It’s a Wonderful Life

I know that a lot of people watch Christmas movies during this season. I have my favorites, including “A Christmas Story”, “Life of Brian”, and “Die Hard”.

This year, we watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” the classic with James Stewart. I last watched it as a child, probably 45+ years ago, so I really had no fond reminiscences of of this movie.

We dialed it up on Amazon Prime streaming, and my first foggy recollection of the long past viewing was challenged. I remember it being in black and white, and yes, the version on Prime was colorized. Groan. I am not in the camp of colorizing the classics.

But I put that behind me, it is not like I bought the film.

I won’t bore you with the details, but James Stewart’s character is classic America heartland good boy, pillar of the community, and advocate for the downtrodden, who unselfishly ignores his dreams to keep the community afloat, and countering the “evil” banker who would exploit all the good people of the community.

My observations:

My God, is this some saccharine twaddle. I mean it is so unrealistic, so tacky, so much malarkey. I think I was well on the way to getting Diabetes from this movie.

The movie “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, directed by Mike Nichols, adapted from the play by Edward Albee. Seen here from left, Elizabeth Taylor as Martha and Richard Burton as George. Initial theatrical release June 22, 1966. Screen capture. © 1966 Warner Bros. Credit: © 1966 Warner Bros. / Flickr / Courtesy Pikturz. Image intended only for use to help promote the film, in an editorial, non-commercial context.

It needs something darker to watch afterword, to help counter the sugar high. I watched one of my favorites, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf”, and that was about the perfect insulin after the diabetic coma that “It’s a Wonderful Life” induced.

Product Manager in Tech. Guitar player. Bicycle Rider. Dog rescuer. Techie.