Mainlining Christmas

It seems like it was just Black Friday last week. Even though we crammed a lot of holiday cheer into this season, our list-of-things-to-watch is only getting longer. As I mentioned this year, researching one holiday special keeps leading us to more and more. Netflix sees our patterns and recommends more Christmas-themed stuff. We buy obscure movies and specials all year long whenever we find them cheap. So don’t worry about us running out of material anytime soon. The thing that most surprised me this year was how many honestly enjoyable, quality movies we watched. Some of the highlights of this year for me were: Meet Me in St. Louis - a classic movie musical, expertly crafted and gorgeously filmed The Apartment - another classic, this one quietly subversive, biting, and extremely clever 8 Women - a french film about family, anger, passion, and the judgement of women by women Mrs. Santa Claus - a sweet family musical about feminism and social justice in the 1910s, s

I'd been meaning to rewatch Edward Scissorhands for a while, though I bumped it back because I was a bit skeptical of its status as a holiday movie. Now, I feel pretty confident describing it that way. The movie opens with a brief frame story of an old woman telling a story to her granddaughter. Since we're talking about holiday connections, I'll add that it's snowing outside and the patterns on the wallpaper bear a resemblance to the Star of Bethlehem. We soon cut to Peg Boggs, an Avon saleswoman going from door-to-door in a town of pastel houses laid out on a curved road ending in a cul-de-sac. It's a sunny, bright day in what looks like a suburb of LA in the 1960's. When she doesn't have luck with her neighbors, she turns her attention to a giant castle atop a dark mountain that sits just beyond the cul-de-sac. You really have to admire Burton's flair. She drives up and discovers a courtyard of stone gargoyles and meticulously mainta