Neil Shines Bright as a Diamond on this Christmas Album

I am one of those people who could listen to Christmas music all year long. I always await with happy anticipation the time – which seems to get earlier every year – in which it is acceptable to play those Yuletide favorites and, better yet, have them blasting at me every time I go shopping or out to eat. I’ve met only a few Christmas songs I can’t stand: that new techno remix of White Christmas, The Holiday Season, The Cherry Tree Carol and a handful of others. But most I embrace whole-heartedly, and there are a few Christmas albums I simply must listen to this time of year lest I feel distinctly unChristmassy. Paul and Mary. The Chipmunks. John Denver... and the Muppets. Garrison Keillor. More recently, American Idol and Clay Aiken. Throw in Art Garfunkel and Veggie Tales and I’m pretty much good to go... as long as I also have this, the Neil Diamond Christmas album, which, like Peter Paul and Mary’s holiday special, has enchanted on video on PBS in the past. And so, without further ado (and shameless linking to my other Christmas reviews), I give you Neil.

Immanuel (O Come) / We Three Kings Of Orient Are - This medley is slow and solemn with soaring choral participation in Immanuel. The whole thing has a slightly Hasidic air about it, and it’s just a very nice rendition of both classics; in fact, while Garrison boasts my favorite version of We Three Kings, Neil’s may be my favorite version of Immanuel.

Silent Night - It’s pretty hard to mess up this one. Neil gives it a straight reading, but the choir comes in again to provide some majestic harmonies.

Little Drummer Boy - The percussion, throbbing bass and overall electric sound on this one is very cool. Until I heard the David Bowie / Bing Crosby version a few years back, this was my favorite rendition of the sweet song about a boy giving Jesus a simple but sincere gift, and it still holds a very special place in my heart.

Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town - Neil’s really rockin’ out on this one. Somebody’s having a really rollicking time on the drums, and throw in the guitar and the enthusiastic chorus for one of the most energetic renditions of this classic I’ve ever heard. A harmonica solo midway adds to the fun.

The Christmas Song - This one has a smooth lounge-singer sound to it and features the keyboard in prominence. It’s not really one of my favorites – maybe it’s jealousy over the fact that I don’t have an open fire to roast chestnuts on or irritation over his pronunciation of “reindeer” as “reindeers” – but there’s a nifty sax solo toward the end that augments the presentation.

Morning Has Broken - The chorus is back to help Neil out with this one, “oohing” along in the beginning and providing lusher harmonies as the song progresses. Though I really think of this as an Easter song – certainly a song indicative of spring – it’s my favorite hymn that isn’t a Christmas carol, so I won’t complain about its inclusion here. Besides, they say Jesus was probably actually born in the spring anyway. My favorite version of the song is Art Garfunkel’s, but this one is still really nice.

Happy Christmas (War Is Over) - This is the first place I encountered John Lennon’s idealistic masterpiece – just as stirring as Imagine – and I absolutely love it. It starts out with just a chorus of angelic kiddies and some salt-shaker percussion before Neil takes the first verse by himself, and it builds in volume and intensity, helped along first by some beautifully simple piano accompaniment, then majestic percussion, resonant guitar and the re-introduction of the kids, augmented by an adult chorus. You can tell Neil really believes what he is singing; there is an intensity lacking on any other track. The real beauty of the song, though, is in the children sweetly crooning the counter-melody (“War is over if you want it, war is over now”) under Neil’s passionate vocals. Quite possibly my favorite track.

White Christmas - Unless this one is. I’m such a fan of Christmas music in general, and I’ve heard enough that in many cases I have a favorite version of songs I’ve heard covered dozens of times. Sorry, Bing, but Neil gets my vote for all-time best version of this song. He starts it off with the little-used introductory verse before launching into a doo-wop rendition. His own singing is fairly straight, aside from his “I-I-I-I” at the beginning of every other line and a hammy spoken verse towards the middle, a la Alvin in the Chipmunks’ version of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, but those guys in the background make this song with their “I-I-I”s and “doo-wa”s. I especially love the guy with the super-deep voice. Just a really fun song.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - The doo-woppers are back here for an a capella treatment of this carol. It’s a very short stop, but very nice – though Simon and Garfunkel take the cake for me on this one. (Since they have a different title, though, I suppose I could technically count this as my favorite version of this carol…)

Jingle Bell Rock - Another short one, this is almost as fun and rollicking as Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Hark The Herald Angels Sing - Neil makes good use of the chorus once again. This sounds like something you would hear at a Christmas Eve service at a church with a very large choir and a very impressive organ. Both elements are the stars of this number.

