Top 10 Christmas Movies: The Fifth Day of Giftmas 2011

Top 10 Christmas Movies: The Fifth Day of Giftmas 2011

I haven’t seen every Christmas movie ever. I still haven’t seen Miracle on 34^th Street or all seventeen versions of A Christmas Carol. Also, I can’t remember how I got home from work today, so there are some movies I maybe don’t remember anything about at all. Furthermore, my criteria for the following list is based almost solely on what I want to see again right now. And I’m thirsty. Who knows what the list would be like if I had a slurpee right now? Hard to say, but I bet Home Alone would be on there. [Spoiler alert: It’s not]

Also of note is that these are all Christmas movies in the sense of both words. They are not Hanukkah movies – of which there are none – or TV specials, of which there are 4,387. Also, they are all feature films. Apologies to The Grinch That Stole Christmas and all its stop-motion friends. Not to mention Night of the Meek, a Twilight Zone episode which happens to be my favorite Christmas-related show of all time and possibly my only actual Christmas tradition. Given these variables with this criteria, here’s what I came up with.

10. The Ref: First of all, it has nothing to do with officiating. So don’t keep watching, expecting a basketball game to break out. Instead, Denis Leary breaks into a house and forces a bickering couple (including Kevin Spacey) to pretend he’s their therapist during a Christmas party. I know it sounds like the plot of It’s a Wonderful Life, but there are a few variations worth watching this version. Tomatometer: 76%

9. Gremlins: So how exactly are we supposed to bathe these creatures? I’ll bet they’d make great pets for the Wicked Witch of the West. And when exactly does “after midnight” end? 5am? 3:45am? 12:01am? And who the hell likes bright light shined in their face besides interrogation victims? So the movie is not without its plot holes. But it’s a cultural icon now. And who didn’t name their hamster Gizmo when I was 13? Tomatometer: 79%

8.  Lethal Weapon: Yeah. It’s a Christmas movie. Which means you can probably figure out what #1 on this list will be – but let’s take a look. It opens with Jingle Bell Rock and has a marquee scene in a Christmas tree lot. And it ends with the suicidal Mel Gibson (pre-crazy, or at least pre-dangerously-bigot-type-of-crazy) giving Danny Glover the gift of the bullet that he was going to use to commit suicide. That probably wasn’t on his amazon.com registry. Tomatometer: 90%

7. Fantasia: How is this not on top lists of Christmas movies? Who can possibly listen to the Nutcracker Suite without thinking of dancing tea cups? I used to think that movement in the Nutcracker Suite was actually called “Dance of the Tea Cups.” So I’m putting it on my list of favorite Christmas movies, despite that it has no plot to speak of and only one of the seven vignettes has anything to do with Christmas. My list, my rules. Tomatometer: 98%

6. Bad Santa: “Fuck me, Santa. Fuck me, Santa.” So no, it’s not your six-year-old daughter’s Christmas movie. It doesn’t try to be and it wears that on its CD cover. Not that any Billy Bob Thornton movie is for kids, but especially not one that taints the image of their favorite person in the world. But his relationship with the retarded kid (his word) is touching, much in the same way that moving a dying bird from the street to a yard is touching. And I owe this movie for the introduction of Lauren Graham to my life. Tomatometer: 77%

5. Trading Places: What the world needs now is another morality play disguised as pop cinema like this was. Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd in their prime. A dollar bet that ruined the life of a man for the amusement of old rich folks who get sucker punched in the wallet in the end. All set mostly – or at least enough to qualify for the list – over Christmas. Tomatometer: 89%

4. A Christmas Story: I cannot remember the last Christmas when I didn’t watch at least 25 minutes of this movie. I can probably recite it verbatim without even realizing it. Tomatometer: 89%

3. Love Actually: This was the original. Before Valentine’s Day and the dreadfully rated New Year’s Eve, there was this intertwining vignette-style romantic comedy that was more genuine than cheesy. The cool thing about this is that everyone talks about their favorite part or this part sucked but I liked that and that part was over the top, etc. But all anybody says about Valentine’s Day is it wasn’t as good as Love Actually. It’s worthy of the attention it gets. Not to mention that Colin Firth donates his time to a rather decent role in this. Tomatometer: 63%

2. Elf: Will Ferrell at his absolute best. I have publicly decried almost every SNL performer turned actor (Chris Kattan, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan), but Will Ferrell has proven whatever he’s needed to prove to me, wrapped up in this role. He makes you believe that he’s really a human who thinks he’s an elf. And he has stop-motion animated snowmen as friends. And he enjoys whatever diabetes-inducing breakfast it was that he ate. There’s a reason USA shows it three nights in a row on back-to-back weekends every year. Tomatometer: 84%

