The Only True Christmas Movie Review:

By popular demand, a Christmas movie review. We'll start with special awards and dubious achievements before we get to the Top 10, using my special Christmas movie scale.

TOP 5 Non-Christmas Movies Set During Christmas:
5. Gremlins
4. The Ref
3. Love, Actually
2. Die Hard
1. The Godfather: Part 1

TOP 5 VERSIONS OF THE CHRISTMAS CAROL:
Scrooge

That is all. No one should make an alternative. Yes, including the Muppets - anything with the rats in it is NOT a real muppet anything. Which brings me to...

JIM CARREY'S WAR ON CHRISTMAS
Does Jim Carrey like Christmas or hate it? He's played two versions of Christmas's most dastardly redeemed curmudgeons, both in miserable remakes of classics. Is this part of a broader campaign? Is he some sort of anti-Christmas 5th Column sent here by Jack Skellington to undermine all we hold sacred and dear? Speaking of which...

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT?
The Nightmare Before Christmas. Bursting with creativity, sure, but what was the assumed audience for a Goth-emo stop motion claymation musical about a depressed monster taking down Christmas?

THE CHRISTMAS MOVIES WE'RE MISSING:
- Anything worth watching that's about the nativity
- A good nutcracker movie
- A Calvin & Hobbes Christmas special.

THE CHRISTMAS CLASSIC THAT ACTUALLY SUCKS:
It's a Wonderful Life.
First of all, it's a Christmas movie with no Christmas cheer, no Santa, and no Christ. "No Mas!" A movie about broken dreams, two hours of misery, this film is a lodestone on every Christmas.

THE 30-POINT SCALE OF CHRISTMAS-MOVIE-NESS
- Nostalgia Factor - 10 Points - Every Christmas movie is, above all, valued for its belovedness. No matter the movie's original quality, what makes a great Christmas movie is how much it has come to be loved, because it reminds us of when Christmas was best - when we were children.
- Christmas-ness Factor - 10 Points - Another vital point is for the Christmas movie to be about Christmas. There are a lot of factors to hit on, and few movies can cover them all, but without a bit of Santa saving the day, a bit of snow-related magic, and a nod to the notion that the holiday is about the whole Jesus thing, it cannot be a complete Christmas movie.
- Quality - 10 Points - Some accounting must be made for whether, unbiased by nostalgia, the movie in question is any good.

FOR EXAMPLE:

THE WORST LEGIT CHRISTMAS MOVIE OF ALL:
Jingle All the Way:
Nostalgia = 0
Christmass-ness = 0
Quality = 0
Christmas Score = 0 - The functional equivalent of a pink bunny suit.
Anytime you make a comedy that's not funny, you're going to have problems. Then there's the fact that every Arnold movie has that weird thing where you think, "Why doesn't anyone in the movie notice or remark on the fact that he's ultra-buff and has a thick Austrian accent? Anyway, lots of Christmas movies are bad. The question is how you get the Christmas part this wrong. A movie built to mock Christmas commercialism ends up celebrating it. The point, as in Christmas Story, is the KID chasing the toy, not the dad. Moreover, the point is NOT that EVERY kid wants SOME toy, it's that ONE kid wants THE toy that just they want. Santa does not save the day...he tries to ruin it. The only person there to save the day is dad, dressed up as Generic Superhero. The kid is obnoxious. Indeed, the target of any good Christmas movie HAS to be the kid, not adults, because that's how you create nostalgia in the first place. The bow on top of this steaming Mr. Hankee of a Christmas movie is a generic title than pollutes a perfectly lovely Christmas carol without actually referencing it in any way.

BEFORE WE BEGIN, THE CHRISTMAS MOVIES I HAVE NOT SEEN ARE:
- Babes in Toyland
- Scrooged
- Bad Santa
- Emmett Otter's Jug-band Christmas
- Polar Express
- Any second tier black and white Christmas movie

