‘Tis The Season Cinema: The Muppets Christmas Carol

December 1, 2022December 2, 2022 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

This week for the ‘Tis The Season Cinema Erin and I watched The Muppets Christmas Carol. I watched it with my kids.

I thought I’d give you a blow-by-blow of our watching experience for something different this week.

After we open with the film being dedicated to Muppets creator Jim Henson, who had died in 1990, two years before the movie was made, we move forward into the movie.

We open up with Gonzo telling us he’s going to tell us the story because he knows it “like the back of his hand.” He also says his name is Charles Dickens.

He gets the story a little bit messed up as he starts out by saying the Marleys are dead.

(illustration by Brianna Ashby)

And then he introduces Scrooge.

Oh, a song. I forgot this was a musical. Okay. I’m ready for that.

This starts a debate between The Boy and I about how many of these A Christmas Carol renditions are musicals featuring songs about how mean and miserly Scrooge is. I said there aren’t many and he says there are a ton, like every remake that has been released lately. I still disagree.

Seeing Michael Cain as Scrooge makes me think of this hilarious story he told on The Graham Norton Show one time about how he was at a Hollywood party and Katherine Hepburn asked him why everyone kept calling him “my cocaine.”

The Boy must have thought of it too because we call out “My Cocaine!” at the same time when we see him.

Wow, he was young in this movie. Well, he would be since it was made in 1992.

That poor little rat was just used to clean a window.

Oh Kermit. There he is. Sigh. I love Kermit.

Dude. Michael Cain is bald in this movie. Is that a hair piece? Or is it a hair piece when he wears in other movies?

Kermit is so cute in his little suit.

The Boy and I read A Christmas Carol two years ago and actually enjoyed it.

Who is playing the nephew? Hmmm…some British actor I’ve never heard of – Steven McIntosh. I’m not going to look up what he’s been in before. I’m not going to do it. Not this time. No.

Okay. According to Wikipedia: “He is perhaps best known for his role as Andreas Tanis in the action horror films Underworld: Evolution and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans.” Never heard of it. That was a waste of a search.

Beeker!!

More singing. Now it is Kermit’s turn. Also, those rats are really clean for … well, rats.

I always think it is interesting they mix humans in with animals. I don’t know why I find that interesting. My life is just a little sad, I guess.

This movie must have cost quite a bit to make.

Google says $12 million and that it made 27.2 million. Now you know.

Ha. Jacob Marley is one of the old men that usually complain during the show.

In case you were curious, this is what Michael Caine told GQ Magazine about being in the movie: “To start, my daughter, who is the mother of my grandchildren, was then seven, and she had never seen me in a movie. I had never made a movie that a 7-year-old can see. And so a man mentioned the Muppets and I said, “That’s it! I’ll do that!” And it’s A Christmas Carol, it’s a fabulous tale! You’ll be old Scrooge, it’ll be marvelous! And it was absolutely perfect at that time for what I wanted. I could make it, and my daughter could see it. That’s why I did it. And it was lovely.”

Scrooge just beat his dressing gown. That dude is a bit on edge, I’d say.

I have to be honest, I haven’t seen this one in years and forgot it was a little darker than other Muppets movies. I was hoping for a little more goofiness in it, but yet it’s so well done I can’t help liking it.

The angles of the camera are very nice indeed. Scrooge should be eating more than bread, though. He’s an old man and needs more nutrients in his diet.

Oh good. The old guys. A bit more silliness now and now I know why Gonzo said the Marleys were dead. Because there were two.

This first ghost? Yikes.

Imma gonna have nightmares tonight.

Seriously. What is that? It is bad 90s special effects is what it is. She’s sort of like a digital cabbage patch doll. Shudder.

Ah. Now we are getting to the Muppet goodness. We are singing and dancing and just being downright silly at the dance where Scrooge meets Belle.

“Oh please, do not show me that Christmas,” Scrooge says.

Yes, because you were a JERK during that Christmas, Scrooge! It’s why you are totally alone now.

We’ve gone through a couple more songs and another ghost and now here is Miss Piggy.

Aw and Kermit and his nephew playing Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim.

The Husband walks in and brings up an awkward point: “He’s a frog. She’s a pig. How did they have children?”

We tell him we don’t want to think about it and to go back to working on his stories for the paper and be quiet.

