Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-12-24 (Tuesday)

On 12/25/2024 9:00 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
 

Dear Santa (Paramount+) New Christmas movie from the Farrelly brothers
about a preteen boy who writes a letter to Santa.  Except the boy's
dyslexic and misspells Santa, Satan.  Next thing you know, Jack Black
shows up offering to grant 3 wishes in exchange for the boy's soul.
Black quickly catches on the boy thinks he Santa and decides to play
along in order to get the boy's soul.  Overall, I liked this movie, but
there were some spoilerish implications with the end of the movie that
were just completely glossed over, and I'm not just talking about Satan
coming to Earth to trick children into selling their souls for eternal
damnation.  I was honestly shocked with the ending, but maybe I was just
overthinking it.

 It was on Showtime a few weeks ago. I made it 20 minutes.
 

I recorded it off of Showtime when it aired, but I watched the version from Paramount+. The Paramount+ version had much better picture and sound.  I'm trying to force myself into the habit of checking the streaming services because they will often have superior quality over cable.  Which one of the reasons I am extra annoyed that HBOMax downgraded their free service to take away the superior sound and audio they used to offer.

Carol for Another Christmas (TCM) 1964 made for TV version of A
Christmas Carol written by Rod Serling.  SPOILERS for a 1964 TV movie!

 I posted a review of this a year ago. It's somewhat interesting.
 

What I found interesting (and often do) is just how much of what Serling was talking about then is still applicable today.

This is set in modern America with a bigoted isolationist businessman
being visited by three ghosts to teach him the error of his ways.  The
movie has a very antiwar message and Serling was definitely not messing
around with this movie.  He has the ghost of Christmas (war?) past
taking the scrooge character to visit Hiroshima and visit children with
their faces melted off from the atom bomb.  And the ghost of Christmas
(war?) future takes him to a post-apocalyptic America.  Where Peter
Sellers sits as a judge who has fully embraced the selfish bigoted
attitudes that lead to the nuclear war, and Sellers preaches those
attitudes to an eager audience.  One guy shows up and tries to preach
peace and tolerance and they hand a little boy a gun and the boy shoots
him. How have I never heard of this before now?!?

 Apparently it aired just one time, not uncommon in the days of
fully-sponsored programs.

TCM didn't air an introduction, but I found one online that mentioned that.  Seeing as how the intro and outro already exist, would it kill TCM to just air them before and after the movie?
TCM Introduction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuMR8WeU1X8
TCM Outro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei7htt7hmVo