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In this modern day interpretation of A Christmas Carol Frank Cross is the youngest television president in history and it has gone to his head. As he plans the worlds largest live broadcast on Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his old boss and warned he is being given a chance to change his ways and will be visited on Christmas Eve by three ghosts. Cross spends the next day being ferried through his past, present and future by ghosts and leading everyone in his life to start thinking the Christmas Eve broadcast has finally made him lose it.

Scrooged is hands down one of my favorite Christmas films, and a movie so funny that like Elf I can watch it any time of year. What makes this film so memorable is that it takes a story we all know so well and manages to combine that with what Bill Murray does best – bizarre comedy.

Frank Cross is a horrible man. He sends the people on his Christmas gift list either a towel or a VCR depending on if he likes them or not. He refuses to give his secretary a bonus. He fires an executive the day before Christmas Eve for disagreeing with him. He’s excited when an old woman has a heart attack from watching his Scrooged promo and it gets published by the media. Cross doesn’t care about anyone and everyone knows it. The slogan posted around his office is “Cross: a thing you nail people to”. Bill Murray is the perfect person to play Frank Cross because he can take all of the self-involved horribleness of Frank Cross and make them almost endearing. You still think Frank Cross is awful, but you laugh at him and get excited when he changes. And there is nothing like watching Murray do his thing on screen, he’s amazing.

You also have to love the ghosts in this film, the most memorable one for most people I talk to is the ghost of Christmas present played by Carol Kane. Kane is a SNL alum like Murray, and their comedy styles mesh very well, but that’s not what makes her character memorable. What makes Kane’s ghost memorable is that she is a hyper fairy in a tutu that beats the crud out of Frank. I don’t mean metaphorically, or emotionally, I mean that at one point she literally hits him with a toaster – and that’s just one thing she hits him with. Kane’s character and Cross spend most of their segment arguing like an old divorced couple and each argument culminates in violence to get Frank magically transported to the next scene he needs to see.

I know the holiday season is wrapping to a close and you may not feel like watching a Dicken’s tale during the march to Valentine’s Day, but I do hope that at some point before Christmas Day rolls around again you will find this film and watch it if you haven’t seen it before.

Director: Richard Donner
Writers: Mitch Glazer & Michael O’Donoghue
Frank Cross: Bill Murray
Claire Phillips: Karen Allen
Lew Hayward: John Forsythe
Brice Cummings: John Golver
Eliot Loudermilk: Bobcat Goldwait
Ghost of Christmas Past: David Johansen
Ghost of Christmas Present: Carol Kane
Preston Rhinelander: Robert Mitchum
Grace: Alfre Woodard
Scrooge: Buddy Hackett

Frank Cross: Do you think I'm way off-base here?
Elliot: Yes. You're, well, you're a tad off-base, sir. That thing looked like The Manson Family Christmas Special.

I remember watching Heart and Souls when I was a kid and loving it, but I remembered nothing about it. I mean nothing. I discovered it again while on my mission to watch Robert Downey Jr. movies.

Heart and Souls is a delightful film that really reminds me of the old romance movies and comedies that were made in the fifties; there is just an innocent carefree spirit about it that makes it a delight to watch.

The film begins in 1959 when Thomas’s parents are on the way to the hospital to have their first baby; however, they are delayed in doing so by a bus accident that kills Harrison, Penny, Julia and Milo, four individuals that should not have died yet. Since it is well before their time of death they are given a chance to complete their lives by using Thomas, who was born in his parents car when they were delayed by the accident – the only problem is they don’t know this until Thomas is in his thirties. They spent his childhood as his “imaginary” friends that only he could see, until his parents fear he has mental problems and they make themselves invisible to Thomas too. When they are finally told that Thomas was supposed to be their helper to finish their lives Milo, Harrison, Julia and Penny reveal themselves to Thomas again – to his shock.

No one in the film is bad; every character is played in such a way that they are endearing and memorable. However, the true shining star of this film is of course Robert Downey Jr. This film is his follow-up to Chaplin and again proves how vastly talented the man is. At one point in the film each of the ghosts enters his body and he takes on their characteristics and mannerisms: without skipping a beat he is capable of becoming a small town girl, black woman, a repressed musician with stage fright and a crook. It was brilliant to watch.

I do recommend this movie because it’s a very refreshing, light, fun, clean, genuine, actor driven, romantic comedy that really does feel pulled out of another era.

Director: Ron Underwood
Writers: Brent Maddock, S.S. Wilson, Gregory Hansen, & Erik Hansen
Thomas: Robert Downey Jr.
Harrison: Charles Grodin
Penny: Alfre Woodard
Julia: Kyra Sedgwick
Milo: Tom Sizemore
Hal the Bus Driver: David Paymer
Anne: Elizabeth Shue

Harrison: Who came up with this ridiculous concept anyway? Resolve your entire life in one bold stroke? What if I fail? And I will. I'll fail. I'm telling you. I always fail. Then my whole life will be a complete failure.
Thomas: No offense, Harrison. But you died a failure because you never tried.