My Top 5 Holiday Movies to Watch

Whether you like it or not, now that Halloween is over, the holiday season is officially upon us. And depending on your feelings about the holidays, this season can give you a case of the warm fuzzies as you think about spending time with loved ones, sipping hot chocolate by a roaring fire, and all the delicious goodies you get to eat because “the diet starts the first of the year!” Or it can ignite a slow, burning pain in the pit of your stomach as you dread preparing your home for undesirable houseguests, worry about how not to go into debt while still getting gifts for everyone on your list, and loathe the idea of seeing those special few relatives who always make you feel like crap about yourself.

But as any movie junkie knows, the holidays are also a great time for watching movies. Everyone has their favorites that they dust off the shelf every November and December, whether they be movies that are actually about the holidays, or just an enjoyable distraction from the insanity that ‘tis the season. Here are my top five movies that I look forward to watching during the most “wonderful” time of the year:

5. Home for the Holidays (1995) – “Dysfunctional family gets together for the holidays” has really become its own sub-genre of holiday movie over the years, but I still find the underappreciated Home for the Holidays to be one of the best in this category. Directed by Jodie Foster, it stars Holly Hunter as single mother Claudia (daughter is played by a young teen Claire Danes) who heads to her crazy parents’ house for Thanksgiving. She’s commonly known as the family screw-up, which makes arriving just after being fired from her job all the more painful. Her sister is a total suburban snob (and married to Steve Guttenberg), her mother is hypercritical and shrill, her aunt is losing her mind, and her father has no interest in anything other than not dealing with anyone. Her one refuge is her beloved younger brother, played both hilariously and tenderly by Robert Downey, Jr. The entire movie is great, but the best parts are seemingly throw-away moments that stick with you afterward because they are all too familiar. Case in point: Claudia loses her stylish winter coat in the airport, and is forced to wear her mother’s hideous, lumpy old coat throughout the rest of the movie. Which always reminds me of how I forget to bring my winter hat with me to my mother’s every year, and she then tries to offer me some ugly pom-pom hat from days long gone by to wear when she wants to talk a walk after dinner. But obviously I’m not as good a daughter as Claudia, since I prefer to freeze than wear that hat.

4. Little Women (1994) – Little Women is fantastic to watch pretty much any time of the year, but I particularly like it at the holidays because it showcases the sort of family love and understanding that nearly everyone wishes they had. It’s especially poignant to watch now as the four March sisters (played by Trini Alvarado, Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, and Kirsten Dunst) and are struggling with a newfound poverty while their father is off fighting the Civil War. But despite the hardships they’re facing and the things they’re forced to go without, they find happiness and support in each other. Which sounds really lame and cheesy, I know, but the movie manages to be warm and moving instead. And it’s not all soothing talks by candlelight; the March girls know how to throw down when push comes to shove (youngest sister Amy can be an absolute devil child). Little Women also features Christian Bale in one of his first big roles, as boy-next-door Laurie, and since this was the movie where I first “discovered” him, accepting him as the new Batman has been a bit of a process. And in case you’re wondering, no, the rest of my holiday movie picks do not feature Claire Danes.

3. Elf (2003) – Will Ferrell movies are hit or miss, depending on both your sense of humor and whether he’s doing anything other than screaming with his shirt off. But he’s so hilariously spot-on as Buddy the elf, I really think he’s missing his calling as a family movie star (hey, if The Rock can make it work…). While it is family-friendly, there’s plenty of laughs for adults in Elf, mainly due to the oversized child-like reactions Buddy has to everything Christmas-related (so it’s perfect to put him in NYC, which in December looks like Christmas puked all over it) and the collection of hilarious one-liners (“Smiling is my favorite!”). James Caan is also perfectly droll in his role of the curmudgeon who lost the spirit of the season, and Peter Dinklage’s cameo as a perpetually pissed off children’s book author nearly steals the entire movie.

