8 Takeaways from Finally Watching It's a Wonderful Life for the First Time

'Tis the season for me to at last watch this Christmas classic and realize a few things.

It finally happened. I finally saw It’s a Wonderful Life! Yes, I know it’s weird I’d never seen it. But we all have those handful of movies, right? The ones it’s just expected everyone has seen but somehow you have not.

A big advantage of living in Los Angeles though is all of the revival movie theaters and so a few years ago, I decided that since I’d gone so long without seeing Wonderful Life, when I finally did, it would be in a theater, given it always plays locally each December. Except I kept missing it, for one reason or another, and in fact, realized I had a scheduling conflict and couldn’t make it last week when it was at the New Beverly… only to discover it was also playing at Vidiots a couple of days later and on my mom’s birthday no less, so I was happy to learn she was quite happy to go see it that day.

When you finally see a movie you know is so universally beloved, there’s always the danger that it can’t possibly live up to what has become a literal lifelong amount of hype and you’ll be disappointed. So was that the case with It’s a Wonderful Life?

No, of course not! But I did have a few observations while viewing it inside that packed theater, surrounded by a great crowd who cheered when it began like we were about to watch a new Avengers movie.