It'd be a lie if I said that I thought of this idea all on my own, but I'm gonna go with that anyhow. Mike did get me in the Christmas spirit with his top five animated Christmas movies, and tickled my childhood bone... wait... anyways it inspired me to do this list of top five Christmas comedies, or as it will soon be called "why Steve is cynical and hates Christmas." But if you really take this list into consideration, you'll see I'm as cheerful as old saint Nick.
(NOTE: I haven't seen Scrooged yet, yeah I know, so I've omitted it from this list intentionally.)
5.) A Christmas Story
Oh no! Boo! Steve, you're wrong! It's a classic! Best Christmas movie ever! Boo!
Wrong. TBS has played a Christmas story for a 24 period every year since I can remember. Doesn't anyone else find that annoying? I get to see it on TV once a year and it just plays over and over and over and over. It's too much, I can't take it. I hate that programming plan so much that it's actually ruined the movie for me entirely. I only included it on this list because as a kid, I really did have a love for this movie because of it's simplicity. It's a completely organic family dynamic for it's time period with almost no flabby exposition to try and get out. Everything feels just like you're at your cousin's house. Except now, your cousins have the same argument for 24 hours every year. It makes me wanna shoot my eye out.
4.) Home Alone
Now this would be number 5 if it wasn't for TBS. It's all the things that a 24 hour marathon haven't ruined, snappy dialogue and physical humor. Joe Pesci at his finest, well, close. It really is still a charming story for the whole family despite McCauley Culkin turning into a creepy real-life version of Powder. I would also consider Home Alone 2 into this mix because it does what most sequels can't, keep the characters and story fresh while maintaining the fun tone of the original.
3.) Elf
One of the best and most refreshing films of the traditional Christmas pattern in the last decade. Will Ferrell at his best here and he really shows that he can appeal to all demographics with his comedy. An early glimpse of the directorial skills of Jon Favreau can also be seen here, as the film moves along through the hilarious idiocy of Buddy the Elf while maintaining a higher purpose in the grand scheme of the film overall. It's good enough to watch year round, which isn't easy for a Christmas movie to do.
2.) Christmas Vacation
You wanna talk classics? You wanna talk tradition? You wanna talk, ah fuck it. When I think Christmas I think this movie. Chevy Chase as the pinnacle of fatherhood leads the way for this movie to be perhaps the greatest Christmas movie of all time. Any time I see Randy Quaid, whether it be in Independence Day or on the police blotter, I just think of him standing in the middle of a street on a snowy December morning with a septic hose because, well, shitters... they get full. It also marked the beginning for Chase as what many could consider the father of a generation of comedies, and not in the sense that he gave rise to a new form of comedy but rather anyone in their 20's or 30's right now thinks of a comedy that most resembles their father, it's probably Clark Griswald.
1.) Bad Santa
Got any favorites I missed? (Besides Scrooged, I know, I know) Let me know!
(It's Joe Noel, Steve.)
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I've never been able to make it all the way through Bad Santa. Perhaps it's the pacing, or the fact that I already associate BBT with other roles I despise (Mr. Woodcock come to mind). It could also be just the heavy alcoholism which, realistic or not, I think is a cheap gag/shtick. I'm surprised this outranked Chevy Chase, honestly! It might just be that he's SO LOW at the beginning of the film that I tend to discredit his character arc because he really has nowhere to go but up. We don't really see him at his finest, we see him at his lowest, on a slow (reluctant) ascent back to being at least semi-well adjusted.
Elf was cute, and gave Zooey Deschanel her requisite singing role in movies (no small wonder that she's hooked up to one-time-indie-now-mainstream singer/songwriter Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie / The Postal Service fame) and what I liked most about it was that it actually managed to keep Will Ferrell's typically-screenhogging personality down on a more relatable level. Sure, he gets his jokes in and his pratfalls and uses an almost-creepy-but-still-funny voice, but compared to Anchorman (which, I admit, I adore) or Ricky Bobby, etc, it's pretty mild, here. And that works. The other characters go through some development, too.
I've never made it completely through A Christmas Story, either. It might just be too understated. Does that make me unamerican?
ALSO:
Best Unintentional Christmas Comedy, EVER:
It's a Wonderful Life.
"MARY! MARY, I WANT TO LIVE MARY!" I could go on about the acting (style appropriate to the times or not). But the irony of the reality of the times underneath the movie's idealism is simply too much to watch with anything other than amusement and skepticism in a very jaded modern age.
Haha, good points Joe, seriously give Bad Santa a chance. He does start very low at the beginning but if you find BBT verbally abusing children funny you can come to adore this movie... if not then yeah Christmas Vacation is probably your number one... I just have too much fun watching Bad Santa
ReplyDeleteScrooged is No. 1 in my book because of a man named Chill Murray, maybe you've heard of him? Murray Christmas everyone!
ReplyDeletego watch the ref.
ReplyDelete