The Life and Times of a Midwestern Movie Addict

Well, we've come once again to the end of another year and I've had a lot more time to reflect on things this week than in years past thanks to a combination of having no distractions and absolutely nothing to do.  I'm starting to wonder where my friends have all gone.  No one is around, because they all have better places to be and so here I am, spending the week leading up to New Year's with no one but my cats to keep me company.  If there was ever a time I felt more like an old maid, I cannot remember it.  I have enjoyed playing with my Christmas presents, particularly the new Zelda game.  I am so close to beating that.  I also got a new vacuum, which is amazing compared to my ratty old thing...my carpets haven't looked this nice in years.  I'm not sure if I should be excited about cleaning my carpets though...I don't think its normal.  Anyway, today as I was watching a film I'm quite happy to now own on Blu-ray, I got to thinking about late po...

In my experience, I've found that those people who have close families and who participate in family traditions tend to be the happiest at the holidays.  That may be a gross generalization, but then again it may be true.  I know, from personal experience, that my family enjoys Christmas much more when we are together and are repeating the traditions that we have participated in over time.  This can be a blessing and a curse for people who are just beginning to join a family who has been entrenched in their own holiday traditions and plans so long, because it makes the newcomers feel like outsiders.  As you might imagine, the final film to be covered today is about this very subject and I am so pleased to conclude this year's 25 days of Christmas movies with it.  It is a film about the importance of family, but also about learning to welcome outsiders into a close knit family.  Now, without futher ado, let's celebrate Christmas by visiting with The Family St...

 I woke up with a ulcer flare up today, so I'm not in the best of moods today...which is a shame because today is our Christmas Day since Dad and I are driving home from PA tomorrow morning so that we get back to his place at a decent hour.  However, I will not be revealing my gifts here today (because that just doesn't go with the whole Christmas tradition) and will reveal the loot tomorrow so that I'm not getting ahead of anyone.  Anyway, since I am in a little bit of pain and have no idea what to write about today, I decided to pull up an archive post of a film from last year I really enjoyed watching and hope you will enjoy reading about it again....now let's travel back in time a year to last Christmas...five, four, three, two, one: Another snow day today which means we have only one calamity day left before we have to start making them up...and tomorrow is our last day of school before break and a lot of non-educational activities along with early releases fr...

There are so many reasons to celebrate Christmas.  Spending time with family, giving and getting gifts, thinking about what we're thankful for...and of course celebrating the birth of Christ.  As many are aware, Christmas is meant to commemorate the date of Jesus's birth in the manger to Mary and Joseph (as it is told in the Bible)...and as fewer know it was set for the 25th of December in order to overshadow the already existing pagan holiday of Yule (which is where we get our Christmas tree and wreath traditions).  However, despite the commercialization of the holiday and the focus on giving and getting gifts, many circles still find the time to memorialize the birth of Jesus (regardless of whether or not it was actually on December 25th) by staging plays and pagents about the Nativity.  In merry old England, the schools even get in on the act by staging annual Nativity plays; which brings us to today's film.  It is the story of a teacher who is trying to prod...

Well, today was nice and low key.  I woke up, had a leisurely breakfast, did some chores, did some errands, and now I'm just running out the clock until I have to leave for Dad's house to get ready for the final holiday exodus to PA to visit Mommom and Uncle Mike.  It's rather nice to have nothing to do before the holidays, because it gives you time to think and contemplate the holidays.  I gotta say though, I do love that Dad is driving to PA and not me.  Holiday travel is something that just drives me batty when I have to be the one in the driver's seat.  I would much rather relinquish my command and save myself the headaches.  However, it does put me in mind of those who will be flying into forbidding climates this season and how many people can get trapped at the airport due to flight cancellations.  This brings me to today's film, which I just watched for the first time last night and which made me cringe with pain at how awful holiday flight can ...

 I don't have much headspace today for an original post, so I'm breaking out another archive post for you guys.  I will add that I'm happy to say that Christmas in WV was a success and I received a great many things I wanted...I am also happy to report that my gifts were well liked and at least one illicited a squeal of glee.  I had a really FAT day yesterday too...I mean I ate so much food that I went over my calorie count by something like 1000 calories.  However, I am happy to report that I am back on the wagon today and that it was a one time incident in celebration of the holiday (I think its ok to overeat one or two days at Christmas).  Anyway, today I decided to post some archives of two posts on my favorite holiday action flicks.  So sit back and re-experience Die Hard and Die Hard 2 . "Yippie Kay Yay, Motherfucker!" - Those of the immortal words of Detective John McClane...one of action's premiere characters and the star of the surprise hit of ...

