It’s New Year’s Eve, but you are far from feeling in a holiday mood? If this is the case, the following holiday films can improve the situation! If the films “Carnival”, “Sorcerers” and “Polar express” are no longer getting you into the holiday spirit, Women’s Day suggest the following 10 best new year films and cartoons about Christmas, which you should watch to get in the spirit.
“Home Alone”, 1990
The film “Home alone” is a non-stop ride of unforgettable laughs. The plot of “Home alone” seems to be known to everyone: an American family is going to Europe for Christmas. But in the hurly-burly of leaving parents, aunts, uncles and elder cousins leave a little boy, who’s smart beyond his age at home with no supervision. Having been left alone, the child is preparing for his own Christmas celebration while standing up against a couple of unlucky wet bandits.
You may not know, however, that the no unforgettable facial expression of Kevin – large eyes, opened mouth and hands on his cheeks – is a clear allusion to the famous picture by Monk, “Scream”. One more interesting fact is that McAlister’s house, which the wet bandits were trying to rob in vain, isn’t a decoration, but it’s a real house built in the 1920s. It is situated in a village not far from Chicago and it was put on the tourist list of sights of the state of Illinois.
“Jingle All the Way”, 1996
A loving father of his family is unfortunately in love with his work. That’s why he is constantly late for family celebrations and always forgets about important dates. After another missed, very important event for his son, he has nothing to do but to promise his son that he will give him a popular toy, Turboman, as a Christmas present. But the trouble is that very toy super hero has become the Christmas best seller and was the first to disappear from the store shelves. The constantly preoccupied father remembers about the necessity to buy the present too late.
“Jingle all the way” has become one of the best family comedies in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career. In fairness, it must be said that behind the films success stands not only Arnie, but also the actress Rita Wilson and the director Brian Levant, famous for his film “Beethoven”.
“Christmas Story” (Joulutarina), 2007
The Finnish film, “Christmas Story” (Joulutarina) has nothing in common with Dickens’s “Christmas Carol”: this is a true story about who Santa Claus is and where he comes from, told by the people from the country where he lived and grew up.
Small Niholaus lived happily up to the moment when his parents died after falling through thin ice. People in the village took in the orphan boy and took care of him as a town. His foster parents took care of him for an entire year before passing him on to the next family on Christmas Day. As a token of gratitude Nocholaus gave children farewell presents – self-made toys. During hard and lean years, people in the village had to give the boy to an old and irritable carpenter who lived in a remote house, while there the boy had to work for him. Young Nikolaus’s further life is a topic of many fairy tales and many films.
“A Christmas Carol”, 2009
This “Christmas Carol” is a film version of the cognominal novel by Charles Dickens. All the animated characters have similarities with their prototypes: Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and others. The director Robert Zemeckis presented a new vision of the old story. It was he, who gave an old tight – fisted Ebenezer Scrooge a face that is the most suitable for him. “A Christmas Carol” can be called an animation victory for Disney, because they landed Jim Carrey, who had never worked with this studio before, and Robert Zemeckis, whose previous project for Disney was a cartoon “Who framed Roger Rabbit?”
“Rare Exports”, 2010
The black comedy “Rare Exports” is for grown-ups, for those, who can dress into Santa Claus costume themselves. In the book lent to the film, its creators promised that after watching “Rare exports” everyone will believe in Christmas. This sounds like a joke, and that is exactly what it is; watching this film you may not only laugh a lot but also startle up once or twice with terror.
The plot is built up on classical canons of horror: somewhere in the snowy mountains of Laplandanun, a very well-known corporation is performing secret geological research. Mean while people from the nearest village realize that some of the reindeer have begun to fade away. Some of the animals are dead, and some have escaped. Upset villagers easily find the guilty person – a naked bearded man. Soon they begin to suspect that they have caught a real Santa Claus.
“Four Christmases”, 2008
A comedy film by director Seth Gordon “Four Christmases” is recommended to lovers and those who believe in the value of family holidays. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon are a couple who go through all the difficulties of family celebrations four times over!
Brad and Kate love each other and they have been living together for three years already. They go to the cinema together, cook dinners, meet with friends, but they don’t feel like getting married. But their attitude to each other and to the family values change, when their Christmas flight is delayed for a day. Wishing to spend this time usefully, they set off to visit their parents. The fact is that both Brad’s parents and Kate’s parents are divorced, which makes the whole thing more complicated. So they have to go through as many as four family celebrations!
“Arthur Christmas”, 2011
Have you ever thought of how Santa manages to deliver so many presents during one night? “Arthur Christmas” cartoon makers know the answer to that question. Santa’s secret is an enormous army of well-disciplined elves, high-tech equipment and well-organized toy packaging and delivery systems that almost never fail. But one day an unpleasant thing happens – On New Year’s Eve a small girl is left without any presents. The only person, who can improve the situation, is Santa’s junior son Arthur, who is ready to deliver the last gift at any price…
“Yolki” (“Christmas trees”), 2010
Film director Timur Bekmambetov believed in the theory of six handshakes and decided to make us believe in it too. To do so he filmed a New Year’s comedy “Christmas trees”, having invited such actors as Ivan Urgant, Sergey Svetlakov, Arthur Smolyaninov, Vera Brejneva and others.
The events of the film “Christmas trees” take place in Kaliningrad, Kazan, Perm’, Ufa, Bavly, Ekaterinburg, Krasnoyarsk, Yakutsk, Novosibirsk, Saint-Petersburg and Moscow. The main characters of the film are common and not very common people: a taxi driver and a popular singer, a successful businessman and a poor actor, a student and a pensioner, a thief and a policeman, a guest worker and the president of Russian Federation. On New Year’s Eve all of them find themselves in a very difficult situation, to get out which only a miracle can help them… or a theory of six handshakes, according to which everyone on the Earth knows each other through six acquaintances.
“Fred Claus”, 2007
One more New Year comedy starring Vince Vaughn depicts very difficult relations between the Claus brothers: one of them, Nickolaus, has become kind and merry, a symbol of Christmas spirit, the other, Fred, has become a grumbler and seems to have lost his trust in miracles forever. But once Fred arrives at the North Pole and discovers that his brother is in trouble: an unprofitable Santa’s gift service has been decided to be eliminated. The only one who can save Christmas is a constant grumbler Fred!
The part of Fred in the comedy “Fred Claus” was acted by Vince Vaughn and Nick Claus’s part was acted by Paul Giamatti. They were accompanied by Rachel Weisz, Kevin Spacey and Elizabeth Banks.
“New Year’s Eve”, 2011
The name of the next film is “New Year’s Eve”, so it’s not a big surprise that the film is about how people from the brightest megapolis – from New York – spend the 31st of December and New Year’s Eve. Garry Marshall, famous for his films “Pretty Woman”, “Run away Bride” and “St. Valentine’s Day”, presented his own vision of New Year bustle in the city. In “New Year’s Eve” Garry Marshall used his favourite trick of novelization in the cinema: the picture includes eight plots, connected with one ideas of New Year, romance, hope and love. Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Sarah Jessica Parker, John Bon Jovi, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron and others took part in this film.
