CHRISTMAS Movie Marathon begins with The Holiday (2006)

Welcome to 2012 Christmas Movie Marathon featured here! I have a lot of Christmas movies like 20+ DVD/Blurays and some multiple short animated features.  Usually, I stack them up in certain preferences and just watch them. This year, I decided to go random.  I just going to pick out the movie of the night randomly from a pile of folded paper in a little bag.  We’ll see how that goes.  I think it’ll at least give us a bit of spontaneity and mix it up…should be fun!  And different from the Halloween marathon, I’ll be reviewing all the movies individually (no Top Ten lists).

Lets get it started!

Movie: THE HOLIDAY (2006)

Director & Writer: Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give)

Cast: Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Jack Black

The Holiday is about two women, Iris from Surrey, UK (Kate Winslet) and Amanda from Los Angeles (Cameron Diaz) and both go through a bad break-up.  Amanda decides to take a vacation during the holidays to not be lonely and finds Iris on a home exchange site.  They decide to swap homes for 2 weeks. Iris ends up staying in Amanda’s mansion in LA and ends up making friends with her next door neighbor who is an elderly retired screenplay writer called Arthur Abbott and in the process, meets Miles (Jack Black) who is a film composer. While living in Iris’s cottage, she meets Iris’s older brother, Graham (Jude Law) and sparks fly.

I’m a huge fan of this movie. Ever since I’ve had it about three years ago, I always watch it on Christmas at least once.  During the year, sometimes I’ll give it a second or third run.  Its a fun, hilarious, witty, heartwarming romantic comedy.  What I loved THE absolute most is the chemistry between the characters.  Honestly, I never really preferred watching any of those actors.  This movie changed my view of things, especially Jack Black.  Kate Winslet is charming as always in her role as Iris.  Jude Law, as Graham drunk (and sober) just melts my heart (it didn’t before this movie).  I can see the charm.  As for Jack Black, I always felt that the roles he took on never really was to my taste, but this role made me feel that he can do this corny, witty type of actor.  He was really sweet and there were a lot of laugh out loud moments.  It was really awesome in that department and I think that is the one of the key elements of a good romantic comedy.

Another element that really worked for me was the dialogue.  The director, Nancy Meyers is also the writer and I guess that always adds something a little extra.  It connects better since its her own thoughts I suppose.  I’m not an expert on this, but I bought it. I thought it was witty.  If you asked my boyfriend, I’d say that he would probably say there was corny dialogue here and there.  Still, its a very likeable chick flick.

This is my feel good movie.  I never fails to put a smile on my face and some to roll over in laughter and other moments, to just get all warm and fuzzy from the cute and sweet moments.  The Holiday is a romantic comedy set during the Christmas and New Year’s holiday period so very fit to start this marathon! Especially since it comes with a happy ending and lots of smiles and laughs during the whole thing.  I highly recommend it.

Have you seen this? Did you enjoy it? If you didn’t like it, what didn’t you like?