ANNOUNCER Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready? Cinema Junkie presents the Midday Movies Christmas smackdown representing Christmas cheer and all things warm and fuzzy is Yazdi Pithavala of Moviewallas. And decking the Halls with Christmas carnage and yuletide action is Beth Accomando, the KPBS Cinema Junkie. Refereeing today's match is Midday Edition host Jade Hindmon. The contest, three rounds, no disqualifications, no holds bar, Christmas face-off. Jade, take it away.
JADE HINDMON You're listening to KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Jade Hindman. With Christmas around the corner, Midday Movies wanted to highlight not just some holiday favorites, but the contrasting taste of our movie critics. So today, KPBS Cinema Junkie Beth Accomando and movie Wallace's podcaster, Yazdi Pithavala, will face off with some diverse offerings. Yazdi will be offering some holiday cheer, while Beth will be arguing for Christmas action in horror. So, Beth and Yazdi, welcome to you both. Thank you. Thank you. I'm ready for the ring bell. I feel like we need to add that in. Take it out. Yeah, yeah. To start this discussion off, we need to address the annual question of, Is Die Hard, a Christmas movie.
CLIP This is John. Nice beer. He just wants to spend Christmas with the family.
JADE HINDMON Is Daddy coming home with you? We'll see what Santa and mommy can do. Beth, I think you made your stand on this in the past?
BETH ACCOMANDO Yes, I have. Die Hard is absolutely a Christmas movie. It tops the list that my son and I have for Christmas action films. We do 12 days of action Christmas every year. So not only is it set at Christmas, but the setting of Christmas plays a role in this as well. There's an office party that provides a key component to the plot, and it also raises the holiday themes about family.
CLIP Come out to the Coast. We get together, have a few laughs.
BETH ACCOMANDO And It has the gift of Alan Rickman. And I mean, nothing says Christmas better than this.
CLIP Now I have a machine gun. Ho, ho, ho.
JADE HINDMON Well, that officially makes it a Christmas movie, in my opinion, Beth. I'm with you on that one. Yes. All right. Yazdi, what do you think of Die Hard?
YAZDI PITHAVALA It's the only time today that I'm going to agree with both of you. It is a Christmas movie. Let me just say this. Desert Island Picks. If I had to watch a movie every day for the rest of my life, as long as I live, Die Hard. Okay.
JADE HINDMON All right. I'm with it. All right. Now, let's get to our official list of Christmas films. Yazdi, let's start out with something traditional, perhaps with a little warm and fuzzy feel.
YAZDI PITHAVALA Yeah, of course. So everyone loves to watch Home Alone this time of the year, and we've all grown up with It's a Wonderful Life. And Elf and Love actually are on the annual holiday watching plan for most adults. And if you don't like Paddington or Paddington 2, then you're no friend of mine. But I wanted to recommend Hollywood films that may be a little less familiar. Let's go all the way back to 1945 with Christmas in Connecticut, which is streaming free online or available in a crisp rent for a few dollars more on most VOD platforms. When the great Barbara Stanwick goes out in the night with Dennis Morgan on Christmas Eve to return a cow to the Barn. Improbably, it is just about the most impossibly romantic thing ever committed to film.
CLIP Sure is nice here. I'll hate to leave tomorrow. That soon? I'll do it back tomorrow night. I'll have to leave early in the morning. Oh, so this is your last night here. I've had a wonderful time. You've all been very kind to me. Let's keep on walking. But your shoes? Oh, yes, they are inadequate. I guess I was just letting my imagination run away with me. Why not? My lady,Your carriage. Oh, we couldn't. It's just parked here. Nobody of your mind. We'll make believe we're going for a ride. Where should we go? Where do you generally go in your dreams?
YAZDI PITHAVALA Stanwick, having come off her most iconic role in double indemnity just the previous year, demonstrates here how she could be just as effortless a comedian. Here she plays a postwar Martha Stuart-like writer for a magazine, popular for her recipes and her perfect life on a Connecticut farm with her husband and kids. She's forced by her boss to host a recently returned war hero at her home over the holidays for the publicity. The only problem is that she's been lying. She doesn't cook and she doesn't have a farmhouse, much less a husband and kids. And so the film unfolds as she tries to perpetuate this lie, even as she's falling in love with this soldier. And this film is just such a perfect confection with a great supporting turn from the actor S. Z. Saccal, who plays a helper for the two lovers in distress. Here is a clip from towards the end of the film where the two leads argue through lies about marriages.
