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Now that we've all woken from our tryptophan comas and the turkey has been recycled into various other edible forms (stews, salads, ice creams), we find ourselves back on a frigid Towson campus and I, like many other people, have one thing on my mind: winter break.
Is it really the most wonderful time of the year? When else does waking up around 2 (ish) and lying in front of the television all day binging on eggnog and bourbon balls become socially acceptable? OK, don't answer that question. It was rhetorical.
With the holiday season comes the inevitable flooding of the television airwaves with new Christmas specials and made-for-TV movies, as well as many of the traditional favorites. Near and dear to my heart are things like "A Charlie Brown Christmas," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" and the 24-hour marathon of "A Christmas Story" that TNT and TBS do every year. Classics, most definitely.
But there are a few things the networks skip. Granted, the family is the core demographic for yuletide programming, but allow me to play program director for WJOE, your home for alternative holiday classics.
At 7 p.m., settle down onto that comfortable couch for "The Ice Harvest." Released under the radar in 2005, it starred John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton. It's really a wonder that more holiday-themed black comedies aren't made because it seems that nothing goes together better than Christmas and self-loathing. John Cusack plays a mob lawyer who's just embezzled $2 million from his boss with the help of his unsavory pornographer friend, played by Thornton. They just need to lay low for a bit before they can jump town later that night, but an ice storm moves in and blocks all roads in and out of town. Trapped in the chilly labyrinth that is Wichita, Kansas, the pair tries to evade the watchful eye of the mob boss from whom they stole, assist a strip club owner with her own personal vendetta and keep one of Cusack's drinking buddies from running his mouth and blowing their whole operation.
From 9 to 11 p.m., we'll air 1994's "The Ref." Starring comedian Denis Leary and directed by Ted "I Didn't Make Silence of the Lambs That Was My Uncle Jonathan" Demme, it's another Christmas-y dark comedy. Leary plays a thief who's forced to take a family hostage in their home after botching a robbery and being abandoned by his partner.
Despite being the one with the gun (as Leary constantly reminds them), the family couldn't care less that they're being held hostage, and insist on bickering among themselves. The husband and wife have marital problems, the son is in trouble at school for blackmail, and the in-laws are... well... they're in-laws.
From there on, it's easy to guess how the story goes, with an unlikely hero of a criminal teaching the family the meaning of Christmas and the importance of familial unity. Priceless.
From 11 p.m. to midnight, we'll be watching "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer."
Nothing really alternative there, it's just a really good Christmas special.
Finally, from midnight to 2 a.m., we can finally show something a little more risqué. Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut," isn't exactly a holiday movie, but it takes place in December and the characters attend a Christmas party. That's enough for me. I'm running out of room and to describe this movie would take far more space than I have left, so here it is in a nutshell: Tom Cruise gets accidentally introduced to a secret society of aristocrats and, intrigued, follows them to one of their late night meetings only to find a masquerade ball where the participants engage in an orgy. Yes, that's an incredibly blunt way of putting it, but that's the premise. You'll be half asleep by the time it comes on anyway, what with five hours of holiday viewing under your belt already. Don't worry too much.
There you go; that's the lineup for tonight. So grab a blanket and a pillow, brew a large pot of coffee and settle in for this large dose of warped holiday fare!
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