Our Icicles

Technically they're not ours as they're hanging off Dave next door's guttering, but:

Our Christmas Tree

This is perfectly representative of Laura and I:

A Cup of Christmas Cheer

I'm temping at the University again (hence yesterday's musings) and have inherited this mug to use while I'm there.

Elf (2003)

This is one of those films that you can really dislike if you try. But why would you?

Will Ferrell is a baby orphan who sneaks into Santa's sack one Christmas and ends up in the North Pole where he is raised by Elves. When he grows up he returns to New York to find his real father (James Caan) and- as is always the way- save Christmas. It's cute, it's schmaltzy, it's a bit slapstick, it a bit funny, it has a really heartwarming message about the spirit of Christmas and it just feels pretty good. Credit also for the fact that Will Ferrell turned down huge offers to make a sequel because it would've tainted this one. Unusual to see that kind of thing.


In short, it aims to do a job and it works! Ferrell should be irritating not endearing, but you just warm to him. And it is his movie. He carries it wonderfully well bringing a patchy script to life with his sheer enthusiasm at times. I'd also like to mention James Caan's bouffant which appears to have been dyed to match his coat and is hilarious and kind of sad at the same time.

Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)

I watch this with my wife every year. It’s a fun and seasonal way to pass a half an hour. It’s neither as good or as poor as Disney is capable of. Scrooge McDuck is an obvious choice for Ebeneezer Scrooge (at one point he is referred to as ‘an Englishman’ which won’t go down well in Caledonia), Mickey Mouse is Bob Cratchit and Jiminy Cricket, Willie the Giant and that strange evil dog thing are the three Ghosts.

The best bit is when Willie the Giant (The Ghost of Christmas Present) takes Ebeneezer stomping through the streets to Bob Cratchitt’s house, removing the top of a lamppost to make a torch and lifting rooftops to check inside. It’s the only bit of creativity and stands out a mile.

Scrooge (1951)

It was up against it this one.

I’ve been Christmas shopping all day and have had the festive spirit bashed out of me by the elbows of people keen to get the last remaining items at WHSmiths. On top of that I’ve already seen one version of the story today. The only copy of this film I own is a bizarrely colourised version (underpaid clerk Bob Cratchitt has a sky blue top hat!) with appalling sound quality. And it is probably the most well-known modern story of them all, so surprises are out of the question.

But it delivered wonderfully. Alastair Sim gives a career-best performance as Ebeneezer Scrooge. The difficulty of the part is in getting the balance right between the malevolent and the joyful, pacing the change in Scrooge’s demeanour (so often Scrooge seems to have changed as soon as he sees Marley’s ghost). Sim does this wonderfully and the pathos with which he delivers the key scene- “I fear you more than any spectre I have met tonight! But even in my fear, I must say that I am too old! I cannot change! I cannot! It’s not that I’m inpenitent, it’s just… Wouldn’t it be better if I just went home to bed?”- is truly memorable.



And yet, though, he carries the weight of the film there is far more here to enjoy than Sim’s bravura performance. There is a wonderful scene where Tiny Tim elicits great joy from watching the Victorian-era clockwork toys through the window of a toyshop (Tim’s teeth, by the way, are possibly the maddest set of movie gnashers since Max Schreck’s). The much-underrated Michael Hordern gives a melodramatic turn as Marley’s ghost- and a very subtle Jacob Marley in the flashback scene. George Cole is believable as the embittered young Ebeneezer. Kathleen Harrison (as Mrs Dilber, the Housekeeper) leads a fine supporting cast of alienated acquaintances eager to exploit Scrooge’s death- you simply don’t feel any anger at their ghoulish acts.

The closing of the story- where Scrooge finds redemption- is conveyed by a dizzyingly excitable Sim dancing, singing and (failing in his attempt at) doing a handstand and is a scene of unrestricted joy. It even contains a great goof with a member of the crew poking his head into shot via a mirror. Several times.



There are faults- Scrooge’s nephew Fred (Brian Worth) is like a hypnotised Keanu Reeves, for instance- but they are minor. Overall, it’s a hugely enjoyable film, a Christmas great and Alastair Sim is the definitive cinematic Scrooge.

The Holiday (2006)

My wife Laura is a wonderful girl (she hasn't and won't, in her own Beauvoirian terms, become a woman). She is funny, intelligent, profound and erudite but (aside from her two favourite films 'Billy Liar' and 'Carry On Camping') she generally has horrible taste in films with a particular leaning towards Rom-Coms. And that results in me having some degree of expertise in the field. Which is a shame for 'The Holiday' because it means that I've seen it various times under various names before. The only surprise is a delightful turn by Eli Wallach as nonagenarian screenwriter Arthur Abbott. Whether it is delightful in its own right or I'm being kind because it is wonderful to see one last hurrah from a screen great I don't know or care, I loved it.

The storyline- such as it is- involves four heartbroken people finding love at Christmas. Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet on the rebound from bad relationships house-swap for two weeks and find love with regular visitors of one-another's. Cameron meets Jude Law in snowbound (but, oddly, never snowing) England and Kate finds love with Jack Black in sun-kissed Los Angeles (where she wears winter clothes throughout).

Oh, why am I bothering- it's crap. It requires a lobotomy, not a suspension of disbelief. The key players have no discernible chemistry and their characters are as two-dimensional as they are vapid. Jude Law gets the plum role as the seeming playboy who is actually the widowed father of two young girls- yes, that is as interesting as it gets. In the best supporting role Rufus Sewell gets to re-enact Hugh Grant's character from 'Bridget Jones' Diary' (told you that I was an expert) and once again raise the question of how a man can be that good-looking despite have such wonky eyes.

