Klaus

Klaus 

Netflix viewing 

The real-world origin of the mythological figure known as Santa Claus goes way back—I mean waaaaay back—but Hollywood has had their share of fun creating origin stories more befitting such a beloved character. 

I remember, for instance, the Rankin-Bass animated TV special Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, featuring voice actors Mickey Rooney and Fred Astaire (this year is its fiftieth anniversary). In 1985 RB made a second origin story, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.

Last year, Spanish animator Sergio Pablos added his Netflix feature film Klaus to the pile and gained an Academy Award nomination for his effort. A former Disney imagineer who worked on Tarzan and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he and his team at SPA Studios animated the film by taking 2D digital animation and lighting it as if it were 3D.

The story involves a young postman, a privileged rich kid, assigned to a remote northern village in order to establish a successful post office and prove his worth. He stumbles upon a way to get it going when he meets a reclusive toymaker and encourages him to make toys for the children of a community at war with itself. Complications ensue. Jason Schwartzman voices the young postman and JK Simmons (who sounds just like Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen in this) voices Klaus.

I like that Klaus is (mostly) grounded in the real world, with almost nothing in the way of what could be considered “magic.” The usual myths about Santa have a real-world foundation and are developed through the rumor and exaggeration of the children. 

The animation reminded me of the work of Don Bluth in places. It doesn’t resemble the Pixar/Dreamworks CGI style we’ve come to expect these days, but it is something more than traditional 2D. The effect is startling, and it brings a fresh twist to computer animation. I kinda hope it catches on.

New year’s links

This Chaplin GIF is submitted in an attempt
to lighten all our spirits.

It’s not too late to reboot 2020 so we can start over, is it?

The holiday season, at least, was a good one. Virginia took me to a Cirque du Soleil show at Madison Square Garden, and in turn, I took her to a performance of Messiah at Carnegie Hall. These were our Christmas gifts to each other. It was the first time I had seen either one. On Christmas night we had dinner with friends—I made a salad—and on New Year’s Eve she and Sandi were once again part of the annual free choral recital in midtown Manhattan. Ann was part of it too, for the first time. It was kinda funny how many people I knew in the chorus this year. Our after-party was a tad smaller than last year, but that was okay.

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Last month was a sad one for Trekkies. On the heels of the death of popular Deep Space Nine supporting player Aron Eisenberg, we lost more stars, from both sides of the camera. I’ve talked about DC Fontana here before; not too much more to add. As a woman writer, she was an inspiration to many who came after her, whether they were professionals in the industry or fans writing for SF zines. As for Rene Auberjonois, I remember feeling good about him joining the cast of DS9 because of his TV and film work elsewhere, and his was a tremendous contribution. His interpretation of Odo was as a multi-faceted character, loaded with contradictions, yet with a human touch underneath his brusque exterior. His relationships with Kira and Quark were fascinating to watch unfold and they brought so much depth to the overall story. Great artists who gave us much to be thankful for as fans.

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On a somewhat happier Trek-related note: I had made peace with the belief I would never get to see Star Trek: Discovery, but Ann acquired CBS All Access last month and she was kind enough to invite me to her house so we could binge-watch it. No, I did not expect to do that quite so soon after my little experiment, but life, y’know?

We watched the first twelve or so episodes of Season 1, over two nights. I won’t go into specific details here, but while some things were impressive—Michael Burnham is a unique character in Trek lore, with her own set of morals, and I like the premise of a disgraced Starfleet officer seeking redemption—there was a lot more I didn’t care for. The technology which clearly is superior to that of Kirk’s era; the profanity, which wasn’t Scorsese-level but served no purpose I could tell; the gee-whiz shots of outside the Discovery and then zooming inside; the stronger-than-usual emphasis on action; the unnecessary redesign of the Klingons; the de-emphasis on Starfleet values; the generic American crew; the lack of humor, THE CONSTANT GODDAMN CUTS.

If you wanna get into specifics, let’s talk in the comments. For now, I’ll just say: I understand this is set during a time of war, but even during the Dominion War, DS9 placed a greater emphasis on character and plots tailored around each character than what I’ve seen from Discovery so far. That may change, but I’m not convinced yet. Here’s hoping Picard will be better.

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Let’s go straight to the links:

Le uses All Quiet on the Western Front to address violence in war movies.