1. Die Hard: Run DMC provides the Christmas music in this coming out party for Bruce Willis. And strangely, Alan Rickman has managed to be in two very marquee Christmas movies. I wonder if that was by design. It’s a shame they didn’t have a Harry Potter and the Baby Jesus. Anyway, it’s a Christmas movie for the next generation. And by “the next generation,” I mean like four generations ago. Tomatometer: 94%

You got one I may have left off this list? Maybe you are a huge Tim Allen fan. Or maybe you hate Alan Rickman. Or maybe you think that it’s bullshit that I put Trading Places on here in place of the much more Christmassy Ernest Saves Christmas. Well, leave a note and we’ll see if your letters to the editor will get you on the back half of The 12 Days of Giftmas.

Ranking the 2010 Best Picture Nominees

Ranking the 2010 Best Picture Nominees

For the second year in a row, the Oscars have gone with a 10-nominee field for Best Picture and a 2-host system. They still have no idea what they’re doing since Billy Crystal stopped hosting 7 or 10 or 13 years ago. But I like the 10-nominee format, despite the fact that the 5 not also nominated for Best Director will never win. These five movies should just be called the “Special Recognition Category” and there would be no winner. Thanks, Inception. You were brilliantly smart, visually ground-breaking and super entertaining. You get ringside seats to see The Social Network and The King’s Speech duke it out for the prize that you won’t get.

I made it a point to go see all 10 movies before the Oscars this year for reasons I’m not sure were very important. I guess I just wanted to pretend to be informed and sound snootier at an Oscars Party this year. Which I’m not going to. And sounding snooty to Jenn isn’t nearly as fun because she already knows I’m full of shit. But anyway, I ranked the top 10 Best Picture nominees in order of how good I thought they were, not who I thought would win. I asked Jenn to do the same so we could get the woman’s perspective and stole some info from Rotten Tomatoes to see what the snooty critics thought too. And yes, I was nice enough to compile all that info here on one blog post that no one will ever read.

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Dustin's Rankings Inception The Fighter The Social Network Toy Story 3 Black Swan 127 Hours True Grit The Kids Are All Right The King's Speech Winter's Bone

Jenn's Rankings Inception Black Swan The Fighter The King's Speech True Grit The Social Network Toy Story 3 127 Hours The Kids Are All Right Winter's Bone

RT.com Rankings Toy Story 3 (99) The Social Network (96) True Grit (95) Winter's Bone (95) The Kids Are All Right (94) The King's Speech (94) 127 Hours (93) The Fighter (90) Black Swan (88) Inception (96)

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1. Inception – It’s possible I’m being swayed by the brilliance of Memento and the Prestige, but this would probably still be my favorite movie if it was directed by the Farrelly Brothers. That’s a lie. Anyway, this is the kind of intelligence that people don’t put into movies anymore. He takes a concept and follows through with it with absolute precision. If you analyzed the dream within a dream concept of time, I’ll bet that it all adds up to what it’s supposed to, whereas most writers or directors wouldn’t care if there were little plot holes. Chris Nolan has done what I had hoped M. Night Shyamalan would. Except Nolan follows Memento with the Batman movies and a few other great movies, capping it off with Inception. Shyamalan had Unbreakable and then a bunch of shit (Lady In the Water? Really) that continually discredits The Sixth Sense. Transition from small budget intimacy to multi-million dollar blockbuster complete.

2. The Fighter – Apparently Mark Wahlberg has pigeon-holed himself into sports movies based on real-life events back in the 80s. But this one was more than a sports movie. This was more about addition than it was sports. I loved Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech but Christian Bale did the best acting job I think I have ever seen with his role in this. About 45 minutes into the movie, we find out that the HBO cameras shooting the documentary aren’t making a film about Christian’s comeback at all, but a movie about crack addition and it hit me like the reveal in the Sixth Sense. And that entire sequence played over Good Times Bad Times was awesome. You could feel the movie turn. I’m not sure how much of this was actually based on a true story, but that stuff doesn’t matter as much to me. This was great for many reasons. Go see it.

3. The Social Network – I’d have to check again, but I think this might be the best dialogue in any movie I’ve ever seen. It was fast, it was fun and it was smart. I was pleasantly surprised by this and I don’t think they made Mark Zuckerberg out to be an ass at all. Just a really justifiably arrogant and brilliant guy. I can relate. I just don’t think a movie about facebook can really win the Best Picture. If so, facebook has officially taken over the world. Congrats.

4. Toy Story 3 – This is an excellent movie when watched through the perspective of an anthropomorphic toy. But when viewed through the perspective of a college student’s emotional development, it’s a rather sad tale. Still, I cried once at the end. And then I REALLY cried at the REALLY end.

