Making your (movie) list? Checking it for pianos?

Snow days (with kids at home, especially) make us think of movies, right? I won’t speculate on why that is, but let it suffice to say that my grand-kids can identify--from another room-- nearly every kid’s film on Netflix by the music in the opening credits. (Granddad, are you watching ‘The Grinch’”?) I stand in amazement, yet again.

But, you’re surely thinking of your favorite films for holidays, no?. What about those that have pianos in them, perhaps even that feature pianos as part of the plot? Got any? I heard gossip among the more literary elite I run with that Daniel Mason’s novel, The Piano Tuner, is going to be made into a film this year. So, it doesn’t count, yet. That also eliminates Thad Carhart’s The Piano Shop on the Left Bank; it’s not a movie yet either, I don’t think.

Of course, everyone is going to act like they hated the 1993 film, The Piano, when secretly they loved it, especially the enigmatic final scene where Ada goes down with her ship (the piano, of course). Can you count how many times someone asked you what that means? I’m indifferent on that one. Really. My personal favorite is the Marx Brothers’, A Day at the Races, in which Chico plays that wonderful Steinway. Forerunner of Victor Borge, no doubt. I’d watch it ten times a day. You have a favorite? There are more than you think.