Holiday Movie Club
August 21, 2014 10:33 PM - Subscribe

American Thanksgiving this year is Thursday, NOV 27th. Christmas is DEC 25th. This suggests 28 days for a "Holiday Movie Club"

though I am flexible on the dates. New years? Canadian Thanksgiving? 31 days of December?

I propose we arrange a movie club to watch heartwarming winter holiday movies during this time, in order to give us a reason to avoid our relatives. The movies I think that contain a "holiday" theme:

A Christmas Story
It's A Wonderful Life
A Muppet Christmas Carol
Scrooged
Die Hard
Ernest Saves Christmas
The Long Kiss Goodnight
How The Grinch Stole Christmas (THE ANIMATED ONE!)
Home Alone
Batman Returns
The Santa Clause
The Shop Around The Corner
Eyes Wide Shut
Bad Santa
Trading Places
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
The Nightmare Before Christmas
Elf

obviously, my cultural milieu points toward Christmas. Any suggestions, recommendations, hints tips or tricks? I'm liking one per day, so 28 movies, give or take a few.
posted by the man of twists and turns (33 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Rare Imports, Edward Scissorhands, and Gremlins
posted by miss-lapin at 9:09 AM on August 22, 2014 [4 favorites]


Oh Hogfather!
posted by miss-lapin at 9:10 AM on August 22, 2014


I know it's a Thanksgiving movie but can we add Planes, Trains, and Automobiles? Maybe kick it off with that during the Thanksgiving weeknd.

This is a fun idea.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:22 AM on August 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Also: I can volunteer to add movies and dates and whatever else to the FanFare wiki, and am volunteering to act as an "emergency back-up FanFare poster" should someone be unable to post their movie. I expect to be around during the month of December.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 9:24 AM on August 22, 2014


One per day is a lot of movie-watching! I imagine this would be more of a "dip in for the ones you love / the ones that interest you" thing; also a repository of "revisit FanFar when you get around to watching this movie" posts.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

OH HELL YES. Definitive Thanksgiving movie.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947) is the obvious companion price to It's A Wonderful Life; maybe also White Christmas (1954).

A Muppet Christmas Carol
Scrooged


I'm not a fan of the Bill Murray Scrooged; many are, though.

But to round out a trilogy of Christmas Carols: joseph conrad and I are fans of the 1970 Scrooge with Albert Finney. Great songs; Finney is a really good grouchy Scrooge; an excellent supporting cast; it really deserves to be more seen and better loved than it is.

Someone's going to suggest the Star Wars Holiday Special, aren't they?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:41 AM on August 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


Oh, and Gremlins, yes -- it's set at Christmas and riffs strongly on Christmas movie tropes. (And it specifically references It's A Wonderful Life, so would be better scheduled after it.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:24 PM on August 22, 2014 [2 favorites]


One per day is a lot of movie-watching! I imagine this would be more of a "dip in for the ones you love / the ones that interest you" thing; also a repository of "revisit FanFar when you get around to watching this movie" posts.

Yes, exactly. Everyone is invited, nothing is mandatory.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 1:30 PM on August 22, 2014


How The Grinch Stole Christmas (THE ANIMATED ONE!)

Oh God yes, the Chuck Jones one, not the Jim Carrey monstrosity.

Can probably schedule this around ABC's broadcast -- although Googling around suggests that they don't release their holiday-specials calendar until early November.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:30 PM on August 22, 2014 [1 favorite]


Home for the Holidays

Does While You Were Sleeping count? It's been a long time since I've seen it, so I don't remember how much the holiday theme comes in.
posted by kagredon at 9:01 PM on August 23, 2014


Rare Imports

Based on Rare Exports Inc. (nsfw) btw, if anyone hasn't seen it (spoilers).
posted by homunculus at 10:13 PM on August 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


Does While You Were Sleeping count? It's been a long time since I've seen it, so I don't remember how much the holiday theme comes in.

I watched it last year around the holidays, and I'd forgotten completely how much it's about family and Christmas.
posted by gladly at 6:51 AM on August 24, 2014


If you want to lengthen this, I'd start with Halloween. In my family, the canonical holiday movies (and time frame during which they must be watched) are Nightmare Before Christmas (October 31), Miracle on 34th Street (weekend after Thanksgiving), and A Muppet Christmas Carol (December 24). And watching heartwarming holiday films is acceptable during the month of November.
posted by ChuraChura at 7:00 AM on August 24, 2014


Thank you homunculus, I meant Rare Exports. I'm a bit kerfuffled.

