© Warner Bros.
Who doesn’t love a good Christmas movie? You’d be surprised. For many of us, the holidays can be stressful and depressing – budget, family, gift-buying anxieties, running around, yadda-yadda-yadda. They can also impact the way we feel physically, especially when you’re a guy with subpar testosterone levels.
Don’t get us wrong – we love A Christmas Story, Elf and Miracle on 34th Street (the original, not the remakes) as much as anyone. Yet, when you have bah-humbug hormones, it’s understandable if you don’t want to watch movies orchestrated to make everyone feel merry and bright. Of course, you don’t want to fully “Grinch out” the season, either. It’s here regardless, so you want to try to embrace it…within reason.
Our recommendation: turn off those Yuletide films with the unbearable Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-ing. Instead, turn on a good action flick or suspense-thriller, featuring ludicrous stunts, crazy combat and steamy, stimulating themes. Why? Studies reveal that situations depicting power and dominance – movies being a prime example – can give men’s testosterone a temporary natural boost. And at this time of year, boosting hormones that give you energy, focus, stamina and some firm Christmas wood can’t be anything but good.
With that, we here at Peak made a list, checked it twice and came up with 12 films that are pure Christmas…sort of. They’re actually movies that, with some tweaking, pretty much could have occurred at any time of the year. Yet we love that the filmmakers chose good ol’ Noel to tell their tales of power, lust, action, murder, mass destruction and superheroics.
One last thing before we jump into our picks: some of you are gonna think, You forgot about Gremlins, Rocky IV, I Come in Peace, Jurassic World (yep, takes place at Christmas, though barely acknowledges it), The Ice Harvest, First Blood, etc. We didn’t. There are tons of movies we can name. We simply chose a dozen kind-of-Christmas movies we think are best suited to give your T levels oomph and add a shine to your personal peppermint stick. Enjoy!
© Cannon Films/MGM
“America wasn’t ready…but he was.” Perhaps the film’s tagline should have read: “Chuck Norris doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Christmas celebrates Chuck Norris.” The Eighties’ poster-boy badass single-handedly (and footedly) lays the smackdown on a deranged commie terrorist (Richard Lynch) and his flock of fanatical flunkies. He saves Old Glory in the process (okay, the National Guard helps at the end…a little), but not before the holidays take a beating; in addition to bazooka-blasting front yard Christmas trees, there’s shopping maul—sorry, mall mayhem featuring terrorists, holiday shoppers and a truck-drivin’, Uzi-packin’ Norris. Sounds like your usual Black Friday store sale.
© Warner Bros.
LAPD homicide detective Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) may be “too old for this s**t,” but we never tire of this quintessential buddy cop movie. When the coked-out daughter of an army pal throws herself off a balcony playing “Jingle Bell Rock,” an unwilling Murtaugh investigates with fellow detective Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), a grieving widower with mad Special Forces skills and an apparent death wish. Riggs engages in a drug bust shootout amid overpriced Christmas trees, Murtaugh wonders if they’ll live long enough for Riggs to buy him a present, and the two uncover one golden ring of drug traffickers. The hilarious Yuletide jeers between Gibson and Glover, plus the adrenaline rush of Riggs chasing the bad guys’ getaway vehicle down Hollywood Boulevard, gets our chestnuts poppin’ every time.
© 20th Century Studios
Welcome to the party, pal! Die Hard is arguably the greatest action film to ever take place around the holidays. NYPD officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) comes to town (Los Angeles), where he runs around Nakatomi Plaza sans footwear to save estranged wife Holly (great Christmas name) from a crappy company Yuletide party and an extremely naughty list of burglars spearheaded by Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman). Besides the movie’s high body count, witty banter and a dead bad guy in an elevator with a sweater saying Now I have a machine gun. Ho-Ho-Ho, watching our hero jump off the roof of a 35-story skyscraper will send your T levels skyrocketing. It’ll also make you appreciate the fact that Willis got the role after 73-year-old Frank Sinatra declined the studio’s contractually obligated offer. (No offense to Ol’ Blue Eyes.)
© 20th Century Studios
Yippee ki yay, fothermucker! (Close enough.) On a very white Christmas Eve, Bruce Willis returns as John McClane, and unlike L.A., the weather outside Washington Dulles International Airport is frightful. McClane’s runnin’ in a winter wonderland to again save his now-reunited wife Holly, whose plane is out of fuel but can’t land because terrorists took over the airport to rescue an escaped dictator. If seeing snowmobile gun battles, conveyor belt and scaffold carnage, an angst-ridden Willis writhe in pain and not one but two plane explosions light up the night sky doesn’t bring good cheer to your testosterone, we’re not sure what will.
© Warner Bros.
Leave it to the Dark Knight to bring some crazy-ass tidings of great joy. Christmas in Gotham City looks like a living, breathing advertisement for low testosterone: depressed, melancholic, lifeless. Things pick up quick, though, when bizarro circus performers crash a tree lighting ceremony that’s hosted by a crooked business mogul (Christopher Walken). Then there’s the sewer-soaked Penguin (Dany DeVito), who runs for mayor and, after losing, attempts to kill the city’s firstborn sons (using a horde of, yep, penguins). Michael Keaton’s Batman is the film’s representation of Santa Claus – his Batmobile roasts gang members like marshmallows on an open fire, he unloads amazing new toys like the Batmissile and Batskiboat, and he dispenses the gift of justice to Gotham’s citizens. Add mistletoe and Michelle Pfeiffer as a skintight leather-clad Catwoman, and consider our Yule Log lit.
