Wheel-less on Christmas Eve

The wheel has the night off tonight, last minute shopping at the liquor store I think I heard him say, so I'm home watching the always magnificent It's a Wonderful Life. It's something I only experience once a year but it's always lovely even though at times it's damn depressing. The performances in it are so incredible and I'm forever in awe of Jimmy Stewart's effortless brilliance and oversized charisma. The way he shapes certain lines with that infamous voice of his is simply awesome. He carries the film ably on his long, lanky frame and blows me away every time.

Each year I seem to react to the film in the exact same way. I ooh and awe at the Charleston dance scene over the opening pool, I swoon as he and Donna Reed court each other by the Hydrangea bushes, I hiss at Potter and am deeply crushed when the money goes missing and I am eternally confused by the basics of the banking business and the scene where George saves the Building & Loan. But this year, I finally realised the terrible emotional roller coaster this movie is and the horrible way George Bailey and his wife consistently have their dreams snatched away just as they are about the realise them. It's excruciating to watch and reminded me of one of the greatest movies I saw this year - Up.

Up landed atop many critics' year end lists and for good reason. It is another in a long line of insanely creative Pixar films but one of the things I loved most about it was the left turn it took halfway through. What started as a poignant love story ends up as a loony adventure tale that somehow never loses its heart.

One of the most talked about sequences of 2009 is right near the beginning of Up as you watch the journey of two lives unfold wordlessly over the course of 10 minutes. It's absolute perfection and full of the ebullient joys and crushing lows of life and can make a person tear up just to think about. What I found most affecting about the sequence was the way the couple keeps having their dreams thwarted and their savings used for broken down cars or other curve balls life throws at them instead of exotic trips or vacation cruises. It's the tough reality that most people face, eking out a living while rarely getting a chance to explore all the grand schemes and insane plans they wish they could.

It's a Wonderful Life is a full length feature based on this premise and it's one of the main reasons it works so well. I somehow never noticed this before but the push and pull between dreams and reality is what makes it so affecting. Sometimes people are able to capitalize on life's possibilities and end up stumbling around the jungle with a boy scout and talking dog and other times the adventures one has are much more close to home.