It's a Wonderful Life

Christmas movies are of course terrible, but the gold standard for Christmas movie awfulness is "It's a Wonderful Life". That's puzzling, in a way, because it is not a Christmas movie at all. It was released near Christmas in 1946, and approximately 1/4 of the movie takes place around Christmas. Somebody plays Hark, the Herald Angels Sing and I think there's a Christmas tree.

Is that all it takes? Most of the things that make this a wonderful life don't happen at Christmas time. The only scene in the movie I like is the bank run, which presumably happens in October. Mr. Bailey is a bank manager. It's what makes his life so wonderful. But the banks are closed on Christmas; how wonderful is that, people? Bank holidays *are* wonderful for most of us, but would it have been a less wonderful life if the movie were released on Memorial Day?

If that's all you need to make a movie a Christmas movie, well, I could make some suggestions. How about Brazil?