Well Christmas has rolled back around again as another pre-Christmas (for us) movie which always gets an outing in December to help the festive build up for Christmas. Released in 1988 this movie stars Bill Murray, Karen Allen, John Forsythe, Bobcat Goldthwait, Carol Kane, Robert Mitchum, Michael J. Pollard & Alfre Woodard and had the music by Danny Elfman. It also has Bill’s brother John playing his brother in the movie. Made on a budget of $32m it went on to make $100m and has cemented itself into the annual Television Christmas fair every December even if it isn’t on TV it will put in an appearance in this house anyway. I shall run through the plot now.
As the plot is a modern well a late eighties take on the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol and believe me its had its adaptations over the years. This time the main character is Frank Cross who is a big time tv executive who has decided to have a live version beamed into everyone’s home on Christmas day. This is how evil he is. He is over critical and has a PA that is the Bob Cratchet character that is a single parent. Her youngest is a mute that has not spoken for years. The love that Frank spurned to pursue his career was Claire Phillips. The ghosts have a very different and violent take on them and the end is a joy to watch.
This is a Christmas movie that I took some time to come around to particularly during my adult life as Christmas was something to get very drunk about and not have to worry about studying the next day or going to work so Christmas was about booze and the family. So, it took a few years for me to actually sit down and watch this movie and then I really appreciated it. Its fun and getting the evilness of Scrooge character is played to the extreme to labour the point yet still the character is more pleasant than my neighbours. It has won me over as I watched it properly with the opinion that this was an old film and it is still so relevant today. Oh! I nearly forgot the tri-critic challenge as this one is another pretty close one as this! With my 74% where IMDb gave it 7.0/10 and Rotten Tomatoes 71% that has to be pretty close. I will have to give it a name and start to keep a record. Sorry that was a side note there. This is a warm and eventually loveable movie that plays the nastiness and kindness in equal measures and the words spoken at the end should be shared across the world. This movie also saw the return of Bill Murray to acting as he said he had burned out after Ghostbusters and it wasn’t sure he would return to the industry and I for one am so glad he did. Is it Christmas again yet? I want to get this movie back out again.
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