5. Black Swan – This is the most critically acclaimed movie I will ever masturbate to. Wow. And it’s artsy and has ballet in it, so it’s OK. But wow. And honestly, Natalie Portman deserves this Oscar. What a fucked up character that she pulled off perfectly. And the whole ballet thing too. Those weren’t lookalikes. At least not all of them. The Fountain, by Aronofsky was one of the worst movies I’ve seen. This was much better. Pi was somewhere in the middle, as it usually is.

6. 127 Hours – Well, I reported on this movie at length already, but it’s worth seeing. Once. I think it was only nominated because somebody had the guts to make a movie which 75% of it was in one place stuck under a rock.

7. True Grit – Because it’s the Coen Brothers, I think I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did. It was fun in parts, but it was a remake of a movie that already exists and it was slow and boring for most of the movie. I don’t think it’s going to start a western revival. Hailee Steinfeld was nominated for Best Supporting Actress, despite having about 10-15 minutes more screen time than Best Actor nominee Jeff Bridges. They imagine this was because they wanted her to be in a category she could actually win. Can they do that? Aren’t there any fucking rules? If so, why not nominate her for Best Animated Short?

8. The Kids Are All Right – I need to start with the title of this. What the hell? Really? And they didn’t even play the Who song? I really liked that there was a movie about real life functional lesbians raising children. And I liked the message that life is hard. But they never really wrapped up the father’s character and I’m not sure what the point was. With the lack of a point comes the feeling that this was more like a series of things that happened rather than a plot. But cheers to the LGBT community.

9. The King’s Speech – I was tricked at first too. I was enamored by the performances of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush. But after peeling that away and reflecting a bit, I really didn’t like this film. It took London’s – nay – the world’s darkest hour in history and made it about a man with a stuttering problem. It was uplifting to deliver the news that the world was ending. Hitler was a legitimate role model for a few seconds. It’s about triumph over adversity and I love that concept of trying to make yourself a better person, and it drove the point home by including all the elements that normally go into a formulaic underdog sports movie. Cheesy montage workout scene longer than any in The Fighter leading up to a climax of an ending on the grandest of stages. And the worst was the beginning of the second act when the writers forced an argument between player and coach to create drama. History has met formula in a triumph I couldn’t care less about.

10. Winter’s Bone – People aren’t just good or bad. They have different motivations that may blur the lines between what is conventionally right and wrong. There. I saved you 2 hours of your time. You’re welcome. Oh, and the deep south is fucked up. Like you needed me for that one.

Ranking the 2009 Best Picture Nominees

Ranking the 2009 Best Picture Nominees

I know. I’m late. Jenn and I went to an Oscars party last year and I for one, was excited to see the revived 10-movie nominee format. Later, after watching A Serious Man and Precious based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Jenn suggested that we put District 9 on the Netflix cue so we could watch all 10 nominees. This was rather surprising because the first time I asked her if she wanted to watch it, she said it looked like the two worst movies in the world got together and had a child and beat the shit out of it (paraphrased). I was excited. I think I may have accidentally tricked her into suggesting this but I wasn’t about to feel guilty.

And so we watched all 10 nominees. By then, we had already heard all the hype about Avatar and saw The Hurt Locker undercut the biggest movie of all time. Neither of us had any love loss, as we both thought Up was far superior to either. So I decided to rank the 2009 Best Picture nominees from 1-10. And I asked Jenn to do the same, just because I like to get into fights. Then I checked Rotten Tomatoes to see how the critics felt about them. And here I present to you my findings as a completely unqualified movie critic.

Dustin's Rankings Up The Blind Side District 9 Avatar The Hurt Locker A Serious Man Precious Up in the Air An Education Inglourious Basterds

Jenn's Rankings Up The Hurt Locker Avatar District 9 The Blind Side Precious An Education Inglourious Basterds A Serious Man Up in the Air

Rotten Tomatoes Up (98) The Hurt Locker (97) An Education (94) Precious(91) District 9 (90) Up in the Air (90) Inglourious Basterds (89) A Serious Man (88) Avatar (82) The Blind Side (68)

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1. Up – “But it’s a talking dog!” Charm, surprise and characters. Laughter, tears and romance. But mostly the dog collar that made the dogs talk. That did it for me. All movies, especially full length animated features, have their share of side acts and there have never been any better than the talking dogs in this movie. And Pixar was able to develop a relationship that made the audience care about it so much, about 98% of the crowd cried in the first 7 minutes of the movie. That was brilliantly done. And to this day, I’ve never heard anybody say anything about the little boy scout kid being Asian. Nobody. Weird. That’s how good the movie was. Seriously.

