1993 - Back to the Future Part III

As mentioned I did in fact revisit this.  This film far more capture the spirit of the original - the second one almost has too much going on that it’s constantly having to deal with the exposition of the situation where this one and the first are simpler, they can allow us to just really enjoy the situation.  The western genre is a welcome addition here, and there’s a lot of nice callbacks.  The one thing they did well was really have the 2nd film set-up this grande finale.  Having Buford being a gun toting madman is a nice evolution of the Biff character from the original as well.  Part of me hopes that they never mess further with this franchise, but part of me wonders what else could be done with it especially if it’s expanded into something like a series.  I could be interested in that.  Needless to say, if you’ve never seen this trilogy you really owe it to yourself.  I can’t wait to introduce it to my kids.

1992 - Back to the Future Part II

When I was a kid I loved this film - I remember even having the novelization.  There's a lot of me that does still love it - I love how it mixes the events of the first film into it's narrative and gives us a Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead kind of view of that.  That was super clever.  That said, the writing in this installment feels like it's someone else at the helm in a weird way.  Adding in stuff like Marty having an issue being called a chicken feels forced, especially given there was nothing of the like in the original which takes place a day prior to this film - Marty's issue there was his lack of confidence that he got from his father - so this is a bizarre bait and switch.  The film just has a much cheesier feel, and not always in a good way.  Don't get me wrong, I still like it a lot - it's near and dear to my heart - but it doesn't have the charm of the original.
And of course, as always happens when I re-watch the first film I'm going to go through all three of these bad boys now...

1991 - Back to the Future

What can I saw about this film that hasn't already been said?  Like Groundhog Day it's just a great example of high concept done super well.  I can't wait to show this film to my kids when they're older - I assume it'll hold up - and it'll be funny to see how dated it is with them.  I'd write a lot more about this film, but I'm just doing this as a short break from stuffing packages.  If you've never see this, and you're a film lover at all, you should be ashamed!

1672 - A Christmas Carol

So this is probably the last "holiday" film I'll watch - unless I can think of a solid New Years one - but either way I figured I'd go out with one of my favorite stories, and this is also the third iteration I've covered this season - the first being the Muppets, then Scrooged, and so it's interesting that it ends with something that is, more or less, aiming to be faithful to the source material (of which I've never read... I should do something about that...). 
What makes this version unique is the motion capture CGI and Jim Carrey playing Scrooge as well as all of the Ghosts.  For the most part the motion capture and CGI are welcome additions, making the story visual in a way that's just not possible otherwise.  There's an opening sequence that really gives us a sense of the city - I loved the opening scene with him taking the coins from Marley's eyes - great set-up to the character.  This is clearly designed to be a showcase for Carrey as an actor, however the real scene stealer here is Gary Oldman as Bob Cratchet.  Oldman brings you to tears in the scenes following the potential death of Tiny Tim.  He's phenomenal. 
The medium lends itself to give this story a really cinematic flow, allowing the characters to morph into one another to dramatically illustrate points, and that works very very well.  However it also feels sometimes like Zemeckis just might be showing off a tad with a few little action set pieces that do little to add to the emotional and dramatic impact of the film, they're really just there to add to the visuals, which is a shame since Zemeckis is clearly talented to do both at the same time - shame he doesn't. 
I really quite liked this - far more than I thought I would, so it's easy enough to recommend - however this is not a film for small children - the treatment is almost horror film quality in moments and I'm sure it could easily give kids nightmares, so there's that.  It's a gorgeous looking film and a solid argument for the advancement of technology in certain stories.  I'll do my best to read the source material as well over the course of the next year!