Spool* Yule
Two turtledoves, but make it streaming (x5)
*spool1, /spo͞ol/, a cylindrical device on which film, magnetic tape, thread, or other flexible materials can be wound; a reel.
It’s a sign of the times (or, really, just that I’m in my thirties) that on the second Saturday, I’m sitting at home polishing a newsletter while Santacon rages below me in lower Manhattan.2 I’m doing some holiday baking as well, returning to recipes that I usually only make around this time of year in the way that many people return to movies like It’s a Wonderful Life or Elf.
But rather than relitigating the Love Actually wars for the umpteenth time or having circular debates about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, I wanted to put forward a different canon. (And I realized they paired nicely as double features, so there’s also that.) These films all involve the holiday season to an extent. Some do so more explicitly than others, but all incorporate it enough to merit a December (re)watch.
FELIZ NAVID(EATH)
Anna and the Apocalypse, Tubi (free with ads)
Better Watch Out, Peacock (free with ads)
Nothing says Christmas like a little bit of horror, right? Anna and the Apocalypse stages a zombie tale against a Yuletide backdrop — and is also a musical with some catchy tunes as well, in case the genre mash-up wasn’t ambitious enough. Better Watch Out uses a holiday babysitting situation for a unique take on the home invasion thriller. Both have some real twists up their sleeve and subvert our expectations across any number of vectors.
BLUE CHRISTMAS
Carol, free with ads via Freevee on Amazon Prime Video
Eyes Wide Shut, Netflix
If you think Christmas in New York is always as bright as the tree at Rockefeller Center, have I got some news for you! Todd Haynes’ masterpiece Carol and Stanley Kubrick’s swan song Eyes Wide Shut show how a cultural focus on Christmas cheer can exposure and enlarge fissures within unhappy relationships. Carol takes the form of tragic romance while Eyes Wide Shut is more of an erotic thriller, but each finds a wandering partner straying from their relationship’s comforts in pursuit of a newly awakened desire.
DO THEY KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS?
Tangerine, Showtime Anytime/rental
Funny Pages, rental
Nothing like a holiday to bring out the most heightened impulses in people, right? I’m a sucker for any film that can manage to corral the energy of pure farce into something coherent, not just chaotic, and both Tangerine and Funny Pages stage theirs on Christmas Day. The former, a delightful comedy that provides an X-ray of Los Angeles via two transgender sex workers, uses the setting to amplify the sense of isolation even among found family as many people gather alongside their actual kin. Owen Kline’s recent directorial debut Funny Pages, however, only stages its climax on Christmas Day as a rebellious young cartoonist introduces utter chaos into the holiday morning as a middle finger to his folks. It’s a delightful capper to a unique coming-of-age story about who gets the ability to goof off in their quest for self-actualization.
SLAY RIDE
Bad Santa, Showtime Anytime
Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever, $0.99 rental on Amazon
Maybe you’re the type that loves to hate Christmas movies and wants a little bit of acid in your eggnog. In that case, Bad Santa is the perfect middle finger to holiday pieities while still giving you a jolt of jaded cheer. (Fun fact: none other than the Coen Brothers — yes, those ones — developed this vivaciously vulgar tale of a mall Santa who uses his access to rob the stores.) And while you might balk at a gimmicky Lifetime movie cashing in on an Internet meme, Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever is a wild ride that demolishes corny holiday cash-ins from the inside. They got the perfect narrator for Grumpy Cat in Aubrey Plaza, who’s every bit as barbed and spiky as you might hope she’d be in this part. Props to Lifetime for letting themselves get absolutely trashed by their own product.
BABY PLEASE COME HOME
A Christmas Tale, Criterion Channel
Spencer, Hulu
If you’ve ever felt more suffocated than sustained by a large family gathering at Christmas, Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale and Pablo Larraín’s Spencer are probably just the tonic you seek this month. Each film shows how a matriarchal clan tries to extract its pound of flesh at the holiday season. Little explanation is necessary to explain how the strictures of the royal family weighed on Princess Diana, incarnated by Kristen Stewart as a kind of living phantasm, and Spencer uses one Christmas celebration at the dissolution of her marriage to Charles as backdrop for her unmooring. Meanwhile, the French saga A Christmas Tale finds a narrative feast of human drama as Catherine Deneuve’s Junon announces she needs someone in the family to provide bone marrow to help her overcome leukemia. The jolting announcement opens up a box that’s more akin to Pandora’s than anything Saint Nick would drop off.
You can always keep up with my film-watching in real-time on the app Letterboxd. I’ve also compiled every movie I’ve ever recommended through this newsletter via a list on the platform as well.
New song obsession — the title has a cinematic tie-in, too! — courtesy of SZA’s just-dropped album.
One of the best takes on Jeanne Dielman triumphing in the Sight & Sound decennial greatest films of all time poll comes, unsurprisingly, from Criterion’s Ashley Clark:
If you want more background on the S&S poll, this New York Times interactive package is truly spectacular at explaining its history and vaulted status.
Last weekend, subscribers got to read an in-depth investigation of one of Steven Spielberg’s trademark techniques:
I reviewed Emancipation, Will Smith’s “comeback” movie from The Slap ™️, for The Playlist. The movie was pretty rough, but I do think I was able to pan it in an interesting way that really engaged with what irked me so much about its timidity. Don’t bother with this one now that it’s on Apple TV+.
For Decider, I said stream it (albeit half-heartedly) to Netflix originals The Marriage App and Burning Patience … but a hearty skip it to Gone in the Night on Hulu.
Back to you next week with I have decided is a new yearly recurring post: re-ranking my top 10 movies from 10 years ago.
Yours in service and cinema,
Marshall
(Look, I was trying to find some kind of clever pun, and I realize there is nothing funnier than a joke that needs a literal dictionary definition to explain … cut me some slack! A boy is TIRED.)
To be fair, I also never went to Santacon in my twenties — but my social media feed is not full of drunk young people in Santa hats, so it does feel like a vibe shift.