The Long Kiss Goodnight

Much like Lifetime original Christmas movies, the films of Shane Black often follow a very specific formula (and my apologies to Shane Black for being the first and last person to compare his films to Lifetime original Christmas movies). A mismatched pair of protagonists. An endless supply of smartly written banter. A colorful cast of side characters and villains. A precocious child. Lots of smoking and/or drinking. A convoluted, sinister conspiracy. Tons of kickass action. But of course my favorite thing about Shane Black films is that most of them involve Christmas in some way. Why? Who knows. You don't question a genius.*

Black cut his teeth scripting The Monster Squad, but he really made his mark on Hollywood as the screenwriter of the 1987 blockbuster Lethal Weapon - the first film where he put the Shane Black Formula to work. It's actually said that the quintessential Christmas action flick, Die Hard, was only set at Christmas at the request of producer Joel Silver, who got the idea when he was working on Lethal Weapon. And yes, Die Hard rules. You aren't going to get any argument about that from me. But the empirically proven fact is that it is eclipsed in every possible category by a movie I discovered shockingly recently - 1996's The Long Kiss Goodnight.

The film opens on a small town Christmas parade, in which beloved schoolteacher Samantha Caine (the always awesome Geena Davis) is presiding over a float. She has a loving family, an adorable

daughter, and a lovely home. Driving an inebriated guest home from her Christmas party, however, Samantha gets into an accident which triggers strange memories of her violent past as CIA assassin Charley Baltimore.

After an assassin notices her on the news and shows up at the house for the first of many beautiful gun-centric action sequences, she decides to hit the road with comically mismatched private eye Mitch Henessey (Samuel L. Jackson). They encounter a colorful cast of side characters and villains, engage in endless smartly written banter, do a lot of smoking and drinking, perpetrate tons of kickass action, and uncover a convoluted, sinister conspiracy.The fact that Black can pretty much do the same damn thing over and over and still make it hugely original every time is a testament to his talent.

And unlike Die Hard, the Christmas season isn't just in the background of The Long Kiss Goodnight - it's practically a character. Its settings include a charming small town that wouldn't be out of place in a Lifetime original Christmas movie (sorry, Shane), among other rustic locales. There are decorations and revelers everywhere, and plenty of seasonal tunes. The numerous action sequences are accented by falling snow and Christmas lights. It's a movie that simultaneously gets you in the holiday spirit as well as Rudolph and manages to be one of the most kickass action movies of all time.

The Long Kiss Goodnight is also one of the first movies to feature a female lead in a blockbuster action film - the concept of Davis, then-husband/director Renny Harlin, and Black, who fought for Davis' casting over Stephen Seagal and Sylvester Stallone. Both of which would have been awful. The movie takes place in and around New Jersey (which scores points for any movie in my book). And the dialogue includes some of the most quotable and hilarious lines in any Shane Black movie. It just frigging rules.

So if you have yet to discover this hidden gem in the Shame Black catalogue, I highly suggest getting your hands on it in any form (I recommend classic VHS, of course) and watching it this holiday season. I'll be watching Die Hard this year, of course, but I'll probably be watching The Long Kiss Goodnight like five times.

*The answer can actually be found in this video essay by the brilliant Patrick H Willems:

The Ref

In between his time as a chain smoking, rapid fire monologuist and his tenure as a basic cable auteur, it looked for a second like comedian Dennis Leary might become a legit movie star. The 90s brought major roles in films like Operation Dumbo Drop, Judgment Night, and Suicide Kings. He even popped up as a rebel leader in Demolition Man and wrote the romantic comedy Two if By Sea with Mike Armstrong, who he had met while working on MTV's Remote Control. My favorite role of his, though, has got to be that of Gus in 1994's The Ref.

No one has ever accused Leary of having much range - he's at his best when he's sticking close to his foul mouthed, grouchy persona, and The Ref definitely allows him to do that. Robbing a house on Christmas eve, things go horribly wrong and Gus is forced to take refuge in the car (and home) of the Chasseurs, a bickering yuppie couple. Now hostages, Lloyd and Caroline (Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis) infuriate Gus with their incessant sniping as he frantically tries to plan an escape. Much like in The Birdcage, the film climaxes with a family dinner that goes horribly (and predictably) wrong. Gus manages to leave town with the help of the Chasseurs' estranged son and the entire incident ends up bringing the couple closer than ever.

