Martin Scorsese’s 2019 epic The Irishman is exactly as good as you’d imagine a Scorsese movie starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci would be.

Which is really very good.

Controversial for being a ‘more-or-less’ straight to Netflix release (it did have significantly truncated run in cinemas before landing on the streaming service), any fears that this would be anything other than brilliant were quickly put-to-bed.

If one wanted to be churlish, it might be fair to say The Irishman doesn’t really bring anything new to Scorsese’s oeuvre – epic gangster movies being fairly familiar ground for the acclaimed director – but The Irishman does feel like an evolution of sorts and manages to keep you interested in the characters without encouraging you to necessarily like any of them.

The technology used to de-age the cast might well have been revolutionary, but it’s hard to ever truly be convinced that either De-Niro or Pacino are ever in their thirties, whatever visual effects are in play. It doesn’t matter – the story-telling is so compelling that it’s easy enough to suspend your disbelief and if the 209 minute running time seems like a lot to commit to, by the end you almost find yourself wishing for more.

Score for Christmasishness

The Christmasishness is tenuous for this one but there is a Christmas scene about an hour in, which is fairly relevant to the narrative. It’s not on screen for very long but it is very Christmassy for the duration. It also helps to make the last scene of the movie even more poignant when the titular character finds himself spending his final days alone in a nursing home, forsaken by his family. It doesn’t look or seem very Christmassy, but, to the surprise of the protagonist, we discover that it is Christmas – not that that revelation makes the least bit of difference to him. Not a Christmas movie by any definition, but Christmas certainly plays a small part in the story.

Matthew Vaughn’s 2021 movie The King’s Man is a sort of spinoff/sort of prequel to the British director’s Kingsman film series, the first of which made last year’s iteration of my advent calendar.

Set around a century before the original movies, it depicts a version of the First World War that bears little resemblance to actual historic events and instead relies heavily on suspended disbelief to navigate the plot.

It is by no means a great movie, but like the other installments in the series, it’s fairly enjoyable in the context of a light-hearted mindless action film.

It does have a surprisingly good cast, who all seem to be trying (mainly in vain) to elevate the movie from the run-of-the-mill popcorn flic that it was always intended to be.

Score for Christmasishness

While it is certainly not Christmas throughout the film, about 15-20 minutes of the film do take place over Christmas. It’s an admittedly fairly violent Christmas in Russia but there is a nice Christmas tree. So The King’s Man is more than deserving of it’s place in my annual festive countdown.

I did, for a few years, have a Facebook account. I didn’t really ever much see the point of it and I haven’t missed it since I deleted it.

I did really enjoy 2010’s The Social Network though, which is a movie about the creation of Facebook. I don’t know why this surprised me. I like movies about all kinds of things that have no impact on my day-to-day existence. But I didn’t expect to enjoy The Social Network and I really did.

So did a lot of people. It’s a really good movie. I’m not sure it’s entirely faithful to the real life events it’s based on, but then few biopics are and I imagine it might have been a less enjoyable watch had it been more concerned with facts rather than entertainment.

Score for Christmasishness

This one is a stretch even by my fairly dubious criteria but there is a very small part of the film which depicts events that take place in the month of December. And a ‘break’ is mentioned, which is almost certainly a Christmas break. But you never see so much as a Christmas tree on screen so this movie, however great it is, has no business being included in my list. And yet I’ve included it anyway, almost as if to undermine myself.

2019’s Hustlers packs more storytelling into 110 minutes than many a movie with significantly longer running times.

A wholly original take on the ‘crime caper’ premise, it boasts compelling performances from Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu.

It is also a film that manages to live up to both the comedic and dramatic expectations that one might have of a comedy-drama, which is a rare treat in a world where the label ‘comedy-drama’ is often a label which indicates a deficit of either.

All in all a pretty good movie.

Score for Christmasishness

Christmas is not exactly a central theme throughout, but there is a fairly lengthy Christmas scene, which is both narratively pertinent and serves as character development. And it is a really Christmassy scene, so Hustlers more than makes the cut for my Christmas(ish) advent calendar.

