Festive film watching....The Great Escape?

Much like binge drinking and over-eating, plonking yourself down on the sofa to indulge in some classic films is a time honoured Christmas tradition that I for one are more than happy to maintain.

In years gone by, before the heady days of sky+ and freeview, most of us were forced to make do with the four or five terrestrial channels at our disposal. Rarely was there any films on TV to shout about. The best it got was the occasional crap blockbuster which had flopped at the cinema five years previously but is still only just making its way onto the small screen. "This Saturday evening, ITV brings you Will Smith's box office smash hit Wild Wild West. It may have been universally panned, but now it's edited to sh*t and chock full of commercial breaks too.....how can you resist?"

At Christmas however, much like the bank holiday weekends that precede it, those of us without the joys of Sky were treated to an onslaught of cinematic favourites. Every year, journalists may bemoan the vast quantity of repeats clogging up the television schedules, but they are completely missing the point. Yes we've seen the Great Escape many time before, sure we've seen Indiana Jones take on the Nazi's countless times, and yes, Mary Poppins is yet again tricking children into taking medicine..........but that is secretly what we all want. Proper classics.

It may be that the same stable of classic movies are paraded out every festive season, but this 2 week period comes round but once a year, and we spent the other 50 weeks of the year avoiding Columbo films and making do with the more cringe worthy Roger Moore Bond's. Let us have our classics! the Christmas TV schedules were always an oasis in the arid desert that was terrestrial TV listings. Granted, it's the same oasis you passed by nearly a year ago, but it's a sight for sore eyes nonetheless.

Back in this long forgotten era, when the idea of pausing live TV was a shocking and confusing concept that would have had us choking on our marathon bars, the Christmas period was also a time for vigorous video recording. I remember that we had a video at home with all three Indiana Jones films on, each one bookended with decade old BBC logo's and trailers for their early nineties Christmas offerings.Likewise a battered old video had a double bill of the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca on it, while another had It's A Wonderful  Life in all it's grainy glory.

I for one get a strange sense of enjoyment from watching these movies back many years later, reminiscing over long forgotten adverts for products that no longer exist and trailers for TV programmes that nobody watched."Haha, Choco Crispies, what were they thinking?!" This forgotten little pleasure has fell by the wayside with the advent of recordable TV, but these intriguing little glimpses into Christmas past will remain on dusty shelves across the country for a few years yet. I do fear however that VHS will inevitably go the way of the cassette tape soon, rather than the far more coveted vinyl LP. Nobody's going to hark back to halcyon days of film watching where everything was nice and fuzzy and white lines began to appear where you'd rewound it too many times. It is unfortuantely a dead medium now. These televisual memories will soon be lost forever.

Nevertheless, even with the unavoidable march of technology, the principle remains the same and Christmas remains a time of quality TV viewing. For me, the excitement would really start to build a few weeks before Christmas with the arrival of the legendary Christmas Radio Times. The Christmas Radio Times is a fine festive tradition, and one which my family indulges in every year. Whilst the rest of the year we were content with perfectly good TV guides given away free by Newspapers, at Christmas, the zenith of televisual entertainment, only the best would do.  Every year I'd peruse through the listings, picking out the films I would shortly be wiling away the hours of my holiday afternoon's watching. "The Longest Day is on again this year! Oh look, so is Ben-Hur, and Spartacus!!!.........What do you mean we have to leave the house to visit family?....Bridge On the River Kwai is on!."

Nowadays, the novelty of having these quality films suddenly available to watch is lost slightly. Now many of us have the dazzling array of digital channels, and can record the films we love throughout the year, we are able to be much more picky in terms of what films we choose to sit down and watch. Whereas before you watched Jason and the Argonauts simply because it was on and you didn't know when a vintage film like this would be on again, now, you can either flick through and find a preferred film on another channel, or delve into your sky+'d recordings for a more desired choice.

Never the less, the tradition of imbibing as many classic films at Christmas as possible has, for me at least, not faded, it has merely changed with the times. Much like with our televisual habits in general, we may now have a greater choice and be spoiled by the programmers far more often, but that doesn't change the fact that at a time when many of us find ourselves full of food and booze and dutifully visiting family members, there's never a better time to sit down and watch Steve McQueen get on his motorbike and try and jump that boarder fence one more time.

