David Oyelowo and Carmen Ejogo in “Selma.” (Paramount Pictures)

The Oscar nominations were announced today at 8:30am eastern time, and by 8:40 the world’s entertainment media were tripping over themselves, professing outrage at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and its absolutely unconscionable omission of [INSERT FILM / PERFORMANCE HERE] from [CATEGORY].

If I could afford a Lexis/Nexis account I’d do a global search for use of the word “snub,” and surprise no one at all when my results revealed that the planet saves up its use of that term for this day, and only this day, each year. After all this time, you’d think the people most likely to care about their favorite film not getting enough Oscar love are the same ones who would accept that this sort of thing happens with the predictability of Tax Day. On this day each year, film aficionados reveal themselves to be the cinema-loving equivalents of Charlie Brown, constantly surprised that Lucy has pulled that darn football away again.

And you know what? Of course it happens this way. It has to happen this way. The only thing that legitimizes the Academy Awards is the existence of a finite number of slots in any given category*. Even in a weak year there are always more great and/or interesting potential choices for, say, Best Actress than there are available nominations. In life, when more choices exist than can be selected, someone’s going to walk away unhappy. I don’t know why this has to be explained to people, every year.

(*This, by the way, is what’s wrong with AMPAS’ half-decade-old decision to expand the Best Picture category to include up to 10 nominees. More slots don’t mean there are more great movies; it just means the Oscars lower their standards.)

In the last 12 hours, much has been made about the omission of Ava DuVernay’s Selma from most of the big categories. Selma, a retelling of the story behind Martin Luther King’s 1965 civil rights marches, was nominated for Best Picture and Best Song, and that’s it. Granted, two Oscar nominations is a lot better than most films received – and one of them is for the top prize, for Pete’s sake – but for a film widely expected to run the table at the Oscars, only two probably seems paltry to a lot of people.

But do we honestly think the Academy “snubbed” Selma? Are we imagining some kind of anti-woman, anti-minority campaign in which AMPAS voters conspired to kick that movie and its director to the curb? Isn’t it more likely that, of all the films in serious contention for the major awards, voters just happened to like the films that actually got nominated a little bit more than DuVernay’s MLK biopic? Would they really have voted it into the Best Picture category if they had it in for the project?

I’m not saying the plight of women in Hollywood didn’t receive another blow with today’s nominations. (And as a white male, I understand that all this is easy for me to say.) But this is a year-round issue, not one we suddenly woke up today to find dropped on our collective doorsteps. And in truth, the Oscars – a secret-ballot competition designed to reflect subjective individual opinions about artistic merit – are the wrong target for this kind of ire anyway. To paraphrase The Hunger Games, until more mainstream movies are made by and about women and minorities, the Oscar odds will ever not be in their favor.

And now that I’ve gotten that off my chest: Jake Gyllenhaal? TOTALLY SNUBBED!

J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash.” (Sony Pictures Classics)

No matter which films and individuals are named during tomorrow morning’s Oscar nomination announcement ceremony, there’s only one guaranteed sure thing: J.K. Simmons will win Best Supporting Actor for Whiplash when the Academy Awards are handed out on February 22. Even if he’s not nominated tomorrow, he’ll still win in five weeks – he’s that much of a lock.

Simmons aside, here are the rest of my predictions for tomorrow morning:

Supporting Actress – Patricia Arquette will probably win for Boyhood, which I suppose means she’ll be nominated tomorrow. Look also for Meryl Streep, Into the Woods; Emma Stone, Birdman; Laura Dern, Wild; and Jessica Chastain, A Most Violent Year. (Dern, admittedly, is a longshot; Keira Knightley is a possible substitute for The Imitation Game.)

Actress – This category feels sewn up. I predict Amy Adams for her role in Tim Burton’s Big Eyes; Julianne Moore as an early-onset Alzheimer’s patient in Still Alice; Reese Witherspoon as an extreme hiker in Wild; Jennifer Aniston (yes, you read that right) for Cake; and Rosamund Pike as the world’s most lethal spouse in Gone Girl.

Actor – I expect to see nominations for Those Reedy British Fellas Playing Mid-20th Century Blokes, Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) and Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything); Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel; Michael Keaton, who must now be considered the front-runner for Birdman; and David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King in Selma.

Supporting Actor – In addition to Simmons, look for Edward Norton in Birdman; Ethan Hawke for Boyhood; Mark Ruffalo (or Steve Carell), Foxcatcher; and Robert Duvall in the annual “Really? You’re Kidding, Right?” slot for the simply terrible The Judge. (I’d love to see Nightcrawler’s Jake Gyllenhall and Riz Ahmed slip in as Actor and Supporting Actor, respectively, but my hopes aren’t high – particularly for Ahmed.)

Director – My picks are Richard Linklater, Boyhood;
Alejandro Inarritu, Birdman; Ava DuVernay, Selma; Wes Anderson, The Grand Budapest Hotel; and the least-likely-but-still-probable Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game. Clint Eastwood and American Sniper could edge past Tyldum, but I’m sticking with Morten.

Picture – Up to 10 films can be nominated, which is moronic but fine, whatever. The mandatories tomorrow will be Boyhood, Birdman, The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Imitation Game. In addition to those, I expect to see four more: Gone Girl, Wild, The Theory of Everything and Selma.

How’d I do? We’ll see at 8:30am tomorrow….

