'Tis the season to begin complaining about spending time with one's family during the holidays. (If anyone reading this is related to me -- I'm not talking about you. Honest.) But as with all things, surviving Thanksgiving dinner with the relatives is really just a matter of perspective. So if Aunt Barb starts acting inappropriately after too much Franzia, and your Tea Party-ing cousin wants to show you irrefutable proof that the president is actually a Seventh-Day Adventist from Mars, just remind yourself how lucky you are not to be spending Turkey Day with these movie families:
The Chausseurs, The Ref
In this brittle and brilliant Christmas comedy, Caroline (Judy Davis) and Lloyd (Kevin Spacey) constantly bicker, his shrewish sister-in-law (Christine Baranski) finds fault with everything, his mother (Glynis Johns) is one of the most witheringly passive-aggressive women on the planet... and they're all being held hostage by jewel thief Gus (Denis Leary). And even worse, Caroline's been taking a Scandinavian cooking class.
The Tyrones, Long Day's Journey into Night
There aren't enough Al-Anon meetings on Earth to get you through a holiday with a family so very similar to that of playwright Eugene O'Neill, who wrote this blistering drama. Dad (Ralph Richardson) hits the bottle in frustration over being a has-been actor (brother Jamie, played by Jason Robards, drinks a lot himself) while mom (Katharine Hepburn) likes to dip into the morphine. It's a safe bet that no one under this roof can make pumpkin pie worth a damn.
The Bushes, W.
As presented by Oliver Stone, the Bush family seems like the kind that bottles up lots of resentments and then unleashes them at the worst possible times.
The Fleagles, Murder, He Says
In this cult comedy, Fred MacMurray plays a poll-taker searching for a missing co-worker. MacMurray winds up out in the sticks with the Fleagles, who have a tendency to shoot interlopers. Meanwhile, Ma Johnson (Marjorie Main -- of course) is out to find Bonnie Fleagle's hidden $70,000 from a bank heist while her husband has a tendency to poison people. It's a hilariously dark comedy as well as, according to some, the source for the theme music to NPR's "All Things Considered."
Leatherface and His Family, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Unless someone is actively attempting to murder you and/or feed you pieces of a close friend at Thanksgiving dinner, you've got it much better than the characters in this movie. Let that be your mantra, if necessary.