Everybody loves Christmas carols and everyone loves Christmas movies, but did you ever consider how your favorite films use your favorite music? Sixth in a 12-part series.

Nobody talks about Barry Levinson’s Toys (1992) any more, and that’s probably as it should be, because the film was a muddled mess. But this surreal fantasia about a toy factory caught up in a philosophical tug of war – between the aggressively whimsical adult children (Robin Williams and Joan Cusack) of its founder, and their uncle, a retired general (Michael Gambon) who wants to start making war toys – came out at Christmas time, and it wanted so badly to be considered some kind of oddball holiday classic. In the world of yuletide movies, it’s the scrappy underdog who doesn’t know when he’s beaten. It’s hard not to love it, just a little.

Two things will always stand out in my memory of Toys, which I watched and reviewed in my first couple of months as a paid critic. (Nostalgia comes in all forms.) One was the Oscar-nominated art direction by Fernando Scarfiotti – bold brilliant colors, and a palette inspired by the blue-sky masterpieces of Rene Magritte. The other was its final song, an original number written by Prince protégés Wendy and Lisa called “The Closing of the Year.” Like the film, it’s astonishingly overproduced and features every sentimental heartstring-tugger imaginable – there’s even a children’s chorus summoned at one point to deliver an aw-shucks crescendo. But at its heart is a simple message of faith and hope, issued with a haunting, ethereal authority that sounds exactly like I imagine music must sound like as it faintly echoes across a nighttime field of snow.