Keanu Reeves in “John Wick.” (Summit / Lionsgate)

Last week we covered my picks for the Ten Best Films of 2014, but the most interesting films of last year is a different list altogether. Here’s a rundown of films that, for various reasons, didn’t get the audiences — let alone the love — they so richly deserved:

The Age of Love. This locally produced doc is centered around a speed-dating event for seniors. First-time director Steven Loring brings to the screen an honest, intimate and occasionally hilarious film.

Coherence and The One I Love. These two indies never made it to our region’s screens, but deserve to be seen as a spiritual double-feature. In Coherence, a group of friends experience a Twilight Zone-style night to remember when their dinner party coincides with a once-a-century passing of a comet through the sky. The One I Love is quirkier still: A couple (Elisabeth Moss, Mark Duplass) get away for a weekend of couples therapy, only to find they’re not the only couple on the scene. To explain too much would be criminal — you’ll have to see these for yourself.

Edge of Tomorrow. It feels a little silly to suggest that a big-budget Tom Cruise movie could be considered “under-seen.” But Doug Liman’s smart, well-made action/sci-fi extravaganza was an unsung hero in last year’s summer movie cavalcade. Cruise is strangely unpopular in real life, but this film is the best recent proof of how he usually delivers on screen.

Jodorowsky’s Dune. A must-see for sci-fi fans, this doc explores the coulda-woulda-shoulda plans for a film adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune that was in the works for years from offbeat Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky. Much of his artistic vision was eventually co-opted for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), but when Dune finally made it to the big screen, all we got was a bloated disaster from David Lynch.

Joe. Nicolas Cage’s well-publicized money troubles keep forcing the actor to take any role he’s offered, which means he’s making a lot of junk. But Joe, a backwoods thriller that’s a masterpiece of mood, is worth seeking out for a glimpse of Cage the way he used to be – intense and at the top of his game. 

John Wick. Keanu Reeves hasn’t wowed anybody since The Matrix, but he connects sharply with this lean action film. The movie works as well for its plot – a gun-fu extravaganza in which Reeves’ former hit man comes out of retirement to wreak vengeance on the men who killed his dog – as for its moody underworld ambience.

Lilting. A tender, affectionate drama about love and loss, this premiered locally at the ImageOUT Film Festival last fall. It stars Ben Whishaw (the voice of Paddington, in theaters this week) as a man trying to connect with the mother of his dead lover. It’s coming to iTunes and DVD next month – check it out.

Locke. A construction foreman hits the road and ties up a bunch of loose ends over the phone while he’s driving. That’s the whole plot of Steven Knight’s film, but this one-man-show has a few tricks up its sleeve – and a remarkable, nuanced performance from Tom Hardy (Bane in The Dark Knight Rises) to knit it all together.

The Rover. This one was released for about a week in area theaters last summer, but didn’t make a ripple. A bleak near-future drama, it stars Guy Pearce as a loner whose car is stolen, and he’d like it back, please. Robert Pattinson co-stars in a performance almost good enough to make you forgive him for all those Twilight films. (Almost.)

Brandy Burre, at home in ‘Actress.’ (Cinema Guild)

“This is my creative outlet now,” says Brandy Burre in Robert Greene’s documentary Actress (not rated), amid a domestic tableau that’s striking in its mundane normalcy. A few years back Burre was a working actress with a recurring role on the acclaimed TV series “The Wire,” and after that success she took a break from the job to pursue another vocation: She became a full-time, stay-at-home mom.

But the film – which sees its regional premiere with a one-night-only screening Tuesday, January 13 at the Little Theatre in Rochester – isn’t called Full-Time, Stay-at-Home Mom. Burre’s devotion to her children is evident, as is her plaintive itch to return to acting. Greene’s film assays her longing to get back into the game, both in terms of what she does and how she does it: We see her modeling for a new set of headshots and tentatively contemplating upcoming audition opportunities, but we also see her incorporating a certain level of performance even in those tasks – a dramatic tilt of the head, an artful hand gesture, a longing gaze steeped in meaning. There’s a camera right here, right now, and she’s the object of its affections.

That sense of layered self-awareness injects Actress with a strain of performance art, and gives the doc remarkable depth. It’s the story of a woman who, at 40, faces an uphill climb to get back into the Hollywood game; but it’s also an exploration of what it means to be an actor in the first place, and the instinctive dynamic that exists between actor and audience. Burre can play Theresa D’Agostino on “The Wire,” but she’s also playing Brandy Burre, in a way, as she putters around the house with her children and struggles in her relationship with their father. Meanwhile, she’s definitely playing to Greene’s camera – it’s not difficult to envision this as a feature-length audition tape. Where does the performer end and the performance begin?

Greene is content to tee up that question rather than seek obvious answers. He’s acknowledged in interviews that he knows Burre socially, and believed her story would make for an interesting film – and he keeps himself and his queries firmly off-camera, giving his subject the sole spotlight. Actress is a stirring portrait of self-absorption and ego, but also a plaintive study of creative longing and the ineffable sadness that accompanies the fear that one’s best professional days may be past. More than anything, it gives weight to the notion that while Hollywood may distinguish between lead roles and supporting roles, in reality we’re each the star of our own life story.

In alphabetical order:

The Babadook. The fiendishly clever horror yarn from first-time writer/director Jennifer Kent hinges on a mother’s love for her son – and the sense of panic that arises from realizing that love may not be enough to protect him. Is the storybook demon terrorizing widowed mother Amelia (Essie Davis) and eight-year-old Samuel (Noah Wiseman) real, or a product of Amelia’s overwrought emotional state? The power of Kent’s film is in its careful disinterest in answering that question; with a parent’s pragmatism, this film advances the idea that if it’s real to your child, that’s all that matters. (Still available on cable VOD and iTunes.)

