Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
ACF Middlebrow#2 Christmas!
James Lileks and I are back with another set of middlebrow ruminations — this time, it’s Christmas movies, from post-war comedies like Christmas in Connecticut and varieties of A Christmas Carol to Arthur Christmas. Take a guess which is the Christmas tradition at the Lileks home.
Just to write down the films we talk about, in case you miss some:
A Christmas Carol (1938, 1951, 1999)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
The Bishop’s Wife (1947) [I wrongly said Theresa Wright was in it–it was Loretta Young!]
Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962)
Rudy the Red-nosed Reindeer (1964)
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Arthur Christmas (2011)
We also mentioned Hallmark movies and I brought up the recent Ricochet post. Here it is, in case you missed it. I mention my own addition to the genre on the podcast — and not that it’s a Netflix production, so apparently, there’s a future of such stuff online…
Published in Podcasts
Okay, I’ve got my Sunday morning listening all lined up now…
Karolyn Grimes the little girl in ‘The Bishop’s Wife” was the same actress who played Zsu Zsu in ‘Wonderful Life’ . Still around , and looking lovely , I met her a year or two back. Short career , stopped at 12 , but she worked with a lot of biggies so I’m one hand shake from all of them. I have a personally autographed Christmas ornament, a bell , naturally.
Quibble alert – Christmas in Connecticut was released on August 11th, 1945 so technically it’s not a post-war movie. But it’s a lot of fun and I endorse your choice of it.
Ok, I give up. Where is the RSS feed link for the podcast? Because without an RSS feed this is, by definition, not a podcast.
Interesting. The new Easton generation is capable of four dimensional GPS. Sharp chronological resolution–a good catch!
How could you leave out Scrooged?
Easy: I’m meaning to do another one of these podcasts. Lots of stuff left to cover.
Alternately: Always leave’em wanting more!
That’s serendipitous! I bet you’ve stories to tell, too!
You gotta go on iTunes or soundcloud for that!
youtube I don’t think has an rss, but I’m there, too.
I’m a Ricochet contributor & @exjon very graciously publishes my podcasts here, but I am not a Ricochet podcaster, so I’m not part of the network / feed, &c.
Ok, I’ve a new tagline for it: It dropped like a third bomb then!
I watched Christmas in Connecticut some time ago at Titus’ suggestion.
It is pretty silly, but what really slays me every time I think of it is the absurd design of the “architecturally designed” home in Connecticut. I am sure the camera loved it, but the actors found it more than a little annoying to get in and around the set.
Speaking about movies and architecture and Connecticut, my beloved spouse is an architect and one of his favorite builders insisted we watch the movie Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House, a real howler with Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. We love the scene in which the architect explains that they can certainly have everything they want, as long as they don’t mind their second floor being three times larger than the first floor…
Yup, that’s also very funny. Melvyn Douglas is in it, too, the lawyer-friend to the young couple, who always advises them not to do the crazy thing.
But it’s America, people want their dreams to come true, & boy do they get what they want…