(DVD Christmas)
I recently watched both The Muppet Christmas Carol and this 1999 TV-movie version, starring Star Trek the Next Generation‘s Patrick Stewart, back-to-back, and loved them both.
Stewart was well-known during his STNG days for performing a one-man stage version of A Christmas Carol. This filmed version came 5 years after the end of the Next Generation TV series but before Stewart became Professor Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies.
Stewart plays the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge as a tired but determined old miser, a little less nasty and sour than some other actors in that part. He also injects a bit more emotion into the scenes as he is forced to witness moments from his past and present and contemplate his sad and neglected fate in the future. Stewart is given terrific support by the other actors in this production, particularly Joel Grey as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Richard E. Grant as Bob Crachit. The production and set design are top notch here, but I felt that the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Be wasn’t very impressive (it’s glowing red eyes resembled nothing more than a Jawa from Star Wars).
None-the-less, Stewart, Grey and Grant’s performances place this one in my “Top Five” of Christmas Carol adaptations — but it is hard to beat the old classic with Alastair Sim from 1951!
(Also available in traditional print format.)
( Internet Movie Database entry for this film )
Recommended
by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service
Have you watched this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
New reviews appear every month on the Staff
Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that
page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog
individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the
reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment