25 HoliDays of Winter: an Interrupted Series

 I had truly meant to keep up with watching Winter/Christmas Movies, but suddenly the power steering in our car went out.  Upon taking it to the mechanic, we learned it was an issue with an electrical component, and got a quick fix until we could take it back for a proper fit.  I would have continued on the original plan, but we've had various health and home issues crop up and further issues with our car - had to replace the whole steering column instead of just the one component.  So I will try this again in 2021, starting on December 1!  Hope everyone else has been having a wonderful past few months despite all the other things going on!

25 HoliDays of Winter: Days 1-5

 This time of year typically you'll see 25 Days of Christmas on so many different channels.  I decided to try my hand at a personal 25 movies of the season.  Basically, I'm going to try to watch the equivalent of one movie or series of movies (like the 3 Santa Clause in one day) each day.  Since they are so common, Christmas movies and episodes will likely make up the majority of what I watch for these 25 days.  If you have suggestions that are for a different holiday set in December, let me know and I will try to watch it.  Just a warning - SPOILERS AHEAD!

So, the first movie I watched was Disney's 1961 Babes in Toyland.  The first thing I thought of when watching this was that I definitely want to watch the other one a bit more.  That doesn't mean it wasn't any good.  I've seen this movie before - when I was a kid.  There are things that even today, I still enjoy about it.  But at the same time, there are things that are an obvious sign of the time the movie was made in, like Mary's song regarding her situation.  Some of the special effects are pretty awesome, but the message of that song and the song she and Tom sing after the children go to bed in the toyshop are very much indicative of the societal perception of women.  Another thing highlighted in this particular movie is the thought of Industrialism as both good and bad.  It's amazing until it breaks down because people don't think either in its usage after creation or about why they are creating said invention in the first place.  It also kind of leaves a mystery open - where are the sheep?

Next, I chose to watch the first David Tennant Doctor Who Christmas special.  You'll note that I only watched the first one.  This isn't because the others aren't any good, but rather because watching any Doctor Who Christmas special is a unique thing for anyone who is going to watch.  This particular special introduces David Tennant as the tenth Doctor and really teaches new Whovians that while the reincarnation of the Doctor is hard on those who have to meet him after he's changed, it's hard on him as well.  It also reminds us that humans are idiots, especially humans in power.

So what was the third movie? 12 Christmas Wishes for My Dog.   The title is misleading.  While there a dog and a dog shelter are in the movie, they aren't huge focal points of the movie, but rather causes things to move along in the story.  For a Christmas story, it hits on the season's expectations for it quite well.  

Fourth ended up being Ernest Saves Christmas - a movie I haven't seen since I was a child.  Just the opening scenes make me laugh as a businessman talks to Santa who has decided to pass the job on to a new Santa.  And all the children in the airport note who he truly is and stare in wonder.  And then there's cab driver Ernest...definitely a movie to watch for laughs.

Finally on day 5, I watched The Night Before Christmas.  This turns out to start as the poem, but a mouse ends up correcting the narrator.   This leads to a bit of a different story than what we're used to for the poem.  Still, a nice heartwarming story to watch despite some of the sadness that it involves. 

So what's next?  I know I want to watch the Drew Barrymore Babes in Toyland and the Santa Claus trilogy. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman are classics.  I also want to see the Disney movie Noelle.  I know I watched it previously, but now I want to see it for the season!  I'm sure there are more, after all, there are more than 25 Christmas movies that have been created.  There are classics and modern movies, movies for children and for adults, and movies from all sorts of genres, even if romance tends to dominate them. 

Streaming Sites

This past week a new streaming service that people have been anxiously waiting for finally became available.  Unlike so many others, I was excited but I wasn't about to spend money on something that I might not get to fully enjoy, after all, Disney+ only advertised Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and National Geographic even if there were articles that indicated there would be a bundle deal that included Hulu and ESPN.  My husband was more than agreeable to this.  So we canceled the WWE and Hulu subscriptions we had and we'll very likely be getting Disney+ before the end of the month.  Once that happens, my writing will definitely take a major nosedive since I've heard the series So Weird is fully available on it. 

I've searched online to find the series to buy on DVD, but never did, not even on the official movie site!  I'm not a huge fan of Star Wars, nor do I care for Star Trek before anyone starts to try to call me a Trekkie.  I may be a geek/nerd, but that doesn't mean I have to be typical or stereotypical about it!  We also own a number of movies - not just Marvel, Disney, or Pixar, but independent films and Paramount Pictures, but a lot of Disney.  It doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that I have everything that will be on Disney+ as evidenced by the knowledge that one of my absolutely favorite television shows is available on it while I've been unable to get it.  I have managed to get Dark Angel and most of Leverage of DVD (still need season 5...)

