Scrooged

One of my all time favourite Christmas movies.  We watch it every year.  The final scene always brings tears to my eyes.  Bill Murray is fantastic as the ridiculously mean Frank Cross, the TV executive who schedules a live production of A Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve.  The story uses all the essential elements of the Dickens novel, updated and set in 1980s New York.  I love Carol Kane as the wacky Ghost of Christmas Present.  The bit where she belts Frank with the toaster never fails to make me laugh.  Bill’s real-life brother James Murray plays his brother in the movie.  The Murrays are a large family of 9 kids, 5 of whom are actors (well - of sorts – one sister is a Dominican Sister who travels around the US portraying St Catherine of Siena).  It was nominated for an Oscar for best makeup.  The work on the Ghost of Christmas Future and the very funny ghost of Frank’s old, dead, boss was pretty much state of the art at the time.  Bill got a Saturn (Academy of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror Films) nomination for best actor.  I think he deserved much more for this role, particularly the over-the-top, but seemingly completely sincere, speech that he delivers at the end.  You can’t go wrong with settling down to watch Scrooged at any point of your Christmas celebrations.    

Dracula

This is the classic 1931 version with Bela Legosi in the title role.  He had the perfect accent and demeanour for Dracula.  His take on the character set the benchmark for so many screen vampires to come.  Those exaggerated claw-like hand movement and swishing cape.  Of course, this version of Dracula has long since ceased to be frightening and is now of mainly historical interest – there is a not a drop of blood or even a nasty set of elongated incisors to be seen in the whole movie.  The sets are fascinating, particularly the interiors of the Transylvanian castle, the massive fireplace reminded me of Citizen Kane.   Dwight Frye is an excellently demented Renfield and Edward van Sloan is good as Van Helsing (I wonder what he would make of the Hugh Jackman’s version in 2004).  There are some classic lines that have slipped into movie folklore: “Children of the night, the music they make”, so lovingly parodied by Robert Kaufman in 1979’s Love at First Bite (a movie I would quite like to see again). 

Avatar

I must admit that when I first read about Avatar I thought that James Cameron was going to have a huge flop on his hands.  It just sounds like a recipe for disaster.  A love story between a man in a genetically fabricated alien body and a female alien set on an entirely made-up world, featuring a heavily green and anti-war message...hmmm..I can just see how that synopsis would make a veteran Hollywood producer’s eyes roll.  But amazingly, Cameron pulls it off.  At almost three hours, it was in danger of making my bum a little numb, but the action in the last act is so spectacular that in the end it didn’t seem overly long.  Its visually stunning.  Cameron is at heart a technician and here again he advances what is technically possible on the screen as he did with Titanic.  Avatar is not officially an animation, but it relies so heavily on CGI that it might as well be.  The blurring of the boundaries between live action and animation continues to gain pace.  I was reading The Envelope, the LA Times supplement which precedes the start of the award season, and seven or eight of the top movies of the past year have been animations. I don’t know whether this is good or bad.  Time will tell.  One interesting side effect may be that we get film actors who do not necessarily look like movie stars.  What does it matter what you look like in real life when you can be portrayed in any form by your screen Avatar?   

 

A Christmas Carol

A truly magnificent piece of work from Disney.  A Christmas Carol is breathtakingly beautiful.  Its rendering of a snowy, Dickensian London has to be seen to be believed.  In 3D in feels as though you are there.  I’m sure I could feel the snowflakes!  This is not a modernised version, but stays true to the language and story of Dickens.  As a result, it is quite surprisingly scary in parts and will almost certainly be a bit too much for some younger children.  But for those that can tough it out past the frightening door knob (this was the bit that scared me most as a kid) and the bony fingers of the Ghost of Christmas Future, this will be a very rewarding film.  Destined to be a seasonal classic.  Visually, a masterpiece.   

Fall of the House of Usher

An infamous horror movie in its day, Fall of the House of Usher is by today’s horror standards incredibly mild.  Modern day audiences will be more amused than frightened by the horror clichés that House of Ushers and its contempories pioneered.  And all the clichés are present and correct here.  The vast, bleak old house on the moors, the creepy butler, creaking and suddenly slamming doors, coffins and skeletons galore, a bit of fake blood and, of course, the climax played out in a deafening thunder storm.  Vincent Price is at his mysterious and creepy best.  The hero (Mark Damon) can only helplessly stumble around the great mansion, narrowly escaping a horrible death at every turn and occasionally looking so comically shocked that one can only laugh.  Myrna Fahey makes for a beautiful damsel in distress, until she is buried alive and comes back as a red-eyed demon with super human strength.  Amusing enough, but really only worth seeking out for its historical value.