With Christmas less than a week away, anyone who hasn't been enjoying or at least witnessed or acknowledged the presence of Holiday specials and movies, it's becoming pretty much unavoidable. We might have been paying a little too close attention to some holiday movies, but there are certainly some movies that have Christmas written all over them, but might not necessarily be fresh on your mind.

And so, today The ScreenRider presents to you, some Not-So-Christmas, Christmas Movies.

What follows are movies that have Christmas interwoven into the plot, or the plot at least takes place at Christmastime. But these movies aren't always remembered for their holiday significance. Here they are in no particular order:

Batman Returns

"Mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it, but a kiss can be even deadlier if you mean it." Oh, the Christmas love between Batman and Catwoman!

That has Christmas written all over it. Add that to the creepy dark-circus henchmen flying out of giant Christmas presents, a swarm of bats flying out of a pseudo Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, the villainous Penguin (inspired casting of Danny DeVito) with rocket-equipped penguins, and of course the centerpiece of any real Christmas celebration: Father Christmas himself...Christopher Walken.

On a more serious note though, despite the Hot Topic feel of some of Tim Burton's elements in his chapters of the Batman franchise, they still hold up as strong comic book movies and much better than one or two other Batman movies. The holiday setting and scenes set in softly falling snow are cinematically beautiful and provide some visuals not usually seen in a superhero movie.

Go

If I asked you what the hardest thing is to get done on Christmas Eve, you'd probably say something like shopping or driving on the highway. How about dealing drugs and getting laid?

Go tells the story of one Christmas Eve gone horribly wrong from 3 different perspectives as an ensemble cast including Timothy Olyphant, Scott Wolf, Jay Mohr and Breckin Meyer are all somehow effected by one drug deal gone bad. Doug Liman directed this cheerful holiday film before he got swept off his feet by Jason Bourne. This movie packs a punch, and is truly a snapshot of the late 90's or at least the dirtier and grittier part of it. After all, it's not too often that Scott Wolf is even seen in human form anymore.


Best holiday moment:

Todd: What do you want for Christmas, Claire?
Claire: ...I don't know.
Todd: You wanna get laid?
Claire: No.
Todd: No, you don't wanna get laid, or no, you do, but you don't wanna get laid - with me?

Catch Me If You Can

Why would you sit down to try to see Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks try to extend a 32 page children's book into a 90 minute holiday-musical, motion-capture animated adventure with glass-eyed, un-emotive characters when you could watch a real Christmas caper?

You might not realize it upon first flashback, but Catch Me if You Can is definitely a Christmas movie. While most of the chase itself doesn't involve Christmas, DiCaprio's Frank Abagnale, Jr spells it out for us: [when Carl catches up to him in the print shop in Montrichard] "Carl? Carl! Merry Christmas! How is it we're always talking on Christmas, Carl? Every Christmas, I'm talking to you!" And let's not forget that CHRISTOPHER WALKEN is in it!

Holiday bonus: Try this joke from Tom Hanks' character, Agent Carl Hanratty at your Christmas dinner

Gremlins

The fact that this movie combines elements of the horror, family and comedy genres of film is crazy enough, but then add to the pot that it takes place at Christmas and you've got one hell of a great holiday classic. Besides the fact that no one has seen Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates since the early 90's, this film is still close to the hearts of all those who enjoy everything associated with Steven Spielberg. Corey Feldman also appears over 20 years before he would ruin television.

And also if you need a reminder as to how good you have it on Christmas, even if you spend it with your in-laws, you've probably never had it THIS BAD. Or for that matter as bad as the ridiculously cartoon intensified Gremlins 2: The New Batch.


Die Hard

This movie is pretty much everything that Reindeer Games tried to be. But let's face it, Ben Affleck is no John McClane. Hell he's barely even Ben Affleck anymore.

Action and Christmas have never been so cohesively entwined. Alan Rickman (who is better known to a younger, less enlightened generation of movie-goers as Severus Snape) was quite possibly the best villain of the 80's as the very diabolical and very German Hans Gruber (The Santa Claus of terrorists) with his long haired German elves.

Of course Gruber is no match for the quick wit and mass of might that is John McClane (written on a dead henchman's shirt: "Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho.") and of course, of later Family Matters fame, Carl Winslow himself.