#pottersville movie

[finisnihil]

The two best Christmas movies of all time are Klaus (a beautifully animated movie with a creative take on the origin of Santa Clause and the importance of community, the breaking of generational trauma, the process of grief, the importance of education, and the process of becoming a better person) and Pottersville (a masterpiece about furries and bigfoot)

Thank you and goodnight

[baddingtonbitch]

casting agent really said "let's make people feel like they've been drinking paint"

[geekcavepodcast]

Pottersville || You Want Me to Watch WHAT?!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Chad and Justin continue their trek through strange holiday movies with Pottersville, a 2017 comedy film starring Michael Shannon, Judy Greer, Thomas Lennon, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks, and Ian McShane!

Download and listen today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, Amazon, Stitcher, Goodpods, and more of your favorite podcast services! Find more fun at GeekCavePodcast.com! 

[rayonthego]

Movie Day

Today was Watch As Many Movies As Possible Day for me. And I took notes when the mood struck me.

Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1

Tom Cruise and his crazy stunts. What the hell...I don't even jump out of bed and he's jumping out of planes. At 60 years of age.

Hayley Atwell. Oh my.

2. Kramer vs. Kramer

Meryl Streep hated (and hates) Dustin Hoffman. Probably helped with the acting.

Jobeth Williams is in this movie. Naked.

70s, 80s, and 90s NYC is in my heart.

The woman gets this kid after leaving the kid in the first place. I dunno. Doesn't seem fair.

3. White Christmas

Bing Crosby. Legend. Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney. Legends.

4. It's A Wonderful Life

George Bailey - born selfless. The dude doesn't think once about what's in it for him. Except for that time, he told his uncle that one of them was going to prison, but it wouldn't be him.

I saw this when I was very young and thought I had dreamed it until I saw it in my teens on PBS.

Potter was born old.

Jimmy Stewart and James Stewart are the same. That's not what I thought when old Jimmy Stewart appeared on The Tonight Show.

Violet. Oh my.

"You were born older." What George's dad tells him. Resonates.

Mary/Donna Reed. Oh my.

An unsecured button that opens the dance floor to the pool is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I always wanted a "George Lassos the Moon" picture to hang on my wall.

Mary is naked in the bushes, and George's dad has a stroke. Talk about bad timing.

Potter actor is the great-uncle of Drew, the talk show host/actress. Barrymore is a hella legendary name in film.

Bedford Falls was cute, but Pottersville was hoppin'.

Life is hard, and it sucks...

...until it doesn't.

[authortobenamedlater]

It’s Christmas Eve so time to get this out of my drafts.

Let me expound on this article and something we don’t appreciate enough about It’s a Wonderful Life.

We can assume that in the Pottersville AU (to borrow some fanfic parlance), Mary Hatch still would have drawn Sam Wainwright’s eye. It’s a natural assumption that in George’s absence, Mary would have married Sam. If you can remember the first time you watched the movie, that’s probably what you expected. Yet she didn’t marry Sam, or anyone. She’s an “old maid.”

This doesn’t look strange to our modern eyes. Women regularly choose not to marry today. My grandmother didn’t get married until she was nearly 40 and used to talk about what an anomaly she was. Remaining single carried stigma and risks for women in the 1940s. So why would Mary choose it over a (materially, at least) comfortable life as Mrs. Wainwright?

Easy: She doesn’t want to be Mrs. Wainwright. All the material possessions in the world aren’t worth that to her. If you watch the movie carefully, there are clues about this throughout. Mary tells George she “didn’t want anyone else in town.” This was no halfhearted comment to appease her discourage husband. It was the truth. Mary didn’t want George over Sam, she never wanted Sam at all. She never wanted anyone but George.

To our minds, Old Maid Mary is easy to shrug off or scorn. “What, Mary is nothing without a man?!��� No! Mary is her own person, she does what she wants, no matter what others think of it, even when it’s risky. For its day it was fairly progressive, and we sell It’s a Wonderful Life’s genius short when we don’t see that.

I had a bunch more to add, but it’s late, so maybe next year.

[abuddyforeveryseason]

It's May 18th. This is supposed to be a Buddy enamel pin. There are some places who make personalized enamel pins, and I think Buddy would be the just the type of guy who'd love having a pin of himself to wear.

