Recent Watch: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

It's 59 years since 'A Charlie Brown Christmas' aired on December 9, 1965, and it still remains one of the most beloved holiday viewings for good reason.

There's something heartbreaking, bittersweet, but also, in a way, oddly hopeful in Charlie Brown's depression and the inevitable isolation and loneliness it brings. His inability to feel joy when others celebrate, and the sense of not belonging that comes with it. In him finding value and significance, and maybe even a little bit of empathy for the small, frail tree that nobody else wanted ("I think it needs me"). The ending and the beauty of accepting and loving different and imperfect things (and people) just as they are. The score by Vince Guaraldi.

A gem of a short TV special, that perhaps hits differently and even more poignantly when you watch it again as a grown adult.

"I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love."

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Recent Watch: The Holiday (2006)

It's 18 years since the release of 'The Holiday', and I gave it a rewatch on a whim. Still think it's an imperfect, but cute and warm film.

Still can maybe suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it when it comes to the usual rom-com tropes, even for the fact that someone who edits movie trailers for a living can get filthy rich enough to afford a huge Hollywood mansion, heck even for the overall house swap with literally zero vetting thing. But for the life of me, I cannot buy for a second that someone would just casually take off and leave their dog to the care of a complete stranger, and a little part of my brain keeps judging all of these people for it.

Even so, I still feel that the romance between Kate Winslet and Jack Black, having them bonding over earnest convos and a mutual love for cinema, is by far the best, most interesting and wholesome part that carries the movie.

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