Saturday, December 13, 2008

Contemporary Holiday Movies

We've all seen Miracle on 34th Street and a few other old classic movies that come back again and again each season. What about today's movies? Will any become classics? I have no idea, but these are two movies set over the Christmas holiday that I really enjoyed. Both move me, but in different ways.

This first two videos show scenes from Love Actually. I couldn't decide which I liked better and the two are accompanied with different songs from the movie so I'm posting both.





The other movie is The Family Stone. The music with these scenes aren't in the movie. It's not a music driven movie like Love Actually but I love this one and could watch it multiple times.




So, how about you? What movies would you recommend for the season??

5 comments:

Collin Kelley said...

Love, Actually is a great. The scene where Emma Thompson is listening to Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" makes me cry every time. For something completely different, "Bad Santa" with Billy Bob Thornton is hilariously crude and "Home for the Holidays" with Holly Hunter, Robert Downy Jr. and Anne Bancroft is another favorite. Oh, and "The Ref," with Judy Davis, Kevin Spacey and Dennis Leary.

Pris said...

Oh yes, that was such a moving scene that you described. The movie is fantastic, isn't it? I've seen The Ref. Love it! That guy was also the cop in the remake of The Thomas Crowne Affair. I just put the other two on my Netflix list. Billy Bob Thornton is enough to make me rent almost any movie!

Anonymous said...

Awww...''Love Actually''...one of my faves.
I haven't seen the other one so will add that to my ''must see'' list.
I watched ''Bad Santa'' and yes, very crude indeed!!! Ha.
As for a film to recommend...well, I would like to huddle up by the Christmas Tree and watch ''August Rush''...I love it.

Lyle Daggett said...

I haven't seen "Love, Actually." And I'm not really that big on holiday movies, in general --

However, I do really like "The Family Stone." I especially like that the visitor/outsider is the stiff uptight conservative one, and the rest of the family is loose and liberal and creative -- the reverse of the usual cliche in such movies.

I also like "Home for the Holidays," which one of the other commenters mentioned. If I remember correctly, it's about Thanksgiving.

A couple of other Thanksgiving movies I like are "Pieces of April" (in which Katie Holmes place a young woman making her first attempt at fixing Thanksgiving dinner for her family who is coming to visit; and "Alice's Restaurant," based on the song by Arlo Guthrie (and with Arlo Guthrie playing himself, more or less) -- the movie isn't really about Thanksgiving, however there's a big Thanksgiving dinner scene toward the end of the movie where a lot of the plot threads kind of come together.

Pris said...

Hi Lyle,
You may like Love Actually. It's not so much 'about' Christmas, but set at Christmastime much as The Family Stone is. The main characters are all English and it's set in London (I don't remember if it's English made) A side part of that movie which hit me as the movie went on is that the movie is filled with interacial relationships but no big deal is made of that fact. A black man marries a white woman..one relationship. He's best friends with a white guy..another. Yet another interracial friendship between two men. Lliam Neison's stepson is madly in love with 'the most popular girl in the school' who turns out to be American and black. That whole substory is very movie. And on it goes. Since England doesn't have the same history of slavery , the Klan, etc that we do I wonder if that makes racial differences easier there. I'm not trying to sound hung up on that but I still strongly remember the days of the heavy Civil Rights movement here, Martin Luther King, his dream, the assasination, and how hard it's been to change things for the better here.

I remember Alice's Restaurant. That was another lifeime ago. I liked it, too.

Ellen,
I put August Rush on my list to see, too. Thanks.

Pris