A Heartfelt Christmas

Last Christmas

Director: Paul Feig

Cast: Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh

Released: November 8, 2019

If I were to describe this movie to someone, I would be tempted to say "It's The Blank Blank of Christmas movies", but if I said that, I would totally give away a certain plot line. (Hence why I'm not revealing which movie I would compare it to! If you've already seen the movie, you probably know which movie I'm talking about!) In fact, I plan to have a spoiler section since this movie only came out last year (Hey! Last Christmas came out last Christmas!) and people may not even realize that there are things that could be spoiled, but there are! 

This movie has a whimsical element to it and it made me think of something Cecelia Ahern would write, but the script was written by Emma Thompson and her husband. The gist of this movie is about a twenty-six-year-old girl named Kate (Emilia Clark) who lives in London and her life is a bit of a mess, but she meets a guy named Tom (Henry Golding) and they start up a sweet relationship and he helps her become better person. Oh, and it takes place during Christmas, obviously, so it's a feel-good movie. It's not without its angsty parts, of course. 

Now I'll talk about the movie in a little more depth WITHOUT going into any spoiler territory. Don't worry, I will give ample warning when I get to spoilers!

So I knew the movie got its title from the George Michael Christmas song, but I didn't realize his other songs would also be featured predominantly in this. Off the top of my head, I remember "Faith", "Freedom '90", "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go", and "One More Try" are part of the movie's soundtrack. Kate is an inspiring singer and she is a fan of George Michael's. She says they're "kindred spirits" because they're both singers and they're both "famously misunderstood and under appreciated in our time." She lives out of a suitcase that has a heart sticker that says "George Michael forever" on it. Okay, when I hear the name "George Michael", my mind immediately goes to Michael Cera's character in Arrested Development, George Michael Bluth.

Kate's full name is Katarina and she's originally from Yugoslavia, but her family moved to London because of the war. She seems to get along well with her dad, but not so much with her mom (Emma Thompson) or her sister, Marta, who has her life together, unlike Kate. Kate doesn't have her own place (hence why she lives out of her suitcase), so she just lodges with friends until she overstays her welcome (which usually happens pretty quickly!) or she goes to a bar and finds some guy to take her back to his place. 

Since wanting to be an aspiring singer doesn't pay the bills, Kate works at a Christmas store called Yuletide that is opened all year round. It is run by a Chinese woman (Michelle Yeoh) who calls herself "Santa". She loves Christas a lot. (A LOT!) This store is huge! It's two stories! And it sells a lot of crap. A couple pieces I remember are a gibbon who screeches "Last Christmas" and a hippopotamus cheerleader ornament that's holding pom-poms. Yeah, there's some weird stuff in this store. It's usually quite busy when we see Kate working, but that's probably because it's so close to Christmas. I have to wonder how busy this shop is during the other seasons. It seems like Santa and Kate are the only people who work there. Kate wears a green elf costume and Santa refers to her as "Elf". She tells Kate she should be named "Lazy the Elf" because she "never appears to work." 

One night, Kate has an audition and is running late for it. She's the last one to leave the store and is supposed to lock up, but forgets because she is in a hurry to get to the audition she's late for and is going to tank anyway. When she returns to work the next day, she sees that glass from the window has been knocked out with a brick and the place inside has been trashed with a bunch of broken ornaments and knocked over trees. Two policewoman are there taking a statement from Santa and they surmise that it must have been done by a couple of kids. After the policewoman leave, Santa is angry at at Kate and knows she forgot to lock up because she tells her she had to break the glass to make it look like a break-in so she could get the insurance money. She tells her, "You turned me into someone who broke the law." Santa is going to give her one more chance, but if anything else happens she's fired. We find out that at one time Kate was great at her job and had a way with people and that's why Santa took her on full-time, but "since [she] came back [she] started losing [her] sh*t." Come back from what, you ask? Well, that's a good question. Throughout the movie, we get clues that Kate has been sick, but you don't find out right away exactly what happened or why she was sick. We just know she's been sick and "needs to take care of herself better." She's also missed five doctor's appointments, so whatever it is, it seems serious and she's been slacking off. 