The reason this movie works so well is a combination of great writing and great acting. The film is infinitely quotable, particularly the Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf-esque scene towards the end when the Chasseurs finally unload on each other - and their assembled family members. Spacey and Davis are able to delightfully spit venom at each other and simultaneously show glimpses of the people they used to be before life didn't turn out the way they thought it would. Christine Baranski is great as Lloyd's passive-aggressive yuppie sister-in-law, but it's Glynis Johns - the adorable Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins - who steals the show as the cold-hearted matriarch of the Chasseur clan. Leary does what he does best for the most part, and some of his finest acting is unspoken when he observes the surprising effect his "visit" has had on the Chasseurs as Lloyd and Caroline have their epic meltdown.

The Ref has all the elements of a classic Christmas movie - a snow covered small town, a Christmas tree, a family coming together, etc. Although in this film the town is full of selfish bluebloods and incompetent cops, the tree is beaten repeatedly with a fireplace poker, and the family only comes together after binding and gagging their annoying relatives. The Ref is profane, witty, and like the best Christmas comedies, manages to perfectly ride the line between cynicism and authenticity. I just saw it for the first time and it's now one of my favorites. Make it one of yours, if it isn't already.

I'll Be Home for Christmas

I don't know why I did it to myself. Maybe it's the fact that there aren't a lot of Christmas options on Netflix that don't feature talking animals. Maybe it's my lingering affection for Home Improvement star Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Maybe I just hate myself that much. Well for whatever reason, I recently sat down and watched I'll Be Home for Christmas, the live action Disney "comedy" best known for being the last time anyone has ever seen JTT alive.

Now, I have an unusually high tolerance for Christmas-themed crap, as shown by my love of Jingle All the Way and the fact that I've sat through The Star Wars Holiday Special more than once. But I'll Be Home for Christmas is a horrible, horrible abomination, and I want to round up every copy in existence and have them buried in the desert like the E.T. Atari game.

In the "film", Jonathan Taylor Thomas plays a wisecracking college student who is sort of like the non-thinking man's Parker Lewis. When he fails to deliver on his promise to help a group of jocks ace an exam, he's left in the desert dressed in a Santa suit on the day he's supposed to accompany his girlfriend (Jessica Biel) home for the holidays. What follows is a series of "hilarious" misadventures as JTT hoofs it cross country with a series of painfully unfunny companions such as a carload of flatulant old ladies, a simple-minded thief, a lovestruck goober of a state trooper, his college nemesis (the only character more loathsome than his), and a group of marathon-running Santas. In the end JTT predictably wins back the girl and makes it home for Christmas, even though his smarmy prick of a character hardly deserves it.

What makes this unfunny shitshow even worse are the shoehorned-in sentimental moments meant to make you feel like JTT's character (I want to say "Jack"?) is anything more than a soulless asshole. He makes a detour to a children's hospital, where a young wide-eyed Hispanic stereotype reminds him that Christmas is about family. He returns the money he wins in the Santa marathon after finding out the man he beat was going to use it to buy turkeys for the poor. Finally, he refuses the vintage Porsche his dad (Gary Cole) used as a bribe to get him to come home. These incidents are supposed to show some sort of character development, but I was too busy waiting for Jack to be killed in a grizzly Christmas-related accident to notice any.

The only good thing about this movie is that it is an excellent time capsule of 1998, if you ever needed one. The fashions, the frosted tips, the cultural references, and especially the music. References are made to Fiona Apple, Aaliyah, Smashmouth, and more. At one point, Jessica Biel sings along to Aqua's "Doctor Jones" and her future husband is featured in "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays", NSync's Christmas song which plays during the credits.

But if you're not doing some sort of anthropological study on the year 1998, morbidly curious about the last days of Jonathan Taylor Thomas, or physically confined to a couch in front of a TV playing ABC Family, there is absolutely no reason to ever subject yourself to this film. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to watch Scrooged ten times in a row to get this awful taste out of my mouth.

