I see the annual love-to-hate-It's a Wonderful Life fest is in full swing at the New York Times. This might surprise some of you, but I agree completely with the article. I had thought of some of those things before, of course, especially the fact that the "bad" Bedford Falls looks like a lot more fun. But it had not occurred to me before that all those manufacturing jobs George brought to town arrived just in time for an economic slump in Upstate New York that is still in full swing six decades later. So he just set the town up for an even bigger fall than it otherwise would have had. Ouch. Note that he also makes the case that the movie has some brilliant acting and some well-crafted scenes - just that the "happy" ending is still pretty depressing. (And also inaccurate, since he still probably would have gone to jail.)
Now, here's what I want to know. When are the Scrooges (and Potters) going to start in on A Christmas Story as well? Take away the warm fuzzies and what is the real Christmas Story? Well, Dad goes behind Mom's back to buy their son an extremely dangerous gift - with some potentially ugly hints at his future to boot - and then the kid comes within an inch of exactly the disaster that everybody warned him about, but he escapes any consequences by lying to his parents about the whole thing. That's it! It makes me want to run and hide behind a stack of videotapes of Very Special Episodes of every bad eighties sitcom.
On a less cynical note...I've been saying for years, the best way to illustrate who was the creative genius of The Beatles was to listen to John and Paul's respective Christmas songs back to back. It hardly even seems like a fair comparison, the former is so superior to the latter. Apparently somebody else has figured that out too, because twice in the past two weeks I've heard both songs played back to back in stores and restaurants. Don't take my word for it, listen
here and (or not) here. Not even close, huh?
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