Traditions are everything for me at Christmas time. As far back as my memory reaches, my parents always made the holidays a very special time. The decorations, picking out the live tree, TV Christmas specials all became parts of December that I treasured.
As a film fanatic, there are non-holiday films that will always be vivid Christmas memories, just because they opened in the theaters in December. I remember seeing "The Towering Inferno" with my Dad on a huge screen opening night. James Bond's "Diamonds Are Forever" and "The Man with the Golden Gun" both premiered in the early seventies in massive theaters decked out with yuletide cheer.
Christmas themed films are annual treats for many of us. The holiday doesn't really start for me until we I some of the top ranked films on this list.
Here are my Top 10 Christmas movies, and stay tuned at the end for 5 lumps of coal to avoid at all costs.
10. Die Hard
It may have been 25+ years since Bruce Willis hit the big screen as John McLane in the original DIE HARD, but this action classic STILL rocks.
Willis is NYC detective McLane, arriving on Christmas Eve to visit his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) at her new high profile job at Nakatomi Tower. Separated, they barely have time to meet, get close and fight in her office before a group of terrorists take over the building.
WIllis manages to escape and become a one man army against the bad guys. It's so well executed on every level, DIE HARD made Willis a movie star and it still holds up great today.
Alan Rickman is the greatest Euro villain ever and his Hans Gruber has been often copied, but never equaled. Reginald VelJohnson is really good as Sgt. Powell, the only cop with any common sense on the scene, battling with FBI agents Johnson & Johnson and a whole lot of twinkies. Having spent some time in the 20th Century Fox towers, filling in here as Nakatomi, its amazing how much of the building they appear to explode, shoot up and destroy. The special effects team led by Richard Edlund (Star Wars, Raiders) works overtime to great effect, as does Michael Kamen's best movie score.
One of the best action films of the 80's, DIE HARD still packs the same explosive punch that it did back in 1988. It sits nicely in my top 100 of all time, with an annual Christmas season revisit...and YES, it's a Christmas Movie!
Yipee-Kay-Aye! it gets an A.
9. Love Actually
One of the best modern Christmas films, LOVE ACTUALLY bears viewing every year, delivering plenty of seasonal laughs, tears and smiles.
A massive cast portrays plenty of likable characters, including eight unique couples that eventually cross paths after a very eventful holiday season.
Hugh Grant is The Prime Minister, newly elected, single and attracted to his daffy new secretary Natalie (charming Marlene McCutcheon) who melts into profanity every time he's around.
Karen (Emma Thompson) is married to successful businessman Harry (Alan Rickman) whose power entices his assistant Mia far beyond flirtation.
Sarah (Laura Linney) has worked for Harry for years and is madly in love with co-worker Carl (Rodrigo Santoro). Everyone in the office knows it, but the two of them continue to dance all around their romance.
Meanwhile, Liam Neeson is Daniel, newly widowed, heartbroken and coaching his 11 year old stepson through his first love.
Colin Firth is a writer nursing a broken heart that falls for his housekeeper, even though neither of them can understand a word the other is saying.
Bill Nighy is hilarious as aging rockstar Billy Mack, whose self proclaimed money grab of a new Christmas song serves as a constant thread through the film.
Sprinkle in Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln (long before "The Walking Dead"!) and Rowan Atkinson, surround them with a sincere, funny and sweet screenplay by Richard Curtis, let him take the directing chair as he did with "Notting Hill" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and enjoy. It's incredible that he juggles this many stories and folks and draws you into nearly every tale.
Only one story thread, involving Martin Freeman as a stand-in working in the adult film industry, falls flat, feeling forced in from another, much less classy film. But its a minor misstep in an otherwise flawless film.
Hugh Grant's never been more charming. His scenes sparring with American President Billy Bob Thornton are excellent.
This is a fun film no matter how many times you've seen it. It will tug your heart while making you laugh out loud.
After enjoying these folks for a couple hours, you really will believe that love IS all around you and that there's NO better time than Christmas to share those feelings.
This romantic comedy is a modern classic and gets an A.
8. Miracle on 34th Street (1994)
1994's Miracle on 34th Street is a welcome addition to any holiday season. A remake of the classic holiday film, this 90's version stars Richard Attenborough as Kriss Kringle, a NYC department store Santa who may be more than he seems, Elizabeth Perkins as an executive at that dept store who has carved out a life with her daughter filled with riches but missing any true happiness and a young Dylan McDermott as her neighbor, a lawyer who loves her from a distance. The star of the film is little Mara Wilson as the daughter, Susan, the role that first made a young Natalie Wood famous in the original film. Wilson is a doll, with great delivery and a sweet performance. It's a story you know, but its delivered with some fresh (for the 90's) spins and with good holiday flavor. Attenborough IS the perfect Santa, Bruce Boughton's music score is excellent and its got a great warm happy ending for the whole family without boring the adults! Look for Allison Janney, Mary McCormack and Horatio Sanz in small, early roles in their careers. A sweet, heartfelt holiday film, we'll fill it's stocking with a solid A.
This one is a must watch every holiday season.
7. Bad Santa
Back in 2003 when BAD SANTA first hit theatres, Tamara and I went to a late night show and about fell out of our chairs laughing. As someone who loves everything about Christmas, it was the perfect nasty, offensive, dirty holiday joke ever played on yuletide audiences expecting a holiday movie.
Thankfully it holds up just as nastily as mandatory yearly late night viewing at home.
Billy Bob Thornton is Willie, a profane, alcoholic safe cracker who poses each year as St Nick to gain access to department store safes stuffed with holiday cash.
His partner in crime is the diminutive Marcus, who plays Elf to Willie's Santa and manages to slide through plenty of air ducts to get to security panels and alarm systems.
Tony Cox plays Marcus with quick wit, fast fists and a never ending bag of one liners.
As Christmas nears, our guys run into several hilarious obstacles. First is a VERY funny John Ritter as a department store manager very sensitive to profanity and suspicious of our duo. Ritter delivers a terrific performance, squirming as he repeats some of Willie's behaviors to his security chief Gin, played to perfection by Bernie Mac.
Lauren Graham has a ton of fun (and backseat and Jacuzzi yuletide passion with Willie) as a bartender with a thing for Santa and young Brett Kelly is fearless as The Kid, a pudgy, snot-dripping, curly headed shy victim of bullies who finds a special bond with Willie, who soon finds himself living with The Kid and his half-there grandmother (Cloris Leachman) in their sprawling suburban Phoenix home.
If that sounds like the film treads into "feel good" territory, fear not. Director Terry Zwigoff (Ghost World, Crumb) and writers Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Crazy Stupid Love, Focus) have crafted a story that's decidedly more filled with attempted suicide, murder, fist fights and loud sex than sugar plums and brightly wrapped gifts.
Bad Santa is a dark, decadent gift of jet black comedy with Thornton's all-in, nasty performance at its center. As usual, Thornton is brilliant. Does any American actor do sarcasm better than Billy Bob? I can't think of one.
If you're looking for a family holiday treat, leave this one buried under the tree. If you need a nasty, twisted, dark and dirty holiday present, pull BAD SANTA out of Willie's dirty, puke-stained Santa bag. It gets an A every year!
Followed in 2016 by Bad Santa 2.
6. Home Alone 2
Always a ton of fun around the holidays, this big box office success from 1992 and terrific sequel to the original, HOME ALONE 2 delivers laughs and Christmas fun for the whole family.
Writer John Hughes and Director Chris Columbus manage to set up another funny scenario in which Kevin (Macauley Culkin) ends up on a flight to New York while his entire family ends up on a flight to Florida.
Once in Manhattan, Kevin manages to book a room at The Plaza, meet Trump and garner the attention of the hapless Wet Bandits Harry & Marv (Joe Pesci & Daniel Stern) who have recently escaped from jail and headed to the Big Apple for a big score.