The Good Times Gang Saves Christmas

A little less than a month ago, I kicked off this year's Cavalcade early because I desperately needed the Christmas spirit to make up for what was, quite frankly, a terrible, terrible year. And wouldn't you know it - Christmas has delivered yet again. I've spent the last few weeks celebrating with old friends and new, reconnecting with family members, and of course, sharing my love of holiday-related pop culture with the Internets.

For this year's final entry, I'm choosing a short movie I made with my sister and my girlfriend at the time way back in the winter of 2008. The three of us had been sitting around one night talking about Christmas and our desire to work on some sort of creative project when we came up with the plot for the Ultimate Christmas Movie. The only problem was that it was almost Christmas, and we'd have to film the whole thing in one day. Undaunted, the girls called everyone we knew who might want to act in the film while I banged out a script. By the end of the night we had a script, but no cast. It turns out I'd have to play all six male

characters (which, in the long run, made the shoot less complicated and the movie even funnier).

The story revolves around a group of mystery-solving teen do-gooders known as the Good Times Gang, who must step in to save Christmas when a local toy shop is threatened by the construction of a nearby big box superstore - all the while being picked off one by one by a mysterious serial killer. The movie includes homages to Home Alone, A Christmas Carol, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Christmas-themed horror movies, and more, and has a soundtrack featuring pretty much all of my favorite holiday tunes. It clocks in at a little over sixteen minutes and yes, it was written, shot, and edited over the course of three days.

Our day of shooting was pretty brutal, what with it being freezing effing cold out and me having to constantly apply (and scrub off) various Sharpie marker moustaches. But we got through it - zipping all over my hometown of Ramsey, NJ and filming guerilla-style at a shopping center, the town library, and the alley behind the Walgreens. And in the end, it turned out to be a project I am extremely proud of - not just because it was a true Christmas Miracle how well it all turned out, but because it is sort of the best love letter to the holiday season I could have written and I got to make it with two great people.

You can probably only watch the whole thing if you're Facebook friends with me - the use of tons of copywritten Christmas songs means it never stays on YouTube for very long - but those lucky ones who not only read this blog but also get to be friends with me IRL can check it out (if you haven't already). Or, if you're not some Nigerian scam artist or Eastern European smut peddler, feel free to friend me.

Merry Christmas, everybody! And thanks for reading. Hope you and yours have a great one.

Love Actually

This time last year - almost to the day - I was on a flight to Aruba to attend a "destination wedding" with my girlfriend. Sounds awesome, right? Unfortunately, our relationship had been over since about a week after we bought the plane tickets months earlier. The only thing worse than the prospect of spending an awkward week in paradise with a girl for whom I felt nothing was the in-flight movie: New Year's Eve. The film, much like its predecessor Valentine's Day, was full of forced, pandering sentimentality and unnecessarily intertwining storylines. I love great movies, and I love shitty movies, but there are few things I hate as much as I hate mediocre movies. And the mediocrity of New Year's Eve, with its blandly attractive cast and cringe-worthy attempts at humor, was off the charts. Of course, movies like this would not have existed if it wasn't for the granddaddy of them all - 2003's Love Actually.

So obviously I had some reservations when I finally decided to sit down and watch Love Actually last night. But I had to watch it - it is beloved by many people whose opinions I respect, and widely recognized as a very Christmas-y movie. Plus it's kind of an iconic modern romantic comedy, and the next time it came up in conversation I would be able to condescendingly dismiss it using unassailable facts and logic. The opening didn't do much to change my preconceived notions - people hugging in an airport terminal, cheesy music and captions, Hugh Grant's lame-ass monologue (complete with a 9/11 reference and titular line). I had just settled my brains for a long winter's snark when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but the legendary Bill Nighy channeling Keith Richards. And that's when everything started to change.

Now I'm not going to say that Love Actually is a great movie. It it is, unsurprisingly, full of pandering sentimentality, worn out cliches, and genuinely eyeroll-inducing moments. You can pretty much guess how every character's story is going to end up within five minutes of meeting them. And there are too many goddamn characters, causing many plotlines to be poorly resolved or totally unnecessary. But like many other films or TV shows, the material is elevated by its stellar cast. There's a reason why LA's American ripoffs pale in comparison - America's sweethearts are Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, and Katherine Heigl, while Britain's sweethearts are Alan Rickman, Martin Freeman, Emma Thompson, and Hugh Grant (say what you will about the guy, he is never not the most charming dude on screen).