While her life is in shambles, she meets Tom who she first sees outside the shop window while she's dusting a display case. She finds him quite peculiar because he's looking up at something and is so curious as to what he's looking at, that she goes outside and asks him. He points to a bird who is nesting above them and it chooses that moment to poo in Kate's eye. He tells her it's good luck (I actually looked it up and it seems to be a thing!) and asks her if she'd like to go for a stroll later. Kate is not impressed. She asks, "Oh, that's my luck, going for a stroll with you?" 

After she goes to her audition (the one she was in a hurry to get to that she forgot to lock up), she bumps into Tom outside and accuses him of following her. He suggests they go for that stroll and she agrees. He's very whimsical, always dancing and skipping around light posts and benches like he's Fred Astaire from Singin' in the Rain. His mantra is "Look up." She does and gets super pissed she falls into a heap of trash bags. It's pretty funny, but I would be pretty furious too, so I don't blame her! However, her irritations soon passes and she's delighted when she sees things she's never noticed before on a street she's been down so many times like a sculpture of a cricket and artwork of two mice playing. He also introduces her to a small "secret garden" kind of hidden in the middle of the city that she never knew existed. There's only a few people there and Tom tells Kate about all of them. He tells Kate "You're one of us now" and that she can't share anyone's secret because it's an unspoken rule.

When they're ready to part, Tom asks Kate if she would like to "repeat the experience" again. When she asks for his number, he tells her doesn't have a phone. This (naturally) shocks her, so he corrects himself and says he DOES have a phone, but it's "locked in a cupboard" because he "got so tired of staring at [his] hand all day" and tells her she should try it and she just scoffs at him and replies, "That's like saying you should try death." He tells her if she ditches her phone, then "All of your stresses will just melt away." Luckily he knows where she works, so that's usually where they run into each other. 

On one of their other "dates", Tom sneaks them both into an ice-skating rink. She had told him she had an upcoming audition for Frozen and it's being performed on ice (makes sense to me!). She has never even skated before and had planned to just wing it, so he decides to help her learn to ice skate until they get busted and have to run away. Tom doesn't even know what Frozen is and Kate laughs in his face and just assumes he's joking (like anyone would), then realizes he's serious. I found this to be the least believable thing about this movie; even people who live under a rock have heard of Frozen! It's a very cute scene, the two of them skating together and we get a lot of close up shots of Emilia Clark's face making awed expressions and she is very adorable. Kate calls it a successful date as it checked off the following boxes: "fun, free, illegal, romantic" Tom also points out it was practical because it will hep her with her audition. 

Kate sees Tom again right after she's been kicked out of the house where she was crashing with her pregnant friend and her husband (the pregnant friend's husband) and I don't blame them for kicking her out: she goes out and brings a guy back, then the next morning she (accidentally) ruins this art project the husband was working (I think it was something for the baby's room?) and we know the husband already isn't a fan of hers because she had previously accidentally set his model matchstick galleon on fire when she was lighting a candle nearby. 

Kate sees Tom and tells him she's homeless again and he takes her to a homeless shelter. She is not impressed and says, "Thanks Bono or Mother Teresa or whoever wins the moral superiority prize." When he tells her he volunteers there, she replies, "Christ, why don't you just get "saint" tattooed on your forehead?" Kate is obviously not "homeless" because she does have her parents' house if she needs a place to sleep and we see her go there when she doesn't have any other options. When she's trying to find Tom, who she hasn't heard from or seen in a couple of days, she goes to the homeless shelter looking for him. He's not there, but she ends up helping serve tea and biscuits.  

Kate's mom has a family dinner planned to celebrate Marta's promotion and nothing goes right. Kate's mom tells her she's "wasting her life" and "only a miracle saved her." Marta accuses her of being ashamed of herself because she doesn't care about anything and Kate retorts that she isn't the one who's ashamed of who she is and lets it slip that the woman who lives with her just isn't her flatmate like her parents think, but her girlfriend. Marta is furious at Kate and leaves. Kate also leaves where she has a drink at a bar, then goes to the homeless shelter. It looks like she's about to enter, but ends up walking away and sees Tom come up to her on his bike. On top of being upset about the evening's events, she's also upset with Tom because she hasn't seen him in two days and has been wondering where he's been and that he's "been disappearing for days on end." 

