Episode 44 – A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

Bill and Ted discuss Bill Melendez’s 1965 film “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the beloved TV holiday special written by Charles M. Schulz and starring the Peanuts gang featuring the sweetly melancholic jazz score by Vince Guaraldi. Charlie Brown simply wants to know what Christmas is all about. In his search, he encounters pop psychology, sociology, and rampant consumerism at every turn. Melendez’s short film effortlessly cuts through the cultural clutter of the 1960’s bringing Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip to animated life while providing Charlie Brown, and all of us, with the answer he seeks.

If you enjoyed this film, you may also like these Ted’s Picks: Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1962), A Christmas Story (1983), The Star (2017)

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December 25, 2019

1960's, Animation, Comedy, Drama, Family, Holiday, Short Film

Ted Giese

Episode 41 – Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Bill and Ted discuss Frank Capra’s 1944 film “Arsenic and Old Lace” featuring Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster, a theatre critic who finds unexpected drama of his own tucked away in his aunts’ window seat on Oct 31^st in Brooklyn New York when he and his bride come to tell the family the good news of their sudden nuptials. Hoping to quickly skip town for a honeymoon in Niagra Falls, Mortimer and his new wife Elaine (Priscilla Lane) become embroiled in a macabre comedy of errors as Mortimer struggles to contain the situation. This is broad, physical, and at times gallows humour filled with some great performances, even if Grant was unhappy with his own. If you find Capra to be sentimental and overly serious, have no fear; this film is far less sappy and much more on the silly side.

If you enjoyed this film, you may also like these Ted’s Picks: The Ladykillers (1955) Young Frankenstein (1974) The ‘Burbs (1989)

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November 1, 2019

1940's, Auteur director, B/W Film, Comedy, Film Noir, Holiday, Horror, Romance

Ted Giese

Episode 22 – It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Bill and Ted discuss Frank Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life,” a film that has become something of a holiday classic. Yet all is not Christmas carols and lighted trees as Capra’s film delves into some probing self-evaluation on the question “What is one life worth to others in a marriage, family, and community.” If you enjoyed this film you may also like these; here are Ted’s Picks: Scrooged (1988), Always (1989), The Family Man (2000)