Been deliberately watching Bad Christmas movies (career woman goes on vacation, meets grumpy whatever, falls in love etc..) that have nothing to do with Christmas. Watched George C. Scott in Scrooge and then thought, what is the best modern Christmas film made in the last decade?
I force myself to watch Russian tank movies, 1920s westerns, mashups, Bannon films, Bollywood, YouTube cooking videos to expand my horizons. But Hollywood just can't get Christmas right anymore. refinery29.com/en-gb/why-we-l…
Dickens, like Conrad first published his novella in the papers. Major success. Reads and watches well to this day. The cautionary tale to enjoy life and those around you is timeless. Just as Conrad's Heart of Darkness did. Both are the same story.
arts.gov/stories/blog/2…
arts.gov/stories/blog/2…
Both men begin their story in London, both novellas are about men who lost their humanity and both are sobering tales about a life badly spent in the pursuit of something evil. So why has no one does a Christmas Heart of Darkness? mentalfloss.com/article/530711…
The "chick leaves drudgery and career to find romance in exotic place" is the reverse of these dark stories. But there is no message in this Cinderella Christmas tale unless you swap out the happy gay friend who visits and insert the more interesting evil sisters to wreak havoc
I put a lot of faith in the Bad Santa franchise. I was disappointed. Turns out Bad Santa just stayed bad. Again major Christmas Hollywood fail on what could have been a cautionary tale of joy and redemption.
Then there is the corny but watchable musical romance Christmas genre built around "White Christmas". Holiday Inn first started it in 1942. nytimes.com/1942/08/05/arc… It morphed into White Christmas in 1954 and then vanished. hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-n…
The 50's version was Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Now Santa lived at the North Pole and delivered presents. Robert L. May's 1939 story, Gene Autry's 1949" song led to the 1964 stop Tadahito Mochinaga stop motion cartoon. No redemption required.
Pretty much all of what we think about Christmas is a modern invention. Even the date. But culture shapes perception of what a holiday is for and ideally what we should learn from this holiday. allclassical.org/the-stories-of…
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