12/19-Happy Christmas (2014)

As you might be able to see from the tiny print on the poster above, Happy Christmas is from the director of Drinking Buddies, a horribly disappointing movie in my opinion.  Joe Swanberg is his name, and improvised dialogue movies are his game.  Which is all well and good if said improvisation is interesting, which in Drinking Buddies fell flat for me.  Four actors I greatly enjoy in a movie that has a focus on beer should have been a home run, but man, it was just boring and unsatisfying.

But this isn't about Drinking Buddies (although that's the third time I've written it so far), this is about Happy Christmas, which I enjoyed much more than, the now-not-going-to-be-mentioned other movie.  One thing though, before going on, despite the name, I wouldn't really consider this a Christmas movie.  Yes, the credits depict decorations, and the movie takes place in the few weeks leading up to Christmas, and ends on the day itself, but it's just not a focus of the movie.  It's a family drama that happens to fall on Christmas.

Let me just start from the beginning.  Joe Swanberg (the director, who refuses to put his name in the credits as an actor despite being a main character) plays Jeff, the father of a two-year-old who works somehow with movies.  His wife, Kelly, played by Melanie Lynskey, stays at home with their son (played by Swanberg's real-life son), but is also shown to be a writer (who clearly doesn't have much time to let her creative juices flow).  Everyone's happy, so obviously something must go wrong, otherwise why would this exist.

Enter Anna Kendrick playing Jeff's sister, Jenny.  She's in her late twenties and just broke up with her boyfriend, and more importantly seems to be kind of drifting in life.  In addition, her stay with her brother seems to be somewhat open-ended.  The night she arrives, she goes out with an old friend and just gets blasted.  Like border-line stomach-pumping blasted.  I think the implication with this scene is that although she says she is fine with the break-up, she's clearly not fine.  She passes out at the party and her friend calls Jeff to come pick her up.

Kelly is not happy with how Jenny acted.  She thinks it's immature and could have led to some problems if she had left the door open or done some other stupid drunk thing, especially if this type of behavior continues.  We first see this through the couple's hiring of a babysitter in lieu of the initial plan of having Jenny watch Jude (the toddler).  On one hand, it's kind of an overreaction, at least from the eyes of a non-parent.  But on the other hand, if drunky slept in until 2, you can't really expect her to be that alert, even if you had woken her up earlier.

So things started rocky, but Jenny straightens out a bit.  She ends up calling the babysitter because he had offered to sell her weed if she needed, and apparently, she does.  Upon arrival at his place, there's a number of red flags that the babysitter has intentions of taking the night to Bone Town.  First, he offers a drink, which could be solely a nice gesture, but he leans on the hard alcohol side of things, settling on whisky, and as the saying goes, "whisky makes you frisky."  Number two, he gave her the weed for free, like not just sharing his stash, but giving her shit to take home.  To give a non-drug example, if you went to a friend's house and he (not being sexist, just using the same gender as the babysitter) offered you some chips, but not just chips to eat while you hang out, but a bag of chips to take home and enjoy alone, you would say, "huh, that's kinda odd."  And finally, he puts on music then says "I love this song."  Well no shit you love it, you just picked it, why would you put on music that you don't like?  Basically, he's showing her something personal to make them more familial.

And surprise, surprise, he makes a move.  But after a little making out, Jenny stops the hookup, awkwardly trying to explain that it's not that she doesn't like him, but more that she's not really ready to keep going.

Around this time, Jenny suggests to Kelly that she try to write something quick and trashy, like 50 Shades of Grey-esque, just to allow her to work on her truly creative works.  Although hesitant at first, Kelly warms to the idea and accepts Jenny's help in crafting the basic story line and how erotic novels work.  This leads to an interesting friendship that emerges from this partnership, alleviating  many of the worries that Kelly once had for Jenny.  It also leads to a great scene between the two and Lena Dunham discussing the various ways they can vagina without saying the word "vagina."  Lots of funny euphemisms.

While this friendship buds, Jenny's relationship with the babysitter also grows until Christmas eve, when the babysitter says he can't have sex with her tonight because he has to get ready for family Christmas the next day.  She is devastated by this feeling of rejection and falls into another alcohol and drug fueled bender, leading to the whole family waking up to a smoke-filled house.  Intoxicated, Jenny put a frozen pizza in the oven and then promptly passed out, leaving the the pizza to burn, hence the massive amounts of smoke.

