Potent Quoteables - Now With Peppermint!

I was idly minding my own business last night, feeding gas into my car when my breath became visible for the first time this season. While I proceeded to make a fool of myself by attempting to create frozen breath smoke rings, the first strains of 'Jingle Bells' found a way through the rest stops PA system. My frozen breath conquests abruptly ceased and the air around my face became still.

OMG - CHRISTMAS!!!

I know, I know. I'm sure I'll be able to hear your loud, not-totally-unfounded protests from here. Those of us that revel in Christmas joy hear it every year. "It's not even Thanksgiving yet! GAH! Why do I have to hear about Christmas already?" To you Christmas-haters I say, "BAH HUMBUG!" Although, this response will probably get you riled up even more as I am coming back at you with a popular Dickensian Christmas insult, but I digress.

What that errant snippet of Jingle Bells got me in the mood to talk about is Christmas movies. In a previous post a few months ago, I hyped my favorite 'quoteable' movies. However, I neglected to consider all of the holiday/Christmas movies that qualify in this category.

Here is where they get their due.

Elf




Quoteable Moment: "Buddy the Elf, What's your favorite color?"

I seriously considered answering my phone like this for awhile, but saying 'Rainey the person' didnt quite have the same ring as 'Buddy the Elf'. Also, I am clearly not Will Ferrell. Second quote in consideration is where Buddy belches for about thirty seconds of screen time, but I don't quite know how to put that inhuman noise into type....

Bad Santa



If you are an adult with a slightly twisted sense of humor, I would place this in the category of Don't Miss. A depraved Santa who drinks, smokes, and commits larceny with the assistance of a foul-mouthed elf meets a roly-poly young kid. Cue bouts of debauchery and redemption.

Quoteable Moment: "Want me to make you some sam-wich-es?" says the kid who constantly offers to make 'Santa' a meal.

A Christmas Story



Quoteable Moment: "You'll shoot your eye out kid!"

Personal Quoteable Moment: I'm a sucker for characters who pronounce things in an unorthodox manner, especially as I then am prompted to use that pronunciation as my new official way to say that word. When the dad does some ogling of the crate that holds the most highly sexualized lamp in cinema history, he coos "Frah-giiii-lay". I urge you all to try out this word at the post office when you ship presents to far away places this year. Fun!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966 TV Version, natch)



Quoteable Moment: "....his heart was two sizes too small."

Scrooged



My favorite 'Christmas Carol' adaptation. Probably because I border on an unhealthy obsession with Bill Murray, but also because the Ghost of Christmas past is a raucous horndog of a fairy, and the Ghost of Christmas Present is a chain-smoking cabbie. Are we seeing a pattern that I'm tickled by breaks with tradtion?

Quoteable Moment: Frank Cross, talking about the Ghost of Christmas Past: "The bitch hit me with a toaster!"

Mixed Nuts



This is my favorite Christmas movie of all time. In a movie that plays more like a stage production, a motley crew of misfits gather in the apartment of a financially strapped suicide hotline on Christmas Eve and hijinks ensue. Steve Martin, Rita Wilson, Juliette Lewis, Anthony LaPaglia, Liev Schreiber, Adam Sandler, and the divine Madeline Kahn round out the cast. And oh yeah, there's an awesome blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo by Parker Posey and John Stewart.

Quoteable Moment: "Gracie and Felix have turned the dead landlord into a Christmas tree and we're all going down to the boardwalk!"