Circles within circles, and the child within the adult | MARK HUGHES COBB

Until Friday, Jan. 6 we're holly-deep in the 12 movies of Christmas, so two of my other faves run dark, tied in by wintry themes, while not being as directly about the season as say "Bad Santa" or "Elf." And no, it's not weird to think murky thoughts at the solstice, when the sun's forgotten how to burn. Other holiday tales involve folks being shown horrors via ghosts, malice and dreamy dancing rats wielding swords.

Given that company, these are not that weird:

The Hudsucker Proxy

"The Hudsucker Proxy" was the Coen brothers' 1994 stab at a Frank Capra-esque fable, and by gum — it's set in a sort of 1950s bustling metropolis America that probably never existed, and where they probably didn't say "gum" — they knocked it out of the cinema. With added banter-script by pal Sam Raimi, "Hudsucker Proxy" sets loose Paul Newman (chomping cigars and scenery as the Potter-esque capitalism-run-wild villain), Tim Robbins (naive good guy in for a big fall), Jennifer Jason Leigh (spitfire gal reporter), John Mahoney, Charles Durning and Bruce Campbell (who, by Hollywood fiat, must be in every Raimi project) on a wild, raving rapid-fire fable about ... um ... Faith? Childlike joy? Ideas? Ideals? Time? Life? TimeLife?

More:Despite fights and failures, it really can be a wonderful story| MARK HUGHES COBB

In a (SPOILER) way, it's about invention of the Hula Hoop, or maybe infinity, represented by a circle. It's about toys the same way "Barton Fink" is about theater, wrestling, or Wallace Beery. I mean, it's a Coen brothers riff, so there's bizarre physical comedy — Durning choogling down an expansive conference table, swan-diving out a window, falling for what seems forever while waving off folks below, so they won't get hurt — zippy-punchy dialogue you'll want to rewind and replay, like the Clash or Elvis Costello scoring a screwball comedy, and yes, dizzily circular conversations underscoring the theme of ever-lasting something or other.

It's not above the cornball dad joke or 17, as Cobbs' Moses the Clock Man, a narrator/mysterious stranger not unlike "The Big Lebowski"'s Sam Elliott, tells: "And that's the story of how Norville Barnes climbed way up to the 44th floor of the Hudsucker Buildling, and then fell all the way down but didn't quite squish hisself. You know, they say there was a man who jumped from the 45th floor? But that's another story...."

Picture "Ted Lasso" meets "His Girl Friday" meets Capra's "Meet John Doe" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." It's available on streaming for about $2.99 per, as is the film below, but if you're geeky as me, buy a disc, Blu-Ray for preference. In addition to its weird wonderful dark comedy, it's old-school lush and beautiful, as designed by the Coens' frequent flyer, cinematographer Roger Deakins.

About a Boy

The 2002 "About a Boy" was created by another sibling team, Chris and Paul Weitz. Though they've had bigger smashes, such as "Rogue One" and the "American Pie" series, this is far and away their most sophisticated, accomplished work.

The secret ingredients are the source novel by Nick Hornby, who knows his way around overgrown boy-men (his other books include "High Fidelity," made into a hit film and TV series, and "Fever Pitch," about Hornby's obsessive lust for soccer, made into both U.S. and U.K. film adaptations), and speaking of gawky, Hugh Grant, who's never been better, and no that's not faint praise.

He's magnificent as Will, the louche, cool-appearing, secretly depressed idiot, an evolving boy-man ever so slowly finding he wants to be more than a cipher.

His dad wrote a hit song — "Santa's Super Sleigh," and yes, it's as annoying as that suggests — which became Will's blessing and curse. He doesn't have to work, living on royalties from the ever-spinning ditty. In a narrated sequence, Will explains he fills his days with "units of time," 30 minutes each. Shooting pool might use up four. Getting his hair artfully massaged — Grant chopped the old-familiar flop into a becoming muss — may fill two.