The parents are pissed, but also thankful that their house wasn't actually on fire.  Jenny disappears the next day, but Kelly eventually finds her and invites her back home.  Roll credits.

Seriously, they give the implication of resolution and just ends.  Drinking Buddies ends almost identically and is just as infuriating and unsatisfying.  Maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, but show me that they are all better, give me the scene of them going home and opening presents and smiling, then you can cut to black.  Seriously, two more minutes of film would have made the ending so much better.

I think there's an idea in movies that leaving the ending open to interpretation shows how deep and profound a movie can be, but this doesn't leave anything to be determined by the viewer, but they don't show you the ending either.  It's annoying.

But other than the end, I did enjoy it.  If nothing else, Melanie Lynskey has an amazing New Zealand accent and Anna Kendrick is adorable as always.  The real star, though, is clearly Jude.  He's so cute and was actually a pretty baller actor, all things considering.  Also, stay through the credits (or fast forward if you're watching on Netflix) for another erotic novel brain-storming scene.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 5 out of 10 hugs

12/18-Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever (2014)

Does acknowledging obvious plot holes and

winking at them make it okay to have obvious plot holes or:

Grumpy Cat is so cute, I don't care about anything else.

Real talk: this movie was not bad at all.  It was even maybe good?  Maybe?  If the answer to the above question is yes, then yes it is a good movie.  But then again, I have to admit some pretty major bias.  Number one, I've been on the Grumpy Cat train since day one.  I've had two different Grumpy Cat profile pictures on Facebook (one was Grump as Judge Dredd and the other was her as the astronaut in 2001: A Space Odyssey).  And number two, I love Aubrey Plaza, who voices Grumpy Cat.  I should specify, I mainly love April Ludgate, but since April is basically the human equivalent

 of Grumpy Cat, it is perfect casting.

So, Grumpy Cat is content living in a pet store in the mall.  She knows that neither she nor any of the other "reject" pets (mice, birds, snakes) will ever be adopted.  "We're all going to die in here" she tells the others, but again, she's fine with it.  That is, until she overhears the store owner talking to the landlord about being behind on rent.  Luckily, the owner has a plan to save the store!  He's going to turn Grumpy into the greatest internet meme in the world!  And he'll make a bunch of money selling merchandise and maybe even make a movie one day!  Seriously, that's what they say, exactly what happened in real life.  Then Grumpy's all like, nah just kidding, that'd be dumb.

You see, they establish early on that Grumpy is something of an unreliable narrator, and indeed many things she says must be taken with a grain of salt, even when we see it on screen.  So she rewinds and says the owner's real plan is to sell this perfectly bred dog for a million dollars.  "Sounds like a MacGuffin to me, whatever that means."  Another of the many self-aware lines that Grumpy says.

Anyway, around this time, we meet the human protagonist, a 13 year old whose father left her family not long ago, and she's been struggling to make friends because of it.  Or as Aubrey Plaza explains in a shot of her in the sound booth, "the girl who gets second billing to me."  That's right, they basically take a shit on the fourth wall here in terms of not giving a fuck.  Another example of this is because it is a Lifetime movie, there are ad breaks, and before one of them, Grumpy says to the camera, "time to sell you stuff," and then tells you what hashtag to use if you're live-tweeting.  I can't tell if this was all supposed to be ironic and became genuine, or if it was supposed to be genuine but became ironic.

Right, the girl.  So she's sad and lonely, only having conversations with the adult workers at the mall.  After a failed attempt to talk to some cool girls, she's comforted by a mall Santa, who encourages her to make a wish, which turns out to be for a friend.  Well, it comes true, but not in the way she expected.  You see, she becomes able to hear Grumpy Cat's words.  Before really comprehending what's going on, the cool girls who rebuffed her earlier swing by to provide more ridicule.  "Look at the freak having a conversation with little kitty!"  Which reminded me of this Archer scene:

As Barry says, from what the cool girls can see, she's just talking to the cat, not with it.  Maybe this scene just really hits home because I talk to my cat a lot, often pretending like he responds, which sounds pretty bad typing it out, but as far as I know, there's no changing this, once it's typed, so I guess it's staying there.

