HOLIDAY MOVIES: GOING OUTSIDE THE BOX

                                       Instead of rewinding of "It's A Wonderful Life,"or "Miracle on 34th Street,"or
                                       giving-in to that yearly sexy-leg-lamp fix with "A Christmas Story," take up
                                       something different this holiday season and try some of these alternate 

                                       titles on DVD. They'll energize your season in curious and surprising ways, and
                                       best of all, do it without the wrappings and ribbons of squishy sentimentality.

THE CLASSIC

Of the bazillion versions of Scrooge populating our screens 

every year, pass'em by and seek out this restored print, two-disc 

DVD of the 1951 British  CHRISTMAS CAROL with Alistair 

Sim as Scrooge. It's the true original, topping all the others for pulling

you in with that Dickensian mood and ghostly atmosphere. You'll
never get tired of seeing it. Close second: 1993 TV-movie with
George C. Scott. 

NOTHING BRINGS FAMILIES (DYSFUNCTIONAL) TOGETHER LIKE THE HOLIDAYS

First saw THE HOLLY AND THE IVY, a 75 minute British 

gem from 1952, about twenty years ago at a repertory 

theater -- and have never forgotten it.  A village clergyman gathers 

his family at Christmas in an attempt to help with the emotional 

scars left over from WWII, and each other. Perfectly acted by 

Ralph Richardson and Margaret Leighton, the script  

moves the characters forward, and back, as emotionally mature 

adults without any sappy nostalgia. But, and  it's a 

big but, the movie is not available on DVD in this country. 

C'mon Amazon and Blockbuster, I'm lobbying. There's a market 

here, a movie worthy of becoming a seasonal classic. 

C'mon Turner Classic Movies: schedule it in December.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

If you haven't noticed, Jodie Foster has been quietly and steadily building a career as a top-notch director. "Little Man Tate," was a poignant mother-son story, and, coming out in January is "The Beaver,"with Mel Gibson. But her impressive second feature, HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS (1995), is hard to top. Here, she lifts that seasonal staple of a comic-dysfunctional family-coming-from-afar-to-get- together movie, to a precise mix of moving vulnerability and zaniness. HOME is actually a Thanksgiving movie. But movies in this genre so rarely capture that awkward sense of being around family, those people you love and know better than any other, yet can make you feel so lost, with such realness and authenticity, that HOME works just as well, even better, for Christmas. The great cast of Anne Bancroft, Charles Durning, and Robert Downey Jr. make family neuroticism and narcissism not only funny, but understandable -- no straining to be hilarious here. And, as lead neurotic Claudia, Holly Hunter has never been more likable and appealing. Foster's rhythm and timing keep the jokes funny all the way through. But most of all, HOME holds up because it feels like your family and mine. As Claudia says: "We may not like each other, but we're family."

There's a wonderful scene in A CHRISTMAS TALE where a mother and her adult son are talking in the backyard. "Still don't love me?" he asks her. "Never did," she says directly. Yet we know,watching  their manner and faces, and the rest of their conversation, these two have deep affection for one another. French director Arnaud Desplechin's 2008 film is rich with the improvisations that bring on these sudden understandings. He turns the family-gathering-at-Christmas story into a thick egg nog of characters bursting with the complex flavors of dysfunction: at once funny and loving, selfish and obnoxious, perplexing and nonsensical. The magic in this two-and-one-half hour film is how you're always anticipating, never knowing what to expect, so it doesn't feel long. And holding it together as the matriarch, the grand dame of the family, is Catherine Deneuve, mixing imperial air with needy vulnerability as one who has been stricken with leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. She has never been better.  

CHILDREN'S MOVIE

PRANCER (1989)

Got to have at least one movie for the kids and what's better than a boozy, bearded Sam Elliot as a full-fledged Christmas killjoy single parenting his nine-year-old Jessica (Rebecca Harrell). When she imagines a limping reindeer in the woods to be the flying Prancer, her Dad threatens to shoot it. Jessica takes matters into her own hands, doing what she can to save not only Prancer, but Christmas. Formulaic? Yes. But the characters aren't stereotyped, acting true to their personalities, while the sugar plum plot line holds the sweetner to low-cal. Skip the TV showings and get the DVD so you don't have to sit through commercials. It's a great watch with the kids.  

BAH HUMBUG

BAD SANTA (2003)

All that jingle, jangle, jingle and goodness and light have you ready to gag, then BAD SANTA  answers as the perfect Christmas-sucks movie. A stylishly vulgar and tasteless comic classic, this story of a reprobate thief and department store Santa, Willie Stokes (Billie Bob Thornton), is a cynic's delight. He's "an eating, drinking, s***ting, f***ing Santa Claus" who hates kids, doesn't care if you're naughty or nice and lets the f-word fly every couple seconds. Then, along with pissing in his pants and puking in the alley, he's operating a theft ring. The movie delights in being disgusting and disgraceful. But director Terry Zwigoff isn't a one-trick pony here -- just being disgusting makes for a pretty dull movie. He sets the tone by letting us take in all the shenanigans in real time; not that revved-up gag upon gag pace that wears you out, so the narrative and the jokes are a surprise instead of predictable. And Thornton is so compulsively watchable -- can't imagine anyone else in the role. Good "I-hate-Christmas" movies are so rare and this one is so enjoyably cathartic, it's a  seasonal must. And get the BADDER SANTA DVD, the uncut version not shown in theaters. Not necessarily better than the original, but more of it. And when it comes to slapping the gooey sentiment of Christmas in the face -- more is better.