FilmFisher Undefended Lists of 2021

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One final catalogue of the top-five lists I contributed to a monthly FilmFisher feature called “Undefended.” Click on the list titles to see the original articles with the other contributors’ lists.

Cities and Towns (January 2021)

  1. Hadleyville in High Noon (1952)

  2. New York City in Oliver and Company (1988)

  3. Koriko in Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

  4. JFK Airport in The Terminal (2004)

  5. Radiator Springs in Cars (2006)

Faith on Film (March 2021)

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Faith in action:

  • Amazing Grace (2006, dir. Michael Apted)

  • A Hidden Life (2019, dir. Terrence Malick)

  • Star Wars (1977, dir. George Lucas)

Faith amidst doubt:

  • The Tree of Life (2011, dir. Terrence Malick)

  • The Polar Express (2004, dir. Robert Zemeckis)

Bonus: When I read the prompt, I was almost immediately reminded of two recent big loud blockbusters involving time travel in which heroes take action against the forces of nihilism in the confidence that the arc of history really does, somehow, bend toward justice: Avengers: Endgame and Tenet. 

“Everything’s going to work out exactly the way it’s supposed to.”

“What’s happened, happened. Which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It’s not an excuse to do nothing.”

Against Type (April 2021)

  1. Dick Van Dyke as Cecil in Night at the Museum (2006)

  2. Matt Damon as La Boeuf in True Grit (2010)

  3. Liam Neeson as Good Cop in The LEGO Movie (2014)

  4. Daniel Craig as Joe Bang in Logan Lucky (2017)

  5. Keira Knightley as Sugar Plum in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)

Animation (May 2021)

Rats-atouille! This is what I get for not creating and sending my list immediately. I will avoid duplicating others’ choices and instead go with close runners-up in five categories.

  1. Classic Disney: Instead of Sleeping Beauty… Bambi (1942, dir. Algar, Armstrong, and Hand)

  2. Contemporary Disney: The only first pick no one beat me to… The Emperor’s New Groove (2000, dir. Dindal)

  3. Pixar: Instead of Ratatouille… Up (2009, dir. Docter and Peterson)

  4. Studio Ghibli: Instead of The Wind Rises… The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013, dir. Takahata)

  5. Wild Card: Instead of Fantastic Mr. Fox… The Lego Batman Movie (2017, dir. McKay)

Honora-Bear Mentions: The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Brother Bear, and Kung Fu Panda 2.

Westerns (June 2021)

  1. High Noon (1952, dir. Fred Zinnemann)

  2. The Magnificent Seven (1960, dir. John Sturges)

  3. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962, dir. John Ford)

  4. The Shootist (1976, dir. Don Siegel)

  5. True Grit (2010, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)

P.S. No list of favorite Westerns would be complete without mentioning the 1991 Winnie the Pooh episode, “The Good, the Bad and the Tigger.”

Needle Drops (May 2021)

  1. The Sandlot (1993): The boys playing baseball under a shower of July 4th fireworks is set to the Ray Charles rendition of “America the Beautiful”

  2. Jingle All the Way (1996): The Johnny Mathis rendition of “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” underscores the irony of a mob of Christmas Eve shoppers fighting over lottery balls in the Mall of America.

  3. Spider-Man 2 (2004): The B. J. Thomas “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” montage.

  4. The Tree of Life (2011): Zbigniew Preisner’s “Lacrimosa” accompanies the creation sequence.

  5. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013): This is only half cheating. “Space Oddity” begins diegetically, sung by Kristen Wiig’s character, but gives way to the David Bowie song playing non-diegetically.

Christmas (December 2021)

I’m going to play it safe and go with obvious Christmas titles:

  1. In place of It’s a Wonderful Life, another Jimmy Stewart classic with a third act set at Christmastime: The Shop Around the Corner (1940, dir. Ernst Lubitsch)

  2. White Christmas (1954, dir. Michael Curtiz)

  3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966, dir. Chuck Jones and Ben Washam) (Boris Karloff > Jim Carrey)  

  4. In place of A Charlie Brown Christmas, another animated holiday special about competing visions for the ideal Christmas pageant: VeggieTales: The Star of Christmas (2002, dir. Tim Hodge)

  5. The Polar Express (2004, dir. Robert Zemeckis)

Best of 2021 (December 2021)

