My Review of...The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) directed by Brian Henson

 Never been a big fan of musicals, but growing up as a child in the 1990s meant that they were inevitable and I would tolerate them. Of course if the quality of the musical as a whole is good than there is no complaint from me. This adaptation of A Christmas Carol is one of the most beloved for a lot of reasons. For one thing it was the first movie made by Jim Henson Productions after the death of The Muppets creator Jim Henson. There had been talk of disbanding the company, but Disney stepped in and this movie would be the first project of The Muppets' Disney era and would be directed by Jim Henson's son Brian. 

On a personal level, this was my favorite adaptation of A Christmas Carol as a child and one of the hardest to watch. I was two years old when it premiered and the 1990s was still a long way out from the video-on-demand/streaming era, So if I didn't catch it on TV or find it in a Blockbuster store than I just didn't see it. I can remember watching it one year and not being able to watch it for another two. Those days made one very appreciative of today when one can see these films on our computer screens. I don't watch this show anywhere near as much as I did over 20 years ago, but it is nice to revisit it every once-in-a-while.

I probably should've talked more about the film itself, but I felt a more personal look was warranted here—there are plenty of people better equipped to sing this film's praises. As it is this is the best "all-ages" telling of A Christmas Carol you are bound to find.

My Review of Oliver Twist (1948) directed by David Lean

 This movie is one of the best and controversial adaptations of Charles Dickens. Dickens was a writer who was stage actor at heart, so he wrote works that were designed to be easily adaptable to the stage and consequently have been easily adaptable to the screen. This adaptation was after David Lean's blockbuster 1946 adaptation of Dickens' Great Expectations. Lean reassembled the actors and crew from that production for this one and did a similar streamline of the plot for cinema. This movie was a forerunner of the very new style of film noir that was more popular stateside, but had some admirers in the Old World. This movie employed the camera-style...unfortunately a very ill-timed faithfulness to the illustrations of the source material. 

The acting in this film is phenomenal. Everyone gets into their roles emotionally and really makes you feel like you are in the story. Despite the substantial cuts to the story, much of the social realism of Dickens' novel remains and it feels almost like watching a documentary—almost...

Suppose we have to talk about it. One of the controversies of the original novel was the antisemitism around the character Fagin. Dickens was certainly not known for his sympathy towards non-white gentiles, but the outcry over his portrayal of Fagin in Oliver Twist caused him to revise descriptions of Fagin later editions/printings of the novel. But he kept the illustrations by George Cruikshank. When Alec Guinness makeup for his role as Fagin was shown it caused outrage throughout the US and Europe. Given that the Holocaust had ended only three years earlier the anti-Semitic depiction of Fagin's physical features (the particularly the nose) was in poor taste. A shame as Guinness does a great job in acting the character in my opinion and the movie never makes reference to Fagin being Jewish (seriously, I did not know myself the first time I saw this that Fagin was Jewish until I looked the story up for myself). Still if you can overlook this flaw of the film than it is a good introduction to this story and Dickens (and there are of course other adaptations–not as well acted, but with more of the original story–with much less offensive Fagin makeup).

I have to say the ending of this movie is one of the craziest action sequences I have seen since the ending of Throne of Blood. That sh*t was wild!

My Review of A Christmas Carol (1938) directed by Edwin L. Marin

 This is not one of the better adaptations of the novella for me. It is way too 1930s Hollywood hammy for my taste. The script takes too many liberties with the dialogue and changing the plot, one of the worst Americanizations of a foreign work for my taste. This movie was originally supposed to star Mr. Potter himself, Lionel Barrymore, but injury forced Reginald Owen to step in. I don't think Barrymore would've made this movie any better—the whole production is wrong for me. The only thing this movie has going for it is that it is not the 1935 version with Seymour Hicks. This movie also ties with the 1984 adaptation for worst Tiny Tim.