As John McClane says in Die Hard 2 (not a Christmas movie, but set on Christmas Eve and made in 1990, so still totally relevant) “Just once, I’d like a regular, normal Christmas. Eggnog, a f*ckin’ Christmas tree, a little turkey. But, no. I gotta crawl around in this motherf*ckin’ tin can.” Replace “Eggnog, a f*ckin’ Christmas tree, a little turkey” with “watching the Christmas movies we were brought up on the 1990’s”, and “crawl around in this motherf*ckin’ tin can” with “watch vastly inferior new-school 2000’s Christmas movies like The Polar Express and Christmas With The Kranks“, and you basically have Pedestrian’s exact sentiments towards two decades which couldn’t be more closely related chronologically, but feel like polar opposites when it comes to the quality of the Christmas movies they produced. ‘Tis the season to be nostalgic, so here’s a collection of our favourite 90’s Christmas movies, inevitably dug out December after December until the VHS tape was rendered unwatchable, or you upgraded to DVD.
The Santa Clause
Because the most logical course of action when someone presumably dies after tumbling off your roof is to immediately put on their clothes, cynical divorcee Scott Calvin accidentally assumes the role of Santa Claus at his son’s behest one Christmas, and then spends the next eleven months getting fat, growing a beard, and deciding who’s been naughty and nice before taking on the role for good the following Christmas. Everyone’s surrogate dad Tim The Toolman Allen 1994’s up this movie a treat. The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause didn’t fare quite as well as the original, probably because they were made after Y2K.
This holiday season, Tim Allen is giving til it hurts!
Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas
The Pumpkin King of Halloween Town Jack Skellington grows weary of the yearly Halloween ritual, and when he accidentally discovers a portal to Christmas Town, he becomes obsessed and decides to bring Christmas to the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky denizens of Halloweentown. Tim Burton wrote and co-produced the film in 1993, experimenting with Christmas imagery to further establish the playfully gothic artistic style that defined his work, and inspired the tote-bag choices of quasi-emo film nerds for decades to come.
The enchanting tale of two very special dreamers, and the holiday spirit that brought them together
Jingle All The Way
Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s 1996 filmic rediscovery of the real meaning of Christmas – giving expensive presents to bratty kids – is a non-stop action packed comedy romp as he goes in search of the highly sought after TurboMan action figure, with the arms and legs that move and the boomerang shooter and his rock’n roller jet pack and the realistic voice activator that says 5 different phrases including, “It’s Turbo time!” Accessories sold separately. Batteries not included. Also, Arnold punches both a reindeer in the face and a midget Santa Claus across a room. What’s not to like?
Every holiday season, there’s one toy everyone has to have
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Michael Caine is upstaged by a few bits of felt and some goggly eyes as he plays Ebenezer Scrooge, visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come in this classic story of Christmas redemption, retold in by our favourite puppets in 1992. This years’ Lady Gaga & The Muppets’ Holiday Spectacular in no way matched the heights of The Muppets’ 90’s Christmas glory.
It’s Charles Dickens’ classic tale, as only the Muppets can tell it.
Home Alone
This is it – the absolute, snow-covered pinnacle of 90’s Christmas moviedom. Home Alone is the ultimate Christmas time story of familial neglect for Macaulay Culkin’s Kevin McCallister, and his borderline sadistic version of home defense against the obsessive and persistent Wet Bandits (which appears to have inspired the climactic house invasion scene in Skyfall). Managing to be funny, sentimental and shockingly violent all at once, Home Alone set the bar for 90’s family Christmas movies. Home Alone 2: Lost In New York was just as good (if not better) with the
addition of Tim Curry to the cast, the New York setting, and the return
of the Wet (now Sticky) Bandits. Sadly, the less said about Home Alone
3, 4, and 5, the better.
