Categories
Film/TV Movie Reviews

Is A Christmas Story the Best Christmas Movie?

Let’s talk about why A Christmas Story should be crowned the greatest Christmas movie. Holidays are ostensibly about family and the memories we make when we are with our family. The plot of A Christmas Story is not a big, showy production. It is simply about young Ralphie’s Christmas with his family and his hopes for the perfect Christmas present. Remember your childhood? Remember when you thought about what you would get for Christmas for at least a month? This is the highly effective hook of A Christmas Story. The story is told through the unique story device of an adult Ralphie providing the voiceover in retrospect.

As a child, my father sat the family down to watch A Christmas Story. I was initially uninterested. In the years holidays that ensued and the highly effective 24-hour cable marathons, pre-cutting the cord, watching A Christmas Story at least biannually became one of my family’s traditions.

This film is intentionally dated and intentionally cheesy. It is a way to connect to the child you were. When I watch this film with my father, it takes him back to his childhood. This is not because his childhood was exactly the same as in the the film. As an adult, I too experience nostalgia for this film.

Peter Billingsley in A Christmas Story, screencap by Mary Miracle

This movie touches on many childhood struggles that a lot of us went through: the perfect Christmas toy, wearing giant snowsuits against our will, performing like a monkey at your parents’ request, meeting Santa, childhood fights, and dares. Most importantly, A Christmas Story is so effective at putting us in Ralphie’s shoes that we get to experience our childhood again, even if it was superficially different. It is family friendly-fare that is perfect to put on when everyone is gathered together this holiday season.

C’mon, let’s choose A Christmas Story as the greatest Christmas movie! Please join me in checking out the rest of the contenders over on the LAMB

A Christmas Story Leg Lamp, screencap by Mary Miracle

Categories
Film/TV Movie Reviews

Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Talented Mr. Ripley

This post is for The Film Experience’s Hit Me With Your Best Shot series. This series concerns choosing a shot from a current film that has been chosen and sharing why it’s your favorite shot and/or in some way important to you.

The Talented Mr. Ripley was released in the late ’90’s. While I don’t think that the ’90’s are a particularly important time for movies in general it was important to me. It was in the mid-’90’s, as a pre-teen, that I realized how much movies meant to me. Before that, I wasn’t old enough to care about any movie that wasn’t just pure fun, a drama like this wouldn’t have appealed to me. Luckily I grew up.

The Talented Mr. Ripley is a long, yet fascinating film about sociopath Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) who is adept at studying and mimicking others. He uses this to his advantage when during happenstance he meets a rich father who hires him to bring his fun-loving son who has traveled abroad back to the US. The man assumes that he went to school with his son due to what he is wearing and sensing an opportunity he doesn’t disabuse him of the notion.

He studies up on the son, Dickie Greenleaf’s (Jude Law), interests to figure out how to endear himself to him after arranging a faux meet-cute. The only thing that I really find silly about the film is that Damon isn’t really considered one of the beautiful people (hence he wears glasses, ah!).

Tthere are many important moments in the movie. However, Tom often seems to wear a blank expression during key moments, which is what I often go for. Despite this, it was still difficult to choose a scene.

I chose the above scene as at this point in the movie he is going back and forth between playing Ripley and playing Dickie Greenleaf. To me it seems as if he’s looking in the mirror to see which he is playing at.

Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, screencap by Mary Miracle

I also almost chose this last scene which is amazing but probably pretty obvious.

Jude Law in The Talented Mr. Ripley, screencap by Mary Miracle

and just for fun…gratuitous, shirtless Jude Law

The Visual Index for this challenge is here on the Film Experience.