Mrs. RC and I are those lame people who put up our Christmas trees the day after Thanksgiving. We do it because X-Mas is to love as capitalism is to Jesus. Wait, maybe that's not it.
No matter the case, since GS has had eight billion different iterations of forums, the X-Mas movie thread I thought we had is gone. Therefore, since 'Tis the Season, it's only proper we get our yuletide film groove on.
Rather than throw out one big list all at once, I thought we'd take our films one at a time. I'll kick it off with It's a Wonderful Life which became a X-Mas staple because the producers let the copyright expire and it entered the public domain.*
(*This also happend with The Wizard of Oz and, supposedly, Night of the Living Dead, though Romero claims the original distributor "ripped him off" when they didn't put a copyright notice on any prints of the film that went out. This seems sketchy to me, but copyright law was much different in 1968 than it is now, so your guess is good as mine. I do know that Romero only has received residuals for the 1998 Elite Media release of NOTLD. The other estimated $50 million the film has grossed since 1968 has all been pocketed by other distributors. Seriously, if you want to make some money, burn off a bunch of copies of NOTLD and sell them. It's perfectly legal. Fucked up, but true. Anyway, wasn't I talking about It's a Wonderful Life?)
Anyway, you might think it's a dated piece of Christmas fluff, but you'd be wrong, man. There's darkness in this film. George Bailey loses a bunch of his bosses money and is in danger of losing his job and his house and probably his wife and kids. This leads to drunk driving, near abusing his wife and kids, and suicidal thoughts while thinking about leaping over a bridge. Then Clarence the angel comes and shows George what life would have been like without him, and the movie gets darker still.
It's great, only because in the end it's a paean to karma; that if we do the right thing then the right thing will be done by us. Naive? Perhaps, but there's a truthful ring to it. Plus, the way lucky old George falls from grace is heartbreaking, and again, there's a sting of truth to it all; when the fall DOES come, it comes fast and without warning.
I love it, but I'm an idealist. However, if you've never seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it. You won't be disappointed.
