Richard Donner
Scrooged - SOS fantasmi

THE REVIEW

I have wonderful memories of my childhood: the hide-and-seek competitions where we would even dive into the grain fields to avoid being discovered, the endless soccer matches that ended with astounding scores like 16-4, the bicycle races and the resulting disastrous falls while trying to descend the stairs, the eternal games on the Amiga, the first time I went to the cinema, my worn-out videotapes of Alf, Ken Shiro, and Scrooged.

Yes, exactly that Scrooged which airs every Christmas on TV, featuring a young Bill Murray, fresh from the success of Ghostbusters (and precisely for this reason, those great Italian geniuses decided to erase the original title Scrooged and give it a nice SOS fantasmi to grab a little more audience); exactly that SOS fantasmi which is nothing but a modern retelling of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol", directed by Richard Donner, the director among other things of that small cult classic "The Goonies".

As a child, I watched it at least a hundred times. I knew when I had to cover my face with my hands like the hero of "Home Alone" to avoid being scared: the moment when Frank's former boss, now dead, comes to warn him about the arrival of the three ghosts and, after grabbing him by the neck, drags him out of the skyscraper window and lets him fall after Bill Murray's futile attempt to hold onto the suntanned arm of his former president; the scene of the eye in the glass at the restaurant; the terrifying sequence where the ghost of the future opens his cloak to reveal its interior made of hideous screaming beings imprisoned, and finally, the distressing scene of Frank in his coffin that starts to catch fire.

I knew by heart the scenes that made me laugh the most like the gift list for employees or the fairy kicking Frank in the balls, and I was obsessed with the crazy face of the ghost of the past.
I knew entire scenes by heart: Frank's encounter with his future girlfriend, the moment they open gifts together at Christmas on the couch (it was the first time I thought it was great to have a girlfriend!), Frank's father's Christmas gift, the ending that seemed more beautiful every time I watched it.
I remember that sometimes my parents would play that tape to make me fall asleep, I remember my brother couldn't take that movie anymore, and I recall with regret that gradually I grew up and started watching it less, and less; we played hide-and-seek less often, soccer games were still played, but we kicked each other to win, bike races were done hands-free, Alf (the animated series) suddenly disappeared from the schedule and never returned, and I suddenly found myself in middle school, cheering for those who fought the most.
I remember a few years ago "Lost In Translation" came out in theaters with the same Bill Murray who had driven me crazy as a child, and in the movie, I found his sweet, happy, and lost eyes again, and that bittersweet smile of his. I remember that when I got home, I rushed to retrieve the SOS fantasmi tape and watched it greedily, for a moment I went back to the past, for a moment I saw myself with the helmet climbing the cherry tree helped by my grandfather, for a moment I got lost in the most beautiful memories.

Many memories. No technical director's choices, no epochal changes in the history of cinema, no excellent or terrible special effects, no original plot or not, no political messages delivered with irony, just so many beautiful memories and Bill Murray's face, this is a review made with the heart for a film that gave me so much and to which I would like to pay a small tribute; for the history of cinema, I'm sure you will turn to some encyclopedia, there are many even on this site, but I'm sure even the best film topping the list of essentials will never give you as much as a film tied to your memories.