Six Fun Movies to Watch During the Holiday Season

A few years ago, I made a similar post, which will give you several more recommendations. These movies aren't themed for the winter holidays, but they're fun to watch on a cold night with a warm drink, like hot apple cider with rum, and they're (mostly) family-friendly. (Yes, even The Maltese Falcon can be fun for the whole family... why not.)

Title: Cinderella (1997)
Director: Robert Iscove
Language: English
Rating: G

This is a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical adaptation of Cinderella, set in a pretty Disney version of a European town. The stepmother's house looks like it's made of stained glass and melted crayons. I like how vivid all the colors are in this one, including the lush blues and purples of the ballroom scene.

The cast is vibrant. Whitney Houston plays the fairy godmother, Bernadette Peters is the stepmother, Whoopi Goldberg is the queen (an opinionated lady who makes squeaking noises of dismay), and Jason Alexander (best known as George Costanza on Seinfeld) is a royal servant with an Italian-ish accent and a song-and-dance number about the upcoming ball.

Paolo Montalban is cute as the prince, and Brandy Norwood plays a lovely, fragile-looking, and sometimes vacant-looking Cinderella. I like how, even before the prince finds her at the end, she decides to leave home, knowing that she deserves a better life than the one she has with her stepmother and stepsisters.

Title: How to Steal a Million (1966)
Director: William Wyler
Language: English and some French
Rating: Not rated

This movie has the absurdity of a screwball comedy. The leads, Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, associate under highly improbable circumstances and look beautiful while doing so. (O'Toole is so damn charming here. Reminds me a little of Peter Wimsey - intelligent, doesn't appear to take much seriously, but is more serious than he appears.)

Anyway, Hepburn plays Nicole, the daughter of an art forger who passes himself off as an art collector. He's a Wizard of Oz type of scoundrel. One thing leads to another, and Nicole realizes that to keep her father's crimes from being discovered, she'll have to steal a statue he loaned to a museum. Simon (Peter O'Toole's character) arrives on the scene as a burglar who may be able to help her. Or so she thinks.

Week in Seven Words #474

coincide
Bumping into someone with the same last name, whose first name is different from mine by just one letter, and whose dad's name is the same as my grandfather's name.

ebullient
At the board game cafe, we're packed with our puffy coats and bags on benches around long, narrow tables. Beer bottles are placed at easy elbowing distance. One guy, red from drink and heat, roars with laughter at every suggestion that comes up in Cards Against Humanity.

importune
Panhandlers press through the crowds outside of bars and nightclubs.

indoors
Rain in white slashes on the window. It's cozy indoors, just us, speaking little and sharing food.

inscrutable
She's a poet, her business card tells me. She says little about herself, and in that way becomes imbued with poetic mystery.

physiognomy
After dinner, they pass the time with Snapchat filters, forming images of elves, goblin aliens, and victims of demonic possession.

smoothen
The restaurant is clean and unostentatiously elegant. It has dark wood paneling and surfaces that glow with intimate lighting. The food is arranged in neat, stiff patterns on spotless plates.

Week in Seven Words #441

balconies
I walk past compact homes with cute balconies. On each balcony, there's a small circular table kept company by a pair of empty chairs – many little scenes set for conversations outdoors at sunset, a drink in hand, a view of the sleepy street.

bland
The shopping center is cold, clean, and gleaming. It has a vague cologne smell and an atmosphere of emptiness.

curiously
The sunflower peeks into the rear windshield of the SUV.

insightful
Sometimes, the people who understand me best are authors I've never met.

regression
I stay out of the discussion because of the rampant infantilization. The participants generally want to scream their point of view without hearing a bit of disagreement. Disagreement makes them feel bad. In the course of their tantrums, they threaten people's jobs, reputations, and safety.

scurry
When I step out the back entrance of the building at night, a rat immediately scurries past my feet, brushing the tips with its body. It disappears into the shrubs and not through the open door, I think.

toppling
At the gym, a man listens to a comedy podcast while doing yoga. He keeps laughing and falling out of position.

Funny Songs from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

I don't watch this show, but someone sent me the first clip, which made me laugh. It starts out like a typical inspiring song about facing your fears and goes on to become a series of terrible suggestions.


I found this second clip from the show - a hardcore electronic dance music video about someone getting ready for guests.

Two Very Different Movies That Both Show a Room Full of Mannequins

Title: The Band Wagon (1953)
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Language: English
Rating: Not rated

The Band Wagon is a musical about people making a musical, and the leads - Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse - are amazing dancers. They aren't strong actors, so when they have to convince the audience their characters are falling in love, they can't do it through dialogue. There's one dance - filmed in the park and called 'Dancing in the Dark' - that does it, because of how they flow together, with Charisse's balletic grace and strength mesmerizing.