2. The Blind Side – It was a movie about football. REAL football. And Tim McGraw was in it. Maybe I’m grading on a curve because it’s based on a true story, but it was good. And based on football.

3. District 9 – This was the surprise of the year for me. This film was amazing. It started out as a documentary and ended as a narrative, but made an almost seamless transition between the two forms. It was impressive. Also, this was the first movie I’ve ever seen where there were aliens coming to earth and they were actually in trouble. They weren’t evil and trying to take over the world like we all thought. What a refreshing take on the topic. But this is where my love affair with Sharlto Copley started. If I had a hall pass from my engagement, this is the man I may go after. If I can’t get Portia de Rossi, that is. It was original, moving and clever and I have no idea why I ranked it below The Blind Side when I ranked them last year around this time.

4. Avatar – A lot of people liked to pick on Avatar for shit, mostly unjustified. It got a lot of crap for being a remake of the Sacajawea story. Didn’t the Coen Bros get praised for their adaptation of the Odyssey? Nominated for an Oscar even? Maybe if James Cam said he was doing remake, it would have been OK. And you could play that game with almost any movie. Hurt Locker: Guy loves his life-threatening job so much, he can’t stand to be with his wife and child and it ruins their relationship. Hello? Better get a good lawyer because David Simon did that first in the Wire. And Up’s brilliantly clever story of a disgruntled old man who loses his wife and falls into a deep depression and befriends a young kid to help him through it. Didn’t that already win best picture when Matt Damon and Ben Affleck called it Good Will Hunting? Avatar was, however, a three-dimensional movie with one-dimensional characters. But it was pretty kick ass, despite all that.

5. Hurt Locker – This was the best picture of last year. And it was good. But it was also slow and predictable. I fell asleep the first time I tried to watch it. Which isn’t horrible as I fall asleep a lot, but it’s not best-picture worthy. There were some very riveting scenes – one where he pulls the wire and 6 bombs surround him and another dealing with a bomb hidden inside a kid – but it felt a little slow in parts. And it doesn’t hold a match to District 9.

6. A Serious Man – This is the next Coen Brothers movie. Not necessarily a sequel to No Country for Old Men, but almost the same exact film. They have a knack for putting their main characters through the wringer and this is at the root of it all, a story about suffering and how to deal with it. I am not, however, Jewish – nor was I alive in 1967. And they stopped writing ends to their movies. They just kinda stop filming. They lucked out with No Country, but let’s not start whacking each other off just yet.

7. Precious (based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire) – Sadly, we as a nation had to say all that nonsense. Lots of movies are based on novel. Why the fuck do we have to qualify this one? I was pissed before I started watching it because of that. But then the movie got good. Mo’Nique, or however I’m supposed to spell her name (see, it gets confusing when you add shit that aren’t letters), was awesome. And not just for a female stand-up comedian. But for a real person, too. Seriously, she was good. And the movie, in its bleakness, was good too. Sad and over the top in parts, but a

believable look into what being raised in the hood is like for poor black people like me.

8. Up in the Air – For a few weeks, I liked to go around to people and ask them if they’d seen Up. Then when they started to answer, I’d say “in the Air.” They slouched. The excitement would leave their body. I had them at that moment. They were mine. Then I would kick them in the balls. That’s kinda like how this movie was. In other words, average.

9. An Education – This movie was the last one we’d seen in the batch of 10. It was well on my way to being in my top 3 or 4 about an hour and a half into it. Then the last 10 minutes happened. It went from a realistic exploration of the boundaries of having a relationship with a teenage girl (or an older man, depending on your perspective) to a cheesy uplifting Lifetime movie special in one stupefying scene. I was stunned. Like the last scene of Arlington Road, but for a much different reason. I couldn’t believe the movie sold out like that. It had something deep and meaningful and controversial. Then it all but came out and capped the movie by saying “stay in school and listen to your parents” Aesop-style. It was insulting and degrading. If I ever watch it again, I’m going to shut it off before that last 10 minutes happens.

10. Inglourious Basterds – I’m done giving Quentin Tarantino the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know why he misspelled both of the names in the title. I don’t know why he didn’t translate certain words in the captions. I don’t know why he made this movie. I’m done. It was stupid. Sorry. It was stoopid. Certain dialogue was left untranslated at times and not in others. Like the word “oui” for example was occasionally translated to say “yes” at the bottom of the screen when spoken, but also occasionally translated to say “oui.” Why? Is he that bored now? Or that high with power? I didn’t much care for anything that happened in this movie, but if I was, I was too distracted by nonsense like that to care. Just retire already please. You made your two movies. Now you’re just embarrassing yourself.