Anyone wanting to make a compelling case for the theory that actors are little more than talking props, need look no further than 2016’s ‘Why Him?’.

Neither Bryan Cranston nor James Franco are strangers to award nominations for their acting, yet they both flail around in this abomination of a comedy trying in vain to provide a decent performance from a script which offers very little in the way of a coherent narrative.

Or any actual comedy.

Score for Christmasishness

Given that I started this ridiculous annual countdown in 2017, it’s amazing I hadn’t come across this movie before now. It’s not a good movie but it is very much set at Christmas. Insofar as the premise of the movie works at all (and it mostly doesn’t) it could be set at a different time of year, but Christmas does seem quite a fitting context. There is also a scene involving a Christmas tree, which seems to mainly have been included to make the audience laugh, and although it is spectacularly unfunny, it does further enhance the Christmas credentials of the movie. I can’t imagine I’d ever watch this again, but if I did, it would be at Christmas time. Preferably after consuming a lot of alcohol.

Notionally based on real-life events, 2017’s American Made doesn’t appear to be too weighed down by fidelity to historical accuracy. Which does make it a much more entertaining film than it might have been were it entirely devoted to the truth.

Indeed, while it’s entirely implausible that much of what happens in the 115 minute running time could ever have happened in real life, I am perfectly happy to suspend my disbelief when a movie is this much fun.

Score for Christmasishness

Definitely not a Christmas film, but Christmas does feature in the plot a bit. And it is broadly relevant in that it serves as a device to highlight the ever-increasing wealth of the protagonist, as well as providing a reminder of where that wealth has come from, given that he enjoys much of the festive period celebrating with the Medellín Cartel. It would be a stretch to make a compelling case for adding this to your annual festive viewing schedule, but it’s a pretty good film, even if the Christmas credential are dubious.

This year saw a new entry into the Beverly Hills Cop franchise, some 40 years after the original and 30 years after the preceding outing. I quite liked Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, which was much better than it had any right to be. Indeed, so good was it, that I felt compelled to rewatch all of the earlier entries. To a greater or lesser extent I enjoyed them all. It’s hard to be objective about a series of movies that I grew up with, but I think the first two movies stand up pretty well today.

Unfortunately the only one with any claims to Christmasishness, is 1994’s Beverly Hills Cop III. Which is not really good at all. Even John Landis, the director, is on record as being pretty dismissive about the whole thing.

It isn’t really as if any of the Beverly Hills Cop movies are especially grounded in reality, but they manage to get a balance between action and comedy that works pretty well. The threequel is mainly just inexplicable silliness punctuating an incomprehensible plot, led by one of Eddie Murphy’s least funny performances. Ever.

That said, if only for reasons of nostalgia, I still quite like it.

Score for Christmasishness

Like most of the movies that make up my annual countdown these days, the Christmasishness of this movie is tenuous at best. It hinges on a (fairly feeble) plot device, in which the bad guys throw the authorities off the scent of their counterfeiting enterprise by pretending to print novelty money as part of a Christmas promotion for a theme park. It makes sense insofar as anything in the plot makes sense, but Christmas is not exactly pivotal to the movie and it’s not even especially pivotal to this plot device.

The second Harry Potter movie came hot on the heels of the first, meaning that it largely had all the same charm and many of the same flaws as the first movie. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is about as good as the first movie. Which is pretty good, all things considered. The CGI looks of its time, and the main trio are still children, which means their acting (while undeniably good for their age) is occasionally wooden. The addition to an already accomplished adult cast of Kenneth Branagh and Jason Isaacs is impressive, and both shine in their respective roles.

The film is definitely too long, and a little self-indulgent at the end, but it’s a pretty credible second outing for the Hogwarts cohort.