CLIP Why did you do that? I changed my type. What do you mean? Now I'm the type that does kiss married women. Oh. And I like it. I don't like it. No. There's only one thing to do with you. Yes? Let's do it. No, no. Now, don't you come near me. You attract me, remember? Well, you forget. Oh, no, I don't. You're a married woman, but you don't feel like a married woman, remember? Well, it's not fair. Oh, there are rules to this game, are there? You must teach me. Well, men who are engaged must-Play the game. Yes. Well, let's play. Well. You've stopped talking. That's good.
JADE HINDMON All right. Well, that sounds like a classic Beth, Yazdi's Out of the Gate, Strong. What do you have?
BETH ACCOMANDO Yes. So I want to take each of Yazdi's pics can flip them. So I don't want to sound totally cold-hearted or anything. So I will admit that I do love classics like Christmas in Connecticut, and especially Frank Happer's It's a Wonderful Life, and even Miracle on 34th Street. But I will confess that I have a low tolerance for most recent holiday classics or holiday fair. But like I said, my son and I do have a tradition of watching Christmas action films, and most of these involve Shane Black in some way or other. So my counter programming to Yazdi's Christmas in Connecticut is the Long Kiss Good Night. And this was written by Shane Black. It stars Gina Davis and Samuel L. Jackson. And like Barbara Stanwick, Gina Davis' character has something of a dual personality. She presents as the perfect suburban mom, I could say Martha Stewart here as well, until her memory is jarred, and we discover that she used to be a lethal agent whose last mission left her with amnesia. So as with Die Hard, Christmas is very present in the decor and the music, and it plays a key part in the plot. Davis's appearance in a Christmas parade causes her life to unravel and the plot to unfurl. And the person who comes to kill Davis' Martha Stuart Mom, hides behind some Christmas carolers early in the film.
CLIP Hey, you, sorry. Long time.
BETH ACCOMANDO So this is one of the classic Christmas action films on our list. We watch it along with Lethal Weapon and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, and all of them are from Shane Black.
JADE HINDMON Classic Beth. Yes. I love it. Well, Yazdi, you got something less violent there? I do.
YAZDI PITHAVALA So The Holdovers, which is streaming on Amazon Prime, is just from last year and is ready, I think, to be in conducted into the perennial list of holiday films. So it stars Oscar nominated Paul Giamadi, who plays a curmudgeonly professor in a New England college who is forced to look after students who have nowhere to go during the holidays and after school closes for Christmas break, he's forced to take care of them. And those kids, the professor and a cook who has recently lost her son, form a makeshift family of sorts. To the film's great credit, it refuses to indulge in sentimentality all the to the end, but it still remains authentic and so very entertaining.
CLIP I'd like to propose a toast to my two unlikely companions on this snowy island and to our absent friends and family. I realized that none of us is here because he wants to be. So if there's any way that I could make the holidays a little cheerier for either one of you, just say the word. Okay I want to go to Boston. Boston? Why? Why not? I want a real Christmas. I want to go ice-skating. I want to see a real Christmas tree with real ordinance. Not That's not a stupid thing. You said it was nice. It is nice. Let's get out of here. I want a real holiday. We're not going to Boston. It's out of the question. You told the boy anything, so take the kid to Boston. Mary, we're not allowed to leave campus or the immediate environs. But I suppose we could call it a It's a deal trip.
JADE HINDMON That sounds good. And you know, Yazdi, I will say that was one of my favorites, too. That was a really good film. But now I know that's a little too warm and fuzzy for you, Beth.
