New Year’s GRIEVE
No worries if you are a party of one tomorrow, there’s a world of magic at your fingertips, writes Paul Little
With Matariki (June 30 to July 22 in 2018) and Chinese New Year (February 16) now looming large in the calendar, the traditional December 31 Hogmanay celebration no longer has the New Year’s Eve field to itself. However, that date is still most people’s go-to new year choice, if only because the day after it is a public holiday, which means you can afford to party just a little bit harder. Unless, of course, oh dear — you haven’t been invited to a party.
What to do? Party of one, perhaps? Plug in the Singstar and warble like no one’s listening? Trouble is, unlike Christmas, New Year’s has just the one overworked song of any renown, so that’s not going to make a whole evening’s entertainment.
In days gone by, TV networks produced all singing, all-dancing parties on the box to ring in the new year, so that even the most socially challenged housebound loner could feel like they were taking part in some festivity. But those years have long gone. Probably because everyone realised it was just sad.
This year, 1 and 2’s coverage consists of 10 minutes of fireworks from the Sky Tower between
11.55pm — 12.05am. The former will interrupt its screening of the landmark motion picture Risky Business for the display. Three will continue its screening of the Rocky
Horror Picture Show without interruption. Maori TV is making a bit of an effort with a 90-minute Tribe New Year’s Eve Special from 10.50pm. Over at the commercial-free radio, Radio New Zealand National threatens something called New Year’s Eve with Paul Brennan from 6.06pm till
12.04am, which is presumably the earliest Paul can get the hell out of there without appearing rude.
So it looks like you may have to make your own fun. Thanks to the magic of streaming and the internet you and your cat can enjoy a plethora of
New Year’s Eve-themed entertainment options as you force yourself to stay awake until 12.01am on January 1.
AT THE MOVIES
Because New Year’s Eve is about hope springing eternal and second chances, numerous film romances have been built around it. None is more romantic than 1957’s heartstopping An Affair to Remember starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, whose titular affair is ignited by a New Year’s Eve kiss. Later attempts to exploit December 31 as a plot device are but a pale shadow of the original, although they include such watchable trifles as
When Harry Met Sally and
Bridget Jones’s Diary. New Year’s Eve also means debauchery and a fair dose of wa-hey, which makes it perfect for morality tales such as The Poseidon Adventure movies in which people whose values are out of whack learn a thing or two about life after a tidal wave hits their ship at the stroke of midnight. For the ultimate experience, according to the Movie Pilot website, you should start the movie at 11:35:19pm, “so when the clock strikes midnight in my living room, it's midnight on the Poseidon, because it happens 24 minutes and 41 seconds after the movie starts.”
If one significant holiday in a film isn’t enough for you then Holiday Inn is guaranteed to please. Irving Berlin’s songs, including White Christmas and Easter Parade, are the real stars of this picture, which is built around not just New Year’s Eve but also Christmas, Easter, Lincoln’s birthday, George Washington’s birthday, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving and Independence Day.
For something less mainstream and probably more fun, there’s the great cult director Alan Arkush’s great cult comedy with songs, Get Crazy. Among many other performers, Malcolm McDowell excels as Reggie Wanker, a Mick Jagger send-up. But Lou Reed steals the movie playing a parody of Bob Dylan.
NEW YEAR’S REVOLUTION
For a glimpse of possibly the greatest New Year’s Eve party, hunt down the two DVD set of of the French Surprise Partie from 1968. It is threeand-a-half hours of musical gems broadcast live on French TV featuring, among many others, The Who, Booker T and the MGs, The Troggs, Francoise Hardy, Aphrodite’s Child, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd. The invited audience were the ultimate in Parisian chic of that revolutionary time, and look like they knew it. You can find numerous isolated performances on YouTube.
More focused but equally compelling, are two New Year’s Eve concerts by late great performers, both on YouTube: Elvis Presley from 1976 and Tom Petty in 1978. You may need a hankie.
LAUGH IT OFF
Beloved by millions, Dinner for One is a 1963, 10-minute comedy sketch starring otherwise obscure British comedian Freddie Frinton. He is the butler and the lady of the house is celebrating her 90th birthday. She doesn’t realise her guests aren’t there so the butler impersonates all them, drinking the many toasts and getting progressively more intoxicated. The synopsis doesn’t do it justice but it’s a small gem that has always had a fanatical following in Europe. In Germany it is played on TV every New Year’s eve making it the most repeated TV programme in the world.
AULD LANG SIGH
The last word must go to Greta Garbo, who — as she did with so many perfectly harmless aspects of life — managed to turn New Year’s Eve into exquisite emotional self-torture. Here she is in Photoplay in 1927: “Let’s not talk of me!” she pleaded. “It is New Year’s Eve. In Sweden that means so much, so very much. There we go to church and eat and drink and see everybody we know. I have been blue all day. At home, in Stockholm, they are skiing and skating and throwing snowballs at one another. The cheeks are red — oh, please, let’s not talk of me.” All right, then.