Beyond the Lights. It took me a few films – and the arrival of star-in-the-making Gugu Mbatha-Raw – to appreciate the work of Gina Prince-Bythewood. A fine, old-school romantic drama that explores the addictive power of stardom, Lights pulls every melodramatic lever while inhabiting a world of music videos and behind-the-scenes music-biz machinations that feels an awful lot like the real thing. Mostly, though, it offers a luxe romance between Mbatha-Raw and Nate Parker that takes its time and gets us to care about these characters. Even when we know where it’s going, it’s still a treat to watch it get there. (Coming to DVD on February 24.)

Birdman. Perhaps the year’s most effective combination of directorial artistry and acting chops, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) gives grand life to the inner monologue of a tortured artist. As we watch Hollywood has-been Riggan Thompson (Michael Keaton) and his fellow actors ping-pong around the inside of a Broadway theater, rehearsing for the play Thompson hopes will restore his reputation, director Alejandro González Iñárritu shoots them with the fierce resolve of a documentarian – which makes his visualist flights of fancy, such as when characters literally take flight, all the more spectacular. Anchored by a tour de force performance from Keaton, it’s a surreally inspiring piece of work. (Still in theaters.)

Blue Ruin. A small-scale rural thriller, reminiscent of the best work by the Coen brothers, Ruin is remarkable in its absolute commitment to its modest goals – much like the motivations of its vaguely inept but determined antihero, Dwight (Macon Blair), who returns to his hometown to enact vengeance on the man who murdered his parents. Dwight’s resolve – and his slowly growing confidence as he deals with the ramifications of his hunt for payback – make for a grimly authentic crime drama. (Now screening on Netflix.)

Boyhood. Yep, this was that “stunt” movie – the one that writer/director Richard Linklater shot over the course of 12 years, reuniting his gradually aging cast annually to chronicle the passage of time for a typical Austin, TX, family. Boyhood deserves recognition for that feat alone, but I was skeptical about giving it too much credit for its creator’s offscreen determination. Instead, when you watch the film, let the performances wash over you – especially Patricia Arquette and newcomer Ellar Coltrane as mother and son – and see if you’re not genuinely transported into their homes, their relationships, their lives. (Now on Amazon Instant Video; coming next week to DVD.)

The Grand Budapest Hotel. Wes Anderson has always been a precise filmmaker, but as his career has taken off his movies have become increasingly like those dioramas I used to build out of shoeboxes in elementary school – everything is a set piece, even the actors, and everything feels glued into place. But that’s only a criticism if the movie itself doesn’t work, and in Hotel Anderson finds a gorgeous synthesis between frustrating rigidity and storytelling joy. The tale of a surprisingly heroic concierge (Ralph Fiennes) who must clear his name of a murder charge takes us on a madcap journey of stylish chases and soaring romantic gestures. It’s a hoot and a half. (Now on DVD.)

Guardians of the Galaxy. Making a hit out of Captain America or Iron Man is easy; building a brilliant adventure comedy out of a cast of little-known comics characters, much harder. But director James Gunn, an indie filmmaker at heart (Slither, Super) was the right man for this particular job – he maintains an immaculate balance between space-opera heroics and candy-colored whimsy, and never forgets to keep it fun. (Now on DVD.)

Life Itself. Steve James (Hoop Dreams) looked back at the life and times of Roger Ebert in a doc that was – much like its subject – elegiac and funny, profane and wise. Ebert died in 2013 after a long battle with cancer, and that fight was chronicled here as well, but the emphasis was appropriately on a life of critical analysis; we learn what drove Ebert, what enraged Ebert, and what causes could inspire that fabled thumb of his to twitch upward or downward. (Screening Sunday, January 4 on CNN.)

Listen Up Philip. Probably the least-seen film on this list, Philip never made it into wide release but enjoyed a brief run on VOD and is now available on iTunes. The third film from writer/director Alex Ross Perry was a character drama featuring a thoroughly unlikeable character – an insufferably snooty writer (Jason Schwartzman) who openly belittles colleagues and friends and doesn’t learn a thing over the course of the film. This is a natural role for Schwartzman, who’s been honing his bizarrely appealing obnoxiousness since Rushmore (1998), but Perry magnifies the effect by resisting the urge to redeem his character. If you seek this out, watch for a splendid turn from Elisabeth Moss as Philip’s girlfriend.

Snowpiercer. When the premise is established that a man-made climate change “solution” accidentally turns our warming planet into a barren, frozen husk, Korean director Bong Joon-ho (2006’s The Host) isn’t inviting a debate about science. Nor is he asking us to ponder the engineering wizardry of a prescient inventor who pro-actively creates a perpetual motion engine to power the Rattling Ark, a massive train that circles our icy globe, once a year, without stopping. Gifts like Bong’s film don’t come around often, and we shouldn’t worry about the “why”: Instead, try to kick back and enjoy the dizzying, dystopian ride. (Now streaming on Netflix.)

Runners-up this year included Chef, Gone Girl, Whiplash, Begin Again, Nightcrawler, Jodorowsky’s Dune, The One I Love, Lilting, and Locke. Look for more about a few of those in the next couple of days.

