WARNING: Do Not Watch The Following Christmas Movie

[KittyWampus]

Yes, this is a General Discussion thread. This is a matter of saving several hours of your life from being wasted.

If you have a movie you want to warn other DU'ers about, please do. It's a public service.

I will never be able to recoup the time spent watching the following piece of Hollywood crapola called-

Christmas With The Kranks.

Now I generally am very, very good at appreciating movies and artwork and music even if it's not to my own personal taste. That said, "Christmas With The Kranks" failed on so many levels.

That despite having two appealing (on their own terms) headliners in the likes of Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. Heck, there are even some interesting second stringers like Dan Akryod and Carlos Santana.

The premise- a couple facing their first Christmas with an empty nest decide to forgo the usual Christmas decorating and spending ritual and take their money and time to plan a holiday cruise instead.

A good part of the movie then deals with neighbors' aggressive overreactions to the Kranks decision not to "do Christmas". They want to pummel the Kranks into suburban conformity. Every house on the block needs must be decorated and the usual consumer culture adhered to or the Kranks will be shunned and harassed.

Now I totally sympathized with the Kranks and really felt their pain. Why SHOULDN'T they get to do what they want and buck Christmas tradition? Especially after their grown daughter has finally flown the coop?

Yeah. Well. The movie rapidly goes down hill after the daughter calls up and says she will be coming home for Christmas.

That's what probably makes me hate this movie so much. The Kranks fold. Rather than just telling the daughter the truth. Rather than soldiering on against the mindless drone mentality of their neighbors they end up maniacally getting their house ready for their daughter's impending arrival.

Of course, the director has the neighbors lend a hand. But by that time, I hate every character involved.

And this is from a Grisholm novel? :wtf:

[madrchsod]

1. no... it`s a dan brown novel

[DesertRat]

2. The Grisham book it was based on was pretty good

It was called "Skipping Christmas". It wasn't your usual Grisham book. It was light and very funny.
But I agree, the movie stunk!

[valerief]

3. Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis are tip-offs to avoid a film, in my book. nt

[PSzymeczek]

17. I generally like Jamie Lee.

Tim Allen, not so much.

[Kerrytravelers]

4. We made the mistake of seeing this in the theater with my in-laws.

It was Thanksgiving, and we found ourselves counting the minutes until we could get home. To pass the time, without having to talk, we went to the movies. And saw this turkey.

Here is a collection of reviewers comments, from Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_with_the_Kranks#Critical_reaction

Critical reaction

Rotten Tomatoes ranked the film 58th in the 100 worst reviewed films of the 2000s, with a rating of 5%,<3> while Metacritic gave it a 22/100 approval rating.<4>

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film one out of four stars, calling it "a holiday movie of stunning awfulness that gets even worse when it turns gooey at the end." He added, "The movie is not funny, ever, in any way, beginning to end. It's a colossal miscalculation."<5>

Carla Meyer of the San Francisco Chronicle observed, "Christmas With the Kranks boils down to a scene in which a canned ham rolls from a supermarket parking lot onto a busy highway. Filled with overly processed situations it tries to sell with manic energy, Kranks is canned, hammy and rolling as fast as it can . . . Grisham and Columbus' touches can be seen in the nonconformist male lead and icy slapstick, respectively. Roth's contributions are evident in the film's staging problems and overall lack of joy to the world . . . Scenes of Curtis and Aykroyd, so great together in Trading Places, inspire the bittersweet feelings that can accompany the holidays. Or more specifically, the bittersweet feelings that can accompany the sight of talented actors paying bills from last Christmas by doing a junky film."<6>

Steve Persall of the St. Petersburg Times graded the film C, calling it "an agreeably dumb addition to megaplexes" and "a TV movie wandering onto theater screens." He added, "Sometimes Joe Roth's movie is funny; often it isn't. Always, it's played with sitcom predictability by Tim Allen, who doesn't know any other way, and Jamie Lee Curtis, who used to know better."<7>

John DeVore of the New York Sun said, "The Christmas film is a genre as old as screwball or noir, and it has given us some of the finest moments in cinema . . . But for every treasured classic, there are dozens of crass train wrecks like Christmas With the Kranks, a new film that should make Scrooges of even the most die-hard Yuletide junkies . . . is high-concept, low-brow piffle; it's pure, triple-X emotional pornography . . . The members of the cast should be ashamed, as all of them could have done better - and have in the past."<8>

