Last year around this time, my friends and I saw Die Hard on the big screen, which was amazing and it totally holds up. I will not be engaging in a debate on the issue of whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie (because it obviously is), but I’d love to hear about your favorite yuletide classics! Also Sergeant Tibbs’ comment about Wonderful Christmastime has put some Christmas carols in my head – how is it possible that I haven’t heard any in the wild so far this year? So let’s talk holiday movies/songs/plans!
I have heard a TON of Christmas music because I sit within earshot of my company’s lobby, which has been pumping the stuff since THE DAY AFTER HALLOWEEN. (The receptionist sets the lobby playlist and evidently our new girl is a merry soul, down to clown.)
(Right now it is something jazzy about mistletoe. In Week 7 we have moved away from the Paul McCartney, Nat King Cole, Wham! standards into very deep cuts, some never before heard by anyone except the people who were in the studio that day.)
A couple of weeks ago I watched for the first time — and was pleased to discover it is a Christmas movie — The Long Kiss Goodnight. It’s good! Weird it was a box office dud. Although it’s probably 5 minutes too long, as I faded at one point — [i]but it’s good anyway.[/i] And definitely a Christmas movie. There’s snow, a parade, there’s even a reindeer-based plot point (Geena Davis hits a reindeer with her car). See it.
The only Christmas song I like is Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, and I prefer the version sung by Judy Garland. Bad Santa is my favorite Christmas movie. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Die Hard the whole way through, but I will plan to watch this soon, as I’m quite sure I would like it.
There is a house not too far away from me with mannequins in their yard dressed up like characters from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. It’s pretty great.
I have family coming in from out of town. I signed up for a free trial of Amazon Prime so I could watch Brittany Runs a Marathon, but it’s also good timing, so we can watch some fun stuff on the nights we stay in. Brittany Runs a Marathon was pretty great by the way.
Glad you were able to see it! I really liked it too. I feel like there were a lot of places the movie could have gone wrong with a plot where someone’s losing weight, but I thought it was handled with nuance. And she was allowed to be a very complicated character up to the end.
Okay you guys, every December for 12+ years, I have been aware that a local theater, the New Beverly, screens the movie Black Christmas. I heard it was scary, and good, and that when it came out (1974 — we are not talking about the current remake) it was controversial, insofar as it was about a lot of death on Christmas, the saintliest day of the year — a day that up to that point in history had never been touched by a single negative thought. I knew nothing else about it, except that Margot Kidder is in it and the poster is ultra disturbing. But it’s best to know nothing going in. I trusted it, as I am a fan of horror — because feeling disturbed is the best feeling in the world.
(Love is also nice.)
However, every year, either I couldn’t make the screening date, or it was sold out. It seemed crucial that I experience this one with an audience, too, so, if I missed it, I missed it. All the eggs were in the one theater basket. And this year, I totally forgot to look up its play date until yesterday afternoon — when I learned it was showing that very night.
Unfortunately, (1) I needed to finish gift shopping. It was slated to be the dreaded annual Trip To The Mall. And (2) the website said it was sold out.
BUT, as I finished shopping, I noticed I was still 20 minutes ahead of the movie’s start time, and only 15 minutes from the theater. So I drove there, and parked at a red curb just outside, and seized by positivity, ran up to the box office to ask if it was really sold out, and the guy said nope, there’s two tickets left. So! THIS WOULD BE THE YEAR. I bought one of the tickets. And then raced around trying to park legitimately and then, at last, I saw this flippin movie.
And let me tell you: Absolutely worth the wait. It is a masterpiece. Not just of the horror genre but of movies in general. Put it on the mantel alongside King Kong and The Maltese Falcon and City of God, it’s probably that good. I’ve never seen The Maltese Falcon. I will say this: it is better than every single Best Picture winner of the past decade. That I have seen. Which is six of them. So you could do a lot worse! Black Christmas is now one of my all-time favorite movies, and maybe my favorite Christmas movie. See it in a theater, even if you have to wait 12 years like I did. 12 years a slave* to this movie.
