Darkest Christmas: December 1942 and a World at War

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While not a direct adaptation of the original story, Richard Donner's dark comedy, Scrooged, deserves a mention for its refreshing and alternate take on Dickens' book. Peter Harmsen masterfully reveals the raging war across the globe through the hopes and fears of its inhabitants whether soldier, civilian or prisoner. The holocaust continued as soldiers fought in North Africa and sailors did the same in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Traveling through the numerous World War II offerings is certainly difficult for a potential reader.

years of Tory government has left the NHS where they generally leave it, where it was for me in ‘86. When these cutout-bin Glimmer Twins yelp, “Santa Claus is coming / With parcels full of joy,” as Chuck Berry riffs slash alongside tinkling sleigh bells, it sounds like they’re awaiting the kinds of gifts only very naughty little boys would even think to ask for. He wanted to stage an adaptation while at university with two friends who shared his passion for it, but the rights were not available, and the project was forgotten. But amid all the gangstas and dope fiends, the song is really about the power of Christmas to evoke feelings of innocence and family, even if you’ve gotta harvest your turkey down at the church shelter.Christmas at a time of war is all the more so since young men and women pass the holiday torn from their loved ones, in a situation where they cannot know if they are even to survive until the next Christmas. Being a made-for-TV film, it's obvious that the production was set with a lower budget, but had they been given more money and weren't stuck with the limitations of network television.

May even give one an appreciation to be spending a time like this in relative peace when so many didn’t have that in 1942. Culturcide’s most notorious album, Tacky Souvenirs of Pre-Revolutionary America, consisted of the band singing rewritten lyrics over various hit records (totally unauthorized, of course). In putting these individual pieces (stories) together into a flowing, coherent whole (book); the key is organization. A large majority of the dialogue and 19th-century language is ripped straight from the pages of Dickens' novel, and it captures the same sense of supernatural eeriness and foreboding doom. I thought The Shining would be some cheesy, silly flick about a haunted hotel… but I was wrong on many levels.

At the same time as the slaughter continued unabatedly, throughout the world there were random acts of kindness, born out of an instinctive feeling of the essential brotherhood of man. Starring Bill Murray as TV network President, Frank Cross, the film captures most of the same story as the original tale, while also putting a more comedic spin on it and making it unique enough to stand on its own merits. But there’s a reason Epic and Cerner have un spooky boy Tim Burton and director Henry Selick joined forces to craft a cult favorite that is at least dressed in the wardrobe of darkness.