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| In Which I Put Off Fear And Loathing for one more week, lol |
Oh crap.
I am soooooo not ready.
I never am.
Since I'm an unprepared potato, I thought I'd let you in on a little secret: I kinda don't like sentimental Christmas movies. Like... at all.
But I'm also not fond of comedies (I have a soft spot for Ernest Saves Christmas, but that's because I'm a 90s kid).
So what the heck kinda Christmas movies does a nerdy birdy like me like to watch?
Stupid ones, mostly, it turns out. Stupid movies, action movies, and the occasional detective romp.
My top five Christmas movies are:
- Die Hard
- Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
- How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
- Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas
- A Charlie Brown Christmas
That's... a weird top five, right? I mean, no The Santa Clause, no National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (and probably never that one thanks to the other Chevy Chase movie I watched this year... ), no A Christmas Story or Polar Express or Elf...
I mean, not even Rudolph or Frosty, and they were my childhood favorites. Seriously, I'm pretty sure I wore out the VHS tapes for both of them...
Why these five?
They all mean something to me.
Die Hard and KKBB were movies I saw for the first time with the love of my life, and that sticks with ya. It doesn't hurt matters any that they're just solid, wonderful, fun movies on their own, either.
Grinch was ubiquitous in my youth, but I was madly in love with Karloff's voice and cadence. I was also very disappointed to find out that my singing voice would never reach the deep, buttery tones of Thurl Ravenscroft...
And yeah, that's the name of the dude who sang the song.
And yeah, that's possibly the most badass name on Earth...
Emmet Otter was another childhood treasure, but it became a quest of sorts for me, where I was constantly hunting down the tv cut we'd all seen as kids where Ma mumbles about the fox falling off the dock. I was searching for it for my mother's sake, since she'd expressed a wish for it, and I'm frankly terrible at gift-giving. Suddenly, in college, I became friends with my Film And Editing Friendo, who was at long last able to conclude my search. It's a friendship that's still strong today, and I'll always be grateful for the one year where I actually got someone what they wanted.
And I know I said that I wasn't a saccharine Christmas movie person, but there's something about Charlie Brown, man. Maybe it's because we grew up surrounded by Snoopy (my parents are both fans). Maybe it's because between Charlie and Mr Rogers, that was the only real exposure to jazz music I was able to get without anyone complaining. Maybe it's just that sometimes, you want a bunch of kids singing "loo loo loo" around a crummy little tree that someone tried so hard to get for them. All I know is that it doesn't feel like Christmas to me until I hear the music from this cartoon.
Btw, my next five faves are:
- Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (Rankin/Bass)
- Frosty the Snowman
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Fleischer/Jam Handy)
- The Muppet Christmas Carol
- White Christmas
If you think that's weird, that's 100% okay. I'd probably find your top ten fav Christmas flix to be a bit weird too.
This does make me wonder what kinds of holiday films there are for the other... dozen or so non-Christian holidays there are during this season...
Maybe next year...
Go Enjoy Something!
FC
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