Winter Movies: A Course in Survival

Well...it's over. The holidays and the mad rush that accompanies the last three months of the year, have given up the ghost for another nine months. The sparkly lights come down, the tree heads to the curb or the closet. And the elation and stress of the new year ebbs into a post-holiday malaise. 

Now, come this time, you fall into one of two categories:

• You love winter and will happily wallow in the icy darkness for its remaining months
• You've been wishing it was spring since October

I know of at least two people who may not have made it this far because they hate, nay, revile, winter so much. Perhaps next year, I will do a list of "warming" movies to get those folks through winter, but this year, I'm focusing on the wallowers. So, if winter makes you think of bleak cabins in the mountains, AT-ATs destroying shield generators, and gothic noir...and that doesn't depress you, read on....

Icy 'Scapes

There are a number of movies which don't necessarily have anything to do with winter, but which invoke a sense of it through snow & ice-covered landscapes. Sometimes it is bleak, other times beautiful, but always the feel of silence, a sort of quiet elegance in the emptiness left behind. And what happens in that emptiness tends to be epic.

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

This classic is one of the best movies ever made. Period. In a genre known for being a little too cheesy, a bit low-budget with special effects and creatures, and not the best at scripts, Empire is the exception that keeps you coming back for more. If the original trilogy could be embodied by different terrains, A New Hope would be the lifeless deserts of Tatooine, Return of the Jedi would be the dense forests of Endor, and, of course, Empire would be the frozen wastes of Hoth. The opening battle scenes on the snow planet give way to the cold emptiness of space. Despite the many climes the heroes run through, there's a pervasive chill that hangs over the entire movie, as if the defeat at Hoth dogs them throughout the entire movie, culminating with Luke and Leia looking out into that same vast emptiness in a state of anxious anticipation. Metaphor for winter? Maybe. Cinema Gold? Hell, yes.

Hateful 8

While the mystery and violence of this piece might qualify it as a Winter Noir or a Survival piece, what strikes me as most visceral in this movie is the snowy landscape. The scenes throughout the movie of the white-blanketed countryside and impending storm (shot on exquisite Ultra Panavision 70 MM film) set such an epically desolate atmosphere, it's hard not to be fully immersed in this world. Furthermore, the blizzard that twists and surges around the cabin heightens the tension inside. A must-see for film-lovers.

Winter Noir

For me, this is what winter is all about. Winter gets ugly, man. We give up all pretense in an effort to just stay warm. Worse, when the snow melts, the world is not pretty in winter. There's this brownish-gray cast to most everything, usually leftover from snow muck (The gray mush that happens to snow that has been plowed, driven over, and gotten exhaust all over it. Note that two of these movies are set in or near the Midwest, where I have had my greatest exposure to "winter.") So, it should come as no surprise that Winter Noir contains a feel of "yuck" about it, like a metaphor for the lives of the people in these movies, often struggling to get by, little or no pretense, a greyish-brown cast over everything in their lives.

Winter's Bone

I just re-watched this movie the other night, and it is as compelling as it was the first time I saw it. The story of a young girl, trying to locate the body of her meth-cooking father so that the house she inhabits with her siblings and invalid mother won't be confiscated by the courts, is one of the more  emotionally visceral indie films I had seen in some time. What I find remarkable is how much I recognize in the landscape and culture of this film from my own time spent in the Midwest. The costumes, everyday life in the country...even something about Ree's trip to her old school struck a deep-seated cord. They nailed it. This tense indie thriller does not disappoint, and you can't help but follow Ree's journey to its unsettling conclusion.

Fargo

This quirky and macabre crime dramedy from the Coen Brothers is one of their most highly-lauded, and rightly so. In addition to perfectly nailing snowy landscapes in the plains areas of the U.S., they treat us to outstanding performances from Frances McDormand (who hadn't appeared in one of her husband's films since Blood Simple), Steve Buscemi, and William H. Macy. And no one can forget that woodchipper scene. No matter how much we try to scrub our eyeballs. And I like to think the inhabitants of Fargo would appreciate that.

Frozen River

Melissa Leo has made a career of playing strong women in tough circumstances, and this movie is no different. This indie crime drama, which focuses on the journey of two women smuggling people over the boarder between Quebec and New York via a Mohawk reservation, is fraught with suspense and danger. One of the most dangerous aspects is the way in which the women smuggle their charges across: an iced-over river. Everyone who's ever lived in areas with real winter weather can feel themselves wanting to crawl out of their seat with dread as they watch each trek across that frozen passageway. 

Winter Humor Looks a Lot Like Gallows Humor

Winter is the season of depression. Suicide rates go up starting with Christmas, and depression continues to be a real danger due to the sunlight deficit that lasts until spring. So getting a few laughs between below zero temps and that gray sludge that snow inevitably turns into is vital to your sanity. Here are a few to help sustain you...you know, until the weather decides to be civil.

Gold Rush

If you are, like myself, a classic movie buff, you may have already seen one of Charlie Chaplin's great classics. The Tramp finds himself in yet another ridiculous situation, this time having gone north to seek fortune in the Klondike region, where he gets stranded in a cabin before escaping the bad guys to win the woman he loves. Longer than most feature length comedies of that time, Gold Rush gives us classic Chaplin antics with a cute love story.

