Coming in at #2 on my list of nearest and dearest holiday movies is the 1988 Richard Donner opus Scrooged. As with Christmas Vacation, this is a movie from my youth-slash-young-adulthood, and just as Patton Oswalt says that you'll eternally love the music you were listening to when you first started getting laid, I suppose I look back on this Dickensian update with rose colored, round-like-the-kind-Gerardo-wore-in-Rico-Suave-type glasses. (Sure, part of that prepubescent uniform includes a moustache, acne and a mullet, but we best not mention such vulgarities in the harsh light of today.)
Sure, there are lots of versions of A Christmas Carol out there
(the next best being Mickey's Christmas Carol, of course), but given the modern setting, the uniquely drawn characters and the somewhat-heavy-handed but effective-nonetheless critique of contemporary media culture, anointing this particular permutation is an eggnoggin no brainer.
A word about Bill Murray: brilliant. Has any actor been able to pull off cool, smug, heartless indifference to anyone besides himself to better effect (on film and in not real life, anyway)? He wallows in his role as Frank Cross, a man so hardened by corporate circumstances and white collar greed that his insistence that everything that gets televised should be louder, violent-er, sexier and envelope-pushing-er is downright prescient. His eyebrows and his hairline alone make me giggle in this movie, though maybe for different reasons. And he also makes evil just so damn funny.
To wit, the scene where he fires Bobcat Goldthwait. Tell me you're not both repulsed by the firing but also kinda rooting for Frank to fire Eliot within his alloted timeframe:
Sure, there are lots of versions of A Christmas Carol out there
(the next best being Mickey's Christmas Carol, of course), but given the modern setting, the uniquely drawn characters and the somewhat-heavy-handed but effective-nonetheless critique of contemporary media culture, anointing this particular permutation is an eggnoggin no brainer.A word about Bill Murray: brilliant. Has any actor been able to pull off cool, smug, heartless indifference to anyone besides himself to better effect (on film and in not real life, anyway)? He wallows in his role as Frank Cross, a man so hardened by corporate circumstances and white collar greed that his insistence that everything that gets televised should be louder, violent-er, sexier and envelope-pushing-er is downright prescient. His eyebrows and his hairline alone make me giggle in this movie, though maybe for different reasons. And he also makes evil just so damn funny.
To wit, the scene where he fires Bobcat Goldthwait. Tell me you're not both repulsed by the firing but also kinda rooting for Frank to fire Eliot within his alloted timeframe:
Murray turns that smirk on, sets about his amoral business, and by god, I'm cheering for him to fire the poor (/well-intentioned) sap. This is either good filmmaking and acting, or I'm a wicked, wicked man. And I choose to believe the former.
Today, anyway.
There's bunches I'm not mentioning--Karen Allen in her second best performance, David Johansen as a hilarious Ghost/cabbie , cameos by Miles Davis(!) and Jamie Farr, a heartfelt/cheesy televised speech and some legitimately terrifying, claustrophobic scenes--but suffice it to say I look back on Scrooged with more than a little love in my heart.
Best quotes:
Today, anyway.
There's bunches I'm not mentioning--Karen Allen in her second best performance, David Johansen as a hilarious Ghost/cabbie , cameos by Miles Davis(!) and Jamie Farr, a heartfelt/cheesy televised speech and some legitimately terrifying, claustrophobic scenes--but suffice it to say I look back on Scrooged with more than a little love in my heart.
Best quotes:
- You're a hallucination, brought on by Russian vodka poisoned by Chernobyl!
- A towel AND a facecloth.
- I know what you came for. Come and get it, you pussy.
- I've never liked a girl enough to give her 12 sharp knives.
- In fact, he just said that you were a flatulating butthead.
- For a couple of hours out of the whole year we are the people that we always hoped we would be.
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