Here in the Pre-2018/19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon, I have begun a tad early.  Every year there are Christmas lists that have It’s A Wonderful Life on them, including the Top 10 Show’s Top 10 Christmas villains from last week) and I have honestly never been that interested in watching it.

I mean, I have seen a few scenes here and there and I have a knowledge of Frank Capra’s story that has become a cultural zeitgeist in our society.  I’ve seen parodies or homages to this movie over the years, everywhere from Moonlighting to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Mork and Mindy.  I just have never seen the actual movie.

That is until tonight.

I am here to say that I now understand.  I am a convert to this wonderful movie, starring James Stewart as George Bailey, a good man who finds himself down on his luck and in a near suicidal state when the angel Clarence (Henry Travers) arrives to show him what life was like had George never been born.

I had no idea how much of this movie was spent with the characters of George Bailey and the people of his life.  The whole “George wishes he was never born” is fully in the third act and It’s A Wonderful Life spends most of the movie showing us who George Bailey is and how he came to be on that bridge considering throwing himself into the raging river.

The fact that this movie takes its time to reach that moment really helps to build a connection with the character of George Bailey so that you are invested in the magic that comes in the third act.  I have to say that I was tearing up with the very end of the film and I had a huge smile on my face as it was developing.

Donna Reed does a fabulous job as George’s wife Mary, the woman who is completely dedicated to George despite many chances of finding more.  Of course, the idea that George is really the richest man comes from what he has in his life, not because of the money and Mary is a perfect example of that.

It really isn’t that much of a Christmas movie either.  Honestly, only the end scenes happen at Christmas.  Heck, Die Hard is more of a Christmas movie than this is.

I am pleased that I finally took the time to watch this classic of cinema and to see just what everybody else was talking about.  This is an iconic film of tremendous value and I enjoyed it totally.

“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

It is one of the most iconic and recognizable sports calls in history, from out of the mouth of Al Michaels and it perfectly summed up the feeling going on in 1980 as the USA Hockey Team, stiff underdogs, defeated what was the most dominant and unbeatable hockey team in the world, the Soviet Union.  The “Miracle on Ice,” as if became to be known, is one of the most amazing moments in US sports ever.

The movie that follows this team to that iconic victory may not be as stunning as that game, but it does a great job of showing us the effort and the agony the men of that hockey team put themselves through to compete in the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

Head Coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) compiled a team of players, not on who was the best players, but on who could form together to become a team.  His coaching techniques could be seen as inappropriate, but the players wound up buying into the psychological methods employed by Brooks.  He was able to inspire these men to give their absolute everything and he demanded that nothing short of that was acceptable.

The scene of the players being “conditioned” after a tie prior to the Olympics is one of the hardest scenes to watch in the movie.  I’m not sure that this kind of coaching style would fly in the world of athletics these days.

The movie is your basic sports biopic with the same typical sport beats that a sports movie uses.  It is not like the movie does anything original or special in the telling of the story.  Kurt Russell is solid as Herb Brooks and Noah Emmerich as assistant coach Craig Patrick provides the counterbalance to the apparent insanity shown by Brooks.

What makes this different from other sports biopics is that the film has the benefit of being about one of the most inspiring and goosebump raising events in sports history.  The call from Al Michaels is amazing and I dare any true American to watch this without, at the very least, swelling up with national pride.  I had tears in my eyes as the games vs. the Soviets came to its conclusion and you cannot help but be affected.  It is such a powerful moment that it helps elevate the film prior to it.

Kurt Russell and the game are the stars of this movie and it is well worth the time to watch it despite being fairly common in way of movie.

I was watching Screen Junkies the other day and the panel was answering questions from the audience.  One of the questions led Dan Murrell to answer Shadow of a Doubt, a film by Alfred Hitchcock.  I had never heard of that movie before and Dan spoke about how much he liked it and gave a quick synopsis.  I have been building up my Hitchcock list this past year so I scribbled the title down.

