My husband watches Hallmark movies and laughs. You could make a drinking game out of it (in fact I think theres several online). Whatever people need to do to lighten their mood or add a smile or laugh at the end of another stressful year is alright with me!
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Holiday Inn. So boring.
Anything Grinch! Orchestras just love to play it ad nauseum ……
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Polar Express
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I can’t stand A Christmas Story. Everyone’s cruel to each other, as far as I can tell, but then I can’t get much past the stupid lamp that the poor suffering mom hates, or the mean-ness about the kid’s tongue stuck on the flagpole, so maybe it improves.
I love It’s a Wonderful Life. I don’t think it’s about “everything bad happening all the time until the end” so much as how you frame what happens. Everyone has frustrating stuff happen; everyone gets disappointed. But what we can see is that George doesn’t really have terrible stuff happening all the time. He’s a great person who is naturally frustrated with setbacks, but continues to care about others. He just needs to remember that. I think we all do. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t people who are suffering real tragedies; of course there are. But George Bailey isn’t one of them.
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OTOH, yes, the idea that Mary will be a forlorn miserable librarian about him is silly. I don’t think that would go that way if made more recently.
OTO,OH, George’s speech to the bank directors against corporate capitalism is wonderful.
I HATE “Love, Actually” and always leave the room whenever my wife puts it on. Too treacly for me; and Bilbo Baggins as a porn star is just the nadir.
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@HImom, we must be related. My family quotes lines from White Christmas all year long, we re-watch it every year, we’ve seen the stage play several times, even filmed our own (mercifully brief) version. It’s utterly ridiculous and completely fun. Our New Year’s film is When Harry Met Sally.
I don’t enjoy any of the other Christmas movies, although my son insists on watching A Christmas Story annually.
Many of these sound way more interesting than the original movie. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/its-a-wonderful-life-top-nine-fan-theories
Martin Freeman isn’t a porn star in Love Actually. He and the young woman he falls for are just stand ins for the purposes of blocking and lighting.
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Whether he is the Dirk Diggler figure or not, the thought of Bilbo Baggins in a porn film still makes me lose my mind.
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None of us could figure out why so many people love A Christmas Story…
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I conveniently forget and never watch/rewatch those movies I dislike. Christmas story is among those.
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I love The Christmas Story and Love Actually. I do not like It’s a Wonderful Life. I find it depressing. Get on the train and go, George!
I’ve never seen Love Actually, actually. But having read a rapier-sharp, hysterical take down of it, just can’t now. Here it is; read at your own risk. Lindy West did indeed ruin it for me.
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My husband and his younger brother just LOVE “A Christmas Story”. When they start to talk about the movie they laugh so hard they almost in tears. It is fine, just not my favorite. I love almost any version of A Christmas Carol.
I never got the love for Elf.
The two hit Christmas stories on screen at our house was Jingle All The Way and maybe the best Christmas story EVER…Christmas Eve On Sesame Street!
Lots of people found Polar Express to be creepy so much so they did a study to find out why.
The animation was TOO lifelike they found. The conductor was Tom Hanks but not really and people (especially children) had negative reactions. Animation going forward is more on the cartoony side and more acceptable to kids.
When the film came out, the studio made a big deal about the tech intensive process involved in creating the “lifelike” characters. I think they put lots of little sensors on the actors to record lifelike movements to assist with the animation. I remember watching the film and hating it because of the weird animation, thinking that if they wanted the characters to be lifelike, then they should have just done a regular film with real actors.
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We love Elf…but our favorite is Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. Well worth watching…we think. I asked Santa to bring me a DVD of it this year.
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