Now the nephew and Kermit are singing a sweet song and I ask The Husband what the nephew’s name is.

“That’s a great question. They introduced him in –”

I tune TV Trivia Man out by Googling and finding out his name is Robin.

Little Miss looks up and sees Miss Piggy and says, “That hair doesn’t work for her.”

Now The Boy and The Husband are arguing about what happens to the ghost of Christmas Present at the end of the night. The Boy says he dies because it is the end of the day and the end of the present. He pointed out that his hair gets grayer each time we see him, which means he dies at the end. He’s a ghost, though, so I don’t think he can die.

The Husband says he lives on because he is in the present and the present is always there.

Who knows. I’ll let them have that debate. I have a movie and blog post to finish.

Oh dear, poor Miss Piggy. She’s crying. Tiny Tim has died.

Now Michael Caine is crying with her. Now I want to cry.

Little Miss is finding the movie a little scary so now she’s watching The Muppets Now show on her phone.

The Spirit of The Future is…um…ominous.

Ah. We’ve reached the scene where Scrooge is joyously celebrating being alive and being able to celebrate Christmas. Now he’s giving money to all the creatures around, ordering a turkey, etc. This is my favorite part.

Now Michael Caine is singing and The Boy says, “Who knew My Cocaine could sing.”

He’s doing a pretty good job. Not really. I’m just trying to be nice.

Singing is not really his thing. He reminds me of Rex Harrison in – well, anything he tries to sing in. He sort of sing-talks, but it works.

This was such a nice cozy movie to watch together and now that our Christmas tree is up it is making Christmas movies even nicer and relaxing to watch together.

Overall we agreed that it was a nice movie.

Except for The Boy who said, “Yeah. It was alright.” But then he added. “I enjoyed that.”

To see what Erin thought of the movie hop on over to her blog and to read Kajta at Breath of Hallelujah click over to her blog. If you joined in with us, leave a link to your blog post in the comments so we can link to yours as well.

Up next in our feature is Holiday Inn. We post our impressions on Thursdays.

After that we are posting our impressions of the following movies:

Dec. 15: It’s A Wonderful Life

Dec. 22: Charlie Brown Christmas and Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

‘Tis The Season Cinema: White Christmas

November 26, 2022November 26, 2022 / Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

This week for the ‘Tis The Season Cinema Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I watched White Christmas. We pushed off our blog posts for it until today since we were both busy with family events for Thanksgiving, though Erin had a lot more going on than I did.

If this is your first time here, Erin and I have been watching Christmas movies since the beginning of November to get into the holiday spirit.

If you haven’t watched the movie White Christmas here is a little background without giving away the story:

The movie begins in December of 1944, during World War II, with Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby entertaining fellow soldiers at war.

The movie moves forward after that to Kaye and Crosby becoming an entertainment powerhouse duo who tour for years, have a fight, realize they’ve been working too hard and too long, and then later meet a couple of lovely ladies who are also singers/entertainers. To make a long story short, the four of them travel to Vermont to have a white Christmas and while there learn that the owner of the inn they are staying at is their old commander from the war. They then learn that the inn isn’t doing well financially and work to bring the inn back for their commander by holding their show at the inn.

While this movie is a Christmas movie, it isn’t all Christmas all the time and there is an actual plot instead of just one Christmas song to the next.

For those who don’t know, White Christmas was originally written by Irving Berlin for the 1942 movie Holiday Inn (which is on our list to watch in December). Holiday Inn also starred Bing Crosby. The song was first publicly performed by Crosby after the movie and later recorded by him, though he wasn’t that bowled over by the song to begin with (and probably hated it by the end of his life when he had to keep singing it).

(Off the subject a bit but I often get Holiday Inn and White Christmas mixed up in my head since there are two male leads in both movies and Crosby is in both movies.)

Wikipedia writes this about when the song was written: “Accounts vary as to when and where Berlin wrote the song. One story is that he wrote it in 1940, in warm La Quinta, California while staying at the La Quinta Hotel, a frequent Hollywood retreat also favored by writer-director-producer Frank Capra, although the Arizona Biltmore also claims the song was written there. He often stayed up all night writing. One day he told his secretary, “I want you to take down a song I wrote over the weekend. Not only is it the best song I ever wrote, it’s the best song anybody ever wrote.”