Kate finally gets to see where Tom lives when he takes her back to his flat, which is very small and tidy. He even opens his kitchen cupboard to show her his phone is indeed inside it. They have a nice heart to heart and Kate tells him what was wrong with her. Now up to this point, we've been getting some clues, but this is the scene where we actually learned what happened. Now even though this doesn't reveal anything too spoiler-y, I'm not going to disclose this information until I get to spoilers because as soon as I saw this scene, I immediately guessed where this movie was going and I was right. I will tell you that she doesn't like telling other people about what happened and she tells Tom about it because she trusts him and that he's "the one person that makes me feel solid. Like I exist." Tom comforts her by stroking her hair when she's laying her head in his lap and, ahem, looks up at him. That tied nicely back to his mantra. 

After this scene, she starts feeling better, being comforted by Tom and all. She starts doing nice things, like buying a latte for Santa just because it's Monday. She surprises her boss even more when she tells her she's thinking about giving auditioning a break because she's not sure if it's good for her. (She didn't get the Frozen part...I wonder who she was auditioning for, anyway?) Santa commends her, telling her that sounds like a healthy choice and that she hasn't made one of those in a very long time. She also starts singing Christmas songs outside the homeless shelter for donations and is super proud of herself when she receives her first offering. It's not much, but she donates her proceeds to the shelter and continues to sing where she makes more money. She gets the idea to have a Christmas fund-raising benefit on Christmas Eve for the shelter. We even see her right her wrongs, such as apologize to her sister, give a goldfish to a friend when she accidentally killed his super expensive saltwater tropical fish when she absent-mindedly dropped her hairdryer in the fish tank, and gives her married friends who are expecting a baby a big baby basket (and a new model galleon for the husband). Obviously Tom is having a good effect on her and she is wanting to be a better person. 

However, once again we find out that Kate hasn't heard from Tom in days and that "he's disappeared again." One of the volunteers who she met at the homeless shelter the first time she went there looking for Tom, tells her, "He seems to be disappearing a lot. Is he a magician?" Yes, Tom is mysterious. What is going on with him? The same volunteer tries to put Kate at ease telling her, "He's probably just scared of what he feels for you."

Luckily Kate finds Tom in the hidden garden, sitting on their bench and they share a kiss and she's happy again and tells him it feels like they're in a relationship. Tom has a serious look on his face and tells her there's something he needs to tell her and of course this concerns Kate and she goes through all the possibilities of what it could be: he's gay, he's married, he needs space, he can't commit. Tom tells her she can't depend on him (although he doesn't say why) and Kate insists that she doesn't depend on him. She tells him if this is about commitment, then to just say so. Tearfully, she tells him, "I look for you everywhere and you're never there. And it makes me feel really bad about myself. And I'm finally getting better and not feeling bad about myself."

Olay, I think this is a good time to reveal what is going on. I think I've told you everything about what goes on in the movie without giving anything away (I certainly hope I didn't unintentionally spoil anything! I was trying hard to be very careful about that!) 

SPOILER ALERT! I WILL NOW BE GIVING AWAY SPECIFIC PLOT DETAILS THAT WILL MAJORLY SPOIL THIS MOVIE, SO IF YOU'VE NEVER SEEN THIS AND DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU! SPOILERS AHOY!

Okay, so I didn't reveal what her illness/medical condition was because while it doesn't give away the big spoiler, it did immediately give away the "twist" to me when it was revealed. Like I said, before she tells Tom what happened, we are given little clues. We know she's had an operation. When Kate and her mom go to her doctor's appointment, she is told she needs to take better care of her heart: "You need to rest more, eat better, drink less, and stop being so angry." Okay, so now we know it's something to do with her heart. Then we get that scene where she tells Tom what happened because she trusts him. Believe me, when I wrote "They have a nice heart to heart...", I was so tempted to write "(pun intended)" but I couldn't because that would have given it away! So Kate tells him she had a heart transplant and shows him her scar. She tells him she doesn't tell people "because they get weird", but she trusts Tom to tell him because she doesn't think he'll be weird about it. She tells him, "They took out my heart....I don't know what they put back, but it felt weird and different and strange and like I'd lost my most special part." She told him she knew she was lucky to be alive, but didn't feel alive. So it was during this moment when I realized the big reveal is in the first line of the song this movie is named after: "Last Christmas I gave you my heart..." Um, hello! SHE HAS HIS HEART! TOM IS A GHOST! He was dead all along! This is The Sixth Sense of Christmas movies!! It certainly explains why he doesn't have a phone and why he's not always there (although if you're a ghost, you'd think you have all the free time in the world...) However, it does not explain why he doesn't know Frozen. If he died before it came out, I could understand that, but no, he died in 2016 and it came out in 2013, so I'm scratching my head over that one. 