Jacqueline on Lionel Barrymore and Christmas.

Cats is gonna lose a ton of money.

Sam Mendes on how his grandfather inspired 1917.

The animation studio behind the Lion King remake shut down.

Could Adam Sandler win an Oscar? If he doesn’t, he’ll unleash a bomb of a movie on us.

Former DS9 star Nana Visitor on Rene Auberjonois.

CBS All Access is expanding Star Trek in many directions.

This post sums up my feelings about the whole CGI James Dean thing.

The struggle to preserve film backdrops.

Spotlight on former NBA star Kevin Garnett in Uncut Gems.

And then there was that time the US government thought Wakanda was a real country.

Angela’s Christmas

Angela’s Christmas 

Netflix viewing

Angela’s Ashes is one of my most cherished books and Frank McCourt is one of my most beloved authors. The vividness of his descriptions, the way he created a narrative voice and sustained it, his sense of humor, his empathy for his characters, made him a treasure to read, and still does. Plus, he became a literary star late in life, which provides hope for this aspiring writer.

In 2007, two years before his death, McCourt wrote his first and only children’s book, Angela and the Baby Jesus, which could be considered the prequel to Ashes. It’s based on a story his mother, Angela, told him as a kid about when she was a kid, set during Christmas. In 2017, Netflix and Ireland’s Brown Bag Films adapted the story into a 30-minute animated short, Angela’s Christmas. Malachy McCourt, Frank’s brother and a bit of a celebrity himself, narrates and Ruth Negga voices Angela’s mother. The late Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries performed a song.

In 1910 Limerick, Ireland, young Angela is about to celebrate the Christmas season at church with her family. She sees a doll of the baby Jesus on display in its traditional tableau, with Mary and Joseph, in the stable, etc., and being a child, thinks He must be cold. She secretly steals the doll and takes it home to warm it up, only to discover why what she did was wrong from her mother. Director Damien O’Connor, in this interview, discusses the meaning of the story to him:

The story is ultimately about family with warmth representing love. That connected into everything - visually you have the blue and gold in almost every shot with gold representing love. As Angela moves through the story she moves from the cold blues into the warmth, eventually ending up fully basked in the gold heat of the family fire. Once you have the theme then you have a clear path for the writing, if a scene was not working in the script it was usually because we strayed from the theme.

Frank McCourt fans will recognize the Limerick represented here as the one from his childhood as depicted in Ashes: devoutly Catholic to the point of superstition, yet basically warm-hearted and sentimental like many people at Christmas time. The computer-generated animation is splendid; Angela is wide-eyed and innocent, yet with a soupçon of Irish sassiness. I like the interaction with her brothers. Negga as the mother adds exactly the right touch. Absolutely worth viewing whether you’re Catholic or not.

Links out

I announced it on Twitter and perhaps you’ve already noticed the change here, but for the record: WSW now moderates comments. This is a change I had thought about doing before, but I didn’t believe it was truly necessary until the spammers started getting bolder. I don’t want this; we’ve gone this far without needing to moderate comments, but I believe it’s better this way, at least for now. You (and you know who you are) have always provided insight and wit to go along with my posts. You’re not the problem and never were.

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My third 5K run turned out well, but it didn’t feel that way. I beat my personal best time by perhaps three minutes, but the whole run felt tougher than usual. It was windy, but not gusty, the sky was mostly cloudy, and there was no hint of rain or snow. I just felt like the whole thing was a harder push than usual, like I was pushing harder than before. I slowed to a walking pace a lot, and I had to remind myself to not get comfortable. And once again, the presence of so many other people changed my mental approach, making me think of the competition instead of my own game... but I still set a personal record. I did something right.

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Last month Virginia and I went to an unusual twin bill of Georges Melies films: A Trip to the Moon and Kingdom of the Fairies. Both silents were accompanied by original live scores by composer Kyle Simpson and his chamber orchestra, held at The Dimenna Center for Classical Music in Manhattan. A university professor, musician and conductor, as well as a composer, he briefly talked of his love for film in general and how with this project, he sought to create scores that would match the story and themes of these movies, and I thought he did. His scores made both films feel almost contemporary. In addition to the movies, there was an “undercard” of film scores by Phillip Glass and Alexander Borodin, performed by the Red Line String Quartet. I’ve always liked Glass’ music. I’ve seen it performed live before, but not like this. It felt different, yet recognizable as his work. Virginia loved the whole thing, of course.