The real conflict comes when the girl sneaks into the mall after hours in order to see Grumpy again and try and figure out what the deal is, but she witnesses a robbery of the million dollar dog.  It becomes a kind of Home Alone without the Rube Goldberg traps in order to thwart the dumb criminals.

This scene is a prime example of both Grumpy as an unreliable narrator the movie getting away with major plot holes simply by acknowledging them and usually making a joke.  The clip doesn't last long enough, but it does revert to normal, where the girl drives the car, not Grumpy.  By the way, the car is a Camero.  I only mention that because it was clearly product placement.  It wasn't that in your face, except they never referred to it as a car, but rather always as a Camero, whereas the bad guys' car is a junker that people keep referring to as a "clown car."  I'm not kidding when I say they say Camero at least five times in about a two minute scene.

Moral of the story, I thought this was going to be molten garbage poured on top of a septic tank, but it turned out to be a pretty good self-aware holiday movie, not including the point where the movie promotes Grumpy Cat's owner's real-life website that sells Grumpy Cat tchotchkes.  That was something that I genuinely could not discern if it was a moment of self-parody or shamelessly shilling their shit.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 5 out of 10 hugs

12/17-The Hebrew Hammer (2003)

Okay, so yes, the other Hannukah movie was made-for-TV, but this is literally the only other one!  Plus, I already did both a Christmas made-for-TV and just a Christmas episode of a TV show, so this should be fine.  I will say, if you Google Hannukah movie, An American Tail sometimes shows up, but that doesn't really count because although Fievel and his family are Jewish, they celebrate Hannukah in the opening scene and then it isn't relevant to the plot again, so I'm not going to classify as a Hannukah movie.  Jewish movie?  Yes.  Adorable movie?  Also yes.  Hannukah movie?  No.  And in something that is only tangentially related to all of this, here is a scene from Community with Troy and Abed singing a song from An American Tail:

Back to The Hebrew Hammer!  First thing to note, this is a satire of the Blaxploitation genre from the 1970s, so it's got a very distinct style because it is parodying said style.  The movie stars Adam Goldberg as the Hammer, whom you may know as the Jewish guy from Dazed and Confused, or the Jewish guy from Saving Private Ryan.

Basically, Santa's son, Damian (oooo foreboding), kills Santa, who had been known as a particularly tolerant Santa, instigating the "Happy Holidays" movement. so that he can take control of the North Pole and eliminate Hannukah once and for all.  Evil Santa is played by Andy Dick, by the way, which suits him well.  The Jewish Justice League tries to get the Hammer to help save Hannukah by sending the chief of the organization's daughter (played by Judy Greer) to see him, which leads to a send-up of classic crime noirs, with heavy narration, only to have the narration actually being played aloud in the scene via a tape player.  I tried to find the scene online, but failed.  But trust me, it's a funny bit that shows this isn't just 90 minutes of Jew jokes.  Not that the Jew jokes aren't funny, as long as you are aware of the stereotypes.  And if you don't, here's a scene I could find that gives a nice rundown of stereotypes:

Along the way, the Hammer enlists the help of friends with the Kwanza federation, seeing as the evil Santa would be targeting Kwanza once Hannukah was one of the way.  This provides some moments of true Blaxploitation parody, as opposed to using Jewish parallels.

Again, this movie is very stylized in order to match it's source material, but if you like Blaxploitation movies, or even homages such as Jackie Brown or full-on parodies like Black Dynamite or Undercover Brother (which by the way, was written by the same screenwriter who did 12 Years a Slave, which I was very surprised to learn), and have at least one fairly Jewish friend, you'll really dig this movie.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 4 out of 10 hugs

12/16-Eight Crazy Nights (2002)

I had wanted to watch Hannukah movies for each of the nights of Hannukah, but unfortunately, there's really only two out there, and this Adam Sandler vehicle is one of them (spoiler, the other will be watched tomorrow).  I must say, it's a little disappointing.  Considering there are so many Christmas movies (so many of which are either trash, rehashes, or sentimental bullshit), you'd think there'd be at least as many Hannukah movies are there are nights of celebration, but alas, no.  We'll have to tide ourselves over with this movie.

Davey Stone (Adam Sandler) is your run of the mill, deadbeat drunk, who hates the holiday season, living in a town that loves Christmas and also greatly supports its Jewish population.  But you know what?  Why should I tell you about when he sings a song that conveniently explains everything you need to know about him at this point.  Oh yeah, it's a musical.

