Author Topic: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?  (Read 23937 times)

Offline David In Indy

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2006, 03:32:02 am »
I chose "A Wonderful Life" because if George Bailey and Clarence can't make  you feel glad to be alive, I don't know who can.  :)


"Every time you hear a bell ring, an angel gets his wings"!

.... or something like that.  :D

Yes. If I had a second favorite Christmas movie, "It's A Wonderful Life" would be it! 
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Offline David In Indy

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #11 on: December 05, 2006, 03:35:18 am »
I also love "A Christmas Story". TBS plays this movie over and over again every Christmas Eve. I have learned to love it over the years.

The fact that it takes place in my home state of Indiana doesn't hurt either!  :)
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mvansand76

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2006, 05:08:37 am »
I voted for It's A Wonderful Life.

Can I add National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation? God, that's a hilarious movie... I love Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid together!

Offline Arad-3

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #13 on: December 05, 2006, 03:01:24 pm »
I just saw Polar Express. That was really a wonderful movie!   But my favorite Christmas movie always has been and always will be 'Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" the original one with Burl Ives as the snowman.  It's just not Christmas for me unless I see that!  I guess the kid in me still comes out at Christmas time.
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2006, 12:35:02 am »
Hey, where's The Grinch who stole Christmas?  The animated version.  Did I miss it on the list?  It would be my first choice.

I must be the only person in the world who doesn't think much of It's a Wonderful Life.  I get misty-eyed at the end  - well, before the stupid 'angel getting his wings' bit - but I fast forward through most all of it to get to that part.

My second favorite is A Christmas Carol, but I either like the Albert Finney one or the 1930's one.  Can't recall the actor's name in that last one.  I was very disappointed in the George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart adaptations.  George C. Scott was unconvincing in the role and Stewart's version was boring, amazingly enough.

My 3rd favorite is A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Last Xmas, my best friend made me sit down and watch the movie about the kid who wants a BB gun for Christmas.  It was alright.  I guess you had to watch it as a kid to be nostalgic about it.

« Last Edit: December 06, 2006, 12:37:43 am by delalluvia »

Offline David In Indy

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2006, 03:31:36 am »
And I  still love "Hans Brinker". This movie puts me in the Christmas spirit every time I watch it.

I also developed my lifelong obsession with Robin Askwith because of this movie.

Nicky, don't you dare laugh.  ;)

I voted for It's A Wonderful Life.

Can I add National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation? God, that's a hilarious movie... I love Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid together!

I love that movie too Melissa! James Stewart and Donna Reed were brilliant in that film. Of course Lionel Barrymore did a very convincing job portraying "Mr. Potter". He was such a grouch in that movie.  :D

Yes, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was a good movie. I should have included it on my list. The squirrel in the Christmas tree will probably invoke some recent memories for me the next time I see it.  :D
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mvansand76

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2006, 07:42:25 am »
Yes, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation was a good movie. I should have included it on my list. The squirrel in the Christmas tree will probably invoke some recent memories for me the next time I see it.  :D

What about this:

Eddie: I don't know if I oughta go sailin' down no hill with nothin' between the ground and my brains but a piece of government plastic.
Clark: Do you really think it matters, Eddie?

or:

Todd: Hey Griswold. Where do you think you're gonna put a tree that big?
Clark: Bend over and I'll show you.

Offline saucycobblers

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2006, 08:32:45 am »
I also developed my lifelong obsession with Robin Askwith because of this movie.

Nicky, don't you dare laugh.  ;)

I'm struggling David, I'm struggling... ;) **Nicky bursts into a loud guffaw**  :-*

If we're talking Christmas movies it's absolutely gotta be 'It's a Wonderful Life'. Stunning performance from James Stewart, but then I always thought he was way under-rated as an actor. The movie itself is very dark, and I find Stewart immensely moving way before the closing credits. This giving man plagued by dreams that never were and promise unfulfilled. Beautiful film.

I've also got a soft spot for 'Gremlins' and 'Bad Santa', which was so much better than I ever thought it would be - lovin' Billy Bob  :D

Will you stop playing with that radio of yours, I'm trying to get to sleep!

Offline Toast

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #18 on: December 07, 2006, 11:18:38 am »
My choice has to be  -  A Christmas Story (1983)



Don't get me started on this movie. Every scene every word of dialogue is priceless.
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And of course Charlie Brown will always play into my Christmas plans.


« Last Edit: December 07, 2006, 02:52:23 pm by Toast »

Offline Toast

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Re: What Is Your Favorite Christmas Movie?
« Reply #19 on: December 07, 2006, 02:42:32 pm »


OMG. Just after I posted this message, I saw this in the New York Times (I'll post it for you since you have to register to read it - Free registration though.)

