I would never have guessed in a million years that I would ever see Holly Hunter and Austin Pendleton a-smooching in a film. I am still somewhat stunned. I also laughed my head off.
I want to write a full review of Home for the Holidays, and I am sure I will at least write a six-minute review. But I am still floored about that scene and had to share. Also, it was very weird that Charles Durning’s character had the same name as my grandfather, because whenever Anne Bancroft started yelling at him to do something, it sounded exactly like my grandmother. If you are in my immediate family (which you are not, unless my youngest brother is visiting … hi!), this alone makes the movie worthwhile.
I watched Home for the Holidays in preparation for an essay I wrote for Cinematical about entertaining dysfunctional families in film. If you are reading this entry shortly after I posted it, you can look in the right-hand column and see a link to the entry, so I didn’t really have to post one in the previous sentence.
My boyfriend the wonder programmer just whipped up this little bit of script that finds the latest entries I posted to Cinematical and publishes the links right here in the sidebar. He also sent me the code to publish a list of the latest comments posted to this site, which you will also find in the right-hand sidebar. I was terribly impressed. The sidebars are looking quite spiffy these days.
He also upgraded me to Movable Type 3.2, which was a much more painless transition than I could have imagined. So far, no problems whatsoever. You might have noticed that comments are now moderated, because the comment spam before the upgrade was driving us batty. We haven’t figured out yet how to put all of the regular commenters on a trusted list that skips moderation, but we’re working on it. I’m so glad that he decided on Movable Type and that the upgrade worked, because I feared I would have to learn one of those other blogging apps and I’ve grown very fond of MT.
And Holidailies is now live, although registration doesn’t begin until Nov. 30. You can buy a banner ad now if you want. A whole lot of people hit that site during the posting period, so it’s a great place to promote your personal Web site.
I have the best idea for Holidailies this year: I’d love to watch a dysfunctional family or abnormal holiday movie every day during the Holidailies posting period and write and post a review. Wouldn’t that be fun? By “abnormal holiday movie” I mostly mean Bad Santa, which I’ve already reviewed, but I’d probably try to slip in Brazil as well. I had a much longer list of dysfunctional family films than the one I posted at Cinematical, not to mention a good half-dozen films that other people recommended that I haven’t seen, like The Ice Storm and The House of Yes.
I am not actually going to do this, mind you, although I do plan to post every day for Holidailies. I don’t think I have enough time and it would stress me out. Maybe I’ll do it once or twice a week, though, if time permits. Anyone want to recommend any must-see screwed-up family films, preferably comedies? Maybe I should have started a Web portal for the holiday season just for that type of film review, and have everyone contribute. But one Web portal in December is more than enough for me.
Damn. Holly Hunter and Austin Pendleton. If you’d told me I never would have believed you.
I have a weakness for Thanksgiving movies that was set into motion by Home for the Holidays. There’s something in it for and from every family. At the party I’m throwing on Friday I’ll be playing it and Pieces of April in rotation. Glad you enjoyed HftH!
Would Uncle Buck count as must-see? It sure isn’t perfect but John Candy isn’t around to make a better movie.
I haven’t seen Home for the Holidays since it was new and in the theaters, but remember how very real Ann Bancroft’s kitchen seemed, like they’d sneaked into my aunt Fran’s house and copied hers.
The sponsor links are interesting; the Cinematical entry on Disfunctional Families has little ads for some Family Law groups. It might be logical, but it’s still funny.
Annie