TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV series) 2014

Amazon Woman on the moon
Innerspance

The fireplace is raging, the furniture is rearranged for the tree, and the Spotify playlist is full of Bing and Andy and Mel and Burl and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We all know what this means--

Christmas time has begun for the Clay family!

My goal this year (as it was for the past two years) is to hit up at least one Christmas movie every available night and follow each with a write-up here for the hell of it. So here goes--

Holiday Affair (Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and a very cute Gordon Gebert): A. Likable little comedy that propelled Mitchum to star status. Not sure how this ever slipped under the radar with me as I've seen almost every Christmas movie ever made yet here we have an extremely popular title with one of the most beautiful actresses of her time. Solid characterizations and a smart, funny script by Isobel Lennart (Funny Girl, Please Don't Eat the Daisies) propel a fun love story. Christmas Factor: 6/10.

Glee Xmas Special (Season One): B. Two words can sum up Ryan Murphy's musical monster: innocuous and contemporary. I hate on this show a lot because I'm not much a fan of anything related to those two words. However. I have to give credit to the show's creators and writers for a very entertaining first season. This show was really headed somewhere but derailed fast in the second season by becoming overly sappy, trite, and preachy, as well as introducing an unprecedented plethora of bland characters and overly familiar love trysts. I could go on about how spoiled this fruit became (as well as how the music became more top 40 than anything), but I can easily recommend this special for any fan of Xmas. The message of this episode really hits home (aging and dealing with loss of holiday spirit) and the music is a great collection of familiar classics (Island of Misfit Toys, Wham's Last Christmas, Grinch, and that song the Who's sing) done very well. Despite being a gosh-gee high school sing along, I can say without shame that it really got me in the Xmas spirit. Christmas factor: 10/10.

Penguins vs Bruins

corplhicks wrote:

The fireplace is raging, the furniture is rearranged for the tree, and the Spotify playlist is full of Bing and Andy and Mel and Burl and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We all know what this means--

Christmas time has begun for the Clay family!

My goal this year (as it was for the past two years) is to hit up at least one Christmas movie every available night and follow each with a write-up here for the hell of it. So here goes--

Holiday Affair (Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and a very cute Gordon Gebert): A. Likable little comedy that propelled Mitchum to star status. Not sure how this ever slipped under the radar with me as I've seen almost every Christmas movie ever made yet here we have an extremely popular title with one of the most beautiful actresses of her time. Solid characterizations and a smart, funny script by Isobel Lennart (Funny Girl, Please Don't Eat the Daisies) propel a fun love story. Christmas Factor: 6/10.

Glee Xmas Special (Season One): B. Two words can sum up Ryan Murphy's musical monster: innocuous and contemporary. I hate on this show a lot because I'm not much a fan of anything related to those two words. However. I have to give credit to the show's creators and writers for a very entertaining first season. This show was really headed somewhere but derailed fast in the second season by becoming overly sappy, trite, and preachy, as well as introducing an unprecedented plethora of bland characters and overly familiar love trysts. I could go on about how spoiled this fruit became (as well as how the music became more top 40 than anything), but I can easily recommend this special for any fan of Xmas. The message of this episode really hits home (aging and dealing with loss of holiday spirit) and the music is a great collection of familiar classics (Island of Misfit Toys, Wham's Last Christmas, Grinch, and that song the Who's sing) done very well. Despite being a gosh-gee high school sing along, I can say without shame that it really got me in the Xmas spirit. Christmas factor: 10/10.

Don't forget the Toho Christmas fave:  Santa's Slay

Oh hell yes that is in the list with the Silent/Deadly Night (GARBAGE DAY!) movies and Gremlins.

corplhicks wrote:

Holiday Affair (Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and a very cute Gordon Gebert): A. Likable little comedy that propelled Mitchum to star status. Not sure how this ever slipped under the radar with me as I've seen almost every Christmas movie ever made yet here we have an extremely popular title with one of the most beautiful actresses of her time. Solid characterizations and a smart, funny script by Isobel Lennart (Funny Girl, Please Don't Eat the Daisies) propel a fun love story. Christmas Factor: 6/10.

