Last Christmas - the Movie 2019

Personally, I was totally unfamiliar with the George Michael song Last Christmas before I saw the trailer for the film. Believe it or not, some of us actually don't listen to Top 40 radio.

To me it doesn't count as a "Christmas movie" unless it plays in a movie theater around Christmas time. All the rest of that stuff is just TV shows.

 

You make some fair points, from your POV that is.

Line-by line...

Don't listen to "Pop" music and haven't since the 70's. I never heard of the song, Last Christmas before seeing the movie.

Yes, I wanted to go to a Christmas movie, so with the name, Last Christmas, I felt that it would qualify as such.

And, as I have stated, I was completely oblivious to any mystical connection to the pop song.

My statement was that I went into the movie without having any great expectations. If it was an average Christmas movie, that would have been enough to justify the $5 ticket tariff and a couple hours out of my life.

As it turned out, I did enjoy the movie. Not so much at first, but as the movie moved along and it came together. Thought the movie was well produced, with regard to casting and production qualities, lots of color and decent music.

I did return to watch it again and I enjoyed it the second time around.

Actually I do own a 65" television, but it has been in my storage unit since I retired just over a year ago.

Every Christmas, prior to retirement, I did host an open house where I prepared a Christmas dinner for everyone. An annual tradition of mine was to play the Hallmark channel's presentation by the Trans Siberian Orchestra's, Ghosts of Christmas Eve, as shown in the photo from Christmas Day, back in 2017, featuring Michael Crawford on the TV screen.



But, on the subject of commercial TV, I stopped watching any commercial TV back almost 30-years ago. In the decade prior to my retirement, I operated a motel and provided by guests with free DirecTV's "Ultimate Package", plus music and movie channels.

I dislike commercial TV to the extent, that even for free, I have never connected a satellite box to this TV. Nor, have I ever streamed any movie and have never connected the TV up to the Internet. I watch movies exclusively on home media only.

I do stream YouTube videos and audio from Spotify and Pandora. I find the TV useful for displaying YouTube videos and displaying album art from Pandora and Spotify. As such, I do know who Zara Larsson and other fine new talented performers are.



Where I have been staying for over the past 5-months, is a condo-type motel. Got a good deal, it does not have a TV in the room, which is perfectly fine with me.

Never owned a Wham or George Michael album. I'm not familiar with their pop music. The only song that I can knowingly associate with Wham is Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. Now, I can say that I do associate George Michael with Last Christmas.

I do note, that since seeing the movie, they have been playing the song with other holiday music, in the different restaurants and shops that I visit.

It is a nice Christmas song, I'm OK with it.

I do go to Kroger's, great store! My local Kroger store (from a photo taken on 11/22/19). As the trees are changing color, I do get a sense of the upcoming holiday season.



I have been traveling since the summer and am in a rather nice area for Christmas decor, which I find goes well with a Christmas movie.



Although not white Christmas, we did have snow in November and again on December 11th in the photo below.

While I have in the past enjoyed movie popcorn, it has just gotten too expensive.

I'm fine with any comments you may have concerning me and my posts. They are your opinions, in the same manner that my posts reflect my opinions.

I also went to see the new Star Wars movie and Cats. I don't know that I have put that much in the way of critical thinking toward of them either.

 

And that sir, was a fair, eloquent, and even-handed response, probably more than you feel I deserved. Thank you for putting your time and geniality into it.

 

We are all here on the forum as members, so that we can express our individual opinions.

After reading your post quoting me, I could understand where you were coming from.

I am just one of those unusual (odd) individuals that has a real dislike for commercial media.

But, I do love and enjoy movies, or better stated, I do attend movies with the prospect of enjoying them.

Let's continue to feel free to express our opinions and have open discussions.

That is what we are all here for.

It doesn't matter that we "occasionally" have differing points of view.

If we didn't, then there would not be much point of having this fine forum, rich from member's content.

Happy New Year,

SasndAndGlass

P.S. It was a funny coincidence that I happened to have shot a photo of the Kroger Grocery store a few weeks prior.

I was just at my car in the parking lot and decided to snap a few photos of trees. This season has been as specially unattractive with reference to the leaves changing color.

That is why I was taking the shot, like this previous shot. The trees were slow in changing color, which they normally hit their peak in the middle to later part of October at this southern latitude. But this year, they hardly changed and when they did, they mostly turned brown and fell off.

 

We

You must be a blast at the Holiday party !


I'm just Kidding , i love hearing your view in how you see a movie like this , i went in being Excited there was an Xmas movie coming out this year at 1st i just read a blurb that it was coming out & yes i love the "Last Christmas" song & George michael * & his music , I honestly didn't know the Movie was based on the songs when i 1st saw it , i saw part of a Commercial on TV walking by & they did have the song in it & i thought "well that makes sense" & i realized what they were doing as the movie kicked in .
I ended up loving it , everything about it really worked for me , it was funny , it looked beautifully shot & it certainly had that feel good aspect of an Xmas movie & i loved the soundtrack ............. I'm sure a lot of people didn't like this movie & i get that ............... I went in with Zero Expectations or Knowledge and came out pretty blown away

 

Wonder why if you feel this way about this movie why post on this thread to begin with, never mind a few times over?
It's a harmless rom com , I only saw it because it was a homage to George Michael, packed with his music, and he by the way gave the okay for it.
Otherwise I didn't care for it, and thought Thompson wrote a weak, in some ways heavy handed script.

 

I did not know that George Michael was involved with this before he died.

