davidh777

Pick the movie for weekly discussion in week 4 (Nov. 22-30) of the 2016 Comedy Challenge. The theme is holiday, overlapping with the Holiday Challenge. All selections are on Netflix, but not Prime.

Christmas with the Kranks
Last Holiday
Love Actually
Scrooged
While You Were Sleeping
White Christmas

Darth Maher

Wow, that's a tough one. It was a toss up between:

Christmas with the Kranks
Love Actually
While You Were Sleeping

But I voted While You Were Sleeping since I'll probably forget to watch that in December. lol

Trevor

I'd be happy with any of them, but Scrooged is one of my top 5 comedies of all-time, maybe even #2.

davidh777

Confession: I don't believe I've seen Kranks, Last Holiday, or Scrooged.

That's the thing, I'm sure I'll be watching White Christmas and Love Actually anyway, but maybe that would make for better conversation!

OK, that begs the question... Holy Grail?

Trevor

Ding ding ding!

TheBigDave

I voted for Love Actually, which is the only one I haven't seen. But I'll probably watch them all during the Christmas Challenge. So it doesn't matter to me.

Actually, I should have done a write-in vote for The Ref. I've been wanting to watch that for a while.

shadokitty

I first saw While You Were Sleeping, at movie night in college and enjoyed it, so that gets my vote.

LJG765

You should try to watch the Last Holiday. I'm not sure which one was nominated, but I really enjoy the more recent, Queen Latifah version. The older one is pretty good too, but probably because I saw the modern version first, that's the one I think of.

Have to admit, Scrooged is not a favorite of mine. I just kind of want to slap Bill Murray.

BobO'Link

[QUOTE=davidh777;12949721]Confession: I don't believe I've seen Kranks, Last Holiday, or Scrooged.
The first time I watched Scrooged I was all "OK... another lame retelling of "A Christmas Carol."" But every time I watch it I like it better. It's now my favorite version of the story, other than the 1938 A Christmas Carol with Reginald Owen and Gene Lockhart (yes, I like it much better than the 1951 Alastair Sim version).

I've never seen Last Holiday.

While I like Christmas with the Kranks, and consider it to be one of the better modern Christmas films, I'd not call a classic.

Darth Maher

I haven't seen Kranks either. I read Skipping Christmas (and liked it) but when the movie came out, the changes they they appeared to make made it seem like a generic holiday movie. Now, that many years have passed, I'll probably give it chance. I've been meaning to for a few years now, just never got around to watching it.

davidh777

This is probably not the place to admit that I didn't even know Queen Latifah was a remake, or I would've put the year in the poll. (I was going to include the 1994 Miracle on 34th Street, but it was lacking the proper genre classifications.) I like British movies but I'm a little lacking on Alec Guinness' older stuff, including the Ealings.



I think this means we're spending too much time together on the forum.

BobO'Link

Don't feel bad. I'm familiar with the Ealing films as well as Alec Guinness but have never heard of this film. Not even the remake (but her stuff it totally off my radar). I now have a copy dropped in my Amazon cart and will likely purchase one before Christmas. My favorite Christmas films are generally those made before ~1960.

davidh777

In general, I don't allow myself too much guilt, but I have a friend who's often going on about classic movies and recently admitted never having seen It's a Wonderful Life! And she's not a too-cool-for-popular-stuff hipster, either--just one of those things.

LJG765

Happy to help spread some awareness for the original Last Holiday! I stumbled across it when I worked at Borders in the DVD section. I noticed it mainly because it was part of the Essential Art House line as I was had just learned about Criterion and what that was. Read the back and realized it was the original to the Queen Latifah one, so bought it. I enjoyed it but like I said, I like the Queen Latifah version better. I should do a comparison this year as it's been a while since I've watched either.

It's really only since I joined the forum several years ago and started doing the challenges that I've really dived into pre-1970s films. I still prefer later movies, but I've definitely found a few gems that I would never have if I had stuck to movies made within my lifetime. A friend of mine who is not a big movie watcher showed me Holiday Inn one year and now I try to watch it every Christmas. I know I've said this a few times but that's the real reason I do these challenges...I love finding something I never would have watched on my own and finding something that I loved.

davidh777

I'm a big Fred Astaire fan so I knew Holiday Inn before White Christmas, and I still like to be a snob and refer to the latter as "the color remake." Over the years, I've gradually started watching White Christmas more often, because it's still a good film, and friends and family prefer it, but I try to catch Holiday Inn when I can.

Trevor

Inconceivable!

BobO'Link

I still don't know how I've never heard of the original! Growing up I saw *tons* of movies on the local stations and they ran pretty much *all* of the holiday themed ones between Thanksgiving and Christmas, even those lesser "no one's heard of" films. That was mostly in the 60s so I saw *all* of the pre-1960 "classic" holiday films dozens of times, or up until now *thought* I'd seen them all.

I do the challenges more to talk about various films with other film lovers. Most of the people I work with are not and mainly watch whatever is "new" in the theaters and have little knowledge of films not made in their lifetimes. Part of that is simply because TV stations aren't as hungry for content like they were when I was a kid. Back then they'd air whatever they could get and daily movies were good, and inexpensive, time fillers that got good audiences. Having movies available to rent or own changed all that as they could no longer compete with the rental store so movies typically got dropped in favor of syndicated TV programs. That was generally OK but it made it more difficult for kids to develop knowledge of older movies unless they had movie-loving parents. It's just gotten worse as time goes on.

I've seen so many films in my lifetime and have such a huge collection that I've pretty much stopped looking for "new" films and mostly concentrate on getting copies of films I've seen and like or just re-watching my old favorites. I'm at a point that I can do just about any challenge (I think the Criterion is the only one I don't have at least 100 titles available), hit 100 viewings using nothing but my library, and not come anywhere close to viewing all the qualifying titles I own. But I still manage to come away from most challenges with a few "new to me" titles in spite of that. I love introducing my kids, and now grandkids, to those classic films I grew up watching! I've even managed to sway a young co-worker who, until recently, avoided BW films. She now will watch BW films I recommend! And it's all thanks to the Horror Challenge! She watched a few classic BW horror films I insisted she give a chance and liked them. That led to some classic BW comedy films. She's no longer a color snob.
I'm right there with you on White Christmas being "the color remake." I still remember the first time I saw White Christmas (I was ~9 or so) and thought then that it was a remake with just enough story changes to make it seem like a "new" movie. It also had Danny Kaye, who I've never been particularly fond of, giving it another check in the negative column for me. Back then I had no idea it was a color film as I saw it on our BW TV so it was "The Danny Kaye" version. I've never liked it as much as Holiday Inn although I do now watch it most years. My wife prefers Holiday Inn over White Christmas as well.

BobO'Link

Even though I know it won't win I voted for Scrooged as I have a general dislike for most modern romcomdrams, especially those set around Christmas.

davidh777

Your vote just tied the score! I would vote, but I was going to pick Love Actually, which wouldn't help things.