This is part of a series of No Shame Movie Reviews. For reasons I won’t speculate and rant about now, we have been told that only some movies are worth enjoying. Only artsy movies with a meaningful and/or ambiguous message, perhaps. To that, I say phooey. I say that you should be able to watch and enjoy any movie you want – from low-budget children’s movies to dramas about the hopelessly romantic. If you enjoy them, then why the heck should you not be able to watch them without shame?
As the calendar would have it, it seems like I’m only going to have time to write reviews of two Christmas movies. And since last week I talked about a gushy romantic movie, this week I’m going to go with the ever ridiculous Christmas with the Kranks.
And cranks they are. In a town that loves the holiday season way more than any town I’ve heard of, Luther and Nora Krank (Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis) decide to skip Christmas. As soon as you think all that hoopla is over and they’re on their way to Caribbean, they find out their daughter is coming back into town. Surely you can figure out what that means: they have to have a full blown Christmas planned in about twelve hours.
I’m certain that will go off without a hitch…
This is the kind of movie where you know disaster is about to strike. A character mentions their plan, any plan really, and you spend the next five minutes holding your breath, waiting for something to go terribly wrong. And inevitably, things go terribly wrong nine and a half times out of ten.
One thing Christmas with the Kranks does so well is essentially mush together two distinct plots. You have the first half of the movie, where the Kranks struggle to reject all things Christmas – food, gifts, parties, decorations, neighborly joy. And then there’s the second half, where they have to scramble together everything that they just spent almost an hour rejecting. This movie could have very easily fallen apart at that midpoint U-turn. But somehow the creators managed to stitch an invisible seam, piecing it together perfectly. Quite impressive, if I do say so myself.
Now, there is a fair bit of “Bah Humbug” in Christmas with the Kranks – as is to be expected when someone decides to skip out on Christmas altogether. But it counters the crotchety-man stereotype with more than its fair share of enthusiasm and Christmas cheer. This movie will leave you smiling – You can take my word on that.
(Also, apparently it’s based on a book by John Grisham, who I thought only wrote legal thrillers. You learn something every day.)
And there we have it. Just a few of the reasons that you should not be ashamed to watch and enjoy Christmas with the Kranks. If you have any ideas for a movie that you want me to review, then let me know! Bad, fun, silly, adorable, enjoyable, romantic, anything that you shouldn’t be ashamed to watch and love! (Bonus cookies if it’s also on Netflix.)
Photos: imdb; tenyearsago; nydailynews