To Play Us Out

It’s two days before Christmas, and I have yet to get a single present for anyone.  I am simply a horrible son, brother, friend, etc.  So what I have been doing instead in order to waste my time?  Watching Christmas movies, of course.  I’ve seen eight of these since I’ve been home, and the final two will be viewed in due time.  Anyway, here’s the list, and I apologize in advance — it was surprisingly hard to find good clips of some of these movies, so you’ll have to just accept what I could find:

10. The Shop Around the Corner

I guess this is as good a place as any to explain why I did not include It’s a Wonderful Life on this list.  Besides the fact that I just plain don’t like it, it ranks #1 on The American Film Institute’s list of the most inspiring movies.  I hate inspiration.  I hate uplifting shit.  So it will not be included.  Nevertheless, I will say Jimmy Stewart is the fucking man.  Have you ever seen Rear Window?  He solves a mystery by just looking out a goddamn window.  How about Harvey?  He has an imaginary giant rabbit friend.  The F.B.I. Story? Vertigo? Rope? Basically anything the man stars in is a classic.  So him in a Christmas movie is just about the best thing ever.  Also, this is the basis for You’ve Got Mail.  It’s essentially the same exact movie, except without email, AOL, and whatnot.  And You’ve Got Mail is one of the greatest movies ever.  S0 just by using basic logic, this has to be good.

9. The Polar Express

Letterman was commenting on the movie Avatar recently, and said something to the effect of “Why spend millions of dollars to create animated characters that look just like the actors playing them?  Why not just film the actors?”  I agree to a certain point, but The Polar Express needed to be animated, and for some reason it doesn’t bother me that Tom Hanks’ character resembles him precisely.  If I were making a list of the top Christmas books, this would probably be #1.  And in an industry where many films tarnish the legacy of the source they were based on, I think this movie does the book justice.  Also, random sidenote: my cousin used to be a dead ringer for the kid in this movie.  He’s like thirteen now.  But every time I see him, I’m like  “Hey, remember when you used to look like that kid in Polar Express?”  That could be why we don’t speak more often.

8. How the Grinch Stole Christmas

In all honesty, I do like the Jim Carrey version of this movie (especially this scene).  But the original is way better.  I don’ have a lot to add here, so I’ll just give you some random facts.  The guy who narrates this movie is the same guy (Boris Karloff) who portrays the monster in Frankenstein. During World War II, Dr. Seuss was the  commander of the animation department of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces; I’m glad that we used our resources wisely back then (“I told you — we don’t have the budget for any more tanks!  We spent the last of our funds on the animation department!”).  Additionally, he often drew cartoons depicting his support for the internment of Japanese-Americans (that kind of puts a damper on him, doesn’t it?)  And he smoked a shit ton of weed.  Ok, I made that up, but come on — that’s got to be true.

7. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Ok, so literally as I’m writing this shit, I see a commercial on NBC informing me that the Muppets are about to be on Jimmy Fallon tonight.  This fact alone is almost enough to make remove this movie from the list entirely.  (So, no, it’s fair to say I have not gotten over my hatred of Fallon.)  Luckily, the Muppets and I have a long enough history to where that won’t be necessary.  Here, I would like to start a debate as to which Muppet movie is better: this one, or Muppet Treasure Island? As far as adaptive source, the edge goes to Muppet Christmas Carol (anything by Dickens tops Stevenson’s Treasure Island).  But Muppet Treasure Island has Tim Curry.  So….case closed — Muppet Treasure Island wins.  Tim Curry is a badass.  Have you seen Clue?  Have you seen The Wild Thornberries?  I think I’ve made my point.  But Muppet Christmas Carol is still awesome.

6. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

The whole Vacation series of films is a lesson to movie-makers as to why sequels are, for the most part, a horrible idea.  This is sort of a contradictory statement seeing as how Christmas Vacation itself was a sequel.  But let’s look at the other films in this heptology: European Vacation was pretty goddamn bad, Vegas Vacation was one of the worst movies I’ve ever had the displeasure of seeing, and Christmas Vacation 2 was a made-for-TV movie.  (Except for possibly “direct-to-DVD”, is there any phrase that more implies that a film is absolutely terrible besides “made-for-TV”?)

Anyway, while we’re here, let’s look at the career of Chevy Chase.  Here’s someone who, by most accounts, was once considered the funniest man in America.  Let’s see: I’ve only seen him in Three Amigos (funny) and Caddyshack (I absolutely hate that movie. I know that’s like almost heresy to say that because everyone loves that fucking movie.  But I can barely even finish watching because I find it so unfunny).  Now he’s in that show Community, which I’ve been meaning to watch.  Speaking of which, there is a whole list of shows I’ve meant to get around to viewing, but never seem to have the time: Parks and Recreation (which is odd on my part, because I loved the first season when most people didn’t, and apparently it’s gotten a shit ton better this season), Mad Men, The Larry Sanders Show, The Wire, and Breaking Bad (I could write a whole post about the bizarre career of Bryan Cranston) come to mind.  Anyway, it appears I’ve gone off on a tangent again, so let’s just end it here, shall we?

