SunBreak Roundtable: Our Favorite Holiday Movies, Take Two

Here we are, on Christmas Eve Eve. With family in town, the last thing you want to do is talk to each other and share your hopes and fears, thereby growing evermore intimate as emotionally mature adults.  Instead, might The SunBreak suggest a movie?  In considering cinema of the season, we decided to take a broad view of the holiday film genre, opening it up to guilty pleasures and non-holiday films that are just as fun to watch in December. The only rule? Don't pick any of the films from last year's roundtable. So head over to Scarecrow Video, gather the children around the fireplace and/or flatscreen, and pop in a movie.

Jay: The Nightmare Before Christmas, simply because it’s Tim Burton and it's ghoulishly good.

Tony: Night of the Hunter!! Christ wrapped in corn batter and deep-fried, I adore that movie.

Well, since it's the season for cinematic guilty pleasures, I thought I'd throw a couple of mine onto the mix right about now. Both films are readily available in the public domain, so you can literally find these odd cinematic ducks in the bargain bin at your local discount retailer or dollar store. Talk about cheap thrills.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians has long lived on its title alone, but viewed today it stands as an archetypal example of the sixties notion of a standard kid's flick--in which the most warped content was hurtled at the small fry in an attempt to put pre-adolescent butts into theater seats back in 1964. Santa Claus is kidnapped by Martians in an attempt by said aliens to bring some Christmas cheer to their dour, ravaged planet. Its odd pacing rhythms suggest your standard Santa-spreading-good-cheer scenario, but filtered through pulp sci-fi sensibilities. It's completely bent (and unintentionally funny as hell), and features '80's icon Pia Zadora in all her pre-adolescent glory as a Martian kid thawed out by the cheery influence of the most artificially-cheery St. Nick you'll ever meet (Leonard Call). "All this trouble over a fat little man in a red suit!"

I thought that Black Christmas pretty much initiated the holiday-slasher genre in 1974, but one year previous Silent Night Bloody Night played in theaters and drive-ins throughout the US. It's an odd and stylish thriller in which a troubled young man attempts to sell the house of his youth back to the strange residents of his small town of origin. A shadowy killer then begins picking off those eccentric community members and the folks attempting to sell the house off. Its templates turn out to be Psycho, and (to a lesser extent) the giallo of the 1960's. Pivotal events take place during the holidays, but it's essentially a MacGuffin to launch off a series of warped flashback scenarios that tie in asylum lunatics and some pretty seedy skeletons in the closet. It's a haven of entertaining character actors (Patrick O'Neal, John Carradine) and several members of Andy Warhol's Factory ensemble (Ondine and Candy Darling play small roles, while Warhol dancer Mary Woronov plays a lead just two years before becoming Calamity Jane in the Roger Corman classic Death Race 2000).

It's also really creepy, with a whole gaggle of scary/seedy characters and a chilly atmosphere of dread. The ending sports seams that could only come from elements of structural desperation, but it's also genuinely creepy and disorienting; and it propagates the Psycho notion of snuffing out its star-billed actor fairly early on into the movie. Given the cult cache held by the '74 Black Christmas, it's a little surprising this overlooked gem hasn't found  a wider audience. Fortunately, experiencing it doesn't require a lot of disposable income.

Josh: I am just glad that Videogum affirmed the truth that  Love Actually is among the Worst Movies of All Time.

Though it's not holiday-themed, I liked nothing in the last two years more than Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson's wonderful take on the Roald Dahl story about a family of foxes caught in a war with England's three meanest farmers. In the title role, George Clooney dapperly voices the father whose inability to set aside his instincts for thievery for the quiet life of a newspaperman puts his neighborhood in peril. Because the animation is stop-motion instead of glossy CGI, the look of the movie is both meticulous and rough around the edges, such that the characters are believable as the sort of animals that are teeth-baringly wild, yet wear impeccably fitted corduroy suits or goofy handmade superhero costumes. The family is both loving and dysfunctional, the capers are hilarious and harrowing, and the action is both comedic and consequential. Every frame is its own kind of delight.

I can't think of anything I'd rather have in the DVD rotation and am somewhat suspicious of anyone who doesn't recognize this movie's heartbursting and humorous charm.

Roger: Dr. Zhivago. Let's face it. The holiday season is often miserable: too many family gatherings, lousy weather, crowded stores and long travel delays. One way to take the sting out of your misery is to watch a movie with people suffering worse than you. In David Lean's Dr. Zhivago (1965), people do suffer, only they do it sumptuously.

The story, based on Boris Pasternak’s novel, concerns the life and loves of the poet-surgeon Yuri Zhivago. Set in Russia between 1916 and 1923, a truly miserable period, the movie follows Yuri (Omar Sharif) as he marries his childhood friend Tonya (Geraldine Chaplin) but falls for hot blond Lara (Julie Christie) who is having a sordid affair with the despicable Komarovsky (Rod Steiger). The movie kicks coherence to the curb quickly and relentlessly. Drafted into the army as a surgeon in the last days of the Tsars, Yuri "bumps" into Lara on the front. Then the nasty Reds take power and the lovers are separated. Could it be they are never to be reunited? Don't worry, Yuri escapes the evils of Moscow by taking a long train ride in a cattle car where who should turn up but Klaus Kinski as some kind of "soul of mother Russia." The good doctor and his family set up in a house in the middle of nowhere, but it's damn picturesque. But, who couldn’t have seen this coming, he actually runs into Lara in the nearby town and sets up a nice double life with two women.