Scott Foundas of Variety called the film "an agreeable, if snowflake-thin stocking stuffer" and added, "At its best, Christmas With the Kranks . . . makes some smart observations about the way a holiday rooted in generosity and kindness has been twisted into a consumerist nightmare of traffic snarls, checkout lines of biblical proportions and neighborly one-upsmanship."<2>

Yep. It was this bad... and worse. I recall Entertainment Weekly even made some political comparisons. Conservatives will love it because it enforces the idea that we should all celebrate Christmas and that we must all conform. Liberals will hate it because it enforces the idea that we should all celebrate Christmas and that we must all conform. This is pretty much how my in-laws are. Conservative "Christians" who think Christians should be calling all the shots and non-Christians should really just shut up and go along with what Christians demand. Well, their type of Christians. I don't think my in-laws consider the DU type of Christian a real Christian because hate isn't valued among liberal Christians.

Even without the political ideology (which I am forced to contend with whenever we have to deal with my in-laws), Christmas With the Kranks is two hours of my life I can never get back. And I will feel cheated of those one hundred and twenty minutes while on my death bed.


On a different note, apparently the director, Joe Roth, was part of the ACLU battle to take forced Christian prayer out of public schools. Consider the source, Wiki, naturally: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Roth

Roth was born in New York City, New York, the son of Lawrence Roth, a foreman at a plastics plant.<1> In 1959, Roth's father volunteered his son to be a plaintiff in the ACLU's effort to abolish prayer in public schools. The case, filed in New York, wound its way through the system, finally reaching the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962. The Court ruled that such prayer was unconstitutional under the First Amendment, in the landmark case of Engel v. Vitale.<2>

[KittyWampus]

6. It's good to know I am not the only one who feels robbed of 2 precious hours of my life

[Blue_In_AK]

5. We're being Kranks this year,

and I will NOT be bullied. One daughter and family is in LA, another with family is in Denver. I still have one here in Alaska, but she's always running around trying to hit her boyfriend's family and her dad's family AND here every year, so I told her this year, she's off the hook. She can do Christmas wherever she wants and she doesn't need to feel obligated to stop by here. We're going to eat a Christmas buffet somewhere and not bother with a tree or any of that -- there just doesn't seem to be much point with no children around.

I don't feel bad about it at all. It's liberating actually.

[daninthemoon]

9. Sarah???

[Blue_In_AK]

12. 'Fraid not.

:P

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. Same here

Haven't done it in years.

[taterguy]

7. Nice post, Shalit

[daninthemoon]

8. We broke with tradition and did not decorate for Halloween this year.

I was content to leave Christmas alone this year as well. On Halloween night, countless people, including some young parents who had trick or treated at our house as kids, asked if we had just moved in and generally voiced dissapointment. On one level I kept thinking: "ok, so did you guys decorate?", but we did feel like we let people down somehow. Christmas will definetely be toned down from past years, but I can actually relate to the Kranks. It is not however my favorite Christmas movie. "Christmas Story" probably tops the list, rounded out by "Wonderful Life" of course, and I like last years "This Christmas". And "Scrooged", I like "Scrooged."

[ellie]

11. I was trapped on

a bus going to Chicago last week and they played that movie. It was awful. Absolutely awful. The Holiday with Jude Law and Cameron Diaz was really awful too. Ms. Diaz's acting consisted of flipping her hair around and making ridiculous faces. And who thinks Jude Law is cute? What an affront to one's sensibilities.

[Kerrytravelers]

14. But I loved the Kate Winslet and Jack Black story.

I'm with you, I think it is criminal that Diaz gets a paycheck for that "acting." But I must admit, the draw of Winslet and Black somehow overshadow the truly awfulness of Diaz. She is the definition of living solely off of one's looks.

And Law? Eh. Take him or leave him. He is sort of just "there" in my opinion.

[Bluebear]

13. The Critic: It Stinks!

[walldude]

15. Another one is Deck The Halls with Danny Devito and MAtthew Broderick

what a steaming pile of crap that movie is.

[npk]

18. I expected so much more out of Broderick

Is it just me or did his performance seem very off. It was almost just like he showed up on the set and just went through the motions. I actually thought Danny Devito was funny. I liked his quest to get his Christmas lights seen from outer space.

[TexasObserver]

16. I've seen it and agree. Good cast wasted with bad script and direction.