2. Love Actually (2003) – Love Actually embodies nearly everything I hate in romantic movies: sappy love stories, unrealistic relationships, promotion of the idea that no one can be happy while single, etc. And yet somehow, when all this is presented in Love Actually, I adore it. I blame this on the fact that it’s a British movie (everything seems to look and sound better when presented with a British accent). The movie also manages to make Christmas in London look like the most wonderful place to be and I just want to pack up and move there and have intertwining stories with all those crazy characters. Not all of the vignettes presented are winners—I couldn’t care less about Colin’s quest to get laid in America—but as soon as you grow bored or disinterested in one story, another one stumbles in to reengage you. And with a cast that reads like the who’s-who of British cinema (or the adult cast of the Harry Potter movies), you can’t help but to eventually fall under its spell. Every year I devote a Sunday afternoon to wrapping all of my Christmas presents while watching Love Actually, and every year I have to stop to wipe away tears during the scene when Emma Thompson has her very controlled breakdown to a very melancholy version of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now.” Bloody brilliant.

1. A Christmas Story (1983) – I think of A Christmas Story as the holiday movie for people who don’t like holiday movies (I’m looking at you, It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34^th Street). Sure, it’s a movie about Christmas, but it focuses on a boy’s quest to get a BB gun as a gift and includes scenes of kids torturing other kids, cursing, and an abusive department store Santa. All the things that make the season merry and bright! Just don’t shoot your eye out, kid.

Theater Review: Ragtime

Location: Neil Simon Theatre, 250 West 52^nd Street, NY, NY

Website: Official Ragtime site

Starring: Quentin Earl Darrington, Stephanie Umoh, Christiane Noll, Ron Bohmer, Robert Petkoff, Bobby Steggert

My Review: Confession: I’ve been familiar with the musical Ragtime for years, and love the show, so I was predisposed to enjoy it before even arriving at the Neil Simon Theatre for this new production. The original Broadway cast album has been on regular rotation in my music collection since becoming available in 1998 (first in my Discman, now on my iPod), and while I did miss seeing the original cast on Broadway (due to that whole pesky going to college thing), I caught a touring production several years ago that was excellent. So my main concern with this new production was whether or not it would measure up to the production that plays in my head whenever listing to the cast album. Luckily, my fears were put to rest at almost the instant the show began.

Right before the curtain lifted, my friend who attended the theater with me said, “I can’t remember the last time I saw a big musical like this.” And that’s essentially what Ragtime is: A big-ass musical. Over 40 cast members! A 20-piece orchestra in the pit! Scenery that takes up the entire stage! Grand-scale musicals like this seem to be appearing on Broadway less and less frequently, no doubt due to how expensive they are to produce, and after a number of flops over the years and the very public financial woes of the theater industry, producers seem to be playing it safe with smaller, less expensive shows with fewer bells and whistles. But when a big-ass musical is done well and touches the hearts and minds of the audience, the payoff can be huge. And that’s just what Ragtime should be looking forward to.

Based on the E.L. Doctorow novel of the same name, Ragtime takes a look at turn-of-the-century America (starting in 1906), using the stories of three very different families as its frame. There’s the white WASP-y family happily living an idyllically sheltered existence in New Rochelle, NY, a newly-arrived Jewish immigrant determined to be an American success story and make a new life for his young daughter, and the black ragtime piano player from Harlem trying to do right by the woman he loved and lost. What begins as three separate stories eventually gets tangled together, while some real historical figures observe, narrate, and occasionally participate in the narrative (including Emma Goldman, Harry Houdini, and Booker T. Washington). As the real characters mix with the fictional, so do real events (like the textile workers’ strike in Lawrence, MA) mingle with the imagined, creating a rich and textured look at a changing America as it rapidly approaches World War I.

