Find "Christmas Story" in Your DVD Pile

[jim mcnamara]

to rummage around your dvd pile and find 'Christmas Story'.

MANY years ago my wife decreed that:
'Christmas shall commence as soon we start Thanskgiving dessert.' Actually if she were emperor of the US, the official Christmas season would start on June 25.

We start Christmas by watching Christmas Story. So now I got to find the damned disc... or hope it's on TBS that night.

 

[Astronuc]

What happened to "It's a Wonderful Life"?

 

[J77]

Christmas should start on the 24th of December!

Not in mid November!

Bah, hum-bug and all that... :tongue:

 

[hypatia]

Mine starts as soon as I finnish cleaning up the leaves. Between work and family, its my most stressed out time of the year. So I put off the leaves for as long as possible.

 

[D H]

What happened to "It's a Wonderful Life"?

Christmas is a colorful time of year. You should try seeing life in more than black and white, Astronuc. :tongue:

I hope nobody takes this as a suggestion to colorize this movie.

 

[out of whack]

Giftmas is at the end of December. Only commercial thralls submit to anything Xmassy in November. Don't do it! Long live La Resistance!

 

[BobG]

Mine starts as soon as I finnish cleaning up the leaves. Between work and family, its my most stressed out time of the year. So I put off the leaves for as long as possible.

Easter starts as soon as I finish cleaning up the leaves in my yard.

I'm not very good at Christmas. I wait until any mailed packages can't possibly arrive to start my Christmas shopping - it makes things easier. ~shudder~:yuck: Sometimes, I splurge and buy another box of Christmas cards to fill out and mail next year or the year after or the year after that. If I'm cheap, I rummage through the closet and see if I can find an old box. I probably still won't fill them out and mail them, but it looks better if you have an unopened box sitting on the desk - at least it makes it look like you might send out Christmas cards. Sometimes, I wonder why anyone still sends me Christmas cards.

 

[jim mcnamara]

I didn't say we did much to start Christmas, but we declare it officially on. Mostly for fun and a good excuse to drink egg nog, eat seasonal pies, and watch Christmas movies.

It's a lot better than shopping mauls && if you don't know - that's a new officially sanctioned SCA weapon for dealing with crowds this time of year.

Okay, so how many of you have no clue what the SCA is? I'm not in it but all my kids are.

 

[Astronuc]

shopping mauls

I avoid malls for precisely that reason most of the time, but particularly at holiday periods - and the fact that I find most shops to be eye-sores. I can't believe our economies are based on such c**p.

But then that's me and Aspergers.

 

[D H]

Ha, ha, ha, Merry Christmas!

Probably old news already, but

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22738300-2,00.html"

SANTAS working in shopping centres across Australia have been banned from bellowing "ho ho ho" because it might frighten children...​

 

[FredGarvin]

to rummage around your dvd pile and find 'Christmas Story'.

MANY years ago my wife decreed that:
'Christmas shall commence as soon we start Thanskgiving dessert.' Actually if she were emperor of the US, the official Christmas season would start on June 25.

We start Christmas by watching Christmas Story. So now I got to find the damned disc... or hope it's on TBS that night.

That's pretty much the way my wife is as well. My wife is wayyyyy into Christmas. As a matter of fact, I had to drive her car the other day and one of the local radio stations has already converted over to nothing but Christmas music. It makes me glad I have satellite radio.

For the record though, I have seen 'Christmas Story' well over 100 times and I still like the movie. We added "Christmas Vacation" to the must watch list too.

 

[jim mcnamara]

I'm probably up in the nineties and still counting - on times I've seen Christmas Story.

Heck, Santa Fe has Susan's Christmas Shop near the Cathedral, and there's the Old Town Christmas Shoppe in old town in Albuquerque. We go to both of them off and on during the year. At least Susan's is an "Easter Shop" for few months after Christmas. Did I mention that my wife has the same problem with Easter as she does with Chrsitmas?

It's tough on her that our groen kids won't play along.

 

[Moonbear]

to rummage around your dvd pile and find 'Christmas Story'.

MANY years ago my wife decreed that:
'Christmas shall commence as soon we start Thanskgiving dessert.' Actually if she were emperor of the US, the official Christmas season would start on June 25.

We start Christmas by watching Christmas Story. So now I got to find the damned disc... or hope it's on TBS that night.

