Thursday Movie Picks: Holiday/Vacation Movies

The title alone causes giggles. It lets us know right up front this is going to be a flat-out nutty movie. Add in some terrible writing, possibly even worse acting, and the budget that barely exceeds that of a middle school play and you get this steaming pile of beautiful garbage. The premise? Since Martian kids are all bummed out because kids on Earth seem so happy this time of year, the powers that be on that planet decide to come to this one and kidnap Santa in hopes of forcing him to spread some Yuletide cheer. The unintentional hilarity is strong in this one. I'm done here, just click here and check out my full review. Better yet, actually try to watch the movie. Try.


So, yeah, the dude with the beard and shredded guns hanging out of his modified Santa suit is pro wrestling icon Hulk Hogan. I could just stop here, and you would know why it's here, but I persist. He plays, as we're told, the richest man in ten states. He is also one of the world's biggest assholes whose morning workout routine includes beating the shit out of his domestic servants. Seriously. Anyhoo, after a paint-ball game gets out of hand, he finds himself on the run from the law. He gets away by ducking into the mall, but soon gets knocked unconscious. When he comes to he can't remember anything about himself, name included. The first person he sees convinces him that he is actually Santa Claus. It helps that he's actually wearing a Santa outfit. That one actually has sleeves, by the way. He then sets out to save a local orphanage. Where did he get the suit? While dodging cops he ditches the fatigues he was wearing for a the suit he found just hanging on a costume rack since the actual mall Santa hadn't shown up, yet. This sort of thing happens in movies all the time, and the clothes are almost always a perfect fit. It might bother us a bit, but we eventually let it slide. That's a little tougher in this case. Why? Because Hulk Hogan is 6'8" and well over 300 pounds (aren't you a little tall for a Santa Claus). And that's far from the most ridiculous thing that happens in this movie. Far, far from it. I laugh just thinking about all the crap that takes place in this flick. If curiosity gets the better of you and you somehow find yourself watching this nonsense, you'll notice a pubescent Mila Kunis as one of the kids at the orphanage.


One Christmas, Santa, played by Goldberg (hey, another pro wrestler!) comes to the small town of Hell (yes, really) and murders, or attempts to murder everyone he comes across. For about the first hour or so, you get the surreal experience of watching two separate movies at once. In one, we follow around a teenage boy (the "cleverly" named Nicolas Yuleson played by Douglas Smith) who has no Christmas spirit and a nutjob for a grandfather. The other movie is made up entirely of Santa randomly showing up somewhere and killing whoever is present. The two stories eventually meet and that's when the camp really goes into overdrive. Throughout, the killings are morbidly funny (did you know the star on your Christmas tree is akin to a ninja star?), the special fx are awful, the acting is terrible, and the dialogue is horrible. Whenever Santa speaks it truly sounds like a WWE interview (can't be any coincidence, can it?). If all that isn't enough, somehow the Olympic sport that makes the least sense to me, curling, is a factor in the outcome. It's also surprising, make that shocking, how many semi-famous actors signed on just to to be slaughtered (James Caan, Fran Drescher, Chris Kattan, Rebecca Gayheart and Tiny Lister among others). And just when you thought it couldn't get any dumber, something dumber happens. Trust me, if you're looking for something the whole family can sit down and be overcome with Christmas spirit, this isn't the Santa you're looking for.


In case all the paraphrases in italics didn't clue you in, we're going to get a very special...

Bonus Pick


Since we're still in the midst of the latest Star Wars breaking every box office record known to man, we might as well make sure we get in our obligatory mention of the franchise. To be totally transparent, I am watching this for the very first time right now as I type this. I'm about halfway through and it's just flat out bizarre. At the very minute, I'm sitting through a rather random musical number by Jefferson Starship as The Hologram Band. In case we forget we're watching something Star Wars related, the lead singer is practically giving a blowjob to a lightsaber microphone. Speaking of oddly sexual things, we were earlier treated to a song by the lovely Diahann Carroll, or what's supposed to be virtual rendering of her, after she shares a one-sided conversation with one of Chewbacca's relatives as he watches her through some sort of viewer that resembles a periscope. Her talking parts are punctuated with lots of oohs and ahhs. When she starts singing the camera stays on her, but the implication is clearly that the wookie is beating off to this. I wish I was joking. The quick take on the plot, such as there is one, is that Chewbacca is trying to get home for "Life Day," but he and Han Solo run into some trouble in the form of Imperial Forces. Yes, Solo is played by Harrison Ford. In fact, all of the actors who play main characters in the original trilogy reprise their roles, here: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, James Earl Jones, and Bea Arthur. What do you mean that last person wasn't in any of the movies? Oh well, there's much more where that came from. Oh cool, now we're on to a random cartoon! So far this is the best part of the show. Other lowlights highlights include Art Carney giving us a senior citizen version of his Ed Norton of The Honeymooners, and Harvey Korman in black face with three arms and a British accent doing an intergalactic cooking show. Okay, I've now been watching long enough to get to a scene where Bea Arthur is tending bar at the famous dive from A New Hope. Korman, playing another character and thankfully without black face is trying to woo her. She fends him off by pouring him a drink. Into the crown of his head. Not onto. Into. And now she's singing. Damn, this is weird. And terrible. And awesome!