It's Frank Capra's birthday! I watched It's a Wonderful Life for the first time last Christmas. I really liked it, it's almost like a science fiction film, where a time travel mishap leads to the dystopian future of "Pottersville". I love that type of stuff. Some people complain that Mr. Potter himself ended up getting richer by the end of the movie, despite being a thief. I think they're kinda missing the point, but if the movie had been made today, Potter would probably end up in jail by the end.

So, in honor of It's a Wonderful Life, today's Buddy is also from an alternate universe, where Buddy is an enamel pin.

[scrumptious-finicky-illusion]

This movie is so good and so anti-capitalist. Its a rare portrayal of a guy who's in trouble and reacts in the most human way possible: poorly. We see the nasty side of George Bailey come out when he's put under even more pressure than even he can bear.

I love the that it's snowing in Bedford Falls and not in Pottersville. One person's absence was powerful enough to change the weather.

Please, God, let me live again.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) dir. Frank Capra

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | The Hotel New Hampshire (Richardson, 1984)

You know, when you have a cute cartoon bear on the poster, I expect some potentially quirky but ultimately wholesome comedy. I do not expect rape and incest, two things which are present in nonzero amounts in this movie. I thought I was watching a Shaun Costello porno, Jesus H. Christ. (And no, I didn’t watch this for Valentine’s Day, I started it last night but was too tired to finish until today, and as a bitter single person all I do to celebrate is mutter under my breath. And even if I did, need I remind everybody that this is a judgment free zone.)

Okay, it isn’t quite that graphic, but it’s still pretty jarring to get those things in a movie I expected to be a lot more inoffensive. I understand this is an adaptation of a novel, and perhaps the mix of dark subject matter and quirky, offbeat tone worked on the page, but it absolutely does not survive onscreen under Tony Richardson’s direction. The results, despite the best efforts of the cast, are almost aggressively irritating, jarring twists in the plot and relationships dived into without any of the necessary emotional groundwork, the movie smirking to itself instead of actually grappling with the contradictions of the material.

I must also note that the bear is not central to the proceedings and is only a supporting character, although the fact that it’s played by Nastassja Kinski offers some comfort. In fact, this might be the closest I’ve seen to onscreen representation for furries other than Pottersville, and offers a much more positive portrayal than that movie. I should also note that the scenes where Kinski makes bedroom eyes with Jodie Foster while wearing the bear suit and where ***SPOILERS*** Kinski attempts to rape Matthew Modine ***SPOILERS*** will probably do a lot for some of you. As I said above, this is a judgement free zone.

[abrahamshipwreck]

Almost missed my fave Christmas movie Pottersville

[historicsaranaclake]

Dear friends,

With seasons greetings, I am sending along this essay, inspired by a favorite holiday movie. Many friends shared their memories to help me write this back in 2020 -- Chris Brescia, Jan Dudones, Jim Griebsch, Bunk Griffin, Howard Riley, Jim and Keela Rogers, and our dear friend, Natalie Leduc, who, on December 8, 2020 came to the end of her truly wonderful life. We still miss her.

Best wishes from all of us at Historic Saranac Lake.

Amy Catania

--------------------------------

It's a Wonderful Life, Tony Anderson by Amy Catania

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole.” — It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946

This is a good time of year to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Bedford Falls brings to mind Saranac Lake, and George Bailey reminds us of the wonderful lives of Saranac Lakers from the past like Alton “Tony” Anderson.

Tony Anderson fell ill with tuberculosis while working as a toolmaker in Southington, Connecticut. As a member of the Masons, he received financial help to come to Saranac Lake for treatment in 1919.

“I came here to die,” Tony used to say. Facing death, Tony received a gift, a chance to imagine the world without him. He made his home here and dedicated his life to giving back. He served as village mayor for nine terms. He worked as a volunteer ambulance driver and a plane spotter on top of the Hotel Saranac during the war. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge, the Elks Club, the Rotary, the Boat and Waterway Club, the hospital board, and the blood bank.

Each afternoon, Tony went home to his modest house on South Hope Street and sat on his porch in a cure chair. “Best seat in the house,” he called it. After his afternoon rest, he would go back to the theater for the shows.

Saranac Lake in the 1950s was a picture postcard of Bedford Falls. Everyone knew each other. Kids played together outside through all seasons. Downtown shops bustled year-round. The Adirondack Daily Enterprise was five times thicker than it is today. The theater, the radio station, civic organizations, and places of worship knitted the community together. Like the shadow of death cast by tuberculosis, the horrors of WWII inspired an appreciation for life and a sense of civic responsibility.