Links on the other side.

New year's links

The Christmas/New Year's week was very good. Virginia and I spent Christmas Night at another holiday dinner with friends. On New Year's Eve, she and Sandi were part of a large chorus that performs a NYE show every year.

Afterwards, a whole bunch of us rang in the new year at the same bar and grill where Virginia and I first got to really know each other a year ago (we consider it our anniversary), so NYE has taken on an added significance for me. Have I mentioned lately how lucky I am to have her in my life?

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The latest draft of the novel is done but it's not ready to go out yet. I know this for certain; it's better than it was a year ago, but it's not where it oughta be yet, so I gotta tighten it up some more.

The good news is I've got some beta readers looking it over, though I could use a few more — especially baseball fans. If anyone out there is interested, e-mail me at ratzo318@yahoo.com and let's talk.

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A brief word about Penny Marshall: Laverne and Shirley was one of my favorite sitcoms and Big was one of my favorite films growing up. I vaguely remember being a bit surprised to learn she was becoming a director, but she turned into a very successful one indeed. As a comedienne, she was enjoyable and part of my childhood; as a director, she proved to have an even more special talent that deserved to flourish more than it did. She was a trailblazer for the likes of Kathryn Bigelow, Ava DuVernay, Greta Gerwig and more. She'll be missed.

More after the jump.

New year's links

Dan Talbot

For the second year in a row, I spent New Year's with Sandi and her choral friends. They performed their annual show in Manhattan and we went out to a dinner party afterwards.

This year's show included, besides classical music selections, a James Bond medley, a Beatles medley, songs by Coldplay and Adele (imagine, if you will, hearing "Rolling in the Deep" sung by an operatic diva in an orchestral arrangement — in a church!), and even "Bohemian Rhapsody"! I teased Sandi about it afterward because she has no love for rock music, though she didn't think it was a bad song — she just couldn't understand what the lyrics meant.

On a sadder note, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas owner Dan Talbot died over the New Year's weekend. I wasn't aware of how deep his roots in the indie film market were until his name came up in relation to the sale of the theater; he did much to support independent and foreign cinema from a very early time period.

Unfortunate as it is to say, his death leaves us with very little hope that the Lincoln will be saved, but stranger things have happened — and while this closing is supposed to be for repairs, no one knows for absolute certain what the plan is if and when it reopens. This is why my movie posts include the theater I saw it in, folks.

Meanwhile, the plan for the novel is to start revising this month. It's more of a mess than I realized, but they say that's not necessarily a bad thing at this point. It may have taken me four years to reach this stage, but at least I haven't gotten tired of it yet. My fear is that I will get sick of it before it's finished, but I think this means more to me than that. Anybody want to be a beta reader?

Your links:

Silver Screenings Ruth examines Casablanca from the perspective of the bit players who were actual European refugees.

Le looks at the long and distinguished Hollywood career of that noted comedic thespian, Porky Pig.

Monstergirl is back with another epic post, this one about the Bronx' own Martin Balsam.

Even if the Lincoln Plaza reopens, what will happen to films already booked there?

My prediction came true much sooner  than expected: meet the documentarian who unraveled the secret of Tommy Wiseau.

Another piece of Cecil B. DeMille's buried Ten Commandments set has been excavated.

Here's an early review of a forthcoming movie written by Greg Sestero and featuring Tommy Wiseau in a supporting role.

Want your own portrait of Jennie?

How cable TV, specifically TCM, rescued certain Christmas movies from obscurity.

What did critics of the day think of How the Grinch Stole Christmas when it first came out?

Come back tomorrow to find out the theme for this year's blogathon!

A Christmas Wish

A Christmas Wish (AKA The Great Rupert)
YouTube viewing

Jimmy Durante was one of those people I'd see on TV as a kid, in one form or another, but never thought of as "real." It was as if he was a cartoon character: that nose, that voice, that routine. Even today, I find it somewhat hard to believe he was the kind of comedian to whom people turned for entertainment.

And yet, in my life I have been entertained by him. I saw him in The Man Who Came to Dinner and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. He was the narrator of Frosty the Snowman. His voice and mannerisms have been parodied in cartoons I watched as a kid. Perhaps that's why he never seemed like a real person! Regardless, I think he's best appreciated in small doses.