Grumpy Old Men

Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau team up for a classic 'Odd Couple'-style romantic comedy. Hilarity most definitely ensues, as the two compete over the gorgeous Ann Margaret, their feud reaching more and more ridiculous heights. It's a match made in comedic heaven.

Frozen

What's winter without a Broadway musical thrown in for good measure...except it's not Broadway, it's Disney...or is it Pixar? Whatever. If you like magical talking snowmen and magic ice castles, you'll be in good shape.

Last Holiday

Though this movie could be considered a holiday movie, I feel it stands on its own as a movie about our acceptance of death, becoming who we truly are, and enjoying life. At times sad, this comedy nevertheless gives you plenty of laughs along the way. It even makes you want to stick out this ridiculous season - just to see what's on the other side - for another year.

Ice Age series (marathon)

"A mammoth, a saber-tooth tiger, and a sloth walk into the ice age...." could very nearly be the description for the nonsense that pervades this excellent franchise. Perfect for snow days, I highly recommend binge-watching this series in a marathon. Surprisingly, the quality - despite some bumpy spots - doesn't go downhill in the sequels, so you can expect some pretty solid entertainment. But what's nice about this one is you can enjoy the snow for a full day without wanting to slit your own wrists. 

And that's important, because winter isn't the seasonal metaphor of death for nothing....

Winter Horror

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you will have seen my post on Halloween movies, the death holiday. While Halloween is ritualistically the night of the dead, it is in winter that we experience that holding pattern that IS death. The Winter Solstice marks that final time when we say goodbye to the year, and begin the trek back into the light, an arduous journey that has many of us wondering if we'll make it ...or if it's even worth it. So it should come as no surprise that some truly great horror happens in the snow and ice.

The Shining

This masterpiece questions our very sanity in the face of winter. Virtually trapped in a hotel with his family, Jack Torrance succumbs to madness at the hands of evil ghosts. What follows is some of the best horror the world has ever seen. And with Stephen King providing the source material, and Stanley Kubrick directing, is it any wonder?

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

In an isolated camp in Antarctica, a team of researchers is massacred by a horrible beast that can assume the shape of anyone (and thing) it touches. Using the same 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novel for source material as the 1951 The Thing from Another World, this movie stands out on its own for not just doing another remake, and horrifies you with its creature effects. The ending leaves you in a state of uncertainty about the fate of hero and antagonist alike, alone in the frozen waste.

(Låt den rätte komma in) Let the Right One In

If you want to see a truly unique vampire story, you couldn't do much better than this. Outside snow-covered Sweden, a 12-year old boy named Oskar is terrorized by bullies, until he meets a young girl. Through a series of, frankly, disturbing scenes, we find out that the girl, Eli, is a vampire, and the two form an equally disturbing romance that nevertheless has you rooting for them in the end. This haunting film is a surprise, and very much worth seeing in its original Swedish.

Survival in the Snow

As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason to go outside when it is snowing, has just snowed, or is even thinking about snowing. It is a major reason to advocate for work-from-home options. Forget the concerning road conditions and accompanying moronic drivers. Who wants to get up at some ungodly hour to dig one's car out of the latest snow drift for the umpteenth time this week? Blech. So I leave my snow survival to the experts: filmmakers.

The Revenant

If you want to know how hard you've NOT got it this winter, check out The Revenant, the movie that gave Leonardo DiCaprio his first Oscar win (there will be a whole rant later about how he should have won an Oscar - nay, Oscars - long ago). The story follows a trapper who seeks revenge, when left for dead, for the savage murder of his son. The sheer will that was put into making this film by Leo and others is astounding. Seriously, go look up the conditions they shot under. And while not my favorite of his roles (Django Unchained was way better), this is still great cinema.

Alive

This movie shocked the hell out of people when it was first released in 1993, but I found it philosophically compelling. It chronicles the true story of an Uruguayan soccer team, stranded in the Andes after their plane crashes, that are forced to eat its dead to keep from starving (and the characters from Lost think they had it bad). Ultimately, a story about the human spirit, this movie will have you asking existential questions about your own mortality, and just what you're willing to do to survive.

Hanna

In this action thriller, we see Saoirse Ronan give a disquieting performance as a girl raised to be an assassin. The movie starts out, you guessed it, in the snow, where her father has been training her in combat, sharp-shooting, and survival. As she embarks on a mission, you get a sense that the raw wildness of the Finnish landscape seems to be ingrained in this child's mind and heart. 

The Day After Tomorrow

Disaster epics are known for being...well, a disaster of filmmaking. There's always some completely unbelievable element that starts things off, and then we're treated to stupid human tricks until we're so irritated that we actually start wishing the characters' deaths. I'd like to say that The Day After Tomorrow is completely different than that, but it's not. It definitely has its moments of stupidity, but I found fewer annoying "for the sake of humanity, please kill this person" moments than other movies of similar genres. And while, yes, the rate at which the weather shift occurs is dubious, there are actually some solid science points to be had in this survival piece. A definite recommend if you think winter will simply never end.

And that's that. I will do some more lists in the future, but for now, I'm excited to get down to individual reviews.

Coming Soon: Groundhog Day