The POLLy and the Ivy ... It's the ILX Holiday Movies Poll Campaigning/Voting Thread (Voting Ends: Dec. 11)

had no memory that Reckless Moment was set during the holidays

36.15 code Père Noël

Released in 1989 and ripped off wholesale by Home Alone the next year, this French flick sees a small boy with a yen for invention defending his enormous, secret-passage-equipped house (with his grandfather and dog) from a murderous, freshly-fired department store Santa. Improvising booby traps and weapons as he goes, it gets delightfully violent while remaining completely focused on the primacy of a kid as protagonist.

Also released as Dial Code Santa Claus*, Game Over and Hide And Freak, it is streaming on Shudder in the US as of TODAY, under the extremely boring title Deadly Games.


* erroneously - the kid first talks to the Santa via a teletext/bbs type service

By the bye, have received just 3 ballots so far. Can't remember if that's par for the course for these, but people aren't going to be happy if Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 wins. Just sayin'.

Mine's coming toward the end of the voting period. I need to catch some specific things that TCM is airing over the next couple of weeks first.

I'm going to watch a few more before I vote. I watched the Alistair Sim Scrooge for the first time yesterday and it'll probably make my list.

That was one of the films I was waiting to catch on TCM, and then when I went to PVR it, I saw that it wasn't on the Canadian schedule. D'oh!

Hustlers is a Christmas movie. pic.twitter.com/hQTwzPe2Ni

— Myles Tanzer (@mylestanzer) December 5, 2019

Four ballots in with one week-ish to go.

It's all part of the War on Christmas.

ballot sent :D

Just submitted a ballot...full of 20s and 30s obscurities that will probably skew the poll and put a Hallmark original at number 1. :D

planning on voting but want to watch a couple more films first

blast of silence is gonna win this, isn't it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_PAWAW2ScI

just in case i don't get a poll together, this contains the most realistic portrayal of Ireland ever committed to the screen

I will be voting!

sorry can i late nominate/write in huston's the dead

which both rules and is up on youtube

Sure, included in the Pastebin list of nominees.

thanks!

have my ballot mostly figured but holding off until i can hopefully view Black Christmas, Mon Oncle Antoine, and/or The Dead, which I've somehow managed to never see.

of recently watched classic Christmas films it's The Shop Around the Corner that I love the most

The Dead is great

I wouldn’t normally endorse, let alone practice, this kind of fascism, but if you haven’t seen The Shop Around the Corner, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote in this poll.

Fanny and Alexander is going to be high on my list, along with La Grande Illusion and especially My Night at Maud's

I was unaware that The Holly and the Ivy (1952) was released on DVD by Kino Lorber this year. I've never seen it tho I am a big Ralph Richardson fan.

Yeah Fanny and Alexander is going to be riding high for me too.

Just watched Black Christmas and it’s not gonna be within a mile of my top 20, but I didnt realize until the end that it’s the origin of one of the most canonical classic twists in horror, pretty fun surprise

I wouldn’t normally endorse, let alone practice, this kind of fascism, but if you haven’t seen The Shop Around the Corner, you shouldn’t be allowed to vote in this poll.

After decades of wanting to see it, I had my first chance 2.5 years ago at a screening at the Art Gallery Of New South Wales. Turned out there was weekend trackwork when I got to the station, and there wouldn't have been time to get there on the bus. I got a cab all the way, scooted as fast-but-sensibly through the floors of the museum as possible, and got there just in time to stand behind the usher telling a retired couple that once the doors are closed, no admittance is permitted, over and over in different words. Maybe in another 25 years!

okay then, you’re grandfathered into the POLL Rolls

Yeah, I guess I should have considered that not every movie is accessible to everyone. I assume nothing is obscure if TCM shows it several times a year, as they do with The Shop Around the Corner, but not everyone lives in my little bubble.

it's sort of the perfect movie, i agree

Probably not necessary, but just to clarify: my Comfort and Joy vote was for the 1984 Bill Forstyth film. I didn't realize there was another Comfort and Joy, a 2003 TV movie, also apparently a Christmas film.

Hot take: The best Christmas movie is not DIE HARD or THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR or HUMAN CENTIPEDE or THE FACES OF DEATH or DIRTY DEBUTANTES or whatever, but still MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET.

