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Christmas gift Starlight Sailor
A YCH for Mania of their OC Starlight SailorWhat a lovely surprise!
https://linktr.ee/FluffyXai For all my sites!
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Walt Disney Animation Studios 1931 Episode 21: Mickey’s Orphans
Written and directed by Burt Gillett
Animated by Johnny Cannon, Joe D'Igalo, Norm Ferguson, Clyde Geronimi, Hardie Gramatky, David Hand, Jack King, Dick Lundy, Hamilton Luske, Tom Palmer & Ben Sharpsteen
Music by Frank Churchill
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Maybe Amazon was concerned that people would draw too many parallels between Mr Potter and their founder/CEO, Jeff Bezos.
Except that without any opposition, Potter turns the town into a den of poverty, dissolution, and sin.
Amazon actually wants the general public to be healthy and earning well, so they can buy more Amazon stuff.
Also, I’m extremely sus of these genericUsername1234 topical comments.
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Holiday Sale Soirée | The Paris Accessories Trifecta (& 20% Off Discount Codes!)
Holiday Sale Soirée | The Paris Accessories Trifecta (& 20% Off Discount Codes!)
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When Santa Met Oscar
On this Oscar Sunday, taking a look at the notable, Noel-ish films that have been invited to the Academy Awards…
Oscar Winners
The great Edmund Gwenn remains the only actor to earn an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor) for playing Ol’ Saint Nick.
1947’s Miracle on 34th Street also won both now defunct Writing categories, for Story and Screenplay, and was nominated for Best Picture.
Gwenn started his acceptance speech in unforgettable fashion, exclaiming: “Whoow! Now I know there’s a Santa Claus,” before adding, “thank you, all of you, for making the evening of my life such a happy one.”
You can listen to Gwenn’s entire 1948 acceptance speech, back when The Oscars were a radio program, via the official Academy YouTube page.
While not all Oscar experts agree (in fact, most don’t), I’d personally count Katherine Hepburn’s Oscar win for A Lion in Winter as a Christmas movie victory. It’s also the Best Actress category’s only tie, with Barbara Streisand (Funny Girl) sharing the statuette.
Set at the Christmas court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine and almost fully fictional, despite being based on historic figures, Lion scored Hepburn not only her third win, but a then-record 11 Oscar noms of which Hepburn said: “I suppose if you’ve lived as long as I have, anything can happen.”
A Lion in Winter had seven nominations overall and three wins at the 1968 Academy Awards. In addition to Hepburn’s Best Actress, Lion also claimed Best Original Score and Adapted Screenplay.
To date, the only other actor to win an Oscar for an explicitly holiday movie is Da'Vine Joy Randolph, who was named Best Supporting Actress for 2023’s The Holdovers, which also earned nominations for Best Actor (Paul Giamatti), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing and Best Picture.
“For so long I’ve always wanted to be different, and now I realize I just need to be myself. And I thank you, I thank you for seeing me.” Randolph said in her acceptance speech.
1945 holiday movie, The Bells of St. Mary’s, scored eight Oscar nominations, the most of any holiday movie—including Best Actor (Bing Crosby), Best Actress (Ingrid Bergman), Best Director (Leo McCarey) and Best Picture—but won just one, Best Sound Recording.
Another holiday-set movie that cleaned up at the Oscars, though it’s considered more of a Stealth Christmas Movie, is 1960’s The Apartment, which had a whopping ten nominations and five wins, including Best Picture, Writing (Story) and Best Director, accounting for fully half of Billy Wilder’s six competitive Oscars.
But The Apartment was upset in the acting categories, so Wilder, in his third speech of the night, said of the Best Picture statuette: “I think it would be only proper to cut it right in half and to give it to the two most valuable players: Mr. Jack Lemmon and Miss Shirley MacLaine.”
1942’s Holiday Inn takes place across a year full of holidays, but the Bing Crosby classic earned three Oscar nominations, including a win for Best Song for the Irving Berlin classic, “White Christmas.”