But forces were afoot that were beginning to devastate small towns around the country. Everywhere, industry and manufacturing were closing up shop. In Saranac Lake, the TB business came to an end. Jobs dried up and families left. Across America, suburban development was eroding downtown retail. Television offered solitary entertainment that took the place of public activities like going to the movies.

By the late 1960s, Tony Anderson’s beloved theater had fallen on hard times. The impeccably dressed ushers were gone, and, much to Tony’s chagrin, on Wednesday nights the Pontiac was showing titillating foreign films that reflected changing social mores. It seemed that only the bars were prospering. More and more, town was looking like Pottersville, Bedford Falls’ evil twin in the movie. Then, on December 19, 1978, a massive fire devastated the Pontiac Theater. Three years after the fire, Saranac Lake’s longest serving mayor died at the age of 82.

It’s a sad ending to Tony’s story. Real life usually doesn’t get a Hollywood ending. Saranac Lake will always have plenty in common with Bedford Falls and Pottersville. And unlike George Bailey, most of us won’t ever meet our guardian angel.

But “It’s a Wonderful Life” reminds us that, even in the midst of regret and loss, we can find beauty and purpose in daily life. This is one of the most important things we do at Historic Saranac Lake, we honor the lives of the regular people who came before us. We pay attention to people like George, Ernie, Bert, Mary, Mr. Gower, Martini, Harry, the woman at the bank who asks for only $17.50, and even Mr. Potter. We remember Natalie Leduc, Mary Hotaling, Andy Rawdon, Jane and Walter Webb, and Tony Anderson.

Merry Christmas, movie house! Merry Christmas, Emporium! Merry Christmas, you wonderful old Building and Loan! Happy Holidays, Saranac Lake!

Saranac Lake students presented about Tony Anderson at his grave in Pine Ridge Cemetery in 2019, part of Historic Saranac Lake’s annual 5th grade history tour. 

[wanipiece]

2020.

[jada-b]

This movie is very stupid and cheesy.

I give it a 10/10

Highly recommend it.

[vidavalor]

<<What if part of the manipulation is to prove to Aziraphale that Crowley would be better off without him (like an inverse of IaWL)?>>

I think this would be fun but it might be unlikely with the short amount of time we have left to go. It seems to me more like allusions to aspects of It's A Wonderful Life might be in play more than the full conceit of the movie. Thematically, the alt world of Pottersville where George was never born is in there already just with the anxiety over the (fake) threat of The Book of Life and, for Aziraphale, in how he is "in the basement, stocktaking" his life for much of S2.

There's also the theme of recognition and the frequent trips to doors in It's A Wonderful Life that is similar to Good Omens. Unlike Scrooge's trips with the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, for instance, George can interact with the alt universe. (A Christmas Carol is also an inspiration for It's A Wonderful Life so the two stories are a bit interconnected.) He suffers through seeing the people he knows and loves not be able to recognize him and, in most cases, be far worse off because George was never born.

The story in Good Omens has already made the case that, without Aziraphale, the people around him would be living total horror movie lives. Maggie and Elspeth, penniless and despairing, both would have ended up dead. Nina would have never found love. Mrs. Sandwich and her girls would be less safe. Everyone on Whickber Street wouldn't have fair rent and support in building their lives. Beez would be stuck in Hell for eternity, miserable, because Gabriel? Without Aziraphale and that wonderful ol' Building and Loan that is the bookshop, Gabriel would be dead.

In the Pottersville part of the It's a Wonderful Life story, George's brother, Harry, dies as a child because, since George was never born, he was never there to dive into the icy pond after his brother and save his life. The tragedy has an enormous ripple effect because not only does it have an obvious impact on George's parents and uncle but it actually kills other people as a result, because it was Harry, during WW2, that thwarted an attack and saved other soldiers in his unit and civilians in the area. The attack is also one of particular importance to the war-- meaning that it helped to ensure Allied victory. Harry was only there to help save the world because, first, George was there to save Harry.