BETH ACCOMANDO Well, I agree on the fact that it's a very well-made film. Not exactly my choice for Christmas doing. I did enjoy it, and Yazdi is absolutely correct in saying that it never becomes cloyingly sentimental. But if I am looking for a bunch of people stuck in a school-adjacent setting for the holidays, then I will go to the 1974 film that is often credited as the first slasher film, and this is Black Christmas. This has a group of sorority sisters who are stuck together for the holidays, and they start receiving threatening and obscene phone calls, and then the women start getting murdered. This is the very cheery and Christmasy trailer for the film.
CLIP Remember those idyllic scenes out of your childhood? Crisp winter night, star bright, slaybells, crackling yule logs, candlelight glistening off of shimmering Christmas trees, chestnuts, roasting over open fires, carolers beneath snow, covered window ledges. Remember those. Remember them well. After Black Christmas, they'll never be the same again. Black Christmas. If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl, it's on too tight.
BETH ACCOMANDO So this, along with Psycho, inspired Halloween and many more slasher films, and it's filled with lovely Christmas decorations, but also a lot of dead bodies. Olivia Hussie, Keir Dulier, and John Saxon are great in their roles here, and it was directed by Bob Clark, who also directed A Christmas Story. So maybe that is why I love A Christmas Story as well.
JADE HINDMON All right, so Yazdi, Beth went all the way back to 1974. I know you went back to of earlier, but she had a whole slasher flick for Christmas. What do you have?
YAZDI PITHAVALA I did watch that movie. Beth actually showed that in San Diego. At Christmas. At Christmas, I think last year, and it's a splendid film. My final pick is The Last Holiday from 2006. Just to be clear, this is not to be confused with the home swapping romance The Holiday that was also released the very same year. Now, The Holiday has lost none of its charm since, and a lot of people watch it every year. But the last holiday, even though it may not measure up to the other film, I think it does check off a lot of boxes for me. It's a great vehicle for the abundant charms of Queen Latifa in the title role. Most of it is set at an amazing winter resort in Europe. And finally, it features gorgiously prepared food. What is not to like? Latifa plays a quiet department store worker in New Orleans who dreams of becoming a chef. Finding out that she has only weeks remaining to live, she quits her job and decides to splurge all of her life savings in Europe, buying the best clothes and eating the best food. The film is predictable and silly and unrealistic, but I would argue those are the exact things you want in a holiday film. Here's a clip from the film where Queen Latifa's character steps into an upscale restaurant and asks for a table for one.
CLIP For the specialities, the Maison, we have the cassoulette, We have risotto Barolo with truffles, the Roger Citrus, beurre blanc with capers, roast quail with brioche stuffing, and the Braze, lampshang with blood orange relish. Blood Orange Relish. Blood Orange Relish. Now, that all sounds so good. Will he have the same specials tomorrow night? No. Chef Didier never creates the same any twice. Well, I guess I better try them all tonight then.
JADE HINDMON That sounds more like my liking. I'm with you on that. But, Beth, are you going to kill the Christmas spirit with this next one? What do you have?
BETH ACCOMANDO Well, maybe. So it all starts out very sweetly with a young boy wanting wanting to prove that Santa exists. But on Christmas Eve, the young boy discovers that the Santa in his house is a killer, and he and his grandfather have to defend themselves. Since Yaya Asdi mentioned Home Alone. This is a film that came out a year earlier and basically says, What if the kid in Home Alone were Rambo? The threat of violence is real in this film, and the result is the 1989 French horror action Christmas movie known as Deadly Games, but originally titled Dial Code Santa Claus. The kid proves to be endlessly resourceful, and the film is clever but also tense and violent. So play this back to back with Home Alone. And I'm not saying Home Alone stole the idea, but the films do feel very familiar. And of course, I would prefer Dial Code Santa Claus.
JADE HINDMON Even though you've got all the horror films and Yazdi, you've got all the fun, lovey-dovey, Christmas spirit, happy films. I will say that I'm not opposed to watching any of them. We've got a solid list here to check out. And of course, these are the pics from our critics. You can decide which of these films you want to unwrap these holiday seasons. I want to thank our critics, Beth Acomando and Yazdi Pathavla. Thank you so much, you all.
BETH ACCOMANDO Thank you. Thank you. Happy bloody Christmas.