Another dance number, 'The Girl Hunt,' is a musical parody of film noir and hard-boiled detective stories. Astaire plays the tough detective (which is funny in and of itself), and Charisse plays both a helpless-seeming blonde and a dangerous brunette. There's some amazing dancing in this number, and a room full of mannequins at one point. 'The Girl Hunt' is both ridiculous and riveting. (If you're a fan of Michael Jackson's music, you might like to know that his music video for "Smooth Criminal" took inspiration from Astaire's suit and the scene at the nightclub from 'The Girl Hunt.')

Another notable musical number - 'The Triplets' - features Astaire, Nanette Fabray, and Jack Buchanan as triplet babies. They wear baby gowns and dance on their knees. (I'm not making this up.) The lyrics are also funny. These are violent babies who rhyme cleverly.

Fabray, who has great presence and sings wonderfully, should have been in more musical scenes. At least she's part of the group singing 'That's Entertainment,' the most famous of the songs from the movie. This isn't a movie that takes itself seriously. It's silly and full of music and dance talent (ballet, jazz dance, a tap routine in top hat and tails). A really enjoyable movie.

Week in Seven Words #346

inhaling
At different points in the hike, we smell heavy flowering shrubs, a days-old tuna fish and banana odor from the waste treatment facilities, throat-scorching exhaust fumes, the cleanness of salt water and suntan lotion.

pastels
The homes are in cream, peach, and plum colors. They overlook a river that has a silver sheen in the mid-day sun. Hibiscus shrubs line the paths, and swan-shaped flower pots nestle in the shade.

rib-tickling
We try ballroom dancing one evening, and we laugh much more than we dance.

self-contained
She's a silent, steady hiker. She wears headphones and walks at an unvarying pace.

settings
There's a story wherever we look - off the shores of the island, there was a boat accident that killed hundreds, and in the shade of a massive bridge, a grove of trees has been planted as a gift from a foreign prince.

spray-painted
Most of the graffiti images are cartoon characters and portraits of local residents. They stare at bricked-up warehouse windows and smile across unused train tracks.

wetlands
For neighborhoods along the shore, the marshes offer different kinds of protection. They help filter pollutants. They reduce erosion and flooding. They're a bit of nature stitched to the fringes of a city.

Week in Seven Words #338

ballerina
All of the dancers are talented, but one in particular has presence. She creates a mesmerizing character, and even when she isn't moving, she commands attention.

carrying
When possible, I don't use a purse. I like a small colorful backpack, secured on both shoulders and well-stocked.

distracted
The theater is dark, and she's bored. Her phone casts a square of white light that irritates other people, but gives her a pleasant scroll through all the headlines and texts that have cropped up in the last hour.

feat
With some of the dancers, the effort is obvious. They can't hide a straining muscle or how a limb struggles to extend. Beside them dance the ones who seem to need no effort.

jester
I want to make her laugh, so I do a chicken dance and jazz hands.

menace
They reach over the railing to pet the horse in the enclosure. A park ranger warns them off. "It bites," he says. They immediately back off. The horse remains still, revealing nothing.

skimming
Insects glide over the sand like silvery sci-fi drones.

Sound familiar?

"I see you when you're sleeping..."

Before I go off to light the first Hanukkah candle, I wanted to share this, as it gave me a much-needed laugh earlier this week. Happy holidays, folks.

Week in Seven Words #303

discounted
I don't think her sense of humor gets appreciated enough. She isn't the designated "fun one," so in the typical all-or-nothing fashion, her loved ones dismiss her as no fun at all.

disintegrate
The ceiling comes apart in flakes like dandruff across the bathtub and sink.

riveting
By the end of dinner, I'm not sure what color his eyes are, as they were focused mostly on his phone. I should have sent him a text asking.

sets
The tennis ball dimples the net. As the kids practice, their sneakers scritch against the leaves littering the court.

synthetically
The bottle of soda bubbles and glugs as he tips it into his mouth. It looks like he's pouring gasoline into himself, to refuel mid-hike.

visualizing
Confronted by the large rock with the plaque embedded in it, we try to recreate a historic moment in our imagination.

warming
The hike takes us up a steep, leafy incline, on paths baked gold by the late afternoon light. Cloud shadows drift over the cliffs across the river.

