"...Come out to the coast. We’ll get together. Have a few laughs…"

I think what the world really needs now is another alternative-Christmas movie list

Alternative culture is the wave formed where the need to assert personality meets the bedrock of tradition (fashion just the temporary white crest at the peak—before it dies out and is washed away by the next wave). At no time is this more obvious than Christmas.

Despite the spirit of season, we best express ourselves through difference. You could almost sum up everything that someone might want you to know about them by asking them to name their three favourite Christmas songs (if you can bear it, ask them for five and it’s a fait accompli): “Tom Waits’ ‘Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis’, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ sung by the Choir of King’s College AND ‘Christmas Wrapping’ by The Waitresses—My, my, what a unique individual you really are.”

Christmas movies might be worse. It’s not original to profess a love of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’—of course you do, everyone does, it’s as commonplace as telling people you have a conifer in your living room. ‘Trading Places’ rarely gets a look in these days and with each and every mention, outsider-classic ‘Die Hard’ continues to die a slow death, falling further down the alt-canon list each year, like Hans Gruber in slow-motion. Ironic perhaps, because in the capitalist peak of the Nakatomi Plaza, Bruce Willis was the ultimate alt-hero.

Don’t worry ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ and ‘L.A. Confidential’ might still give you an edge when the good taste of ‘Metropolitan’ comes up in conversation, combining with the champagne in your bloodstream to have you bubbling with boisterous energy whilst you wait for another pass of the canapes. Personally, after a few bottles of Krug, I like to profess a genuine seasonal love of Herzog’s ‘Aguirre: Wrath of God’ — there’s nothing that gets me more in the mood for Christmas more than a film that starts with the sound of ecclesiastical “choir-organ” and a subsequently rare piece of dialogue stating in German (all so redolent of Glühwein and Christmas markets) “On Christmas Day 1560, we reached the last pass of the Andes.” Much more than Joseph and Mary’s flight into Egypt, the film plays out like the escapade of the whole company, en masse, weaving their way up the high street on a crazy expedition to try and get into the famed El Dorado night-club after the office Christmas party. In common with ‘Die Hard’ it shows that when it comes to Christmas parties, not all will make it to the end…