Here they go, in no particular order:

10. Die Hard (1988): You’ve seen Die Hard probably a hundred times.  See it again, preferably uncut and not sanitized for TV.  Bruce Willis is a cop trapped alone while the incredible Alan Rickman and his band of fashion plate terrorists grab Nakatomi Plaza during the annual Christmas party.  The plot is simple, but the execution is simply awesome.  This movie is the archetype, the template  for a hundred subsequent movies that were pitched as “Die Hard in a (fill in the blank).”  For more fun, try my Die Hard-themed drinking game – take a pull on a Dos Equis every time something happens that creates or reaffirms a classic action film cliché.  Wisenheimer renegade cop who play by his own rules – gulp!  Lots of MP-5s and other (then) hi-tech armaments that fire a ton of rounds but rarely hit anything – gulp!  Villain who rises from the dead to be killed one last time – gulp!  You may want a designate a driver – cue Argyle, the streetwise sidekick in the limo (gulp)!  

Ignore the silly sequels, which follow the familiar genre flick sequel quality death spriral.  Die Hard is the real deal.  And as a bonus, it features the greatest holiday greeting in movie history:  “Now I have a machine gun.  Ho, ho, ho.”

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9. Lethal Weapon (1986): This is another  classic 80’s cop flick, and it made Mel Gibson a superstar.  Basically, he and Danny Glover go on a Christmas-time rampage across Los Angeles against a vicious drug gang.  It is exciting, violent, profane fun.  You have to try to ignore the politics and off-screen antics of the participants – Danny Glover is one of Chavez’s biggest Hollywood suck-ups and Mel, well, he’s completely lost it.  You also need to ignore the series’ politics – the villains are, of course, American soldiers, and one of the crummy sequels is a passionate plea for gun control shouted over the volleys of thunderous gunfire.

But if you get through all that baggage, Lethal Weaponis a solid, exciting, surprisingly tough action flick.  And, of course, it has Gary Busey as an insane, unstable villain.  My guess is that director Richard Donner just said to him, “Gary, I want you to be yourself.”

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8. Gremlins (1984): Nothing says Christmas like wild green monsters rampaging through a small town.  This black comedy/horror flick is not quite for kids, as a number of human beings end up deceased and the gremlins are dispatched in rather gruesome ways.  Plus, it features the lovely Phoebe Cates in a supporting role as a young woman with the absolutely worst family Christmas story all time.

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7. While You Were Sleeping (1995): Sandra Bullock, who has a huge hit in The Blind Side, was in top ingénue form for this rom-com involving amnesia and various misunderstandings all taking place during the holiday season.  Simple, light and harmless, Sleeping won’t change your life, but it does its job.  And getting it on Netflix beats spending $100 on tickets and snacks to take the family to see a politically correct lefty cartoon like Avatar.

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6. 1941 (1979): Let’s put this out there – 1941 is Steven Spielberg’s best movie that’s not either Schindler’s List or Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Tagged as over-long, over-priced and over-done, those attributes are exactly why this huge, sprawling comedy about Los Angeles in the weeks after Pearl Harbor is simply fabulous.  Every penny is up there on the screen.  Every cameo is gold.  John Belushi, as a lunatic fighter pilot, is completely out of control (He turns off radios with his .45).   And the John Williams score is perfect – rousing, exciting, and absolutely right for a comic story about a nation on the verge of what Robert Stack (as General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell) says, is “going to be a long war.”

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5. L.A. Confidential (1997): This incredible modern film noir starts off with a Christmas party at a police station that goes terribly wrong.  It takes a couple of viewings to follow and appreciate the convoluted plot (which was adapted from the sensational and even more convoluted novel by James Ellroy).  That’s a good thing.  Just when you wonder if Hollywood can make a movie that’s for adults, that makes you think, that doesn’t assume you’re a drooling borderline moron, along comes a movie like this to restore your faith.  Of course, that was a dozen years ago.  Until they do it again, though, at least we have L.A. Confidential.

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4. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982): Let’s throw another meaty bone into the tiger cage – Fast Times is the best teen sex comedy of all time.  Period.  In fact, it is much more that.  It is a hilarious, moving, grim, often unsentimental view of high school life in California in the early 80’s that resonates especially well with me because I was a kid in a California high school when it came out.  How does it relate to Christmas?  The film spans a year in the life of the characters and includes several scenes during the holiday season as they work their crummy jobs dealing with hordes of Christmas shoppers and angry customers (including a nasty Santa).  Like everything about the film, they got life during Christmas vacation for middle class kids dead right.  Oh, and there’s also Phoebe Cates….

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3. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005): Yet another film about chaos at Christmas time in Los Angeles, and it was supposed also the comeback for writer Shane Black, who wrote Lethal Weapon then a lot of other loud, violent movies.  Robert Downey, Jr., reaffirms his appeal as a crook hiding out in Hollywood who experiences with all manner of film noir challenges.  A memorable scene has Michelle Monaghan as a sexy elf.  Not a great film, but an interesting one that never got the credit it was due.

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2. Sleepless In Seattle (1993): One of the archetypal “chick flicks,” Sleepless starts with widower Tom Hanks’ sorrowful Christmas Eve radio elegy to his wife.  Through a series of absolutely improbable events, the then-young Hanks and a still frisky Meg Ryan finally meet and, we assume, live happily ever after.  Sure, you gotta deal with Rosie O’Donnell, and Rob Reiner might be a lefty in real life but he’s pretty amusing here as Tom’s Dirty Dozen-loving pal.  Overall, you could do a lot worse when your wife states unequivocally, “We are not watching Die Hard again!”