I usually watch 4 films every Christmas, Holiday Affair is one of the four.  

The other 3:

Remember The Night (1940) (Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, script by Preston Sturges)
Christmas In Connecticut (1945) (Barbara Stanwyck again...)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946) (no, I don't care how overplayed it is, still an amazing film)

I added a couple of new ones to the Toho Christmas pantheon last year.  "Rare Exports" and "St. Nick".

Here's one of the shorts "Rare Exports" is based on (I actually like the shorts better than the feature film.  Fortunately both shorts are also on the disc)

The Starving Games.

Absolutely horrible movie.

Spent a couple days home sick in bed, ended up watching most of season 2 of Star Trek for the first time in many years. Really enjoyed revisiting it. I watched the versions with the redone visual effects, quite cool actually, they just re-create the original effects with CGI and make small improvements, also replacing some of the cheaply done background mattes for the planetary sequences.

The Unseen

Supernatural

White Christmas (1954)

I had never seen this classic before,mainly because I'm not a fan of musicals. Since it is the Christmas season though, we gave this one a viewing. It was decent ,I guess. Old Bing sounded great and the musical numbers were good enough. I was a bit surprised at how little Christmas-y it was though.

Bears vs Lions.

I can't remember a year where all the Thanksgiving football games were in the NFC before.

tohostudios wrote:

Bears vs Lions.

I can't remember a year where all the Thanksgiving football games were in the NFC before.

That is bizarre. I thought they always had at least one inter-conference game.

007 wrote:

White Christmas (1954)

I had never seen this classic before,mainly because I'm not a fan of musicals. Since it is the Christmas season though, we gave this one a viewing. It was decent ,I guess. Old Bing sounded great and the musical numbers were good enough. I was a bit surprised at how little Christmas-y it was though.

That one will be coming up soon here but for now I'm with you (except I'm a huge fan of musicals haha). It's astounding how little it has to do with Christmas. Throw out the bookends and you simply have an enjoyable musical rom-com set in winter. I still scratch my head as to why I include this every December, but it became tradition decades ago so I can't let go.

"Dark Angel" aka "I Come In Peace" (1990)

A lone wolf cop (Dolph Lundgren) and a dorky FBI agent (Brian Benben) take on an alien drug dealer who's sucking out human brain juices to sell as a narcotic on his home planet. Mayhem naturally ensues.
This fast, funny "B" action flick has got to be one of the explodiest movies ever made. I swear they blow something up every two minutes!

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Dark Angel" aka "I Come In Peace" (1990)

A lone wolf cop (Dolph Lundgren) and a dorky FBI agent (Brian Benben) take on an alien drug dealer who's sucking out human brain juices to sell as a narcotic on his home planet. Mayhem naturally ensues.
This fast, funny "B" action flick has got to be one of the explodiest movies ever made. I swear they blow something up every two minutes!

I come in peace.... and you go in pieces

Quote :

I come in peace.... and you go in pieces

It's my favorite Dolph Lundgren movie. It's so dumb but sooooo much fun!

Maleficient

Free Birds (2013)

A nice little animated flick about 2 turkeys who steal a time machine to travel back to the first Thanksgiving and change history so that turkeys are taken off the menu permanently. Actually a pretty funny flick with Owen Wilson and Woody Harrelson in the leads. I'd watch it again

Whiplash (2014)



One of the best movies I've seen this year. J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller both deserve Oscar nominations.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Quote :

I come in peace.... and you go in pieces

It's my favorite Dolph Lundgren movie. It's so dumb but sooooo much fun!

It is a fun one!

Arkansas vs Mizzou

Every bit the defensive battle I figured it would be.

S.D. wrote:

Whiplash (2014)



One of the best movies I've seen this year.  J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller both deserve Oscar nominations.

Dying to see this one. I don't think I've ever seen Simmons in a lead role before. And the subject matter just sounds so cool.

Mizzou ended up beating Arkansas 21-14 so I've switched over to Stanford vs UCLA.  Man, UCLA is getting stomped!