Earlier this week, my friend Melissa alerted me on Facebook to a Durante movie she had re-discovered called A Christmas Wish, originally known as The Great Rupert. To call it a Christmas movie is a slight stretch: Act One takes place during the Yuletide season, but the story moves forward in time from there - though this is hardly the first Christmas movie with a slender connection to the holiday. I was one of several friends Melissa thought might find this interesting, so I decided to look at it for the heck of it.

Durante is the patriarch of a family of - what else? - vaudevillians. They've fallen on hard times, renting a run-down apartment secretly inhabited by a dancing squirrel. Yes, a dancing squirrel. He makes his unseen presence felt in the apartment in a way Durante and family mistake for divine intervention. The squirrel is responsible for a change in their fortunes, but of course, this leads to bigger problems.

Rupert, the squirrel in question, is a combination of live action and stop-motion animation that is somewhat less than Harryhausenesque in execution. Like the gopher in Caddyshack, he clearly has a personality of his own, though he's not as mischievous. His human owner features him in a stage act, but somehow this is not as big of a deal as perhaps it should be. Naturally, I'm reminded of that great Looney Tunes cartoon about the singing and dancing frog who only performs for one guy and no one else, no matter how badly the guy tries to cash in on him. Rupert and his master aren't like that, though.

Melissa was the one who first told me about The Room, so I had expected Wish to be, y'know, a total camp fest. Indeed, she said she had bought it on DVD years ago because it looked like crap ("It had a squirrel in a kilt on the cover!... How could I resist?"). Well, it's not great, that's for sure, but I didn't quite find it MST3K-level mock-worthy, either.

Is the acting bad? Yeah, especially the male romantic lead, but it's tolerable. Nothing about it made me want to yank my ears off or gouge my eyes out. Poor writing? Durante cracks plenty of bad jokes. The screenplay calls for some Character Induced Stupidity, with a rushed ending. It never quite sinks to Ed Wood levels of Bad, though, or So Bad It's Good. The cinematography is mostly stagey and pedestrian, but it's not like I expected Kubrickian levels of composition. And as for Durante's God-forbid-I-should-call-it-singing, I just fast-forwarded that.

Wish is milquetoast. It's harmless and inoffensive and not really worth making fun of in the end. Somehow, I find myself strangely disappointed by that, yet I can't call it a good movie either. I don't think I've ever reacted to a movie like this before. Odd.

5 recent Xmas films that aren't really about Xmas

Paddy and I recently concluded that most modern Christmas movies tend to pummel you to death with Christmas cheer and Christmas spirit and Christmas themes in general. I suppose some people dig that sort of thing, but me, being the grinch that I am, I tend to sneer at it, especially if it's done poorly. When it's done well, as in, for example, Miracle on 34th Street, that's different - but few movies aspire to such heights. (Especially those featuring Kirk Cameron.)

I like movies that happen to take place during the holiday season, but aren't necessarily about the holiday season. I'm sure we can all cite movies like Die Hard, Home Alone, Lethal Weapon and Batman Returns as examples, but I thought I'd try and think of more recent ones, like within the last twenty years. So if you've had your fill of mistletoe and eggnog and caroling - and even though it's only ten days before Christmas, I'd imagine it's quite possible! - consider these recent movies as an alternative to sitting around watching Jimmy Stewart gush about Zuzu's petals for the millionth time:*

- The Ref. Hilariously dark comedy about a bickering married couple held up in their home by a criminal during Christmas Eve, featuring Denis Leary, a pre-Usual Suspects Kevin Spacey and the underrated Judy Davis. I remember playing this one a lot during the holiday season during my video store days, and looking back on it now, I'm genuinely surprised this wasn't a bigger hit. Leary was hot at the time, and this was made as a vehicle for him and his motormouth stand-up routine, but the back and forth between Spacey and Davis is wickedly sublime - credit to co-screenwriter Richard LaGravenese of The Fisher King fame - and foreshadows Spacey's Oscar-winning role in American Beauty. Judy Davis was moderately big in the 90s indie circuit, but never quite hit the heights like her fellow Australian Nicole Kidman. Still, her work in films like this, Children of the Revolution, Everyone Says I Love You, Husbands and Wives and Barton Fink is well worth seeking out.

