Miramax
We all have our custom for Christmas . Some sing carols around the neighborhood while others wear ugly sweaters to work and make gingerbread at home . For myself , every year I always go to one place of adoration on Christmas Day : the movie theater . I ’ll be there this year , plunging myself into the Gothic iniquity of Robert Eggers’Nosferaturemake , watching Nicole Kidman submit to unspeakable carnal pleasures inBabygirl , and see the giving birth ofBob Dylan inA Complete Unknown .
For as long as I can think , I ’ve gone to the theater on Christmas and watch three or four movies , normally from unlike musical genre , and it ’s always been the one present to myself that ’s satisfied me the most . But there was one class when my vacation movie marathon hit a perfect score , all decade , and no notes : 1999 . That was a great movie year , so it stands to reason out its Christmas Day offer would tower over the rest .
Miramax
The following four pic are n’t beloved by all ; there ’s at least one film that ’s now virtually forgotten , and another looked down upon by mainstream critics . Still , these flick made such an impression on me that I still recall them , and my experience seeing them , 25 years later . 1999 truly did have the greatest lineup of Christmas Day motion picture ever , and here ’s why that matter today .
The Cider House Rules
Lasse Hallström ’s adjustment of John Irving ’s novel had a staggered theatrical release rollout , so while it technically premiere on December 10 , it did n’t attain Dallas , my hometown , until Christmas Day . This was one of the big Oscar motion-picture show of the season , and distributor Miramax ’s best hope to reduplicate the vital and commercial-grade achiever they achieved one year earlier withShakespeare in Love . They did n’t quite get there;The Cider House Ruleswas care by some , dismiss by others . No onelovedit , though , and that was its main trouble ; it ’s a movie engineered to be adore and awarded , not shrugged at and send packing .
I really , really liked it . Both then and now , The Cider House Rulesworks an effective Bildungsroman ( or coming - of - eld report ) and is probably the best Irving film version so far . ( true , that ’s not saying much . ) Apre - Spider - Man Tobey Maguirestars as Homer Wells , a youthful orphan who , after being raise by kindly Dr. Wilbur Larch ( Michael Caine ) at a New England orphanhood , ventures out into the macrocosm with a visiting couple , Wally ( Paul Rudd ) and Candy ( Charlize Theron ) . On Wally ’s kinsperson ’s Malus pumila orchard , Homer learns about life through an intimacy with Candy and by befriending the orchard ’s workers . After several liveliness - altering experiences and a piddling bit of heartbreak , he pass home , a little sorry , but a hatful overbold .
There ’s nothing groundbreaking aboutThe Cider House Rules , but it never promised anything as officially modern asBeing John MalkovichorMagnolia , two other fall 1999 passing . Irving had essentially created an AmericanOliver Twist , and Hallström get Homer ’s Dickensian journey with a laid - back lyricality that never produce too stuffy . Maguire followed through on the hope he render inThe Ice Stormwith his sensitive , wide - eyed public presentation here while Theron , then still think of as a bombshell , is captivate as the softly sorry Candy . It ’s Caine ’s execution as Wilbur , though , that lingers ; he win an Academy Award for it , and it ’s not tough to empathise why after watch him lose his adopted boy to adulthood .
Galaxy Quest
I intentionally slottedGalaxy Questas my second movie as a suspension from the more intense movies in my marathon . The studio apartment probably had a similar idea when it chose to release it on Christmas . The result was a hit personally ( I welcomed the respite from divine revelation about adultery , incest , and abortion ) and commercially ; that the movie is even more popular today is more or less surprising as it was thought by many at the time to be a throwawayStar Trek : The Original Seriesparody .
At a rundown sci - fi convention , the cast of a long - defunct sci - fi show , also calledGalaxy Quest , are abduct by extraterrestrial being , who believe they are the actual matter . That soon proves to be a big problem , as these washed - up actors are called on to act as like real - life history sci - fi heroes and get the better of an intergalactic warlord .
Galaxy Quest‘s construct is simple and ridiculous , yet the secret plan cast – Tim Allen , Sigourney Weaver , and Alan Rickman are the motion-picture show ’s trail — make the most of it and seem to be having a blast . That vim is infectious even now , and the film plays well in 2024 as the decades have bring legion reboots , reimaginings , and remake of the very music genre tropes it parody . Rickman , in exceptional , is a damn , and deploy his droll obstetrical delivery to withering , hilarious effect .