Now that I am on the precipice of the 2018/19 New Year’s Eve/Day Binge-a-Thon, I figured I would kick it off with this film.

On of the writers on Shadow of a Doubt was famous Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Thornton Wilder, most well known for the play, Our Town.  It turns out that Alfred Hitchcock himself in several interviews named Shadow of a Doubt as his favorite movie that he had made.  I can certainly see why.

The film looked at life in a small town with a group of characters that seem to come directly from it.  Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) never truly fit in the scene, but it was an effective hiding place for the man running from his past actions.  His namesake, Charlie (Teresa Wright) was sweet and innocent and looked up to her uncle like few others. Because of the closeness of the pair, Charlie discovered what Uncle Charlie was attempting to hide, changing her perspective on him.

Hitchcock is a master of anxiety and suspense and Shadow of a Doubt is never lacking as you are always unsure what exactly Uncle Charlie is planning or intending to do.  I have to say, I kept expecting some kind of twist that he wasn’t actually Uncle Charlie.  I picked up on some dialogue that sounded as if that was being foreshadowed.  However, it turned out that I was incorrect on that.

There were solid performances, including by Joseph Cotten who was typically an actor seen in the positive roles and the protagonists instead of the antagonists.  He is intimidating with his secrecy and his glances.

Shadow of a Doubt was another great Hitchcock film that I am glad was recommended by Dan Murrell.  It had the feel and look of a classic.

I was going through Amazon Prime adding to a list I was compiling for my upcoming 2018-19 New Year Eve/Day Binge-a-thon when I came across the documentary fro filmmaker Michael Moore, Bowling for Columbine.  It had been a long time since I saw the film and so I hit play.

Columbine is known in our lexicon because of one of the most well known and tragic school shootings that occurred at Columbine High School in April 1999.  The Columbine massacre changed the ideas and policies of schools across the country in regards to active shooters.  Unfortunately, it is a problem in America that has become too common place since this tragedy.

Michael Moore examines the reasons behind the massacre and tries to determine why we as Americans have so many more gun deaths than other countries of the world.  He debunks the ideas of racial differences, violent movies and games by showing that other countries, specifically Canada, shares these traits but do not lash out with violence.

Moore goes directly to NRA president, at the time, Charlton Heston and asks him directly about the reasons.  Heston tries to drop the typical sound byte spin that he used in rallies (including one in Colorado right after the Columbine massacre) such as America has a “history of violence” and more “mixed ethnicity” but Moore immediately shot them down.  You almost felt sorry for the actor because he was clearly out of his element with Moore.  Heston left the interview when Moore brought up a case of a six year old boy who took a gun to school in Flint, Michigan and killed a little girl.  Watching Heston slowly walk away from Moore was a powerful statement in this film.

Michael Moore has a skill to approach deathly serious topics with humor and a sarcasm that is very disarming and before you know it, you are speaking to him and revealing information that you hadn’t intended to.  This was in full effect here as the world was still getting to know Moore. These days, people see Michael Moore and become more on guard, seeing him more as a liberal filmmaker with an agenda.  At the time, Moore was making remarkable documentaries because he was not as famous as he is now.

Bowling for Columbine is a powerful film with explosive content.  We as a nation have never really dealt with the problem of school shootings that was highlighted by Columbine which makes this 17 year old documentary as relevant today as it was then.

I found this version of Charles Dickens’s classic novel, A Christmas Carol, on television tonight and I thought I would watch it and see how it compared to some of the other versions I have seen.  Sure this is a television movie, but I figure I can stretch the category a bit.  I mean, it’s Christmas!

However, I found this version to be lacking when compared to some of the other notable versions that have been done.

Sadly, I think the main reason was I was having a real hard time with Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge.  Now, do not get me wrong.  I love Patrick Stewart and I think he is a tremendous actor.  I just had a difficult time seeing him in this role, and with that working against the film already, it did not have much chance to pull through.

It is always interesting to see what certain adaptations include in the film and what some dismiss.  Scrooge’s nephew Fred’s party being one of the most varied of all of the scenes.  This version showed much more at Fred’s party than any other version I have seen.

