I’ve had a hard time getting into the holiday spirit this year for several reasons too boring/stupid to recount. It wouldn’t matter except that I am the official Keeper of the Christmas Spirit™️ in my family. This has always been the case in my immediate family since my husband and kid are bah-humbug types.
Over the past almost-10 years, with the loss of my mom followed by the deaths of my grandmothers, it applies for my extended family too. Dog help us, I am now the family matriarch. Someone has to put up the fucking tree and decorations, plan the gatherings, etc., and that person is now me.
That’s okay because I genuinely love Christmas, but when I do feel grinchy come December, it’s problematic for the aforementioned reasons. So, to address the cheer deficit this year, I’ve been watching my favorite Christmas movies. The movies are also problematic.
One of the problematic movies is “Love Actually,” which I’ve watched every December for about two decades now. It’s an objectively terrible movie. If you don’t believe me, please proceed to this immortal 2013 takedown by Lindy West at Jezebel. Love it, hate it, never seen the movie — go read it. It’s hilarious.
Still, I love that dumb movie regardless of its many, many, many unforgiveable flaws. For one thing, it has an incredible cast, including Emma Thompson, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Laura Linney and many other notables.
Also, there’s a reason West’s exhaustive and mostly accurate critique of every problematic “love” scenario in that movie does not include the epiphany experienced by Bill Nighy’s has-been rockstar character, Billy. This occurs when Billy realizes his long-suffering Scottish manager (Joe, played by Gregor Fisher) is actually the love of his life and that their decades-long platonic debauchery has been a lot of fun despite Billy’s constant complaints. So yeah: love, actually. For Billy and Joe, anyway.
My other Christmas movies are the Harry Potter films, which I watch in order. I realize they aren’t strictly holiday-themed, but Christmas figures in several of them, and we generally watch them during the holiday season for whatever reason; it’s a tradition.
The series (books and movies) is problematic mainly due to JK Rowling’s heel turn on trans rights, some legit (IMO) criticism of the use of stereotypes, etc. That said, I’ve personally seen kids who felt like misfits find a tribe — and develop a love of reading — with fellow HP fans.
Also, watching the actors grow up across the eight films is really cool. Especially the transformation of Neville Longbottom! Jesus Christ, who saw that coming? If you’d told me after my first viewing of “Sorcerer’s Stone” that I’d have problematic Mrs. Robinson-type feelings for Neville after “Deathly Hallows 2,” I’d assume someone spiked your butterbeer with Everclear.
Anyhoo, these are my problematic Christmas movies. And since I started watching them earlier this week, I got my tree and decorations done, Drunken Aunties Christmas Cookie night scheduled and family feasts planned. So that’s good.
Open thread.
WaterGirl
Just hearing about the Drunken Aunties cookie night every year brightens my spirits!
edit: Is there a place where we can apply to be an honorary Drunken Auntie?
Yarrow
I think you mean Laura Linney.
WaterGirl
.
WaterGirl
That cookie is the cutest skull & crossbones I have ever seen!
*if that is supposed to be a gingerbread person, pretend that I didn’t just write that.
Yarrow
I’m with you on loving Love Actually. It used to be a Christmas tradition to watch it. Now it’s just too hard. So no.
Is there a Christmas movie where everyone dies at the end? Or maybe one where someone is alone and stays alone and isn’t rescued by a good looking stranger/kind family? Or perhaps one where Christmas is mostly just meh and no, you don’t meet the nice people at the bar and feel festive, nor do you go out to dine alone and get caught up in a group of misfits. You just are alone and other people aren’t. That’s the kind of Christmas movie I need.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@WaterGirl: I have waited so long to say this: por que no los dos?
Suzanne
I am not a big movie watcher, but we often turn on the Lord of the Rings movies around holiday time.
I am also not fucken feeling it this year. Like, I just want the house to be clean. The holidays are so messy.
Suzanne
@Yarrow:
I do enjoy watching Hans Gruber fall from Nakatomi Plaza every year.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: So if you have any decorations up they’ll be coming down the morning of December 26th?
Anoniminous
Christmas
The time of the year when people spend money they don’t have – at up to 30% interest – to buy cheap shoddy shit for people they don’t particularly like. Then the whole clan gathers ’round to open the presents and exclaim just how happy you are to get a Nazi armband and a copy of Mein Kampf from That Uncle. Then comes the family celebratory stuffing-of-the-face while discussing some celebrity you’ve never heard of and his/her/its various STDs, fungal diseases, and/or drug habit(s.) During all this one sits, as one does when eduring one’s cretinous relatives smiling in a vaguely pleasant way when what you’d really like to do is stab them in the chest, eyes, and throat with the carving fork.
Yarrow
@Suzanne: I like it too but for Reasons watching it is too hard for me now. Besides, the main couple get together in the end, so no.
Joy in FL
Florida is a better place because you and your wit live here : )
I know– it’s a very low bar, but that is no reflection on you.
Old School
@Yarrow:
Life of Brian starts with a Christmas scene.
Redshift
@Yarrow:
I think Die Hard is as close as you’re going to get…
Scout211
Oh, yeah. I saw Love, Actually in the theater many decades ago and it was indeed, awful. I never watched it again.
My preferred Christmas movies are the ones from my childhood, so many decades ago. I guess the memory of watching them with my sisters makes them extra special to me. Like White Christmas, Holiday Inn and Miracle on 34th Street, (the black and white one from 1947). None of them are award-winning cinema, but pack a punch when it comes to memories of my childhood. We all have one or more that trigger special feelings and memories. That’s what makes them good movies. At least in our hearts.
Brachiator
Yes, the Harry Potter films work as Christmas movies. I also like Miracle on 34th Street, even though it is a bit corny.
And it is very traditional, but I love the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim. Also, some years ago I saw Patrick Stewart perform his one-man show of A Christmas Carol. Fantastic.
I like Love, Actually, despite all its flaws.
Here’s a “John Lewis” style UK Christmas advert to kick off the holiday season.
coin operated
It’s just not Christmas until Hans falls from Nakatomi Tower.
Campy as hell, but I love that movie
Redshift got there first….
zhena gogolia
@Yarrow:
I believe you’re looking for Black Christmas, with the great Olivia Hussey.
I adore Love Actually and will fight anybody on that. I also love Christmas in Connecticut and Remember the Night, although the latter has some problematic scenes, but it was the 1940s.
ETA: Sterling Holloway is a highlight.
sheila in nc
We always have to watch It’s A Wonderful Life.
Yarrow
@Brachiator:
Nice but if I went to that pub I’d sit by myself and no one would talk to me. Probably some drunk 20-something guy would vomit on my shoes. Happy Christmas.
Craig
Last year 5 days before flying California to East Coast my mom called and said she was positive for COVID. Had probably gotten it 5 days before. I flew to DC and stayed with a friend for a couple of nights waiting for a negative test from mom. I was indoctrinated into my friend Stephanie’s family tradition of gathering and watching Hallmark Holiday Movies. Incredibly bad, but an incredibly entertaining experience. Last year was the debut of the new Lindsey Lohan one. She’s a hotel heiress. Jack Wagoner from General Hospital is her father. Her big city boyfriend is a douche canoe. After she falls off a mountain and gets amnesia a lovable small mountain town guy with a cute daughter nurses her back to health in the small Inn that he’s struggling to keep afloat. I got drunk with Steph and her husband while Grandma and SIL held down the couch with the kids. I didn’t know all these cliches run through the whole genre. Steph’s youngest had printed out bingo cards of all the cliches and everyone had a grand old time pointing them out. Rollicking good time.
Anoniminous
“Lion in Winter” with Peter O’Toole and the glorious Katherine Hepburn. We watch it every year while slogging down the egg nog.
Fraud Guy
@Suzanne: Two thumbs up!
cmorenc
Especially when I was a child, but continuing through my 30s, Christmas was a HUGE deal across my extended family, and now that I am the family patriarch, I have inherited their HUGE set of a couple hundred really nice Christmas tree ornaments.
Except as implied by my now-patriarch status, my parents, both grandparents, and favorite aunt and uncle are all gone, and my two daughters are grown adults, one of them moved to a distant state – and for my wife and me, the Christmas spirit has gone flat as a two-liter coke bottle that’s been left open for a week. We haven’t summoned the mojo to put up a tree for at least 4 years, and before that, the traditional ornament and lights festooned tree shrunk to tabletop size and then kinda dwindled to not bothering with even that.
The missing element is being surrounded by lots if family who were gung-ho about elaborate Christmas gatherings and all the trimmings. I’ve gone a long way from being so excited Christmas eve the last year I still believed in Santa Claus that my wonderful Uncle sat up for two hours reading me stories because I was too wound up with anticipation to sleep or be counted to stay in my bedroom until morning.
I do miss that – but it’s gone, except vicariously through my grandkids the two times we spent christmas with my daughter in colorado.
zhena gogolia
@Craig: SNL did a pretty funny parody where the woman came home and fell in love with her old boyfriend who’s now a serial killer.
Miss Bianca
So, I’ve never watched Love, Actually, which is kind of weird considering how many of my favorite actors are in it. But now that I’ve read a couple reviews (including that Jezebel one, thanks, BC!), I think it’s probably safe to say that I’ll *never* watch it!
Suzanne
@Yarrow: Usually, I try to leave them up until January 2. In 2020, I was really fucken not feeling Christmas (I bet you know why!) and I took them down on Boxing Day.