I don’t know that I agree the song is the best ever written, but it is one of the most popular Christmas songs ever, and also very sweet.

As for the movie, which was released in 1954 we kick right off with the song about seven minutes into the movie, setting the tone for a sentimental and sweet ride, with a little bitter mixed in as you are forced to think about our soldiers and how they had to fight or be stationed overseas during Christmas and other holidays. As always, the singing of the song, while American soldiers look heartbroken in the audience, made me tear up again this year.

According to that same Wikipedia article (yes, I was lazy and looked things up on Wikipedia which isn’t always the most accurate site), Bing Crosby once told his nephew that the hardest thing he ever did was perform White Christmas in December of 1944 in a USO show with Bob Hope and the Andrew Sisters in front of 100,000 GIs without breaking down. Many of those men were killed two days later in the Battle of the Bulge.

There are many happy moments in the movie, though, even if some of the background is a bit tear-inducing. I would definitely call this one a feel-good movie, but not so feel-good there isn’t some depth in it. It’s, of course, a musical with plenty of impromptu songs and dance routines, especially as they rehearse for the big show to be held at the inn.

Kaye and lead actress Vera-Ellen were well-known dancers and actors at the time. They sizzle up the screen with their moves. Vera-Ellen always fascinated me because she looks like a real life Barbie doll. The cynical side of me wonders if she ate properly but I’m guessing her thin stature was from all the dancing.

I read in an article on Good Housekeeping that interestingly, Rosemary Clooney played Vera-Ellen’s older sister, but Vera-Ellen was actually seven years older at the age of 33. Bing played Rosemary’s love interest and was actually 25 years older than her, which is a bit creepy when you think about it. Rosemary did look a lot older than 26, though.

Another piece of trivia from that article was that one of the most famous scenes, when Crosby and Kaye dress up as Rosemary and Vera-Ellen, was actually not in the script. Crosby and Kaye were goofing off and it was written into the script because the director thought it was hilarious. Crosby and Kaye also thought the scene was hilarious because they kept laughing throughout.

White Christmas is not only sung at the beginning of the movie but also in a large routine at the end, which produced the classic image of the singers in their white suits with the red trim (Santa suits in other words).

I would say this movie is the number one reason that people all over the world think they have to have snow on Christmas. It was hard for me to accept as a kid when we traveled to North Carolina and didn’t end up with snow for Christmas day, except for one year when they had a freak snowstorm.

Luckily, living in the North, we have White Christmases more often than not. Of course, it is nowhere near as romantic as the crooners make it sound when they are singing along about it on the train on their way to Vermont. When we are shoveling out our driveways we don’t sing, “Snow! Snow! Snow!” in perfect harmony. We more often mumble the words and follow them with some other choice words while flinging our shovels back in the garage.

I made a cup of cocoa to sip while I watched the movie, which I watched alone this year since we’ve seen it as a family several times and I was sure the family would want a break from it this year.

I might make my husband suffer through It’s A Wonderful Life again when we watch that one, which is a movie I like, but he doesn’t. Too bad for him. Ha.

To read Erin’s thoughts about the movie, see her post on her blog.

Up next for our ‘Tis The Season Cinema is Muppets Christmas Carol, if you’d like to join and blog with us about it.

The finishing list for the feature is:

Dec. 8: Holiday Inn

Dec. 15: It’s A Wonderful Life

Dec. 22: Charlie Brown Christmas and Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

‘Tis The Season Cinema: A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong

November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 / Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Shortly after we moved to our current house, my son and I were looking for a show to watch late at night and found a show called The Goes Wrong Show on BritBox. We clicked on it and were, quite frankly, bewildered by it.

It was a group of about seven people acting out a play and completely messing up lines, tripping off props, and being all-out insanely weird.

We weren’t sure if these people were really messing up their plays or if they were pretending to mess up a play, or . . .what was going on.

We watched the first episode and laughed so hard that our sides hurt. Obviously, we eventually caught on that the whole show was meant to be a joke and that the actors were real actors playing fake actors on a show about actors.

Later we watched the episodes with The Husband and he laughed so hard I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel.