James Franco and Seth Rogen in ‘The Interview.’ (Columbia Pictures)

What a difference a week makes. What started as an ordinary, run-of-the-mill case of a hostile foreign dictatorship possibly orchestrating the illegal actions of an anonymous cabal of cyberterrorists in an effort to punish a multinational entertainment conglomerate for financing a holiday movie that would humiliate the ruler of that foreign land, has turned into a case study for the viability of old-school distribution channels in New Hollywood.

Oh, and tomorrow is Christmas. If you’re stuck for a last-minute gift idea, may I recommend a digital gift certificate to YouTube, Google Play or Xbox Video?

Those are the online channels from which filmgoers – also known, this week only, as superpatriots – can stream or buy a copy of The Interview, the mainstream Hollywood comedy that until a week ago was set to debut tomorrow afternoon at a theater near you. A lot has happened in that week, of course (see here for a recap), and now if you’re living in western or central New York state, “near you” means a drive to Canandaigua’s Movietime Cinemas 10 or MoviePlex 10 in Auburn. The rest of our area’s theater chains have been shut out of the exhibition pathway – temporarily, at least. But I expect seats at those two theaters will sell out quickly; and anyway, the prime audience for The Interview will likely be inclined to stay home and watch the film, completely legally, from the comfort of their own homes.

The specific circumstances behind this particular film’s release path are extraordinary, but the ramifications are merely waiting to be discovered – and, in all likelihood, applied. A fair amount of Internet commenters are speculating, reasonably, as to whether Sony is making lemonade out of lemons or had this planned all along. I’m inclined to think the former, but that doesn’t mean their bean counters won’t be paying close attention to the financial outcome of this adventure. If the Seth Rogen/James Franco vehicle is able to make a profit from a first-run distribution path that focuses primarily on the Internet, what will that mean for theaters? Nothing good, I expect.

Stay tuned – and Merry Christmas!

Lizzy Caplan with James Franco and Seth Rogen in ‘The Interview.” (Columbia Pictures)

Random thoughts on the outrage surrounding The Interview, North Korea, Sony Pictures and the “Guardians of Peace”:

First, a Recap. A month or so ago Sony Pictures Entertainment began suffering for its sins, when a massive computer hack orchestrated by the anonymous “Guardians” resulted in the piecemeal public distribution of all sorts of confidential information: executives’ and stars’ salaries; embarrassing email exchanges that revealed trade secrets, exposed hidden rivalries and uncovered latent racism; and even prematurely released the film Annie, a Sony property that was suddenly available for online viewing weeks ahead of its official rollout. This was all reportedly in protest of the planned Christmas Day release of The Interview, a political satire about two American infotainers (Seth Rogen and James Franco) who are invited to meet North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and promptly solicited by the CIA to kill him.

What Happened This Week. After weeks of headline-driven humiliation, Sony executives hadn’t wavered in their plans to release the film next week. So the “Guardians” raised the stakes, with a terror threat that invoked the September 11, 2001 attacks and promised unspecified retribution on any company involved in showing The Interview to audiences on Christmas Day. The threats couldn’t be substantiated, but Sony publicly told theater owners they would be allowed to back out of their commitments to screen the film if they so chose – and within 24 hours, nearly everyone did. Shortly thereafter, Sony officially pulled the film from release indefinitely.

Hollywood Goes Berserk: Suddenly a small army of big names took to the Internet, accusing Sony of caving to terrorists. This is after a month of sinking fortunes for the studio thanks to the dirty-laundry campaign that has shown the world more than it would have liked to see about the inner workings of Hollywood. So Sony’s not too popular right now anyway. This latest move hasn’t helped any.

But…. What’s the alternative? If the theaters don’t want to screen the film, Sony could only force them via their distribution contracts – and what if some act of terror really did occur in a movie theater on Christmas Day? What manner of outrage would be directed at Sony and those theater owners if they moved ahead with their plans and audience members were injured or killed, and the threat of that outcome had been known a week in advance?

Caveat Emptor. Yes, audiences could have decided on their own not to attend the screenings on December 25. But let’s not forget this is a moneymaking venture we’re talking about. Empty Christmas Day theaters are not a preferable outcome for these businesses. And while the groundswell of grassroots support in the last 24 hours has suddenly turned a lot of Americans into Seth Rogen fans who previously were not, that resolve would understandably turn sideways quickly if a couple of bombs went off next week during a screening or two.

Heroic? Esquire put out an essay last night calling this a Ridiculous War, and proclaiming that the only heroes involved in this mess are Rogen and Franco for making the film in the first place. I think Esquire may have forgotten how movies are made. Sony, not its stars, reportedly put up about $70 million to make the film – and while insurance and tax write-offs will cover that loss to an extent, Franco and Rogen have presumably already cashed their own checks. Sony could have rejected the pitch for the film, as studios are known to do for hundreds of non-starter ideas submitted to them every year. Instead, Sony greenlit the production – an imprudent move, maybe, but not one suggesting cowardice. Meanwhile, the first cancellations in this mess came from Franco and Rogen themselves, who suspended their national interviews in support of the film a day before the theaters and Sony began pulling out. Much as this sentiment isn’t popular these days, there are no heroes here, only victims.

That Said…. It’s outrageous that North Korea would seek to intimidate America interests, but not that outrageous, and maybe not that unexpected. (Unsurprisingly, the federal government has found links between the “Guardians of Peace” and the North Korean government.) Kim Jong Un isn’t known for his sensible responses to criticism; and after all, this is a movie that has fun with the prospect of his assassination. I was ready to see The Interview on Christmas Day, but if it had never been made – if I’d read somewhere that the script had been passed around at one point but never picked up by a studio – I’m not sure I would have been surprised. On its face, this sounds like the kind of audacious idea that isn’t often embraced by risk-averse studios.

