2020 would be the year that @PrimeVideo decided It's A Wonderful Life needed to be the colorized version. Goddamit and heehaw.

This is, of course, my annual It's a Wonderful Life live tweeting.

I forgot how insulting God and ... other God? ... are about Clarence at the beginning of this thing. "He's an idiot" "No, no, he's just simple."

All these kids in 1919 are reminding me that I'm now Ma Bailey in this story and I don't like it.

I know this movie is my problematic fave because I simultaneously believe that George Bailey is one of the best humans and also frequently yell "YOU CAN DO BETTER" at Mary.

First official cry of the 2020 viewing of "It's A Wonderful Life" comes in at the scene where George begs old man Gower not to beat his ears again.

Just the other day I was trying to explain to someone how many sex jokes there are in this movie. How many? A lot. It's a lot.

"Well, I'll be seeing you later." And then no one ever saw Marty Hatch ever again.

The older I get the more I stan the unnamed guy whose Friday night involves smoking on his front porch, reading the paper and heckling random teenagers for flirting in his hydrangeas.

Second cry of the night: When the board blackmails George into taking over the building and loan.

I told @JInterlandi this, but what I absolutely love about this film is it's one of the few things that gives you someone genuinely good ... not a "nice guy" ... and admits that good people can be internally resentful of the sacrifices they had to make to be good.

And the look on George's face, as he let's it settle in that he has to decide between giving up his dream and forcing someone else to give up theirs ... and that he can't do that. The pain is palpable.

Nobody who changes the lives of that many people for the better ever did it without giving something up. And admitting that hurts and that it's okay for it to hurt, you're still doing good ... that's the gift of this movie to the world.

"I wanna do what I wanna do" ... and not have to care about other people. But you can't. Because that isn't you. Even if accepting that breaks your heart a little.

That was my third cry of the evening, fwiw.

"All you can take with you is that which you've given away" -- crap, the quote on George's dad's memorial photo just got me. That's #4.

Okay but seriously ... did Mary scoop up this underwater property during a bank run, or what?

Mary: "FYI I wished for all your dreams to crumble love you"

I don't think I truly appreciated as a child what a hideous pile of stereotypes the Martini family is. I guess the Italians became white sometime after 1946.

Also never appreciated how interesting it is that this 1946 movie makes a joke about a parsimonious, vicious old man being put in charge of the draft board and classifying everyone 1A. More mixed feelings about the draft in WW2 than I would have guessed.

Here's a big feeling I just had: These people are living through WW1, flu pandemic, Depression, WW2 ... And I don't think I realized until this year's viewing how fucking traumatic that is.

"One of us is going to jail, well it's not gonna be me!" And I'm not sure which is worse: This threat to Uncle Billy, or the threat by George to himself. Because he knows it would be him. He knows damn well he's gonna take that bullet.

Fifth cry of the night: That thing where you don't ask for help, and you can't make yourself be vulnerable enough to tell people about your pain and, instead, you scream at your kid's teacher and throw a bunch of stuff around the room.

I can't help but think about all the people screaming at their kid's teachers -- relatively speaking --on Facebook right now. I can't help but think about the people struggling. About the feeling that we are all so very alone right now.

It's different problems (I mean, unless you have a Building and Loan going under ...) but the fear and pain and loneliness and loss are so real here this year. And the rage about how none of us deserved this. None of it is fair.

Nothing is more full of rage and bitterness than self-pity and despair.