Macauley is hilarious and adept at all the physical comedy and manages once again to create a massive mouse trap of violent comedic traps for our bumbling bad guys.
Brenda Fricker manages to have some nice holiday themed moments as a homeless woman in Central Park and Tim Curry damn near steals the whole movie in a hilarious role as the Concierge at The Plaza.
Curry makes every facial expression and bit of physical comedy work as he takes every measure to get Kevin tossed out of The Plaza, to no more avail than our bandits.
Ron Schneider has some funny moments as a Bellman and Catherine O'Hara reliably delivers as Kevin's absent minded Mom.
Family fun (as long as the little ones dont decide to throw bricks at people's heads like Kevin does, belting Marv a dozen hilarious times), HOME ALONE 2 delivers plenty of HO HO HO and gets a holiday cheer drenched A!
5. The Polar Express
It's a family tradition around our house to see a movie on the night before Thanksgiving to kickoff the holiday season. One of our all-time favorites was an IMAX 3D screening of Robert Zemeckis' 2004 holiday hit THE POLAR EXPRESS.
Zemeckis, who has always been on the cutting edge of technology to create new experiences on film (Forrest Gump, Who Framed Roger Rabbit) launched new ground in motion capture with Express.
Actors wear motion capture suits to capture their performance and then they can digitally be created as any person or creature on film.
Its beautifully suited for this expanded film version of the classic holiday children's book by Chris Van Allsburg.
A young boy is realizing on Christmas Eve that he is starting to have doubts about holiday traditions and for him, believing is in its final moments.
He finds himself whisked away by a massive train that pulls up on his street, invited aboard by an energetic conductor and meeting many young friends aboard.
They travel to the North Pole to meet Santa on Christmas Eve, experiencing plenty of amazing digital action scenes and beautiful scenery and adventures along the way. The camera angles of these sequences could only be captured through digital magic and Zemeckis makes the most of it.
Tom Hanks plays the boy, the conductor, a hobo, the boys father and Santa Claus and gives each role a different spin, often disappearing behind his new computer facade.
What the film captures is the magic of believing, the treasured warmth of family traditions, the moments that make the holiday season so treasured to many.
A great music score by Alan Silvestri and songs by Glen Ballard are sprinkled throughout. Watch for an elf version of Steven Tyler near the end.
Perfect for repeated family viewing, its become a holiday favorite for kids of ALL ages in our house, including this overgrown kid.
It's a special film with it's heart in the right place and for those of us that treasure Christmas family traditions, it hits a very special note perfectly.
I can still hear the bells.
The Polar Express is a ride worth taking every year and gets an A.
4. Elf
A dozen years after its release, 2003's ELF has deservedly become a perennial Christmas classic.
Will Ferrell has arguably his best film role as Buddy the elf, a human orphan that manages to climb into Santa's bag one night while Santa (Ed Asner, perfectly cast) is busy checking out the cookies.
Buddy grows up at the North Pole with the elves, but like Steve Martin's Nathan in "The Jerk" doesn't realize he's any different from the rest of the family.
In a sequence that pays clever and funny tribute to the Rankin/Bass TV Christmas specials of the sixties, Buddy sets off on an ice flow to get to Manhattan and reconnect with his human father.
On the Naughty list, Buddy's dad, Walter (James Caan) has no idea that he has a son. A ruthless publisher with no time for anything but work, Walter soon finds himself with a six foot plus man dressed in full elf regalia calling him Dad.
Ferrell can be an acquired taste on film, but here, his all-out commitment to being an elf fits the character perfectly and you can't help but cheer for the overgrown elf-man.
Director Jon Favreau (Ironman) gets a lot of things right, especially by supporting Ferrell with a terrific cast, including Bob Newhart as his adopted elf Dad, Mary Steenburgen as Walter's wife, Zooey Deschanel (perfect) as Buddy's co-worker/love interest and Peter Dinklage as a pretentious childrens book author.
