Amanda P's post about Christmas movies got me thinking. (She likes "Home Alone." I shudder at the thought. I hasten to add that Amanda is right about almost everything else.) And not a few hours later, Bob Mondello cited some off-the-beaten-path Christmas movies in his commentary on NPR.
So I was doing a little googling and discovered this line which begins AOL's roundup on Christmas movies:
"They warm our hearts, restore our faith in humanity and generally bring joy to the world." NO NO NO NO NO! No they do not. I do not need my heart "warmed." I do not *want* my faith in humanity restored; I'll keep my skepticism, thank you very much. And if I want joy to the world, I'll take it the old-fashioned way, by listening to
Three Dog Night's Joy to the World:
Jeremiah was a bullfrog
Was a good friend of mine
Never understood a single word he said,
But I helped him drink his wine.
Yes, he always had some mighty fine wine.
Yeah. That's what I'm talking about.
Hollywood movies about Christmas fall into one of two extremes. On the one hand, there are the cloying, excessively sentimental Christmas movies (think the end of It's a Wonderful Life, if the previous 100 minutes did not exist), or they are unsentimental in a dishonest way designed to take advantage of people's cynicism which they developed by being forced to watch too many cloying, excessively sentimental Christmas movies (Jingle All the Way would be on this last, as would Bad Santa, as would the recent Four Christmases, which I refuse to see; in fact, if given the choice of sitting through Four Christmases and any three of George W. Bush's state of the unions, I'd chose the latter.
Generally, in these cynical films, you can tell the filmmakers' cynicism is as dishonest as their counterparts' sentimentality--Jesus God, how I long for a Christmas movie which opens with the producers walking out and saying "Hi, guys. We made this movie TOTALLY for the money. We have NO FEELINGS ABOUT CHRISTMAS one way or the other. We ONLY want your cash.")
Then there's the third category of movies, the category that you know some exec came up with by saying "Hey, guys… what if Santa Claus was real?"
"Oh my God!"
"But get this: He's got a BROTHER!"
Whistles, cheers, and promotions ensue, Vince Vaughn is cast as the lead, and America trembles, its ears perking up at the encroachment of some ensuing evil not yet named, like the rabbits in "Watership Down." Here's my Vince Vaughn rule: If Vince Vaughn is in it, and its name isn't "Swingers," it's bad.
Exception are movies which are clearly not Vince Vaughn movies, like "Into the Wild," or movies he was not in for long enough to ruin ("Anchorman.")
There is only one good movie that has ever been made about Santa Claus as if he were real, and its name is not "Fred Claus" or "The Santa Clause." This movie can be found at #1 on my list.
Does this sound harsh? Sure. But then again, any industry that could ruin one of the greatest books about Christmas ever ("The Polar Express") is not to be trusted. How do you fuck up Chris Van Allsburg? It's like burning a Van Gogh.
Even "A Christmas Story" doesn't get points from me, just because it's everyone else's de facto favorite "non-sentimental" Christmas movie. Grrrr. You want a lack of sentiment? I'll *show* you a REAL lack of sentiment!
Three of these are stolen from Bob Mondello. The other seven I came up with on my own.
10) Invader Zim: The Most Horrible Xmas Ever:
It took Jhonen Vasquez, a man who created a comic book about a serial killer, and had no interest in making him sympathetic, to rip the rot off of commercialized Christmas and expose it for what it is. You've got a love a TV episode that features a song that begins "Bow Down! Bow Down! Before the power of Santa! Or be crushed! Be crushed! Byyyy… his jolly boots of doom™!"
9) Gremlins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WRIPtVcWhE
Yep. Santa gets attacked, and quite possibly killed by Gremlins. Two cops watch and do absolutely nothing to save him. I couldn't find the "I hate carolers" clip quoted on NPR, but that one's even better.
8) Jackie Brown: What's that, you say? Jackie Brown has absolutely *nothing* to do with Christmas? Au contraire. The tag line of the movie is "This Christmas, Santa's got a brand new bag." So there you go. It's Tarantino's best and most underappreciated movie, and has a great non-love-affair between the two main characters. Also, I think I saw some Christmas lights in there. Somewhere.
