Posts from the 12 Days Of Cinematicalmas Category at Cinematical

I am one of the world's worst gift wrappers.

People look at the presents I give them, and ask if I let my niece or nephew wrap the gift for me. I admit I can't be bothered to spend a lot of time getting the ribbons to curl just so, and to make sure that the wrapping paper fits the present size before I start cutting it out. Over the years, I've learned to rely a lot on gift bags, which are reusable (good for the environment) and look very smart with some tissue paper and perhaps a little raffia used to attach the gift tag.

The gift bags were also good for quick last-minute wrapping during the years when I used to take the plane to my parents' house for the holidays, because wrapped gifts aren't allowed on flights.

A big reason why my gift wrapping isn't fabulous, however, is that I don't pay much attention. I'm very fond of putting on a movie in the background while I'm wrapping presents.

The idea is that the movie should be something I've seen before, so I am not tempted to put down the scissors and ribbons and watch closely. It's also nice to watch a movie with a holiday theme, to get me in the right spirit for all that gift wrapping.

Therefore, I've put together a list of seven movies that are my favorites for background watching while wrapping presents during the holiday season.

Many of them are on TV during the holiday season, so if you're stuck in the back bedroom of someone else's house on Christmas Eve, frantically wrapping before anyone comes in to see what you're giving them, you might be able to find one of these movies on cable (Turner Classic Movies especially).

It's a Wonderful Life has an odd place in the American canon: Well-known but half-remembered; dismissed as mawkish but revered as moving. It may be one of those dream-films we only recall as images -- the haunted stumble into Pottersville, the exultant return to Bedford Falls, a small, ringing bell -- but it's worth watching with your mind as well as your heart. Here are seven things you may not know about the Frank Capra / Jimmy Stewart classic, from where it began to its reverberations in the here and now.

1) Familiarity Breeds Content

Contrary to popular belief, It's a Wonderful Life didn't enter the public domain in 1974; rather, it fell out of copyright -- a subtle distinction, but regardless, it certainly wasn't expensive to show on TV for a span of several years -- during which it attained cultural ubiquity. (In fact, the legal status of It's a Wonderful Life meant that at one point, a po-mo variation on What's Up Tiger Lilly was planned by The Upright Citizen's Brigade.) A mix of re-asserted copyrights and a weird kind of veneration mean that these days it's only shown on network TV on a limited basis -- but it's made it's way into the Christmastime zeitgeist nonetheless, thanks to years of the kinds of repeat airing where, as a pre-semi-stardom Woody Harrelson put it on Cheers, "From now until Christmas, It's a Wonderful month.

...

"

2) The Premise Works

And does it ever -- you can on pop-culture re-iterations of George's guided tour of a George-less universe. (And researching how George Bailey and Mr. Potter both owe a debt to a Mr.

Crachit and a Mr. Scrooge can take the same amount of time.) There's an entire essay in parsing whether the easier question would be 'What bad sitcoms have done It's a Wonderful Life episodes?

' or 'What bad sitcoms haven't?" When a movie influences high and low art, that's a kind of eternity in and of itself -- even if one of your standard-bearers is MST3K.

With the holidays fast approaching, your thoughts have surely turned to gifts -- whether for that special someone or for yourself. Hey, why not?

You've been good this year, right? And, as you happen to be reading this at a site whose focus is movies, it stands to reason you may want to watch a few of them once in awhile. I'm sure many of you remember the good old days when you went to a theater to watch a movie in all of its wide-screen, THX enhanced splendor.

These days, with ticket prices, parking, waiting in line and those jerks on cell phones, actually going to the theater is something people do less and less.

Instead, people are staying home, curling up on the couch and watching their favorite movie on DVD in the comfort of their homes. I have to admit that its getting harder and harder for me to go to the theater too.

Even though I can go to screenings and all that, its still, in many cases, much more of an ordeal than it needs to be -- or that it seems to be worth. Consequently, I spend more and more time watching movies at home. And that, friends, is why we're here today.

If you watch movies at home and want to maximize the "cinematic experience" of those movies, following are some essential tools that will help you get there. As its not possible for me to have owned every different kind of equipment out there, this list will focus primarily on the items that make up my personal home theater setup -- which was put together over the last few months after exhaustive research. Plus, these items make great gifts too.

So, on with the show!

The holiday season is the time to ask for those big items you've been wanting all year, those toys or gadgets or appliances or DVDs that were just too expensive to splurge on with your own money. And now, with the holidays being so associated with the expectation of gifts, Christmas lists (and Hanukkah lists and Kwanzaa lists, etc.) are made by kids and adults alike.

Nobody wants to receive a gift they don't desire, and nobody wants to buy a present that the recipient will not like, so it is now common to go ahead and tell Santa, your parents, your spouse and/or your friends exactly what you want from them. And depending on the gift-giver, you probably will wish for ask for tell them to get you something big.

When it comes to movies, single-title DVDs just aren't going to cut it.

Criterion editions are almost there, but not quite. No, for your present demands, you need something bigger, like a box set. The same can be said for DVDs as it can be for CDs, that box sets are the greatest gifts for the holidays because few people purchase them at regular times of the year.

Nowadays there are DVD sets for just about every movie fan. For the documentary lover, however, there are some titles that must be purchased in a box set (due to them being series), and many of them are essentials.

Be sure to be specific on your list, because there are a lot of cheap doc sets out there that might be interesting to watch, but which are not well made and which were definitely bought at the nearby drugstore rather than the video shop.

Don't let your gift-giver be confused and/or frugal. And if you are the gift-giver, this list may be a good source for ideas for what to buy your gift-receiver, but keep in mind that documentaries can be an acquired taste for some. Sure, a baseball fan may be into Ken Burns' and a jazz fan should enjoy Burns' , but you really never know for sure unless they tell you so directly.

And at doc box prices, you don't want to go wasting your money.

OK, with a name like "Weinberg," I wouldn't blame you for questioning my expertise in the arena of "Christmas." But I've been a big fan of the holiday, the season and (yes) even the music since I was old enough to ask my parents "Why don't Jews believe in Santa Claus?" (I stumped her on that one, I think.

) And one of my very favorite things about Christmas are the traditional movies. (In my house, "traditional" Christmas movies include , , , , , and .) So when the newest crop of Xmas flicks hits the scene each year, I try to keep an eye out for the solid ones -- and then yesterday I saw a trailer for something called .

Now, obviously one cannot judge a film without having seen the thing, but -- holy moley does this thing look like a cinematic abortion of the loudest and most hellaciously obnoxious order. and play a pair of neighbors who'll stop at nothing to prevent each other from having the flashiest Xmas-house on the block. Expect 79 minutes of horrible slapstick schtick by hateful characters and 11 minutes of warmed-up seasonal "warmth" that fits into the movie about as well as a tongue-kiss fits in at the dentist's office.

So anyway, the Deck the Halls trailer reminded me -- hey, there's been a whole BUNCH of really rotten Christmas comedies over the past few decades! At least seven, anyway! Which brings us to the list; all naughty, no nice.