So many classic scenes. "You're Not Santa!", eating cotton balls in the dr's office, Buddy's stint in the mailroom and of course the heart warming holiday finale in Central Park.
Fun, funny and perfect for yearly viewing, ELF has a heart as big as Buddy's and gets an A.
3. It's A Wonderful Life
Christmas movies don't arrive any more beloved or moving than Frank Capra's 1946 classic, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. Almost 80 years after its release, none of the holiday magic has faded, thanks to Jimmy Stewart and an amazing cast.
Stewart stars as local boy George Bailey, who can't wait to get out of tiny Bedford Falls and see the world. We watch his early years unfold via some sparkling stars in the cosmos, who share Bailey's life story with Clarence (Henry Travers) an angel hoping to earn his wings by coming down to Earth and helping George on one dark & fateful night.
What surprised me on my first viewing of the film years ago, was just how dark some of its moments are. Suicide is pondered and lives seem torn apart.
Frank Capra's genius with films like "It Happened One Night"(1934), "Lost Horizon" (1937) and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) was an uncanny ability to mix comedy, drama and unabashed patriotism, without shying away from life's life & death moments.
This was Capra's first post-WWII film and he's clearly committed to showing the goodness in all of us after the human terrors of the war. But you can't show good without showing the bad and boy, does Mr. Potter, the owner of the town bank exemplify that category. Mean-spirited, ruthless and uncaring, Potter is out to destroy the smaller Savings and Loan that George'e father built from scratch. George shares his father's traits as a generous man more concerned with his customers than himself, which isn't a great business plan, but certainly serves to set up a terrific payoff. Lionel Barrymore is despicable as Mr. Potter. He was the Grinch before Dr. Seuss invented him, sneering and laughing at everyone he takes advantage of in the town.
Bedford Falls is loaded with great characters and superb actors playing them.
Donna Reed is fantastic as Mary, the girl George courts and eventually marries. The early scenes of them just out of high school are hilarious. Stewart is the perfect every-man and Reed matches his charm.
Sara Edwards is hilarious as Mrs. Hatch, Mary's Mom who wants her to marry anyone but George. Thomas Mitchell is fine as Uncle Harry, providing plenty of laughs along with some strong dramatic moments that set up the finale.
The film was not a hit when it was released but it eventually gained a huge following. It was aired many times by public broadcasting channels during the Christmas season in the 70's, where it became an annual tradition for many families in America.
The story is timeless and Stewart is fantastic, morphing from a gee-whiz student getting ready for college, to a businessman trying to save his town. He's the perfect actor for Capra's inspirational speeches, firing up his customers like the pre-battle Mel Gibson in "Braveheart". But it's in the film's dramatic moments that Stewart really shines. His desperation holding his son tight to him as his world spins out of control grabs you by the throat.
No matter how many Christmas seasons that I revisit it, the last 15 minutes still inspire and move me as George's generosity of spirit comes back to him ten-fold.
There are riches beyond the obvious to unwrap here upon repeat viewings.
The script is witty and smart, with screenwriters Dalton Trumbo (Roman Holiday, Spartacus), Clifford Odets (Sweet Smell of Success) and the legendary Dorothy Parker all offering uncredited contributions to the screenplay.
While it was made in the 40's, it's takes on love, sex and society are sharply observed in a mode that's less graphic but no less telling. Stewart and Reed are flat out hilarious in the screwball comedy sections sprinkled between the drama.
We unwrap IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE every year. It's a gift that keeps on giving as it approaches 100 years old.
Listen for the bells, this Christmas classic just got its wings and an A+.
2. White Christmas
It's hard to believe I made it to 2013 without ever seeing the holiday classic WHITE CHRISTMAS, but it's pretty safe to say that this old fashioned, corny but fun Christmas flick will now be a yearly staple.
The film opens with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye putting on a Christmas stage show in the middle of World War II near the battle front. General Waverly (Dean Jagger, much softer than I've ever seen him before) is about the leave the troop and his squadron gives him a stirring salute via song.