Score for Christmasishness

Having finally included the first Harry Potter movie in my annual countdown last year, I am potentially doomed to include all entries in the series as I think they probably all have a Christmas scene or two in them. Certainly the first sequel does. It is only visibly Christmas on screen for a brief scene or two (albeit spectacularly Christmassy for those scenes) but the subsequent mini-adventure does take place during the Christmas holidays. You wouldn’t necessarily know that if you hadn’t read the book. But I have. And I think that makes this outing about as Christmas(ish) as its immediate predecessor.

Having included the first two Expendables movies in previous iterations of my annual countdown for the most spurious of reasons, it seemed only right to include 2014’s The Expendables III for the same spurious reason.

The Expendables franchise is largely an homage to the action films of the 80s and 90s and features many of the action stars who made their names in those movies, notably Sylvester Stallone in the principal role and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a recurring cameo. This time around, the already bloated cast is augmented by Wesley Snipes, Antonio Banderas and Harrison Ford.

As per the other entries in the series, it’s all very big and very stupid fun.

Score for Christmasishness

My rationale for including the previous Expendables movies in my festive countdown is that Jason Statham plays a character called Lee Christmas in those movies. And he does in this one too. So The Expendables III makes the cut for the same fatuous reason as its predecesors.

I’m not sure which actor has featured the most often in the various iterations of my annual festive countdown, but Sylvester Stallone has to be in contention. This is in part due to my insistence on including movies with only a tenuous link to Christmas, and Stallone’s insistence in being in such movies.

His Expendables franchise has managed three entries over the years, but it’s the Rocky franchise, which has been a staple of my advent calendar since the very beginning. The original Rocky movie, as well as Rocky III, Rocky IV and Rocky V have all been entries in previous lists and today it is the turn of Rocky II.

The first Rocky sequel is a worthy successor to the Oscar-winning original and retains much of the grounded spirit of the original rather than the bombastic madness of the later sequels. Admittedly because it revisits a lot of familiar ground, it never quite manages to reach the heights of the first movie, but it is definitely one of the better entries in the franchise and has a few iconic moments of its own.

Score for Christmasishness

There is no doubting the Christmas credentials of the first Rocky movie. Rocky IV is arguably even more Christmas(ish). Rocky V, as bad a movie as it is, has some Christmas scenes. It was a stretch when I decided to include Rocky III a couple of years back but Rocky II is probably the least Christmas(ish) of them all. The timeline of the movie runs from January until Thanksgiving, so pretty much covers the 11 months of the year when it definitely is not Christmas. I feel it almost deserves inclusion on the basis that it almost seems to be trying to have nothing to do with Christmas. It mainly makes the list, because, like many Rocky movies, it opens with the final scenes of the preceding movie. And the previous movie does end on New Year’s Day, which falls within the Christmas period. So by the slenderest of margins, Rocky II can finally take its place alongside the other Rocky movies in this most dubious hall of fame.

2019’s Shaft is a sort of reboot/sort of sequel to the 2000 movie of the same name, which was in, itself, a sort of reboot/sort of sequel to the 1970s trilogy of Shaft movies. Enjoying the briefest of cinematic runs, this iteration was really a straight-to-Netflix affair. Which doesn’t always mean that a movie is bad, but the odds would indicate a mediocre offering at best.

And 2019’s Shaft is very much a mediocre offering. Essentially a series of finely woven cliches, it never troubles itself with a coherent plot or character development.

Had there been a more immediate follow-up to Samuel L Jackson’s outing as Shaft in 2000, the franchise might have been reborn in a more credible way, but it seems unlikely there will be too much demand for a further entry in the series after this pedestrian effort.

Score for Christmasishness

I included the 2000 iteration of Shaft in a previous annual countdown for fairly tenuous reasons, but the Christmas credentials of the 2019 entry are more dubious. There are a few brief scenes showing the youngest member of the Shaft family opening inappropriate gifts from his estranged father. Insofar as there is a narrative to follow, those scenes are quite possibly pivotal. Although the plot would be paper thin with or without them really. Nonetheless, given that there are Christmas trees on screen for a few brief moments, the 2019 version of Shaft deserves its place on my list, even if it deserves no other accolades.

