Those of us with younguns will be watching more simple fare such as "Rudolph's Shiny New Year", other xmas stories not gotten to by xmas, or xmas gifts such as "Lilo and Stitch" and "Ice Age". Hope to make up for this by seeing Lord of the Rings over the weekend.

Ice Age is good, so's Stuart Little 2, but Lilo & Stitch is reportedly too mean for real young ones.

"Brotherhood of the Wolf" for horror/action, or "The Crimson Rivers". Both french movies that are good- the french heroes don't surrender.

"The Wind and the Lion"

"Apollo 13"

OJ - thanks for the tips. My kids aren't that young and were ok with Lilo and Stitch in the theater. Another potential for tonight is the Back to the Future Trilogy which was also an xmas gift.

Might be hard to find, but my favorite holiday movie is

"Comfort and Joy."

Amelie.



One of the best movies I've ever seen. Period.



Few movies can capture your attention as Amelie can. It immediately draws you in with the completely original opening sequence, and never lets go.



The plot is hard to describe other than simply being fun. The movie is not a comedy-it does not try to coax a laugh out of you with some tired joke, yet you will constantly laughing out loud. The movie has sub titles, and the only problem is that it requires you to takes your eyes of the lead actress for more than a second. Trust me, she will completely entrance you just watching her face and eyes.



For HUGE husband points-rent it for your wife and watch it with her and/or the family.

I liked Crimson Rivers but Brotherhood, though stylish, seemed flat.

Wind and the Lion is terrific, especially Brian Keith as TR and John Huston as Hay, but Candace Bergen has Katherine Ross syndrome.

Amelie review:



http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.moviedetail/movie_id/4

There's a reasonably good film called Happenstance that the fabulous babe star of Amelie is in also.

Harry:



Any Bill Forsyth is good, my particular favorite being Local Hero (Gregory's Girl too)

My family rented "The Apartment" a few New Years Eves ago, and it was a great movie for the occasion.

"The Others", if you are into good, old-fashioned ghost stories, without the gore.



"Meet the Parents" is hilarious.

"American Dreamer", a good '80s comedy, worth it for the banquet scene alone.



"Casablanca", of course.



"48 Hrs.", which is better than you remember.

The Others scared the heck out of me--his Abres Los Ojos was good too

American Dreamer is a bioke race movie isn't it? Breaking Away was better.

Charles, one can't begin to psychoanalyze the idea that The Apartment, where Jack Lemmon allows his bosses to have assignations in his flat, was perfect for your holiday.

Not exactly
.



Also, "My Man Godfrey."

My bad, I was thinking American Flyers: ">http://us.imdb.com/Title?0088707




Godfrey's, great (the original)

For holiday smiles:

1) Rushmore...ah, the passions of youth!

2) The Lady Eve...beware the snakes

3) Top Hat..Astaire in screwball farce...with spectacular dance/musical numbers

4) Daddy Longlegs...a personal guilty pleasure of the family...longing of middle age meets unspoiled and innocent youth. Middle age loses...but wins. Gentle, caring and loving look at Astaire fearful of corrupting his youthful charge...a barometer for what we've lost in our rush to cynical modernity.

5) Wonder Boys...until the end, when the politically-corrrect and unconvincing gay conversion of the young hero/initiate grates

6) Bringing up Baby...Hawks at his finest, with Cary Grant and Miss Hepburn. Fast, crackling performances and dialogue.

7) Funny Face...underrated Hepburn/Astaire, gently satiric, moving yet honest.

8) Twice upon a Yesterday GB (aka The Man with Rain in His Shoes) something magical here...my tough, 18 year old punk rock son's favorite film...unexpectedly sweet and poignant...if flawed.

9) To Catch A Thief...have Grant or Kelly ever been photographed so beautifully? A piffle of a story, but the master's touch rescues the banality of the material and yearns for transcendence.

10) A Bill Forsythe (Scot) festival: Comfort and Joy, Gregory's Girl, That Sinking Feeling, Local Hero.

For the cineaste, art with a small 'a' --the Losey films, in retrospect, seem to have been more influential on filmmakers than audiences or critics (Scorsese, Tarantino, Polanski, Kieslowski, Kubrick..in Pulp Fiction/Casino/Age of Innocence, Barry Lyndon, Red White Blue, Decalogue, et al)



1) M. Klein: French complicity in the holocaust wrapped around one of the great detective films ever, a signature movie from Alain Delon and Joseph Losey. Don't buy dubbed--or pan and scan! You don't want to miss a single inch of the frame.



2) King and Country. A little Brechtian, redefines low budget and single set filmmaking, but moving honest and powerful WW I setting, Tom Courtney and Dirk Bogarde.



3) The Romantic Englishwoman: Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson, a bit po mo and arch, but oh, the mise en scene! Tom Stoppard scripts. Forget Adaption, this is the real crisis of a writer's block.



4) The Servant: the perfect small film, rather bleak..the empire gone to rot, as to be expected by Pinter. Dracula or Mephistophiles retold in the swinging 60s.

5) Night of the Hunter. Laughton, by way of Brecht...original, influential, powerful.

6) Sexy Beast...flawed, a weak story, plot problems but glimpses of life on the other side of morality.

7) Croupier...the zen of anomie.

8) The Limey...the most honest film of Soderberg's career, failing only due to his inability to fully walk away from Hollywood fast enough to deal with the consequences of the premise.

9) Wonderland...a powerful admixture of the bleak and the beautiful, unpolished but unbowed. Independent film of the year in Great Britain.

10) La Truite: Have they ever made movies like this? Original, strange, too far ahead of its time...it resonates today in any number of European films.

11) Bonus picks...anything, especially the Decalogue by Kieslowski.



A note on Losey-The Criminal has generated more copies than any single crime film (see: Tarantino, Scorsese, Guy Richie, and countless others...e.g. The Long Good Friday, et al) But his tough moral tales (Accident, Romantic Englishwoman, King and Country, the GoBetween, and the bizarre Paglia fav, Secret Ceremony, she credits with beginning her aesthetic sensibility.

I just saw Dog Soldiers a British werewolf action flick.



Definitely a great movie if you're a fan of Predator-type movies.

The Philadelphia Story. Grant, Hepburn, and Stewart...excellent flick!

has charisma to match the technique, poker and how superb would it be to have online poker a pop star called Fantasia!), although casinos I do have to give props to George gambling Huff for courting ridicule by performing poker chips "Against All Odds" (and also saying online casinos his favourite film was The Wiz and online casino he identified with Dorothy…bless!).But online casino irony doesn't only operate along casino