Recreating ‘A Christmas Story’ for Tourists in Cleveland
David Maxwell for The New York Times


The Radigan family took a picture with the leg lamp.


By CHRISTOPHER MAAG
Published: December 6, 2006

CLEVELAND, Dec. 4 — If Denny Renz were a boy again, he said, he would love nothing more than to re-enact Ralphie Parker’s childhood.

He would crawl under the kitchen sink the way Ralphie’s brother, Randy, did to hide from Mr. Parker, their father in the 1983 movie “A Christmas Story.” He would swing from the tree in the backyard, he said, dodging imaginary BBs fired from Ralphie’s coveted “official Red Ryder 200-shot carbine action range model air rifle.”

“I’ve never seen this house before, but it’s like I grew up here,” said Mr. Renz, 62, who drove 103 miles from Fairview, Pa., to see the home here where exterior shots of “A Christmas Story” were filmed.

Though originally panned by critics as a dark depiction of the holidays, “A Christmas Story” has earned status as a movie classic, rivaling long-time seasonal favorites like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Now fans from as far away as Los Angeles and Phoenix are flocking to a gritty Cleveland street overlooking a steel factory to visit the Parker family house restored to its movie glory.

A San Diego entrepreneur, Brian Jones, bought the house sight unseen on e-Bay for $150,000 in December 2004. He grew up watching “A Christmas Story” every year with his family. After Mr. Jones failed the vision test required to become a Navy pilot, his father tried cheering him up by building him a lamp with a woman’s leg as the base, similar to the one that enchanted Ralphie’s father in the movie.
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David Maxwell for The New York Times
Mr. Jones has now opened the house to tours.
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Amy Sancetta/Associated Press
Brian Jones, with a Red Ryder air rifle, started a business that sold the leg lamp made famous in “A Christmas Story.”
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Mr. Jones loved the gift so much that he started manufacturing copies of the lamps himself. Complete with fishnet stocking and a black high-heeled shoe, most lamps sell for $139 each; more than 7,500 have sold. Mr. Jones used the proceeds to cover the down payment on the house.

“When I first saw the house, there was snow on the ground, and I started running around the backyard,” said Mr. Jones, 30. “It felt like I was a little kid again.”

Unlike the Parkers’ single-family home in the movie, the Cleveland house was a duplex. (All the movie’s interior scenes were filmed on a sound stage in Toronto, Mr. Jones said.) Previous owners had installed modern windows, and covered the original wood siding with blue vinyl.

Watching the movie frame by frame, Mr. Jones drew plans of the Parker home. He spent $240,000 to gut the interior and transform the house into a near-exact copy of the movie set. (Darryl Haase, a tour guide, apologizes that the new stairwell is a few inches narrower than the one where Ralphie modeled his pink bunny pajamas.)

“Now I watch the movie and I catch myself looking at the background for anything we’re missing in the house,” Mr. Jones said.

To make the home feel more authentic, Mr. Jones hopes to install a stereo that recreates the sounds of Mr. Parker in the basement, swearing at the furnace. He briefly considered a Cleveland businessman’s offer to blow artificial smells of food, including Mrs. Parker’s cooked cabbage, through the house’s heat ducts.

Mr. Jones borrowed $129,000 to turn the house across the street into a museum and gift shop. Displays include the comically immobilizing snowsuit worn by little Randy, who famously cried, “I can’t put my arms down!”

Fans can buy a copy of the movie script for $40. Chunks of the house’s original wood siding cost $60.

About 4,300 people toured the house on opening weekend in November, Mr. Jones said. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children 12 and under. He has no official attendance projections, but expects at least 50,000 visitors a year.

In a city starved for jobs and tourist dollars — the Census Bureau ranked Cleveland as America’s poorest big city in 2006 — the house has sparked a miniature tourism boom. For $159 the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel offers “Christmas Story” packages, which include overnight accommodations for two, tickets to the house and the movie playing continuously on the room television set.

Patty LaFountaine-Johnson, an actor from Cleveland, sews red-and-green felt hats like the one she wore as an elf in the movie. Autographed, they sell in the gift shop for $35 each. “A veritable steal, made personally by the elf from hell herself,” Ms. LaFountaine-Johnson said.

At C&Y Chinese Restaurant, the official restaurant of the “Christmas Story” house, waiters copy the movie’s Christmas turkey scene by taking a roasted duck to customer’s tables, where they chop its head off with a giant cleaver. The promotion has doubled the restaurant’s weekend sales to over 1,000 people a day, said Jimmy Fong, the manager.

“Before last month, I never heard of this movie,” Mr. Fong said. “Now I’ve seen it over 100 times. I like it very much.”

Link to New York Times