I hate clutter — hate it — and I enjoy the holiday decorations. And then all of a sudden, I don’t.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I sometimes watch the Cinema Therapy guys on You Tube, and they had an episode about RomComs and how many of the tropes are problematic. There’s also an episode about Love Actually.
sheila in nc
We just got a beautiful new floor in the living room so I’m damned if I’m going to mess it up with a cut tree.
gwangung
@sheila in nc: That’s the closest I have to a holiday tradition, although with a twist. It’s a stage play put on by a local theatre company, where NOBODY knows who the cast is…not even the other cast members…all cast members rehearse by themselves with the director.
The first time they get to know who they’re performing with is the night of the show.
Great fun, and a favorite of the local theatre community–always filled with favorites on the local scene.
Miss Bianca
@Anoniminous: Or in other woids:
Nelle
I wrestled my 17 month grandson down for a nap and promptly took an 11 minute sleep myself. He has RSV and so this is my third day of caring for him (bad work week for his parents) and third trip to Dr coming up. They are monitoring his oxygen levels, lungs, and now he’s getting antibiotic shots for recurrent ear infection. He’s mostly cheerful but wired from the albuturol treatments. So glad I’ve been going to the gym as giving the bucking screaming toddler a treatment involves wrapping my legs around his, pinning his arms and head down. Thank goodness for Daniel Tiger to help calm him during tge nebulizer treatments.
Meanwhile, my husband (age 79) is sick. We’re both vaccinated, though. My unvaccinated sister (age 75) is staying in our basement and avoiding people. She’s paused here for a month, enroute to join her Congolese husband in Kinshasa, where they are retiring. He asked her to wait until after the election as there are rumors and portents of possible violence connected with the upcoming national election. We have room so, since she had packed up to go in November, she’s sort of camping out here.
Haven’t really thought about Christmas.
WaterGirl
@gwangung: That sounds REALLY fun!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I love questionable holiday viewing traditions!
As a kid, I loved some real crap, and a few things that hold up today (guess which ones!)
A Chipmunk Christmas (1981)
A Garfield Christmas (1987)
A Claymation Christmas Celebration (1987)
White Christmas (1954)
Various Christmas-related Disney shorts with Chip & Dale from the 40s and 50s
Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983)
Now that my kids are nutty teens, we have some new questionable favs:
The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)
Christmas Mail (2010)
And as an adult, I’ve really come to appreciate:
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Yarrow
@Craig: That sounds like such fun!
skerry
Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill perform Fairytale of New York at Shane MacGowan’s funeral in Nenagh.
This is just lovely.
Miss Bianca
@gwangung: Whoa, that’s…a weird/wild approach to directing. Wonder what the rationale is?
Not saying I would never use it, just…mind kind of blown.
Betty Cracker
@Yarrow: I did — fixed! Thank you.
@WaterGirl: It is a ☠️ cookie. We’ve collected just about every cookie cutter there is over the years, including a Millennium Falcon and Starship Enterprise, sharks, palm trees, etc.
sheila in nc
@gwangung: What fun! Are you a cast member?
Yarrow
@zhena gogolia: Thanks for the recommendation but I don’t do horror. I have too much of it in RL.
Brachiator
Here’s another UK Christmas advert.
The Weight.
JCJ
The Eddie Murphy SNL skit “Home for the Holidays” from a few years ago is still quite funny
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxVXYp2KIeE
Raoul Paste
Neville Longbottom!! Who saves them all
I also like the movie Scrooged with Bill Murray, just to watch Bobcat Goldthwait chew the scenery
StringOnAStick
It’s just another day to my husband and I. Then again we got married via county clerk on Halloween because we hoped that date would help us remember it; romantics we are not. I had some evergreen trimmings from a pruning project so I spent 5 minutes making them into a pleasing pile on the front porch, and that’s as much as I’ll bother.
What I don’t enjoy about the holiday is the way it turns my drama queen younger sister into a ball of regret and emotional desperation, and always has since she was a pre-teen. Then again, she’s a drama queen and emotionally smothering 24/7/365 so the holidays just put it into hyperdrive. That’s why I would rather not deal with Christmas.
HinTN
@WaterGirl: Since it’s an OT, my calendars came today. The paper and photographs are wonderful but in surprised how bare bones the calendar part is. No dates (holidays or otherwise) are marked. Previous calendars had Eid and far more traditional days identified. Can we ask them to fix this going forward?
Paul in KY
My 6 year old son has taken a liking to the live action Grinch movie. He has watched it 8 times recently. Please kill me now…
I need to let him watch the original cartoon version. Will work on that.
gvg
@Nelle: Oh my. I hope you last, and then take a vacation, or maybe sleep a week. Good luck
I don’t really do Christmas movies. Sometimes I watch the childhood ones if I’m in the mood. You may have noticed I rarely comment on movies or TV. It’s because I don’t watch that much and when I do I don’t have much to say except it was good or bad.
delphinium
Yeah, watched Love Actually once which was enough-thought too many of the characters were annoying or whiny and some of the stories verged into creepy rather than romantic. A far better Hugh Grant movie with some Christmas scenes is About a Boy.
I still enjoy watching some of the older animated Christmas fare such as Charlie Brown Christmas, but my favorite is The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nelle: Oh wow. That sounds like a stressful Christmas
Jeffro
ya slayed me right there, Betty! =)
Our house is looking pretty good inside and out this year, but we probably need to upgrade some of the cheaper, cheesier stuff next year. Well, I say that…but we’ll probably just end up adding more cheap, cheesy stuff. Gotta be true to our roots!
gwangung
@WaterGirl:
@Miss Bianca:
Definitely fun (and a bit self indulgent on the theatre stunt side). It’s put on by the same folks who do 24 hour play festivals (our distinguishing feature is to do two sets of seven short plays back to back).
@sheila in nc: Are you kidding? I can never remember lines (and I’m better loved as a writer/producer than as an actor)(though I’ve participated in the 24 hour play festival…..)
Jeffro
@Suzanne:
My kids LOVE that tradition! Die Hard + Chinese food on Christmas Day, can’t be topped. =)
mrmoshpotato
Have you considered running the cartoon version of How The Grinch Stole Christmas?
BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!
For a couple Christmases in a row, my BiL would put this on. Thankfully, that didn’t become a tradition. I fucking hate this movie. Just no.
WaterGirl
@Nelle: I really hope the parents appreciate you for everything you do for them and for the kids. I know you don’t do it for the thanks, but you are sacrificing a lot.
Of course, bonds with little ones last their whole lifetime, so that’s a big plus in the other column!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
The last 2 years I’ve watched a terrible and problematic movie I enjoy anyway, Holidate. Go ahead and judge me. To be fair, one of my favorite Thanksgiving films is Pieces of April, so clearly I favor sad and cynical female characters.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jeffro: When my son was a kid, he watched Die Hard somewhere, and then told me about it. It seems a bunch of “tourists” broke into this building
Jeffro
@coin operated:
It is WELL plotted and has humor at all the right spots!
I think I saw an ad for a Die Hard-themed Nativity calendar…each day, Hans falls a little further until on the 25th, when he goes SPLAT!!!
Eric S.
I’m pretty meh on Christmas but that’s a big improvement from my previous bah humbug.
In 2020 I started a new tradition. I started hosting a Christmas Eve meal. At first just a couple people that we knew were vaccinated. Last year I was up to 8 or 10 people. Last year I put up a 🌲 for the first time in my adult life.
Suzanne
@skerry: That was awesome. Thanks for sharing it here. That song has been a favorite for a long time.
Other great songs for this time of year:
Joseph, Who Understood, by the New Pornographers
Valley Winter Song, by Fountains of Wayne
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Oh, good, I did not want to be in the doghouse!
Love that you have star wars and star trek cookie cutter. I also have a shark. No palm trees, though.
Paul in KY
@Anoniminous: Great movie! Tho, since I’ve read up alot on Henry II, I get a tad put-off by Mr. O’Toole’s complete difference in appearance from what the actual Henry II was supposed to have looked like. Guess you can’t have everything…
zhena gogolia
@Miss Bianca: You are missing something.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow:
OMG! ROFLMAO!
thruppence
For cheap laffs don’t miss Violent Night with David Harbour as a murderous (in self defense!) Santa Claus
Yarrow
@Brachiator: That is not a UK advert. The steering wheel in the car is on the left side. Wikipedia says DocMorris is an online pharmacy operating in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France and Switzerland. Must be from one of those countries.
Chris
The thing with J. K. Rowling is that her books have enough liberal stuff in them that really spoke to various people that it made them that much more pissed when she turned out to be, basically, a pureblood supremacist. Like, being a werewolf is may or may not have been intended as a metaphor for being gay (possible) or trans (definitely not), but there were gay and trans kids growing up at the height of Harry Potter fandom who have said that they saw it that way. And those people would have grown up looking forward to one day introducing their kids to those books which had meant a lot to them in their childhoods because they seemed to be speaking to their situation.
… Imagine the reaction when it now turns out that the writer of the book is, basically, the real-life Dolores Umbridge. That’s going to shade your opinion at least a little, even if you subscribe to Death Of The Author and are able to still focus on how much you enjoyed the books. And if you do pass the book on to your kids, there’s now a very unpleasant asterisk you have to add.
Emily B.
The Bishop’s Wife has edged out It’s a Wonderful Life for Best Classic Hollywood Picture in my personal canon of holiday movies. Cary Grant for Christmas, yum.
Suzanne
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: “Terrible and problematic” is my favorite genre.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Anoniminous: That’s valid—The whole family is together for Christmas. And it’s horrible for everyone, including the in-laws.
