Okay, okay. Settle down. It may be December and we may have gotten our first snow of the season already, but we’re not quite at Christmas yet (even if every store is already playing carols). We’ve all got to face down finals before we can really get into the holiday spirit.
Take it from me, watching all the classic Christmas specials like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Year Without a Santa Claus only make the big day seem even farther off when you’re wading through St. Thomas Aquinas for your Problem of God final. So if you need a little taste of Christmas cheer, try one of these alternatives. You’ll find just enough Christmas to get you by and plenty of explicit sex and wholesale violence to satiate your naughty side — plus a healthy dose of nostalgia. And when finals are done, you can sit back with A Charlie Brown Christmas and have the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny Kaye.
Lethal Weapon (1987)
Remember when Mel Gibson only played crazy guys in the movies before he started going off on drunken tirades against the Jews? Those were the days.
If you’ve ever seen a buddy-cop flick, then you already pretty much know the plot of Lethal Weapon. As a matter of fact, I can hardly keep the four plots in the series straight. But the original Lethal Weapon isn’t about plot; it’s about Mel Gibson, in all his feathered-80s-hair glory, jumping off roofs, shooting everyone in sight and going home with Danny Glover for Christmas dinner.
And by the way, if Glover was “getting too old for this” in ’87, how did he muster up three sequels over the next 11 years? It must be a Christmas miracle.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Remember when Tom Cruise was a sex symbol before all the weird Scientology stuff, couch-jumping antics and gay innuendos? Those were the days.
I suppose you might need a bit of a cynical eye toward the holidays to see this as a Christmas movie, but it certainly has all the background trappings of a holiday film: lights, trees, snow, etc. Just because the foreground is filled with naked people in masks and ritualistic orgies doesn’t mean it can’t get you into the holiday spirit.
As off-beat as this movie is, it holds a special place in my heart as Stanley Kubrick’s swan song. One of the great American auteurs, Kubrick made a little over a dozen features in close to 50 years in the biz. But the level of detail in Eyes Wide Shut shows you why he waited so long for his final directorial outing. It also shows why the film took 400 days to shoot. But it’s all worth it to see the master give it one last go.
Die Hard (1988)
Remember when John McClane was just a regular guy before he started flying cars into helicopters and jumping on the back of jet fighters? Those were the days.
Nothing quite says Christmas like fighting off a group of German terrorists — especially when you don’t have any shoes. Bruce Willis styles himself the ultimate urban cowboy in this classic 80’s action flick.
Maybe it’s the snappy one-liners. Maybe it’s the iconic wife-beater instead of Roy Rogers’ sequined shirts. Maybe it’s just that he reminds us that no matter how hard our holidays might get, it’s still better than walking on broken glass and throwing Alan Rickman off the roof. Whatever it is, Die Hard proves itself the ultimate Christmas action movie.
Patrick Thompson is a senior in the College and a former senior Guide editor. He can be reached at thompson@thehoya.com. GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES appears every other Friday in THE GUIDE.