And let's face it, there are some pretty fantastic moments in this film if you just start to enjoy it for what it is. The Prime Minister getting revenge on the sleazy US President (played by Billy Bob Thornton?!) Awesome. Colin Firth learning Portuguese and then running off to propose to the love of his life? Awesome. Alan Rickman saying just about anything? Awesome. The weird looking dude who gets to bang every chick in Wisconsin, including Betty Draper? Well actually, I don't know how I feel about that one. As cheesy as it was, a lot of the romantic stuff in the movie was great, and there were plenty of lines that were actually, shockingly funny. Not to mention pretty much every single aspect of the movie revolves around Christmas, which is obviously a big plus in my book.

I can't believe I'm actually writing this, but Love Actually is just one big celebration of Love and Christmas - just as long as you realize that you're watching a silly romantic comedy. Apparently there is this big buzzkill article on Jezebel about how terrible it is - probably calling it an insidiously misogynist tool of the rape culture Patriarchy or some such - but I really don't want to read it because sometimes it's okay to just shut off your brain and watch something nice with a big, dumb smile on your face. Especially if it's Christmastime.

Santa's Slay

There have been a lot of horror-themed Christmas movies made over the years, but it's very hard to find one in which Santa Claus himself is the killer. Sure, there are plenty of flicks where the villain is a guy dressed in a Santa outfit, which I guess is kind of cool, but for the most part the killings are performed by a mutant snowman, a deranged chef, or just a plain ol' serial killer. Call me crazy, but all I wanted was a movie where Santa Claus himself snapped and started murdering people - and finally my prayers were answered with the 2005 film Santa's Slay.

The movie stars WCW wrestler Bill Goldberg as Santa, who apparently is a demon who lost a bet with an angel and must spend eternity delivering toys to children all over the world. Once the bet is off, however, he decides to take out his pent-up hostility on the residents of a charming Midwestern town. The movie also features SCTV alum Dave Thomas as the mayor, veteran character actor Saul Rubinek as "Mr. Green", and 70's television staple Robert Culp as "Grandpa". The only problem? It sucks. How could you make a movie about a bloodthirsty Santa Claus played by a former wrestler suck? It could be that it was written and directed by David Steiman, whose main credit up until that point was assistant to Bret Rattner. But for whatever reason, other than a few random Santa Claus murders, Santa's Slay is a major disappointment.

The one thing that almost saves the movie, though, is its opening scene. For some reason, Steiman had access to the most random assortment collection of actors ever, including James Caan, Fran Dresher, Chris Kattan, and Rebecca Gayheart. In their all-too-brief scene, they play a family of awful people whose Christmas dinner is interrupted when Santa comes down the chimney. Santa proceeds to gleefully murder the entire clan, including the dog. It's a fantastic, jaw-dropping scene and probably the only part of Santa's Slay you really need to see. When it comes to Christmas movies about murderous monsters, you should probably stick to Gremlins.

Ernest Saves Christmas

There was a time in the 1980s when you could not escape the media empire of Ernest P. Worrell. Having risen from the obscurity of selling milk, cars, and aluminum siding on the Kentucky/Oklahoma airwaves, actor Jim Varney's dimwitted yet purehearted creation burst into the national spotlight with 1987's instant classic Ernest Goes to Camp, followed by the Saturday morning series Hey Vern, It's Ernest! Eventually the fickle American viewing public turned its back on Ernest as he continued to churn out obscure titles like Ernest Goes to School, Ernest Rides Again, and Ernest Goes to Africa. Before his star faded, however, he had one last hurrah with 1988's Ernest Saves Christmas.

