As we fly through November on our way to December, holiday movies are dominating our recent podcasts. It started with our October Halloween-fest, moved on to Thanksgiving movies and is now headed towards Christmas films.
Each week since Halloween we have had tough decisions to make because this is the season for great movies. We decided to kickoff November with something new from Sofia Coppola, On the Rocks. We both liked this father/daughter story starring Rashida Jones and Bill Murray, but felt the ending was rushed and what could have been a great movie was just good enough to recommend.
Inching closer to Thanksgiving, we picked a hidden gem from Ang Lee with his American drama The Ice Storm based on a novel from Rick Moody. This is not your feel-good Thanksgiving movie, but as Wikipedia notes a film about two dysfunctional New Canaan, Connecticut, upper-class families who are trying to deal with tumultuous social changes of the early 1970s, and their escapism through alcohol, adultery, and sexual experimentation. We chose this film not only because it takes place at Thanksgiving, but with the hope of turning our listeners on to what we consider to be Ang Lee’s greatest film to date.
From now until the end of the year there are so many films we’d love to cover, but we’d need more than 52 weeks in a year! Several are films we always watch around the holidays though they may not be considered true holiday movies. A good example is a trilogy we often watch this time of year that’s definitely not a holiday film, The Godfather. Although we won’t do a podcast on the trilogy, we are planning to cover the forthcoming The Godfather, Coda a reimagining of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather III. If you’ve listened to this Oh Brother episode, you know how we feel about this film. If you haven’t, click the link to it in the previous sentence and let us know your thoughts.
Films we’d love to fit in, but likely won’t make the cut include such holiday classics as Scrooged starring Bill Murray in a modern-day retelling of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. If you haven’t seen this version of the Christmas classic, treat yourself this year and we promise you won’t be disappointed. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.
Additional recommendations from Oh Brother include National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation starring Chevy Chase in the third outing of the Griswold family, A Christmas Story which you can catch on TBS around the clock starting on Christmas Eve, and Ron Howard’s version of the classic animated story How the Grinch Stole Christmas; not quite on par with the original but still a lot of fun.
Finally, in addition to a few animated classics A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman, don’t miss two absolute feel-good movies It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.
These are just a few of our favorite holiday films. What movies do you watch every holiday that you think should be added to our must watch list? Drop us an email or hit us up on social media to let us know. Our next episode features a film that always makes us laugh and gets us in the mood for the season. Stay tuned for our review of Planes, Trains and Automobiles starring Steve Martin and the late great John Candy.
Greetings for a safe and joyful holiday season. Ho Ho Oh…Brother!
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