Through hard work, and dark ale, and getting in touch with lots of old friends, and another of those odd, meaningful dreams I’ve been having lately, I managed to start feeling the faintest hint of Christmassy yesterday. So today I'm planning to decorate, then party in the evening.  (With, of course, hard work again in-between.) Today's blog is the first of (hopefully) three, rounding up the Christmas tastes of my fellow professionals.  (And there's an adventure for Scale Guy at the end.)  I asked my friends in the SF and Fantasy field what their favourite Christmas movie was.  And I got some entertaining answers...

'Trading Places, which while not about Christmas per se, takes place during the Christmas season and whose story, about the rich being humbled, the poor being elevated and good triumphing over greed, has a definite Dickens quality to it. Also: Jamie Lee Curtis at her height of hotness. Merry Christmas, indeed,' - John Scalzi (author, Old Man's War, The Android's Dream, etc.)

 

Thanks, John.

 

‘My favourite Christmas movie vacillates wildly from year to year, but at the moment it's probably Rankin & Bass's stop-motion classic Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town, the "secret origin" of Santa Claus featuring the talents of Mickey Rooney and Fred Astaire. I grew up on the whole gamut of Rankin/Bass specials, and I have always been obsessed with the way that those little stop-motion figures seem to live in an alternate reality all their own, with different rules of physics and causality and such. (And while it isn't my "favourite" as such, the immortal Rudolph & Frosty's Christmas In July *absolutely* obsesses me at the moment in the way that it pulls together nearly all of the myriad Rankin/Bass Christmas specials into one unified continuity.) – Chris Roberson (author, The Dragon’s Nine Sons, The Voyage of Night Shining White, etc.)

 

If I’d made up an archetypal Chris Roberson answer, it would have sounded just like that one.

 

‘Wow, even though I celebrate Christmas with the happy routines of family, friends, gift-giving, and celebration, I don't have a singular Christmas film that's "my film". I'd love to say The Nightmare Before Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story or even Elf, but none would be true, although all of these are good. When I think of a "favourite Xmas movie", I picture a favourite DVD that warmly slips into the player at this time of year to set the mood. Sadly, I don't have one. However - if the question were to include "favourite Christmas music”...’

 

Oh go on then, we’re due to be getting there in a couple of days anyway.

 

‘... then I'd have an answer locked and loaded. I'll share it anyway. James Brown’s Funky Christmas.’

 

Really?

 

‘I can't remember a Christmas from the last 12 or 13 years that hasn't had this music in the background. If you can find this 17-track funkfest, snag it.  How can you miss with classics like this? "Go Power at Christmas Time", "Santa Claus Go Straight To The Ghetto", "Soulful Christmas", and "Tit for Tat (Ain't No Taking Back)".  I can honestly say that this is not only my favourite Christmas album of all-time, but it's so funny and funky, it still sounds great in mid-July, when it's 105 Fahrenheit outside.  I challenge anyone to listen to this and not be filled with holiday cheer and early 70's cheesy, funky joy.’

 

I’m sure some of our readers may take you up on that.

 

‘... RIP, James - you're still as good as it gets, and to all reading this, I dedicate track #5, "Let's Make Christmas Mean Something This Year." Happy Holidays, everyone, and best to you for the New Year,’ – John Picacio (artist, illustrator of renown.) 

http://www.amazon.com/James-Browns-Funky-Christmas-Brown/dp/B000001EFD

 

Thanks, John. 

 

‘Scrooged, starring Bill Murray. It's a fantastic updating of the Christmas Carol story, with hugely enjoyable cameos from more American character actors than you can shake a stick at. And it manages to be cynical and heart-warming at the same time, which is pretty Zen when you think about it,’ – Mike Carey (author, the Felix Castor series.)

 

Oh, that's a hard one. If I had to pick just one that I could watch over and over it would have to be Nightmare Before Christmas. It hits all the right notes for a holiday film - a love story, catchy music, presents and a happy ending. The fact that it is gorgeously art directed, dark and features a skeleton as the main character just add to the joy. I can't wait for a visit from Sandy Claws this year,’ – Mary Robinette Kowal (author, Evil Robot Monkey, Clockwork Chickadee, etc.)

 

Nobody’s going for the Muppets, are they? Oh, wait...