You can say what you will about the content and lyrics in these songs, as well as the quality of the movie as a whole, but damn the songs are catchy.  One particular song, which I'll get to later, I actually remembered when I decided to watch this again, the last time being when it came out, over a decade ago.  That's pretty impressive staying power, at least back of your mind staying power.  I mean, sure these are no Disney musical classics, little kids aren't going to sing them until their parents want to stab their ears, and college a capella groups aren't going to sing a medley of them for cheap nostalgia points, but honestly, they're more memorable than the songs from Muppet Christmas Carol, which as a whole is much better than this movie.

Music tangent aside, Davey's antics get him arrested and in lieu of jail time, a town personality named Whitey offers to mentor Davey through youth basketball refereeing as a form of community service.  Whitey, being something of a naive idealist believes he can change Davey back to the boy he once was.

This is Whitey, by the way.  He's like 4 feet tall and
one foot is way bigger than the other, like 10 sizes bigger.

Davey, of course, remains being an asshole despite Whitey's best efforts.  We do see little twinkles of potential goodness, mainly through a scene where he helps a boy gain some confidence in his basketball skills, though it's hard to say if that comes from actually having good intentions sometimes, his love of basketball, or the fact that he totally wants to shtup (Yiddish seemed appropriate) the kid's mom.

After Davey's trailer is burned down, Whitey takes him in and we finally start to see some more change in Davey's demeanor.  He's nicer and more helpful, and just simply less of a dick.  That is until his past is brought up and he has something of a jerk breakdown, only to redeem himself in the finale for a happy ending.  Oops, spoiled, oh well.  I mean, all these movies end happily, so it's really not a big deal.  Whatever, I'm sorry.

My big issue with this movie is the humor is targeted to a very specific demographic, which is basically 12 year olds.  There's enough openly mature content that it's clearly not intended to be true kids' movie, but most of the jokes are so crass and unmotivated that only a middle schooler would laugh at it.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again (that line is so cliche), I love toilet humor, when it's preferably clever, but really as long as it's even a little bit motivated.  At one point in the movie, Whitey gets covered in shit, like human feces, then frozen alive, and some deer come and lick him free.  The lick human shit off of him, then they're shown to be smiling, with the shit all up in their teeth!  Hilarious!  It's just really not very funny; it's just pretty gross.

Here's a different seen where they poop themselves from laughing.
That's right, there are multiple poop/deer scenes.

Earlier I mentioned a song that stuck with me for a long time, and I must admit, it is a pretty dumb song, but I can't help loving it.  It's basically the final song, so if you want to still be "surprised" by the ending, don't watch this.  Also don't be mad at me if you can't get it out of your head.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 4 out of 10 hugs

12/15-The Ref (1994)

This is a movie that I don't know how many of you may know about, but my mom liked when I was a kid, so I saw it a number of times, but clearly didn't appreciate a lot of the humor in it.  If you pay a lot of attention to what I've written here in the past, you might be saying, "Ben, didn't you say that your mom didn't like Christmas movies?"  Well yes, that is true and I did say that, but The Ref shows off what happens when people feel obligated to attend family holiday gatherings; basically Christmas is not represented super well, or at least not at first.

Okay, so what's it really about?  It's really about a family who's marriage is struggling.  The first thing we see is Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis (my second grade teacher had the same name, but obviously, this is not the same person) in a marriage counseling session.  The sign outside says Dr. Wong, and the first thing I lot of was BD Wong because I love saying BD; it's super fun to say.  So imagine my delight when Dr. Wong is played by the one and only BD!  But then I was thinking, is that lazy writing?  Or is it like in the Apatow movies where a lot of the actors play characters with their same name?  I don't know.

The other thing going on at this time is Denis Leary, a professional thief, breaks into a big, old, fancy house using gadgets and cunning, but is still partially thwarted by the owner's Home Alone-ian anti-burglary traps, which include spraying Leary with cat piss and dropping him down a trapdoor into a cellar with a vicious dog named Cannibal.  Although he escapes, his getaway driver abandoned him at the first sign of police.  Over their scanners, we hear that this robbery is one of a string of robberies, so the state police are brought in to basically shut the town down to catch this guy.  This includes a curfew as well as some police checkpoints.

