“Chestnuts Suffering on an Open Fire,” Werner Herzog
When she is asked to direct the nativity play, the local chestnut farmer Noel learns an important lesson: mortality is chaos, and the only thing that binds us all together is destruction. And, after Noel witnesses Nick, her former high-school flame, being fatally mauled by a rabid reindeer, she comes at last to accept that to exist is to suffer. Candace Cameron Bure stars.
“I Saw Mommy Killing Santa Claus II: Stealth on the Shelf,” Michael Bay
Holly, a busy lawyer and a divorced mom, promises her daughter that this year she’ll be home for Christmas—that is, until a massive blizzard threatens to disrupt her travel plans. Desperate to keep her word, Holly has no choice but to blow up the blizzard. Now a fugitive from the law (and the National Weather Service), Holly taps into her black-ops training and steals Santa’s sleigh, setting off an adrenaline-fuelled, high-speed chase across state lines. Featuring multiple shots of the trucks in pursuit of the sleigh exploding in slow-motion while “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” plays, and also, for some reason, several long, slow camera pans up Mrs. Claus’s body, clad in nothing but a fur-lined bikini.
“The Toymaker,” Paul Thomas Anderson
In order to save the family farm, the reclusive toymaker Worthington H. Nevergreen must try to win his small town’s annual toy-making contest. As he becomes more and more obsessed with his craft, Nevergreen slowly alienates himself from everyone he loves. Surrounded by weak, deceptive women and under the sway of a charismatic cult leader, Nevergreen eventually flees, but only after setting fire to his toy shop. The rest of the movie is about the firemen who put out the blaze, as well as the random and tragic ways that all human lives intersect. Lacey Chabert stars as Nevergreen.
“santa!,” Darren Aronofsky
When he learns that his teen-age daughter doesn’t believe in him, Santa Claus begins to question reality. As the increasingly deranged Claus becomes obsessed with the idea that he never existed, it’s up to the people of Fraser Fir Pass, a charming Christmas village, to remind him of his true self. They fail.
“Jonathan Claus,” Noah Baumbach
Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, Santa and Mrs. Claus live a simple, quiet life together in the North Pole. That is, until their twenty-four-year-old son, Jonathan, loses his job at a New York City haberdashery and is forced to move back home. Unmoored and directionless, Jonathan struggles to find his purpose in the workshop, while the disruption to their empty-nester lives wreaks havoc on Santa and Mrs. Claus’s marriage. Candace Cameron Bure plays the divorce lawyer.
“Prancer in the Dark,” Lars von Trier
In the spare wilderness of the North Pole, Prancer finds young love with Eve, a wild reindeer from the forest. This three-and-a-half-hour film observes the decay and eventual collapse of their relationship after Eve suffers a miscarriage and subsequently descends into madness.
“Ornamento,” Christopher Nolan
Matthew Mistletoe, a widowed father/corporate hitman, hates the holidays but can’t remember why. As mistletoe starts to find Christmas-tree ornaments that spark fond yuletide memories, however, he realizes that his handler has been engineering his memories in order to manipulate him into taking out small-business owners in various charming Christmas villages across the country so that the massive corporation they work for can build luxury condominiums. Michael Caine stars as Santa Claus, whose wife is also dead.
“The Hateful Eight: Rudolph’s Revenge,” Quentin Tarantino
All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names. But that was years ago. Now Rudolph (known simply as “the Deer”) is ready to exact his revenge against the eight reindeer who were once his tormentors. He’s making a hit list, and he’s checking it twice. And, one by one, he’s going to track down Dancer, Prancer, and all of their old buddies—and he’s going to make them play his sadistic reindeer games.
“The Royal Tannenbaums,” Wes Anderson
Santa’s elves have been tasked with the impossible: finding the perfect Christmas gifts for the eight terrible adult children of two divorced candy-cane historians. Set inside a dollhouse in Santa’s workshop, the film follows the elves on their quest to track down a mustard-yellow rotary telephone; a handmade bow-and-arrow set; a set of nineteenth-century barbells; an old leather book called “The Compendium of Peculiar Happenstances;” a small brass key-wound finch that somehow actually flies when cranked; half a pack of cigarettes; a French postcard that says “THE NEXT DAY” in Futura font; and a toad that keeps getting away. “The Royal Tannenbaums” is the first full-length movie to be filmed on one of those red View-Master toys. Starring Bill Murray, Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Cate Blanchett, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Candace Cameron Bure, and Lacey Chabert.
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