What classics did you see last week ? (23 Dec - 29 Dec 2018)

Hi all,I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, and my festive viewings were:

X-Mas TV specials:



The X Files: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (1998) 10

The episode with the lowest budget of season 6 and the smallest cast list of any X-Files episode made up to now, writer/director Chris Carter uses this unusual minimal set-up to his advantage by brewing a ghost stories for Christmas atmosphere in lighting the house with festive red lighting and coiled camera moves from the corners of rooms capturing the confined state Mulder and Scully are in. Backed by a chiming score from Mark Snow, Carter slants the ghostly CGI wounds (which has actually aged well) with comedic Hijinks of disappearing doors and sitting back in chairs chats with ghosts. One of the more comedic eps of the season, the script by Carter shines black comedy merriment on the house, in the odd couple exchanges between the agents and ghosts Maurice and Lydia, whilst the limited time the haunting is allowed to take place, gives the ghost a slithering unpredictability. Joining the excellent Duchovny and Anderson, Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner give utterly splendid turns as the ghosts, whose funny, off the cuff one-liners is thrown with a screw-ball slickness by Asner and Tomlin, along with an excitement of being the ghosts who stole Christmas.



Father Ted: A Christmassy Ted (1996) 8

Praying for double the runtime of a normal Ted, the script by series creators Graham Linehan & Arthur Mathews take on the extra time with an impressive ease, thanks to the main plot-line of a sudden rush of fame going to Ted's head tugging at character comedy over Ted's suspicion of jealousy from others, which opens up the paths for very funny physical Comedy set-pieces, when someone claiming to be from Ted's past, arrives to take advantage of his star-struck state in wacky Mission Impossible 1-inspired set-pieces. Hunching Ted (played by a hilarious Dermot Morgan)and his fellow priests down like they are on a battlefield in a whip-pan along a lingerie store, director Declan Lowney takes the set-pieces to high heaven with rubbery, frantic slap-stick over Christmassy time on Craggy Island.



Knowing Me Knowing Yule with Alan Partridge 10

Bringing the curtain down on the Knowing Me era of the series, writers Steve Coogan,Armando Iannucci,Patrick Marber & Rebecca Front pull a cracker of a final ep, which satirically mocks all-star chat show specials, with hilarious, sparkling dialogue that sends Partridge falling into every mishap and uncomfortable long pause with his guests.Done as a extravagance special for the chat show, director Dominic Brigstocke breaks Alan's show with fantastic visual sight-gags of would-be set-pieces falling apart, and ill-judged attempts at underhanded product placement. Becoming a throne in the series in the next series, David Schneider gives BBC head Tony Hayers a fittingly slimy manner which causes Steve Coogan to have Partridge be wonderfully ill at ease, as Alan pulls the cracker on his career.

X-Mas films:



Night Before Christmas (1961) 8

Continuing a run of Fantasy titles, auteur writer/director Aleksandr Rou enchants with an utterly delight Christmas atmosphere, spun by Rou & cinematographer Dmitri Surensky weaving the camera down the streets of the snow-covered village. Gliding by on a 66 minute runtime, Rou rolls into the surreal with sparks of primary colours shimmering on the screen from lush dissolves, and Rou skilfully blending rustic Comedy into the tale, such as the cute, mischievous Devil being used as a mode of transport. Sending Vakula out to find the Tsaritsa's slippers for his love Oksana, the screenplay by Rou's adaptation of Nikolay Gogol is strung with whimsical flourishes which thread Vakula and the Devil into the bustling small-town dramas, as the locals prepare on the night before Christmas.