:rofl: I thought I was getting a bit anxious for Christmas when I already started pulling out Christmas decorations last weekend (haven't put them up yet, just started mining through the storage space for the boxes, trying to decide what will be cat proof and what won't), but as I was driving home last night, I noticed that one of my neighbors already has their Christmas tree up and lit in their front window! I've always started decorating the day after Thanksgiving (though I might start a little early this year), but for some reason, I just keep feeling like it should already be Christmas season this year and am craving Christmas music already (already started singing Christmas carols in the shower ).

 

[turbo]

There is a house a couple of miles away that is decked out in full Christmas kitsch. The house is up for sale, and the owners probably think that their decorations dress up the place. Nope! Oh, well...the electric company will be happy.

 

[turbo]

We don't save Christmas Story for Christmas. It's a pretty good story for any old time. "You'll put your eye out!"

 

[jim mcnamara]

Turbo-1:
Why do you suppose I have so much trouble editing/typing and otherwise babbling?
In my case it was "You'll shoot your brain out". I still beep at TSA terminals...

 

[Evo]

You can buy Christmas Story here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000AYJUW/?tag=pfamazon01-20

For me the start of Christmas is watching "Christmas Vacation" with Chevy Chase, followed by The Bishop's Wife and Holiday Inn. Christmas doesn't happen without those 3 movies. Next is White Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life.

 

[turbo]

Turbo-1:
Why do you suppose I have so much trouble editing/typing and otherwise babbling?
In my case it was "You'll shoot your brain out". I still beep at TSA terminals...

Damn, Jim! You've got enough metal in your head to beep? A single BB wouldn't do it, would it?

My dad could never have an MRI nor get through airport screeners. Before I was born, he was bulldozing a woods-road and a big dead limb came down and crushed his skull (no safety cages back then). He's got stainless-steel plates, screws and wires all through his head.

 

[Math Is Hard]

For me the start of Christmas is watching "Christmas Vacation" with Chevy Chase, followed by The Bishop's Wife and Holiday Inn. Christmas doesn't happen without those 3 movies. Next is White Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life.

3 movies I have never seen.

 

[Evo]

3 movies I have never seen.

OMG! Do you have a DVD player or can you play DVD's on your computer?

 

[Math Is Hard]

OMG! Do you have a DVD player or can you play DVD's on your computer?

I do. I am not sure why I have never seen those movies. Surely they are on TV around the holidays.

I have seen Christmas Story and It's A Wonderful Life... and of course, my fave, Bell, Book, and Candle.

 

[Gale]

Doesn't TBS usually do a marathon of A Christmas Story all thanksgiving day? We have it on VHS from when people still recorded things off tv. Actually, We have a bunch of VHS tapes with christmas specials and movies.

I Looove its a Wonderful Life. I like The Santa Claus with Tim Allen too. Though the original is best.

 

[Astronuc]

I enjoy Tim Allen in The Santa Clause, and if one likes silly, there's Ernest Saves Christmas staring Jim Varney.

Another more recent one I enjoy is "'Twas the Night" staring Josh Zuckerman and Bryan Cranston.

It's a Wonderful Life is a classic and a favorite!

How about the original Miracle on 34th? And I like the more modern one with Sebastian Cabot.

 

[Barry_Sandrew]

Christmas is a colorful time of year. You should try seeing life in more than black and white, Astronuc. :tongue:

I hope nobody takes this as a suggestion to colorize this movie.

Too late - check out the latest release "It's A Wonderful Life: The Collector's Edition":

I went directly to the colour version and came back to check the B&W version. I own the Republic edition, which was THX-certified and made from the original negative. This B&W version (the 60th Anniversary edition transfer) is a little bit more cleaned-up. The extras are the same as they were on the Republic and 60th Anniversary editions so the major selling point here is the colour and I wasn't disappointed. All through both versions, by the way, the bitrate pretty much seems stuck on 10, which makes these discs super-SuperBit editions...

The colour is nothing short of miraculous. I was of course awed by the general quality and inventiveness of the colourization process at first but I must say that the overall colour presentation doesn't distract at all from the drama. If anything, it makes it a better film, with more detail, more texture, more things to see, more realistic touches that are lost in the B&W version, in a word, more involvement in the story and a sense of heightened reality.

