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!”

The first thing that grabbed me was the character work. The hero, Julia Powell (her real life blog is here) is a foodie blogger played by Amy Adams. I’m used to watching Amy Adams over my kid’s shoulder in “Enchanted,” which plays in our house on continual loop. I didn’t know Amy knew how to turn down the volume and play a “plain-Jane, yet interesting”… but she’s awesome. This isn’t her usual glowing, perky role where she turns it on like a fire-hose. And she doesn’t turn invisible like when she played a piece of cardboard in “Doubt.”

Back to the characters because “J and J” is a feast of interesting, appealing people I haven’t seen chew up the screen like this in a long time. The real Julia Child is already a great character, but Streep not only personifies this larger than life personality, she pulls off hilarious physical acting. She’s a comedic presence that had our audience laughing with every scene. And she looks huge, just like the real Julia Child. As a 6′8″ fellow, I appreciated the height jokes like when Streep reclines in a bed only to have her feet extend well beyond the mattress.

But Streep shows us sides of Child we probably hadn’t seen before: her sexuality, her competitive spirit, and the mourning for children. How painfully ironic that her name was Child.

I don’t know how Streep does it, but she makes her jowls look bigger. Her hands look big and mannish. Her shoulders rounded so that she looks like she’s playing a man in drag, which is kind of how Child came off to me. A refrigerator in a dress.

Stanley Tucci was in another favorite food movie of mine, “Big Night.” My friends told me to see Big Night then go out for Italian food. My Beloved and I saw “J and J” on date night then went out for dinner. It was one of our better date nights… much better than the time I made her see “Mimic.” But guys, don’t be fooled into thinking this is a chick flick. It’s a people flick. I’d take anybody to see this and if they didn’t like it, they’d need therapy. Yeah, this is the first sure fire Oscar contender I saw this year. At least this is the one I’ll be rooting for when they award it to some movie about a transvestite who marries a 12-year-old boy then murders him because Republican Christians fired him from his job.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Stanley Tucci. He plays the nicest guy in the world. He’s a great, understated character to provide contrast to Streep’s living cartoon. Hats off to Chris Messina as Julie Powell’s long-suffering husband and Jane Lynch who plays Julia Child’s sister.

This is for Nora Ephron: stop wasting your time at Huffington Post and make more movies. As a married man, you’re one of the few who seem to get marriage… even men in marriage. You seem to like men, which is rare among women writers. As someone who writes graphic novels, you’re one of the few who gets what it’s like to long for a significant project to find its way to publisher. You get the narcissism of working on one’s craft while someone else is in the house being neglected for some great piece of art. As someone who knows his way around the kitchen, you get the love of cooking, experimenting with recipes, even shopping for ingredients. Finally, you get Julia Child… including details like her love of sending post cards.

My wife went through a phase when she became an airplane pilot in the ’90s where she studied great women of the last century. She stumbled on the biography of Child Appetite for Life by Noel Riley Fitch. So inspired was my Beloved that she mailed Julia a birthday greeting for her 88th birthday. A few weeks later, she received a hand written post card from Julia herself! We were both so excited and my Beloved went into a cooking phase where I was the benefactor.

Man, this makes me wanna cook something. Maybe I’ll try making beef bourguignon.