Academy experts don’t usually include Inn on Oscar-winning Christmas movie lists, because it’s not just about the holiday, but given the legacy of “White Christmas,” personally feel it deserves acknowledgement.
1947 was a huge year for Christmas at the Oscars. Not only did Miracle on 34th Street score four nominations and three wins, but the Cary Grant-Loretta Young classic, The Bishop’s Wife, also got five nods, including Best Director (Henry Koster) and Best Picture, though it only won Best Sound Recording.
Not considered a Christmas movie by most, but one of my personal favorites, 1954’s The Glenn Miller Story, a biopic starring Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson, earned three Oscar nominations, including a win for Sound Recording.
Jim Carrey’s 2000 holiday magnum opus Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas scored three noms, all focused on the elaborate look of the legendarily laborious live-action, fantasy film.
Grinch won for Makeup, a process Carrey has complained about at length, with winners Rick Baker and Gail Ryan thanking Carrey’s personal makeup artist, Kazuhiro Tsuji, in their acceptance speech.
Two animated short versions of A Christmas Carol have been nominated for Academy Awards, but only one has won.
Walt Disney’s Mickey’s Christmas Carol was spurned at the 1983 Oscars, but 1971 ABC special A Christmas Carol, produced by Richard Williams, claimed the statuette.
In his acceptance speech, Richard Williams thanked Charles Dickens, his mother and his son, Alex, who voiced Tiny Tim. Notably, Alastair Sim and Michael Hordern were reprising their Scrooge and Marley roles from 1951’s Scrooge, directed by Brian Desmond Hurst.
And, last and very much least, the completely un-Christmas Esther Williams’ movie Neptune’s Daughter, which won Best Song in 1949 for, drumroll please, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” the both inexplicably popular and often reviled Christmas song, that never actually mentions Christmas, but is clearly confused about consent, yet somehow remains on repeat each December.
Notable Nominees
Though the six to ten (depending on how you feel about whether or not they’re all true “Christmas movies”) above are only Oscar winning Christmas-centric titles, many more have been nominated…
It’s a Wonderful Life once had a reputation as being under-appreciated, but the 1946 film received 5 Oscar nods, including Best Actor (Jimmy Stewart), Best Director (Frank Capra) and Best Picture, though it left the ceremony empty handed.
And when I said above that 1947 was a big year for Christmas, I meant it. In addition to wins for Miracle on 34th Street and The Bishop’s Wife, director Roy Del Ruth’s under-seen, It Happened on 5th Avenue, earned a nomination for Writing (Story), losing the category to Miracle on 34th Street.
Though only tangentially Christmas-y, both 1930, pre-Code original Holiday and the 1938 remake with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant were nominated for Oscars, though neither won. The 1930 version got nods for Best Actress (Ann Harding) and Writing (Adaptation), while 1938 remake honored for Art Direction
1944 Christmas Eve-set noir Christmas Holiday, starring Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly, was nominated for Music (Score). Based on a W. Somerset Maugham novel and adapted by Herman J. Mankiewicz, Holiday has become bit of a cult classic, popping up on lots of underrated Christmas movie lists.
Bouncy Debbie Reynolds-Dick Powell charmer Susan Slept Here earned nominations for Best Song (“Hold My Hand”) and Sound Recording at the 1954 Oscars.
And, if you think Reynolds was the voice behind “Hold My Hand,” guess again, as it’s Powell in full crooner mode.
1955’s White Christmas was nominated for “Best Song,” but not the one you think, which as noted above had already won its Oscar over a decade earlier.
Nope, White Christmas’ entry was “Count Your Blessings Instead Of Sheep” which didn’t take home the trophy.
Babes in Toyland is a fairy tale story told many times on film, but Disney’s music-filled 1961 version starring Ray Bolger, Tommy Sands and Annette Funicello, picked up two Oscar nominations for Costume Design and Score, though it didn’t claim either.
