h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Favourite Festive Films - A87901860
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

A collaborative entry by:
Baron Grim (U69725)
Bluebottle
Deek U27380
Dmitri Gheorgheni (U1590784)
Icy North (U225620)
paulh (U176638)
Rev Nick (U14756795)
Teasswill (U185992)
Wyndhamismycrush (U15002751)

This entry looks at festive films, and hopefully will be on the front page next Christmas.

<BB<

Excellent - I like the way the Entry tells a story while including useful information about specific films

"Gotham has two official Christmas tree light switch-on ceremonies and Bruce Wayne has his own which Alfred decorates."

In Gotham it is specifically a Christmas Tree switch on, is it, not a city-wide light switch on?

"Like Jesus, the Penguin is born different " - I can't visualise what this means...

"how more Christmassy can music be than if it is by an Elf man?"

"making a Grinch animation at the moment they hope to release next Christmas (2018)" - we'll need to keep an eye on that sentence to see how Illumination get on...

"go disastrously long" -

"But the whole delivering gift bit had been done before" - had been, or had not been?

And we all hope there will BE a front page next Christmas. Sorry I didn't join in the preparation for the entry. I haven't seen any of the films mentioned.

I'm the sort of gal who will sit and watch Love Actually every year and be quite content.

It's probably a matter of principle that you haven't, but I am amazed to see that Love Actually doesn't even get a mention. Most people I know will enjoy the guilty pleasure of watching it some time around Christmas. Well, most women, anyway.

Thanks for your comments, Sasha - I've tweaked the entry as suggested.

As for 'Love, Actually' - I mentioned it in the conversation's 5th post (see: F19585?thread=8318911). Unfortunately no-one else mentioned it at all in the following 130 posts. If someone had said something about it, I definitely would have included it. But no-one did so it isn't included.
If someone did now (hint, hint) and told me what they like about the film, I'd definitely include it. 'Cos I like it too - it featured in two of my entries recently, the crossword and the songs. I also really enjoyed the Comic Relief reunion this year too.

But if no-one says anything, sadly nothing is said.

<BB<

Yeah, OK - my bad! It's just that I don't watch TV and I don't even know which films are shown on a regular basis here. I mainly watch DVD's on my own because it seems silly watching them dubbed into German and my husband is an intellectual snob who wouldn't even think of watching Jim Carrey or Tim Allen fool around - and certainly not an animated film (Heaven forbid!).

As It's a Wonderful Life was only introduced as a regular Christmas TV event in 1972 in the UK (at least, that was what I read somewhere) and before that there was no real standard Christmas film - even the Sound of Music was fairly new to TV - I never got into the swing of that, having left the UK in 1973 and emigrated completely in 1976. So I only saw It's a Wonderful Life 2 years ago for the first time, albeit dubbed into German.

Until then, I had always thought that people were talking about the Roberto Benigni film of a similar name, and could never quite figure out how an Italian film got to be so popular in Britain until someone here on h2g2 explained it to me.

When Love Actually came out in 2003, DVDs were available and we expats could finally watch films with the original sound track whenever we wanted. I can't remember if I ever saw it in the cinema, but I have certainly watched my DVD several times - at Christmas or whenever I feel like it!

It is definitely a guilty pleasure, or "feel-good" film - just nice people (and some not-so-nice people) finding happiness at Christmas. There are about 9 different threads, which cross at various points. Most of the characters are English*; one or two of them foreign.

There is the typical Working Title crew of Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson and Colin Firth, and myriad other English names who have gone on to bigger things: Martin Freeman, Keira Knightley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln. Also some outsiders (i.e. not English) such as Liam Neeson, Claudia Schiffer, Laura Linney, Heike Makatsch (very popular here in Germany at the time). Alan Rickman was better known in those days for his Die Hard role than for being Severus Snape, and Bill Nighy is, well, the same Bill Nighy as in every other film you have seen him in.

It's hard to summarise the plot, as there are so many, but the various stories all come to a head at a school Nativity play - aah, children! - attended by everybody whose storyline we have been following.

Highlights are:

- Emma Thompson freaking out when she finds out her husband is (possibly) being unfaithful.
- Martin Freeman is naked most of the time - Ooh I've just found someone who's not English: Joanna Page plays his love interest. They are funny together. Maybe it'll happen again: Bilbo and Stacey?
- Liam Neeson's heart-to-heart talks with his little boy
- Andrew Lincoln's declarations of adoration to Keira Knightley
- Right at the beginning, the "impromptu" version of "all you need is love" in the church at the wedding
- Hugh Grant's dance round No. 10 and his altercation with Billy Bob Thornton over the tealady

Yup, "guilty pleasure" is the only way to put it - there are no morals preached, not all threads are tied up, but boy will you get through some Kleenex.


*sorry folks, they really are English, although I do have a Scottish friend who doesn't seem to mind and sits with her daughter every Christmas to watch it anyway.

well summed up TC. I confess I have only seen Love Actually once. I am not a fan of romcoms, but this was a good, memorable one.

Excellent tweaks, thanks

Well summed up TC indeed. I like romcoms, but I've only seen Love Actually once myself - it was good, but not quite enough to my taste for me to rewatch it even though the cast is very strong.

I am tempted to rewatch it now, though, as it sounds like it contains enough rich detail in it to make a second viewing interesting...

Thanks for that contribution, I've added it now.