In order to find some place to lie low while he tries to figure out a plan, Leary pretty much hijacks the Chasseurs (Spacey and Davis) and forces them to take him to their home since he can't get out of town due to the checkpoints.  Leary quickly realizes how dumb this idea was because of the Chasseurs' incessant arguing.

So Leary ties them up in their own home while he tries to contact his partner, but the arguing just won't stop, forcing him to step in and make the two confront their troubles head on instead of just bitching constantly.  Unfortunately, this current situation can't last forever because the Chasseurs are expecting family to arrive for Christmas dinner, so his plan for containing them is constantly changing.

By the way, it's strange watching Kevin Spacey play a kind of spineless whipping boy considering he's so ingrained as of late as Frank Underwood, who takes no shit from anyone.  Anyway, the family arrives and the whole situation becomes something of a farce.  Leary pretends to be Dr. Wong so the rest of the family doesn't realize that they are essentially hostages.  Many grievances are aired through several hilarious, though sometimes tense scenes with the family.

There's a lot to love about this movie, not the least of which is that Denis Leary basically does his stand up with every one of his lines in this movie, but here are a few more delightful things:

-"The spirit of Christmas is either you're good or you're punished and you'll burn in hell."
-"Who would catch a criminal and then let him go free?"  "Republicans?"
-"People with guns get to do whatever they want."  This isn't really a hilarious line, but it was strange how poignant and true that still is today, at least with some of the recent news events.
-"We got a little held up."
-Adults struggling with VCRs, which is basically the 90s version of adults sucking with computers in today's movies.
-This was J.K. Simmons' first movie!  He's the best, so you should see this movie for his debut alone.

Funny and not your average Christmas movie.  Great if you love a dysfunctional family.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 6 out of 10 hugs

12/14-Jingle All the Way (1996)

Before I start, did you know they made a sequel to this movie this year?  I mean, I assume it was direct to DVD, but more importantly, no one from this cast is in it, seeing as the original came out nearly 20 years ago.  In fact, the father character is played by Larry the Cable Guy, which sounds horrible.  One more reason I don't really understand why they'd make a sequel in today's day and age is that the whole conflict of this movie would not work in today's world thanks to the internet and cell phones.

The basic premise is pretty simple, after all, this movie was basically made to sell toys.  Okay, so Arnold is a super hard-working guy who is constantly missing his kid's activities because he's working.  The most recent of which is his son's (played by Jake Lloyd, aka Anakin Skywalker from Episode 1) karate upgrading belt ceremony.  Insisting that he not disappoint their son again, she confirms that Arnold bought the Turbo Man action figure (called a doll by like half the people in the movie) that the boy's been wanting.  Being cliche of a dad, he says of course, when in reality he totally forgot.  And obviously everywhere is sold out.  Here's a wonderful Chris Parnell cameo at the first store he goes to:

You'll also notice Sinbad in there.  He plays a mailman slash rival dad also trying to get of these toys.  The next 45 or so minutes of the movie involve Arnold visiting various stores and becoming increasingly frustrating when no one has the stupid toy.

Meanwhile, because Arnold is out trying to find the toy on Christmas eve, their next door neighbor, Ted (played by the amazing Phil Hartman) steps in to help with the festivities like baking cookies and putting ornaments on the tree.  He clearly is banging all the other moms in the cul de sac and now has his eyes set on Arnold's wife.  This actually leads to a pretty funny exchange when Ted brings out a live reindeer, which Ted's son names Ted.  Arnold calls to his home and Anakin answers and tells his dad that "Mom is next door petting Ted."  Of course we know he means the reindeer, but Arnold thinks he's talking about the old timey slang for macking.

Oh!  And this movie takes place in Minneapolis, so that's fun.  Arnie goes to the Mall of America and there's a few other noticeable shots showing at least a little of this was actually filmed here.  There's also a scene where Sinbad threatens a bunch of police officers with a package he claims is a bomb because "a bunch of bombs get sent through the mail every day."  Haha! So funny!  Except it's a real bomb that explodes in the mean cop's hands.  Like at least eight cops just died.

Or they would have if this weren't a children's movie.  Instead, they just look a little shell-shocked and the meanie is covered with soot.

