Syntaxtual Healing

The old one. Obviously. But recolored. Normally I go for the black and white, but it's what we had recorded and it was pretty neat to see it all colored up.

I really love this movie, but I don't want to gush about the adorable Santa or how gorgeous Maureen O'Hara is, or the fact that I just realized last night that the little girl is Natalie Wood (actress famous for one of the most mysterious accidental deaths in Hollywood).

What I want to focus on is that somehow, one of the largest department stores in America managed to get us all to love a 96-minute COMMERCIAL.

Then again, I suppose they get us to do this for upwards of 3 hours during the Thanksgiving Day Parade too. They even get us to watch the parade IN the movie! Damn you RH Macy!

But really - 80% of the movie takes place in Macy's, and when we're not in Macy's, people are talking about working at Macy's. RH Macy is such a nice guy in the movie, even when he's flat out telling people that he's doing something to make money, you like him. To top it all off, the whole goal of Santa in the movie is to return Christmas to its former glory, removed from the clutches of commercialization...

Am I the only one who sees the irony here? No? Ok, good.

Despite the fact that we're watching a commercial where Macy's saves Santa from a life in a straightjacket in a padded room at Bellevue, we're all more than willing to overlook this and truly love this movie. It's not just a great Christmas movie, it's a great movie in general. It was nominated for 6 Academy Awards and only lost Best Picture, and it's held up over time - with 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and countless top list nominations and listings.

So I guess what we're collectively saying is, as long as the story is good, and the characters are likeable, we really don't mind watching a full-length feature advertisement.