Tom being dead the whole time isn't revealed here (remember, she still has to have that talk with him on their bench in the hidden garden...where she kissed him...not sure how that happened! She must have looked pretty silly to the people who were also sitting in the garden that day...hopefully they were all preoccupied with their own things!) When she goes to his apartment, she sees a guy there and is surprised to find out he's there to show the place for prospetive buyers. This confuses Kate and assumes Tom must have moved out, but the guy tells her the place "has been empty for months", so Kate figures Tom must have been squatting there. This makes the guy annoyed that there was the possibility of someone sneaking in and staying in the place and tells her, "It's that probate stuff that stops us from doing our jobs." Kate questions him and he goes, "Yeah, you know, when someone dies." Naturally, Kate starts getting confused and asks who died. He tells her "the previous owner", somebody named Webster and this turns Kate's blood to ice. Did I mention that Tom's last name was Webster? He died in a bike accident, ahem, last Christmas, the same day Kate was taken to the hospital to receive her new heart, Tom's heart. 

Even though Kate now knows the truth, she can still see and hear him because she has one last chat with him in their secret garden. When she asks him why she can feel him, he replies, "Because I'm a part of you." She promises to take care of his heart and he tells her, "It was always going to be yours one way or another", implying that they would have met and dated if he had never died. It's then when we can actually see what is inscribed on the plaque on their bench. It's a dedication to Tom with his name, date of birth, date of death, and the words "Look up".

All of this happens very close to Christmas Eve, which is the day of the Christmas benefit she's putting on for the homeless shelter. Everyone we've met in the movie is in the audience, so you see a lot of familiar faces. Even Tom shows up, being the Ghost of Christmas Present, I suppose. Before the shows starts, Kate gives a heartfelt speech: "We are so lucky to be alive. We are so lucky to be able to help each other in little ways and in big ways. The reason we are lucky is because helping each other is, in fact, what makes us happy." Cue me wiping away tears. Then she sings (what else?) "Last Christmas". The movie ends with her sitting on her special bench and looking up into the sky. 

Airport Christmas

Unaccompanied Minors
Director: Paul Feig
Cast: Tyler James Williams, Wilmer Valderrama, Lewis Black, Paget Brewster, Rob Cordrry
Released: December 8, 2006

Much like Home Alone was a Christmas movie targeted towards me, a kid in the early '90s; Unaccompanied Minors was a Christmas movie targeted towards kids in the mid 2000s. Both have children wreaking havoc among adults, but while Home Alone is considered a classic Christmas movie, this one did not really stand up to the test of time and you never hear about it being a beloved Christmas movie. In fact, you wouldn't know this was a Christmas movie just by looking at the title (that's probably why they make the "o" in "Minors" look like a wreath). Now it could be beloved to the kids who grew up in the mid 2000s, but there is nothing about this movie that makes it join the ranks of the greatest Christmas movies of all time.

Unaccompanied Minors is about a group of young teens who meet when they are snowed in at an airport on Christmas Eve. We meet the four of them before the have met each other. There's Charlie (the only young person of the cast I was familiar with. He's played by Tyler James Williams, who is from Everybody Hates Chris) who lives on the east coast (I believe he says he's from Massachusetts). There's a weird scene where he's with his dad, about to meet Santa at the mall, but he ends up fainting because he apparently does this every year when he meets Santa. Keep in mind that Charlie is no younger than twelve. And then hid dad faints? WTF is going on here? We also meet rich girl, Grace, who lives in the "north"; rebellious androgynous Donna who lives in the "south" (her mom is played by Kristin Wiig in a blink and you'll miss it scene); and last but least, we meet Spencer and his bratty kid sister, Catherine, who live in the "West" (most likely Southern California). At first I thought Spencer was played by Jesse Eisenberg, but he would have been way too old to be in this. I listened to a podcast review of this movie and they kept referring to this character as "Jesse Eisenberg" which was hilarious.

