‘Tis the season for Holiday films. Though I don’t celebrate Christmas in any religious sense, I do love the Holidays sans all the bullsh*t that comes with feeling obligated to spend time with and money on people you don’t like. I can go on a tirade about it here, but I won’t. Rather, I’d like to share some Holiday cheer with a list of my favorite Holiday films.

In no particular order, here is a list of my favorite Holiday movies:

• Mixed Nuts: I love ensemble casts. The main cast includes Adam Sandler, Steve Martin, Juliet Lewis, Anthony Lapaglia, Madeline Kahn, Liev Schreiber, Parker Posey, Jon Stewart, and Rita Wilson. Basically a bunch of crazy things happen one night during the Christmas holidays at an crisis hotline center. Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally) wrote the screenplay.
• Home for the Holidays: Jodie Foster directed this warm Thanksgiving comedy starring Holly Hunter, with Anne Bancroft, Rober Downey Jr, Dylan McDermott and Claire Danes. “Claudia Larson (Holly Hunter) usually approaches family reunions with a certain trepidation, but as she prepares to fly from her home in Chicago to her parent’s place in Baltimore for Thanksgiving, she is more apprehensive than usual. Claudia has just lost her job, she’s not feeling at all well, and her teenage daughter, Kitt (Claire Danes), who is staying behind, informs Claudia on the way to the airport that she plans to use the weekend to lose her virginity with her boyfriend.” (from imdb.com) Gotta love it.
• Home Alone: I know, I know, but it gets me. I love mush during the Holidays and Culkin was such a cutie-patootie (sp?).
• Elf: Will Ferrell is bloody ridiculously funny as a very overgrown elf who goes to New York City (by way of the North Pole) in search for his father.
• The Family Stone: It’s a new favorite (came out in 2005). I love these types of dysfunctional family comedies. It’s a surprisingly well written film. “An uptight, conservative, businesswoman accompanies her boyfriend to his eccentric and outgoing family’s annual Christmas celebration and finds that she’s a fish out of water in their free-spirited way of life.” (from imdb.com)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas: ‘nough said.
• When Harry Met Sally: It’s more than just the best romantic comedy ever, it’s also set around the Holidays (both Christmas and New Year’s). It’s adorable and fun.
• The Shop Around the Corner: James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are absolutely perfect in this cute classic set in Hungary. Although Christmas doesn’t come until the end of the film, it’s a great film to watch over the Holidays…and in general! “Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand one another, without realizing that they’re falling in love through the post as each other’s anonymous pen pal.”
• The Ref: I love, love, love this film. I absolutely love Denis Leary in this film. The Ref also stars Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis. Leary plays a burglar who is forced to take a very dysfunctional couple (Spacey and Davis) and their son hostage on Christmas Eve, the night they’re throwing a Christmas party. It’s a truly hysterical film.
• Babes in Toyland: I used to watched this every year when I was younger. It’s a classic.
• Meet Me in St. Louis: One of very, very, very few musicals I like, let alone love. Judy Garland stars. “In the year before the 1904 St Louis World’s Fair, the four Smith daughters learn lessons of life and love, even as they prepare for a reluctant move to New York.”
• It’s a Wonderful Life: I only started watching this film during the Holidays two years ago and was surprised then that I liked it. But, it’s meatier than one would think.