Aubrey MaloneThe best festive movies to watch this Christmas
Christmas will probably be dominated by Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, which concludes the various adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield and the Company of Dwarves, but there are also lots of films with a specifically Christmas theme, or sub-theme, on view this year. Some of these are new and some repeats of evergreen classics.
The newest is Christopher Smith’s British comedy Get Santa, a family film which tells the tale of a 9-year-old-boy, Tom (Kit Connor) who finds Santa sleeping in his garden shed one day, having crashed his new sleigh while test-driving it.
Santa, played by Jim Broadbent, is desperate to return to Lapland so he asks Tom and his father Steve (Rafe Spall) for help. The situation is fraught with tension because it’s just a few days to Christmas and Santa’s reindeer are running loose on the streets of London. Neither are matters helped when Santa is arrested.
For those of you who enjoyed Frozen last year, there’s now a Sing-Along version being re-released all over Ireland. Frozen is the highest-grossing Disney film of all time and has garnered more than 150 million YouTube views.
This new manifestation gives fans the opportunity to re-live the experience of watching it (who can forget ‘Let it Go’?) by actually becoming part of it.
You can check your nearest participating cinema for details. The first of these occurs in the National Concert Hall on December 13th where three separate screenings will be accompanied by a choir called Aspiro. On December 27th another sing-along takes place in Limerick as part of Limerick’s City of Culture celebrations in the Church Gallery Space in Limerick’s College of Art and Design.
One of the most loved Christmas films of all time, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, is showing at the Irish Film Institute from December 12. If you can’t make that, no doubt this tale of a depressed man (James Stewart) being saved from himself by the love of his wife and friends – and the timely intervention of an angel – will be on some of the TV channels too.
Another lesser known James Stewart film, The Shop Around the Corner, is showing at the Irish Film Institute on December 21 and 23. It’s a lovely story of a man who falls in love with a girl who works with him.
He communicates with her only through letters so neither of them are aware of the other’s identity. It was re-made for the computer generation in more recent times as You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan but this version is much more enchanting.
Also on December 21 at the IFI is The Muppet Christmas Carol, a variation on the Dickens classic with Michael Caine as Scrooge.
The Apartment, one of my favourite Christmas movies, is showing at the same venue on December 20 and 23. This inspired Billy Wilder movie is both funny and poignant and deservedly cleaned up at the Oscars in 1960 – though Shirley MacLaine was cruelly ‘robbed’ of an award by Elizabeth Taylor.
Jack Lemmon gives one of the performances of his life. Almost every line of the script is a gem.
No Christmas would be complete without a showing of Miracle on 34th Street. This is also on at the IFI on December 20 and 23. It’s the Maureen O’Hara version, which was much superior to the the remakes of 1975 and 1994. Maureen once said: “Every Christmas someone around the world is watching me in Miracle on 34th Street and every St Patrick’s Day in The Quiet Man.” It’s not a bad testimonial.
Edmund Gwenn plays Kris Kringle, the man who goes to court to ‘prove’ he’s the real Santa. He won an Oscar for his performance and it’s marked by his fine comic timing.
When Gwenn was on his deathbed he was asked by a visitor, “Is dying hard?” Quick as a wink he replied, “No, dying isn’t hard. Playing comedy – that’s hard!”
Details of these film times can be gleaned at www.ifi.ie or by ringing (01) 679 3477. There are also shorts suitable for children showing at other times, and on certain Sundays special ‘Sunday Brunch and Meal Deal’ offers for Ä16.