It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Directed by Frank Capra
George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.
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What critics compared It's a Wonderful Life to
The sector of the audience that comes to an Adam Sandler movie for the crude stuff won't warm up to this mid-life crisis, with its obvious echoes of Frank Capra's holiday perennial It's a Wonderful Life .
2 Stars (out of 4) Tweet Button Pushing By Jeffrey M. Anderson Adam Sandler's latest is a high-concept idea borrowed from It's a Wonderful Life (1946) that had the potential to be as deeply touching as The Truman Show (1998), but sways too far one direction into the vulgar and too far the other into the maudlin.
The title of the movie surely should have read "Cliché" for its outright rip-off of It's a Wonderful Life and every other movie about the value of family over a self-absorbed, super-charged work ethic.
But it's much more ambitious than those movies, thanks to a premise that recalls classics like "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Carol" and a bigger budget to accommodate the extensive makeup and visual effects.
Some of "Click" pays tribute to "It's a Wonderful Life" and (even more astonishingly) "A Christmas Carol."
It's watching Sandler channel Jimmy Stewart in Click, a film that owes more than a little to It's a Wonderful Life.
The film borrows a lot from the seminal classic "It's a Wonderful Life", including a cute homage in which Bruce literally lassos the moon to make the night more romantic.
It's just that, given the rich premise of the film, writers Steve Koren, Mark O'Keefe and Steve Oedekerk could have done much more than turn it into a weak copy of "It's a Wonderful Life."
Basically, Bruce Almighty wants to be It's A Wonderful Life (explicitly referenced twice in the film) meets Groundhog Day, except they only really got as far as the pitch ("Jim Carrey IS God!
Considering that the basic story is just a variation of the old "It's A Wonderful Life" plot, it isn't surprising that the protagonist eventually recognizes that theme and has a transformation for the better.
An "It's a Wonderful Life" of 1946 -- which it seems to have as a model -- it's not.
Try to envision -- if you dare -- Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life with boob jokes, a running gag involving a urinating dog, a "butt monkey" and, worst of all, a tendency to mock the sort of gooey, uplifting twaddle that Carrey's film finally becomes.
I will also admit that, even though the final twist didn’t bother me or strike me as cloying or facile, it’s still pretty hard to accept, Last Christmas entering into that melodramatic Frank Capra-esque realm of emotionally-saccharine magical realism few filmmakers other than the It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington master have been able to pull off with any consistency.
The Hallmark Channel, Lifetime and even Netflix have proven that for every The Bishop’s Wife or It’s a Wonderful Life , there’s also a place for improbable romantic cheese involving holiday spirit and a strategically placed sprig of mistletoe.
You can easily picture Emilia Clarke taking on any role in a holiday classic and make it believable (Mary Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, Ellen in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation).
On the contrary, knowing that Tom is basically It’s A Wonderful Life -ing Kate makes the movie that much sweeter while you watch it.
British producer David Livingstone ( Judy ) was pondering on Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life when he came up with the idea.
It’s A Wonderful Life has gone down as a classic since its release and Christmas Vacation is a non-stop laugh riot.
Directors Pete Docter (“Monsters, Inc.”) and Bob Peterson and their co-screenwriter Tom McCarthy brilliantly draw on such cinematic touchstones as “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “The Wizard of Oz.” They’re also inspired by less likely sources such as “Fitzcarraldo,” “The Red Balloon” and Jules Verne’s “The Lost World” — not to mention Warner Bros.’ animated Road Runner and even the logo of its archrival, DreamWorks Animation.
Sadly, echoing George Bailey’s stasis in It’s a Wonderful Life , events conspire to tie them to their small house in a neighbourhood that, as the film begins, is set for redevelopment by sinister men in sleek suits.
It's touching, too, and reminiscent of "It's a Wonderful Life," that they had bought and fixed up the abandoned house they once used for their pretend adventures as children.
