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Movie Mondays: Better Than Being Home Alone For Christmas
As a means of rounding up Toronto’s various cinematic goings-on each week, Movie Mondays compiles the best rep cinema and art house screenings, special presentations, lectures, and limited engagements.
If you’ve been in a mall lately, then you know Christmas is right around the corner. In fact, it’s pretty much this week. But that doesn’t mean the cinemas are closed. So take a break from all that last minute-shopping and see something, Christmas-y or not. This week we’ve got plenty of Christmas hits, plus some comedy courtesy of Tati and the Muppets (not in the same film, though we can dream).
You know what’s a great Christmas film? That one about the kid whose parents leave him home alone and then while he’s home alone two bandits keep trying to break in and steal all the stuff that’s in his home that he’s in alone. What was that one called again? Oh yeah. The Boy Who Never Went Away. Wait, no. It was Home Alone.
Starring a “Black or White” music video–era Macaulay Culkin as the preadolescent prankster who’s left home…uh…by himself and Daniel Stern (the only Hollywood personality who is less relevant to our current cultural climate than Macaulay Culkin), Home Alone gave us such memorable quotes as “I’ll give ‘em a whirl,” “Buzz! Your girlfriend! Woof!” and, our personal favourite, “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.” There were also a bunch of sequels to Home Alone, like one where the kid goes to New York. It had Tim Curry in it or something. But because it’s not as good and, strictly speaking, the kid isn’t even really left “home” alone (he’s in a hotel), we don’t count it. But the Underground does! And if you do too, you can catch both Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York at 7 and 9 p.m., respectively, on Wednesday, December 22.
Believe it or not, there are great holiday movies that deal with subjects other than negligent parenting and the scheming of a precocious, smart-alecky child star. And on Thursday, December 23, the Bloor’s got all kinds of them, running all day. At 4:30 p.m., there’s A Christmas Carol (the 1951 British one, with Alastair Sim as Scrooge), followed at 7 p.m. by A Christmas Story (directed by Bob Clark, who, incidentally, also helmed the Canadian X-Mas classic Black Christmas).
Finally, if you’re not full up on that “peace on earth and goodwill towards men” stuff, at 9 p.m. there’s Frank Capra’s seminal It’s A Wonderful Life. But while we’re all for this heart-warming Jimmy Stewart schmaltz, we also suspect that to a lot of Torontonians, the film’s version of bizarro Bedford Falls, the dystopic Pottersville, may hit a little close to home. (Though, to his credit, Mayor Ford has yet to change the name of Toronto to “Fordsville.” Or “Coach Rob Ford’s Parking Lot and Megacity.”)
As far as Muppet movies go, it’s hard to beat 1979’s A Muppet Movie. For one thing, it’s got that incredible Paul Williams score. And Elliott Gould is in it. But 1984’s The Muppets Take Manhattan is pretty close. At least it’s got Liza Minnelli. And Dabney Coleman. And it’s certainly better than the maybe more appropriate The Muppet Christmas Carol, which isn’t very good.
Manhattan sees everyone’s favourite not-quite-mops-and-not-quite-puppets heading to the Big Apple to stage an elaborate musical. But then Kermit gets hit by a bus and spends a lot of time wandering around with amnesia dressed in an outfit that anticipates Tom Hanks’s in Forrest Gump. Will our hero regain his memory in time to take Manhattan by storm? Reports from those of us who have seen the movie a dozen times suggest…he might! But to be sure, watch those crazy Muppets take Manhattan at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, December 22, and 4 p.m. on Thursday, December 23.
Calling Jacques Tati “the original Mr. Bean” may not be the highest commendation. But guess what? We just did it anyway! Like Bean (or Chaplin, who people may respect more, for whatever reason), Tati’s Monsieur Hulot character often finds himself narrowly evading the various snares of modernity.
In Tati’s most accomplished film, 1967’s Playtime, glass office buildings are terrifying, transparent mazes, and merging into a freeway roundabout becomes a nightmarish carousel. Like a lot of Tati’s films, Playtime is comprised of little more than a few stitched-together comic set pieces. But the set pieces here are exceptional, so large and expansive that they were shot using hi-res 70mm film. And, lucky you, the Lightbox will be presenting Playtime in “glorious 70mm” Saturday, December 25 at 12 and 3 p.m.. For Christmas-types, it’s the perfect present to give yourself. For non-Christmas-types, it’s the perfect time to see Playtime without all those Christmas-types crowding up the place.