The Reds Share Favorite Christmas Movies

RHYS BOWEN: I’ve been scouring the TV listings for any of my favorite Christmas movies and do far nothing!
Do you have a particular movie that says to you “ okay, now it’s really Christmas?”

I have several: It’s a Wonderful Life”( I always cry) Love Actually ( although it always annoys me
when Liam Nielsen lets the boy push past airport security. I think he’s going to be shot until I remind
myself that it’s London and they don’t shoot people), and White Christmas are my favorites.

I almost forgot a Charlie Brown Christmas and Linus makes me cry at the end.

I also like Scrooge with Albert Finney but it’s not often on any more.
I quite enjoy The Santa Clause, especially when the obnoxious psychiatrist goes all starry eyed
and says , “Santa?”

The only one I’ve seen so far is Rudolph and I was interested to see a piece in a newspaper blasting
The bullying. I so agree. What a message—that Santa tells Dasher he should be ashamed
for having a son who is different? And the coach won’t let him play? And only the young bucks get to fly?
  Sorry. Time to retire that one

Elf makes me embarrassed. Home Alone terrifies me,

Am I too sensitive?  So how about you? What movie do you have to see each year?
And are there any good Hanukkah movies out there?

JENN McKINLAY: I love Scrooge with Albert Finney, but also A Christmas Carol with Alistair Simm, It’s a Wonderful Life, Love Actually, White Christmas...check, check, check! We can movie buddies, Rhys! I do love Charlie Brown’s Christmas and as a child of the 70’s and 80’s,

I love A Year Without a Santa Claus (Heat Miser v. Freeze Miser) and The Grinch (animated).

And, of course, the best Xmas movie of all time...Die Hard. LOL! Come at me!

RHYS: Oh yes… I remember the Heat Miser. I’m Mr. Heat Miser, I’m Mr. Snow etc. Good one.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I'm not big on Christmas movies--I mean, It's A Wonderful Life, sure, but I can say it word for word,  and DIE HARD, which I adore,Jenn, every time, but I wouldn't stop what I was doing to watch it. I've never seen ELF, because it looks--too dumb. (I know, I'm jumping to conclusions.) I used to LOVE  Love, Actually, and I still do, but I made the mistake of reading an article which explained why I shouldn't like it, and it had some points. There's Thin Man, too--doesn't one of them take place at Christmas?

OH! I know, I know, and yes, you MUST all see this, seriously, find it.  It's called--The Man Who Invented Christmas. It's about how Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol. Seriously. truly, it is wonderful, and an absolute writer movie. Trust me, it's terrific. I am going to go find it right now.

LUCY BURDETTE: I am with Hank, I am not a big re-watcher of Christmas movies, movies in general I’d say. I did notice that National Lampoon’s Christmas vacation is going to be showing at the local Key West cinema. I’m kind of tempted by that.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I absolutely must watch Love Actually. I know you can find fault with it, but I don't care, I still love it. And I listen to the soundtrack! I try to get in a viewing of It's a Wonderful Life, and I love A Christmas Story. I've even been to the house in Cleveland that was used for the set. Last year we watched Die Hard, which we hadn't seen in years, and thoroughly enjoyed it. You have to root for Bruce Willis.

But my very favorite Christmas movie is The Holiday, with Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, and Cameron Diaz, written, produced, and directed by Nancy Meyer, fabulous score by Hans Zimmer. If you haven't seen this, it's a must.

Oh, and Rhys, I'm glad to know I'm not the only terrified by Home Alone. I can't watch it!

HALLIE EPHRON:  I’ve never seen Die Hard but I do have a soft spot for A Christmas Story. And You’ve Got Mail. And of course Love Actually. But I do love to haul out ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and A Child’s Christmas in Wales for a read aloud. And the Dr. Seuss book about the Grinch. Looking forward to celebrating this holiday with our grandkids.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I do love Christmas movies, and they’re a tradition in our family. (Watching movies together is a big thing for us year-round, and we have certain films we always and ever only see at one date or another.) I’ll suggest three: My personal fave is CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT, the 1945 original, not the dreadful 1992 remake. Glamorous, funny Barbara Stanwick has to fake being the WWII era Martha Stewart at her all-too-eager to wed boyfriend’s house in snowy, rural Connecticut - despite the fact she can’t boil water. Will her publisher find out? Will she realize the handsome war hero she’s hosting is really the man for her? Will she stick the pancake-flipping? 

My second suggestion is another romantic comedy, but of a more recent vintage - HOLIDAY IN HANDCUFFS. Melissa Joan Hart, the perpetual screw-up in her picture-perfect family, is so desperate when her fiance dumps her right before the family Christmas vacation, she kidnaps Mario Lopez and introduces him as her boyfriend. The screenplay actually makes the insane premise work, and along with laughs and sighs, you get fabulous winter cabin p*rn and Mario Lopez wearing nothing but a towel.


My final recommendation is THE CHRISTMAS CHRONICLES, which came out on Netflix last year. It’s campy and corny, but has gee-whizz special effects and an AMAZING performance by Kurt Russel, starring as a Santa you wouldn’t mind handing your stocking to, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

RHYS: So who has a favorite Christmas movie to recommend? Who has to watch a particular Christmas movie?