Jeffro
The other must-watch besides Die Hard is The Year Without A Santa Claus.
Because it’s fun as hell to sing the “I’m Mr. Heat Miser” song, that’s why!
evap
I have always loved Christmas, especially when the kids were small. But this year, neither of them are coming, so we said fuck it and booked a trip to Paris and Ireland. We are landing in Paris on Christmas Day and apparently Paris is a great place to spend Christmas. Both spouse and I are having some medical issues right now and I really really hope we don’t have to cancel the trip.
Betty Cracker
@Jeffro: We’ve got the most godawful fake tree with fiber optic lighting that aggressively blinks multiple colors in an obnoxious pattern. I hope no one develops a seizure disorder.
Old School
@skerry:
Thanks for that.
And here’s Nick Cave performing A Rainy Night in Soho.
pthomas745
I would like to remind you that Xmas is more than 17 days away. There is plenty of time.
Getting all excited for Xmas when Halloween drops is about as exhausting as waiting with over excited expectations for the Super Bowl.
Geminid
I think Billy Wilder’s The Apartment is a good Holiday movie. Some Christmas, some more New Year’s, and maybe a little bit of Festivus mixed in too.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I have a couple of my grandparents’ ornament sets. They are now-vintage, peak midcentury, bright colors, reflectors, etc. So I bought a silver mini-tree last year (and some Shiny-Brites), and I put it up in my dining room window. I LOVE IT, IT’S EPIC.
Ksmiami
@Yarrow: krampus is a good, dark holiday tale
Chris
Lethal Weapon (the other big eighties Christmas time action movie, along with Die Hard) is probably my biggest problematic Christmas fave. For the extremely obvious reason.
As with Harry Potter, the fact that there’s plenty of stuff I like in the actual story is part of the annoyance; all four movies in the franchise basically pick a controversial headline topic (Vietnam, apartheid, gun control, and illegal immigration respectively) and proceed to take the most in-your-face liberal stance on it that they can. The movies still have their “problematic” parts even before you get to the lead actor, but they still often have me going “man, I’m not sure any big budget action movie today would have the stones to do this.”
I still rewatch it from time to time (and its sequels), but I know plenty of people who basically refuse to because of Mel Gibson, and I definitely can’t fault them for that.
Geminid
@pthomas745: What are you gonna watch? The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?
Tony Jay
Harry Potter, the early ones at least, are very much Christmas films. Magic and owls and terrible, terrible jumpers.
Doctor Who Christmas Special. Any of them. They all do the job.
I confess I don’t mind bits of Love Actually. Yes, it’s a terribly twee sugar dummy covered in caramel and jelly beans film celebrating a fictional version of that very particular slice of oh so very, very comfortable north London Curtis lives in, but it’s well constructed and gave us Bill Nighy the movie star, so okay.
Christmas Eve, got to be Arthur Christmas. I’ll let people mess around with Elf and Polar Express during the afternoon, but after The Snowman (and sequel) and a bunch of Julia Donaldson animations (Gruffalo, Stickman, you should know the drill) it’s time to settle down before bed with Arthur and his dysfunctional family and the little girl who absolutely will not be waking up the next morning without the present she’s asked for. Love it.
BR
This video and post I saw on Mastodon is a good reminder when it comes to the border security debate:
https://sfba.social/@Mikal/111542862751517784
CaseyL
The things I really like about Christmas are:
The decorations (lights, particularly) to go look at, not to put up myself, tyvm
The subversive takes, like “Die Hard is a Christmas movie.” And Betty Cracker’s idea of what is a Christmas cookie.
The enormous bag of historical and anthropological antecedents that led to the creation of Christmas as a Christian holiday. I can amuse myself for hours listing the rituals, symbols, holidays, and liturgies looted from other religions, cultures, and societies to come up with this one. One of these days I should do the same for Easter (“even the name is pagan, for gods’ sake!”).
Sister Golden Bear
Love Actually can’t be nearly as bad as The Happiest Season, which got of press for being the first lesbian holiday romcom. Straight people loved it, but the vast majority of queer women hated it because Harper’s behavior towards Abby was appalling. Starting with surprising Harper spontaneously inviting Abby to join her family — and then mid-drive mentions that she’s not out to her parents, and wants Abby to pretend to be her “friend.”
I realize the director was trying to shoe-horn a coming out story into conventions of the holiday rom-com genre, but happy ending was exceedingly rush and unearned, which could’ve easily been fixed with a few more minutes of running time. Not to mention not doing the alternate happy ending we were really rooting for, and would’ve made for a far more interesting movie.
Brachiator
@Yarrow:
Yep. The advert is Doc Morris. The song playing is apparently by a UK group.
The YouTube channel is all about similar style Christmas adverts.
WaterGirl
@HinTN: Huh. Do you have a calendar from a previous year? If so, can you take a pick of one particular month (hopefully with multiple holidays that would normally be marked?
Let’s say you pick July – can you take a pic of July from the previous year and a pic of July from this year? And then send me both photos?
thanks.
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: I admit I love those silver trees. Do you have the rotating light of diff colors to highlight the tree?
Sister Golden Bear
Also too… Mood:
Suzanne
@Chris: So my undergraduate degree is in visual arts, and of course, I had to take many semesters of art history.
I think 90% of the artists we studied were terrible people. Degas was a pedophile. Caravaggio was a murderer. Carl Andre probably pushed Ana Mendieta out of a window. On and on that goes. And that’s to say nothing of people with problematic opinions or who treated their wives badly, etc etc etc.
So I usually can separate art from artist. There’s a few exceptions, like seeing Bill Cosby’s face now grosses me right TF out. So I get that not everyone makes the same judgment calls that I do.
SuzieC
@Old School: That was fabulous. Thank you.
Suzanne
@MagdaInBlack: Not yet! I might go to Target and get some.
We have a normal Christmas tree that gets the family ornaments, but this little one is where I get to have my fun.
delphinium
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Have you seen the Thanksgiving movie, Home for the Holidays? Features some family dysfunction so might be one you’d enjoy.
VFX Lurker
I try to watch Sky One’s 2006 live-action adaptation of The Hogfather every winter solstice. Someone puts a hit out on the jolly fat man, so Death adorns the red suit and fake beard to deliver gifts and keep children’s belief alive.
I try to watch the rest of the Sky One Discworld adaptations after that. The newest addition this year will be Sky Cinema’s lovely adaptation of The Amazing Maurice.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: It sounds fabulous! And I agree 100% about problematic artists.
arrieve
I am having the perfect 2023 crapfest situation with regard to Christmas this year, even though I realize it’s very first world problems.
I am scheduled to be on a cruise in the Middle East, beginning in Athens and ending in Aqaba, Jordan, including a transit of the Suez Canal. I haven’t been on a cruise ship in many years, and really wasn’t interested in doing it again, but after my (mostly) wonderful trip to Peru in June, I was thinking that now was the time for a splurge, to use up all of the credits and points and refunds from the four trips that got cancelled in 2020. And I happened to see a reference somewhere to the scene in Lawrence of Arabia where he sees what appears to be a ship sailing through sand dunes and realizes it’s the Suez Canal. So I looked for Christmas cruises that transit the canal and found one that included an overnight stay in the Valley of the Kings plus a few stops in Saudi Arabia. And I could spend a few days in Jerusalem, where I’ve never been, after the cruise was over.
So obviously the cruise is now cancelled, right? Wrong. They’ve changed the itinerary–no Sinai, no Valley of the Kings, probably no Saudi Arabia though that’s not official yet. But the ship apparently has to get to Asia for the winter cruise season, so it’s going through the Suez Canal and Red Sea no matter what. And for the passengers, our only recourse is to go anyway, stopping at whatever ports the cruise line decides to visit if any, or stay home and lose all of our money. (I have insurance of course, but it turns out that cancelling a trip because of war is not covered. Seriously.)
I am supposed to leave in ten days. Apart from not really wanting to spend any time floating around in a giant target in a war zone, it feels more than a little obscene to be going on a vacation under these circumstances.
I honestly wish I could get Covid again.
/end of first world problem rant
Ealbert
Two of my favorite “Christmas” films are While You Were Sleeping (with Sandra Bullock) and The Ref (with Dennis Leary). Watch for the grandma in these movies (Glynis Johns in both). In While You Were Sleeping she is this lovely ditsy lady and in The Ref she is the grandmother from hell.
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: I have a 3ft white on I decorate with green fairy lights, little flamingo lights and gaudy exotic not found in nature bird ornaments
Right now its not feeling to hopeful it will make it up, but there’s time. 🎄
Chris
@Suzanne:
Yeah, it’s kind of like boycotting a controversial company: I generally embrace the view of “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism,” so who we choose to boycott is pretty much arbitrary. But that doesn’t mean I have any problem with it: sometimes it’s just that visceral reaction, like you said with Cosby.
(Personally the only movie I’ve ever boycotted was Ender’s Game, and it was sheer contrarianism on my part – I could ignore the writer’s nauseating politics, but right around the time the movie came out I saw him losing his shit about how boycotts of the movie were an attack on his free speech, which triggered my petulant pigheaded inner child right away. Because fuck you, Orson, the founding fathers may have done some stupid things, but they sure as hell didn’t put anything in the Bill of Rights that says you’re entitled to my eleven dollars, and now you’re not getting them ever. I freely admit that this is in no way mature or rational, but God damn, it felt good).
