Mainlining Christmas

Depending on how you want to define your terms, Destination Tokyo might be the earliest Christmas war movie, though this is absolutely one of those times the qualifiers have qualifiers. The 1927 silent film, Barbed Wire , at the very least includes a memorable Christmas sequence which thematically shapes the movie around it. Likewise, the 1936 science-fiction film, Things to Come , opens at Christmas and plays with the tonal dissonance between the holidays and war (something Destination Tokyo largely sidesteps). Neither of these feature the holidays centrally enough to unequivocally be considered Christmas movies, though I'd argue both are at least debatable. The 1939 animated short,  Peace on Earth , is a more clearcut case - this is absolutely a Christmas war story, though its brief runtime might disqualify it as a movie if the difference between "short" and "feature-length" matters to you. Destination Tokyo comes closer to a clear-cut case, but even this has ...

Barbed Wire is one of several films mentioned in passing in Jeremy Arnold's Christmas in the Movies book that I figured I should track down. I should note Arnold is clear that the movie doesn't qualify as a genuine Christmas movie under his definition, which is quite a bit more restrictive than those we use. Even with our more expansive approach, Barbed Wire is a marginal case. The holiday section certainly doesn't come close to encompassing half the runtime, nor is it particularly important to the plot (Arnold places a great deal of significance on this metric throughout). The holiday does resonate with the movie's theme, however, which is why I think it's at least ambiguously a Christmas movie. Regardless, between being nearly a hundred years old and featuring a thematically relevant extended holiday sequence, I feel this is at least worth discussing, whichever side of the "Christmas movie" line it actually falls on. Released less a month before The Jazz...

I don't expect we'll watch a lot of Hallmark movies this season (nothing against the company; we just have too much else on our plate), but The Christmas Quest promised a premise too interesting to pass up. The gimmick this time was to fuse the usual romantic comedy with a National Treasure/Romancing the Stone/Indiana Jones style fantasy/adventure treasure hunt set in Iceland based loosely on folklore surrounding the Yule Lads (a group of Icelandic trolls who have become somewhat analogous to Santa as their more monstrous aspects became subdued over the centuries). That's certainly the kind of thing that gets our attention. Sadly, the premise turned out to be much more interesting than the movie itself. As is often the case with Hallmark productions, the genre elements wind up feeling superficial: they drop in a handful of casual references, but when push comes to shove this is a Hallmark Christmas flick to the core. There's no real danger, no suspense, no excitement......

Like most people of my generation, I’ve seen this movie many, many times. I was eight when this came out, and I’m pretty sure my family saw it on the big screen. We’d go on to rent it and eventually tape it off the TV. As an adult, it was one of those movies Lindsay and I considered essential – I don’t recall when we bought it on DVD, but we’ve had a copy for ages. But eventually the DVD just didn’t seem good enough, so I picked up the Criterion blu-ray in a recent sale. That was the version we introduced our own daughter to, and the quality, as you’d expect, was fantastic. It’s so good, you can clearly see the Christmas tree behind the mother as she talks to Fred Savage. Likewise, there’s no mistaking the winter landscape or holiday decorations on the next-door house outside his bedroom window. I’d long been aware there was a paper Santa in his room, but on its own this doesn’t necessarily indicate the season (crafts tend to stick around, after all). But along with the other stuff, it...

If That Christmas had been released a decade ago, it would probably have performed modestly at the box office, sold well on DVD, gone into circulation on television and streaming, and be on its way to becoming a holiday classic. It's not reinventing the wheel, but it's the right mix of sweet, funny, and somber that makes for a fantastic experience that stays with you. This is really good stuff, with inspired voice casting and beautiful animation. But this wasn't made a decade ago, nor was it made five years ago, when the Disney/Fox merger threw production and release plans into disarray. So, here we are in 2024, when it's become pretty common for things like this to get picked up by Netflix and subsequently forgotten. Critics aren't enthusiastic about this one, either, so it's unlikely this will get much of a boost during awards season. Hell, we'll be lucky if this ever gets a blu-ray release (though if it does you can bet your ass I'll be buying a copy)...

