Susan Granger’s dvd update for week of Friday, December 25th:
‘Tis the season to visit and re-visit these perennial Christmas favorites:
1) “It’s a Wonderful Life:” a classic story of redemption with Jimmy Stewart as a depressed man who thinks his life means nothing and wishes he’d never been born; then he discovers what would have happened if he’d never existed.
2) “A Christmas Carol” with George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge
3) “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” the timeless Dr. Seuss tale
4) “The Santa Clause,” starring Tim Allen as a hapless divorced dad who is chosen to be the next Santa Claus
5) “Holiday Inn,” the original musical classic with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby
6) “White Christmas,” a remake of “Holiday Inn” with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye
7) “Meet Me in St. Louis” with Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
8) “Miracle on 34th Street,” the 1947 version Maureen O’Hara, Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, a Santa at Macy’s who claims to be real
9) “Christmas in Connecticut” with Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan
10) “The Bells of St. Mary’s” with Bing Crosby as a priest who comes to the rescue of a troubled parochial school run by St. Benedict, played by Ingrid Bergman
11) “The Lemon Drop Kid” in which Bob Hope, as a racetrack tout who runs afoul of a big-time gambler, introduces the classic “Silver Bells”
12) “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas,” filled with inventive, stop-action animation
13) “Elf” with Will Ferrell and Ed Asner as gruff yet tender Santa Claus
14) “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus” with Charles Bronson as a newspaper editor touched by an inquiry from a young reader
15) “Bad Santa,” Terry Zwigoff’s subversive comedy, mocking the commercialism of the season and starring Billy Bob Thornton as a misanthropic, two-bit criminal who masquerades as a shopping mall Santa to rob a series of department stores.