Other Options? Yep, Sony could have released the film straight to Video On Demand instead – and it reportedly considered doing so, before suspending those plans. Mitt Romney even took to the web to suggest the studio should simply release the film online for free – which seems to fall squarely into the That’s Easy For You To Say department, coming from a fierce capitalist like Romney. I think VOD is still a reasonable choice, but from the perspective of threat assessment that might only redirect the terrorists’ ire from theater owners to companies like Time Warner and Comcast.

What’s Next? Sony’s decision doesn’t preclude other possibilities down the road – a future release for The Interview is certainly viable. In the meantime, however, I can’t say as I blame the studio or theater owners for deciding to be cautious while the FBI continues to investigate the “Guardians.” That doesn’t make any of this easier to swallow: In this incident, business and art have both been bullied into submission by shadowy foreign interests, which is equal parts tragic and infuriating.

I want to see The Interview. But I’m not dying to see it.

James Stewart, center, and the cast of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’

The next time you sit down to watch Frank Capra’s 1946 Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life, follow along with this annotated analysis. (An abridged version of this story was published in the December 12 Daily Messenger.)

00:00:28 – James Stewart’s name shows up in the opening titles. This was Stewart’s first film after returning home from serving in World War II, where he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for leading a squadron in a series of attacks in Germany in early 1944. He remained in the Air Force reserves after the war.

00:02:41 – The first heavenly meeting between Clarence Oddbody, AS2 (that’s “Angel, Second Class”) and his boss, Joseph. Note the introduction of Clarence’s theme music, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” We’ll be hearing that again.

00:02:57 – Joseph references someone giving up their “greatest gift,” their life. “The Greatest Gift” was the title of the 1945 short story by Philip Van Doren Stern on which Capra based this movie.

00:03:50 – In a nice moment (one we’d call “meta” today), the camera’s perspective mimics Clarence’s vision, gradually coming into focus on our Earthly plane so we can see what he “sees.”

00:04:52 – In 1919, young George’s Bailey lost the hearing in his left ear when he jumped into a frozen pond to save his kid brother Harry, who’d fallen in during a sledding accident. To look at that set, though, you have to wonder: Why would the boys be sledding towards a break in the ice?

00:05:05 – Our first glimpse of the oversized outdoor set constructed for Bedford Falls. According to the Internet Movie Database, it occupied four acres of RKO movie studio property, included residential and commercial “neighborhoods” and took two months to build.

00:05:39 – The first time the song “Buffalo Gals” is heard, in Mr. Gower’s drug store and soda shop. Like “Twinkle Twinkle,” this is a signature tune for It’s a Wonderful Life.

00:07:00 – In this scene we met young versions of Violet Bick and Mary Hatch, both showing signs of the remarkable consistency that will distinguish their characters as adults – and the same can be said of the entire Bedford falls community that Capra has created. There’s a comforting sense of permanence in our getting to know these characters from their earliest years onward.

00:08:41 – More Capra comfort, in the form of an ad for Sweet Caporal cigarettes: “Ask Dad. He Knows.”

00:09:40 – We first meet Mr. Potter, “the richest and meanest man in Bedford Falls.” Vincent Price was reportedly an early choice to play Potter; Lionel Barrymore took the role instead. Check out the ornate woodwork on Potter’s wheelchair – a quick visual cue to the character’s penchant for self-indulgent excess.

00:10:20 – As George is escorted out of his father’s office, stay alert for a subtle moment of clever sound design. Though barely audible, we can hear Peter Bailey (Samuel Hinds) admonish his foe still in the room: “Mr. Potter, you humiliated me in front of my son.”

00:11:36 – The action switches from 1919 to June 1928, as young Harry is graduating from high school. George was 12 in 1919, so he’s 21 now, and itching to leave town after four years of helping his father run the Bailey Building & Loan.

00:12:45 – Before he can leave town, George accepts a gift of luggage from his former employer, Mr. Gower. This is the first sign of the gratitude building for George from the people of Bedford Falls.

00:13:25 – We meet Bert the cop (Ward Bond) and Ernie the cab driver (Frank Faylen). Jim Henson would later insist the names of his famed Sesame Street characters were unrelated to this earlier onscreen pair.

00:14:24 – Adult Humor Alert: When the Baileys’ maid Annie (Lilian Randolph) wishes that all young people could be girls, George’s mom (Beulah Bondi) retorts, “If they were all girls, there wouldn’t be … oh never mind.”

00:15:35 – In all the times I’ve watched this movie, I never noticed the Baileys’ fascination with lepidoptery. Check out the mounted butterfly samples over Peter Bailey’s shoulder in the dining room.

00:17:27 – George comments on his father’s “shabby little office,” a moment of casual cruelty that suggests the son’s next-generation yearning for something new. Frank Capra is often dismissed as a director of sunny, upbeat films, but quick moments like this – and much of George’s tormented character – clearly show It’s a Wonderful Life as perhaps the darkest of Christmas classics.

00:20:24 – The first appearance of Donna Reed as Mary Hatch, George’s future wife. The actor playing Freddy, her would-be paramour, is Carl Switzer, better known as Alfalfa from the vintage “Little Rascals” shorts.

