For those of you who don’t know me, I have long considered myself a bit of a cinephile. I have seen most of Kubrick, almost a full third of Hitchcock’s 60+ masterpieces, and even served as the “Sheriff” of my high school movie club. My tastes are rather eclectic, and I can gladly enjoy a Billy Wilder classic like Sunset Boulevard or the most recent European imports (e.g. Le Quattro Volte, La Doppia Ora, Even the Rain, or The Guard to name a few), as well as a relatively low brow comedy like Horrible Bosses or Bad Teacher, yet when I do encounter a horrible film (e.g. The Beaver, Larry Crowne, Captain America, Crazy Stupid Love, Paranormal Activity 3, or Immortals 3D which currently grace my “Worst of 2011 So Far” list), I will take pleasure in endlessly berating them.

However, one of the genres of film I could never really get into, and largely still can’t, are Christmas films. I find them filled with cheap sentimentality and pandering, simplistic morals that sometimes amount to nothing more than “parents should work less, and spend more time with their kids” or “if grownups just believed in Santa, they and their families would be so much happier”; this is sort of on par with that sub-genre of children’s films that portray cranky workaholic parents as somewhere between misguided and villainous for not wanting to adopt the stray dog/cat/monkey/parrot that their child found. What’s even worse is when the alleged filmmakers who produce these films include some kind of message about selflessness and giving, and then reward the main character with some lavish gift for learning that that lavish gift is not what the Holidays are all about.

Now, this said, I do acknowledge that not all holiday films are like this, just most of them, especially the more recent ones, minus some of the parodies like A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas, or some cartoon specials like those of The Simpsons, South Park, or Family Guy, although oftentimes these will on a standard Christmas episode ending after twenty-eight minutes of trying to be edgy or at least kind of more mature (South Park usually manages to sidestep this). Ultimately what I think this comes down to is that there really aren’t that many new Christmas movies for adults anymore.

It has been nearly fifty or sixty plus years since we saw such films like The Bishop’s Wife, The Shop Around The Corner, Holiday Inn, White Christmas, or my personal favorite, Bachelor Mother. Not all of these are masterpieces. Some are better than others. And some of them may even be a little overrated, but they are all a welcome relief from most of what passes as a Holiday movie today. None of these films are about presents or decorating or believing in Santa. No, they are largely about human relationships involving real people, who at times may sing and dance more than would be considered normal, while the Holiday Season is simply just part of the setting. The humor does not come from an idiot repeatedly falling off his roof while hanging Christmas lights, but from witty banter and good writing. And, although some of these do end up having a moral or end up becoming overly sentimental, it usually doesn’t come off as forced.