With a cast this size, a multitude of stories being told, and a running time at just under three hours, there’s way too much happening in Ragtime to comment on everything, so here are some of the highlights:

While scenery is usually something I tend not to notice (which is usually a sign that it works with the show, because if it wasn’t working, it would be painfully obvious), but the Ragtime set is note-worthy because it works so extraordinarily well. The entire stage is rigged with skeletal-like metal scaffolding that has various staircases to help lead the characters to the various tiers that reach to the top of the stage. With the addition of a few props and a change of the lighting, the entire set is easily transformed into a ship, a suburban manor, a factory, a dance hall, and the Atlantic City boardwalk.

The entire cast works well together, but as with every show there are standouts. Bobby Steggert as Mother’s Younger Brother manages to straddle the line between “eager young man” and “loose cannon” so deftly that you’re never quite sure whether to root for him or be creeped out by him. Robert Petkoff as Tateh, the poor immigrant artist, goes through so many changes in the handful of scenes he appears in that it would be easy to play one too abruptly and ruin the illusion of his entire character. But Petkoff tackles the role brilliantly, and as he shifts from wide-eyed hopeful, to disillusioned and broken, to a self-made man, you believe every change and revel in his perseverance.

The main standout performances are by Quentin Earl Darrington and Stephanie Umoh as Coalhouse Walker, Jr. and his love, Sarah—roles that were originated on Broadway by Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald, so to say they had big shoes to fill is a gross understatement. But everything they bring to their parts is perfect. Darrington has a confidant swagger when Coalhouse is playing his music in a dance hall, but he puts all of his pride aside to win back the woman he did wrong. Everything he does, he does with passion, and that passion can be channeled for good or evil, depending on which way the winds blow. Umoh is sweet and sassy as Sarah, a woman who is strong and determined, but still vulnerable enough to nearly destroy everything she has when her heart is broken. They both have killer voices, too, with each solo or duet they perform nearly bringing the show to a brief stand-still. The fact that Ragtime marks a Broadway debut for both of them is beyond remarkable.

Bottom Line: While big musicals are often sneered at as not being “legitimate theater” (insert your own Cats joke here), Ragtime proves that when done right, big musicals are indeed “legitimate” and very entertaining. Ragtime will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you think, and chances are you’ll leave the theater happily humming any one of its many tunes. If that’s not a “legitimate” theater experience, then I’ll happily continue to be a total theater bastard.

Quest for the Best: Halloween Candy Edition

For the most part, I’m pretty ambivalent about Halloween: On the “Holidays I Don’t Care About” scale, it falls somewhere between President’s Day and Valentine’s Day. It was fun when I was a kid and there were costume parties, cupcakes at school, and seasonal cartoons to watch, but as I grew up I watched it devolve into a day dedicated to annoying public drunkenness and an excuse for normally sane women to dress like whores. (“I’m not a nurse, I’m a slutty nurse!” Fantastic. I’m sure all the real nurses who help save lives daily appreciate that.)

But Halloween’s one redeeming factor is that it’s the one time of year when it’s perfectly acceptable to buy candy by the gross. I can go into any store and buy numerous bags—weighing more than a pound each—of assorted miniature chocolatey and sugary goodness. And no one ever has to know that I never get any trick-or-treaters, because there’s no way for them to get access to my door. So yes, you unsuspecting Target employee, all this delicious candy goodness is all for me, and if any of it survives to the end of the week, I will be amazed.

In the spirit of celebrating the one part of Halloween I still enjoy (viewings of The Nightmare Before Christmas notwithstanding), here are my favorite Halloween treats:

* Twizzlers. Now, Twizzlers are good at any time of the year, and besides popcorn are the perfect movie theater snack, but the mini-sized ones that come out for Halloween are actually better. They’re shaped differently—more tube-like—and have a different taste. I’m not entirely sure what flavor Twizzlers are meant to be in the first place (strawberry?), but the Halloween ones have a more intense flavor. Plus, they’re less chewy than regular Twizzlers, therefore less likely to do any damage to pricey dental work. I’m not sure how or why a different formula is used for Halloween Twizzlers, but they definitely taste differently, and I wish the good people at Twizzlers headquarters would use this recipe all year round.

