A lot of people talk about holiday comfort food. Well, I also have comfort DVDs. My coworker & I were talking about Christmas movies recently and it got me thinking about my list of Essential Christmas Viewing:
1. Die Hard
It's amazing how often people forget that this is a Christmas movie, but amazingly this was on my coworker's list as well. This is for the discerning viewer who likes the traditional Christmas movie message of family togetherness, but thinks It's a Wonderful Life needed more exploding buildings. Seriously, what's not to love here? Great one-liners? Alan Rickman? An 80s Christmas rap by Run-DMC? Check, check and check.
2. The Office (American), 3.10: A Benihana Christmas
So much brilliance was crammed into this 42 minute episode. In addition to the Pam/Jim storyline (which is great for anyone who's experienced unrequited love during Christmas), we get Andy explaining how to make a Nagasaki ("one part eggnog, three parts sake!"), Dwight instructing the Benihana waitress on how to slaughter a goose, a top secret CIA mission, and the war of the two party-planning committees.
Ryan: "I miss the days when there was only one party I didn't want to go to."
3. The X-Files, 6.06: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
Creepy and christmasy don't usually go together. And when they do, the result is usually another c-word: cheesy. But this X Files episode manages to be a damn good ghost story complete with a tender holiday moment between two people who mean more to each other than they care to admit. Plus, Mulder gets to use the phrase "left-cheek sneak" which may be the best thing on television, ever.
4. MST3K: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
This is a terrible, terrible movie with an annoying earworm of a theme song and some icky moments when it seems quite fitting that Santa is an anagram for Satan. In short, it deserves every snarky comment Joel and the bots provide. I call it Essential Viewing for one main reason: Crow T. Robot's original Christmas carol, Let's Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas:
“It’s my way or the highway,Like Crow says, you keep Christmas in your way and I'll keep it in mine.
This Christmas at my bar,
I’ll have to smash your kneecaps
If you bastards touch my car…”
5. Love Actually
I love this movie a lot more than I probably should. It's a bit saccharine, a LOT unrealistic, and all the love stories are all about privileged, white, heterosexual people. So why do I adore it? Is it the grand, sweeping music? The sniffle-inducing airport scenes? Hugh Grant dancing? Bill Nighy as an irreverent, aging rock star? I honestly couldn't tell you. All I know is that I can't get through to New Year's without watching this at least once.
6. The Office (BBC): Christmas Special
This one stretches the "comfort" part of the comfort DVD category. The original UK version of The Office is so cringe-inducing it's painful, and this two-part series finale is no different. But the payoff (everything from Dawn's first office visit on) is amazingly heartwarming.
"The people you work with are people you were just thrown together with. I mean you don't know them, it wasn't your choice. And yet you spend more time with them than you do your friends or your family. But probably all you've got in common is the fact that you walk around on the same bit of carpet for eight hours a day. And so obviously when someone comes in who you have a connection with, yeah... And Dawn was a ray of sunshine in my life, and it meant a lot. But if I'm really being honest, I never really thought it would have a happy ending.I don't know what a happy ending is. Life isn't about endings, is it? It's a series of moments. And um... It's like when you turn the camera off, it's not an ending, is it? I'm still here, my life's not over. Come back here in ten years, see how I'm doing then. 'Cuz I could be married with kids, you don't know.Life just goes on."
3 comments:
I still have your Christmas CD from a few years ago featuring "Patrick Swayze Christmas". I grade end of term papers to it. Take that, papers.
-K
That was all I could think about when he died a few years ago. At some point, I should make myself sit through Road House just so I can understand all the MST3K references.
This is truly a triumphant return to blogging!
I have been listening to an acoustic guitar Christmas album for a couple of weeks now. I am kind of embarrassed I couldn't wait til after Thanksgiving.
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