For the second night of Christmas Vacation, I decided that it was time to break out some classic Christmas movies. One Christmas movie that didn�t make it into the Buzzline newspaper as one of the best is �Die Hard.� Of course, maybe there aren�t enough people who count it as a Christmas movie. Silly people.
Actually, I count it more as a Thanksgiving movie, since I usually watch it with my dad when we go up north for Thanksgiving weekend. This year, unfortunately the same as last year, we didn�t get to go and I ended up not watching it. �Die Hard� is a great movie, though. �Die Hard,� however, was not the movie I watched last night.
The Grinch hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season, please don�t ask why, no one quite knows the reason. �How the Grinch Stole Christmas� is another great Christmas movie, but to watch it, I�d have to find it on one of the hundreds of VHS movies that we have. That�s the cartoon one. The new one, directed by one of the greatest, Ron Howard, is very well made but doesn�t have a great story. Or maybe it�s too cheesy. Anyways, there�s also a couple classics like the �Home Alone� movies, both of which I have yet to watch.
And the Christmas movies I have on DVD are �It�s a Wonderful Life� and �The Family Man,� two very creative Christmas movies. I also have the new Grinch movie, but that�s one I�d watch probably only with the family. And finally, �Stepmom,� which I hadn�t seen for a couple years before last night. I was choked up throughout the entire movie.
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I have a secret.
Well before 7th Grade Camp, I finally re-arranged my movie collection. Before then, my friends would look through my movies, taking them out of one place, and putting them in another, and I would switch them back. They would then ask what order my movies were in. I don�t recall what my answer was, but in the back of my mind I knew how I used to order them. When I first started getting DVDs, I would only buy the coolest movies that I imagined myself starring in. And the order in which I organized them by was the chronologic of which I would star in them. Laugh out loud. So, I think my first movie was �Scream,� in which I played a supporting character who also happened to be the bad guy. I loved badguys (as I still do). Then I went on to play the main badguy with a German accent (which I could pull off since I am partly German) in �Die Hard.� �Die Hard� was actually the first DVD I ever bought. So maybe that�s why it had to be in the beginning.
Anyways, I guess I grew out of that a couple years ago, and just ordered my DVDs in the order that I bought them...except I would still have the movies that I�d wanna star in on the top shelf, and the extra movies that were just cool on the bottom. The ones I�d star in were the ones I could see myself being in, I guess.
Now my DVDs are ordered by sections. I have a horror section and a comedy section on bottom...and at the end of the comedy section, I have Christmas movies. And on the top, I have, like, Quentin Tarantino movies, Robert Rodriguez movies, action movies, dramas, and science fictions.
Last night, while watching �Stepmom,� I tried imagining myself as one of the characters. Although Ed Harris is awesome in the movie, he wasn�t the one I was mimicking in my chair. I pretended that I was Julia Robert�s character. Susan Sarandon is a brilliant actress in the movie, and plays her part quite perfectly, but I always have something to say about Julia Roberts in all of her movies. She�s just not a brilliant actress (except, maybe, in �My Best Friend�s Wedding�). In �Stepmom,� she is pretty great because she has plenty of emotional scenes and she plays a really cool character. But I did get really into her character last night.
When I think about �Stepmom,� I always remember the night I first saw it (and I probably didn�t like it when I was that young). It was at least my mom and I going to our local �Sun Theater� here in Williamston. It was during the holidays, if I remember right, and we were just walking to the theater. The previous show had gotten out, and since this theater only shows one movie at a time, we saw everybody leaving the theater. Everybody was crying! I�ll never forget all of these people coming out of the theater like that.
I love the feeling of being in the �Sun Theater� while there�s another movie playing. The sound effects and the action are heard from the lobby while the next audience waits to be let in to see the movie. Two movies stick out to me when I think about waiting in the Sun Theater lobby. �Die Another Day� had a scene in which Halle Berry and Pierce Brosnan jumped on the plane to bring down the badguys. The scene following that had lots of action and lots of sound, and everything was heard in the lobby. The ending wasn�t ruined for me or anything, and I didn�t know what was going on (unless I looked through the crack of the theater doors). The second movie that sticks out is �Red Dragon,� in which I peeked through the crack of the Sun Theater doors and saw Ralph Fiennes walk behind the girl who played Edward Norton�s wife to attack her. If felt so scary just to know that the theater was on the edge of their seats inside. They�re being entertained while I have yet to see what lies ahead when I get inside.
Anyways, �Stepmom� was different since I only saw people�s reaction to the movie. I mean, for �Die Another Day� and �Red Dragon,� people came out of the theater smiling and talking to the next audience in the lobby about how good the movie was. But I was much younger for �Stepmom,� and I don�t think I remember much about seeing that movie. I remember seeing �The Horse Whisperer� when I was really young and not being able to sit through it all (though I did). That movie was really boring to me back then. But maybe it was good to other people, I don�t know. We look at movies differently when we�re younger.