In every Ernest movie (and this is an educated guess, since I've only seen 3 of the 9), Ernest has a job that he's terrible at. In Ernest Saves Christmas, he's a shitty cab driver who ends up in possession of both Santa's magic sack and a rebellious teen runaway named Harmony. Santa's in town to pick a successor, and his eye is on kindly local kids' show host Joe Carruthers. Unfortunately, Joe is also being courted by a sleazy Hollywood agent who wants him to star in a very kid-unfriendly horror movie called "Santa's Slay". Throughout the movie, Ernest and Harmony scramble to bust Santa out of jail, convince Joe to take the job, and get the reindeer and sled in the air on time - not to mention use Christmas Magic to make it snow in Orlando.

The movie features the usual callbacks to Ernest mythology, including the wacky duo of "Chuck & Bobby" and a visit to the perpetually put-upon "Vern". As far as Ernest goes, it's kind of ironic that an actor so adept at playing a wide array of characters managed to get typecast as one guy for the majority of his career, especially one whose schtick gets old really quick. The one saving grace of Ernest, though, is his childlike innocence and irrepressible enthusiasm - qualities that make him the perfect choice to save Christmas, a summer camp, or, presumably, Africa.

The Christmas Consultant

Let's face it - there's only so much Christmas stuff to go around. I never get sick of the classics, of course, but for addicts like me, there's never been enough new material to keep up with my insatiable demand. That is, until I discovered the wealth of cheesy Christmas movies that are cranked out each year by basic cable stations like ABC Family, The Hallmark Channel, and (my personal favorite) Lifetime.

As I've mentioned before, each one follows a time-tested formula - a delicious recipe, like your grandma's egg nog. Arguably the most important ingredient is the c-list celebrity, and The Christmas Consultant, which kicks off this year's Cavalcade, has got a doozy - David motherflippin' Hasselhoff (It's also got TV's Caroline Rhea, but who cares).

Ms. Rhea plays a frazzled working woman who has no time for the holidays (a staple of any cable Christmas movie), yet must host an elaborate Christmas party to impress a potential client. In order to accomplish this she hires Owen, the titular Consultant, who spends the entire month of December immersing the family in Christmas spirit in a ridiculous, over-the-top way that only the Hoff could pull off.

Don't get me wrong - like most made-for-cable Christmas movies, this one is dumb. Really dumb. But Hasselhoff is allowed to do what he does best, and that's running around like a goddamn nutjob. Plus, I can kind of identify with his character's bottomless enthusiasm for the season, and frankly I'm a little jealous of his job. Except the part at the end when Caroline Rhea kicks his ass at the Christmas party. Apparently she thinks he's hogging all the credit for the party and making her family like him more than her, even though he has done all the work and of course her family has grown to prefer the lovable Christmas lunatic over the career-obsessed shrew.

This being what it is, everything is wrapped up with a nice little bow by the end. In a twist everyone can see coming a mile away, it turns out [SPOILER ALERT!] that the family that Owen awkwardly refers to throughout the movie has been dead for years. This knowledge melts Caroline Rhea's bitchy heart, and he is invited to spend Christmas at her place.

No matter what ingredients you use - a charming small town, an American city that looks suspiciously like Toronto, public domain Christmas music, an unlikely romance, a precocious child, a magical Santa-like character, etc. - the final product is always the same: The Perfect Christmas™. It may be sickeningly sweet or extra cheesy, but it's what basic cable does best. Well, that and Road House marathons.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation/A Christmas Story

Regular viewings of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story this time of year are as reliable as a visit from the man in the red suit.  You can always count on cable television to ensure that you get to see both of these classics every year, probably more than once.  They're kind of like two relatives that you look forward to seeing every Christmas - they're familiar, they're funny, and they may tell the same jokes every year but you don't really care.

A Christmas Story is based on a series of short stories author Jean Shephard (who also narrates the film) wrote for Playboy magazine in the 1960's.  In it, a boy named Ralphie's single-minded quest for a Red Ryder BB gun is fraught with evil Santas, violent gingers, and the Bumpus hounds.  Ralphie was played by actor Peter Billingsley, who (contrary to popular belief) never became a porn star but went on to produce films like The Break-Up and Iron Man.  And of course Ralphie's father, "The Old Man", was played by Darren McGavin - an actor that you'll probably also recognize as Billy Madison's dad. Here's a clip of Ralphie telling Santa what he really wants for Christmas.