From there we have kidnappings, communist infighting, illegitimate children and the doctor dying, literally, from a broken heart. Playing ciphers, the actors do surprisingly good work, especially Steiger, who you hate but can’t stop watching. Lean throws a bone to then Soviet government at the end when he shows laborers working on a massive damn, and he puts a rainbow over the scene, as if all those forced labor camps had happy campers whistling while they work. When it’s over, you know you have seen something and you just might be happier about the life you have.  

Constance: 1. What's Cooking? (2000) because there is very little wrong with Kyra Sedgwick and Julianna Margulies making out, and also Hannukah. Hannukah!

2. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), because everyone wants to feel depressed and alone, and cry quietly while staring out the window, for the holidays.

3. The Long Kiss Goodnight (1995), because Geena Davis kills people in a variety of ways, some of which involve guns, and btw saves democracy, while Samuel L. Jackson drives and cracks jokes. Crunchy and delicious crack.

MVB: The Thin Man is not a holiday movie in the strict sense, but it takes place during the holiday season, with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day parties that are the scene for Nick Charles' elegantly inebriated investigations of why some inventor has gone missing. And besides, the duo of William Powell and Myrna Loy demonstrate very winningly what life would be like if every day were a holiday. Pay no attention to the crime-solving set-up, says Roger Ebert: The movie "is about personal style. About living life as a kind of artwork." That's why it's perfect that in the space between party's (Christmas morning), a hungover Nick amuses himself by shooting the balloons off the Christmas tree with his new air rifle (nearly, it must be said, putting an eye out). For you and me, a hangover is no time for frivolity, it comes bearing regret and recrimination and lumps of coal. For Nick Charles, even the bleariest-eyed moment can be playfully won over.

Clint: Two words: Lethal Weapon. Mel Gibson was awesome once. A deadly cat-and-mouse chase in a Christmas tree lot. A brutal, front-yard fistfight under decorative December lights. A bad-guy declaration of holy remembrance: "Goddamn Christmas!" And more reverent talk of God near that special day: "Hate Him back; it works for me." What more holiday-friendly flick has Hollywood ever unspooled than Lethal Weapon? It’s the 1987 buddy cop movie that defined the genre. It's violent and innocent (Three Stooges, anyone?) at the same time. It’s what made Mel Gibson Mel Gibson… long before he became Mel "Old Crazy Racist Dude" Gibson. The sparkly season is not complete without a screening of this classic Richard Donner-directed, Shane Black-penned dramedy. You laugh (at all of Gibson’s suicidal-but-lovable Detective Riggs' witty comebacks). You cry (when Danny Glover’s stuffy, retirement-bound Murtaugh mutters, defiantly spitting blood, "Go spit."). You miss the days when Gibson was unquestionably cool and when actual human characters and story, sans FX, were the reason you bought a ticket.

Audrey: Speaking of Shane Black (he's got three picks in this list, as along with Lethal Weapon, he also wrote The Long Kiss Goodnight), the first film he wrote and directed, the meta-riffic noir comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, happens to take place at Christmastime. And while I loves me some Robert Downey Jr--RDJ always plays RDJ, but that is a character I always like--the real scene-stealer here is a very clever Val Kilmer playing a very butch "Gay Perry."

And a special pick from The SunBreak's very own troll Steve Winwood: Probably the greatest holiday film of all time is Harmony Korine's Gummo. This Christmas classic captures the true spirit of the season by being the gift that keeps on giving no matter what time of year it is. Need something to have on while the kids look for Easter eggs? Why not put in Gummo? There is that one boy (actor Jacob Sewell) dressed as a pink bunny rabbit who could easily give little Ralphie from A Christmas Story a run for his money in the pink nightmare dept. (LOL! Remember that scene?) The patriotic themes in the movie are also pretty obvious, which makes this the perfect film to watch when you celebrate the Fourth of July. What about that other holiday, Mardi Gras? Well you better have some beaded necklaces ready to throw at your tv set, because actresses Chloe Sevigny and Carisa Glucksman are more than happy to honor this important tradition. Halloween's a good time to watch this film, because they wear masks when they break in to that one boy's house. Finally, Christmas: the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ who was miraculously born to a virgin in a manger in the Middle East 4,000 years after God created the Earth. In Gummo, the main character "Solomon" (actor Jacob Reynolds) best personifies an adolescent Christ, as he struggles with glue-sniffing, shooting signs with a bb gun, and selling dead cat carcasses to the meat man, sometimes for cash, sometimes in trade for more glue. The retarded prostitute who shaves her eyebrows and talks about her preference for cherries is obviously Solomon's "Mary Magdalene." I could go on and on but why bother? You're already sold! Go buy Gummo for your friends and loved ones today and have the best Christmas you ever had! Amen.