Three wise men

I've started the Christmas viewing onslaught with three films. First was It's a Wonderful Life, which is one of my top 3 movies of all time. There's nothing much to say about it now, though I enjoyed it more this year than I have in the past few years. Some years, the dark, almost noirish overtones are overwhelming, but this year it felt lighter. Next was a quirky one called The Ref, which I hadn't seen in a few years. This comedy from 1994 is about a quarreling yuppie couple (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) who are held up by a small-time crook (Denis Leary) who has just bungled a burglary and wants to get out of town. He makes the couple take him back to their house while he waits for his incompetent partner-in-crime to make getaway arrangements, and winds up serving as a marriage counselor during a very funny dysfunctional family Christmas Eve dinner. Wonderful Christmassy sets, a funny script, and strong performances from Spacey, Davis, and Glynis Johns as a horrible matriarch make this a holiday treat. The ritual watching of It's a Wonderful Life on TV even provides an important plot point.

The third wise man movie (after wise George Bailey and the wise burglar) is The Fourth Wise Man, an 80's TV-movie based on a classic novella. Martin Sheen is a Magi who wants to go off with the other Three Magi to find the Messiah, but keeps missing them, mostly because he stops to help others. Years later, old and sick, he is present in Jerusalem for the Crucifixion and finally has his moment with the resurrected Christ. Between the TV-movie feel and an broadly comic performance by Alan Arkin as Sheen's faithful slave, this was hard to get into, but it gains in power by the end. It looked like it was shot on location, but apparently it was all made in California. Not bad; worth a rental if not a purchase. (Apparently it's still shown on television occasionally, but trimmed from its original 75-minute length by about 10 minutes.)