Well, I've got a new favorite Romanian Christmas movie. And before you roll your eyes, let me remind you that actually means something  - for whatever reason the nation has produced some extremely good holiday films. I've got no idea what else exists that hasn't gotten attention over here, of course, but the three that made their way to the States all packed a punch. Also, all three have featured faltering romantic partnerships as plot elements - no idea what's up with that trend, either. That's about where comparisons end between R.M.N. and the other two, however. Actually, comparisons should probably end a bit earlier, as even that's a tenuous connection: the male lead in R.M.N. has a very different relationship with both his wife and mistress than those presented in the films I linked to. Before we get into the actual story, I do want to caution this is a movie best experienced spoiler-free, and - in case that whole "new favorite Romanian Christmas movi...

The Cheaters is the one of two movies featured in the revised edition of Jeremy Arnold's book, Christmas in the Movies, that I'd never seen, so I figured I'd better rectify the oversight. While I wasn't as smitten with the film as Arnold, there's no denying it's charming, largely thanks to the performances of Joseph Schildkraut (who also appears in the more famous The Shop Around the Corner), Billie Burke (Glinda, from The Wizard of Oz), and Eugene Pallette. That said, "charming" isn't the same as "satisfying." Palette plays James Pigeon, an upper-class businessman confronting money troubles who's just learned a distant relative has passed away about a week before Christmas. Said relative has left his sizable estate to an actress who he doesn't even know (he was a friend of the girl's mother). If said actress isn't identified within a week, the fortune will instead go to James. In an attempt to ensure this occurs, the fami...

Similar to Two Front Teeth , Werewolf Santa is a (very) low budget comedy/horror production with a premise designed to attract attention. And also similar to Two Front Teeth, this doesn't manage to overcome its limitations, making it more of an oddity than a "real" movie. Despite a handful of elements deserving praise, this isn't worth tracking down unless you're a huge fan of ultra low budget, tongue-in-cheek genre flicks. That's a long way of saying it's not bad for what it is, but what it is, ultimately, is already kind of bad. That being said, I want to acknowledge that this is absolutely a case where I was not watching the movie the way it was almost certainly intended to be watched, which in this case means "high." The movie lampshades this in the opening minutes and later uses marijuana as either a plot point or a throwaway joke, depending on how generous you're feeling (Were-Santa consumes edibles early on, which give him the munchies...

Another in a long line of movies I'm gobsmacked I never knew existed until now, The Day of the Beast is a Spanish horror/comedy from director Álex de la Iglesia about a Catholic priest attempting to prevent the apocalypse by committing enough sins and spreading enough evil that he tricks the devil into buying his soul and revealing the birthplace of the anti-Christ. A premise this absurd is of course going to rest on style and tone - fortunately, de la Iglesia is up to the task, and the resulting film is compelling and darkly funny. Where it comes up a bit short is the ending, which feels like it's missing a beat. But more on that when we come to it. The movie starts on December 22nd with Angel (the aforementioned priest, played by Álex Angulo) bringing his discovery to a fellow clergyman, who agrees to help him in his quest to prevent the end of the world. Unfortunately, that guy dies immediately after when a comically large cross falls over and crushes him; the first of many ...

This is one of several movies I found on a BFI list of great Christmas movies of the 21st century . Like a few movies on that list, Moven Callar's holiday credentials are a tad dubious - I'd defend this as a Christmas movie, but it's a pretty close margin. What's less ambiguous is the quality. The movie is gorgeously shot, with a fantastic performance from Samantha Morton in a role conveyed largely through physicality. I don't quite agree with the assessment in the article linked above that she "barely says a word throughout the film," but it's notable that virtually nothing she says offers a hint as to why she's doing any of the things she does. The movie is exceptionally good, and those in the mood for something dark and meditative will find it a satisfying experience, provided they're not easily frustrated by narratives that are disinterested in explaining themselves. So, take all that into account before reading on, because - as usual - we...