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
I live “The Holiday” with Jude Law, Kate Winslow, and a wonderful Eli Wallach, but then I read an analysis of the plot, timeline etc. and it all fell apart. Sigh. I still love the movie (guilty pleasure), but don’t try to have it make sense.
And have you noticed how many “Christmas” movies don’t actually have Christmas morning in them? Miracle on 34th St (another vote as a favorite movie) is an exception.
JoyceH
Love Actually – not a fan. I first saw it on disk from Netflix when it was already an iconic feel-good romantic movie, and I was frankly baffled. I don’t mind multi-plot ensemble-cast movies, but… I described it as going to the multi-plex and darting in and out of the various theaters, all showing movies in different genres.
Die Hard – LOVE it! Not just a great movie, but I’ve always been impressed by the sheer guts of the movie makers. Remember who were the action stars of that era – Schwarzenegger and Stallone. And they make this huge budget action movie and the only Name they have on the cast was famous for being a snarky TV rom-com star. I saw a trailer for Die Hard on television before the movie opened, and I still remember my reaction verbatim – “Bruce Willis? REALLY?” And the villain was a British stage actor that no one in America had ever heard of. So basically – brass balls!
Marc
I’ll admit that I used to force my wife and daughter to sit through A Christmas Story every Christmas until the latter left for a high school year in Japan. I used to listen to Jean Shepherd late at night on the radio, and had the honor of driving him from my college in Worcester to Logan Airport once when he came to speak. What a trip that was.
skerry
@Old School: The entire service is so good. We can all hope for people singing and dancing at our funerals. A true celebration of Shane’s life
HinTN
@WaterGirl: I’m on it.
Geminid
@arrieve: Maybe there’s a drone spotting enthusiast who will buy your ticket. Drones are flying all around the Red Sea now. They might even get to see a ballistic missile or two.
currants
Hats off to you, @BettyCracker:
It takes a lot of energy to honcho holidays for multitudes, and I am not sure I wouldn’t just leave the position open and see what happens. (Does that give away that I am burned out? Oops.)
I’m looking forward to an early Christmas Day walk on a New England beach and mulled wine with gingerbread cookies. And a good book.
JoyceH
When Mom was still alive, she and I and Jane would watch 1776 every Christmas – I had it on VHS. I should see if it’s streaming anywhere…
Tony Jay
@Chris:
I salute you for that and applaud your decision. Orson Scott Card can go slide down a splintery pole big mouth first and not stop until it’s poking out if the orifice he usually yammers declaims from.
Ghastly little prick of a man.
Sister Golden Bear
@Betty Cracker: Pictures or it didn’t happen.
Black Onion
I am starting a new annual tradition of watching the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special. This will be the second time I’ve seen it. I also have a long list of non traditional Christmas music I love to play, aside from the traditional Nat King Cole and Charlie Brown Christmas album.
Here’s a few of the others:
https://youtu.be/km9iS2tcRZE?si=C8suBmaHLH2IesC_
https://youtu.be/PrL1_gyG4MU?si=Jor2WnHz9GQAnRRa
https://youtu.be/rB1YR9b7UPc?si=n9dqvQlSDaO52GOM
https://youtu.be/fCNvZqpa-7Q?si=AdsXHPd8y9v_yZRg
Dangerman
Not a Christmas Movie (obviously from the Title), but “The Lost Valentine” with Betty White and I forget her name is a lovely little movie. Have some tissues handy in case of sudden dustiness.
ETA: Youtube has it in it’s entirety.
Craig
@Jeffro: yes. After my intro to Hallmark Holiday madness last year we all watched and sang A Year without a Santa Claus. Brilliant fun.
sixthdoctor
Newer Christmas specials on my watchlist include the following on Hulu: Letterkenny (“The Three Wise Men”, season 5), last year’s Bob’s Burgers episode (“The Plight Before Christmas”, season 13) and the Solar Opposites Christmas special.
And if the Roku channel interface doesn’t drive you to drink like it did me, the Friday Night Dinner Christmas ep (season 2) is great…
Gin & Tonic
@evap: Make sure you don’t leave Kevin at home.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne:
To me there’s a difference between an artist who’s dead and (long) gone vs. someone who’s alive today and actively hurting people around them and/or trying to harm people at-large, especially when they’re punching down at the downtrodden.
BTW, definitely not a critique of you, just talking about how I draw those lines in my own head.
Gin & Tonic
My dear wife, whom I love unreservedly, *loves* the Hallmark Christmas movies, so that’s all she watches between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Since she has some hearing issues, a while back we invested in wireless headphones that carry the TV sound, so the volume on the TV itself can be set to 0, and peace can reign.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@evap: Hope you both are better soon and can have a wonderful Christmas is Paris
Chris
@Tony Jay:
You don’t have to be so respectful. He’s an asshole! Go ahead and cut loose!
getsmartin
Eraserhead is our favorite Christmas movie.
HinTN
@WaterGirl: You (should) have email.
West of the Rockies
Sister Golden Bear, the director (Clea DuVall) is a lesbian who said the story is semi-autobiographical. A line from the film comes to mind: “Everyone’s coming-out story is different.”
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@JCJ: I’ve always liked Steve Martin’s SNL Holiday Wish https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uVUSBi3u0E
My view every year holiday movies are Elf, A Christmas Story, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Also, not a movie, but A Charlie Brown Christmas is a must view. Not sure whether any or all of those are problematic but they don’t seem so to me. I HATE that Apple bought exclusive rights to A Charlie Brown Christmas and that it’s no longer airing on network TV. It’s an institution and nobody should lock it up like that.
Steeplejack
@Marc:
I really like A Christmas Story. It’s sort of overexposed now, but I had read Jean Shepherd’s original stories and was delighted to see how faithful the movie was to them. (Insert plug for Shepherd’s collection Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters.)
I like A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life from the old days. I think Elf is a modern classic. (“You sit on a throne of lies!”) And an offbeat suggestion is the Inspector Montalbano episode “Montalbano’s Croquettes,” which is set around Christmas and New Year’s. (“Croquettes” = arancini.)
And Vince Guaraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas album is pretty much the only Christmas music I need.
Chris
Not a movie, and not problematic that I’m aware of, but the first season Christmas episode of The Librarians has turned into a bit of a holiday tradition for me. I really wish I’d been in the room when someone first suggested “hey, what if Bruce Campbell played Santa Claus?”
Suzanne
@Chris: I boycott some stores that I hate, but if I’m being honest, it’s (at least in part) because I don’t like the store anyway. Like Walmart, Chick-FIL-A, etc.
I have said before, “I would boycott them for being WRONG, if I wasn’t already boycotting them because they SUCK.”
But, then, I like Hobby Lobby a lot, and yet I stopped shopping there due to their shitty politics. So…. it’s personal and inconsistent, just like me.
I also don’t like the transitive property that I see in some spaces…. “You eat at Chick-Fil-A, so you’re homophobic for supporting them”. Like, stop. I will never forget seeing this hilarious Twitter exchange in which this woman was going on and on about fair trade and ethical consumption, and then she admitted that she was a cocaine user, and of course she got absolutely dogpiled for being a total hypocrite. I laughed very hard.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@delphinium: I haven’t, but yes, I’m a sucker for family dysfunction movies.
p.a.
The Family Man is a pretty good xmas movie if you can deal with Nick Cage. On the plus side: Téa Leoni & Don Cheadle.
Steeplejack
@JoyceH:
Not streaming anywhere, but you can rent it for four bucks at the usual places.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: I’m with Fred. Just saying.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Geminid: Is that the one where Jack Lemmon’s character is letting his bosses use his apartment for their extramarital trysts?
Suzanne
@Sister Golden Bear: Yeah, I get it. Where I drew the line on J. K. Rowling was that she already had my money, but that she wouldn’t get any more of it. So since learning that she’s an asshole, I won’t purchase any Harry Potter stuff. But I’ll still read what I already bought.
But, like, “Sweet Child o’ Mine” comes on, and I sing along and dance like a lunatic around my kitchen…. even though Axl Rose beat the living shit out of Erin Everly, who is the subject of that song.
Citizen Alan
@sheila in nc: I viscerally hate It’s a Wonderful Life. My RWNJ sister basically puts the main TV in her house on the Hallmark Holiday Channel in October and leaves it on and running until the end of the year. And because they all have the same basic plot, it’s like one long saccharine movie (about an absurdly beautiful city girl who comes to a hick town for Christmas, falls in love with an absurdly handsome hick, and abandons all her city friends and her professional dreams over him) that NEVER ENDS!
Chris
@Suzanne:
“Ah, so you don’t give money to corporations, you only give money to guerrillas, paramilitaries, death squads, and cartels! … many of which, just to ice the cake, happen to moonlight as Pinkertons for, you guessed it, corporations.”
Old School
@Suzanne:
Years ago, I was at a client’s place and he was eating Chick-Fil-A for lunch. He was gay, so I expressed surprise at him doing so. He shrugged and said, “It’s a good sandwich.”
narya
@Yarrow: Bad Santa? it doesn’t meet all of your needs, but it’s a Christmas movie. Otherwise, how about something like a Mel Brooks film festival? Or, two of my personal favorites, This is Spinal Tap and My Cousin Vinny. I’m not sure whether you want to try to forget the crap through which you’re going or whether you want to do something holiday-related. Or The Good Place, if you want a whole series.
