Although we are not normally big movie watchers at our house, Christmas holidays are a bit of a change-up for us, a time when we do end up more often than usual flaked out in front of the TV watching whatever we find on.  Have you noticed that during the holidays, there are certain movies that seem to be always showing on at least one channel at any given time of day?  It’s a Wonderful Life, for example, is one of those movies.  Or Sound of Music.  Personally, I could have lived without ever sitting through the smarmy earnestness of that movie again.  Yet there it was, all over the TV for several days in a row, and of course we eventually succumbed.

But tell me – when did The Green Mile become a Christmas classic?  Granted, it’s a pretty original script and a good movie, with many touching and even humorous moments (think, for example, of Wild Bill spitting the Mud Pie).  On the other hand, it is also a movie about death row executions, rape and murder of children, and squished mice.  These things, you might think, should make this the last kind of movie you would want to watch – or program directors would want to show – at Christmastime.  And you would be right.  Except, of course, for the miracles.  Read more...