Trading Places: A Christmas Classic Worth Celebrating

Black Friday has passed, but Americans still need something to fight about. Christmas has arrived, so fighting over the best Christmas movie seems like the logical next step.

If you are fighting the War On Christmas Movies, you probably fall into one of five camps:

1. Your Favorite is "It's a Wonderful Life": That means you have probably watched all of the AFI List specials.

2. Your Favorite is "Home Alone": You grew up in the 90s. Also, you have a thing for setting up booby traps in your house.

3. Your Favorite is "A Christmas Story": You will watch it during the entire 24 hour block that runs on TBS on Christmas Day. Also, you're probably Jewish and couldn't convince anybody else to go see something in theaters that day.

4. Your Favorite is "Die Hard": You understand that "Die Hard" isn't a Christmas movie in a traditional sense. But you don't care, because you are way too cool for school.

5. Your Favorite is "Jingle All The Way": Haha we get it. You like being ironic and you probably own a pair of bacon socks from Urban Outfitters and also you're probably me.

However, I would like to stage a coup, and add a sixth film to the battle. Would anybody care to join me on Team "Trading Places"?

Movie Review: The Campaign

"The Campaign" didn't necessarily need to exist. Jay Roach could have just shot footage of Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis together in the same room, and I still would have bought the ticket. However, the fact that "The Campaign" gives them a purpose makes it all the better.

At this point, political satire has nailed down all of the main points pretty well: politicians will do anything they can to win, and they will also take any excuse to label their opponents as Communists. But the devil is truly in the details, and the challenge is in finding ways to make stale jokes seem fresh. The best example might be when Cam Brady (Will Ferrell) accidentally punches a baby in the face. The baby punching isn't the funniest part; the fact that the scene is played out in slow-motion really seals the deal. And here I thought that showing the clip on every single talk show would make it less funny in the actual movie.

At the beginning of "The Campaign," Ferrell's Brady is going around telling everyone from auto workers to Filipino amusement park ride operators that they are the "backbone of America." Political junkies will be surprised by how well versed writers Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell in American political jargon. This isn't quite "The West Wing" penned by comedy writers ("Parks & Rec" and "Veep" are more in that league). It's more like if "Step Brothers" focused on a bunch of Washington insiders. That is very high compliment.