That time of the year team,
Couple days to go, in New Zealand anyway.
We spin up Home Alone each year on the dusty R7G, its a tradition in a world that's losing tradition
Home Alone (1990) [1866-85]

What's your favourite Christmas release you spin, own, wish you had or owned?

For me...

Die Hard (1988) [PILF-2812]

or (yes, I still believe it works for both Halloween and Xmas):

Nightmare Before Christmas, The: Special Edition (1993) [PILA-1353]

Julien

The Snowman

Father Christmas

Mickey’s Christmas Carol

Muppet Christmas Carol

Slaughterhouse 5

To be honest most of our best Xmas movies are on DVD and BR.


I’m joking about Slaughterhouse 5 of course. It was a dig on people who think watching Bruce Willis joke about murdering people for two hours is a Christmas experience just because Christmas is mentioned at some point in the movie.

I just watched Fellini Satyricon #230 (1969) [CC1382L]

This might be the perfect Christmas film and spot on for what is going on today all over the world.
Will watch again in a few days.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Well, when able, there are four different versions of "A Christmas Carol" in my grotto.
Depending on my mood, I will watch various versions to remind me of what is most important........

My wife's fav is "It's a Wonderful Life" .... watching that directly EVERY Christmas while still corporeal ! ! !

Another fav is "Ernest Saves Christmas" ! Apologies mates, Ernest P Worrell cracks me up.....
(Scared Stupid) another fav LoL

Cheers to the membership....
Have a cool Yule to all the peeps out there.....
Stay healthy throughout 2024......

Mr. Holland's Opus (1995) [12161 AS]
Is another one for us, well the other half anyway

For me it's Die Hard. I have a copy of 1666-80
With my buddies, we have a small tradition. Each year we take a selfie with Bruce in the aircon duct and the lighter

My favorite christmas movie I would love to spin, as it is almost impossible to find in Germany: Jingle All the Way.

Right now, i don't have many Christmas Related Movies on LD, but of the ones i do....Die Hard, Miracle on 34th Street (1994) and The Muppet's Christmas Carol

I was watching the Muppet Christmas Carol today, Muppet Christmas Carol, The (1992) [1729 AS]. If you like the “soft film” look this is the disc for you. Nearly zero noise is most scenes. The sound is fantastic as well.

Due to teddanson I picked up a copy of Waterloo on DVD and watched that one on Christmas day. What a crazy film, had a couple boring moments
and some anti war message for a second but its a crazy film, maybe better now that I'm older? I'm sure I've seen it before as a kid but don't remember.

And re-watched Satyricon, perfect for setting with tree and all

That was actually my first LaserDisc!

Bell, Book, & Candle

Desk Set

Oh man, I have to make another Christmas LD post...

The movie is One Magic Christmas. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089731/

The LD is One Magic Christmas (1985) [475 AS]

I can't remember seeing this before but I've owned it for a long time.

This movie is truly unique. I don't think it's a good Christmas movie, just to be clear. It's well made, the actors are pretty much all amazing, but the final product sucks. I think it's only for those people who used to watch all those Lifetime movies about having your daughter kidnaped or whatever. People who love to see other people in misery for some reason. Or maybe it's for fans of Saw. This movie has Santa Claus in it, the real one, but its Stroszek caliber bleak at times. The setting is very realistic. I live in Michigan and have all my life so I know what real snow looks like. Its not always falling in front of the moon to make Santa look great, sometimes its just grey crap laying around all over the place that makes it hard to get in and out of your house and car for months in a way that really wears on some people's psyche. This movie was shot in Ontario during winter so this is all very present and real. The actors look COLD, which I'm sure they were, and depressed. You can see their breath. The snow has frozen solid and has that shoe capturing "crunch" to it. The cars are all lame old Detroit stuff in not great shape covered in road filth because nobody here washes their car. Everyone is happy but has no reason to be. It portrays a midwestern dead-end factory down very well. Someone saw Silkwood (1983) [ID2913CC] and Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) [I5054] and thought, "I want to be exactly half way between those two!" Someone at Walt Disney Pictures loved the idea and here we go, a sort of New Hollywood Christmas movie.

Shelly Duvall must not have been available so Mary Steenburgen plays the responsible but humorless mother working doubles at K Mart. Her performance is as great as ever and she is clearly the lead in this Book of Job of a movie. Her husband has been laid off from the radio factory and the company wants their house back. The company is rudely (illegally, you'd think) touring new tenets through it as they are packing up. In ten days they will be on the street. Xmas is around the corner. What to do? Well, it could be worse. Your boss at K Mart could be an above average abusive jerk. Then your husband could be shot to death at the bank by someone robbing it. Then the robber could steal your decades old POS car with your kids in it. Then the robber could drive the car off a bridge killing himself and your two children. This all happens! Then Mary Steenburgen's character is shown wildly scrambling to the edge of the river where by this time even the bubbles have stopped. She falls to her knees in the snow, totally devastated. She's lost her entire family, her home, her job, her car, and is freezing in the snow crying with no coat. The performance is the definition of heavy, causing me to recall the tragic ending of Strada, La #29 (1954) [CC1129L], such is its power.

