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| If this guy was never born, Potterville would have been SWEET. |
But after a quick look at best Christmas movie lists, I decided that they were all terrible. Here are just a few reasons why they are terrible:
- A Christmas Story is awful. It is unwatchable garbage and I hope that kid does shoot his eye out. This is the Nickelback of Christmas movies. So is anything with Tim Allen in a fat suit.
- Thrillist has a list that whines and complains about Die Hard not being a Christmas movie, and so it doesn't rank it, but then it includes equally barely-Christmas movies like Eddie Murphy's Trading Places, which is a great film (no doubt), but I feel far less Christmas-ey than Die Hard.
- I have never actually seen Elf and likely never will, because every Will Ferrell movie is exactly the same because he only plays the one same character over and over - that character being Will Ferrell.
- Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is not on this list, but you can tell yourself it's #11 if that makes you feel better.
I'm putting this on here more out of a sense of duty that I sort of HAVE to, don't I? I mean my list would be illegitimate if I didn't include this. Is it a little bit hacky? No, in fact. It's a LOT BIT hackey. I'm sorry, fans of classic films who look back romantically at the supposed "Golden Age of Hollywood," but nobody in films back then could act well. Most black and white films have acting that is barely a step up from community theater. This is no different. However, I won't doubt this film's continuing cultural legacy. It's referenced by later works all of the time, not that it in itself was 100% original (come on, you can't tell me there isn't a little bit of A Christmas Carol in there, with a spirit guiding George through his life and making him change his mind about how he looks at it... just in time for Christmas). Anyway - you probably know the story, so I'll only give to an abbreviated version. This is the tale of a filthy and suicidal Marxist named George who ruins Mr. Potter's great Randian vision to achieve maximum capitalism by building, through free enterprise, all of the pawnshops, strip clubs, and whisky bars that the people of Bedford Falls really wanted all along. What? Do you interpret the film in a different way?
9. Jingle All the Way
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| Good, but it's no Shazaam. |
8. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
I've talked about this stop motion classic previously. What more do you need me to say? Go read this Rankin/Bass ranking instead. No. Wait. Not instead. I meant also.
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| The worst parenting until Casey Anthony |
Did you hear that they were trying to remake this? That is stupid. Some things you can't remake. Home Alone. Back to the Future. The Princess Bride. To even try to do so is a fool's errand. Home Alone was magic in a bottle that cannot be recreated. And how would you even re-create this film for the 2020 era? Everybody has cell phones and texting and stuff these days. It would take exactly 12 minutes for Kevin's parents to get a text that he was missing, or to send some police to check up on the house, etc. I dunno. The point is that Kevin's parents are TERRIBLE PARENTS and they left their child behind without even noticing. That happening once is a terrible, unfortunate thing. Like those freak accidents where parent forgets their baby is in the back seat of the car and they go to work all day. But, considering we also have Home Alone 2, Kevin's parents did this to him TWICE. After a second time, you just gotta assume these parents want Kevin to die alone.
6. Scrooged
This is Dicken's famous A Christmas Carol, but with Bill Murray being Bill Murray. If that concept doesn't sound awesome enough to you, then I'm not sure what else I can to to sell you on this movie. There have been near to a million adaptions of this classic tale in film, including another one that makes this list below. Scrooged is one of the better ones. This one is set in the 80's with Scrooge as a douchey television executive who is not named Ebenezer Scrooge. Why? Because the story A Christmas Carol actually exists within the fictional universe of Scrooged, and in a totally meta-move, Bill Murray is making his television station put on a live production of that very story when the same ghosts from the story visit him. To reference my recent Shakespeare rankings, that would be like making a movie based on he plot of Halmet, only the plot of the movie would be about a group of actors performing Halmet, only the actors have similar situations from the play happening to them in real life (like the lead actor being visited by the ghost of his dead dad). Then you'd get to the point of the story in Halmet where they have to act out The Murder of Gonzago, which will now no longer be a simple play-within-a-play, but instead a play-within-a-play-within-a-play. Oh hell.
5. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Chevy Chase is not funny and never will be, however this movie is funny enough thanks to everyone else carrying him. There, I said it. Also, I just want to point out that this movie features the quintessential version of the Griswald children. Those two damn kids kept changing in every movie - but John Galecki and Juliette Lewis are the BEST Russ and Audrey. With all due apologies to Anthony Michael Hall, Dana Barron, Dana Hill (RIP), and whatever forgettable actor was Rusty in European Vacation. Also, wasn't the girl who played Audrey in Vegas Vacation a Latina or something? How on earth did they explain that?
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| Dickens was always meant to be Gonzo. |
As discussed with Scrooged above, this is another version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. You should know the story. Ebenezer Scrooge his a jerk businessman who doesn't care for starving children, his overworked employees, and likes to say shit like, "Bah, Humbug!" Then three ghosts visit him to show him his past, the present, and the future. All of this is an elaborate trick for him to become a better person and learn the true spirit of Christmas. Or something. It's a fine story, and the only way to make it better is to replace Ebenezer Scrooge with Michael Caine and every other character with the damn Muppets. This is the greatest adaption of the story, ever. And it didn't even need to involve child rape. Yeah, I'm talking about you, Steven Knight.
3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas
I am referring to the original, animated version from 1966 here, obviously. There is no Jim Carey in sight for this discussion. Can it count as a "Film" if it's really a 25-minute TV special? I'm just going to go ahead and say, "Yes." A film can be short. A film doesn't have to be released in theaters. Let's set one thing straight, the Grinch was better at the beginning of this than he was at the end. Fuck those Whos in Whoville. You shouldn't have given any of that shit back.
2. The Nightmare Before Christmas
The second greatest Christmas film of all time is, honestly, a Halloween film. Why? Because Halloween is simply a better holiday. It is. It's just that all of you have forgotten the true meaning of Halloween, when the son of our great pumpkin lord sacrificed himself so that we may live without sin. Or with various types of chocolates from the Mars company. Something along those lines. I already told you in #9 I don't know what the true meaning of Christmas is. Pay attention. ANYWAY, you should know this movie by now. Jack Skellington. Sandy Claws. Oogie Boogie. That weird duck-ghost-doctor in the wheelchair. But the real star of the movie is the copious amount of acid that Tim Burton dropped to come up with this thing.
1. Die Hard
This is a Christmas film. 100%. Its setting is a Christmas party in an office. The word "Christmas" is mentioned 18 times in the script. RUN-DMC's Christmas in Hollis plays in the car. The film features Winter Wonderland and a character whistles Jingle Bells. The scenes with Holly's housekeeper and the kids at home prominently feature a house decorated for Christmas. John McClain kills a terrorist, puts a Santa hat on him, and writes a message on him that says "Now I have a Machine Gun, Ho Ho Ho." To hide a concealed gun at the end of the movie, John McClain tapes it to his back with Christmas wrapping tape. That's not just a jokey reference with no importance to the plot. That Christmas-tape gun is literally the thing that John McClain uses to shoot Hans Gruber, which sends the film's villain falling out of the window to his awesome death. The movie ends, and the credits play Let it Snow. Beethoven's Ode to Joy isn't technically a Christmas song, but the stirring playing of it when the bad guys break open the vault gives off a very Christmas movie-type of vibe with a stirring orchestra playing classic music. You could even liken their celebration upon a successful heist to happy children getting their Christmas presents. Like with nearly every Christmas film, there is a type of redemption arc, with John McClain having to go through a lot in order to win back his estranged wife, Holly. Christmas was so essential to the plot of this film, that when they did the first sequel to it, the filmmakers decided that it too had to be set at Christmas time, or else it wouldn't be a true sequel to Die Hard. But the final clincher? The American Film Institute runs a theater near to my home. Do you know what movie they are running for special Christmas showings in their theater 30+ years after it came out? Yeah, that would be this one.
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