Bad Santa Will Assault You Now

(Photo: Tracy Bennett/Dimension Films)

The roof is repaired, meaning the Grand Illusion Cinema will today resume its 37th annual screening of It's a Wonderful Life (through Dec. 27). But in addition to Frank Capra's 1946 holiday perennial let's not forget the late-night screenings of a newer, even darker Yuletide treat, Terry Zwigoff's 2003 Bad Santa, which screens the next two weekends (Friday and Saturdays at 11 p.m.)

Of the latter, our Andrew Bonazelli wrote in his original review,

"Working from a story by the Coen brothers, director Terry Zwigoff (Crumb) has made a film calculated to appall anyone who holds the holidays sacred. It is vile, hateful, and soulless; it also happens to be absolutely hilarious. Billy Bob Thornton plays a self-loathing, foul-mouthed, alcoholic safecracker who annually dons white beard and red suit for his criminal MO: He and his elfin cohort (Tony Cox) loot a department store every Christmas Eve and live large for the rest of the year. Santa follows Thornton's misanthropic human wrecking ball through affluent Phoenix suburbia and simply asks us to identify with his morbid Christmas dispirit. No problem."

Go see both movies. Because it never hurts to spike the holiday punch bowl with a little humbug.