It's very Good Omens in theme because the big, Earth-destroying Armageddon can only be stopped by individual people overcoming their own personal Armageddons and those stories are really what it's all about. That being why an eleven year old kid's view of himself by way of choosing to say he is the son of a good man who was there for him and not his, uh, literally Satan of a bio-dad who was not, is how Armageddon: Round One was stopped:

In Good Omens, there is something of a swap here-- Aziraphale is the George to Gabriel's Harry but Aziraphale isn't envious for Gabriel's life. If anything, Gabriel wishes he'd be able live a life like Aziraphale and Crowley have had. In It's A Wonderful Life, though, George has a tendency to frame the narrative of his life around the fact that Harry has seemed to George to fall easily into things of which George has always dreamed of having. George sees Harry as the more good-looking, sociable, heroic, successful one-- the guy he wanted to be. He fails to see that Harry had better luck in some ways, yeah, but George has had a much richer life in so many other ways. In his depression, George forgets that Harry adores him and has modeled his life off of trying to find and have for himself the warm life and loving marriage that George has with Mary.

Harry is braver and faster-moving when it comes to plunging into life but George is the one who taught him what life is supposed to be like in the first place. That is very Gabriel and Aziraphale in S2.

The recurring bit in the story about George's "trick ear," too... when George saved Harry from drowning in the lake when they were kids, he had gotten sick from the cold water and became partially deaf in one ear as a result.

Saving Harry is an action that shows the best of George-- that he's brave, caring, noble, protective-- but, as the effects of it follow him throughout his life, it also comes to represent George's excessive self-sacrificing that has led to and compounded his depression. It exemplifies that he thinks only to serve others and struggles with many, if not all, of his own wants and needs going unfulfilled as a person, leading to his breakdown.

Funny how S2 cannot stop referencing ears, hearing, and listening, right? Just like for George Bailey, doing a brave and good thing-- saving his dying brother-- triggers Aziraphale's ongoing struggle with excessive self-sacrificing and it gets bad.

George is deaf in one ear but he refers to it in the film as him having a "trick ear". A trick ear is also one that is sold in magic stores, like the ones Glozier was pretending to look at before he lost his actual ear, back in 1941. It was George's deafness that kept him out of WW2 in It's A Wonderful Life, when practically every other man in town got to go do their part to fight fascism, be seen as a hero, and see Europe. Now's probably a good time to mention how all of the story we're watching in 1941 is happening because of Aziraphale being on the outside of the fight and wanting to do his bit help the Allied Forces.

I think that The Finale could have some aspects of It's A Wonderful Life in how it concludes its story, too. You can see George's momentary temptation by Mr. Potter as somewhat akin to Aziraphale and "The Metatron" and, in both stories, it's this discussion that pushes the main character over the edge. In It's A Wonderful Life, it's this scene that causes George to begin to believe that that the best way to provide for his family is to kill himself so they'll have the insurance money. He sees himself as worth more dead than alive and his suicide ideation is then Clarence and the Pottersville part of the film. In Good Omens, Aziraphale has plenty of money but he's trapped by his other George Bailey-like tendencies and, just like George with Mary, Aziraphale feels like, with the very notable exception of the universe giving him Crowley, he's been walked on and has seen everyone around him be able to make the kind of life that he wants to live. What Aziraphale really needs is to acknowledge in himself that he can do this, have others acknowledge it, too, and to feel appreciated.

The end of It's a Wonderful Life sees all of the characters in the film whose life George has touched come together to bail him out of the debt of Bailey Building & Loan, keep him out of prison, and start to see out his own dreams. They all invest in George, basically, and, in doing so, see and recognize him the way he saw them. When Harry arrives for what was supposed to be his heroic welcoming party, he turns it into one for George, without whom he never would have been able to have the life he has.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is a Good Omens-esque version of something like this going to be how Aziraphale gets out of his current jam. The show left S2 in a place where this could happen. Uriel, in her refusal to kill Maggie & Nina and her standing up for Gabriel in the group scenes, is the next angel to turn against Heaven. She's been shown to like and trust Gabriel and I predict she'll see what goes down with Aziraphale in Heaven after he gets off the elevator and go to Gabriel and Beez to tell them that Aziraphale fell. By the end of all of this, all our main supporting characters are going to each have done a little bit to help save Aziraphale and overthrow Heaven/Hell in the process. They're going to keep Bedford Falls from becoming Pottersville. (Gin joints, strip clubs, and cinemas showing more than The Bells of St. Mary's are totally fine to stay, though. 😂) In doing so, they all help Aziraphale feel seen and appreciated for who he is.

Especially since Our Villain was playing on those things in his manipulation of Aziraphale in The Final 15, telling him the things Aziraphale wants to hear from Heaven-- the angel who knows how things are done on Earth stuff-- only to then reveal that it's all bullshit by showing how the plan is to destroy Earth and they actually have no need for Aziraphale.