SIDE CHANGE!

OK, SIDE B. What can we do in Side B? Well on Side B, Harry Dean Stanton's Christmas Angel character is hard at work, the kids are resurrected, daughter goes to the North Pole to see Santa, husband walks out of the light and is back to life and then its the day before Xmas again and she makes some changes to her life. So...she ends up preventing all the tragedy, sorta Groundhog Day style, but didn't need to because Santa and the angel fixed it all...sorta can't make up its mind. It will make you understand the Magic of Christmas but it will push you to the brink of a heroin addiction before it gets there. I'm personally annoyed by the way it has Christmas and angels and miracles but doesn't actually mention Jesus. I'm not saying this to thump a Bible on any level, it's something else. It's this weird western corporatized version of Christmas that no longer exists I guess but in the 80s defined what "normal OK Christmas stuff" would be. It's an emotional but ultimately Godless and hopeless vibe and this movie may personify it. "God is dead. Only Disney Magic can save you in the end."

Anyway, this movie is insane. It absolutely tortures its characters and then magically saves them at the end. I feel like burning it. Thumbs down, do not watch unless you are drunk and high and also watching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_(1959_film). In that case JUST PLAY SIDE A.

VERDICT: For Canookistanian Holiday Chuckles with a tone of realness instead try Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmet_Ott ... _Christmas

In case anyone thinks I may be misapplying a modern hipster lens to something from another time that was simply made with enthusiasm and without irony, here is Ebert’s review from 1985. He seems to be bothered by the same things I was…

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/one- ... stmas-1985

This morning, I viewed Jingle all the Way. Although I was quite fatigued, I noticed that the film print appeared to be in excellent condition. I was viewing it on an old CRT television, which is the format for which laserdisc was designed. However, I can imagine that back in the late 90s, if I possessed a laserdisc copy of this film while my friend had the DVD version, I would likely struggle to discern any difference on a CRT television. The only distinguishing factor would be that my copy of the film exhibits some laserdisc rot, albeit very minimal. I experienced horizontal lines appearing intermittently, totaling perhaps one or two minutes throughout the film. Thus, the interruptions were quite brief. I believe I purchased this film several years ago on eBay for approximately 10 or 13 dollars. At that time, this price was considered reasonable, as some sellers tend to charge significantly more for Christmas films. Additionally, I own titles such as Charlie Brown's Christmas, Frosty, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Ernest Saves Christmas on laserdisc. However, I have yet to watch them, and I am uncertain if I will find any free time to do so.

Here are a few of my screen captures from the film. They may not be entirely accurate, as I do not possess the highest quality capture device, as some of you have previously mentioned in the discussion about screenshots. Nevertheless, I believe they appear quite good despite this limitation. They provide a general sense of what the film looks like. It is highly probable that it surpasses the VHS edition. Nevertheless, I do not possess a VHS copy for comparison. The colors are likely superior on laserdisc, along with fewer image-related issues. Although there are minor concerns regarding potential laserdisc rot or the overall deterioration of this specific format, I would assume that if an individual were to play the VHS version of the film even a few times, it would likely deteriorate much more severely. I have a considerable collection of VHS tapes, and many of them exhibit significant scratching and black-white artifacts in the picture.

Jingle all the Way: Pioneer Elite CLD-99


















Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town Christmas Classics: Rudolph/Santa Is Coming/Frosty/Drummer: Pioneer Elite CLD-99











A Charlie Brown Christmas/You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown: CLD-3080

If I remember right, this is one of the DVD movies in the early days (1997-2000) that was pan and scan when the laser disc is widescreen. So, I think you would notice a big difference right away.

I watched Ernest Saves Christmas on laserdisc earlier on my crt tv in my room with a cld-3080. It looked pretty good. It's a good film print. I don't think as good as Ernest Scared Stupid's film print but it's up there. These screen captures are from the Pioneer Elite CLD-99. These were captured 3 years ago or longer. That's why the capture device is Hauppauge PVR. I know many of you don't like that capture device. Christmas is technically not over. My friend from Spain said something about how she and her family celebrates it on January 6th.

Player: Pioneer Elite CLD-99 composite
Capture Device: Hauppauge PVR

Screens:

I'll stick with these two for the time being.

Snowman, The (1982) [50LS-4011]
Father Christmas (1991) [ASLA-1027]

Apparently there is a version of Jiminy Cricket's Christmas on LD so that's going on my shopping list.