Other actors in the film included Richard E. Grant (who gave a great performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me this year with Melissa McCarthy) as Bob Cratchit.  Broadway star Joel Grey appeared as the Ghost of Christmas Past and Dominic West was Fred.

The classic lines were here too, but I just did not feel the emotion of them as I have in other versions.  Some scenes felt rushed, which may be on account of time constraints of television, but it still felt too compact at times.

You can also tell that this is a television budget with some of the special effects the film tried to pull off.  They were adequate most of the time, but there were some really noticeable moments of poor quality as well.

I really had a hard time looking upon Patrick Stewart and seeing Scrooge.  I did not have that problem in other iconic roles that Stewart played so I just do not believe that, no matter how brilliant he is, he was the right fit for Ebenezer Scrooge.

I finished playing Disney’s A Christmas Carol for my literacy students yesterday, which means I saw it five times!  So I figured I would review it for the Doc’s Classic Movies section here at EYG.

The film is one of dozens of adaptations of Charles Dickens’ novel, this one a 3D computer animated motion-capture version from director Robert Zemeckis.  This early version of mo-cap was somewhat awkward at times, but showed initially what was going to be possible.

The classic tells the story of miser Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) and how he was visited by a series of ghosts one Christmas Eve trying to scare him straight and get him to accept Christmas in his heart.  Gary Oldman was here as Bob Cratchit, Jacob Marley and Tiny Tim.  Colin Firth was Scrooge’s nephew Fred.  Robin Wright played Scrooge’s little sister Fan and his former fiance Belle.  Cary Elwes was here as well as a couple of the more minor characters.

The voice cast was done well, but some of the motion capture made these people look pretty weird.  The heads were oversized and their expressions were odd many times.  Still, it provided animators an opportunity to push the boundaries of animation at a time when this was just being started.

The story was done well, however I was not a huge fan of the action section added to the future scenes where Scrooge is chased by a haunted horse pulled carriage and shrinks down to mouse size.  This seemed like an excuse to add some action to a story that did not need action.  A Christmas Carol is compelling enough without some kind of chase scene tossed in.

The film is very dark and has some great spooky moments.  I know that the kids were startled a couple of times at the imagery and the jump scares that were included.  This version of A Christmas Carol provides an effective adaptation of the classic tale, including most of the iconic lines.

Jim Carrey is wonderful in the lead role as the miserly Christmas hater.  He stands out among all of the animated characters as well, being the one who has clearly had the most time committed to him.  Carrey’s voice is perfect for Scrooge, and he also does the voice of the Ghost of Christmas Present.

Bob Haskins as Fezziwig though was very odd.  His character’s head was gigantic and the dance he had with his wife was weirdly gravity defying.

In the end, this version does a good job of telling the story of Scrooge in an entertaining and engaging manner and it kept the attention of my students.  I liked seeing it as well.

Last week, the Top 10 Show did a show of their Top 10 Animated Superhero movies in honor of the upcoming Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse. I did my Top 10 list as well at EYG, as I do every week.  I posted it at the Top 10 Show site on Facebook and I got one specific response.  It was from Ken Lutz and he recommended Justice League: Gods and Monsters.  He called it “one of the top underrated SCAU films.”

I told him I would see if I could catch it during Christmas break.  It turned out sooner than that.

I found Justice League: Gods and Monsters on Amazon Prime and I rented a copy of it.  Ken was absolutely correct.  It was a very enjoyable take on these classic characters.

Superman turns out to be the son of General Zod and then gets raised on Earth after Krypton’s destruction by a Latino migrant family.  Batman (not Bruce Wayne, by the way- instead Dr. Kirk Langstrom who in DC proper turned into Man-Bat) is a living vampire (who reminded me a lot of Morbius from Marvel) and Wonder Woman (who is not Diana) turns out to be the Jack Kirby created character Bekka from the Fourth World.

Interestingly enough, we never find out word one on Diana or Bruce Wayne in this alternate dimension.