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Violence notwithstanding, McKay credits the Frank Capra classic "It's a Wonderful Life" as inspiration for "The Tomorrow War," as both feature a family man given a second chance at life once he has glimpsed the future.
Warnings for the world notwithstanding, there’s also an It’s A Wonderful Life vibe to this film since Dan has an opportunity to give himself a second chance.
The movie includes nods to everything from Alien to Waterworld to It's a Wonderful Life.
There is also enough sweetness and focus on human relations to give it a quality like "It's a Wonderful Life", that is, if George Bailey trudged through Miami high-rises, evading spear-wielding, flesh-eating monsters yet still found time for that ah-ha moment, fully understanding how much he had been taking for granted.
Dan, who is ex military himself, seems to be on the same path, which sets up the dumb notion that we may be watching "It's a Wonderful Life" with space monsters.
Not that this knockoff Hallmark special doesn’t go out of its way to camouflage its ill-conceived intentions as well as the considerable debt it owes to such seasonal chestnuts as “A Christmas Carol” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Intended as a twinkling Christmastime fable, it’s actually a dark perversion of “It’s a Wonderful Life” that replaces divine intervention with corporate fraud, and small-town values with big-city ambition.
Imagine if in It’s a Wonderful Life Clarence hadn’t been an angel but an actor hired by Uncle Billy and then the whole town gathered to redecorate in an effort to convince George Bailey that he shouldn’t kill himself.
In Hollywood, that has led to films from Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life to A Charlie Brown Christmas and Elf.
Directed by David Frankel (“The Devil Wears Prada”) and written by Allan Loeb (“21”), the dramedy aims to be a holiday-season uplift film with an otherworldly component, like “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “A Christmas Carol.”
Despite the strange direction the plot takes, this is a film that goes with old school traditional values in the vein of movies like Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life, without driving the Christmas holiday or meaning down your throat.
They’re not wrong, we do deserve our own “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Even if you’re like me and prefer when they’re Die Hard , as opposed to It’s a Wonderful Life , this will do the trick.
In this one which must have been put together by someone who watched "It's a Wonderful Life" after a little too much eggnog and methamphetamine Nicolas Cage plays a high-rolling international investment star who is shunted into an alternate universe by a helpful angel and comes to see the pleasures of living in a crappy house in New Jersey.
And why is it that when a film blatantly steals from a classic -- "It's a Wonderful Life," in this case -- the characters almost never acknowledge it?
The best "What if?" movies are dark and troubling on some level -- It's a Wonderful Life starts with a man who wishes he'd never been born, and in Groundhog Day, Bill Murray's character is driven to suicide by the banality of day-to-day existence.
Cage eases into the role with the charm and affability of Jimmy Stewart and its no coincidence, since "The Family Man" is essentially a reworking of that Christmas staple "It's a Wonderful Life" (right down to its angelic Clarence Oddbody, here fleetingly realized by Don Cheadle).
December 25, 2000 -- "The Family Man" is a slightly different riff on the story in the old movie "It's a Wonderful Life."
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Darabont’s lead characters in Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and The Majestic all bring to mind classic James Stewart roles from It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Over the years, it has attained a classic status that rivals “Casablanca,” “Citizen Kane,” and “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
And for a viewer like me, it takes a lot to get me to care about characters this much - in fact, only It's A Wonderful Life effected me this much.
Da je "The Shawshank Redemption" snimljen nekoliko dekada ranije, u filmu bi glavnu ulogu zasigurno igrao James Stewart ("It's a Wonderful Life").
…with the sincerity and heart of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)…
The reminiscing almost feels like It’s a Wonderful Life, except with the protagonist realizing he was actually kind of awful.
The film is a thinly veiled It’s a Wonderful Life.
Jay admits in one of several George Bailey–esque soliloquies…
Think It’s a Wonderful Life for the modern age, with poetic setups and payoffs that hit like a warm hug.