There’s no single figure more beloved during the Christmas season — and in Christmas movies — than good old Saint Nick. But as the years have passed and times have grown more cynical, the holly jolly Kris Kringles of Miracle on 34th Street have been joined in the cinematic Christmas canon by boozing, screwing, stealing Santas of the Bad Santa ilk. For this special Christmas supercut, we’ve assembled some of the sketchier Saint Nicks of cinematic history; check them all out after the jump. … Read More
Christmas Movies
Flavorwire’s Guide to (Holiday) Movies You Need to Stream This Week
Welcome to Flavorwire’s streaming movie guide, in which we help you sift through the scores of movies streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other services to find the best of the recently available, freshly relevant, or soon to expire. This week, we’re all about the Christmas spirit, with an assortment of ten holiday movies and TV shows for your Yuletide viewing. Check them all out after the jump, and follow the title links to watch them right now. … Read More
Christmas Movie Kids: Where Are They Now?
Christmas movie season is in full swing, and if you’re like us, you’ve got holiday films blasting from your television and Netflix window 24/7. “Timeless” is the term that gets thrown around for the good ones, and it’s often true — except in one respect. Those cute and cuddly kids so often at the center of yuletide tales have, in the years since they staked out a permanent place in your heart, grown up. Some have gone on to successful acting careers. Some dropped out once puberty hit. And one even, God help us, did porn. After the jump, our roundup of the after-Christmas lives of our favorite holiday movie kids. … Read More
The Lousiest Christmas Movies Ever Made
If you’ve ever wondered why there are so many (for the love of all that is holy, so damn many) Christmas movies, the answer is the same as for most of what happens in Hollywood: Money. Holiday movies are money lying on the ground, to be picked up every single December; a good Christmas movie that becomes a tradition can generate more continuing revenue than even the most beloved of catalogue releases. But there’s the rub — it also has to be a movie people actually want to revisit year after year. Making a good Christmas movie is harder than it looks; the delicate balance of humor, warmth, and schmaltz has to be just right, and for every Christmas Story or Christmas Vacation, we usually end up with three or four Santa Claus: The Movies. After the jump, a few would-be holiday “classics” to keep the hell off your Netflix queues and cable boxes; add your own cautionary tales in the comments. … Read More
Holiday Moviegoing Suggestions for the Whole Family
Come Christmas afternoon, your local multiplex will be as overstuffed as you and your family — not with ham and spiked eggnog and festering resentment, but with holiday movies. Crowd-pleasing blockbusters, arty Oscar hopefuls, squeaky-clean kids’ fare, and rom-coms will all compete for your Christmas afternoon dollars, leading to the inevitable family arguments over what movie we’re all going to see, because damnit, it’s Christmas and we’re going to spend it together so can we all just compromise a little? It’s Christmas, for Chrissakes!
Poppycock, we say. Save the arguments and cut your losses; this holiday’s movie-going menu is so specialized that there’s no way you’re all going to agree on any one movie, and all of these films have been created with specific target audiences in mind. To that end, we offer these humble suggestions for Christmas Day movie-going, with a little something specific for everyone in the family. … Read More
Our 10 Favorite Anti-Christmas Movies
With the holiday season in full swing, it’s easy to get burned out — cable stations are running crappy movies like Jingle All the Way and The Santa Clause 24/7, saccharine holiday music is blasting out of every speaker, and you’ve still got like half your list to buy, and what the hell do I get these freaks?
Calm down. Have an eggnog. Put some rum in it. And enjoy some of our favorite anti-Christmas movies — not films that hate the holiday, per se (though a couple of them do), but ones that cut through all that warmth and good feeling and get at the darkness underneath. Our contrarian Christmas viewing list is after the jump. … Read More
The Most Insufferable Holiday Movies of All Time
Everybody loves a good holiday movie. When we wrote last week about the beginning of the season, and our favorite annual Christmas movies (Die Hard and It’s A Wonderful Life), our readers threw in their favorites: A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Bad Santa, Muppets Christmas Carol, Miracle on 34th Street, etc. But, lest we forget, every film of the season ain’t White Christmas; there are plenty of rotten holiday movies. (And, in fact, one of them is coming out tomorrow: steer clear of New Year’s Eve as though your life depends on it.) As many great Christmas movies as there are, it’s also a very tricky style to get right, requiring the proper mix of holiday cheer, sentiment, laughs, and warmth. It is pretty easy to screw that elixir up, and end up with something sickly sweet and utterly unwatchable. After the jump, we’ll gather up a few lumps of coal from our previous Christmas stockings. … Read More
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