It’s that time of year, boys and girls! The return of the ever popular Instant Queue Review. As part of my advent celebrations, I like to watch Christmas movies. You likely have a similar tradition. I mean, who doesn’t have a least one family movie they watch around Christmas? Even if it’s Die Hard, it counts. And now, after almost completing my class on Theology and Film, I feel even more equipped to assert my opinion as fact as I critique movies.
The rules are simple: 1. The movie has to incorporate some aspect of Christmas, this can be stretched to include other holidays, or generic winter themes, ie Snow Day, or 8 Crazy Nights. 2. The movie has to be available on an Instant Streaming Service like Netflix or Hulu. 3. The movie has to look at least a little bit terrible.
So, without further ado, sit back, relax, and enjoy a Lumberjackson Christmas tradition:
Instant Queue Review #1- Christmas Crush
Toward the end of the film I looked away from the movie, off into the distance, and just started repeating, "spaetzle, spaetzle spaetzle spaetzle."
I looked up to see Kate staring at me, like I was some sort of freak.
"Don't look at me like I'm a weirdo, somebody made this movie! They're the weirdos."
"Yeah, but that one guy is hawt."
Now, how did we get to this point you may ask? First, Kate made Spaetzle for lunch, so it was on my mind, and that word is a pretty weird word. Second, this film was so excruciatingly boring and absurd that me breaking out into a spaetzle chorus made perfect sense to me.
The premise is simple, and spelled out plainly in the first 10 minutes. An unsuccessful popular girl is home for the holidays, and must go to her High School reunion to win back her old high school boyfriend. What she doesn't realize is her best friend (a fairly attractive man according to Kate) had a crush on her, and is going to the reunion to win her heart.
That's a fine premise, lots of stuff we can work with. Drama, and the nostalgia of high school, all set to a perfect little Christmas theme, how could they possibly go wrong?
Well… let’s start with the music. This movie is not what would classically be called a "musical", partly because when the characters in Christmas Crush sing, it would not be classically called "music". Like a chorus of 5th graders during a church Christmas musical, every character in every song only sings the melody. One of the central aspects of the movie is that our main character used to be in an award winning glee club. This glee club apparently consisted of 4 girls who had never learned anything about harmony (finally, a glee club I could’ve joined in High School [cause I looked like a girl {and I couldn’t sing}]). Occasionally one of the girls will sound like she’s going for a bit of harmony, only to realize she’s actually drifted off key. Thanks to Christmas magic/auto-tune every single off-pitch singer is able to sing in perfect… melody!
Imagine if N’Sync was made up of all Justin Timberlakes. Sure, he’s the most talented, but if they’re all singing Justin’s part, it would sound like the consistent whine Baby Kitty makes when we lock him out of the bedroom.
But you really have to applaud them for making the attempt at a Christmas musical. Plenty of churches across the United States are doing the exact same thing with far less talented 5th graders, and Christmas Crush is almost on par with the worst of those!
Music aside, the plot is also notably not-a-plot. There has to be a word for that, but spoonerizing not and plot results in a spoonerism paradox, and next thing you know Marty McFly may very well have been his own father. It’s complicated, but it would make for a better story than Christmas Crush.
The moment our protagonist returns home, we realize that she is longing after a life that is absolutely no good for her. I wish I could say this is an unrealistic plot, but it’s is probably very relatable. I found myself laughing at the character at first, “why would you want to go back to your days in this stupid high school glee club, hanging out with these shallow girls, and dating the dreamy high school quarterback?!” Then I realized that next year is my 10 year High School reunion, and a feeling gurgled in my gut saying “dude, you should probably lose some weight and write a book, you’ve got people to impress.” Stupid gut, it’s Christmas, I’ve got big plans for you!
**gurgle, gurgle**, he responds.
The conversation with my gut continued longer than it should have, and I took extensive notes on it, because I was so bored watching this movie.
I assumed, much like our protagonist likely did, that her best friend from High School was actually her gay best friend. He was just too pretty, and his eagerness to offer advice just makes him come off as playfully critical. “Oh goodness, you’ve got to do something with your hair!” (That’s right, italics all the things!) His character arc seems to go from gay best friend to hopeless stalker in the course of the 7 acts of this film. (Kate would like to point out that at no point during the watching of this movie did she even remotely think that the best friend was gay.)
Act 1- Introduce our character and the all of her desires. It’s like someone read a “How to Write a Screenplay for Dummies” book. Bravo!
Act 2- We’re at the reunion.
Act 3- Gay best friend has a girlfriend? This changes everything!
Act 4- Essentially a tiny version of Mean Girls hidden inside the musical for John Mayer’s “No Such Thing”, or as I’ve come to call it “Welcome to the real world, something something, run through the halls of my highschool, scream at the TOP OF MY LUNGS *ear piercing falsetto*” One of the protagonist’s friends is a ho, the other is an airhead, the last one is a controlling queen bee that is stabbing the protagonist in the back.
Act 5- A single musical number that likely was taken from an episode of Nashville and poorly edited into this movie, like how all the fight scenes in Power Rangers were. It looks like our two main characters are in the scene, but their faces are likely superimposed.
Act 6- Stereotypical High School movie about realizing that you don’t belong within the particular clique that you identified yourself as, because nobody defines you but you. Or, Mean Girls 3: The New Guy: Can’t Hardly Wait: Do The Right Thing: Schindler’s Christmas List.
Act 7- I actually really enjoyed this part of the movie. It was a strange artistic one-shot where the names of the cast and crew slowly crept up and music played in the background. It seemed to illustrate the duality of man, and the history of racial discrimination in the US (white words, black background. We are the words floating in a sea of meaninglessness).
Somewhere between Act 5 and 6 Gay Best Friend becomes Stalker Boyfriend, teaching us what so many Disney Movies have taught us before: if you want to win the girl, you need to have an irredeemable flaw, cause girls like bad guys (thanks Stockholm Syndrome!).
With that, let’s get down to Brass Tacks:
Baby Jesuses (an informal measure of “true meaning of Christmas-ness”): 1/10-
This film does address the concept that “Christ power is made perfect in weakness”, but that’s more in it’s production value than in it’s actual plot.
Menorah-o-Meter (measure of other Holiday significance): 0/10
Just no. I think this movie is all WASPs. For those who get mad that there is a BET and no WET, this movie is for you!
Christmas Cheer-o-meter: 2/10
This movie commits the obvious Christmas movie crime of being a script that likely wasn’t originally intended to be a Christmas film, but figured if the reunion could be any theme, they might as well capitalize on Christmas, I mean that is the reason for the season amIright?!
Overall Score: 3/10
Because, as Kate said, that one guy was hawt. And Christmas is a time of giving.
|| Posted by Alex ||
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