I’d think that a biopic about Aretha Franklin starring Jennifer Hudson would have been a slam dunk. Unfortunately I was wrong. While Hudson truly gives her all in portraying the Queen of Soul, the film fails her in almost every way. Glossing over so many details of the diva’s life, both the harrowing and the joyful, it’s impossible to even get a sense of what made the singer a queen. The film makes no attempt to even portray Franklin’s entire life, ending at the filming of her Amazing Grace album. There is some great more recent footage of Aretha performing as the credits roll, but I would recommend just watching the Amazing Grace documentary that was finally released a couple of years ago if you want to see some of the best of what she had to offer. 

On the day a statue to the founder of Hoyt City is to be dedicated, reporters converge on the home of Barbara Stanwyck, playing a centenarian who has a mysterious connection to the founder. The film then flashes back to the past when Babs was just a teenager and infatuated with the future founder, played by Joel McCrea. They marry and the film proceeds to tell of their life together and apart, Stanwyck providing the cleverness and fortitude that made him so successful. Trying to show a ‘behind every great man there is a great lady’ tale, this mostly fails because there is little redeeming McCrea’s character except that he sometimes gets out of his way long enough to listen to Barbara. Multiple times in the film, he brings ruin to their lives whether through gambling away their savings or jealousy over another’s interest in his wife and are only saved because Stanwyck is that great.

Perhaps it’s just because it’s so overdone at this point, but A Christmas Carol is probably my least favorite Christmas tale. Saying that, The Muppets perform one of my favorite classically set versions of the story. Michael Caine is effective in both the villainous and redeemed parts of Scrooge’s character arch. Though I would have liked more well-known characters as the ghosts, the rest of the Muppet cast is well assigned, especially Gonzo and Rizzo who provide good movement and levity in their narrator roles. The songs are memorable while feeling classic and not at all out of place in the setting.    

While this is just an episode of the Fraggle Rock television show, I include it as one of my absolute favorite Christmas specials to watch every year. During the winter season, the Fraggles celebrate the Festival of the Bells. While all of the other Fraggles excitedly make preparations, Gobo is having doubts and sets out to find the Great Bell at the center of Fraggle Rock. I’ve never seen another special that isn’t technically about Christmas so effectively encapsulate the reason people honor holidays. Uncle Matt gives a report on the silly creatures while Doc and Sprocket carry out their own celebrations, so the episode is not devoid of actual Christmas celebrating. 

This film quickly became one of my regular Christmas watches after the first time I saw it a number of years ago. The film centers around Timothy Vahle as the manager of a Native American ski resort who is expecting a secret visit from a travel critic. At the same time, his father’s pen-pal is paying a surprise visit to the resort. The production values are thoroughly of the Hallmark/Lifetime level of quality, but the hijinks of the supporting cast of characters, including a vegetarian chef played by Graham Greene and a romance novel obsessed desk clerk, makes it all light and interesting.   

So much more than actual battle films, I enjoy espionage films set during World War II. In this modernized version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Leslie Howard is a professor and archaeologist, almost an Indiana Jones prototype, who takes a group of students on a dig in Germany. His research is funded by the Nazis, but his trip is actually a cover in his attempts to free prisoners in a nearby concentration camp. An enjoyable film that really picks up the pace once the narrative moves from England to Germany, I imagine it was particularly effective as a morale booster during the war years, portraying the British as intelligent and cunning and the Germans as bungling buffoons.

Fred MacMurray is a married toymaker whose family, despite his best efforts has little need for him. When he feels sparks with a former co-worker who has suddenly reappeared in his life, he is hard-pressed to not see where they land. It’s a typical Sirk melodrama, interestingly told from the male perspective. The co-worker is played smartly by Barbara Stanwyck and the chemistry between the two leads makes you want to root for them despite what it might do to his undeserving family. 

Ralph Richardson is the parson of a remote village whose extended family comes to his home for Christmas. Unbeknownst to him, all three of his adult children are harboring deep secrets that they feel unable to share with their religious and conventional father. The film is very quaint and British. I appreciate most that there is no big flare-ups or fights as if the characters are trying to respect the family Christmas setting. But the tension is palpable and the characters act in less than desirable ways toward each other until the secrets can be revealed and addressed.