Christmas-themed comedies come in two basic flavors, the warm family plum pudding and the more recent development of the anti-Christmas raspberry, represented by the likes of Scrooged, The Ref, and the mighty Bad Santa. There are also mutants that fall between the two stools, such as Bob Clark's A Christmas Story, a nostalgic family comedy from the director of Porky's, in which gross-outs are part of the simpler times towards which the viewer is expected to look back on longingly. Both the reassuring family films and the movies in which a Bill Murray or a Denis Leary plays a rude, aggressive sort with no interest in good will to man are in denial over what Christmas means to so many of our fellow citizens: holiday depression. Luckily, a few brave filmmakers have chosen to seize that topic and run with it.
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