Leaderboard

*destroys all the snowmen*

There, there. It's alright.

I think it was because she was pretty and can’t turn off lights.

I Googled “Meet Me in St. Louis Halloween” and a site called “Emma Rae’s Halloween” had this to say: Obviously Halloween wasn’t a widespread holiday in America until hoards of European immigrants began to spread across the country. Thanks to the Irish moving over due to the Irish Potato Famine, we have the tradition of the Jack-o-Lantern. As America moved into the 19th century, pranks were a popular tradition for Halloween; greasing doorknobs and jamming doorbells were some favorites. Unlike today, most of these pranks were tolerated. Another tradition that was popular but isn’t discussed much was portrayed in the 1944 film “Meet Me in St. Louis”, which takes place in 1903. A young child would try to seek revenge on a grumpy old man from the neighborhood by ringing the doorbell and throwing flour in the face of said grump. Often bonfires were built in celebration and masks were expected for most children, even if not in costume.

I'm wondering if I missed the part that explained why Tootie was so obsessed with death and dying? It was explained her brother taught her the songs, but that doesn't explain why for fun she buried her dolls and things like that. My theory was that their grandmother must have recently passed and that's why grandfather is alone and why Tootie, being so young, is obsessed with death. It is how she is dealing and cooping with it.

Yea I pretty much felt the same. It was enjoyable enough, but I was not into it. I thought Judy Garland was kind of amazing though. Also, there were cool use of lights and fire throughout And weird dark jokes You guys looked up Halloween. Well, I looked up basketball -- Judy Garland's beau kept saying he was playing basketball. I was like, was it even invented in 1903? Turns out, it was invented in like 1891 or so. It was famously played in peach baskets, without a hole in the bottom, until around 1898. So I guess him playing basketball was pretty legit, but this dude was sort of on the cutting edge of the sport.

And she took real good care of his hat

This is really interesting because Halloween seems super tame now compared to the Lord Of The Flies bacchanal of early 1900s St. Louis. I can't imagine just letting kids run around burning furniture in the streets.

I just want the say, I really enjoyed Meet Me in St. Louis. My only issue with it was the plot seemed rather light. It just sort of moved from one series of Holiday related skits to the next - moving from one party to the next. The primary conflict for 2/3 of the movie was basically, “Will we get married?” And while I get why that would have been a big deal at the time, I don’t feel like the movie conveyed *why* it was such a big deal. I wonder if it’s because societal norms and pressures hadn’t changed all *that* much since 1944 so they knew the audience would just “get it.” For me, however, in the year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Eighteen, I’m like, “You’re 21, woman! You’re young enough to not worry about marriage and old enough to not have to move to NYC if you don’t want to!”

I love how he forget to pick up his tuxedo because he was basketballing so hard. No, no - it's fine. It's only Christmas and a very important event seeing as Esther is moving away forever. Did you get that Triple-double, though?

I kind of day her as an Anne of Green Gables type. She has a highly evolved Imagination and death is kind of "romantic."

Yeah. I thought it was a vague comment on how expensive New York is. I would practically be homeless in NYC with my current salary but he's presumably going for a promotion since he's sticking with the same company. You can expect some lifestyle changes but a practical mansion to tenement house seems weird. Why take this job at all?

She's just a sociopath. Yeah. I was trying to figure that out. She seemed to be demure about singing a song about drinking. She called it "I was mmmmmm last night" as if they very idea was too naughty to discuss. But the rest of the movie is "I'LL STAB YOU TO DEATH!" Your explanation definitely makes sense.

I'd feel like a bad Canadian if I didn't post this. This is what was shown to us in Canada growing up during cartoon commercial breaks.

This is interesting. Apparently the Christmas song lyrics were much more on point but Judy Garland and others argued for changes.

I also thought it weird that they were like, “We’re going to have to live in tenements because we’re so poor.” Um...I think you folks are doing alright for yourselves.

But they do skip to my lou

I also thought it was weird he announced they are moving and six months later they haven't done anything to move. I realize cross country travel was much different 110 years ago but you'd think they'd have packed everything (if they're even bringing stuff). If it takes half a year to get ready for the journey, can you even turn down a position right before leaving.

She even gave him extra raisins

Yeah, that was weird. At one point, I was like, “Oh, so the father’s the antagonist?” I’m not saying you can’t do that, Mary Poppins does it very well, but MP also makes his redemption more of the focus. We see him grow as the movie progresses. In this, he sees his psycho daughter murder her snowpeople and thinks, “Maybe my family isn’t in to this thing...” and that’s pretty much it. They told you from the beginning they didn’t want to go, bro.

This is kind of how I felt. Partly because they obviously were going to get married, I wasn't really invested. Partly, I couldn't keep track of the guys because they looked the same. But Tootie is a psycho and I loved her but that family needs to get her in therapy. Does anyone know anything about early 1900s Halloween? Did kids burn furniture in the streets? Was throwing flour in people's faces a thing?

I missed my 3,000th post so I'm gonna yell one more time... PAUL, DO QUEEN OF THE DAMNED!!! PLEASE!!!

I really liked the music in this, but one thing that kind of annoyed me is how - aside from “Have Yourself a Merry LittleChristmas” - none of them really had anything to do with the plot. Like, I liked the “Trolly Song,” (even if that trolly seemed to be going *real* fast), but it doesn’t really do anything other than confirm Esther loves John - which we already knew. The trolly doesn’t even really go anywhere. They board it, they sing, and then they’re back home.

Great podcast as always, guys. I think Fellowship and Two Towers are easily the best of the trilogy and this one deserves to be on the list. One technical correction (yes, I'll be that guy): the issue with the Hobbit films was not that they were shot in 3D or 4k (the latter is a resolution and many many things are shot at 4k resolution nowadays), but that they were shot at 48 frames per second, not the standard 24 frames per second that most American films have been shot at for decades. At 24 fps, the shutter speed is a bit slower, meaning there is more blur (freeze frame any blu-ray or dvd and you'll see this), making things less clear and less "realistic" - more like what we think of as "cinematic". At 48 fps, there is less blur so things are more clear and you're seeing more clear images per second. This is what gives the footage that "soap opera" video feel. Try this out on your cell phone and shoot at 60 fps or 120 fps and watch at regular speed. This is also why the motion smoothing "feature" on so many HDTVs is a desecration of all that is good and just in the world.

the Vimeo link for A Night in Heaven isn't up yet (as far as I can tell) but a 240p res version is on youtube. Haven't watched it all the way through, but it seems to be complete. I've replaced the link with a DVD resolution version. enjoy.