Holiday Favorites

Updated January 1, 2012.

We've really enjoyed writing Our Holiday Favorites and receiving Their Holiday Favorites content from Austin film folks. If you're looking for something different to watch during the holiday season (or any time), here are our (and their) suggestions.

We're wrapping up Their Holiday Favorites, in which members of the Austin film community tell us about movies they enjoy watching during the holiday season. Today's selection is from local composer and Golden Arm Trio bandleader Graham Reynolds.

Reynolds creates, performs and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs and concert halls with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater to DJ Spooky to the Austin Symphony Orchestra. Reynolds' music has been heard throughout the world on stage, film and television, from HBO to Showtime, Cannes Film Festival to the Kennedy Center, as well as radio including BBC and National Public Radio. His score to the 2006 Linklater movie A Scanner Darkly was named Best Soundtrack of the Decade by Cinema Retro magazine. His awards include the Lowe Music Theater Award, four Austin Critics' Table awards, an Amp Award, five Austin Chronicle Best Composer wins, as well as support from the National Endowment for the Arts for several projects.

Reynolds will be featured in the upcoming documentary Nemesis Rising, due to his involvement with the Intergalactic Nemesis Project. In 2011 he also had twin CD releases of "Three Portraits of Duke Ellington," a triptych of band, strings, and remixes in tribute to and inspired by the seminal composer-bandleader, and "The Difference Engine," a triple concerto for violin, cello, piano, and string orchestra. Here are his thoughts on a critically acclaimed film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood) starring Adam Sandler, Emily Watson and Philip Seymour Hoffman:

"I don't have a movie or set of movies that we watch over the holidays, but Punch-Drunk Love is one that we watched all together a few Christmases ago. Great sound design, great soundtrack, beautifully shot, and smart, quirky, and funny. Plus everyone's always shocked that Adam Sandler was in a good movie."

The best holiday film fare for me is always a mix of the worst of humanity along with the best. What would It's a Wonderful Life be without George and that old Building and Loan having to suffer through the travails of greed and incompetence? And How the Grinch Stole Christmas would not be anywhere near as heartening if the Grinch wasn't so callous to his dog, or so feisty about making the Whos in Whoville miserable. And that's part of why The Family Stone is one of my guilty pleasure holiday traditions.

I didn't mean to make it one, but I admit I was intrigued by the particularly expressive finger on the teaser poster. The trailers featured a snarky Rachel McAdams thwacking the back of one brother's head only to get thwacked herself by another. And with the premise of ferocious family dynamics over a fiancee? That's not only comedy gold but very relatable.

Eons ago when I still lived in Boston, a family dinner introducing a step-sibling's fiancée proved to be darkly entertaining. Despite the pretense of a well-mannered gathering, many claws were outstretched and flexing on the stoically thick-skinned woman. The same is true with the Stone family, who all clearly love each other yet have no disillusions about each other’s flaws. When the eldest son brings his girlfriend home, the fur starts to fly as her neuroses alienate everyone.

Their Holiday Favorites is a series in which members of the Austin film community tell us about movies they enjoy watching during the holiday season. Today's selection is from film composer Brian Satterwhite (Artois the Goat) whose work on the local project "Cell: The Web Series" was nominated for Best Original Score in this year's IAWTV Awards (honoring web programming). Satterwhite's "Cell" compositions really set the tone and engaged me emotionally. Don't miss the brilliant and compelling score he created for Man on a Mission, which is scheduled to be released in theaters and VOD on January 13, 2012. Here are his thoughts on a certain Tim Burton movie:

One of my favorite holiday movies is Edward Scissorhands (1990). Aside from being the film (and the score) that made me want to become a film composer, this modern-day fairy tale evokes many of the emotions, sounds and images I crave at Christmastime.

What is especially appealing to me is how successful the music is at painting such an overt wintery landscape even though the actual setting of the film takes place in a rather tepid climate. There is really no visual evidence to support the chilly crisp air the music is constantly evoking. This creates a miraculous component to the narrative when it's revealed that one of Edward's hidden talents is ice sculpture. This notion reaches its climax when Kim (Winona Ryder) dances underneath Edward's ice shavings as he passionately toils above her on a new sculpture which is revealed to be a portrait of Kim.

Their Holiday Favorites is a series in which members of the Austin film community tell us about movies they enjoy watching during the holiday season. Today, Blue Starlite Drive-in owner Josh Frank recalls a film that might not seem like an obvious choice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service:

Every holiday season since I can remember, one of the basic cable channels has at some point shown a James Bond Holiday Marathon. So James Bond has become synonymous for me with snow, cozy warm days off and in, with holiday spirit, presents and 24 to 48 hours of James Bond ... save 4 hours of infomercials in the wee hours between 3 and 7 am when even Bond must catch some shut-eye.

Their Holiday Favorites is a series in which members of the Austin film community tell us about movies they enjoy watching during the holiday season. Today, Austin film programmer and producer Daniel Metz (Slacker 2011) explains why you should consider Stanley Kubrick when picking movies to watch this holiday season:

It's not hard to see why Christmas movies are so often placed in the ghetto of film genres; for the most part schmaltzy, child-oriented and low humored, these pictures prey on the weakness of seasonal sentimentality to the detriment of meaningful storytelling. Christmas movies don't ask questions, they don't get at truths about human nature, and they don't take risks.

