Mostly I spent the whole time trying to figure out where I knew the mum from (Bigfoot and the Hendersons), and also why AOL felt it was the Greatest Christmas Film Ever. It’s all right. With its narrator element, it feels like a feature-length episode of The Wonder Years, set twenty years earlier. It has funny moments, and touching moments (the Christmas morning scene, where Ralphie opens his final present), and a couple of those heart-warmingly racist moments where it’s ok because it’s an eighties film set in the past and they could get away with it then, bless. Ralphie looks like the Milky Bar Kid, which is kind of cute.

I think the word I’m looking for is mediocre. It’s like blancmange, where Scrooged (which incidentally was number four on AOL’s list) is like banoffi pie. It belongs on Channel 5 on a Sunday afternoon, so you can nap and not feel bad.

Fact
The actor who plays Ralphie, Peter Billingsley, played an elf in Elf.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

1) Scrooged
2) Elf
3) Love Actually
4) Santa Claus: The Movie Bad Santa
5) Home Alone

Easy peasy.
1) Ghostbusters
2) What About Bob?
3) Lost in Translation
4) Scrooged
5) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
6) The Royal Tenenbaums
7) Little Shop of Horrors
8) Charlie’s Angels
9) The Man Who Knew Too Little
10) Caddyshack

Bonus:
11) Quick Change
12) Stripes
13) Broken Flowers
14) Groundhog Day