While Disney is no longer on Netflix, it doesn't mean there aren't shows on Netflix that I won't be watching.  They have exclusive content just as Hulu does that are, in my honest opinion, worth spending time watching.  They also have shows that aren't on Hulu and don't forget that streaming is only one part of Netflix.  Originally, Netflix didn't stream.  It was basically just an online Blockbuster (for those who don't understand, Blockbuster was actually a brick and mortar movie rental.  It started with VHS tapes at least when I was a child before DVDs and the internet.  It wasn't just a local movie rental either.  I'm sure a quick Google search can help you find out more, but suffice to say, good luck finding one anymore.  They died before several small-town movie rental businesses did.)  When Netflix first started they would mail the DVDs and charge your card for the length of time you kept it.  I don't remember all of the particulars, but it added streaming as an alternative, but it doesn't and never had their full library available for streaming.  Nowadays, you can no longer rent since they rely solely on streaming services and that consumers are more likely to watch their shows and movies online using their internet services.

I'm so thankful we have DVDs that we can watch because weather happens as does just general other reasons for power outages or internet blank-outs.  Life happens, so it's nice to have back-up plans.  Whether or not things will go great for Disney+ will depend on their competitors and what they do with the vast amount of content at their fingertips.  They have to compete with Netflix which has constantly changes content and there are rumors that they may team up with Nickelodeon.  If they got Nickelodeon and say Funimation to bundle up with them, Disney+ would definitely have some competition.  Americans are aware of anime, mostly thanks to Toonami, but Sailor Moon, DBZ(DragonBall Z), and so many others made kids of the late nineties and early 2000s (so born in late '80s to early '90s) search for more.  It started a wave of other culture awareness that also made us aware of more to the world than what we learned about in our little worlds. 

Anyway, Disney may have access to Marvel which means a wealth of characters as well as multiple possible storylines and that's just from the well-known Marvel characters.  They have their old Disney shows, many of which left fans wishing for more - looking at Gargoyles and So Weird among others.  Some shows need to be redone to set them up to what we are yelling about today, but to do so will definitely offend some.  They won't want anything to change what they loved.  It's like the outcry when every single superhero movie or series has ever been made and books to movies:  people will compare and contrast and find one version better than the others.  Those who grew up with the original will always prefer it.  They'll find problems in how things are portrayed.  Things that have been changed or left out which changed some of the dynamics while pulling forth dynamics that maybe weren't as apparent in the original (this sentence is mainly targeting Harry Potter which is rife with missing depth and more obvious depictions of certain foreshadowed futures, but it's not the only nor is it the first offender, just the easiest to explain because very few don't have any idea what Harry Potter is about even if they've never read the books or seen the movies.)  Others will find problems with the original shows either because of the effects or because they willfully ignore the time period its set in or they see the stereotypes and take offense (not that they shouldn't in some cases, but look at when the show/movie was made before arguing its validity and the setting!)  I mean something set in the 80s or as old as set in the early 1800s would treat certain types of people severely differently than we do now or how they may have been treated in years before A.D.  It doesn't mean the thoughts of how they were treated would have been different. 

There is a movie set in a time period that is very much a decent representation of the time period and place it's set in - Mary Poppins.   No, I'm not talking about Jane, Mary, Michael, Mr. Banks or even the servants, chimney sweeps, or birdwoman (though they all can help my case)  I'm talking about Mrs. Banks, the children's mother.  There's a scene talking about their plans on a day Mary Poppins is supposed to be off.  She said she had to attend a rally and she wore a political-based sash.  Mrs. Banks was a fighter for women's rights.  For the time period and place it is set in, it makes sense that at least one of the several women in the show would be fighting women's rights.  And this was a Disney movie.  Thank you, Disney, for giving a mother who was willing to try to make things better for her daughter, even if she didn't spend much time with said daughter.

Netflix, however, tends to really delve into the darker things and nostalgia that plagues our generations with shows like Stranger Things, Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, among several other shows.  There are several classics and reality shows available through Hulu, though.  That's not to forget about other streaming services - YouTube, Amazon Prime, Funimation, PlutoTV and Crunchyroll just to name a few.  Wherever you find the shows you enjoy, keep an eye for things that change such as the variety of content on others.  If you have a to watch/rewatch/finish watching list like I do, you may find it growing with all the original content that appears on different streaming sites and spin-offs and crossover episodes for whatever you may be watching not to mention reboots and movies...wow, Buffy, Charmed, Doctor Who, Bleach, Supernatural, CSI, JAG, etc. have really made things hard for me to truly catch up on things for story ideas I might have or blog posts...