Home (Video) for the Holidays

With the family at home for the Christmas holidays, it’s the perfect time to watch yuletide and New Year’s movies. And if you want something a tad different than “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “The Miracle on 34th Street” or “A Christmas Carol,” check out some of these more offbeat holiday films.

Doris Day and Frank Sinatra may seem like an odd pairing, but they are quite believable together in the sentimental musical “Young at Heart” (Warner, $20). This 1954 melodrama finds Sinatra playing a cynical, penniless musician and composer who falls in love with a sunny, small-town gal. Though not a Christmas movie, the very dramatic climax takes place during the holidays. Be sure to have your hankie ready. Gig Young also stars.

Also available on video is “Four Daughters” (MGM, $20), the original 1938 tear-jerker on which “Young at Heart” is based. The movie is best known for introducing John Garfield, who received an Oscar nomination for his incisive portrayal of the bitter musician. Priscilla Lane and Jeffrey Lynn also star in this classic based on Fannie Hurst’s novel “Sister Act.”

Christmastime is the setting for the charming 1995 romantic comedy “While You Were Sleeping” (Touchstone, $15). Sandra Bullock, in her best performance, stars in this box-office hit as a young woman who has to pretend she’s engaged to a handsome but comatose young man (Peter Gallagher) after she rescues him from a mugging. His colorful family falls madly in love with her when they meet her at the hospital and invites her home for Christmas. Bill Pullman and Peter Boyle also star.

Dysfunction reigns supreme in the 1968 Oscar-winning classic “The Lion in Winter” (Columbia TriStar, $15). James Goldman penned this literate adaptation of his Broadway play about the battle of wits between King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and his estranged wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), when the two reunite with their three back-stabbing sons for the Christmas holidays. Hepburn won her third Oscar for her biting, clever performance, and O’Toole has never been better. The picture also marks the film debuts of Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton.

Kenneth Branagh wrote and directed “A Midwinter’s Tale” (Columbia TriStar), a 1996 comedy about a group of actors trying to stage a production of “Hamlet” in a small town during the Christmas season. Michael Maloney, Joan Collins and Richard Briers star in this amusing though uneven farce, which was shot in black-and-white. Ironically, Branagh’s next film was “Hamlet.”

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a visit from “The Brady Bunch.” In the kitschy 1988 TV movie, “A Very Brady Christmas” (Paramount, $15), Mike (Robert Reed) and Carol (Florence Henderson) decide to invite the whole “Bunch” home for the holidays. Ann B. Davis, Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, Barry Williams, Christopher Knight and Michael Lookingland star.

What better way to spend New Year’s Eve than watching “The Poseidon Adventure” (Fox, $15 and $20), the delicious all-star 1972 disaster flick. The Poseidon is on its last cruise from New York to Athens on New Year’s Eve when it’s hit and capsized by a tidal wave. Gene Hackman, Leslie Nielsen, Red Buttons and Shelley Winters, who received a best supporting actress nomination, star in this blockbuster.

Kathryn Bigelow’s visually arresting but often disturbing 1995 thriller “Strange Days” (Fox, $15 and $20) is set in Los Angeles in 1999 and features an exciting, violent New Year’s Eve celebration in downtown L.A. Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett star.