* PayDay. PayDay is one of those candy bars I like, but I rarely have since I’m not a frequent buyer of candy bars. But once an entire bag full of mini-bars are staring me in the face, I have a moment of, “Ohmigod these things are so good and I haven’t had one in ages! I must have them!” They’re nothing more than wads of caramel rolled in salty peanuts, but they’re delicious salty-sweet goodness that I tend to only devour once a year.

* Laffy Taffy. Much like PayDay, Laffy Taffy is a candy that I tend to forget exists until Halloween rolls around. And again like PayDay, once I see that brightly colored bag that contains roughly a thousand individually wrapped pieces of the sweet, chewy candy, I must have it. Besides being mouth-watering good and far less gross than regular taffy, each pieces comes with jokes on the wrapper! Candy and comedy—does it get any better than that? For example, take this bon mot:

What would you do without your memories?

Answer: Forget!

Haha! It’s funny and it’s true. You even get some clever word play:

Why couldn’t Mozart find his teacher?

Answer: Because Mozart’s teacher was Hayden!

This stuff even appeals to the Carnegie Hall crowd! Capital.

* Reese’s Sticks. You really can’t go wrong with anything from the Reese’s family, but the Reese’s Sticks are my all-time favorite. They’re what you would get if a Kit Kat married a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and they had the world’s most perfect child: Crispy wafers stuck together with layers of Reese’s peanut butter, and the whole thing covered in chocolate. Deceptively simple, and yet I tend to go through an average of three bags of them before the Halloween season is over. And I don’t feel even the slightest bit guilty, because they’re just that good.

Happy Halloween, whores!

Movie Review: Where the Wild Things Are

Rated: PG

Website: Official Where the Wild Things Are site

Starring: Max Records, Catherine Keener, voices of James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O’Hara, Chris Cooper, Paul Dano, Forest Whitaker

My Review: I’m going to take the easy—some may say “coward’s”—way out here, and say there’s really no way to review Where the Wild Things Are. As anyone who pays attention to movie reviews has seen, it’s had a very polarizing effect on people; they’re either liking it or loathing it. And after seeing it, I can see why.

I’m in the “like it” camp (“love” would be too strong a word to use as I’m still processing it), but I can easily see how it’s not going to appeal to some, and that’s OK; despite the flamewars that erupt over big movies like this, the last time I checked, it’s not required that we all have the same reactions and experiences at the movies. So in lieu of a review, here are my thoughts on who will like Where the Wild Things Are, who won’t, and my reasons for liking it:

Won’t Like It

Parents who can’t think for themselves anymore. It’s been stated again and again and again; this is a movie ABOUT children, not FOR children. And while I don’t think there’s necessarily anything inappropriate for children in the movie, there are a few scenes that may be a bit intimidating to the very young, and more than anything else, I’d guess most kids will just be bored by WTWTA. But that won’t stop some parents from taking their kids to see it, then declaring it a “bad movie” because it was too scary/slow for them to enjoy, and they’ve joined the parenting cult where all of their opinions are for “the children” and not themselves.

Those expecting a silly, campy romp. There’s plenty of romping, but it’s more cerebral than just “kid having fun with crazy monster-creatures.” If it’s something lighthearted you’re after, WTWTA isn’t going to deliver that.

Those who loved the book. The book is 10 sentences long and takes a few minutes to read. The average movie is at least 90 minutes long. The only way this was ever going to be made into a movie was to have creative licenses taken, but plenty of book devotees will still be upset with the directions that were taken.

Will Like It

Those who loved the book. On the flip side, plenty of people who loved the book will also love how it’s interpreted on the screen. Max’s wolf suit is awesome, the Wild Things are absolute magic to behold, and the entire movie oozes with the wonderment and darkness that is the inside of a troubled child’s mind.