Well-connected scientists (all known characters from the DC Universe) are beginning to be murdered, and the Justice League is being framed for it.  The Justice League is a much more brutal, violent group, who step over the line and kill enemies without remorse so it does not take a giant leap for people to believe that they have finally gone rogue.

The trio must discover who is behind the murders of the scientists before the US government comes for them.

I am not a huge fan of Elseworlds type tales, but this is very well done.  If you get past the fact that these heroes are nothing like what you know of them, there is a solid story with a well-done reveal at the end. It was fun hearing certain names (Ray Palmer, Silas Stone) and knowing their connection to the DC Comics Universe and seeing how they are in this dimension.

I wish some of these DC animated movies would be able to receive a bigger budget so they could have better animation (which here is the typical, DC cartoon animation) because the stories here rival anything DC does.  This is better than most of the live action DC films and something like this could be a huge hit as an animated feature.  Perhaps the success of Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse will open some doors for this type of film receiving more backing at WB.

I don’t know if this would have cracked the top 10 list I put together last week (maybe), but it would certainly have been mentioned in the honorable mentions if it wasn’t.  Gods and Monsters was a fun ride and have some different adaptations of these icons.

Thanks for the recommendation, Ken.

I received National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation at my work Christmas party in a white elephant gift exchange (which I had no idea what it was) so I figured it was time for me to finally watch it.

I have never been a fan of the Vacation movies.  Chevy Chase is fine, but honestly, I don’t like this kind of comedy.  The lead character who is oblivious to the idiocy that he causes or that is around him…that never appealed to me.  Plus, how is Clark Griswold not in intensive care after everything that happened to him.

Christmas Vacation is a cartoon comedy where everything that can go wrong with a family Christmas is only the starting point.  I did not find a lot of this funny.  Slapstick shtick has its moments, but this felt too pushed.

To be fair though, I have to say that there were some times when the movie showed some real heart.  I especially enjoyed Chevy Chase sitting down with his Cousin Eddie’s (Randy Quaid) daughter for a talk about Santa Claus.  That was a sweet moment and the film could have used more of that.

I know people love this movie and it is at the top of most people’s Christmas movie lists, but it is so over the top for me that I am just not a fan.

Perhaps the most famous MacGuffin in movie history is the Maltese Falcon and this film is one of the most iconic versions of the film noir style of detective stories.

Humphrey Bogart played Sam Spade, a detective whose partner is murdered during a case where everyone is in search of a priceless statuette of a black bird.  There are many twists and turns in the noir and Humphrey Bogart is in full glory here.

Peter Lorre and his distinct voice and appearance is in this film as well, playing one of the men searching for the Maltese Falcon.  He is an original actor, someone unlike anyone around him.  He gives each role a flair and this one is no exception.

The story is beautifully laid out and unveils itself perfectly.  Sam Spade seems to always be one step ahead of everyone, able to spin whatever happens to his favor.  He is a skilled detective with one part con man.  The police have clearly had their fill of Spade too as they were anxious to try and arrest him for whatever they could.

While action is limited, the film does a tremendous job of creating tone and using that tone to create a tension in place of the action.  Each scene is vitally important and nothing is filler.

Bogart is easily the standout of this film and this is an example of why people talk about him as such a classic actor.

A vat of acid.  A haunted house.  Severed heads.  Is it all real or just some wild concoction put together for the execution of a murder?  Nobody is really sure, but Vincent Price keeps the mood extremely creepy in this horror movie from the late 1950s.

Eccentric millionaire Frederick Loren(Vincent Price) has invited five strangers to a party in a supposed haunted house and offered them $10,000 each if they can stay the night.  As the party gets underway, the strangers realize that they are in for more than they had expected.

Annabelle Loren (Carol Ohmart) is Frederick’s wife, but the pair seem to have a contentious relationship to say the least.  They banter about killing one another in a manner that you believe that they have tried before.  I enjoyed the unexpected dialogue between Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart.  They had a distinct chemistry between them that really made you believe that they were in the middle of a bizarre game of who could murder the other first.

