A very merry.

"The friction between the rock of Jesus and the hard place of cruel, quotidian living is perhaps central to the appeal of Charles Schulz's Peanuts, and certainly to the Christmas special. The nativity comes to us swaddled in such cynicism that it seems hand-tailored for the lapsed evangelical." Joseph "Jon" Lanthier on A Charlie Brown Christmas.

"[F]or Christmas, there is a pervasive compulsion to summon reserves of tolerance, generosity, congeniality and child-like upbeat-ness, and we go to extraordinary cultural lengths to make it happen. Hence, the phenomenon known as the Christmas movie, all of which serve as narrative windows into that edenic space where cold hearts are warmed, charitable love dawns on the greedy, and, most of all, the childhood memories and the purest notions of home become easier to grasp and hold." Michael Atkinson and Laurel Shifrin introduce an annotated list.

Updated through 12/25.

"This may be obvious for some, but because I saw all the canonical Christmas films on VHS or DVD, I struggle with the notion that a good holiday film can actually play in theaters," writes Dan Jackson in the Tisch Film Review. "Up until last month I thought it was impossible. Then Arnaud Desplechin proved me wrong."

At Movie Morlocks, highhurdler offers a list of "Classics, Contemporaries, Shorts and Full Length Features to get you through the Holidays."

Dave Hill in the Guardian on the remake of Miracle on 34th Street: "I can't recall the year we first watched it all together, but it's become a tradition for as big a bunch of us as can be arranged to snuggle down at some point during the Christmas build-up and once again soak up John Hughes's adaptation of the original story, directed by Les Mayfield. It's soppy, sweet, funny, cute, completely absurd, casts Jane Leeves of Frasier fame as an ally of the villain, contains a walk-on by Allison Janney who became CJ Cregg in The West Wing and a soundtrack burst from Aretha Franklin that always makes me weep."

Also: "Christmas movies come in four basic varieties: the cuddly, the cloying, the cretinous and the cute," growls Joe Queenan.

In the Philadelphia Weekly, Matt Prigge lists "Six Films Incidentally Set During Christmas."

Updates, 12/25: Dennis Cozzalio presents "Professor Kingsfield's Hair-Raising, Bar-Raising Holiday Movie Quiz."

To "all those who are willing to bend the rules to make a holiday brighter, the Siren dedicates this story. It's from Anita Loos's completely charming book about her relationship with silent stars Constance and Norma, The Talmadge Girls."

The doors are all open now on Alonso Duralde's "Christmas Movie Advent Calendar."

At Cinematical, Jette Kernion presents seven ways to watch A Christmas Story.

In the Washington Post, Jen Chaney presents her "Third Annual Unconventional Holiday DVD List."

Online viewing tip #1. Ambrose Heron's found a "Christmas Movie Montage."

Online viewing tip #2. Sally Cruikshank's "Blue Blue Blue Xmas."

Online viewing tip #3. Joe Leydon's found Santa Claus, circa 1898: "Just three years after Auguste and Louis Lumière unveiled their cinématographe in Paris, British film pioneer GA Smith made this extraordinary short. As Michael Brooke writes for the British Film Institute, Santa Claus 'is a film of considerable technical ambition and accomplishment for the period.'"

Online viewing tips. At Screengrab, Phil Nugent's got Wladyslaw Starewicz's The Insects' Christmas (1911) and The Junky's Christmas (1993), "a twenty-minute claymation short directed by Nick Donkin and Melodie McDaniel... based on a William S Burroughs story from the 1989 collection Interzone that Burroughs read aloud on the Hal Willner-produced CD Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales."

More Christmastime browsing and viewing: David Cairns, Jonathan Lapper, Kimberly Lindbergs and Phil Nugent.

Posted by dwhudson at December 24, 2008 7:58 AM