Here’s another thought: teach yourself to knit or do some other needlework/handwork. (I don’t knit very well, but I do fancy needlework of various sorts, and I find that it can be meditative and satisfying.) There’s a knitting/sewing group near me that knit a whole bunch of hats for refugees, and if were any good at knitting I probably would have made some so I could at least feel useful.
You’ve said things are a nightmare right now, and that must be very difficult. I’m sending you many wishes for moments of peace in your life.
Tony Jay
@Chris:
He’s a… he’s a… he’s a Smeeeeeeg Heeeeeead.
There, I said it.
Chris
@Citizen Alan:
I actually love It’s A Wonderful Life just for the political context. Being a staunch Republican and FDR-hater, Capra (and Stewart) didn’t mean to write a New Deal era celebration of the little guys struggling to keep their heads above the water in a world ruled by a rich bastard who’s determined to own all of them… but that’s what he wrote, and it was blatant enough that the FBI reported it to HUAC as suspected communist propaganda.
Suzanne
@Old School: I used to work with this guy who is gay, and he loved Chick-Fil-A, and he wanted to go there every week for lunch (a group of us often went together). And when we all found out they were terrible, he was like, “Nope, not going to eat it anymore!” and that lasted for two weeks. He told me I was good for not eating it, and I was like, “Friend, you’ve got to enjoy life”.
Then we got a new colleague, also a gay man, and he also loved Chick-Fil-A, and he told us that it was a form of resistance when queers ate there. LOL.
Citizen Alan
@Chris: I had thought HP werewolves were a metaphor for homosexuality from the moment Remus Lupin first showed up. Unfortunately, it was a horrible metaphor for lycanthropy, because there are only two named werewolves in the entire series. One is Remus who is filled with absolute self-loathing over his condition. And the other is Fenrir Greyback who is an evil monster who deliberately targets children for conversion.
JK Rowling was what first caused me to develop my theory that wealth beyond a certain point makes people turn crazy, evil, stupid, or some combination of the three. If JKR hadn’t become a billionaire and actually needed to worry about future success for her brand, she might have been a transphobe but I bet shouldn’t have kept it to herself rather than make an absolute spectacle of herself while trying to get a five-movie franchise off the ground (that ended after only 3 films).
satby
They sang the Christmas song at Shane McGowan’s funeral today.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Citizen Alan:
I know, RIGHT?! I really want a movie where the beautiful country girl comes into the city for a work event or conference, has something happen that makes it so she’s stuck there for a few weeks more, falls madly in love with an absurdly handsome city guy, and abandons all her country friends/family while finding a better job in the city. Somewhere in there, the old boyfriend comes into town and we find out he’s kind of a jerk.. a bit racist, a tad homophobic, and definitely a misogynist. This embarasses her in front of city guy’s mutli-cultural and LGBTQ+ friends. She learns the true meaning of support, acceptance, and kindness just in time for the holidays.
MaryRC
@Geminid: And for those who are looking for something on the darker side, almost everyone in The Apartment has a lousy Christmas. Things pick up a little at New Year’s.
RevRick
Since I’m the official Christian in the Jackal horde, I’ve always had to bifurcate the secular and the religious celebrations.
First of all, I think the secular version is frankly nuts, what with its impossible expectations and horrid shoulds and musts and have-tos. And I shudder at the massive injustice that the lion’s share gets dumped into the laps of women. I can scarcely imagine how many women across America are flailing themselves trying to get done all the shit that this secular season demands. The only upside seems to be that the season serves as a reminder that it might be a good idea to support charities which support children and needy families. But that is at best a marginal benefit.
Second of all, it’s a struggle preserving a niche for the season of Advent, even in churches, since the rush to get on with it invades sacred spaces as well. God forbid we fail to sing Christmas carols now. And then there’s the special treat of the often painful amateur hour known as the children’s Christmas pageant. Let me tell you, there’s a lot of pastors muttering their own “Bah, humbugs.”
So, we resort to exchanging silly memes on Facebook in order to preserve our sanity and keep some semblance of integrity to the story. Like imagining Christmas cards featuring John the Baptist thundering, “You brood of vipers!” and tee-heeing about who we would send that gem to. A lot of the Scripture lessons for this season proclaim promises for a longed-for future where the world is made right, where even lions lie down with lambs without thinking “lunch!” And then comes the capstone of Christmas itself, which, if you step back and think about it, is fuckin’ hilarious.
We want God to fix us, for us, and the answer is, “Try this newborn on for size?” And the Angel Gabriel shows up to get the party started and get Joseph to chillax. Yeah, there’s an angel chorus, but the only ones who hear are the dregs of society. Some wise men/astrologer priests will show up twelve days later, but they only stir up trouble with the imperial powers and there’s hell to pay for the rest of the town. Even in church we have to contend with the notion that Christmas Day is the climax, when it’s really the beginning of a twelve day celebration. In my autumn of life I find Christmas in the carols we sing in church and the candles which illuminate. And the story that confounds all our expectations.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: I boycott Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby too, and I liked both before I found out about their owners’ hideous politics. But I’m totally random with my boycotts and patronize brands run by the devil. Life is complicated.
Captain C
@narya: Bad Santa is the most hilariously wrong Christmas movie that I know of. I have a friend who used to (and may still) host a viewing every holiday season.
Suzanne
@Chris: Yeah, the supply chain on cocaine is…. not renowned for being a positive working environment. LAWL.
catclub
We watch “The Snowman” and “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”
… I’m walking in the Air….
Citizen Alan
@Emily B.: Ironically (in light of the discussion of Love, Actually) , my favorite scene in The Bishop’s Wife is when Cary Grant comes right up to the edge of declaring his love for Loretta Young (despite the fact that she’s a married woman and he’s an angel!), and she, realizing where the conversation is going, immediately shuts him down and basically tells him to leave town. I don’t know why that moment resonates with me, but it always has. Perhaps because as a child I’d always hoped to someday meet and marry someone who would unhesitatingly choose me over someone who looked like Cary Grant.
TBone
This takes me to a special place of childhood memory even though it’s not my childhood
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv4-sgFw3Go
And the animated The Snowman is amazing too.
Suzanne
@RevRick:
I usually agree with you on almost everything…. But the various children’s pageants are absolutely one of my favorite things about this time of year. Some of them have been fucken hilarious. God. Absolute comedy gold.
Poe Larity
Why not go Film Noir for xmas? The Lady In The Lake and Blast Of Silence are Criterion choices. Lot of bodies in both and they celebrate the season, appropriately.
Captain C
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I like this description of basically all Hallmark small town movies from xitter (not going to link):
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Citizen Alan: The Bishop’s Wife was redone, and the remake is good… The Preacher’s Wife. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117372/
tony in san diego
Die Hard is a Christmas movie!
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Is The Snowman available streaming anywhere?
Also, there was a sequel?
I LOVE THE SNOWMAN so very much.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Captain C:
<Spits hot tea on computer screen> LOLOLOLOLOLOL! That is hilarious!
Citizen Alan
@Tony Jay: Doctor Who’s A Christmas Carol is my favorite reimagining of the Scrooge story. I gasped out loud at the reveal of the “Ghost of Christmas Future.” And Michael Gambon’s response to it made me tear up.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I try to shop a lot at Costco, because they are known for paying their employees well, and I know they have a lot of sustainability efforts at the corporate level. But, I’m sure there’s plenty of shady shit going on there, too. And I love Amazon Prime, and my iPhone, and almond milk, and I’m such an imperfect ally.
Origuy
@RevRick:
Traditionally in Ireland, January 6 is Women’s Christmas. The women go out together with their friends while the men take down and put away the decorations.
gratuitous
@Ealbert: Yes, the Ref is the holiday movie to see. I don’t know if it’s better just before or just after, but as a sop to one’s inner Denis Leary, it’s unparalleled.
Captain C
@Suzanne: I’m kind of amazed at how many of the True Revolutionaries(TM) and Anticapitalists(TM)* that I know unironically enjoy their cocaine on the regular. I mean, I’m generally not going to substance-shame if I don’t have to deal with the consequences, but don’t claim you’re all for Justice and Socialism while helping fund some of the worst capitalists (and employers) on the planet.
Also, apparently there’s actually a movement for fair trade cocaine and conflict-free opium. Not sure how big or active, but it does appear on Teh Google.
*I strongly suspect that many of these are artsy trust fund kids who at least partially use their strident rhetoric to cover up the comfortable lifestyles they enjoy that their parents or grandparents pay for.
West of the Rockies
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I’d watch that movie!
arrieve
@Geminid: Oh I know. Visions of drones bearing ballistic missiles are dancing in my head in lieu of sugarplums.
RevRick
@Origuy: Since January 6th is Epiphany, that is a revelation! At least they’re doing something.
hitchhiker
I’ve always liked Love Actually, and I think Lindy West is a goddess, and my preteen girls grew up reading the HP books as they were being published, and my adult daughters still love the books, and they both flatly rejected the movies when they realized that Hermione had been cast as a pretty girl, and I cannot find it in me to see evil in Rowling (yes, I have read what she writes about trans issues, no I don’t get the hate for her), and the thing about this Christmas is that suddenly there are not one, not two, but THREE toddler grandkids, including a pair of twins who were born during the Jan 6 riot, and who are therefore turning three, and also including their cousin whose 2nd birthday was Tuesday … I’ll probably watch Love Actually in spite of all the nonsense in it, because I think it’s magical the way they managed to insert some very lovely & true moments into what is essentially a parody of romcoms.
Like xmas itself, it shouldn’t work, but somehow once in a while it does.