Talking of Germany and festive films, isn't there a 'Dinner for One'? Can you tell me about that at all? (It'd add a bit of international flavour and we've had mention of Thanksgiving, but not New Year…)

<BB<

You don't need to write about that BB, just link to this: A2207288

Well blow me down with a feather, what did I find in my local hospice shop this morning on the very last trip with my sister - a dvd of Star Trek Into Darkness at £1 () "2 dvds for £1.50" so I had a look at the very next pile and there was "Love Actually" so I got that as well. I can now watch it through a second timeafter I've seen Into Darkness for the second time, of course

It can still count as a festive favourite and warrant a short mention even if there's already an entry about it. It'll balance the entry out nicely with New Year after Christmas as a counterweight to mentions of Thanksgiving before Christmas, and add a bit more international appeal.
A sentence or two or short summary paragraph, as GB says we don't need a lot of duplicating detail unless the existing entry on the film has missed something out.

<BB<

I can't BELIEVE I wrote that entry in 2003! That's 14 years ago. I'd better get on with the next one.

It doesn't really miss much out. There's not much to the sketch as it is. And as far as I know, there's nothing to update, either.

Did we decide exactly what a Christmas film was? Because Dinner for One is a birthday celebration and there are no Christmas decorations up IIRC. Still, "festive" suits. It would have to be mentioned in the context of other Christmas regulars on German TV, which I'm a bit hazy on, but will come up with a sentence or two as soon as I can.

I don't think it is possible to come up with a definition of what is a Christmas film that everyone will agree on, as it is in many ways a personal view. The Monty Python quote at the top of the entry from 'Christmas in Heaven' mentions films 'The Sound of Music' and the first three 'Jaws' films – and you also mentioned 'The Sound of Music' earlier. I can see why - it's a film regularly shown on Bank Holidays and is normally on around Christmas. My father-in-law also loves to watch musicals at Christmas. The content of Nuns and Nazis, however, isn't overly Christmassy. So though some people would say it is Christmassy because it is usually on at Christmas, others would say it isn't because of the content.
When Russell T Davies was the showrunner of 'Doctor Who', he wrote a Christmas special called 'Voyage of the Damned' which is about the starship Titanic about to crash into the . This was because he said in interviews that he associates Christmas with disaster films like 'The Towering Inferno', 'The Poseidon Adventure' and 'Titanic'. (I don't know whether this also applies to the first three 'Jaws' films, but presumably he's on the 'Die Hard is a Christmas film' side.)
At the end of the day all I think we can really do is agree that everyone has the right to keep Christmas in their way and let others keep it in theirs, and therefore what counts as a Christmas film is a personal choice. So if someone was to say that, say, 'Howard the Duck' was the best Christmas film of all time ever, I would wholeheartedly support their right to believe that while under no compunction whatsoever to in any way agree.

If the German people have unilaterally declared that they believe 'Dinner for One' to be a festive film by broadcasting it every New Year for umpteen years/decades, who am I to disagree?

<BB<

The RMS Titanic sank in the early hours of April 15th, 1912. In the US all Federal income taxes are due by midnight on 15 April. Probably just a coincidence, but we all get a sinking feeling on that day

F S

(sorry, but I'm not American, and that tickled my funny bone)

September's the time to start thinking about Christmas again - well, if you're a supermarket at least...

<BB<

Yes indeed

I recently encountered the Five Christmas Films Entry A30044323 when looking for something else and it made me think about this Entry...

I guess this Entry is OK as it is not the longest ever Entry, but it is more than double "very lengthy" and the average person could watch 'Dinner for One' in the time it would take them to read the whole Entry from start to finish...

Therefore, I think there might be merit in splitting out the 'What is a Christmas Film?' material, which is really good and unique within the Guide, and then the remaining unmistakeably Christmas films would fit into a fresh Entry to sit alongside the Five Christmas Films and Five Christmas Carol Films Entries.

This is great work, though - excellent flavour and humour so all the material is an asset to the Guide

Yes, this is quite long, but I do not see many sections that do not, at least to some extent, relate to Christmas.

>> The Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

>> I found it quite funny how even in the late 1940s, an era of austerity and rationing, they were discussing how Christmas was becoming over commercialised. Some things never change.

The story takes place in the United States. Although rationing and austerity were common in the UK after the Blitz in the US prosperity returned almost as soon as the troops came home.

>>Call me stupid, but I just realised that the little Dutch girl who cannot speak English is a war orphan.

I don't think most of us thought that either, but our people at home were far removed from the horrors of the war, except for the stories of our fathers and uncles - and they seldom spoke about them.

I think the review of 'The Polar Express' is entirely unfair. It is a cute story with a good message.

F S

This entry is a Collaborative Entry, which inevitably end up longer than other entries as the aim is to be as inclusive as possible in an effort to encourage as many people, especially Researchers who do not write for the Edited Guide, to take part. My role is to collect these opinions and arrange them in a cohesive order. I dislike the idea of cutting the entry up or splitting it in two as it sends the wrong message, that of 'you're contribution isn't good enough' or 'this may be your favourite, but you are wrong'. I want to be inclusive and say that every opinion is valid, even if it isn't an opinion I share, or if it is for a film I don't know.

So take for example 'The Polar Express'. I agree that it is a heart-warming film and personally I've been known to at the end, but there's already 2 entries in the Guide containing my opinion on the film so there's no justification for me including my opinion again in this one. The opinions expressed about the film to date were critical and I can only work with the material I'm given. Now, though, as Florida has expressed a view I can add that too to provide a bit of balance.

<BB<

Oh, sorry you got the wrong impression from my suggestion of splitting the Entry - it isn't that people's contributions get thrown in the bin, but that people get to have contribution to two Entries not just one, and a reader is more likely to be able to read everyone's contributions rather than running out of time half way through (20 minutes is a long time to commit to one article on the internet...)

It's like the collaborative Photography Entry that was split into Wedding Photography and General Photography to help people to find relevant information

Anyway, it is no problem - the Entry will fit alongside other collaborative Entries as is, but it was just a suggestion as I thought there was potential to elevate it to the next level...