Movie Night: A Christmas Carol

There are over forty versions of "A Christmas Carol" and so I am offering my ideas as to which I prefer.  This is a work in progress and I will add reviews when I see another one.

**  "A Christmas Carol, The Movie" 2001.  I must admit, this is not me favorite version.  It does have Kate Winslett as a love interest to scrooge and she sings beautifully, but it doesn't have much else to recommend it.  It has a non animated section, which I enjoyed.  It showed Charles Dickens traveling to America, and reading the story with some changes. This part was well done.  When he tells the story it is animated.  The movie adds two mice, with the motivation of attracting children to see the show.  The mice just seem obnoxious to me and don't add anything.  In fact the change the tempo of the action.  The animation seems poorly done, although there is a long list of animators.  This is not the version I would pick to see.

***^ A Christmas Carol 1984 with George C. Scott of Patton fame.  Scot is a better Patton than a Scrooge.

Made for t.v. ****A Christmas Carol 1999 with  Patrick Stewart.  In all the viewing I have don, this is the one that takes first place for me.  Patrick Stewart is superb.  The movie is choppy at places with stops made for commercial breaks, but the characters come through.  The first ghost was not a woman and I thought this fit perfectly with the character.  The change was done a believable fashion.

*^A Christmas Carol 2008, animated.  This movie as shorter, and just missed the feeling of the story.  It had animated animals portraying the parts, and was two inmature for my taste. 

***Christmas Carol 2009, animated.  This is the Disney version with Jim Carrey.  The characters are so real with their animation, which is their strength and down fall.  It is just too much over done with the new animations.  It makes the characters scary, much to scary for children, and sometimes for me.  I cannot watch this with Tony

**Scrooge 1970.  This is a musical version featuring Albert Finney and Alec Guiness.  When I realized it was a musical, I had my doubts, and those doubts were confirmed.  How could Scrooge be a singer?  Although I enjoyed hi "I hate people."  I did not like the songs at the end, "I love Christmas" which turned into a big production numbers, just to have one it seemed.  Scrooge played Santa to the Crachetts, which didn't work for me as it was too drastic a change.  The anonymous Scrooge is more to my liking.  Alec Guiness lived up to his being a master of disguise, but his character seemed like a robot rather than a ghost.

*Scrooged 1988  Bill Murry as a t.v. executive.  This I give my lowest marks.  This movie was just too irreverent.  The only thing I found funny was Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim and her doing a tumbling run after being healed.

****A Christmas Carol: Scrooge 1951  This movie is available through Netflix DVD.  It stars Alistair Sim as Scrooge.  It is really the penultimate Christmas Carol in terms of telling the complete story.  Other versions cut short Christmas Past, but this does not.  It gives much more breadth to the story as a result.  The other ghosts also show more scenes than other versions.

Christmas Movies:

I am writing reviews of Christmas movies.  I try to watch at least one a day during the season, and also read Christmas stories.  I will be adding at least one review a day.  All of these movies are from Instant Netflix unless I note otherwise. 

*^ "The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas" 1973, Casey Kasem as the narrator and Tom Smothers as Ted E. Bear.  This movie was mostly just filler, and a sort of silly story.  I thought it was a top 40 show with the narrator's voice.  It was written for small children.  Ted E. Bear believes in Christmas.  The other bears do not as they always sleep through it.  Ted E. Bear is determined to find Christmas.  Santa advises him. "Christmas is that certain glow that just can't be defined; That happy, happy feeling that you get inside when you are kind."

** "Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special"  This would have gotten more stars if there was lest swearing (although it is bleeped) and less sexual innuendo.  However the music with guitar guy and "Night Before Christmas" reading are very funny.

No stars  "A Christmas Too Many"  I only got through 5 minutes and was presented with homosexual innuendo and an "f" bomb and decided this wasn't the Christmas movie for me.

Christmas Classics volume I shows several different shorts:
*** "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer."  This is a very old version, and begins with a singing of the song.  This story reminds one of how cruel we can sometimes be to others.  Sometimes when someone is different, we treat them in a poor way.  This can be especially true of children at times, but I hope we can rise above this.  In Rudolph, Santa's needing his help on a foggy night does the trick.
  ** "Santa's Surprise."  This movie depicts children in a positive light.  They have caught rides on Santa's Sleigh and visit the North Pole to clean his house while he is sleeping.  There are children from all over the world.  The movie uses caricatures of different ethnic groups.  The African American boy is in black face and shines shoes, The Polynesian girl is topless, the Chinese boy does laundry.  However it makes fun of everyone as a cartoon is suppose to do.  The Dutch boy is the bungler with his wood shoes that make noise and he is always bumping into things.  They get the job done and leave a hint for him to visit them again next year.
 *^ "Christmas Comes but Once a Year'  This short is of an orphanage where all the Christmas toys are hand me downs, and break quickly.  An inventor happens by, takes the part of Santa Clause, making toys out of household items.  I only wonder what they will do without any household utensils for the next year.
* "Snow Foolin'" "With these prices who can afford Florida says the bird who didn't migrate for the winter."
* "Hector's Hectic Live", Dog trouble.
* "Jack Frost"  A baby grizzly runs from home and gets caught by Jack Frost.  A kind elf saves him and takes him home.
* The Shanty Where Shanty Clause Lives" 
* "Somewhere in Dreamland"
** "The Night Before Christmas" If you like the poem you'll like this movie, although it is a bit slow.
****  "A Charlie Brown Christmas"    This is a movie I grew up with.  It came out in 195, when I was eight.  Through my teen year the group of kids I hung with had a thing for Charlie Brown.  We would share his comics before school as the bus landed us a few minutes early.  And this is one of those shorts I have enjoyed my entire life.  Before video, I would look forward to the showing of this every year, and always try not to miss it.  I love when the sing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing."  I love Schroeder's music.  And I love Linus reciting the Christmas story.  This is a movie that makes Christmas season better.
***  "It's Christmastime Again, Charlie Brown"  Same character with a few new ones, but not the same pizazz.  Story is only mildly amusing and is mostly a forum for Peanuts Comic Strip lines.
****The Coat  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp3IH8ZNviQ If this does not get you in the true mood of Christmas, nothing will.  A story from the life of Heber J. Grant.
***^ Christmas Angel 2009.  I think I saw this one on t.v. but I can't remember which channel.  It was actually an enjoyable made-for-t.v. Christmas movie.  It featured a story of people struggling to get through and being  brought together by a secret Santa.   Of course there are some bumps along the way, such as the attitude of the guy in the story, but it works out well in the end.

