Scrooged (1988)
I would suggest that Scrooged is an underrated Christmas movie, as it’s certainly not one that gets talked about along with other bona fide classics of the season. All right, maybe it shouldn’t be in that conversation anyway, but it is one of my favourites.
Bill Murray has had a number of good roles in his career, but in this modernised version of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, he excels as Frank Cross – a money-hungry television executive, who has no regard for personnel, his employees, or even his own family. His performance as he shifts from selfish bastard to contender for Man of the Year is very funny to watch.
Although Scrooged is a take on the classic Dickens tale, it’s a very loose connection at best, which is something that the writers even make nudging references to at a couple of moments during the script. The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future all make their appearances to show Frank the error of his ways, but it’s all done with its tongue pressed against its cheek in an almost intentionally hokey way.
Like most Christmas movies, Scrooged has a sugary ending, but it does it with its own sense of style and remains completely within its own crazy universe as it does so.
Clive Barker has probably suffered professionally because unfortunately he was writing at the same time as that other British horror guru, James Herbert… although I’m pretty sure he’s managed to get by, so I don’t know how much hardship he’s actually gone through. Having said that, Barker generally leans far more heavily towards the fantasy end of the spectrum so they perhaps split fewer fans than I think.
It’s often wrongly perceived as a show for women, but that’s both narrow-minded and inaccurate. If a joke makes me laugh it doesn’t really matter who its target demographic is, and Sex and the City made me laugh a lot.
I haven’t asked her lately, but there’s a fair chance that National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is my sister’s favourite Christmas movie. It’s not bad, and it’s fine to stick on in the background while you’re hanging your decorations or dressing your tree, but compared to some other seasonal comedies, it’s a little stale and uninspired.
I have read several novels by Michael Crichton – from his biggest successes to some of his lesser known work – and he made a career out of following a tried and tested formula when it comes to the layout of the science in his books. It’s a Michael Crichton trademark, and it all started with The Andromeda Strain, the first novel published under his own name.
A lot of things I watched as a child would have slipped through the net if we consumed television then the way we do now. It’s Garry Shandling’s Show was one of those things.
Looking at Tom Hanks’ output over the last twenty years or so, a new viewer to his work would be forgiven for thinking he was always middle of the road. It’s difficult to appreciate that he started his career playing in broad comedies like The Money Pit. In fact, he was one of Hollywood’s biggest comedy stars of the eighties. And he was damn good at it too.
-- Purveyor of Imagination -- 