With one exception. Only one truly great filmmaker has ever made a Christmas film: that director is Stanley Kubrick, and the film is Eyes Wide Shut. Every frame of this striking, dangerous last film from the master that gave us Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining is littered with Douglas firs, incandescent bulbs, and various other Yuletide tchotchkes. Tom Cruise, who manages to deliver one of his rare stellar performances, plods through the NYC streets in leather gloves and a cashmere overcoat, his short breaths creating little clouds as he's haunted by Christmas fever around him. It's a celebration of Christmas tradition and symbols, and the trouble we can get in when we have the freedom of a holiday night.

Welcome to our latest entry in Their Holiday Favorites, a series in which members of the Austin film community tell us about movies they enjoy watching during the holiday season. This one is from 19-year-old Austin-based movie director Emily Hagins, whose horror-comedy My Sucky Teen Romance premiered at last year's SXSW. Here's her account of a holiday movie she not only likes but respects as a filmmaker.

I've been doing research for a script that takes place around Halloween, so a lot of the films I've been watching lately have not been so timely for the holiday season. Except! I think one of the most unique and most difficult to achieve characteristics about The Nightmare Before Christmas is that it is just as fun to watch at Halloween as it is to watch on Christmas -- the two most opposite days of the year. By exploring the darker side of even the most joyous of holidays, this film is able to delve deeper than a lot of conventional films.

I think there's something special about films that deal with smart subject matter but are still appropriate for a younger audience. I remember watching films like The Nightmare Before Christmas when I was little and being thankful that it wasn't condescending, like some of the other kid's movies. The holidays are especially prone to "family films" with trivial stories that are made for the sake of marketing without much other thought. On the other side of that, everything from the stunningly detailed production design to the storytelling (I'm not a huge fan of musicals, but I love how the songs are incorporated into this film) of The Nightmare Before Christmas shows nothing but the highest admiration of the material by the filmmakers.

I was four years old when The Santa Clause first opened in theaters. I can't recall if I first saw the 1994 comedy in theaters or on VHS (remember those?) months later. My older (and favorite) cousin Andi and I would watch The Santa Clause on her annual holiday visit from Dallas to Seguin. 

The Santa Clause stars Tim Allen as Scott Calvin, a thirtysomething divorced father and toy company advertising executive. There's a hilarious scene where Scott is visiting his son Charlie's (Eric Lloyd) elementary school to discuss his job, when he is repeatedly forced to try to explain to another student his job description.

The plot rolls forward. 'Twas the night before Christmas ... and Santa Claus falls off Scott's roof. The end. Or, is it? Scott and Charlie realize the man who appears to be Santa Claus has mysteriously vanished, leaving behind his suit, in which they find a business card stating that if something should happen to him, someone should put on the suit and consult the eight moody reindeer waiting on the roof.

To please Charlie, Scott puts on the suit. They hop in the sleigh and deliver toys from house to house. Their final destination is the North Pole, where Scott mistakenly hits on a more than one-thousand-year-old elf.

Welcome to Their Holiday Favorites, a series in which members of the Austin film community tell us about movies they enjoy watching during the holiday season. Austin filmmaker/producer David Hartstein (Along Came Kinky, Where Soldiers Come From) has been traveling out of the country recently to work on his Untitled Israeli Football Documentary, but was able to take a minute to tell us about a certain Christmas movie he can't miss.

I'm Jewish and there are no Hanukkah movies worth your time. So until Mel Gibson's Judah Maccabee project sees the light of day and despite marrying a Lutheran last year, I still feel like a Christmas movie interloper. But sure, like anyone else I do have a go-to list of Christmas movies that put me in the holiday spirit: It's a Wonderful Life, A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, Home Alone, Die Hard, Eyes Wide Shut and Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (technically TV).

The one standout for me, however, is and always will be National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. I first saw Christmas Vacation at the (now boarded up) Rockville Center Twin on Long Island. I owned the Vacation trilogy on VHS (pre the very underrated Vegas Vacation) but it was stolen from me in college. Sort of like a parent, I love all of the Vacation movies fiercely and equally (perhaps I'll be asked back by Jette for that guest column in the future?) and I can't pick a favorite, but when I found out my wife had never seen Christmas Vacation I went out that very day and bought the Blu-ray, which immediately won her over to its charms.

Welcome to Their Holiday Favorites, a series in which members of the Austin film community tell us about movies they enjoy watching during the holiday season. This one is from Jesse Trussell, film programmer at Paramount Theatre.

My favorite holiday film has to be Fanny and Alexander by Ingmar Bergman. While not an obvious first choice, since only part of it is set at Christmastime, the film premiered on Swedish TV on Christmas Day 1982 and I can see why.

I don't think any film has better captured the magic (both joyful and terrifying) that childhood can contain, and for me that magic of childhood is exactly what the holidays are all about.