Holiday Movie Category: Christmas With the Shits
THE CARD:
The Sham in Grisham, floppy hermy boobs, an embarrassed Ray Stanz, an ashamed Loren Visser, and the man who's ruined more X-mases than the '08 recession.
More details here.
THE ANGLE:
Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide to skip X-mas and save their money and go on a cruise. As a result, this rankles their friends, co-workers, and neighbors who treat their decision, which in a free country they are entitled to make, with various degrees of low-key to outward hostility. First, their Hallmark store owner freaks out at the thought of loss of $25 in card sales. Then, Luther's co-workers treat him like crap and shun him from their workplace X-mas festivities. Then they are harassed by neighbors such as the X-mas fanatic (Dan Ackroyd) and the old coot (M. Emmett Walsh) when they don't put out their traditional Frosty the Monstrosity decoration. And finally, they are gang-raped by X-mas carolers. No, not really, but that would have made my X-mas night as I struggled to stomach this piece of unfunny, inhumane, and execrable holiday cinematic torture.
THE FINISHER:
Ok, let's just cut to the chase because I have a nasty post-Xmas food and drink hangover to nurse. To call Christmas with the Kranks a bad X-mas movie would be an affront to bad X-mas movies. To describe it as a waste of time would mply that I spent any reasonable amount of time arriving at that conclusion. To watch this movie in order to make my 31 X-mas movies in 31 days goal for X-mas Wrath while friends and family party in the next room is a violation of all that is X-mas and akin to drop-kicking Baby Jesus into the next stable. This movie falls so flat that you can smear it with butter and syrup and dig in to a hearty breakfast. This movie is so irritating that it would not respond to triple antibiotic cream. This movie is so hateful, enervating, and intellectually caustic that I almost stopped it and went to see The Spirit instead. Almost. It's only saving grace is that it finally exposes the hacky cheesiness of airport novelist John Grisham upon whose Skipping Christmas this was based. I've seen a lot of crap this X-mas Wrath. But nothing took me to the breaking point quicker than this film. And I don't care if this wasn't enlightening criticism or sharp analysis. I lost out on Santa Blackjack and eggnog shots to watch this crap. And if that isn't enough to make you want to punch Tim Allen in the face the next time you see him, then I have failed as a film geek, as a cinema lover, and a human being.
THE CARD:The Sham in Grisham, floppy hermy boobs, an embarrassed Ray Stanz, an ashamed Loren Visser, and the man who's ruined more X-mases than the '08 recession.
More details here.
THE ANGLE:
Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide to skip X-mas and save their money and go on a cruise. As a result, this rankles their friends, co-workers, and neighbors who treat their decision, which in a free country they are entitled to make, with various degrees of low-key to outward hostility. First, their Hallmark store owner freaks out at the thought of loss of $25 in card sales. Then, Luther's co-workers treat him like crap and shun him from their workplace X-mas festivities. Then they are harassed by neighbors such as the X-mas fanatic (Dan Ackroyd) and the old coot (M. Emmett Walsh) when they don't put out their traditional Frosty the Monstrosity decoration. And finally, they are gang-raped by X-mas carolers. No, not really, but that would have made my X-mas night as I struggled to stomach this piece of unfunny, inhumane, and execrable holiday cinematic torture.
THE FINISHER:
Ok, let's just cut to the chase because I have a nasty post-Xmas food and drink hangover to nurse. To call Christmas with the Kranks a bad X-mas movie would be an affront to bad X-mas movies. To describe it as a waste of time would mply that I spent any reasonable amount of time arriving at that conclusion. To watch this movie in order to make my 31 X-mas movies in 31 days goal for X-mas Wrath while friends and family party in the next room is a violation of all that is X-mas and akin to drop-kicking Baby Jesus into the next stable. This movie falls so flat that you can smear it with butter and syrup and dig in to a hearty breakfast. This movie is so irritating that it would not respond to triple antibiotic cream. This movie is so hateful, enervating, and intellectually caustic that I almost stopped it and went to see The Spirit instead. Almost. It's only saving grace is that it finally exposes the hacky cheesiness of airport novelist John Grisham upon whose Skipping Christmas this was based. I've seen a lot of crap this X-mas Wrath. But nothing took me to the breaking point quicker than this film. And I don't care if this wasn't enlightening criticism or sharp analysis. I lost out on Santa Blackjack and eggnog shots to watch this crap. And if that isn't enough to make you want to punch Tim Allen in the face the next time you see him, then I have failed as a film geek, as a cinema lover, and a human being.
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