A Good Omens version of this scene below near the end of The Finale, please, with Gabriel, maybe at The Resurrectionist, and something like "the best angel in Heaven":

<<We know that the Book of Life can (or at least angels believe it can) remove an angel from existence.>>

We know that Michael believes it can. We don't know about all the angels. I have a feeling that Aziraphale knows it's balderdash, as he didn't seem especially concerned about it during The Final 15. Michael is very impressionable and not as smart as they think they are. I think it's very unlikely that this thing works the way that some of the character think it does, if it exists at all. We already know that demons all have the same powers as they did when they were angels, barring things like holy water immunity. The Metatron can't even take their powers so how could he erase them? He can't. He's a fraud.

Even presuming that he could, right? Why would he? There are much easier, less impactful ways to destroy an angel or a demon that we already know exist in the story. To erase a being would create a butterfly effect that would make doing so dangerous enough to collapse the universe-- including Heaven. The Metatron looks like he's got enough problems trying to hang onto his power in this universe. I doubt he'd be wild about dealing with multiple ones.

We also know that Crowley has an anxiety disorder and self-trust issues, that he and Beez are the smartest of the demons and were among the smartest of the angels. We know that they were friends before the fall and both are prone to some sarcastic teasing that masks their own anxieties. Crowley was correct in 2.01-- he and Beez made up The Book of Life to tease some of the other angels. The one person we can trust who could answer this question definitively is probably Gabriel and seems he's the one character whose story was written in such a very precise way as to keep him from knowing anyone was worried about The Book of Life for all of S2-- including after he got his memories back.

The show has to answer The Book of Life question it set up for us in some way in The Finale. We'll have to see how it does but I think that since Gabriel is the one who can do that but he doesn't yet know that anyone is worried about The Book of Life, that he'll have to find out that someone is, in order to answer that question, right?

To me, Crowley thinks the threat is The Book of Life in The Final 15 so when he can no longer feel Aziraphale after Aziraphale falls, he won't think Aziraphale fell. He'll think Aziraphale was erased. Gabriel will know before Crowley because he'll have gotten that information from Uriel. So, when Gabriel shows up to Crowley and Crowley is going on about The Book of Life? Gabriel will tell him that The Book of Life isn't a thing and that's when Crowley will realize his own trick ear was a problem in S2 because he made a plan for a threat that doesn't exist. It's the anxiety talking.

The Book of Life is akin to War, Famine & Pollution-- aka conflict/a lack of peace from a lack of healthy communication (War); a lack of nourishment of all needed kinds, not just food (Famine); unmanaged trauma and mental heath struggles (Pollution). I'm pretty sure that The Book of Life, in the way Crowley and Beez were talking about it, is only as real as any of the characters believe it to be.

In light of the recent Christmas jumpers worn by Rob Wilkins, I thought of the clues the story in S2 left for us that yes, S3 might take place during Christmas.

If anyone else hasn't listed this one yet, the Metatron says "wrap things up" near the end of S2.

I remembered way back to my post about Crowley being summoned to Hell by Beelzebub.

I remarked:

There's an "It's a Wonderful Life" reference here, I realize...With this concept of erasing someone from the Book of Life, I'm inclined to think that a person wiped from existence cannot learn "a lesson" because they don't exist anymore! But wait. That is what happened in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life". The angel Clarence showed the human George Bailey a reality where he, George Bailey, no longer existed because he had never been born. George learned "a lesson" about the value of his own life.

I did acknowledge it might be foreshadowing and didn't think it would be particularly interesting, but "It's a Wonderful Life" is a well-known Christmas movie, so this prospect has become at least a little more likely in my eyes.

We might (briefly?) see a reality without Crowley, Aziraphale, or both, with their roles in Eden.

[that90ssmshow]

Jack & Henry’s Non-Denominational Holiday Special

Seasons greetings, true believers!

This year we wanted to give you all a festive treat with our holiday special, where we talk about our favourite holiday movies and TV episodes. Not everybody can celebrate this time of year in the way that they want to – but that doesn’t mean we can’t still have some fun and create new traditions! Stay safe y’all.

Listen on:

Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher Blubrry

[theyearofthewolf]

Pottersville (2017)

“You know, let's just say that hope isn't always the most realistic thing, but it tends to make the world a better place.“

[thewomanwhowatchedchristmas]

Pottersville is a unique movie that is listed as a Christmas movie on Netflix because that how I found it. Read my review below!