Since this group is called "holiday" movie club, I'd say we could do Halloween. I nominate Trick r Treat.
posted by miss-lapin at 11:23 AM on August 24, 2014


Other holiday movies that might fit:

The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Hudsucker Proxy
A Christmas Carol
Lethal Weapon
Trading Places
The Nightmare Before Christmas
A very Harold and Kumar Christmas
posted by Benway at 1:27 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


White Christmas & Christmas in Connecticut
posted by donajo at 4:55 PM on August 25, 2014


A holiday tradition around the Benway household is always National Lampoon: Christmas vacation on the 24th and A Christmas Story on Christmas day. We usually throw in Trading Places the week before, along with The Hudsucker Proxy and Emmit the Otter's Jugband Christmas. Then finish with Love, Actually and About a Boy.

But whatever works, I'm excited about filling the holiday schedule!
posted by Benway at 5:55 PM on August 25, 2014


The Ref, with Dennis Leary, Judy Davis, and Kevin Spacey! My family's favorite Christmas movie.
posted by skycrashesdown at 8:37 PM on August 27, 2014


The Bishop's Wife (the one with Cary Grant, NOT the Preacher's remake with Whitney Huston).
posted by brujita at 6:04 AM on September 1, 2014 [2 favorites]


Excellent suggestion, brujita.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 10:29 AM on September 1, 2014


So now that FanFare has developed a bit and there's been some more thinking, I'd like to change things.

I feel like there's a lot going on on the FF front page, and adding a movie a day wouldn't help. At the very least, I think we should hit, at a minimum, Halloween (perhaps in coordination with the Horror club?), Thanksgiving and the day after, and Christmas eve, Christmas day, and boxing day.

Or perhaps one a week as a good balance?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:38 AM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


The Winter Solstice is the traditional time to watch films based on H.P. Lovecraft stories.
posted by homunculus at 12:39 PM on September 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Jumping in to say my holiday season is never complete without Miracle on 34th Street.

Also, I know you're worried about a movie a day clogging up FanFare, but remember that TV shows will mostly be on hiatus during the holiday times so we do have a little more legroom for movies.

And also, I'm going to need things to do while I'm out of work with my new baby, so movies movies movies yay.
posted by Night_owl at 1:30 PM on October 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Now I think that one a day is really, really pushing it. And so do the networks. What about:

27 NOV: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, for Thanksgiving.
1 DEC: 4 DEC: Die Hard
8 DEC: Miracle on 34th St (1947)
11 DEC: Miracle on 34th St (1994)
15 DEC:Scrooge (1971)
18 DEC: White Christmas
22 DEC: Hogfather (Solsticey)
24 DEC: It's a Wonderful Life AND How The Grinch Stole Christmas
25 DEC: A Christmas Story.
26 DEC: Gremlins
31 DEC: Batman Returns
1 JAN: Trading Places

This also gives time for later years. Or perhaps it's free-form, and as people see things come up they can use the tag:
HolidayMovieClub
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:39 PM on November 25, 2014 [2 favorites]


I approve this message.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 7:43 PM on November 25, 2014


Also, posting links to streaming services like those found at canistreamit in the post would be very helpful.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:46 PM on November 25, 2014


Oh yay. This is great.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 10:37 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Since I borked the list, I'd like to add The Nightmare Before Christmas on 1 DEC.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:47 PM on November 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


From “A Royal Christmas” to “Merry Inkmas”: Your guide to the hellscape of Christmas-themed programming - “Holiday special” is a phrase in the English language that covers all manner of sins"
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:43 AM on December 15, 2014






Den of Geek's Christmas Movies
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:48 AM on December 31, 2014


With the posting of Trading Places, we've concluded 2014's Holiday Movie Club. We could make this a year-round thing, hitting various holidays as they come up.

Personally I'll wait until Thanksgiving this year, 26 NOV 2015, to start up. I have just the movie in mind...
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:25 PM on January 1, 2015 [1 favorite]




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