Week in Seven Words #297

bleary
Like a bloodshot eye, the moon flickers faintly red through a film of cloud.

computations
I'm running late to meet with a hiking group in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Based on subway travel time estimations, the group's route, their likelihood of heading out 10-15 minutes late, and the speed at which they'll walk, I guess which subway stop to get off of and wind up only a few minutes out of sync with them.

eased
During our conversation she laughs, and then tells me it's the first time she's laughed all day. It feels good to do that for someone.

graphics
I watch them play a soccer video game with graphics so crisp the players look real. There's also real-time commentary, giving the effect of an actual televised game. It's kind of mind-blowing. From my own childhood I remember a small Mario in profile stomping on mushrooms. A Sega Jurassic Park game had more sophisticated graphics, and it let you play as either Alan Grant or a velociraptor (I enjoyed being the velociraptor). But it hits me now, how much games have changed.

latently
I think about the difficulties of writing a 'weak' main character. Someone struggling with some of life's more basic demands. I don't want the character to become too pathetic or seem too hopeless. I also don't want to hit an unchanging note of defeat for pages on end. There's a challenge in making a character enervated while keeping the story dynamic. And even in the character's weakness, one may see the potential for greater strength developing.

packed
Buildings brimming with activity. The balconies filling up. The windows showing faces, silhouettes, and household clutter.

proselytizing
A homeless man and a monk walk on opposite sides of the street. "I belong to an awesome church," the homeless man calls out. "Join my church." "I like my church," says the monk. The homeless man laughs and says, "My church is for everyone. Your church is part of my church." "No," the monk replies, "my church is the one church for everyone."

Week in Seven Words #294

conferring
To his great pleasure, he gets to roam around with kids a year or two older. They accept him without condescension and pay attention to his opinions.

goofy
I put on oversized orange glasses, hold an inflatable guitar, and pose for snapshots. It's fun. I like these photos much more than the formal ones.

inebriant
He drinks his way to greater warmth and friendliness. His smile is relaxed, his voice cheerful. For a few moments, I imagine we're close.

liquescent
With slow, savoring bites, they suck up the gooey center of a fried Oreo cookie.

pad
The speeches are more or less what I expect. The room is mostly silent, and people continue to eat.

territorial
Once they've filled their plates at the buffet table, they don't move. They stand at the table, eating and talking, their elbows bristling as they defend their ill-gotten space.

youngling
I don't know who the kid is, but he's out on the fringes of a parking lot, playing on an embankment dotted in dandelions. No one else is around.

Week in Seven Words #290

guffawing
The three of us on an old couch, laughing until our eyes sting and our stomachs cramp.

maritime
As the bathtub fills, it becomes a sea of rising toys: capsized boats, smiley animals, figurines peering into the soapy deep.

nest
The room doesn't get much direct sunlight. The light that fills it is soft, and partly filtered through branches. On powder-white shelves there are books, seashells, perfumes and lotions, homemade art, flowers, and small gadgets.

nibble
I like the buffet-style meal, where at least ten dishes are spread out on the kitchen counter, and I take a tiny bit of almost everything.

partiality
I read to him for hours, and he gets teased about it. They tell him he's choosing boring books that no one who's older than him could like. For a moment, he looks uncertain. "My books are interesting!" he insists. And I back him up. He shouldn't feel bad about the books he loves. And some of them are interesting, even for adults. Even when they're read more than once.

querying
I like seeing how their understanding of life develops. How they think about their own experiences, make sense of the world, question ideas that don't seem quite right.

zoology
He won't be satisfied if you tell him you saw a shark. He needs to know the kind of shark. Blue shark, lemon shark, whale shark. He even has a reference book that he can't read yet, but that he's had others read to him so many times that he can point you to the right page and have you educate yourself about the proper shark. I learn about animals I didn't even know existed.

Five Older Movies to Watch on Valentine's Day

Or on other days. I watched these in the last year and a half, and have been meaning to write about them. This list is an excuse to. They're all quite different from each other, and make an interesting mix.

Title: The African Queen (1951)
Director: John Huston
Language: English (and a little German and Swahili)
Rating: PG

This is a fun, uncomplicated movie set in German East Africa during the start of World War I. Charlie Allnut (Humphrey Bogart) is a grungy, adorably monkey-faced Canadian steamboat captain who delivers mail and other supplies in the area. Rose Sayer (Katharine Hepburn) is a stern and decorous British missionary who needs to get out of German territory.

In Charlie, there are echoes of previous characters Bogart has played - men who want to sit out a war and stay neutral. Rose, on the other hand, is determined to use Charlie's steamboat to make an unexpected strike at the Germans. Hepburn combines in her the spirit of a warrior with the demeanor of a prim spinster. She and Allnut fall in love, and their wedding ceremony is funny (and brief). Along with Hepburn and Bogart's performances, another reason to watch the movie is that it was filmed mostly in Africa, with great difficulty.