Parents with troubled and/or highly imaginative kids. I don’t have kids, but I imagine having children that are difficult to understand or relate to is one of the most frustrating parts of being a parent. WTWTA provides a look into the mind of one particular troubled child, but Max’s feelings and frustrations are the same as a lot of kids who live an angry and disturbed existence.

Adults who once were troubled and/or highly imaginative kids. In my amateur opinion, the biggest draw WTWTA has is with adults who loved the book as children because they related to Max. Many adults grew up in a haze of anger, frustration, loneliness, denial, and insecurity, and to escape all that had fantastical corners of their mind to retreat to when times were bad. WTWTA embodies all of that and shows that while you may have thought you were the “weird kid” in school, you weren’t such an outcast, after all.

Why I Liked It

I found it to be a very clever and moving creation of a book I enjoyed as a child. Visually, it’s absolutely stunning, and I love how the Wild Things at one moment seem fun and cuddly, then the next moment scary and intimidating—just like people. And while the significance of these creatures are open for interpretation, I saw them as embodying the different parts of Max’s persona that he doesn’t understand. One is rude and obnoxious for no apparent reason. Another enjoys punching holes in things. Another is easily upset and feels that no one in the group ever listens to him. And they all take great pleasure in being loud and destructive whenever the opportunity arises. These uncomfortable feelings plague everyone, kids and adults, and we all handle them differently. As adults, we’re conditioned to swallow these feelings. As a child, Max invents a fantasy world where he is king and has ultimate power over everyone, presumably to compensate for his lack of power in the real world.

WTWTA isn’t without its flaws. There’s a bizarre scene where Max is at school and his teacher is lecturing about the sun dying and the end of humanity…to a classroom of fourth-graders. This inspires a conversation later on in the Land of the Wild Things, but I never got over how out of place that moment was. I was also disappointed that Max’s mother never actually calls him a “wild thing,” as she does in the book after he misbehaves. Without this accusation, I wondered where his inspiration to create the Wild Things came from. But these are relatively small complaints for a movie that, as a whole, was crafted remarkably well.

Bottom Line: You’ll either like Where the Wild Things Are, or you won’t. A trite summary, yes, but it’s a polarizing movie. But if you take a child to it and then whine about how “bad” it was for them, I will eat you up.

Trailer Review: It’s Complicated

Opens: December 25, 2009

Website: Official It’s Complicated site

Starring: Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski

My Review: It’s Complicated is a comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin.

What, that wasn’t enough to sell you on it? That seems to be all the studio is relying on to attract an audience, but if you insist…

In an effort to show that being over 50 doesn’t mean you have to be old and boring, these three power players are tackling the romantic comedy genre. Streep and Baldwin are Jane and Jake, a formerly married couple who split when he left her for a younger woman. But when he discovers that dating someone half his age isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, Jake starts sniffing around Jane again, who finds that she actually enjoys the role of “the other woman” a lot more than “wife.” While she’s enjoying the new-found playfulness in her illicit relationship with her ex-husband, the architect who’s working on her house (played by Martin) has also set his sights on Jane. And Jane finds him to be funny and charming, too, so who is she going to choose?

It’s pretty standard rom-com fare, but the filmmakers are obviously hoping that the three stars will bring it to an elevated level. Which they very well might; I’m not denying that Streep, Baldwin, and Martin are all extremely gifted, and funny, actors. But I am denying the studio my dollars for a movie ticket and adding this to the Netflix queue instead.

Would I Pay For It?: This is the very definition of “rental material.” But I hope it’ll be entertaining rental material.

New Gig: It's Just Movies

I'm not going to pretend to know everything about everyone who stumbles upon this blog, but I'm going to assume one of two things is true about all visitors:

• You enjoy reading what I write.
• You like movies.

