DYLA Christmas Movie Awards
It's the most wonderful time of the year... to give out fake movie awards
Welcome to the DYLA Christmas Movie Awards! Last year we recommended a few holiday classics you can find streaming, but this year we are handing out made-up awards to a whole slew of Christmas movies. We each chose a movie for each category below and wrote our justification for the pick. If you agree or disagree, take it up with us on Twitter or Instagram.
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Most Likely To Warm Your Heart
Drew: It’s a Wonderful Life (streaming on Amazon Prime)
If you had never seen It’s a Wonderful Life and were only shown the movie’s poster, you might think it’s a movie where Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fall in love and then are blessed with good health and fortune. The end. But the reason it lives on several decades later as a heart-warming Christmas classic is because there is deep despair before George Bailey (Stewart) learns his lesson. I always forget how dark and suicidal things get in the middle of this movie until light breaks through in those final few minutes, with George holding Zuzu in front of the Christmas tree as his friends and family rally around him, a look of grateful disbelief on his face.
Billy: Happiest Season (streaming on Hulu)
Seeing Kristen Stewart (Abby) and Mackenzie Davis (Harper) lead a movie together is such a treat. Stewart continues to prove that her Twilight era was the anomaly and Davis continues her ascent into a leading woman. Happiest Season immediately hooks the audience with the traditional tropes and director Clea Duvall does a wonderful job making them feel refreshing. There is a relationship we love, an eccentric/hilarious best friend being the moral compass, and a family that brings all the drama.
Duvall decides to focus on the moment when a relationship is ready to bring the family into the mix. Abby is going to meet Harper’s family during Christmas, but Harper has not come out to her family yet. Making them hide their relationship and if the truth comes out Harper may lose her family in the process.
This simple premise is packed full of laugh out loud moments from everyone in the stacked cast. Plus each of them getting a moment to show their acting chops is always a good recipe for success. Happiest Season is going to be a part of the holiday rotation from here on out.
Most Likely To Give You a Laughing Fit
Drew: Elf
I would be willing to wager that Elf has the highest approval rating of any Christmas movie. Have you ever met anyone that doesn’t like it? There are some Christmas movies that get a little old after you see them for the umpteenth time, but not this one. Thanks to Will Ferrell, a bonafide comedic genius, and great character work from James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, and more, there are scenes and quotes that still make me laugh after so many viewings, like Buddy getting hit by a taxi, “singing loud for all to hear” in the department store, and “What’s a Christmas Gram? I want one!”
Billy: A Christmas Story
A Christmas Story has the best voiceover performance of all time. That is where I get the loudest laugh. The guy voicing older Ralphie perfectly encapsulates the mind of a kid at Christmas time. The excitement, anxiousness, and ultimate heartbreak that happens during this season growing up. I can’t wait to binge this on Christmas Day.
Most Likely To Give You Nightmares
Drew: Black Mirror: “White Christmas” (streaming on Netflix)
If you aren’t in the heart-warming Christmas spirit that most of the genre dishes out, then may I recommend Black Mirror’s “White Christmas” episode. In true Black Mirror style, this is about as dark and twisted as holiday entertainment can get. Jon Hamm stars in the show’s 74-minute Christmas special on Netflix, which delivers a few different nightmarish futuristic scenarios set around the holiday time.
Billy: Black Christmas (1974) (streaming on Criterion Channel)
Drew and I watched this during Halloween and while it has so many classic horror tropes that haven’t aged well, the tension build up is done masterfully. This is a classic “THEY ARE INSIDE THE HOUSE!” movie and once the climatic moments hit the terror hits hard. If you are looking to mix it up this Christmas this is a good place to start.
Most Overrated
Drew: Love Actually
I’m sorry, but I just don’t get the adoration for Love Actually. While the cast is packed with notable movie stars, they aren’t given much screen time to create any interesting characters. And because there are approximately 97 different plot strands, every time you start to enjoy one of them the movie zips over to something else. Love Actually isn’t all that funny, the story is a jumbled mess, and it doesn’t really put me in the holiday spirit. Call me Ebenezer, but you can miss me with this kind of schmaltzy nonsense. There are so many Christmas movies that do it better.
Billy: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) (streaming on Netflix)
I would never disparage the original animated version, which is an absolute classic, and Jim Carrey actually does a solid job in this. Where this version misses is the heart from the original. When the Grinch’s heart grows I don’t feel it as much as Ron Howard wants me to feel it, leaving a movie that is fine, but not in the rotation for me each year.
