Having finally conceded the point on Die Hard — well, mostly anyway — I’m still left with the question: just what exactly makes a film a Christmas movie? Is the answer just snow? Or is the presence of a Christmas tree enough, regardless of the context?

Fortunately, The Babylon Bee has stepped into the breach for a nation riven with conflict over which movies qualify for Christmas viewing. “This world is full of killjoys who want to murder cheer,” the song below postulates, just after the start of the alien-imposed Christmas Movie Arena Battle Death Match:

Twenty films enter, one film leaves. Say, maybe Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is a Christmas movie too! Naaah … no snow. Or Christmas trees. The feral children mightremind us of Christmas shopping, but that’s still no sale … or is it?

One movie doesn’t appear to get an entry into the arena, but it deserves that kind of death both as a Christmas movie and as a rom-com. Of course, I mean the glurgy, pretentious, and contrived Love Actually, which for some reason has become a holiday tradition for far too many people. Irish comedian George Fox offered a brilliant “TED talk” on Twitter this week explaining the myriad ways in which this film is awful, which are hilariously all true. Be sure to read the entire thread, but …

Just to say there were also MANY other things wrong with this movie including but not limited to:

-Toxic behaviour
-Problematic portrayal of mental health issues/institutions
-The ONLY female lead being utterly & bizarrely forgotten about by the movie itself before the 3rd act pic.twitter.com/M6C34uwcVz

— George Fox (@Comedyfox) December 23, 2020

I may have to concede on Die Hard. I’ll never back down on Love Actually.