Preview: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
December 2, 2016
Student Activities absolutely refuses to let you leave for Christmas break without one final Movie Night, which of course features a Christmas movie, making it a Christmas Movie Night. Join us on Saturday, December 10 in the LaHaye Event Space for a very special presentation of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), the live-action version of the Dr. Seuss classic. And since we have such generous and huge hearts, we have two showtimes for you!
- First showing – 8 PM
- Encore presentation – 10 PM
It is likely that more people have seen the original, animated version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas than the version we are showing, the live-action version from 2000. But you might be surprised to find out just how big the more recent version is. Currently, it is the second highest grossing holiday movie of all time* behind only Home Alone. Though you may find that information as cuddly as a cactus, keep in mind that this was the first adaptation of a Dr. Seuss book into a full-length feature, and the established name value alone all but guaranteed success. Plus, if you grew up mostly in this century, you might see Jim Carrey or see movies like Mr. Popper’s Penguins or Yes Man and think, “Really? HE’S a giant star?”, but it is hard to overstate how huge he was by the end of the 1990’s. Add all of that to Ron Howard’s status as a blockbuster movie director and that is how you get just over $260 million in gross earnings and the Christmas movie silver medal.
The natural question for anyone looking at How the Grinch Stole Christmas is how it ends up being 1 hour 44 minutes. The book is just 69 pages, so the 26-minute runtime of the original animated feature looks fine, but where does all that extra time come from? Why, it comes from a writer’s imagination, where everything else comes from! In addition to the “regular” Grinch story, with Max the dog and the stealing of all the Whoville gifts and The Grinch’s growing heart, you also get an extended backstory for The Grinch and a long scene involving him as Whoville’s “Cheermeister”**. While scenes like this are meant to fill up more screen time and show more Seuss-like imagination and silliness, they end up feeling more like overkill, the cinematic parallel to Jim Carrey’s overacting tendencies. But the movie does not leave you hanging, keeping the feel-good ending with the song “Welcome, Christmas” mostly intact, and adding the crushingly adorable “Where Are You, Christmas?” to give one extra tug on your heartstrings.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas is one of the new(ish) classics of Christmastime, and Student Activities hopes you will join us as we show it on Dec. 10. This event is free to attend, and there will be FREE popcorn and cheap concessions available. If you have any questions, email us: studentactivities@liberty.edu.
*http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=christmas.htm
**https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAR4ZXYXAvk