MY MOVIE SHELF: Scrooged

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 194  Days to go: 137

Movie #244:  Scrooged

Scrooged is my very favorite Christmas movie. I love it more than every other Christmas movie combined, and considering how many Christmas movies I love enough to own, that’s a lot of love for Scrooged. Truthfully, I can (and will) watch any incarnation of A Christmas Carol. It’s my favorite holiday story in general, mostly because it’s about redemption and how your choices impact your life (and only really relevant as a holiday story because the holidays are a natural time to reflect on these things), but Scrooged, as far as I’m concerned, does it the best.

Everyone from Mickey Mouse to Tori Spelling to crotchety old British guys who probably knew Dickens personally has done a version of A Christmas Carol, because it’s such a great story to tell. We’re not all Ebenezer Scrooge, of course, but we all take paths in our lives that change the course of things and we make sacrifices as a result of our choices that maybe we regret from time to time. It’s human nature. So we can all relate to the idea of revisiting those times (in memory, not with ghosts). We are all capable, even after decades of living a certain way, of having a change of heart, or reprioritizing our lives or maybe just experiencing an epiphany about mistakes we have made. That’s within all of us. So, in a way, we are all Ebenezer Scrooge.

In Scrooged, Ebenezer is embodied by Frank Cross (Bill Murray), the president of TV network IBC, who has scheduled and promoted (with much more gore and terror than your average Christmas special promotion tends to feature) a live Christmas Eve presentation of Scrooge, starring everyone from Buddy Hackett to John Houseman to Mary Lou Retton. And then some. It’s insane. (It is not, however, The Manson Family Christmas, though I do think people would watch that, particularly since that psycho got engaged. Maybe a reality show on TLC.) Frank is a cold and ungenerous man who drinks too much and thinks only of work. He fires Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait) on Christmas Eve for giving a dissenting opinion. He overworks and underpays his widowed assistant Grace (Alfre Woodard). He gives people company bath towels for Christmas. Like, a single bath towel per person. The man was overdue for some Scrooging, to be perfectly honest.

So the general format follows. He’s visited by a Jacob Marley type in the form of his old boss Lew Hayward (John Forsythe), who scared me to bits with his mouse infested skull and bones like dry rot and by hanging Frank out of a skyscraper window. He warns Frank of the three ghosts to come, who turn out to be David Johansen as a hard-drinking, cigar smoking, obnoxious Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as a sadistic fairy version of the Ghost of Christmas Present, and some grim reaper type as the Ghost of Christmas Future. He’s reminded of how he used to love Christmas, but more importantly he’s reminded of how he used to love Claire (Karen Allen), who calls him Lumpy, which is equal parts embarrassing and adorable to a perfect degree. And he’s reminded of how he sacrificed his relationship with her for a shot at career advancement. He sees how Claire is going now, how she’s helping people, and he sees the consequences of him being so disdainful for it. He also gets a glimpse at Grace’s life and the hardships she endures with no relief from him. He’s particularly drawn to Grace’s young son Calvin (Nicholas Phillips) who hasn’t spoken a word since his father’s death some years ago. And he’s shown a future in which Calvin never overcomes the psychological wall holding him back. On top of that, too, he’s shown how even though he is dismissive toward the family and love offered him by his brother James (John Murray), James still loves him unconditionally and will forever. Even if no one else does.

Bill Murray is perfect in this. (He’s almost always at his best when given the chance to be smug and condescending to people.) Carol Kane is spectacular in this. Karen Allen is goofy and sweet and earnest in a way that makes it perfectly obvious how Frank could be so smitten with her. Bobcat Goldthwait is amazing as poor Eliot falls further and further from grace. And Alfre Woodard manages to pull off long-suffering without seeming pathetic or like a pushover, which is why Alfre Woodard is the best at what she does.

I love everyone in this movie, and I love the joyful silliness it infuses everything with. It’s simply the best movie of its kind, and I will brook no argument on that matter. The best best best part, though, is at the end when Calvin tugs Frank’s pants and says, mute no longer, “And God bless us, every one.” I break into elated tears every time. Every. Single. Time. There is not one viewing of Scrooged that has not made me cry with joy and relief of Calvin’s recovery. I am that much of a sap. And the little clap Grace does afterward, like she’s captured a firefly, like she’s caught his words out of the air, is just one of my favorite things.

The movie itself, as a whole, is one of my favorite things. The love and the passion with which Murray delivers Frank’s final monologue fills my heart to overflowing. It gives words to everything I really love about Christmas, how you can embrace the spirit of community and giving and reach out to people on the street or to those you haven’t seen in forever. It’s about how you can always turn that corner. You can always make that change. You can always live the life you want to live. “It’s Christmas Eve; it’s not too late.”

