James Dempsey: It's A Wonderful Life for movie lovers, even in these tough times
SO there are only 16 shopping days left till Christmas, and as we tighten our belts after budget week, it’s time to darn those worn out stockings.
Long gone are the days of ho ho hosiery so jam-packed with odds and ends of costly yuletide bric-a-brac, those needless fillers offering seasonal silliness and failing festive novelty. Hilarious coffee mugs, mistletoe boxer shorts, snappy ties and jolly earrings with flashing lights so aggressive they should come with warnings. A rafter of gift-wrapped turkeys stuffed in drawers till they’re passed off in the office Kris Kindle to Mary from Accounts the following year.
Ah, the good old days.
No, after years of living beyond our means, and unless you’re working as a special advisor to a senior cabinet minister, it’s looking like a satsuma-stuffed stocking this Christmas. But while a boost of Vitamin C is always welcome in the dying days of a dreary December, spending inclement days staring at shrivelled clementine peal while surrounded by nit-picking family members can be stressful.
Perhaps, then, a cheap and cheerful Christmas DVD can tide you over as you count from a pear-tree partridge to a dozen percussionists, twelve days and twelve million calories later.
Festive films are by their very nature a seasonal treat, offering annual reminders of reindeers and Santa Claus to big kids everywhere who’ve forgotten the sheer revelry of undoing the ribbons of responsibility and embracing childhood innocence. It’s best to go with the classics with the likes of Miracle on 34th Street’s Oscar-winning charm (though the 1994 remake isn’t bad either) or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s stop-motion magic.
That said, old Saint Nick is no stranger to the more subversive take of holiday cinema. In Tim Burton’s macabre musical The Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king of Hallowe’en, replaces candy canes with shrunken heads – and toe-tapping showtunes in a wonderful PG morality tale about being happy with your lot. Those hankering for a more unhinged Claus should check out 1984’s Silent Night, Deadly Night, which sees a homicidal maniac taking the naughty and nice list to its logical axe-wielding conclusion.
Undoubtedly, for many people the definitive Christmas movie is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, a 1947 masterpiece that’s owes a debt of favour to Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a down-on-his-luck small town American who contemplates suicide after his business goes under. Instead, a trainee angel offers George a chance to see what life would have been like had he never existed. A veritable flop on its release, It’s a Wonderful Life is the bona fide festive classic, and it’s hard not to get teary-eyed at the warmth and sentiment the film continues to exude some sixty-odd years since it was made.
Those looking for a more faithful version of Dickens’ Christmas fable can seek out any one of the countless renditions, starting all the way back in 1910, though the most recent saw Jim Carrey’s gurning Ebenezer Scrooge in HD 3D animation. For the Christmas cynics, the 1980s Bill Murray vehicle Scrooged offers the snidest take on materialism the yuppies could muster, and some of the best one-liners of Murray’s career (“Grace, put yourself down for a towel, too.” “What about my bonus?” “A towel… and a facecloth.”) And a special mention too for The Muppets’ Christmas Carol, which tells the tale with all the charm and hilarity of Jim Henson’s creations.
But for what it’s worth, my pick of the bunch is National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Based on John Hughes’ short story Xmas ’59 and a definite family-favourite growing up, the story of the Griswolds’ attempts at the perfect family Christmas, from the lighting of the house, to the perfect Christmas tree, the gathering of family to the succulent roasted turkey, and how all of these can fall apart in spectacular fashion is the perfect festive foil to those inevitable Crimbo arguments.
Just make sure you have batteries for the remote control.