We really only know Spencer and Catherine's backstory: they are flying to Pennsylvania to spend Christmas with their father. (I guess that family doesn't care about Christmas Eve if they're flying out on the 24th). They have to switch planes at the Hoover International Airport (not a real airport; I looked it up). According to whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry, it is located in D.C., but that can't be right because we see Catherine take out a NORAD map of where and when Santa will make his stops. Apparently this airport will be one of his stops (since when does Santa visit airports?) and judging from the map, it looks like the airport is located in Minnesota. It's a bit hard to tell because the words "Hoover Intl. Airport" stretches out from South Dakota and Minnesota and even touches the border of Iowa. Since this is an international airport, it would have to be in the biggest city in this area, Minneapolis. They don't really make it clear, but considering there is a huge snowstorm, Minnesota makes a lot of sense, plus we'll get another little clue why this is probably where the airport is located later on.

Spencer and Catherine meet a TSA agent named Zach (played by Wilmer Valderrma aka Fez) who is going to stay with them during the layover. The kid notice the airport isn't adorned for Christmas aside from some very minuscule decorations and he explains that his boss, Mr. Porter, isn't into Christmas decorations or Christmas in general.

Mr. Porter (Lewis Black) is in a great mood because it's his first Christmas off in fifteen years and he's planning to spend it in Hawaii, but when he's about to board the plane, the gate closes and the flight is cancelled due to snow. In fact, all the flights are cancelled and Zach takes Spencer and Catherine to the Unaccompanied Minors room where all the kids 17 and under who are traveling by themselves are being kept. Oh. My. God. This would be my worst nightmare; even as a kid, I would absolutely hate this. The room is full of screaming kids who are running around and throwing food. There are two frazzled flight attendants who are in charge of watching them, but they leave when they see Zach has arrived. I definitely don't blame them!

They want to keep the kids confined to this room so that means not letting them out even to use the restroom (even though there is a bathroom in the room, but it soon becomes inoperable because some dumb kid flushed his cell phone down the toilet due to a bet and it overflowed), but when Zach becomes pelted with snack and drinks, the door is no longer guarded and Spencer leaves the room followed closely by the other kids we met in the first scene, plus a fat kid, Beef (please tell me that's not his real name), who doesn't talk much and has an Aquaman action figure who seems to be his only friend.

All the kids go on their own little grown up adventure now that they are by themselves in the airport. Spencer decides to get a bite to eat and we see Mindy Kaling as the waitress. Seeing that Paul Feig directed some episodes of The Office, it doesn't surprise me to see cast members make cameos in this. Grace uses her High Flyer's Club card to enter a swanky part of the airport where she gets a massage and gets something to eat which includes fancy cheese and caviar. Okay, I don't care if you're rich or not, no kid would ever eat caviar. No human should want to eat caviar. It is disgusting. Yes, I've had it before, and I don't understand the appeal. It was the first and last time I ever ate it. It's a little bit funny because after that scene it transitions back to Zach where he's sitting at the restaurant and orders nachos, an actual food an actual kid would actually eat. He tells Mindy Kaling that his mom never lets him eat nachos or drink soda, so he orders those. When she tells him her mom never let her eat mozzarella sticks, he orders those too.  When he gets the bill, he leaves her an IOU note on his napkin (the bill was for $75! How much stuff did he order?!) and that she should e-mail his dad for payment and provides a gmail.com address to reach him. What? Is his dad going to use Pay Pal to send the money? He also mentions that he left his mozzarella sticks for her. Why would anyone want his cold mozzarella sticks? Charlie plays with all the gadgets at The Sharper Image, which includes sticking a nose trimmer gadget in his nose and turning it on. Gawd, kids are disgusting! Donna steals one of the little cars they use to transport old ladies and people who can't get around at the airport. Beef goes into the emergency equipment room (which surprisingly is unlocked). One by one, the kids get caught by security and have to escape them before they are brought back to the room of doom. Donna, driving the go-kart, picks up Spencer and the other kids. I thought Grace had a clever, but ballsy way of escaping security: she joins a couple with their son and acts like she's part of their family and puts her arms around the young boy and tells him, "Hey, bro." Lucky for her, the parents of the boy just look at her and start speaking in German. They don't know what's going on.

