The Indie Auteur Musings on filmmaking by Stephan Vladimir Bugaj.

Holiday Films

I’ve been so busy wrapping-up stuff at Pixar before a 2 week vacation, gift buying, travel planning, working on a couple of screenplay projects, and dealing with end of year financials that all the exciting Indie Auteur blog posts I thought I had on-deck are languishing due to lack of mental space.  So here’s a round-up of my favorite Holiday films, ones that I think are fine examples of filmmaking craft and storytelling as well as merely being enjoyable.

This is the best holiday film ever made, in my opinion. A Christmas Story captures both the joy and chaos of the holiday season, and is one of the most accurate depictions of both family dynamics and the mind of a kid I’ve seen. The style and cadence of the writing, directing, and editing is brilliant, creating an homage to the classic Christmas movies of the old studio system, yet at the same time it takes the piss out of them with a much more realistic (and ultimately much more charming) view of the holiday. Even though I’ve seen this film probably a hundred times, it still makes me laugh.

Bad Santa is a good study in how to make a seemingly despicable character likable, or at least empathizable. It’s got a very clear character arc, and the juxtaposition of Christmas and the very inappropriate behavior of the main character is absolutely hilarious. It’s both heartwarming and incredibly obnoxious — a combination I can appreciate.

Scrooged is my favorite adaptation of Dickens’ classic story, one which is quite unfaithful to the letter of the original but very faithful to the spirit. Everyone already knows the story, so the success of this film is based on how well it was adapted to modern sensibilities, and great performances (the most memorable being Carol Kane as the Ghost of Christmas Present).

Most people don’t think of Die Hard as a Holiday movie, but it does take place during Christmas, and there is an undercurrent of redemption and reconciliation beneath the action film veneer. It’s also one of the most compelling action films ever made, due in large part to the personality Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman put into their characters (and their great on-screen rivalry).

The Ron Howard / Jim Carrey version of The Grinch is a mistake that filmmakers should learn from: the canonical remake rule is that you should take something that had a good idea at its core, but wasn’t excellent in its execution, and make it better. You shouldn’t take a beloved holiday classic and turn it into a smartass version of itself that relies on visual advances made since the original was produced, and cheap gags.

The original is only 26 minutes long and made for TV, but it’s narrated by Boris Karloff and the animation helmed by Chuck Jones, for Pete’s sake. Nothing was gained by making the story longer and goofier, and the short 1966 TV version is the one worth watching. It’s a great holiday classic, one set in the amusingly surrealistic world of Dr. Seuss, that’s neither too saccharine nor too silly.

The Nightmare Before Christmas is a musical fairy tale told in a classical style, but with the surrealistic twist found in all films by Tim Burton and/or Henry Selick. It’s ultimately a film about learning to love oneself and not be jealous of others, like The Grinch. In addition to a simple, albeit compelling and enjoyable story, it also has great set pieces and character design.

Finally, I wish there were some good non-Christmas Holiday movies out there to put on this list, but I just couldn’t think of any. If you know of a very good or better movie about the Winter Solstice, Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid al-Adha, or any other December Holiday, post a comment.

But all of the films listed above are quite secular in nature, which suits a non-religious person like me just fine, and should also be enjoyable for anyone of any religious background who isn’t a judgmental zealot.