We watched the whole season and I have to say the Christmas episode was my favorite that first season. Flash forward to last year and we discovered this group — which we had since found out was called Mischief Theatre — had been featured in a special called A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on the BBC.

Moving us up in the timeline to a couple of weeks ago and we arrive at the moment I suggested to Erin at Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs that we include A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong in our list of Christmas movies to watch for our ‘Tis The Season Cinema. Comedy is featuring heavily on our movie watching list over the next couple of months because Erin and I both need heartwarming and funny in our lives right now.

With A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong we are getting more than just funny but also pure ridiculousness.

For a little background on the actor troupe who takes part in this Christmas special, according to Wikipedia, “Mischief Theatre is a British theatre company founded in 2008 by a group of students from The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in West London, and directed by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields. The group originally began by doing improvised comedy shows, but by 2012 they expanded into comedic theatrical performances that include choreographed routines, jokes, and stunts.

The company is best known for its performances as the fictional theatre company, The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society, who attempt several amateur performances that comedically go wrong.”

If you look up Mischief Theatre online, as I did after we became hooked on their television show, you’ll see that the cast are very accomplished stage actors, some of them having won Olivier’s and other prestigious writing and acting awards. Most of their work, incidentally, is performed live and is often improv as they interact with the audience during their performances.

On the surface, the entire performance of any of their shows seems simple and fairly stupid but when you think about the talent needed to recite the lines of the original play they are putting on (in this case A Christmas Carol) while also having to pretend to mess up their lines and other aspects of the play, you realize what talent these actors actually have.

The fact they only have seven cast members playing all the parts and remembering all the lines and where the various pratfalls need to happen make it even more amazing. Then there is the focus they need to keep acting, even with the chaos going on around them.

There are also storylines going on between cast members behind the scenes that carry on throughout the various episodes and specials.

In this particular special, the comedy group has taken over the BBC’s production of A Christmas Carol by kidnapping and dragging out the main stars, including Derek Jacobi, a famous British actor. Actress Diana Rigg plays the narrator part of the time but literally has to “phone it in” because she is stuck in traffic.

Things, of course, go completely haywire and become even crazier when one of the actors believes he should be the lead actor and tries to knock out the director (Chris) to take over the lead as Scrooge. While trying to take out Chris, though, he injures other cast members or ends up destroying various sets.

Another pair of cast members are in a romantic relationship and things may, or may not, be on the rocks throughout the entire night, making the show even more entertaining. There is also a cast member who can’t remember any of his lines for most of the shows and in this one they think of a creative way to help him with that issue.

You can watch A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong in its entirety for free on YouTube:

Don’t blame me if you end up looking up their show and their production of Peter Pan Goes Wrong.

You can read up on Erin’s impression of this silly show on her blog.

Up next for our Christmas special features (the dates are when we are sharing our specials):

Nov. 24: White Christmas

Dec. 1: Muppets Christmas Carol

Dec. 8: Holiday Inn

Dec. 15: It’s A Wonderful Life

Dec. 22: Charlie Brown Christmas and Emmett Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

Spooky Season Cinema: Sleepy Hollow

October 31, 2022October 31, 2022 / Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

When my husband and I were dating, he invited me to a movie that he had already seen. He admitted later he didn’t mind that the movie might scare me, and I might jump and have to be held by him. The movie was Sleepy Hollow. The main actor was Johnny Depp. The year was 1999. And I haven’t seen the movie since — until last week when The Boy and I watched it again for Spooky Season Cinema, a feature I did this fall with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs. This is probably why I kept saying, “I don’t remember any of this movie.” The Boy was quite concerned about my brain and why I couldn’t remember, at first, so many of the gory scenes. I did start to remember more as the movie went on.

I have to say it’s probably because I blocked it all from my brain since it scared me so much. Ha! Who knows.

“Or,” I told my son with a mischievous grin. “I was too busy admiring your dad during the movie.”

He just rolled his eyes and didn’t comment.

In all reality, I am quite certain that I was watching it through my fingers and wishing for it to be over, sort of like this time around, and not because it is bad but because it’s just so creepy.

Anyhow, for those who aren’t familiar, this is a movie based on the story by Washington Irving, but since it’s directed by Tim Burton, there are a lot of licenses taken. It’s very dark visually and otherwise. It involves Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) being sent from NYC to the little village of Sleepy Hollow to investigate the murders of four people by what people in the village say is a headless horseman.

