12/21-Home Alone (1990)

Obviously this is not the first time I've seen this movie.  I don't think there's a person born in the 80s or early 90s that hasn't seen this movie.  But there's always things to see that you've never noticed before.  Sometimes those things are as simple as paying attention to the credits.  For example, did you know that this movie was written by John Hughes?  The same John Hughes who did The Breakfast Club as well as many of those other quintessential movies from the 80s.  Or that it was directed by Chris Columbus, who I always associated with the two worst Harry Potter movies, but also directed some less bad movies like Mrs. Doubtfire.

So Kevin (Macaulay Culkin) plays a kind of bratty little kid who is the youngest of like five.  I don't really know, because it's hard to tell based on how many kids are staying at the house at the beginning of the movie.  Everyone treats Kevin like shit, saying how everyone always has to do everything for him and he's what the French call, "les incompétents" (the family is leaving for France in the morning, so one of them spewing French is not weird).  In trying to secure some pizza at dinner, a soda gets knocked over onto the passports and such, requiring a quick cleanup and the accidental disposal of one of the tickets.  This is a tiny little detail, but becomes relevant soon, and then the next time you watch it with someone, you can point it out and act all superior.

They hand-wrote his name because this was before tickets were assigned to specific people

After this incident, Kevin is sent up to his room, despite everyone else in the family being the real asshole.  His brother ate the one flavor that Kevin likes, his uncle called him a jerk, which is insanely hypocritical because a grown man calling an 8-year-old a jerk is about the jerkiest thing I can think of.  So in his annoyance, he tells him mom that he wished he had no family.

Cue the next morning and due to a power outage in the middle of the night, everyone overslept.  In their extreme rush to get ready, they accidentally count a neighbor boy instead of Kevin (who no one bothered to wake up).  Upon arriving at the airport, they get everyone in and don't notice that they are missing Kevin because there is no extra ticket (because it was thrown away!  Just like in the picture!)

Kevin, on the other hand, wakes up to an empty house, with the cars still in the garage (because they took cabs) and makes the marvelous assumption only a child would, that his wish came true and he made his parents disappear.  Upon this revelation, he does all the things any kid might do when realizing he has the whole house to himself: run around screaming then watch inappropriate movies while eating a truly obscene amount of ice cream.  It's a little strange that in his first viewing the movie, he gets freaked out and covers his eyes while the gangster kills a guy with a Tommy gun, but he does nearly equally as harmful stuff to the robbers later in the movie, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  He also plays with shit in his older brother's room, typical little brother stuff.

I'd also like to point out that he is afraid of the furnace in his basement and repeatedly sees it as a scary monster, although later gets over his fear as part of his story arc.  I only bring it up because that fucking furnace freaked me out so much as a kid.  It made me fear my basement and didn't have a furnace that was accessible in the main part of the floor.  Whether I felt chills on this viewing due to pure nostalgia or if it actually is scary even as an adult, I'm not sure, but the scene is still very effective to this day.

In the mean time, Harry and Marv, a pair of professional thieves, have been plotting to and robbing the other houses on the block.  We actually see them to be fairly competent in both the planning and execution of several of the robberies, as they had cased the houses and know exactly who is on vacation and when they're automatic lights come on.  Unfortunately for them, they don't know that Kevin is home alone (just like the movie title!).

Kevin begins to see these guys hanging around the neighborhood and starts to get concerned, especially because he saw one of them dressed as a police officer just a few nights prior.  At one point, he's spotted by the thieves and followed for awhile until he gives chase and manages to lose them, but gets even more scared because he runs into the supposed murderer, the shovel man.

Old and creepy?  Must be a murderer.

At the same time, Kevin is becoming self-sufficient.  He's bathing, fending for himself, he even goes to the store to get a new toothbrush.  "Are you here by yourself?" the clerk asks him.  "Do you really think a boy of my age would out and about alone?  No, my dad is just outside getting the car."  Kevin really shows himself to be a cunning manipulator when it comes to adults in his community.

