Another Tradition

The age old question of what Jews do on Christmas often seems to come up. X-mas is hard to ignore - as I've written here a few times. There is one of those true cliches about how Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas eve - used to be they were the only restaurants open. Saturday Night Live did one of their few funny pieces of the year a few weeks ago - it was a cartoon video called "Christmas for the Jews" It was a 60's pop sounding thing sung, appropriately enough, by Ronnie Spector. All the Jews were out on the street strolling, driving the streets with no traffic and building snow men in the shape of the cast of Seinfeld.

For about the last thirty years on Christmas day it has been our tradition to go to the movies. Nowadays this is a very popular thing to do, but I'm telling you years ago it was pretty empty. We started in 1978 with Superman.
I remember one year Mom, Alex and Abby came down to DC when I was living there after college. We went to see Bugsy that year and who was in the audience but the legendary Jack Valenti of the MPAA. No one else knew who he was but I thought it was cool. He was very tan. I think Chicago was an x-mas movie one year. Last year we saw The Aviator which I liked a lot - especially Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn. In the last ten years we have seen The Royal Tennenbaums, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Shakespeare in Love (I think). A pretty good list of films considering we usually have five or six people trying to come to a consensus to pick a film each year. Often Aunt Terry and cousins Emily and Elizabeth also come along.

This year Mom made a sacrifice and let us go see a film she had already seen- Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash bio with Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon. We were all glad she did too, because it ws one of my favorite Christmas movies ever. Phoenix and Witherspoon were every bit as good as we had heard. They both made you believe that Johnny and June fell in love despite all the obstacles. The way Joaquin looked at Reese you could see that Johnny would have died without June - probably literally. Most actors don't get close to that emotion- although its not hard to imagine falling in love with Reese- I think I may have. It also had the added attraction of great music, including a bunch of Cash songs I didn't know. If you're thinking he's pure country you're wrong- he's really a great mix of country, blues and Rock and Roll. The actors did all their own singing too, a big leap that they made effortlessly. I always wonder how many of the stories in these bio films are true - did Johnny's lead guitarist Luther Perkins really make up the solo in "Folsom Prison Blues" right on the spot? Did June really.....well I don't want to give away the ending if you don't already know it. Go see the movie. Especially if you like good music.

Coming very soon: The Gift List Results