Title: Design for Living (1933)
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Language: English (and some French)
Rating: Unrated

A good Lubitsch movie is like champagne. In this one, Gilda Farrell (Miriam Hopkins) illustrates ads for a living and meets two impoverished artists on a train: a painter, George Curtis (Gary Cooper), and a playwright, Tom Chambers (Frederic March), who is quick to tell her, "I write unproduced plays. I'm very good at that kind." She becomes their critic, driving them towards commercial success. She's also deeply attracted to them, finding it difficult to choose one over the other, and who can blame her. As the movie progresses, the question changes from which one of them she should choose to why can't she have them both.

Design for Living is good-natured, witty, risqué, and really funny. Gilda has one other suitor in the movie, Max Plunkett (Edward Everett Horton), who presents a safe, respectable and also soul-killing choice, as they have no compatibility. Should someone settle for safety as a mere escape from difficult decisions and intriguing, unconventional possibilities?

Week in Seven Words #277

accumulation
Ten open jars are spread out on her table, including two for peanut butter and one for pickles. A newspaper lies folded in half in front of her chair, next to a crusty fork and a lid that doesn't fit any of the jars.

beaming
The waiter is one of the most charismatic people we've ever met. When he glides up to our table, we kind of forget about the food. Radiant with warmth and good humor, he grins, tells jokes, offers vivid descriptions of dessert. We would pay him to eat with us.

cyclic
The boy hits replay again on Abbott & Costello's "Who's on First" routine.

echolocation
We're lost in a white hallway with a white-and-black checkered floor. "I'm here," says his disembodied voice, its path distorted by sharp turns and the high ceiling over the corkscrew stairs.

imploringly
She refuses only because she likes to hear us plead with her.

patzer
The dog slips between me and the chess board, her tail sweeping pieces off as she stares at me with a solemn expression.

relinquishing
The house belongs now to someone else. The tree she planted may be ripped out or cut down. Few people remember the work she put into that yard.

Intense Competition in Chamber Music

This is awesome - the "Competitive Foursome" by Salut Salon.

Two Ealing comedies with Alec Guinness

It's a shame that most people only know of Alec Guinness as Obi Wan Kenobi. He looked the part and delivered his lines with gravity ("I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced"). But he could have played Obi Wan in his sleep; it wasn't his most interesting or entertaining role.

Guinness was a fine dramatic actor, and he also did wonderfully well in comedy. The following are two movies showcasing his comedic talents, both movies made by Ealing Studios after WWII.

An Amy Schumer Reality TV Spoof

Dragonballs: Harry Potter as a much different movie...

Not only is this funny, it's also a good example of excellent video editing skills.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944): What's in the wine and in the window seat?

Title: Arsenic and Old Lace
Director: Frank Capra
Language: English
Rating: Not Rated

"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops."

So says Mortimer Brewster (Cary Grant), a drama critic who at the start of the movie gets married to Elaine Harper (Priscilla Lane) after years of confirmed bachelorhood. En route to their honeymoon, they stop by the house of Mortimer's kindly old aunts, Abby (Josephine Hull) and Martha (Jean Adair), who are known in their community as generous women, donating toys to poor children, visiting the sick, and performing other charitable acts.

As Mortimer discovers, after a look under their window seat in the front parlor, their idea of charity also includes killing off lonely old men. It takes some time for Mortimer to wrap his head around the fact that his aunts could be doing this.

Mortimer: What happened to him?!
Martha: He died.
Mortimer: Look, Aunt Martha, men don't just get into window seats and die!
Abby: Look now, dear, he died first.

Up until that point, Mortimer had assumed his family's madness was confined to his older brother, Teddy (John Alexander), who believes he's Teddy Roosevelt - and that his family's darker impulses were confined to his other brother Jonathan (Raymond Massey), a sadist who hasn't been seen in 20 years (but of course will show up, with Peter Lorre in tow to up the creep factor).

Meantime, Elaine - who doesn't know what's going on - is wondering why Mortimer suddenly seems so absent-minded and panicky, so unready to embark on their life of wedded bliss. (When there are too many bats in the family belfry, is wedded bliss possible?)


"Arsenic And Old Lace Poster". Via Wikipedia.
Priscilla Lane has a thankless role as a woman who spends most of the movie getting shoved aside and bodily carried out of rooms. As for Cary Grant, his performance took some getting used to because it was too hammy (like, huge double-takes and expressions of HUH?). The other actors, especially Hull, Adair, Massey and Alexander, were spot-on in their roles. Also, Jack Carson in the role of a friendly but oblivious policeman.

It's a strange, funny dark comedy, which frays at the end like many comedies. There are hilarious scenes, numerous twists, and jokes that take time to develop and pay off. Fun for any time of year, but especially Halloween, if like me you prefer to avoid gory slasher/monster movies.