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Last year, we spent our Christmas looking at some Christmas movies and specials, and rated them based on the accuracy of their portrayal of the IT industry. We're going to continue with that this year. Just like last year, we'll rate things based on a number of floppy disks- 💾💾💾💾💾 means it's as accurate as Office Space, whereas 💾 puts it someplace down around Superman III.
Gremlins
Technology has conquered the world, but none of it actually works. As Mr. Futterman (played by the classic character actor Dick Miller) points out: they've all got gremlins in them. Except, thanks to a goofy dad's last minute Christmas gift and some careless 80s teens, the gremlins aren't just taking over technology, but the entire town with their goofy violence.
This was the most mentioned film left out last year. As far as tech industry representation, we've got a lot to discuss here. First, the father who purchases Gizmo- the Mogwai that becomes the source of all the gremlins- is an inventor. This is the 80s, and thus we're all recovering from the fads of Rubik's Cubes and Pet Rocks, so Randy Petlzer is trying to crash whatever the next fad is. He's got a collection of goofy gadgets, including the orange juicer above, which is itself a premonition of the Juicero startup, itself a goofy disaster of venture capital.
An independent inventor with no real business model but a bunch of goofy ideas also thinks he's a genius. Where have I heard that before? At least, he did "read the manual" (listened to the instructions given to him by the very 80s orientalist stereotype) and even communicated them, so credit to that. But nobody actually followed those instructions anyway, which leads to all the chaos. Do you think I used the word "goofy" enough to describe this movie? It's very goofy, and I think it's gotten goofier with age, honestly. Without nostalgia, I wouldn't call it good, but it is goofy.
The highlight of the film is Phoebe Cates's monologue about why she hates Christmas: a grisly tale about her father's death.
Rating: 💾
The Apartment
Bud Baxter has an apartment conveniently close to work- so convenient that all the executives at his company bring their mistresses there. It's great for Bud's career, but less good for his reputation and his own personal love life.
So, this may be a stretch as Christmas movies go. It takes place around Christmas, but doesn't have a lot of Christmas themes. You know what it does have? A load of entitled management types who not only control Bud's life around the office, but his life at home, and definitely don't care about how that affects him. If this were in 2024, they'd be using bossware to track him and smart door locks to keep him out of his own house.
Rating: 💾💾💾
The Knight Before Christmas
A modern gal in Ohio has given up on love. A 14th century knight is magically transported to Ohio. Together, they discover the true meaning of Christmas- and love.
This is Netflix's stab at a Hallmark level Christmas movie. The whole thing revolves around the Ohio town having a Christmas tradition of erecting a "Christmas Castle" and doing a pseudo-Ren Faire thing every Christmas which is not, as far as I know, a thing anywhere, except perhaps a few small towns in Europe, where they have naturally occurring castles. Our gallant knight gets to be flummoxed by modern technology, like the Alexa, but basically figures all this stuff out over the course of a few days.
For IT accuracy, this is definitely:
Rating: 💾
However, it's also worth noting that the plot kicks off with our modern gal hitting the befuddled knight with her car at the Christmas Castle. They go to the hospital, where everyone assumes he's an actor from the Castle, and now has amnesia after being hit by a car. Since he has no ID, instead of providing medical care for what they believe to be severe brain damage, they just… let her take him home with her. So, if we were rating this for accurately representing the health care system in the US:
Rating: 💉💉💉💉💉
The Bear: Feast of the Seven Fishes
"The Bear" focuses on Carmy, who is trying to turn his deceased brother's sandwich shop into a Michelin rated fine-dining restaurant. This episode flashes back to a Christmas before his brother died, and shows us what his family life was like, as his mother prepares the traditional "Feast of the Seven Fishes" for Christmas.
So, unlike Christmas Castles, Feasts of Seven Fishes are real. I grew up with the loud Italian family. My grandmother was so Italian she came through Ellis Island and also had one of these to point at her Christmas Tree. We did not do the complete Feast of the Seven Fishes, because nobody wanted to work that hard, but deep fried kippers were always featured. These were whole fish, which you'd eat. Bones, faces and all. That was fine, but I was honestly really there for the ginettes (everyone else calls them anise cookies, but we called them ginettes).
Our Christmas wasn't as stressful as Carmy's, and while folks got drunk, it was strictly "the old guys drink too much and fall asleep in their chairs" levels of drunk.
Rating: 🍝🍝🍝🍝🍝
Dominic the Donkey
When Santa wants to visit his "paisans" in Italy, his reindeer can't handle the hills- so he relies on his friend, Dominic, the Italian Christmas Donkey.
Look, I had to suffer through this song growing up, so now you do to. Hit play. Put it on loop. You're trapped in here with us. Jingety jing! HEE HAW HEE HAW! IT'S DOMINIC THE DONKEY.
Rating: 🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏🫏
The Iron Giant
An alien war-bot crashes on Earth and gets amnesia, forgetting that it's a war-bot. Young Hogarth befriends the bot, and adventures ensue. Meanwhile 1950s Fox Mulder tries to track down the "monster" and put a stop to the Communist threat it represents.
I know what you're saying: "there's nothing Christmas here!" But, based on this list so far, amnesia is a Christmas tradition! Setting that aside, I'm not religious, but if we're talking about keeping the "Christ" in "Christmas", you can't do better than a giant robot who dies for our sins and is reborn days later. Honestly, the Bible could have used more giant robots. Maybe a Godzilla or two. While the movie leans hard into Superman as its metaphor for heroism, Superman has frequently been appropriated as a Christ metaphor. Which, there's a whole lot to unpack there, given that Superman's creators were Jewish.
This story features incompetent government agents trying to regulate technology they don't understand. While the film colors it in with Red Scare tones, it echoes the same constant shrieking from the FBI and NSA that regular citizens shouldn't have access to strong encryption (and they need a magical backdoor into all encryption algorithms to keep you SAFE). Or the countless "think of the children!" bills that attempt to police the Internet and always fail. Or the classic "Felony Contempt of Business Model"- the sections of the DMCA that make it illegal for you to refill your printer cartridges or jailbreak your phones.
Rating: 💾💾💾