These just aren't any songs, they're by the great Irving Berlin and are all highlights throughout the movie.
After the war, Crosby and Kaye become a hugely successful singing duo, taking Broadway and the country by storm.
Danny Kaye is hilarious and limber in some great dance routines. His constant matchmaking for his partner Crosby ends up with them meeting and chasing a female singing duo, played by Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.
All four find themselves at a Vermont ski lodge owned by their former General that has fallen on hard times due to no snow and sparse visitors.
The rest of the film is predictable but sweet and so well executed by our four stars that the cliches are overwhelmed by the song and dance numbers and holiday goodwill.
This was Paramount's first film in ultra widescreen VistaVision back in 1954. It was directed by Michael Curtiz, who also helmed Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, a strong trio of film classics!
The songs are great, the technicolor widescreen photography is excellent and our stars are all in great form. This is the youngest I have ever seen Bing Crosby. He has great stage presence and is a much better dancer than I ever would have imagined, having only seen him much older in his Christmas specials when I was a kid.
Filmed nearly 60 years ago (what's with those women's hairstyles!?) White Christmas is a holiday treat we will be enjoying as a yearly tradition from now on and we'll give it a big bright, snow covered A.
1. Christmas Vacation
A yearly holiday tradition, Christmas Vacation never fails to crack us up. Betting you all have your favorite moments too, ours are Chevy in the attic, the family dinners and Cousin Eddie. If you cant quote at least a half dozen lines from this holiday classic, don't talk to me in December!
The height of Chevy Chase's career and sizzling with a cast of old pros and quick upstarts, laughs abound.
Eddie: You surprised? Clark: Surprised, Eddie? If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am right now.
Aunt Bethany: [Hearing a squeak] What's that sound? You hear it? It's a funny squeaky sound. Uncle Lewis: You couldn't hear a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.
Ellen: What are you looking at?
Clark: Oh, the silent majesty of a winter's morn... the clean, cool chill of the holiday air... an asshole in his bathrobe, emptying a chemical toilet into my sewer...
[Eddie, in the driveway, is draining the RV's toilet]
Eddie: Shitter was full.
Clark: Ah, yeah. You checked our shitters, honey?
Clark: Since this is Aunt Bethany's 80th Christmas, I think she should lead us in the saying of Grace.
Aunt Bethany: [turns to Lewis] What, dear?
Nora Griswold: Grace!
Aunt Bethany: Grace? She passed away thirty years ago.
Uncle Lewis: They want you to say Grace.
[Bethany shakes her head in confusion]
Uncle Lewis: The BLESSING!
Clark: Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?
Frances: [looking at Ruby Sue surprised] Oh my gosh, her eyes aren't crossed anymore.
Eddie: That somethin' ain't it? She falls down a well, her eyes go crossed. She gets kicked by a mule. They go back to normal. I don't know.
We just watched it last week, can't wait to watch it again.
Merry Christmas, she's a beaut Clark, and she gets an A.
And now, the holiday garbage that no one wants Santa to deliver down the chimney in no particular order. Lets' start with a controversial choice for some but a clear lump of coal for me:
A Christmas Story
As much as I love all things Christmas, someone needs to tell me what I am missing when it comes to 1983's A CHRISTMAS STORY.
Based in the 1940's in Cleveland (poor Cleveland, first the Browns and now this) the tale is an old fashioned yarn about Ralphie (Peter Billingsley, the best thing in the movie) and his desire for a Red Ryder BB gun.
His Dad (Darren McGavin, making his Kolchak portrayal seem subtle) and his Mom (Melinda Dillon, whiny and annoying) are not behind the idea.
His Dad is too busy battling the furnace repeatedly and loving his new leg lamp to notice much and his Mom just thinks he'll put his eye out.
Ralphie and his friends battle bullies at school and he constantly day dreams of saving the day with his fully loaded Red Ryder.
