Blue, Blue Christmas (G)
December 16, 2009
Blue, Blue Christmas (G)
Christmas Eve: Mary (Eva Mendes), a heavily pregnant teenage runaway, is driving through the desert at night pursued by her frantic parents (J.Lo & Judd Hirsch) when a freak snowstorm strikes. The car skids off the road and overturns. Mary is unhurt. Seeing her parent’s headlights in the distance, she continues to make her way through the blizzard on foot.
Intercut with this scene is another featuring a specialist ‘late career’ Elvis impersonator (Jack Black), singing a tragic version of ‘Blue Christmas’ (i.e. slurred words, inappropriate giggling, crying, outbursts of anger, farting, etc). There are two people in the audience – one of them leaves.
Mary sees the lights of what she thinks is an oasis (actually the Sands Hotel – Las Vegas). Safe at last! But the Republican convention (or something) is in town, they throw her out and there’s nowhere to stay. Mary is forced to break into someone’s garage, whereupon she gives birth to a baby boy.
Christmas day: Jack enters his garage to get some whisky for breakfast and finds a mother and a newborn baby in need of help. He lets them stay. They form a family unit and have the best Christmas ever. Blah, blah…
Jack helps Mary get back on her feet, she helps him clean up his act, he becomes a huge success, they fall in love and the film ends on Christmas day the following year, with Jack top of the bill at the Sands Hotel, performing a sickeningly wholesome version of ‘Blue Christmas’ accompanied by his wife and one year-old daughter. Her parents (J.lo and Judd) are in the audience, applauding wildly (dad is weeping) they hug – celebrity fans Barry Manilow and Celine Dion are also applauding (Barry is weeping) they hug.
The End
See you in the New Year…
Nutcracker Copper (PG-13)
December 10, 2009
Nutcracker Copper (PG-13)
Hard-nosed NYC cop Jimmy Cantina (Kevin James) has a life-long secret passion – ballet.
When the police are informed of a potential attack on the mayor at the NY ballet’s opening performance of the Nutcracker, the chief (Delroy Lindo) asks for volunteers to go undercover with the cast and crew. Cantina leaps at the chance.
During the first rehearsal, the director notices Cantina natural skills and promotes him to the role of the Nutcracker – which involves wearing an elaborate oversized nutcracker costume. Weeks of rehearsals go by but Cantina gains no leads into the suspected attack – though he does develop a carnal interest in the lead ballerina (Jennifer Love Hewitt).
Opening night arrives and mayor (Powers Boothe) takes his place in the front row. In the final scene of the ballet, the lead ballerina unexpectedly lobs a live grenade in the mayor’s direction. Quick-thinking Cantina performs a flying-pirouette and catches the grenade in his costume’s Nutcraker mouth. The Nutcracker’s head ‘splodes but Jimmy and the mayor are saved! The crowd, quiet at first, erupt into raptures.
New York Times: “Dynamite!”
New York Post: “Cracking show!”
The History of Santa’s Slaves (G)
December 7, 2009
The History of Santa’s Slaves (G)
Genre: Generic holiday fare for the whole family to enjoy (w/torture and overt racism)
Set during the Industrial Revolution. Philanthropist Santa Claus (Nicholas Cage) comes to the realisation that he cannot keep up with the demand for free quality toys by working on his own. With increasing competition from the South, where companies keep their costs low with cheap labour, he surmises that to maintain his monopoly over Christmas, he needs help – and fast.
Unfortunately, good help is hard to find in the Arctic. At first, he approaches the Eskimos (Inuit elder played by Robert Loggia) but, being unionized, their wage demands are far too high for Santa’s generous business model.
The only other alternative in the North Pole was the reclusive, blood-thirsty, blubber-eating elves. Undaunted, Santa lays a wicked plan. He drugs and kidnaps the elfin leader (Jude Law), and brainwashes him on a daily basis with rubbish about Christmas cheer (a practice now known as Santaboarding). In the climactic scene, the elfin leader breaks down and agrees to guarantee Santa a thousand years of indentured labour – to the cheer of every child on the planet.
Possible dialogue:
Santa: Kind sir, would you and your people help me build free toys for all the children of the world?
Eskimo Joe (sniffing a bag of glue): Leave us alone, you fat c**t!
