A Break from all the Bring-down Political Stuff

Christmas (bleh) is fast approaching. You can tell because every store you go to has a bunch of Christmas trees and wreathes and crap piled all over the damn place, you can't move more than a few feet in any direction because some Fertile Myrtle always has her double-wide stroller parked sideways in the aisles, and disgusting, otherwise-unemployable old men everywhere are stroking their flea-ridden beards, drinking their Old Crow, and scratching their scabby laps in anticipation of the arrival of your children. So to help you get that horrific image out of your head, check out this list of Seven Christmas Movies That Don't Totally Suck.

1. Bad Santa - Say what you will about Billy Bob Thorton. You know, that he's a crazy, emaciated redneck who's obviously some sort of powerful warlock, seeing as how he got Angelina Jolie to have sex with him. Never has there been a better portrayal of Santa Claus. I mean, he blows that douche from Miracle on 34th Street right out of the water. This movie has it all: drunkenness, sex, cruelty to children, swearing, a shootout... uh, John Ritter. The scene where Billy Bob drunkenly tears apart the weird little kid's beloved advent calendar and shoves all the candy into his mouth puts me in the Christmas spirit like nothing else can. And when he beats the skater punk with his own skateboard... I mean, who HASN'T wanted to do that?

2. It's a Wonderful Life - This isn't really a Chirstmas movie. I know everyone thinks it is, and they show it so many times around Christmas time that I can recite the damn thing verbatim, but it's really just a movie about a man's life, and the story just happens to end on Christmas. Die Hard takes place at Christmas time, does that make Die Hard a Christmas movie? Yeah, that's what I though, bitch.

So, I've seen this movie about six meeeellion times and I never get sick of it. Why? I dunno. Jimmy Stewart ROOLZ as always. The story is funny. And a litle sappy at the start. Then takes a crazy, dark turn into suicide and drunkness and sleaze, then builds to the feel-good ending of all time. Any movie that can go from The Donna Reed Show to film noir then back again in the course of 2 hours has gotta be good, right? Plus it has Mr. Potter, one of the all time great movie villians, the cranky old bastard. Also, he looks like Dick Cheney. "Merry Christmas, Mr. Potter!" "Happy New Year to you... IN JAIL!!!"

3. Christmas Vacation - The best of the Vacation movies, and I'll fight any man who says different! Those two wretched kids from European Vacation are gone (what a couple of mutants those losers were. That son would have gotten his ass kicked by Anthony Michael Hall, easily. And that daughter... were we really supposed to believe that the bad guy from Karate Kid would go out with her?) and are replaced by that kid from Roseanne and Juliette Lewis before she went nuts. This might be the last good movie Chevy Chase ever makes, so savor it.

4. A Christmas Story - One of the few movies to accurately capture what it's like to be a kid, and what it's like to hope and pray you'll get what you want for Christmas. Then of course, you end up getting a bunch of socks and earmuffs and underwear and shit. This helps prepare you for the constant crushing defeats and disappointments you'll face in your adult life. Like, I always wanted an AT-AT, but did I ever get one? Noooooooo! Fuuuuuuuudge.

5. Die Hard - Hahahahaha, remember what I said earlier? Well, screw it, there aren't any more good Christmas movies, so here you go. How can you go wrong with a movie that features the line, "Now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho?" Lots of 'splosions and wisecracks. Republican dipshit Bruce Willis actually still has a little hair in this one, too. And Alan Rickman is great, he's like a walking version of Mr. Potter. He kind of sounds like Mr. Potter too, if you really listen. Oh, and if you drink lots of whiskey.

6. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - this cartoon isn't really a movie, but it's Christmasy and it's seriously effed up. You've got this weird, Chernobyl-ized reindeer whose gross deformity makes him a social outcast. You've got an elf who's unjustly ostracized for his sexual orientation (sure, Hermie, those nazi elves hate you because you want to be a "dentist." You're not fooling anyone). You've got an anorexic Santa. You've got this crazy prospector who can't find any silver or gold (I'm guessing it's because rather than, oh, say, DIGGING IN THE GROUND, his method of searching for precious metals is to stick his pick-axe in the snow and then lick the end of it. Science!). And you've got this big gorilla-thing who gets all his teeth knocked out and seems to enjoy it. So, you've got mutation, bigotry, closeted homosexuality, eating disorders, axe-licking, and animal cruelty/sado-masochism. Merry Christmas, everyone!

7. That Charlie Brown Christmas Special Thing - Snoopy is cool. But I kinda question the logic behind this special. So, the message is that the commercialization of Christmas is bad, right? Yet we're getting this message from a cartoon that's interrupted every ten minutes by ads for Dolly Madison snack cakes? Also, how exactly did that shitty tree get so robust and healthy at the end? Was it the mighty power of Jesus? Or was it the power of Zingers? Does anyone besides me even remember what Zingers are?