Two of my favorite things, Billy Murray and Christmas, come together for a spectacular holiday treat as A Very Murray Christmas premieres today on Netflix.
The special, directed by Sofia Coppola and written by Coppola, Murray and Mitch Glazer (who wrote the Christmas classic Scrooged but also the recent, regrettable Rock the Kasbah), stars Murray as himself, waiting and worrying that his celebrity friends won’t show up to perform on his live holiday TV show due to a massive snowstorm in the area. Worrying leads to drinking, drinking leads to a dream sequence, and a dream sequence leads to musical numbers.
And this isn’t a network holiday special in which the biggest stars are the cast of NCIS or the chorus of the latest Broadway revival. Murray used his connections to pull in some heavy-hitting A-listers. The trailer shows Murray duet-ing on “Do You Hear What I Hear?” with Chris Rock; Maya Rudolph soulfully belting “Merry Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”; George Clooney singing “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin’”; and, of course, everyone's favorite sexually fluid nudist vegan, Miley Cyrus.
Whose Christmas wish doesn’t include Cyrus singing “Silent Night” in a teeny-tiny Santa suit on top of a white piano being played by Paul Shaffer? That’s so Christmas, you could put it on a Starbucks cup and make the whole world happy.
Not so much? Well, there’s still Jenny Lewis, David Johansen (another Scrooged alumni), Jason Schwartzman, Rashida Jones, Michael Cera, Amy Poehler and the band Phoenix to please the rest of the population.
The special, most importantly, has Murray crooning the whole time alongside his celebrity pals. Hopefully, he’s less SNL lounge singer Nick Winters doing “Star Wars” and more Lost in Translation’s Bob Harris singing his heart out to Scarlett Johansson in a karaoke version of Roxy Music’s “More Than This.” (Translation is where Coppola and Murray first teamed up, and very successfully at that. The movie won her a Best Original Screenplay Oscar and him a Best Actor nomination.)
A Very Murray Christmas might not pan out to be the next It’s a Wonderful Life, but that’s okay. We already have It’s A Wonderful Life. But until today what we didn’t have was a musical Christmas special starring Murray. It’s a real Christmas miracle.
I will celebrate by cranking my A/C to pretend the weather is conducive to the holidays, sipping a little hot chocolate and watching with the childlike wonderment that Bill Murray (and Christmas) bring.