So these five kids on a go-kart are driving through the crowded airport, probably no more than five mph, ten at tops and there's about five out of shape security officers who can't even reach them! They are eventually surrounded by more security officers, including the mean old grinch, Mr. Porter, and brought back to the room where all the other kids (including Catherine) have been sent to a lodge. He tells the other kids they won't be going there because of the blizzard. If that's the case, then how did all the other kids get there? Wasn't it snowing when the room was chaotic and full of screaming kids? There's really no good reason why the five remaining kids can't go to the lodge; Mr. Porter just wants to punish them for escaping the room. He tells them they will stay in this room (which is a disgusting mess) and that Zach will watch them.

They kids concoct a plan to escape once again because Spencer needs to get to the lodge because he promised his sister that Santa would know where she is and leave her the doll she wants for Christmas. Or something. They call B.J. Novak (the other Office alum), who works at the information center and tell him they have a message for Zach, who in turn, is paged to the information desk. While Zach is gone, the kids hide in the rafters and he comes running back after B.J. Novak tells him a group of kids had the message "Goodbye" for him. He thinks they have escaped and runs out, leaving the door unlocked so the kids can escape. They must have used Grace's cell phone to place the call.

Beef tells Spencer he'll get his sister a Christmas tree and runs off, leaving the remaining four. I'm pretty sure there's already a Christmas tree at the lodge. Doe this mean this kid is the Chunk of the group since he is now separated from the other kids who are having the adventure?

Charlie tells the others they need to go to the baggage claim area in the northeast part of the airport because that's where security is the most lax. He knows this because he flies out of this airport every week. EVERY. WEEK. HE FLIES OUT OF THIS AIRPORT EVERY WEEK. Oh my God, this poor child. His parents are divorced, so his mother must live far away from Massachusetts. Even Mr. Porter knows who he is and was very disappointed in him since he called Charlie his "model underage flyer." But, dear God, I can't imagine being twelve years old and having to fly every single week. I can understand holidays and summer vacation, but EVEY WEEK? How does school work for this kid? Does he fly out after school on Friday, stay with his mom for a weekend, then head back Sunday night? This is no way for a child to live! I want to know where his mom lives and why she lives so far away from her son that he has to FLY OUT EVERY WEEK to see her! As someone who doesn't like flying (because of all the hassle), this would be my worst nightmare.

The kids distract the three or so security officers blocking the door by letting out a dog in its kennel. Mr. Porter hears the commotion and the kids hide in the baggage claim area. Charlie hides inside a suitcase that he's somehow able to fit into even though it's already packed. He is also able to zip it closed from the inside to hide from Mr. Porter, but will not be able to open it back up for some reason. He sees the suitcase on the floor and puts it on the conveyor belt to send it to the unclaimed baggage area, sending Charlie on a grand adventure that should have killed him, or at the very least, left him brain dead. Also, I find it hard to believe the two security officers who pick up the suitcase don't find it suspiciously heavy. There's a 12-year-old boy in there for god's sake!

They all end up safe and sound in the unclaimed baggage area which is huge and has fifty years of unclaimed baggage. At the beginning of the movie, we saw a commercial for an unclaimed baggage sale at this airport. As the saleswoman put it, "If someone's lost it, you can buy it!" And that's exactly what the kids do: they start playing with all the toys and gadgets and take what they want. Spencer sees a really ugly doll that looks to be from the '50s with a hard plastic body and a frilly purple dress. He knows it will be the perfect thing for his sister; guess Catherine didn't have a specific doll in mind that she wanted. Charlie finds four Walkie Talkies (complete with batteries!) that, believe it or not, will come in handy later on in the film.

While the kids are playing with their toys, then later having a dance party to a jazz song (cuz 2000s kid love jazz!), they are spotted by Porter on the security guard and have to escape him and the other security guards once again. They head outside where they slide down a giant hill on a canoe. The lodge they need to get to is at the bottom. Zach is the only one who has caught up with them, so they take him with them because he knows too much about their plan. Or something. Porter and the other security guards follow suit and take down items to slide down the hill: a kayak, a tire, a grill, among others. I'm pretty sure this "hill" they're sledding down is actually a mountain because it goes on and on and on. It's pretty obvious they shot the kids and Wilmer Valderrama on the canoe in front of a green screen. Of course the kids arrive safely in front of the lodge while Porter and the other security guards either crash or fly into some deep dark abyss.

