Also this was twenty years ago; Peter Dinklage was not an established actor.
It made a difference that Peter played a successful character and he dressed in a expensive suit.
It would be more negative if Peter’s character had been in the grungy mailroom and mistaken for a worker Elf. There was a stoner dude goofing off, that Buddy befriended. Funny, but I cringed at the stereotype.
Saw All of Us Strangers tonight, and that just became my #2 film of the year. Such an incredibly beautiful and haunting film about love, loss and loneliness. Andrew Scott gives such a devastatingly real and raw performance, the Best Actor race this year is going to be really tough to predict.
I saw Andrew Scott on Colbert, and that movie looked really interesting. Thanks for the reco. I’ll definitely seek it out now.
I guess vintage made for tv specials count.
A Charlie Brown Christmas 1965
I avoided watching it for several years. The material was fresher this morning and I find gems of dialog. Like at the Christmas tree lot (full of artifical trees) Linus - they still make Christmas trees out of wood? 
Good stuff. Charles Schulz only gave us 25 mins with his Peanuts characters. It ends too abruptly. I’ve always wanted to see the finished Christmas play.
I keep a 1080p copy (from my purchased Blu Ray) on my personal Google drive. It only requires 4G storage. I originally saw this in 1966 in B&W. The colors at 1080p are better than the color tv sets of that era.
It’s amazibg how well the simple animation holds up. You can watch this with the grandkids or great grandkids and they’d think it was a current show.
We tried to watch this when it was available free on AppleTV+ last weekend and it was extremely corrupted, unwatchable. So we settled for some YouTube clips. I really wanna see the whole thing.
The Blu Ray was nicely restored. $21 or 12 used from Goodwill.
Prime says it’s not available in your location. Apparently AppleTv has the exclusive rights.
I saw it on Apple TV+ last week and had no issues with it. Incidentally, the New York Times recently ran an essay in which the author, son of an American Catholic and a Jewish immigrant from Morocco described how he appreciates the Charlie Brown Christmas special because of its blatant religiosity. I’m neither Christian nor Jewish and I think that’s the reason I always liked it.
I haven’t watched that Charlie Brown special in decades, but for some reason this week I’ve gone down the rabbit hole of Vince Guaraldi, the jass pianist/composer responsible for most of the latin jazz infused music, including the classic, “Linus and Lucy,” and “Skating.” Highly recommended, for more than just his Peanuts stuff.
If you’re into cool jazz, I guess.
Charles Schulz’s religious beliefs changed over his lifetime, but it’s hard to tell what they became from the vague descriptions in the websites I’ve just checked.
I was referring to the bit in which Linus recites from the Book of Luke, which is more explicitly Christian than most of the Christmas specials. I don’t particularly care what Charles Schulz’s beliefs were.
At the very least, it takes me back to a simpler Xmas time when I bought into everything and was content to do so. Later, it all changed.
My father liked the Peanuts special, and so do I, because it really is the only repeating Christmas special that really does deal with what Christmas is all about. I first watched it when it aired for the first time. Iwas ten, and I still love it.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t others I like. I love the Grinch too, with Boris Karloff and Thurl Ravenscroft’s singing. He was the voice of Tony the Tiger until he passed. And Rudolf. Except if I had been Rudolf I probably would have told Santa I didn’t feel like helping him, as he’d let the other reindeer bully me all that time.
I love his Peanuts music, so I bought one of his CDs, and I liked all of it. I’m not normally a cool jazz hepcat, but I liked it a lot
I just finished (for probably the 25th time) Miracle on 34th Street (1947). God, I love this movie! Is it “cynicism” where all the adults’ white lies about Xmas come back to bite 'em in the butt in open court or is there a better term for it? because that’s the part of the movie that really speaks to me.
“My daddy wouldn’t tell me anything that isn’t so, would you daddy?”
The look of defeat on Mara, senior’s, face is priceless.
I’m a little behind on reporting out movies.
Saw the documentary Til Kingdom Come on YouTube, which is about the uneasy alliance between Christian Zionism in the US and Jewish aid organizations in Israel, as well as how US politics have been leveraged to strengthen this relationship. It was interesting for me, a person with limited knowledge about either of these subjects. As a documentary it seemed kind of simplistic, and there were a few moments that felt like intentional “gotchas,” especially the end, as well as some general political scaremongering that was unnecessary. I watched it with someone more knowledgeable than me and I recommend that approach to watching it - in a situation where you can use it as a jumping off point for further learning.
Watched the 1950s animation Frosty the Snowman today with the family. It was hot garbage. Unless you have a nostalgia thing (which I didn’t, I don’t remember it) don’t bother.
Tonight we watched The Man Who Invented Christmas on Prime which was a fun surprise. It’s a very embellished if not entirely fabricated story about how Charles Dickens came to write A Christmas Carol. I enjoyed the antagonistic relationship Dickens had with Scrooge and the other characters as he was trying to write the book. I could relate to a lot of it as a writer, particularly in how the thing you’re writing about turns out to be the thing you need to work out in yourself. They did it all very well. Recommended for any fan of Dickens or the infamous Christmas tale he wrote.
I recently watched the latest film in the Hunger Games series and decided to finally read the books and watched the movies.
The Hunger Games (2012). Well done and fairly faithful to the book. One of the parts that was impressive was how they were able to convey a lot of the interior thoughts throughout the film without resorting to a lot of narration. The story is told tightly and although it would be nice to spend more time on more of the characters, it still has good character development.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013). The next in the series that really kicks off the next part of the story. Where the first film was fairly self contained, this one ends with clear indications of another story coming. In many ways better than the first one though partially because, as often happens, the characters are already established. The new characters are well introduced so that you can see their personalities, if not their motivations, fairly quickly.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 (2014). Although it is a good movie, I think the ending tends to lessen it’s impact. Although it is a part 1, it could have ended at a different moment that would have provided a little bit more closure. There is a lot that happens that is not action based which makes it feel slow and kind of a holding pattern for next movie.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015). A good finish to the series. Overall good action, story and character development. They stuck the ending which is the most important part when you are a second part.
I am glad I was able to see these consecutively with little time in between which probably increased my enjoyment. It is also good that they there were able to film all of the films in consecutive years (parts 1 and 2 were filmed at the same time) so that there were no obvious changes in the actors. The only real change that was noticeable was the change in directors from the first to the second film. Jennifer Lawrence was really good in this portraying the complexity of her character throughout the film series which is what really sells it.
For people who read the book, this series is a bit like Lord of the Rings. Of course you can’t bring everything into the film, but you can bring the essence and in this case having the author work on the screenplay made a big difference, just like when Clavell collaborated on the Shōgun mini-series.
//i\\
The Polar Express 2004
I was late to the party and didn’t begin watching until Christmas 2020. It’s now a annual viewing tradition.
I’m still surprised by the action and adult situations. The kids are in genuine peril on the runaway train. The story would be thrilling if it wasn’t a Christmas train.
Santa is pretty stern and imposing. He’s not your typical happy Ho Ho Ho Santa.
The wrap up messages on the tickets at the end are thought provoking.
The animation is stunning. I’m guessing they scanned the child actors. The main boy character and girl with natural leadership are rendered very well. I would easily recognize the child actors on the street.
The bell still rings for me what a insightful ending.