Betty Cracker
@arrieve: I hope you figure out an elegant exit. First world problems are still problems!
Martin
We watch Elf, and that’s it for conventional holiday content. Then it’s on to our strange YouTube series that we have christened holiday traditions, which gets a new entry every year.
zeecube
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
@Ealbert: The Ref remains in our Xmas rotation despite Kevin Spacy. Ms ZC is Norwegian and from New England and just loves the references and Leary.
Chris
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I’d just be happy with a Hallmark Christmas movie where the beautiful high-priced legal/marketing/wev city girl ends up stuck in… the same city she’s always been in, but, y’know, Southeast DC or South Central LA or [insert stereotypical inner-city low-income neighborhood]. Even without changing anything else, that’d be such a breath of fresh air.
The classic Hallmark Christmas movie just reeks of that “the only really authentic Poor People are the ones who live on a mountain five hundred miles from me or any other major city” self-consciousness that so many upscale city folk have. The ones who eat up all those New York Times stories about the diner patrons in Smallville, Kansas, but would never dream of riding five stops farther on the metro to meet the plebs in their own town; they’re just not, I don’t know, folksy enough!
FelonyGovt
I don’t much do Christmas (or Hanukkah either) but my favorite Christmas movie is Comfort and Joy , a Bill Forsyth movie set in Glasgow around Christmastime involving a jilted radio DJ and warring ice cream truck owners.
C Stars
I’ve tried to read all the comments but am late to the thread. Agree that About a Boy is far superior to Love, Actually as a Christmas movie. Although this year we were talking about watching About a Boy with the kids and one of them said “Isn’t that the one where the mom tries to kill herself?” and I realized that the overdose/vomit scene is basically the one thing they remember about this movie and it has caused some trauma so maybe we won’t be watching that one again.
A Christmas movie our family does love unabashedly is Pee Wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special which was made in 1988 and is gloriously camp with cameos from Annette Funicello and Zsa Zsa Gabor and Magic Johnson and oh all kinds of folks. Not really a movie with a real plot per se but more of a variety show–just like all the Pee Wee’s Playhouses. It makes me LOL.
Anyway we have been so busy we haven’t even gotten a tree yet and Mr. Stars just got some unexpected and not great news on the job front so very much feeling the bah humbug vibe on this post.
Martin
We mostly boycott all holiday shopping and gift giving, because it’s almost universally terrible and wasteful. I don’t need more shit to throw away. Sometimes I think of a really good gift for my wife but maybe every 5 years. Instead we turn it into a holiday for all of the things we’re thinking of getting but weren’t sure if it was too indulgent or not, and like, yeah, go get that thing.
Chris
@Captain C:
Miami Vice got four decent seasons of television out of the basic thesis statement that the eighties’ drug and crime epidemic and its Reaganite politics were two sides of the same coin. And it wasn’t exactly the only corner of pop culture to make the connection; “the mob as a metaphor for capitalism” is a whole genre of gangster movies.
Suzanne
@Captain C:
I don’t even mind saying you’re supportive of something while falling short in your actions. What I really mind is when people criticize others for being insufficiently committed to whatever cause. Like, stop. We’re all doing our best here. I’m not gonna begrudge someone a Chick-Fil-A sandwich and tell them they’re a homophobe. I have plenty of my own failures.
Layer8Problem
@West of the Rockies, @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Agreed. This movie needs to be made, damnit.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
Dunno, sorry. It’s most certainly going to be on BBC over Christmas, along with the sequel The Snowman and the Snowdog, which yes, does include a very cute doggie. It’s not quite as amazing as the original, but it does a very good job of trying.
@Citizen Alan:
We watched that just last week and yes, it holds up very well. Gambon had one of those faces that just radiated whatever emotion he was going for while barely moving an inch.
WaterGirl
@TBone: I have the same question I posed to Tony Jay. Is The Snowman streaming anywhere. I had it on DVD but no longer have a DVD player.
Barbara
@arrieve: My husband signed on with a group going to Israel for ten days beginning the day after Christmas. Thankfully, United Airlines canceled our flights, and that was after the tour operator had already canceled everything else, so we are not going anywhere and are getting most of the money refunded.
It wasn’t hard to find your cruise. It is literally the only one going anywhere near Aqaba Jordan in the next month. The line is one of the most expensive and exclusive on the market. It’s hard for me to believe they aren’t going to cancel and it’s possible that they might be playing a game of chicken to see how many guests cancel first. Don’t do anything that makes you feel unsafe and by all means visit the CruiseCritic site to see what others are saying or suggesting.
RevRick
@Suzanne: Oh, no doubt. But it’s mostly unintentional. And they’re often sweet and charming. But kids can get just as anxious and self-conscious about their performances, so I try not to laugh.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Okay, I will go tell Tivo to record The Snowman and The Snowdog if it’s available anywhere.
thank you
JustRuss
I guess Nobody’s Fool isn’t really a Xmas movie, but it takes place during winter time and I think I first saw it at my in-laws around Christmas, so I’m claiming it. Love Paul Newman’s performance, the role fits him like an old pair of socks.
Sister Golden Bear
@West of the Rockies: Yes, I’m well aware that the director is a lesbian, and her script was semi-autobiographical. That made it all the more disappointing, i.e. she’s someone who ought to be more sensitive to the problematic aspects of the movie.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
There won’t be a dry eye in the house.
Speaking of cute dogs, I think Christmas is also a great time for all the Wallace & Gromit films. That claymation mutt is a hell of an fine actor.
catclub
@WaterGirl:
I have it on VCR tape and STILL have a player! Ha!
But no Sony Betamax…
Suzanne
@JustRuss: That movie is so good.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: Yeah, it’s complicated, and I’ve done similar things with living/recently dead artists who already have my money.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Chris:
Agree.
Yutsano
The 1985 Gremlins is a Christmas movie.
Prove me wrong.
Sister Golden Bear
John Carpenter’s The Thing is a Christmas movie. Think about it:
– Endless snow
– Uninvited guests
– Being stuck with people you don’t necessarily like
– Unexpected surprises
– The evening ends with people drinking around a roaring fire
Change my mind.
West of the Rockies
@Sister Golden Bear:
I thought Abby should have ended up with Riley. Yes, Harper was pretty terrible. But realistic or not, a number of the characters learned some valuable lessons and became better people. A hopeful lesson for the holiday season, IMO.
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Found it on YouTube.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
In other first world problems, the USB port on my skytracker detached from the logic board, so I have no way of charging it. It is now a brick. I won’t be doing any astro shots until I get a new tracker.
C Stars
@Sister Golden Bear: Yeah, I really just can’t with anything JK Rowling. I think maybe if you don’t have a trans person in your life who you love you could kinda see your way past it, but I actually can’t even really speak her name without getting mad. She’s put the bulk of her energy and public persona in the last few years actively trying to hurt and disempower vulnerable people–and children–who have done nothing to harm her and it’s unforgivable.
The other part of it is that I genuinely think (and thought, before I knew she was a bigot) that the HP books were fun enough, but fairly overrated. I much prefer Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, and others, who wrote the same sorts of books but with far a far lighter touch. Whereas the last half of the HP series is just so many endless chapters of self-serious sturm and drang that I ended up skipping to the end of most of those books.
Captain C
@Suzanne:
That’s just it. Don’t crap on someone for being imperfect when you’re happily making similar mistakes for your own benefit.
(cf. my cosplay revolutionary former friend who essentially lived-and probably still lives-off his parents’ largesse while crapping on me for being a ‘spoiled government worker’, that is, a librarian. Said jerk even had a part time job doing maintenance at a library while doing so. When I called him out on that, plus being more or less on permanent vaction, he shut up pretty quick.
ETA: By the end of our friendship, he was also dabbling in genocide denial and other faux left propaganda. Probably supports Putin and his invasion of Ukraine as well.)
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Anoniminous: Best movie line ever: “I’d hang you from the nipples, but you’d shock the children.”
Sister Golden Bear
@West of the Rockies: I know it was trying to follow the fantasy conventions of the holiday rom-com, but the overnight changes of heart/forgiveness is what ground my gears.
They could’ve end up at the same place one year later, but inserted a montage with voiceovers of Abby/Taylor rebuilding their relationship, the parents reconciling with their kids, etc. I realize wouldn’t have been light and fluffy, but to me they’d already missed the mark on the tone.
Geminid
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Yes, Jack Lemon plays Bud Baxter and Fred MacMurray is Mr. Sheldrake, his boss. Ray Walston is one of the other executives who uses “Buddy Boy’s” apartment for trysts.
Shirley McClain is elevator operator Fran Kubelic, and Jack Kruschen plays Dr. Dreyfuss, the neighbor who schools Baxter on being a “Mensch.”
Billy Wilder, the director, was an Austrian Jewish refugee who escaped France ahead of the Nazi invasion. I think Wilder’s outsider’s point of view is what makes this story of 1950s Manhattan so good.
C Stars
@WaterGirl: OH haha read y’all talking about The Snowman and when I googled it the first thing that came up was a Norweigan murder mystery and I thought “no thanks!” But no, you are talking about the very sweet animated movie that I now remember from my childhood….
Sister Golden Bear
@RevRick:
You may well have heard this one before, but…
Holy Infant so tender and mild implies the existence of an unholy infant so tough and spicy.
johnnybuck
Billy Mack is the best thing about “Love Actually.” “Christmas is all around us” cracks me up every time I see it. The rest of the movie not so much.
