Pre-Screening Sips
- Well, my friends, we’re ending the Christmas Countdown with the strangest film in my annual rotation. I do not like this movie. Yet, my family watches it every year. So, its badness has become comforting to me.
- I’m genuinely curious to know if other people watch this around Christmas, or if this is that holiday thing that we do that’s weird?
Post-Screening Snippets
- Both Jamie Lee Curtis and Tim Allen are game for their odd, suburban characters, but the editing of the film actively works to strip away their comedic timing
- There is not nearly enough of Albie, the gay town gossip, in this movie
- I still have about one hundred questions about this neighborhood. Is this a Stepford Wives scenario, but with Christmas robots? Why are they all so obsessed with Christmas to the point of insanity? Why does the neighborhood have a newspaper? Why does their neighborhood even have a printing press? Do you have to celebrate Christmas to live here? Is Luther the only person in the neighborhood with a job? If Santa is a magical deity who takes human form – why would he come to this Christmas Eve party to bring a ham?
- Honestly, every one of the neighbors in this movie is a piece of shit. The Kranks should be able to do whatever they want in peace and not be shamed for it.
- How can so many adult humans do not understand the name “Enrique?” Side note, Enrique can get it.
The Final Hot Chocolate
Christmas with the Kranks is the anti-Charlie Brown. Literally, the entire movie is about accepting the need to conform to the commercialization of Christmas, emphasized by the excessively white suburban setting. I do not know why we watch this every year, but here we are again. Perhaps, I have been one of the Christmas robots this whole time?
GRADE: C
BRECKFLIX 