Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Christmas 2020 Film Festival: Did We Watch all the Movies?

Since my extended family couldn't get together over the holidays, I decided to sit down and watch a long list of movies I have either never seen or have not seen in many, many years.

Rebekah and Timothy joined me for all of them. Daniel joined us for most of them.


Now, did we get through all of them? Well, not quite.

But really only because we forgot one (White Christmas, which I've never seen), we ran out of time for a second A Christmas Carol (Reginald Owen), and we added three more films. 

One of those additional films was The House Without A Christmas Tree, which (thanks to the internet) I learned was based on a true story.

We actually own the DVD, worth buying because we couldn't find a decent copy to stream. And worth watching because, even though it was a low budget film, the results were outstanding and the film and concept holds up well to time.

We also added "Hi-Tops," a rare 1985 Christian musical about three angels sent on a special mission to a high school on earth to study peer pressure.

Before you laugh, this movie was a hit among teens when we ran The Higher Ark youth group for our church, and I don't know why. The kids came from some tough homes, but the high amount of enjoyment (and buzz) for this film really surprised us.

Yes, it's deliberately cheesy, but if you can accept that, you can actually enjoy a movie concept that was groundbreaking for its time (MTV was only a couple years old when it was made).

The musical launched Christian artist Crystal Lewis, but some of the other actors are genuinely talented (I'm looking at you Jeff Carter, i.e. Norman J. Pitts - and "Louie" was pretty good, too).

The full move is actually on YouTube.

Finally, the last movie we added to our list is worth a post of its own. You probably haven't heard of it, much less seen it, and it will be hard to get your hands on it, too.

It was on my wish list for "film day" when I home-schooled, but it was so obscure that even when it became available on DVD, the copies cost hundreds of dollars.

The book is short, only 98 pages, but these, too, cost a couple hundred dollars (if you can find one).

I'd only seen it twice on TV, the last time being more than forty years ago. I was surprised at how much dialogue I'd known by heart.

Stay tuned.




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