Happy Christmas everyone, I hope Santa brought you everything you asked for. My final Top 5 of the year was a request in one of my Christmas cards (hello Libby!) that I thought was going to be easier than it turned out. It seems I've not watched as many Christmas films as I thought. Maybe I've only seen the bad ones. Either way I had to do a bit of cramming this week and took a few "personnel recommendations" but I reckon this is still a pretty decent top 5.
1. "It's A Wonderful Life" (1946) - So I don't think I've actually watched this all the way through but reputation and recommendations suggest it's worthy of it's place as the best Christmas movie ever.
2. "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" (1966) - Chuck Jones' near perfect animation of Dr Seuss' brilliant retelling of Charles Dickens' classic "A Christmas Carol".
3. "Bad Santa" (2003) - Billy Bob Thornton excels as the drunk safe-cracking store Santa in a film that is the evil twin brother of "Miracle on 34th Street". Strewn with profanity and vulgarity this is not family entertainment but it is very very funny and still gets across it's little message of the magic of Christmas at the end.
4. "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947) - A tale to warm the heart of even the most cynical of viewers.
5. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) - Tim Burton does stop motion.
Enjoy the rest of the holiday period, best wishes for the New Year. I'll be back with more top fives later in January.
2 comments:
I can't agree with Bad Santa. Really didn't think that film was very funny.
My list would have to include The Christmas Story (80's film where the lad gets a bb gun), Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation, and I might have to include the claymation film made in the early 60's called Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058536/
I actually own that and didn't buy it until my kids were grown. There are so many subtleties embedded into the film. The goofy rejected toys, and the way Rudolph is shamed is...well, shameful, which is why the film is so funny.
Great to hear from you Brian, it's been so long since anyone commented on any of my Top 5s I almost stopped looking! I suspect my placing of Bad Santa says more about my sense of humour than it does about great Christmas movies!
I did consider Christmas Vacation but it's a long while since I saw it. Will try and check out the claymation movie for next year.
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