7) Almost Famous: Christmas makes a passing reference in this movie, but there's some real genuine family emotions and reconciliations. Also, it's Cameron Crowe's best film, and it has Billy Crudup on top of a roof screaming "I am a Golden God!" and Philip Seymour Hoffman as the late Lester Bangs saying "Awww… you made friends with 'em."
6) Edward Scissorhands: Ice Dance. 'Nuff said.
5) Catch Me If You Can: A movie about a con artist without friends being chased by an obsessive, Javert-like inspector, in which both spend Christmas alone, and in which, at the end of the movie, the con artist briefly rots in a French prison. Yes sir, this is one good Christmas movie.
5) The Life of Brian: Hey, it's about Jesus! Nothing is more Christmasy than Jesus. And nothing is more heartwarming than watching a bunch of people remind you to "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" as they're getting crucified.
What's great about this clip is the expression Graham Chapman's face, which seems to say "Are you insane?! We're all being CRUCIFIED!" Which may be a tip-off of how much the Pythons actually believe the motto.
Also of note: Palin's babbling at the end.
"See? It's the end of the movie! Incidentally, this record is for sale in the foyer. Some of us have to live as well, you know. I told him. I said to him, Bernie, they'll never make their money back."
4) "Chuck vs. Santa Claus": The most recent episode of "Chuck" was diabolically clever--and at times, genuinely heartwarming. What's great about this episode starts with the Cold Open, which begins with Big Mike and Toby Hale (his character doesn't really have a name, he's always Toby Hale) delighting over how much they've raised prices to screw consumers. Bonus points for that. The scene continues with Big Mike haranguing his employees as a high-speed police chase plays in the background on the store's many TVs, unnoticed. The employees take bets on how the chase will end. It ends rather suddenly and unexpectedly, as the car bursts through the door of the Buy-More and a crazy guy leaps out to take everyone hostage. Faced with the end of a gun, Chuck does the only thing he can:
Chuck: "Welcome to the Buy-More. Be sure to enjoy our holiday sales…"
Beautiful.
The episode ends (SPOILER ALERT) with Chuck watching, horrified, as Sarah, the past and future love of his life, shoots an evil Fulcrum agent in the head because she doesn't know any other way to protect him.
3) Brazil:
Most people forget this is also a Christmas movie because of the explosions, and the timely political satire, which continues to be frighteningly relevant, and the wild, almost-out-of-control production design, and that really gross scene with the plumbers. (SPOILER ALERT follows)
But the movie begins at Christmas, with the innocent Harry Buttle's wife reading out loud to his children from "A Christmas Carol. Whereupon government agents burst into the room through the ceiling, to Michael Kamen's Psycho-shower-scene-like violin strains, and arrest him. This is then followed by a government bureaucrat following this in to inform the family they are "liable for certain financial obligations." The movie ends, of course, with us thinking our hero Sam Lowry has escaped with the love of his life, only to find out that no, he's actually just "gotten away from" his torturers by escaping… into insanity.
(Gee, Greg, a lot of your Christmas movies end with people dying, going insane, or getting shot. Ahhh… now you get it.)
2) The Nightmare Before Christmas
SANTA, as he's being shoved into a hole: Haven't you ever heard of peace on earth and goodwill towards men?
LOCK, STOCK, and BARREL: NO!
Cut to:
WOMAN: And what did Santa bring you, honey?
(KID holds up a ghoul's shrunken, severed head.)
WOMAN: AAAAGHHHHHHH!
Now that's some good Christmasin'.
1) The Snowman:
This is a genuinely heartwarming movie, with a genuinely heart-tugging ending. It has Santa in it. It has only three spoken sentences--in the prologue: "I remember that winter because it brought the heaviest snow I had ever seen. Snow had fallen steadily all night long, and in the morning I awoke in a room filled with light and silence. The whole world seemed to be held in a dream-like stillness. It was a magical day, and it was on that day I made the snowman."
This is a film which earns every single emotion it draws out of you, which is one of the many reasons it is so good. It is childlike without being childish. It captures all the best parts about being a kid. And it is also about deep things like friendship and loss.
And you thought I was a curmudgeon. My heart warms. Not always easily, but it does warm.
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