So if one of these things (but preferably both) is true about you, I'd like to direct your attention to ItsJustMovies.com, a relatively new site that's, well, uh, you see, just about movies. I'll be contributing some pieces to the site, along with some other talented (and entertainment-obsessed) writers, so stop by, bookmark it, and come back often.

Here ends my shameless self-promoting plug.
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Theater Review: Judas & Me

Location: American Theatre of Actors, 314 West 54th Street, NY, NY

Website: Official NYMF site

Starring: Barbara Walsh, Jennifer Laura Thompson, Nick Blaemire, Doug Kreeger, Leslie Kritzer, Ann Harada, Nikki Snelson

My Review: My second sampling from the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival was Judas & Me, and the fact that it took me five days to motivate myself enough to write about it speaks volumes. While not necessarily a “bad” show, it was pretty run-of-the-mill theater, and I suspect it will remain a festival-only performance.

Judas & Me is a biblical satire that primarily focuses on the mother of Judas Iscariot, Rheba, and her blind jealously of their neighbors, Mary and her perfect son Jesus. In the opening moments, a chorus of angels arrives to tell Rheba she will birth the Messiah, then realize they’re at the wrong house when they see she’s already pregnant. But despite the angel Gabriel constantly telling her they made a mistake, the seed has already been planted in Rheba’s mind, and she spends the rest of her life pushing her son Judas to measure up to Jesus, confident that he is capable of greatness, too (think Mama Rose in Israel). Judas is fully aware of his normalcy, and is content to be an irrigation worker and one of Jesus’ disciples. But his mother’s persistent nagging and prodding eventually leads to the inevitable.

What sounds like a great premise—both a funny twist on a familiar story and a cautionary tale about overbearing parenting—is executed rather blandly in Judas & Me. The songs aren’t memorable and the truly laugh-out-loud moments are few. And the story that’s being skewed isn’t skewed enough to really become it’s own. Thinking back on the performance, I wish they had created a sort of “behind the scenes” story that would fit into the Bible story we’re already so familiar with (only the basest of Bible knowledge is required to fully comprehend Judas & Me). A structure similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead would have served the show better, where we would see everything from the point of view of characters we’re familiar with, but don’t know well, filling in parts of the story that haven’t already been told. What could have been a clever, high-concept satire is instead played as an uninspired spoof.

The saving grace of this mediocre show is the acting talent. Barbara Walsh is Rheba (and was Joanne in the recent Broadway revival of Company), and she carries the production as best as she can with her quick wit and snappy retorts. She personifies everything hilarious and sad about those who can’t see anything other than how much greener things are on the other side. Leslie Kritzer is very funny as Gabriel, the no-nonsense angel who performs a rousing gospel number at the close of the first act. Ann Harada (of Avenue Q fame) is underused as Rheba’s overshadowed eldest child, but she produces some genuine laughs when she is featured. Nick Blaemire and Doug Kreeger, as Judas and Jesus, perform ably in roles that aren’t fully realized beyond the stereotypes of “reluctant loner” and “golden boy.”

It probably doesn’t help the plight of Judas & Me that I saw Fat Camp first, so I inevitably compared the two in my head, and Fat Camp came away the clear winner. I realize that shows in the NYMF are works in progress and not fully-realized productions, so a certain amount of slack cutting is expected. But when the entire point of the festival is to put your best foot forward, with hopes of being picked up by producers for a longer run, Judas & Me should have spent some more time developing a more distinctive concept. As it is now, it immediately fades into the back of your memory, along with every other “good, but not remarkable” show you’ve ever seen.

Bottom Line: While there are definitely worse shows to see, I doubt the goal of Judas & Me is to be seen as “just OK.” It stays very safely in the middle of the road, not taking enough risks to be either truly funny or satirical. With some reworking, it could be less of a moderately amusing Bible retelling, and become either a hilarious sacrilegious farce or a shrewd and subtle commentary about the importance of hearing all sides to a story.