It's Christmas Eve here at The Signal Watch. By now the sun is down and, if you're lucky, there's not much to do but make yourself a cup of cocoa or pour a cocktail or two. Unless you're headed for Midnight Mass or late service. If so, we'll catch you on the other side.
I hope your Christmas Eve is spent as you'd wish. For me, it's a small gathering of family. We're planning to eat tacos and tamales (this is Texas, after all), and stay up a bit late watching movies and maybe indulging in those cocktails. I'll be the last one up, most likely. I am every year and have been since I was a kid.
stockings are hung by the chimney with care
I like that image from Paul Dini and Alex Ross's graphic novella Peace on Earth. As Scrooge might have learned on his own Christmas Eve - there's more joy in others than in the accumulation of riches, more satisfaction in knowing we've reached out somehow to our neighbors here on this big, blue marble. Let's all strive to do better and raise each other up in 2019.
For the past several years I've closed out with Ms. Darlene Love and one of my favorite Christmas tunes. If I didn't love the song before (and I did), then seeing Ms. Love perform the song as her show closer here in Austin a few years back was one of the best live performances I've ever seen. After the melancholy tunes of the Vince Guaraldi Trio, some Nat King Cole, some Sinatra and some new favorites - this is how I want to say goodnight before Christmas morning arrives and a new round of celebration begins.
This version has the incredible addition of Ms. Patti LaBelle.
Peace on Earth. Goodwill towards all. God bless us, every one.
Watched: 12/17/2018
Format: DVD
Viewing: Second
Decade: 2000's
Simon brings a bit of British Christmas into the PodCast to class the place up a bit. We talk 2003's new-classic, "Love Actually", a multi-story, ensemble romantic comedy featuring an all-star cast. And Simon explains to Ryan the stuff he didn't get as a slow-witted American.
Music:
Christmas Time is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas Christmas is All Around - Bill Nighy as "Billy Mack" Love Actually OST O Tannenbaum - Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas
According to numerous press sources, director and actor Penny Marshall has passed.
Like everyone else my age, I grew up with Laverne & Shirley, where Marshall played a working class girl cohabitating with her best pal, Shirley, as they had weekly misadventures for years on network TV.
She disappeared briefly, only to re-emerge as a director of a number of movies I saw and liked in formative years, including Jumping Jack Flash and Big. Honestly, I've thought of her more as Director Penny Marshall for decades at this point, and it's a remarkable two-part career she was able to pull off.
Watched: 12/15/2018
Format: TCM on DVR (from Criterion, natch)
Viewing: first
Decade: 1940's
"There are 8 million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them." is probably a line you've heard used somewhere - maybe not from this movie, exactly, but from the television show loosely based on this movie that was a sort of crime-anthology series that started off in the late 1950's, aping the style of police procedural that The Naked City (1948) may not have originated, but it did get down to a T.
Watched: 12/09/2018
Format: DVR off network TV
Viewing: Dozens. Unknown.
Decade: 1960's
It's time to talk TV Christmas specials! Jamie brings us back to kid-hood with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964) and "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965). We ponder these two perennial favorites for all ages, how they look now and what we still get out of them.
Music:
Christmas Time is Here - Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Burl Ives, Rudolph he Red-Nosed Reindeer OST Hark! The Herald Angels Sings - Vince Guaraldi Trio and children's choir from A Charlie Brown Christmas Silver and Gold - Burl Ives, Rudolph he Red-Nosed Reindeer OST O Tannenbaum - Vince Guaraldi Trio from A Charlie Brown Christmas