Ah...so here were are in the home stretch.  Only five more days until Christmas Day and for me that also means only five more days of Christmas movies until its time to hang up my tinsel for another year.  This year has been more fun than the previous years for me because I have gotten to experience so many more new films that I have never seen before, and so I hope it has also been as rewarding for you to read.  Today I am falling back on my small cache of Christmas horror films again mostly because, in an hour, I will be without internet for 24 hours.  You see, I am headed to my brother-in-law's family cabin this morning to spend a bit of early Christmas with mom, sis, Ross, and nephew and will be there till tomorrow.  It's out in the boonies and there is no cell phone nor internet service there.  So I'm a little pressed for time to meet today's deadline.  So I'm reaching into the dusty bin of my memory to throw something into today's box fairly quic...

What follows is a repeat post from 2009...largely because I have nothing new planned for this evening.  I did, however, rewatch the film below last night so I guess you could say I have done my viewing work. "As promised, I plan to discuss Tchaikovsky's  "The Nutcracker"...but wait, I can't discuss it yet...I haven't even gone to the theater to see it yet.  It doesn't actually start until later tonight when the dancers and sets are ready for places.  What is this madness?????  Actually, for those of you who might not be aware, The Nutcracker ballet has been adapted to film numerous times in both theatrical and television versions and if you know me (since I am a movie lover) you know that I've definitely seen at least one of them.  In fact I'm going to be discussing a version called Nutcracker: The Motion Picture which was released theatrically in 1986.  This production was very much a filmed version of a stage production which was pr...

Today was a pretty good and productive day.  I left around 8:15 to make sure I made it to the church on time...oh wow, didn't plan that pun.  Seriously though, I had to make sure I was at the Methodist church by 8:30 so we could be ready to perform our Christmas cantata there...and then again at my church at 10:45 to do it again there.  Thus ended my last comittment before Christmas, and so I celebrated by going to a movie.  Then afterward I finally bought my grandmother's gift and concluded my shopping season.  But back to the movie...there are several that I've been meaning to see for quite a while and today I finally got a chance to see a film I'd been putting off for several weekends.  It was animated by the same studio who produced the Wallace and Gromit claytoons and, lucky for me, it was a Christmas movie too.  I think this is actually the first time that I've posted a newly released film in my lineup, so this is kinda cool for me.  Anyhoo,...

I ventured out to get my last gifts for this season and yeck...remind me not to wait so long to finish up next year.  It was bedlam, with cars and people all over the place, in places they shouldn't be.  I nearly hit three or four pedestrians who stepped out in front of me at the last minute at Target and then couldn't help bumping into a few people while I perused the racks a JCPennys.  I'm sure it was much rougher on other people, one does have to consider that I only had two gifts to buy today and they must have had dozens.  Though, after today I can safely say that I am not going to enter any store until well after Christmas and I would like to add that there is a reason I do most of my shopping online.  This experience forms the basis for choosing today's film which feels like a greatest (or worst, depending on how you think about it) hits of last minute shopping at Christmas with a healthy helping of physical comedy thrown in to put it over the top.  ...

As you guys know from reading my past years posts on Christmas movies that I am a big fan of Christmas horror films.  I find it perverse and macabre to mix the the white purity of snow and the joy of Christmas with the suspense and gore of the horror film.  It just tickles me...and I also get amused at the people who get bent out of shape over it when a filmmaker decides to make a Christmas horror movie.  Its as if horror can only happen outside of the month of December...which simply isn't the case given the suicide rate and the crime rate around the holidays.  On that note, I bring you yet another dose of Christmas horror that shows the first ever psychotic Santa Claus.  Years before Silent Night, Deadly Night, another nut in a red suit stalked the snowy streets looking for fresh victims and did so with more altruistic motives.  It has been largely forgotten though, because of having no real distribute and little press.  It finally resurfaced on DVD ...

