Some holiday movie hard-knocks are justifiable, like when chipper Kris Kringle (played by the inimitable Edmund Gwenn) raises his cane in the original Miracle On 34th Street and bops a fussy psychologist square on the noggin. It becomes a major story point: the psychologist (played by Porter Hall) is already irritated that the man Macy's has hired to play Santa Claus actually thinks that he is Santa Claus, and when Santa attacks, it's just the ammunition he needs to get him committed to an insane asylum. But there's still something so satisfying about Kringle's swift crack on this buffoon's head. It's a blow against every tin tyrant and annoying naysayer we suffer in our daily lives. So conk him again, Father Christmas!
7. Home For The Holidays (1995)It's bad enough that director Jodie Foster and screenwriter W.D. Richter turn Chris Radant's comic story of familial distress over Thanksgiving into a sucked-dry psychodrama in which the cynical artsy types are the heroes and the perfectly nice Middle American homebodies are the villains. But then, in an attempt to inject a little chaos—and, theoretically, comedy—into the proceedings, Foster stages a scene in which put-upon housewife Cynthia Stevenson winds up with the whole Thanksgiving turkey in her lap after her hipster brother Robert Downey Jr. botches the carving. In the movie, this is supposed to be Stevenson's just desserts, for having the audacity to be a prissy perfectionist who tries to host a nice meal for her parents and siblings. When she rises and storms out of the house, that should be the audience's cue to exit, too.
8. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006)
It's always "tool time" whenever Tim Allen appears on screen, and many of the ill-timed pratfalls from his Home Improvement days have carried over to his role as Saint Nick in The Santa Clause trilogy. (Can three Santa Clause prequels be far behind? There are fan sites that need updating!) Those who remember the original film will recall that Allen gets the job after accidentally knocking the real Santa Claus off his roof, killing him and Christmas. So it's only fitting that The Santa Clause 3 finds Allen's status threatened by another would-be Kris Kringle in silver-coiffed power broker Jack Frost (Martin Short), who wants to be the man associated with this prestigious holiday. How best to steal Santa's magic coat? Step 1: Travel back in time using a magical snow globe. Step 2: Pull oversized wooden candy cane out of suburban lawn. Step 3: Hit him where it hurts—square in his jolly gut.
9. A Christmas Story (1983)
The onscreen pain in A Christmas Story—a family-friendly scream that most thirtysomethings probably know by heart—isn't of the slapstick variety, but it hurts nonetheless. The whole movie, of course, is about a kid trying to obtain a gun, and who eventually does shoot himself in the eye (sort of). But before Ralphie gets the prize, he beats the crap out of the school bully and gets his mouth washed out with soap. (Dad gets a bowling ball to the nuts, too!) But the real pain of A Christmas Story hurts more than any comical roof-falling: When Scott Schwartz—who would later, sigh, go on to do porn—puts his tongue on a frozen flagpole (on a "triple dog dare"), things get very uncomfortable. It's not an urban legend, kids—don't put your tongue on frozen metal.
10. Christmas With The Kranks (2004)
When a Chicago couple (Jamie Lee Curtis and Tim Allen, again) sensibly—some might even say heroically—decides to opt out of celebrating Christmas they're punished by their neighbors. And it's not just the usual passive aggressive shunning. First Dan Aykroyd and a gang of suburban thugs verbally bully Curtis when she refuses to decorate her house. Then Aykroyd stops short of assaulting her as she drives away. Allen responds by freezing his sidewalk to discourage carolers, a plan that predictably backfires. But the pain doesn't really begin until he and Curtis have to frantically make their home Christmas-ready thanks to the unexpected return of their grown daughter. In the subsequent scramble, Curtis scraps it up at the supermarket in pursuit of a canned ham and Allen falls off a roof installing an ornamental snowman. The choice is clear: Public disgrace or pain. Excruciating, humiliating, heartwarming pain.
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