© New Line Cinema
THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996)
Screenwriter Shane Black, who also penned Lethal Weapon, gifts us with another holiday delight. After a post-Christmas party accident with a (rein?)deer, amnesiac schoolteacher and mom Samantha Caine (Geena Davis) slowly regains her memory – plus some expert motor skills with a knife, machine gun, you name it. Aided by a foul-mouthed, temperamental dick (Samuel L. Jackson), Samantha discovers she’s actually government assassin Charly Baltimore. Unfortunately, her old bosses know Samantha’s now sleeping, and they know Charly’s awake. Shootouts (with her kid in one arm, no less), a sleigh ride chase, bridge explosions, weaponized baked Alaska and Christmas parades ensue. And Davis in a thigh-booted Mrs. Claus outfit? Boom go the T levels.
© Warner Bros.
Unsolved murders. Scandals. Beatdowns. Payoffs. Bing Crosby and Dean Martin songs. Prostitution. A coffee shop massacre. Police and government corruption. Two Aussies playing very American detectives. Sure sounds like Christmas in 1950s Los Angeles! Forced together following a “Bloody Christmas” police station riot, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey are three wise men meting out their own ideas of justice to solve the diner murders. This awesome neo-noir adaptation of James Ellroy’s crime thriller is a testosterone present wrapped with festive lights, booze-soaked holiday parties and a cloak-sizzling Kim Basinger. On the charge of our hormones being elevated by tough-guy violence, sultry vixens and a sinful City of Angels during the most wonderful time of the year, we plead “guilty.”
© Warner Bros.
It’s a movie you can’t unsee: infidelity, holiday parties, prostitution aplenty, lewdness a-leapin', drugs, overdosing, a gonzo sex club in full-on orgy mode, Christmas trees in almost every scene and an F-bomb finish inside toy heaven FAO Schwartz. Oh, and did we mention it stars the world’s most famous Scientologist and his then-wife (Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman), or that it’s the final film by a perfectionist director of Jewish faith and a god of his craft? Eyes Wide Shut, or what has been jokingly referred to as A Stanley Kubrick Christmas, is by no means an “action” movie. It is, however, 165 beautifully shot minutes of constant unease, rampant innuendo, esoteric erotica and pitch-black humor that will make your testosterone jingle all the way.
© Miramax Films
Bonkers plot? Check. Crazy action set to a Christmas backdrop? Check. Hot sex scenes that’ll straighten out your candy cane? Oh hell, check. Ben Affleck is pro car thief Rudy (as in “Rudolph”), coming off a six-year prison stint and assuming the identity of his dead cellmate Nick (as in “St. Nick,” nudge-nudge), just so he can hook up with that schmoe’s mail correspondent girlfriend, Ashley (Charlize Theron). Rudy sure is one feliz navi-dude, but his Christmas tree quickly wilts when Ashley’s gun-running brother (Gary Sinese) forcibly recruits “Nick” for a casino heist. A casino shootout with Santa-suited robbers may elevate your testosterone, but it’s Charlize Theron’s…performance?...that’s guaranteed to melt the frostiest of snowballs.
© 20th Century Studios
On Christmas of all days, disgruntled Navy flyboy Chris Burnett’s (Owen Wilson) aircraft is shot down over war-ravaged Bosnia. While he’s dashing through the snow, around minefields and away from enemy gunfire, his commanding officer (Gene Hackman) fights an even bigger war at home: cutting through Hallmark Christmas bow-tied government red tape to launch a search-and-rescue of their boy. Ultimately, Burnett kills off his enemies in festive fashion (nothing brightens up the holiday like a lit flare to the chest, amirite?) and makes a spectacular leap off a cliff to catch a ride home from his C.O.-ordered helicopter. Looking past the overblown carnage and sleighbell-ringing political statements, Behind Enemy Lines is a testosterone-soaked Christmas gift that gets our blood flowing and leaves parts of us standing at attention.
© Warner Bros.
It’s another (Shane) Black Christmas, and there’s no place like homicide for the holidays. In fact, it’s what brings together two-bit thief Harry (Robert Downey Jr.), private eye Gay Perry (Val Kilmer) and Harmony (Micelle Monahan), a struggling actress and Harry’s childhood crush. Black’s directorial debut is a navidad noir send-up adorned with sharp-witted narration, fun punch-ups and shootouts, hungry dogs, below-the-belt torture, and depraved parties with human decorations and a naked woman painted up like a reindeer. We’d say, “Say no more,” except there’s also Monahan in a skimpy “Santa Baby” suit that’ll have countless men wanting their loved one to take a trip to the North Pole.
© Marvel Studios
Whatever the hell it is about Shane Black’s Christmas obsession, it works. Here, billionaire industrialist and Iron Man Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), already suffering from post-Avengers PTSD, is shellshocked by deadly ghosts from Christmases past and a new menace called the Mandarin. After Stark’s Malibu mansion is blown to bits, the injured Iron Man is forced to spend his holidays recuperating and repairing his armor suit in a small Tennessee town. Ultimately, he ends the threat of the Mandarin, but not before we’re served up a smorgasbord of custom Iron Man suits, a Christmas-gifted, 15-foot stuffed bunny (R.I.P.), missiles, plot twists, three renditions of “Jingle Bells,” and special effects and explosions galore. Trust us, Iron Man 3’ll shake the rust off any man’s “Christmas T.” After all, what guy doesn’t want to wear Shellhead’s armor and make stuff go kablooey?
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References:
Stanton SJ, Schultheiss OC. The hormonal correlates of implicit power motivation. J Res Pers. 2009 Oct 1;43(5):942. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2009.04.001. PMID: 20161646; PMCID: PMC2818294.
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