| IMAGE: if possible, please run the three video box cover images for this story (video — xmas dysfunction 1, 2, and 3) side-by-side
Cutline: It’s hard to say which is the gayest Christmas film – OK, The Wizard of Oz isn’t a Christmas movie, but it still stars Judy Garland
You can imagine the scene. It’s like a Norman Rockwell painting commissioned by Blockbuster Video. After polishing off the roasted carcass of some hapless creature and a side dish of herbed giblets, your whole happy clan gathers around the television to doze in front of a movie.
As the lights on the Christmas tree (that you’ve been calling the "friendship tree" ever since Aunt Sally converted to Islam) twinkle in the corner of the den, Mom and Dad cozy up on the couch, the kids crash out on pillows on the floor and Grandma settles into her rocking chair, clutching her glass of eggnog just a little too closely to her chest. Someone pops a tape in the VCR so that you can all share in a special viewing experience that somehow captures all the hope, joy and comfort that the holiday season can provide.
At least, this is the dream that you cling to whenever the deadly combination of overeating and hard drinking turns your family’s Christmas dinner into the climactic scene of a Mike Leigh movie. At times like these, it takes just the right holiday video to distract your relatives from their resentments and recriminations.
And since, as Tolstoy noted, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, every unhappy family gathering deserves its own choice of seasonal entertainment. If any of the following scenarios apply to your holiday, these video recommendations could ease your suffering. (Or else make it more acute – art’s funny that way.)
The heavy losses that Dad suffered on his Enron stock has put my family in a state of economic desperation. Is there a holiday movie that might make us feel better about the recession, er, I mean, downturn?
For pure emotional power and collectivist-minded fervour, nothing beats Frank Capra’s 1946 anti-capitalist screed It’s a Wonderful Life. Indeed, despite the film’s feel-good reputation, there’s a very real sense of anger and desperation in this tale of a financially ruined man (James Stewart) who is convinced not to kill himself by a woeful vision of the world without him. Local millionaire Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) is presented as evil incarnate, a view of the wealthy that will appeal to anyone who was ever convinced that mutual funds were a wiser purchase than a widescreen TV.
Uncle Larry’s been a bit "funny" about the terrorism thing since 9/11. He enjoyed watching the toppling of the Taliban, but is getting impatient to kick ass in Iraq. Is there anything that might prevent him from yelling "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" all through dinner?
Nothing counters the threat of terrorism with seasonal cheer quite as well as Die Hard (1988) and Die Hard 2 (1990). On two separate Christmas Eves, Bruce Willis’s hard-luck hero must face off against well-armed terrorists, who may be motivated more by greed than jihad but are nonetheless led by bearded guys with accents (Alan Rickman’s German meanie in the first and Franco Nero’s South American drug lord in the second). Let Bruce teach your kids that Christmas is no reason to turn the other cheek.
Mom and Dad have completely lost the ability to be civil to each other for longer than the time it takes to draw breath. Can they still learn the true meaning of Christmas?
Probably not. But your family may get a few bitter laughs out of The Ref (1994), the late Ted Demme’s terrific comedy about a thief (Denis Leary) who fouls up a robbery on Christmas Eve and ends up with hostages who are even more caustic than he is: a bickering couple played by Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis. It’s like opening up a prettily decorated present on Christmas morning only to discover it’s full of very angry cats.
Cousin Jeff is a little light in his loafers. Though we’re all big fans of Will & Grace, some family members aren’t entirely comfortable about this. How can they understand the role of Christmas in his "lifestyle"?
Just out on DVD is 24 Nights (1999), which is purported to be the first gay Christmas movie. But that’s only if you don’t count that old claymation version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the vaguely suspicious The Muppet Christmas Carol or The Wizard of Oz, which is not really a Christmas movie but still stars Judy Garland. 24 Nights is about a clerk in a gay bookstore who asks Santa Claus for the man of his dreams. And whaddya know? That sugar daddy from the North Pole comes through!
This year I realized that everyone in my family is an asshole.
Well, then, treat them to the Christmas movies they deserve. Two versions of Charles Dickens’s tale of a miserly bastard who learns to love, Scrooged (1988) and Blackadder’s A Christmas Carol (1988), are caustic enough to match even the most wicked sensibility – and funny to boot. Homicidal misanthropes are sure to relish coming-down-the-chimney-to-kill-you classics like Black Christmas (1975) or Silent Night, Bloody Night (1973), an unfairly neglected curio starring Mary Woronov. If you’d prefer to punish your relatives for their misdeeds, why not strap them down in front of Ernest Saves Christmas (1988) or Jingle All the Way (1996) and then leave the room? Their helpless cries will warm your heart. |
