Author Archives: Daniel Joslyn

RÊVE DE NOËL (1900)

We go on a journey back in time to find the first Christmas movie ever made, which is only four minutes long but packs an awful lot in there.

CLAYMATION CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION (1987)

One of the most used VHS tapes of my childhood was this TV special taped off of CBS… it is only marginally easier to access today.

THE BISHOP’S WIFE (1947)

Cary Grant is an angel who appears in the life of a tightly-wound workaholic bishop, but ends up attracted to his wife in a movie that is effortlessly charming, but also simultaneously so weightless that it seems on the verge of evaporation.

HOME ALONE (1990)

Holidayfest ’21 starts with a heartwarming holiday tale of a small child setting grown men on fire and torturing them with spiders.

PASQUALINO SETTEBELLEZE (1975)

Lina Wertmüller became the first ever female director nominated for Best Picture for a movie that, to my surprise, turned out to be about an amoral hatchet murderer trying to seduce his way out of a concentration camp.

FANNY OCH ALEXANDER (1982)

Ingmar Bergman’s final film is about kids at Christmas, and also basically every other thing you can think of.

MAGNOLIA (1999)

If not the best movie from director Paul Thomas Anderson, probably the definitive one, following a bazillion characters over one day in the San Fernando Valley. Also frogs rain from the sky.

GYPSY (1962)

In honor of Stephen Sondheim, here is one of his earlier works, about the seminal insane stage mom and her daughter who ends up as the most famous stripper of all time.