Film-mas Day 4# A Charlie Brown Christmas

 I must confess something. I have never actually seen a Peanuts, Charlie Brown or Snoopy related thing in my life. Why? I have no idea but now is a great time to start. A Charlie Brown Christmas is by far the shortest on my list of films at a mere 25 mins (compared to The Holidays 138 mins, yawn). I actually watched the whole film whilst I ate lunch lol. 

The films plot is simple yet entirely relatable. Charlie Brown, our main character, is feeling depressed this Christmastime and it's not only because everyone he meets, including his dog is mean to him - he's just not feeling the xmas spirit! And what do you do when your depressed? You seek incredibly cheap psychiatric help from a girl who won't stop insulting you. So when said roadside psychologist tells Charlie to direct her Christmas play, he accepts her offer hoping that it might give him the Christmassy vibes he's been missing. For my Christmas play veterans out here, you know this can't be an easy task, oh and also when everyone in the play is mean to you the whole time, it's most definitely not going to be simple. Will the Christmas play cure Charlie of his depression? Will the cast members - including Snoopy stop insulting him? These are the sort of questions that came to my mind watching this film, and fortunately they were all answered! That's the kind of miracle that happens with a 25 min film, no chance to get lost in the plot sauce. 

This film is truly wonderful and the most Christmassy of all I've seen so far. I can see this getting played every Christmas from now on and it's even inspired me to check out some more Peanuts episodes. 

Christmassy rating: 10/10

Rewatch value: 10/10  

Overall rating: 10/10 

 

Film-mas Day 3# - A Christmas Story

Day 3 (?) it's A Christmas Story Time! Apparently this film is quite the American classic Christmas movie but I hadn't heard of it before and neither had my mum - so I guess it hasn't made it to overseas audiences just yet. A Christmas Story was released in 1983 so you could call it a bit of a lower scale prelude to Home Alone, which would come out 7 years later. 

A Christmas Story is narrated by an older version of the character Ralphie looking back on the Christmas he had when he was 9 years old in the 1940s. The story begins with Ralphie begging his parents to give him a bb gun for Christmas and his mother telling him "You'll shoot your eye out!", which becomes a bit of a recurring statement in the film. (nearly missed the FOB reference - Yule Shoot You're Eye Out anyone???) It's almost like no one in the film wants a 9 year old child to have a gun. crazy. The film has a few standout scenes - both good and horribly hard to watch. My favourite scene in the film is when Ralphie is writing an assignment for his teacher about what he wants for Christmas, which we now know is a gun. Ralphie writes: "What I want for Christmas is a legendary official Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass and this thing which tells time built right into the stock.". Convinced this is the best thing anyone has ever written ever, Ralphie shows it to his teacher and imagines she will be so shocked by his talent that she'll persuade his mom to get him the gun. Unfortunately for Ralphie the essay is only C+ worthy, and like his mom, his teacher reminds him, "P.S You'll shoot your eye out!". 

The movie is relatively simple to follow along but then you reach the end and wonder what just happened in the last 1hr 30mins. The film really lacks any solid plot but it does have some rather good moments I'd watch again - not including the weird racist bit stuck on the end. Overall, I probably would watch the film again but only if someone else wanted to see it - for now, I think I'll stick with Home Alone. 

Christmassy rating: 8/10

Rewatch value: 5/10  

Overall rating: 6/10 

 

Film-mas Day 2# - The Preacher's Wife

Okay, so it's not exactly day 2, but also I accidentally gave myself a few extra days before Christmas so I get some more days to finish the challenge lol. I also have made some fancy icons for each day, so scroll down to check out the icon I made for The Holiday! Day 2 is the 1996 film: The Preacher's Wife. Although this film has romantic moments it's more of a moralistic Christmas film, not to dissimilar to It's A Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol. I hadn't heard of this film before my research into Christmas movies so I was totally surprised when I saw the star-studded cast this film has - Whitney Houston, Denzel Washington and surprise guest, Lionel Richie?

The most Christmassy!

As the title suggests the movie is about preacher Henry Biggs (Courtney B Vance) and his wife Julia (Whitney Houston) as they try and save their church from demolition. They have the most adorable kid ever called Jeremiah who sees angel Dudley (Denzel Washington) fall from the sky after he was asked by God to help the Biggs family out. Dudley keeps trying to help Henry and his family with their problems but has problems getting through to Henry, who doesn't believe that he is an angel. However, Dudley has better luck with Julia and accidentally begins to fall in love with her, further making Henry's life worse and pushing him away from his family. 

I really enjoyed watching this film but found that the message got a bit lost in the middle of the film. I think that they probably could of cut out a few storylines and focused more instead on the story's villian, Joe Hamiliton, because his story feels quite rushed. Personally, I like this type of Christmas movie with a feel good moral message, rather than just - Isn't it so great to be in a relationship in the holiday season? Although the movie itself focuses a lot on the Church community and the character's faith I think it could be enjoyed by people of any religious background because you don't need to be Christian to get it, y'know. Whitney Houston in particular is just perfect in it, and she gets to sing a lot which is brilliant, the sad thing is though, that this was her last ever film before she died. It's good it has such a heart warming message though, so people can remember her fondly.

The Christmas vibes were strong with this one so my Christmassy rating is gonna be high!

Christmassy rating: 9/10

Rewatch value: 6/10

Overall rating:  7/10

 

12 Days of Film-mas Christmas movie challenge! Day 1#

So, I guess it's December 8th already... 12 days till' Christmas?! Okay I had one day to think about this and realise that the 8th of December IS NOT 12 days till Christmas LOLLL I cannot count. I will be doing this anyway though and just finishing on the 20th lmao :0 Inspired by Finny's 31 Days of Teen Screams this year I'm doing a 12 days of film-mas, where I'll be watching 12 films (Christmassy of course) in 12 days. 

I'm gonna be real with this one - I have barely watched any Christmas films and I also really do not like Love Actually. On these 12 days I'm gonna try and watch only films I have never seen before, so I can officially say that I have watched the best Christmas movies. To date my favourite Christmas film is Nativity! but this could all change... ok maybe not but I'll see...

Day #1 - The Holiday

this coat... ahhh

I have spent 22 years of my life nearly watching this film and then not. As it's my sister's favourite I thought it would be a good start! It's a classic rom-com and has so many stars in it I can't count lol, it's like every single person in it is famous lol. The premise is simple - two single women swap houses for the holiday season and find themselves falling in love - not with eachother
LOL. All the sets and costumes in the film are adorable - especially Cameron Diaz' afgan coat. The whole film is very cute but kind of hard to keep up with as it keeps switching between story lines, so you don't really get to know the characters properly before, especially as Cameron Diaz and Jude Law's story line gets the most screen time. Personally, the Christmas vibes aren't really all there until you get to the end and are like ohh its a Christmas film but I imagine if you watch it every year it helps get one into the spirit. My mum watched the end of it with me and I much preferred watching it with someone else than on my own - helped with the cozy vibes. 

Christmassy rating: 4/10

Rewatch value: 5/10  

Overall rating: 5/10