Here’s the bad joke of Hollywood Christmas movies. They tend to begin, and end, with a blast of old-school Yuletide cheer. But that’s just a tease. In between, most of them make a point of straying about as far from the Christmas spirit as possible. Instead, they swap in the new American spirit: vulgar, violent, full of fake fun, celebrating their own crassness. To trace the genesis of the anti-Christmas Christmas movie (“Jingle All the Way,” “Violent Night”), you would probably have to go back to a couple of movies that are thought of as classics (though not by me): “A Christmas Story” and “Home Alone,” both of them
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