The Christmas Movie by Decade:
40's = It's A Wonderful Life - Christmas is rough, just like everything else. Just stick it out.
50's = White Christmas - Christmas is pristine, generic and good in a sweater-wearing, banal sort of way.
60's = Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Christmas is about you being a special little snowflake despite the fact that you're a freak and an embarrassment to your family.
70's = Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas - Christmas is weird because it's the 70's.
80's = A Christmas Story - Christmas is about America, and a disappointing toy.
90's = Home Alone - Christmas is about, "Maybe my family's alright."
00's = Elf - Christmas is about the naive magic of the season in a cynical era.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, the CHRISTMAS MOVIE TOP 10
10. Frosty the Snowman - 17 Christmas points
Nostalgia = 7
Christmas-ness = 7
Quality = 3
This was my favorite as a kid. I watched it again...it's bad. A down-on his luck magician gets his hat stolen by some kids who then drag him to the ends of the earth to avoid giving it back to him. That's a good lesson. And why do they do this? So that they can instead play with an imaginary Christmas invention who looks like the Michelin man and is dumb enough to hide in a green house, when in fact, he could just hide IN THE SNOW! Worse still, the song was only created because Gene Autry was looking for a second Christmas hit. Who cares...Frosty's a fixture now, Santa randomly wanders into the movie in the end and saves the day, and the villain is terrifying to children. I'm giving an extra Christmas-ness half point assuming that the reason Frosty says "Happy Birthday" when he appears is some bizarre attempt to get at the Jesus angle.

9. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York - 18 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 4
Christmasness: 6
Quality: 8
The best Christmas sequel, this movie was surprisingly good. Lots of love for Christmas in New York, bits of Christmas magic here-and-there...and a strange woman with pidgeons. If they made another Home Alone, maybe the pidgeon lady could be Mike Tyson?

8. Miracle on 34th Street - 19 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 6
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 5
Nostalgia for this film is watered down by a series of questionable remakes, points it makes up by putting the Big Guy front and center. Let's discuss some of the more questionable plot points here though: Santa's benevolent benefactor is Macy's, which we're somehow led to believe leads a revolution in Christmas-love-in-ness by sending shoppers to other stores. Even stranger, Santa Claus reaches back, slugs the psychologist, and is later freed of charges of being crazy but never punished for assault. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Still, even the terrorists smile when the postal workers march into the court room.

7. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - 20 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 8
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 4
Everyone loves Rudolph, but again, some questions need to be asked. An elf who wants to become a dentist? Whaaaaaaa? There are lots of other Reindeer who don't make the cut...what happens to them? And some non-Frosty snowman named Sam, who is not abominable, is our narrator. And then we jump the polar version of the shark, to a rogue abominable snowman and meet a collection of bizarre characters, which might better be christened "Christmas Characters Begging for Cynical Millenials to make Youtube shorts about them," such as Yukon Cornelius, and King Moonracer, who has the audacity to throw the freaks off freak island. Anyway, crossing back into core Christmas territory, Rudolph finds his parents' love and helps Santa save Christmas. Queue classic song.

6. A Charlie Brown Christmas - 21 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 10
Christmasness: 9
Quality: 2
So Peanuts was never funny. As a movie, this Christmas special is shockingly dull. But as soon as you hear a few bars from the piano bit at the beginning, it IS Christmas. On top of that, it hits all of the essential moral lessons of Christmas movies, about the importance of friendship and community. That plus it is the only major Christmas special that takes on the Jesus thing. As a child, the undigested Jesus lecture was bizarre and out of place. And it still is. But I like that...maybe Charles Schulz was saying something about Christmas, the way the Jesus thing gets dropped in, as an oh yeah.

5. Elf - 22 Christmas points and climbing
Nostalgia: 3
Christmasness: 10
Quality: 9
This one is only limited by how new it is and how well it ages. At base, it's just a good movie, and nicely gets at a schmaltzy Christmas message that will serve it well in time. Really, though, this movie is just in love with Christmas magic. I'm predicting Elf will climb near the top as the years pass.

4. Home Alone - 23 Christmas points
Nostalgia: 7
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 8
Another movie that goes right for the family/Christmas jugular. The magic of the film is that Christmas is this real thing that makes wishes come true. In a rare touch, he does go to church and all. And just when you're having lots of fun, they throw in a John Candy Planes, Trains, and Automobiles interlude. Plus Santa is sort of in the movie in the form of Boo Radley light.

3. Scrooge - 24 Christmas points
Nostalgia: 9
Christmasness: 7
Quality: 8
Say what you will about the campy musical numbers, the wandering pace, the general 70's-ness of everyone's side burns, it is a hard heart that has never shed a tear for Tiny Tim on that beautiful Christmas morning.

2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - 26 Christmas points
Nostalgia: 10
Christmasness: 8
Quality: 8
The one weird 60's cartoon that is actually ridiculously good. As above, every time I see this, I wish someone would do for Bill Waterson what this did for Dr. Seuss.