Yarrow
@narya: Thanks for your kind words. Bad Santa is funny. I am not much of one for needlework or knitting or anything like that. Even if I was I’m not sure I could do it. Many days I am so drained at the end of the day that it’s all I can do to turn on the TV. One day recently I was so exhausted that I hated what was on the TV but I was so tired I couldn’t even pick up the remote to change it. I just sat and watched it until I could summon the energy to turn it off.
My neighbor calls me a cautionary tale. As in, don’t be me. We both laugh but she’s not wrong.
Comrade Scrutinizer
For a different kind of movie, there’s always Rare Exports: A Christmas Movie. A much better seasonal fit than Die Hard.
C Stars
@Geminid: That’s a great movie, hilarious and a surprisingly effective critique of capitalism.
Rachel Bakes
@Betty Cracker: oh God. My MIl has one like that; it gave me a migraine the first year so I asked it be put on solid color with the handy remote!
NotMax
Funny + snarky + holiday-y is the Norwegian series Home for Christmas on Netflix. 2 seasons , 6 episodes in each.
Miss Bianca
@gwangung: I can only picture that working with people who know each other really well or some pretty seasoned pros.
(This is my second year directing our community staged reading of A Christmas Carol, so I am trying to imagine myself taking that approach with my group!)
ellie
We really like The Ref. It’s problematic because of Kevin Spacey. But Christine Baranski is a gem. And, of course, Bad Santa, It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, Rudolph and Charlie Brown.
Sister Golden Bear
@Miss Bianca: You could call it A Rude Mechanicals Christmas Carol.
Rachel Bakes
Seasonal viewing in our house includes:
The Grinch (only the original); Charlie Brown Christmas; A Very Monkey Christmas (curious George if you could r guess); Ted Lasso Christmas episode; White Christmas; While You Were Sleeping; The Goes Wrong Show’s Christmas Carol or Peter Pan; A Midwinter’s Tale; and Desk Set. Sometimes Love, Actually.
I’m not a Die Hard fan (sacrilege, I know) so husband watches it alone.
watched Shaun The Sheep A Flight Before Christmas last night and it was darling.
December is a marathon before you get to the 3 family birthdays and juggling younger child’s various family and friend birthday parties. Need to decorate this weekend though thr tree waits for after his birthday next week.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Captain C: if you want a Wrong Christmas Movie, let me recommend Rare Exports, a Finnish horror movie about the Real Origin of Santa Claus. It has cute kids, reindeer, local traditions, single parenthood, black humor, and violence.
It is becoming the Christmas movie of choice for my former housemate and I.
Remember, the Finns are a people who decided it was a good idea to encourage their children to become ice hockey goalies.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: I used to talk about how much I hated that movie – couldn’t even finish it the first time I tried to watch it! – and annoying my cinephile friends with that opinion.
Then I tried it again a year or so ago, and lo and behold, there was the masterpiece my friends had raved about.
Yeah, it is a good holiday movie!
sab
@Yarrow: Lion in Winter? They fight all Christmas then Henry sends Eleanor back to house arrest/prison.
MagdaInBlack
@sab: Kinda like Xmas with my in-laws……except the prison part. Prison was just being there with them.
Rusty
I feel seen! I’m the one that does all the decorating, gets and puts up the tree, buys all the food and cleans. The spouse thankfully does the gift shopping, which is almost all online now.
I’m also a big fan of Love Actually. We watch it every year, usually Christ.as night when everyone is recovering. It’s cheesy, fun, sad, and human. The people who find it “problematic ” are the same folks who angst about Baby it’s Cold Outside. The kind who can’t tell flirting and the human condition from actual harm. They just need to be killjoys. (There, I said it). As for other Xmas movies, the family favorite is Christmas with the Kranks. We watch that typically Thanksgiving night to get us into the holiday spirit. Hickory Honey Ham is a deep family joke.
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH: Oh, I forgot that 1776 used to be on TV during Christmas! At least it was in Detroit.
I was in 7th grade in 1976 and we did (carefully edited) excerpts of 1776 for our middle school spring production.
Imagine my surprise to be introduced to the movie version a few years later!
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: Edie Adams is good as Mrs. Olson, the secretary with the cats-eye glasses who drops the dime on Sheldrake.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Artificial trees for any taste? Their own web site is kaput but they still appear to be actively offering product on Amazon.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: OMG, I have to find that!
I also have to find the Christmas episode of Grimm – can’t remember which season, third or fourth? – where the Grimm has to battle a Krampus creature, and he ends up punching out a street Santa, leading to the immortal “lesson learned” from a TV announcer: “Deck the Halls, not Santa.”
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep. Team Fred all the way.
Yarrow
@sab: A movie about a couple? No thanks. I need miserable single people who don’t meet anyone, who have no family, who don’t get invited anywhere, who live lives of drudgery and misery where nothing magical happens and who die alone and unloved. Where’s that fucking Christmas movie?
Josie
@Nelle: Your description of the nebulizer treatments remind me of dressing my 5 year old autistic granddaughter or getting her strapped into her car seat when she is having one of her meltdowns. I thank goodness for all those years of weight workouts. I’m really getting too old (80) for this stuff, but needs must, right?
ETA: Five minutes later, she hugs me and tells me she loves me. She forgives easily.
Geminid
@Josie: Keep pounding that half-and-half. If your son gives you a hard time, pour him a glass and tell him you’re worried about him getting osteoporisis.
Miss Bianca
@Captain C: Wait, cocaine is still a thing?
(Haven’t even thought about it since the 80s.)
Another Scott
@Suzanne: A neat twist on that truism is Snap Judgment – 13 ways to destroy a painting (11:42 audio).
Cheers,
Scott.
Nelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Just back from the doc. Actually, I feel strong and capable. Calling on my ancestors and their strengths. Just want people to either help or get out of the way!
Josie
@Geminid:
???
Origuy
@Yarrow: May I suggest Trading Places?
Geminid
@Yarrow: That’s the plot of A Christmas Carol, at least up until the ending.
H.E.Wolf
My favorite problematic Christmas movie is “Desk Set”, a 1957 film starring Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.
It is *very* 1950s, with a whole host of problematic tropes. Nevertheless, I’m always charmed by the central romance, and I always feel sorry for the woman who tends the giant computer: the screenplay makes Miss Warriner an unpleasant stereotype.
Happily, that actor (Neva Patterson) had a nice supporting role a couple of decades later – in an episode of “The Rockford Files”, of all places – as the owner of a construction company, wearing jeans and a hard hat and negotiating with her crew boss, on the umpteenth open floor of a high-rise in progress. Hooray for Miss Warriner!
(Not her name in the Rockford Files episode, but still.)
Barbara I
Yes, upvote for Desk Set – human brains beat machines … Another Old movie if you want a sad one is Meet John Doe (very timely now, just check out Edward Arnold’s character) and 1930s Frank Capra. Also still have a soft spot among cartoons for “Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol” – very good distillation of Dickens in less than an hour, and with good songs, including Peggy Lee as Belle singing “Winter was warm”
Miss Bianca
@Sister Golden Bear: Now, that’s funny! And not only because I’m picturing calling my touring players group “The Rude Mechanicals”.
@Yarrow: Uh…that *is* Christmas Carol you’re describing there. Well, a little over half of it, anyway.
Geminid
@Josie: The subject of cream and its health value came up here once, and you mentioned you liked cream and half-and-half but your son discouraged this because he thought these foods were unhealthy. Or at least, that’s how I remembered it.
Miss Bianca
@H.E.Wolf: I love Desk Set too – in fact, I think it’s my favorite Tracy/Hepburn outing.
I forgot about the Christmas setting – that may have to go on the seasonal viewing list!
Josie
@Geminid: I can’t believe you remembered that. He has finally given in on the half and half, but he is still disgusted by my fondness for heavy cream. Also by my low carb way of eating. My reply is that he should try being old and female and see what happens to his waistline.
sab
@RevRick: I try to keep the commercial and the religious Christmases separate. Advent is an important part of that for me. We always have the Advent candles. I don’t make us hold off on decorations until Christmas Eve, but we don’t decorate until the third Sunday in Advent. And I do regular cookies now, but nothing decorated for Christmas until Christmas. Then everything comes down for Twelvth Night. So our Christmas starts at Christmas and lasts a couple of weeks, instead of starting after Thanksgiving.
Our local classical music station helps a lot on that. A lot of their audience is Jewish, so they don’t want to overdo Christmas music, and there is wonderful Advent music that is just somber yet hopeful, not all that seasonally recognizable, and perfect for the shortening days and growing cold of this time of year.
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: The Rainmaker is a very different Katherine Hepburn movie made a few years before Desk Set. It also has a lot of dubious material from mid-20th century patriarchal culture and my friend Joan just won’t watch it because of that.
I believe Hepburn won an academy award for that one. Burt Lancaster might have won one too if his character Starbuck had not been so subversive.
The Rainmaker was a Broadway play first and the movie is a fairly exact rendition. I’m not sure it’s ever revived on stage though.
Sister Golden Bear
@Miss Bianca: It would be a like a Muppet Christmas Carol but with craftspeople. 😁
H.E.Wolf
@Miss Bianca:
My beloved and I watch it almost every year when the Christmas season rolls around.
Not only does it have Tracy and Hepburn, but also Joan Blondell at her sassiest and most streetwise!
JML
I keep getting sucked in by Last Christmas, even though it’s not a very good movie. But Emilia Clarke actually kinda saved it on the sheer force of her charm and 1000 megawatt smile. (I have no idea what Emma Thompson was thinking, though) It’s definitely a Problematic Christmas Movie, IMHO.
