Top 9* Holiday Flicks for Cool Kids

MSNBC ran an article about the "coolest Xmas movies you've never seen." Even though the list really doesn’t cut mustard for Facets’ extended family of enlightened renters, collectors, and readers, the author’s intentions were noble and he hit upon some overlooked gems, including The Ice Harvest and La Buche. But the whole tit-for-tat, “If you’re sick of A Christmas Story, you should see blank” approach is pretty limiting. Add to that, how could you honestly be sick of A Christmas Story?

Regardless, you should feel free to go beyond the Christmas Canon (It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, White Christmas) and its more subterranean counterparts (A Nightmare Before Christmas, Bad Santa, Scrooged) this year and find what puts you in the jolliest or grinchiest mood, both of which have their redeeming qualities. Why is Egg Nog anymore of a holiday drink then say…gin? At least gin tastes like pine trees. I guess what I’m driving at here is this: You should pick your own holiday poison. I’m picking mine:

1. Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984)
It encapsulates what I’ve come to expect from Christmas. My snuggly hopes of Capra-esque small-town holiday charm, multi-colored lights, and good will toward man end up falling apart before mid-December. The cold outlasts the merriment every year and crap goes south fast, as it does in Kingston Falls after Gizmo gets himself wet. There's another valuable lesson to be learned in Joe Dante’s comically violent masterpiece: Never look for a Christmas present in Chinatown.

2. Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
Although I was tempted to put Winter Light on my list for its sheer existential and topographical blankness, I went with Bergman’s markedly cheerier and highly autobiographical ode to the arts, his childhood, his films, and, of course, Strindberg. Granted, I’ve never seen a Christmas Eve even remotely as festive as the one spent at Grandmother Ekdahl’s home in Uppsala, Sweden in the first act of Fanny and Alexander, but I have to keep hope alive that it goes down like that somewhere. Conga lines, singing, boozing, magic lantern shows, infidelity—everything a good Lutheran boy could possibly dream of!

3. The Mothman Prophecies (Mark Pellington, 2002)
I generally shy away from movies made by music video directors—all flash with no motivation—but I think this Mark Pellington (Pearl Jam's "Jeremy") thriller deserves some credit for making West Virginia seem like a completely different planet altogether without being condescending in any way. Richard Gere plays a man who loses his wife mysteriously, believes the (real-life) Mothman legend has something to do with it, and wanders back and forth between his D.C. home and West Virginia searching for answers in the cold. Without giving anything away, the finale that takes place on a suspension bridge in the middle of the small coal-mining town is visually stunning, with neatly-wrapped Christmas presents sinking to the bottom of the icy river.

4. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
Kubrick’s final piece of filmed controversy gets big wintry props here, but not for any lofty theoretical, psychosexual, or auteurist reason. It all boils down to the mansion party held by Victor Ziegler (Syndey Lumet), in which Kubrick uses a wall of soft, white Christmas lights to illuminate the scene. This source-lighting scheme continues throughout the film, ranging from lights on Christmas trees to those hung around the seedy, confining streets of "New York" (way shot in England). There’s also a drunken quality to the whole picture that speaks to the holidays in general. And Nicole Kidman stops the show by forcefully saying “Fuck” in what appears to be a giant FAO Schwarz toy store. That’s holiday gold, Stanley.

5. Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)
You know, I love A Christmas Story just as much as the next Joe Sportscar. However, I love horror movies exponentially more. Especially ones as simple and effective as Bob Clark's atmospheric wonder Black Christmas. This is by far the best of the holiday horror films. Not because it came before Christmas Evil (You Better Watch Out) or Silent Night, Deadly Night, but because it set the suspense bar so high for 'girl alone in house' horrors like Halloween, When a Stranger Calls, and Scream. Awards for honorable thespian go to John Saxon (Mitchell) and Margot Kidder (Superman: The Movie), who plays a drunken slut of a sorority sister even though she was clearly pushing 30 at the time. Also, Clark’s insistence on keeping the ambiguous, freaky ending for a movie that debuted on Dec. 20, 1974 shows just how large the man’s balls were. “Up yours happy holiday audiences and uptight studio execs.”

6. The Lion in Winter (Anthony Harvey, 1968)
They couldn’t throw enough Oscars at this recreation of James Goldman's play about Henry II and the ascension of the British throne, starring Peter O’toole and Katharine Hepburn. All the cat and mouse scheming for the crown on the part of Henry II’s three sons and his trophy wife Eleanor of Aquitane (a trophy for her lands, not cans), unfolds in the castle's frozen chambers on one long Christmas Eve. Douglas Slocombe's photographing of the Chinon exteriors during the grand arrival is the cinematic highlight of the movie. Slocombe also shot Polanski's Fearless Vampire Killers, which just barely missed my personal list of snowy favorites.

7. Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003)
Listen folks, I’m not too proud to slum it with the author of Brigdet Jones's Diary. If I want something that will cheer me up around the holidays, I’m going to look towards this mushy limey. A number of couples confront relationship woes and new loves emerge in a series of interrelated narratives around the Christmas holiday. The pretension and heavy-handedness sometimes associated with web-like narratives [read: Crash (2005)] are nowhere to be found. You're only going to get warm, rom-com hooks with this one.