That's the curse: He's a lazy, unfulfilled womanizer. He's that slob pal who scoots by on nothing other than superficial charm, good looks, and oh yeah, all the money he'll ever need, with concurrent free time. But even to Will, this story's getting old, as is he. Grant's masterful at showing the despair in his eyes, realizing someday his attributes will sag.

Having dated a single mom, Will believes he's found an untapped source of unit-fillers. He attends a support group — Single Parents Alone Together, SPAT — and makes up a fictional son. With hangdog tales of an evil ex, and Hugh Grant looks, he makes pals, including a beauty who is taken in until she, inevitably, tumbles to his egregious lies.

Will skates by with another boy, Marcus (Nicholas Hoult, grown to be the handsome young star of X-Men and Road Warrior movies), the somewhat pudgy, horrifically awkward but sweet child of Fiona (Toni Collette, amazing as always), a hippie-chick who, in eagerness to make Marcus as crunchy-granola as she, dresses him in homemade duds, bowl haircuts and odd opinions that mark him as the target of every hooligan in London.

Will "borrows" Marcus, keeping Suzie (Victoria Smurfit, cool-goof name for a startlingly beautiful Irish actress) on the hook a bit longer, resulting in mild disasters such as the kid beaning a doomed duck with mom's homemade cottage loaf, which resembles the granite stones swept in curling, and appears to weigh about as much. That'd be between 38 and 44 pounds.

Marcus sees in Will not a dad figure, but a mentor who can introduce him to a life that's not all pan flutes and patchouli-stink, help him buy the right trainers (UK for athletic shoes), and generally assist with Fiona, who suffers serious depressions, forcing Marcus to step up and be the man. His bio-father's a 1-D stereotype of detached stoner-moron, played to hilarious effect at a Christmas gift-exchange scene, when the doofus nods, hums and grins with all the animation of the curling stone he appears to be.

Just when you think it's reaching a staid finish, where Will becomes a Real Live Boy, and Marcus gleans enough to stop being everyone's whipping boy, comes the ta-dah second-act reveal of Rachel Weisz. Meeting Rachel (her character name, too) at a dinner party, Will grows painfully honest, telling her he does nothing. It's all over her face: Yow. Uh. Look at the time! Will panics, and again begins to chat about his non-existent son.

It's chockful of drop-dead lines, healthy doses of schmaltz and pathos, and an earned happy ending. Marcus discovers rap and a punk girlfriend (Natalia Tena, in her first major role); Will befriends Fiona, who loosens reigns enough to let Marcus breathe; and everyone finds someone, after periods of humiliation, remorse, and adjustment.

Marcus says he used to want Will to marry his mom, but "... that was when she was depressed, and I was desperate." Will: "Thanks, mate." Fabulous as Grant and Hoult are together, the Collette-Grant exchanges also shine golden.

Fiona: "Will, am I a bad mother?" Will: "No, no. You're not a bad mother. You're just a barking lunatic."

Easter eggs and sly gags abound, like Marcus' duck-dealing in Kensington Gardens, which boasts a prominent statue of Peter Pan; Will crediting "No man is an island" to Jon Bon Jovi, rather than John Dunne, while protesting "I am! I'm bloody Ibiza!"; and Marcus wishing he were a rich kid able to support his poor mom, someone like, oh ... actor Haley Joel Osment, who played Collette's haunted son in "The Sixth Sense."

At in-between times of year, palate cleansers of wit, wiles and pratfalls can jangle up the bones, ignite winter-stalled forebrains, and give eyeballs a wash in the bargain. The protagonists retain the finer attributes of childhood ― invention, imagination, energy, enthusiasm ― while dancing around childishness, and all-too-grownup dreams to flop backwards, boneless, remorseless, and carefree. But a kind of love for growth saves, and the wheels turn 'round and 'round.

You know. For kids.

That joke will land later. It's a way-homer.

Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at [email protected], or call 205-722-0201.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Offbeat holiday tales from 'About a Boy' and the 'Hudsucker Proxy'