Christmas Cinema Part 1

It's time for my (now officially) annual month-long holiday film fest, with mini-reviews. Please feel free to add thoughts and suggestions!

The Blind Side has now been slated as the token Thanksgiving movie - there's a dinner! And a kid dressed as an Indian! And gooey heart-tugging family goodness! What more do you want?

I started off this season with While You Were Sleeping - still adorable. It's aged really well, and is all about a Christmas/New Year's miracle without being cheesy enough to actually SAY that. OK, no, really, it's about Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman being cute in proximity to Christmas trees and poinsettias, and that works for me too.

Oh, yeah. He's leaning.

I don't understand this
 movie poster. I really don't.

A couple of new additions this year (I love finding new holiday movies): The Thin Man and Holiday Affair. As you've probably already guessed, these are Hollywood 'classics'. I'd heard of The Thin Man before, and wasn't really surprised to find it was a murder mystery that happens to take place over Christmas and New Year's. Goodness, Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) are fun together - it's no surprise this film spawned a whole series of sequels and is (most likely) the prototype for "the couple that investigates, flirts, and squabbles together stays together" formula. Holiday Affair proves that the love triangle pre-dates Twilight and the entire YA-fiction genre by a good fifty years, and that a precocious, adorable child (missing a couple of front teeth, natch) is the linchpin for a 'feel good' family schlockfest. It's darling, and if you've only ever seen Janet Leigh being murdered in Psycho this would make a nice holiday change of pace for you.

Not that cellphane isn't a good look for Janet, but you know
a man art-directed this marketing.  No woman would be caught
dead in cellophane in December. Brrrrr.

I'll be running back through last year's list, repeating some and adding others, and my current project is re-watching the Doctor Who Christmas specials; I've done The Christmas Invasion, Runaway Bride, Voyage of the Damned, and The Next Doctor - I've just got A Christmas Carol left and a brand-new one to look forward to in a few weeks (based on The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe). Also, happy of happies - there's going to be a two-hour Downton Abbey Christmas special! I just might have to re-watch Series 1 and 2 to get ready for it! Merry Christmas to ME. Study? Write a dissertation? Pish - it's the holidays!

Christmas Cinema Part 2 coming... eventually!

I'd be willing to bet Asta (the dog) is a Doctor Who fan.

*