And finally, in what is way later in the movie than I ever realized, the two burglars make an attempt of Kevin's house, but he is able to booby trap the place to keep everything safe.  It's seriously the last half hour of the movie before he even begins to set the traps.  And what was once my favorite part of the movie now just makes me feel kind of bad for these guys.  Like I know they are trying to rob the place, but does that really mean they deserve to die (obviously they don't die because this is a kids' movie, but based on all the injuries they should take, they should have died)?  He also is able to clean everything up all by himself in seemingly like an hour, which doesn't make much sense, but that's okay, it's a movie.

In the end, his family returns and he's glad to have them home.  They're impressed that he was able to survive for like two days on his own, having no idea about robbers.  This is a nice ending, but the story with the shovel man reconnecting with his son is much more endearing than anything with Kevin, although Kevin is the reason for the reunion, so technically he is involved.

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

12/20-Just Friends (2005)

This movie may not have invented the phrase "the friendzone," but I would definitely credit it for bringing it into the common lexicon.  The concept, should you not know, is simple.  I'll let Ryan Reynolds' character explain it to you himself: "See when a girl decides that you're her friend, you're no longer a dating option. You become this complete non-sexual entity in her eyes, like her brother, or a lamp."  On the internet, this idea went hand-in-hand with the "neckbeard" stereotype.  Anyway, let's talk about this movie specifically.

Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds) was fat in high school and in love with his best friend, Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart) but she only loved him "like a brother," because she always dated jerks (at least according to Chris).  Fast forward ten years, Chris has lost a ton of weight and is a big-ish wig at a record label, and clearly became an asshole.  Now, whether he got fit and worked hard at his job and success, both with women and his career went to his head and led to his asshole-ish-ness, or if he became an asshole, then got fit and succeeded, it is unclear.  But what is clear is that he's fit, he's successful, and he's an asshole.

Her latest album cover

His latest assignment from his boss (the incredible Stephen Root) is to sign the hottest singer at the moment, Samantha James (Anna Faris, picture above in character), with whom Chris has had a previous relationship.  Chris is reluctant to take on the assignment, as things didn't necessarily end well because "bitches be crazy" (that's not a quote from the movie, but summarizes his sentiment).  He agrees eventually and the two embark from LA to Paris.

Of course things don't go well on the plane, and after Samantha microwaves some tin foil, the plane has to emergency land in New Jersey, conveniently where Chris grew up.  And lo and behold, Jamie is still living in that same town!  This is Chris' big chance to finally get with Jamie!  Or at least that's what's going on in his head.

Sadly for Chris, however, his new douchey, showoff antics are lost on a more mature Jamie, who's grown out of her fondness for assholes (if that was even really the case and not just the skewed perspective from Chris' love-addled mind).  Despite his jerk ways, there's still a scene that bothers me where the two go out to lunch to someplace they clearly went a lot as kids.  Before having a chance to order, the waitress who recognized them from ten years ago brings what they would order in the past, which is a soup and sandwich for Jamie and a huge stack of chocolate and whipped cream covered pancakes.  Because showing is better than telling, here's the scene:

Like, I just don't think Chris was being all that rude.  The waitress wrongfully assumed that they would want the same thing that they ordered over a decade ago, and when they were kids.  All diet stuff aside, tastes change a lot from high school into early adulthood.  You just shouldn't make assumptions when your latest information is ten years old.  And furthermore, his initial response is pretty respectful in declining the plate of diabetes.  Even his whale comment, though dripping in sass, is a self-deprecating line.  He takes things a little too far with the passive-aggression regarding the water at the end, but it was still in my opinion an overreaction by both the waitress and Jamie.

Rant over, things aren't going well, and enter other old classmate, Dusty (Chris Klein) who was gross in high school, but is now a hotty just like Chris, but not an asshole.  He's an EMT and volunteers with kids, and is just all-around a great dude, much to Chagrin of Chris.  Jamie's interest in Dusty, however, clues Chris into the idea that she's into nice guys now, so he reverts to his old, sensitive self to try and win her affection.

What unfolds is a pissing contest of sorts to be the most sensitive to win Jamie's affections, but in reality just turns into cringey moment after cringey moment.  Enjoyable cringe, but still cringe.  This is all happening over Christmas, by the way, hence why I watched it during this month.  There's a group of carolers who act as kind of a soundtrack during scene changes, which is an interesting narrative choice.  It's an enjoyable holiday movie that has more laughs than holiday cheer.

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

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