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

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Shamefully, I’ve never seen Maud. Didn’t think to vote for KKBB, but I like it.

Maud’s was my #1

(oops, sorry, forgot to designate that #1 vote)

Ive has it in my ‘to watch’ pile for months and haven’t gotten around to it, I had no idea it had a holiday element!

xp - on it, if you can get a mod to swap out the screencap.

That’s ok, it’s not important

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29. ELF
Jon Favreau, USA, 2003
(194 points, 4 votes)

Elf has a good number of very funny Will Ferrell moments but as a movie it is, tbh, kinda dumb and flimsy.

I actually haven't seen it. 2003 was the height of my "Will Ferrell isn't funny, people!" phase. I'll check it out with my future in-laws this weekend.

If that's the point you're starting from, Elf of all Will Ferrell films is probably unlikely to sway you.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang rules and is considerably more Christsmassy than several other placements. The world would be a better place if RDJ and Shane Black had just done a bunch more of those instead of getting dragged into the MCU.

can't imagine wanting to revisit Elf

Like a few seconds of this particular clip might be all I need from Elf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZnTC-epgcA

One of the movie's biggest problems is that it's just so weirdly/badly cast, pretty much across the board.

The idea that Elf is a classic Christmas film is a millennial conceit for people who didn't grow up with Tom Hanks's 'Big'

^ I like Elf okay, but this is pretty much otm.

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28. NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION
Jeremiah S. Chechik, USA, 1989
(200 points, 4 votes)

find the Lampoons too successfully loathsome to revisit tbh

This one has enough goofball scenes to make it mildly amusing. My family and I use Aunt Bethany and Uncle Lewis jokes all the time.

There's a ton of stuff I like and even love about this movie and yet, somehow, I am very much not in its corner.

and Randy Quaid is...kinda terrific? I love his reaction to Brian Doyle-Murray's "And YOU'RE going to jail!"

As with Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, most people are shocked/appalled to learn that I've only seen this holiday classic once all the way through and only relatively recently, at that.

shitter's full!

Also: stopping by to say that A Christmas Tale is my favorite Desplechin.

yeah i kind of want to be too cool for xmas vacation but i have to admit that i find it pretty funny, mostly due to really really good comedic performances rather than the actual scripted jokes.

alfred otm re: aunt bethany & uncle lewis are classic characters & very useful references in family joking situations

I just love riding in cars!

Aunt Bethany is for sure an eleventh-hour save.

A Christmas Tale is great and got my vote.

Let's play ball!

my appreciation for this is so entangled with nostalgia that it's probably not worth parsing, but I'm pretty sure this was the last instance of Chevy Chase being funny in a movie.

Yes. His double takes are excellent.

in my family when someone cant finish a thought, loses the thread or otherwise drifts off when talking, it is not unheard of for someone to yell "THE BLESSING!" at them

Example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKncYRJQRC8

in my family when someone cant finish a thought, loses the thread or otherwise drifts off when talking, it is not unheard of for someone to yell "THE BLESSING!" at them

― warn me about a lurking rake (One Eye Open)

mine too!

Yes, this might be the all-time family-quoting movie.

I can't ever get past finding Chevy Chase utterly repellent, even if Clark Griswold is supposed to be on many levels horrible.

yeah his comedic style is predicated on him being a clueless dickhead, which he actually is in real life, so unless his sensibilities are channeled just so (Caddyshack, Fletch, og Vacation & NLCV, some early SNL), his persona just grates.

I like that, in Community, the joke was actually on him.

I stared at the list of his filmography as if at the remains of an electrocuted cat.

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27. BATMAN RETURNS
Tim Burton, USA, 1992
(201 points, 4 votes)

I have a copy of the first episode of The Chevy Chase Show which I just rewatched a bit of the other day. Highly, highly recommended. Among the most beautiful of trainwrecks.

Batman Returns didnt pass my arbitrary "is it christmassy enough" test, but man do i love that movie. maybe the only superhero/comic book movie that i enjoy

oh man, yeah, The Chevy Chase show was definitely one of the best worst ideas in modern cultural history. Did it even make it to episode #2?

xp

Best Batman movie, best performance in a Batman movie (Pfeiffer), most fun Pfeiffer performance.

definitely the highlight of Burton-era Batman, it's level of being Christmasy is incidental but palpable.

I dunno, Bruce Wayne spending the back half of the film dressed in a modified Santa suit and fighting the Penguin with an oversized candy cane felt pretty Christmas-y to me but ymmv.

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26. FAR FROM HEAVEN
Todd Haynes, USA, 2002
(202.5 points, 4 votes)

I dunno, Bruce Wayne spending the back half of the film dressed in a modified Santa suit and fighting the Penguin with an oversized candy cane felt pretty Christmas-y to me but ymmv.

dang, that is something I totally forgot about - time for a rewatch!

another great movie I don't recall the Christmas/holidays component of at all

xpost Please do not sue me when you discover upon rewatching that I have fudged the truth a lil.