{"id":8576,"date":"2012-12-24T19:49:50","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T19:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8576"},"modified":"2012-12-25T13:58:07","modified_gmt":"2012-12-25T13:58:07","slug":"christmas-films","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8576","title":{"rendered":"Christmas films"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I started thinking about a list of Christmas films a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been a regular visitor to my headspace, while driving to\/from work, this list.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of ways of looking at it, and I couldn&#8217;t get my head around how I&#8217;d want to. For example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The most awful Christmas films<\/li>\n<li>The most awesome Christmas films<\/li>\n<li>The most mediocre Christmas films<\/li>\n<li>The most embarrassing Christmas films<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are so many candidates for all of those.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, and after a lot of thought &#8211; about content and ordering the content &#8211; I&#8217;ve come up with <em><strong>my list of the top five Christmas films<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And in reverse order, they are:<\/p>\n<p>At <strong>number five<\/strong>, it&#8217;s time to put on your Sunday vest (see what I did there?) and give it your best &#8216;Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!&#8217; as a very young Bruce Willis takes on Alan Rickman (in stunning form, and a very smart suit) in the amusing action flick <strong>Die Hard<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><object width=\"420\" height=\"315\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-qxBXm7ZUTM?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"420\" height=\"315\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-qxBXm7ZUTM?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Number four<\/strong> on my list of my top five Christmas films is the financially bullish, pork belly bearish <strong>Trading Places<\/strong>. Eddie Murphy (for once) plays his character with just the right amount of charm, Dan Akroyd is perfect casting for his role and even Jamie Lee Curtis does a nice job in this role-swap with a twist:<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"420\" height=\"315\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/ZjDbJQKDXCY?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"420\" height=\"315\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/ZjDbJQKDXCY?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p><strong>Third<\/strong> on the list of my top Christmas films is the totally diarytastic <strong>Bridget Jones<\/strong>. There&#8217;s something about this film that makes it a very watchable &#8211; yet guilty &#8211; pleasure.<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"420\" height=\"315\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/w9rbadSnlVc?hl=en_GB&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"420\" height=\"315\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/w9rbadSnlVc?hl=en_GB&amp;version=3&amp;rel=0\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re on the home straight now, and in a flat-out sprint for the line &#8211; and coming <strong>second<\/strong> on my list of top Christmas films by the smallest of small margins &#8211; is the brilliant <strong>It&#8217;s A Wonderful Life<\/strong>. I agonised for ages over where to place this film in the list. It is brilliant. It makes me cry. It leads the viewer. It is a compelling story which embodies the higher values of the Christmas period<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mfBAm-TnPks?feature=player_embedded\" height=\"360\" width=\"420\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>And the winner, by the most whiskeriest of whiskers, the <strong>number one<\/strong> on my list of top Christmas films is the brilliantly constructed, wonderfully written, beautifully script-edited and well-acted <strong>Love Actually<\/strong>. You might find it strange that I&#8217;ve placed Love Actually at number one, and It&#8217;s A Wonderful Life at number two, when,\u00a0<a title=\"All-Time Top 10 Films\" href=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?cat=88\" target=\"_blank\">on my All Time Top 10 list of films<\/a>, the order is reversed. The reason is simple; It&#8217;s A Wonderful Life is a better film. Love Actually is a better Christmas film. And this is a list of Christmas films.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy<\/p>\n<p><object width=\"420\" height=\"315\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/PMScPVO4rLw?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed width=\"420\" height=\"315\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/PMScPVO4rLw?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Go on, tell me you didn&#8217;t start to tear up with that introduction? Those are powerful words from the fine Mr Curtis&#8217; pen.<\/p>\n<p>And fine sentiments.<\/p>\n<p>Ho ho ho.<\/p>\n<p>Have a very Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I started thinking about a list of Christmas films a few weeks ago. It&#8217;s been a regular visitor to my headspace, while driving to\/from work,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}