Ooofah!  Yesterday was the longest school day I've had since the spring musical and frankly, I think its too early in the year yet for me to be that busy.  I held the second round of auditions for our annual talent show last night and had a whopping 27 acts to auditions before the night was over, which kept me at the school till 6pm.  I was glad to have such a fantastic turn out, considering that over the two days we had 35 acts try out which is a record for as long as I've been here.  The disappointing thing was that I had to cut nearly 12 acts for time's sake and because some of them simply didn't impress as much as other acts.  I know there were a lot of disappointed kids today but hopefully this year's show will be one of our best ever due to the sheer number of excellent kids who did try out.  I suppose disappointment is part of the holidays just as much as happiness is, because for every child or adult who gets a Christmas wish there are several who d...

Yesterday was a real bear for me.  You guys know that I lost my carefully written blog on The Nutcracker and had to rewrite it quickly and haphazardly.  But you don't know that I was at work late because I had to oversee our talent show auditions from 3-5 (a whole 45 minutes of which I spent waiting for the partners of a particular group who was auditioning, only to find at 5 that they could not make it) and then a choir cantata rehearsal from 6-8:45 (Wayyyyyyyy longer than it should have been) so by the time I got home I was weary and yet not yet ready to go to bed.  In fact, when I finally went to bed an hour later I still wasn't ready to sleep yet and thus spent much of the night tossing and turning.  So this morning I woke up tired and grumpy, not the best way to start the downhill side of the week before break.  But today has been somewhat easy and relaxing, due to showing a film in my English classes and my assumption that even if tonight's round of auditi...

I'm aggravated...I typed a full two paragraphs for this blog entry today and then it was all erased when I tried to save it and was informed that I had been somehow logged off from another location.  So here I am starting over again and in a way, that kinda makes sense for this post.  In 1986, a film version of one of the most popular Christmas ballets was made and released theatrically to lackluster reviews and poor box office performance.  It took 7 years for another producer to take the bold step of adapting the ballet for film again so, like this blog, it became a do-over.  So without further ado, let's take a second chance on The Nutcracker . It is Christmas eve and the household is bustling with activity.  The servants have locked the main ballroom off from the rest of the house and are busily putting directions on the walls, on the tree, and preparing for the big annual Christmas party that evening.  Marie and Fritz, the children of the house, are ...

Before baking this weekend I decided to hunt around on my Netflix instant queue for something Christmassy to get me in the mood and lo and behold, I found a TV remake of Babes in Toyland that was made in the 1980s.  Intrigued by this, and surprised that Drew Barrymore was in it, I decided to watch it and wow...talk about films that are different!  But this isn't where I usually evaluate movies, this is where I introduce them.  So imagine a film that begins in present day Cincinnati, Ohio during the Christmas season that then transports it's main character to toyland to interact with the Mother Goose characters we met in the Disney version.  Its a little strange, a little fun, and a little bad and so I decided to share it here today in order to show just how different remakes can be.  So without further ado I give you Babes in Toyland . Lisa Piper is an 11-year-old girl from Cincinnati, Ohio who has been forced to grow up very quickly due to her mother being s...

So I worked myself hard yesterday baking enough cookies for several boxes of assortments for all my co workers.  I made a box for everyone in the department and my two math friends, and the leftovers I popped into a platter for the school secretaries.  I suddenly feel both thoughtful and generous, and I suppose that is what Christmas is all about.  Thinking of others and giving...and I suppose it doesn't hurt that giving away all my cookies removes the temptation for eating them since I'm watching my figure now (and getting excellent results I might add!).  Back to the baking...I spent 5 hours on my feet mixing and measuring and taking things out of the oven and at the end of it I was so tired I was passing out before 10 last night, which is unheard of for me on a Saturday night.  And as I sat there, falling asleep contentedly after a heavy day of cooking and preparing for the last week of school, I started thinking of people who aren't as lucky as myself and ot...

Last night I got to do something I don't often get to do in my little town...I got out to see a play.  Our community theater decided to do one of my favorite short plays which is based on one of my favorite children's books regarding the Christmas season.  Several of my theater kids were in it too, and they were all fabulous...which made me so proud.  Watching them in the play reminded me of how that book used to be a family tradition.  My mother always read it with her elementary school kids and would talk about their reactions, and one year I was even in the play as a major character.  This was a part of Christmas and a part of childhood...and it wasn't until yesterday that I remembered that there was also a movie based on this popular book and I thought, wouldn't that be perfect for for my blog this year?  So here it is, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever . The Herdmans are the worst kids in town.  They fight, bully, smoke cigars (even the girls) and...

Today is probably one of the strangest schedules that we've had yet at school this year, due to an assembly that had to be held in the auditorium.  Whenever the auditorium must be used and the whole school is attending, it means that the school is split into two groups.  Then one group goes to the assembly while the others go to their classes and then they switch off.  I lucked out today, because the assembly took place during 5th period (which is my planning period on Friday), so I had no students to be responsible for nor did I have to hold an hour period with those students.  I did, however, get affected by the modified schedule in the morning...where our first four periods suddenly became 15 minutes each.  That's just enough time to take role, tell the kids what to expect on Monday, and then watch them scurry out as the bell rings.  Thankfully, the day has passed quickly and without much annoyance and everywhere you can see people getting psyched up for...

One of my fondests memories from childhood at Christmas was imagining what Santa's workshop looked like.  I remember feeling like I got a pretty good look at it in Santa Claus: The Movie , but I still couldn't be sure.  Afterall, that film portrayed it as a workshop that simply made old-fashioned toys...so where did those Ghostbusters that Santa got me come from?  Certainly he doesn't go to Toys R' US or the Mall, that would just spoil the mystique.  I asked my mother and she said that Santa went to Toyland for that stuff, because that's where toys really come from.  This was good enough for my blind faith and I went on believing in a Toyland for several years after...so you can imagine my delight when as a young child I came across this Disney film from 1961.  It had music, bright colors, wild dances, a massive battle, and it prominantly featured Toyland...and it was just how I pictured it.  Now imagine my surprise in finding that this film is listed ...

Ok, this isn't really an archive post so much as a repeat of a film from two years ago.  Before I leap in, can I once again reiterate how stressful the month of December can be?  Try this on for size, in a week where I lost sixth period to a sophomore field trip to the vocational school and Friday morning is sacrificed for an assembly, the Good Lord decreed that we needed another interruption this week to keep things exciting.  So there was a non-emergency lockdown for a half an hour at the tail end of 3rd period today (eating up the last 7 minutes of 3rd and taking 23 minutes of 5th), when I have one of my rowdy bunches.  Keeping 27 kids in a dark room away from a door and being able to tell them nothing about the situation (because I honestly didn't and still don't know why we were on lockdown) is like trying to herd cats.  They were up, down, quiet and loud and overall annoying.  The only thing that made it bearable was the fact that I had fini...

If there is any theme that filmmakers love exploiting at Christmas, it is the theme of sudden realizations that one's life is empty, incomplete, or better than one gives it credit for.  Reevaluating one's life is the 'it' thing to do at Christmas in fiction, and thematically it makes perfect sense.  What other time of the year (besides Thanksgiving) is fully dedicated to encouraging family gatherings, giving and being thankful, and sharing love?  Also, since it is the end of a year and close to the start of a new one, it fits with resolutions for the next year as well (The Clean Slate effect as I like to call it).  Many many films are about appreciating life and making the 'right' choices regarding it.  If Kevin McCallister hadn't realized that he both needs and loves his family, Home Alone loses it's point.  If George Baily doesn't realize that his life is necessary to the survival of other people's lives, It's a Wonderful Life is merely a p...

There are few Christmas movies out there that are true staples of the year, and personally I always feel that until they are watched, it is not yet Christmas.  Those include A Christmas Story , National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation , and It's a Wonderful Life .  Regarding the latter, I cannot think of a single film that is more associated with classic Christmas entertainment than that one film.  I personally cannot open a single present until James Stewart has made me weep like a woman when he realizes how important his life really is.  It probably comes as a shock to you then, that It's a Wonderful Life was something of a flop during it's release.  Reviewers called it overly sentimental and trite and audiences didn't exactly show up in droves to see it, letting it finish 6th during release.  For many years, It's a Wonderful Life simply disappeared from public consciousness and was largely forgotten.  During it's absence from popular culture, televisio...