Movie Monday -- The Afterlife

Share your favorite movies about heaven, hell, resurrection, angels, demons or haunts, linking back here at The Bumbles.

On Halloween I saw Hereafter, the wonderful Clint Eastwood movie about the afterlife that's in theaters now. Since I just blogged about that one, I decided to muse about these two of an earlier vintage.

Heaven Can Wait. One minute, NFL QB Joe Pendelton is peddling his bike down a California highway, the next moment he's in a "waystation" between this world and the next. His guardian angel plucked him away from the scene just before the moment of impact, hoping to spare Joe a gruesome death. But his timing was off -- because of his superior reflexes, it was Joe's destiny to avoid the accident, and he would still be alive if the angel hadn't intervened. So now what? One of Heaven's higher-ranking "escorts," Mr. Jordan, tries to find another body for Joe to live in until his pre-destined moment, years in the future. At first Joe rejects the body, and the new life, he's given to inhabit. But then he meets Betty and falls in love ... Warren Beatty and Julie Christie are Joe and Betty, and they are so dear and sweet and romantic. While I'm not sure I believe that destiny has but one perfect person for us to love, this movie makes a most convincing argument.

Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol. Dickens gave us the Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, and Mr. Magoo gave me my first and still most favorite Scrooge.