The other main party goers included office worker Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig) and pilot Lance Schroeder (Richard Long).  These two were at the heart of most of the action as the party continued.  Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook) was quite crazy, constantly talking about the previous murders that had taken place in the house prior to this party.  He was very spooky.  Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal) has his own secrets for being included on the party guest list while Ruth Bridgers (Julie Mitchum) seemed to be included to drink scotch.

There are some twists and turns here that are tricky and reasonably fun.  The film works in particular because of Vincent Price and his undeniable creepiness factor.

IMDB has a listing for “Skeleton” playing himself.

In October, I did a series of horror/Halloween themed movies for the binge-a-thon in honor of October 31st.  Now that we are in December, however, I do not plan on doing the same with Christmas holiday movies.  Simple fact is I am not a huge fan of Christmas movies.  I may do a few along the way, but nowhere near the number I did in October.

Still, starting off the month with a film that I had not ever seen before that blends the best of both holidays together was a no-brainer.  So I watched Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I had thought I had seen this before, but once it started, I realized that I had not and that I was going to be in for a treat (with no trick in sight!).

Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon of the Princess Bride fame, Danny Elfman when singing) is the Pumpkin King but he is feeling a little down.  Halloween has lost its interest for him as everything always goes the same.  However, Jack stumbles across Christmas Town and he is filled with the spirit of the season.  Jack attempts to bring the joys of Christmas back to Halloween Town, but the results were not for which he had hoped.

I did not know there was as much music in this movie as there is.  The songs were very fun and enjoyable. Danny Elfman wrote and performed the music in The Nightmare Before Christmas and it is some of his best work.

There is a wonderful animation style as well, with character designs that are as creative and imaginative as you can get.  Some of the character designs could be scary for young children, but I found them wonderfully creepy.  The stop motion animation is a work of art and must have been a labor of love for the filmmakers.

Ken Page’s Oogie Boogie is a masterful villain and a perfect foil for Jack and his friends.  I am not as much of a fan of Sally (Catherine O’Hara) though she has some funny moments.  She felt almost tagged on.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a beautiful and dark film that shows how important both Halloween and Christmas are and I am very pleased to have seen it on HBO.

I’d been on a but of a bad run for the Doc’s Classic Movies section here at EYG.  Three straight films that I had watched that fell below expectations or were just downright bad.  I did not want to continue such a streak.

I knew what I could do.

Last week, the new trailer for the upcoming “live-action” version of Disney’s The Lion King came out, directed by Jon Favreau, and everyone found themselves getting chills and goosebumps.  The reason was the teaser trailer looked so remarkable and it brought everybody back to a world that was nearly universally beloved.  The world of The Lion King.

That new version comes out in 2019, but to snap the streak of bad films, I loaded up the 1994 animated version, which is considered by many to be the greatest animated film of all time.  While that might be a bit too high for my ratings, there is no denying that this movie is in the argument.

The Lion King is a beautiful story of love and betrayal.  It is Shakespearean in design (sharing similarities to Hamlet) and transcendent in animation.  The music is both catchy and completely engaging and the characters are wonderful.  Scar (Jeremy Irons) is one of Disney’s most heinous villains, with his manipulations leading toward the murder of his only brother, the King Mustafa (James Earl Jones) and the attempted murder of Mustafa’s son, Simba (first voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, then by Matthew Broderick) proving his evil intentions. Scar is perfectly happy to let Pride Rock go down in devastation as long as his power as king is unquestioned.

Young Simba goes off to meet his lifelong pals, Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella), after the death of his father.  One song montage later, years have past and Simba is living the life of Hakuna Matata.

There is a great voice cast here as well including Whoopi Goldberg, Robert Guillaume, Cheech Marin, Jim Cummings, Rowan Atkinson, and Moira Kelly.

The score from Hans Zimmer is truly amazing and the songs that were written by Elton John and Tim Rice make this movie extra special.

