The Official Inclusive Non-denominational Holidays 2020 Thread (and 2023 also)

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I love Christmas movies. Maybe not as much as I love horror and Halloween movies. I already have all the best ones in my collection. Back in October I did a search through a movie torrent site and downloaded a few things I hadn't seen. I'm not afraid to watch something that might suck. Sometimes you get lucky and find something cool. And even if it turns out that it sucks, at the very least, it's something DIFFERENT.

The worst comes first...


Carol for Another Christmas (1964)



Starring Sterling Hayden (played Police Capt. McCluskey in The Godfather), Ben Gazzara (played Brad Wesley in Road House), Pat Hingle (played Commissioner Gordon in 1989's Batman), Peter Sellers (played Insp. Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies). Written by Rod Serling, narrorator/host/writer on the old Twilight Zone tv show. That said... it's VERY Rod Serling/Twilight Zone-esque. If The Twilight Zone was going to have a Christmas special, this would be it. It also credits Charles Dickens as writer because it's based on A Christmas Carol. It's got the three ghosts, all the same story elements that any Christmas Carol clone would have... eh, sort of.

I suppose the whole thing had some personal political connotations for Rod Serling when he wrote it... and it's really not a good twist on the Christmas Carol story in my opinion. The "Scrooge" character, Daniel Grudge (played by Sterling Hayden) is a bitter old man, mad that his only son died in WW2 (mind you this came out in 1964), and now preaches that America should've always practiced a strict isolationist policy, and that would've kept his son from having to die. The three ghosts come, one of them shows him a prison camp, blah blah blah,... and in the future portion, nuclear war has killed 99.99% of earths population, and some crazy maniac (played by Peter Sellers) leads the survivors of one town and tells them that they need to kill all the people in the next town rather than co-existing with them. So... I guess the point being that "isolationism is bad" and "we need dialogue because when we stop talking, we start fighting." I dunno, perhaps it was more politically relevant back in 1964 when communism was spreading. But in the end... he doesn't change all that much. It feels very non-climactic. Just a very very awkward Christmas movie. I can't even say that it's terrible. The first half of the movie is actually okay. But somewhere in the middle, it just loses you and feels really "off". I guess there's not enough of a solid relatable "moral of the story" underneath it all to make it feel like a competent Christmas movie.

So... if you want something "different", oh yeah, it's different alright. But it's not a "good" kind of different, at least in my opinion.


A Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986)



Starring Dolly Parton, Lee Majors, John Ritter, other people you probably don't know. It was a made-for-TV thing back in the mid-80's that was pretty well known. I never saw it back then, but I definitely remember seeing it listed in the TV Guide on ABC every year at some point in December. That's the only thing that made me think to download it.

Dolly plays Lorna Davis, a country singer doppleganger of herself basically, that is lonely and tired of her life of fame. She wants to get away from it all for a while. She calls up a friend and asks to stay in her old cabin in the mountains. When she gets there, she discovers a bunch of runaway orphan kids living in the cabin. She lets them stay and takes care of them. Blah blah blah, won't give away the ending (cuz I know you're just dying to see it fer yerself, right?).

Not terrible. Dolly Parton sings a lot in it though. I've never been a fan of her. I like old country music, and she's always been a pretty good singer, but she's just not the kind of country music I'd ever listen to by choice. Not my cup of tea. I won't delete it, I'll keep it in my collection, but it'll probably be a few Decembers away before I'm bored enough to watch it again.


It Happened One Christmas (1977)



Starring Marlo Thomas, Wayne Rogers (player Trapper on the first few seasons of MASH), Orson Welles. It's a not-very-good remake of the old James Stewart and Donna Reed Christmas classic, It's A Wonderful Life. But in this one, they made the woman the lead by flipping the names: Mary is Mary Bailey, and George is George Hatch. And from there, pretty much everything is copied from the original movie.

Again... not really terrible, I'll keep it in the collection, but it's not good enough that I'd want to watch it every year. I'd much rather watch the original.


The Munsters' Scary Little Christmas (1996)



Starring Sam McMurray as Herman Munster, Elaine Hendrix as Marilyn Munster, Mary Woronov as Mrs. Dimwitty. Other than Sam McMurray (who's always had small bit parts in a lot of movies) and Mary Woronov, it's a bunch of nobodies.

Really goofy. But it's the Munsters - par for the course. Little Eddie gets bummed out at Christmas, Grandpa tries to help by conjuring Santa Claus... elves mess in Grandpa's lab and find a potion to turn Santa into a Christmas fruit cake... Lilly has to make a potion to turn him back... the Munsters decorate the house in a ghastly fashion in order to compete in the neighborhood decorating contest, which makes the neighbor Mrs Dimwitty (Mary Woronov) angry because she wins every year.

It's silly. It's pointless. It's not very good (unless you really want some silly pointless shit). But it's something different.


Spirited (2022)



Starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds... and whooooooole bunch of diversity hires.

First of all... it's a fucking MUSICAL. I HATE MUSICALS. Without Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, there'd be literally ZERO REASON to watch this movie.

When I said "diversity hires" ...My god. This movie definitely had a DEI department. The amount of conspicuously pre-fabricated diversity in the extended cast and background extras is as noticeable as glittery nipple tassels painted on the Mona Lisa. WOW, YOU PEOPLE ARE REALLY DOING THE WORK TO HELP RACIAL MINORITIES FEEL BETTER ABOUT THEMSELVES BY SEEING MORE REPRESENTATION ON THE SCREEN, HUH? Only... you still got two fuckin' white dudes and ONLY TWO WHITE DUDES on the cover of the movie. Sorry, but this DEI and woke bullshit is just a retarded circle jerk that the idiots of this world perform to make them feel like they're good people so they can feel better about themselves (or feel like they're better than others, like the arrogant pricks they are) ... rather than actually going out and doing GOOD THINGS FOR REAL PEOPLE. Anyway... enough about that shit.

Basically a mixed up modernized re-working of the Dickens Christmas Carol. And above all, it's a MUSICAL. For that reason, it's a little painful to sit through. Like I said, without Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds, this would be unwatchable and excruciating. But they're kinda funny, so it prevents you from turning it off because you want to see how it ends.

Not good though. If you never get to see it, no problemo, you really didn't miss anything. This one's probably getting deleted.


A Christmas Story 2 (2012)



Starring Daniel Stern as the dad... bunch of others I'm not familiar with.

A Christmas Story from 1983 is a classic. One of the best Christmas movies EVER. I saw the "official" sequel with Peter Billingsly playing adult Ralphie, A Christmas Story Christmas, when it came out a couple years ago. I thought it was pretty good. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 6.3/10. I'd mostly agree with that, maybe as high as 7. But I think Christmas Story 2 was considered the "unofficial" sequel by most people. It seemed to have gotten mostly negative reviews, which is what I always heard about it, which is what kept me from bothering to watch it until now. But...

I was very surprised. I really liked it. It's definitely not as good as the original, but it's not the pile of crap that I always heard it was. It has more of a silly cartoonish feel to it than the original, but not in an altogether bad way. I don't think I like it as much as the Peter Billingsly sequel, but it's not far behind. This one's definitely a keeper in my collection.