Jingle Bell Grok: Holiday Movie Backups
Dec 24Quick. You have 12 hours to get to the video store before we’re locked down for Xmas day. And while you’ll no doubt catch your favorite holiday flicks, don’t you think it might be time to mix it up a little? Perhaps clean the mental palette a bit, and try something different. Something not typically considered a holiday movie.
I’m not talking about Die Hard. I’m not talking about Gremlins. Everybody looking for a quirky xmas film picks those. No no no. You need something off-the-radar, something that would win you a bar bet. And don’t sweat it, I’m here to help. Better yet, these movies are typically in stock on Christmas Eve – everyone else is fighting over the last copy of Jim Carrey’s crappy Grinch, but you’ll be set.
Jingle Bell Grok: Genre-Related Visual Mix Tape
Dec 23The other night, Bravo had a pretty cool back-to-back double feature going on: Ghostbusters II and The Princess Bride. It aired these two movies over and over again, a repetition-happy tribute to mood-sensitive slime and “as you wish”-ing. I love blocks of entertainment like that — stuff that sort of goes together just because, that you can marinate in for hours on end. Kind of like a mix tape, but with movies and TV (that sounded dumb — yeah, neato, with movies and TV! — but you know what I mean).
So here’s my very own Holiday Genre-Related Visual Mix Tape — with quick clips from each offering. The things I’ve chosen are slightly offbeat, and yes, sometimes I’m stretching to get them to fit into the delicate matrix I’m attempting to construct. But they all say “holiday” to me and are a perfect mash-up for those woozy hours after all the food and booze and presents.
Jingle Bell Grok: Jimmy Stewart In Drag
Dec 22There are a lot of Christmas films out there that are easy to hate for their blatant attempts at mawkish manipulation of their audiences. A good Christmas film will leave us with a warm and fuzzy feeling and the ones that try a bit too hard to do so probably can’t be faulted for at least trying. But there is one holiday film that lurks out there that can’t even claim the pretense of trying to infuse its audience with holiday cheer- the 1977 made-for-television movie It Happened One Christmas.
If you’ve never had the unfortunate opportunity to clap your eyes on this film, and it seems to have vanished from television schedules in more recent years, you are one of the fortunate ones. Imagine the classic It’s A Wonderful Life, but in drag, badly acted and with any semblance of soul and life drained from it by a hideous parasite and you come close to approximating It Happened One Christmas.
The hideous parasite in question is Marlo Thomas, who stars in the film as the female equivalent to Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey, Mary Bailey Hatch. Wayne Rogers, with a look in his eyes that betray him questioning his decision to leave MASH, is cast as Thomas’ doting husband, George Hatch. Cloris Leachman rounds out the main cast as Mary’s guardian angel Clara. (Get it!? It’s sort of like Clarence, but not!! Ugh….)
I honestly don’t know what the writers hoped to accomplish by simply switching the genders of the lead characters. Nothing new is gained by having George Bailey suddenly sprout breasts and become Mary Bailey Hatch.
Nothing, that is, except a giant stroking of Thomas’ ego. It really takes some giant, in this case metaphorical, balls to think that one can just step into a role made famous by an acting icon like Jimmy Stewart and believe they can somehow improve on the role. Especially when acting opposite someone like Orson Welles in the Mr. Potter role. And don’t think one can argue that she is just an actress for hire on this project. She executive produced the thing. She knew what she was doing and damn her eyes for it.
Outside of the transgendering of Jimmy Stewart, this film offers no new take on the material. In fact, the script follows the screenplay for It’s A Wonderful Life pretty closely except for the substitution of gender specific pronouns. I would like to think that any remake has the potential to find a new slant on the existing material, for better or worse. Since the original film hadn’t quite become the nearly ever present holiday classic it would be in just a few years’ time, perhaps the writers and Thomas were just trying to pull a fast one.
But doesn’t matter what they thought they were trying to achieve. It Happened One Christmas would remain one of the most odious holiday film offerings in the history of cinema. That is until Ron Howard made a live-action version of the Dr. Seuss’s classic The Grinch Who Stole Christmas with Jim Carrey.
[Note: Like myself and Newsarama’s Mike Lorah, guest blogger Rich Drees is one of less than a dozen media/geek bloggers to come out of Northeastern Pennsylvania, where many people still do not know what blogs is. When he’s not having awkward conversations with Peter David about scripts that David barely remembers writing, Rich runs Film Buff Online , which you should check out.]
Jingle Bell Grok: Holiday Rude
Dec 22Despite the overwhelming barrage of illness that has affected your Alert Nerd family (and our families) over the past week, we are committed to Jingle Bell Grok in the way that some people cannot commit to, say, Sparkle Motion. Yes, I just made a Donnie Darko reference – deal with it.
I was watching The Muppet Christmas Carol with my 15 month old niece this weekend when I noticed what may be the most incongruously awesome thing I have ever seen in my 30 years of Muppet-related viewing. Pay attention to the final seconds of this:
Thanks are due, by the way, to the awesome Jenelle Riley for pointing it out – I honestly would have missed it otherwise. I hope Alana missed it, too, or her mom will have yet another unfortunate behavior to blame me for.
Later today, SECRET GUEST POST #1. Start ‘bating that breath, Nerdians!
Jingle Bell Grok
Dec 18Not content to rest on our laurels after the amazingcrazy release of Grok #3, we’re having yet another theme week, much like this Fall’s Grok the Vote. Except it will be even better, just because we’re even more awesome.
Hyperbole aside, we’re having a Christmas* themed week of posting, starting tonight and going right up through Christmas Day. We’ve got a few Secret Guest Posters lined up, too, including a visit from Grok’s editor in chief Fake George Lucas; if YOU want to contribute, hit us up on Twitter or send us an email.
Happy Holidays to all of our loyal, smart, and attractive readers. You deserve a pony or the USS Flagg, whichever one you wanted as a kid but NEVER GOT.
*Or Yule, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc. We’re equal opportunity nerds.
