’Tis the season for Christmas flicks, but c’mon: How many more times can you watch Jimmy Stewart’s life get destroyed by that horrible Uncle Billy or see whether Ralphie gets that Red Ryder BB gun? Terrific films, certainly, but enough already. Even a more contemporary classic like Elf has become ho ho ho hum.
What about exploring more exotic non-Christmas Christmas fare?
And I don’t mean Die Hard. That pop culture argument ran its course long ago. Yippee ki no, you don’t need John McClane and Hans Gruber to indulge your alt-Yuletide itch.
Cruise-ing at Christmastime
An art flick about a sex cult might not scream “Christmas spirit” to the average moviegoer, but look closer. Eyes Wide Shut, the 1999 swansong by Stanley Kubrick (the filmmaker died less than a week after finishing the final cut) is set during the holidays and saturated in the season’s reds and greens. While it divided critics at the time of its release — arguably because its misguided ad campaign promised an erotic thriller — time has been kind to it, and Eyes Wide Shut is now rightly regarded as another Kubrick masterpiece.
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman play Bill and Alice Harford, affluent Manhattanites whose marriage is rocked after Alice reveals fantasies of infidelity. That admission sends Bill into the night determined to cheat on his spouse. As it turns out, getting laid isn’t so easy, even for Tom Cruise. After wandering a wonderfully artificial-looking Greenwich Village, Bill crashes a ritualistic orgy whose well-heeled participants are masked. Eyes Wide Shut is an intriguing enigma to the end. (Streaming on Paramount Plus)
No eggnog after midnight!
Gremlins has all the trappings of a traditional Xmas flick. It is set in a picturesquely snowy town, revolves around a unique Christmas present, and even includes a memorable, if notably unmerry, monologue about Santa going down a chimney. But this 1984 offering is an irresistibly mean-spirited romp about little monsters who do very bad things.
Oklahoma-born Hoyt Axton plays an inventor of dubious skill who cajoles a Chinatown merchant into selling him a furry creature called a mogwai. The critter makes an adorable gift for the inventor’s teenaged son but comes with three big rules: 1) Keep the mogwai away from bright light, 2) don’t get it wet, and — most importantly — never, ever feed it after midnight. That last one is a bit tricky, since it is always after midnight, but don’t overthink things. In the capable hands of director Joe Dante, Gremlins is scary, hilarious and gross — often all at once. (Streaming on Max)
A Christmas Carol
Based on a 1952 Patricia Highsmith novel, Carol is dreamily romantic and a clear-eyed assessment of America in an earlier time. Cate Blanchett portrays the title character, a self-possessed wife and mother going through an acrimonious divorce. While Christmas shopping, she has a chance meeting with a department store worker (Rooney Mara), and the attraction between them is palpable. More than most films, Carol depicts the obsessive, almost disorienting buzz of new romance. The catch, of course, is that these lovers must keep their passion secret amid an unaccepting social milieu. Blanchett’s mesmerizing performance earned her an Oscar nod, but Mara is every bit her equal.
Released in 2015, the film’s impeccable production is typical of director Todd Haynes. The period detail is precise, Carter Burwell’s score is appropriately lush and Edward Lachman’s cinematography makes every composition suitable for framing. (Streaming on Netflix)
Misanthropic mistletoe
Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers pays homage to the shambling 1970s comic-dramas of the filmmaker’s youth, but he goes a step further by crafting a picture in 2023 that could have been made during that Golden Age of American cinema. Set during Christmas 1970 in snowy New England, it feels like a long-lost film from Hal Ashby, the director of that decade’s The Last Detail and Harold and Maude.
Paul Giamatti stars as a curmudgeonly prep school professor tasked with watching over students unable to go home over the holidays. Thanks to masterfully rendered storytelling free of easy sentimentality, the teacher develops a makeshift family with a troubled student (Dominic Sessa) and a cafeteria worker (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) grieving the death of her son in Vietnam. The performances are stellar. Giamatti earned an Academy Award nomination; Randolph deservedly won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar; and newcomer Sessa, whom Payne discovered at the school where The Holdovers was shot, is a revelation. (Streaming on Amazon Prime)
’Twas the night before Christmas…
“Merry Christmas Eve, bitch!” is the dialogue that opens Tangerine, deftly establishing the tone for this 2015 work from idiosyncratic director Sean Baker. Largely populated by nonprofessional actors Baker found on the streets of Los Angeles, it follows two transgender sex workers on Christmas Eve. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), newly released from a 28-day stint in county jail, learns that her boyfriend-pimp has been hooking up with a biological woman who Sin-Dee dismissively labels a “fish.” Meanwhile, Alexandra (Mya Taylor) is preparing for her first gig as a lounge singer.
Throw in a philandering Armenian cabbie and you have the makings of a riotously sleazy comedy. Shot entirely on iPhone 5s, Tangerine’s shimmering visual scheme accentuates its drug-addled vibe. L.A.’s gritty underbelly won’t be mistaken for Miracle on 34th Street, but as one character observes, “Christmas is Christmas, regardless of the weather.” (Streaming on Netflix, Hulu and Kanopy)
Let it snow
The genesis for Edward Scissorhands was a drawing that director Tim Burton had made as a youth and subsequently gave to screenwriter Caroline Thompson for inspiration. It was easy enough to spot the teen alienation encapsulated in the sketch of a pale-skinned boy with huge scissors in place of hands.
Edward Scissorhands is a fairytale, with Johnny Depp’s title character a stand-in for Pinocchio, albeit one outfitted for a steampunk rave. This nonhuman boy, whose inventor died before he could replace those scissors with mitts, is adopted by a suburban family after its sweetly solicitous mom (a pitch-perfect Dianne Weist) comes across him during her door-to-door rounds for Avon. The movie culminates with a neighborhood Christmas party, but what makes Edward Scissorhands so Yuletide-friendly is an iconic scene of Winona Ryder wistfully dancing in snow that results from Edward’s prowess for ice sculpting. That indelible image is emblematic of the movie’s sumptuous visual pleasures. (Streaming on Hulu)
This article appears in New Year’s Eve Guide.