The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

Well, folks, it's that time of year when the Hallmark Channel starts vomiting lights and tinsel all over its programming schedule.  Theaters start showing "classic" Christmas movies (I even have tickets to see It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas over the next week).  In short, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Like everyone else, I have favourite holiday films that I like to watch in December.  A couple of them--specifically Love Actually and The Holiday--I'll watch any time of year (they are a couple of my standard "Saturday night movies"--long story).  I enjoy the classics like Miracle on 34th Street and just about any version of A Christmas Carol.  I also enjoy more contemporary (in my lifetime) holiday fare that has become just as classic such as Elf and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

And I know I'm going to touch a few nerves here, but I do consider Die Hard a Christmas movie.  The argument that it's not--that the plot has nothing to do with Christmas and that it just happens to take place during the holiday--is a ridiculous one.  By that criterion, It's a Wonderful Life isn't a Christmas movie either and I'm pretty sure no one agrees with that.  Having said that, and I will touch a few more nerves here, but, frankly, as much as I like Die Hard (and I do), I think Lethal Weapon is actually the better Christmas movie... that's right, I said it.  To be fair, I usually try to watch them together as a "double feature" (hopefully this Friday) and there are at least three actors who appeared in both films.  I've even been known to enjoy The Long Kiss Goodnight from time to time.  Because sometimes you just want to see things get blown up.  As someone once said, "Yippy-ki-yay, motherfucker!"

But as I've gotten older, for some odd reason, over the last few years, I've found myself drawn to this week's film.  I've watched it multiple times every holiday season for about four years now... maybe even longer.  To be honest, I think I lost count.

The strange thing is that the film is notorious for its behind-the-scenes drama.  Apparently, star Bill Murray and director Richard Donner (who also, coincidentally directed that other holiday classic, Lethal Weapon) didn't get along on set.  When asked by Roger Ebert if he had any disagreements with Donner, Murray said, "Only a few.  Every single minute of the day.  That could have been a really, really great movie.  The script was so good.  There's maybe one take in the final cut movie that is mine.  We made it so fast.  It was like doing a movie live.  He kept telling me to do things louder, louder, louder.  I think he was deaf."

I don't know why, but this movie really means something to me.  So, I have to admit when I hear things like that, it kind of saddens me.  I always feel bad when something that's brought me so much pleasure did the opposite for the people who made it.  And in spite of that, I keep watching it every holiday season.  I personally think that the speech Murray gives at the end of the film is some of the finest acting he's ever done, and it moves me to tears every time I watch it.

The film, a retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol (set in 1980s New York) was written by Mitch Glazer and Michael O'Donoghue, both of whom have brief cameos as a party guest and a priest respectively.  It co-stars Karen Allen, Robert Mitchum, Alfre Woodard, Bobcat Goldthwait, John Glover, John Forsythe, Michael J. Pollard, Wendie Malick, David Johansen, and Carol Kane.  If that weren't enough, Jamie Farr, Robert Goulet, Buddy Hackett, Lee Majors, John Houseman, Mary Lou Retton, and the Solid Gold Dancers all make appearances as themselves.  The film also features three of Bill Murray's brothers--one actually playing his brother and another playing his father.  The late Richard Donner was also one of those directors who liked working with certain actors repeatedly--look for Donner regulars Mary Ellen Trainor, Steve Kahan, Jack McGee, Damon Hines, and Norm Wilson (all of whom appeared in multiple Lethal Weapon films).  Also, in one of those "blink and you'll miss it" cameos, Larry Carlton, David Sanborn, Paul Shaffer, and Miles Davis play street musicians performing perhaps the jazziest rendition of "We Three Kings" I've ever heard.

Despite the drama and the fact that most people probably would not rank it as one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made, this week, I'm still going to recommend 1988's Scrooged.

This is my last "Film of the Week" sermon for 2024.  As I said in my "Album of the Week" rant, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate.  Or, if you don't celebrate any holidays, I still wish you a joyous few weeks at the end of the year.  After all, why should we revelers have all the fun?