Johnny Depp’s acting in the movie is odd, but that’s always how he acts. Odd, but good, you know what I mean!

*American actor Johnny Depp on the set of Sleepy Hollow, based on the story by Washington Irving and directed by Tim Burton. (Photo by Paramount Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)*

In 1999, Robert Ebert wrote of the movie: “This is the best-looking horror film since Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” It is not, however, titled “Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow,” perhaps because the story has been altered out of all recognition from the Irving classic. Perhaps not. No power on earth could persuade me to reread the original and find out. What it depends upon is Burton’s gift for bizarre and eccentric special effects, and a superb performance by Johnny Depp, who discards everything we may ever have learned or thought about Ichabod Crane and starts from scratch.”

This isn’t a movie I would watch over and over, or probably again (for another 23 years) only because it was so dark (to me, but not necessarily to others who enjoy these types of movies), but I might watch it again for the acting, which is very good (Johnny is awkward and funny to me, but I guess that’s how he’s supposed to be for this character). The imagery is also very dynamic.

So this is the end of our Spooky Season Cinema since Erin and I both agreed we are ready for some less scary and spooky movies as we get ready for the Thanksgiving and Christmas season. We are working out the details for which movies and specials we will watch for our combined feature, which we plan to start writing about the week of Thanksgiving. We’d love to have people join us this time around so we will let you know which movie we are watching first when we decide.

If you want to read about the past movies we watched for this feature, you can search over to the right for “Spooky Season Cinema.” Thank you to Erin for designing the graphic for this feature and for helping to organize and choose many of the movies. I had a lot of fun experiencing the movies and sharing that experience with Erin and my teenage son.

You can read her impression of Sleepy Hollow on her blog.

Spooky Season Cinema: The Nightmare Before Christmas

October 13, 2022October 13, 2022 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

The Nightmare Before Christmas was the next movie in the Spooky Season Cinema series Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are doing and The Boy and I watched it last night. As I have been doing in this series, I have to again point out that “spooky” or Halloween-related movies aren’t really my thing so this has been a bit out of my wheel well. We have not watched anything too gruesome or dark, thankfully, though.

I am going to be upfront and say that when I first heard of this movie, I didn’t relish the idea of what I see as a dark holiday like Halloween taking over what is a very happy and light holiday for me and my family. In the end, though, I was relieved it wasn’t as dark as I feared.

Here is the Google description of the movie:

“The film follows the misadventures of Jack Skellington, Halloweentown’s beloved pumpkin king, who has become bored with the same annual routine of frightening people in the “real world.” When Jack accidentally stumbles on Christmastown, all bright colors and warm spirits, he gets a new lease on life — he plots to bring Christmas under his control by kidnapping Santa Claus and taking over the role. But Jack soon discovers even the best-laid plans of mice and skeleton men can go seriously awry.”

My son really enjoys this movie, so he was very excited to watch it with me and because he was excited, I did my best to also be excited.

I love being able to spend time with him. As he grows up, I sometimes feel like we are growing apart so I’m always looking for things that we can bond over. I don’t know that this is the movie we will be doing that with again, but that’s okay. We are two different people with very different interests. His interest runs more in line with his dad’s and that’s okay too.

(I say all this while weeping a little and eating chocolate, but alas, I will be fine…eventually.)

This is a movie directed and created by Tim Burton, which if any of you know his work, you’ll know it’s a bit weird. This movie, however, is much less weird than his other work.

First the Claymation and stop motion in this movie is outstanding. It is crazy to think that they had to photograph, slightly move figures, then photograph them again, until they could combine all the images and create moving characters and scenes.

The Boy likes how the movie is made and has watched documentaries on the process of creating it, including the fact they had 400 heads for Jack because every time he opened his mouth they had to film a new head.

I liked the concept of the movie more than I thought I would.

I liked how walking into Christmas Town made Jack feel light and happy, which shows me that even Tim Burton understands that Halloween is the dark holiday and Christmas the light.

*Jack Skellington (Chris Sarandon) ©Disney Enterprises, Inc.*

I like how he progresses from being depressed about organizing Halloween every year to being excited about organizing Christmas.

It seems to take him a while to understand that real Christmas (not the commercialized version) is organized by people who are filled with joy, love, and hope.