I am missing something.
I didn't laugh, it didn't make me feel especially holiday-ish and I found the repeated sped-up Benny Hill antics boring.
The whole thing just plays like a bad Garrison Keillor radio play brought to life.
If I had a dollar for every time I looked at my watch, I'd have more than enough to recover my rental fee.
I know a lot of people love it, but man it just doesn't click with my sense of humor.
Maybe I just have a problem with Director Bob Clark. His other huge film hit was "Porky's" in 1981 and I hated that movie, walking out after about a half hour when it was in theaters, something I've only done maybe five times in my life.
SO I guess I'll just leave this one wrapped up and ready for all the fans out there to soak up every year. I'll stick with Christmas Vacation, Love Actually and Elf as modern holiday classics.
For me, this is dumb, annoyingly boring and gets a bah humbug, coal in its stocking and a D.
Bad Santa 2
Maybe there should be a maximum time that you're able to wait between sequels, or maybe there should be an unwritten rule that the original writer or director should come back...
Any of those factors might have helped the sequel BAD SANTA 2, which lazily limps to the finish line as a poor imitation of the original.
The good news is that Billy Bob Thornton is back 13 years later as Willie Soke. He's game to make Willy even more pathetic and desperate than in the original film. When your opening scenes focus on failed suicide attempts, you're not leaving yourself much room to sink lower.
Our fat little boy Thurman Merman is back, still played by Brett Kelly, but showing little gains in brain power since his childhood.
Kathy Bates is pretty damn funny as Willie's mom, whose rounded Willie and his elf sidekick Marcus (Tony Cox) up for a major Christmas robbery of a huge charity whose owners match Willie and team for depravity.
Some scenes are very funny, but its so lazy that it tries to create scenes from the original again with new characters, and they don't measure up.
It should be against the law to waste Octavia Spencer (The Help, Hidden Figures) in a small role this underwritten and unfunny.
Billy Bob is so good, there are moments where you actually feel emotion for his character, which is hard to imagine.
Unfortunately the more Willie tries to find a better path, the less the film resembles the dark and twisted first film.
Crude, mean and nasty just like the original, the humor's not for everyone. For me, its just disappointing. Audiences must have agreed, as it sunk quickly at the theaters.
Suffice to say when Christmas rolls around every year and we need a break from the family holiday flicks, we will always find time for the original.
BAD SANTA 2? It's one and done for me and I'll give it a D.
Father Figures
Let me give you an early Christmas present by helping you avoid the giant celluloid lump of coal FATHER FIGURES.
Wasting an immense amount of talent and gaining a top spot on Santa's naughty list by giving away 90% of the laughs in the trailers, this stinker will come and go quickly in theatres.
Uptight brother and proctologist (oh gee that's funny already) Peter is played by Ed Helms, who is a very funny actor but asked to play straight man for most of the movie.
His loose, surfer brother Kyle (Owen Wilson, clearly coasting here) is visiting for their Mom's wedding to her new beau (Harry Shearer, a great comedian given nothing to do).
Their Mom (Glenn Close, doing what she can with a mediocre part) divulges that she's not sure who their Dad was, sending the boys on a road trip to find him.
Is it football legend Terry Bradshaw? Bradshaw has a lot of fun and is really good here, playing a dumbed down version of himself.
Is it a wealthy financial guy, played by JK Simmons?
Is it Christopher Walken, a local veterinarian?
More importantly, is this a comedy?
Is this a family drama or maybe a dramedy?
The filmmakers have no idea. There were moments played for drama that made me snicker they were so poorly executed and there were long comic scenes that sat lifeless with zero laughs.
The only redeeming features of the film are Ving Rhames as a former football player and Katt Williams, who appears near the end of the film as a hitchhiker. He nails every line and steals the movie immediately.
More of a giant steaming reindeer turd that a holiday gift, FATHER FIGURES gets a D.