2009’s Precious is not an easy watch, detailing, as it does, the harrowing abuse of a teenager. It is, nonetheless, a pretty compelling movie and for all the distressing scenes, there is an element to the story that is uplifting and optimistic.

Gabourey Sidibe is truly astonishing as the lead in what was, at the time, her first acting role in anything ever. The rest of the cast is pretty good too including an Oscar-winning turn by Mo’Nique as the abusive parent.

Score for Christmasishness

It is Christmas for around 12 minutes of the running time and, while there isn’t much in the way of Christmas cheer, it is quite a significant part of the movie narratively and Christmas definitely adds to the significance of that part of the movie. So Precious is definitely a bit Christmas(ish).

1995’s Bad Boys is one of my favourite Michael Bay movies. Or at least it’s one of the few Michael bay movies that I don’t consider to be absolute dross. It’s not, objectively, actually a particularly good film, but it’s a 90s action movie, which follows most of the tropes you’d expect to see in a 90s action movie, so I liked it when I was a teenager, and consequently I am slightly blind to most of its failings when I watch it now.

If it’s not especially original, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are charasmatic enough to paper over the cracks in the lead roles and Joe Pantoliano is great value as their beleaguered captain.

Score for Christmasishness

It is not at all a Christmas movie, but makes the cut on the basis of an obscure reference to Santa Claus and a later plot point that involves a character recalling a New Year’s Eve party that went awry. I’ve included other movies for lesser reasons over the years, so Bad Boys might as well get in on the action.

2015’s Joy reunites director David O’Russell with Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, following on from their collaborations on Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. It is arguably the weakest of the three movies, but an Oscar-nominated performance from Lawrence in the titular role elevates it to something more than it might otherwise have been.

Although, to be fair, given that the premise is largely about the invention of a self-wringing mop, it is probably much more entertaining than it should be, regardless of Lawrence’s acting skills.

Score for Christmasishness

Most of the second half of the movie is set around Christmas time. It isn’t always obviously so on screen, but there are enough Christmassy scenes from the midway point onwards to justify a fairly high Christmas(ish) rating for this one. But a mop, even a self-wringing one, is a rubbish Christmas present.

Released in the year I started doing this annual festive nonsense, 2017’s Anna and the Apocalypse has cruelly missed out on prior inclusion due to the fact that I’d never heard of it.

But then I did hear about it. And I watched it. And I loved it.

Described on Wikipedia as a “British Christmas zombie musical film” it is exactly that.

Which is as mad and as fun as it sounds.

As a zombie movie it conforms to all the usual tropes, which is presumably what fans of zombie movies are looking for. As a musical, it delivers a plethora of catchy tunes and dance numbers, which what I imagine most fans of musicals would want. It’s also pretty funny, yet offers enough drama to keep you rooting for the heroes throughout.

The cast are (or were) largely unknown (save for British TV stalwarts Mark Benton and Paul Kaye, the latter enjoying himself immensely as the antagonistic – and appropriately named – deputy head teacher Arthur Savage) but no less competent for that.

Anna and thew Apocalypse is a rare find. Because there aren’t too many British Christmas zombie musical films. And there probably shouldn’t be. But I’m glad there is at least one.

Score for Christmasishness

As a zombie movie, this is as gory as they come, but there’s no denying it’s also pretty Christmassy. There are Christmas trees and tinsel galore, and the titular Anna’s main weapon for seeing off the zombie horde is a large ornamental candy cane. The movie also closes with a zombie Santa Claus. This is definitely one that will make my festive viewing schedule on a regular basis for years to come.

I’ve been doing this annual festive film countdown for a fair few years now, and so committed have I become to making sure I have 24 entries ready to go for December, that I write a lot of the posts well in advance of publishing them. Indeed I am now several years ahead of myself in terms of my annual Advent calendar, which is why I manage to seemingly blog relentlessly through December while being a fairly unreliable blogger for most of the rest of the year.