5. The Santa Clause

I never understood the significance of “Clause” being spelled with an “-e” on the end.  I was like four years old when this movie came out and I had no idea what a clause was.  I mean, I knew it wasn’t spelled like usual, and I figured I was missing something.  Same thing happened when I watched The Sons of Katie Elder.  In a critical scene, John Wayne uses the word “transaction” — having no clue as to the meaning of that word at the time, I (wrongly) thought I was missing a key part of the movie.  That was a completely insignificant tidbit I just shared with you.  Nevertheless, this movie is a pretty decent rebound for Tim Allen, considering all he had done up to this point in his life was deal coke, rat out all his similarly coke-dealing friends to avoid a possible life sentence, and star in a terrible sitcom.

4. Home Alone/Home Alone 2

I grouped these together because they’re essentially the same movie.  If pressed, I would probably choose the original as the superior film, mostly because that bird lady in the sequel scares the shit out of me.  It’s weird that I like this movie so much because, as a rule, I cannot stand gag/stupid comedy.  You know as well as I do that both these movies are full of people getting hit in the groin, or falling down stairs, or (see below) getting electrocuted.  I would usually hate a movie like this — I think a comedy should either be mind-bogglingly stupid/immature OR have a good plot line that supplements the humor.  I tend to not like movies that tries to do a little bit of both, like it can’t decide what it wants to be (I’ll use The Hangover as an example here — it was decent, bordering on good, but nowhere near as hilarious as everyone claims).  Anyway, this is the only gag/stupid comedy that I’ve ever liked (I used to include one of my favorite movies of all time, Dumb & Dumber, in this category.  But I’ve decided that while, at the surface, the humor in that movie is stupid and sophomoric, the basis for most of the jokes is very, very clever).  Finally, I watched Home Alone 3 for the first time the other day.  While it didn’t come close to the standard set by the first two, I will say — not that bad.

3. A Christmas Story

I will admit I was one of those kids who asked for (and received) a Red Ryder BB gun after I saw this movie (unfortunately it did not have a compass in the stock).  It was cool — for about a week.  It’s just one of those gifts that serves literally no purpose.  I’m not some sadistic future serial killer who’s going to go out and shoot squirrels or something.  I shot it at a target a couple of times, and that was about it.  I still have the original carton that the BBs came in, and it’s more than half full (keep in mind I got the gun like ten years ago).  But back to the movie.  My dad loves this film, so I swear on my first-born child that sometime in the future I will get my father a leg lamp for Christmas.  He will be required to refer to it as “a major award,”  and he also must say, “Frageeelay.  Must be Italian.”  If he does not do these things, the gift will be rescinded.  One more thing: the narrator of this movie, Jean Shepherd, is Jerry Seinfeld’s idol.  Since Seinfeld is my idol, what does this make Shepherd?  My grand-idol?  Idol²?

2. Jingle All the Way

I think the voters of California should have been required to watch this movie before they elected Arnold Schwarzenegger governor.  I think the results would have been a little different (ie. him not coming in first place).  I say that because if you judge this movie based on acting, or plot, or any other technical aspect by which you would generally measure a film, this would be (and, come to think of it, probably is) on many Worst Movies Ever lists.  But based solely on pure entertainment value, it’s hard to top.  Every time I watch it I giggle like a little schoolgirl.  I’m willing to wager that many of you have never even seen this masterpiece, so let me give you a quick summary: Arnold plays a neglectful husband intent on getting a TurboMan doll for his son.  Along the way, he gets into many a scuffle with Sinbad (yeah, Sinbad!), who plays a malcontent postman, and a cop played by Robert Conrad (who starred in the original Wild Wild West, which was ruined by the Will Smith remake).  In the end, he becomes TurboMan, Sinbad turns into his arch-nemesis, Dementor (did J.K. Rowling steal from Jingle All the Way?), and they have the penultimate battle.  I really wanted to put this #1 on the list, but I’m not completely crazy.

1. White Christmas

Come on — did you honestly think any other movie would be #1?  An all-star cast of Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, Danny Kaye (little known fact: he is the uncle of Michael Richards aka Kramer), and the hot one whose name is escaping me.  Amazing musical numbers.  It’s got everything you want in a Christmas movie.  I have watched this movie once-a-day for the past five days, and seeing as how tomorrow and the next day are Christmas Eve and Christmas, respectfully (I’ve always wanted to write that), I’m sure the streak will continue.  Ok, so I just looked up the hot one’s name, and it turns out she’s one of these Cher-types with the name of Vera-Ellen.  Also, she’s from Norwood, Ohio, which is very near my hometown.  Anyway, I am very surprised to learn that even though Clooney is supposed to be the older sister, Vera-Ellen is actually seven years older.  Clooney looks way older, in my opinion, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she was in her late-thirties or so when filming this movie; rather, she was only twenty-five.  Nevertheless, let me conclude by saying it was very difficult to choose which clip to play here, because there are simply too many good ones to choose from.  You’ve got “Sisters, Sisters,”  “The Best Things Happen While You’re Dancing,” “Snow,” and “I Wish I Was Back in the Army,” just to name a few (there’s a home video from many years ago of my sister and I performing the latter).  But in the end, I decided the following was my favorite:

Just missed: Santa Claus is Coming to Town; Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Frosty the Snowman; Gremlins; Die Hard; A Charlie Brown Christmas; By the Light of the Silvery Moon.