Christmas movies and my (mild) obsession with A Christmas Carol

Geoff and I enjoyed watching Red One last night on Amazon Prime. It was an action/myth/fantasy/holiday movie with a lot of laughs and a few warm and fuzzy moments-- including a gruffly fond statement made by Krampus. 

What? Yeah-- if you haven't seen it, give it a look. If you have Prime, it's free to watch.

Usually, I have a full schedule of Christmas movies I watch in a pretty regular order, but this year, I'm just not feeling it. Maybe I need some new movies. Last year I didn't, because it didn't feel like Christmas-- we were on hold, for weeks. That's not the same feeling this year, but the result is the same: I'm kind of bored with the old standards. I don't like a lot of contemporary movies-- too much glitz, not enough story, and too much focus on the commercial end of things. I suspect that's why I liked last night's movie-- no shopping, no gift buying, just saving Santa and saving Christmas, and while they were at it, saving a boy's relationship with his father. Add in some really great special effects and some wickedly cool costumes... and yeah, it was a good movie.

That's not to say I won't be watching some of my favorites, but not as many as I used to. I used to watch my way through all the versions of A Christmas Carol; some are musical, some a little silly, but most of them are pretty good. Except that animated Jim Carrey debacle-- that one flat-out stinks, imho. (The same level of stinkage that they brought to the animated version of Beowulf-- it was awful.). I'm pretty particular, and I have pros/cons to say about most efforts: I love the Muppets one, I like most of the George C. Scott version, I don't mind singing along with the Albert Finney one. I didn't really like the one with Susan Lucci, and I was okay with the Kelsey Grammer one. I don't mind the Bill Murray version. I own the Rankin and Bass version of The Stingiest Man in Town, mostly for the music. I even have the Mr. Magoo animated one. The one I love? Patrick Stewart's beautiful rendition; it is really faithful to the text, and he is an amazing actor. I used to listen to the tape I had of his one-man show, and then the film came out. My students will be watching that one.

I guess I have a small obsession? Maybe. Ultimately, though, I love the idea of redemption for the main character. I really just wish that the story was not fiction, at least, not the method of conversion that Scrooge undergoes. There are just so many people hurting and planning to hurt those who are already struggling-- such unfairness, such mean-spiritedness, such evil is beyond my ability to understand it:

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret and self contained and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

I could start naming names, people I'd like to nominate for a proper ghost-intervention. I suppose you would have much the same list. 

Have a good day, and keep an eye on the people who feel forgotten. There are so many.

C