By Amy McCarthy & Jaime Paul Falcon You poor people, you're on your way home for the holidays, and the reality that you can't steal away to the bar every night sinks in right around the time your mother insists that you actually talk to your grandparents instead of just left-swiping idiots that you went to high school with on Tinder.
You are most certainly doomed to some "quality" time with the family that's spent on a couch watching those same damn holiday movies that your family insists on watching every year in the spirit of "togetherness" or whatever. We know this feeling, and we know it hard. In honor of the fact that you won't have near enough booze to make through one more viewing of Christmas Vacation, we've put together the ultimate guide to holiday classics for you to share (or not) with grandma when she suggests Elf, again.
At the very least, it's better than listening to Uncle Ted talk about racism in America while chugging cans of Old Milwaukee. Good luck this holiday season, dear readers, and remember. Drinking a bottle of wine all by yourself may be a classic sign of alcoholism, but you can't be embarrassed by your family if you don't remember seeing them at all.
Warning: the following content contains little to no holiday cheer.
Die Hard Dudes fucking love Die Hard, like they will passive aggressively say things like "Die Hard is the only Christmas movie that matters" as of way of saying "YEAH I'M A MANLY MAN" and while that attitude is a little basic, it is sort of hard to argue with them. Hear us out, this movie invented an entire genre (the "Die Hard, but on/in/at a" genre), it made Bruce Willis a star, it features Alan Rickman in one of the best bad guy roles ever, it has that coked-out guy, it's the reason we got Family Matters, it has an awesome classical soundtrack, and the immortal line "Jesus. Fuckin' California!" So yeah, dudes might be a little too into the movie, but it doesn't mean they're totally wrong. #YippieKiYay
Lethal Weapon See Die Hard, but replace Bruce Willis with Mel Gibson, classical music with a bitchin' 80s jazz sax, and Alan Rickman with Gary Busey. So yeah, not quite on the same level, but bros will still go on and on about it. If your aunt's creepy boyfriend starts "saying the only time he's liked Chris Rock is when he was that nice boy in Lethal Weapon 4, or the donkey in the Shrek movies, just leave and boil your head in the old fried turkey oil. #TooOld
A Charlie Brown Christmas You know when you really think about Charlie Brown, the dude is sort of a perfect way to explain the dangers of bullying to the next the generation. So when your family gathers around, and everyone sings along to the songs make sure you've had one too many and off-handedly mention that there's no way the constant bullying didn't lead to Charlie Brown walking off into a field one day and putting his head in an oven. Especially after Lucy forced the Little Red Haired Girl to not only spurn his advances, but crush his dreams via Facebook IMs. Then tell the kids that they need to be more like Linus, and go out of their way to be good supportive friends, and care for others. It's a life lesson 50 years in the making. #BlockHead
Love Actually For the past two years I've been trying to make #DrunkActually happen on Twitter. In other words I pick a random afternoon, open a case of beer, pour some shots, and then live tweet this terrible fucking movie. Highlights include me talking about my love of the DJ in the Motorhead shirt, how much I hate the Walking Dead guy for trying to steal his buddy's wife (SERIOUSLY. THIS IS REALLY FUCKED UP) and my theory that Love Actually has led to more awkward handjobs than any other movie ever made. It preys on the lonely and the characters are pretty much assholes. Alan Rickman trying to cheat on Emma Thompson by banging his slutty secretary is pretty gross, and who gives a fuck about Billy Bob Thornton in this garbage pile? It's capital offense, though, is ensuring that we'd never, ever escape "All I Want For Christmas Is You."
