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Q: Please... Best Christmas film suggestions.
I've found a way to get a hold of films via the downloading thing (my stepdaughter!) and I want to get a Xmas fix.
My friend recommended Elf but I just read a review from my fave r/v site and it copped a shocker.
So, suggestions welcomed. A brief synopsis would be appreciated too. (Even a loose xmas link would be ok.)
Merry Christmas. Or, as we say in Aussie....Up Yours!
8 years 18 weeks ago in Arts & Entertainment - China
one of the best ever....
diverdude1:
MOVIE INFO
This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed: rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist (H.B. Warner) to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life. Capra's first production through his newly-formed Liberty Films, It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was percieved as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic.
royceH:
Got it. The Scotsman referenced it previously. I know it and I love it. Just as I do yourself.
Gremlins
Stiggs:
Oh... I'd forgotten about gremlins. Going to download that now.
I really like National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, a comedy about a guy having a family Christmas with his obnoxious / hillbilly inlaws.
and...
Bernard and the Genie if you can find it and like English comedy. Rowan Atkinson (Blackadder) is awesome in it.
'Merry 
Up-yours' to you, too!
I think, that's bi-accental......
What do you want with movies? Show or watch?
I can send you list from my HD, and synopsis you can easy get over Yahoo-gle (IMBd). I didn't know, there are special movies on Christmas.
I get everything from FrostWire.
royceH:
I don't have any form with showing movies in class. Five years ago I showed the Chinese Restaurant episode from Seinfeld and that completely bombed. Sometimes I show Merry Christmas Mr Bean and A Charlie Brown Christmas but that's about it.
I think I've changed my thinking a little bit because I've been showing UP over the past week or so. It has English subs and seems well accepted. I look forward to reading students' reviews or summaries sometime next week.
Right now my friend who is throwing China in and heading home is copying some stuff onto my big USB.
I should have a look at Frostwire at some stage. Thanks for the tip!
Die Hard, obviously. Synopsis:
Loose cannon, New York cop on the edge who doesn't care about the rules goes out to L.A. to fix a rocky marriage. During a company Christmas party, the love of his life has to deal with more than the lewd advances of her coked out cow-worker, much more. Using nothing but his wits and grit, can John McLain save his wife, their marriage, and the day? ... Christmas Day!?
one of the best ever....
diverdude1:
MOVIE INFO
This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out. But first, Clarence is given a crash course on George's life, and the multitude of selfless acts he has performed: rescuing his younger brother from drowning, losing the hearing in his left ear in the process; enduring a beating rather than allow a grieving druggist (H.B. Warner) to deliver poison by mistake to an ailing child; foregoing college and a long-planned trip to Europe to keep the Bailey Building and Loan from letting its Depression-era customers down; and, most important, preventing town despot Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from taking over Bedford Mills and reducing its inhabitants to penury. Along the way, George has married his childhood sweetheart Mary (Donna Reed), who has stuck by him through thick and thin. But even the love of Mary and his children are insufficient when George, faced with an $8000 shortage in his books, becomes a likely candidate for prison thanks to the vengeful Potter. Bitterly, George declares that he wishes that he had never been born, and Clarence, hoping to teach George a lesson, shows him how different life would have been had he in fact never been born. After a nightmarish odyssey through a George Bailey-less Bedford Falls (now a glorified slum called Potterville), wherein none of his friends or family recognize him, George is made to realize how many lives he has touched, and helped, through his existence; and, just as Clarence had planned, George awakens to the fact that, despite all its deprivations, he has truly had a wonderful life. Capra's first production through his newly-formed Liberty Films, It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was percieved as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic.
royceH:
Got it. The Scotsman referenced it previously. I know it and I love it. Just as I do yourself.
Scrooged - Bill Murray
Muppets Christmas Carol
Bernard and The Genie - Lenny Henry
Miracle on 34th Street
It's a wonderful life. A Frank Capra movie from 1946. A time when things were at their worst. You can get it for free on "Jimbo Berkleys" free classic movies website. If it works of course. The film is out of copyright so should be in the public domain.
royceH:
I've got it on my big stick and I'll definitely watch it some very soon. It really is a brilliant film and surely one of the best ever made.
This, if you are older. A classic....
For kids.. The snowman. Two or three versions out there. All based on Rayond Brigs story.
This is the Aled Jones version.
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTgwNjcxNTc2.html?x&from=y7.2-1-100.3.3-1....
royceH:
Got home late. Just watched it via some strange medium with which I'm not familiar. Shouldn't' have, as Friday is my busiest day and I have to get up very early and it's minus 20 here at the mo. And my wife has suggested I didn't need the two travellers that went with it. Anyhow, I loved it. Thanks a lot Mon!
I wonder if I can send it to my granddaughters in Australia? Fk, I'm a dumb shit.
Try Santa's Slay lol. Its fun to see santa as the bad guy for once :P
I watched Elf this afternoon and can report that the review of it I read is wrong. A most enjoyable film that gave me a chuckle and a sniffle. I'm probably a Will Ferrill supporter.
And that chick in it - Zooey Deschanel - is real hot.
Can't comment Royceh. Snail BB:
I'm not into Christmas much in China. On Public school, where I full-time nobody ever mentioned anything, and I don't push. Have an advanced English students class, but they like to sing. S&Garfunkel today. I just wrote release year's date on BB, and suggested to look at Lennon's 'Imagine'.
We're watching movies at International class. Girls won't go for IELTS, but they'll most likely enroll in English-prep school, so I show them different English accents through movies. Gandhi, too...lol! They aren't in the mood for much of anything else.
I'll do more with kids tomorrow on Christmas SC. New Mill, and they want to have demo classes for parents with new kids. When we're done with demo, parents want to see what kids have learned. English learning comes like eating a candy or few.
royceH:
The only way to learn is to practise. Work hard. And put oneself into an English speaking environment. Students don't want to practise, or work hard. And China won't allow an English speaking environment, despite making the study of English compulsory. Hahahhah. What a joke. China is a false reality. But for billions of Chinese, it is their only reality.
icnif77:
Chinese think much different than we do. That kids thing tomorrow is: 'I'll enroll my kid only if she/he will learn anything in 20' demo class....'.
They aren't for real.
I'll do 'sit-down', 'stand-up', 'clap your hands' and 'turn around'. I was asking my Chinese team, how parents will determine, what kid learned, if they don't speak English?
I'm telling you, they think different.....meiyou 'practice', eat candy....and there you are....
Have another one on TOEFL prep. I was like: 'We'll need at least 1/2 year on prep. How much time do we have?' Mill's manager: 'She wants to try first time in January next year...' Girl's English is good (grammar), but on descriptions, she can't go longer than two short sentences at each pic. We have 3h classes per week.
Bad Santa-if you're up for a laugh(albeit black, perverted, etc)
I am still somewhat of a traditionalist when it comes to films at Christmas.
i enjoy watching Christmas Carol - George C Scott version (fine actor) and It's A Wonderful Life.
with younger family members around, I put on Nightmare before Christmas.
colouful, has songs the younger ones like, and has vampires
