What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Rudolph the red nosed reindeer is such an awesomely cruel film.

It's an awesome film in general. No, seriously.

It's odd to me that the really quite progressive messages were never really picked up on or made a big deal of. Herbie is so very clearly intended to be gay that it is almost a caricature. Dentist my ass. That had nothing to do with his marginalization.

It also had some pretty harsh messages about parental expectations...Rudolph's dad is such an ass...and he's the coach. It's almost Mommie Dearest but with male reindeers.

There is even a little proto-punk reindeer...Fireball!

I adore it...we've watched it like 20 times since Thanksgiving and I have probably watched it at least 70 times over 40 years.

Last year the Atlanta Center for Puppetry Arts did a live show of it...it was adorable. They actually have some of the puppets from the show in their museum. I cried the first time I saw them. They are way smaller than you might imagine.

Rankin-Bass rules.

Every year I tell you people this- watch their very last Christmas special. It came out in 1986 and it's called The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, based on an L. Frank Baum story. It's a weird cross of Masters of the Universe, a very pagan read on Santa, and Oz-like fantasy. It was kind of "lost" for many years and for a while I wondered if I imagined it. But it's available on DVD now through Warner Archives.

It is fascinating how un-christian all the material is, even earlier stuff, that's a good point. We have a 4 dvd holiday set that I think is all rankin-bass.

Just watched John Wick a second time. Those action scenes...wow

Black Barney wrote: Just watched John Wick a second time. Those action scenes...wow

I really enjoyed John Wick. Great action scenes, and a touch of excellent world building. Those gold coins? The Continental? The "Dinner Appointments"? Fantastic.

Yeah, what the heck are the dinner appointments anyway, never figured that out.

Love the world building too, what a total surprise

Rudolph should have told Jolly Old St. Prick that he could take his giant bag of toys and shove them straight up his ass.

I was laid out with the flu last week, and among the stuff I watched was Die Hard and Die Hard With a Vengeance. My wife likes 'Vengeance' more than she does the original. I guess that just confirms what marrying me says about her taste, or lack thereof.

Black Barney wrote:

Yeah, what the heck are the dinner appointments anyway, never figured that out.

That's where you request the cleaner guy to come round up the bodies.

Rankin Bass The Thing

I learned two things yesterday:

1) The Ant Man movie is awesome.
2) Baskin Robbins don't play.