Christmas Vacation is a film for a slightly more "adult" crowd, which chronicles Clark Griswold's equally passionate quest to provide the perfect Christmas for his family. Randy Quaid (as Cousin Eddie) really steals the show ("Shitter was full!"), but I'll always have a soft spot for Uncle Lewis (famous old man William Hickey) and Aunt Bethany (Mae Questel, the original voice of Betty Boop and Olive Oyl). "Grace? She passed away thirty years ago!"  Here's a clip of Clark's famous freakout when he realizes he's gotten a jelly club membership instead of his expected Christmas bonus.  Clark Griswold IS the 99%.

Batman Returns

Some Christmas movies aren't really about Christmas - they use the holiday as a backdrop and refer to it from time to time in order to accentuate the story. Die Hard is a good example of this, but another one is Tim Burton's underrated sequel Batman Returns.  In it, Michael Keaton's Batman takes on The Penguin, Catwoman, and (best of all) Christopher Walken as department store tycoon Max Schreck, and he does it all in a snow covered Gotham City.

Tim Burton has admitted that he has a thing for the holiday season, perhaps because "it has something to do with growing up in a California suburb, where the only way to tell the passing of seasons was when people broke out the holiday decorations". His trademark style seems to go very well with Christmas, as evident in Batman Returns but also in Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas. 

Aside from all the snow, Wayne Manor and Schreck's Department Store are decked out for the holidays.  A climactic scene takes place at the Gotham City tree lighting ceremony, where Schreck gives an awesome speech and Batman defends Christmas from The Penguin's gang of freakish clowns. Even in the flashback at the beginning of the film, Paul Reubens celebrates Christmas by dumping his young, beflippered son in a river.

So if you're looking for an unconventional Christmas movie that captures the spirit of the season despite being dark and weird, go for Batman Returns.  You could also go for Nightmare Before Christmas, if you shop regularly at Hot Topic.

Goodfellas

It may not be a Christmas movie, but who can forget this classic scene from Martin Scorcese's 1990 epic Goodfellas? The holidays may be a time to shower your loved ones with expensive gifts, but NOT if you've just pulled off one of the biggest heists in history - a fact which Robert DeNiro's Jimmy Conway tactfully reminds us of in this scene, which also features The Ronettes' Frosty the Snowman and Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)".

Home Alone

I can understand why so many people find Home Alone to be a Christmas classic, probably because I loved the movie too for a very long time.  As a kid, I must have seen it five times in the theaters, a record I would break twenty years later with Hot Tub Time Machine.  But recently, I've decided I don't like Home Alone very much at all.  You see, I can't enjoy any story where I dislike the protagonist.  And I think that Kevin McCallister is an evil little prick.

He's a jerk to his family - sure, you can chalk that up to suburban kid angst, but if he's like this now he's going to be completely insufferable as a teenager.  When they ditch him on Christmas, he mostly sees it as an opportunity to eat lots of ice cream and watch violent movies.  He's a smarmy dick to anyone he encounters, and he scams a pizza guy (as a former delivery professional, this is his most unforgivable crime).  Then, when two burgulars attempt to break into his house, he physically tortures them in awful, sadistic ways.  I mean come on, they're not war criminals.  Just call the damn cops, you sick little bastard!

But whatever, far be it from me to shit all over someone else's beloved holiday tradition.  So go ahead and enjoy Home Alone this season - just know that I'll be watching Jingle All the Way instead.

A Very Merry Daughter of the Bride

Some things just go well together.  Peanut butter and chocolate.  Thelma and Louise.  And of course, Christmas and Lifetime original movies.  Like most people, Lifetime movies are a big guilty pleasure for me and the Christmas ones are the best.  If I had to choose a favorite, though, it would have to be A Very Merry Daughter of the Bride.  Just like the regular ones, Lifetime Christmas movies have an identity that is based a few very basic shared elements. VMDB just happens to hit all the sweet spots.