- Frozen River. I still remember how blown away I was by this powerful drama set around Christmas time and Melissa Leo's towering performance in it. Two single mothers hard up for money join forces to engage in smuggling illegal immigrants over the Canadian border, across the titular river. I fully believed this story from start to finish, and the stark realism that Leo embodied was etched on every line of her face. This is the kind of role every thespian, and especially every actress, dreams of. (On a side note, the tragic disappearance and death of co-star Misty Upham was heartbreaking to hear about.)

- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Speaking of Lethal Weapon, Shane Black, who wrote that great sort-of-Christmas movie, also wrote and directed this great sort-of-Christmas movie, featuring Robert Downey Jr. (with whom he'd team up again in Iron Man 3) and Val Kilmer. It's a neo-noir film set in LA, with lots of the trademark Black brand of humor. I'd argue that RDJ's Hollywood renaissance began not with the first Iron Man movie, but here - another movie that should have done better at the box office than it did. Despite his troubled history, though, he's made mostly good choices with his roles, I think.

- In Bruges. Colin Farrell's always been kind of hit or miss for me, but I liked him in this crime comedy set in the titular Belgium city. He's a hitman who has to hide out in Bruges during the Christmas season when a hit goes wrong. Brendan Gleeson's in it too, so expect copious amounts of profanity laced with the humor. This is another one I discovered on video, and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

- You've Got Mail. The Shop Around the Corner for the Internet age. Seems a bit dated now that bookstores in general, the corporate ones as well as the indies, are facing hard times, but it's Nora Ephron, and it's Tom & Meg, and you can't ask for much more when it comes to contemporary romantic comedy. Looks like Tom & Meg may team up for a fourth time, if only briefly.

Feel free to add your favorite sort-of-Christmas movies as well.

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* - Yes, I know Christmas isn't the central theme of It's a Wonderful Life, but it has become the definitive de facto Christmas movie.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
seen @ Herald Square Plaza, New York NY
11.22.13

I don't remember my family shopping at Macy's a lot while growing up. I definitely remember going to Alexander's and JC Penney and Sears, but I don't remember going to Macy's, either at Herald Square in Manhattan or anywhere else. There is at least one Macy's here in Queens, near (but not part of) the Queens Center Mall.

Department store shopping could be fun as a kid, but a lot of the time, my mother would pick out stuff from the store catalog, like Sears, and order things like clothes through the mail. She would let me go through the catalog and identify whatever shirts or sneakers or pants struck my fancy. Sometimes she'd get the wrong size, other times I decided I didn't like the item as much as I thought I did, for whatever reason. Looking back, I tended to get a lot of dorky clothes this way, and a lot of the time, it was my own fault.

I don't remember which of my toys came from department stores. I remember going to children's shops like Child World and getting toys and clothes there. There was an Alexander's in Flushing that I'd go to for toys, school supplies, and little rinky-dink trinkets. I seem to recall hitting their gumball machines for prizes fairly often.

Of course, I associate department stores with my childhood because nowadays, it's all about Amazon and similar online websites. Lots of the department stores I remember shopping at as a kid are gone now. I go to sporting goods stores like Modell's for my clothes and the only time I go out of my way to get toys now is if they come out of my cereal box.

I popped into the Macy's at Herald Square recently. I forget what I was doing there; I might have been killing time waiting for some other appointment, but I hadn't been in there in a long time, and I was just curious as to what it looked like now. They still have the wooden escalators, and many of the old facades and door frames are still intact. The building has held up remarkably well. Regardless, I rarely do any shopping in Manhattan anyway. Whatever it is I need, chances are good I can get it cheaper in Queens.

So the original Miracle on 34th Street, as we all know, is set in and around Macy's at Herald Square, and last Friday, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), as part of their 20th anniversary celebration, screened the film in the relatively new pedestrian plaza right outside Macy's. They actually ran it all day and into the night. Host Robert Osbourne was there to introduce the evening showing; that's the one I went to. It was my first time seeing the man himself in person. He looks the same as he does on TV. Maybe a bit taller.

TCM had a sweet set-up. The plaza covers a substantial amount of real estate between 35th Street to the north and 33rd Street to the south, where Broadway and Sixth Avenue intersect. (It's hard to describe what it looks like in words, so that's why I took pictures. Look for them on my WSW Facebook page). Basically, though, there was a truck with a giant video screen high up on a pole, at the 34th Street end of the plaza, and love seats, sofas and even a rocking chair that TCM provided in addition to the chairs and tables normally present. They had a food truck in the back, along with one of their brand new tour buses. (If you don't know about that, read this.)