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) wrote to me that he doesn't like the fact that colourized films "rewrite history" and I have to admit that he's probably right about that, in the sense that no major studio would have financed the colour photography of a 2-hour non-musical meandering existential morality lesson like It's A Wonderful Life back in 1947. So what we are seeing is a bit like a glimpse into a parallel universe where enlightened producers would have financed quality colour films like this one.

The result is just glorious, even when it doesn't mimic the obvious sheen and glamour of Technicolor: the hazy golden tones of the childhood scenes and Mr. Gower's drugstore, the spot-on recreation of the roaring twenties (with seafoam-coloured flapper tulle dresses like my mother used to tell me about), the liveliness of the comedy scenes, the extra poignancy of the dramatic scenes where everything seems to shift into dreariness - including the colours - and the absolute EC-comics eeriness of the "dream" sequence where everything has taken on a film noir fatalistic quality. I could go on: the natural aspect of the snow scenes both in the daylight and at night and the lovely summer moonlight courting scenes, the you-are-there quality of the interiors, the added life given the matte paintings, the homey atmosphere of the happy family scenes alternating with more lugubrious passages, the Matisse-inspired Russian peasant blouse of the female patron at Nick's Bar, the shimmer of the high school swimming pool, Donna Reed's luminous smile, Zuzu's petals. Colour allows many gradations from brand new modern and cheery to drab, ancient and lived-in, that are only hinted at and not properly seen in B&W and for this, I think It's A Wonderful Life is a better film and its narrative qualities are actually improved in this colour version. It tells the story more convincingly.

The only thing that would allow a casual observer not familiar with the B&W film to guess this is a colourization is, as usual, the skin tones. Although they are realistically varied from one character to the next, they still rely on a rather limited palette centered on copper tones in each individual face. But this a very minor quibble that doesn't distract from the overall success of the process.

I'm also sure it's an illusion that the 2.0 mono actually sounded a lot more vivid while I was watching the colour film. This version is especially recommended for people who think they have seen this film too many times and could use a fresh look at it from a different perspective.
_______________
Benoît A. Racine, Toronto

 

[D H]

Too late - check out the latest release "It's A Wonderful Life: The Collector's Edition"

No thanks, I'll stick to life in black and white in this case. Guess I should have put a smiley by my original remark.

What's the deal, BTW? Five posts, all about colorization. Do you have a spider running to check for that particular word?

 

[Barry_Sandrew]

No thanks, I'll stick to life in black and white in this case. Guess I should have put a smiley by my original remark.

What's the deal, BTW? Five posts, all about colorization. Do you have a spider running to check for that particular word?

Yes - in fact I do... your loss. :-)

 

[FredGarvin]

Well Jim,

Thank your luck stars your wife isn't within driving range to Bronner's like my wife is (open ALL YEAR ROUND):

http://www.bronners.com/index.html?source=adwords&campaign=bonners

 

[jim mcnamara]

Fred -

We do have small year round Christmas shops that cater to tourists mostly... New Mexico is a big tourist destination. Santa Fe is among the top 5 tourist destinations worldwide.

I worked in SF for years, and now that I don't work in SF, I do not go there. Voluntarily.

During Indian Market downtown residents actually leave town for the weekend because it is so bad - congestion and ding-dong Anglos dressed like 1950's TV Indians, members of the Wannabe tribe

I gather you are near Bronner's. My condolences.

 

[FredGarvin]

New Mexico has a year round Christmas store? I would have never guessed it.

We live about an hour's drive. It's horrible. Just horrible.

 

[Moonbear]

Did I miss it? Has nobody mentioned, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" as a must-see-every-year classic? It's one of my favorites.

 

[Astronuc]

Did I miss it? Has nobody mentioned, "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" as a must-see-every-year classic? It's one of my favorites.

It's got to be the animated one (Chuck Jones, 1966 - Boris Karloff narrator and Grinch) - not the recent film adaptation produced by Ron Howard. Jim Carrey is funny, but I just care for that version.

Too bad the thread title isn't "I trib-dog dare you!" I wonder where our tribdog has gone?

 

[Moonbear]

It's got to be the animated one (Chuck Jones, 1966 - Boris Karloff narrator and Grinch) - not the recent film adaptation produced by Ron Howard. Jim Carrey is funny, but I just care for that version.

Yes, the animated one. I forgot there's a Jim Carrey version...I never saw it because I didn't think I'd enjoy him mutilating one of my favorite cartoons.