1961’s Bette Davis-led Pocketful of Miracles, another Frank Capra joint, didn’t win, but had three Oscar nominations, including a Best Supporting Actor nom for Peter Falk, his second in as many years, though it would be his last nod from the Academy.
Another somewhat Stealth Christmas movie to get an Oscar nomination, 1962’s Period of Adjustment, starring Jane Fonda.
Nominated for Art Direction, Adjustment didn’t win, but it’s an interesting dramedy based on a Tennessee Williams play which has become a December theater staple, thanks to its holiday setting.
1970’s absolutely delightful, Albert Finney musical, Scrooge, earned three Oscar nominations, including for Original Song, “Thank You Very Much,” but sadly notched no wins.
In the ‘80s, holiday titles were just happy to be nominated. 1983’s Trading Places, got a nod for its Score, and 1987’s Lethal Weapon for Sound.
Bill Murray’s 1988 classic, Scrooged, scored a Makeup nod. And, that same year, the most famous is-it-a-Christmas-movie-or-not of them all, Die Hard, picked up four nominations.
While none of its sequels passed muster, 1990’s Home Alone, was recognized by the Academy for its John Williams’ music, earning Oscar nominations for Original Score and Original Song, “Somewhere in My Memory,” which I admit I thought was just more of the score.
1992’s Batman Returns holiday-set superhero story had Makeup and Visual Effects nominations. While 1993 animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas somewhat shockingly only landed a single Visual Effects nod—which makes more sense when you recall, the Best Animated Feature category wasn’t introduced until 2001.
Unlike its inspiration, The Bishop’s Wife, 1996’s The Preacher’s Wife, didn’t win any Academy Awards, but its Hans Zimmer Score did get a nomination.
In 2004, the then-innovative motion-capture created The Polar Express had three nominations, including Best Song for “Believe,” which, honestly, should have won, because whatever you think of the movie, the song is gorgeous.
Of course if “Believe” had taken it, we wouldn’t have this interesting bit of Oscar trivia: The Motorcycle Diaries’ “Al Otro Lado Del Río,” was notable as the first Spanish-language Best Song winner, but the Academy didn’t let Jorge Drexler perform, instead going with the more marketable Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana, which Drexler resented so much he sang his acceptance speech.
2005’s excellent Joyeux Noel (France) was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, losing to Tsotsi (South Africa).
And 2008’s In Bruges scored an Original Screenplay nod for writer-director Martin McDonagh and, frankly, I’m kind of surprised that was all the Academy love the contract killer, Christmas buddy movie got.
2015’s Carol had a whopping six nominations, including nods for both Lead (Cate Blanchett) and Supporting (Rooney Mara) actress, but no wins. Blanchett lost to Brie Larson (Room) and Mara to Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl).
The most prolific category for holiday title nominations has been in animated shorts. In addition to the 1971 winning A Christmas Carol and already mentioned 1983 nominee Mickey’s Christmas Carol, Christmas clips have been honored by the Academy since 1934, when Holidayland got a Short Subject (Cartoon) nod.
Other Short Subject (Cartoon), or later nomenclature Short Subject (Animated), nominees include: 1941’s Tom and Jerry short The Night Before Christmas and 1963 Canadian entry Christmas Cracker.
The trippy, nine-minute Christmas Cracker was distributed by McGraw-Hill in the U.S. and became a 1970s and '80s classroom staple.
1940 wartime propaganda film, Christmas Under Fire, earned a Documentary (Short Subject) nomination. Depicting British life during the Blitz, it was intended to shift sentiment in the American public, a year before the U.S. entered the war.
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Dreamwalk Park
The Christmas holidays were here, and I’m back in Utah for the season, surrounded by family. Between family gatherings, dinners, parties and all of the general chaos that comes with this time of year, I decide to try and find something I can take all of my nieces and nephews to. I want to build memories with them of their Uncle that they only see once or twice a year….
I pick Dreamwalk Park, a…
