CLASH OF THE CHRISTMAS MOVIES

I love Christmas movies. I like it at the end when everyone is singing and the character that didn't like Christmas has been swayed over by a turn of events. Or everyone figures out What Is Most Important About the Holidays after being unsure about it or confused for 90 minutes. So let's have it, THE BEST OF THE BEST.

A Christmas Story vs. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
Elf vs. Scrooged
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer vs. Frosty the Snowman
It's a Wonderful Life vs. White Christmas
A Christmas Carol vs. A Christmas Carol
Madea's Family Christmas vs. Ernest's Christmas
Bad Santa vs. Bad Santa 2
Arthur Christmas vs. The Nightmare Before Christmas
Gremlins vs. The Greatest Story Ever Told

And so on. Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer is the single greatest piece of Christmas entertainment ever created so it has already won, but Let's Talk about how wrong you are if you disagree.

Die Hard, don't forget about Die Hard.

In a more contemporary sense, I believe Elf is king.

But hard to beat Rudolph overall.

I actually had never seen Elf until...yesterday! It's a good one, my kids LOVED it. They are actually watching it right now.

Muppet Christmas Carol is our absolute go to. It's perfect because it's played totally straight. Apparently Michael Caine told them he was in for the movie but he was going to be as deadly serious about the role as possible, regardless if there are muppets or songs. It fucking works.

Apparently most Muppet fans don't like it? I don't get it.

yeah, Muppet Christmas Carol is a big hit at our house as well.Love Actually had a long run as well, but I think my wife may be over it.

my favourite Christmas movie is...The LotR trilogy and Hobbit Unexpected Journey.

Jim Henson's finest. It riffs on The Gift of the Magi and the Riverbottom Nightmare Band is one part Iggy Stooge and one part Darby Crash.

Vote: Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas

I'm a sucker for the Christmas cartoons:
A Charlie Brown Christmas
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
Frosty the Snowman

Regular movies:
Die Hard
Scrooged

Honorable mention:
30 Days of Night (One of those days must be Christmas)

Emmett Otter rules...that is a sadly under appreciated one these days, and it is a top notch Henson production for sure. I've always loved Muppets Christmas Carol.

I forgot how good Scrooged is, I haven't watched it in a while but it was on today. "What about a cop that dangles string?"

Charlie Brown Christmas is probably 2nd to Rudolph. It is really something transcendent...unusually complicated for a "kids" show and quite sophisticated.

Grinch is up there too. And not that Jim Carey abomination.

I actually don't like Frosty that much...I think it's kind of dopey. "Happy Birthday" and all of that.

Watching Toy Story That Time Forgot, the holiday special they did last year...it's great. BATTLESAURS.

Michael Barnes wrote:

And so on. Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer is the single greatest piece of Christmas entertainment ever created so it has already won, but Let's Talk about how wrong you are if you disagree.

'Rudolph the Red Nosed-Reindeer' would have been a lot better if Rudolph had told Santa to take his sleigh and jam it straight up his ass. The flying reindeer squad was straight-up bigoted (Rudolph's father included, against his own son no less!), and Santa didn't give two shits about it until his ass got in a jam with that snowstorm. I don't recall anyone in the North Pole organization that straightened up their act because it was the right thing to do.

As a kid we had to watch A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim every year. It slowly grew to be one of my favourite films of all time and I still swear that the bit at the end when he realizes he's been wrong this whole time is one of the greatest scenes of all time. Sim just knocks this role out of the park. Not only is he properly grumpy but he's genuinely funny too and that's an aspect of Scrooge that is often missed in other versions. The only real flaw in the film is the performance of Jacob Marley as the ghost... he's ok as a human but once he assumes Ghost form he acts more for stage and clearly doesn't understand that it doesn't work on film. It's a small moment though and I easily forgive it. The use of the folk tune Barbara Allen throughout is incredibly well done and culminates at the end in the best version of the song I've evert heard. Great film and I look forward to seeing it again this Christmas Eve.

After that I don't much care but I like or love most of them.

The Chuck Jones Grinch is perfect, Rudolph is amazing in many ways and it's still shocking to me that it works so well. White Christmas is wonderful and I always love to see Danny Kaye in pretty much anything. Miracle on 34th St. is still fun, A Wonderful Life gets some play around here as does A Christmas Story and Scrooged with Bill Murray which is not a great film but is still a lot more fun than it should be. I even came around on Elf last year and had to admit that I actually like it quite a bit.

Maybe Christmas just weakens my critical faculties?

My favorites are Scrooged and Christmas Vacation. Never get tired of them.

Frosty is aweful, even my kids get bored. It's made by Rankin/Bass who did the Hobbit cartoon and some of the voices are the same. Rudolph is still pretty amazing and nothing beats it for getting me into the holiday mood but, holy shit, I wish Santa wasn't such a fucking asshole.

Don't forget Charlie Brown Christmas!
And Disney's Christmas Carol is amazing.

Trading Places

ratpfink wrote: Vote: Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas

I haven't seen that since I was a child. Need to see this again. Good good show.

Trading Places for me, too. So good.