I mean, when we�re young, we look up to adults. We think everything they do is done right. Every movie we see is how a movie is supposed to be. We don�t know what a bad movie it. I mean, we may not like them, but we don�t understand that they are truly bad movies. �Stepmom� was one I didn�t like back then.
�Stepmom� is directed brilliantly by Christopher Columbus.
�Chris brings two sides of himself to the film. Chris is an emotional person and a very funny person� says one producer of the film.
�Stepmom� is also produced by the two leads of the film, Julia Roberts and Susan Sarandon. They helped choose the script that they wanted to do, and made sure that the script was all it could be. �Stepmom� is written by five people. This is opposed to the 10 people who wrote the intense and emotional final episode of �Everybody Loves Raymond.� I�ve concluded that with more writers, the better a script can be.
But there�s only one director, and that�s normal. It�s good to know the people of Hollywood, because then you know which movies are really going to be good. Like �The Polar Express,� which I thought might have been underrated. It�s directed by the guy who did �Forrest Gump� and based on a story by the guy who wrote �Jumanji.� And �The Polar Express� itself is a great book. Needless to say, though, it stars Tom Hanks, and everybody likes Tom Hanks. �The Polar Express� was one that I knew was going to be good and didn�t feel guilty about spending $12 to see it on an IMAX theater.
Movies directed by Christopher Columbus, you should expect to be good. However, �Rent� is in theaters right now, and I thought that the emotional aspect of the film lacked. The movie wasn�t bad, it was well made, but maybe it did feel like people would randomly start singing. With the lyrics of each song (I liked the music) being spoken, it took away a little magic. Rosario Dawson was the only character I really liked, besides maybe the male lead with a fantastic rock �n roll voice.
�Rent� was not what I expected, and therefore not what it should have been (and could have been). The �Tear Factor,� shall we call it, just wasn�t there. All of Chris� movies have some kind of emotional aspect. In �Harry Potter and the Sorcerer�s Stone,� I thought the scene where Harry was looking into the mirror of Erised was done really well with John William�s lovely music over it. John Williams adds so much to Chris� movies, and maybe that is also what �Rent� was missing. �Rent� had the Christmas feel to it, at least, and also a New Year�s Eve feel, which was kinda cool.
All of his movies have to do with Christmas. �Home Alone� had Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin character) being left behind for a Christmas vacation. The emotional aspect (although the film was thoroughly funny) didn�t come until the climactic ending in which Kevin�s mom finally got home to her son in the end, and John William�s music just puts it over the top.
�Stepmom� is really well written, as I said before with having 5 writers. Last night, I caught more gags in the movie than I ever had before.
�Do you know Dr. Seuss?�
�Not personally.�
And the emotional aspect, as I�ve said so many times before, is really powerful. That final speech that Julia Roberts gives just put me over the top.
Susan Sarandon is the mom who has cancer (making this a horror movie for anyone afraid of getting cancer), and this is Isabel (Julia Roberts) speaking: Look down the road to her wedding. I'm in a room alone with her, fixing her veil, fluffing her dress, telling her no woman has ever looked so beautiful. And my fear is she'll be thinking, "I wish my mom were here."
I was wondering while watching the movie if, when you�re truly emotionally involved with something, if the comedic aspect seems funnier. I laughed more than I ever remember laughing before. The kid, Liam Aiken, is genius. The movie is cute when it should be, funny when it should be, cool when it should be, and it has good morals. �Winning without dignity or grace isn�t winning.�
The Christmas part of the movie doesn�t come in until the very end and the tears get really hard to hold in for the final ten minutes when Susan Sarandon gives her gifts to her kids. So it was a good start to Christmas break (even though I think the official beginner was �King Kong (2005).� If I wasn�t crying uncontrollably or if my eyes weren�t in pain of trying to hold back tears, then I was laughing. It�s a beautiful movie, very well made...see it. It�s one of my favorites.
Song of the Day: �Christmas Shoes.� Why...I mean, it�s just a song, but why...does this one make me cry? everytime?
The Christmas Shoes by Newsong:
It was almost Christmas time, there I stood in another line
Tryin' to buy that last gift or two, not really in the Christmas mood
Standing right in front of me was a little boy waiting anxiously
Pacing 'round like little boys do
And in his hands he held a pair of shoes
His clothes were worn and old, he was dirty from head to toe
And when it came his time to pay
I couldn't believe what I heard him say
Chorus:
Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time
You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight
He counted pennies for what seemed like years
Then the cashier said, "Son, there's not enough here"
He searched his pockets frantically
Then he turned and he looked at me
He said Mama made Christmas good at our house
Though most years she just did without
Tell me Sir, what am I going to do,
Somehow I've got to buy her these Christmas shoes
So I laid the money down, I just had to help him out
I'll never forget the look on his face when he said
Mama's gonna look so great
Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time
You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight
Bridge:
I knew I'd caught a glimpse of heaven's love
As he thanked me and ran out
I knew that God had sent that little boy
To remind me just what Christmas is all about
Repeat Chorus
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