Favorite Christmas Movie(s)

In our house, it's Scrooged and Christmas Vacation.

I love Scrooged!

My personal favorite is "Love Actually."

A wonderful story, or series of stories, with a terrific ensemble cast...

Set mainly in England at Christmas...

It's amazingly good!


:hi:

I finally rented the Nativity - what a waste of talent that was! Good cast, excellent production values but the writing was terrible. Someone decided the story needed spicing up so they focused on Herod's paranoia. Then there was the entire "You are there - in ancient Palestine" aspect in which we see every person in Nazareth busy doing ancient things. In between sequences earnestly reflecting the latest info on life in the ancient world were comments suggesting that it would take 100 days to travel from Iran to Israel and that the trip would be across uncharted lands!

Worst of all - they turned Mary into a wimp!

The opening sequence of Scrooged parodying televising Christmas specials is priceless.


I think Christmas vacation is a good reminder to take it easy and enjoy the holiday.

Holiday
A Christmas Story
The Man Who Came to Dinner
The Lion in Winter
The Ref
The Shop Around the Corner

I'm sure I'll think of more after I've signed off. But I can tell you that I never miss an opportunity to see any and all of the above. And to tell the truth, they capture some of the spirit of the season: misunderstandings, confusion, arguments, crises, and good old family dysfunction.

Every family has its ups and downs.


Good counsel as we gather together this season.

The Lion in Winter has ardent fans here at DU, too.

And the film does bear a distinct resemblance to family gatherings for many of us, though perhaps with slightly less political power and bloodshed.

I always watch "The Lion in Winter" around this time. :-)

"Waaah...all my boss got me for Christmas was a membership in the Jelly-of-the-month Club!".


Love Randy Quaid and family as the redneck cousins from hell (actually Houston, but they have the same climate most of the year).

Honey, have you checked our shitters?

It's just not the holiday season for me without seeing this at least once.

A Christmas Story

It's a Wonderful Life (The banker is a Republican!)

Christmas Vacation

:)

with Tim Allen every year on Christmas Eve and Christmas

so I guess those 3 are our favorites

It's a great reworking of the story, while still remaining true to its roots.

Others in my arsenal of holiday favorites include Scrooged and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Disney's Christmas Carol.

every Christmas Eve.

Watch it every year during the holidays at least once usually a couple of times.

Only the last 30 minutes or so take place on Christmas Eve, all the rest of it has nothing to do with Christmas. I guess that's enough to qualify it as a "Christmas movie" but to me a Christmas movie should start out being about Christmas and be about it all the way through, for the most part. I still love "It's A Wonderful Life" anyway.

It's a serious tie between the Capra classic, "It's a Wonderful Life" and the musical "Scrooge" starring Albert Finney. ("...and if life were a woman, she would be my wife! And why? because I like life!")






...though I still want to take ice picks to my ears any time the kid actor playing Cratchett's little boy begins to sing.

Rounding out my top four:
A Christmas Story
Nat'l Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
It's a Wonderful Life

actually the "series pilot" for The Waltons TV series, is a moving, well-written, superbly acted and beautifully photographed film. Even if you don't like "The Waltons" TV series, you should watch this if you like Christmas movies. It's available on DVD now. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067209/



It's a great film.

It's out on DVD now and is a weird combination of absolute lunacy (the hosts are two talking dinosaurs) and beautiful graphics (Joy to the World is not to be missed)

I tend to like most of the variations on "A Christmas Carol," even Mr. Magoo's, but my particular favorite is the 1951 film known in the U.K. as Scrooge and generally listed simply as A Christmas Carol here in the States. Alastair Sim plays Ebeneezer Scrooge, and he's great.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044008/

The musical score is classic, too.

Do not accept the colorized version, though. Somebody left that movie looking like a freaking Easter egg.

I know there's more...

the MST3K version though, naturally.

Dropo rules.

"Hurry up or you'll be late for your Candy Bar Guild."

"Lolly Pop Guild, you asshole! Jesus, 2 year olds flip shit better than you!"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I'm gonna stick my whole fist up your ass!"

:rofl:

I still get nostalgic about my Red Ryder model Daisy BB gun.
"DON'T SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT!"
And I never did.

and Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Amahl is better live though... It's fun being a Tenor because I get to play Kaspar!! *GRIN*

"oh truly truly truly yes I am a real king, am I not?"

I love to play the opera... :hi:

Why? I don't know, because I hate the TV series. I think it's because I watch it almost yearly with my mom and it's grown on me.

Weird, I know, but eh.

n/t

Even though I kind of liked the movie itself, there's one part of it that has to do with the story line where they are haunted by the story of the main character's father having died in the chimney on Christmas eve trying to bring down presents as a surprise that way.

That has special meaning for me that just got revived this year when I had my three year old cat die suddenly and unexpectedly the night after Christmas in the bed next to me at my folks' house.

Now, just last week on Monday I had to put my cat down I had since that other one died thirteen years ago (just after the Thanksgiving "holiday") to relieve him of his cancer.

Being reminded of the holiday season being tainted by death is something I can't take in a Christmas movie now, especially this year! :(

...though The Shop Around the Corner is nice.

Not really a Christmas movie, but it takes place over the Holidays and is a great movie. :)

Great songs and dancing.

Also "Bachelor Mother" (Ginger Rogers), "Christmas in Connecticut" (Barbara Stanwyck), "Christmas Vacation" (Chevy Chase), "White Christmas" (hokum with Bing), and no doubt more that I can't recall right now.

I never get tired of this entertaining little movie about a troupe of actors putting on a production of Hamlet in an English village at Christmastime.

In the U.K. the movie is known as In the Bleak Midwinter, which is the carol playing over the final credits.

Sgt. Al Powell

funniest Christmas movie ever.

The only movie played in our house on Xmas day.

It also helps that it's on a continuous loop on TBS!

with John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, and a wonderful supporting cast.

Besides being a great Christmas film it's also a good love story.