There were extra hidden jokes that I had not heard the first time that were funnier now as an adult.  This is an emotional ride with a terrible tragedy, yet continues the circle of life.  The Lion King is one of Disney’s best animated features.  Obviously, it is a…

The streak is broken…

This is one of those films that I do not feel that I will ever revisit.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad I saw it after all of these years, but to say that it was disturbing is a mild understatement.

A Clockwork Orange is a classic Stanley Kubrick film that plays with the ideas of violence and the responses to that violence.  Does it take things too far?  That might be true.  I have to say I am not sure how I feel about the movie.

On one hand, Malcolm McDowell gives a top notch performance, though he seems to be yelling too much for me.  You believe that this guy is a vile and vicious person and his actions are wicked.  McDowell does a great job of portraying that.  However, I never found myself feeling for Alex after the prison procedure “cured” him of his tendencies.  It felt like he deserved the pain that he was suffering with.

The cinematography is wild and weird.  The sets and the backdrops are wonderful to look at.  The overall performances are solid.  The direction is classic.

And yet, the very topic of the film makes me uneasy.  I am just not sure that it does anything for me.  Especially with the way the film ends.

There are some great technical aspects of this 1971 film, but I can think of many Kubrick films that I would prefer to see.

It seems as if I have never seen the 1980s classic Weird Science, because when I pulled it up on Amazon Prime today, I was unfamiliar with the movie.  I mean, I knew the general plot and I knew a couple of details (I know I had seen the “shower” scene before), but I realized quickly that this was almost totally new material.

The reason I knew?

I hated it.

This was everything that I dislike about this genre of movie.  Here I was thinking that I had missed something by not seeing Weird Science, but I just thought it was immature, ridiculous, sophomoric nonsense with mean spirited characters who I really did not want to spend any time with.

I was about to shut it off.  I was preparing to make this a “Putrescent” film.

However, I will say that the third act of the movie improved considerably.  I liked how the film worked itself out and how the two main characters, Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith), actually showed growth and became the type of people that I did not want to smack across the face.

So many moments in Weird Science that irritated me instead of making me laugh.  It highlighted the bottom of the barrel for teens and their behavior.  I just did not like what I was watching.

As I said, the ending, while ridiculously over-the-top, showed some promise of what could have been.

This one was not a good movie and I am not sorry that I hadn’t watched it up until today.  Unfortunately, I can’t say that any longer.

How could a movie that included Big John Studd be bad?

Pretty damn easily, I guess.

Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man is a comedy/western/action movie featuring Don Johnson as Harley Davidson and Mickey Rourke doing his very best Bruce Willis imitation, desperately trying to keep his face from moving.

Seriously, why does Mickey Rourke only have one expression in this freaking movie?  He has the Bruce Willis smirk and it is on his face in every situation his character finds himself in.

The writing is terrible.  The story is ridiculous.  I guess there are absolutely no police officers in the city (except for the one Harley slept with).  The dialogue is laughable.

In order to save their friends’ bar, Harley Davidson and the Marlboro decide to rob a bank truck.  Unfortunately, the one bank truck they choose to rip off is loaded with drugs instead of money.  So, as any good heroes would, they contact the drug dealers and offer to sell these deadly dangerous drugs (they have been told that the drugs kill 1 out of 7 people that take them) back to them for money.  Hm, quite the heroic pair.  But they are trying to save their friends’ bar, so all bets are off.

Of course, their friends wind up dead and that sets off their eventual revenge part of the story.

My brain hurts after watching this.

The special effects in the third act confrontation are as bad as you are going to see.  The green screen is so obvious that I cannot believe anyone would have okayed the release of the scene.

Don Johnson and Mickey Rourke are good together so the film is not a total wash, but just about everything else is horrible.

Oh, but WWE Hall of Famer, the late great Big John Studd is here and it is good to see him.  He is decent for his short, smallish role.

Otherwise, this is a stupid buddy film that cannot ride on the charisma of Don Johnson and the frozen face of Mickey Rourke for long.