 comments:
My vote's for Scrooged. Bill Murray rocks.
ONE Christmas film a year? Watch them ALL! Mind you, we watched "Elf" in October.
If forced to choose, it'd have to be "Trading Places" for exactly the reasons you gave - not to mention Dan Aykroyd's outrageous Jamaican impersonation which, like fine wine, improves with time.
Irie irie irie, ah hoop there's enoff speeass on de treeyen fa mee...
PS IronyWatch: the only typo you made in that post was on the word "incompetence".
Has the original An Affair To Remember got a Christmas scene (cried? - I swam out of the living room)
How about While You Were Sleeping -one of those films that should be fluff but is actually rather dark.
Give Mrs AKA a chance.
I can't believe I misspelt "incompetence"...As a monument to my own cackhandedness, I won't edit it away...As Billy Ray Valentine would say "Oh, ho, ho, thank you for correcting my English which stinks!"
Both WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING and ELF are fine films...AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER? Meh...and don't get me started on MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS...dreadful slice of indigestable holiday ham.
I always associate UNCLE BUCK with Christmas, but I can't remember if there is any actual Christmas in it...
I've decided to have a monumental double-bill of Christmassy goodness, with BOTH films showing in a living room near me soon!
I absolutely love "scrooged"..
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