FAVORITE CHRISTMAS MOVIES

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Hooray, it's the Jungle Red Saturday List, and now that Thanksgiving is over, we are of course thinking about Christmas. But just to take the sting out of all the hoopla of shopping, wrapping, mailing, decorating, and sending cards, I thought we should turn our minds to pure, unadulterated pleasure--Christmas movies. I love Christmas movies, unabashedly, and would happily watch them non-stop for a month if I could find the time.

I meant to say limit your choice to one movie, but since I'm going to cheat and put in two, everyone else can, too.

Oh, so many to choose from! But my very close second spot goes to LOVE ACTUALLY, which I will undoubtedly make my husband watch at least once, and he will complain that it's incredibly sappy but watch it anyway, bless him.

#1, however, must go to A Christmas Story. Although this movie debuted in 1983, I didn't see it until my husband introduced me to it in the mid-nineties, and I've been in love with it ever since. It is a writer's movie if ever there was one, adapted from Jean Shepherd's story, "Red Ryder Nails the Hammond Kid," first published in the December, 1965, issue of Playboy Magazine. (How many of you knew that?) Wonderful performances from Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, and Peter Billingsly as "Ralphie." (Peter Billingsly, by the way, grew up to be quite dishy. Recognize him without the glasses?)

So, Reds, what are YOUR faves?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: LOVE, ACTUALLY, is my favorite. Absolutely. NO question, no second thoughts. I play the album all the time--and people say, isn't that a Christmas movie? And I don't care. Second? Ah...I'm stumped. I do like It's a Wonderful Life, especially the dancing on the swimming pool,but --shrugging. Sometimes I think it's creepy. (What can I say? He was going to kill himself, and leave his whole family?) You've Got Mail? How about that? But I don't like the ending.

JAN BROGAN: Miracle on 34th Street, hands down. What better fantasy than one of those shopping mall Santas is the real guy. And it's got to be the version with Natalie Wood as the little girl. Although I am a big fan of A Christmas Story, I still think my second place goes to It's A Wonderful Life - even if I groan a little at the length of it.

RHYS BOWEN: I have so many favorites, including "You'll shoot your eye out!" but every year I don't feel Christmassy until I watch WHITE CHRISTMAS and IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. (And I also love Scrooge, but that would be cheating to slip another one in, wouldn't it :)

ROSEMARY HARRIS: So mean to make us stick to just two! I love all of the movies mentioned - Albert Finney as Scrooge, so brilliant.(But so was Bill Murray.)
Okay...stop cheating.)

A Christmas Carol - must be the Alistair Sim version and Love Actually. I will probably watch that twice between now and New Year's. "I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes....."

DEBS: Hank and Rosemary, I LOVE the soundtrack to Love Actually. It's stayed at the top of my playlist for years. I wonder what ever happened to that darling girl singer?

ROSEMARY: I had googled her a while ago! Her name is Olivia Olson and she's still singing and still cute as a button. Here's a link to her version of All I Want from Love Actually: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H_WKfRDA8w

HALLIE EPHRON: You've named all my favorites! Top of the list, I agree with you, Debs: A Christmas Story. Testament to its staying power: I saw in one of the store ads (K-Mart? Target?) that sexy leg and tassel lamp the father lusts after.

For a little less treacle, I like Home for the Holidays. Holly Hunter has to spend the holidays with her family, where she so does NOT want to be. Brilliant turn by Robert Downey Jr. Plus Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart at their most vulnerable) - watch it back to back with its adaptation You've Got Mail.

LUCY BURDETTE: Sleepless in Seattle, not completely Christmas but the holiday's in there. Going to watch Love Actually again, along with A Christmas Story and Home for the Holidays. thanks for the suggestions!

JAN: Lucy, I think you just cheated :) Watch out for coal in your stocking from my Macy's Santa.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I must be the oldies fan in the bunch. Two of my favorites are Christmas in Connecticut (1945) and White Christmas (1954.) The first one has the stunningly fashionable Barbara Stanwick who does what we'd call lifestyle blogging today. Except she's a complete fake who lives in a West Side apartment and who can't cook. Caught out by her publisher's offer to host a wounded vet, she has to scramble to recreate her "perfect" rural lifestyle - complete with husband and baby!

Everyone knows the second. How can you go wrong with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye and Vera Lynne and the incomparable Rosemary Harris, all harmonizing on "Snow" as they take the train up to Vermont? It has all the hallmarks of the 1950's musical - songs that make no sense, silly romantic mix-ups, and a stage in a barn that's larger than Lincoln Center. I love it.

DEBS: Okay, I'm cheating--how could I have forgotten The Holiday? I love that one, and would watch it over and over just to see Eli Wallach.

I'm putting Home for the Holidays on my to-watch list, and some of the ones I haven't seen in years, like Christmas in Connecticut and White Christmas.

Sounds like a great alternative to shopping!

So, what about you, readers? No cheating--well, maybe a little... Tell us your faves!