Hacker Cinema
A Christmas Carol
2009 · Film · 96 min
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.
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10 comments on Hacker News
There were quite a few I'll never remember the name of, but there were a lot of different renditions of A Christmas Carol with unknown characters on Cartoon Network or some other kids channel. I definitely remember Christmas Comes to Pac-Land[1], 'Twas the Night Before Christmas[2], A Jetson Christmas Carol[3], and one of the Flitstone Christmas episodes where they were acting in a play.
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499003/ [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208654/ [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290683/
Well, that'd be an argument against ghost encounters, not necessarily against "any kind of afterlife". There's plenty of afterlife beliefs that don't involve ghosts at all.
Moreover it's assuming that being a ghost would actually impart some incredible insights, or that the behaviour or experience of being a ghost would necessarily reflect that. Most of what I know about ghosts comes from the movie Casper (1995), and in that ghosts are depicted as beings who can't move on from some trauma from their life. Maybe the incredible insights come later, after moving on; maybe the nature of being a ghost necessitates fixation on the "mundane".
I'm also not sure (nor am I not not sure) that most accounts of interaction with ghosts would even be described as "mumbling on about something mundane". A Christmas Carol (fictional) depicts ghosts as providing life-changing spiritual guidance, for instance.
The best - and only - argument we have against belief in any kind of afterlife is that we have no actual evidence for one. The very idea lies outside of our capacity to know.
Story is not very original, dull even, lots of clichés. True story, the person sitting next to me in the cinema fell asleep, well I almost did too. I really didn’t get all the hype around it. After re-watching it, some scenes are nonetheless great.
3D was ok, but if I remember correctly mostly a window into the world and not many scenes where the elements jump out of the screen into the our side of the room.
Released around the same time, A Christmas Carol was a great film in that regard - spectacular 3D experience.
Edit: The font looks great, really liked the article.
I don't understand why the major streaming services don't have the good Christmas movies. They all have these new "made for TV" quality awful movies they push really hard.
It's A Wonderful Life
A Christmas Carol
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (old animated version)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (old animated version)
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Home Alone
Miracle On 34th Street
Elf
White Christmas
There's tons of GREAT Christmas movies. On any given Christmas season Netflix might have 1-2 of the greats. Same for Amazon Prime.
I'm confused because it seems like an easy win for these streaming services. Is licensing them really so expensive?
I've been doing vfx for 20+ years. So...
- watch a movie :
2020 Upside Down Magic
2017 The Fate of the Furious (visual effects artist)
2015 San Andreas
2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron
2013 R.I.P.D.
2011 Happy Feet Two
2011 Mars Needs Moms
2009 A Christmas Carol
2008 The Tale of Despereaux
2007 Enchanted
2006 The Shaggy Dog
2005 Constantine
2004 Hellboy
2003 The Matrix Revolutions
2001 Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
- or a more recent TV show:
Another Life
Gabby and the Unsittables
Charmed
There's certainly other things I've worked on, but they're lost down the memory hole for good.
It's a popular fantasy. See "Replay" by Ken Grimwood. Or all those endless movies where someone gets to do high school over again, like "Peggy Sue Got Married". Or even "Groundhog Day". "A Christmas Carol". "It's a Wonderful Life". And on and on.
> idk what to do about all this; it's pretty easy for me to pass on rereading Asimov or MZB anyhow.
Then you probably can't read any great books, look at any great art, watch any great movie, listen to any great music, laugh with any great comedian, admire any great leader/politician, etc.
I hate to break this to you but there really aren't any saints in this world. And if you do find a saint, it just means he was just better at hiding his true self from the world.
Can you study physics after learning that Einstein was a racist bigot just like hitler?
"It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary."
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2018/06/13/albert-einsteins-1920-s-travel-diaries-contain-shocking-slurs-against-chinese/698448002/
Einstein worried about the "chinese" ( and by chinese he most likely meant asians ) taking over the world like hitler worried about jews taking over the world. Granted Einstein never did anything about it, though he indirectly helped in the nuking of the "automaton spiritless and obtuse 'chinese' children" in hiroshima and nagasaki.
If you were wondering, Newton wasn't any better.
Can you enjoy the Christmas Carol knowing that Dickens was a racist bigot?
Or maybe you should do what we are all taught in philosophy and the arts and learn to separate the art from the artist. They are not one and the same. You can appreciate the art and despise the artist.
It isn't just about "stealing." Allowing works to enter the public domain actually encourages more works to be created. People are free to remake and remix works in the public domain.
Think:
A REAL lot of old Disney movies (Alice and Wonderland, Jungle Book, Pinocchio...)
Pride and Prejudice with Zombies
That Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and guns.
A Christmas Carol in play form (it lends itself really well to live theater, I suggest seeing it!)
West Side Story (inspired by Romeo and Juliet)
Clueless (based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma)
The anime/manga Lupin III was inspired by the French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, created by Maurice Leblanc. Japan didn't enforce copyright at the time of its creation but the Leblanc estate got mad once Lupin started being sold in North America. Some foreign releases changed his name as a result. In 2012, Leblanc's original Arsène Lupin entered the public domain in France
See this video for a different perspective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4
Also read the copyright clause in the Constitution!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, empowers the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the goal and purpose of copyright, as written by the founding fathers, not "financially benefit" especially not forever.
Your synopsis is more general than what I'm thinking of, so of course it's going to catch more things. It's really the specific story of: 1) protagonist's life sucks; 2) protagonist gains deeper understanding about how life works; 3) protagonist sees the same life he was living before in a new light. I guess A Christmas Carol is about like that.
I've seen quite a bit of film, but honestly, if it's really that generic, what are some other examples?
Actually, this is super-weird.
This feeling of 3D "coming out" of the screen is caused by a thing called "negative parallax", and things receding into the screen caused by "positive parallax".
Avatar actually had a comparatively mild amount of negative parallax, compared against things like Jim Carrey's A Christmas Carol, which was LOADED with it.
Negative parallax can look really bad and cheap very easily. It takes a light touch to make it look good. Avatar did it really well and used it sparingly, so that when it DID happen, it surprised you - the "duck and cover" moment. Other, shitty movies use it everywhere, to the point where you no longer notice it - the maximum negative parallax becomes your 0-base (subjectively).