00:22:24 – Freddy and a pal open up the floor of the auditorium, where a pool underneath awaits. This was no constructed set, but an actual facility that still exists at Beverly Hills High School. No word on whether Charleston dance contests are still held there.

00:24:05 – A second reference to “Buffalo Gals,” this time as George and Mary walk home.

00:26:34 – Following George’s lead, Mary makes a wish and throws a rock through the window of the Granville house. This allows her to silently stake her claim on George (in a contrast with his own wishes, which are all about leaving town) and, I think, to shut him up about his ravings of far-off adventures.

00:33:14 – Following Peter Bailey’s death from a stroke, adult George confronts skinflint Mr. Potter for the first time – a more sophisticated rant than the one he presented to Potter as a boy – giving us a chance to see the first time how quickly his character’s earnestness can turn to sadness, and then anger. Stewart has gotten a bad rap over the years for “playing himself,” but scenes like this one show his craft at work.

00:34:45 – “But George, they’ll vote with Potter otherwise”: Guilt, and obligation, force George into his first act of self-sacrifice.

00:36:58 – It’s spring 1932, and George learns Harry has graduated from college with a wife and a job prospect that will take him to Buffalo. Left alone for a moment, George lets his guard down and presents as shifty, furtive: You can see him feeling the implications of Harry’s good news on his own life. He’s trapped.

00:38:31 – Drunk Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) exits off-camera and crashes into something. Legend has it this was an unscripted moment – a crew member had dropped some equipment, causing accidental clatter – but Mitchell ad-libbed, yelling “I’m all right, I’m all right.” Capra loved the effect and left it in.

00:41:30 – The first big scene between Stewart and Gloria Grahame as a grown-up Violet Bick. Nothing special to say here; I just like Gloria Grahame.

00:42:00 – George hems and haws, wandering around town in a deliberate attempt to delay getting to Mary’s house. He’s a smart guy, and understands what awaits him there: Love, marriage, and a lifetime in Bedford Falls – the last thing he wants.

00:43:29 – The film’s third “Buffalo Gals” moment.

00:46:00 – Don’t you just hate Mary’s mother? It’s nice to want the best for your daughter, but she’s not much of a host: With George downstairs, all she can talk about is getting rid of him so Mary can take Sam Wainwright’s call.

00:46:40 – The Rochester reference in Sam call to Mary and George is another confirmation of the long-held belief that Bedford Falls is modeled after Seneca Falls, NY.

00:47:50 – There’s genuine smoldering sexual tension in this phone scene between George and Mary – including the passion with which he violently denies his love for her, immediately followed by giving in to those feelings. Best of all, of course, it sends her mother back to her upstairs bedroom, crying.

00:51:35 – The run on the bank, shot outdoors in the rain, features a great moment in which Stewart, shot from behind, approaches a crowd of umbrella-toting townspeople – a mute mob looking to George to save them, one way or another.

00:54:00 – Old man Potter buys the bank, and then tries unsuccessfully to do the same with the Building & Loan. How much money does this guy have, anyway? And if he’s so rich, why is he still living in sleepy old Bedford Falls? Is he a secret sentimentalist?

00:57:30 – It’s the heart of the Great Depression, and George has given the clients of his Building & Loan a rousing we’re-all-in-this-together speech. Immediately following this, one of the clients, Tom, wants every penny of his $242 handed over to him, right now. Tom’s a jerk.

00:58:16 – On the other hand, there’s Miss Davis – played by Ellen Corby, later of “The Waltons” – who asks for only $17.50 and earns a kiss on the cheek from George.

00:59:55 – Having exhausted their $2,000 honeymoon bankroll on saving the Building & Loan, George and Mary spend their wedding night in that same dilapidated Granville house whose windows they once broke. Arriving there seems to surprise George, which makes me wonder: Did they buy the house, or are they basically squatting?

01:01:40 – George can’t even get out of Bedford Falls for a honeymoon. But as Capra pans lovingly across the makeshift wedding-night feast Mary has prepared for him in their dubiously claimed home, it’s hard to feel too sorry for the guy.

01:03:28 – In this scene, crooning in the rain to the newlyweds, Ernie and Bert confirm their status as this film’s version of the mice in Cinderella.

01:06:15 – Great Line Alert: “That Bailey family’s been a boil on my neck long enough.”

01:07:19 – Potter offers George a job paying 20,000 a year – roughly $335,000 in today’s funds. When George first sits down, note the skull paperweight on Potter’s desk. This guy is a serious villain. And yet, he really understands George’s inner demons: His speech about George’s self-resentment, and yearning to break free from his life, hits home.

01:12:55 – The voiceover narration switches for a scene from Clarence and Joseph to George himself, as he ruefully recalls his grand, impetuous speeches about living a life of adventure. Then he sits down with Mary and learns that they’re about to embark on a completely different journey: She’s “on the nest,” pregnant with Tommy, the first of what will eventually be four children.

01:16:00 – Joseph’s narration to Clarence about the next several years of George’s life includes a long description of how George and his fellow townspeople fared during World War II – with overseas duty for some, and rubber and paper drives back at home for George and others. Viewed through today’s eyes, these scenes don’t add much to the movie except to indicate the passage of time – but for a film released barely a year after the end of that war, it must have meant much more to Capra, Stewart and audiences everywhere.

01:16:34 – We’ve arrived at the “present” – 10:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve, 1945. The rest of the film takes place in this one day.

01:18:45 – Mr. Carter, the bank examiner, wants to spend Christmas in Elmira with his family. Who can blame him?