(NOTE: If you would like to discuss the shittiness of this film in exorbitant, soul-crushing detail, including deep thoughts on Laura Linney resenting her mentally ill brother, that annoying kid who is keeping Liam Neeson from fighting wolves, cuckholding Keira Knightly, and the racist subplot with Colin Firth, please contact Jaime-Paul Falcon on Twitter.) #DrunkActually
A Christmas Story You love that stupid leg lamp and the kid getting his tongue stuck to the pole. If I ever see another ironic "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out" t-shirt again, I might just go ahead and do it. This is what hipster Christmas movies were when hipsters wore diapers. #FuckTheyStillDoThe24hrMarathon
Christmas Vacation Yes, I'm sure your family is totally like the Griswolds. Though, your family would probably be a lot more interesting if Randy Quaid were actually in it. In fact, fuck Clark. Randy and his wife Evi are on the lam in Canada, running from "Hollywood star whackers" that they're convinced will kill them. If this shitty movie were about THEIR Christmas adventure, I'd probably be more likely to watch it. #ShittersFull
Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer How many generations of bullies were born because their parents made them go to bed, or cut off the tv, right at the point where all the reindeer kids, AND THE FUCKING ADULT REINDEER, AND FUCKING SANTA CLAUS, were clowning on rudolph for being different. Fuck you, Comet, you fucking reindeer prick, where the hell do you get off? If you couldn't fly your head would be mounted in Yukon Cornelius' cabin. And, fuck you makers of the 1960s Christmas specials, everything was about cruelty, and picking on outcasts. Way to contribute to the plague of children/teenagers being the absolute worst. I have to chug four beers to make through the first 20 minutes of most Rankin-Bass specials if I want to make it through the night without crying. #Misfits
It's a Wonderful Life Everyone is white in this movie, so your grandma makes you watch it because it represents "a better time." A Wonderful Life was pretty much only wonderful for the rich motherfuckers who lived in this movie, but I guess it's super moving or whatever that he had to be told not to be a rich, money-grubbing asshole by his guardian angel. The bell rings, an angel gets its wings, and white people live in an alternate reality. Wait, is this every other show ever? #TeacherLied
Elf Just...no. Putting syrup on everything is gross, Buddy The Elf. And it's indecent for a man of Will Ferrell's size to be in tights. Enjoy your childhood indulgences or whatever, but just know that you sound like a complete asshole when you call people cotton-headed ninnymuggins or anything else he says in that movie. Stop talking like a child. To add insult to shittiness, this movie unleashed Zooey Deschanel onto the world, and the ensuing apocalypse of manic pixie dream barf. #Deschanelpoclaypse
I'll Be Home For Christmas *~We <3 U J.T.T~* it'll always be 1997 to us. This is the perfect movie to have on in the background when you're trying to get busy in your childhood bedroom after a few too many drinks at the local bar where you saw that guy you had a crush on in middle school, and took your significant other back to your place in a drunken stupor. You get the bonus of peak JT-T and not having to shush so much because the movie covers up most of the sounds. #JTT
Home Alone Last year during our holiday movie round up I expressed the theory that Kevin from Home Alone was the child version of the killer from Saw, the internet has sort of run with the idea, and it's caused me to rethink things. I have a new theory and it's that Marv and Harry were killed during a robbery, they're in hell, and Kevin is their personal tormentor. This is why they are able to suffer through such terrible injuries throughout the film, and why the scenario resets for Home Alone 2. The fact that the following sequels feature different cast of home thieves suffering the same type of torture from other adolescents sort of back up the idea that if you commit a home burglary during Christmas season you are doomed to an eternity of torture at the hands of an evil, demonic child. #KevinIsTheDevil
How the Grinch Stole Christmas This is the film that decidedly indicated that Jim Carrey has some kind of personality disorder, but a cute and fluffy one. There is no shame in kind of liking The Grinch, especially when you're staring at a pile of presents that is probably damaging the foundation of your parents' house. Be sure to forget all those lessons you learned when you're bummed that Grandma didn't bring you a new pair of Beats. #JimCarreyGetsMoney
The Nightmare Before Christmas Code for "I HAVE A VERY COMPLICATED PERSONALITY" which means you can relate to your 14-year old second cousin that is in the throes of the eternally relevant mall goth phase, because really, it was just a decade ago that you were scraping together a few bucks to buy a Jack Skelllington lunch box to use as a purse. We're all guilty of using a well-timed pop culture reference as a substitute for an actual, real personality. Slip the kid a nip of vodka, she's way more miserable than you are.
Jingle All The Way Ah, nothing like a movie about good old fashioned American consumerism with a guy who once (badly) played a robot cop and (badly) governed a state as its star. Sure, Sinbad and Ah-nold's sparring is funny for about five minutes, but the rest of it just makes you feel really bad about the state of humanity. If we're willing to call in bomb threats to radio stations over a fucking action figure, we have officially jumped the shark and need to jump off the planet. #WhiteDadsGetTurboManLikeThis #BlackDadsGetTurboManLikeThat
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Code for "I'm an asshole, but a fun one" this is the peak of of writer/director Shane Black's obsession with noirish violence that's surrounded by a Christmas backdrop (other films include Lethal Weapon, Iron Man 3 and The Long Kiss Goodnight), and is solely responsible for for resurrecting Robert Downey Jr's career. It's pithy, macabre, exciting, and a just a flat out great movie. It's the thinking man's black Christmas comedy, and the assholes in your life love it. Viewings are best accompanied by lots of whiskey. #ThisIsWhyYoureSingle
Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.
