Thursday Movie Picks: Holiday Party

 

For the 51st week of 2021 as part of Wandering Through the Shelves' Thursday Movie Picks. We have a party in the form of holiday parties where it’s all about celebrating the holiday season and wishing everyone a happy Christmas or Chanukah. Here are my three picks:

1. The Apartment

One of the greatest films ever made and certainly a film that still stands the test of time is about this office worker who lives in an apartment where he lets executives use it to spend time with their mistresses as he falls for an elevator operator. The film has a Christmas party scene that is crucial to the story is where it is a moment where Jack Lemmon’s character C.C. Baxter is dealing with the revelation that Shirley MacLaine’s character Fran is the mistress for his boss in Jeff Sheldrake, played by Fred MacMurray. The party is where Fran learns from Sheldrake’s secretary who drunkenly reveals that she’s just another mistress and Sheldrake wants to use Baxter’s apartment to spend time with Fran. It is a moment that would play into Baxter and Fran both dealing with their loneliness but also a moment where they start to bond in truly a film that everyone needs to see from Billy Wilder.

2. Fanny & Alexander

Ingmar Bergman’s 1982 family epic about the lives of a family that is shattered by death and torn apart by the arrival of an outsider who would bring terror to its titular characters. The film is a long one but often worth it as its first act is set during the Christmas holidays with a party as it showcases the sense of joy of the holidays with family, friends, and even the people who work at the house all having a good time. The first act does a lot in establishing this family with a Christmas party being at the center of all of this unaware of the dark turns that is to come in the second act where a major character’s death would change everything.

3. Die Hard

The greatest Christmas film ever made. What more could anyone ask in a film like this? It is set during an office Christmas party where everyone is celebrating until a bunch of terrorists arrive and just disrupt the festivities all because they want to steal a shitload of money and then blow up the building to make the authorities to believe they’re dead. What is stopping these terrorists? A NYPD visiting his wife in Los Angeles as they’re going through some problems yet uses his street-smarts, skills, and sense of humor to take down these terrorists while using a walkie-talkie to chat with a LAPD officer still dealing with some issues but is rooting for this wise-cracking guy who is doing everything barefoot. After all, he has a machine gun. Ho-ho-ho!

© thevoid99 2021