Christmas
emma.simmonds
Flanked by the wonderfully weird tagline, “If this picture doesn’t make your skin crawl…it’s on TOO TIGHT”, 1974’s Black Christmas is amongst the first fully formed slasher pics. Based on a series of murders that took place in Quebec, this Canadian contribution to the festive canon is dripping with seasonal cynicism. From director Bob Clark, Black Christmas sees a psychotic prank caller offing the residents of a sorority house during the Christmas period, and is most famous for the chilling line, “The call is coming from inside the house”.Black Christmas boasts a seriously impressive cast: Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
“I think the Muppets hit a new low.” “Yeah, and his first name’s Cee!” In the hierarchy of Statler and Waldorf’s cutting put-downs it’s more of a turkey than a Christmas cracker, but Cee Lo’s Magic Moment was never supposed to be subtle. The album’s cover art features the soul star, clad in a pink fur coat, playing Santa in a convertible Rolls Royce driven by reindeer and drawn by three white horses. If you peer closely enough, you’ll notice that among the gifts falling from the back of the car are copies of Cee Lo’s previous three albums. That the star has chosen a bombastic pop number based Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Scandinavian countries can duke it out amongst themselves as to which of them Santa Claus is from, but this Finnish claim for being the whiskery fellow’s true home neither makes you want to enter his grotto or sit on his knee. A bizarre and wonderful fantasy, Rare Exports nods to old northern Europe’s Saint Nicholas, the mythical figure meting out punishment to children rather than doling out presents. This is a Santa Claus to be avoided at all costs. And unlike the traditional Saint Nicholas, he’s after all children not just the naughty ones.Set in the far north-east of Finland in Read more ...
Heather Neill
’Tis the season to be jolly. ’Tis also the season to dust off the stories of the Grimms and Perrault and present them as drama, sometimes transmogrified into panto. There are sometimes attempts to go back to source and eschew the tawdry delights of transvestite dames, sparkly leotards and lame rhyming couplets. The source, of course, is often really quite frightening.At the National Theatre, Katie Mitchell directs a sort of half-way house by Lucy Kirkwood “developed at the NT studio”. In this Hansel and Gretel There is no cartoonish dame with a suffocating bosom, but – the cast being small - Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
It’s A Wonderful Life disappointed studio bosses at the box office. Five Oscar chances came to nothing. Gongs and money, however, don’t guarantee a classic and that is what It’s a Wonderful Life is - a film that can restore one's sense of joy within minutes. Set at Christmas (but filmed in the boiling summer of California), this is the film to which audiences return again and again for relief from the woes of life.George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart, fresh from the World War Two) wants to travel but gets sucked up into family and money worries, so much so he thinks the world would be a better place Read more ...
Matthew Paluch
The seasonal Nuts-fest continues (and culminates) with another two to add to the roast – live: English National Ballet’s recent production, and digital: the Mariinsky Theatre’s 3D film version. To the cinema we go. This is the first 3D Nutcracker ever, following the Mariinsky’s 3D Giselle last year – and the screening of dance is a good thing, as few can afford to fly the world over to see a number of Nutcracker productions.The 3D aspect makes the experience more tangible. The best moments are the aerial shots when you feel most interspersed, but as the 1934 Vassily Vainonen version was Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Thank heavens for Christmas, without which where would narrative be? Not that I'm sure Sarah Jessica Parker's uptight, brittle Meredith Morton has much to be thankful for in The Family Stone, as the Manhattan careerist braves her boyfriend's family gathering in New England for what seems destined to be the holiday from hell. Well, until such time as the laws of Tinseltown work their drearily inevitable "magic", and everyone is paired up faster than you can say Manolo Blahnik. In fact, writer-director Thomas Bezucha's 2005 film was intended as a star vehicle for Parker fresh off the phenomenon Read more ...
Jasper Rees
An album full of tunes you’ve been hearing all your life needs to be adept at reinvention. Cerys Matthews has already proved that she has a gift for repackaging the familiar in her enchanting Tir, which anthologises much loved Welsh folk songs and hymns. But then in that intoxicating voice, which breathily suggests both sweetness and transgression, she has just the instrument for sprinkling a fresh coat of fairy dust over, in this case, children’s carols.The pleasure of Baby, It’s Cold Outside: Christmas Classics from Cerys Matthews is also partly in the arrangements. There’s a distinct tinge Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
White Christmas is named so you know that gorgeous song is inside it somewhere. Yes, this is the 12-year-younger and lesser remake of Holiday Inn that also stars Bing Crosby and also features the cry-your-guts-out, I-regret-everything holiday tune by Irving Berlin. The big difference is that in White Christmas, Bing sings along to a music box.The plot centres on Danny Kaye and Bing as a duo of WWII entertainers who find success a decade after the war. Wildly popular, they’re on TV, on Broadway, wherever there’s an audience, that’s where they’ll be. One’s a lady’s man, the other isn’t. Both Read more ...
Matthew Paluch
'Tis the season to be... transported to a magical, mystical extravaganza that will leave your mouth a-gasp, and your festive spirit in overdrive. This is how the lyrics of "Deck the Halls" should read once you’ve been to the Royal Opera House and savoured the Royal Ballet’s Nutcracker.The Sir Peter Wright production (1984) begins in the Stahlbaums’ house with a luxurious upper-class Christmas soiree that sees a whole host of diverse guests present. The most individual of all is Herr Drosselmeyer (Gary Avis), godfather to young Clara Stahlbaum (Meaghan Grace Hinkis) who becomes the Read more ...
Nick Hasted
Joe Dante feeds the idealised small-town America of his producer Spielberg into the mincer of an anarchic Warner Bros. cartoon in this riotous 1984 hit. Chris Walas’s creature designs are crucial to it, as mysterious, lovably big-eyed pet Gizmo spawns scaly-backed lords of impish mayhem the Gremlins. Whether “carol”-singing Jerry Goldsmith’s capering theme or riding the back of the screaming local Santa, as triple-cigarette-puffing barflies or the world’s most anti-social cinemagoers, you soon warm to their tireless delinquency. Teenage hero Zach Galligan’s mum admittedly thinks otherwise as Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
It’s got to be difficult making a Christmas album. Not only are there all the preceding offerings which must weigh heavily, there’s the practical issue that it has to be completed way before any seasonal release date. For those choosing to make one, Christmas must be summoned early. The frosty, reflective mood created has to feel genuine even if the sun is blazing. With the seemingly effortless Tinsel and Lights, Tracey Thorn has made an album that suits any season. Its gentle pensiveness isn’t just for Christmas.Although Tinsel and Lights draws its songs from a raft of writers, it’s a Read more ...