Until next year, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

I've noticed that when it comes to the holiday season, there are two schools of thought when it comes to decorating trees.  One is where everything is all neat and uniform like you see on trees in public spaces like the one in Rockefeller Center or the White House or most public lobbies.  All the ornaments look alike and they're placed on the tree in symmetrical patterns that are pleasing to the eye, which is all well and good, because it is pleasing to the eye.  I mean, what else are we going to do with a Christmas tree other than look at it?    But the other school of thought (and the one I personally espouse) is a bit more eclectic.  I truly believe that, especially in one's personal spaces, how a tree is decorated says a lot about the person.  It's truly an extension of their personality.  The ornaments tend to reflect the interests of the tree owner.  Every year, my tree is practically cluttered with Peanuts, Disney, and Looney Tunes characters.  I have ornaments showing off some of my favourite bands, Coca-Cola, R2-D2, ceramic knickknacks that I personally glazed, handmade glass ornaments that have been given to me down through the years (particularly an '80s boom box that a family member gave me some years back), even a bagpipe-playing Santa Claus.

In 2006, I made my own ornaments out of cardboard cutouts of miniature Diana Krall album covers (which is a very long story, but you can see the results in the pictures below).  I'm still very proud of those ornaments and keep them all together in an envelope when they're not on the tree so they don't get lost or separated.

I also feel compelled at this time of year to point out a Heloise-like tip of my own:  if you tie a ribbon around the hub of a yo-yo with no string, it makes quite the decorative ornament.  I have at least eight of them on my tree--maybe nine, I haven't done a piece count lately.  (And, yes, I also agree with the old adage that if it isn't a Duncan, it isn't a yo-yo.)

 

Many years ago, my father was convinced by his best friend to play Santa Claus at a local firehouse.  It seemed appropriate for him to do it as he looked like Santa (complete with the white beard) and his name was Nicholas.  I always thought that the picture that Mom took of him looked like Santa's mug shot.  Last year, my sister Heather had a tree-shaped ornament made out of the picture.  I got a little sentimental putting it up this year as I realized that so many of the ornaments on my tree were for things I liked that Dad introduced me to.  So when I put up the St. Nic ornament (1), I placed some of those other ornaments--Batman (2), Wile E. Coyote riding a holiday themed ACME bomb à la Slim Pickens (3) the Chicago Cubs (4), Curly from the Three Stooges (5). and, of course, The Rolling Stones (6)--in its vicinity, thus establishing a "Dad Section" on my Christmas tree this year.  If anyone knows where I can get my hands on some ornaments for Tom Selleck and/or John Denver, please let me know so I can establish a "Mom Section" in the future.

So much of holiday decorating has become something of a tradition for me.  And I have various rituals around putting up the tree.  As I wrote last year, I always play the "Charlie Brown Christmas" CD while decorating with a DVD of a crackling fireplace playing on my TV.  There's frequently eggnog involved.  I've had some of the ornaments for more than half of my life.  Even my tree was purchased in 1998.

"Tradition is not old habit.  It's comforting to people."

--Eli Wallach as Rabbi Ben Lewis in the film Keeping the Faith, 2000

The whole thing culminates in the placement of the angel on the top of the tree.  The angel (who my father dubbed Brunhilde, but my sister once told me that she thinks her real name is Fiona) actually predates me.  When we were kids, it was always a big deal and something of an honour to put the angel on the tree.  Heather and I would alternate years and there are old pictures of Dad holding us up to put her in place.  Of course, back then, the tree was real and six and a half feet tall.  Today, my tree is barely half that height and sits on an end table by a window facing the street.  For a long time, my tree lacked an angel.  To me, it was an important part of the holiday season, and my tree just felt incomplete without it.  I wanted one of my own but, try as I might, I could never seem to find one with red hair, so Mom actually gave me Fiona/Brunhilde after Heather and I moved out and Mom no longer felt like decorating for the holidays.

 

 

In spite of all the traditions and rituals that we all have--especially at this time of the year, sometimes it's important to create new things that we can incorporate into those traditions.  So this year, rather than submitting a holiday album of the same old songs that we all know and love, this year, I thought I'd forego the "fa la las" and the "Jingle Bells," and share a holiday album that I'm quite fond of in which the bulk of the songs were original compositions by band members Karen Bergquist and Linford Detweiler.  Initially released independently in 2006 and re-released the following year on their own label, Great Speckled Dog Records, please enjoy Over the Rhine with their second Christmas album, Snow Angels.

This will be my last "Album of the Week" sermon for 2024.  I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate.  Or, if you don't celebrate any holidays, I still wish you a joyous few weeks at the end of the year.  After all, why should we revelers have all the fun?

Until next year, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill