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CHRISTMAS FILMS

The U.S. Congress finally passed that budget bill shortly after the deadline to prevent a government shutdown.  President Joe Biden signed it.  Merry Christmas.  Next brinksmanship date, 14March2025. 

On 3January2025, the House re-elects a Republican as Speaker of the House.  The Constitution leaves the door open on who can become speaker.  This person need not be an elected member of Congress.  He could well be Elon Musk.

About that mass killing at the German Christmas Market I posted on yesterday, the number of deaths rose to 5, with more than 200 injured, some so seriously that more could be added to the kill list.  The assassin was a 50-year old Muslim doctor, Taleb A. (full name cannot be announced at this time), who emigrated from Saudi Arabia in 2006.  No motive yet reported.

If you're wondering what channel that first NCAA championship football playoff game is on, don't bother.  On TNT, TBS and truTV, with Penn State crushing SMU, 38-3.  The second game Clemson-Texas, also will be on these stations, with the third game, Tennessee-Ohio State, on several ESPN channels.

So on to my topic of the day, for now is the time when you see old Christmas films on television and new ones on your streaming channels, or theaters.  I would like to mention two I just saw.

The two featured Christmas films this year on your streaming channels have mixed reviews from Rotten Tomatoes.  I many times watched movies with disparate ratings between reviewers and audiences to analyze why they happen.  When reviewers really don't like a production, but audiences do, I generally favor the audience.  But not this time.

  • Carry-On on Netflix, Rotten Tomatoes reviewers 84% and audiences 58%.  I agreed with the reviewers.
    • Starring Taron Edgerton and Jason Bateman, directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, filmed mostly in New Orleans.
    • Leading to a Christmas Eve flight, a TSA agent played by Edgerton is blackmailed by a mysterious traveler to allow passage of a suitcase containing the Russian deadly nerve agent Novichok.
  • Edgy and intriguing with nice twists.
  • Bateman is good in his villainous role.
  • But it's Christmas-time.  There is a very happy ending, for Edgerton, anyway.
    • That white building in the above background?  Hawaii Hall, the oldest structure on the Manoa Campus, completed in 1912.  Worked there several times.
    • The fictional National Oceanic Geology Administration?  Bilger Hall.
    • Also used were Kaena Point, Kualoa Ranch Fishpond and Morning Brew Coffee Shop at Salt.
    • Why Hawaii?  The Rock went to my high school, McKinley, in Honolulu.
      • Much of the towny scenes came from Georgia, and this production was globe-trotting, unlike Carry-On, which only was filmed at the now retired Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, made to look like the Los Angeles International Airport.
    • Starring Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, JK Simmons and Lucy Liu, directed by Jake Kasdan of the Jumanji franchise.
    • Santa Claus is kidnapped.  Need I say more?
    • World revenues of $176 million on the first weekend.

Good Housekeeping has the top 76 Christmas movies of all time.

  • #51  A Christmas Carol (1951).   Starring Alastair Sim.   RT  86/89.  Incredibly enough, there are more than 100 film versions of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
  • Not on the list, but Laurel and Hardy's 1931 March of the Wooden Soldiers got 100/78 ratings from Rotten Tomatoes.  And you can watch the whole 1 hr 18 min film if you click here.

Of course, what is best is debatable, and Wikipedia has the top 50 grossing Christmas films of all time.  I don't even see It's a Wonderful Life in the list, for movies were cheap in the 1940s is now up to only $16.4 million.  In 2024 dollars, this is worth today $256 million, which would place it at #9.  Films tend to make the most money in the first year of release.

Of course, some of you are traditionalists and don't subscribe to those streaming channels.  If so, read the article by Ann Nishida Fry in the Star-Advertiser.  She covers Christmas films on Hallmark, Lifetime, Freeform (formerly ABC Family), TBS, TNT, and truTV.

Looking ahead to next year, read Time magazine's 41 most anticipated movies.  

  • From Netflix on January 17, Back in Action, with Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz, who came out of retirement, to play former CIA agents who return to the spy game.  Also, Glenn Close.
  • I'm Still Here, Brazil's entry for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming Oscars.
  • Love Hurts,     staring Ke Huy Quan, who was a hit in Everything Everywhere All at Once, plays a nerdy real estate agent, who once was a deadly hitman.
  • The Naked Gun    , with Liam Neeson as the son of Leslie Nielsen's original detective.
  • Freakier Friday    , with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis, a sequel to their 2003 original.
  • James Cameron's Avatar:  Fire and Ash.
  • Guillermo del Toro puts on another Frankenstein.
  • Matt Damon and Ben Affleck back in RIP.
  • The fourth Bridget Jones, Mad About the Boy, brings back Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson and Colin Firth.

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