01:19:36 – In a key moment, Uncle Billy absent-mindedly wraps up the cash for his bank deposit into Potter’s newspaper and slaps the bundle at Potter with a misguided flourish. So long, money. But that deposit of $8,000 would amount to just over $100,000 today, begging a question: Why would he wait so long to deposit that much cash?

01:24:27 – George, panicked and deep in despair, reacts badly to the gentle chaos of a Christmas Eve tableau at home.

01:26:44 – Meet Zuzu Bailey (Karolyn Grimes), George’s youngest daughter, likely named for the Nabisco ginger-snap cookie of the time.

01:28:55 – The way George overreacts to Zuzu’s cold is understandable – he’s desperate to control something, and yelling at her teacher (and Mr. Welch, the teacher’s husband) will do in a pinch.

01:30:22 – Destroying his model bridge, for a man who once dreamed of building things, represents a major tantrum in front of his wife and children. George can feel it, too, which is why he calms down for a minute.

01:33:00 – Another meeting between George and Potter, in which the old man brings out the long knives to torture his finally vulnerable foe. The film never shows Potter receiving any comeuppance for his misdeeds, which is unusual for a picture of this era. (A vintage episode of “Saturday Night Live” once explored that omission. Check it out here.)

01:36:00 – George prays for help at Martini’s bar, and gets a punch in the nose. Also an angel, but he doesn’t know that yet.

01:38:36 – Clarence (Henry Travers) finally appears onscreen, and Capra gives us a terrific birds-eye-view shot of the angel, then George, jumping off the bridge into the icy water. In the next scene we hear a reprise of the “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” theme that announced Clarence’s offscreen arrival early in the film.

01:44:04 – George gets his wish to have never been born.

01:45:45 – The events of his Christmas Eve begin to replay in reverse, starting with a second meeting with the homeowner whose tree he hit with his car. The car’s gone now, of course.

01:46:48 – That’s Sheldon Leonard as Nick, the head bartender at Martini’s (now “Nick’s”) bar. In real life Leonard went on to become a hugely successful producer of TV shows including “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “The Andy Griffith Show” and “I Spy.” Here, though, he’s just a grouchy barman in George’s alternate universe.

01:48:20 – Great Line Alert: “Every time you hear a bell rings, it means that some angel’s just got his wings.”

01:49:20 – George’s onetime employer Mr. Gower (H.B. Warner) arrives at the bar, haggard and destitute, immediately suggesting the far-ranging depth of George’s absence in this timeline.

01:52:46 – George surveys the Main Street of what should be his home town, but has been overrun with pawn shops, strip clubs and gambling establishments. Under the watchful eyes of Mr. Potter, Bedford Falls (excuse me, “Pottersville”) has become Sin City.

01:54:00 – As George is driven home by Ernie the cab driver, an eerie piece of sci-fi music arrives on the soundtrack. In the next scene, George’s survey of his home – back to its rundown state, as he and Mary never moved in – is shot with heavy shadow: Film noir overtones in a Christmas movie.

01:56:20 – “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” again, as Clarence vanishes out of police custody. Not a bad trick to have in your back pocket.

01:56:40 – Beulah Bondi returns as George’s mother, and gives the film another quick shot of dark authenticity in a few lines that underscore just how much people have changed in this new, George-free reality.

01:58:05 – Another stark cue of George’s importance, as Bailey Park – once the setting for all the homes sponsored by the Building & Loan – is now a cemetery. Here George finds the grave of his brother Harry, who died as a young boy. With this, the film becomes a kind of ghost story, just for a moment.

02:00:50 – Bert the cop takes a few shots at George – not smart on a crowded Main Street, but one gets the impression that this sort of thing happens all the time in this dark-tinged version of reality.

02:01:25 – George arrives back at the bridge, sweating pretty hard for a guy who’s been running around on a snowy December night with no overcoat. (In reality, this scene was shot in early summer – a better explanation for Stewart’s shiny forehead.) Snow begins to fall, signifying a return to George’s real life, the moment he says “Please God, let me live again.”

02:02:34 – George begins his exuberant victory-tour footrace through Bedford Falls, including a jog past the local movie theater playing The Bells of St. Mary’s. That film was released in early December 1945, so it’s unlikely that it would be playing just three weeks later in a sleepy town like Bedford Falls.

02:05:00 – Back at the house, George barely seems to notice the warrant for his arrest; he can’t take eyes off his wife and kids. A minute later the town arrives, virtually en masse, to lavish their friend with long-overdue thanks – and a lot more cash than could ever fit in the luggage Mr. Gower first bought for George.

02:07:15 – Janey gets to play “Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” which she was rehearsing in that earlier scene where George went berserk.

02:07:55 – Harry Bailey arrives. I always tear up at his toast to “My big brother George, the richest man in town.”

Beverly D’Angelo and Chevy Chase in ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.’ (Warner Bros.)

Twenty-five years ago this month I was living in New York City, and after leaving work one afternoon I ducked into a midtown movie theater to watch a new film, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Two hours later I thought to myself, so this is what it feels like to be mugged in New York.

The Vacation film franchise was born in 1983, with an agreeable time-waster that put some cash in Chevy Chase’s pocket. 1989’s Christmas Vacation, third in the series, had the distinction of being a marked improvement over the first sequel, which was set in Europe and made audiences want to take a collective shower after watching it. But being better than something awful doesn’t make something good, and 1989 critics generally agreed that Christmas Vacation was a gift better left unopened.