So I'm thinking, great, the kids have reached the lodge, the bad guys are all gone, and now Spencer can give his sister the Christmas she wants. So that must mean the movie is about to wrap up, right? Nope! Wrong! We haven't even reached the one hour mark yet and there's still thirty-five minutes left!

Spencer is able to give the doll to his sleeping sister who had had to endure her own hell at the place by having to hang out with the granddaughter of one of the flight attendants (played by Jessica Walter aka Lucille Bluth) who's only a few years older than her and treats her like a living doll. Porter comes back and takes them back to the airport where he tells them instead of being confined to the large room, they'll now each have their separate private rooms. He also tells him that he's bumped the four of them from their flights so the people who are waiting in the airport can go ahead of them since they haven't gotten in trouble. Uh, he does realize he only has four people he can let go early, right?

As you can imagine, this is when the Walkie-Talkies come in handy. They can each communicate with each other in their individual cells. Porter has their security footage on a TV, but I guess he doesn't seem to notice they're all talking to each other (it's not like they make a point to hide it from him). I guess he figures it's harmless as long as they can't leave. You think a tough-ass like him would want to keep the kids from communicating with each other.

Grace, the rich girl, tells the others she lives twenty minutes from the airport. If you remember, she was the one from the "North", so her being from Minnesota would make sense. I bet she's from Edina, that Cake Eater. (Shout out to The Mighty Ducks). She flew in from boarding school and thought it would be more fun to stay at an airport than hang out with her nanny in her McMansion while her parents were in Paris. Girl, are you crazy? I bet you have a ton of fun things to do in your huge house. Who would want to hang out in an airport?

The kids concoct another plan to escape their cells and it involves recording themselves on their Walkie-Talkies, switching the video over to the security camera, then leaving through the vent. Crawling through a vent in movies/TV shows is one of the biggest tropes there is as I bet nobody in real life could even fit through a vent! These vents are so wide and spacious that two of them can crawl next to each other at the same time! Of course the plan goes perfectly without a hitch. They end up in the room where Mr. Porter keeps all the Christmas decorations. (Question: why does he even have these if he hates decorating for Christmas?) Around this time Beef returns with a Christmas tree that he traded his Aquaman action figure for and Spener comes up with the brilliant idea of decorating the airport for Christmas so when everyone wakes up, they'll get a nice Christmas surprise..bet you didn't see that coming! I had to laugh when Donna replaces one of Mr. Porter's tiny Christmas tree stickers with a bigger one, but it really wasn't that much bigger.

Mr. Porter and the kids come to an understanding and we learn that he doesn't like Christmas because his wife left him five years ago. They really only decorate one main area of the airport, including the tree, where they lead everybody to on Christmas morning. It's a nice sentiment and all, but truth be told, if I were in that group of passengers, I would not be impressed by the Christmas display. It's just a bunch of cheap plastic doo-dads. The kids from the lodge also gather with them and Catherine is reunited with her brother. Mr. Porter redeems himself by dressing up as Santa and surprising all the kid, including Catherine.

Mr. Porter tells the kids they'll be the first to leave when the weather has cleared and Spencer invites Grace to spend Christmas with him and his sister at their dad's house. Since they're both the older kids of the group, there's been a little spark between them. They also try to make Donna and Charlie into a thing, (she kisses Charlie at the end) since they're around the same age, but why do they need to couple up both pairs of kids? Also, shouldn't the kiss have happened between Spencer and Grace? They're the ones who have been serious quasi-flirting with each other this whole time.

So while all this is going on, the movie jumps to a scene with the parents of Spencer and Catherine. We see their mom (played by Paget Brewster) fretting about her kids being snowed in. She can't reach them because they don't have a cell phone (her ex-husband convinced her not to let them get one because they're bad for the environment). She's staying with her sister (played by Teri Garr) who is scarily into Christmas. Her yard and house is chock full of Christmas decorations and, according to her, she still has six boxes of lights she needs to put up. (And it's Christmas Eve! What's the point of even putting them up?) Her house looks like one of those little shops that has nothing but Christmas memorabilia. She offers a cup of hot chocolate to her sister, who says she's already had three and that it's 80 degrees. There's a terrible joke where the sister thinks she has a defective M&M because it has a "W" on it. This is really terrible humor, even kids have to groan at that, right?