Most Underrated
Drew: Meet Me in St. Louis (streaming on HBO Max)
It was a family tradition in my house to watch Meet Me in St. Louis every Thanksgiving night. It’s my mom’s favorite movie because of its unabashed love for our hometown city, but there is also a sneaky Christmas movie inside this 1944 musical. Much of the movie takes place during the holidays, between Halloween and Christmas, which is why it’s a perfect watch during this time, even if it’s not always recognized as a Christmas classic. In fact, the climax happens on Christmas Eve, when Judy Garland delivers a touching (and the original!) rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to her distraught sister Tootie.
Billy: Happy Christmas
Joe Swanberg is the ultimate indie director that has entered pop culture in really unique ways. Drinking Buddies for the drunk acting or the Netflix show Easy that shows every aspect of relationships in the most explicit ways. Despite all that success this mumblecore Christmas movie missed during the holiday season. Anna Kendrick and indie movie darling Melanie Lynskey carry the weight of this movie. Happy Christmas is probably not the feel good Christmas movie that you are looking for, but you will feel every emotion in the book by the end, and for that Happy Christmas is a rewarding watch.
Most Memorable Performance
Drew: Joe Pesci in Home Alone and Home Alone 2 (streaming on Disney Plus)
As good as Macaulay Culkin is in these movies, they simply don’t become Christmas classics without memorable villains. As Harry Lyme, the great Joe Pesci teamed up with Daniel Stern, as Marv, to terrorize (and get owned by) a little kid. Pesci is so incredibly game for the slapstick humor of Home Alone and its sequel, despite his stature as an Oscar-recognized actor. (In fact, he won an Oscar for Goodfellas just a few months after Home Alone came out.) He plays off the profane and violent characters he has been throughout his career to hysterical comedic effect by revealing Harry to be an inept low-level criminal that gets outwitted by a kid at every turn.
Billy: Steve Carell in The Office: “A Benihana Christmas”
There are of course amazing performances in so many Christmas movies, but it is time to recognize the best comedic performance in TV history by talking about the best The Office Christmas episode, “A Benihana Christmas.” Michael Scott (Steve Carell) becomes a little presumptuous like always and ruins one of his few serious relationships by photoshopping his face on top of his girlfriend’s ex-husband, picks up a Benihana waitress, and marks one of the waitresses with a marker because he forgot which one he is “dating.” Binge all The Office Christmas episodes before it leaves Netflix and start with this one.
Recent Release Mini-Reviews
Mank (streaming on Netflix)
Drew: Mank is the least commercial movie David Fincher has ever made, but I found myself locked into this immersive and transporting character study of how Herman Mankiewicz came to write the script for Citizen Kane. This is due in large part to the tremendous screenplay, full of fast-paced wit and intelligence, by Fincher’s late father, Jack Fincher. It also helps that the actors, particularly Gary Oldman, Amanda Seyfried, and Lily Collins, are so effective at bringing his writing alive in order to recreate 1930s Hollywood.
With its pristine black-and-white images and classic film audio and visual signatures, it had to be painstaking work to make Mank happen, but that’s what you expect from Fincher. Besides a political/election subplot that was only interesting up to a certain point, I was enraptured by the story, dialogue, and filmmaking of Fincher’s film. However, I am curious how Mank will play for those not as intrigued by Old Hollywood, Orson Welles, newspaper magnates, and how movies get written. Mank is a cinephile’s dream, but I don’t know if others will be as swept away. - 4 / 5 Apples
Sound of Metal (streaming on Amazon Prime)
Drew: Headlined by Riz Ahmed’s spellbinding central performance, Sound of Metal is a deeply empathetic drama that never feels manipulative. This story of a metal band drummer (and recovering addict) that loses his hearing manages to sidestep addiction drama cliches thanks to Ahmed’s lived-in performance and writing that, while a little unfocused, refuses to take the easy path.
It’s a hell of a showcase for Ahmed, and he will deservedly get a mountain of praise, but Paul Raci delivers one of my favorite performances of the year as Joe, the leader of a deaf community that takes in Ahmed’s character. Joe teaches him (and all of us) that the kingdom of God can be found in stillness and acceptance.
Sound of Metal is unique and impressive due to its incredible sound design (which would’ve been even more awe-inspiring in the theater) and it’s portrayal of a deaf person’s experience, something we don’t see much of at the movies. - 4 / 5 Apples