I’d rather stay in the light as much as possible, which is why Halloween is my least favorite holiday.

I’m more of a “fluff” and “lighthearted” person when it comes to movies, books, and life. So, it was nice that there was a little bit of light in his movie, which is called by some fans a Halloween movie and some a Christmas movie. I lean more toward it being a Halloween movie for a variety of reasons.

The movie is a musical of sorts, with Jack doing almost all the singing.

I didn’t like some of the imagery, especially when the one character was made of bugs and maggots, but I did like the overall story and how Jack finally found joy in the job he was called to do and stepped aside from a job he knew wasn’t his calling.

To read Erin’s take on the film, you can click HERE.

Finishing up our Spooky Season Cinema will be:

Creature from the Black Lagoon (Classic Creature Feature)

Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Johnny Depp version)

And Halloween from 1979.

Other movies we watched in this series included:

Clue

Shaun of the Dead

Young Frankenstein

Hocus Pocus

The Addams Family

You can find my impressions of these movies by using the search feature on the right over there on my page.

Honestly, though, it looks like we’d have to write about Halloween after Halloween so…I’ll probably drop that one because that is when I’ll be in Christmas mode. *wink* Ha! Ha!

Spooky Seasons Cinema: Clue

September 8, 2022September 8, 2022 / Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I, are switching gears for September and October and instead of watching simple classic movies we are watching funny and quirky, or suspenseful Halloween-themed movies. Erin, who is a fan of horror films, was gracious enough to not try to talk me into any gory horror films, since I am not a horror film fan at all.

Instead of each watching a movie we choose for each other, we are both watching the same movie and each giving our impression of it.

I have never seen most of the movies we are watching, including our first movie, Clue, a dark comedy cult classic, which is, of course, based on the classic game.

The blog Creepy Catalog describes the movie this way. “The film’s plot is set in 1954 where six strangers are invited to a mansion on a dark and stormy night. The six guests are addressed by pseudonyms: Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), and Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren). Also in the mansion is the butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry) and maid, Yvette (Colleen Camp). After they arrive, a seventh guest, Mr. Boddy, is murdered and the rest of the film follows the guests as they attempt to unravel blackmail plots and motives and figure out who the murderer among them is.”

The movie was released in 1985 and though it isn’t a strict Halloween movie, many consider it a movie they watch around this time of year.

According to Creepy Catalog, the movie wasn’t exactly a hit when it was released, making only $14 million when it cost $15 million to make. Fans, however, loved it, including Horror fans who like it because it is an early roll of Tim Curry who would later star as the dancing clown, Penny Wise in the TV mini-series of Stephen King’s It, which was the first movie I told Erin I would NOT watch under any circumstances.

Incidentally, the board game was invented between 1943 and 1945 by an English musician and factory worker trying to solve his boredom during the Blitz of World War II. He was inspired by his love of Agatha Christie novels and by detective games his parents used to play. The game was first called Cluedo, a combination of Clue and Ludo, which mean “I play” in Latin. Read more about the game on the History Channel site.

I watched this with my son and thirty minutes in he said, “Wait, a minute. Is this supposed to be a comedy?”

“Yes!” I told him.

“Well, then it’s not that funny. I thought these people were trying to be serious.”

That made me laugh even harder and made me think of the time my parents watched The Pink Panther with my grandmother, who didn’t have a sense of humor, and every time my grandmother said she didn’t see what was so funny my parents would laugh harder.

Later he decided he did like the movie because he said “It’s like the actors are trying to take it all very seriously and then, ‘boob joke.’” In other words, it grew on him.

The movie is very fast-paced with a lot of quick verbal exchanges that include a series of play on words. The end of the movie was so fast-paced that Tim Curry apparently had to be treated for high blood pressure toward the end of filming from all his running around, according to a couple articles I read.

I may have to watch it at least a couple more times to try to catch all the comments, innuendos, and jokes that I missed the first time around since it was going so fast.

The exchanges between the characters were funny and the ending had my head spinning trying to figure out who did it. Part of the reason the movie wasn’t a huge hit when it was released was because it featured three different endings and what ending you saw depended on which theater you went to.

I liked the idea of the endings being presented as possible endings along with the real ending in the version that is on streaming services now.