The kids' dad (played by Rob Corddry) receives a call from his ex-wife and tells her he'll pick them up. This guy is very into the environment and drives a small dinky car he calls a biomobile that only takes a certain "vegetarian" type of gasoline. Of course there's noway that car can make it from Pennsylvania to (possibly) Minnesota (damn...if that airport is located in Minneapolis, that's quite a long drive!) A mechanic helps him out and lets him borrow a Humvee to drive which scandalizes him and he hopes the guys from the Sierra Club don't see him driving that monstrosity. (Those are pretty obnoxious vehicles).  He reaches the airport on Christmas morning, just in time to surprise his kids.

While this isn't the worst Christmas movie out there (just turn on the Hallmark Chanel to find those; hell, even Netflix is churning out some Christmas crap), it's defintely not going to be considered a holiday classic anytime soon and there are better movies to watch during this time of the year!

Maid of Dishonor

Bridesmaids
Director: Paul Feig
Cast: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy
Released: May 13, 2011
Viewed in theaters: May 19, 2011

Melissa McCarthy, Ellie Kemper, Rose Byrne, Wendi
McLendon-Covey, Maya Rudolph, and Kristen Wiig

This movie has been referred to as "the female Hangover" which I guess I can understand because, much like The Hangover, Bridesmaids is a R-rated raunchy comedy that takes place before a wedding but stars all women instead of men. Of course, there is more to this movie than just laughs and dirty jokes.

Annie (Wiig) is at a point in her life where nothing seems to be going right for her. Her bakery has gone out of business and she now (unsuccessfully)  sells jewelry, she's seeing a guy who's only using her for sex, and when her best friend Lillian (Rudolph) tells her she's getting married she starts to compete with Lillian's new friend from work, Helen (Byrne), for the attention of the bride.

There are plenty of funny moments, but they still remind us of just how insecure Annie is and how she wants to be known as Lillian's closest friend. When a party is thrown for the newly engaged couple, Annie gives a little toast to Lillian, then Helen steps in and overshadows her toast with a much better one and Annie steps up to the mike again to "say a few more words." This goes on for quite a while with each woman trying to one up the other until they're both singing to Lillian.

Moments before disaster...

The one scene that makes it extremely raunchy and had everyone in my audience laughing was when they went to a very chic bridal gown shop where you need a reservation to get in and the dresses that are eight hundred dollars are the ones on sale. Right before, Annie had taken everyone to a Brazilian restaurant and everyone except Helen became sick because they ate the meat. They all get food poisoning as they're wearing their expensive gowns and have to race for the one-toilet elegant bathroom. I'll let your imagination take it from there. It is a gross scene, but it's not as graphic as it could have been, thank goodness!

As the movie goes on, Annie continues to resent Lillian's and Helen's friendship more and more and ruins all of Lillian's big pre-wedding events. They don't even make it to Vegas for a bachelorette party due to her acting up on the plane after taking some pills Helen gave her that would calm her down. (I loved it when she called the flight attendant "Stove" (his name was obviously Steve) and declared she could do anything she wanted because, "this is the '90s!")

Her biggest rock-bottom moment was when she exploded at Lillian after Helen told her she was taking Lillian to Paris to get her wedding dress and Annie started going ballistic and vandalizing all the decorations. Because of this and her behavior, she was not allowed to take home a puppy as a party favor. (Yes, a puppy!)

Interwoven in the movie is a subplot where Annie meets an Irish cop who encourages her to go back to baking her cupcakes because he had been to her bakery before it closed. There's also a few funny scenes with Annie and her two roommates, siblings from England. There was really no need for them, but I did laugh when Annie found out the sister had been reading her diary and she replied, "I didn't know it was your diary! I thought it was a really depressing handwritten book!" Oh, I'm going to have to use that excuse if I ever get caught reading someone's diary... It was also funny when the brother told Annie they they were kicking her out because they thought it was weird that "two siblings were living together with a flatmate."

The film is a little on the long side (a little over two hours, they probably could have easily trimmed it), and it's not necessary to see on the big screen, but I would recommend renting it or putting it on your Netflix queue when it's available on DVD. Oh, and if you love the Wilson Phillips song, "Hold On", you will get a kick out of the wedding!