Jingle All the Way
I managed to get through two decades of Christmas seasons without watching Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1996 holiday film JINGLE ALL THE WAY. So why in the world did I watch it now? iTunes had a holiday movies button, I clicked on it and the rest is history.
I should have worked harder to keep my non-viewing streak going on this one.
I’m a sucker for Christmas movies of almost any kind, from favorites like “The Polar Express” to “Christmas Vacation” and “Elf” to lesser but enjoyable holiday movies like “Four Christmases”, there are those perennials that we come back to every season.
This one wont be on that repeat viewing list.
Arnold made plenty of great movies in this era, action was his strong suit but he often showed great comic timing in films like “True Lies”. Suffice to say when it comes to full tilt comedy, Schwarzenegger was less gifted. It’s all giant expressions and over reactions in his portrayal of Howard, a workaholic Dad who’s late for every school play or judo tournament.
After letting down his son Jamie (Jake Lloyd, showing the same child thespian talents (?) he unraveled as a young Darth Vader in Lucas’s early Star Wars trilogy) yet again, he promises to make it up by getting the hottest toy on the planet on Christmas Eve.
Gee, do you think it’s sold out? Do you think maybe they’ll be montages of crazy shoppers battling each other in the aisles in search of the Turbo Man action figure?
Right now, think of every cliché that might happen in Arnie’s quest and I promise you they all happen here.
Sinbad is one-note, borderline disturbing and not great as a mailman on the same quest for his son. Phil Hartman brings the film’s only laughs as Howard’s next door neighbor hoping to move in on Howard’s wife, played by Rita Wilson. None of these characters act like any humans you ever met.
Throughout the film, Howard manages to light houses on fire, be part of a bombing at a radio station and commits at least a half dozen felonies, but we just move on to the next scene.
You see the heartwarming ending coming a mile away, except for Sinbad’s absurd antics. Harvey Korman and Larraine Newman are completely wasted in small roles. Robert Conrad has some fun as a cop who keeps popping up but never quite gets Howard.
Poor Arnold. He just looks uncomfortable, straining for every laugh. This might be the longest 90-minute film I’ve ever seen. WOOF, what a dog. We’ll file it away with “Fred Claus” as a once-is-more-than-enough Christmas movie. We’ll give it a lump of coal and a D.
Last and least, we have....
A Merry Friggin' Christmas
It's been a long time since I've seen a Christmas movie as bad as A MERRY FRIGGIN' CHRISTMAS. What a colossal waste of talent!
Joel McHale stars as Boyd Mitchler, a Clark Griswold knock off who treasures family traditions and is determined to give his family the perfect holidays that his father Mitch (Robin Williams) never gave him as a child.
Joel and his wife Luann (Lauren Graham) are invited to his his parents house, where all sorts of holiday hijinks ensue involving his mother (Candice Bergen), brother (Clark Duke) and sister (Wendi Mclendon-Covey).
Now normally all those stars above are very funny people. VERY funny! But even their comedy timing can't save this horrible screenplay and unfunny shtick.
When Boyd and Luann realize they have left their son's presents at home, Boyd, his brother and his Dad load up the truck and attempt to drive all the way to Chicago and back Christmas eve before the kids wake up.
This is truly an awful movie.
At one point, our road trio thinks they have hit and killed a hobo in the road and they start having a conversation about how to chop up the body to hide it. You will just shake your head.
It wants to be "Bad Santa" and "Christmas Vacation" and "Home Alone" but just ends up being crap.
It's only 79 minutes long (plus 9 MINUTES of credits to stretch to 88!) and it feels hours longer.
There are no laughs, just painful embarrassment as our cast realizes they have signed on for a real holiday dog. Williams looks especially aware of how bad this really is and the three power female comedians are given very little to do, what a waste.
It's only appropriate to review this Christmas turkey on Thanksgiving weekend and it give a giant lump of coal and an F.
Pick any one of the top ten, grab your eggnog, light the fireplace and settle in everyone! Merry Christmas from George at the Movies!
Comments