Silver Bells - When I was little, this was my favorite song, Christmas or otherwise. Neil’s guitar-soaked version has a nice dreamy feel to it, and the chorus is back to help him out. The nicest part of it for me, though, is the instrumental portion over which he recalls his youth and the joy these bells brought him.

You Make It Feel Like Christmas - A Neil Diamond original. I find it a bit amusing given the fact that he’s Jewish, but I suppose chances are he celebrates Christmas to some extent anyway. Obviously he has a hearty respect for the holiday. It’s interesting, though, that Peter Paul and Mary have two Hanukkah songs on their album and he doesn’t have any. This is just a nice love song in which the speaker compares every moment he spends with his wife to the ecstasy of Christmas morning. It’s always nice to have at least one song that you won’t find elsewhere, and this one is a great addition to the Christmas canon.

O Holy Night - My favorite Christmas song. Neil gives the song the majestic treatment it deserves, starting out quiet and mysterious and building intensity with the thrilling chorus and throbbing percussion behind him. A wonderful rendition, though my favorite presentation of this particular song remains the quiet and pristine recitation by a second-grader at the elementary school I attended. If Art Garfunkel ever covers the song, though, I may change my mind.

Well, there you have it. This Diamond has never gleamed so brilliantly for me as in this Christmas album. If you’re unfamiliar, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. It’s a holiday treat that’s practically perfect in every way.

You'll Never Look at a Wardrobe the Same Way Again...

The world could use a little bit more Magic. That’s what I think, and that’s what C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien thought when they wrote their respective masterpieces. For three years in a row, I got to see a sweeping cinematic interpretation of Tolkien’s epic, which I treasure more than any other. Last year, a dry spell. No lifelong friends, breathed into life anew from the deepest reaches of my childhood, to sustain me. A cold year indeed. But after a long winter, Middle-earth’s companion has come to join its majestic sibling, and Christmas has come at last. If the rest of the audiences were as enchanted as I was, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is only the first in a long and lustrous series, seven to match the number in the exploits of the boy wizard whose name need not be mentioned - a sacred number, and perhaps I should clarify that I do not mean Lewis is the good to Rowling’s evil, but rather a fellow spinner of tales so absorbing and spiritually stimulating they both invite and defy adaptation. But I have known Lewis much longer, and the glory of his natural world calls to me with more resonance than the Gothic surroundings in which young Mr. Potter finds himself. This is a film that is an event, a milestone and a beckoning. Embrace the child within that longs to crack open that wardrobe door and explore the world beyond - a world free of all the distractions and impurities of our own. Embrace the land of Narnia.

It is always difficult to adapt a book into a movie; the more beloved the source, the more likely you are to offend with your departures, though there is likely to be a large group of people who will see the film even if they are determined to hate it. The Chronicles of Narnia have a passionate following, as director Andrew Adamson and screenplay writer Ann Peacock clearly knew. How to translate the books without killing the magic? I believe they succeeded. There is a magnificence in this film I’ve not yet encountered in the Harry Potter adaptations. Instead, it begins to approach Lord of the Rings – especially in terms of the cinematography. Goodness gracious, but New Zealand has become quite the idyllic locale. Housing Middle-earth and Narnia is an impressive feat. I only hope these films don’t draw so many people to the islands that the pristine beauty for which they are lauded is diminished. Narnia is just gorgeous, and the film is awfully realistic-looking considering the fact that it’s populated mostly with characters who are at least partially computer generated. There’s nothing cartoonish about these beasts, and I think even Lewis would approve and agree that technology has finally caught up to his vision – an irony with both Tolkien and Lewis, who both treasured nature so deeply and were wary of industrialization.

Speaking of Tolkien, as I must when I mention Lewis, I thought I caught at least a couple nods to the good professor. The shot of the children and beavers huddling under a rocky overpass as they flee the White Witch is remarkably similar to the moment early in Fellowship in which the four young hobbits hide from their Nazgul pursuer. Later, the girls send an important message through the trees, and I can't help but think of the Beacons of Gondor. Finally, when the climactic battle is in full swing, a troop of eagles swoops down to provide unexpected aid. Could that be a small tribute to Lewis’ dear friend and fellow storyteller? But I’m getting ahead of myself. And so: the story. Remarkably, there seems to be very little missing, though sadly one of those things is the kindly giant Rumblebuffin, who is only alluded to with a brief glimpse of his statue in the Witch’s courtyard. However, a great deal has been added, and though I counted each departure with a bit of an inner grumble, in the end I found that most of the changes did not bother me. I have read that the director wanted to recapture the excitement he felt when he first encountered the books as a child, masking the slight disillusionment he experienced when he read it as an adult. The magic, it seemed, had gone. I still see the enchantment in Narnia’s pages, but then I never really have grown up. Adamson coaxes those who have become burdened with the trappings of adulthood to relinquish them for two and a half hours and believe again.