— Bilge Ebiri (@BilgeEbiri) December 10, 2019

Correct except it's Scrooged

on balance I like Scrooged, but at least 3 'straighter' versions of Dickens are better (Alastair Sim, George C Scott, Caine and the Muppets)

It's a great story, all versions of it are good, but only Bill Murray makes me cry every time

I say that as somebody really bored by the baconing of Murray but that closing speech is a killer

i love scrooged but it's a very... loose film

I should probably revisit the Muppet version because I remember it being a disappointment.

A timely appreciation of Silent Partner-as-Christmas-Movie from Eric Allen Hatch:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/silent-partner-32229671

Muppet CC is fine but not especially classic imo

the stagehand miming stapling antlers onto the mouse? makes me crack up every time

xp re scrooged

https://i.etsystatic.com/11083747/r/il/917dcf/2012544896/il_794xN.2012544896_fggb.jpg

Up to a dozen ballots! Keep 'em coming!

i'm in. shop on the corner tatted on my belly

the limited number of films on the nominations list definitely made it easier for me to decide on choices for my ballot

deceptively hard poll bc there are a lot of movies on the nom list that I like a lot that I didnt vote for bc theyre not christmasy enough imo

I was trying to decide between 'Christmas films' and 'films that have scenes at Christmas' too, ended up mostly with the latter, because more of them were my favorites

^ yeah, I could have squeezed in a few bonus viewings over the next fortnight of more formally christmassy flicks, but my ballot got tilted like this

I self-imposed a rule that demanded a certain level Christmasy-ness for me to include it on my ballot, but as I’m sure we will end up discussing during the rollout, these levels will likely seem very arbitrarily determined.

voted (I think the mail went through)

I decided that the two equally important factors were "how much do I like this" and "how Christmassy is it"

if including all-time great films that are only incidentally Christmas-oriented it's hard not choose them

Santa Claus brings everyone an extra day to get ballots in!

If I don't like the results, can I exchange them for something else?

you can always yankee swap them with the metal poll

Christmas blows and so does every Christmas movie except for Home Alone

Anyway fuck you for calling this a holiday poll, obviously everyone is voting for Christmas movies, when The Prince of Egypt is the best holiday movie

l'chaim

watched home alone 2 last night for the first time since I was a kid and wow that does not hold up

Had the same experience last year tbh. Only exception is "Christmas Star" > "Somewhere in My Memory" fuiud

yeah the john williams score for still crushes, very christmasy

We've got 16 ballots total. Don't delay, get your votes for The Family Stone in right away!

Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever or gtfo

i saw the Mexican Santa Claus movie projected last weekend and boy the MST bots were missed

Zero new ballots since my last request, btw, so extending one final day. If I don't get to 20, the countdown will be a top 3.

I knew this was a haven for grinches, but this is ridiculous.

https://i.imgur.com/b6pZFjO.jpg

Not going to finalize the results til Monday due to Christmas shopping overload.

OK, I guess 16 ballots is all we've got. Poll closed.

16 is not bad!

How many ballots were submitted for the Best Director poll?

35

there are more good directors in the world than good Thanksgiving movies in America

wonder if Elia Kazan wd garner more respect as a Die Hard film

Sure. Marlon Brando playing Hans.

Rollout of the top 40 starts Thursday ... I think you'll be surprised how much higher Silent Night, Deadly Night ranks than The Shop Around the Corner.

well we knew you voted

this has inspired me to line up a viewing of the original black christmas sometime before the new year

https://silver.afi.com/Browsing/Movies/Details/f-0100002828

In that spirit, AFI Silver is going to host a free screening of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation this Sunday, as part of its Holiday Classics series. Is anyone else interested in this?

among the 'video nasties' VHS box art of the 1980s, Silent Night, Deadly Night stands tall.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/9c/fb/a69cfb7b3932dab379dc717a371b9012.jpg

as a movie, not so much.

I know if you've been sleeping:

Happy POLLidays! (Happy POLLidays!) It's the ILX Holiday Movies Poll Results Thread

you know what I should have seen and then nominated in time for this poll? Night of the Comet!!!