"A Christmas Story Live!" Hot Takes

On the evening of 12/17/2017, Fox broadcast a sorta-live version of what's apparently a real Broadway musical, a - if I'm being honest - not terribly great musical.

And there is nothing like checking in with twitter to get the voices of America, and despair.

There were a lot of pleased, happy tweets.  A lot of criticism, just and otherwise.  But I grabbed a few samples to share with you.  They will tell you all you need to know about The Greatest Country on Earth and what people think is a pretty good idea to just shout into the internet void.

Wrapping up 2017

We all thought 2016 was a bad year.  We lost Bowie right off the bat, and then Prince and a parade of other folks who we'd grown up with and who seemed taken too soon.  But I'll be honest, now I'm just wondering what sort of smoking crater I'll be wandering around in looking for protein sources by this time in 2018.

I spend some amount of time talking myself down in regards to the political situation in the U.S., but it's difficult to feel like things are going well when stories have started circulating that the White House is entertaining the idea of a secret police force answerable and loyal to the occupant of the Oval Office.  It's hard to feel like things are going well when a guy who already seemed like a lunatic, even by Southern standards, was nominated for Senator for Alabama and is still doing okay despite charges of pedophilia and is so racist he has no idea he's racist.  And it's not like Alabama is pro-pedophilia, it's that we're finding out that half of the country hates the other half so much, they'd rather elect politicians who are willing to reflect and magnify their fury at "the left", no matter how far afield those people are from the supposed moral center of "the right".  I kind of worry people might genuinely murder me, given the chance, for thinking our collective financial power could ensure the healthcare of every American.

The Wild Ride of Joys and Disappointments of "Justice League" in a 3 minute clip

Superman actually *acts* like Superman, but because the movie needed reshoots and Cavill was legally required to keep his mustache for Mission Impossible 64 (or whatever), they had to digitally remove the facial fuzz.  And it looks terrible.  So, like all of Justice League, you get some really good stuff, but you have to take it on the chin a little, too.

And, hey, that is JUST like Batman from the comics!  It's just... kind of a not-great scene.  I dunno.  How he fights the guy doesn't even make a lot of sense, really.  He has him on the ground, and then he lets him get back to the gun while he runs away to scurry up a water tower?  And it's the last we'll see of him in Batman-mode in quite this way. 

This is kind of Justice League in a nutshell.  Has stuff you really want to see, but the delivery vehicle is terribly messy.  Still, worth a watch.

It's Just not Christmas Until Audrey Totter is Looking Right Into the Lens

Through not-so-mysterious means, the 1947 film Lady in the Lake has become a perennial holiday favorite for me.  Philip Marlowe detecting, Christmas time and Audrey Totter sorta looking you in the face.

This is the movie directed by (and kinda starring) Robert Montgomery as Marlowe and shot almost entirely from his POV.  Pretty amazing work for the era and size of cameras in 1947.  The book is darker and more grisly than the movie, and not set at Christmas, if memory serves.  The plot is complicated by the fact the movie never visits the key location from the book, keeping everything in the city and refusing much in the way of exterior shooting.

But, hey, Audrey Totter is terrific.  And they actually make Christmas kind of key to the adaptation, so that's fun.

Janet Leigh and Friend are Christmassy

...waiting

"Avengers: Infinity War" Trailer is go

Well, this looks to be worth the price of admission.

Happy Birthday to Ms. Gloria Grahame

You probably know Gloria Grahame for her small but pivotal part in It's a Wonderful Life as Violet, the attractive blonde in Bedford Falls who fails to land Jimmy Stewart and is a headcase in the Pottersville segment of the movie.

But Grahame's career included a lot of noir, some musicals (she's in Oklahoma! as Ado Annie), and a life off-screen that was dramatic, to say the least.  If you follow older films and want to see some top notch noir, I recommend (very highly):

• Crossfire
• The Big Heat
• In a Lonely Place
• Human Desire

But this list is not even close to comprehensive when it comes to her body of work.

Like a lot of women of her generation in Hollywood, her rise was incredibly fast and her path out of Hollywood was rocky, to say the least.  Curiously, Annette Benning is playing Grahame in an upcoming movie that covers the final years of Grahame's life, from what I can tell.  Looks promising, as far as these movies go.

(TL;DR) The Whitest Christmas of All: Hallmark Christmas Movies

Hollywood is Weird

I am 90% positive I've previously mentioned my fascination with basic-cable Christmas movies.  I'm not talking about the endless rerunning of Elf, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, or other films that had a theatrical life before finding a permanent second life as seasonal programming somewhere on the basic-cable dial.  I'm talking about the made-for-TV 2 hour films that appear on The Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, Lifetime and the Up Network, running in an endless loop, 24-hours-per day, starting this year a few days before Halloween.

Look, I'm not against Christmas.  But, as Jamie wisely pointed out to me, if you're starting your Christmas movies October 20-something, that makes Christmas last fully 1/6th of the year, and that's insane.  And, it bulldozes two fairly major holidays inbetween.

What's fascinating is that this model must be wildly profitable for Hallmark and the other networks for Hallmark to start running these channels as 24-hours-per day holiday movies so early.  These movies have their own little pocket of stars, the top of the heap features former Full House co-star Candice Cameron Bure and former Party of Five sib Lacey Chabert.  Others flirt with the stardom.  Alicia Witt's in a few of these, Lori Loughlin (also Full House), and you'll see a few other actors pulling double or triple duty as stars, but you can guarantee at least one or two new movies per year from Chabert and CCB.

Happy Thanksgiving, Heroes