By Trevor Pacelli
​What’s Christmas all about? Since I grew up in the Christian church, I was taught that the holiday is about celebrating Jesus’ birth, even though history doesn’t always agree. For starters, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th and many traditions, like tree decorating and mistletoe, originated from a pagan festival called Yule. Even for some who aren’t Christians, thinking of Christmas as a religious celebration is a humbling reminder not to get caught up in the commercialism, and that message is why so many people love A Charlie Brown Christmas. However, other widely loved Christmas specials assign different meanings to the holiday. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! implies that it’s about singing together, whereas Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer says it’s just about the toys. Figuring out the purpose of life is a massive reason certain stories, including these three Christmas classics, leave an impression on so many of us. Here are six Christmas-themed feature films I think do the best job in presenting a strong reason for the season:

By Trevor Pacelli
​Wow. Thirty years of Toy Story. To this day, it’s one of those movies that nobody seems to dislike, while the second installment is perhaps more loved than the first with its deeper narrative that expands further on the premise of toys coming to life. The series eventually received a third and fourth part, gave Buzz Lightyear a (rather phoned-in) spinoff, and next year, in 2026, Toy Story 5 will come out. To commemorate the legacy of this iconic series, I think now is a good time to look back on what made Toy Story so appealing to all ages.

By Trevor Pacelli
AMC movie theaters have been trying to keep themselves relevant by constantly playing an ad of Nicole Kidman monologuing about how magical the movie theatrical experience is: “That indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim… and we go somewhere we have never been before. Not just entertained but somehow reborn together. Dazzling images on a huge silver screen. Sound that I can feel. Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.” No offense to Nicole Kidman fans, but I always cringe whenever I see this super melodramatic ad that sums up everything wrong with how movies are currently advertised.

​By Trevor Pacelli
​Happiness is what we all want, right? Any good parent wants their kid to be joyful in whatever their circumstance, which is a wonderful mentality my parents sustained as they raised me to be a responsible adult. However, parents of past generations often communicated that their children’s emotions were invalid whenever they felt anything besides happy, sometimes being told to, “Stop crying!” We are learning now that children can’t stop crying on cue just because someone tells them to stop. I have noticed a cultural shift in how my generation of parents (millennials) is teaching their kids to process their emotions. Whenever my three-and-a-half-year-old niece cries, even about something as silly as getting startled by a loud noise, her parents just let her cry until she feels better, while comforting her with hugs. Their living room likewise reflects their parenting style with a sign on a wall that says, “All feelings are OK.”

By Trevor Pacelli
​Photography has been a hobby of mine since high school, and that combined with my special interest in movies drew me to visually striking movies. Being on the autism spectrum, I don’t follow verbal or written words as well as seeing a story or set of instructions visualized, so I connect well with movies made by directors who understand the meaning of “show don’t tell.” Therefore, here are fifteen movies that I believe best utilize the art of cinematography:

​By Trevor Pacelli
​What do you want to put your mind to? What do you want to accomplish? Those deep questions can be answered by analyzing Back to the Future, which repeatedly says, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” These words were originally told to Marty McFly by Doc Brown, and used again when Marty goes back in time to 1955 when his parents were supposed to meet, sharing the phrase with his father, George. Gaining something to put his mind to—a girl to protect, helps George accomplish the impossible, like taking down the guy who would bully him for the rest of his life. Because of George’s crucial decision from Marty’s interference, George is rewarded for his courage by growing up into a better version of himself rather than the pathetic loser he was in the original 1985. You too can learn quite a bit from this famous movie that’s now celebrating its 40th anniversary.

By Trevor Pacelli
Museums have always been among the main activities my mom and I enjoy doing together; between that and visiting zoos, she and I seem to bond best over culture, nature, and the arts. While we’ve found a preference for historical museums, the art museums we’ve seen are best when their exhibitions are pleasing to the eyes and were clearly made by an expert who spent a long time on the piece to trigger a specific emotion. Yet often, the art museums we’ve seen exhibit modern “art” that is just something like a white canvas with a single black dot in the center, or paint randomly splattered over a childish doodle, which to some people, isn’t really art. Like the curators in charge of what gets exhibited at art museums, the Academy of Motion Pictures award what they think is “art,” but I believe are simply products following a checklist of components films need to gain attention from Oscar voters. It’s why movies like Shakespeare in Love, Crash, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Green Book, and most recently Emilia Pérez have become so hated. They’re not movies the average person wants to watch with friends or family, nor are they providing worthwhile entertainment that can be talked about positively. The are signs that the Academy, and many elite groups of other artistic mediums, including museums, are growing frustratingly out-of-touch with their own industries and audiences.