8. The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles, 1942)
Certainly not the most profound explanation for The Magnificent Ambersons glory (you know, up until RKO tacked-on an absurdly happy ending), but there’s a double nostalgia going on when I watch the film. My nostalgia for Welles' time and his experiences in the studio era, and Welles' nostalgia for the turn-of-the-century Midwest, down to the Gibson Girls and horse-drawn carriages. It should be added, the sleigh ride sequence gets a plus five for holiday spirit bolstering.

9. Fargo (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996)
“So that was Mrs. Lundegaard on the floor in there. And I guess that was your accomplice in the wood chipper. And those three people in Brainerd. And for what? For a little bit of money. There's more to life than a little money, you know. Don't you know that? And here you are. And it's a beautiful day. Well, I just don't understand it.” Sure, this biting Coen Brothers movie is darker than all the films I’ve mentioned here in some respects, but this message, uttered by Marge, the pregnant police officer played by Frances McDormand, is so uncluttered and sublime that it perfectly encapsulates what the yuletide spirit ought to be, in my opinion. Gifts aren't cheap and neither is traveling, but that's nothing compared to the price you'll pay for not stopping to smell the Egg Nog (and summarily spiking it).

A few of these films aren’t necessarily Christmas movies, but each brilliantly captures some of the feelings associated with the holidays in one way or another: Cold, lonely, anxious, bloated, sick of the saccharine sweetness, and so forth. And if you'd argue that one of these films doesn't hold up in that regard, then it probably has snow in it or something, which means it totally counts as a Christmas movie.

-Brian Elza

*10 is for squares

It’s a White Wonderful Christmas Life

About 15 years ago, Turner Network Television played Frank Capra's It’s a Wonderful Life once a day for 30 days, beginning at Thanksgiving and running thru Christmas. I happened to be sick then and I remember spending much of that time drifting in and out of consciousness, steadily watching Jimmy Stewart contemplate suicide over and over only to be rescued by that sweet angel, Clarence.

Most people pigeon-hole this classic with the holidays, as it's only seen on TV during this season. But, the film transcends the holidays and has truly stood the test of time.

Now, I am not urging anyone to watch Jimmy sing "Buffalo Gal" to Donna Reed thirty times over, but if families or cozy couples are looking to get out of this uncharacteristically mild December weather and into the Xmas spirit, I recommend The 23rd Annual Music Box Christmas Show at Chicago's Music Box Theatre. The film runs as a double feature with a Bing Crosby crooner vehicle, I believe. Capra holds the headliner status, of course.

The show runs this week, from the 20th thru Christmas Eve. For more info, visit the Music Box Theatre's website. In the meantime, I will be checking my coat pockets for Zuzu’s petals. Happy Holidays!!!

- Jason Makman

Get Outta the Snow and Into a Show

A plethora of cinematic options are up for grabs this week for those eager to escape the white blanket that has covered Chicago.

Big-time ups on the list is The Tenth Annual Festival of New French Cinema running at the Facets Cinematheque. This is THE lone wolf film fest, as it's the only festival in the country devoted to emerging French filmmakers. It's a must, as most of these features will never be released in the U.S., theatrically or on DVD. This is your ONLY chance to see many great films.

Highlights include Gentille, the off-beat, comedic festival opener; Dans Paris, an acerbic comedy about two brothers and their tumultuous love lives; Fissures (pictured), a psychological thriller of the paranormal variety; A Ticket for Space, a send-up of space movies; and The Singer, the fest's closer, featuring a touching performance by Gérard Depardieu as an aging lounge singer.

The Tenth Annual Festival of New French Cinema runs from Dec. 1 - 10 at the Facets Cinematheque, 1517 West Fullerton Ave, Chicago, IL. For more info, visit the Cinematheque, here.


Another weekend must-see is the MFA Thesis Screening show at Columbia College Chicago. A number of shorts from Columbia up-and-comers will be in full effect, but a major highlight is Girl's Room, by filmmaker (and, for full disclosure, a good friend of mine) Maria Gigante.

The 10-minute short "is a dark comedy that tells the tale of Sammy, a young girl who must confront the much-feared school bathroom where she is sure to encounter terror, humiliation, and isolation. But, when she finally takes matters into her own hands, she discovers that maybe she isn't so along in this big, bad world."

The Columbia College MFA Thesis Screening takes off on Friday, December 1 at 6 pm, at Columbia College Chicago, Film Row Cinema, Ludington Bldg., 8th Floor, 1104 S. Wabash Ave., Downtown Chicago, IL, ya'll.

If that isn't enough, head back to Columbia next Friday for the concert reading of Maria's award-winning thesis script, Eva Eva. The dark comedy about a young Polish girl who starts an alarmingly successful underground voodoo doll business at school was the winner of the 2006 Written Image Competition at Columbia, and a finalist at the 2006 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab.

The reading will be held Friday, December 8 at 6 pm, at 1415 S. Wabash, Downtown Chicago.

Have a good weekend. Stay warm. Watch much.

- Phil Morehart