Roxanne (JoAnna "Vicki from Freaks & Geeks" Garcia), the film's protagonist, is an attractive, successful, independent woman whose life is dominated by her job - a bridal store which she runs with her mother in a small, charming hometown where the Christmas season is in full swing. After her mother announces her plans to marry a man she met on vacation, Roxanne schemes to break up the couple with the help of C-list celebrity guest star Luke Perry, who plays the new boyfriend's son. She also meets a handsome guy who she hates at first but is clearly perfect for her. In the end, the magic of Christmas causes Roxanne to realize that Luke Perry is evil, her mother should marry the dude, and the handsome guy is, in fact, perfect for her. Also, the movie is filmed in Canada and prominently features an original Christmas song used to save money on music rights. The only thing missing is a precocious child.

Lifetime used to call their Christmas programming "Fa La La La Lifetime", which I thought was great, but this year they're going with the slightly less-ridiculous sounding "It's a Wonderful Lifetime". No matter what they're called, though, they're a heartwarmingly lame way to get into the spirit and kill time before the network starts playing stuff like Gospel of Deceit again.

Jingle All the Way

It may have been the result of excessive Christmastime pot smoking, but sometime over the last few years a screening of the 1996 film Jingle All the Way has become a yearly tradition for me.  Even as far as Schwarzenegger comedies go, this one is batshit crazy.  It's pretty much a live action cartoon, with Arnold miscast as an All-American Dad who will go to any insane lengths to procure a coveted Turbo Man doll for his son. It's got a pretty amazing cast, including Sinbad, Rita Wilson, Verne Troyer, The Big Show, Chris Parnell, Martin Mull, Curtis Armstrong, and many more. In one of his final roles, Phil Hartman is genuinely disturbing as a lecherous divorcee with designs on Arnold's wife and her "cookies".

There are a few depressing things about this movie you'll have to overlook, however.  Arnold's son is played by Jake "Young Anakin Skywalker" Lloyd, whose face and voice just make you want to beat the kid like a rug whenever he's onscreen.  Comedy legends Harvey Korman and Laraine Newman have a cameo at the beginning that lasts a matter of seconds, while Sinbad has the whole movie to "shine".  And then, of course, there's the message: You can neglect your child all you want, as long as you're able to purchase their love with a hard-to-find Christmas present.

However if you can just give yourself over to the insanity of it all, this movie is a wild ride involving toy store riots, kung-fu Santas, bomb threats, jetpacks, and Jim Belushi.  Just make sure you have plenty of Yuletide intoxicants on hand!

Die Hard

Die Hard is one of the best movies ever and if you don't agree, you shouldn't be allowed to live in this country.  I'll admit, though, that growing up, I never really thought of it as a Christmas movie.  Sure, it takes place on Christmas Eve, during a Christmas party, the limo driver is listening to "Christmas in Hollis", and there's that whole "now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho" thing, but mostly it's just two straight hours of John McClane and Alan Rickman being totally badass.  There's no Santa Claus, no Christmas-that-almost-wasn't, and no snow.  It takes place in 1980's Los Angeles, a "cultural abyss" (as my boss puts it) in which something like Christmas cannot thrive.

Nonetheless, it has become part of my regular rotation this time of year, and its association with Christmas only got stronger when I attended the annual midnight Christmas Eve screening of it in Manhattan last year wearing a Santa hat and drinking a thermos full of egg nog.  It may not be Miracle on 34th Street, but it's got a happy ending.  And watching William Atherton get punched in the face is enough to get anyone in the Christmas spirit!

Scrooged

Scrooged is one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies, because why wouldn't it be? It stars a pre-"I play a sad old man in everything" Bill Murray and has David "Buster Poindexter" Johansen as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as a gratuitously violent Ghost of Christmas Present, not to mention it was the last time Karen Allen was cute. Oh and did I mention Bobcat Goldthwait? It was co-written by Michael O'Donoghue, one of the original SNL writers who was famous for his extremely dark sense of humor, but he later disowned it and claimed there was too much meddling by the studio. He especially hated the ending, which he claims he was forced to change from one which was much more depressing. But I say screw Michael O'Donoghue - Bill Murray's speech about Christmas gets me every goddamn time. Legend has it that it was mostly improvised, and if so it's just another testament to Murray's genius. I think it's a perfect way to kick off this collection, so enjoy!