The story involves four children: Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Peter Pevensie (William Mosely). In the film, we see their unnerving exodus from a war-torn English city into the relative safety of the countryside, where they take up residence with a reticent, eccentric professor (Jim Broadbent) and a cranky housekeeper (Elizabeth Hawthorne) in an enormous mansion in which most of the doors are kept locked. One, however, is enticingly open, and Lucy wanders into it during a game of hide and seek and there finds an object of awesome beauty: a wardrobe, ornately carved, drawing her in like a magnet (though she does, of course, remember to leave its door ajar for easy exit). When she stops brushing past fur coats and starts to get pricked by pine needles, it’s clear she’s stepped into a very strange wardrobe indeed, but she has no fear as she embarks upon this strange journey without her siblings into a world she did not know existed. Through this first trip, we see her sense of awe and wonder, her gentleness and emotional openness. For she quickly forges a delightful bond with a jittery but earnest faun named Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy), a connection that will pave the way for all the adventures that follow.

In Narnia, we soon become accustomed to the sight of talking animals and creatures with features both human and bestial. The pristine snowfall comes to seem less enchanting than sinister, though as its grip weakens, it poses little threat – aside from in a rip-roaring river scene entirely absent in the book that nonetheless is quite exciting to watch. There are allies and enemies, and everyone seems to fall into one camp or another – for Aslan (Liam Neeson), the magnificent Lion who is the rightful king of Narnia, or Jadis (Tilda Swinton), an impostor who fancies herself the Queen and is responsible for the century of winter that has reigned in this magical land. Though this icy monarch refuses to admit it, she fears Aslan and the prophecy involving his return – a prophecy involving four humans. She will do anything to stop them from fulfilling their long foretold destinies, and it seems her job is made much simpler when she manages to woo a petulant Edmund, who encounters her alone before the four children finally make it through to Narnia together, to her side. While the fate of the land is ultimately in Aslan’s paws, the children have a great hand in it; they must battle fierce foes and their own interpersonal disputes before they can hope to save Edmund and, indeed, all of Narnia.

The cast is excellent, with Swinton most striking as the seductive witch. She is pale, beady-eyed and elegant – and as terrifying as Cruella De Vil, who seems cut from the same mold. Neeson gives kingly voice to the beautifully animated Lion, conveying both his warmth and his wrath. McAvoy is incredibly winning as Tumnus, and his relationship with Lucy is one of the most heartwarming aspects of the film. While all the supporting characters are excellent, particular attention must be paid to Ginarrbrik (Kiran Shah), Jadis’ the much-abused right-hand dwarf, and the Beavers (Ray Winstone and Dawn French), who are just as powerful a tribute to decent working-class folks as the Weasleys are in the Harry Potter books. The two bicker frequently, but always in love, and they clearly are two of Aslan’s most faithful followers. But it really is the children at the center of this story, and these four unknowns are marvelous, especially Henley, which makes me particularly happy. Lucy is just as curious and compassionate and connected to this strange new world as I would wish her to be, and Henley has just the right expressive qualities to accentuate the beauty of this character. Lucy is my favorite, and I applaud them for getting her right. Keynes, too, puts in a powerful performance as the outcast of the group. Though Lucy is always perfectly decent to him, Susan and Peter seem to have little affection but plenty of criticism for him, and it's easy to see why he would seek appreciation elsewhere. Peter is pretty much right but, like Aragorn in LotR, is far too reluctant to embrace his kingly destiny. He lacks some of the nobility he possessed in the book, and he’s too argumentative – as is Susan, though she always did strike me as a bit too bossy. In all honesty her overly grown-upness (well-intentioned as it often is) always rather got on my nerves, though Narnia eventually draws out her inherent sweetness. The three eldest children spend a great deal of time cross with one another, and I think they perhaps over-emphasized this, but it perhaps increases its resemblance to reality. In the end, no matter what their differences, the four children are family and they care deeply about each other, and that love can overcome many obstacles.

As I said, a great deal was added to this film in terms of exciting sequences, and there is much more emphasis on the battle with the White Witch than there was in the book, where it occupied a mere few paragraphs. As cinematic battles go, it’s pretty impressive-looking, and I understand the director’s choice in focusing on that, but I still wish we could have spent a bit more time in the courtyard with Aslan summoning the rest of the army. As in LotR, the best scenes are the personal ones, little moments in which the children come to appreciate one another more fully or are able to connect with their true monarch on a very intimate level. As long as these don’t get lost in the shuffle of special effects that are sure to be used liberally in the six sequels, I see no reason why all seven films can’t be equally enchanting. I for one can hardly wait for Prince Caspian. Until then, all I can say is well done and Godspeed. Narnia is just as magical as ever.