1. A Christmas Story - 30 Christmas Points
Nostalgia: 10
Christmasness: 10
Quality: 10
This movie is Christmas. It has become more Christmas than advent calendars and eggnog. It's really funny, it has literary aspects, and it pegs Christmas for everyone in the family. As you get older, you come to know everyone in the family in a new way. It's helped by the fact that none of the actors are big names or beauties...this could be any family in America and it is. The race for this award was never close and probably never will be.

BONUS: THE ONLY GREAT NEW YEARS' MOVIE:
The Hudsucker Proxy. Watch it every year. OK, so When Harry Met Sally is also good.

WORLD CUP 2022 – FIASCO IN THE MAKING

So Qatar got (bought?) the World Cup. May it live to regret it.

The pitch was that they would build 12 air-conditioned stadiums and then give that technology and the materials away to construct 3rd world soccer stadiums. It’s a charming pitch, so much so that I could envision why the FIFA voting board, stocked with internationalists from the 3rd world, would be moved by the Emir’s benevolence.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, (and perhaps a few well-placed bribes serve as bypasses). What is actually going to happen? Qatar has 200,000 citizens and about 1.2 million guest-workers. Qatar’s security forces are staffed almost entirely by Omani conscripts. Qatar receives about 1 million tourist visits per year – by comparison, South Africa took in 1 million visitors for the 2010 World Cup in 1 month. This is a massive administrative challenge and the assumption seems to be that the Qataris are wealthy enough to spend away any problems.

Are there limits to the power of oil money? This is the first in a series of posts on what those limits might be.

Where will they stay?
Let’s assume that Qatar’s international airport can take everyone in – after all, if one thing is good about Qatar, it’s the airline. Where are these people going to stay? One might assume that Qatar can spend its way to enough hotel rooms in 12 years. But let’s not underestimate the challenge. As of 2009, Qatar had about 8500 hotel rooms. By 2012, that number is projected to grow, based on in-construction hotels, to about 10,700 hotel rooms.

One does not have to have mastered calculus to be concerned about the ratio of available units to people. Let’s say that Qatar should expect 1 million visitors over 1 month. Let’s say each visitor stays an average of 1/3 of a month and shares a room with 1 other person, on average. By that estimate, Qatar would need about 167,000 hotel rooms. I restate – in 2012, it will have 10,700. In other words, conservatively, Qatar will have to add 1.5 times as many hotel rooms as it currently has EVERY YEAR FOR 10 YEARS starting in 2012 just to meet World Cup demand. These hotel rooms will be relevant for 30 days, after which they will be completely superfluous. Even for a Gulf State, that is an epic waste of money, assuming they can pull it off.

But if they cannot, what are their options?

- Neighboring countries:
o Saudi Arabia is the only country that shares a border with Qatar. It is difficult to conceive of the Saudis relaxing their strong visa and social interaction restrictions to let World Cup revelers pass back and forth.
o Bahrain – the neighborhood party town, Bahrain will undoubtedly bear a large burden in absorbing the influx of travellers. Even still, this will create visa complications and force travellers to take ferries to games in large volumes. Moreover, Bahrain is simply not large enough by itself to make up the difference in needed hotel rooms to actual rooms.
o It’s possible, indeed highly desirable, that Qatar would reach out to the United Arab Emirates’ massive tourist facilities for help. But the two do not share a border. Perhaps Qatar will be forced to arrange for wide-ranging ferry services for those seeking to attend games.
o Iran is the only other country within reasonable distance, lying across the Persian Gulf. It is difficult to project the political trajectory of Iran 14 years out, but it is difficult to imagine a large contingent of the world’s soccer fans taking up residence in the sparsely populated Iranian coastal region to endure lengthy ferry rides to games.
o The final possibility is that Qatar can try to set up some system of flying people in and out of regional cities to games, which adds prohibitively to the cost and makes the airport the bottleneck.

- Refugee Camps – Ok, this is a bit of hyperbole, but honestly, Qatar’s only option may be to put up temporary shelter and offer it for free. Perhaps large ships will be allowed to dock and act as floating hotels. Given the summer heat and the general lack of things to do in Qatar, one could quickly imagine these camps and boats becoming dens of heat exhaustion or worse.

- Fewer visitors. The final, most likely option, is that the lack of places to stay and the other problems with the choice of host will lead visitors to vote with their feet and simply not attend. For the most part, these are not cheap hotels and hostels that Qatar is offering. These are high-end, luxury hotels designed to operate at low occupancy rates and high prices. These prices are likely to become worse with a glut of World Cup travelers unless artificially kept low by the host government.

In the end, Qatar's best residency option may be to hope that it is so unattractive as a host - pricey, hot, and boring - that no one shows up to create a hotel crisis.