It’s Christmas and sometimes what you want to do is snuggle on the couch, drink a hot cocoa and watch an amazing Christmas related movie so here they are.
For the action lovers:
Die hard
It's Christmas time in L.A., and there's an employee party in progress on the 30th floor of the Nakatomi Corporation building. The revelry comes to a violent end when the partygoers are taken hostage by a group of terrorists headed by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), who plan to steal the 600 million dollars locked in Nakatomi's high-tech safe Meanwhile, New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) has come to L.A. to visit his estranged wife, Holly (Bonnie Bedelia), who happens to be one of the hostages. Disregarding the orders of the authorities surrounding the building, McClane, who fears nothing (except heights), takes on the villains, armed with one handgun and plenty of chutzpah.
For the Humanitarian ones:
Joyeux Noel
The year is 1914, and as World War I continues to rage across the European countryside, four individuals stuck on the front lines find themselves faced with the unthinkable. When the war machines began rolling in the summer of 1914, the devastation that it waged upon German, British, and French troops was palpable. It is here that the fate of a French lieutenant, a Scottish priest, a German tenor, and a Danish soprano's lives were about to be changed forever. On Christmas Eve of that year, the lonely souls of the front lines abandoned their arms to reach out to their enemies on the battlefield and greet them with not anger or hostility, but with the simple, kindly gesture of a much needed cigarette or a treasured piece of chocolate, and to put their differences aside long enough to wish their brothers a sincere "Merry Christmas!"
For the French cinema lovers
8 femmes:
The Women, 8 Femmes stars Catherine Deneuve as Gaby, a high-society matron just returned to her country house to celebrate Christmas with her husband; mother Mamy (Danielle Darrieux); sister Augustine (Isabelle Huppert); and daughters Suzon (Virginie Ledoyen) and Catharine (Ludivine Sagnier). Not long after they all arrive, however, do they find the man of the house with a knife in his back, whereupon everyone becomes a suspect -- including maids Chanel (Firmine Richard) and Louise (Emmanuelle Béart). The mysterious arrival of Augustine's sister-in-law Pierrette (Fanny Ardant) only complicates matters, as the titular eight women find themselves snowed in by a fierce blizzard, forced to confront the matter of the lifeless husband -- and their long-standing secrets and resentments -- without the aid of the police.
For the comedy lovers:
Elf
For his sophomore stab at directing, actor/writer/director Jon Favreau took on this holiday comedy starring Saturday Night Live-alum Will Ferrell. Ferrell stars as Buddy, a regular-sized man who was raised as an elf by Santa Claus (Edward Asner). When the news is finally broken to Buddy that he's not a real elf, he decides to head back to his place of birth, New York City, in search of his biological family. Elf also stars James Caan, Mary Steenburgen, Zooey Deschanel, and BobNewhar
For the Christmas scrooges and Grinch
Scrooge, a Christmas carol
Widely considered to be the definitive of the many film versions of Charles Dickens' classic novel is this 1951 British adaptation. Sim plays Ebenezer Scrooge, a London miser who, despite his wealth, refuses to make charitable contributions and treats his sole employee, Bob Cratchit, as an indentured servant. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley, who was as selfish as Scrooge in life and has been condemned to an eternity of wandering the Earth in shackles. Marley informs Scrooge that he's to receive a trio of spirits that night who will take him on a journey through Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come. As Scrooge encounters each apparition, he is taken on a tour of his life and realizes what a wretch he is, transformed by greed from an idealistic youth into an embittered ogre. Infused with a new, cheery outlook, Scrooge sets about earning his redemption.
For the classic movies lovers
It’s a wonderful life
This is director Frank Capra's classic bittersweet comedy/drama about George Bailey (James Stewart), the eternally-in-debt guiding force of a bank in the typical American small town of Bedford Falls. As the film opens, it's Christmas Eve, 1946, and George, who has long considered himself a failure, faces financial ruin and arrest and is seriously contemplating suicide. High above Bedford Falls, two celestial voices discuss Bailey's dilemma and decide to send down eternally bumbling angel Clarence Oddbody (Henry Travers), who after 200 years has yet to earn his wings, to help George out., It's a Wonderful Life lost money in its original run, when it was perceived as a fairly downbeat view of small-town life. Only after it lapsed into the public domain in 1973 and became a Christmastime TV perennial did it don the mantle of a holiday classic.
Miracle on 34th Street
Edmund Gwenn plays Kris Kringle, a bearded old gent who is the living image of Santa Claus. Serving as a last-minute replacement for the drunken Santa who was to have led Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, Kringle is offered a job as a Macy's toy-department Santa. A resident of a Long Island retirement home, Kris agrees to take a room with lawyer John Payne during the Christmas season. It happens that Payne is sweet on O'Hara, and Kris subliminally hopes he can bring the two together. Kris is also desirous of winning over the divorced O'Hara's little daughter Natalie Wood, who in her few years on earth has lost a lot of the Christmas spirit.
For the rom-com lovers:
Four Christmases
Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are an upscale San Francisco couple who met three years ago at a party. Having both come from dysfunctional families, the two disdain marriage and child-bearing, preferring to engage in more adventurous activities. In an effort to avoid their families at Christmas, the two maintain the pretense that they are engaging in charitable work, and instead fly to exotic sun-spots, such as Fiji, to enjoy a relaxing Christmas there. Unfortunately, in the third Christmas of their relationship, Brad and Kate are trapped at San Francisco International Airport by a fogbank that cancels every outbound flight. To make matters worse, they are caught on camera and then interviewed by a CBS 5 news crew, revealing their whereabouts to the whole city and, worst of all, their families.
Love Actually
The film begins with a voiceover from David (Hugh Grant) commenting that whenever he gets gloomy with the state of the world he thinks about the arrivals terminal at Heathrow Airport, and the pure uncomplicated love felt as friends and families welcome their arriving loved ones. David's voiceover also relates that all the messages left by the people who died on the 9/11 planes were messages of love and not hate. The film then tells the 'love stories' of many people during the Christmas season.
For children
The Polar Express
Chris Van Allsburg’s quietly charming picture book about a train headed for Santa’s workshop becomes an overstuffed animated extravaganza thanks to this Hollywood cacophony of Christmas cheer. The pioneering movie (a major showcase for motion-capture technology) admittedly has dead-eyed characters with creepy skin textures, but the overall experience has wondrous moments of computer-generated spectacle.
Home Alone
Macaulay Culkin holds down the fort against bumbling burglars while his family accidentally flies to Paris without him in this massive hit that’s every kid’s fantasy—and nightmare. While his Rube Goldberg booby traps and Edvard Munch–inspired visage deliver the laughs, it’s the warmer moments with negligent parents (as well as a mysterious shut-in neighbor) that give heart to this comic evergreen.
What is your favorite Christmas movie?
Have a LBCI Christmas !