Anyway, I'm going to give this 2/10 (both points for the presence of Eli Wallach) and the memory that I could see a film with more wit, charisma, cuteness, more realism and yet more fantasy by watching the decidedly average 'Love Actually'.

It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

Through the cruelty of another, a man's life is in ruins and he is faced with "bankruptcy and scandal and prison". He is about to take his own life when an Angel offers him the chance to see what the world would be like had he not lived. The bleakness that permeates the lives of everyone he knows and loves in his absence persuades him that he "really had a wonderful life". At this point, I start blubbing.

Then he gets his life back and I'm in floods of tears and he tells the Sheriff "isn't it wonderful, I'm going to jail" before his friends and neighbours gather around to save him and sing "Auld Lang Syne" and I get carted off to hospital and put on a saline drip having cried all of the salt from my body.

Frank Capra Jr is a wonderful feelgood Director and in "It's A Wonderful Life", whether intentionally or not, he passed off a serious message about the perils of rampant capitalism and the need for some form of communalism in the most capitalist country in the world at the outset of McCarthyism and got away with it. He made wonderful, life-affirming movies and this is the finest of them.

James Stewart gives a marvellous performance embodying the young, idealistic George Bailey and the warped, frustrated version a mere ten years on (he doesn't look the same man!) wonderfully. It's the performance of a lifetime from one of the world's finest actors.

The supporting cast of fully-realised and interesting characters are all excellent- especially Donna Reed as Mary Bailey and Lionel Barrymore as Henry F. Potter.

I have a good friend with impeccable taste who simply doesn't get this film. I understand that, I don't get The Clash- though I know that I should. It depends on if you're touched by what you're seeing or hearing and sometimes you're immune. Odd, but true. I'm the opposite, this just gets me. It just does. This truly is one of the most perfectly realised pieces of film-making I have ever seen. It is by turns funny, sad, dramatic, harrowing, heartwarming and wise and it is as clear an example of a 10/10 film as there could be.

Elf (2003)

This is one of those films that you can really dislike if you try. But why would you?

Will Ferrell is a baby orphan who sneaks into Santa's sack one Christmas and ends up in the North Pole where he is raised by Elves. When he grows up he returns to New York to find his real father (James Caan) and- as is always the way- save Christmas. It's cute, it's schmaltzy, it's a bit slapstick, it a bit funny, it has a really heartwarming message about the spirit of Christmas and it just feels pretty good.

In short, it aims to do a job and it works! Ferrell should be irritating not endearing, but you just warm to him. And it is his movie. He carries it wonderfully well bringing a patchy script to life with his sheer enthusiasm at times. I'd also like to mention James Caan's bouffant which was dyed to match his coat and is hilarious and kind of sad at the same time.

It would be 5/10 but the fact that Will Ferrell turned down huge offers to make a sequel because it would've tainted this one accrues a bonus point- 6/10.

Scrooge (1951)

It was up against it this one.

I've been Christmas shopping all day and have had the festive spirit bashed out of me by the elbows of people keen to get the last remaining items at Woolworths. On top of that I've already seen one version of the story today. The only copy of this film I own is a bizarrely colourised version (underpaid clerk Bob Cratchitt has a sky blue top hat!) with appalling sound quality. And it is probably the most well-known modern story of them all, so surprises are out of the question.

But it delivered wonderfully. Alastair Sim gives a career-best performance as Ebeneezer Scrooge. The difficulty of the part is in getting the balance right between the malevolent and the joyful, pacing the change in Scrooge's demeanour (so often Scrooge seems to have changed as soon as he sees Marley's ghost). Sim does this wonderfully and the pathos with which he delivers the key scene- "I fear you more than any spectre I have met tonight! But even in my fear, I must say that I am too old! I cannot change! I cannot! It's not that I'm inpenitent, it's just... Wouldn't it be better if I just went home to bed?"- is truly memorable.



And yet, though, he carries the weight of the film there is far more here to enjoy than Sim's bravura performance. There is a wonderful scene where Tiny Tim elicits great joy from watching the Victorian-era clockwork toys through the window of a toyshop, by the way, are possibly the maddest set of movie gnashers since Max Schreck's). The much-underrated Michael Hordern gives a melodramatic turn as Marley's ghost- and a very subtle Jacob Marley in the flashback scene. George Cole is believable as the embittered young Ebeneezer. Kathleen Harrison (as Mrs Dilber, the Housekeeper) leads a fine supporting cast of alienated acquaintances eager to exploit Scrooge's death- you simply don't feel any anger at their ghoulish acts.



The closing of the story- where Scrooge finds redemption- is conveyed by a dizzyingly excitable Sim dancing, singing and (failing in his attempt at) doing a handstand and is a scene of unrestricted joy. It even contains a great goof with a member of the crew poking his head into shot via a mirror. Several times.

There are faults- Scrooge's nephew Fred (Brian Worth) is like a hypnotised Keanu Reeves, for instance- but they are minor. Overall, it's a hugely enjoyable film, a Christmas great and Alastair Sim is the definitive cinematic Scrooge - 8/10.

Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983)

I watch this with my wife every year. It's a fun and seasonal way to pass a half an hour. It's neither as good or as poor as Disney is capable of. Scrooge McDuck is an obvious choice for Ebeneezer Scrooge (at one point he is referred to as 'an Englishman' which won't go down well in Caledonia), Mickey Mouse is Bob Cratchitt and Jiminy Cricket, Willie the Giant and that strange evil dog thing are the three Ghosts.

The best bit is when Willie the Giant (The Ghost of Christmas Present) takes Ebeneezer stomping through the streets to Bob Cratchitt's house, removing the top of a lamppost to make a torch and lifting rooftops to check inside. It's the only bit of creativity and stands out a mile.

So, it's a 4/10. But a good one. This is a 4/10 film that I'll watch again next year and again the year after.