Writing the posts so far in advance means that often I might see a good Christmas(ish) movie that has only just been released, and it won’t actually make it onto my blog that year. Which seems like a shame.

This year I have managed to catch three new movies that deserve to be included in my festive countdown, so I have bumped the three entries I had already written to a future version of this annual folly, in order to be able to include some 2024 releases on the 2024 iteration of The James Proclaims Advent Calendar of Christmas(ish) Films.

The first of these movies is the new Netflix thriller Carry-On

To a UK national like me, any movie with the title Carry-On will naturally conjure up images of Sid James and Barbara Windsor enjoying some saucy innuendos in the best of the British music hall traditions.

But in the 2024 movie Carry-On there is no sign of Kenneth Williams and no bawdy seaside humour to be found.

The movie does have a British connection, thanks to the Welsh heritage of the lead actor Tarron Eggerton, but Carry-On is nothing to do with the beloved British comedy franchise of yesteryear, and is, instead, a fairly decent effort at recapturing the spirit of the quintessential Christmas(ish) movie Die Hard. Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to compare it to Die Hard 2, given that the action takes place in an airport on Christmas Eve.

Carry-On is not as good as Die Hard but that’s mainly because very few films are.

Carry On is a very decent action flic though and far better than most of the Die Hard sequels. Jason Bateman is particularly effective, playing against type, as a pretty sinister and competent bad guy.

For a straight-to-Netflix movie Carry-On is surprisingly good and in a different era, it would certainly have been deserving of a lengthy run on the big screen.

There are already rumours of a sequel, and while that may be a double-edged sword for the legacy of the original movie, Carry-On definitely deserves to be a multi-movie franchise. As long as they don’t call the second movie Carry-On Camping…

Score for Christmasishness

It’s set on Christmas Eve. The busy airport is symptomatic of the fact it is Christmas Eve. Like many an action movie set at Christmas, the story could probably work at a different time of year, but it makes more sense for it to be set at Christmas than not. It’s certainly as Christmas(ish) as the first two Die Hard movies. Which makes it pretty Christmas(ish) in my book.

And so to the second of three movies to make the cut for my 2024 advent calendar that were actually released in 2024.

Dear Santa is a comedy that relies on a single joke. The joke in question being the orthographical similarity between the word ‘Santa’ and the word ‘Satan’. And how a dyslexic child might make that mistake and accidently summon the devil when writing their Christmas letter to Father Christmas.

I’m not sure that the makers of the movie have a full understanding of dyslexia and as it is a fairly core aspect of my day-to-day working life to promote an understanding of learning difficulties, I feel duty bound to point that out. Then again, Dear Santa is not really a pretending to be an accurate portrayal of…erm…anything at all. So it’s as well to let the dyslexia tropes slide, because the entire premise of the movie hinges on what is, in essence, a fairly weak joke about a spelling mistake.

Dear Santa is not an especially good film. It could be argued that it is quite a bad film.

However, a fairly committed and typically energetic performance from Jack Black as the Satanic Santa is just about enough to save the movie from being a total waste of time.

Score for Christmasishness

The only reason this movie will bear any kind of repeat viewing is because it is clearly intended to be a Christmas movie. On that score, if on no other, it is pretty successful. So while Dear Santa deserves to be largely forgotten by early 2025, it just might endure as a Christmas classic in some households.

The third movie to make this year’s advent calendar that was released this year is Red One.

Promising to be the first entry in an enduring franchise of family-friendly action flics, it is exactly what you might imagine a Christmas movie starring Dwayne Johnson to be.

It’s formulaic, full of clichés, and the plot is thinner than the budget-friendly wrapping paper I use to wrap my daughters’ Christmas presents. But it has Dwayne Johnson in it. It;s hard to hate any movie with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in it.