Don't Open Till Christmas (1984) 6

Stuck in delays, (filmed in 1983,put out in 1985) which led to extra murder set-pieces to be filmed for a final high-end body count of 14, and the first two directors being sacked, the third, and final director Ray Selfe sows it all together with a grubby Grindhouse atmosphere. Filmed round the crumbling outskirts of London, Swlfe sniffs up the seediness in panning shots round the dark, dank locations and swift first-person tracking shots of the psycho stalking (and then killing) sexy ladies, and down and outs dressed as Santa. Rid of the gloss of US Horror of the era, the Slasher slay bells ring on a ugliness of dry red smeared across the screen. Chopping some of the US Slasher clichés off, ("The Final Girl" not being the pure and innocent type, the victims being largely rough round the edges) the screenplay by Alan Birkinshaw & Derek Ford follows the spreading of good cheer in the directing by giving the dialogue an unshakeable mean spitefulness, where even the cops treat survivors with a bullying contempt. Pulling off the beard, the writers carve the motives of the nutter with a unrelenting wide-eyed psycho harshness which leaves the police with an open case till Christmas.



Better Watch Out (2016) 8

Building up a snowstorm from a plot twist pencilled in at the half-way point, the excellent performances by Levi Miller and Ed Oxenbould as Luke and Garrett really make the twist work, thanks to Miller giving Luke an ambiguity between childish teasing, and an increasingly unsettling wide-grin, blank stare void, while Oxenbould gives Garrett a casual slacker state open to manipulation. Reuniting with Oxenbould after M. Night Shyamalan's return to praise and box office success with The Visit (2015), Olivia DeJonge gives a live-wire turn as Ashley, whose initial babysitting of Luke is given a pointed comedic edge by DeJonge, which breaks into horror by DeJonge turning the screws on Ashley's sinking fear, and scarping to survive.

Returning to the screen for the first time since the torture- Horror Undocumented (2010), co-writer/(with Zack Khan) director Chris Peckover & cinematographer Carl Robertson imaginatively use Christmas decorations and the scenery to give the flick a macabre edge that leaves the pure driven snow red, and (excluding the mid-credits scene) frames the final shot like the front of a Christmas card with a wry grin. Continuing to have torture be an element in his films, Peckover wraps the film in the psychological effects of it in tight close-ups on faces giving the horror a tense chill,along with sound effects and dabs of paint and blood on the floor suggestively drawing what has taken place.

Hanging up the decorations with a comedic playfulness in the opening, the screenplay by Peckover and Khan superbly snowballs comedy with Home-Invasion thrills, via Ashley's relaxed attitude to babysitting creaking under unexplained noises and broken glass. Opening up the present to the viewer, the writers wonderfully free the twists and turns to glitter, by continuing to gradual build the fraught relationship between the trio,as Ashley discovers that it is better to watch out.



Maria Chapdelaine (1934) 8

Sailing to Canada with a cast and crew from France, co-writer/(with Gabriel Boissy) directing auteur Julien Duvivier lands with style in vast wide-shots breathing in the great earthy outdoors of Quebec. As fellow IMDber dbdumonteil mentions in his terrific review, Duvivier cuts down the fir trees with an almost musical stylisation, layering the soundtrack with the national heritage of the locals in songs such as A la Claire Fontaine and Marianne s'en Va-t-Au -Moulin swaying to the gatherings of the towns people. Continuing to build the major visual motif across his credits of impending tragedy laying await behind the sun, Duvivier fills Maria full of grace with glowing, poetic white lighting, and Paradis's walk in the rugged terrain being followed in a tightly-held tracking shot.

For the first of (currently) three filmed adaptations of Louis Hémon's novel, (who died at just 32, via getting struck by a train when walking near the tracks) the screenplay by Boissy & Duvivier wrap this version in a magical elegance, thanks to Chapdelaine and Paradis's blossoming love being balanced by the shadow of death getting ever nearer to Chapdelaine's family. Teaming up for the first of seven times with Duvivier, the fresh-face Jean Gabin gives a very good turn as Paradis, who is given a surprisingly sensitive, delicate edge by Gabin. Looking angelic in close-up, beautiful Madeleine Renaud gives an enticing performance as Chapdelaine, with Renaud subtly casting a down-cast glimmer across her face, as Maria finds herself not full of grace.