Movie Reviews : A Christmas Carol

 

 Robert Zemeckis revisits Dickens' classic Christmas tale of paranormal redemption complete with state of the art 3D technology. In parts, this is a visually exhilarating and undeniably impressive film. However the director's desire to showcase the advancements he has made with motion-capture technology become monotonous towards the end. You soon start to wish he had focused slightly more on injecting some warmth and emotional complexity into his renowned cast of festive characters.

This supernatural yuletide tale was designed by Dickens to promote the dwindling spirit of Christmas back into a society that he felt had lost it's sense of caring for one's fellow man.
Zemeckis's version may not quite echo this lofty purpose, but it ranks fairly well when compared with the myriad of other cinematic adaptations that have been produced over the years.

The two exemplary and yet wildly contrasting cinematic versions for me are the dramatic and enduring 1951 Alistair Sim effort, and of course the madcap musical that is the Muppet's Christmas Carol. The former perfectly encapsulating the grim realities of Victorian London and the latter focusing wisely on unabashed heartwarming family fun. Zemeckis's version attempts a middle road between these two and ultimately falls ever so slightly short.

This is perhaps doing the film a slight injustice however as it definitely has much to offer, especially in terms of visual eye candy. The opening swoop across Victorian London's rooftops sets out the film's state of the art credentials right from the off. It is a trick repeated several times throughout the film and is exactly the type of shot that 3D technology was designed for. The camera dips, twists and plunges through the skyline as snow covered rooftops and the warm glow of oil lit street lamps fly by below. This thrilling experience is clearly a big selling point for the film, and in this respect it certainly deserves its plaudits.

The detailed cityscape itself is another significant visual achievement by the film's production team. Throughout the film you are immersed into Victorian London in a manner which previous adaptation just cannot match. The 3D technology allows you to experience the cramped cobbled streets, the snow flecked shop fronts and tiny candle-lit houses like previous incarnations could never imagine.

As Scrooge's ghostly visitors whirl him across time and space, the immense level of detail that has gone into designing the city below enables it to switch between being both warm and festive and yet also dark and unforgiving as the sight of merry Christmas revelling gives way to that of poor urchin's begging for food.

So what of the film's famous cast of characters? Whilst the Dickensian city that surrounds them is brilliantly layered and detailed, most of the inhabitants of Zemeckis's London are disappointingly one-dimensional and poorly characterized.

Little time is spent outlining Bob Crachit's kindly nature, Tiny Tim is barely seen on screen and the ghosts themselves (all played by Jim Carrey) are bland and often infuriating. The ghost of Christmas present, intended to be a jolly injection of festive cheer, is unfortunately here a guffawing giant who adds little except an annoyingly exaggerated hearty laugh.

The lack of character development is perhaps best illustrated by the rushed handling of Scrooge's doomed romance with Belle. This tragic love story is central to Scrooge's life of solitude and misery, yet it is skirted over here in a matter of minutes as the director seems to be in a rush to get to the next bravura showcase of 3D trickery.

The final big showpiece is an ill-advised chase scene where the spirit of Christmas yet to come stalks a terrified (and for some unexplained reason, shrinking) Scrooge through London's back streets. Leaving aside the illogical nature of a powerful supernatural entity struggling to catch up with a decrepit elderly miser, this chase scene proves one swooping extravaganza too far. Overblown and unnecessary, it undeniably shows off the top notch technology on display, but after 80 or so minutes this has already been proven and smacks of overkill.

Overall however, the movie is enjoyable and certainly rises above many of its predecessors. At times Zemeckis's effort is genuinely eerie and he pulls no punches in emphasising the more chilling elements of Dickens's tale.

If we were to rank films purely on innovation and visual achievement, A Christmas Carol would undoubtedly be one of the best releases of the year. However, due to an obvious over-reliance on it's 3D selling point, the film just falls short of reaching its full potential. Good enough to prove a genuine Christmas hit, but whether it takes its place amongst the list of all time festive greats remains to be seen.


6/10