How the Grinch Stole Christmas

We enjoy Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas in both forms. The book was always a favorite with the kids, with The Elder Son having it memorized at age 2. We now have the DVD, and it's one of the staple must-see video entertainments every year at our house. Boris Karloff provides the voice of the narrator and the speaking Grinch, while Thurl Ravenscroft (perhaps better known as the voice of Tony the Tiger on those old cereal commercials) does the singing. And Max! Max is a bright spot for me.

"Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas... by cosmo2161

The Pianist

When the movie was over and I asked her what she had thought of it, The Grandmother's only comments were about the man eating the spilled food off the ground. I was stunned, as I thought the music would appeal to her and she would like the heroics. This food "thing" may drive me to drink. Or overeat. Or both!

The Pianist is a 2002 WW2 film based on the true story of Wladyslaw Szilman, a Polish Jew who was a professional pianist when WW2 started and was the only member of his family to survive. It's directed by Roman Polanski and stars Adrien Brody.

trailer:


Senses of Cinema says it "manages to be both illuminating, historically faithful, and definitive" and says Polanski's "vision of Hell is that of an atheist. There is no God in The Pianist, not a hint of Him. This Hell is completely man-made." Slant Magazine has a positive review. Salon.com calls it Polanski's "most emotionally direct film, at times even a brutally blunt film." Rolling Stone begins with this: "What strikes you first about The Pianist, aside from the fact that it is Roman Polanski's most personal and powerful film in years, is its rigorous lack of sentimentality." Spirituality and Practice has a review. Roger Ebert says it "refuses to turn Szpilman's survival into a triumph and records it primarily as the story of a witness who was there, saw, and remembers."

Poor Jack o' Lantern Pumpkin

Here we are thinking about Christmas decorations, and the pumpkin never got carved. Of course, it lasted a lot longer this way.

What's It Gonna Be, Santa?

I bought Chicago's Christmas cd What's It Gonna Be, Santa? for The Husband because back in the day he bought every Chicago lp as it came out. A true fan, he was, but I don't know how he'll like this.

This Christmas is the fifth track:


Well, The Husband has heard some of it during lunch and says Chicago ain't what they used to be, though he pointed out some sections that sounded like the old days.

The Moody Blues: December

December is a cd with seasonal music by The Moody Blues. I picked this up at Spin Street this year. I don't care for it at all -boring and schmaltzy and tending towards the sad end of the spectrum.

December Snow is the second track:


You can listen to samples at Amazon.com.

Bing Crosby's White Christmas CD

The Husband loves Bing Crosby's Christmas music. You'd think it'd be possible to eventually get tired of it, but I've got no evidence he ever will. We have 3 Bing Crosby Christmas CDs he has picked up through the years. White Christmas, pictured above, is one of them. You can sample the tracks from the Amazon link.

The Holly & the Ivy

The Holly & the Ivy is a cd of "All Time Favorite Carols" by the St. Paul's Cathedral Choir. This is a bare bones disc, with no liner notes or annotations of any kind. It's available through Amazon.

The first song on the disc is Once in Royal David's City:

A Chorus Line

The Grandmother was not favorably impressed by A Chorus Line, but I enjoyed it. I had seen it several times before, but she never had. She said, "I haven't seen any of the new movies." I told her it came out 26 years ago, but that seems new to her. The only thing that interested her was that Theatre Memphis had done it years ago. She said she could see why it would be popular with community theaters. It's directed by Richard Attenborough and stars Michael Douglas as the director of a new Broadway musical just beginning auditions. Terrance Mann (who was in Solarbabies and Mrs. Santa Clause, but we won't hold that against him) is the assistant choreographer.

trailer:


Spirituality and Practice says,

Thousands of talented dancers and singers flock to New York City every year with hopes of landing a role in a Broadway musical.... This screen adaptation of the Broadway musical offers a loving tribute to these "gypsies" and the gusto they bring to their craft.

Time Out doesn't like it. DVD Talk calls it a "badly filmed play" and the "movie non-event of 1985". Roger Ebert gives it 3 1/2 stars.

Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Live

The Daughter and The Husband are long-time Mannheim Steamroller fans. One of the cds we have is Mannheim Steamroller Christmas Live.

Angels We have Heard on High is the first track:

A Very Special Christmas

A Very Special Christmas is a compilation of a variety of artists who combine forces to benefit Special Olympics. It starts off with The Pointer Sisters singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" and includes the Eurythmics, Sting, U2, Bob Seger and others on 15 tracks.

Sting's contribution to "A Very Special Christmas" -"Gabriel's Message":


I'm not a big fan, and I never listen to this one more than once a season. I should probably see if one of the kids wants it so it can have a home where it's more appreciated.

Christmas in Harmony

The first time I heard of Wilson Phillips and who they were I had this wave of nostalgia, so when I saw their Christmas cd Christmas in Harmony at Spin Street I bought it. It's not nearly as much fun as I wanted it to be. I listened to the entire cd, but kept finding myself annoyed and wanting to turn it off. If I want a girl group's take on Christmas I'll listen to Play again.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day:

Christmas Carols

Christmas Carols is the title of this CD of 20 tracks of Christmas songs sung by the Worcester Cathedral Choir. It's a nice mix of familiar and less well-known seasonal music.

