A Very Silly Challenge

So, on a whim, I decided to start watching at least one Christmas movie/episode a day until Christmas, and write "reviews" for them. Just to be silly, maybe I'll rate them. What do you think? Ranking will be according to how many sugar plums they rate, or how many lumps of coal? Something like that? I'll play that part by ear.

If you have any obscure (or not) Christmas specials/movies/episodes that you would like to suggest, let me know! I'm feeling particularly Christmas-ish this year, and won't be able to decorate, as we're going to be getting ready to move. Which, of course, I'm grateful for, but that will take some of the holiday cheer out of the season.

Tonight, I noticed that hulu had just added Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. I don't believe I've ever seen this Christmas special. From the introduction, I believe it's going to be "special" indeed.


(these are all a bit of "stream of consciousness" comments - I just wrote things as I watched)

First off, I was relieved to see that the introduction was just a strange way to introduce a "play within a play" sort of set-up for this movie.

Can I just say something? I really miss "old school" animation. I mean, of course, digital images and animations are quite impressive...but there's just something magical about the old way. I'm loving just watching the snow drift across the screen. Brings back my childhood ambition of becoming an animator.

So far, I'm greatly enjoying the dialogue in this film. I find myself giggling quite a bit.

Okay, so I'm at the part of the movie with the Ghost of Christmas Past, and I have to be an evil, heartless, terrible excuse for a girl: I cannot stand these children singing. Or, more likely, these adults trying to sound like children singing. I would imagine, if I knew the "children" singing, I would think it was endearing and adorable. However, I do not know these people...and the singing is grating on my nerves.

Um, as usual, the Ghost of Christmas Future is very creepy. I remember watching the Mickey Christmas Carol, and freaking out about the whole Ghost of Christmas Future segment.

The "despicables" who sing a song about stealing Scrooge's things are rather disturbing, but their song has a surprisingly strong vocabulary (as in intellectual, not as in offensive).

Hmm...that was interesting. Right after the most disturbing bits, where it's revealed that Tiny Tim is dead, Scrooge is dead, and he (Scrooge) is left alone in the graveyard, they cut to a sort of intermission in the play within the movie. It was a really great way to cut from the despair of the scene and remind the audience that it wasn't real. I liked that a lot.
Granted, as a child, I had very many issues and fears about death and dying (still have some to this day), so those scenes were the most disturbing to me. So, it was nice to be able to "step out" of the morbidity of that particular sequence.

HAHAHAHAHA! I love Scrooge's wardrobe solution! ^_^

Overall, I think I would rate that at 3 sugar plums out of 5. It was pleasant, enjoyable, had that old-school classic charm to it, but it didn't have quite the same impact on me as other cult favorites. I often wonder if things become our favorites because we saw them as children, or if they're our favorites because they're better. Who knows?

For future movies, I intend to watch (even though I've seen most of these), in no particular order:
- A Charlie Brown Christmas
- How the Grinch Stole Christmas
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
- Frosty the Snowman
- A Garfield Christmas Special*
- It's a Wonderful Life
- A Christmas Story
- Batman: Holiday Knights
- 'Twas the Night Before Christmas
- Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey
- The Little Drummer Boy
- Elf
- Jingle All the Way
- Four Christmases
- The Office: Christmas Party
- The Office: Secret Santa
- Home Alone
- Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
- Prancer
- The Santa Clause
- The Polar Express (anyone seen this?)
- The Christmas List
- A Pink Christmas
- While You Were Sleeping

I did just find this link to 101 Christmas Specials. I didn't try to watch any of them, but the list is helpful for ideas.

*I may or may not watch this one. I used to watch it every Christmas with my family, particularly my grandmother (my dad's mom). However, she looked exactly like the grandma in the show, and my grandpa died when I was young. Watching the show with her became too painful after a while, so we took it out of our holiday rotation. Now that she's gone too, I don't know if I'm ready to handle it...but maybe it'd be nice to remember her and Papa by doing that.


The countdown is on! And I haven't even started making my gifts yet! O.o