Angela’s Ashes
Largely leave today , Angela ’s Asheswas probably the most hoped-for film of the Christmas Day bunch . That ’s for the most part because the book it was based on had been a monumental succeeder , sell millions of copies worldwide and succeed a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 . Frank McCourt ’s memoir recounts his miserable childhood in Depression - earned run average Ireland and the struggles his mother Angela faces when she must raise five children while also trade with her lush , incessantly out - of - work hubby . As Franklin becomes a stripling , he shows promise as a writer and wants to emigrate to America , but the family continues to bear one misfortune after another . Will Frank realize the ambition that his parents could never make happen for themselves ?
Angela ’s Ashesis a bit of a downer , and what was appealing in a account book is n’t much so in a picture show . That explains why interview all turn down this film when it came out , and why most critics did n’t really embrace it . They did n’t trash it either , but respectfully liking a movie can be as worsened as hating it . multitude can understand hatred , but indifference ? Who wants to go to the movies and find nothing at all ?
Still , the movie does n’t deserve to be forgotten . The theatre director , Alan Parker , faithfully re - created the slums of 1930s Ireland to great spectacular effect , and Emily Watson , as Angela , rick in an impressive , unsentimental public presentation . The movie make as a straightforward narrative about a riotous childhood , more so than the recentBelfast , and it earns its uplifting ending .
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The crown gem of the Christmas 1999 moving-picture show schedule , The gifted Mr. Ripleydidn’t disappoint . That this impeccably made thriller about a con man who secretly idolizes , falls in love with , then murders a spoilt American in fifties Italy could be a bang with audiences during a season of holly and cheer made it all the more delicious to watch and savor it . It felt mistily transgressive ; after all , who would want to see a moving-picture show like this on Christmas ?
Tom Ripley ( Matt Damon ) is hired by a flush serviceman to retrieve his son , Dickie ( Jude Law ) , from an overlong halt in Italy with his girlfriend , Marge ( Gwyneth Paltrow ) . A master of mimicry and a lone hand at center , Tom ingratiates himself into Dickie ’s life story . But when Dickie get going to pull away , Tom murder him and assumes his identity . How long can Tom maintain his lampoon and guard off the growing suspicions of Marge and Dickie ’s champion Freddie ( Phillip Seymour Hoffman ) ?
The film director , Anthony Minghella , adapted Patricia Highsmith ’s ice-skating rink - cold thriller and bathe it in warm Italian sunlight good manners of camera operator John Seale and bid a hypnotic dream - like spell thanks toGabriel Yared ’s harmonica - infused score . He also employed one of the most gorgeous casts ever assembled , with Damon , Paltrow , Law , and Cate Blanchett all at the apex of the sun’s way of their youth and peach . The issue was a thriller you want to escape into ; you were correctly there with Ripley , and peradventure even wanted tobehim . Minghella ’s champion was to make Ripley the hero even when he did terrible things . You sympathize his annoyance at being himself , and his desire to be someone else at any monetary value .
The best of the rest
These were the four movies I chose to watch on Christmas Day . Between December 22 and December 31 , I also watchedMagnolia , Any Given Sunday , The End of the Affair , Man on the Moon , Snow hang on Cedars , andToy Story 2(again ) . Some are beloved classic , some have been bury , but all of these movies are great in their own way . Not all of them can be winners ; I also sawDeuce Bigalow : Male Gigoloaround this clock time because while I was a burgeoning cinephile , I was also a teenage boy , and susceptible to movies like that from time to meter .
But they all lead to a movie civilization I want to be a part of , one that involved not just watching films , but sharing the experience and talking about them afterward . AfterRipleyended , I remember chatting with an older lady about what we had just watched . “ Poor guy rope , ” she enounce . “ Yeah , but hewasa killer whale , ” I responded . “ Yes , but he had his reasons , did n’t he ? ” she said . She chortle , and I laughed , too .
I do n’t make out if I ’ll have the same experience this year with my Christmas Day picture show lineup . Will someone be as sympathetic toTimothée Chalamet ’s close - off musical geniusor Bill Skarsgård ’s bloodthirsty vampire ? Maybe it ’s my turn to see the moral equivocalness of a villain everyone else sneers at . InNosferatu , Count Orlok is a slayer , but he only murders to get closer to his lady love , Ellen . He had his reasons , did n’t he ?
