Christmas Movies!

One of the favorite things Hollywood likes to inflict on us every year is the wide assortment of Yuletide cinema. Here are a few of my favorites.

I recall watching this one year on television back when I was a child, and while it didn't traumatize me for life it did feed my twisted sense of humor. I'm talking, of course, about Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, featuring Pia Zadora as the little Martian girl.

Here's a clip of it, as mugged and snagged on by Joel and the Bots (I will refrain from posting all ten installments of it in order to spare you the horror):



Now, as everyone knows, holidays are a time for family. Mainly for family drama as long-buried animosities surface and people say destructive and hateful things. But hey, it's only once a year, isn't it?

This kind of thing has been going on forever, as seen in my absolute all-time favorite holiday film, The Lion in Winter starring Katherine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole (and featuring Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton):



Finally, Christmas movies tug at your heart-strings. Movie adaptations of Charles Dickens' immortal A Christmas Carol are a favorite staple, and the best one (in my opinion) is the classic black & white starring British actor Alastair Sim:



Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the rest of it!