volume 151 - no, Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie

a Run It Back holiday favorite returns 😌

editor’s note: i’m forever grateful that Ryan was down to run it back (pun intended 😉) for a FOURTH time. i loved his vision for this year and i can’t wait for y’all to see what he’s got going on this time around

if you’re hungry for more, check out his volume from last year:

before we get to it, some housekeeping: i’ll be taking a holiday break these next couple weeks to refresh and recharge. we’ll resume our regularly scheduled programming with a fresh volume in the new year!

until then 🤠❤️‍🔥

- claudio / claud / @offballscreen

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Happy Holidays, Run It Back family! It’s me, Ryan, and I’m back with yet another holiday volume. I’ve asked Claudio to let me know when we start approaching Scary Movie territory, and it turns out they surprisingly only cranked out five of those bad boys. Such a shame.

That said, this year I really have appreciated and leaned on some of my personal favorite traditions going into the holiday. For me that looks like a few different things:

1. Spending Christmas Eve with friends and doing a full German dinner (complete with copious amounts of spaetzle)

2. Visiting a Christmas tree farm to get a tree

3. Or just watching tons (and tons) of holiday movies

So for this year’s holiday edition, we are going to dive into a few of my favorite holiday movies, and pick out some songs that I enjoy listening to each year as I marathon movie, after movie, after movie.

Let me know if you have a favorite movie you think I should check out!

And while we are at it: No, Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie.

-

Ryan Changes

a tried and true tradition: self-created bar crawl we've been doing as a group of friends for 10+ years!

this week’s music ⤵️

1. Scrooge
   A Muppet Christmas Carol
   Released: 1992

Muppets. A Christmas Carol. Gonzo as Charles Dickens. Sir Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge. A sub-90 minute movie (Great movie length, IMO). What more could you ask for in a holiday movie?

“Scrooge” comes in pretty early in the film, and features the full Muppet cast. The song helps set the table for anyone unfamiliar with the type of person Ebenezer Scrooge is (I’m sure there’s someone out there that this benefits).

The timps come in hard, the choreography is top tier (mainly bobbing, but hey they are Muppets afterall), and the Muppet veggies deliver. A close second for this movie is “Christmas Scat” with Tiny Tim and Kermit, but gets knocked down because it runs short at only 23 seconds.

2. Christmas Vacation
   National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
   Released: 1989

Christmas Vacation starts off with an absolute gem of a song, complete with an amazing animation sequence that highlights some of the challenges Santa could hypothetically face on any given Christmas. Released on December 1st, 1989, this features all of the hallmarks of a great made-for-a-movie 80’s song.

If you haven’t seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, I highly recommend it. I can’t honestly say it has aged incredibly well or that Chevy Chase isn’t an asshole, but there are still some moments that make you both laugh and squirm at the same time. Plus, you can’t see the line, can you, Russ?

3. The Christmas Song
   A Charlie Brown Christmas
   Released: 1965

In keeping with the animation theme from above, I submit A Charlie Brown Christmas as a regular, must watch each holiday season. Add in the fact that Vince Guaraldi filled the movie with soothing, piano-filled takes on great seasonal classics.

I also believe this is a solid film to revisit, because as I’ve talked about in past editions, so much of the holidays often boils down to commercialism or forced religious components.

In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown goes through his own journey on how to not let commercialism ruin his Christmas, and finds ways to feel fulfilled through the help of his friends during the holidays.

4. Pennies From Heaven
   Elf
   Released: 2003

Okay, so I’m assuming everyone reading this has seen Elf. I’m not reinventing the wheel here by including this movie in a list of good or fun holiday movies. I’m especially sorry to Claudio who mentioned looking for potentially new movie suggestions. Whoops.

That said, “Pennies From Heaven” is just too damn catchy. Buddy exploring New York City with this going on in the background is the perfect energy. From the saxophones, to the very clear jazz band/swing feel, we have a lot to appreciate as movie and music are blended pretty perfectly here.

Big shoutout to Louis Prima for rerecording this classic in 1957, which is the version featured here and helped it get traction again after Elf released.