The Perfect Nerder (R)
November 24, 2009
The Perfect Nerder (R)
Ed Butkins (Jon Heder) and Eric Van Euytven (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) are two certified geniuses and members of Mensa, with an obsession for television crime drama (CSI, Law & Order, etc).
Together, they comb through hours of their favourite shows, piecing together the ingredients for a perfect murder. Their target? Arch-nerd-rival and current president of the local Mensa group, Eugene Sawchuk, (Quentin Tarantino), known for having an IQ 2 points higher than their own.
Over time, Sawchuk catches wind of the scheme and decides to try to eliminate his two rivals by giving them a ‘dose of their own medicine’.
Final scene features an over-the-top Tarantino-esque massacre involving all three nerds, several bags of toenails, semen and random DNA samples, anthrax-laced soda pop and a booby-trapped elevator.
Possible Dialogue:
Crime scene investigator: What… in God’s name… happened here?
The Funeral Singer (G)
November 20, 2009
The Funeral Singer (G)
Professional funeral singer-for-hire Marcie Shriver (Bette Midler), frustrated by never having made it on Broadway where she feels she belongs, is determined to display her talent wherever she can, no matter how inappropriate the situation. (And it seems her confidence isn’t misplaced, as she always has the grieving mourners, on their feet, whooping and begging for an encore.)
But when Marcie’s estranged daughter, cerebral palsy sufferer Molly Shriver (Katherine Heigl), is diagnosed with swine flu and given just days to live, her relatives gather at her bedside and Marcie must prepare for the gig of her life and face her toughest crowd yet: her family! (Family includes estranged father (Gore Vidal), estranged sister (Meryl Streep), estranged cousin (Rupert Everett), etc…)
In a surprise twist of fate, Molly makes a full recovery from the flu while Marcie suffers a massive (and fatal) stroke. So it’s Molly who must take on the role of funeral singer, to perform a nauseatingly sentimental tribute to her mother.
"..and it cuts...ng-woiiike a knife........she's out of my....ng!...ng!.."
Containment Contaminant (PG-13)
November 18, 2009
Containment Contaminant (PG-13)
Alternate Title: Compromised Immunity
Master of disguise
After a viral outbreak devastates Earth’s inhabitants, one island nation shuts itself off from the rest of the world.
Ruled by an evil queen (Dame Judi Dench) and her idiot son, the island’s inhabitants are kept under control with cheap and readily-available booze. In-breeding becomes the norm and outsiders are forbidden.
When virus-ridden, American boy-genius/master of disguise Skip Hipplemeyer (Haley Joel Osment) infiltrates the island to find his long lost mother (Nigella Lawson) – who happens to be Head of the Secret Police, things get a little interesting…
Possible Dialogue:
Skip (dressed up in a ridiculous prince costume and using an obviously fake accent): Mumsy… may I have a popsicl…err… I mean… ice lolly?
Full Treatment – Vampires of Atlantis
November 9, 2009
Back to Black (PG-13)
November 4, 2009
Back to Black (PG-13)
Distinguished Harvard Professor Sidney Potts (Danny Glover) is driving home to the suburbs, along with his equally distinguished wife (Oprah Winfrey), son (Tyler Perry) and his son’s partner (Jeremy Piven). Having just attended an award ceremony celebrating the achievements made by African-Americans over the past 30 years or so, they are all a little tipsy after enjoying a Champagne fuelled evening. On the radio, Sam Cooke is singing Change is Gonna Come.
Then disaster strikes. They take a wrong turn and find themselves lost in an inner-city ghetto. Suddenly, they crash into another car and both cars are wrecked. The Potts’ emerge unscathed. However, the four occupants of the other car (a pimp, a drug dealer and two prostitutes) are killed.
Fearing arrest or lynching by angry locals they decide that if they can make it back to ‘their world’, they know people who could “make this go away”. Realising that they wouldn’t last 5 minutes on these tough streets dressed as they are, they steal the clothes of the corpses and set out on foot (Cosby and Perry disguised as pimp and drug dealer, with Oprah and Piven as their bitches.)
Unfortunately, their only knowledge of how ghetto people act comes from half-remembered 70’s black-sploitation films. Piven’s character is the only one who has any idea how to ‘act black’, but it’s still gonna be a looooong night. Hilarity ensues.
Possible dialogue:
Corrupt local cop (Joe Pesci): “Hey! Yous ******* must be new round here? Have you paid your taxes? No? OK, let me take a ride round the block with that cute little white chick and we’ll call it even.”
