Like It Is

One of the fun things my husband and I love to do at Christmas is watch our favourite “Christmas” Films. Not by going to the cinema though. By staying warm and cosy indoors and enjoying our very own theatre. And being childfree our time and choice is completely our own. Having many of our favourite films/movies on DVD makes this something we look forward to every year.

We’ve sorted our Christmas films into three main groups: primary, secondary and tertiary, according to when we watch each film/movie. So, tertiary movies, for example, are those we watch around this time, a couple of weeks before Christmas. They might not be that Christmassy but they have a Christmas tie-in somewhere.

Here’s the list, which I thought I’d share with you. I use film/cinema and movie/theatre interchangeably. They mean the same thing. I am personally more comfortable with “film” being a Brit, but I do live in North America and have both UK and North American readers so I’ll use both.
Tertiary Christmas movies for us are:

Love, Actually – We watched this last weekend. With so many major stars in its cast, this should have been a much better film than it was. Our take is that Martine McCutcheon must have been sleeping with some producer somewhere, not only to get into this film, but to get a starring role. She adds nothing to it, and she still manages to remind me strongly of her barmaid role in Eastenders. (Shudder!)

Bridget Jones’ Diary What can I say? Renee Zellweger got the accent so spot on, Hugh Grant played the bastard so well, and Colin Firth was a dreamboat as always. Any doubts that this is a Christmas film, can be dispelled with a look at Colin Firth’s sweater.

Mouse Hunt A rather mean film, but absolutely hilarious. Not that much of a Christmas tie-in, but we just think of it at Christmas. And there is snow outside…

Secondary: Getting closer to Christmas, so every evening we’ll probably watch one of these:

Die Hard – The ultimate modern Christmas disaster movie from which we can now practically recite the one-liners backwards. Actually, my favourite actor in this film is Alan Rickman. One of the things we love about Die Hard is that somehow it manages to make sleigh bells sound menacing. Think about it.

Die Harder Still quite tense and a fun film to watch, even though you know Brucie saves the day and the plane; and that the twin flame bit at the end was pushing it just a little bit too far. And it’s Christmassy because it takes place on Christmas Eve at the airport. Most of us have experienced Christmas travel insanity, so it resonates well.

Trading Places – One of my favourite John Landis films and a great Eddie Murphy performance. The photography and imagery of Philadelphia in the opening credits still awes me. Most comical moment? When Eddie Murphy looks straight at the camera, that is, he comes out of character for a split second. He does it only once, but it is priceless. Perhaps not all that Christmassy a film, but it works for us. And my husband says that there are worse things to look at in the Universe than a young Jamie Lee Curtis in a sweater and Santa hat.

Serendipity – Don’t remember much of this film, but I do remember liking it and that it has a Christmassy setting. At least in the background.

Primary –These are the Real Deal. Our favourites for Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.

A Christmas Story – A marvellous film, I love it. It reminds me a lot of how I saw Christmas when I was a child. which is pretty strange as I grew up in the UK and this is set around the II World War in middle America. Ah, Christmas in Kid-dom! As Ralphie says “Christmas is the high point of the entire kid year.” And the dig at adults is really great – the most telling scene with this one is when the teacher says to the class (after one child had been dared to put his tongue on the frozen metal flagpole)…” and I know the child who did this will be feeling really bad and come forward..” wherein Ralphie says as an aside “…Adults are always saying things like that. Every kid knows it’s much better not to get caught…”

A Christmas Carol – this one is a classic. I never get tired of it, maybe because of the simplicity of the message). Of course, in the UK we know it as Scrooge. Directed by Alistair Sim.

Scrooged – A modern rendition of a Christmas carol, a bit scarier, and darker, but the message is the same as in A Christmas Carol. Scrooged grew on me, as it is one of Sweetum’s all time favourites. Hip, knowing, smart and great performance by Bill Murray as a very self-aware Scrooge. Well, it was directed by Richard Donner.

It’s A Wonderful Life – What can I say that hasn’t already been said about this Christmas classic? We have the Silver Screen classic edition. And this year is the movie’s 60th anniversary. Have to say though If I had been George Bailey, with all the shit he put up with from those people, I’d have run far away and started a life somewhere else. Sod them all!

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation - An example of how people tend to block out the negative aspects of having a houseful of relations over the holidays.

The Ref – This movie is now one of my firm favourites and I was introduced to it by my husband. The first time I watched it, for the first half hour at least I totally disliked it, thinking what is this pointless movie? But now I simply love it. It manages to be fairly nasty and have a great message at the same time. If you hate Dennis Leary, you really should not watch this film. He is not everyone’s cup of tea by any stretch of the imagination. But if he’s no problem, and you watch the Ref, then you need to give the movie a chance going in, at least an hour. It’s not as nasty as it seems, but it definitely isn’t for kids. And it is just a slight exaggeration of what really does happen for many at Christmas.

The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (J. Carrey) This is really not that great a film, and it’s rather overdone. Jim Carrey does ham it up a little too much. But it is a Christmas film, no doubt of that. Though the animated TV version is more beloved, we think the message in the J. Carrey film is more realistic and more adult.

Badder Santa – Another totally mean film, and it isn’t as bad as it could have been. The movie itself is called Bad Santa, however the DVD we have is called Badd-er Santa because it has added footage and more violence. It’s a Christmas film because it is set around Christmas. The message is one of the thinnest redemption messages in a Christmas film I’ve ever seen, because he does it almost by accident. You really need a bleak/black sense of humour to appreciate this film. For example, you’ll either find the young woman with the Santa fetish is either screamingly funny or pretty offensive – but nothing in-between. There is no middle ground in this film. At all.

Elf – We found this a very engaging Christmas film. I didn’t think I would like it but I did. Will Farrell played an elf almost too well!