The cast also includes Chris Evans, Lucy Liu and JK Simmons. They all contribute to making Red One quite a lot more watchable than it should be.

I quite enjoyed it. As commercially cynical as it clearly is, I’d watch it again. And I’ll definitely watch the inevitable sequel when it comes along.

In some respects, it is a missed opportunity. Red One could certainly have been better. However I console myself in the fact that it also could have been much much worse.

Score for Christmasishness

Red One is a Christmas movie. It’s entire raison d’être is the festive season and it would be strange to watch it at any other time of year. It is also an action movie of sorts and the kind of movie I would have adored as a child. It’s not necessarily a great movie but I think it is potentially a great Christmas movie and one that will endure for many a Christmas to come.

2020’s Fatman is an interesting concept that doesn’t necessarily deliver on it’s initial promise. You probably get as much out of watching the trailer as you ever could sitting through the whole movie.

For someone who has supposedly been blacklisted by Hollywood, Mel Gibson continues to get a fair amount of work. This is not his best, but whatever you make of him as a human being, you can’t fault his commitment to his craft and his take on a jaded embittered Santa Claus, struggling to make sense of a modern cynical world is actually pretty good. Walton Goggins is also good as the principal antagonist and Marianne Jean-Baptiste does a heroic job of trying to give the movie some heart.

The problem is that a fairly novel concept is all well and good, but once the novelty wears off, there isn’t much left to make the film especially interesting.

Score for Christmasishness

I’ve gone for a maximum Christmas(ish) score because this is ultimately a movie about Santa Claus. It is an admittedly unconventional version of Father Christmas, and actually a lot of the action takes place after Christmas, so there is a case for knocking some marks off. It’s not exactly family viewing, there isn’t much in the way of Christmas cheer, and I’d probably be quite happy to skip watching it in December and might have been just as happy watching something like this at any other time of year. But any movie with Santa Claus as the main protagonist has to get full marks on the Christmas(ish) scale in my book.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is, to date, the only sequel to the 1990 original that I’ve seen. I may, as a result of the annual madness, which compels me to create this redundant festive countdown, force myself to watch the other four entries in the series. But I don’t need to watch any of them to know that they are not true sequels so much as misguided reboots attempting to cash in on the success of the first two movies.

But the first sequel, is a genuine sequel and one which I loved almost as much as the original when I was the target audience of the films. While I caught the first one one via video rental, I was very much armed with a ticket to my local multiplex as soon as the second movie was released. As an adult, I can see that Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is largely a rehash of its predecessor but with the cartoon violence dialled up to eleven. At the time it came out, though, I completely fell for the fallacy that bigger means better, and may have briefly thought the second movie was an improvement on the original.

It is not. I can’t shake off my nostalgic affection for it (as soon as I was able to, my pocket money afforded me a VHS copy to keep the first movie company and just like the first movie, it saw regular rotation in my childhood viewing schedule), but it is evidently not as good as the first movie.

However, Culkin is still prodigiously charismatic, and Pesci and Stern clearly have enormous fun as the bungling Harry and Marv, who completely fail to learn all of the lessons of the first movie and once again fall foul of the wit of a small child.

Tim Curry is a nice addition as the overzealous hotel manager who takes on the role of a minor adversary to Culkin’s Kevin.

And there is of course an infamous cameo by a certain Donald Trump, which is possibly more amusing to the modern viewer than it was at the time.

Ultimately, whatever flaws this movie may have, it’s arguably as good a sequel as anyone could realistically have hoped for and it’s generally inconceivable these days that I’ll sit through the first movie without immediately watching the second.

Score for Christmasishness

I’m not sure I put too compelling a case for considering the original Home Alone as being Christmas(ish) rather than an outright Christmas movie. Mainly my argument hinged on the fact that I tended to watch that film all year round as a kid, and that is also true of the sequel. But if anything, the second movie is even more steeped in Christmasishness than the first, and frankly any suggestion that it isn’t actually a fully fledged Christmas film should be met with scorn and ridicule.