To date I’ve only seen ten 2021 releases, and of those I’d only pick three, in alphabetical order:

  1. Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve)

  2. Pig (dir. Michael Sarnoski)

  3. West Side Story (dir. Steven Spielberg)

To round out the list, I recommend the following two 2020 releases I (and probably many others) didn’t see until 2021, also listed alphabetically:

  1. Minari (dir. Lee Isaac Chung)

  2. Wonder Woman 1984 (dir. Patty Jenkins)

Five Favorite Christmas Albums

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A few months ago I published an article here on my website about my 31 favorite albums. In making that list, I excluded favorite Christmas albums from consideration, so here are 5 of them.

Behold the Lamb of God [20th Anniversary Edition] (2019) — Andrew Peterson et al. 

Christmas (1989) — Michael W. Smith

Christmas Portrait: The Special Edition (1984) — Carpenters  (Note: The Carpenters did multiple Christmas albums. This one is a amalgamation of selections from 1978’s Christmas Portrait and 1984’s An Old-Fashioned Christmas.)

 The Christmas Sessions (2005) — MercyMe

The Light Came Down (2016) — Josh Garrels 

Linus and Lucy

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Today I was watching the classic 1965 TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and realized two things, one following from the other.

First, the simple, satisfying elegance and the sturdy timelessness of the show could be explained in part by noting how closely the story follows the elemental mythic pattern of the Hero’s Journey—or at least, how neatly it follows the Christopher Vogler version of the Hero’s Journey that I learned in college. 

Charlie Brown is depressed at how he is unable to enjoy a materialistic Christmas like everyone else seems to be (The Ordinary World). Lucy suggests he can get into the holiday spirit by directing the Christmas play (The Call to Adventure), an offer he resists at first because of his inexperience with directing (The Refusal of the Call). When he enters the school auditorium (Crossing the Threshold), Charlie Brown encounters multiple challenges to his attempt to direct the play (Tests, Allies, and Enemies), culminating in being sent to select a Christmas tree, which is really a test of whether he too will succumb to a materialist approach to Christmas (The Approach to the Innermost Cave). Brutally mocked for selecting the tiniest, frailest tree (The Ordeal), Charlie Brown finally asks for someone to please tell him what Christmas is about. Linus answers by telling him the story of Christ’s birth (The Reward). This satisfies Charlie Brown and, having nothing more to gain from trying to direct the play, he promptly goes home with his tree (The Road Back and The Return with the Elixir [the elixir being the meaning of Christmas]). He tries and fails to decorate the tree, and flees the scene in a new bout of discouragement. Then Lucy and Linus and the rest of the kids from the play appear to restore the tree, mend their relationship with Charlie Brown and lifting his spirits (The Resurrection).

You might have noticed I left out one of Vogel’s twelve steps in the Hero’s Journey: The Meeting with the Mentor. It was in trying to decide who Charlie Brown’s mentor is in this story—is it Linus, or is it Lucy?—that I had my second realization: The brother-sister pair of Linus and Lucy are both mentors to Charlie Brown—or, more precisely, the siblings vie to be Charlie Brown’s mentor. The contrast between the two of them is central to the story, as the dramatic question turns out to be which mentor he will ultimately follow.

Lucy represents a worldly understanding of Christmas. Linus represents the Christian understanding. When Lucy hears of Charlie Brown’s problem—his depression over the apparent meaninglessness of Christmas—she thinks the solution is social and material: Get involved in a group project and accept rather than resist the commercialization of Christmas. Linus eventually reveals that the solution is theological and spiritual: Charlie Brown needs to know that Christ is the meaning of Christmas. Lucy counsels Charlie Brown with the language of psychiatry she picked up while watching TV. Linus counsels Charlie Brown with the narrative of Luke he memorized from reading Scripture. Lucy wants a shiny artificial tree and can see no value in the humble organic tree Charlie Brown chose instead. Linus is the first after Charlie Brown to recognize the tree’s hidden potential. We could say Lucy lives by sight and Linus by faith. Consequently, Lucy directs Charlie Brown’s attention to the earth. (Notice she tells him what she really wants for Christmas is real estate). Linus directs Charlie Brown’s attention to the heavens, telling him about the angelic host who proclaimed, “Christ is born in Bethlehem.”