Wikipedia says, "Since the 18th century, Worcester Cathedral Choir has taken part in the Three Choirs Festival, the oldest music festival in the world." That festival has a website here.

You can buy the cd (for $7.99) and listen to some of the music at Amazon.com.

The Shawshank Redemption

I really thought this one would make a hit with The Grandmother, but as soon as the end credits started rolling she got up and left the room. Neither of us had seen it before, although I'd seen enough bits and pieces on tv to know it was worth watching. The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 drama that takes place mostly in Shawshank prison. It's based on the Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. It stars Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. James Whitmore has a role as the elderly prison librarian who has difficulty on the outside when paroled after spending most of his life in prison. I enjoyed watching it, even though it's a bit more sentimental than I generally like.

trailer:

Slant Magazine calls it over-rated and says,

the film's naïve sentimentality undermines serious issues of violence, rape, manhood, and male bonding. Indeed, after the Sisters are silenced, Darabont cranks up the unilateral act of hero worship: prison goes from being "mean and scary" to, well, "cute." Andy writes letters in order to get books into the prison library, starts doing everyone's taxes, and wins the hearts of guards and prisoners alike. Someone should bake a pie. Oh, wait, they do!

Roger Ebert has a positive review.

Ho Ho Ho

Ho Ho Ho is a Christmas cd by RuPaul. I just got home from Spin Street with my new-to-me copy. It's different, I'll give it that. Embeddable videos are hard to come by, but I did find one.

All I Want for Christmas:

Rupaul all i want for christmas by dummy-account

Chicago

When this one was over and I asked The Grandmother what she thought of it, she said, "I didn't think much of it." Neither of us had seen it. Chicago is a 2002 musical starring Richard Gere as a high-powered high-cost defense attorney, Rene Zellweger as wanna-be vaudeville star Roxie who kills her lover, Catherine Zeta-Jones as a showgirl who kills her sister, Queen Latifah as the prison matron "Mama" and John C. Reilly as Roxie's dupe of a husband. I got a kick out of it.

trailer:


It won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

When You're Good to Mama:


Roger Ebert calls the film "big, brassy fun". Slate.com gives it a positive review. Slant Magazine finds fault with the direction and almost everything else.

1940's Christmas

I don't remember where this CD came from, but it hasn't gotten a lot of play around here. 1940's Christmas has 10 tracks of Christmas music by artists like Benny Goodman, Bing Crosby, Petula Clark... You can listen to samples at the Amazon.com page and pick it up through one of their links for as little as a buck 99. It's not my kind of thing, but for $1.99 it adds some variety to our Christmas music.

The Byrd Edition, Vol. 1: Early Latin Church Music & Propers for Lady Mass in Advent

The Byrd Edition, Volume 1, sung by The Cardinall's Musick, is the first volume of a project to cover the entire works of William Byrd. This CD includes early Latin church music and propers for Lady Mass in Advent.

from the notes included with the CD:

Admirers of Byrd's music may immediately be struck not only by the fact that the majority of works on this disc are heard rarely in performance (not to mention on disc) but also that many of them sound unlike what we have come to accept as "typically Byrd". In his early manuscript works one hears the strong influence of the music of John Sheppard and Thomas Tallis, although at this stage Byrd already carries a distinct voice of his own.

You can listen to samples of the music at Amazon.

Christmas From English Cathedrals

We've had this cd for a while. Christmas From English Cathedrals features music from The Norwich Cathedral Choir, Wells Cathedral Choir, Marlborough Cathedral Choir and St. Paul Cathedral Choir. Some of these songs are more familiar than others, but it's nice to have that kind of combination. It's all very traditional church music, traditionally performed.

You can buy it from Amazon.com, where you can also listen to samples. The photo at the top of the post came from Amazon.com.

The Red Violin

This was long for us at 130 minutes, but I took The Red Violin to The Grandmother's and we watched it during supper. I had some of the rest of the chili, which she has inexplicably started refusing to eat, and she had (and ate some of) raisin bread cheese toast and chicken soup. But I'd better not get started on our food issues. I loved this movie. I loved the music, the way the film was structured, the cinematography.... I would watch it again any time.

trailer:

Roger Ebert says,

The film is heedlessly ambitious. In a time of timid projects and easy formulas, "The Red Violin" has the kind of sweep and vision that we identify with elegant features from decades ago

DVD Talk opens by saying,

One of the Nineties' more sweeping, elegant epics that often seems to be lost in the shuffle, director Francois Girard's The Red Violin (or Le Violon Rouge, if you prefer) is a full-blooded motion picture experience, a romantic ode to the power of art that grips you from the opening moments and does not let go. It's one of the decade's unsung classics.

Reel Views says, "The Red Violin is a beautifully composed motion picture. At times, it's a near-perfect mingling of the visual and the audio." Salon.com didn't like it, concluding that it

has marvelous cinematography, a clever structure and a beautiful score by the eminent American composer John Corigliano, but what it doesn’t have is any coherent story to tell, or any reason to exist beyond admiring its own beauty.

The top critics at Rotten Tomatoes give it 86%.

Play Around the Christmas Tree

The Elder Son introduced me to this several years ago. He let me borrow it, and I ended up getting my own CD. Play Around the Christmas Tree is by Swedish girl group Play.

This is the first song on the cd:


You can listen to some of the music at Amazon.com.