Films That I Like: Scrooged

CROSS We have spent forty million dollars on a live TV show. You guys have got an ad with America's favourite old fart, reading a book, in front of a fireplace! 
(beat)Now I have to kill all of you.
We continue with my occasional series in which I blog about films I like and the particular aspect of the film that I enjoy. These are not reviews, there is no attempt at objectivity or to create a holistic analysis or in fact any analysis at all. It's just films that I like....

Scrooged(1988) Written by Mitch Glazer  & Michael O'Donoghue Directed by Richard Donner
It has Alfre Woodward in it Which is a good thing in any movie.

GRACE He's fired? But it's christmas

CROSS Thank you, call accounting, stop his bonus.

GRACE (into phone)Eliot Laudermilk - code nine.

It has an excellent Danny Elfman ScoreHe's love of interwining the cheery, the twee and the sinister suit the themes perfectly.

Design and DirectionIt's beautifully directed by Richard Donner who gives some of the early Cross scenes a sort of terrifying granduer and moves things along with wit and economy. I'm particularly struck at the use of practical, almost theatrical stage effects used to evoke the supernatural elements. These were more common in the far off days before routine CGI but while the film has access to the state of the art (in 1988) optical effects it doesn't lean on them.Good examples are the arrival of the Ghost of Christmas Present and the use of editing to switch through time periods during the Ghost of Christmas Past sequence.

CROSS Did our people do that? We're going to get phone calls.
J. Michael Riva's production design is also brilliant in this film, I love the off kilter hospital corridor in the Ghost of Christmas Future sequence and the underground sewer and impromptu tomb that Cross finds himself in earlier on.