A brief word about TCM: I watch it a lot more now, due to the direct and pervasive influence of my classic film blogger friends. It is without question an excellent resource for old movies; the fact that they're commercial-free makes watching it a joy. (Seriously: don't you HATE the way some networks, like AMC, jump into commercials without easing you into it at least? It can be so jarring to finish watching a quiet scene and then all of a sudden, BAM! a car commercial, which is always louder. Hate it!) I'm not as fanatical a viewer of TCM as some, but I'll watch it if there's something good on - often times, for the blog, but not always. The TCM Film Festival looks like a lot of fun, from what I've read about it; I'd love to go one day. And that's about it. 

The Herald Square plaza, like the Times Square plaza and others around the five boroughs, are relatively recent additions to the New York landscape, built for the express purpose of calming traffic and making it easier for pedestrians and bicyclists to get around. In a televised debate before the November election, Mayor-elect Bill DeBlasio made a curious statement in which he said that "the jury's out" on whether or not the Times Square and Herald Square plazas were of value, a statement which completely ignores all the evidence that conclusively proves otherwise. This is especially troubling given that he has put forth a plan for the city in which the goal is to eliminate all traffic fatalities.

If DeBlasio had been in Herald Square last Friday, he would have had ample reason to retract his statement. We lucked out on the weather, for one thing; it was cool, but not cold. I took my coat off during the screening and felt fine the whole time. Also, the love seats and chairs made the screening inviting enough, but there were also dozens of other people standing around outside Macy's, taking in the movie or buying snacks from the food truck. It was a comfortable, welcoming atmosphere, in an environment that didn't even exist five years ago, and could not have existed without the commitment made by the city, under Mayor Bloomberg and transportation commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, to rethink how we use our streets. I really hope our new mayor will continue in that tradition, because projects like the Herald Square plaza are nothing but good for New York.

As for the movie itself, well, it is far and away my favorite Christmas movie of all time. It's a clever story, well told, that doesn't fall prey to easy sentimentalism and holiday-infused treacle even though it very easily could. It makes good use of the location shots in and around Herald Square - at times, there would be an exterior shot of Macy's and I'd turn my head and look at the real Macy's to the right of me, and marvel at the changes between then and now. And Edmund Gwenn will totally make you believe that Santa Claus is real. This is not just a great holiday movie, it's a great movie, period.

One of the things that Gwenn's character rails against is the commercialism of the holidays, which leads, of course, to his idea of sending customers to the competition if Macy's didn't have an item, an idea quickly adopted by the department store as a whole. It's Black Friday as I write this, a concept which I'm sure didn't exist back in 1947, but in recent years, the shopping event has leaked over into late Thursday, Thanksgiving... and according to this Huffington Post article, Macy's at Herald Square, the same place depicted in Miracle as a business that put people over profits, joined in the "fun":

..."WOOOOOOOOOOOO!" come the screams as shoppers jockey for positions. First they must make it through the heavy outer doors, as security personnel loom over the scene, and then through a second logjam at the inner doors. Finally, they enter the media funnel, and brave photographers step into the flow of traffic, cameras flashing like strobes. Phones thrust in the air record the scene and the shoppers take in the attention, waving to reporters and howling all the way.... 

Michael Kors and Coach, right up front, fill up in a flash and the crowd begins to spread to every corner of the sales floor. A girl bolts by me, hand firmly grasped around her friend's wrist as she drags her toward Michael Kors, gaze fixated on a red tote. "Hurry up!" she squeals as her friend stumbles on the leg of a table.

This was on Thanksgiving night, friends and neighbors.

I don't know what to make of this, especially in a time where the disparity between the rich and the poor in America is wider than it has ever been. I know this wasn't the main theme of the movie, but I think it's certainly worth examining. We pay lip service to the holiday season as a time of selflessness and generosity, but we're still greedy bastards at heart, and the lessons taught by a movie as timeless as Miracle remain unlearned over sixty years later. So, I dunno. I think in the end, we get exactly what we deserve. Sorry, I realize this is a depressing way to talk about such an uplifting movie.

Once again, look for my pics from the event on the WSW Facebook page.