It’s not too late. Not too late to live a better life. Not too late to watch a Christmas movie. Not too late to enjoy a good sing-along. Go watch Scrooged. You’ll thank me.

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Princess Bride

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 168  Days to go: 164

Movie #215:  The Princess Bride

Back in the earlier days of IMDb, if you clicked on “Quotables” for The Princess Bride, it said “The whole script,” and it wasn’t wrong. Everyone I know knows every word in this movie. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the only way to watch it. So when the local AMC theater had those midnight showings of old school flicks maybe fifteen years ago (one of which was naturally The Princess Bride), I sat with a group of friends and we all quoted right along with it. Someone next to me was apparently irked by this behavior, but if you want to watch The Princess Bride in silence, watch it at home by yourself. I am not a crackpot.

“Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

Princess Buttercup (Robin Wright) loves to toy with her farm boy Westley (Cary Elwes), until she realizes he loves her and she loves him back. (“Is this a kissing book?”) Separated when Westley goes to make his fortune and his ship is attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts (“Murdered by pirates is good”), Buttercup falls into a deep depression but still Prince Humperdink (Chris Sarandon) chooses her for his bride. When Buttercup is kidnapped by a trio of “poor lost circus performers” — Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), Inigo (Mandy Patinkin) and Fezzik (Andre the Giant) — in order to start a war, a mysterious Man in Black follows them and steals her back from them. (“Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! A-HAHA HAHAHA HAHA! A-HAHA HA HAHA HAHA! A-HAHA HA –!”) The man’s “cruelty reveals everything,” however, and Buttercup knows he’s the Dread Pirate himself. He admits it “with pride.” But there’s so much more ahead, including murder, revenge, deception, miracles, torture, true love, and a lot of excellent lines. (“My brains, his steel and your strength against sixty men and you think a little head shake is supposed to make me happy, hmm?”)

The framing of the film is of a grandfather (Peter Falk) coming to visit his sick grandson (Fred Savage) and read the kid a book the grandfather’s father always used to read to him when he was sick. When I found out (by reading the credits, like I’d never heard of that before) — sometime in my mid-teens, after the movie had been out 3 or 4 years and I’d seen it probably a hundred times — that it was actually based on a book, I went out and borrowed it from the library immediately. And the book is framed in a similar way, that a father was always read this book by his father, but when he bought it for his son the son was unimpressed. The father went to read it himself and realized that his father had embellished it outrageously from the dry original text, so the father rewrote it to highlight those things that made his father’s telling of it so great, while removing the boring parts. This is all fiction, a complete fabrication, and yet I totally bought it. I believed every word, and really thought there was some sort of person named S. Morgenstern out there in the past who’d written a history of his beloved homeland of Florin and Guilder — places I’d never heard of before or since, but I was kind of gullible and also really desperate to believe magical things. The idea that there really was this father who made this story better to tell to his kids, and that his son rewrote it to make the reading of it as thrilling and great as the embellished telling, was such a sweet sentiment to me. It’s the kind of heartfelt gesture you always wish your parents to do for you, even though by definition you’d never know they did (at least not at the time).

After I read the book, I was really caught up in the idea that Peter Falk’s character was embellishing a boring book for his grandson in this same way — a fact I kind of clung to by virtue of the “evidence” of the sort of improvisational way the grandfather seemed to read it (which is either ridiculous on my part or a brilliant stealth move by the filmmakers). I wanted to share it with everyone, and as my stepfather is sort of the same way (always pushing food and movies and shows and books he likes on anyone who will sit still), we showed it to a lot of people who came over to the house. I still remember one particularly religious family getting all bunched up over Fred Savage exclaiming “Jesus, Grandpa, what’d you read me this thing for?!” I also still think that’s a ridiculous overreaction, but to each his own, I guess. (Personally, I still think in my head “Jesus, Grandpa, what’d you read me this thing for,” anytime I come across some pointless bit of crap I was forced to sit through. I also frequently tell people “Yes, you’re very smart. Shut up.” Because I can.)

In college, though, is where my love for this movie really got out of hand, because if you happened to say anything untrue in my presence during that time I absolutely would start yelling “Liar! Liaaarrrrrrr” at you (and maybe perform the whole scene, whatever), just like I was Valerie (Carol Kane) and you were Miracle Max (Billy Crystal). (Yes, I really did this. No, I’m not sorry.) But nowadays I’m much more likely to just tell you to “have fun storming the castle,” so I’ve clearly mellowed.

“There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world. ‘Twould be a pity to damage yours.”

Honestly, you can definitely endear yourself to me by quoting this movie, but mostly I just want someone to follow me around saying “As you wish.” I don’t think that makes me all that unusual. Unfortunately, most people just say “Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”