Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Ode to a Classic



Today I am going to talk a little about traditions. Specifically, Christmas traditions. Everyone has them. Whether it is going to see the lights downtown, a special meal with the whole family, or specific movies that you watch every season to get you in the spirit. One of my family’s long-standing traditions is one of the latter: watching “Scrooged”, starring Bill Murray every year and practically reciting the whole thing, all the way through. I love this tradition. We have even adopted my husband into our clan and hope to have him learning his lines by next year.
The reason I bring this up is because of a very disturbing article my father read a little while back. It was a list of the top, and bottom 10 Christmas movies of all time. Of course, in the top ten were classics like “A Christmas Story”, but I could not believe what ended up in the bottom ten. Yep, you guessed it…”Scrooged!” Can you believe such an injustice? Talk about mocking one of the only things I hold dear! Ok, maybe not one of the only things, but you get the idea.
Have the critics ever even seen the movie? I would pose the argument that they have not. No one who has witnessed the genius of Bill Murray portraying one of histories greatest success stories could ever even think of demoralizing such a classic. Maybe they just didn’t get the close resemblance to Charles Dicken’s heartwarming tale, “A Christmas Carol.“ Does that seem a little harsh? Maybe, but I have some very strong feelings toward this movie.
What is the moral of this story? Don’t judge. No, wait, its, be wary of other people’s feelings. Or maybe it is to watch as many old, cheese, or uplifting Christmas movies as possible before the season ends. Yeah, I think it’s that last one.