*Not one of the six.
That’s great that everything fell into place so you could see it at the theater.
I’ve never seen this movie, but I will try and check it out sometime based on this excellent pitch.
Apropos of nothing, did you know Chris Gethard put out a comedy album that is 100% about New Jersey? You would probably enjoy it.
Thanks for the alert, I will 110% check it out. Wikipedia says he is from West Orange, which is right next to Livingston. I took my SATs there!
What a roller coaster ride! I’m glad you took a chance on the tickets.
It’s going to be a weird Christmas I think!
Obviously as you know I have seen Last Christmas and it has gone straight into the canon; but other than that it’s all felt slightly ‘on hold’, maybe because we had an election, and I work in news so had to cover it in depth, and so everything has only really just started to feel Christmassy?
Anyways – I love ALL Christmas songs except the one by The Pretenders (2,000 Miles? 3,000 Miles? It might even be called 4,000 Miles?) and Baby It’s Cold Outside, I was an early adopter of the hate and now everyone else has caught up. My top three this year (leaving aside Wham! and Paul McCartney and the Darlene Love original of Baby Please Come Home who sit atop the list forever and no one will dislodge them) are: Underneath the Tree by Kelly Clarkson, Christmas Lights by Coldplay, and Santa Tell Me by Ariana.
Other than that, though, I’m working on the 27th and 28th December, so it’ll be quite an abrupt holiday and then I have a few weeks in the new year, then my work situation is a bit fragile, so I’ll be a bit worried throughout about what will happen, I think.
Fingers crossed for a new year’s resolution post so I can come up with some more garbage that I won’t do…! 🙂
I just learned that yogurt sales surge in January. Apparently because of resolutions. They taper back to normal in February.
I totally believe it. I don’t think I’ll give anything up, with me it’s more trying to make sure I do stuff? If that makes sense? Though of course I’ll need to lose all the shortbread weight I’ve been adding this month… 😂
I am currently 23 percent shortbread weight.
Well I don’t know if this will add or detract from your mental health but I found a new Christmas movie candidate on amazon prime called Snowed-Inn Christmas that I find is embracing and subverting many tropes: a slacker vs a career driven woman – check, an inexplicable plot point where a cute inn might be run by an immortal Santa and Mrs. Clause – check, the career woman wears leather pants (???) before she’s had her uptight to relaxed lady makeover (subtle subversion of career woman trope – check, she does her own thing!).
Find it if you can, it features an actor whose main roles for the past 4 years have been exclusively hallmark movies, so he knows what he’s doing.
Oh wow adding this to the weekend watch list
My family could not be further from Christian but we are staunch supporters of making new Christmas traditions and embracing old ones. I haven’t heard any Christmas music this year because I’ve been out of the country in a tropical area. It’s jarring for me to think it’s Christmas in a hot climate. So even though I love Christmas music and wait all year to play my favorite Charlie Brown Christmas album, I forgot to do it this year! I’ve got 2 days and I’m starting now.
Actually I lied, I did see Mariah Carey’s new music video for All I want for Christmas is you and guys, it is delightful. https://youtu.be/aAkMkVFwAoo
My family has some pretty specific movie traditions – While you were sleeping, lately the sound of music which has zero to do with Christmas and 100% because the disc is always sitting next to the tv, and the Winona Ryder Little Women. This year, we’re going to see the new Little Women on Christmas Day. Looking forward to adding a new movie to the tradition, no pressure.
Do you have a Little Women review? I’ve seen such glowing reviews for the new version that I now really want to see it, whereas before I wasn’t necessarily aware that it existed.
Speaking of Little Women, this is a fantastic piece about a reporter going to the town they filmed in to ask locals for their stories about the actors: https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/a-chaotic-afternoon-in-little-women-land.html