Today is brought to you by Christmas films, Ritz crackers and pictures of pets in Santa hats.
— Steve Oliver (@SteveOliver76) December 14, 2013
Today I managed to shake
myself out of my new found anti-Christmas funk and enjoy a festive day at home
with Mandi and the pets. We had planned a day of watching Christmas films,
mainly by way of compensation for how busy I have been lately. I try to treat
Saturday as my own Sunday whenever possible because of the actual Sunday being
a working day for me.
It was the first time this
Christmas that I have gone not anywhere near a Ritz cracker, which isn’t like me at
all. I also haven’t drunk sherry yet, nor cracked a nut. To be honest I haven’t
even made that once a year trip to Marks and Spencer yet, I hope when I do get
round to it they have some tins of posh biscuits left otherwise I will have had
my best suit dry-cleaned for nothing.
First on our film list was Elf. There was a slight controversy surrounding this film recently
due to it being shown this year on Sky Movies. I hadn’t realised that this was
a major problem but it appears that the complaints are due to the fact that it
isn’t on a regular channel so that everyone can watch it together and write
about it on Facebook (old school) and Twitter. Is that really a problem these
days? We live in a world where you can watch anything at your own convenience,
be it on demand, online, on your phone or tablet so there’s no need for
everyone to be in front of the television at the same time. Besides, Elf is one of the films that feature in the Christmas DVD
collection of every household, so why are people complaining about not being
able to watch it on Channel Four interrupted by adverts? This is one of my
favourite films from the festive collection and as with them all I can only
watch it once every season. I am glad that I am still able to cry at the end of
a good Christmas film which is something I feel I would lose if I watched a
film more than once every Christmas. Elf has the
right amount of ‘eye-swell points’ that build up to a full on flood of tears at
just the right moment.
A lot of people dismiss
remakes of films, and I agree that sometimes a remake will come along that just
isn’t necessary. However, Miracle on 34th
Street is a film that was remade but at the same time both versions
have their own character. It is possible to enjoy either version without prejudice,
so this afternoon we watched the 1994 remake. Richard Attenborough is brilliant
in the role of Kris Kringle, and I had forgotten (since my last viewing of the
film) that the daughter is played by Mara Wilson. She seemed to have been in
every film that came out in the early 1990s, but a quick check reveals that she
only made seven films between the ages of six and thirteen. I initially checked
because I thought for some reason that she had died young, (possibly an urban
myth, or maybe I just imagined it) but I’m happy to reveal that Mara Wilson is
alive and well and opted out of acting to concentrate on school. Given that a
lot of child stars grow up to be train wrecks, it’s unusual to find someone so
grounded.
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