Cut to 25 years later, and the darn movie has become a holiday classic – not respected in the same manner as It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street, perhaps, but embraced as a welcome perennial visitor to our pop-culture family. That goes for my house too – a DVD of Vacation sits on my shelf, and it’s entered into semi-regular rotation in my holiday movie canon.

Did it wear me down? Probably. I’m sure was too hard on the film when it was released, but there’s no doubt that the movie’s amiably vulgar expressions of Christmas cheer have mingled nicely with the overall sights, sounds and sentiments of the yuletide season. Mostly, though, the Christmas Vacation phenomenon is an old, familiar song: in which the experience of watching a movie for the very first time can’t begin to prepare the viewer to appreciate it through the lens of posterity.

Not every Christmas-themed movie automatically becomes a rewatchable classic – Home Alone is a lasting hit, for example, but Home Alone 2 never made the cut, and no one even remembers Home Alone 3. But Christmas Vacation, with its multigenerational tension and its will-I-make-a-nice-holiday-for-my-kids angst, has a familiarity that resonates better than, say, Macaulay Culkin’s bizarre solo adventures. Add to that the fact that the jokes themselves are now familiar – 25 years of repetition will do that – and it’s not hard to see how this movie could have worked its way into our homes … and in a bizarre fashion, into our hearts.

By objective standards, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation isn’t a very good movie. It’s junk food, and few people would argue that eating Chicken McNuggets is a good idea. But by objective standards, raising pine trees just for the purpose of cutting them down, dragging them into our homes and dangling colored glass on the branches for a few weeks is rather silly. If nothing else, the holiday season gives us all an opportunity to take our own Christmas vacation – a getaway from the obligations of objectivity, and the chance to be blissfully subjective for a while.

This piece – about my perennial pick for the most appropriate first Christmas film to watch each year – was originally published in December 2001 in the Messenger Post papers.

Natalie Wood and Edmund Gwenn in “Miracle on 34th Street.” (File photo)

Quick – name the first old-fashioned Christmas movie that comes to mind. (No, don’t look at the photo.) You’re thinking of It’s a Wonderful Life, right? Sure, that’s the classic, the Jimmy-Stewart-George-Bailey-broken-down-building-and-loan-dance-by-the-light-of-the-moon-angels-get-their-wings holiday weeper. Fifty-one years old, that one picture carries on the Frank Capra legacy almost as effectively as all the other films he made combined.

But if that film is the Hertz Rent-A-Car of holiday films, Miracle on 34th Street (unrated, consider it PG) is Avis: number two, and – especially in this, its own golden anniversary year – trying harder. “It’s a Wonderful Life” will make its annual appearance December 20 on NBC-TV, and millions of viewers will tune in, as usual. But the following night, take a break from wrapping presents and head over to the George Eastman House, where an 8pm screening of Miracle will be presented – an early present if ever there was one.

Based on a short story by Valentine Davies, Miracle on 34th Street has at its heart a fable of such simple, incorruptible sweetness that it actually improves with the passage of time. (Compare that to the labels of “Capracorn” periodically thrown at Capra’s work – cynical snickers in the face of Midwestern homilies.)

The story begins as Doris, an independent career woman – and single mom (!) – who organizes the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, catches her parade Santa Claus tippling from a hip flask minutes before his float is set to ride through midtown Manhattan. As luck would have it (uh huh), another  white-bearded fellow happens by just in time for Doris to recruit him. He’s such a hit as jolly old saint Nick, in fact, that she hires him on for the rest of the season – and only raises an eyebrow when the old man starts telling people that he really is the one and only Kris Kringle.

If there’s a downside to living in the shadow of an undisputed titan, it might be that everyone holds the top dog in reverence but assumes number two is easy pickings – hence the untouchability of the original It’s a Wonderful Life, while Miracle has had to endure two ham-handed remakes (so far). Twenty-six years after the original was released, a made-for-TV version cast a bland Jane Alexander as Doris; more-mannequin-than-man David Hartman (once of “Good Morning, America”) as Bill, her would-be boyfriend; and an unknown Suzanne Davidson as Susie, Doris’ daughter.

Every version of the story pivots on the relationship between Kris and Susie – the old man who teaches the young girl how to be a young girl, by using her imagination – and the 1973 edition at least had a strong Santa in Sebastian Cabot. With him in charge, the wobbly remake managed at least to keep its heart in the right place.

Not so, sadly, for the more recent big-budget version. 1994’s Miracle, perhaps fine for folks who’d never seen the first two, discards the amiable sentimentality of Davies’ story for a two-dimensional good-vs.-evil yarn. This time, Kris’ temporary downfall (no one believes he’s really Santa, so the lovable coot is shipped off to a sanitarium) is staged by a rival department store chain, and masterminded by a hand-wringing Euro-accented villain (Joss Ackland) who’d seem more at home fighting James Bond than Santa Claus.

No, it’s the 1947 film – with its marvelous synthesis of acting, directing, and script – that stands the test of time. Maureen O’Hara brings just the right balance of steel and vulnerability to Doris, while a young Natalie Wood and a grown John Payne offer flesh-and-blood takes on Susie and Bill. As Kris, Edmund Gwenn found the role of his life, and won an Academy Award for his trouble (along with Davies and writer/director George Seaton).

Accept no substitutes: For melodrama-free family fare, the original Miracle on 34th Street is as worthwhile as they come. I’ll bet even Jimmy Stewart watched it once or twice – after his movie, of course.