25 Days of Christmas (and other holiday) Movies.

[JBatmanFan05]

Lethal Weapon is also a good deal of a Christmas movie, with the imagery and everything. Kinda surprised that rarely gets mentioned (outside of some online articles).

[Jared]

December 21. A Christmas Carol (1984).
Santa Claus: The Movie (1985).



There's a million adaptations and spoofs of A Christmas Carol. I haven't read the book, but I suspect this was made to be more accurate to it than most. I know I've seen parts of this before but I can't say I remembered the particulars well. I couldn't help but laugh when the The Ghost of Christmas Present says, "look beneath my robe!", and there's two little kids there. Also, he's rather misnamed ghost, since he's more like like the Ghost of Christmas Tomorrow. The sets look great, but I wasn't wild about the design of the ghosts. George C. Scott is fantastic, of course.




Somehow I've never even heard of this movie before. The first half is a Santa Claus origin story. Having recently read Grant Morrison's Klaus, I got a kick out of this, though it's much kinder gentler version. Later the movie transitions to the modern (80s) day. David Huddleston, who I don't recall playing many good guys, makes a convincing Santa. Dudley Moore plays an elf designer trying to be his assistant. John Lithgow plays a typical 80s Businessman Villain who makes dangerous toys and wants to put Santa out of business. If the whole movie had been more about Santa's history through the ages rather than going into a typical holiday special plot, I think this could have been at least a cult classic.

Lethal Weapon is also a good deal of a Christmas movie, with the imagery and everything. Kinda surprised that rarely gets mentioned (outside of some online articles).

I don't know, to me Lethal Weapon just happens to to take place around Christmas, it doesn't feel like Christmas.

[Darth Phoenix]

my fave movies to watch each Xmas are

1Gremlins

gremlins christmas.JPG

and Batman Returns



batman returns.jpg

[Jared]

December 22. Gremlins (1984)


I've seen Gremlins 2 many more times than this one. It's surprising just how different the tone is between the two of them, the sequel is pure farce while this a mix of (gentle) horror and comedy. It's a bit like the jump from the first Evil Dead to Army of Darkness, with no Evil Dead II in between. Key an Peele even did a skit on how crazy the sequel is.

Gizmo is adorable. If the people who make Ferbies got the license for him, they'd make even bigger heaps of money every Christmas.

It's been a while, so I was surprised to (re)learn that the creatures are never formally associated with mythical gremlins. That's just what the old guy calls them, as earlier he had a drunken rant about how the Germans put Gremlins in Allied plans to make them malfunction.

It's a little disturbing that the mom kills three gremlins in her kitchen before she even knows how dangerous they are. All she's seen them do by that point is make a big mess. Being married to an idiot inventor has clearly given this woman some rage issues.

[Darth Phoenix]

December 22.
I've seen Gremlins 2 many more times than this one. It's surprising just how different the tone is between the two of them, the sequel is pure farce while this a mix of (gentle) horror and comedy. It's a bit like the jump from the first Evil Dead to Army of Darkness, with no Evil Dead II in between. Key an Peele even did a skit on how crazy the sequel is.

Gizmo is adorable. If the people who make Ferbies got the license for him, they'd make even bigger heaps of money every Christmas.

It's been a while, so I was surprised to (re)learn that the creatures are never formally associated with mythical gremlins. That's just what the old guy calls them, as earlier he had a drunken rant about how the Germans put Gremlins in Allied plans to make them malfunction.

It's a little disturbing that the mom kills three gremlins in her kitchen before she even knows how dangerous they are. All she's seen them do by that point is make a big mess. Being married to an idiot inventor has clearly given this woman some rage issues.

ooo they did
gizmo f.jpg

[Jared]

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976)
The Mistletoe Promise (2016)
Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Bad Santa (2003)
A Christmas Horror Story (2015).
Saturday Night Live Christmas Special (2016).
Black Christmas (1974).
Merry Matrimony.
A Christmas Carol (1984).
Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)
Gremlins (1984)

Dcember 24. Scrooged (1988).
Die Hard (1988)


Scrooged is my personal favorite version of a Christmas Carol. Bill Murray at his best, it's both genuinely funny and has some heartwarming Christmasy goodness. In some ways the TV network setting makes it feel like a precursor to 30 Rock.




My brother and I have a tradition going back four years now, we watch Die Hard on Christmas Eve and have a drinking game of it. This year we started earlier and drank more than usual, which made for an unpleasant hangover on Christmas morning. But still, traditions must be upheld. Die Hard remains a perfect action movie, BTW. Seriously, try to name one flaw or bad scene in the movie. . Can't do it, can you?


That makes a total of 14 seasonal films for the year, I'm satisfied with that. Maybe if thee was something about Boxing Day, whatever the hell that is, I'd have added another today. The only New Years movie I can think of is that lame Love Actually wannabe from a few years ago.

[AndrewCrossett]

Well, I just watched Albert Finney's Scrooge tonight... a day late, but I make sure to watch it every year. I'm afraid I only watched the usuals this year... several Rankin-Bass specials (Frosty, Rudolph, Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town and The Year Without a Santa Claus), A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the original), the original Miracle on 34th Street and Scrooge.

I tried to watch A Christmas Story, which believe it or not I have never seen. But I only got through the first ten minutes. I found the constant narration too irritating. Show, don't tell.

It's not really a Christmas movie, but I will probably watch Frozen sometime between now and New Year.

[Jim Kelly]

I also tried to watch A CHRISTMAS STORY a couple years ago--after having gotten through my whole life without seeing it--and after ten minutes gave up on it. Then on that Christmas my sister surprised me by giving me the DVD. I had to pretend that I was interested in watching it--and now it's tucked away somewhere still in the wrapper.

I did not watch any of my four traditional shows this year. Those are the Alistair Sim A CHRISTMAS CAROL (aka SCROOGE--the only version of this story I want to see); IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE; A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS; and HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (TV version obviously). They all actually tell the same story.

Maybe it's time to make new traditiions.

[Jared]

It's not really a Christmas movie, but I will probably watch Frozen sometime between now and New Year.

I'm pretty sure it takes place during the summer.

[AndrewCrossett]

I'm pretty sure it takes place during the summer.

They've started showing it on TV during the Christmas season, though. Any song with snow in it will quickly become a Christmas song, and any movie with snow in it (except maybe Doctor Zhivago) will quickly become a Christmas movie.

[Jim Kelly]

When I was growing up, THE WIZARD OF OZ was shown on TV each year at Christmas. And every year you had to watch it. As a consequence, I'd usually have that nightmare the night before Christmas--that nightmare being about the Witch's striped socks curling up under the house--the part of the movie that scared me the most, more than the flying monkeys, more than the I'm melting scene.