Christmas Letter 2011

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope everyone has enjoyed this past year and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

The biggest family news of this year is that we moved from Cupertino to Manteca, California. We have been here for about nine months and so far we love it. We bought a beautiful home that we love living in. Billy is still working as a Social Worker in San Jose so he takes a two hour train ride there and back every weekday. Manteca is located in the Central Valley and we have had to get used to the different climate, but we still love it here. However, even though we are making new friends we sure miss the Stevens Creek Ward and other friends in Cupertino.

Natalia and Ty just celebrated their three year anniversary and are enjoying married life. They are still in Rexburg, ID. Ty is finishing up his last year at school while Natalia is teaching 1st grade in Idaho Falls. Over the summer Ty had an internship in Stockton, California so they spent the first part of the summer here in Manteca with us.

Mark is in Logan, UT. He and Liz are expecting a baby in early December. (His name will be Elliott) He is in his last year at Utah State where he is studying Anthropology.. He also transferred to a Utah division of the Marine Corps this summer.

Jeremy is also in Logan, UT and just got accepted to Utah State University in the Engineering program. (Aerospace Engineering)  He has been working at The Blue Bird in the kitchen and is the chief roll maker.

Charity and Anthony have survived their first year of marriage and seem to be enjoying everyday of it. They also relocated to Turlock, which is not that far from Manteca. Anthony is going to school at CSU Stanislaus studying Kinesiology.  Charity graduated from Cosmetology School in June and passed the State Board in August.

Miranda graduated from High School in June and has been nannying to earn money for college. She wants to go into Medical Administration and study at BYU-Idaho. She lives at home and is going to the singles' ward in our stake. She still loves playing the piano and works on improving her talent everyday.

Caleb is a Junior at Sierra High School. He has been enjoying his new school and especially likes his Physics class. He spends a lot of time with his girlfriend and her family. He has made a lot of new friends since we moved. He helped plan our Stake Youth Conference.

Tony has grown a lot over the past year. He tends to say some pretty hilarious, but smart, things on a daily basis. He is getting ready to go to Kindergarten next year and learning his colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. He has learned to write his name and other letters. He has a couple of friends in our ward that he enjoys having play dates with.

This year we did something new and got an exchange student for a month over the summer. She was from Spain and we really enjoyed having her here with us for that month. We enjoyed it so much that we got another exchange student from Brazil. His name is Tiago and he is here for the school year.

We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We love you all and wish you the best. We love our Savior, Jesus Christ, and are glad to have this time of year to celebrate His birth.

With love,
The Wardles

Moview Night: ***Sunday in the Park with George; *^Solitary; ***Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

"Sunday in the Park With George" I got through NETFLIX.  I would have scored this movie higher, but tired of listening to Bernadette Peters say "George." I don't know how many times she said this, but it was too many.  This movie stars Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin in two roles.  The songs are intriguing.  "The hat" grows on you, and his singing of the colors is fascinating.  But the song I most enjoyed is "Move On:"
Stop worrying where you're going-
Move on
If you can know where you're going
You've gone
Just keep moving on

I chose, and my world was shaken-
So what?
The choice may have been mistaken,
The choosing was not
You have to move on

Look at what you want,
Not at where you are,
Not at what you'll be-
Look at all the things you've done for me

Opened up my eyes,
Taught me how to see,
Notice every tree-


...Just keep moving on
Anything you do
Let it come from you
Then it will be new
Give us more to see...

Beautiful!

"Solitary" is available through Netlix Instant.  This is a strange movie about a woman who loses her husband, and the twist in the end is that she is really in a coma.  Sort of strange.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" I saw on Dish USA Network and recording it so I could skip the commercials.  I had never seen it before.  If I compared it to the other Indiana Jones films it comes up a bit flat.  However if I compare it to other action adventures it is a fun romp.  I especially like it that the bring in a son, and a marriage at the end.  The parallel universe left me a bit flat.  It is gong of the theme that the gods are aliens.

Ace Train 14: Caltrain Train Barn

On of the most impressive things along the train route, is the CalTrain Barn.  This is just before Diridon Station in San Jose.  CalTrain goes from Gilroy to San Francisco, and runs parallel with the Ace Train for a few miles just before Santa Clara Station to Diridon Station.  The train barn has facilities to clean the trains, and barns for where they can work on the trains.  It is really quite impressive.  It would make Thomas jealous.