December 2003
Deck the Halls With Bah and Humbug
by Lindsay Thompson, Bar News Editor
Tears, booze . . . I love the holidays.
—Actress Megan Mulally as socialite Karen Walker
Will & Grace (NBC), Nov. 23, 2000
The next person that says Merry Christmas to me, I'll kill them.
—Actress Myrna Loy as socialite Nora Charles
The Thin Man, 1934
I know—I should write something chirpy about the holidays, some wry, written-in-a-rocking-chair-next-to-a-cozy-fire sort of chestnut about the good that lawyers do in the season of doing good.
Sorry. Wrong writer. When it comes to Christmas, I've got issues.
There's the wall-to-wall advertising, and the endless bad arrangements of "Little Drummer Boy." Editors roll out year-end summaries of the year's major news stories as if we all go amnesiac after clearing away the wrapping paper. Religious broadcasts give us the gospel as insurance policy, full coverage to all, but subject to certain exclusions and reservation of rights. Where have you gone, H.L. Mencken, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
As a public service, I offer my Holiday Movie Meal—a five-course corrective to the noise, bustle, and inanity of the season.
1. Home for the Holidays (1995). Hellish family meals aren't just for Christmas. Jodie Foster directed this black comedy about Thanksgiving weekend ("We don't have to like each other. We're family.") Charles Durning, Anne Bancroft ("I'm giving thanks that we don't have to go through this for another year. Except that we do, because those bastards went and put Christmas right in the middle, just to punish us."), Geraldine Chaplin, Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr., Dylan McDermott, Steve Guttenberg, Claire Danes, and David Strathairn round out this overstrung clan. It's a schadenfreudist's delight.
2. Christmas in Connecticut (1945). This screwball affair features Barbara Stanwyck as Elizabeth Lane, a poor man's Martha Stewart. When a hospitalized war hero rhapsodizes about Lane's magazine column—fabulous meals in a bucolic Connecticut farmhouse, a bubbly baby, and a cow with a cute name close at hand—the magazine's publisher (Sydney Greenstreet) invites the war hero, and himself, to the farm for Christmas. Trouble is, Lane can't cook, is single, and lives in a Manhattan walkup. She's gotta get a farm, a husband, an invisible cook, and a baby, pronto. Then she falls in love with the sailor. Doors slam; hijinks ensue. The strong supporting cast includes Dennis Morgan, Reginald Gardner, S.Z. Sakall, Una O'Connor, and Dick Elliott. (Treacle warning: Avoid, at all cost, the 1992 remake with Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson, and Tony Curtis, where changing the lead's name to Elizabeth Blane passes for updating.)
3. Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988). Rowan Atkinson played hundreds of years of the original medieval Edmund Blackadder and his descendants on the BBC. They're grasping, whinging, sell-your-grandmother types, generation to generation, except Ebeneezer, the Victorian shopkeeper. After getting cheerfully but unwittingly swindled of nearly everything on Christmas Eve, he's visited by the Spirit of Christmas, who shows him three visions of his ancestors doing well by being awful. Time for a change of life, thinks Ebeneezer. Abjuring niceness, he greets one character, "I trust Christmas brings to you its traditional mix of good food and violent stomach cramp."
4. The Ref (1994). Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis host their bickering, dysfunctional family for Christmas dinner. Trapped by a closing manhunt, burglar Denis Leary takes them hostage, and then has to referee their increasingly vicious squabbles ("You know what I'm going to get you next Christmas, Mom? A big wooden cross, so that every time you feel unappreciated for your sacrifices, you can climb on up and nail yourself to it." "I suppose you'll use this drama as a reason to have another affair. I feel sorry for the next delivery man that comes to this house!"). The thief sighs, "Connecticut is the fifth ring of hell." Glynis Johns is the waspish mother-in-law. Christine Baranski and her martini glass appear. Each child is annoying.
5. A Christmas Carol (1984). This George C. Scott vehicle is the only version worth a damn. None of that awful scene-chewing by Alastair Sim; Scott's Scrooge is a man embittered by lovelessness; and the look of terror and remorse on his face when he views his own grave is one of genuine, soul-wrenching anguish. Plus, the Cratchits aren't precious.
Back to business next month. Happy holidays, or whatever.
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