Polygram; 20th Century Fox (2)While the two-day blizzard has been anything but fun for the East Coast, it got us thinking about Hollywood's love of all things frozen.
Wintery fairytales like It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street aside, we're giving you the snow-filled scoop on some of the coldest movies we've ever seen, inlcuding Fargo, The Empire Strikes Back and even—gasp!—Snow Dogs.
Hot chocolate not included...
1. Fargo: Movie goers everywhere were exclaiming, "Yah, you betcha," after seeing Joel and Ethan Coen's 1996 dark comedy murder mystery starring Frances McDormand, William H. Macy and Steve Buscemi. Later, a television adaptation starring Edie Falco never made it past the pilot stage.
2. The Shining: Jack Nicholson stars as a writer who moves his family to an isolated hotel for a job as the off-season caretaker. No biggie, until he goes on a supernatural-induced rampage, trying to kill his wife and son shortly after a storm leaves them snowbound.
3. Alive: It's the kind of movie that leaves you asking, "What would you do?" Based on a Uruguayan rugby team involved in a 1972 plane crash into the frozen Andes mountains, the film details the survivors' decision to avoid starvation by eating the flesh of their dead pilots.
4. Snow Dogs: Cuba Gooding Jr. may be an Oscar-winner but that didn't stop him from signing on to play a dentist who travels to Alaska to claim the seven Siberian Huskies and a Border Collie he inherited from his birth mother. Despite being trashed by critics, Snow Dogs actually went on to turn a profit.
5. Eight Below: Hottie Paul Walker stars as a guide at an Antarctic research base, where a UCLA professor convinces him to take a trip to Mount Melbourne to help find a meteorite from Mercury. A series of accidents leaves them battling for their lives against hypothermia and frostbite.
6. The Thing: John Carpenter's 1982 cult classic centers around an extraterrestrial lifeform that infiltrates an Antarctic research station by taking on the appearance of the people it kills. And now, nearly 30 years after the original movie's release, a prequel is set to hit theaters in October 2011.
7. The Day After Tomorrow: It's no An Inconvenient Truth, but this flick does imagine global warming leading to a modern day ice age that causes the New York City skyline—and most of the Northern Hemisphere, for that matter—to freeze. Despite the frigid conditions, Jake Gyllenhaal still manages to remain totally smokin' hot as a student trying to survive the disaster in the famed New York City Public Library.
8. Better Off Dead: In this classic 1985 teen romantic comedy, John Cusack plays a suicidal high school student who tries to win back his ex-girlfriend by racing her new ski team captain boyfriend. Hilarity ensues as he speeds down the mountain on just one ski while the "I want my two dollars" paperboy chases after him on a bike.
9. The Empire Strikes Back: The Star Wars franchise's second installment features Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and other members of the Rebel Alliance hiding from Darth Vader and the Galactic Empire on the ice planet Hoth. When Luke is captured by a Wampa, he manages to escape but only to collapse in the frozen wasteland. It's then that the spirit of Obi-Wan Kenobi appears before him to give him a winter coat instruct him to go train under Jedi Master Yoda.
May the (warm) Force be with you.
—Reporting by Josh Grossberg
Now we'd love to hear from you because we know there are plenty more snowy movie options out there. Which cold filcks are you hot for? Leave your suggestions below.