One of my favourite parts of Christmas, aside from the great food, the lights, the music, the tree, the story of the first Christmas, the presents, and oh, did I mention the food? Yes? Oh I was saying, one of my favourite aspects of the Christmas season are the Christmas movies.
Well some of the movies; I have to be honest, I don't like all Christmas movies, particularly the cheaply-made animated ones about Santa having to save Christmas from some ludicrous villain or something, or some money-grubbing sequel like Home Alone 2.
There are some very well-made good classic stories that make for prime viewing at Christmas time.
One of the best stories is one that's been made into umpteen versions, namely, "A Christmas Carol".
My personal favourite version is the 1951 classic starring Alistair Sim as Scrooge; I've seen many versions since, and some aren't bad - but in my mind, none of those Scrooges are quite as good as Mr. Sim.
Some of the other versions include one with George C. Scott, which wasn't bad; the recent animated version with Jim Carrey as Scrooge (the animation is quite good) and of course the Muppets version with Michael Caine as Scrooge. There are more versions, but these ones I think were some of the better ones.
One of our family's all-time favourites is "It's a Wonderful Life" with Jimmy Stewart - and in glorious black-and-white, thank you, not the colourized version. I like it because of the quality of the film, but also because it's not what one would typically think of for a Christmas movie, as it covers much of the lifetime of Stewart's character. To me, the ending is what makes it all come together nicely, even if some people deride the movie as "Capra-corn".
Another major favourite (for me, anyway) are both versions of "Miracle on 34th Street"; this year happens to be the 65th anniversary of the original movie, which came out in 1947. I watched it the other night and I'm sad to say it was colourized; I would really prefer to see it the way it was made.
The more recent version I enjoy because of the cute and precocious Mara Wilson, and because Richard Attenborough is the Santa (the Santa in the original is also really good).
For funny movies, "The Santa Clause" (the first one) and "Elf" are two of the best and funniest ever, and for animated movies, "The Polar Express" is one of the best, along with the aforementioned Christmas Carol, and of course the classic "Charlie Brown Christmas", and the original "Grinch Who Stole Christmas" (animated version).