Anyway, Arnold shows up to the Christmas parade as Turbo Man and makes his kid's whole life in a nicely wrapped up conclusion.  It's a fairly sweet ending, even if the whole movie is about a toy.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 4 out of 10 hugs

12/13-Scrooged (1988)

This is another one of those movies I'd see in sitting in Blockbuster, want to rent it, but never did either because we found something more appealing or my mom would semi arbitrarily veto it.  Again, we saw pretty much anything as kids, but my mom would make some judgments based on the cover for a reason to not rent.  In this case, it was probably a three-way tie between the skeleton hand (foreboding some serious violence, which there isn't), the cigar (smoking is the worst, and promoting it is even worse!), and the fact that it's a Christmas movie.  In retrospect, there's really nothing particularly inappropriate about this movie, but a lot of the content would have likely gone above my head.

Anyway, this Christmas Carol adaptation differs the most from the original story than any of the others I've watched so far.  Most notably is the fact that this is a present day (or rather present in 1988) retelling.  In addition, the Scrooge character is not named Scrooge.  In fact none of the characters have their original Dickensian names, with the exception of the Christmas ghosts, although these guys are kinda different as well, but I'll get into that more later.

Basic premise is this: Frank Cross (Bill Murray) plays a hotshot, young TV executive, whose lack of scruples has clearly helped him make it to the top.  He doesn't care about the quality of his programming (programs such as Father Loves Beaver, an innuendic riff on Leave it to Beaver), as long as people are watching, or more specifically, scared to miss it.  Remember, this is a time before DVR, so sitting in front of the TV was a bigger to-do.

Cross' big plan for this year is a massive live performance of The Christmas Carol, which they call Scrooge.  Cross has made it extra extravagant by having simultaneous live bits in other nations around the world.  His first truly Scrooge moment comes in opening boardroom scene where he sees the proposed nice and festive promotion for the Scrooge performance, and instead, supplants it with his own horrifying promotional material.

When one of his employees, Bobcat Goldthwait, questions the use such scare tactics, especially when selling something as wholesome as a Christmas, Cross fires him.  On Christmas eve.  Coldblooded.

Another little casting change they made is that the Bob Cratchit character is black woman, which isn't really important to the story, but it is nice to see that the movie makers being more inclusive, especially when they don't have to be.

Instead of continuing with a close plot reading, I'm just gonna talk about more differences from traditional adaptations.  For starters, typically, the ghost appearances seem to have some sort of time/space distortion.  That is to say that they'll travel all over, but when the ghastly visit is over, it seems to be the same time and place as where it started.  In Scrooged, things happen in real time, and although Cross is the only one who can see and interact with the ghosts, his actions are seen by the other people in the room.  And when he "snaps" out if it, time has progressed and he is in a different place from where he started.

Speaking of the ghosts, their appearances were vastly different than previous iterations.  This type of thing can be weird when dealing with adaptations.  What I mean to say is when you see a film based on a book, the filmmakers may take liberties with the appearance of supernatural beings.  Without having read the subject matter, I didn't know if P-Stew's version followed the book's description or not.  But when The Muppet Christmas Carol had similar iterations, a bright and wispy Past, a giant and hairy Present, and a dark, tall, and faceless Future, it became clear to me that those must be how they are described in the book because why else would they be so similar in appearance?

Not really similar to the androgynous albino from P-Stew's

The Ghost of Christmas Past appears as a gruff and manic taxi driver, who's never seen without a nasty, cheap cigar in his mouth (and subsequently, his teeth).  Foul-mouthed and frantic, he's nothing like previous iterations.  Christmas Present is also significantly different, appearing as a Cyndi Lauper-esque punk rock girl who seems to spread Christmas joy to Cross not through magic dust like other adaptations, but through physical violence.  There's a whole weird scene that's basically just her beating up Bill Murray.  Future is the most traditional, being tall, faceless, and shadowy, but he chooses to show Cross his visions not through holiday magic, but with a chest-mounted TV, which is appropriate because of Cross' role as TV executive.

The last real difference is the importance of the love interest.  In P-Stew's, the lady friend is just used by GC-Past to pain Scrooge and with the Muppets, the character isn't even mentioned because love storylines are not necessary in a Muppet movie.  But in Scrooged, Karen Allen appears in Cross' life throughout the movie, not just through flashbacks, and is present at the end after all the visions have ceased.  And by the way, Karen Allen has the best smile.  Like, it's just so unfair how pretty her smile is.  I would watch a movie of just her smiling.

*swoon*

Her smile alone boosts this movie a notch or two on the heartwarming scale.

Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 6 out of 10 hugs