For a while now, I've wondered why there haven't been too many new
Christmas movies that stand out as being "exceptional" or have the potential to
become classics.
The article in Esquire by S.T. VanAirsdale really caught my attention
and has perfect timing considering we're already in the holiday/Christmas
season.
VanAirsdale starts off with a great line about asking people what
their favorite Christmas movies are. After that conversation has been
"exhausted" he asks what they consider to be the worst Christmas movies of all
time. The list grows exponentially.
I would have to say this feature deals with entertainment; after all
we are discussing movies. Most people love good movies (although there are some
of us that enjoy movies that are so terrible they're good.)
VanAirsdale starts the feature off with a great example. Everyone has
been in that weird situation at a holiday party when someone asks what the
best/worst of some genre of movie is.
He follows it up with how Hollywood attempted, and still attempts, to churn
out movies that will either touch the soul or give you a good laugh as a
family. They may succeed in one or both areas, but they fail year after year to
make a Christmas classic.
VanAirsdale is right on the money, there aren't very many good Christmas movies as it is, so why add more bad movies to the list? As consumers, we should demand more
innovation and imagination not only from Hollywood, but also from ourselves. Sooner
or later a great Christmas movie will come out and become a classic. The only
problem with that is that we love to be entertained, don't want to wait for it
and if it's not good, we want a refund.
First off, I like your conversational tone! It makes you sound a little more informal and understandable--I guess what I like when I read blogs.
I really like this feature because of the obvious relevance to the season (which you pointed out). I also like that the feature uses a lot of examples of films when it talks a/b the bad, and the ugly of Hollywood cinema. You already did point out the kinds of movies they mention, so maybe it would be easy to mention some of the film titles used in the feature as well. I really agree with your take on the feature though. I think the feature is pretty self-explanatory so I agree with your interpretation, but I like that you were able to still set your own voice apart from the author's to have your own opinion, too. I agree, I do hold higher standards for Christmas movies!
Reading the feature was really fun. We can all relate to the author's thoughts. We've all seen horrible Christmas movies and at the same time we all have our favorite classic. I think we stick with the few classic holiday movies purely because of the nostalgia factor. For most people who celebrate Christmas, it's about tradition, and that means we do the same thing every year, i.e. watch It's a Wonderful Life. Hollywood keeps producing Christmas-themed movies because we feel comfortable with them. Even if they're bad.
Good choice of an article, you address it well. Your blog post is casual, but in a stylistic manner. You make some good points, like the fact that we love to be entertained and are upset if we're not, which is the case with most Christmas movies.
That was a very interesting article, and since I am a minor in film study this article also caught my attention. I do agree with the authors take on what Christmas and holiday films have become these days, the last good holiday film I did see was Elf. Yet year after year the movie industry feels like they need to crank out holiday movie after holiday movie.
I enjoyed reading your blog on this article. I also believe, like you do, that the movie industry needs to look itself in the mirror and come up with some good holiday movies. Not just movies they produce solely because they think they have to. I want another classic to come out like The Christmas Story, but I don't believe I will ever see anything as classic as that movie ever again.
This was a very good feature. VanAirsdale writes an accurate assessment on the current state of holiday movies. His conclusion is that modern holiday movies lack imagination, exclusively focusing on exaggerated family joy. VanAirsdale suggests that holiday movies should begin to examine the human psyche's unique reaction to the commercial holiday season.
The blogger does a great job analyzing the feature. I agree that the author's introduction is amazing and really sets the tone for the rest of the story.