LAMBracket: Best Christmas Movie – Play-Off #7: From December 1st until Christmas Eve, here on the LAMB, we’ll be determining what is the BEST Christmas movie of all time. We’ve asked you all which films are the main contenders, and …
If you are not considering The Muppet Christmas Carol as your choice for the best Christmas movie of all time, you must not have seen the film. Not only is it a great Christmas film, it is in many ways, the greatest telling of one of the most important Christmas themed stories of all time. Charles Dickens’ story has been filmed more than two dozen times, with distinguished Shakespearean actors and American Television Thespians. None of them can hold a candle to this version which succeeds because of two fantastic features. First, look at the title, “Muppets”. I have heard that there are people who do not appreciate The Muppets, I don’t want to know who those people are. The off kilter humor, the manic and deadpan delivery in the same scene, the plethora of weird characters are all things that make even the most mundane material watchable. Kermit the Frog is perfectly cast as Bob Cratchitt. Miss Piggy is surprisingly subdued as his wife and the mother of Tiny Tim. Meanwhile, subverting the proceedings by drawing attention to the narrative explicitly, Gonzo and Rizzo Rat are a Greek Chorus representing Dickens himself. You can’t beat that for creative story structure on this particular tale.
Muppets alone would be enough to elevate this to the status of Christmas classic, but there’s one other secret weapon here that should overwhelm any other objections, Michael Caine. In most versions of the story, Scrooge is ancient and closer to the end of life. Caine is closer to middle age, which means his arc of redemption will span the life of the Cratchit family more. Caine plays crotchety without being particularly old.We can accept that he has an old man disposition with a younger man’s vigor. He also sings. Maybe not the dulcet baritone that would be featured in a stage version of the story, but he has a “talk-singing” style that works perfectly for the amusing Paul Williams penned songs.
“Oh, Scroogey loves his money ’cause he thinks it gives him power, If he became a flavor you can bet he would be sour “
OK, tell me that getting Spielberg's Biggest Blockbuster of the 1970s AND his Biggest Blockbuster of the 1980s isn't going to help me win this draft. Plus I have the sequel to his biggest Blockbuster of the 1990s to go along with it. This should be in the bag, but only if you do your part and vote for my slate in the Draft. Jaws There are plenty of posts on this site for this film. Here is a list: 40th Anniversary Jaws Week Posts My Original Post on the 70s Summer Movie Project Book Signing with Carl Gottlieb Last Years Great Screening in a Great Theater Others: The Lost World: Jurassic Park Spielberg Blogathon Entry While I don't want to support Heather's Team of films, I do have a link to my vigorous defense of Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom . Vote at this link. When you look at the choices, you'll know the right thing to do. UPDATE! Victory! Thanks everyone who voted.
This is one of those posts that is personal nostalgia rather than a film review, so if you were looking for a detailed evaluation of the film, sorry, not today. Last night I watched "My Fair Lady" on TCM as they were screening it in honor of it's inclusion on the National Film Registry. I happened to be by myself, a scenario that is likely to be more common than I have any desire for. As almost all film lovers know, much like music or the scent of Grandma's cooking, a film can trigger memories that are vivid and powerful, and that is what hit me last night. In 1994, shortly after my Mother had passed away and my Father began living with us, "My Fair Lady" was restored and released in a limited number of theaters for a week or so. It might have been Mother's Day weekend that we chose to go and see this, but I definitely remember the experience. My girls were Eight and Six, and we drove across the county of Los Angeles, to Century City (A place my youngest...
The YouTube Friendly version of the Top 10 55 New Films this year, here is a video inventory for you. 20 Posts Covering Older Films, Special Events and Assorted others. 5 Movies I Want Everyone to See I have been restoring posts that were originally published on Fogs Movie Reviews back in 2013. Fogs closed his site so the material I wrote has to be re-listed. I've been doing it piecemeal, so here are the links for the five entries I updated this year. Podcasting I was a very active member of the LAMB community this last year. [Large Association of Movie Blogs for you neophytes], and I started off the last year with the Movie Of The Month Podcast I championed, Ishtar. You can listen here: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/lambcast/episodes/2018-01-11T14_54_50-08_00 After being on at least seven other of the LAMBCast episodes, Jay, the Shepard of the LAMB, decided that he might as well just automatically fill a weekly spot and give himself the chance to take an occasional episode of...
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