Tag: film
On the sixth day of Christmas: Joe Dante’s “Gremlins”, the greatest Christmas story ever told
It is natural to associate certain holidays with a specific set of zesty colours and particular attitudes. Here in the United States, our pop culture offers many quick and easy examples of this. Consider the plastic spiders and that strange, psuedo-faux-white-hair-cobweb stuff we slather our homes with to spook potential trick-or-treaters. All this before we…
Cinema IS Christmas!
As a person unaffiliated with any kind of religion or spiritualism, at Christmas time I am left contemplating the question that millions of other human beings in today’s secular society must be pondering at the same time –what am I celebrating? Why is this day still meaningful to me? The easiest answers reside in notions…
On the fifth day of Christmas: Five Creepy Christmas Movies
Here in the United States, the final three months of the year are always filled with holiday cheer, and each festive event comes with its own set of movie-viewing opportunities. The season begins with Halloween, a holiday that affords everybody the opportunity to re-watch their favourite horror classics. Then we meander our way over to…
On the fourth day of Christmas: How Rankin and Bass invented television Christmas
An interesting little book came out about five years ago called The Man Who Invented Christmas, about how Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol played a crucial role in formulating our modern conception of the holiday. So does that make the animation team of Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass “The Duo Who Invented Television Christmas”?…
On the third day of Christmas: Five festive films to watch on Christmas Day
For me, Christmas Day is an excuse to spend time with the extended family and have the freedom to indulge in never-ending supplies of food and alcohol. I’m sure that this is the case for many people, regardless of religious orientation. But for many there comes a point on this festive and gluttonous occasion when,…