Christmas is a time of giving.  It’s a time of joy.  It’s a time to fight Gary Busey on Danny Glover‘s front lawn.  There are plenty of Christmas movies that inspire a warm, fuzzy feeling but there are also Christmas movies that are downright bad-ass.  Among them is Richard Donner‘s Lethal Weapon.  Because the film takes place during the Christmas season, it qualifies as a Christmas movie, and we’d like you to help us bring the holiday cheer/Busey fight.  We’ve partnered with Tugg.com to host a screening of Lethal Weapon.  We need 58 people to sign up for the screening, which is on Thursday, December 20th at 7:30pm at Plaza Atlanta.  Tickets cost $10.00.  We only have 13 days to make this happen, so if you live in Atlanta, appreciate the site, and want to see a classic film on the big screen, then click over here and sign up.  Remember, you’ll only be charged if the screening happens.  If not enough people sign up, then the screening won’t happen, and that would ruin Christmas.

Don’t ruin Christmas.  Be sure to tell your friends via word of mouth, tweeting this link, and posting it on Facebook.  Hit the jump to check out the trailer for Lethal Weapon.

I’m a big fan of Tugg, especially since they had The Princess Bride in their library, which allowed us to host an awesome screening of the film back in October.  Tugg has added more titles to their library, and they’ve lined up a nice variety of holiday movies.  There are the ones that are fun for the whole family like Elf, Miracle on 34th Street, and Christmas Vacation, but they also have the films that are for a more mature audience.  While Tugg bills them as “feel-bad”, I don’t feel anything but joy from watching Die Hard and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.

Hit the jump to check out “Tugg’s Top 8 Feel-Bad Holiday Films”.  And for Atlanta readers, we’re hosting a screening of one of these movies… Look for an announcement soon.

This week on The Collision, we’ll be talking about franchise legacies: which directors have left their stamp on a franchise, what happens when a new director takes over, if a franchise’s success is linked with the director, and more.  This discussion ties in with our review of The Bourne Legacy, which handed off the director reigns from Paul Greengrass to Tony Gilroy.  As always, we’ll finish up the show with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode, click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. Be sure to follow The Collision on Twitter for updates, and you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

The Lethal Weapon franchise is like most franchises: It starts with a great idea and great characters, and then everything that follows is either interesting but not as good, or just simply misguided. It’s hard not to compare Weapon to other four film franchises, and perhaps it’s best to compare it to the Indiana Jones films. In that case, Lethal Weapon has the better fourth film, but it was never as good.

Regardless, director Richard Donner saw the chemistry between Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and knew there was something that could be exploited for all it was worth. They were joined at points by Gary Busey, Chris Rock, Joe Pesci, Jet Li, Rene Russo, Joss Acklund, Tom Atkins, Stuart Wilson and Patsy Kensit. Our review of the Lethal Weapon Collection Blu-ray follows after the jump.

Warner Bros. has announced a list of films, all of a certain name value, they intend to reboot/remake/re-imagine/re[insert-word-of-choice-here], The list, per Heat Vision, includes Lethal Weapon, Westworld, Oh God, The Dirty Dozen, Tarzan and The Wild Bunch.

The most likely to be green-lit is the Lethal Weapon reboot. Mel Gibson’s troubles have probably grounded whatever chance there was for a Lethal Weapon 5, so Warner Bros. instead seems committed to relaunching the franchise with a new cast and director.  Deadline reports Will Beall has been brought in to write the new Lethal Weapon flick. Beall is most widely known as the author of the acclaimed novel L.A. Rex. He most recently scripted the upcoming period crime film Gangster Squad with Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland) on board to direct.  Hit the jump for my thoughts on the matter.

With every favorites list – be it book, TV, or film – comes a bit of controversy. Several titles make the list that many feel shouldn’t have, while others are excluded that probably deserved mention. Last week we posted our Top 10 Christmas films, which more or less covered the films we felt reflected the spirit of the holidays. Due to the popularity (or lack thereof) of that list, we decided to put together an alternate Holiday Films collection without the constraints imposed upon the original list. In this instance we were free to include any and all films that took place within the holiday, whether they exuded a radiance of yuletide spirit or not. So, without further ado, hit the jump for Collider’s Alternate List of Christmas Films.