Festive Films

When December rolls around, there are a few things you can count on: ABC will at some point air Charlie Brown’s Christmas, there will be fiddle-playing specials on the CBC, Cinecenta will close for the holidays with It’s A Wonderful Life, and the cable superstations will duke it out to air the dregs of the Christmas season.

Among our many DVDs are a fair number of Christmas films (and a few that are festive without being in your face about the Joy of the Season). There’s a few we always try to watch:

• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Frank Capra’s sappy tale of George Bailey (James Stewart) and the way his life touched so many others’.  Mike introduced me to this movie, one I would never have watched otherwise and which has now become a must-see many times over. If we had to pick a handful of movies to take with us to the Mars Base in 2056, this would be among them.
• Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town (1970) & Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) My two favourite Rankin-Bass specials; the former is the story of how Santa Claus got his name, came to live at the North Pole, etc; the latter includes the wonderful Miser Brothers (who later got their own special). The former is also the reason I picked up my very own blog troll around this time last year.
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966) classic Chuck Jones animation plus the Grinch voiced by Boris Karloff perfectly enhances the story by Dr. Seuss. If you don’t find yourself humming “Wa-hoo Dor-eh” by the end of the film, your heart may be two sizes too small.
• The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) As much as Michael Caine chews the scenery, I can’t resist this re-telling with Gonzo playing the part of the narrator, Charles Dickens. I get the “Marley and Marley” song stuck in my head more often than one might think, too.
• Trading Places (1983) Not exactly your traditional Christmas fare but it takes place at that time of year and it does have a good heart even if it delivers the message through some pretty twisted ideas. Eddie Murphy and Dan Acroyd are at their comic peak and Jamie Lee Curtis is well cast as the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold.
• A Christmas Story (1983) between the bully, the lamp (it’s a Major Award!), the decoder ring, the uttering of “Ohhhh Fuuuuuuudddddggge,” and of course the Red Ryder BB Gun, there are more quotable moments in this Christmas movie than almost any other.  This movie was a holy grail for us for about two years — it’s frequently out of stock.
• Elf (2003) If you don’t like Will Ferrell, this movie will not be on your hit list, but if you can bear his particular brand of silly, I highly recommend this sweet film about Buddy, a boy raised by elves who goes in search of his real father in New York City.

Some honorable mentions, movies we don’t watch every year but won’t avoid either: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Love Actually (2003), Gremlins (1984), Christmas Vacation (1989), Home Alone (1990), The Santa Clause (1994), Olive the Other Reindeer (1999), Scrooged (198 ), Tokyo Godfathers (2003), Miracle on 34th Street (1947) and of course The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and various Doctor Who Christmas Specials (2005-2010; the new one will air on Space on Boxing Day). (Oh, and we didn’t hate the Disney’s A Christmas Carol (2009) with Jim Carrey either.)

I’ve added a Christmas section to our Amazon storefront to help you track down the above in case you’re missing any — the exception there is the Doctor Who specials which don’t seem to be available in Canada as one-off DVDs.

If you’re looking for the other side of the coin, there are some awful movies out there  — I’m not providing links to buy them though; no one should pay for these:

• Jack Frost (1998) stars Mr. Mom (er, Michael Keaton) as a lousy Dad who dies and is reincarnated as a poorly animated snowman in order to teach his son the True Meaning of Christmas. If I hadn’t had to write a review, I would never have watched the whole thing through.
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) this feature-length adaptation is impossible to watch if you are at all familiar with the original story or the 1966 animated version. Jim Carrey’s manic grinchiness is explained away by a backstory where he was teased and rejected as a child. Uuugh. The only plus about this movie is that the set and costume design are perfectly Seussian.
• Polar Express (2004) the creepy animation (pretty much the poster child for uncanny valley)  in this movie is far too distracting for most people; the story gets lost inside the technique.
• The Santa Clause 2 (2002) and The Santa Clause 3 (2006) where the original film in the series was kinda sweet and clever, the sequel adds family values to the mix (there must be a Mrs. Claus!) and the third film throws in the always grating Martin Short as Jack Frost.
• Christmas with the Kranks (2004) will someone please tell Tim Allen to stop making Christmas movies? And Jamie Lee Curtis should know better. Selfish Boomers versus some seriously crazy neighbourhood pressure results in a movie in which can’t find it’s heart so replaces it with slapstick.
• The Tangerine Bear (2000) is based on a (much better) picture book. The story ends on a bright note but along the way hits too many bumps to be enjoyable. Kiddo loved this one when she was younger (another one we reviewed) but I cringed every time the characters chanted “gotta get bought, gotta be sold.”
• Eight Crazy Nights (2002) One of my least favourite animated films ever, this trainwreck came to us for review. Basically the whole movie is an excuse for Adam Sandler to showcase his scatological humour and sing his Hanukkah song.

There is also the category of So Bad They’re Good, into which I would put the Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), Santa Claus Conquers the Martians(1964 — I recommend watching it as lampooned by MST3K),  Ernest Saves Christmas (1988) and Santa with Muscles (1996).

Another category I could add would be “forgettable” movies. They aren’t awful but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see them again: Fred Claus (2007), Shrek the Halls (2007), Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas (1977), the Saturday Night Live Christmas compilation (2003), Bad Santa (2003 — not quite forgettable but not worth seeking out either), and Prancer (1989).

There’s also a number I’ve yet to see but plan to, one day — love to hear your opinions on these movies: The Holiday (2006),  Santa Claus (1959 — a.k.a. Santa Claus Conquers the Devil),  The Ref (1994), White Christmas (1954), Holiday Inn (1942), Last Holiday (2006) and Merry Madagascar (2009).