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1. Battleground (1949): With so many of our troops spending another Christmas overseas, this powerful story of the legendary 101st Airborne’s courageous stand against the Nazis at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge at Christmastime 1944 is more appropriate than ever.  The chaplain’s speech in the snow, to American soldiers of all races, about why they are there won’t pass muster with the Howard Zinns of the world.  (Yeah, I know Zinn was in WWII.  So?  All your DD214 proves is that you served, not that you aren’t a half-wit).  To me, the chaplain’s service is one of the most powerful scenes Hollywood has ever put on film.  But I’m biased.  Forty-six years after Bastogne, a few weeks from the start of a different war, I was listening to a chaplain saying similar things on a different battlefield.  These truths – that we must fight against the tyrants, thugs and ideologies that crush the individual in the name of their twisted doctrines – were true in 1944, true in 1990, and are still true today.

That’s the list.  If I missed some, or if I’m off-base, I know I’ll hear about it.  And to those who really, really hate this list, let me quote the 101^st’s commander at Bastogne, Brigadier General McAuliffe, when the Nazis demanded he surrender the Division:  “Nuts!”

Lest we forget, we are at war. 

Men and women at this very moment are fighting for their lives and for the lives of those they took an oath to protect and defend. 

There have been some recent films about war and what it means for the “average Joe” to be at war. A few of these are receiving deserving accolades for their realism. No, not the realism of blood and guts spilled, which is what war is, of course, but the realism of human behavior in adverse conditions, or as Hemingway put it, grace under pressure. This is the human condition that we all face, in one form or another, each and every day of our lives. Of course, most of us can face our pressures, make our decisions, get through our daily angst without wondering if a shell is going to go off five feet away, having the vehicle we’re riding in targeted for destruction or being exposed to combinations of chemicals not even named yet. No, we don’t have that extra worry. But some out there do. 

One classic Hollywood film which articulates the stress of war with keen insight and wry humor, as well as pathos, is the often overlooked “Battleground,” directed by William Wellman and released by MGM in 1949.  

“Battleground” is not just a great war film. It’s a great film by any standard, in any genre. Depicting the struggles of the 101st Airborne division at the historic Battle of the Bulge, director Wellman wisely puts the emphasis on characters not tanks, on people rather than explosions.

The title “Battleground” implies not only the physical place where these soldiers battle with enemies in different uniforms, but moreover, the mental terrain they must also traverse in order to survive the horrors, the fear, and yes, the inescapable boredom of war.

Disregard the critics who say there is “too much talk” in this film, as clumsy misfires coming from those who do not, nor ever had to understand the sublime contrasts of war. Theirs is the voice of the textbook mentality, too many classes and not enough life. They should be thankful that their experience on this subject is lacking.

Talk to any veteran of war, however, particularly WWII, and you will hear stories paralleling exactly those depicted in Wellman’s “Battleground”: moments of sheer terror interspersed with eternities of boredom and the dread of not knowing what’s going on. Such feelings of helplessness were cut down to size only by the chit-chat and banter of those brave souls in attendance who feared for their lives just like you or I would. Also disregard the cynics who say such scenes are unrealistic or worse yet, propaganda, as soldiers could not possibly be so introspective, so self deprecating, so insightful while under fire. These criticisms couldn’t be farther from the truth, or the historical record, for that matter. It is exactly these moments, in battle, between explosions when “foxhole chatter”  turns to the insignificant topic just as easily and as often as it does to the crucial themes of life and death. 

Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. 

There are many great scenes in this movie, but when actor Leon Ames as the chaplain explains why they are there, freezing, hungry and dying, and not back home,  and what could this fight possibly have to do with them in America, and as individuals, are words and sentiment that are as applicable today as they were in that far away, now non-existent world of Nazi occupied Europe. 

Another part of the film often cited as deserving of ridicule, of committing that worst of crimes for the so-called sophisticated viewer, is the ending. “It’s corny,” is often heard.  This segment, the “sound off scene,” as it’s sometimes called, is arguably one of the finest moments in the entire movie.  Wellman knew enough, as did Edward Zwick who might very well have been inspired by this scene for his marvelous “Glory,” to show the importance of duty. Wellman illustrates this in heart-wrenching poignancy as the barely surviving men pass their fresh replacements on the road. If you are a man, and this scene doesn’t move you, I’m afraid you have no soul. That, or you’ve been watching too much parody. 

“Battleground“ is not what is mistakenly called an anti-war film. That is a misnomer. Nonsense. All well made war films are, in essence, anti-war films. Just like all soldiers are against war, policemen against crime, doctors against illness. These soldiers don’t want to die. Neither do soldiers in other battles, other wars. To call any film ‘anti-war’ is to misunderstand the philosophy at the core of every fighting man and woman. Current fashion would have us believe that soldiers want to kill, maim, and loot. Current fashion would have us believe that all wars are evil, unnecessary, or exercises in national arrogance, or the newly revived terms, “colonialism” and “imperialism” (both particularly fashionable in descriptions of the previous administration’s actions and most likely banned from use or utterance by the major media outlets in describing the present one).  Current fashion would have us believe that if soldiers complain, it can only mean that they don’t agree with the need to fight, the need to stop that opposing force, or defend one’s way of life: the need to do what needs to be done.

Those who follow current fashion will not be able to accept such paradoxes, nor be able to understand this film and its main themes of humanity, duty, perseverance, and doing a dirty, dangerous job in the face of overwhelming odds. Many will scoff at the notion that man is capable of this and can do so with moments of introspection, poignancy and humor. Unsurprisingly, many of our greatest novelists, filmmakers and artists spent time in settings very similar to the characters in this story. Current fashion would prefer that we didn’t remember that part.

Thank goodness that the men who fought in battles like those depicted in this film are, for the most part, mercifully spared the current fashion.