‘My favourite Xmas movie of all is the 1987 A Muppet Family Christmas, where Kermit and co. go to visit Fozzie's mother in her cabin, only to be snowed in with Doc and Sprocket from Fraggle Rock and an unexpected Sesame Street cast. It also has Fraggles living in tunnels below the house, and a dream sequence with Muppet Babies (the only Muppet show production to combine all the various shows).  There is a priceless moment where Janice (she of the Electric Mayhem) comes out asking "Does anybody want any Christmas cookies?" Prompting Cookie Monster to go berserk. Witnessing this, Animal says, "Dat my kind of fellow." What's not to love?’ – Lou Anders (publisher, Pyr Books.)

 

‘Lou's answer is the correct answer. Watch out for the icy patch!’ – Stephen Segal (editor, Weird Tales magazine.)

 

Well, we seem to be developing a consensus...

 

‘Aw, Lou got one of mine.  Choosing just one favourite is quite a challenge, but I think I'll have to go with the musical Scrooge with Albert Finney (who was young at the time but playing in old-age makeup that turned out to be eerily prescient). It's beautifully atmospheric, the fun scenes from Past and Present are wonderfully joyous, and it has one of the better Future sequences. Not only is there a truly scary trip to hell, but there's a catchy song-and-dance number that takes place during a funeral procession, with dancing on the coffin itself - and that's the song you'll be humming for hours. There's something rather twisted about that, but it works in context. It's the sort of sight that would make you change your life, if your death brought on a happy song-and-dance through the streets.  Though what my family always seems to end up watching at Christmas is an episode or two of Firefly,’ – Shanna Swendson (author, Damsel Under Stress, Don’t Hex with Texas, etc.)

 

‘A Muppet Christmas Carol, Scrooged (for the taxi scene with David Johansson), The Nightmare Before Christmas. But, top of the list, Takashi Minamoto's Until the Lights Come Back.  A satellite crashes into a Tokyo power station and the lights go out (it's Christmas Eve, obviously). Twelve people find their lives interconnecting and missing,’ – Jon Courtenay Grimwood (author, the Arabesk trilogy, End of the World Blues, etc.)

 

I’m sure many of you out there will be nodding along to that choice. 

 

‘A Christmas Story, a film set in the 1940s in which Our Hero, Ralphie, believes a Red Ryder BB Gun would be the ultimate Christmas gift, despite his mother, teachers, and Santa all telling him he'll shoot his eye out. It's charming and agonizing and wonderful and embarrassing. I love it,’ – C.E. Murphy (author, Urban Shaman, Hands of Flame, etc.)

 

‘It's a Wonderful Life is of course the best Christmas movie ever.  And so is the original Miracle On 34th Street.  And The Princess Bride which isn't a Christmas movie at all, but I love it so much I have to mention it once in every four emails,’ – Steven Moffat (new boss, Doctor Who.)

But there’s always one.  Or two...

 

‘I haven't seen any of the titles suggested so far. Christmas movies fill me with the same kind of atavistic horror that some people regard science fiction, but maybe that's because I'm watching the wrong ones. The titles that come to mind for me are Gremlins (that wonderful dead-Santa anecdote!), Die Hard and Batman Returns.  Happy solstice, everyone!’ Sean Williams (author, Saturn Returns, The Force Unleashed, etc.)

 

Batman Returns?! 

 

'That first episode of Tales From the Crypt (1972) where Joan Collins bludgeons her husband to death under the Christmas tree then has to barricade her suburban home against a slobbering homicidal maniac dressed as Santa Claus while she tries to get rid of the body - only for her sweet little daughter to let the killer in ... Ahhhh,' – Kim Newman (author, Anno Dracula, The Man from the Diogenes Club, etc.)

 

Yeah, thanks Kim... And a Merry Christmas to all of you at home!

The Adventures of the Amazing Scale Guy... Day One.

 

‘Scale Guy, Scale Guy, does whatever a Scale Guy does.  But he’s the best at what he does.  And what he does is demonstrate relative size.  Da de dah de dah...’

 

‘Mr. Pym, today you are that big.  And Mrs. Pym is that big.  Including the urn.  Ahem.’  

 

See you tomorrow!  Ho ho ho!  Cheerio!