It's a lite, frothy enjoyable romantic comedy intended for Holiday viewing. I would have seen it just for Michelle Yeoh. But I don't really get where it was heavy-handed.

 

Emma Thompson said GM had given his blessing to the genesis of the idea about a year or so before.
Heavy handed, for the way she wrote the lead character , it was clear her life was a mess, she just kept hitting on that from every angle.
Her characterization of the Mother, terrible accent, those cringe worthy , supposed to be comedic scenes of Yeoh and that customer.

 

That was more my take on the movie. Just holiday fun. Not trying to read more into the script.

 

It's virtually impossible to make a serious film where someone is dressed in a Santa's helper elf costume. Maybe if Todd Haynes makes The Santaland Diary by David Sedaris.

 

From the Interviews i've watched this was certainly an Idea before he passed & then it took about 4 years for them to get the Movie going & made , they really wanted George to see it but it was never even close to being a reality while he was Alive .

That's what i took it as a Fun Holiday movie with some feel good moments .

 

a pleasant heartfelt movie with good songs, good movie

 

Just watched it and found a charming little suspend-disbelief movie, a 'just watch it' kind of movie, that was entertaining, enjoyable and fun to watch.
The lead, Emilia Clarke, was excellent in her role, but you did need to understand it is a modern fairy tale

 

Just added to HBO & watched yesterday, elated that there was finally a rom-com in the mix of the otherwise, bleak, despondent, apocalyptic &/or dealing w/a psychopath, or super-hero/comic book franchises entertainment content which seems to be all that's offered to the public anymore. I did remember the ad-verts for it when it was in theatre's. Not very far in, that enthusiasm waned...a lot. Cramming lots of dialogue, spoken @ rapid pace, filling every single moment of screen time. When lots of that dialogue is spoken w/a British accent, more difficult (for me) to follow when combined with the frenzied pacing. I've had no trouble w/The Fall BBC tv show (which was British & Irish) the UK original Life On Mars & the movie, The Good Liar, to name a few, as examples. - I do recall either an article, or interview, w/Priyanka Chopra during Quantico (never viewed) where she spoke of the production having writers write more, that the actors' spoken dialogue was getting incrementally fuller & perhaps, not really adding anything to the overall story. That has been a thing over the past, probably 5 -10 years. - The Brits & Canada don't seem to feel that need to keep up some frenetic pace, letting scenes build & elements of the story portrayed by some silences & expressions between its' actors. (Perhaps, this is a backlash of Hollywood actors having those expression lines removed either surgically or via injections). Also, couldn't take the cheesiness of so much bopp-y, 80s music. I think I lasted 20 minutes or so & that was about 10-15 after I'd pretty much already felt it wasn't going to work for me. Thumbs-down.

 

On HBO now, really about finding oneself, in a romantic way, a perfect summer movie!

 

I watched it....
Maybe I've got a soft-spot for Emilia....
I didn't see 'the twist' coming.
I like that she sings...like a regular person!
I hope this doesn't sour her on trying more comedy, though...
I'm assuming this was a flop, and after "Solo" (which I didn't see), that's 'strike two'.
PS MAN, I haven't heard that much George Micheal since...(insert joke here)

 

Last Christmas grossed $35.2 million in the United States and Canada , and ...

Box office: $121.6 million

Story by: Emma Thompson; Greg Wise

Release date: 8 November 2019 (United States); 15 November 2019 (United Kingdo...

Budget: $25–30 million

Not a flop...

 

I stand corrected.

 

It is a movie that contains all of the usual "woke" elements that are served to us by most movies today.

I have come to accept this and tend to just ignore these elements (think the later Star Wars movies).

Once you get past these elements, it is a nice Christmas movie.

As a previous post indicated, it is a Christmas fantasy type movie, which is common of most holiday type movies.

I thought that Emilia did a great job in the movie and I didn't see the twist coming either.

The quality of the colorful production and the visual holiday themes worked much to the advantage of the film.

 

Just watched finally. Loved this movie!! I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. I figured the twist early on but didn’t diminish the reveal one bit. Love Emilia in this. She’s so damn charming and likable. A lot of funny side characters. Also a bunch of George Michael songs is the cherry on top for me.

I thought Solo was really enjoyable and I liked it better than any of the new trilogy films to be honest.

 

added to my Christmas Movie collection...It was a nice Christmas watch for us...

 

From the beginning I didn't understand much/any of what they were saying because of accents and speed of dialogue, but it was Saturday night, just stayed on and it was worth it because, don't know why, but it became easy to understand them and it was an enjoyable watch, as Emilia Clarke was really hard to deny as she found herself.

 

The beloved & I saw this at the cinema last year. We thought the premise sounded interesting and ANYTHING with Emma Thompson in is worth watching. She gets all the best lines. I could place them here, but it would spoil enjoyment for any who've not seen it yet.
Emilia Clarke even gets a'Deadpool'-ish 4th wall internal heavy-sigh look at the audience in one scene. I'm not the greatest George Michael fan by a long stretch, but his songs worked well throughout.
We've already watched it twice on Sky this month, so it must be becoming a bit of a favourite. Certainly better than a lot of the dross on Christmas24, Sony's Xmas channel or Channel 5.

 

Like a lot of my male friends, I slogged through all of Game of Thrones partly because of Emilia Clark, so I'm interested in seeing her in any film. Last Christmas has some nice bits in it. I like the "look up" theme. Framing an entire film around George Michael music is a stretch for me. I'm more of an Oasis guy. In conclusion: Last Christmas is in fairly constant play on HBO, so frequently it's just "there" and I watch it. And I'm always entertained.