Love Actually is another one that gets “saved” through some of the performances. But yeah…mess of a movie. But Hugh Grant’s bumbling charm somehow works. Lucia Moniz sells it, Liam Neeson is good…I can’t help it.
H.E.Wolf
@H.E.Wolf:
The first time I saw “Desk Set”, it was at the Friday night movies at MIT. Everybody cheered when Spencer Tracy’s character was introduced as an MIT grad.
Then when [Christmas-gift spoiler redacted] occurred, the roof nearly flew off the building. :-)
(I wasn’t a student there… but I found out, decades later, that my maternal grandfather had been….)
WaterGirl
@C Stars: Yes!
H.E.Wolf
@Geminid:
That’s one of the Hepburn films I haven’t seen, partly for the reasons you mentioned.
Broadway did a remake of the musical version of “The Rainmaker” (“110 in the Shade”) in 2007, with Audra McDonald and John Cullum. Ms. McDonald played the character Hepburn had played in “The Rainmaker”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3tkzEKglEI
H.E.Wolf
@Barbara I: Yes, upvote for Desk Set – human brains beat machines
“Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight!!”
E.
I used to read “Dubliners” every Christmas. Joyce’s hate-letter to his hometown. I’m no longer single and don’t do it anymore. P.S. that Jezebel article was hilarious, thanks for linking to it.
AnthroBabe
@Ealbert: YES YES! My fave movie this time of year is The Ref. Additionally, for the snappy dialogue: The Man Who Came To Dinner, with Bette Davis and a wonderfully sarcastic Monty Woolley!
SadOldGuy
There is always Satoshi Kon’s classic anime film Tokyo Godfathers, about three homeless people who find a new born baby while dumpster diving and attempt to return the child to its mother.
TBone
@WaterGirl: I found it out YouTube last year! Here’s a link
https://youtu.be/VbC8sOqSRKY
Hope that works and brings the joy!
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Yarrow: Try Rare Exports. It’s set in the far north of Finland, which looks pretty harsh in and of itself, before you add the horror elements.
Yarrow
@Miss Bianca:
@Geminid:
No it’s not. A Christmas Carol is all about warning poor Scrooge. And it’s all saccharine in the end. Nope, nope, nope.
Reading through this thread makes me want to vomit. All the “my beloved” and “family favorite film” and “we always do this or that.” Christmas is for people who have family and people who care about them. Everyone else is left out. As usual.
Yarrow
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): I don’t do horror films. My life is full of enough horror, thanks.
RevRick
@sab: Even when culture seems to be on “our side” the reality is that we have to carve out a space that resonates with our faith. Because culture can never truly be on our side. Thank you for sharing how you manage the season.
frosty
My favorite Christmas movie: Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis. It doesn’t get better than carolers at gunpoint. Forget Die Hard. Geena is far and away more badass than Bruce Willis ever thought he was.
RevRick
@Sister Golden Bear: No, I haven’t heard that before, but that’s hilarious. And evidence that 19th century sentimentality had already infected the story.
arrieve
@Barbara: Yeah, this whole cruise was so far out of my comfort level to begin with because I am not a dress up and eat in fancy restaurants person but I loved the itinerary and I thought I could just sit on my balcony and read–which was always my favorite activity on ships anyway. And now I’m sort of stuck. I’ve been reading various online message boards and many people are in similar situations. And it feels petty to be so upset when the whole situation is so monstrous.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Perhaps Blackadder’s Christmas Carol ticks off the right boxes.
;)
gwangung
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, these are all pretty good, seasoned actors. It’s a bit of a theatrical stunt, but it serves the purpose of bringing the theatre community together as a community….half the fun is seeing who plays what and the other half is seeing folks playing off the totally unexpected….
pthomas745
@geminid
I’ll watch none, thanks.
WaterGirl
@TBone: Yes, thank you so much!
West of the Rockies
@Yarrow:
Eleanor Rigby comes to the big screen this holiday season.
prostratedragon
Some blue Christmas movies, in no particular order:
The Apartment (carries over to New Year)
Meet John Doe
Brazil
Eyes Wide Shut
Only The Apartment ends in a way that suggests, to me anyway, that the characters might do better ever after than limp along, perhaps rather badly.
West of the Rockies
@West of the Rockies:
I suppose If We MMake It Through December (Phoebe Bridgers’ version) might make a interesting Christmas movie.
Gretchen
I’m away watching daughter’s 1 year old twins while she packs to move. 2nd daughter said nobody watched my kids when I packed to move with a 1 year old. Um, I picked her older kid up at school at 1 5 days a week and watched him until she got off work for years, but I didn’t do this specific thing I did for her sister. Third daughter just moved back to hometown, wants to go to a football game Sunday, I won’t be there to watch her kid. Why did she move home anyway? Lined up a friend to watch him. Friend exposed to covid. Dad is of course in town, but close to useless for child-watching, so again my fault for not being there…. And I’m missing my book club tonight so feeling a little sorry for myself. Husband never seemed to care about Christmas but is asking me where the decorations are stored. Maybe they’ll be up when I get home?
Splitting Image
@Yarrow:
Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean comes pretty close. He does have a girlfriend at that point but he fixes that by giving her a Christmas present.
H.E.Wolf
@Yarrow:
I apologize for the wording I used, and the pain it caused you. You’re one of the commenters I greatly respect, and I am so sorry to have done that.
Soprano2
@Yarrow: You need a TV with Alexa. Mine keeps trying to get me to activate it, but I don’t want to. You might like a TV you could turn on and off just by saying it.
My husband insists that we watch “Babes in Toyland” every year because, even though it’s set in the summer, it has stuff about Christmas in it. I’m not a big fan, although I resign myself to it every year. We also watch “A Christmas Story”. My mother lived in Chagrin Falls until she was 9, and she said everything about the movie is authentic. I wonder what they do with the tree between the time they get it and the time they decorate it. The first time I saw the scene with the bunny PJ’S I thought I would die laughing.
Gretchen
@Origuy: I’ve never heard of Women’s Christmas. What an amazing idea!
WaterGirl
@Gretchen: That’s the kind of thing that can wear you down and make you tired in a way that even working super hard doesn’t.
This is probably about jealousy between sisters and really has nothing to do with you, but I’m sure that’s not how it feels when you’re in the middle of it.
It’s hard to be taken for granted, but when it’s really in your face that you are unappreciated, it sucks even more.
Hugs. I hope your husband surprises you with decorations or some other thoughtful act.
RevRick
@Jeffro: Die Hard is Not a Christmas movie. It’s the story of an outnumbered force with limited resources reclaiming a tower which had been taken by a foreign invader. That’s the Hanukkah story. Die Hard is a Hanukkah movie.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: Thank you. The oldest has always been a bit jealous of the attention her younger twin sisters always got, and when they both moved to the east coast she got all the help and attention. But one moved back, and the other had twins and has taken a good bit of my time – I basically moved in with them for the first three months. I had surprise twins with two older kids with no local family and zero help, so I was determined to make it easier for her, and she appreciated that. But until then I had been 100% available for oldest and her kids, so the balance is off. I still pick up her son and keep him 3 days a week after school, but hadn’t for 3 weeks when I got covid, and then when I got better told her I was going to NY for 2 weeks. That’s when she complained that I never did it for her, while I was literally dropping off her kid after watching him after school. I’m mostly appreciated, but sometimes on the margins they’re clueless.
WaterGirl
@RevRick:
Only on Balloon Juice would we learn that!
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: Although James Stewart is one of my favorite actors, I too hate It’s a Wonderful Life.
Robert A Savell
Hi Life (1998). Best Christmas movie ever!!! Can’t believe noone from this crowd has mentioned it yet.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Come sit by me. Have never actually seen it all the way through. Not enough barf bags on hand.
Tehanu
My favorites have already been mentioned, some of them several times — Alastair Sim’s Christmas Carol and Patrick Stewart’s — and “Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol” — then Scrooged, Christmas in Connecticut (Barbara Stanwyck! Cuddles Sakall! Reginald Gardiner! Sydney Greenstreet!), The Ref, MIracle on 34th Street (the original), the Christmas parts of Meet Me in St. Louis. I will also confess to enjoying White Christmas as long as I’m allowed to fast-forward through the stupid parts. Then there was, about 35 years ago, a short-lived sitcom called “The Famous Teddy Z,” starring Jon Cryer and the great Alex Rocco as his mentor, Al Floss. The episode “Season’s Greetings from Al Floss” was one of the best things I ever saw, not to mention that one of my top all-time favorite character actors, Bill Macy, was in it. And the original Grinch, and “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” and …
@Citizen Alan: I too loathe It’s a Wonderful Life. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life, sitting down to watch it after all the paeans to it I’d heard, and being absolutely revolted by it, especially what was done to Donna Reed’s character.
@JustRuss: Nobody’s Fool is such a wonderful movie! Thanks for reminding me!
rayb
Periodically, I listen on Audible to the Harry Potter books performed by Jim Dale. I think I read somewhere that he said he does over 300 voices. Just great.
Paul in KY
@Old School: Appreciate the link. RIP Shane.
Paul in KY
@Old School: I hate the fuckers that own Chick Fil A, but my son loves it & I must confess: they do do a fine chicken sandwich.
Paul in KY
@sab: It’s like Royal Festivus!
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: I knew a little girl who would watch the movie (for the bazillionth time) and then (this is the age of videotapes) put it on reverse and watch that.